The next stage of the Keltham corruption plan is a very pretty set of earrings Carissa has just completed. They act as Geas, with a simple command: don't say no. The order Keltham gave her, with the secret logic Abrogail saw - that if she ever did refuse him, he'd know the premise of the whole thing had fallen apart. So this, of course, is the way to take that certainty from him. 

They're very impressive workmanship.

She's going to wait, she thinks, until after the suspension. Things feel - fragile. Not any specific things, just things in general. Keltham seemed persuaded by Lrilatha; Security says that no one has been inspired to treason by the knowledge that Cheliax is about to win for good. Why risk breaking their momentum towards the most difficult, terrifying, lonely thing she's ever imagined commanding?

She's terrified of it. She keeps thinking of bizarre and implausible ways she might fail to wake up. What if Abrogail's deposed. What if Osirion attacks. What if Civilization is wiped off the face of the planet but Carissa, trapped in stone, can't go to Hell. 

It's the winning move, and she likes winning moves, and anyway she has to serve Asmodeus first whatever she happens to want, but she can't help it feeling like the worst thing in the world. And she can't help feeling, on some deeper level, like -

- she's gotten much better at what she's been charged with doing. She is more Asmodean. Subirachs is pleased. She has encountered no indications that Abrogail and the Most High are anything less than delighted with how she has expertly managed the falling-apart disaster of a project she inherited into the greatest triumph in Chelish history. Keltham is in love with her, and whether or not she's still in love with him she doesn't think about too much; she's trying to have less feelings these days anyway. She has a new guiding heresy, of sorts, which is that the more of the flaws in yourself you correct before Hell the more of what and who you are you get to retain in your shaping into a devil. 

The Rovagug cultists have been devoured in Abaddon, and Peranza's in Hell, and it's really a testament to human weakness and fragility that she can manage to be haunted by both of those things, but she can.

The next stage of the Keltham corruption plan is a very pretty set of earrings Carissa has just completed. They act as Geas, with a simple command: don't say stop. The order Keltham gave her, with the secret logic Abrogail saw - that if she ever did refuse him, he'd know the premise of the whole thing had fallen apart. So this, of course, is the way to take that certainty from him. 

They're very impressive workmanship.

She's going to wait, she thinks, until after the suspension. Things feel - fragile. Not any specific things, just things in general. Keltham seemed persuaded by Lrilatha; Security says that no one has been inspired to treason by the knowledge that Cheliax is about to win for good. Why risk breaking their momentum towards the most difficult, terrifying, lonely thing she's ever imagined commanding?

She's terrified of it. She keeps thinking of bizarre and implausible ways she might fail to wake up. What if Abrogail's deposed. What if Osirion attacks. What if Civilization is wiped off the face of the planet but Carissa, trapped in stone, can't go to Hell. 

It's the winning move, and she likes winning moves, and anyway she has to serve Asmodeus first whatever she happens to want, but she can't help it feeling like the worst thing in the world. And she can't help feeling, on some deeper level, like -

- she's gotten much better at what she's been charged with doing. She is more Asmodean. Subirachs is pleased. She has encountered no indications that Abrogail and the Most High are anything less than delighted with how she has expertly managed the falling-apart disaster of a project she inherited into the greatest triumph in Chelish history. Keltham is in love with her, and whether or not she's still in love with him she doesn't think about too much; she's trying to have less feelings these days anyway. She has a new guiding heresy, of sorts, which is that the more of the flaws in yourself you correct before Hell the more of what and who you are you get to retain in your shaping into a devil. 

The Rovagug cultists have been devoured in Abaddon, and Peranza's in Hell, and it's really a testament to human weakness and fragility that she can manage to be haunted by both of those things, but she can.