"I'm glad I could help! Anything else you need? ...If you're interested in our weapons classes, we do run them for older students too." 

"I'm very unstable on my feet, I think it wouldn't be safe."

"Fair enough. Not all of our strengths lie in the physical, and the Goddess appreciates powerful minds too." 

"I do pretty well in school. Thank you for talking to me!" She gets up to go.

The woman nods to her and goes back to cleaning the practice sword. 

The lesson outside is just finishing; the little girls are lined up, tired and sweaty, getting feedback from the instructor. 

Aza goes back to the Tower, Mindtouches Ma'ar to let him know she's done.

:Oh, good! I'm going back to the Twain's temple after class this afternoon, to talk to someone who wasn't in yesterday - maybe we can meet up after dinner and catch each other up?: 

:Sure, see you then!:

And Ma'ar Mindspeaks her again just after suppertime. :Want to meet in my room again? Aala's out: 

:On my way!:

He's waiting for her there, notes spread out on the bed around him. "Want to hear my summary first?" 

"Sure, what've you got?"

"Hmm. I'll start with the temple to Vkandis. They had a lot of miracles on record, and showed me the books on it - uh, a kind of disturbing number of them had to do with setting people on fire - I think people who were 'bad' according to Vkandis and who the priests prayed for help resisting? Though I guess that was really only five times, in their histories."

A pause.

"Anyway. Their written histories on-site didn't go back far enough to cover the temple's founding - I asked for how to get older books but I'm still waiting. I get the impression that Vkandis' order is pretty centralized compared to some of the others, and that He cares about the people worshipping Him being a single political body? ...The priest told me about some visions they think Vkandis sent to priests or political leaders, historically - the stories about them were really confusing but it seems like maybe it helped the temple order make some decisions right? Because they had warning of political turmoil or natural disasters. That's also most of the cases where they talked to other temples who worshipped different gods. I...think usually it was the human priests deciding to do that and asking permission or interpreting some past cryptic vision that they thought counted as permission, I - didn't really get the impression that Vkandis was on top of that part personally." 

"Yikes, the ones I looked into do not have a track record of setting people on fire! The Eternal Flame has 'flame' in their name and still doesn't do that!"

"I mean, I don't know for sure that it was really Vkandis doing miracles and not, I don't know, some priest who was a mage, but...it sounded like it was probably Vkandis. - What does the Eternal Flame do?" 

"The Eternal Flame actually sounds pretty cool!" She presents her notes.

"Oh, wow! They do seem pretty cool - it almost makes me suspicious, though, it sounds too good to be true..." 

"Well, if you want to postulate that gods are all actually indifferent or worse to mortal travails then I suppose it could be choosing this strategy to be appealing to people rather than because it actually endorses it but I'm not sure we have that much reason to so postulate."

"- I don't think I have any particular reason to think they're - specifically indifferent-or-worse?" Ma'ar shrugs. "Maybe I'm just too suspicious." 

"I mean, its followers might be making things look better for all kinds of reasons, but they aren't proudly announcing their god sets people on fire, which I think gives them a leg up."

"Oh, They deffinitely sound less dubious than Vkandis! I mean, even if it's Vkandis' followers and not Him who're deciding to be all proud about the setting-on-fire, who He draws as followers still says something... Want me to tell you about the Twain now?" 

"Sure!"

Ma'ar turns and shuffles through the notes splayed out on his bed. 

"...The Twain are confusing. I didn't get a satisfactory answer on whether They used to be separate gods or at least more separate than now - or on what it means that there are two of Them, even. The temple I visited did say there were two, not four, and the priestess said that They represented different aspects of..." a pause while he looks at his papers, "- uh, of something related to masculine and feminine traits, it wasn't very clear. It sounds like They've been worshipped for a long time by various different temple orders, although it was hard to get any specifics on that, or on what They want. ...I asked about Them working with other gods, and apparently there's a legend about Them working with Bestet?" 

"Yeah, I heard about that from Bestet's end! Apparently she turned some lady into a sword!" She produces notes on that meeting.

"- Turned her into a sword? Weird! The story I heard was - less specific than that, there was just this poetic ballad about vengeance." He makes a face. "With lots of murder in it."