"I do not like it much either. I simply - decided, after enough time, that I disliked it less than I dislike the state of the world remaining as it is forever. Also, the current gods have control of the afterlife and can reincarnate people; most Companions are reincarnated Heralds. They do not generally make use of this to bring people back with their memories and personalities, but since I know this is possible at least to an extent, I believe that a helpful god could eventually restore the dead people." 

"- reincarnated Heralds, wow, that's - a distraction - uh, in what sense are people reincarnations if they don't have their memories and personalities, what else is there -"

"Compatibility for lifebonds, for one. And some personality traits, there is a sort of kernel there, but the same basic mold of a person can be fairly different under different circumstances, it seems. However, the Companions do turn up with memories and personalities, so clearly this information is not just lost." 

"I guess that's promising but..."

"But it is still a very horrifying plan and you are reasonably unhappy that I am willing to consider it." 

"I'm not unhappy that it crossed your mind, I'm unhappy that it's plan A and 'murder the Star-Eyed in particular and steal all her Heartstones' or something isn't."

"I do not currently see a route to killing the Star-Eyed that would not require that level of power input anyway. I have tried the route of negotiating with the gods, including trying to scope out whether any are enemies with Her, but it is difficult when they will not talk to me. If you have ideas for potential god-killing schemes, perhaps they are new ones I have not already considered, so I would be delighted to hear them." 

"I'll think on it."

"Anything else you wish to ask about right now? I suppose there is the matter of why I think that it is possible to make a god that will act differently from the existing set, which is - complicated and high-context and I will need to at some point dig into further notes for it, but certainly something we ought to discuss eventually." 

"It seems like it might have to - do you have a name for it, even if it's just, like, something totally uninformative like Project One or something, seems otherwise hard to talk about - it seems like it might have to not just be motivated to act differently but also have a different powerset, given that you seem likely to be overconfident about how much the existing gods squabble and disagree. If it's more than you expect, one more medium-sized god squabbling and disagreeing would only be able to nudge things in a local area - I guess that might be the idea, to have a place where you can invent things, but they have to be able to take into account things that happen far away outside their own territories for coincidence management because mortals routinely travel betwixt and between territories."

"Hmm. I had in fact been assuming that initially it would be one territory among many. Though if you are correct, my new god might either face more resistance then expected, or possibly active alliance from an existing god who is not willing to talk to a mere human such as myself. The opportunity for negotiation is something I had been planning for as well, but it is definitely worth pausing and considering whether I have fallen too deep into certain assumptions about the negotiating conditions." 

"And - hm - are you positive gods can in fact have conversations - like, conversations as distinct from... emitting a series of words that gets a result they want. Those might be importantly different things. There might be weird ways of talking to them that closes the gap between how we talk and how they might."

"Huh." Leareth is silent for a minute. "I did consider that the gods' main method of communication is probably not conversations as we know them, especially since I think their main sensory modality is something like Foresight. I - have probably not done all of the experiments that are possible, in terms of using this to try to send signals to them." 

"I think you should do more experiments before you breed ten million people in preparation to commit mass murder you aren't completely certain you can reverse."

"I agree. I suppose I had somewhat given up on the direct cooperation aspect when I was certain that the gods in question knew I was trying to speak with Them, and I had given Them many avenues to do so, so it seemed to indicate a lack of interest, and also I kept getting murdered which is very discouraging. I - had tried all of the avenues I could think of then given my understanding of magic. And since I had already concluded They were completely uninterested in negotiation, I did not reassess that despite having learned more about magic in the last five or six centuries. Plausibly that was a mistake. Maybe you can help me think through which options are worth trying and were not already tried."

"I would be happy to help you with that." Kiss.

"We should get your Mindspeech trained so that we can kiss and talk about killing gods at the same time," Leareth says cheerfully. 

"I like this plan. How do I Mindspeak?"

"...Honestly I think that most students need training to stop Mindspeaking random thoughts. I do not have any relevant teaching experience for your issue. I can try Mindspeaking with you from my side?" 

"Okay."

He pokes at her shields with a Mindtouch. :Belrun?: 

She continues to look at him expectantly.

"Nothing?" 

"Nothing."

"Hmm. I want to try tapping your shields harder to see if you can sense it. It might startle you, though."