Rojix stowed some of his breakfast muffin in the pouch he is tucked into. Strategically. He is occasionally pulling a crumb off it in its hiding place and nibbling.

Thankfully this isn't the day Alicia spent in jail, so she is readily findable there!

"Delegate.... Luishna? Do you need any help?"

"Hi, that's me. I had heard that you could channel even though song-sorcerers normally can't, and I was wondering if this was a known side effect of anything like being resurrected." 

"No, I've never been resurrected and if being resurrected got you channeling it would be a big deal. It just... happened one day. I thought I was a cleric at the time so I've always assumed that's what pushed my powers in that direction."

She doesn't miss the implication, though, can Liushna channel now?

"Huh. I've never thought I was a cleric so that's definitely not what did it for me, I--guess I don't actually know for sure that I woke up, after getting murdered, able to channel, because I didn't notice immediately, but I think that's when it happened and I definitely couldn't beforehand." 

"Hmm. How strong is your magic, then? It came in for me when I was about halfway to second circle, as strong as a cleric gets it from the start."

"I'm still first circle and don't know how close I am to second circle. I don't know if it's normal baby-cleric strength because my tribe doesn't have any clerics in it."

"Uh, right. For clerics, it starts out a little weaker than the weakest cure light wounds and scales very neatly from there, a second circle cleric is twice as strong as a first circle, a third circle three times as strong as first circle, and so on. Mine doesn't scale with circle quite as well since I got my third improvement before third circle but I think that one's just a song sorcerer thing because my spells last longer than most second circles too."

"A little weaker than a very weak cure light wounds sounds about right." 

"Then I guess the other question is how many of them you have? For most clerics it varies with their splendor but averages around three, I started with one and got a second one recently."

"I can do four!"

"That definitely sounds like the cleric way then, just delayed a bit. You might also be able to get individual healing with more uses soon as well; clerics who can channel positive can turn their spells into cures and I can turn my battle songs into cures, but I'm not sure what your kind of magic is so it's hard to guess the equivalent."

"I'm a Shalyene; it's a kind of caster that Itarii have and if humans do I haven't heard about it yet. We're a lot like wizards except our familiars also work like a wizard's spellbook, and some other stuff I think--I don't know that much about wizards. Being able to convert spells into cures instead of just preparing cures would be really cool."

Alicia wracks her brain. Like a wizard but uses a familiar... well, wizards also use familiars, that's not that helpful.

"Hmm. If you've got a lot of them that's definitely a difference, there's nothing that sounds similar and is common among humans unless it really is just wizardry. There's a lot of weird kinds of magic out there, so I wouldn't assume there's nobody else that has it, but I'd need more to go on if I was comparing it to the rarer kinds. Spontaneous cures is definitely very helpful though, I hope you get that one."

She isn't really sure how all the casters who prepare their spells manage it, really - it's be so hard to have to choose between wasting a spell every day on invisibility or not having it when she really needs it, to say nothing of all her other spells, and it's very convenient to not have to.

"It would be nice! But channeling is already really great. My tribe will be thrilled when I go home, we have fewer clerics than humans do so channeling is really prized."

"Then I think what you can expect from the channels themselves is that you probably won't get any more channels than you have now unless you put a lot of work into it, but the channels will get stronger as you get stronger. And I'm happy for you and your tribe - having reliable channels for the first time was a really big deal for Halmyris. Is there anything else I can help you with while you're here?"

This is boring. And he's all out of muffin. And it doesn't look like his conveyance is going to take off suddenly very soon. Can he get out of this pouch.

Liushna unfastens the top of the pouch with one arm wrapped around him, then lowers him to the floor. 

"My tribe isn't totally without channels--our shaman can do it--I don't think so, off the top of my head. Your temple is pretty neat, though."

Toddle toddle. What is there to see and pick apart with his fingernails here?

Liushna watches to make sure he doesn't attempt to destroy anything anyone else is going to care about. 

It'll be fine! The temple isn't exhaustively childproofed, but most of it is reasonably sturdy and Alicia can get rather a lot with her mendings. She can smile at Rojix's attempts to dig into the pews, and then message Luishna.

"Who's the kid? Are you watching him for someone?"

"No, I adopted him. The orphanages are awful."

There’s a sense in which that’s very noble and a sense in which she’s absolutely certain she should not be raising a child right now and is faintly astonished Luishna feels up for it. Maybe it’s just the bit of - expecting at some point she’ll cross the line and get arrested in a way that doesn’t get released afterwards, or being killed, so she should just try harder to make sure not to involve her in anything like that. 

”Lady Shelyn help you with that. And Erastil too, I think he would approve.”

"Yeah, Sower Soler gave a sermon about it. I missed it, but he was still the reason I went ahead--" she nods to the baby, "he had heard what orphanage there was a child with wings at, you see." 

"Did he say it for delegates? It feels - unfair, to put caring for children up against doing your best to do right by Cheliax no matter which one wins. It's not the only reason I think kidnapping the sortition delegates was evil but it's definitely one of them."