"Many of the gods are rather violently at cross-purposes. To limit the extent to which they just directly counter each other with most of their energy, there is an enforced limit on how much they can affect events on the Material - including by way of information. Cleric selection itself is by far the commonest way to hear anything from any given god, or at least to hear anything unambiguous; small signs and omens that could be coincidence might be numerically commoner for some of them. It was a high priority of the church command, when I wrote to them to tell them I had spells from Iomedae, to let me know that if I could cast Commune, I wasn't supposed to do it, because they have a way of eking out more information from each question allotted and only some people are trained in that. - I think Iomedaeans might be outliers in this respect but it's illustrative."

    "I guess that's... a way to do it..." the red haired elf looks disconcerted.

        "Hm?"

    "Well, our gods wouldn't just counter each other, if they fought all-out, they'd destroy the world, and they'd rather the world exist, flawed, than not, so they just don't. I suppose having a formal agreement about it isn't that different in practice but it seems... worse."

"It might just be that their pantheon tilts more Lawful than ours, I'm not sure if that's the case but it seems like it could do it."

"I'm not sure it does tilt that way, there are many reasons I might have heard of fewer Chaotic gods. Uh, the consensus among them that they'd rather the world exist rather than not may be - fragile? There was a great coalition about sealing the Destroyer away and my understanding is that at least most of the participants have the ability to unilaterally let It out again and that one of those participants... was Shelyn's brother, pre-fall... which has some possible implications."

    "That could explain it, yeah."

        "Is there anything we can do for your goddess from here? Defeating evil sounds like a deity we could all use more of."

"I think She may have - involved Herself expensively - in some recent major events on Golarion. I'm not sure if there's a way to increase Her budget rather than just not overspending it, but - finding would-be Abadarans might actually do it, I'd trust Him to pay Her a fair amount on my behalf even if I don't ask but I can pray about it in case it wouldn't otherwise occur to Him or something."

    "We can do that."

        "I've got half a wand of Helping Hand if anyone could use one."

             "I'm feeling lucky about getting these two where they're going soon, I can focus on it when I'm done with that, if that's good enough."

        "Sure," and she turns the wand over.

                "Anything else interesting about the place?"

"About Golarion? I think all the major differences have come up, I'm not sure what else would be surprising beyond 'that is certainly a different planet', but I might be forgetting something."

"I wouldn't be surprised if there's something else big, but that's about everything we've figured out so far - well, and the orisons, Golarionite clerics can catch and re-cast those and we might be able to learn it too but it's at least not immediately intuitive."

    "Oh, that's just unfair."

"Isn't it? Cantrips too, apparently."

    "Have you told the Archmage's clerics yet?"

"Nope. I would have called a meeting tonight if Oti hadn't, I figured I'd tell them when we went to sell spells."

    "So we get to see the look on their face, excellent."

        "Wait, you didn't call the meeting? What's up, Oti, don't let us ignore you all night."

            "I'm not up for the Blackstone run this year and I haven't heard of anyone else taking care of it."

    "Blackstone run?"

             "Blackstone City has some enslaved orcish gladiators-"

    The catfolk's tail puffs up and begins to lash.

            "I know, trust me. But they don't want to leave, so it is what it is. The run is to get any of them out who don't want to stay, usually it's like half a dozen teenagers. The local orc tribes will come out to meet you, once you get past the fields, but it's about a week's walk usually, the kids aren't used to going distances."

    "That's above my tier but I could go with someone."

The guard is busy until winter with caravans trying to beat the snow, the elves don't think it's wise to try it given the interspecies animosity, and the halfling simply isn't specced for it. "Maybe the two of us could make it work somehow," she says of the catfolk.

"Or - Blai, how do you feel about Oti and Isalyn going with you, once Isalyn drops her charges off?"

            "That could work," Oti nods.

"I'm not aware of any reason to object."

Raafi looks questioningly at Oti, who shrugs, a little. "You can tell him."

"He's oathbound not to lie, more or less."

    "Eh, it'll be fine. Won't be the first time someone's found out."

"All right." He writes the secret on a slip of paper and passes it to Blai: 'Oti is an orc in disguise. Not evil, I've checked.'

Blai reads it, nods, and rips it up.

Raafi claps Blai on the shoulder. "That'll work fine, then. Can the two of you write up a list of places you want to visit, so we don't overlap you?"

    "Sure."

        "Sure!"

            "Raafi, can I come with you? I want to see these orcs."

"I'm not sure when I'll be going, do you have a way to meet up with me?"

            "Blai mentioned some refugees, if you need help with them I could just come with you now?"

"That would be handy, yeah."

And the conversation moves on to other things - the guard thinks one of the mountain passes in the area could use reinforcement; the elves heard thirdhand a few months ago that there's a bandit problem to the northwest but the halfling thinks it's been taken care of already, the catfolk wants some tips on getting the most out of his second level spells, Raafi wants to know if anyone has heard from a Traveler friend of his recently, and so on, with the conversation turning more to stories of people's adventures as the night wears on. The snacks keep coming, and drinks as well; the catfolk gets some good-natured teasing for abstaining but nobody seems to think it's odd that Blai does.

It's pretty late by the time the younger elf - it's clear by now that the tattooed one is something like the red haired one's apprentice - suggests they go sell spells before it gets much later.

This is the part where Blai gets interrogated by wizards, right?

Not at this time of night, no. Raafi does ask while they're in line if he wants to make an appointment for it for tomorrow.

"Whenever's convenient."

"All right."

He asks about it when he gets to the front of the line; the Theurge he asks about is away on church business but should be back in two days, and Raafi makes an appointment for the day after that.

"Theurge Niimabrar is pretty nice," he says when they're done selling their spells. (The wizard on duty wants to see a sample spell but then says he'll buy any healing Blai wants to sell at thirty gold per circle, including that one.) "He's a little stuffy but he's got a sense of humor, and he won't mind if you don't want to answer everything."

Is having a sense of humor good, that seems like it just adds more layers of possible miscommunication. "Understood."