The terrain changes sharply in the way it does where gods show their edges: it's grass, up ahead, with a few trees singly or in small clumps, each big enough to offer a decent patch of shade.

"Probably a little friendlier than most savanna," he mutters quietly, painting some shorthand notes along his arm, "Especially keeping good shade near the road."

"All the savannas I know of are friendly. But many things can be surprising," says the pinecone.

"That's true. I'll look for people and a temple."

And so he does.

There's farms, in the savannah. Here's a field of peas. Nice tidy rows. Farmhouse in the distance.

Then he will say hello to a farmhouse! Hello, farmers. Here is a wandering traveler who would like to hear about the places you live and the times you have lived through. He will trade you stories of his own, most of them certified almost certainly true.

The guest-greeting farmer - a lady meets him at the door with a baby and she also has four older children and a sister and a husband and an uncle on hand - blinks at him. "Certified almost certainly true? What a peculiar thing to say," she says.

"Well, the thing about stories from history is that most of the people who recorded it aren't around to ask, so it's hard to say if they were telling the whole truth. But it's close to true, at least, and where our library heard it from more than one place, better than that."

"Oh, what library is this?"

"The library of the goddess Baborakon. Paper and ink from the forests, learning from her people, and collecting stories from across the continent from her scribes and her acolytes. I've come out this way to hear about the countries and gods, and collect more stories to bring home."

"Ooh, a library goddess! That's very concrete. Our Iabeltha's a goddess of efficiency, which is much more abstract than that."

"Usually she says she's a goddess of learning, and there are schools and things too she helps with back home. But her biggest temples are all libraries. What are Iabeltha's like?"

"The little ones are also waystations - with little maps in them, pointing out what's which way - and the big ones, I've never been but I hear they're often multipurpose, when there aren't church events people will have parties or classes or meetings and things there. Sometimes they're hostels too."

"It's good to have them be useful. One of Baborakon's neighbors has a city full of big magnificent temples but they're all empty except for worshiping - or admiring the architecture, which is maybe the same thing to him - and it always feels like a waste."

"Is he an architecture god?"

"He's a grandiose fellow, is Sargothal, says he's a god of 'Majesty.' Very nice city, though, in a river delta and has merchants bringing things from everywhere. I like the forests better, but I also like the road best, if I was stuck at home I might rather the city."

"There's a neighbor god who's a river god. The news says Iabeltha's thinking about letting him cross her."

"Rivers can be very good neighbors, good for the crops and the travelers. The news, you say? Traveling criers?"

"- no, we know how to read, the news comes printed."

"Oh... From her directly, from the little temples?"

"She doesn't write it, but we go read it there, yes."

"Hmm, who does do the writing...? I'll be sure to see it in person soon, anyway, so if it's dull to explain don't mind me."

"I think some priests have it as part of their ministry? I don't really read bylines."

"That would make sense." The copying and distribution seems like the interesting part, but he can ask at the temple. "And that's how you hear about things from across her territory? Do you hear much from further away?"

"Anything that manages to get across the border in the first place, sure. What with the talking to the river god some of the news is from quite far indeed, though if you ask me I don't see what we're supposed to do about any of it if it's that far off."