"It's not that I want to be queen of something, it's that I want, like... so if there's plenty for everybody for loads of generations, what happens after that, if we're all immortal? I want to keep being comfortable indefinitely."

"I wouldn't mind being queen of something," Ghys puts in, cheerfully.

"That surprises none of us. Anyway, we're high magic, I don't see why there can't be enough for everybody forever. Even our original universe is constantly expanding, right? Just make it a rule that our new universe is expanding really fast and instead of becoming less dense there's new stuff popping up in the gaps and people have a reasonably lowish baby drive so we don't manage to outpace even that. And make there be spells for pocket dimensions and stuff and--there really isn't any reason a high magic setting can't have a ton of ways to make the resources scale with the population." 

"Sold. Okay, so that brings us back to elves. What makes elves special in a world where we are basically throwing every conceivable convenience we can think of at the entire population? Everyone is immortal and has wings and probably doesn't or barely ever gets sick and just generally lives comfortable lives, how do we improve on that? Prettier and smarter and stronger and more magical is, like, fine, but it doesn't feel like enough, you know?"

"Shapeshifting," Ghys suggests.

"You are definitely planning nefarious uses for that, but it's a thought, sure. I didn't even end up needing to munchkin on making hairstyle changes quick and easy for everyone, so we can totally have that, so probably lots of cosmetic stuff is quick and easy for everyone, but elves could still have it better than that."

"Elves don't have headaches or cramps--I mean like exercise cramps, there is no reason for people to menstruate in this world--or pain in childbirth--elves could be taller--we could do something with the 'holiness' thing if we wanted to," she suggests. "I don't normally go in much for religion but if we get to design the religion..."

"Wow, you're giving everyone wings but not giving everyone lack of headaches? And while I applaud abolishing menstruation, I can totally think of several reasons people might want to menstruate. Some people are into that. Anyway, though, I'm on board with the three of us designing a religion we get to be extra holy in. First question: should the religion, in general, be true."

"I'm not saying everyone shouldn't get lack of headaches but I'd rather have wings than no headaches! And I think the religion should be true, it makes us less special if it isn't."

"Will this religion have an afterlife? Because I won't countenance a god who judges my life when I'm done living it," says Ghys.

"I'm fine with no afterlife if and only if the magic system includes resurrection."

"If there's always been an afterlife then the fake ancient dead civilization gets out as a lie—and likewise if there's resurrection, somebody'd try for a fake ancient dead person—but if the afterlife is new then it doesn't so maybe the afterlife is recent, and elves are related somehow," Naomi suggests. "Maybe the whole religion is new."

"It would be moderately poetic if the ancient dead civilization had supposedly sacrificed themselves to create a new, better world in which one way or another everyone gets to live forever."

"Or they brought their dead with them when they ascended."

"I mean, either way they don't actually exist, so I'm fine with letting their story be a little tragic. What's the advantage of them bringing their dead with them?"

"Because there are absolutely people who will hear a tragic story and try to fix it. You can say that for tragic reasons they're beyond what the magic system is designed to do, but...we're already beyond what the system we're in now was designed to do. Someone will try to be a munchkin with our magic system, and, uh, when I say 'someone' I mean 'definitely my big brother but also other people I'm sure.'"

"Huh, funny, my first thought was that somebody's going to try to reverse-engineer ascension and join them wherever they went. Maybe we need to rethink the ancient dead civilization thing."

"Since we are, in a sense, creating the world, then its true gods are, in a sense, ourselves," says Ghys. "We could start there in building our religion."

"We could include an actual ascension mechanism," she points out. "And we could in fact start there but I don't think we have the option of actually being goddesses so if we want our religion to be true in the religious sense and not in the 'based on a true story' sense we're going to need to go a ways from there." 

"You do not have the option of being goddesses," the angel confirms. "In theory I could pull other instances of your templates and instantiate them as goddesses, but in this particular case, I am super not allowed to do that for Ghyslaine."

"If we include an ascension mechanism then when people use it they will go wherever ascended people go and notice there is no one else there," Naomi points out. "Like, not that I object to ascension, I just think that we should arrange to either not have the history of the universe be lies, or to have the history of the universe be lies that no one has a realistic chance of ever uncovering the truth about. And the more we play with the idea, the more it sounds like we can't actually stop people from uncovering the truth."

"Can't we just go 'the multiverse is a big place and they didn't leave breadcrumbs?' Like, if I sail away from Europe to America, and nobody has ever been to America before, and you decide to follow me, then if I landed in Florida and you landed in New York, and you completely failed to find me, that wouldn't be suspicious."

"I don't know, I think I'd get suspicious. I might just be a naturally suspicious person. But like, whole entire ancient civilization full of people, none of them wants to hang around to see how the rest of their world turned out? Suspicious."

"So suppose that our religion dictates that three goddesses designed the world together, set it to run its course, and entered it as ordinary people," says Ghyslaine. "This has the advantage from your perspective of already being true. It lets us personally dictate whatever divine messages we want to leave in the world. It even lets us include all our favourite art and music, as messages from the goddesses instead of ancient relics. It amuses me enormously. What isn't to like?"

"Well...if the goddesses aren't still around being goddesses...I guess that makes worshipping them makes less sense...but I could see it working anyway. How are we going to frame the goddesses, because I don't think omnibenevolence is on the table when one of them is you."