Yeah. Khaele's more active but she doesn't encourage evangelism the way Khersis's church does. The others probably pop up now and then, it's unusual for one to go dark as long as Khersis has, but I don't tend to hear about it.

And they'll all smite people who say their names wrong?

Not, like, every single time. If a god is paying that much close attention to you, you're probably already in trouble. And 'Mama Kh' is safe even though it's nicknamey.

Kersis, Kersis, Kersis?

Shiver. ...what, are you trying to demonstrate that you aren't being struck by lightning?

I'm guessing they can't affect us here, but if they can that's extremely useful to know and Mandos is conveniently nearby - I might be back before Miriel wakes up.

I'm not sure you should assume that if Khersis and Mandos got into a fight over you it's obvious who'd win!

...fair. But if Mandos won, then your god couldn't murder anyone randomly anymore!

Khersis hasn't randomly murdered anyone in a couple of human lifetimes, his followers are their own responsibility. And what if Mandos lost?

I've done the tortured by an evil god thing, there are things worth risking it for. Someone worse than Khersis who it'd be worth trying to take down?

Depends on who you ask. Most gods are unpopular with somebody. I'm not sure I have enough information to objectively rank them. But my concern was what happens to the souls Mandos is looking after if he gets into a fight with a god from my world. I mean, maybe they get to go to one of the nicer afterlives, but there are nasty ones...

I assumed they'd stay here; how would your gods claim jurisdiction?

I don't know. But 'a bunch of souls' is not an unheard-of trophy in god fights.

I'll avoid experimenting with that, then.

Thanks.

Eventually we'll be powerful enough we can do it ourselves, without counting on the Valar to protect us.

Maybe. If there's just no limit to how far you can get on science fantasy...

I don't have a way of knowing. But we have all the Ages of the world to try things, that I'm sure of.

We probably have a while before Miriel wakes? Want to go swimming? I'm told this is the best kind of light for it.

I don't have a swimsuit.

You mean, your clothes aren't fabrics suited to swimming? We can ask if anyone has some.

That's... sort of what I mean, these pants will chafe like crazy if they get wet, but actually humans in my culture wear specific sorts of outfits for swimming and I meant I didn't have one. I guess wearing something that's okay to get wet will work just as well.

It's not typical for us to wear clothes swimming but some people feel safer, so I think fabrics for that purpose exist.

I figured there had to be different nudity norms going on when my tour guide took her shirt off to mark my house plot. It wouldn't be normal for me to be naked in front of basically anybody but, like, nymphs aren't even allowed to wear clothes, other species have intermediate opinions.