"Questions aren't dumb!"

"Sorry to break it to ya, but yours are."

As they walk, more children emerge from the reeds, some as odd looking as the catboy, others no more unexpected than any human Malen's seen. 

There's a girl and a boy, both with skin darker than Laashya's and short, tightly curled hair, emerging from the reeds. They're talking - more arguing - the boy saying, "I know you don't wanna go back, Kenet, but I think it's important for me, I'm figuring a lot out about injuries and my team could really use someone like me around. I know we reset, but - I don't want them hurt."

"You've just been getting sad's all, Eman, and... I'd say sure if it was important, but it's really not, it's just some god's game. We don't have to play," the girl, likely Kenet, says.

"Well, maybe you can look at some other gardens? And I can start trying to teach people. It'll be good to get knowledge from lots of places, too," the boy - Eman - concedes. Kenet nods.

The girl notices the two kids and one god, then, and - "Hey! Veles! Are you telling kids about options yet?" Before he can answer, she turns to Hazel and Malen. "If he's walking you I bet one'a you's new. You can switch bodies, I think all the gods allow it, I woke up first time in a boy's body, so if one of you wants to be a boy or a girl or something else that's possible. And there's a lot of gardens, they're all different. Most've 'em have humans or altered humans, but I think one has wolves?"

"I didn't know there were even other gardens!"

"Doesn't Bilas hang out in your garden? Why do I have to tell everyone everything?"

"You're a centralized resource! You should be a guide to the afterlife and what comes after!"

"Well if you're so helpful why don't you become a ghost and go around telling all the deadies what's up?"

The smokey children that linger around Veles suddenly resolve themselves much more clearly... and much more smugly.

"That shouldn't be my job, I don't have the magical ability to sense where everyone in the underworld is. And I have bigger plans."

"What do you think, ghostly minions?"

"Veles is the best," says one ghost, with a Spooky layered voice.

"He shouldn't have to sit around holding your hands," says another.

"Yeah! He's the god of death, not the god of babysitting!" says a third.

Kenet rolls her eyes. "Your chorus needs more material."

"I think they just know what's up."

Veles and his chorus lead the shades to the base of the Definitely More of a Wheel than a Mountain. Its face is segmented into many differently coloured slices, though with how washed out the light is down here it's hard to tell, covered in strange, scratched markings. At its base is what looks like a hole, water draining into it from the flooded field. Rising from behind the wheel are stone pipes leading up into the ceiling. 

"Everybody line up!"

"Which garden are you from? What's it like?" Kenet asks Malen while they walk (having steady solicited both kids' names).

"Sophia's, I guess. There's lots of stuff, but it's pretty safe I think?"

"Think I might go back with you, then, at least this loop."

There's a rumble and a flash, and a girl wearing a many layered, fluffy dress appears floating above the water in front of them. "Have we heard correctly? Does someone petition to enter our august realm?"

"Hi Sophia," Veles says, casually. "Yeah, I think a few of Bilas' lot want to bail."

"Only the worthy may enter!" she declares. "And you have not passed the test!"

"What do we kill?" asks the catboy, or Hazel as he says his name is.

"No killing! Instead each who wishes to enter must answer my riddles three!"

"And riddles are..."

"Questions that you answer. They're a test of your intelligence and wit!"

"Oh, Billas said those were important for killing things that are stronger than you."

"Bilas is stupid. They're important for everything."

"Can I try them? And last boy who said Bilas was stupid ended up here."

"That's why he's stupid. And a butt face. And of course you can try. Your first riddle is: I run without legs, I have a bed but I never sleep and a mouth but I never talk. What am I?"