"I didn't listen to this advice, to be clear, but I feel like I have to give it."

"...I can set things on fire with my brain and have been able to hear the dead, among other things, for as long as I can remember, and I don't actually think I have the option of not learning about what's happening to me."

"I wonder if that has a protective effect against not being suitable for polite society."

"I mean I also am sixteen and have not in fact been able to learn very much so far. Maybe when I get weird I'll get really weird. But I don't think I can just leave it alone and have that work."

"What do the dead have to say?"

"Talking in great and upsetting detail about how they died, sometimes. Asking questions about their relatives I didn't in fact know the answers to and wouldn't know where to start finding out. I figured out how to get them to shut up when I was seven but I still don't spend much time around graveyards when I can avoid it."

"Figures. Technically I'm dead, you know."

"Huh. How so?"

"If you're a dreamer and you desperately want to live in the Dreamlands, when you die you'll wake up in the Dreamlands. Can't go back to Earth anymore though."

"Ah. ...not sure if I should offer congratulations or sympathies so both I guess."

"Mostly I find that things just sort of happen and you have to roll with them without thinking about whether they're good or not. This is probably because I'm too strange for polite society."

"....guess if it works for you it works." Pause. "I still have a lot of questions. I — do not have nearly enough evidence to conclude that the universe isn't actually reductionist but the more I hear about the Dreamlands the more it sounds that way — why does nobody know about magic since it clearly exists, is there an afterlife for people who aren't dreamers — is the asking lots of questions thing a dreamer thing usually?"

"Dreamers are curious, creative, weirdly likely to write fantasy novels for some reason--"

"--or draw art--"

"Or draw art, thank you Pickman, no one would want to forget your pre-cannibalism career. They love new things, they're constantly thinking about something, they love art, they love beautiful things. For most of history people did know about magic, haven't you ever read about sorcerers in old books? Dunno why people don't know about it now, it's not like I get a chance to talk to humans very often. I believe the current consensus at the University of Ulthar is that the universe is reductionist but we don't understand how for much the same reason that cavemen would be confused by how airplanes fit into a reductionist schema."

Oh no. Every answer to every question opens ten more questions. It turns out Inaaya has a lot of questions in her.

"Old books say a lot of different things about magic and most of them contradict each other and some of them contradict themselves, do we know who's right, can you tell me who's right, speaking of things old books about magic tend to agree on if the consensus is that the universe is reductionist that implies no Christian God but is that in fact correct, are there other things that correlate with high openness—"

"What's an openness? I know what's right about... some things... and not other things? I'm not, like, omniscient or anything, I just make a lot of really bad decisions. There is definitely no Christian God. We have no idea who created the universe but I think the University of Ulthar thinks it came into being sort of unofficially." 

"Openness to experience is the thing you said dreamers have a lot of? Curiosity and creativity and caring a lot about art and new things and beauty and variety. I.... should have more questions about magic but in fact I think I don't know enough to ask useful ones. —also I am glad there's no Christian God because if there were I'd have to kill him and that sounds difficult. Oh, new question, what is the coolest thing in the Dreamlands according to you."

"Oh, huh, cool. --Don't worry, there's absolutely no shortage of gods for you to attempt to murder. The coolest thing in the Dreamlands in my opinion is my city, although of course I would think that."

"You have a city? What's it like? Also what are the gods like— you don't have to answer that comprehensively or anything— or like you don't have to answer at all but."

"Providence, Rhode Island."

"...like, literally? Or am I failing to get a metaphor or a reference or something."

"Or so I was informed by a very obnoxious deity immediately before he tossed me to the outer edges of space in order to be devoured by the blind idiot god Azathoth."

"...that not only fails to address my confusion at all it is somehow even more confusing."

"You wanted to know what gods are like! Mostly they ignore you. Sometimes they throw you to the outer reaches of space. Sometimes they devour you. Surprisingly often they provide you genuinely useful life advice. In general we are as ants to them and they are as concerned about our wellbeing as we are about the ant we step on on the way to the bathroom."