"Keltham's conditions were that we'd hear nothing back from Meritxell, and that if we demanded her back she'd return as a statue until ten years passed or he gave consent to un-statue her.  I pondered it for a time and finally refused him; I'd wondered if he would negotiate down, if the alternative was leaving Meritxell to Cheliax, but it seems not."

" - huh.

Do we have good spies in Osirion's project?"

"We have just about all the information that they don't guard too closely, and know little of what they do guard.  Medicine, metallurgy, they can't hide those technologies if they mean to use them, and so they let all the signatory countries know.  Of Osirian weapons development we know nothing."

"Let's skip the barony. I think I'm going to be very busy."

"Some might consider it a little rude, to tell your Queen you want a Barony and then go back on it four days later.  What if I'd already done all the paperwork?"

"But being wiser than me, your Majesty, and greater than me in every way, you knew I'd say this, and so saved yourself the paperwork."

"Still rude."

"Keltham has been buying a few magic items and an unreasonable quantity of low-level scrolls from Razmiran, Geb, and a number of less savory merchant houses from around Golarion.  He's been focusing particularly on items that would proof a user against detection, mindreading, scrying.  He's said to be eager for a supplier that can deliver to him high-level scrolls, custom-made scrolls of seventh or eighth circle, custom magic items.  He has flatly turned down an offer from the Kelesh Padishate to meet all his needs without asking questions.  He has a standing offer of 200,000gp for a Wish scroll, and a further price schedule for further Wishes, and will only buy from sellers who detect Lawful Evil."

" - well, I don't like that at all."

"If you don't have smart ideas, tell me stupid ones."  It's a saying out of dath ilan.

"He's - trying to draw out Razmir in particular, as, presumably, the literal only person who can meet that request unless Hell wants to sell to him. He's...accepted the Kelesh offer but is pretending he didn't so we'll underestimate him. He's - does Abadar ever refuse to trade with anybody?"

"That's a good question and the only answer that comes to mind is - I can't think of any case where it's said that the god Abadar refused a trade, but of course if Asmodeus offered Him a gold piece for Aktun, He wouldn't take it.  Of Abadarans, unfair prices, untrusted partners, cases where they're not confident of the quality of their own goods... my imagination of Keltham says that for an Abadaran to refuse an honestly proffered trade that you believe is fair, they must believe that they know something you don't that makes it not be fair."

"But then why trade with Lawful Evil people? Because we were unfair to him so it's - meta-fair - to be unfair back? No - Cheliax did that, maybe, but Razmir didn't - though I guess he probably would -

Is Keltham allowing random Lawful Evil people to purchase goods from other vendors and then sell them to Keltham and pocket the difference?"

"I have not heard that he isn't, and it seems like the sort of thing somebody would've tried."

"...what would be the obvious thought, were it not so absurd, is that Keltham is planning to do something with his scrolls and items which benefits Lawful Evil at the expense of other alignments, and this sounds like the most extreme wishful thinking, but - if we don't think Snack Service is completely lying, there's a vast overhanging question of some unknown benefit Asmodeus is to derive - one that, by tropes, we somehow won't like, once we see it, or Snack Service could just tell us -"

"I still feel that can't possibly be right."

"Well, if Keltham were to obliterate Cheliax and also hand Asmodeus some kind of great victory in.... other worlds, or something.... that'd be too bad for us but good for Asmodeus. It doesn't feel right, though. If Keltham became Lawful Evil it'd be through his - not wanting to deal with everyone else's problems, and wanting to have slaves..."

"We do not have any experience with Keltham playing games against us knowingly and with a +4 intelligence headband.  Suppose he can only trade with Evil, and restricts it to Lawful Evil so it doesn't give too much away.  Perhaps he only dares trade with the Lawful.  Perhaps he's going to screw over Chaotic Neutral in particular.  Perhaps it's a complete red herring.  Perhaps he's rolled a die to decide how many layers to put into his deception so that we can't predict the exact number, it seems like the sort of thing dath ilan would do."

"It's too costly a handicap to be a complete red herring, I think, but all the rest of those - yes, absolutely. He could - be planning to overthrow a bunch of governments, and think refusing to trade with governments is most of the handicap anyway, and a dead giveaway..."

"Moving on.  Keltham initially poured knowledge into the Scientific Revolution at a much higher rate than he offered it to Cheliax.  He used magical memory aids, chained enhancement spells, Nefreti's wine, repeated Lesser Restorations and Restorations, rarely stopped to eat.  He is not visibly-to-us trying to train new ilani to replace those he left behind, he is focusing on engineering details, working with existing experts rather than young minds.  If we were not proving able to copy most of what he taught, I'd have dim hopes of the coming war.  If we didn't have an army of wizards formerly unthinkable in Golarion, I'd have dim hopes even then."

"Three days ago, he announced that he'd spent one month at that and needed to do something different for a while, and hasn't been seen in public since."

"How does that timing line up with Asmodia's disappearance?"

"Four days later than that.  I came to retrieve you from your challenge shortly after the news."

"Then my best guess is that she escaped to Osirion, somehow, possibly with help from Hell, and they're doing - something - together. Possibly preparing to conquer Cheliax."

"I liked your suicide theory better.  I'm trying to think if it's because of how much I hate this theory's implications, or if it's because, if Hell helped, why, or without a Hell-bargain, Hell should've been willing to tell us Asmodia is not there.  I tried it with Meritxell, Hell is happy to tell us Meritxell's not there."

"New theory, just as unsatisfying as the old theories: If he's sure his superweapons are real and he's really willing to use them I don't see why he wouldn't have sent terms over already. So either they're not real or he's not really willing to use them. If he's unwilling to use them it might be because of - me and Asmodia and Yaisa and Meritxell - I don't know if he cares about any of the others - so he got Asmodia, and he'll try to get us - or just Yaisa and Meritxell, Ione knows I didn't sell my soul..."

"Keltham could still be thinking in dath ilani terms, just the same as when he left: he doesn't want to destroy Cheliax, and won't threaten to destroy Cheliax.  All that's true is that he'd want to clean up after himself if we misbehaved."

"Keltham... did rather famously warn the world that any country anywhere misusing dath ilani knowledge to make the people within itself more miserable, or to threaten other countries, might find itself conquered or destroyed, and that Keltham didn't particularly care whether or not they'd signed the Scientific Revolution conventions or stolen the knowledge off somebody else.  He declined to say anything about how he would, or even if he could, explaining that he was just trying to make his ethical positions clear about what he considered permissible to do in principle, and other people's estimates of his capabilities were up to them.  He also stated that his list of reasons he'd destroy countries wasn't meant to be an exhaustive one, he just wanted to make those particular ones clear in advance."

"Cheliax is for the moment not particularly using any dath ilani knowledge to make our own people unhappier."  For a few more weeks.

" - well, doing a lot of conquest and destruction will get him Lawful Evil, so there's that."

"One of my less pleasant concerns is that Keltham is trying to employ trope manipulation which is really a fight I do not want to be in.  I suspect Asmodia of having seen through somewhat there, and employing her own character jeopardy to force a murder mystery to be constructed about herself.  Keltham seems - I almost have the sense that he's setting himself up as the story's villain, as seen from Cheliax, possibly in a bid to deliberately make you the story's protagonist, which I would have thought was what I wanted, here."