" - get everything you can out of her with Dominate Person, then, and send her on, unless I guess we strongly expect that to go badly, in which case I'm inclined to just send Keltham 'we strongly expect that to go badly, look'."

"We strongly expect that ... she'll either seduce him back to Asmodeanism, seduce him to her own heretical Asmodean cult which is even more dangerous than Asmodeanism because it makes people not fear Hell and still go there and be just as badly off, she's defected and will help him with his plans which are good for us, or she's defected and will help him with his plans that are bad for us. One of those."

" - tell her to take the headband off, Dominate her, and then bring her in here. I want to meet her."

Carissa is pretty sure that her core realization, in those mysterious ten minutes, was just that she couldn't get what she wanted by serving Asmodeus. But that's not actually sufficient for her to have decided to sell her soul; it's an extreme step, to put it mildly, and cuts off many possible paths of getting what she wanted. She might've done it just to bring rapprochement with Keltham, or just because - because she should go to Hell, if she did that to other people just because it would've been inconvenient not to -

The door opens, again, and one of the Risen Guard steps through, again. "Keltham has requested that you be sent on to him."

       "I request that also."

"Keltham is not allied with Osirion at this time, and Osirion's own security interests don't encourage us to pass on to a potentially-hostile foreign power a Chelish agent."

       "I work for Keltham, not for Cheliax."

"Are you amenable to a brief interrogation about the state of Chelish preparations for war with Osirion, as a condition of your swift release to Keltham."

        "If I say no what happens."

"We argue with Keltham at more length, presumably, about whether we are entitled to insist."

         "Doesn't seem very Abadaran."

"In a world that was full of Abadaran agents, our country would not be under imminent threat of destruction, and our predictable policies towards Chelish defectors would be set with more consideration for encouraging defections because Cheliax wouldn't just lie about our policies anyway."

        "You haven't even offered to pay me for everything I know about Chelish war preparations."

"We'll pay you fairly for what we learn."

         Oh. For some reason that wasn't what she expected to hear. "And if I know nothing of value to you?"

"It'll almost certainly still move the markets and we'll pay you off that. I can get you a fixed minimum payment, if you want."

         She doesn't actually, at this point, want anything money can buy. "Are you also doing this to Olegario?"

"Yes."

         "Did you ask if he was amenable?"

"...we told him you said to cooperate, which he's been doing."

        That's obvious. She's juggling too many balls, trying to move forward too fast on too many fronts of possible-inference... she doesn't know the answer to the question Osirion presumably desperately wants answered, why hasn't Cheliax attacked yet, will her defection change that... "Fine."

"Take the crown off."

        "No."

"If you keep it on we'll keep you cursed so you can barely think. If you take it off we'll give you a 4/4 that we've vetted for not having extra abilities built in you could use to assassinate the pharaoh."

        "I'm worried you'll refuse to give it back."

"I swear to you that I intend to personally follow you around holding it, it won't leave your line of sight except when you prostrate yourself before the pharaoh, and I'll give it back to you, unaltered, when we send you on to Keltham. I expect the chances it'll be taken are very small. If we wanted to steal it we'd have just killed you briefly."

        "You can't kill me briefly and be sure of holding onto me, Dispater might not send a Chelish defector back. - I want a guarantee from the pharaoh that He'll do everything in His power to ensure I get it back."

"I'll relay that."

Yes, of course.

He does not commit this to writing until He's spent a solid minute reflecting carefully on what kinds of things this might call on Him to do and deciding He's all right with them. Abadar's word is not given lightly. 

Carissa takes a deep breath, closes her eyes, and takes the headband off. 

Then they Dominate Person her, and it's hard to be too terribly invested in the goings-on after that. 

Put the headband on, the thought comes to her, and she obediently puts the headband on, and her mind is sharper and clearer. 

Then they snap the Dominate Person and it's like pitching forwards into an ice-cold river, everything suddenly pressing back in around her - the stakes, the fate of the world, Keltham - she can remember the last half-hour, but like a dream where everything came with a conviction it was justified and made perfect sense that didn't bottom out in anything -

She's in a lovely Osirian - bathing-room? It has mosaic tiles and pretty silk fabric hangings and a mirror and a pretty woman her own age, who is watching her concernedly. 

"Water?"

" - uh, sure?"

"Lemon slice? No lemon slice?"

" - in the water? Why would I want it to have a lemon slice?"

"I'm gonna call that 'no lemon slice'." She hands her the water. "- I think some people like it because it's fancier - no peasants drinking their water with lemon slices! - and some like the taste. Do you want something to eat?"

"I have a Ring of Sustenance, and I want Keltham. I agreed to this nonsense so that you'd send me to him faster. Now we're done. Right? So you'll send me to him?"

"Yes, definitely. You can make that happen faster by getting dressed -" she holds up some clothes. 

....she looks down. She's no longer in just her nightgown; she's in her nightgown draped in some ornate Osirian ceremonial thing. Right. So she could meet the pharaoh. She remembers putting it on. 

"I'm to help you get dressed, and reoriented, and in a little while they'll let us know your ride is here to pick you up.

I don't actually get to decide when your ride is here, because it'd be harder for me to help you get reoriented if I were in the way of something you need, but I am reporting, 'yes, she drank some water' and 'yes, she seems to understand what's going on'.

If you think it'd help you get reoriented if I stopped reporting anything, I'll do that."

She can get dressed her own self, and is doing that. "We're in a palace! Obviously you're reporting to someone! If you told me you weren't I wouldn't believe you. ....is your job cheering people up after your government interrogates them?"

"....no? We're not Good. My job is helping girls who've gotten hurt, or had sex they didn't want, or who just arrived here as a gift, or who needed to be personally interrogated by the pharaoh while under a Dominate Person or something, bounce back fast. So they don't get steadily more fucked up in random directions and then eventually explode at someone."

"...someone knows how to do that?"

"Fucking Osirion knows how to do that?"

"Something - you've been looking for?"

"I'm fine but I would've appreciated it if this could happen to people I, uh, wrecked accidentally. What are the operative ingredients."