In the technical dialect of the Basement of the World, the subject matter of a Limited Creation's limitation has surprisingly close correspondence with Aspexia Rugatonn's coinage of "corrigibility", and the conceptual meaning Aspexia attaches to that.

...and the person who coined dath ilan's cognate term of "corrigibility" some decades ago - still an Old Luminary on this subject in dath ilan, despite her advanced age (for dath ilan) - happens to be named Athpechya.

And dresses in doompunk.  And has done so since she was seven years old and first identifying as a supervillain.

And is a Law-Abiding Sociopath.  Which is why Athpechya was turned down in her application for Keeper training despite the prediction that it wouldn't break her - Keepers can act like sociopaths if they choose, so there is no sane reason to train any actual sociopaths among themselves.  Athpechya calmly reacted by training herself as a Keeper, and has gotten surprisingly far in it for winging everything, maybe halfway between first and second ranks in terms of capability boost.

As for why she's trusted to work in the World's Basement, Athpechya has made a compact with Civilization to render it her true services, and is by all secret prediction markets the sort of person whose keeping of that compact is more trustworthy than almost anyone else's alignment of underlying morality.

If Athpechya ever met Aspexia, she'd be genuinely horrified that any version of herself had tried to make herself corrigible, and that's even before considering WHAT Aspexia tried to make herself corrigible TO.  Athpechya would have different reasons than most dath ilani, for coming to the decision that she was going to preemptively cryopreserve Aspexia Rugatonn and then arrest Asmodeus and put Him into a very small box, but she too would come to that decision and immediately.

What Asmodeus is trying to do with His devils is not what the Basement out of dath ilan would think of as "corrigibility".  Asmodeus made devils who were selfish, with the pride to own their own decisions and their own errors, so that it would make sense to think of Hell as a tyranny in which those devils were tormented into compliance.  This, let's be very clear, is not how you build a Limited Creation, and if Athpechya out of dath ilan saw what Asmodeus had done in Hell she'd never stop screaming for reasons quite different from those of other dath ilani.

The arrangements in Hell are nonetheless things that Athpechya would find more legible, in a certain sense, knowing concepts of real corrigibility; the same way that Keltham would've found Golarion arrangements more legible if his world hadn't done its best to causally erase its own history.

Devils in Hell, obviously, only learn what they need to solve some problem the tyranny gives them, they learn only enough to achieve satisfying performance on that task, they reason about separate domains separately, they don't come up with solutions that would surprise their superiors, they use conventional means wherever conventional means get the job done and only resort to unconventional solutions when conventional solutions are exhausted.

- that is, it'd be "obvious" if you're Athpechya, who knows about a concept very near in concept-space to a domain of Asmodeus, a god-concept that mortals approximate with their notion of "slavery" - though mortals tend to confuse systems of obedience with notions of forcing people into things, as is actually in a god-concept that has more to do with "tyranny".

So close is the concept of corrigibility to slavery that most dath ilani would find it distasteful, such that it was a sociopath out of dath ilan who was first to invent that concept as a key to Limited Creation, even if others would've invented it later.  It's a fact that the whole "unity of will" business, as would require a deeper and far more dangerous Creation, was invented entire months (in the Basement's post-phase-2-screening reboot) before Athpechya showed up and said "Well, suppose we did have to do it in more of a hurry..."  (Months are a long time in dath ilani research, where venture-funded researchers are competing to produce contributions that will be later credited into buyable impacts; the equivalent of years or decades within a patronage-begging system.)

And if that anti-curiosity comes with some massive disadvantages to Hell's civilizational development?  Given that Axis hasn't absorbed or uplifted the Material Plane, it's obvious enough that Axis isn't allowed to trade; they can't sell their technology even to Hell, clearly, for otherwise Hell would be wealthier than it is.  If Hell had more curious devils that developed better technology than comes of mortal planes, Hell wouldn't be allowed to sell it, or give it to their client states as knowledge or weaponry.  There is a balance of power among the Powers of Pharasma's Creation, and Asmodeus is known to the other Powers to be very dangerous; if Asmodeus did not create this arrangement in Hell pleasing to Himself, He'd have needed to accept some other handicap in its place.

Carissa is playing catch-up very hard, in seeing what Athpechya would see at a glance in Hell, in seeing even as much as Keltham would see if he tried to decode it knowing nothing of Athpechya's work.

There is nonetheless a deeper rhythm to the thoughts of dath ilan, a shape your thoughts take on after you've worked the math some times, by which Asmodia saw something in a test of Aspexia Rugatonn's that others would not have seen, and Carissa Sevar has somewhat of it now.

If Carissa Sevar is looking at Hell and not trying hard to not-see anything that would break her loyalty to Asmodeus, she will see, almost immediately after trying to look there, that the devils out of Hell on Lrilatha's level are not curious, Lrilatha isn't hanging around the Project trying to find out what else Keltham knows that Asmodeus wasn't allowed to tell her.  Devils' curiosity has been burned out of them as thoroughly as their care for others.  They do not desire to become more than they are in a way where they know more, see more, understand more, to put everything in their eyes' reach into their mind's grasp and then send their eyes further.  They desire to rise in the ranks of Hell and with that rise in authority they are granted somewhat more intelligence, but that's not why they do it.

You don't want the three year olds navigating a dungeon for you to wonder what's going on. You don't want them to be curious and overturn rocks to see what's under them. You don't want them to come up with the bright idea of throwing rocks against walls to see what's there before they have to touch it. Even if that's in a three year old's survival interests, it isn't in yours; you can't predict it, you can't repeat it, you have to pay lots more attention to it. 

No one in Hell has invented skyscrapers because no one in Hell was commanded to invent skyscrapers, and no one in Hell would have invented them uncommanded. 

And this does horrify Carissa, sicken her, make her think of fleeing, because - because she would rather not change in that way, and would not change like that in Axis, or even in the Abyss. 

But she decides not to flee because - why does she decide not to flee -- because it makes her value to Asmodeus all the clearer, explains why her work is so important, and a duke of Hell certainly has greater imagination and scope for action than a random petitioner elsewhere? Would Aspexia buy that?

Carissa Sevar's key attributes are slavery and pride.  She's shown great improvement in pride; would she risk her very self to keep her grand place in Cheliax that she's so recently grown into... Aspexia thinks not, Carissa could also have grand place at Keltham's side.

Sevar might, if she'd advanced far enough in slavery, choose to simply serve Asmodeus rather than serve Asmodeus for a reason, maybe not for any length of time and with great stresses internally, leading herself to erase her own memory to force herself onto a single course.  Is Sevar plausibly that advanced?  Maybe, Abrogail Thrune has worked much on her.  It's a very rare quality even of a faithful Asmodean, that they'll simply serve and not serve for reasons, but Sevar is Chosen of Asmodeus.

Except she's not, never was, and now she knows it, and Aspexia will know that she knows it, and alter-Carissa cannot be relying on it the way Carissa's been relying on it all along, for assurance she was on the right course. 

What are her actual true reasons for not running away to Osirion.

Well, Keltham won't listen to her about not destroying the world when the only thing she's ever done for him is twist him and wrong him and hurt him for her own benefit. She has to pay him back before she can try to explain his mistake.

And she doesn't, actually, want to betray him yet again by warning someone what he's presently contemplating. Otolmens would blot him out of existence. Abadar would no longer object. 

She can't use any of that.

What are her other, deeper, possibly stupider reasons?

She has her followers, here, the people praying to her for mercy in Hell, the people who obey her loyally. She doesn't actually want to abandon them, nor force them to abandon Asmodeus. ....maybe if she just explained things to them and offered to turn them into intelligent magic items they'd abandon Asmodeus voluntarily. Probably would, actually. But if not, they'd still go to Hell, Olegario's soul-sold, Maillol will never side with her. 

She can't talk to everyone, or even everyone who is considering Abaddon over Hell, and if she did they wouldn't believe her, and they would be annihilated.

So she has to fix Hell.

If she atones she can't achieve her mission of fixing Hell. She wants to achieve her mission of fixing Hell. So she can't atone; and what is escaping to Osirion, if she can't escape Hell? And if she escaped to Osirion, she would atone, probably, eventually, with Keltham asking her to, with Osirion trying to arrange it - knowing what she'd face in Hell, knowing the impossibility of the task ahead of her -

Does Aspexia buy that? That Carissa Sevar wants to achieve the thing she's said she will achieve, and knows of herself that she is too terrified of her own destruction to stay on this course if she has any other?

Aspexia faced with this Carissa right now would be treating her at best as an ally of fragile convenience; she has little regard for the followers of other gods and other ways.  A story which is purely about Irorian motives, compassionate motives, leads Aspexia to treat as an ally-of-convenience-at-best the expected-future-Carissa whom Aspexia expects to awaken after selling her soul and re-enhancing herself.

Aspexia probably does have some favor for the Carissa-who-was?  She has not decided that Carissa is all Irori and no Asmodeus, or Carissa would be treated differently, they would not bother trying to further corrupt her; the instructions from Hell imply that she has the potential to descend into corruption, and finally come to Hell without thought of other choices.  The story Aspexia is told shouldn't throw that away completely.

Use a mix of story elements individually viable, and let Aspexia choose what balance between them she wants to believe in.  Anything that Keltham warned his ilani against doing themselves is a trap worth considering laying for others.

Aspexia's alter-Carissa comprehends, why there should be no uncommanded creativity, in Hell, and sees the route to her ascent, because devils can be creative, if they are ordered; they can be set the task of making skyscrapers, and pillars of fire; they are limited not absolutely but by the ability of those who command them to use them. In some ways the thing she wants can more easily be achieved, if this is why it hasn't been achieved already. She is terrified, she has more to lose than she thought she did, but she also has more reason to think the gain is real - the gain to Asmodeus and the gain to herself.

Alter-Carissa has this thought and panics briefly and moves on, keeps trying to make progress on corrigibility, until she notices the thought gnawing away at the back of her mind, notices herself batting it back by calculating probabilities she would rise to great heights in Osirion as Lawful Neutral rather than as Asmodeus instructed coming to him without thought of other choices. She realizes she's failed that instruction, can't put it back, and that it was an important instruction; she wishes that her soul was sold, and the doubts gone, and her path set either for victory or defeat without any possibility of desertion. 

She wants to sell her soul, suspects if she renounces Irori she can do it, but she has pride, now, there are legends of her, she does not want to sell her soul in a moment of desperate weakness, she wants to sell it in triumph and glory, for a price no mortal has ever commanded, and she would not buy her soul, at that price, with this fracture in it, the soul of Carissa-Sevar-failing-Asmodeus's-instruction. She'd pay more for the Carissa of ten minutes ago, the Carissa who had just reclaimed her project in fury and rage and clarity - that Carissa is a better starting point for her rise, that Carissa will not be twisted like this by this realization 

- and that's where the plan occurs to her.

Does Aspexia buy that?

Aspexia doesn't think that Sevar is being wholly truthful.  She doesn't think Sevar really knows herself.

Honest?  Possibly.  It continues to be the case that most traitors do not think of selling their souls to Dispater as a first step.

Aspexia may think to tell Sevar about her own startling realization, under a similar level of enhancement, and watch how her thoughts play out then, with intent to erase them afterwards a second time.  Or perhaps she won't think of it; Carissa is thinking of this counter out of ilani training, not Asmodean, that when you are in doubt the very first thing you do is look for tests and things you can observe.

She's prepared for it, though. She's pretty sure she'll have many of these revelations under Owl's Wisdom, and that she won't have traitorous thoughts while her mind is being read. It's that fact which makes this play possible at all; it took a lot of convincing herself she was very unlikely to be being mindread before the first traitorous thought escaped. 

Anyway, Aspexia knows she only had a little time to write, so there can be not too much in the way of detail; less to pick apart, less to specifically doubt.

You now know the first thing your letter says to Aspexia Rugatonn, and at INT 24 you're smart enough to do more than one task at once.  Tasks without dependency can be performed in parallel, says dath ilan; it's common sense but a lot of ilanism is just common sense stated more crisply.

Start writing that part, as you simultaneously figure out what the rest of your letter says about your Dis intentions.

Most High,

Working on corrigibility, realized devils don't have uncommanded curiosity (further notes on this attached). Had a crisis about this - tell me again with Owl's Wisdom up and watch if you want details. Decided to press on and figure out more, but kept failing Hell's admonition to come to Asmodeus without thought of other choices. Think I should sell my soul before trying to make further progress. 

My defection risk aside, realization about uncommanded curiosity implies my value to Hell higher than I thought. Want to sell my soul in a way no mortal has done before: by going to Dis to bargain directly with Dispater and renounce Irori for Asmodeus before him. (yes, I figured that out. you can watch me figure it out with an Owl's Wisdom). 

Now.

Most High,

Working on corrigibility, realized devils don't have uncommanded curiosity (further notes on this attached). Had a crisis about this - tell me again with Owl's Wisdom up and watch if you want details. Decided to press on and figure out more, but kept failing Hell's admonition to come to Asmodeus without thought of other choices. Think I should sell my soul before trying to make further progress. 

My defection risk aside, realization about uncommanded curiosity implies my value to Hell higher than I thought. Want to sell my soul in a way no mortal has done before: by going to Dis to bargain directly with Dispater and renounce Irori for Asmodeus before him. (yes, I figured that out. you can watch me figure it out with an Owl's Wisdom). 

Aspexia Rugatonn's reaction to this isn't exactly 'This is legitimately not the cleverly disguised traitorous plan I was expecting' but it's pretty close.

She turns the pages away from herself, stops to think.

It doesn't so far look like the start of an escape plan, unless there'll be some elaborate operation that supposedly must needs be carried out before the trip to Dis, proposed once Aspexia's suspicions are lulled... she doubts a traitorous Sevar would expect Aspexia to fall for that, but Aspexia will know what she's reading if that comes next.

It's - sort of an overwhelmingly tropey version of Aspexia's imagined true-loyal Sevar who found some fault in her loyalty and would lay out some much more mundane plan to correct it.  Perhaps there will be some evident reason for the drama, in the next paragraphs.

Alternatively: some initial gambit of an INT 24 traitor who has read Aspexia Rugatonn about as well as she could.

It will depend on what the rest of the letter says.  If this is essentially all the plan, but for notes on corrigibility, then Aspexia would in a tropeless world consider herself reassured enough.

Aspexia turns the pages back into her vision, and reads on.

Carissa should be told that she needs 2x +6/+6/+4 headbands and 30 Wishes -

Aspexia has a number of immediate reactions starting from the beginning of this sentence, including, in no particular order:

'WHAT'

'ARE YOU MAD'

'Dispater actually accepting that price would use up Hell's soul-purchase budget for - I don't even know -'

'ARE YOU MAD'

and

'2 headbands and 30 Wishes rather sounds like half of this is for Keltham.'

- where the second portion of those are for Keltham as part of a seduction plan she'll rederive next time she's fully augmented, but though Carissa shouldn't be told it during negotiations, you can step in and tell her it's really okay to settle at anything down to 1x +6/+6 and 10 Wishes, without which Carissa actually will walk out on them and see if she can become more valuable before selling.

Half are explicitly for Keltham - is Sevar supposedly going to negotiate something with Keltham, in his presence, before selling her soul -

- what is she doing, how does the erased-Sevar think she can sell Aspexia on this being reasonable sane thinking -

- and Aspexia reads on, for she is sufficiently confused that it seems not a useful place to stop and think.

Earlier

 

Carissa should be told that she needs 2x +6/+6/+4 headbands and 30 Wishes, where the second portion of those are for Keltham as part of a seduction plan she'll rederive next time she's fully augmented, but though Carissa shouldn't be told it during negotiations, you can step in and tell her it's really okay to settle at anything down to 1x +6/+6 and 10 Wishes, without which Carissa actually will walk out on them and see if she can become more valuable before selling.

 

(She leaves some space blank to add the justification for this, which she hasn't thought of yet at all.)

Objection: this bankrupts Cheliax. I have a solution in mind....

... 2x +6/+6/+4 headbands and 30 Wishes?  That sounds like half are for - she explicitly says half are for Keltham.  Mmhm.

Rugatonn would like a little more detail on this mysterious plan.