"Oh - striking facial features, interesting poses, expressive eyes, long limbs - just because longer limbs translate better to most poses - angels are popular even if they're kind of ugly angels - musculature, that sort of consideration. These were a gift from the Duke Kyzzarafhar, when this wing of the palace was built nine thousand years ago, Lord Dispater doesn't change up the displays much."

Makes sense.  Probably the dancers don't remember either, at this point, how they failed Asmodeus so badly.

Maybe she's just tired.  It's been something of a day.  That could be why she's feeling - vulnerable, like this, in a way she didn't feel when she was trying to defend her beliefs to azatas in Elysium.

(It's the +6 Wisdom headband if anybody's wondering.)

The repurchase of the Project Lawful girls is going much faster than the negotiations with Dispater did, in terms of objective time.  His subordinates have been ordered to sell, and most of them have just sold, with some angry resentment that they're not profiting more, but not wanting to waste their own time on foregone conclusions.  The time just seems longer, because the lesser nobility of Hell are so much more tiring to deal with.

Last among the sellers of Project Lawful girls to Sevar: Asmodia's most recent owner of record, who bought her cheaply compared to the other nobility of Hell commanded here to exit this market.  It is but a Seigneur of Hell, taking the form of a sheep-headed humanoid devoid of genitalia and with empty bleeding eyesockets.  It bought Asmodia speculating that the price of Project Lawful girls would soon recover; and it seems to think that Carissa Sevar looks tired enough to eventually pay over a price closer to that of the other Project Lawful girls, if it goes on arguing for why its investment was clever and risky and deserves more than mere repayment.  There was an attempt made to resurrect her by a non-Evil caster, and a less alert owner might have let that go through when its possession had already been kidnapped away to the Gardens of Erecura!  Asmodia's soul is only safely where it is due to its own cleverness!

It is true that it would have been very bad for Asmodeus's interests if the idiot holding Asmodia's soul had permitted a resurrection by a non-Evil caster. This Seigneur is richly rewarded by continuing to exist. 

Being a mortal favored of Dispater does not give her the dominance to talk to a Seigneur of Hell like that.

Observably it seems to.

She is violating her order and place in Hell, not realizing that Dispater's orders to see this transaction done cannot protect her from the later retribution that her slights will see visited on herself.

"Either I shall rise in Hell to become a Power in my own right, so precious to Asmodeus that you will quake in centuries in terror at the thought I might remember your name and see fit to crush you, or I shall fail, and be destroyed for it; any lesser nonsense is entirely irrelevant to me. Sign the contract."

It signs, not happily, but happiness is rare in Hell.

"Well done on completing your collection, Carissa Sevar!  Just so you know, if Asmodia is in pristine condition her soul's ownership can be traded to Otolmens for a favor!  Like allowing Asmodeus to intervene once inside the nonintervention zone, for example!  Though you'll not be wanting to trade her in the immediate future."

The sheep-headed thing with empty bleeding eyesockets is now much less happy.

"It works for Cayden Cailean," she tells the sheep-headed thing irritably. "You should kill it."

The sheep-headed thing stares at Pilar with its empty and bleeding eyesockets.

It turns its head back, giving Carissa Sevar an empty-socketed expression that somehow still conveys skepticism.

Then it stalks off, showing a terrible anger and dignity that would be more effective if it did not also somehow seem to be running away.

"Snack Service is saying that you being known to have gotten one over on Lord Dispater's subordinates will help with your reputation in Hell, and it's complaining about how you're not being grateful for that or for the favor it did you of making sure you made the right trade."

"I was really, really hoping Lord Dispater would eat it."

"As was I. I guess we'll just have to do it ourselves. What do you suppose Otolmens wants with Asmodia?"

"It's not saying."

"Well, I'll think about it once I'm smarter, and if I end up concluding that Snack Service did me a favor a mortal should be grateful for, then I still won't be grateful because that is my due."

Now let's sign some options on Security-souls!

It goes quickly, possibly because Pilar is standing behind Carissa Sevar in the position of something subordinate to her.

Good. Carissa is about ready to go home, not that she has one. ....she should get herself a fancy demiplane. All the cool wizards have them.

After they finish purchasing options, a new devil approaches them!  This one could be the sort of devil invented by people who think devils ought to be pretty, and weren't creative about what that meant, creating something like a perfect average of everything stereotypically beautiful.  They're wearing robes that mortals would find aesthetic with no symbols of blood or pain, and androgynous in appearance, an average halfway between all the pretty women and all the pretty men.

You could almost mistake them for a mortal, if not for an air about them of excessive horror and strength; practically everything in Hell promises a fate worse than death, but whatever this is promises a fate worse than being a screaming tormented blob for eternity.

In their hands they hold a gemless crown of mithril, such as a mortal duke might wear if they scorned ornamentation; to Arcane Sight it radiates the magic of a lesser artifact, weaker than the Crown of the Most High or the Crown of Infernal Majesty, but stronger than any other magic Carissa Sevar is likely to have ever seen.  It can disguise itself as a +2 Splendour headband, cannot be removed save willingly, will not function for an unauthorized user, can cast CL 18 true seeing and CL 18 banishment once per week each, grants fire resistance 20 to the wearer, and would convey knowledge of Infernal if Carissa Sevar didn't already have permanent Tongues.

(Pilar's two headbands will be along tomorrow morning, after two Infernal Dukes have time to craft them and Dispater to apply the finishing touches.  Dispater only had the one headband easily on hand.)

Probably some mortals have been happier about selling their soul but probably not very many of them.

(Is it heretical to intend to figure out how to make things like this herself?)

"Snack Service says that it paid Lord Dispater for a cosmetic treatment that would make you look safely not as pretty as Abrogail Thrune when she returned from Hell, but as pretty as you could be under that limit, and this devil is also here to administer it."

" - I am confused Snack Service cares about that but I guess it sounds useful for a Keltham seduction plan. Go ahead," she says to the terrifying prettydevil.