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"Right, well. Priests run around trying to convince people that their god is the best god and people should worship them. They usually get a part of their god's domain to carry around, and they'll try to talk to them, but often the god won't answer. I am like that, kind of, except I am less - spout out religious drivel and more, 'Here let me befriend you!' Also Raezenoth replies to me, just about every time unless he's extremely busy."

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"What are the advantages of having this job?"

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"Well. For one, I can fly. I am also under his blessings, which gives a number of minor benefits. But mostly I get the excuse to see the world and get to... I don't think the right word for it is righting wrongs, but I can fix things. Give people some chances where they don't have any. Raezenoth's not big on just handing people stuff, but he loves giving people chances to prove themselves."

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"Does it also pay money or do you have to have a second job for room and board and the like?"

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"Oh, that. Well if I meet any followers of Raezenoth they're usually pretty happy to feed me and let me borrow a bed if I put in a good word for them. If I'm going on a longer trip Raezenoth will give me money that I think he got from donations or offerings or something? I haven't asked. I don't care if he pays me, anyway - he makes sure I am reasonably okay and fit for duty, and that works out all right for me."

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"How did you become an acolyte?"

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"Basically? I wandered past when Raezenoth needed an acolyte very desperately and he decided to go with trial by fire and essentially said, 'Okay, look, these people are terrible and they are trying to ascend to godhood by killing me I can't stop them please help.' I'd known of him, before, never had him talk to me directly, but I didn't want him to die, sooo... I helped. Then I got acolyte status and I just kind of kept at it."

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"People can ascend to godhood? Gods don't just sort of start existing?"

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"Gods do just sort of start existing, but um - people can ascend to godhood, though. They've got to gain a god's trust to near absolute levels, though." She looks like she has a bad taste in her mouth. "Then betray and kill them."

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"How many gods are there, anyway? Of each kind? Approximately."

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"Just on the continent I'm on? I'd put the overall number at around thirty, total. There are a few with large domains and a lot with smaller ones, but - there are a lot. I think the most common kind's harvest gods, and there's only one other desert god besides mine that I know of. Other than that, it varies a bit. I could tell you about all the gods I know of, but there's a bit of bias as to the ones I can meet. Like, I don't know many ocean gods because I am kind of a huge glaring danger when sailing and therefore don't tend to do it."

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"...Your god doesn't get along well with any of your continent's surrounding ocean gods?" Aya guesses.

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"One, in particular, she has got it out for me so much. The other ocean gods might tolerate me if it weren't for her, but they can team up, if there is a common enemy. They find desert gods easy to pick on. Haven't had enough reason to chance seeing if the others will not try to kill me. Maybe they won't if I throw a lot of offerings at them, but one definitely will and it's hard to tell where borders are for ocean gods. Thus, not trying it. I like not being dead."

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"And they can identify you and your affiliations from a ways off?"

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"Apparently I do the religious equivalent of screaming them? I don't see how, I'm not really preachy, but every god I've talked to besides Raezenoth has mentioned it. So, yeah. It's probably the same with other acolytes."

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"The acolyte status is a formal - magical? - thing, not just a social arrangement, then?"

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"Formal magical thing. It definitely makes some kind of connection, to get magic super powers from a god. I think some gods don't call them acolytes, foreigners I've met have different words for them. I can't remember what they are, haven't met that many."

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"...I wonder how we can understand each other. I'm speaking Esevi..."

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"I'm... Not speaking that. At all. I'm speaking in Jorten. I know a bit of Virnoku, too, but I wouldn't call myself fluent. How in the world can we understand each other?"

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"And I can read Ancient Sudre but, obviously, our linguistic skills aren't coming into play here. Maybe it's the magic? A magic could have made me - surreptitiously polyglottal just as easily as it could have given me seaweed for hair."

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"Maybe. I know gods speak all tongues, so if you lose the ability you can still petition and ask for help from them. Probably not useful for day to day life, though, unless you're an acolyte and a god will just be nice and translate everything for you."

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"And you're sure this will apply even to very faraway languages? I wouldn't mind learning a new language or two, but it will hardly be instantaneous."

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"I asked Rae once," she says, dipping into her casual nickname for him. "It's all languages, ever. I actually made up some gibberish and applied it to meanings and used them and not only did it not phase him, but he didn't notice at all."

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"...that begins to sound like mindreading."

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"Hm. I can see how it would, but I'm pretty sure they can't. Rae asks me questions, and I spend a ludicrous amount of time in his holiest temples, so if he could mindread he wouldn't really have much point to asking some of them. Not all of them were loyalty or truth testing questions, some of them were just 'Hey how is that person over there doing.' Plus, they can definitely be lied to. If they couldn't, no one would be able to manage to betray them, they would just notice someone was thinking bad thoughts and off them."

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