"How many pantheons are out there?"

“Oh, hundreds,” Sheila says dismissively. “We were in the biggest one, though.”

"Of course, you have Victory, Fortune and Sex magic."

“It’s not really about that,” Alex says. “Also, again, Nem-Shar isn’t one of ours. But it was always more about how big your human supplicants could grow their empire, and after they all die out it’s about how well you can stick in the public consciousness. That’s where we really shone. We weren’t the biggest empire in history, but nobody else stuck around like we did.”

”Except Jesus,” Jack notes.

“Fuck that guy,” Sheila says. 

"What is so terrible about Jesus? So gods have a species-specific magic that benefits from having empires and being remembered?"

"Sheila's bitter because Jesus is the current biggest god around, and one of her mortal parents follows him," Kostas says. "And yeah, pretty much. Anybody can do it if you know how to channel the power properly, though. There've been mortals who became gods."

"Huh, at some point I really gonna need an overview of all this sort of magic stuff. At least the bits that grant a longer life. Is channeling the power of gods hard?"

"Not really," Sheila says. "The trick is getting the power in the first place. We had a leg up in that regard; like most, our pantheon came into being due to preexisting belief energy. Without that, you need to convince people you're a god before you are one. Which is tough."

"Is Nem-Shar the only god with cool sex powers?"

"Sex is one of the most essential domain items, along with death and fertility," Alex says. "Everyone had a sex god. We didn't have one in our lineup purely by chance, but there were several in the pantheon."

"Do you have one for gay sex?"

"Of course he asks that."

Alex shakes his head. "Our people didn't really think that way. Pretty much all of the Greek gods are bisexual, so Eros worked fine for anybody."

"Huh, is that a god thing? Being bisexual, that is."

"More of a Greek thing," Gavriil says.

"'A woman for heirs, a man for love, and a boy for pleasure,'" Kostas quotes.

Jack scrunches up his face. "Gross. That's gross. You're gross."

Alex pats him on the back. "Well, we don't do that anymore."

"Still gross!"

Herod makes a face. "Well... actually, I don't have anything to add."

"That your soulmate got the pleasure part covered?"

"Aw," Alex smiles. "That's sweet."

"I'm glad everyone's secure enough in their relationships not to have to resort to pederasty for kicks, yes," Jack says acidly.

"It wasn't for kicks, Jack, it was a societal institution," Gavriil huffs.

"A fucked-up one!"

"In retrospect, yes," Kostas admits.

Okay, emergence change of topic. "I think... I should clarify, that we are translating a term with a specific meaning in our culture when we use the word soulmate. It means people that reincarnate together. It doesn't necessarily imply romance."

"Oh! That makes sense." Alex seems to appreciate the change of topic. "Speaking of your world, you mentioned somewhere called 'Arcadia' - what's that like? Actually, we don't know much about your worlds in general, do we? Just that there was a plague when you were humans."

Change of topic is good. "Arcadia is an entire different world that I've never been to. But it's described as being very nice. Low population, beautiful and edible plants, and general lack of dangers. The world of innocence. Supposedly, trees sort of spread out in arcs and spirals so you have small forests made out of just a hand few of trees. Prime... having seen only this school, the nearby town and the space in between, I would tentatively assume Prime is very similar, at least the same number of celestial bodies and similar plants. But less technologically advanced. The continent we lived in had a wizard nobility that was very stingy with their magic up until a few years before we died. Then some wizard discovered their innate spell that lets other people get their innate spells in a matter of hours instead of years. The idiot shared with everyone, which was noble in a way but also sparked multiple civil wars. We died on a boat, on the way to getting that spell to use it on ourselves."

"Which, I am still mad about it."

"Huh," Sandy says. "I wonder if you have some kind of hidden knowledge of your innate spells that a psychic could help reveal? Do you still not have yours?"

"They might? The spellword is supposed to be there in the back of your mind, but not accessible."

"Definitely sounds like something I could help with," Sandy diagnoses. "Want me to root around in your brain for a bit and see what I come up with?"