This about dath ilani, they are trained in a theory of social deception that says that people can arrange reasons, excuses, for anything, and so at the end of it all you look at what happened and try to build an explanation around that alone.

It didn't take very long after Keltham understood Cheliax as a security-theoretic Adversary for Keltham to go back and question the entire chain of logic that led up to Meritxell disguising herself as other people.

And one of Meritxell's guises was Abrogail Thrune, which Keltham did check by surprise with Glimpse of Truth/Beyond in case there wasn't an Alter Self, running, because it was not lost at all on Keltham that if reality was an eroLARP then he would at some point have actual sex with Abrogail Thrune.

He checked the first time, and the third time, but not the second time or the fourth and later times, and with Abrogail running eighth-circle Detect Thoughts on him she could have known whether he had that spell.

Abrogail Thrune, who took the initiative to set him up with having one of his girlfriends use Alter Self.

Were there plausible reasons?  Dath ilani in socially adversarial situations are trained to look past those, at the end result, at what happened and not the reasons for it.

Abrogail Thrune set him up with one of his girlfriends to use Alter Self, Keltham predictably asked that girlfriend to guise herself as Abrogail Thrune, Keltham did not use Glimpse of Truth to check every time.

Keltham did not write down exact days, about when they started doing that; but a conservative estimate would be that it was after Day 50 of the way Keltham himself was counting time.

...even that is assuming they didn't just invisibly magically intercept semen from oral sex, or extract it directly from his testicles while he was under anesthesia, and impregnate a hundred other people; but Cheliax has not been depicted as being that competent so far, at least not to his own character viewpoint, which is the one that should matter if the story is being fair at all.  For them to go a step beyond that and bother to fake the Abrogail Thrune interaction - so that Keltham would have a hundred pregnancies in progress, but only worry about one - it's possible, but seems more like the strategic level of a real dath ilani adversary, than the Chelish Conspiracy as it seems to have developed by then, that didn't have a whole bookstore of books on Cheliax ready.

If the story is being fair, the pregnancies he has to worry about are Abrogail Thrune and maybe Jacint Subirachs.  Those are the two people Keltham asked Meritxell to pose as, who hadn't signed his contract and were not out of dath ilan...

...well, they could have used people Alter Selfing to others he'd signed the contract with, or Alter Selfing in Meritxell's place to the dath ilani women he'd shown her.  That doesn't take steal-semen-from-testicles cleverness.

This about dath ilani, they are trained in a theory of social deception that says that people can arrange reasons, excuses, for anything, and so at the end of it all you look at what happened and try to build an explanation around that alone.

It didn't take very long after Keltham understood Cheliax as a security-theoretic Adversary for Keltham to go back and question the entire chain of logic that led up to Meritxell disguising herself as other people.

And one of Meritxell's guises was Abrogail Thrune, which Keltham did check by surprise with Glimpse of Truth/Beyond in case there wasn't an Alter Self, running, because it was not lost at all on Keltham that if reality was an eroLARP then he would at some point have actual sex with Abrogail Thrune.

He checked the first time, and the third time, but not the second time or the fourth and later times, and with Abrogail running eighth-circle Detect Thoughts on him she could have known whether he had that spell.

Abrogail Thrune, who took the initiative to set him up with having one of his girlfriends use Alter Self.

Were there plausible reasons?  Dath ilani in socially adversarial situations are trained to look past those, at the end result, at what happened and not the reasons for it.

Abrogail Thrune set him up with one of his girlfriends to use Alter Self, Keltham predictably asked that girlfriend to guise herself as Abrogail Thrune, Keltham did not use Glimpse of Truth to check every time.

Keltham did not write down exact days, about when they started doing that; but a conservative estimate would be that it was after Day 50 of the way Keltham himself was counting time.  Abrogail Thrune... maybe Day 60.

...even that is assuming they didn't just invisibly magically intercept semen from oral sex, or extract it directly from his testicles while he was under anesthesia, and impregnate a hundred other people; but Cheliax has not been depicted as being that competent so far, at least not to his own character viewpoint, which is the one that should matter if the story is being fair at all.  For them to go a step beyond that and bother to fake the Abrogail Thrune interaction - so that Keltham would have a hundred pregnancies in progress, but only worry about one - it's possible, but seems more like the strategic level of a real dath ilani adversary, than the Chelish Conspiracy as it seems to have developed by then, that didn't have a whole bookstore of books on Cheliax ready.

If the story is being fair, the pregnancies he has to worry about are Abrogail Thrune and maybe Jacint Subirachs.  Those are the two people Keltham asked Meritxell to pose as, who hadn't signed his contract and were not out of dath ilan...

...well, they could have used people Alter Selfing to others he'd signed the contract with, or Alter Selfing in Meritxell's place to the dath ilani women he'd shown her.  That doesn't take steal-semen-from-testicles cleverness.

This about dath ilani, they are trained in a theory of social deception that says that people can arrange reasons, excuses, for anything, and so at the end of it all you look at what happened and try to build an explanation around that alone.

It didn't take very long after Keltham understood Cheliax as a security-theoretic Adversary for Keltham to go back and question the entire chain of logic that led up to Meritxell disguising herself as other people.

And one of Meritxell's guises was Abrogail Thrune, which Keltham did check by surprise with Glimpse of Truth/Beyond in case there wasn't an Alter Self, running, because it was not lost at all on Keltham that if reality was an eroLARP then he would at some point have actual sex with Abrogail Thrune.

He checked the first time, and the third time, but not the second time or the fourth and later times, and with Abrogail running eighth-circle Detect Thoughts on him she could have known whether he had that spell.

Abrogail Thrune, who took the initiative to set him up with having one of his girlfriends use Alter Self.

Were there plausible reasons?  Dath ilani in socially adversarial situations are trained to look past those, at the end result, at what happened and not the reasons for it.

Abrogail Thrune set him up with one of his girlfriends to use Alter Self, Keltham predictably asked that girlfriend to guise herself as Abrogail Thrune, Keltham did not use Glimpse of Truth to check every time.

Keltham did not write down exact days, about when they started doing that; but a conservative estimate would be that it was after Day 50 of the way Keltham himself was counting time.  Abrogail Thrune... maybe Day 60.

...even that is assuming they didn't just invisibly magically intercept semen from oral sex, or extract it directly from his testicles while he was under anesthesia, and impregnate a hundred other people; but Cheliax has not been depicted as being that competent so far, at least not to his own character viewpoint, which is the one that should matter if the story is being fair at all.  For them to go a step beyond that and bother to fake the Abrogail Thrune interaction - so that Keltham would have a hundred pregnancies in progress, but only worry about one - it's possible, but seems more like the strategic level of a real dath ilani adversary, than the Chelish Conspiracy as it seems to have developed by then, that didn't have a whole bookstore of books on Cheliax ready.

If the story is being fair, the pregnancies he has to worry about are Abrogail Thrune and maybe Jacint Subirachs.  Those are the two people Keltham asked Meritxell to pose as, who hadn't signed his contract and were not out of dath ilan...

...well, they could have used people Alter Selfing to others he'd signed the contract with, or Alter Selfing in Meritxell's place to the dath ilani women he'd shown her.  That doesn't take steal-semen-from-testicles levels of cheatiness.

This about dath ilani, they are trained in a theory of social deception that says that people can arrange reasons, excuses, for anything, and so at the end of it all you look at what happened and try to build an explanation around that alone.

It didn't take very long after Keltham understood Cheliax as a security-theoretic Adversary for Keltham to go back and question the entire chain of logic that led up to Meritxell disguising herself as other people.

And one of Meritxell's guises was Abrogail Thrune, which Keltham did check by surprise with Glimpse of Truth/Beyond in case there wasn't an Alter Self, running, because it was not lost at all on Keltham that if reality was an eroLARP then he would at some point have actual sex with Abrogail Thrune.

He checked the first time, and the third time, but not the second time or the fourth and later times, and with Abrogail running eighth-circle Detect Thoughts on him she could have known whether he had that spell.

Abrogail Thrune, who took the initiative to set him up with having one of his girlfriends use Alter Self.

Were there plausible reasons?  Dath ilani in socially adversarial situations are trained to look past those, at the end result, at what happened and not the reasons for it.

Abrogail Thrune set him up with one of his girlfriends to use Alter Self, Keltham predictably asked that girlfriend to guise herself as Abrogail Thrune, Keltham did not use Glimpse of Truth to check every time.

Keltham did not write down exact days, about when Meritxell started being other people like Carissa or Merrin; but a conservative estimate would be that it was after Day 50 of the way Keltham himself was counting time.  Abrogail Thrune... maybe Day 60.

...even that is assuming they didn't just invisibly magically intercept semen from oral sex, or extract it directly from his testicles while he was under anesthesia, and impregnate a hundred other people; but Cheliax has not been depicted as being that competent so far, at least not to his own character viewpoint, which is the one that should matter if the story is being fair at all.  For them to go a step beyond that and bother to fake the Abrogail Thrune interaction - so that Keltham would have a hundred pregnancies in progress, but only worry about one - it's possible, but seems more like the strategic level of a real dath ilani adversary, than the Chelish Conspiracy as it seems to have developed by then, that didn't have a whole bookstore of books on Cheliax ready.

If the story is being fair, the pregnancies he has to worry about are Abrogail Thrune and maybe Jacint Subirachs.  Those are the two people Keltham asked Meritxell to pose as, who hadn't signed his contract and were not out of dath ilan...

...well, they could have used people Alter Selfing to others he'd signed the contract with, or Alter Selfing in Meritxell's place to the dath ilani women he'd shown her.  That doesn't take steal-semen-from-testicles levels of cheatiness.

This about dath ilani, they are trained in a theory of social deception that says that people can arrange reasons, excuses, for anything, and so at the end of it all you look at what happened and try to build an explanation around that alone.

It didn't take very long after Keltham understood Cheliax as a security-theoretic Adversary for Keltham to go back and question the entire chain of logic that led up to Meritxell disguising herself as other people.

And one of Meritxell's guises was Abrogail Thrune, which Keltham did check by surprise with Glimpse of Truth/Beyond in case there wasn't an Alter Self, running, because it was not lost at all on Keltham that if reality was an eroLARP then he would at some point have actual sex with Abrogail Thrune.

He checked the first time, and the third time, but not the second time or the fourth and later times, and with Abrogail running eighth-circle Detect Thoughts on him she could have known whether he had that spell.

Abrogail Thrune, who took the initiative to set him up with having one of his girlfriends use Alter Self.

Were there plausible reasons?  Dath ilani in socially adversarial situations are trained to look past those, at the end result, at what happened and not the reasons for it.

End result:  Abrogail Thrune set him up with one of his girlfriends to use Alter Self, Keltham predictably asked that girlfriend to guise herself as Abrogail Thrune, Keltham did not use Glimpse of Truth to check every time.

Keltham did not write down exact days, about when Meritxell started being other people like Carissa or Merrin; but a conservative estimate would be that it was after Day 50 of the way Keltham himself was counting time.  Abrogail Thrune... maybe Day 60.

...even that is assuming they didn't just invisibly magically intercept semen from oral sex, or extract it directly from his testicles while he was under anesthesia, and impregnate a hundred other people; but Cheliax has not been depicted as being that competent so far, at least not to his own character viewpoint, which is the one that should matter if the story is being fair at all.  For them to go a step beyond that and bother to fake the Abrogail Thrune interaction - so that Keltham would have a hundred pregnancies in progress, but only worry about one - it's possible, but seems more like the strategic level of a real dath ilani adversary, than the Chelish Conspiracy as it seems to have developed by then, that didn't have a whole bookstore of books on Cheliax ready.

If the story is being fair, the pregnancies he has to worry about are Abrogail Thrune and maybe Jacint Subirachs.  Those are the two people Keltham asked Meritxell to pose as, who hadn't signed his contract and were not out of dath ilan...

...well, they could have used people Alter Selfing to others he'd signed the contract with, or Alter Selfing in Meritxell's place to the dath ilani women he'd shown her.  That doesn't take steal-semen-from-testicles levels of cheatiness.

This about dath ilani, they are trained in a theory of social deception that says that people can arrange reasons, excuses, for anything - so at the end of it all you look at what happened, and try to build an explanation around that alone.

It didn't take very long after Keltham understood Cheliax as a security-theoretic Adversary for Keltham to go back and question the entire chain of logic that led up to Meritxell disguising herself as other people.

And one of Meritxell's guises was Abrogail Thrune, which Keltham did check by surprise with Glimpse of Truth/Beyond in case there wasn't an Alter Self, running, because it was not lost at all on Keltham that if reality was an eroLARP then he would at some point have actual sex with Abrogail Thrune.

He checked the first time, and the third time, but not the second time or the fourth and later times, and with Abrogail running eighth-circle Detect Thoughts on him she could have known whether he had that spell.

Abrogail Thrune, who took the initiative to set him up with having one of his girlfriends use Alter Self.

Were there plausible reasons?  Dath ilani in socially adversarial situations are trained to look past those, at the end result, at what happened and not the reasons for it.

End result:  Abrogail Thrune set him up with one of his girlfriends to use Alter Self, Keltham predictably asked that girlfriend to guise herself as Abrogail Thrune, Keltham did not use Glimpse of Truth to check every time.

Keltham did not write down exact days, about when Meritxell started being other people like Carissa or Merrin; but a conservative estimate would be that it was after Day 50 of the way Keltham himself was counting time.  Abrogail Thrune... maybe Day 60.

...even that is assuming they didn't just invisibly magically intercept semen from oral sex, or extract it directly from his testicles while he was under anesthesia, and impregnate a hundred other people; but Cheliax has not been depicted as being that competent so far, at least not to his own character viewpoint, which is the one that should matter if the story is being fair at all.  For them to go a step beyond that and bother to fake the Abrogail Thrune interaction - so that Keltham would have a hundred pregnancies in progress, but only worry about one - it's possible, but seems more like the strategic level of a real dath ilani adversary, than the Chelish Conspiracy as it seems to have developed by then, that didn't have a whole bookstore of books on Cheliax ready.

If the story is being fair, the pregnancies he has to worry about are Abrogail Thrune and maybe Jacint Subirachs.  Those are the two people Keltham asked Meritxell to pose as, who hadn't signed his contract and were not out of dath ilan...

...well, they could have used people Alter Selfing to others he'd signed the contract with, or Alter Selfing in Meritxell's place to the dath ilani women he'd shown her.  That doesn't take steal-semen-from-testicles levels of cheatiness.

This about dath ilani, they are trained in a theory of social deception that says that people can arrange reasons, excuses, for anything - so at the end of it all you look at what happened, and try to build an explanation around that alone.

It didn't take very long after Keltham understood Cheliax as a security-theoretic Adversary for Keltham to go back and question the entire chain of logic that led up to Meritxell disguising herself as other people.

And one of Meritxell's guises was Abrogail Thrune, which Keltham did check by surprise with Glimpse of Truth/Beyond in case there wasn't an Alter Self, running, because it was not lost at all on Keltham that if reality was an eroLARP then he would at some point have actual sex with Abrogail Thrune.

He checked the first time, and the third time, but not the second time or the fourth and later times, and with Abrogail running eighth-circle Detect Thoughts on him she could have known whether he had that spell.

Abrogail Thrune, who took the initiative to set him up with having one of his girlfriends use Alter Self.

Were there plausible reasons?  Dath ilani in socially adversarial situations are trained to look past those, at the end result, at what happened and not the reasons for it.

End result:  Abrogail Thrune set him up with one of his girlfriends to use Alter Self, Keltham predictably asked that girlfriend to guise herself as Abrogail Thrune, Keltham did not use Glimpse of Truth to check every time.

Keltham did not write down exact days, about when Meritxell started being other people like Carissa or Merrin; but a conservative estimate would be that it was after Day 50 of the way Keltham himself was counting time.  Abrogail Thrune... maybe Day 60.

...even that is assuming they didn't just invisibly magically intercept semen from oral sex, or extract it directly from his testicles while he was under anesthesia, and impregnate a hundred other people; but Cheliax has not been depicted as being that competent so far, at least not to his own character viewpoint, which is the one that should matter if the story is being fair at all.  For them to go a step beyond that and bother to fake the Abrogail Thrune interaction - so that Keltham would have a hundred pregnancies in progress, but only worry about one - it's possible, but seems more like the strategic level of a real dath ilani adversary, than the Chelish Conspiracy as it seems to have developed by then, that didn't have a whole bookstore of books on Cheliax ready.

If the story is being fair, the pregnancies he has to worry about are Abrogail Thrune and maybe Jacint Subirachs.  Those are the two people Keltham asked Meritxell to pose as, who hadn't signed his contract and were not out of dath ilan...

...well, they could have used people Alter Selfing to others he'd signed the contract with, or Alter Selfing in Meritxell's place to the dath ilani women he'd shown her?  That doesn't take steal-semen-from-testicles levels of cheatiness.  But it would come with a risk, that Keltham noticed something off in the interaction, that he expected from Meritxell...

Meritxell and Abrogail Thrune could have rehearsed it, Abrogail imitating Meritxell imitating Abrogail, somebody else could've done the same thing about imitating Meritxell imitating Merrin, and Meritxell did do Merrin earlier but not much earlier...