"...Deliberately, I think, but I haven't met them myself."

"Do they tend to be the sort of worlds that urgently need taking over? Or is that something else your sources haven't mentioned?"

"I'm not sure me and my alts have the same definition of urgently needing taken over as other people, but people at least seem to agree that mine could use it."

"...Oh?"

"Well, for one thing, every year, two dozen teenagers are rounded up and put in an arena until only one of them is alive."

"Unpleasant," he says. "I am effective enough at taking over worlds that I managed an entire continent before I learned how to stop. Perhaps I can help with yours."

"Well, what do you do with your continent? My world is pretty bad but it could be worse and I've met, you know, all kinds of people in here, no offense."

Nod nod. "Being a god-emperor sounds like a pretty good deal."

"Yes. Unfortunately, both my mortal and my divine neighbours found my success threatening. The problem fed on itself; someone would attack me, I would defeat them, I would gain yet more territory or followers in the exchange, everyone else would become slightly more nervous, and then the cycle would repeat with the next god or king. The last few kings surrendered, and the last few gods fled rather than wait a few more centuries for all their followers to abandon them, and now I have an empire."

"By accident. Huh."

"I now strictly avoid claiming territory, divinely or otherwise, on any continent but my own. I have embassies and I receive immigrants, but I am strongly disinclined to risk conquering anyone who does not egregiously need it. Your world sounds like it might qualify."

"It needs it. I'm just not sure what you'd actually... do. It would be hard to get an army through the bar."

"I wouldn't necessarily have to," he says. "I assume no part of your world has been previously claimed by a god from mine - if it has, that would be a major obstacle. But if not, I can send a holy object home with you and expand my divine territory to cover as much of your world as necessary. There will be some changes to the landscape, but my terrain type is fairly flexible, so most things should stay recognizable. No mountains being leveled or entire forests sprouting from the ground. After that - I can see and hear anywhere I choose to look within my domain, wich should help me decide what exactly to do next. Leveling mountains and sprouting forests and diverting rivers are all within my capacity."

"The Capitol can do that too. I'm mostly just guessing from the bit about aqueducts and the way you're dressed how many things have been invented already in your world, but they have a lot of advanced technology, including some really powerful weapons."

"I've heard of some things here that don't exist yet in my world. Go on."

"I don't live there so everything I know about what they have is heavily filtered or through here where I have a lot of other things to read about, but they've got animals that they've - messed with, so that they're stronger or meaner or carry drugs or eavesdrop and respond to Capitol handlers. People can't sail out to sea too far or their boat will get attacked by a kraken, that's a big messed-with squid. There's wasps that can follow a person forever and mess with your mind if they sting you, there's birds that listen in on conversations and then go repeat them back. Those are just the ones I know about and remember - they come up with small batches of animals like this every Hunger Games, that's the twenty-four teenagers thing. And there's bombs, bombs that could wipe a whole city off the map with one drop. So you'd need to seize the Capitol hard, fast, so they couldn't do anything, or you'd need air and sea control on top of your terrain thing plus anti-nuke powers, or we'll soak up a lot of casualties even if you eventually win."

"Air control is... doable. Most of what I can do to the sea is turn it into more land, but that could conceivably help. And although having a city-sized piece of my domain obliterated would be very uncomfortable, and I'd prefer to avoid it, especially if there was a cityful of mortals living there, it wouldn't actually affect my control of the surrounding area substantially or for long. Hmm. Suppose I spread out underground first, over the course of a year or two, and then take the surface of your continent all at once. Would the Capitol have the means to discover that there was a god at work at all...? Or would it just seem to them that their entire continent had suddenly been converted to taiga for no discernible reason? I'd hardly think they'd tend to blame their mortal subjects for that."

"Whether they have a good reason to blame us doesn't consistently enter into it, but my world doesn't have any magic of its own and I don't think they're doing anything that should let them see the effects underground. But obviously a cityful or ten of mortals burning up is undesirable on its own merits and I'm hesitant to call it an obvious trade."

"Deep enough underground, claiming territory has no material effects on it whatsoever," he says. "...Are you saying that if mysterious forces started acting on their terrain, they might react by arbitrarily destroying one of their own cities?"

"They might destroy District cities, just in case some of us had something to do with it, or the scary magic thing wasn't nuke-proof. They're not going to drop a nuke on the Capitol itself, admittedly, but us they can starve and bankrupt and shoot and kidnap for their entertainment and convenience. There used to be a District Thirteen and now there isn't."

"More or less. There are Peacekeeper forces in the Districts, some of the Hunger Games arenas are far away from the Capitol, that sort of thing, but by and large it's one huge city."

"I often use my terrain powers to demolish buildings without disturbing their surroundings," he says. "'Spread out underground, come up fast, and have anyone who tries to organize retaliatory action swallowed by the earth immediately'... lacks some elegance, as a solution, and would probably kill more than the strict minimum of mortals necessary to get the job done, but if most of the organized retaliation is going to be coming from a single city I won't have any trouble finding it all."

"There's probably some innocent people in the Capitol. Not that there's more innocent people than die annually in the Districts, but if you could be precise enough to avoid the kids at least - although I don't know what to do with them since I imagine they'd be unhappy about what happened to their families."

"If they don't bring their children to the places where they are trying to destroy cities, their children will survive. It's hard for me to get much more precise than collapsing one building, but I have plenty of practice collapsing one building very thoroughly without damaging the ones near it."

"Okay. I'm... guessing that the talking thing you do covers the language barrier. Does it cover it well enough that you'll know what they're talking about so you can distinguish between somebody who's performing some harmless official activity like closing school for the day and someone who's launching bombers?"

"Yes. When I hear a mortal speak, I understand what meaning they intend to convey with their words. One of the conveniences of being a god."

"And do you have reason to believe that you'll hold together correctly between worlds? You're persisting here and you probably would have noticed if this interrupted what you have going on at home, but Milliways is special and wouldn't have let you in if just walking through the door was going to hurt you. Going out my door doesn't have that guarantee."

"If you take a holy object of mine into your world and it loses its connection to me, then I lose an insignificantly tiny part of my domain and can't take over your world, but that doesn't leave either of us any worse off than we were before you tried."

"Okay... there still could be some weird interaction like, I don't know, I'm making things up, but it could turn into a little disconnected copy of you or the not-having-gods-ness of my world could propagate back to yours in some unfortunate way or something like that. But I don't have a way to predict that and the risk is mostly to you."

"If it turns into a disconnected copy of me, he's likely to starve. I don't think I could safely sustain myself in your world without my empire's surplus to draw on. But... while that would be unpleasant, it's something I'm willing to risk. I think the other potential disaster is much less likely."

"Okay. Are you going to be offended if I go ask Bar for some materials to verify your god-empering credentials?"

"Not at all. While you're at it, you can ask her if she knows anything about the risks of bringing a holy object to your world."

"She probably doesn't unless someone's done it before. You don't think you'd have noticed?" asks Shell Bell, getting carefully to her feet and going over to murmur to Bar.

"I don't have much contact with other gods. If someone was very successful in a strange world, I'd expect to hear about it if they used the surplus to start absorbing continents at home, and obviously if someone accidentally destroyed godhood I would not be around to have this conversation, but the fact that neither thing has happened doesn't prove very much."

"Yeah. Bar doesn't know either," says Shell Bell, as a stack of books and papers appear. She hauls them back carefully to her booth. "Are you in a hurry at all?"

"No."

"...If you can't afford your food and lodging here, I can cover the cost."

"I'd appreciate that. Although I'll have to move rooms if I start paying for it instead of cleaning."

"Whichever you prefer. Anyone in my empire who finds themselves without food or shelter can find both at a temple."

"That might be a big deal, especially if you interact with the terrain and climate enough to make it hard to get food the ways we're used to. Not that we ever get enough that way, but there'll be a transition period."

"Arranging to feed and shelter everyone in my new domain is likely to be one of the first things I do after I am no longer facing organized resistance from people with city-destroying weapons."

"And how do you do that part?"

"Terrain powers aren't tremendously well suited for putting up buildings, but putting up hills and then hollowing rooms out of them is a decent substitute in a pinch. I can bring over food surplus from my original continent and make edible plants grow where I want them."

"You can just... move the food? You're sure that will work if the rest of - you - does?"

(The god smiles.)

"Yes. But if you want to make sure, I could give you a holy object now. I can see and hear and speak through them as well as using them to expand my domain or distribute blessings."

"That would be - reassuring."

He produces a small blank wooden disk, just about coin-sized, and hands it to her.

She takes it and pockets it. "Thank you. Um, are you perpetually seeing and hearing out of it?"

"Yes, but with varying levels of attention, from 'as much as I give my manifestations' to 'only enough to notice if someone says my name'. And it can't see or hear much from inside a pocket."

"Okay. So if I put it - away, and don't use your name out loud, it will not spy on me."

"Correct. I also do not pay attention to mortals in non-public areas of my domain unless they ask for me by name."

"That must be nice, being able to deliberately move your attention around like that so consistently."

"Part of being a god."

Shell Bell yawns again. "Okay, I need to sleep. Could be five minutes or five days on your end unless the disk syncs time." She collects her books and goes down a side hallway.

Kirovalin finds somewhere for his manifestation to sit, and pays a little bit of attention to the bar through it, and attends to matters back home.

Shell Bell comes back nine hours later, books and all. "I have a couple of vouchers left for meals from Bar. But you said you'd cover my food and I don't know if you mean in a Bar way or in a papaya slices way."

"As proud as I generally am of my empire's food, I think Bar has the advantage there. I'll pay for your meals with her."

"Thanks. She can take any kind of currency and sometimes, if she really likes you," Shell Bell whispers, "she'll play around with the exchange rates for you." And she goes up to Bar and comes back with eggs Benedict and a bowl of fruit slices in syrup and a mug of hot cocoa with whipped cream.

Kirovalin follows and arranges with Bar to put Bell's meals on his tab for the forseeable future; in the process he hands over some coins that have his face on one side and an attractive bird on the other.

Which Bar whisks away. It's good of you to be taking over. The poor child, I can only sneak her so many vitamins.

He reads this napkin and nods approvingly.

Shell Bell devours her snuck vitamins, and reads her stack of books.

Kirovalin touches her hand. "Some of those are almost recognizable," he remarks. "And here are your blessings for health and cold immunity; did your reading material cover what's expected for getting the rest?"

"Explaining what good they'll do. I mean, the use of them seems pretty straightforward to me, but I'm almost certainly not going to have to play in the Hunger Games even if for some reason you can't take over the world so I may not have much extraordinary reason to expect to need them. I don't even get harassed by police as much as most people because my dad used to be a Peacekeeper, although there've been a couple of times it would have been nice to know someone was coming when I was poaching clams. I'm not sure anyone would listen to me if I told them they were in danger. I have a little audio recorder I use to remember anything I really need, especially stuff I learn here... I do have to memorize how to direct it to the recordings I want, though."

"The reason doesn't necessarily have to be extraordinary. But I find that in general, asking people to explain what good they expect to get from a blessing makes them more likely to pay attention to the ways it can benefit them and take that into account once they have it, so the amount of good they get from it increases. And the requirement is not so onerous that I have ever felt moved to waive it." He shrugs slightly. "There are the rest of your blessings."

"Thanks!"

He smiles.

"Anyway, as far as I can tell no one with any kind of ability to publish their opinions on your continent or off it has anything worrisome to say about you. Which describes either staggering control over the global press, or you being exactly what you say you are. I am more than happy to open the door for you."

"Thank you," he says. He produces a small stack of four wooden disks roughly identical to the one she already has and hands them over. "Keep at least one in case you want to talk to me, and bury at least one so that I can get started overtaking your continent, and the rest can be spares in case of unforeseen circumstances."

"Okay. ...Usually I stay in Milliways until I'm out of ways to get food. I guess I'll have to decide when to leave some other way."

"Yes."

"This is a good problem to have," she giggles. "I've only been here a week and it usually takes months and months to get a new door and I've got things I want to read, I think I'll stay a while longer, but time's not passing at home in the meantime."

"The non-passage of time sounds like a convenience of being mortal," Kirovalin remarks. "If it's possible at all for time to pass differently between different parts of myself, the bar at least doesn't cause it."

"Huh, maybe being distributed helps, sort of like I never see something moving too fast or too slow. You have some of you here and some of you back on your continent and that's like having the door open, I guess."

"That's what I think is happening, yes."

"Makes sense." She pockets the extra disks. "Do you want some books on how Panem is organized now? Are you going to - promote from within, or do you want to hold the door for each other next time I'm in here so you can march some people you already know from your continent in to run the place?"

"I'd appreciate the books. I hope to be able to find capable governors who already live there, but if I have to send people over from home and translate for them while they learn your language, I'll do that."

Shell Bell nips over to Bar for some books and comes back. "These are all blatantly censored and/or propaganda, unfortunately, but they're different kinds of it. This is the standard textbook for District students, this is a Capitol-written history, this is historical fiction, this is an autobiography by one of the first Hunger Games winners."

"Thank you." He collects the books and makes them disappear.

"...If you're going to keep them you should pay Bar for them, I usually only borrow books."

"I want to read them as soon as possible, so I'm distributing them among my manifestations. I can bring them back just as easily when I'm done. If I want to keep them, I will pay Bar when I decide to."

"Oh, that makes sense. You can only move stuff that way, not people?"

"Only plants and inanimate objects, not animals or people, and only things that belong to me in some sense. Even if I am only borrowing them, as in this case."

"Huh. Still, that means there could be trade. I'm now positive that we have more technology - even if it's really badly distributed - so this will probably be useful to your people back home once we're stable enough to produce exports. Wrecking the Capitol will interfere some with our tech production capacity but as long as District Three's okay we'll probably be able to recover most of it."

"I am definitely looking forward to those opportunities."

"It'll be great. ...Creepy question: I assume you can do food, like, meat, in principle can you do corpses? Because we have medical technology too, and sometimes if somebody is only recently, not too messily dead, they can be brought back."

"...That's... possible. But transporting the recently dead doesn't work. So it may depend on whether or not there is a gap between the respective definitions of 'recently'."

"Yeah. It'll just take a while to train people on the far end to use the medical equipment even if we can spit out enough of it to meet demand. I think it helps if the dead person has been kept cold, especially underwater? One time when I was four the Hunger Games wound up with the last two kids fighting on a frozen lake and they both fell in. They had to fish them both out, wake them up, and put them back."

"I see..."

"Yeah."

"I am looking forward to being able to put a stop to that."

"Me too. Do you want a map of the place - anything else I can get you so you'll be prepared to make as clean a sweep as possible?"

"Maps, definitely. And whatever other information you think of. Especially if you can find more precise descriptions of their weapons and how they work, although I'm sure that will be difficult to come by."

"Not with Bar's help. They're controlled in Panem, but Bar doesn't care about censorship laws." Shell Bell goes and comes back with more textbooks and an atlas.

"Very good." He disappears the textbooks, but keeps the atlas with him.

"Yes?" he answers immediately.

"Oh, good. I'm on a beach right now, is that a good enough place to bury one of these or should I go inland?"

"A beach will work fine."

"Okay." She starts digging. "How deep?"

"Deep enough that it's not likely to be accidentally dug up in the next few days."

"Thank you. That should do."

"You're welcome. Um, I'd appreciate if you'd tell me what's going on, even though I've done all the parts you actually need help with now."

"If you find somewhere safe to have a conversation with me every so often and say my name, I'll keep you updated on how much territory I've covered."

"Great. Do the people on the other end know what you're doing?"

"I've talked it over with my advisors, but I'm going to save the public announcements until I actually have the territory and know more about what the expanded empire will look like."

"Makes sense." She sits on the sand. "Do you have lots of advisors? What do they know that you don't?"

"It's not necessarily a matter of knowing things I don't. But there are people whose perspectives I value. Sometimes I explain a problem to them and they suggest solutions I hadn't thought of; sometimes they notice a problem before I do."

"Makes sense. How many are there? Do they usually also have governmental/priesthood positions or not?"

"Some of them are also my acolytes, because making someone an acolyte requires a certain degree of trust, and if I don't trust my advisors they usually don't stay my advisors for very long. Governors and priests are usually too busy to do very much advising, but I do consult governors on matters relating to their provinces, and priests are often very helpful to talk to. Right now I have twelve full-time advisors and three acolytes who kept their advisory badges."

Nod nod. "How many acolytes do you have altogether?"

"Currently? Sixty-two. It takes a lot to keep my domain covered and still have plenty to do embassy rotations. I've been thinking of doubling my number of bird manifestations to cover the gaps if my population keeps increasing; I'll probably have to use mostly bird manifestations to distribute immunities in your world at first, until I find good acolyte candidates."

"People might not want to trust unusual birds. They seem a little too similar to mutts."

"I can use human manifestations too, but the birds travel more easily. I suppose that's less of a problem in your world... I also find it's convenient to separate the purposes of each form in the eyes of the public. People are encouraged to come up to my bird manifestations and touch them unless I specifically say not to; not so for the human ones."

"If you leave the trains intact or get ahold of a plane, your human forms will be able to get around pretty well. You could maybe wear different things depending on whether you're willing to be interrupted? Since you can move objects around. You could potentially get people to trust the birds but it'd be uphill."

"I intend to get people to trust the birds, but in the meantime human manifestations will do."

"If you get rid of all the preexisting mutts that would probably help. Especially tracker-jackers, those give me the shivers just thinking about them."

"I expect to do that."

"Good. How fast are you spreading out?"

"Right now I'm still heading down to a reasonable depth. About a mile below sea level seems like it should do. I should start spreading out from there within the next few days. I'll get faster as I cover more ground."

"You spread out from the edges?"

"Yes."

"This is a peninsula, so if you can spread faster from some places instead of just a constant rate from everywhere you'll probably get more out of going along the coast until you're in a less watery area."

"I can't gain extra speed in one place by slowing down in others, so I might as well go as fast as I can everywhere."

"Okay. I wonder how krakens ought to be handled, since you're a land-based god. I assume the Capitol has some way to control and recall or kill them but it might not survive the takeover."

"I'll think about it. If nothing else, after the takeover when everything's settled and I have more surplus power to spend, I can take the very wasteful route and claim several miles of ocean floor around the continent, then raise an island under any kraken I see. But I would prefer a more elegant solution."

"Yeah. Maybe with high-tech Capitol-type boats we could just harpoon them all."

"We'll see."

She flops on her back into the sand. "Do you think you'll be ready in time for the reaping in a month and a half?"

"I don't think so, unfortunately."

"There's leadup before the games actually start. If you're not going to be ready in time for the games themselves... I could also do something crazy like volunteer, I'm still young enough to do it. And bring a disc, but then I'd have to leave my fire wand behind, they only let you take one thing."

"If you volunteered and brought a disc, that would get me another starting point, but probably not in time to do you any good in the games."

"Yeah. And I don't think I could win them without the fire wand. With the fire wand I could win, but then I'd have killed twenty-three innocent people and it would look really, really suspicious to boot. Maybe I can talk to one of this year's Careers and get him or her to bring a disc, that's probably more sensible anyway since I know who's going."

"That could be useful. I imagine those arenas are carefully watched, though."

"Yeah. And it could be one where it would be impractical to bury the disc - water arena, platforms over a volcano caldera, ground covered in poisonous plants and everybody has to stay in the trees. ...I should try to give a disc to one of the mentors. If I can get them to talk to me."

"The mentors?"

"Past winners who go to the Capitol with the tributes and help them and negotiate with sponsors on their behalf. They're probably watched too, but they're not on TV and they're probably more able to get away. I'm not sure how practical it is to bury things in the Capitol but the mentors would know because they've been there. This still doesn't necessarily avert this year's Games though."

"Unless I turn out to be able to spread much faster than I currently think, I don't think we have a good chance against this year's Games. But giving a disc to one of the mentors still seems like it might be worthwhile."

"And even getting to talk to a mentor would be difficult. They live in other towns and they're rich and traumatized. Ugh."

"It's difficult."

"Twenty-four people isn't that many compared to the number who die in the Districts of miscellaneous things on a weekly basis, but it's very public, and I'm worried about your public relations - if people know that you were technically here this far in advance of the reaping but weren't in time to save them, well, none of them have any independent information on the mechanics of gods in general."

"It isn't necessary to advertise how early I was here."

"Not necessarily, but if I give a mentor a disk I'm probably going to have explain it. They won't bring a bit of wood all the way to the Capitol and bury it without a reason besides me suggesting it."

"True. And if I do get a bit of wood buried in the Capitol, that could easily cut my takeover time in half... as well as giving me the option of taking the Capitol before I have the entire continent ready to go. I'm reluctant to use that option but it might be good to have it. I'll see what my advisors think, and I'll appreciate anything else you have to say on the matter."

"I'll find out where this year's mentors actually live and who they are so I have an idea of how hard it'll be to get ahold of them."

"Good."

"And other victors, maybe, I think they sometimes go to the Capitol even for non-Games-related reasons. I'll find out. Anything else we should talk about before I go among people in front of whom I shouldn't talk to you?"

"Hello," says the bit of wood. (And the same word more quietly in a hundred other languages, all at the same time, each one somehow distinct and declining to interfere with the sound of the rest.)

"Thank you," says Kirovalin, still in his many-layered god-voice.

"Should I offer more proof?" asks the pocket god.

"Like what?" asks Cerulean warily.

"I can move any object here from my original domain as long as it is smaller than this piece of wood. Suggest such an object," he says.

"There's more where that came from, but I don't expect you to want to stand around all day very slowly accumulating chocolate," says Kirovalin.

"And I would strongly prefer to save this year's tributes," says Kirovalin quietly.

"It really, really does," says Shell Bell's pocket god.

...That most emphatically did not sound like someone who wants to go to the Capitol.

"We don't know what we're asking," Kirovalin agrees; this much is clear to him. "But we must ask anyway. Whether you help us is up to you."

Kirovalin waits.

"Has to be underground," says Cerulean, "not in - a potted plant?"

"Underground, preferably at least a few feet deep. I need to go about a mile down from there before I can start spreading out to surrounding areas, and it's much faster and quieter through natural terrain than anything constructed by mortals."

"There's - plumbing and such, under the Capitol. A subway," says Cerulean.

"If leaving it lying in a tunnel is the best you can do, I can work with that, as long as it's touching natural dirt or stone and no one comes by and picks it up for a few hours at minimum. If you bury it somewhere and I have to thread my way around tunnels to get far enough underground without disturbing anything, that will slow me down but not intolerably. For that matter, I'll get better than nowhere if you throw it out the side of a train on the way into the city before the built-over areas start - again, as long as no one picks it up for a few hours afterward. The important parts are that it must be connected to the landscape and it should be left alone afterward for as long as possible."

"Throwing out of the train's - doable," says Cerulean grudgingly.

"Then will you help us?"

"I can... make some calls," he mutters.

"Thank you," says Kirovalin.

Her pocket god, naturally, is quiet.

"He should get something nice after the dust settles."

"He will."

"Yeah? What?"

"I'll see what he wants."

"It'd be very public. They broadcast it all live - although maybe not perfectly live, I bet they have a delay, but there's always large crowds there in person. What bits are you missing?"

"The actual start of the Games might be nearly as good publicity-wise but the tributes might be convinced it was some sort of weird arena thing if you did it after they went out and still kill each other, and if you do it before they go out they get caught in the Capitol destruction because that's where they are during the leadup. And that doesn't buy you a month and a half. Ten and Eleven can feed themselves on current industry if they're allowed, the others can't necessarily but if you've got enough of Six you can get the trains working for you even if they're damaged... I think the Reaping would be a good time compared to other prospects."

"I think I agree."

"Probably while they're calling names in District One. ...Heh, you could say you volunteer. That's probably a bad idea, it'd confused the issue, but it'd be very dramatic."

"I may not be able to get the timing that precise, but if I have the opportunity to make a dramatic comment, I will consider one."

"It's required viewing, I'll be at a television. I don't think the delay is much more than a few seconds, maybe a minute or two, but I don't know exactly."

"I've done some experimenting at home to see how precisely I can time claiming the last mile of surface; I'll be able to take the entire Capitol within the same few minutes, but elevation matters a lot for how fast I can get there and I don't have a precise enough map to compensate. I could be early or late by as much as half an hour, which I don't think is close enough to be sure I will arrive while they're calling names in District One in particular."

"Bar might be able to get you an elevation map if you still have a manifestation there."

"I'll ask."

"What's it going to look like?"

"Temperatures across the continent will become more uniform - warm places will get a little colder; very cold places will get warmer. Most of the large-scale terrain features will stay the same, but there will be smaller changes. Pine trees sprouting. Soil quality changing, mostly for the better. Some land might shift, but I can hold it stable in populated areas. Salt lakes might turn fresh. In areas with permafrost, it will spread. There might be fog or light rain in some places when I reach the air. In most cases, I'll be able to reverse any unwanted changes after I have all the urgent business taken care of, but I won't be able to restore true deserts, for example."

"I don't think anyone's using the desert for anything. Except the occasional arena. ...They sometimes turn the arenas into little tourist traps, which is terrible, but they could be converted later into actual memorials, so if you can not mess them up too much to be recognizable while you're doing everything else that would be nice."

"I'll keep it in mind, but I'm going to have other priorities."

"I understand. They're already dead, definitely focus on the people who are alive. But if you wind up with the spare attention."

"Yes."

"And you can talk anywhere you've come up, right? To explain and take requests if somebody really needed their salt lake or whatever. Once you've finished focusing on the Capitol I mean."

"Yes."

"Good."

"I'll confirm the plan with my advisors and see how much the elevation map helps."

"Yeah."

Across the continent, Kirovalin's influence surges upward through the ground. He should start reaching the surface in just a minute or two - he wasn't able to get the timing any more precise than that.

Someone in the District One crowd - this year's Career tribute, in fact - starts cheering.

The planes can handle adverse weather, but they can't handle weather that is specifically pissed off at them. Planes make emergency landings.

Someone else is approaching the President's house.

"I apologize for harming my fellow citizen. In my defense, he deserved it."

"...He probably deserved it. Who is she, do you know?"

"What is your name?" he inquires of the assassin.

"Sherlock Stark."

"She says her name is Sherlock Stark," he reports to Shell Bell.

"She was a victor a couple years ago. And her twin brother the year after her. ...The way Cerulean talked about going to the Capitol I wouldn't be at all surprised if victors had a less pleasant time of it than is usually discussed and it could easily be Snow's fault in particular."

"If I do, I'll let you know."

"I assume you must have some sort of actual justice system not usually administered by assassins, even if you have a low enough crime rate that it seldom comes up," Shell Bell says.

"Yes," says Kirovalin. "But there is also room for assassins, in times of war. On another advisor's suggestion, I've recruited her."

"Yes, I am the Career for this year," says Jewel. "And I didn't hear our new god-emperor saying 'I welcome you all as new citizens, except anybody from the Capitol, fuck those guys'. Way I heard it, seems like you're about to break the law." He picks a cloudberry off a newly sprouted bush and eats it. "Also about to kind of annoy me. Up to you which one scares you more."

"He wasn't talking to her," says the first guy.

"Hey, Kirovalin," he says. "Are they allowed to beat up this lady?"

"No."

"You really think she's personally murdered anybody? Look at her," says Jewel, gesturing illustratively. "She's not an organizer, she's not the President, she's just the girl who reads out the names. It's not her fault. She's just kind of clueless and pathetic. I'm not gonna hurt somebody for being clueless and pathetic, and I'm not gonna stand around and watch you do it either."

"You okay?" says Jewel.

"Of course not!" she exclaims.

Jewel shrugs slightly. "Anything I can do?"

Sniffle. "They might come back. ...Assuming you were telling the truth about not wanting to hurt me."

"Yeah, I was. There's people I'm pissed off at, but you're not one of 'em."

She sits on the floor of the new forest and picks at a new imperfection in her outfit.

Jewel sits, too. He eats berries. They are tasty.

She does not talk.

"Not in the formal sense. But if you want to be appointed to the priesthood for now to help with organization and coordination, I'll get you a full priest's pendant. The one you have now formally means 'working with the priesthood in an unspecified capacity on a temporary basis', which is accurate as far as it goes but underrepresents your value somewhat."

"I do want to help."

A larger and more intricately carved pendant appears, on a proper metal chain, identical to those of all the other newly appointed priests.

She swaps it in. "Cool. Anyplace in particular I should be right now?"

"I believe the most helpful thing you can distribute right now is explanations," he says, and points her at the nearest group of bewildered citizens.

"That is not controlled information. I'm putting together a train to District Twelve, but my strategy advisor and Sherlock agree that when I send one it should be prepared to meet violent resistance without my help, and those preparations will take time."

"They might have hostages and that gets likelier as time goes on. You could send a train that doesn't stop to have an object chucked out of a window as a preliminary move."

"There's also a concern that they might sabotage the track. The plan as it stands involves bringing a large number of holy objects and throwing them out the windows regularly as the train reaches new ground."

"Mmhm. Can you fix the track if they do that?"

"That depends on what exactly is sabotaged. I can clear obstructions, but not make precise small-scale repairs."

"I suppose the Peacekeepers there are incommunicado with the other units, or this would be a lot simpler."

"Someone told them what was happening and then they stopped answering calls. Perhaps they've guessed that the only people still able to try to call them are working for me."

Yes, she is doing a good job.

Kirovalin considers pointing out to Shell Bell that she is now in a position to recruit temporary help to the priesthood - she even has the disks already - but he'd rather not take the chance of spooking the people she's talking to.

"If you want to recruit anyone as temporary help, you have the disks and can request more," says Kirovalin. "The train to District Twelve should be leaving soon."

"Okay. Do the disks need to be worn to count? I've only got one of them actually on a string."

"No; they're a reminder to the person themselves as much as to anyone else, and for that purpose they work just as well carried in a pocket."

"Okay. What should I tell them to do with the disks when they're done helping?"

"Return them to you, or tell me and let me take the disk. They may be more comfortable with the first option."

"Okay. I should have thought of the part where a lot of people are not at home on Reaping day and may find the new flora hard to navigate, I'm sorry."

"I'm clearing away some of the stray trees now that I have the time."

"What are the minimum requirements of a temporary distribution-of-stuff center, and also, are there like - really, really introductory books about who the heck you are and how gods work, like for kids, I want to give my mom one, she teaches school sometimes."

"A temple. It needs to be a building large enough to store supplies in, with people to distribute the supplies. Permanent temples are decorated with statues of me to identify them unambiguously, but there are signs that can be put up for temporary versions. And there are books like that, but none of them are in a language you speak."

"Kids' books are short and you do translation - if you just, read through the best example of one aloud to Ranae would that not work? She could write down the translation and paste it over the words. It'd be easier than writing something from scratch, at this point. I think I'll commandeer the tesserae building for a temple, I doubt anywhere else meets the criteria even if the associations aren't great."

"I could do that."

"Okay. Will it take a while to pick a book, how many are there to choose from, I can go to her after I set up the tesserae building?"

"I'll tell some of my priests at home to choose one or a few that they think are best suited."

As the supply of grain shrinks, other things replace it: different grains, dried fruits and fruit slices, beans, flour, blocks of maple sugar, nuts, potatoes, smoked meat...

"Yes. Some of the new priests in the other Districts are working on cataloguing the inventory and finding simple recipes; there might be recipe books ready for wide distribution as early as tomorrow."

"But for today what should I tell people to do with the potatoes? ...Chop them up and boil them until they squish?"

"That's a method, yes."

"Maybe you can't get a plane in the air, but what about those little drones that delivered gifts to tributes? Those could drop holy objects places - I'm not sure if they have great range, but even if those exact drones can't be repurposed the general class of 'drones' is probably something Bar could sell you a few of if you want to throw money at the problem."

"I'll keep that idea in mind, but I'd rather focus on the people inside my domain whose existence I'm already certain of. If I have things settled here faster than I'm expecting, I will turn some of my attention to overtaking the wilderness as quickly as possible."

"Yeah. I don't think there's anyone overseas - not only do we never hear from them, Bar never found me publications from other continents - so that's definitely not urgent, although it might be nice to spread out once we have enough infrastructure here."

"That's also something I'm considering. With luck, we'll be able to consult Capitol records on that subject soon."

"Would I be more useful there than here?" she wonders. "Or somewhere else? Or are you pretty well set for personnel most everywhere?"

"The personnel situation is... developing. I think your best advantage right now is still in helping and explaining here in the District you are most familiar with. I don't want to start moving people around while new priests are still regularly volunteering in most places."

"Okay. Another thing I might be especially personally useful for is getting stuff translated, it just occurred to me that if you don't want to read everything aloud the next time I go to Milliways I could borrow copies and write down what I see them as saying there. Whereas most people probably have never been to Milliways."

"That reminds me: I theorize that I might be able to open doors from Milliways to anywhere in either part of my domain. But I don't know whether it might cost divine power, or how much, so I don't want to experiment until things are more settled in case the cost is unexpectedly high."

"...It shouldn't cost you anything to open it back to where you first came in, but getting somewhere else might, I don't know."

"And neither do I. I will try it when things are quieter and I have more power to spare."

"...My name is Tulip."

"Why do you ask me to stop?"

"Be...cause... there is already a functional government beyond about over there and we would like to continue doing what we're doing by ourselves."

"Uh, District Thirteen. We're mostly underground."

"Then you may keep District Thirteen. Make known to your people that both visitors and immigrants will be welcomed in my empire."

"I'll make sure to mention it," says Tulip. "Another thing - we would also appreciate not being surrounded."

"Reasonable," says Kirovalin. "You may claim the rest of this wilderness if you wish. There is no shortage of land to be raised from the oceans when my empire expands."

"...Are you planning to do a lot of that," asks Tulip.

"Perhaps not in your lifetime, but yes."

Tulip nods. "Is there anything else I should mention when I go back?"

"Anyone who wishes to speak with me may come to the edge of my domain and say my name. If I wish to speak with you, and send a representative for that purpose, will they be welcomed?"

"Your name is 'Kirovalin', right? And if someone comes unarmed and wants to talk someone will eventually come up to speak with them."

"Yes, it is. Very well."

Tulip fidgets to see if he's going to say anything else, then turns around and goes back whence she came.