"Doing no better or worse than I expected.  No great breakthroughs in chemistry since last you asked; no new information of Keltham's stolen from the Scientific Revolution beyond what we've spied already."

"Meritxell, Yaisa, and Gregoria, are all being maintained in a state that should fall well short of Keltham needing to rescue them.  Tallandria seems unalterably miserable; I've had her research section moved somewhere that Keltham seizing her wouldn't do as much damage."

"Maillol is not recovered, and will probably not recover fully, but I'm keeping him in best condition to be held as negotiating-material against Sevar, whom I read as possibly caring about him.  Likewise those Security besides Olegario who were most loyal to her; and that useless fool whom Sevar rescued from my dungeons.  We are not instructed by our Lord to hold no hostages against Sevar; and she earlier stated that the Lawful Evil form of 'decision-theory' should concede it no threat if you're the sort of person who'd enjoy wrecking somebody that Sevar cared about, but might refrain from doing so if paid."

"Careful.  That seems perilously close to stating a hopeful plan aloud; in fact I would say that you've gone and said it."

Abrogail's lips press together thinly, but she makes no reply to this.  "Any news of Pilar Pineda that I'm permitted to know about, since that, too, is now apparently being routed through your offices?  It can be good news so long as it's sufficiently enigmatic and confusing, remember."

"I expect many of the reports I'm receiving are false.  Either that, or Pineda has gotten herself into an amount of salacious trouble that I would have sincerely thought required time dilation."

"It's probably that second one."

"If they're all true, Pineda has gotten herself into way more salacious trouble than I expected even taking into account that she's a trope-girl."

"I'm sure people end up saying that in 'eroLARPs' all the time.  Are there any new major political implications of Pineda's deeds, that I should know in order to do my job as Queen?"

"Pineda was spotted in Wanshou.  In other news, the elder kraken who ruled that land has perished, and Wanshou's new government has declared themselves Lawful Evil now, with a state flag depicting a great city amid flames.  Quite the remarkable decision for a land claimed for the last century by Chaotic Evil, though they declare themselves strictly independent of Cheliax if not Hell."

The words are no lie, but they are very finely sliced.  It's the sort of thing that the Queen genuinely needs to know about, that Wanshou has been claimed in the name of Hell; that's going to affect her affairs of state.

Aspexia wants to try and see if it's possible to keep from Abrogail the news that Pilar's involvement was merely her self-prophesied kidnapping, in a scandal leading to the downfall of half of the Wanshou government's ministers...

...almost immediately after those ministers had been appointed...

...by Carissa Sevar.  Who had come to Wanshou's small mortal government amid their ruined capital Numijaan, presenting herself in Archmagi's Robes, with IOUN stones orbiting her head; claiming that she in single combat slew their former ruler Zhanagorr; whose vast eyeball, scorched and ruined, she cast down before them as a proof; and proclaiming that She now claimed their country in the name of Hell, to be ruled by and for Her cult; and that any within Wanshou who reached at least Neutral Evil from Chaotic Evil, and did Her service in life and called Her name in death, would have their souls claimed by Her.  Exactly one former governing-slave of Zhanagorr did challenge Sevar, but he died upon the spot and without Sevar having turned her head in his direction.

Sevar worked upon a gate of ruined Numijaan that had faced Zhanagorr's waters, setting in place prepared ornaments but enchanting the whole; a gate, she said, to sear the exact words of her compact with Asmodeus onto the skin of any who walked through; and none could join her government or lead in her cult who had not walked through.

Sevar then departed without fanfare, her appearance having lasted less than an hour.

'If Teleports were free', as the saying goes, quite a lot of Lawful Evil people would already be in Wanshou, Rugatonn doesn't doubt.  As it stands, an impressive number of Lawful Evil indivduals who can afford Teleports have appeared in Wanshou; and some of those were appointed by Sevar to be its new government answerable to herself as sovereign, in the name of Hell.

...Only half of those ministers, however, had political careers that survived Pilar Pineda's advent shortly after: posing as a Sevarist, young, beautiful, seemingly innocent, exuding timid submissiveness and frightened sexuality.  Witnesses interviewed by a Church agent afterward reported a level of seductive appeal more often associated with literal succubi than with Splendour 21.

That Pilar was promptly kidnapped and abused by some of the new government leaders is not what caused the downfall of the ministers responsible - Wanshou's new government is Evil.  Rather, apparently, those ministers were inept kidnappers and got in each other's way rather than sharing, which proved them to be bad at coordination and operations work.  Pilar, it is said, revealed her true identity as She-Who-Bears-Cake and told all her kidnappers to resign; and threatened the remaining ministers that if they didn't do better at Lawful Evil, she'd come back and get kidnapped again.

Some of the disgraced ministers hesitated to obey (the story continued) but in that very moment a roar had resounded as the capital was attacked by one of Zhanagorr's spawn; whom Pilar slew, and then provided condiments for its roasting and distribution to the citizenry.  The disgraced ministers had obediently resigned, then, after Pilar returned and eyed them meaningfully while hefting a bag of salt.

All this news should basically not be possible to keep from Abrogail, unless the tropes can prevent Abrogail from hearing, somehow.  Aspexia is curious to see if they do.

"How nice of you to fucking tell me, Rugatonn.  That's going to be so much fun to navigate in international relations, especially on the swift heels of Pineda's doings in Korvosa.  I suppose we're invading Osirion anyways, and that takes us past the point where Cheliax can present itself to even the most gullible countries as not being an expansionist threat.  But it would have been nice if the more distant lands had deluded themselves for longer into thinking that only our immediate neighbors stood in danger."

"I told you not that long after I heard."

Abrogail's lips press together bitterly; that it's deliberate doesn't make it any less her true emotion.  "I cannot rule like this, Rugatonn!  I can hardly think like it!  It is stifling to the point that I might as well be a statue myself, for all the good I can do!"

"You know," Aspexia remarks conversationally, "I have never been able to understand, on some deep level, why it is that mortals - other than myself, of course - find themselves compelled to think so many harmful thoughts, as will bring them injury or discontent.  I just don't think thoughts like that, haven't my whole life.  I've never truly understood why others don't do the same.  You are not Wiser than me, but you are Wiser than I was when I was twelve years old and doing better than this.  Have you tried to just not think those thoughts, and also not feel stifled about not thinking them?"

The Queen does not dignify this with a response.  "Those were all the lesser questions I had of you."

"And I of you.  Now what's this news you said you had of Keltham, that should have proceeded through the Church before it came to the Queen?"

The Queen lifts the sheaf of papers in her hand.  "I pray this report about the recent Whisperwood incident was routed to you literally at all?"

"Matters of the Dark Tapestry are reported to my office immediately, yes."

"- you believe Keltham was involved in that?  To what end?  Stranger things happen daily in Golarion, and we can hardly attribute them all to Keltham's hand."

Her voice is a pleasant one, now; and in truth a little of Abrogail's injured pride has been restored.  "You, and your underlings, are all idiots.  I will summarize this report, in case the general trend has been lost within the details."

"One.  A mad cleric, posthumously identified as Vediss Halurexis, kidnapped a Chelish farming village and brought them to the Pillar of Palamia in our northwestern Whisperwood.  The sacrifices were bound and enshrouded in darkness and silence, but one among their number was a tiefling of devil's line who could see through deeper darkness; hence, supposedly, our apparently accidental reception of this report."

"Two.  Vediss Halurexis shattered the Pillar of Palamia, previously thought to be a monument to some unknown god, with a great explosion of flames whose description does not particularly match any known spell signature.  The idiots who produced this report failed to consider that chemistry might be a means of producing this explosion.  I have commanded Project Lawful to examine the Whisperwood site, to see if they can detect any useful residues that can hint to us about how we could make our own great explosions."

"Three.  A huge horror from the Dark Tapestry bubbles up from the ground: a great ooze, forming and reforming hands and teeth and faces, and mouths presumably gibbering blasphemies that were silenced."

"Four.  Before the gathered villagers can be sacrificed, an as-yet-unidentified person in the uniform of Chelish Security appears.  The apparent Security approaches Vediss Halurexis without attacking.  Halurexis attacks with a quickened spell once the mage is near.  Halurexis's head explodes."

"Five.  The gathered sacrificial villagers hear a male voice informing them that rescue has arrived but they will wait in protective darkness and silence for a time, as there are heretical affairs going on outside."

"Six.  The strange mage flies above the horror from the Dark Tapestry and engages in several inscrutable activities.  They included casting flashes of light and trying to drop animal sacrifices onto the horror in different numbers and groups.  Our apparent witness thinks he remembers seeing early on one flash, one flash, two flashes, three flashes, five flashes, and a similar pattern appearing among the animal sacrifices dropped down.  Does that pattern signify any particular Dark Tapestry eldritchness to you?"

"Not that I've been told of.  I'll inquire of Gorthoklek."

"Mm.  I suppose it's possible you might be telling the truth about that.  In any case."

"Seven.  The mage eventually gives up on whatever ritual or bargaining he was trying to perform, if that's even what was happening, and spends nearly an hour casting an incredible variety of different attack magics on our Dark Tapestry horror, using items and scrolls for it, increasing in their magnitude and spell-circle over time.  The Dark Tapestry horror writhes and throws its bubbling self about, probably screams unheard in voices that would drive mortals mad, is little damaged by the spells and regenerates the damage swiftly."

"Eight.  The mage finally destroys the Dark Tapestry horror with another vast explosion.  Still guised as a Chelish Security, he unblinds and frees the gathered sacrifices, informs them that the day's events will no doubt be classified a secret of Cheliax, and commands them to go home and say nothing of this.  He throws down some silver and a few gold coins, saying that he's not troubling himself to distribute it but he does expect all there will receive and keep a payment for silence; and states that the consequences of running their mouths will be left to their imagination."

"Nine.  The next day, our single witness tiefling heads into the nearest town and reports."

"I suppose I see the connection to Keltham's chemical secrets, now that you've pointed it out, in the form of great explosions that a tiefling villager's description couldn't identify as spellwork.  I still don't see what purpose Keltham would have in -"

"If we believe our tiefling subject's eyes - then who the fuck else would have access to that quantity of scrolls and magic items and would use them to run inscrutable experiments on a horror out of the Dark Tapestry?"

"And if we don't believe his eyes, only Keltham would think of casting that illusion or falsifying that memory."

Aspexia doesn't, quite, think in that way herself.  It isn't really a compliment to notice that Abrogail Thrune seems able to put herself in those shoes.  "I see."

"And - do you know the purpose of all that?"

Abrogail Thrune laughs.  It's high and bitter, it might perhaps, be tinged with a touch of madness, if her Splendour permitted any such thing to enter her voice, which it doesn't.

"Oh, I know what we're meant to think.  The same way we were meant to think that Keltham has a means for aggregating lesser diamonds into greater ones.  Unless of course that simply is what Keltham was about, in the City of Brass, and he didn't bother to conceal it from us because he thinks there's nothing we can do."

"Things out of the Dark Tapestry cause fear.  They cause horror.  Even a very prepared mind will still feel that fear, it is said; you must find fighters and wizards with high Wisdom to gather about you and conclude the fight quickly lest they all go mad.  Who fights a horror like that for an hour, casting spells of increasing power, when they evidently have the means about themselves to kill it more quickly?  Why?"

It takes Aspexia a moment to get that, and then her eyes widen very slightly yet visibly, so vast is her dismay.

For wizards and sorcerers to deliberately put themselves in a situation that outwardly seems painful and scary, but is ultimately safe, in order to increase their power - does not in fact work.  Otherwise everyone would do it.  Abrogail Thrune staked her life when she went to Hell, forfeit if she could not reach at least the fifth circle of sorcery, so that she would be frightened enough despite having deliberately put herself into that situation.

As for putting yourself under sufficient stress via exposing yourself to a powerful horror from the Dark Tapestry; well, the obvious reason why not everyone does that, is that you would go insane.