"You have a right to know, I think. I had been waiting to - cover some more of the background for it, and for a good uninterrupted stretch of time to discuss it." 

"How long an uninterrupted stretch?" she asks, spinning her last lazy susan to check out egg 6-64-18.

"Probably it would not need an entire day, but several candlemarks at least." 

"I only have econ and not microbio or the healing lecture tomorrow, if it's too many candlemarks to fit in after dinner."

"Probably. We can cover some more of the background with the gods after dinner, maybe." 

"Sure. ...am I just effectively moving out of my dorm..."

"I suppose that might be the simplest thing to do here, since I do not actually find the idea of sleeping apart very appealing." 

"Me either. More of a walk to school but not intractable, I did it my first year here. It'll be annoying to move the books."

"I can help although I suppose a Gate is probably overkill." 

"Probably. I can most likely borrow a cart from somewhere."

Nod. "Do we want to start on that tonight or later? I am imagining it might take multiple trips." 

"Yeah, might as well." She makes a last note on the eggs and piles up firewood on the fire so the eggs won't take a chill overnight and takes his hand to head out. "Dinner first."

Leareth squeezes her hand. "Dinner sounds wonderful." 

Dinner is beef stew and bread and then they can go borrow crates and a cart from Facilities and pack up about half of the books in Belrun's room.

Belrun's room seems reasonably private, so if it's all right with her, Leareth can put up a sound-barrier with magic just in case and then explain some background about gods while helping her load the cart. 

Sounds good to her.

Leareth can start with the Star-Eyed Goddess and describe her ancient pact with both the Shin'a'in and Tayledras peoples, formerly the Kaled'a'in before the Cataclysm happened. He's not sure what Her territory was before the Cataclysm, but afterward She ended up adopting some of the worst-hit regions, and has been leading efforts to get them repaired ever since. She's a bit subtler than Vkandis in the way She works, but seems even more determined to hang onto Her people and bind their descendants in perpetuity. He suspects She teams up with Vkandis a fair amount, and has reduced but non-negligible influence within Valdemar even though he's pretty sure Valdemar is primarily under a different and much more hands-off god. 

The Star-Eyed does not like Leareth at all and, taking into account Her spirit-warrior avatars that can directly give mortals orders, and the fact that She can send premonitions to any of the peoples bound in a pact with her, She is pretty able to prevent him from operating at all in Her territories. 

"What can we assume about what any given god knows - like, does this mean I can't go there either?"

"It would be helpful if we knew which one was responsible for the lifebond! I would suspect the Valdemaran local god but I know very little of Them. I am not sure if the gods would have shared information on the lifebond, or to what extent They can target you personally. That being said, probably you do not want to visit the Pelagirs or the Dhorisha plains anyway. The locals are quite hostile to any outsiders. Vanyel is somewhat of an exception, as he and his aunt have friends among the Tayledras." 

"In Valdemar I think Kernos and Astera are popular, but you don't seem to think they necessarily interact directly with their churches, so maybe that's unrelated?"

"I think that Kernos perhaps interacts with the monks of His order at all - though not often and the last documented instance was centuries ago - but has a fairly small actual territory mostly confined to the northwest of Valdemar . I am not even sure which interventions to attribute to Astera, but I have a theory that Her original territory is further south or southeast than Valdemar and the temple order simply spread much further. They have some profitable business with scribes making and selling copies of rare books." 

"Huh. What limits their spread if not each other?"

"I suspect something comparable to total 'size' or strength - They exist across all the planes and have relatively little influence on this one, so it becomes inefficient to try to control a very large area. Though sometimes a given god's territory is not contiguous – Iftel and Karse are both under Vkandis, for example, despite being on opposite sides of Valdemar and Hardorn. Do you know much of Iftel?" 

"Uh... Queen Elspeth married a guy from it?"

“The country is on surprisingly good terms with Valdemar given that they do not even allow Heralds in through their impassable barrier. I am not sure how that worked with Elspeth’s state marriage.”