...Keltham will now wait an additional couple of rounds to see if he has any more queued messages, like from Irori or Nocticula or something.

No other gods or demigods or demon lords immediately interfere with him.

Some internal-introspective sensations, that Keltham has only started feeling over the last three months, have now grown stronger.  He can guess that was another cleric circle he just got.

The timing of that event, just as Keltham asked his question, would be more reassuring if he could be sure that none of the players in this game such as Nethys were not playing clever games with exactly timing things.

"Sorry, just got a vision purportedly from Iomedae paid for by Abadar."  Keltham is not going to say out loud immediately that he now has another cleric circle; he has started to acquire some of that security mindset which advises to just not reveal capabilities information unless there is a reason and a good one.  "Is that something that would be a totally plausible and probable thing to have happen according to your own understanding of reality?"

"Yes, Abadar told us He planned to arrange that months ago, though I imagine the contents were renegotiated more recently," says another robed man, who wasn't present on the expedition into Cheliax. "The formerly human gods can communicate with mortals more easily and more safely, and Abadar considered it likely that Iomedae would end up considering the message worthwhile by Her own values, and so charging Him less for it."

"I - am not entirely sure what I need, right now - and maybe presume too much in thinking that my credit is good, here - but if you don't have other plans, other ideas - I think I need - something like - a library with uncensored reference books, and a bedroom, and realistically food of any kind, and privacy in which to feel emotions, and I haven't thought this part through very clearly but if this place has a spare headband of Splendour just lying around then I may do better by borrowing it for a time."

"Unless you think that Cheliax is likely to attack immediately in which case I should - just get a Lesser Restoration, and probably some other cognitive boosts, and then hurry and decide whether to -"

He can't finish the sentence.

"Our prediction markets are down to about a 3% chance of an attack today. We can get you all of those things, and if we're wrong, interrupt you later."

"- what else have you already got besides prediction markets, was the entire thing with Cheliax needing my knowledge to refine spellsilver a lie -"

" - we have no idea how to emulate what you had Cheliax doing with spellsilver, and that's despite having quite good intel on the Project - anything you put into a contract, or on a market. We have policy prediction markets, after someone wrote a paper proposing them a decade ago, and they're small, and haven't yet proven they work better than my personally guessing, though they should work better and they're more legible to Abadar so we do them anyway. We're 90% sure that the value of your knowledge to us is in excess of ten million gp."

Keltham considers the prospect of reteaching everything himself, winces, almost immediately sees a possible alternative.  "Allegedly one of my ex-employees now resides in the Temple of the All-Seeing Eye, which I'd guess to have something to do with Nethys and Nefreti Clepati, do you know where -"

" - it's here in Sothis. We'll send an inquiry, though Nefreti may have her own plans, she usually does."

"Right, well, I have no idea how traumatized she is, but considering that she just got more rescued and less told her world is a lie, it's possible she'd substantially underbid me on starting to tell you things you ought to know immediately to start organizing your own acid-making and spellsilver refining, and search for candidates who can be trained in further researching it.  If that's something you want to start today, rather than waiting for me to recover, and it'd take some of the time pressure off me too."

"Not saying her name because privacy principles, ask Nefreti to pass your message to her."

"Understood. Your room is ready. The reference library and food are there already; the headband of Splendour should be there shortly. Do you want the spell, in the meantime?"

"No.  A headband I can freely put on and take off again seems wiser."

That they selected his books, by the implicit sound of it, and had months apparently to do that - is not great - but, still, it's a place to start.

"Let's go, then."

Day 90 / Egorian

For some reason, the specific stupid thread Carissa's brain has decided to race off on the instant she arrives in Egorian is wondering what the Palace Security think of her. Presumably they mostly don't; her project was secret, after all. It's Pilar (unintentionally) and Paxti (intentionally) who ended up the faces of Project Lawful. 

"Her Majesty requested me," she says. "Carissa Sevar." 

The Remove Fear has worn off. 

This produces an immediate (barely visible) scramble of fear and respect and people standing further upright in the presence of CARISSA SEVAR.  Last month's set of (now somewhat outdated) rumors hold her to be the secretly declared heir to Abrogail Thrune's throne.

"You shall be escorted at once," says the senior Security, and with a wave of his hand designates his least liked, most disposable subordinate to do it.  The fool was babbling last week about Carissa Sevar being sometimes allowed to wear the Crown of Infernal Majesty; perhaps the idiot will bumble into asking her about that directly and he'll be rid of him.

She doesn't ask what they heard. Clearly it was inaccurate.

She will give herself the pin-Glibness to be cheerful and at ease, walking to wherever one gets sent to await the Queen, because it'd be horribly embarrassing if anyone reported, later, that she looked scared. 

Good decision!  People dignifiedly... basically run away from her... when they see her in the hallways.  Anything that could visibly scare Carissa Sevar would have them fleeing outright through the halls, terrified that Cheliax and perhaps Hell itself stood on the verge of destruction.

Well, they might. It's up to Keltham. 

Carissa is directed by further Palace personnel to what looks like a very ordinary secular torture chamber, such as you might find in a wizard academy, or in the castle of a non-devout noble, or in any large business concern of Cheliax; though one in which all the furnishings are of Palace quality.  It has a comfortable place for the boss to sit and a less comfortable place for a subordinate to stand, as torture chambers used for managerial purposes often do.  Plenty of bosses in Cheliax consider a torture chamber an appropriate place to have a chat with a subordinate in trouble, though it's usually more ambiguous than this about whether torture is in fact impending.

The Security who brought her there obviously doesn't think Sevar is meant to be the victim here; he flees as soon as he's dismissed.

......on some level she was definitely expecting to descend for subjective hours through the darkest void into a pit of flame that Abrogail keeps in the basement.

She's pretty sure she's not disappointed, because that would be insane. 

Abrogail is definitely making a point, she's just not sure what that point is. 

Maybe it's 'this isn't a sex thing'??

Maybe it's 'I'm obliged by Asmodeus's instructions to punish you exactly as much as you've earned?' But it's not like there's a standard punishment code for 'while wearing the Crown of Infernal Majesty as a personal loan from the Queen, fail at a task of incredible importance to her and to Asmodeus which was literally your one job. Or, well, there kind of is, and it's 'execution'. Maybe that's the point Abrogail is trying to make?

At this point it flashes across Carissa's mind, and is then immediately obvious, that Abrogail is probably here already invisibly, reading Carissa's mind because she likes doing that. She resists an urge to flail her arms around trying to bump into the Queen. Why does she even have that urge. Why is being a mortal like this.

Abrogail is in fact fucking busy.  There's a lot to do as regards a possible war with Osirion.

Carissa can wait ten minutes in this very ordinary torture chamber, which is, hopefully, meant to convey the idea that Carissa will be paying fully for her sins in an ultimately stable and trustworthy environment.

She'll spend them trying to figure out what the fuck Nefreti Clepati meant that if your plans are too complicated your pants end up across the continent. Across the continent in - Oppara? Mendev? Vigil? Does Vigil count as across the continent? Whose pants? Keltham's? But he's on another continent! Maybe the pants are a metaphor?

Abrogail Thrune will in due time stride into the torture chamber, visibly, in an ordinary way, and seat herself.