"...well, I think I'm important, but if gods think so too maybe it's just because I'm going to bring in Amentans? Or I guess my species could be important but I don't know much about them."

Helpless shrug.

"You're important. That much, I know. Not because of something that's true of many people. That much, I know. That is all I know, but hopefully it will help you find out the rest on your own."

"I hope so too."

It's only a few minutes later when Mahli enters the temple with her wizard, and they can go back to the not-hotel.

"Thank you," she tells Mahli.

"Of course, Lintalai.

Are you alright? Neselthia spoke to me after your injury but she said that you were taken care of, and I should continue to find the wizard so you could return here sooner. The gods do not look for you here, because you are less interesting to them here."

"Why am I less interesting to them here?"

"You will do fewer things if you stay here, but if you go elsewhere, you will do more things. The gods who are interested are interested in the things you do."

"...huh. I guess that sort of makes sense."

"Neselthia will still be interested in you here because you are enabling commerce for the Amentans and your people and Arcadians, but other gods may not. I know this because you are curious, and so it is important that I be able to answer your questions. The gods who I serve prepared me to answer questions, but they did not prepare for your pain today. I do not know why that happened. I will ask them."

"Thank you. Please tell me when you find out."

Mahli ends up hovering outside the not-hotel for the next day, unless someone tells him not to do that.

Lintalai will tell him no such thing, she likes Mahli.

She gets updates from the wizards, via her assistant. They think they can safely send objects to Lintalai's world, although they aren't sure yet if they're reaching the right planet. They can also Scry on people or places on Amenta-the-planet. Does she have a name for the world, by the by? They're working on selecting one for theirs as well, there's some debate about which of the available names to give precedence. None of them seem to have considered consulting anyone besides each other, which her assistant points out could be inconvenient politically, on a plane full of interdependent kingdoms.

The Amentans have a name for their galaxy but not really for the whole world. How is it conventional to consult others on naming conventions? Surely different languages have different names for things anyway.

On the Prime, place names eventually stick because those who don't speak the language they were named in just adopt the name, even as they continue to speak their own language amongst themselves. On Arcadia, most everything is named in Celestial. Wizards might be inclined to pick different kinds of names than the average citizen, though, for example they might pick something self-aggrandizing in some way. Not all wizards are like this, but...well. It will be a bit embarassing for their world to be named after a portmanteau of the wizards' names, for example.

...yes, that would be silly. How about the Celestial word for, say, 'magic'? Since this world has magic and the one Amenta's in does not.

Well, Lintalai can have a few. They'll all appeal to different groups, but one of the following five is likeliest to offend the fewest people if it becomes consensus while they're not paying attention: Davin. Faa'ip. Arzum. Gedon. Gemeganza.

Arzum is prettiest.

Arzum it is! She'll make sure at least two of the wizards think they came up with it, and it should become the consensus name of this world within the year, at the latest; sooner, if Amentans start arriving before then.

Lintalai thanks her.

She asks her magic talking skull about gods.

"Well, what is it you want to know about 'em? Gods are really big clouds of belief. They're like- do you know how much matter is in a star, compared to a person? Gods are like that, compared to a person. Does that help?"

"Wow, that's a lot. Are they as complicated as people?"

"Oh, yeah. In some ways more, in some ways less, but enough of the former to be more complicated overall. Some gods have multiple persons in them, plus other stuff that's not like people but that's like a country. I think I need more specific questions to answer how they're different than people, that's a lot of stuff I just said."

"How does having multiple persons in a god work?"