...he notes that she didn't say which city, which, could just be her concealing things for the fun of it - though even that much spark is more than someone might've expected from an empty pretty thing - but then, the Queen might well have been more likely to choose someone with spark - though her beauty would then have to be artificial and very expensively so -

Her Infernal Majestrix did lecture them tonight on the importance of Intelligence.  It would not be even slightly out of character for this woman to be some sort of intelligence test, with a prize to the first person there to fully solve her.

"What kinds of people, dares one inquire?"

"...I saw Pilar Pineda. You know, with the pink hair."

"I don't, actually!  My apologies for my unworldliness if I ought to.  What manner of creature is a Pilar Pineda?"  It sounds Taldane, but...

"What, really? I thought everyone had heard of her." Based off...one palace spy having done so, and Osirion, which has uncannily good intel and must have a very very high-ranking spy. Put that on the list of things to think about with her fancy new headband once she's rested, alongside what Cayden Cailean is doing and how to conquer the world. "She's the Project Lawful girl with cake powers. Well, I didn't see her have any cake powers, but that's what they say about her, is that she's the cake powers one."

The probabilities of this being an ill-fated innocent beauty are dropping by the second.  "Oh, this would be the sorceress of whom it's said that she's already standing right behind you?"  He doesn't do anything as gauche as turning around to look, just lets his eyes glance off some reflective surfaces well-positioned to show that, no, there isn't a cake-bearing girl behind him.  "I wasn't privileged before now to know her name was Pilar Pineda.  You don't suppose that she'll be appearing as well, tonight?  I've never heard anyone suggest that Project Lawful wasn't key to winning the war on Nidal... faster, that is.  One can only imagine how slow the war would have been without them."

"Without them we couldn't even beat Galt!"

It is hard to overstate how much you absolutely never ever no matter what do not say that, in Cheliax.

How about if he suddenly spots a long-unmet friend and makes his excuses, then?

Whatever sort of Intelligence test she is, he's worried that reaching the correct solution involves a +4 Intelligence headband he hasn't been issued yet... now there's an idea, mention to the Queen that he'd be happy and eager to receive his headband earlier.  It's obvious in retrospect, but he'd also wager that most of the nobles present won't think of it.

Okay, that is kind of fun. 

Are there drinks at this lovely party.

There are!  Some drugs stronger than alcohol in there, too, for the benefit of anyone who wants to try their hand at bullying somebody else into imbibing them!

She'd just like something that's not very alcoholic, please - she doesn't drink much - and definitely does not have anything else in it.

A thickset Baron will be happy to point her at a vintage like that, and pour it out for her, too.

He wonders how she and Abrogail Thrune happened to meet.

"Well, she showed up in disguise as a mysterious noblewoman, and then again as a powerful sorcerer. It took me a while to realize and then when I did I was terrified but she's really very nice.

You'd have to ask her how she decided to bother with me in the first place."

He supposes that's one way to seduce people when you're Abrogail Thrune.

"You don't think it was because of your natural beauty?" he inquires, not missing the implication that if her beauty doesn't constitute an obvious answer then the beauty might be incredibly expensive and artificial - or, he supposes, illusory, though it's unlikely when so many others here (if not him) would see through it.

"Well, I mean, I certainly get lots of suitors, but I would imagine if you're the Queen of Cheliax and you just want to date someone pretty then you have lots of choices! I'm probably not the prettiest girl in the country besides Abrogail. There are lots of people here who are very beautiful. - that lady over there, say, I'd say half of men would pick her over me, if they could pick."

That lady over there clearly did it alchemically, but you have to know the tells, and Carissa does not happen to.

The Baron sips some of the stronger alcohol he's taken for himself; his tolerance is practiced.  "Any refined eye looking at her can see that her beauty was bought.  Natural beauties as pretty as you are very rare indeed.  Well, what were you about before Abrogail Thrune appeared to you in disguise?"

"I grew up in Corentyn. My father's a merchant but he's giving the business to my half-brother and my mother's a teacher and I wanted to open a shop. I can do Prestidigitations, you know, so I can make drinks cold in summer and sell them, which seems like it'd be much more fun than doing laundry like everyone does with Prestidigitation. I think if Her Majesty gets bored - not speaking ill of her, just, you know, realistically she might - then I might travel, with all this money I've got now. I've always wanted to see Absalom."

"It's a wonderful place, though prophecy has it doomed as Carissa Sevar devours the souls of all within during Her ascension to godhood.  You might want to hurry if you'd see it before it's gone."

"Well I'd rather expect that all the Starstone gods would object to that, if she really tries it! Also, if she were ascending, couldn't she just ....touch the Starstone? In a non-soul-consuming way? Like everyone else who ascended there?"

"Well, who wouldn't devour all the souls in a city if they'd end up a more powerful god that way?  I've heard many things of Carissa Sevar, but never that she was Good."

"Well, if she's Evil like Abrogail then I suppose that'll turn out all right."

"I suppose there's the kind of Evil that denies someone an afterlife for personal benefit, and the sort of Evil that denies someone an afterlife because it's fun, but if you wouldn't destroy a soul for either of those reasons I don't think you can be a proper Asmodean.  Though I admit, I couldn't say from my own knowledge that I've heard of the Queen consuming anyone's soul for her personal benefit."

"I meant that Abrogail - knowing her is better than not knowing her. She might hurt you, but she leaves you stronger."

All right, not completely naive then.  "If she doesn't leave you a shattered wreck, yes."  The thickset Baron raises his glass to her in salute.  "Then I salute your great natural resilience as well as your great natural beauty, as would make you twice over one of the luckiest people alive."  In other words, that didn't happen.

"I might be, but not in that respect. I got it done in Dis."

Maybe NOT human then.  If she's not just successfully toying with him.  "Is that where you met Abrogail Thrune, by any chance?"