"There's evil gods, but the afterlife system - if you worship a deity, you go to their afterlife, unless they outright reject you. If you don't, where you end up depends mostly on your actions in life. Getting your soul eaten would require running afoul of a lich or worshiping the wrong deity."

"Mmm, not sure how many people will end up worshiping your deities, most Aeldari worship their own or a staunchly atheist, like me. But if it comes down to actions-- for some of us, it'd be a risk, depends on how things get weighted, but it's better than 'guaranteed soul eating', maybe better than 'trapped in a psychic rock.'"

"People with sufficient wealth can also be resurrected, though one of my long-term goals is to remove the 'significant wealth' requirement."

"...Resurection's good too. Especially if it's relatively cheap. The Aeldari have it, but the Asuryani version is 'minor improvement on being a psychic rock' and the Drukhari version is 'powered by torture... and you have to be rich too.'"

"Requires clear diamonds to channel the energy through, which're expensive in my world. Worth one thousand to twenty-five thousand gold, depending on how long someone's been dead, if there's remains, that sort of thing. For comparison, a stay at a very nice inn is one to two gold a night. And it isn't a shortcut to immortality, no one's gotten it to work on old age yet, but. That might just be the gods holding onto the spirits in their keeping, rather than an inherent limit."

"I'm pretty sure diamonds are manufacturable in this world, if that helps. That might be able to bring the price down without a whole new method or anything.

Not sure if there's an equally easy way around old age. Maybe some gods would be convincable?"

"Manufactured diamonds - that. Would change a lot."

"And maybe. Or simply a magical way of extending life."

"I'm not sure how expensive the manufactured diamonds would be, but they'd probably be cheaper than the natural kind. Even a little bit cheaper would put it in the reach of more people.

A magical, non evil way of extending life might be easier than convincing gods. Though it'll depend on how likely to intervene they are, and how much they care about having souls, I guess."

"Pretty sure it's worshipers that fuel their power, not necessarily souls in their domain. They also tend to avoid directly intervening, unless called upon for a miracle or something."

"Well, that's an encouraging. It'd be bad if we solved old age just to have a bunch of gods get huffy at us. They might even like us doing it, if living worshipers are more useful than dead ones."

"With any luck."

"If you're sticking around with us, would you like to be shown round the ship, meet some of the rest of the crew?"

"That'd be great, yeah."

Jas stays behind. Zerri heads out the door, and nearly collides with another Aeldari standing outside.

"Where you eavesdropping?" Zerri asks.

"Why, of course! I have to make sure you don't end up killed by people teleporting into the bridge." She turns to Liliane. "I am Khelresse, wych on a poorer stage than usual. A pleasure to meet you," she says, making an elaborate bow.

"I'm Liliane d'Aigle, of New Lyons. Pleasure to meet you." Khelresse reminds her of her bard friend Phee, just without all the surliness.

Khelresse goes for sticky-sweet over surliness.

"And it's wonderful that you managed to survive your encounter with the snake-- I haven't encountered one of those in the arena before, it sounds like a fascinating specimen-- and Zerri and Jas survived their encounter with you. We really do need all the help we can get."

"Didn't really seem like it was trying to kill me that hard, or if it was it failed miserably. Do you have anyone currently injured or sick?"

"Well, it's always wonderful when you're enemies don't try.

We have someone, but he is only walking wounded."

"I'll be glad to help, regardless of severity. My spells and such reset every day, anyways. I can't do anything about something the body's already healed over, too, but I can manage wounds."

"Well, if it's no trouble-- it might take a bit to find him."

It does, but the ship is relatively small.

They find him sitting on a bed in what looks like dormitory. He's tall and gangly like the rest of, has long black hair with a bleached white stripe at the front, is appears to be losing a fight with non stick bandages. There's a deep graze on his stomach. It's started healing, and it's been kept clean, but it's still a nasty looking wound. He looks up. "Er, hi?"

"Hi! I'm Liliane d'Aigle. I was teleported here from another plane in a magical incident, and I'd like to help out. Starting with, I have magic healing, so I figured I could help with that wound?"

"Kaemoque. And, uh, really?" He looks doubtful in the direction of Zerri.

"Yep, really."

Kaemoque rolls his eyes. "Fine, I'll be the guinea pig."

"This might feel a bit tingly, sorry, but shouldn't hurt - "

And she chants something lilting under her breath, then lays her palms on the edges of the wound. A faint light springs out between her hands, and unless Aeldari are significantly tougher than non-heroic humans, the wound should close entirely. If it doesn't, she repeats until it does.

(It takes her three-and-a-bit seconds each repetition).

Aeldari are a bit tougher than humans, but not by that much. It closes on the first go.

He blinks twice. "Huh, I thought you were making that up. I guess not.

Thanks."

"You're welcome."