Altarrin visits once a week. He's clearly never happy to have to go back, but he at least doesn't show the previous warning signs of maybe on some level trying to work himself to death. He brings Carissa books, and notes on immortality research - progressing steadily - and early-stage wild speculation on how to mathematically define priorities and values in a way that could persist in a massively transformed god-mind.

He updates her on court politics, including Carissa-relevant parts like the fact that Mage-Inquisitor Kastil was released - though not returned to exactly his former post - and that there are almost certainly still assassination plots out against her, because he was paranoid enough to make it impossible for anyone except him to shut them down. But the Inquisition still doesn't know about Carissa's new magical abilities, now growing by the week, or where she is.

There are plenty of rumors about Caris/Carissa - the investigation was public enough, and leaked enough, for the rumor mill to connection them - including lots of speculation that the public story of Caris/sa's ongoing boring political imprisonment in an undisclosed location is false, and he/she has (been given a new name and granted a barony in the far west)(gone to seduce a shaman of the Shin'a'in)(gone undercover as a spy to seduce the Emperor's enemies and betray them)(become an absurdly wealthy merchant in Seejay). None are especially close to on-base. If the rumor mill ever heard a whisper that Carissa was from another world, it didn't get far. 

Altarrin - is continuing to mostly avoid conversations about duration-of-commitment-to-the-Empire with Bastran. Not because he thinks Bastran can actually talk him into making a promise he doesn't endorse, but because every iteration of it makes Bastran sad again, and then Bastran looks at him with that sad expression, and it feels very pointless.  But he's ready to relay it to Bastran whenever Carissa's tower is magically secured and finished construction and is ready for an Imperial guest. 

Wizard towers are supposed to be a delight and Carissa is going to bring this important tradition to a new world along with wizardry itself. It does have a moat of lava, powered by fire elementals once she manages to adapt the spell to summon the local kind. They're paid, of course, not bound. Carissa is planning to not be a dick for no reason to anyone. If one can fly over the moat of lava, or if she sees fit to raise a bridge of stone across it with a well-practiced Stone Shape, one reaches the entrance to the tower, on which is ominously written in eight languages (she needed Altarrin's help there) 'one who enters unwelcome offers their life as forfeit' and 'intelligence permits you to answer this riddle. wisdom advises you to walk away' and then the obligatory riddle, which is a math problem. 

Inside there is a lovely furnished study and a lovely furnished bedroom and a lovely furnished guest bedroom for the Emperor and a lovely furnished sex dungeon which it's probably dangerous to mentally have tagged as 'for the Emperor'. And an apiary, and a swimming pool, and a regular dungeon that isn't sexy. 

She is so happy.

And when she's ready and Altarrin has relayed this, Bastran will free up an evening in his schedule to visit his - allied terrifyingly powerful wizard, or whatever she is. 

He tells his personal guard that he's meeting privately with Altarrin. He does, in fact, take Altarrin with him; for one thing, he doesn't actually know where Carissa lives and could use a Gate-ride over. 

Altarrin lets her know via communication-spell when the time is arranged, and warns her again when they're headed over. They Gate to outside the moat. 

Proooooooobably it's polite to...wait to be let in? Bastran could easily short-range Gate over the moat but that seems sort of rude. 

(It's beautiful. He's kind of dazzled.) 

Caris (he's Caris for the evening, obviously) will graciously extend the bridge.

The bridge is also beautiful, because he's showing off how much practice he's gotten with Stone Shape.

It's very impressive! 

Also Caris is very hot  unhelpful, but he is trying to avoid shoving all of his feelings into a box, right now. He might need them. 

...Bastran isn't sure what to read into the fact that Caris is appearing as a boy, actually. Does he want to make Bastran happy? Does he want Bastran to be distracted? Does he want to make Altarrin jealous it's almost certainly not that. 

He crosses the bridge. 

Altarrin walks behind him. It's not like he's in a desperate hurry to be the first one to hug Carissa. 

Caris is sitting in his sitting room. It's not a throne room. That would be geopolitically inappropriate. It's just a sitting room, with a very comfortable armchair and an elaborate backsplash of the rising sun behind the armchair and some other armchairs that are perfectly nice but slightly less nice than the one he's sitting in. 

He does not rise. "Bastran," he says warmly, and taps his finger on his armrest; the bridge falls into the lava behind them, and the lights brighten, and an Unseen Servant brings a tray of food to the sitting room's low table.

All of which is also incredibly hot but that continues to be an unhelpful reaction. 

Bastran will nod to Caris, without quite making it a bow, and then gracefully make his way to one of the other slightly-less-nice armchairs, and sit. 

"It's - good to see you again."

Altarrin, without comment, settles himself into whichever other armchair is closest. 

"It's good to see you as well. I'm satisfied with our arrangements. It's not a proper tower yet, of course, but give me time."

"I guess from your world's perspective, maybe it's not a proper wizard's tower just yet, but from our world's perspective -" 

There are a lot of things he has lined up to say, that he's carefully prepared and lined up in order of highest priority. 

"- I missed you." 

"I missed you too. I've been working very hard at getting ready to host you, not because I need anything from you right now, but because - I wanted you to come here and see it."

(Does Altarrin seem to be objecting to anything about this - apparently not -) 

"Well, here I am. I'd like to see - everything you're willing to show me." 

Then he'll give a tour! Underground are the sex dungeons and real dungeons, above ground are all the living spaces. He worked very hard on them. 

(The main sense in which it's not a real wizard's tower, which he doesn't precisely say aloud, is that Bastran and Altarrin would in fact win, if the three of them had a disagreement here and now. It's not a real wizard tower unless your enemies need to lure you out of it to stand a chance against you. Bastran, however, will have more fun if he never has to think about this until it is a proper wizard tower.)

Altarrin is genuinely impressed! He does not especially try to hide this, because why would he. Carissa (Caris) should clearly know that he's impressed. 

(He is exactly as impressed with the sex dungeon as he is with all the rest, and does not make a different face about it.) 

....Bastran is finding the sex dungeon very distracting.

(He is also not especially trying to hide this, because - well, it's Caris, and once he's agreed to be here at all, what does it accomplish to hide anything.) 

"Do you want to know something shocking," she says when she's completed the tour and returned to her not-throne room. "I think that when I am tremendously happy and having the time of my life and answering to no one, I am a more productive magical researcher."

Altarrin is so incredibly un-shocked about this. 

"Oh? Tell me more." 

(Altarrin suspects he should leave them to it, sometime soonish, but right now he's enjoying observing.) 

"Well, a fairly central claim of Asmodeanism, or at least the version of it I had constructed in my head, is that being miserable makes people stronger. And there are senses in which that is true! I am twenty-six and I'm sixth circle!

But - somehow, astoundingly given how accurate every other claim of Asmodeanism turned out to be, being happy makes people stronger in a different way than that.

Where it's fun to think because it's going to be rewarding, it's going to open doors instead of remind you of mistakes, and so you just end up doing it all the time, all these little paths you turn out to go wander down as long as you don't get metaphorically lit on internal fire for walking them."

...Altarrin is going to quietly duck out of the room, at this point. He's very curious how this conversation is going to go, but - it seems like it might be important, for Bastran and Caris to have it in private.