"I'd need to know more about what you mean by that. My body is aligned with Salt, but my soul isn't aligned with any of the nearby planes, because aligning your soul with one of the Inner Planes takes an unusual kind of person. You'd have to care more about bodies and matter and other physical things than beliefs, opinions, and abstractions."

"I guess I shouldn't have used 'mentally'. You used the term 'value shape-shifting' the translation of that implies something more intellectual than my relationship with shape-shifting. Which is closer to people's relationship with sitting on their legs and finding that they went numb because of the lack of blood flow. Every so often I need to change or it becomes uncomfortable to be in my body. Sometimes I need to be a girl, sometimes I need to have wings or insect-like carapace."

"-huh. Of your current options, I would still suggest Steam, but you could try Water. It is still foreign to you."

Shrug. "I was just making sure we are not wasting your time. What are the Steam exercises?"

Steam exercises!

They start with same initial breathing exercise as before, which is simple enough. The follow-up this time does not involve deeper breaths, though; instead, he is led through some aerobic exercise designed to make him sweat.

Interesting, aerobic shifts into a triton-like shape to follow the exercise better. His little translator companion decides to hang out in the ceiling for a bit.

Eventually, Temperance will notice that he is sweating more than he might normally expect- it could be the triton form, but judging by Merves "Good, you're making progress", that is part of the process.

Temperance has a sense of how much forms should sweat. Apparently he is doing well, more reason to push forward? At least until Merves asks him to stop or to move on to the next sage.

As he continues, some of the sweat begins to evaporate unnaturally quickly. Temperance notices no other differences in how how he feels besides that he is staying cool and energized despite the exertion.

Temperance keeps focusing on the exercising but in the back of his mind he finds the effect interesting. He wonders if it could mean some synergy with shape-shifter tiredness.

Merves interrupts when Temperance has experienced a few minutes without further progress.

"That's all you'll be able to do in one day. You need to teach your body that sweating more often is useful and desirable; if you allow your attempts to align with another plane to drift too far from your body's natural patterns, your body will not end up aligned to the plane, your soul will. Keep in mind that you cannot let yourself think too much about this process; it should become part of your body's instincts and processes."

"I think the distinction should be easy to manage. For me at least. Is there a standard rate of progress? What are the benefits of Steam body alignment?"

"It takes years to move past initial improvements, so most people who train their magic this way stop there. At your level, you'll begin to notice that movement in water has become easier, that you have an improved sense of direction, that you can judge distances more accurately, and you tire less easily. You can identify other elemental pockets from a greater distance, and things like the discolored poison below our city will be possible to see even from a close distance. You will be able to survive in the water better, especially on the hotter end- extremely cold water will cause the typical damage.

You may find movement on land more difficult, with some loss of depth perception and difficulty breathing on mountains- I've only heard this second-hand, since we don't have anything like that in Water."

Temple nods. "I will adapt. Both literally and figuratively. Thanks for the instructions!"

Slight smile.

"You must have other questions about magic. Or are you satisfied already?"

"I do have more questions about magic, yes. It's hard to satisfy me in that topic. Oh, relevant question. You're supposed to have gods, right? How do they work?"

"Gods over-complicate things. Some people get their magic from them, but I find them to be unpleasant to work with. They expect perfect alignment between you and themselves, and that's much more challenging than aligning with an Outer Plane to begin with- Outer Planes are the planes formed from belief rather than matter or elements."

"I meant, more what are your gods? We had beings that we called gods, but our assumptions about them were wrong."

"Gods are powerful beings native to the Outer Planes, most of which have some hand in creating something big or complicated in Prime worlds: particular intelligent species, some natural phenomena, some kinds of magic, non-magical phenomena which couldn't happen naturally, some technology that no prime species invented but was just given to them. They have worshipers who are aligned with them and to whom they grant favors."

Temperance nods. "I think Areus mentioned that ours destroyed the world to commit suicide? We looked into other worlds before finding this one. We have been worried that your gods could pose a similar problem."

"If they're suicidal, then we won't hear about them. Gods can die if they're forgotten."

"Less suicidal, and more has plans to destroy everything, but okay. Anyway... the plans that work on belief, how does that work? Could you change one of them by telling lies?"

"You'd have to tell very widespread, very effective lies on the prime worlds, or introduce something completely new and lie very convincingly about that on the planes themselves. Only beliefs of primes and petitioners matter- and primes much more than petitioners. I'm not sure how you'll count. Maybe you're more prime than petitioner, and you can influence things, as can your fellow refugees."

Nod. "Interesting. Any idea why it works that way?"

"Are you asking why a plane built on belief would respond to beliefs, or are you asking why that would exist? We don't really know. It seems to fit with our understanding of the Prime Material Plane, though. Where elements and beliefs intersect, you find matter. Where you don't have beliefs, there are just elements, and where you don't have elements, there are just beliefs. The purest plane of belief is the Astral Plane, which connects all of the Outer Planes- some scholars theorize that maybe the Outer Planes are just particularly distinct parts of the Astral Plane, or the Outlands, or maybe they're all dreamed up by one of the dead gods- not dead if it's dreaming, I assume the theory goes? I've never speculated personally."