"Is that a problem the gods have a lot?"

"Eighty years ago one of the gods, Aroden, died. His death directly destroyed several countries and indirectly destroyed several more, and caused the domain of prophecy to depart the world; we know almost nothing about how it happened."

"Gosh."

"That's the only time in recent history, though."

"How does a god dying destroy countries?"

"The week he died, the world was subjected to a furious, violent and unseasonable storm; when it ended, his clerics couldn't reach him. The storm never fully subsided, and flooded two countries. Other countries were dependent on clerics of Aroden for legitimacy, medicine, and clean water, and collapsed into civil war."

" - well. I don't know what I was expecting. This must be...Isama as a Dwarf, Isama as an Andalite, Isama as an Osirian?"

"Isun, Ismea, Ismat," he says. "Mine are Caranth, Merenre, and we-don't-know, who is outside."

<And that's Eskillimi,> says Ismea pointedly. <And Kimli, and Khalil.>

"- probably one does not bow to alternate universe versions of the pharaoh," says Ismat. "Hello, though."

"Oh, yes, definitely not, I'm not officially anything. It's nice to meet you!"

"The other one is, though, isn't he? And probably one still doesn't bow to him or at least if one does it's under a different set of conventions."

"Personally I snuck into his house in the middle of the night, and drugged him and paralyzed him before I woke him up."

"You don't bow. In a formal context like a conference room or a courtroom or something you'd stand."

"Much less wasted energy, that way."

"I can't help but think behaving that way towards world leaders - or, well. anyone - may cost you Axis even though it doesn't seem it works that way and who am I to talk."

"Axis?"

"There are nine afterlives that mortals are sorted into when they die on my plane. Axis is the best one - it's an endless city of millions of districts, each running themselves, without scarcity, and with portals linking it all up so nothing's too far from anything else. And to get there you need to be lawful neutral. You are almost certainly not, though I don't have the spell prepared again today so I can't say for sure."

Shrug. "He had it coming, he tried to conquer us."

"I'm apparently chaotic good. I bet Pelape is too."

"Do you have one of her?"

"My younger brother isn't married. I don't know her in any other context either."

"Are you sure, she might not look like me, you don't look like Aaron."

"I am not socially acquainted with any women who aren't in the church or the palace. I guess it's possible you're chaotic good in this world but lawful in ours because Axis was enough of an incentive but it'd surprise me a little."

"...I'm not sure Axis would be an incentive but there might be other reasons? Like, both Pelape and I have specific reasons to resent our prevailing governmental institutions."