"I wasn't sure initially if the diamond synthesis would scale around diamond dust used as seed crystals, so I also got thirty-two jewelry-quality diamonds, the sort that are unusually clear but too small for even a Limited Wish, and had those polished smooth and spherical, and Prestidigitated them before throwing them into the demiplane, to try to ensure that early diamond deposition would be very regular for at least the next hour... I don't know if that worked, but only three times, or it was just some unrelated seeds that went really well... anyways, I ended up with three of these."

Keltham takes from his Bag of Holding three exceptionally clear unfaceted jewels, considerably larger than Wish-sized, barely small enough that you could close your fist around one of them.

He stares at them open-mouthed for a little while. 

"- they're beautiful.

You know, if there is something beyond ninth-circle....that's the kind of focus you'd need to get anywhere with it."

"Well, I thought a bit about who should have these, if it turns out that going to the City of Brass is some huge story turning point where our party doesn't come back afterwards etcetera etcetera whatever and these are the only Big Diamonds ever to exist.  And you're the only person I know, outside of that party, who goes around having ideas like 'Maybe we can make our own shield from the Outer Gods and tell Pharasma to get lost', so I thought you seemed like the best fit."

"You're also the most combined Good plus actually sensible person I know, besides myself of course ha ha, such that it seems like giving these to you would actually have good outcomes."

" - thank you. I don't know if there's a way to make them into our own shield from the Outer Gods but I will certainly give it a try."

He reaches out and takes the diamonds, reverently.

"I do want a fairly serious promise that you won't misuse them or let them end up in the wrong hands, if they're at all valuable or dangerous."

"If I took that tropes hypothesis of yours at all seriously I would not be making important oaths," he says. "However, I don't, so, I swear to you, if these turn out to be items of power and significance, I will guard them and their secrets with my life, and with those resources I can command, and I will not allow them to be taken from me and I'll recover them if they are, whatever that takes and wherever it takes us..."

"...unless you or Abadar tell me to consider myself no longer bound by this oath, or my best understanding of you and of Abadar if both of you are dead or inaccessible, would tell me that."

"Yeah, fair point about the tropes.  Feel very free to go 'Arbitrarily nope' at the tropes if it seems like they're trying to throw a plot at you that they wouldn't have thrown at you if you wouldn't react in an interesting way.  Or do Something Else Which Is Not That about any sort of non-common-sensical situation that reality seems to be trying to put you into.  Or generally not to let this whole situation create drama, even if that seems on the surface like it might involve an exception to the exact words of the promise.  You have my total permission and encouragement to just be unexpectedly sensible about anything that develops unexpectedly, and say, 'That's what Keltham said he wanted on the day he asked me for this promise.'"

"All right. ...You, too, should try to be unexpectedly sensible, if you notice the plot trying to make you destroy the world."

"I'd say 'give it a rest' but I rather understand why you're not."

"Obvious things to a dath ilani, if you end up passing these on to somebody else, ask them for the same promise, including the sensibility clause and the clause about asking a further recipient for the same promise diagonally.  From our perspective, that'd just be an automatic consequence of the original promise, but saying it out loud in case it's not."

"That is sensible but not in contracts unless you put it in them. If I pass the diamonds along I'll ask for the same promise."

"Off to the City of Brass, then.  Wish me horrible luck that ends with me permadead and you and Carissa and the Church of Iomedae trying to recover the situation with a couple of hundred thousand Wish diamonds."

"I hope you die in a tragic and baffling fiery explosion!"

"Wouldn't be nearly enough, I've made the obvious True Resurrection arrangements and backup Wish resurrection plans etcetera."

"I mostly expect I'll just come back in a few hours, more intelligent and ready for a proper conversation with Wished-up Carissa.  But if I never see you again, my awful experience in Golarion would've been even worse without you."

"My fairly great experience in Golarion would have been worse without you too. Good luck on dying."

He goes to seek Carissa.  He's supposed to give the +4/+6/+6 headband back after this, and though he thinks he's put himself together in a way that held and will hold with a +6/+6/+4 headband, it's still the last chance if un-Wished Carissa has anything to say to a noticeably stupider ex-boyfriend with somewhat stronger emotions.

Carissa has been occasionally departing the demiplane for cult encouragement. Her cult is... encouraging, she guesses, not for any purpose for which she'd actually want to leverage it except accounting for her activities and adding to her hoard of souls. It's certainly very vigorous and enthusiastic, in those cities where it lucked into good local leadership or a resonant bit of theology. The pamphlets she releases routinely with her teachings are widely reproduced and/or strictly banned in forty-six countries. 

Aside from that she has chased down a few of the threads on her wall, mostly to unsatisfying conclusions. No one knows what Aroden's aims with the Starstone protections were. No one who is allowed to tell her knows at what stage in ascension those who go missing and can't be resurrected are destroyed. The Church of Abadar, which provides Starstone attempt insurance (full price of a True Resurrection plus fees, up front), knows how often it happens, and it's not often, but the ones who it happened to seem like those who were more promising than average, not less so. 

No one knows much about the universe Pharasma came from. No one knows much about the overall composition by planet of origin of any of the afterlives other than Axis. Mortals aren't allowed to wander around arbitrary parts of Axis either. She's put up hundreds of scraps that will, perhaps, assemble into an answer when she's smarter. Such and such apparent species observable in Aktun. Such and such results from Fe-Anar's analysis of the linguistic inputs to various languages spoken there. Such and such results on supposedly random summons. Reality has consistent features deep down; you just have to be positioned to notice them. She's no longer in the habit of thinking of it as an ilani teaching, rather than a Sevarite one, but it's important. 

When she's tired of that she works on Keltham's magic simulator. It's complicated the way problems are supposed to be complicated, instead of the way they turn out to often actually be complicated. 

" - hey. Ready to go?"

"Yeah, unless 24/20/19 Carissa has anything left to say to 25/26/25 me before he goes 29/27/23 and she rises to 29/25/24.  I continue to suspect that the Wish augmentations run wider than spells and headbands in a way that Golarion can't easily measure."

"I think - there's almost nothing I could say that wouldn't really be about trying to prevent the end of the world. If there are things you'd want to hear, given that..."

"Those need wait only a little longer."

"Let's collect Ri-Dul and Tarnish and go, and remember the infosec conditions around Ri-Dul."  Ri-Dul isn't aware of exactly how many +5s they mean to purchase, here.

(Carissa is hoping that Ri-Dul will get suspicious and kill them all, but she considers it unlikely.)

"Yeah."

"Hello Keltham.  Hello Sevar.  I'd be louder about some other issues, especially with Sevar, but I'll put that on hold to ask whether 'Mister Doomlord' is still a problem, or if you're here because you took care of Him.  Or It.  Whatever."

"I unfortunately cannot promise that Mister Doomlord is no longer a problem from your perspective, but I have all of his stuff and I don't expect him to be an issue for Cheliax... over at least the next few days.  Carissa is a bit more concerned about that, and I wouldn't be surprised if Snack Service calls you in on it at some point."