And then the spell ends and it turns out she hadn't been having emotions during it, because the relief of getting a Yes to "can we get rid of at least one Endbringer" and the complicated disappointment of none of her clever combat ideas being good ones hit all at once while she's writing the answers down.

They can kill an Endbringer!

Not the clerics, not Samora. The people of Earth Bet.

Which isn't to say that clerics won't be useful in Endbringer fights. Obviously they will be. Just, in a support role, rather than as attackers.

How can I make sure I'm one of those attackers?

It's not like he hasn't thought about it before. He brought a whole array of clever, miniaturized remote devices to the Behemoth fight, none of which got through his dynakinetic defenses. He's just a terrible matchup for a Tinker, any Tinker. The state of the art in Behemoth fighting is to punch him really hard with your invulnerable fist, and if you don't have one of those you're stuck running command and control.

Maybe he's been thinking about this the wrong way. The Commune question was "...to permanently destroy, drive off, incapacitate, or otherwise render harmless..." And there are more Endbringers than just Behemoth. Holding Leviathan in place is known to be a bad idea, but what about the Simurgh? Bad news for wherever they trap her, but if it stopped future attacks, might it be worth it? No, even if it worked it would be too bittersweet a victory, and the prison would have to be immune to her telekinesis.

What about permanently drive off? Psychological warfare? Not his area. But if he took it more literally...

The Simurgh can fly. Behemoth can destroy anything close to him, given enough time. But Leviathan can't do either of those things. The water echo is a problem -- unless it's a fuel source?

Armsmaster starts sketching, the rest of the Commune forgotten.

Is it a worthwhile use of Communes to predict the times and locations of future Endbringer attacks until a better method is developed?

NO

Read one way this is pretty discouraging; at some level Dragon was really hoping Iomedae could just tell them when and where the giant monster fights were going to happen. Iomedae is the goddess of fighting giant monsters, right? This should be her area. After some thought, Dragon decides to see it as an endorsement of their own efforts. "Don't bother burning a bunch of commune energy on predicting the Endbringers," Iomedae is maybe saying, "you'll get there fine on your own." Not that they have an actual plan to do that, so much as a collection of half-baked ideas involving climate-monitoring data. Perhaps they should work harder on that, and less hard on coming up with tricks to fight them? Except, according to Iomedae, those fights are winnable too.

That's the biggest surprise for Dragon in this whole Commune. What does Iomedae think she knows about their own powers that they don't? Well, again, she is among other things the goddess of fighting giant monsters. Maybe she has some special insight here. And she presumably knows a lot about arcane magic, which they're about to have access to.

Dragon is trying not to feel too hopeful about the arcane magic. They haven't heard much about it from Samora, just that it requires the caster to be smart, which she thinks she can manage, and to make hand gestures, which seems dicey. Can that be done via robot, if she's operating them directly?

They're supposed to spread arcane magic widely, are they? Cauldron can do that. It could be a trap, but "give people a bunch of out-of-context powers and hope they fit together in a useful way" is the core idea behind the whole vial program -- and behind their continued tolerance of the Nine, too. It's a good gamble. And if it works out, Alexandria can ask Iomedae a few questions of her own next time.

By "spread widely", Iomedae means "spread widely to responsible parties within the PRT", right?

They already have a bunch of people running around with power beyond imagination. It hasn't helped! It has the opposite of helped! Yes, let's give the populace wide access to Charm Person and Disguise Self; what could possibly go wrong? It will only work for smart people, allegedly, which a person might find reassuring if they had less practical life experience than Director Piggot does.

By all means, trade for arcane magic. Congress does not have to authorize that, she checked. They just have to avoid trading things like nuclear secrets and encryption technology, which quasi-medieval Golarion won't have any use for anyway. Teach them how to make penicillin, and if they want cannons and muskets give them those too, why not. But everything they trade back is classified pending review. The basics of wizardry are all classified. Spellbook making is classified. Everything touching the Enchantment and Illusion schools is extra classified. Piggot would classify their whole existence, except that they're in books that millions of nerds already have memorized. They might eventually release specific spells, if it's possible to do that. Mending seems fine. But for the moment? Classified, classified, all classified.

The divine itemcrafting doesn't bother her as much. There aren't that many clerics, and the ones she's heard of are mostly solid citizens by cape standards. She doesn't like the idea, but she puts up with a lot of things she doesn't like. As long as they keep healing people and don't make too much trouble, they'll get no grief from her.

Samora thinks that once you get advice from a goddess you should take that advice, and if you weren't going to take the advice you shouldn't have bothered the god with the question, but this is what she gets for joining a chain of command less sensible than Lastwall's. Who, relatedly, are excited about the information on medicine and weaponry and chemistry and mechanical engineering.  And nothing about synthetic diamonds, alas, because of the risk that someone outside Lastwall would find out and decide to raid Earth Bet for them.

Earlier, and elsewhere

Daniel Gomann comes home from a peaceful day's work at Brockton Bay Mutual to find a superhero in his dining room.

Linda Gomann has offered him apple juice, which he accepted, and dinner with the family, which he declined. The little Gomanns have been banished to the living room, where they're unconvincingly pretending to do their homework while trying to sneak peaks at their visitor. Even their father's arrival -- usually a big moment in the Gomann household -- isn't enough to break through their fascination.

Isaac's costume is red and white, loose and a little flowing, just barely hinting a pastor's robe while still being easy to move in. The mask is built into the hood, with the mouth and lower face uncovered. He insisted on that; masks that hide the mouth are less work in the long run, but he wanted to be able to accept the food and drinks people gave him in moments like this one.

He stands when his host enters. "Daniel! Your wife said you'd be home soon. It's good to meet you. In costume, my name is Hallow. I wonder if there's a place where we could speak privately?"

He finds he's performing, putting on the same smooth show he uses for official events, and leans into it. He's not, exactly, representing Haven today, but the outer forms are the same.

?!?!!?

After a second, his head clears. This is about the protest. Haven heard about the protest! It's no time to be shy. He breathes in, looks for the feeling of God's hand on his shoulder, and doesn't find it. Oh, of course, I don't need that now. This guy's from the biggest Christian team in North America. He's on my side!

He should say something, before the pause gets too awkward. "I, uh, of course! I have a little study in our bedroom, I'll take you up there."

And then, once they're up there: "Ah, sorry about the mess." It's not messy messy, but it's not hosting-a-famous-cape clean, either. He'll offer Hallow his desk chair, and sit on the bed across from him.

"It isn't a problem, and if it were then it's what I get for showing up un-announced." He'll settle himself in the offered chair, very visibly making himself comfortable. He's learned to make big gestures, so that his costume doesn't swallow them. "We saw you and your friends protesting at Samora's press conference last week. I'd like to hear what you were thinking, from your point of view."

There's an edge to that phrasing, isn't there? But it'll go away when he explains.

"It was the scariest thing I ever did. But I'd heard -- we'd been talking capes, after Bible study, and someone showed me her PHO thread. The one after the Denver attack? It was mostly about her powers, not anything really important, but people kept saying she called herself a priestess, of a goddess from another world. They were saying she can raise the dead! And the worst thing was, they were talking about how other people could maybe get powers too, if they started worshipping. A lot of it was just joking around, but a lot of it wasn't."

"And we talked about it, and we thought, these people aren't thinking about their souls. They're not thinking ahead! They just think it would be cool to be famous and powerful. We wanted to try and get them to think a little bit. We talked about posting in the thread, but, I don't know, trying to preach the Word on the internet always feels like a waste of time. Everyone just makes fun." Oops, that came out a little defeatist.

Indeed it did. "Had you had much experience of evangelism, before this?"

"No, not really. My co-workers sometimes, of course, and a little bit our kids' friends. But I'm not one for public speaking. I get nervous, I stammer, I forget what I was saying. So I never tried anything big like this before." It's pretty embarrassing to say that to someone who literally puts on a costume and fights crime, but, well, it's true. "But we saw that thread, and then we saw the press conference announcement, and we thought, God's giving us this chance to do something. We can't waste it."

"We did write to you," he adds, trying not to sound accusatory. "To Haven, I mean. But we sent the email late, that same morning, it makes sense you didn't have time to do anything."

Haven gets a lot of mail. He leans forward, lets his aspect become a little more challenging.

"And how well would you say your protest worked?"

...why is this conversation so weird? He'll try being honest some more, maybe that will help.

"It was hard, standing up in front of all those people. But I felt the Lord, bearing me up, and once I stood the others followed me. And it worked! We were featured in all the evening news recaps of the press conference!" He couldn't bear to watch them himself in real time, but his wife made him a collection of video clips. "People saw the truth."

And one of his coworkers called him a "celebrity". He meant it as an insult, but he was envious, too. Maybe it'll be a useful example? Good things can happen, if you stand up and tell the truth. But that's not the kind of success he wants to share with a stranger.

Oh dear. "I'll tell you what they saw," he says, letting Daniel hear a little of his own shame and anger. "They saw a handful of frightened men with shaking hands. They saw bent signs and running ink. They saw fodder for idle fun, for the amusement of lurkers on PHO."

"They saw something ridiculous."

He didn't check to see the reaction on PHO. He deliberately didn't do that, he's just now realizing. But, but...

"We scattered our seeds! Not all of them will fall on good soil, but that's not something we can control! Our duty to the world is to tell the truth, and that's what we did!"

Why is this witless man arguing with him? "You made us look like fools!"

All of a sudden he's standing, shouting down at that bent red hood.

"We are called to be fools for Christ!"

"Yes, but - " and then he stops. That's...completely true, in fact. What if I tried talking to this man, instead of lecturing him? He starts again. "Yes," he says, actually meaning it this time. "Yes. You're right. I'm sorry. We all have our besetting sins; pride is one of mine."

He sits back down, a little shakily. Did he just yell at a famous cape? Did the famous cape just back down, because he was in the wrong? What a day.

"It's - I forgive you. I understand." And he thinks he does. He almost didn't stand up, that day at the press conference. Almost gave up, right at the end, out of sheer cowardice.

He bows his head, accepting the forgiveness without, quite, conceding the argument. What Daniel said wasn't wrong, but it was frustratingly off-point. How can he explain...

"You were right, in what you said before. We're not called to measure ourselves by the world's standards. Just the opposite. God's judgement is what matters, and if the world hates us, or laughs at us, that only proves that our work is necessary.

But you were wrong, too. It's not enough to speak the truth. We're called to say it in a way that people can understand. You see that in the Gospels: Jesus is talking to fishermen and shepherds, so he talks about lost sheep and fishers of men. He doesn't shape the truth to his audience, but He does shape his explanations, do you see the difference? In the world we live in, people think in text messages instead of sermons. They think slogans. Sound bites. Memes." You're in some memes, Daniel. He doesn't say it; it wouldn't help anything. "That's why teams like Haven exist. We're trying to speak in ways modern people can hear. But it's dangerous: this costume encourages pride, encourages vainglory. They all do. For most people, that's the appeal."

"Encourages us to think about this world instead of the next one, about man's laws instead of God's," Daniel says, to show that he's following along.