:Yeah, the gods having it in for you sucks! Fortunately Shadowgod can kind of negotiate with them on our behalf now:

"Why are they called Shadowgod?" 

:Before Leareth set things up so it could just talk to us almost like a regular conversation, its primary way to interact with people was through an avatar called the Shadow-Lover, which, for reasons which remain completely unclear to me, could only talk to people who were in the process of dying or having a near-death experience and I think the "Lover" part is because it's rumored to appear as somebody you find attractive, though I haven't had any near-death experiences so I haven't seen what it does for me. The god for whom the Shadow-Lover is an aspect doesn't have a separate name so we just say Shadowgod:

"....The god has a death avatar that's meant to be attractive to people? That's....very thematically weird. I would really not think that lovers are what would be at the top of most people's minds when they've just died." 

:I know, right? It's bizarre!:

"It's so bizarre!" Merrin looks thoughtful. "What's it like talking to the god now? Is it - much like a person...?" 

:It can only Mindspeak and it's weirdly intense about it and it has no grasp of conversational implicature but it can answer questions!:

"What sorts of things does it know the answers to questions about? Can it - they? - tell you what's going to happen in the future?" 

:Yes, though there are Foresight Gifts, too. I did ask it whether anything would go horribly wrong when I first started trying to give Fetching to Companions - those are the magic horses:

"....I feel like I should maybe have been asking more questions sooner about the magic horses. Why....are there magic horses? What do they do? What are they like?" 

:Gods made them several hundred years ago. They bond to people - usually Gifted - according to some kind of compatibility filtering that has not been fully explained yet. Their purpose for most of that time was to provide transport, emotional support, and ethical guidance - they've got reincarnated human souls so any gods influencing them can be sure to pick souls they think will work out in this capacity. They also come with some mind control to make sure the ethical guidance portion of the package was under divine remit but we figured out how to undo that part and Shadowgod can cut it out in future generations:

There are so many elements there and Merrin's mind is trying to boot up half a dozen lines of questions at once and then slamming into the fact that she does not actually have the ability to ask five questions all at the same time, and it's kind of hard to choose which is most pressing. 

"- They're what? What...is a soul, actually. How is it - preserved, when someone dies - do the gods do that - does everyone have a soul, does that mean in your world nobody actually permanently dies?" 

:Everyone has a soul in Velgarth, I guess I don't know if you do. The soul is the part of you that isn't your memories or your body - so, your basic unlearned personality, I guess. I don't know much about how the gods preserve them and I don't think they necessarily care about all the information that comes attached with one - most reincarnations have no memories at all, Companions do but it's kind of fuzzy, more procedural than episodic or emotional, not everyone is necessarily ever incarnated again. It's the sort of thing that better relations with gods in general could improve a lot:

Merrin stares at her. 

"I...wow. Just. Wow. That has so many implications. I...guess it's not great if being preserved and brought back that way doesn't include memories? Although I'm - really confused about that - my understanding is that memories are encoded in the brain in the same general kind of way as everything else. I guess it's possible that doesn't work the same way in your world. Given that the physical laws are clearly different. ...You know, on reflection it's actually very confusing that your world has humans in it. It seems like there being differences that fundamental should mean that even if there's life it's unrecognizable? But I clearly don't understand this whole multiple worlds thing very well, so." Shrug. 

:There are other intelligent species too but I think they were mostly created by people who wanted them. I don't know if humans were too or if so who would have made us though. I read in a book once that souls are the thing that makes identical twins not the same person:

"Identical twins aren't copies of the same person in dath ilan either! There's, like, epigenetics, and different life experiences, and most traits aren't only genetically determined..." 

She trails off on a jaw-cracking yawn. It is finally starting to get dark outside. "...Sorry. I seem to not be making any headway on getting answers to my questions faster than I think of new questions, and I should probably actually sleep soon. I guess at least there are lots of bedrooms here!" 

:Which one do you want me to unlock for you?:

"I think they're pretty much all the same? I don't really mind." Merrin is way too tired to make decisions right now. 

So Belrun unlocks the first bedroom for her. :Good night. I probably won't stay up all night, but at least it'll be more hours of quiet to confirm that quiet is what's on the menu:

"Yeah, that sounds like a good plan. I'll probably be awake pretty early."

And time to go to sleep! 

Belrun sits up in the artificial light, writing processing notes and eventually, bored with that, inventing a simple cipher that she could conceivably communicate with through the lifebond if Leareth could get literally anything through it at this distance which he probably can't. Eventually when she's no longer distracted from having had only three tiny quail to eat all day she goes to bed across the hall from Merrin.

Things which are very good: SLEEP. Sleep is AMAZING. The bed itself is kind of meh, but Merrin is tired enough that this barely bothers her at all. She sleeps like a rock and does not actually wake up until the morning light starts coming in through her window. 

Belrun's still out by then.

After Merrin has been awake for about long enough to investigate the shower, she can hear some kind of motor outside.

Oh! Intriguing and maybe promising but also slightly alarming! 

Merrin decides that this is probably not enough of an emergency to justify waking Belrun, just yet, especially since she's not sure when Belrun actually got to sleep. She abandons her shower plans, very quickly replaces her shirt, and heads down the stairs to investigate. 

...She realizes just as she's about to open the front door that she does not, in fact, speak the local language, and Belrun is the one with magic telepathy, not her. Oh well. She can start out with gestures and mime, and wake Belrun if it seems like the locals are very upset or angry about their presence and decision to break into the building. 

The motor belongs to a truck with some large sail-looking apparatus in the flatbed, and, following it, a small bus, painted white and blue and with the logo that appears on the brochures on it. The entrance Merrin and Belrun entered the building from faces up the hill and the vehicles are coming from down the hill, so she has to go around the corner to see them. They are at least not puzzled enough to start reacting to her beyond blinking as they pull into the circular dirt extension of the road and park there. The bus driver hops out first and strides up to Merrin, speaking very very fast in a language Merrin does not know.