"Well done.  Lord Dispater does not treat with many."

"I hope it was worth all the waiting.  That fine headband - was it that which you received in exchange?  It's a mighty price, for a soul."

She permits it to assume its proper form, now. 6/6/4. Less than the Crown of Infernal Majesty, but not by very much. "What, this? It was part of our agreement. ....not a large part. Substantially less than half."

Abrogail releases her further from her half-embrace, turns her gently to show her the whole ballroom, or rather, show the whole ballroom to her.  One first introduces the lower-ranked person to the higher, in etiquette.

"Lady Carissa Sevar, commander of Project Lawful, who is now fully and irrevocably of the Infernal Empire..."

"I present to you the assembled nobility of Cheliax."

"Nobles of Cheliax, Carissa Sevar."

"Now go catch some sleep, dear."

She would really like to Teleport out, but tragically the whole palace is Forbiddanced. (Also she hasn't actually hit fifth circle yet but in the haze of the last few days that's started to feel like more of a trifling inconvenience that'll fall at her feet sooner or later). Instead, she inclines her head to the Queen, takes in the faces of the crowd, and then walks out. 

They get out of her way. 

"And the victim of this evening's entertainment is... the Mayor of Senara, who did attempt to extort one night's dalliance from Carissa Sevar, and, alas for him, succeeded.  Console him all your best."

When Carissa wakes she's in one of Abrogail's suite of lovely non-doompunk bedrooms, again, and Abrogail is asleep beside her. 

A second after that, while she's still trying to blink the image in front of her into coherence, someone tries to read her mind. 

She lets them. It is almost certainly a condition of having nice things, such as waking up next to a beautifully asleep and vulnerable Abrogail, that Abrogail's security can see at all times she continues to have no intentions of committing regicide.

She lets the stupid part of her brain that says she will not overthrow Abrogail because of how Abrogail is SO PRETTY THE PRETTIEST be a little louder than usual, in case it is helpful towards that end. 

It feels like she's grown so much she barely fits into this body; it helps, when she looks in the mirror, that the body is almost wholly unfamiliar. She is soul-sold, now, and compacted with Asmodeus shoothopefullyAbrogail'ssecurityisallowedtoknowaboutthat, and nearly as enhanced as magic can make a person, and she went to a party full of Chelish nobles and had a lovely time and picked out the worst person there and hurt him and enjoyed it. 

Asmodeus may or may not have had any genuine prediction in mind, about her, when He instructed her to deliver Him victory in His contest with Irori, but He was, in fact, right, that she is someone who wants things she can only have in Hell, that she is His, that no mercy from some other god could make her otherwise.

She has - to put it mildly - somewhat mixed feelings about Asmodeanism, the ideology, but it's relatively clear what her path is from here to change that. Once she's conquered most of the world then those souls in it which choose her get her, and whether the Church likes it or not by that point she'll be aggressively publicizing what it means to choose her. 

She sits down, then, and tries to rederive the Keltham seduction plan, and doesn't come up with anything, and is troubled by this but only slightly. It seems nearly impossible, that greater-Carissa's intent in building lesser-Carissa into this was traitorous. And, well, if it was, she can simply not defect; that's within her power. 

When Abrogail wakes she is wholly lost in stubbornly trying to hang a fifth circle spell. 

Abrogail Thrune comes awake, notices that there's somebody in bed with her who isn't powerful enough to be a direct threat, and in sheer reflex before her brain is even awake enough to remember who's there, stretches in a languorous and sensual fashion.

It only takes a few seconds to remember who and why, but she's already taken the correct action on reflex.

....Carissa successfully distracted!

Well then she'll arise out of the bed and begin to clothe herself in the fresh clothes that shall have been laid out for her there, making a needlessly artistic production out of that.

Simultaneously, Abrogail Thrune silently requests an update on any overnight disasters through one of her permanent Telepathic Bonds.

Detect Thoughts, Greater Magic Aura to disguise it, it's almost a single action to her, but with true arcane sight Carissa is still liable to notice the act before the disguise completes.

How is her further-improved creation doing, this morning?

Well right now she's just thinking about how Abrogail is very pretty, the prettiest.... if Keltham is getting accurate intel about Cheliax he could probably trigger that contract provision, by now. Maybe that was her Keltham-seduction plan. 

"I think I came back from Hell fifth-circle. I'm not sure, won't be until I get the spell hung, but - it feels easier, it feels like the magic's moving more naturally -"

Well, maybe Carissa could pass a truth-spell about that if she's deluding herself hard enough.  Abrogail obviously doesn't say it; it seems a good delusion for Carissa to have temporarily.

"So much good news; it makes one to fear the tropes, if nothing at all has gone wrong," Abrogail states.  "Why, who knows what doom you'll find when you return to the Project? - I sent Pilar back ahead of you, obviously."

"How much nonsense could they possibly have gotten up to in - how long has it been, actually -" She doubts that time in Dispater's realm is particularly beholden to time on the Material.

"You came back the evening of the day that you began at dawn."

"Thankfully, I have foreboding news to report that's not about your Project!  This, we may hope, has fulfilled the tropes' need to present us with a disaster after things went so well."

"Our spies say that Keltham has accepted the Kelesh Empire's offer to supply him with spells, items, scrolls.  It was plausibly immediately after he would have learned you were selling your soul."

" - huh. What would my selling my soul even have changed for him -

- I don't understand it but I don't like it. What have they supplied him."

"That's harder to be sure of.  There's a 9th-circle caster of Sarenrae with whom they trade favors; Chelish intelligence thinks she is preparing to travel imminently based on echo effects around Sarenrae's temples, an administrator to replace the priest who'd be temporarily replacing their grand high priestess.  They could supply him with a +6 intelligence headband if he doesn't have one already.  They could possibly supply him a bound genie if he has the Wish diamond for it, which, if we're lucky, Keltham will use only for +1 Intelligence and not for destroying Cheliax."

"If he's gone back on only dealing with Lawful Evil people, it implies some change of plans.  The question is from what to what.  Looking at it from what might be Keltham's own perspective, he has just lost Asmodia followed immediately after by Carissa."

"Do you think I should be preparing to go to him even if I don't know what my original plan was. It does not seem worth taking a chance on his destroying Cheliax."

"I believe you should take a day or two to think, Carissa, with your new crown, before we decide that the tropes have given us no choice but to fly blind into your seduction plan.  But I also think it is your own call, now.  You are relinquished of Irori, and there must come a time when you tell me that you're making the next move of your game and I trust you in it."

- nod. "I'll check in on the Project, then, put it in better shape to potentially manage my extended absence than it was last time, think with the new headband about ilani-making, Keltham seduction, Cayden Cailean, what Nethys does that gives Him almost-prophecy, assembly-lines for Geased Rings of Sustenance - I was thinking, what magic item could we give almost everyone, that'd be too useful to do without -

- and I'll let you know the next move, once I know it."

"Drop me a note if you want to visit Egorian, or Absalom for that matter.  At this point it's going to take a Mind Blank and 8th-circle escort to make sure nobody simply kidnaps you once you're outside a Forbiddance, by means up to and including Wish spells.  We might as well go together if we go.  - disguised, obviously."

Is Abrogail just being - friendly? In a friend way?

No, she's probably misparsing it.