Abrogail Thrune, in her prison, wants for nothing a monarch out of Golarion could reasonably expect to have, except one: power.

Unfortunately for her, power is approximately the only thing she ever has wanted. Without Cheliax to rule, her Intelligence and Wisdom and Splendor and eight circles of sorcery are for naught; what purpose has she for them, here, where her commands are not answered and all her favorite amusements are illegal? (Abrogail is Lawful enough, for now, to obey all her captors’ laws, until the moment she overthrows them. Break the law only to seize power; in all other cases observe it.)

Even the tame bedroom-games which people in Good countries sometimes play, those mockeries of real power, seem to be forbidden here, or at least unmentioned in any work of fiction permitted to her.

It occurs to her, once, that perhaps she is in Hell. Her last memory of Golarion, her last memory that wasn’t completely insane, is too sudden and brief for its contents to be sure to her, but she almost certainly did die. Unlike this place, however, Hell is a place that makes sense. In Hell there is pain to be given and pain to be received, and if, for a time, she was to be on the receiving end, then such was a small price to pay to live in a world which permitted her to deal it. It is the true and considered opinion of Abrogail Thrune—it would hold up under much more reflection than anyone in Cheliax, including her, is encouraged to do about it—that a world ignorant of pain and fear, without unconditional power or absolute submission, would in fact be missing something essential, for the slaves as well as the masters.

This world will learn, in time.

She could, of course, simply leave. She still has her sorcery about her; it they cannot counter, having known nothing of magic before she arrived. She does not hesitate to do so simply because she has failed at it twice already—that thought barely enters her mind, and when it does, it is answered that she knew nothing of their capabilities then, and was in far too much of a hurry besides. With careful planning she could, actually, escape. She doesn’t, because—

—here, though she has no power, power is near; here she is beside the beating heart of the conspiracy that rules this world, ready to strike at it. And what a conspiracy it is! The people of this world are natural slaves to a degree that would make Asmodeus blush. They cheerfully rehearse to overthrow the government, like they’re in fucking Galt or something, having apparently no idea—though they must, their books practically make it explicit—that “Governance” is not at all where real power lies. She notes that there is no festival about overthrowing the Keepers.

A senior Keeper, she has calculated, has approximately the mental stats of a pit fiend. If Gorthoklek could design an argument that would convince every single Chelish person, without exception enough to make a difference, that there was nothing to see there in the history of Cheliax before the reign of Abrogail I, that the seal was for their own good—Cheliax would look rather different.

The only reason she’s still alive, so far as she can tell, is that if they killed her they would have no idea how her magic works, and they consider the danger from not knowing that greater than the danger she presents. They’re probably wrong about that, but she won’t complain. She starts pondering for what price she might tell them something useful.