"...no, we most certainly don't."

"I see. But the boar in the news does?"

"Yeah, monsters respawn."

"I would recommend that you look into acquiring respawn methods should we get to the point of interplanar trade."

"...I mean, like, we could petition the gods to fling open the Doors of Death right now, if we wanted? But the last time that happened was really not fun for us. We would much rather resolve the respawn imbalance by getting the Underworld locked down tighter, so their guys can't get out either."

"Huh. Do you think it would cause problems if you purchased a deck of magic cards for resurrection? In the shorter term, it sounds like we should test me in combat, because if I can land a curse and I have the mana it can interfere with respawning."

"We're unlikely to use it unless the, uh, broader theopolitical and geopolitical situation changes such that the cabinet become convinced maintaining the 'dead humans stay dead' norm is no longer our least bad available option, but I expect we would be happy to purchase it. Having more options is always good if we have to make an emergency judgment call.

...Not knowing how your universe works—I'm excited to hear whatever information you're willing to share—I should clarify that 'dead' doesn't mean we can't talk to them, the cabinet benefit greatly from consultation with the spirits of their blessed ancestors, we aren't deprived of the wisdom of millennia.

And yes, we should test you in combat! That would be greatly valuable to us and all humanity, if it works."

"If Atropos wanted me to not give you the same information I'd give any new witch who asks, she'd have told me so. And it's good to hear you're a mature faction, so many people won't listen to external sources of wisdom. How would you describe the theopolitical and geopolitical situation?"

"Okay, so the vast majority of humanity are mortals, who have different traditions of religion and folklore in different regions of the world, and are arranged in...if I say 'republics, capitalism, the United Nations, nuclear weapons, constitutions, the Internet', are those things ringing a bell?"

"Yes, the Earth I was on recently has the same."

"Okay, great!

So, each mortal tradition of folklore about gods and monsters is associated with an actually existing supernatural community, shrouded behind a veil that obscures it from mortal perception. Different people call the veil different things; we say 'the Mist'. The power and influence of a supernatural population correlates with the wealth and status of the corresponding culture, the weight of years of tradition, and probably other factors we haven't figured out.

The most numerous supernatural population, and the one with the greatest influence on world events—the one that would be called 'the supernatural community', if any of them could—is that connected to what we call 'Western civilization', a loose grouping of cultures that have at some point considered themselves the heirs to Greece and Rome, and participated in the literary tradition that includes Hesiod, Homer, and Virgil.

Within that community, the main advocates for humanity—the strongest forces in favor of good things being allowed to happen—are the eldest Olympians, the daughters of Kronos, the goddesses of civilization. Vesta, Ceres, and Juno, or Hestia, Demeter, and Hera, if you prefer the Greek names. The names technically stand for different aspects of their personalities, but we use them pretty interchangeably around here.

They're beset on all sides by a variety of problems that outclass them in raw power, most of them tied in some way to the primal forces of nature. The Mist, which in spite of the best efforts of its patron goddess Hecate has grown so strong over the centuries that most mortals would struggle to live in a base like this without damage to their sanity from not knowing what's going on all the time. Their ancestors, the Titans and primordial gods, avatars of the Hobbesian 'state of nature'. Their own rebellious younger brothers, whose egos were inflated by the manner of worship given them by tragically misguided patriarchal mortals and who have forgotten their proper place in the pantheon.

The Queen and Cabinet consider themselves to be endowed with the responsibility of protecting humanity and civilization. Their current long-term strategic plan to achieve these aims is to infiltrate the governing organs of mortal society until we can—safely, and from a position of power, authority, and respect—emerge from the shadows, reinstate public prayer and sacrifice to the Olympian gods, and—openly and proudly before the world—practice the proper roles of women and men in our marriages. 

We believe that this plan is, among our available courses of action under current constraints, the most likely to sufficiently strengthen the Olympians to overpower and defeat their enemies, and to promote an arrangement of gender roles among divine beings that empowers the entities whose interests are most aligned with civilization."

"Does this plan involve openly reinstating magic, or just using mundane methods and a bit of statistical luck which mysteriously fails to appear for studies to promote prayer?"

"Just mundane methods, I don't expect we even could reveal magic to mortals in a way that convinces them until the Mist problem is solved, and that one's the least tractable."

"Good. In that case while I will likely not endorse your conquest schemes unless my goddess tells me to, it seems I am under no obligation to oppose them. Also, unrelatedly, I think I've been implicitly assuming that an empowered Amazon employee would of course be recording everything I say, but given that mist-piercingness is a notable property of cameras, should I instead assume that if you want something recorded someone will have to take notes?"

"The Mist interferes less with sound than visuals and audio recording equipment than cameras, the only time I'd expect significant distortion is on, like, the roars of a hydra that mortals are seeing as a car.

We don't actually make a habit of recording everything on our own bases. If you'd like to record for your own notes you're welcome to, but I would ask that if you have to send the audio files anywhere you encrypt them in transit—as a separate problem from the Mist interference, individual supernatural beings can spy on and mess with electronic communications. The specifics of the mechanism are unclear but anything that 'feels' like it should help does, like encryption obscures the contents of a message from monsters."

"I generally do telecommunications with magic."

«Like so.»

"Oh, cool! The higher-ups will definitely be interested in that, if there's a way for us to get it."

"It might be that some of you have witch potential, that seems like a possible reason for me to be sent here. And of course you can ask me to pass along messages to anyone I've met, though I might decline. Anyway, I ask about recording because I've been assuming that if I explain things to you now then of course your queen and cabinet will hear everything in full detail, but maybe I should save the lectures for later?"

"I can take notes to pass along, if you're ready to explain your world!"

Rob gets out her phone.

"I type really fast, I can transcribe exactly."

"Nice! I am absolutely ready, I do this all the time for girls who thought they were mortals."

"So, to the best of my understanding the Prime Earth in the Prime Sphere is the center of the universe. Mortal beliefs there matter a lot and if enough mortals there start believing in magic then it's really bad for the integrity of the universe. Various parties set up the Veil in the past, and it's flimsier than your Mist. Doing implausible things strains it, even if the mortal you do them in front of doesn't obviously catch on."

"On the theopolitical side: As mentioned, I happen to serve a Greco-Roman goddess. This is not because Greco-Roman deities have a specific power advantage, it's just she made me the best offer. The divine factions can be broadly divided into celestials, demons, and everyone else, and the Greco-Roman deities are part of 'everyone else'. There was a point where the celestials and demons were openly at war. At the time, a different world was the Prime Earth, or whatever it was called, and even though this war was on a different world, what's our current Prime Earth still ended up suffering the K-T event. Are you with me so far?"

Type type.

"Yes! And, uh, yikes."

"Yikes indeed. So, the celestial-demon situation can be somewhat mapped to the Abrahamic religions or Zoroastrianism or Manichaeism, if you have any of those, but demons will just say whatever they feel like and celestials are pretty quiet on a lot of theological questions. I can in principle summon lesser celestials and demons but I usually don't."

"We have all of those, yes, though if a capital-G God actually exists on our side of things in the same way as the lowercase-g ones they don't take a lot of actions. It's a common hypothesis that there's something like the Greek/Roman split personality thing going on there but to a much greater degree."

"Huh. The Light that the celestials serve doesn't tend to take obvious actions, but the usual assumption most witches make is that it abstains to avoid escalation."

"That one is a popular explanation among those of us who go in for monotheism. It's just that, for better or worse, few do.

Call it rationality and pragmatism or call it human frailty and weakness, but not many people wanna hold to 'thou shalt have no other gods before me' when those other gods are the ones doing miracles that save you and your friends from painful deaths, and running the afterlife paradise for your dead grandma, and so on."