Lessons for facing Dispater: probably he would like it if Carissa was terrified of him and not impaired thereby. Since this is what SHE would like. 

She tells the slave they can go and paces. She feels - deeply unhappy, somehow, and she hasn't even talked to Maillol yet. ...she should get all the Project stuff squared away so she can definitely go do this tomorrow, she thinks further waiting won't be salutory.

Maillol won't seem very... functional, when she goes to check on him.  He'd maybe be capable of making administrative decisions on autopilot, that looks to be about it.

Right. This is an outcome she deliberately tried to achieve because she wanted it, it would be pathetic to have feelings about it. She is not that pathetic. 

...she does mindread him in case there's more going on there.

Looped despair, a sense of unevadable punishment and that he cannot live up to Sevar's ever-increasing standards, Project Lawful is impossible to manage and when he fails people torture him and there's no realistic prospect of his life being anything else, has to pull himself together or they'll just send him to Hell - he wants to be back at the Worldwound wants to be back at the Worldwound it was hard but he was adequate to his tasks there he knew what to do -

(Abrogail's notes say that the sort of torment meant to accomplish a shaping of action and effort, within somebody, should leave them a defined way out of what is unendurable, a sense that the hardship will fade to only endurable torture if they take some mental action internally available to them.  There's an exasperated note scrawled beside the previous notes saying that you can mind-read people while they're being tortured and talk to them if they're not thinking the right things.)

Well, she wasn't really paying attention to Maillol, right, the point was that she wasn't paying attention to him, it's what Subirachs told her when she first really hurt a Security, the lesson is for the benefit of everyone else. Abrogail's doing something different than all the systems in the country she built. Abrogail's trying to sculpt people. They're just trying to warn off other people. 

She doesn't actually think a disconnect like that could have happened if Abrogail didn't want it that way. 

Bad line of thought. 

Hell doesn't hurt people intimately and personally to craft and shape them, it just lets them lie in the fires of Avernus suffering -

-- even worse line of thought. Bad Carissa. Stop that. 

"I'm going to Hell tomorrow," she says inanely. 

Some fragmentary sentences, broken bits of a stream of consciousness, go through his mind; Maillol still has curiosity, but it's not that he's been scared out of it, more that a link between that and action has been severed at least temporarily.  He doesn't ask why.

(Abrogail's notes: when you hurt people enough, even if you were trying to hurt them in order to make them do something, they are liable to start freezing up instead, if the thing is at all complicated.  The instinct to get away, or if you can't get away, freeze up in the presence of the person who deals pain, is very simple in people; that instinct starts to dominate if you've gone and smashed the more complicated behavior you were trying to get.)

This is upsetting and she wants to run away from it but if she can't handle this she's really going to melt about Dispater. 

"I ...wondered if you had thoughts on whether I should put Abarco or Olegario in charge."

He doesn't need to think about that question to answer it.  That's good.  "Abarco and Pilar advise Olegario."

- nod. 

I didn't mean to break you

I don't really mind if you go to Axis

I know I don't know how to do this yet but I will figure it out

"I wouldn't punish most people for not trying as hard as possible to get my desired results; I can't expect that of most people. I don't intend to place you again in a role where I do expect that."

please make clear what you expect of me, says the part of his mind that knows how torture works in people, that knows this is what Sevar should've done before this started

but he cannot say it in words for some deep instinct in him does not want to risk saying anything that causes the torment to begin again.  if it seems like the torment might begin again then he'll start saying things that will make it stop.  there is no reason to speak while the torment is already not happening, that would be stupid.

"I expect you to try to manage the Project, or advise those managing the project, so as to make progress and not have disasters, and not so as to serve as an avenue for corrupting me personally, and not in whatever way involves the least inconvenience for you personally."

oh.  she's reading his mind.

maillol will stop having thoughts then.

well there'll be starts of thoughts but not finished ones.

"Would you stop that? I'm not going to hurt you further, I have a lot to get done today and I'd like you functional to advise Olegario."

Oh.  He might actually get hurt if he doesn't do things.

"I can advise Olegario," says Maillol's voice, sounding almost normal, because there are well-worn patterns inside him and they could just run even if Maillol wasn't home at all.

"Good. ...if you have any advice for me, I would also want to hear that."

"No, Chosen."

Why does it feel like she lost a friend. He would have laughed at her, if she'd ever said she thought they were friends. 

Right, okay, that's more than enough being pathetic, she needs to go prepare for Hell. "I don't expect anything beyond that you advise Olegario," she says, and then leaves.

The rest of the Project does seem more properly scared of her now!  That's something, right?

It might... possibly be a little unproductive in the new Project members who've never known the previous Carissa and are not aware that this person has any mode for 'nah you did pretty much okay actually'.

Well. She'll try to go around telling some people they did pretty much okay actually. 

And she should compose a letter to Keltham. It seems important that he know he cannot stop this by charging off to, or exploding, Cheliax. 

This shouldn't be too difficult, right?

Keltham:

 

 

I have decided to go to Hell and sell my soul directly to Dispater for the highest price any mortal has ever commanded. I am in Hell already.

It would be easier to figure out what to say after that if she could rederive her seduction plan.