People widen their eyes in surprise remain unreadable and expressionless as Abrogail Thrune enters the ballroom, escorting a woman not quite as beautiful as herself but as beautiful as almost anyone else in Cheliax, with none of the visible marks that would betray the work of alchemists to the trained eye; she's either a rare natural beauty or the work of a surpassingly skilled fleshcrafter.

Those who can cast Detect Magic do so, noting if they pass those Spellcraft checks that the new entrant wears a +2 headband of Splendour and a Ring of Eloquence and a Ring of Sustenance, and bears some manner of enchanted pin with a transmutation effect currently running.  A few in the ballroom have means to check the strength of her alignment aura, and find she apparently has none, which might or might not be true at all.

The beauty looks like she's numb with fear... or, possibly, somewhat tired and checked out, but it's probably that numb one.  Nobody could possibly be tired enough to check out of being escorted by Abrogail Thrune into a room full of the most dangerous people in Cheliax.

Her Infernal Majestrix, Queen Abrogail II of the House of Thrune, addresses the crowd without bothering about moving to the head of the room.

"My loyal subjects, and everyone else present, tonight we celebrate the end of an era of Cheliax.  Under your previous ruler, you lost Andoran and Galt; beneath myself, you've gained Nidal.  We are no longer a structure that dies but a structure that grows."

"Nidal launched a treacherous surprise attack on us, in defiance of the knee they had pretended to bend to us through centuries.  Our god miserably crushed their god, and their defeat in battle followed shortly after.  The news-sheets will say that our armies and wizards proved their quality, but in truth, they mostly proved their quantity.  Don't bother consoling yourselves about how few other countries in Golarion could field soldiers as individually vicious as Nidal's.  It's heresy to claim that Hell cannot raise up more vicious and formidable warriors than Zon-Kuthon, and we have fallen unacceptably short of that target.  This war should not have taken as long as it did."

"Tonight I do honor, then, to the wizard academies of Cheliax, and the schools that feed them.  Quantity won this war - the Cheliax that trains a greater percentage of its inhabitants to wizardry than any other nation in the world."

"It's still not good enough, of course.  We are ramping up the manufacture of intelligence headbands beyond what any other nation in Golarion imagines to be possible, not only +2 intelligence headbands but +4.  In the short term, we intend to fit all our fourth-circles with +4 headbands and all our third-circles with +2 headbands.  In the middle term, the most promising students in academies will be loaned headbands for six-hour shifts in four classes, speeding their initial acquisition of wizard skills.  In years beyond, we'll use that to train INT 13 students as if they were INT 17s and double our wizard population from its unacceptably low current point of being the highest in the world."

"We begin with the highest percentage of wizards, and in the true contest now begun with the Scientific Revolution out of Osirion, our path to victory will be compounding the interest of our initial wealth.  They too will learn to refine spellsilver as we do, given time.  We have begun first.  We will have more wizards who master Prestidigitation, we will refine more spellsilver, we will make more headbands and train more wizards, and every innovation out of the Scientific Revolution that they do not manage to keep utterly secret will be adopted by a country that is more literate than theirs."

"We will be more motivated, and more unified, because that is the advantage of Evil over Good and the advantage of Law over Chaos.  But make no mistake, it is very hard to win a war with quality that you are losing on quantity.  Wars are won by farmers, not warriors, because it's the farms that determine how much gold you have available to raise up warriors of whatever quality you can manage."

"If you get fascinated by whatever sparking gadgets are coming out of the Scientific Revolution, and ignore what knowledge our spies have stolen about agriculture, sanitation, medicine, educational techniques, I will kill you and give your heir exactly one chance to do better before I take away your family lands and award them to somebody more competent."

"I am also unbelievably pleased - you have no idea how pleased I am - to announce that in the coming month, every single noble of Cheliax will be issued with a +4 Intelligence headband.  Any time your superior or the Crown tells you that you're being stupid, you're going to take off whatever headgear you were previously wearing, and put on the Intelligence headband, and not take it off until they tell you the problem has been corrected.  I've had it with ruling a country of idiots."

"I'll end by introducing to you my most recent lover.  She's weary, having just returned from her first trip to the big city, and wasn't expecting this party, but I have every confidence in her ability to handle a little surprise like that."

"Have fun, dear..."

(inaudibly to any others:)

"...and remember the identity of any one celebrant below the County level who annoyed you sufficiently, for later games tonight."

The beautiful woman on Abrogail's arm smiles at her, and nods just slightly, and looks around at the crowd. 

They're more attractive and much less terrifying than the crowds in Dis. 

She wonders how many of them have been, how many of them know and how many of them just try not to think about it. It seems pathetic, to her, trying not to think about it. Her crazy cultists are also pathetic but at least they think about it enough to be afraid. 

Does Abrogail think about Hell?

There's no way she doesn't. She has definitely been there. It's - really, really not the kind of thing Carissa can ask, ever. 

....it's a really good thing that later they're going to revise all their 'this girl is an idiot' opinions to "Carissa Sevar was elaborately toying with us" because now she is staring emptily at the crowd. 

No more of that! Abrogail's mysterious, probably-terrified new lover is at this party and she's going to meet people! If she looks innocent and overwhelmed, well, that'll probably interestingly filter the people!

It's not quite wise to pounce too directly on the Queen's new plaything, even when she pretty much invited it.

This noble is apparently being very polite as he inquires how Miss Incognito found her first trip to the big city... Egorian, one thinks, or was it more of a surprise trip to Absalom?

"Oh, it was unforgettable - very tiring, a little confusing, but I'd never seen so many kinds of people before, and I got some shopping done, and it was lovely, only, I didn't know about this party tonight, we got a Sending all out of the blue."

...he notes that she didn't say which city, which, could just be her concealing things for the fun of it - though even that much spark is more than someone might've expected from an empty pretty thing - but then, the Queen might well have been more likely to choose someone with spark - though her beauty would then have to be artificial and very expensively so -

Her Infernal Majestrix did lecture them tonight on the importance of Intelligence.  It would not be even slightly out of character for this woman to be some sort of intelligence test, with a prize to the first person there to fully solve her.

"What kinds of people, dares one inquire?"

"...I saw Pilar Pineda. You know, with the pink hair."

"I don't, actually!  My apologies for my unworldliness if I ought to.  What manner of creature is a Pilar Pineda?"  It sounds Taldane, but...

"What, really? I thought everyone had heard of her." Based off...one palace spy having done so, and Osirion, which has uncannily good intel and must have a very very high-ranking spy. Put that on the list of things to think about with her fancy new headband once she's rested, alongside what Cayden Cailean is doing and how to conquer the world. "She's the Project Lawful girl with cake powers. Well, I didn't see her have any cake powers, but that's what they say about her, is that she's the cake powers one."

The probabilities of this being an ill-fated innocent beauty are dropping by the second.  "Oh, this would be the sorceress of whom it's said that she's already standing right behind you?"  He doesn't do anything as gauche as turning around to look, just lets his eyes glance off some reflective surfaces well-positioned to show that, no, there isn't a cake-bearing girl behind him.  "I wasn't privileged before now to know her name was Pilar Pineda.  You don't suppose that she'll be appearing as well, tonight?  I've never heard anyone suggest that Project Lawful wasn't key to winning the war on Nidal... faster, that is.  One can only imagine how slow the war would have been without them."

"Without them we couldn't even beat Galt!"

It is hard to overstate how much you absolutely never ever no matter what do not say that, in Cheliax.

How about if he suddenly spots a long-unmet friend and makes his excuses, then?

Whatever sort of Intelligence test she is, he's worried that reaching the correct solution involves a +4 Intelligence headband he hasn't been issued yet... now there's an idea, mention to the Queen that he'd be happy and eager to receive his headband earlier.  It's obvious in retrospect, but he'd also wager that most of the nobles present won't think of it.

Okay, that is kind of fun. 

Are there drinks at this lovely party.

There are!  Some drugs stronger than alcohol in there, too, for the benefit of anyone who wants to try their hand at bullying somebody else into imbibing them!

She'd just like something that's not very alcoholic, please - she doesn't drink much - and definitely does not have anything else in it.

A thickset Baron will be happy to point her at a vintage like that, and pour it out for her, too.

He wonders how she and Abrogail Thrune happened to meet.

"Well, she showed up in disguise as a mysterious noblewoman, and then again as a powerful sorcerer. It took me a while to realize and then when I did I was terrified but she's really very nice.

You'd have to ask her how she decided to bother with me in the first place."

He supposes that's one way to seduce people when you're Abrogail Thrune.

"You don't think it was because of your natural beauty?" he inquires, not missing the implication that if her beauty doesn't constitute an obvious answer then the beauty might be incredibly expensive and artificial - or, he supposes, illusory, though it's unlikely when so many others here (if not him) would see through it.

"Well, I mean, I certainly get lots of suitors, but I would imagine if you're the Queen of Cheliax and you just want to date someone pretty then you have lots of choices! I'm probably not the prettiest girl in the country besides Abrogail. There are lots of people here who are very beautiful. - that lady over there, say, I'd say half of men would pick her over me, if they could pick."

That lady over there clearly did it alchemically, but you have to know the tells, and Carissa does not happen to.