"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 employed 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."

"What are dath ilan villain tropes. He's - trading only with Evil, that's definitely got some trope significance, but I doubt it's what dath ilani villains do."

"If I knew some definite reason why dath ilani villains would do that, I feel like it'd almost make more sense than any other explanations so far."

"I wonder if - in the tropes, in the story, I was supposed to go with him, and I wonder why the decision was made that I shouldn't."

"It's among the hardest judgment calls I've had to make in my life, taking into account the speed with which I made it and the circumstances under which I made it, and Aspexia gave me an angry lecture about all the different reasons why you should've made that decision and not myself."

"By Keltham's methods, I should ask your reasoning before speaking mine.  In your own judgment, did I choose wrongly, there?  The Crown bids you answer and truly."

"I don't know. If it'd been my decision I'd have gone with him, but that's because deciding not to would have been a much bigger break with him than- than not having it be my call. Maybe I'd have some influence over him in Osirion, though he isn't an idiot, and wouldn't have trusted me, and would've been angry with me and too damaged himself to hurt me about it. 

I don't think I would've defected to Abadar, in light of how Keltham abandoned Him almost immediately."

"All I had at the time was - the visualization of the stories that would play out with Carissa and Keltham in Osirion, each trying to persuade the other to their point of view, the stories that could play out with Carissa in Cheliax and Keltham in Osirion, each yearning to be reunited but also to win - and the purely wordless sense that the story resolutions of the first story didn't look like Cheliax conquering Golarion or learning how to make great armies in Hell or, yes, Carissa rising to be a Power of Hell who could make those armies, and if there was any victory condition there for Asmodeus I wasn't seeing it."

"Aspexia was not satisfied when I told her that this logic didn't depend on whether or not you'd sold your soul, even without an option, that you having sold your soul would only create a challenge for Keltham to ravel Hell or bring Asmodeus to terms.  Apparently she thought that being told by Hell you ought to be allowed to travel, as if you'd sold your soul, and allowed access to your teacher, as if you sold your soul, ought to have led me to hesitate more before keeping you inside this country and not letting you access your teacher... I told her that Hell's words were no vision of Asmodeus and couldn't hold that much weight and, realistically, had probably been intended for circumstances now changed, for if they'd been meant to describe that situation they'd have been put differently.  She told me that decision should've been her call and not mine."

"She didn't actually say it was the wrong decision, or even the wrong reasoning, only that I shouldn't have stepped forth to make the call.  And - even in retrospect I can't honestly say I'd do it differently, if I did it over.  The story of you and Keltham in Osirion, trying to persuade each other - has a disturbing shape, one that couldn't end with a clear victory for either of you, or a compromise either, as best I can grasp tropes myself.  If you're apart, it at least holds out the possibility of you being reunited."

- nod. She can imagine the Most High being furious about being told 'Hell's words were no vision of Asmodeus and couldn't hold that much weight', even if it was right. Especially if it was right. 

"Perhaps that'll be so," she says. "- even if allowed to travel, I would not travel, if you believe it does not serve Asmodeus for me to do so, and even if allowed to access my teacher, I would not go to him, if you believe it does not ultimately serve our ends."

"For now - I do not.  I think that your separation is the - greatest tension, in this story, or at least the greatest tension that we plausibly understand, and the one over which we have the most control.  If you went back to him it would have to be under conditions exactly chosen.  There's a strong case to be made that if someone unleashes Rovagug and the two of you working together are required to stop It, even then we must only allow the two of you to reunite if it looks like - Keltham was sent in the first place to stop Rovagug, and not, Rovagug was unleashed because we had vulnerability to that cause of you coming together."

"Part of me is worried that reality itself just ends after the two of you are reconciled, like a book ends, but if that's so, it'll unavoidably happen at some point or another and so I've decided to ignore that possibility."

"If I have any power over it at all, your majesty, this story will not end until I am a Power in Hell and satisfied with the whole place."

"That's not a good time for it to end either!"

"I will strive to do better than that, your majesty."

"I'll be legitimately impressed if you figure out a plausible way how.  If I were an author I think I'd be pretty infuriated with a character who tried to stop the book from ever ending, and it wouldn't work either."

Ostenso nonintervention region

Carissa Sevar marches into the fortress with her cloak billowing and her fingers sparking with lightning and her +6 headband of Intelligence about her forehead like a crown. She would give almost anything to have Teleported in under her own power but, alas, wishing intensely to be fifth circle does not make one so. Instead, she had to use a scroll. 

The first person she sees is a Security, one of the new ones now that the project no longer requires the highest security in all of Golarion. "Assemble the full staff of this project in the dining room in ten minutes," she tells him. "All researchers, all priests, all security, all slaves, am I understood?"

"Sir!"

The Project sure is larger than when Sevar left.  Over a hundred people are gathered into the dining room, within those ten minutes.  There's a number of halfling slaves for maintenance, the sort of personnel who would be camp followers if this was a mercenary band rather than a highly secured project... there's a seventh-circle wizard here to guard the Fortress, who can override Sevar in Security matters if need be, but isn't here to provide any spiritual oversight; the plan is that Aspexia Rugatonn will do that for Sevar on regular visits.

Only Subirachs and Ione and Asmodia are missing!

Well.  And Keltham, of course.

Peranza, one supposes, if you want to think about her.

A Security killed a halfling slave just last week, but those don't count.

Really, most Chelish secret projects that last this long have a lot more losses!

"I will confess that my first thought, on hearing the idiocy to which you all immediately devoted yourselves in my absence, and the costs you brought down on Cheliax as a result, was that this fortress and everyone in it should be cast into the Abyss, so that you can see how you like it when everyone's running around with all Evil and no Law. Regrettably that is not in Cheliax's interests at this time.

Cheliax's interests at this time are in preparing for war. For researchers, that means discussing with each other the merits and demerits of various plans for war, betting on them, and then doing your jobs and seeing who wins the bets. For everyone else, that means enabling the researchers in conducting their research without inconveniences of any kind. If you are directed by one researcher to inconvenience another researcher, you will not do that. You will, instead, tell me, and I will personally ensure that research goes uninterrupted. 

You may be thinking, 'probably it is wiser not to go to Carissa Sevar in a remotely ambiguous case, because coming to the attention of powerful people is generally bad'. You should, of course, notice that I ordered it, and then obey, even if obeying is bad for you, because supposedly there are some Asmodeans here; but there are also a lot of very muddled people here, so I will say it more clearly. If you come into my office and say 'I am concerned that I was ambiguously ordered to inconvenience a researcher', and then recite a perfectly innocuous conversation, I will tell you I appreciate your time and send you on my way. 

If there are problems, and I learn you knew about them and didn't say anything, then you will die in pain. 

Furthermore, I intend to instruct some of the researchers and Security here to, with my permission, give out orders to inconvenience researchers. This is a test. You pass it by coming to me; you fail it not only by doing as ordered but also by not reporting it. 

That is how we will handle any issues of researchers being inconvenienced, going forwards. Are there questions."

A Sevar-loyalist Security will Message to her, with considerable spiteful satisfaction, that a number of very silent people are thinking a question they're not voicing; they're wondering how they are to be punished.  Oh, and some Sevar loyalists are wondering about how various other people are going to be punished.

"A good question! We'll get to it. At the end.

Next! You might be thinking, that is a lot of time Carissa Sevar will personally be wasting with our petty dramas. I have two observations. The first is that if you don't have petty dramas, then my time will be wasted only my the occasional mistake, and not very much of it. The second is that I am, in fact, in the market for a person who is capable of predicting, having heard various petty dramas, whether I'd have wanted to hear about them. You will sit in the corner of my office, write down your guesses, and then we'll see if you were good at guessing. This position is available to everyone who isn't a top-tier researcher; you have better things to do. The major job perk is that you'll be very valuable to me and I will not want to go through the hassle of finding another one. If you are interested, you may find me in my office after 2am; I expect to be busy until then. 

Next! I notice this project has something of a leaks problem; Osirion knew far too much about it, and still does, and there are some fascinating rumors spreading in Egorian. The same policy applies for this as for inconveniences to my researchers: if you learn something, even if you're not sure if it's something, tell me. Eventually you will tell my predictor-secretary, once I've trained one. You will not be punished for wasting my time. You will die in agony if you knew something and decided not to mention it to anyone. Fake attempts to recruit you for espionage, or just to get you to share juicy rumors, will be made."