"Huh. We don't send everybody to schools, but mostly because most of the work we do doesn't require it, and I don't really see what schoolwork would have to do with knowing what decisions to make for a family. Everything that's relevant to everybody we learn at home. School is mostly for learning how to work specific jobs that take specialized skills, I think."

"I think the ability to teach literacy quickly must make an enormous difference, for that. Literacy is a big part of what's taught in schools, that and math and accounting and theology, and those are the most important things for making decisions for a family."

"Religious practices are definitely all taught at home, the Alteri don't care about those at all. We don't teach everybody math but I think we could if we had a reason to, depending on how high your math goes. And I don't know a lot about accounting but I figure it's mostly like basic math, unless you're doing investing and then it's probably like more complicated math. I'd also want us to keep teaching everybody basic science and history and poetry."

"Some schools also teach those things, I think. The one I went to didn't but I stopped going younger than you're supposed to. Religious education is very important for women, too, I think we'd have school for girls just for that if we could afford it."

"Doesn't seem like you'd need a school for it. Maybe your religion's more complicated than most people's, though."

"It's - as complicated as you need it to be, I think. Some people just need to know that Abadar looks out for Osirion and if they're obedient in life then they'll get Axis, and some people have a million questions about why the universe works the way it does and can't really bring themselves to settle down and follow the rules until all the questions are satisfied. And then some people just need lots of reminding. But there's teachings on how to treat children, on how to treat your wife, how to break a bad habit, how to save money, things that everyone needs to know, and then there's things that only some people need, teachings on how to set prices if you have a store or how to be a lawful adventurer."

"Oh, huh. - I'd think you'd learn most of that from stories, honestly, and we don't send people to school to hear stories."

" - I think maybe you're better at stories than we are, or something. It'd be really good if most people learned that from stories but they mostly don't learn it at all if you don't teach it in school."

"Huh. That seems - sad."

"It's really terrible! It's so important and it's so hard to make sure everyone understands it and trusts in it. Osirion does better than everywhere else in the world but - not good enough."

"Huh. I don't know how I'd do it if people didn't learn it from stories. I feel like stories are really much easier to learn from than school."

"Maybe if you're very good at telling stories."

" - I mean, I like to think I am, but even people who're much worse at telling stories than I am seem like they do an all right job of the essentials, most of the time. Maybe you just haven't built up any of the skills in your communities. I think it might be much harder to refine them if people didn't think they were important."

"I think 'an all right job of the essentials, most of the time' probably describes what a normal child learns in their house but that's not enough to get them into Axis, not always."

"Well, none of us go to Axis, at least as far as I know. But we don't let babies grow up without songs and stories, either. And most people don't just grow up on the stories of their parents, you'll also grow up on the stories of the best storytellers in your community."

"We don't have that but it sounds lovely and maybe there'd be a way to imitate it, once we had seen how you do it. If storytelling is mostly a women's gift that might explain why we don't have it."

"I think boys and girls are about the same at it as children? It's just I think women get more practice, when they have to take off work for a bit to have babies. I do it while I work but a lot of people don't have jobs that allow that."

"Huh. I'd - love to come see how people live, sometime, if you'd be all right with that."

"Sure! Although it'll take some doing because, uh, we are currently almost all enslaved by aliens and not allowed free human visitors."

" - right. I guess once some people are free. - might be useful to have a cleric about once people are free anyway."

"What do clerics do?"

"Mostly we can heal people from illness or injury and we can make food and water. There are actually a lot of things clerics can do but those are the most significant as far as the role they have in society. Every morning, a cleric consults with their god to pick out the things they want to be able to do that day, and their god gives them the power to do them."

"Huh. We have some doctors, but I guess I'd expect clerics to have advantages at treating different kinds of things. It'd probably be good to have both."

"Clerics are much better for acute injuries in particular, and worse for things like a persistent digestive complaint unless it happens to be caused by a hidden acute injury. And you'd want both for surgery."

"Huh! Probably some of us should talk to you about that more, but - probably not me, probably someone with medical training."