The man smiles drolly.  "Hardly an indulgence in darkness, Sevar.  It also seems unwise for us to attempt to undo one of the most direct effects of our Lord's unexplained actions.  It is possible that a critical point in this entire affair is that everyone with arcane sight here will be fooled by some trick or illusion, which only you will successfully resist.  Though that is less probable today than it would have been historically, when prophecy was unbroken and the gods' commands more often had such effects.  And if you do enough to merit the loan of an item enchanted for magical detection or arcane sight, it will be loaned to you, as Asmodeus commanded us to reward you no less than you had earned.  The Most High is fond of regularly pointing out how much our lives can be simplified by just following Asmodeus's commands precisely."

They've completed the circuit of the villa.  The Grand High Priestess halts her strides and makes a silencing gesture, then takes an incense burner out of her dress's folds, followed by enough incense that - if you have any sense for the grade of incense she's using - it is going to constitute a significant part of the Chelish government's expenses for today.

From a wizard's perspective, this cleric spell takes her a shockingly short time to cast, for a ritual of that expense and permanent effect.  It's over in less than a minute, an extremely smoky and fragrant one.

When it's done, the Paraduke speaks again.  "This affair is confusing.  Some might even say, alarming.  Our Lord did not forbid us from questioning you about it.  The instructions we did receive, however, imply a generally high degree of caution.  The Most High has guessed that, if we would otherwise press you with questions, our Lord would probably have needed to command us not to do it, given the character of His other commands.  By avoiding pressing you with questions, then, we can perhaps have saved our Lord some cost and space for other instruction."

"With that said, if there is anything you want to say about this whole affair, the Most High wants to hear it.  But you must not treat that truth as a command from the Most High.  If that were predictably the way you behaved, Asmodeus might have needed to expend greater costs to tell the Most High not to appear before you and listen silently to you, if that is something she should not do."

"In thinking this way, the Most High instructs us, we are to ignore entirely the fact that Asmodeus has already acted.  We are not to reason in any way that includes the fact that Asmodeus has already omitted to instruct us to avoid questions.  We must still act to avoid wasting our Lord's time and energy, even now that it has already been spent, because His own sight spans time and our own actions in a way that our mortal perspectives do not.  We have been cursed with free will; but we can choose not to use it, and make ourselves predictable instead."

"I can barely understand the matter, myself, but the Most High understands it better and it is she who instructs:  This opportunity to speak must not be taken by you as a veiled order from the Most High."

"If, however, there is anything you want to say about this entire affair, the Most High Aspexia Rugatonn bids me say to you in her presence that, should you have received other revelations from Asmodeus, or know of other relevant facts rendering this affair more understandable, she has not deduced on her own part that Asmodeus intended her not to hear of it."

And maybe they aren’t reading her mind, if that would entail being proactive? It’s bizarre to think they might not have been, and she doesn’t intend to put any weight on it, but - but maybe she’s going to have to say her speculation aloud if she wants it known by her superiors, without the plausible deniability about whether she thought it worth bringing to their attention.

“Asmodeus has not otherwise communicated with me,” she says. “I - if I had to guess why me, my best guess was… during Keltham’s lessons I was trying to work out a reconciliation of the things dath ilan knows, about how humans came to be and how they learn and in what arenas they can learn the patterns gods run on, with theology as it was taught to me. And I think the instructions were perhaps aimed at - me doing that right, rather than how I was doing it, which was too Lawful Neutral.”

Paraduke Rathus Ratarion now has additional questions.  He opens his mouth to ask, albeit more subtly and gently than he usually would, exactly what new theology Sevar thinks she was inventing that would merit direct correction and encouragement from Asmodeus Himself rather than from her superiors.

Tread carefully, Aspexia Rugatonn sends across their open Telepathy bond, tinging her thoughts with just enough coldness and hints of the lash to remind the Paraduke to be concerned with his continuing possession of his skin, and not just his curiosity or indignation.  Say nothing proactively that this frightened child might possibly take as a hint of correction.

This sort of lunacy drives Aspexia Rugatonn completely up the wall.  What if this child did, in fact, stumble over some thought that the current priesthood of Asmodeus would not have thought on their own, and Asmodeus was trying to correct and encourage her in that?  Wouldn't they have received orders very similar to the ones Asmodeus gave them?  Why is this Paraduke trying to make Asmodeus's life more difficult in possible cases like that one?  Yes, what's going on is more likely that Sevar thought something so Lawful Neutral that it triggered an old compact between Asmodeus and Irori, but if that's what's actually happening then it is beneficial for Asmodeus that Sevar seems to believe she's being encouraged to work on a more Lawful Evil theology.  A beneficial delusion which, in that possible case, they can avoid disturbing by following their orders.

Ratarion doesn't show any hint of a wince outside, but after a moment's thought, he realizes what he probably did wrong.  Yes, if there's some contest between Irori and Asmodeus going on, Sevar should not be snapped out of any delusions she has about inventing her own theology, so long as it's a Lawful Evil one.

Automatically Ratarion now opens his mouth again, now with the intent of saying to Sevar that the Most High would no doubt find it interesting to hear of any thought which merited Asmodeus's direct attention -

Stop.  Stop being proactive.  Stop showing initiative to help our Lord accomplish His goals after He gave you more specific instructions than that.  Just obey in a way our Lord would have found predictable.

Aspexia Rugatonn sometimes permits herself the vanity of thinking that she has come to understand a tiny bit of Asmodeus's divine frustration.  No matter what orders Asmodeus gives, there is always some part of mortals - even of her, but she is managing it better - that thinks "obedience" means treating Asmodeus's orders as constraints, or worse, hints as to what Asmodeus is really trying to do, by which means the mortal can helpfully understand what Asmodeus is really trying to do, and then cleverly navigate around the edges of Asmodeus's order-constraints to accomplish that better.

Aspexia has tried telling other people that they need to become more the sorts of beings that Asmodeus can easily and safely steer using brief instructions.  It doesn't seem to help.  Nobody other than her ever gets it.  She is speaking some word that is not in the innate language of their being.

Aspexia once devised the parable of a three-year-old child whose owner must instruct it to navigate it through a dungeon full of traps, using a limited budget of words.  To teach her student clerics how the world must look from Asmodeus's perspective.  To make them ask themselves how much they'd want the child to plainly follow direct orders where it got those, versus showing creative initiative for all the cases its orders didn't seem to cover, versus responding quickly to the unexpected, versus the child trying to deduce what its orders "really meant" and going the extra mile on its owner's inferred goals.

The parable didn't work, so she requisitioned access to a dungeon and bought some three-year-olds and tried making her clerics actually run the exercise.  So they could see what happened when the three-year-old acted towards them like they were acting towards Asmodeus.

It still didn't help.  There seems to be something about the concept that is contrary to the nature of a mortal soul.  Mortals just end up with goals, even if you tell them to take Asmodeus's goals as their own they still end up with goals, mortals don't just obey they end up with a goal of obedience and then they start trying to figure out how to dance around the edges of Asmodeus's instructions so they can obey Him even more.  Aspexia can see what they're doing wrong, but she has never been able to successfully get that concept inside of a fellow mortal.  She can talk it at her flock but they're still mortals after she's done talking.  The training games she's devised didn't seem to help much outside of the specific games themselves.  The way that a mortal should obey, the way that a distant god who can't communicate clearly and doesn't have much time to think about them would want them to obey - "corrigibility", she once tried naming it to her flock - it's just so alien to a mortal's nature.

Aspexia Rugatonn sometimes permits herself the vanity of thinking that she has come to understand a tiny bit of her own owner's frustration.

"While I imagine the Most High is curious about specifics," Ratarion says, a few moments later, "if you would like any manner of theological instruction with respect to your ideas, I believe our Lord's orders imply that the senior cleric at your installation would be the one to converse with, and they could also pass a report to the Most High not intended for any further correction.  Alternatively, if you do not yet seek such instruction, a report on your current thoughts, not intended to seek any form of correction, could be sent directly to the Most High -"  A slight hesitation.  "Though I believe the Most High would wish me to emphasize that neither of these are - commands, attempts to push around the edges of Asmodeus's probable orders regarding the degree to which we are not to be proactive - if you spend time urgently composing such a report, and miss a key lesson from your teacher, if you focus your thoughts on the Most High's reactions and pay less attention in class, we would have perhaps managed to do a form of damage that Asmodeus would have need to give further orders to prevent - you should not, I am trying to suggest, go too far out of the path you would otherwise take, to file any report, if it seems you would never have done that without us coming here and being proactive -"  Ratarion does wince visibly, this time, and then emits a very charming smile.  "Not being proactive really is quite hard for a mortal, isn't it?  Perhaps I should simply be silent."

"If there were an agent here in my place which was smart enough, they could imagine out a Carissa, exactly as she stood an hour ago, on her way to go to magic lessons with Keltham and the rest of his girls, and project out when she would have sought correction, and exactly how she would have clarified all the questions she was contemplating, and so that Carissa could continue on her trajectory unimpeded by this conversation, or any future ones that the things I might want to explain would necessitate, and we could discuss all of the specifics while leaving that Carissa out of the loop, so to speak, to do precisely as she has been ordered.

I'm not that smart, and I'm not sure anyone is, past the end of prophecy, but there's a simpler approach, of tracking down those impulses that this conversation might have unwisely insinuated into Carissa, and choking them off, and preserving myself in the state of one who has attracted no proactive interest whatsoever, while still having told you everything useful I can. I will try, because it is my desire to be inexpensive for Asmodeus to direct, and because it is my desire to get your advice without you being obliged by my inability to avoid following it to barely give it in the first place. But I suspect my trying will be imperfect, because I am not smart enough to contain a Carissa; I am one. 

I think a Count in this position would give his daughter a headband."

This is what always happens when she tries to explain to her fellow mortals why they need to be easier to steer.  They start thinking even more complicated thoughts and inventing elaborate ways to be easier to steer that would involve doing even more things, pursuing goals, and even, in this case, increasing their intelligence.  Aspexia is not even angry anymore.  She is just numb.

"I believe we are approaching the point where our putative Count would find the heiress's insistence to be less adorable, Sevar.  The senior officer at this installation would be an appropriate audience for any assertions by you that a headband would be necessary to your work -"

Aspexia Rugatonn speaks out loud for the first time.  "Hold," she says in a clear cold voice.  "I have received a message.  The Lawful Neutral god who bestowed two oracle circles has been identified.  It is Otolmens.  Have you been told who that is, Sevar?"

"Goddess of - keeping the world intact -"

"I would, under other circumstances, regret having just completed this Forbiddance here, which would make it more difficult and expensive to move this project to the other side of Golarion from Cheliax.  However, any matter which merits Otolmens's attention is one which you cannot escape that easily, and requires getting at least off the local plane."

"If this project had not been the subject of two direct interventions by Asmodeus, and been created as a result of Asmodeus's intervention, I would order the deaths of every person here except for Otolmens's oracle, and hope that this had been sufficient."

"It is a sufficiently severe matter that I am now stating directly, though still without direct threat or consequence otherwise, that if you know anything I should know about this, before I offer Asmodeus a further costly opportunity to guide me, I believe that not only Asmodeus but every Lawful god and most non-Lawful gods would prefer that you share it with me."

Aspexia guesses, though it's a less certain guess than usual, that if Asmodeus wanted her to not ask questions about a fucking Otolmens event then Asmodeus would have used His limited communications budget to communicate that to her directly.

"It's got to be about Keltham. Am I the only person who has read his mind or did someone else get in on that before he got clericed and it became risky - or have you got an expensive way to do it anyway, I think it's worth it -"

"Ignore any channels you think I may have for receiving information about Keltham other than yourself, including your own past reports.  Speak to me as if I'd never heard of the man, explain to me why Otolmens is acting."

"Keltham is from a world with an average intelligence of 18 and a billion people, well-coordinated. They are richer than us and have invented many things we haven't which should nonetheless function in our world, some underlying laws being the same. He has patterns of thought that I'm pretty sure don't occur on Golarion at all - he's just better at thinking, he's not smarter than me but it's like he's half overcome the curse of having a mortal brain through deliberate practice, and he thinks of himself as very weak at it, compared to a dath ilani with an aptitude, and he's trying to teach us. They have dangerous ideas and dangerous inventions which aren't known to Keltham, held by Keepers, but probably possible to derive independently, and Keltham doesn't know how they handle people who derive them or which things he shouldn't reinvent. Lrilatha warned him about that. They screened off their entire history because there was something dangerous in it."

Aspexia thinks.  The more thoughts of her own she has, so long as she holds them lightly, the easier it will be for Asmodeus to point to any of them, if any of them are correct.  If, indeed, this matter merits Asmodeus's attention at all.  It - could be that Nethys and Otolmens have some rivalry after the fashion of more ordinary gods?  Nethys dropping two oracle circles, followed by Otolmens responding with two oracle circles, is suggestive of that.  It could be that there is some more ordinary divine game going on and not the world ending.  Asmodeus isn't acting like the world is ending, and Abadar shouldn't be dropping four cleric circles on somebody who's going to end it.

Aspexia spares a moment of frustration for how it is impossible for consecrations, forbiddances, wardings, or literally anything else, to keep Nethys out of anything.  Ordering Nethys's oracle killed and maledicted would be an obvious tactic, but Nethys's oracle seems like she might be harder than usual to maledict, or even take out of her library.  Which means that Nethys was thinking about Chelish responses, not just being insane.  And if they kill Ione Sala and Nethys's clerics resurrect her, then Nethys's clerics may find out what's going on here with Keltham, if they don't already know.

"I will soon pray to Asmodeus.  My default intention, which Asmodeus may choose not to correct, will be to equip Otolmens's oracle with invisibility items and a weapon and permit him to monitor and intervene in events in this facility as he wishes.  He will have pointed out to him Keltham and Ione Sala - she is now, allegedly against her own will, an oracle of Nethys, if you had not been informed of that - as possible objects of his attention.  Do you, Sevar, wish to offer any corrections, however slight, to my default plan?"

"I think Keltham would agree to put all his teaching on hold indefinitely, if you told him Otolmens oracled someone, which you could do in addition to empowering the oracle, if you expect to have better options to present Asmodeus later."

Aspexia does not scream at Sevar about how causing every single intervention of a god to have lots and lots of different effects is not always helpful to that god.  It's not that Aspexia would balk at screaming this repeatedly at somebody while burning off their fingers and healing them back, it's that she's found doing so doesn't help.

"Otolmens's existence is considered a secret because of how we do not wish to direct more attention to Her domain.  It is more in accord with usual policy surrounding Otolmens, to not call this matter to Keltham's attention and potentially turn his thoughts in that direction."

"This policy is not mostly about the chance that Keltham will act deliberately, Sevar.  The problem lies in turning people's thoughts in a direction, calling their attention to the harmful thing.  If you tell someone that Otolmens worries they might destroy the world, they may ask themselves how they'd do that or ask themselves why they'd do that.  I would, ordinarily, just kill and maledict him, but Asmodeus told us not to do that, and also Abadar has made the man His cleric.  It is a frustrating situation to be in, and in those situations, it is often wiser to do less than to do more, if you have not been instructed otherwise."  Says the three-year-old in the dungeon, and lives a little longer.

"With that said, would you recommend moderately strongly, especially if your recommendation is based on information not known to me, that I come before Asmodeus with a default policy of warning Keltham explicitly?"

"No." Maybe dath ilan has categorically adequate training in how to take that information and not make things worse with it, not think about all the implications or the likely mechanisms. It would not be surprising if dath ilan did. But Keltham hasn't directly said it does, and her argument seems obviously true of Golarion people, who are worse.

"If you come across any further information on this Otolmens event which you think is relevant, standard protocols call for you to report it separately to the highest priest and senior military officer of this installation, to be separately reported to myself and Her Infernal Majestrix.  You are not to assume that any such information has been reported by other channels; duplicate it.  Follow these instructions unless you are quite sure that your other instructions from Hell or Asmodeus supersede them."

"I understand."

"I'm going to go talk to Otolmens's oracle, then pray.  Do you consider it necessary to insert yourself into that discussion?"