If greater-Carissa foresaw all this greater-Carissa is definitely working with Nethys, she realizes dimly as she is escorted to the Queen. - she'll think about that tomorrow. After she's gotten some sleep.

"Carissa.  I shall inquire of how your negotiations went once we have a moment; it's evident enough from your new headgear that you received more than beauty."

"The Nidal war is over; Pangolais surrendered.  Much of the nobility of Cheliax has assembled to celebrate, this night, and it would be a convenient time to present you, if Hell wasn't too hard on you.  Was it?"

"Truth be told, I rather took a liking to it.

- congratulations. On winning the war."

"I couldn't have done it without the convenient pretext and Otolmens stealing all their diamonds and Zon-Kuthon being sealed and Zon-Kuthon's clerics losing their higher-level spells, all of which are no doubt Project Lawful's fault in one way or another."

"Would you like to be presented as Lady Sevar straight out?  Or shall I introduce you to them at first as my beautiful lover who's just recently been to the big city for the first time, and let the more foolish wolves sniff at you and scorn you before we spring your real identity on them?"

"I've visited Egorian before recently! I was eight! My father had a business Teleport with extra space in it and he said he'd take me so long as I understood if I made a peep the whole trip he'd cut my tongue out. It was lovely."

"The bigger city, Carissa.  - you are tired, aren't you."

"Exhausted. I can keep up any game you want if you tell me the script but left to my own devices I will only smile mysteriously and occasionally almost slip and call you 'Abrogail'."

"We could present you as the naive lover, and any slips you make will obviously be part of your disguise once revealed.  Or you could be Lady Sevar and scorn the company of all save the few who've been to Hell themselves, who'll understand the exhaustion.  Do choose quickly, the gathering is almost set to begin."

"Naive lover, and we can see if anyone figures out how much of that isn't lying."

"Do you need an illusion or can that crown shift itself?"

"It's very well behaved." +2 Splendour headband, like so.

"Excellent."  Abrogail takes Carissa by the arm, and sweeps off with her towards the celebration of victory over Nidal that is about to begin.

It's time for the BEST* NIGHT EVER!

(*) according to some imaginable utility functions which may not be shared by literally any of the participants in this event including Snack Service

The greatest ballroom in the Imperial palace has been pressed into this event; it's not quite fair to say that it's more of an arena with a dance floor, because you can't fit that inside a realistic palace, but the design of it takes something from an arena.  There's three levels to the surrounding structure, from which you could look down on the dance floor and the platform that identifies the room's head, balconies and boxes with one-way windows that look outward, reachable by a confusing and deniable maze of halls and stairs.  Whoso made this room recognized and intended that at least half the people in it were going to sneak off and conspire together, and half of those wouldn't want to be identifiable as having left or returned in each other's company.

Today only the room's center has been left clear for dancing, the rest of the room occupied with some of the most impressive exhibits of the Nidal war.  The spiked head of a Phylacator, a profoundly dangerous kyton that required every 8th-circle of Cheliax plus Gorthoklek to slay without any casualties among important people.  A handkerchief carefully soiled with the blood of a Black Triune now fled.  A beautiful and muscular shackleborn tiefling male, once second-in-command of a brigade, now with his fingers cut off, chained with spiked chains piercing his skin, for sale to the highest bidder this night.

Most of Nidal's most portable and value-dense treasures, precious metals and gemstones and magic items and scrolls, are long since Teleported out of the country by rats fleeing their sinking ship; but somebody managed to leave behind a Helm of Brilliance, meant perhaps for internal defense against Kuthite rebels.  It is exhibited here, lying proof that immediate wealth was gained of Nidal and not just an eventual tax base.

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."