She tries the cantrips, manages to figure out what Create Water is and directs it to a jug before she gets water all over her floor... oh, hey, is the second one the one Select Artigas keeps casting? She Lights her keys when she heads out, just because it looks cool. She needs to think of an interesting way to use that one!

And she comes to book club and reports her snazzy new circle and class!

"Congratulations, Songbird!"

"Thank you! This seems really encouraging for having churches! I'm not really sure what I did right, really..."

None of the others have been clericed (yet!) but it's only been less than a week.

"I got [Acolyte] Level 2 the night before, then prayed in the morning—well, [Prayed]—and then got clericed, then [Acolyte] promoted to [Cleric]."

"If you're comfortable sharing more about the content of your prayers it could be useful."

"I told her I saw a dove yesterday and it reminded me of her though it's Sarenrae's animal instead of hers, I prayed a bit about adapting the hymns in Melodies of Inner Beauty, just thinking about different melodies for one of the lines... I talked about the discussion yesterday," nodding to the Shelyn study group, "about decorating our corner, and how, er, it might be more important that the work be pleasing and beautiful than it be perfectly orthodox, because Shelyn is about art and beauty which is in the eye of the beholder?

"And I thought about how it would be nice to have her church here because it's good to have new and interesting things, and we'll get new art and influences... I think that's most of it. I don't think it was very different from my prayers the days before, though, so maybe the second [Acolyte] level was a deciding factor?"

"The Voyager that Desna chose up in Liscor was not previously an [Acolyte] so it can't be essential but it could have helped."

Someone volunteers, "If [Acolyte] makes it cheaper but Desna didn't know that back then, then she might have picked a cleric normally, and now they know they're waiting to save budget?"

"That could be, or She knew but didn't want to wait because it was an emergency and we needed the channels."

The hypothesis seems to rekindle the flagging interest in some of the study group! Acquiring and leveling a class is a more tangible, and importantly much more familiar goal than meditating on dubiously interpreted foreign texts to get booped by an alien.

When Blai has a moment free, the program manager asks if he still wants more Abadarans? The Ministry of Trade sent a letter; they're willing to send him some of their employees and free up their schedules if any look like good candidates.

"I'm fond of Abadarans, but I'm not sure they're as essential here as they are at home. I'm willing to sit on more interviews if they send people, though."

They've had enough general applicants to put together a second batch if the first batch is needing less babysitting at this point. The trade ministry will send applicants. They're not much about financial instruments and they don't have insurance, but there are some guys that are into international trade or price-based resource allocation, who also pass the Wisdom bar.

Some other institutes like the Astronomers' Society and the Academy of Performing Arts have also put together more organized internal recruiting drives.

By the middle of the second week, a few more from the first batch have managed to acquire or level [Acolyte], but only an Erastilan pulls a circle for it.

Anything evidently standout about the guy?

Not particularly... the other Erastilan with [Acolyte], who didn't get encircled, has [Bless Crops] instead of [Prayer] for a starter Skill?

...well, if [Prayer] helps maybe Blai and the Sower and Songbird can pray about more hopefuls? [Pray], rather.

Two people get clericed on the spot! Abadar and Sarenrae.

That's - actually so good it wraps around to being alarming. Blai eventually concludes that they probably can't be forcing the gods to cleric people by somehow praying too hard but they could be drowning out other prayers, or obfuscating something about the situation on the ground or the candidates themselves. Or, alternately, [Prayer] is such an outrageous multiplier on intervention budget that they should all have it on every waking hour praying for every soul in all Creation without ceasing, and he should either grind circles aggressively toward Plane Shift or else Homeward Bound himself for a sub-fifty-percent chance of reaching the Iomedaean church with this tool to use toward every ball they and She are dropping.

The class is oblivious to Blai's internal turmoil and celebrating their new clerics! If he wants to Homeward Bound himself he needs to do it after his teaching contract ends, though, they still have him retained for the next two months.

Oh, no, of course he wouldn't skip out on his contract, especially not when it provided the framework in which he learned this information in the first place. He just prays more now. A lot more. Not just to Iomedae but whenever he speaks to another god for more than three sentences he requests that they consult Her on the use of any budget he's saving them.

His goal is at least three clerics per god; that seems like enough that they can really leverage the information about the personalities involved to form self-sustaining churches.

And that night,

[Cleric Level 11!]

[Skill – Lesser Charisma Obtained!]

It's not exactly like having +1 CHA, but it's close enough it could be mistaken for it.

...close enough that he gets a third channel?

It's not really clear why better social skills allows Blai to blast positive energy out of his body more times a day, but this indeed appears to be the case!

Neat!

He teaches the new clerics things about spells - they should all pick up Detect Magic so they can see what he's doing, usually spells get stronger/more/better with circles but if they want to be able to get more gallons of water at once or something maybe they can pick up Skills for that. He tells them all about the new Skill he has for Splendor and all the others so they can pool knowledge on what various [Cleric] skills do in case there's any way to steer which ones you get.

Detect Magic is really cool! Doesn't last very long, but it's a complex spell or high-level Skill for [Mages].

Common belief is that the Skills you get relate to what challenges you've been facing related to your leveling, so probably he got [Lesser Charisma] because he's been doing public speaking and teaching? It's not a perfect theory but it's more predictive than most. Is charisma the thing to go for, as a [Cleric]?

If you want channels, yes, Splendor governs that. If you want your spells to hit harder and to be able to cast higher-circle ones, Wisdom.

Channels are useful, but not higher circle spells are probably overriding... except the cleric of Abadar who turns out to be channeling negative, which might be strongly competitive for repairing advanced undead, but they need to run some tests on that.