"Every living creature has at least one Elemental Affinity, and I don't know of any obstacle to casting spells with your affinity that isn't about - being smart enough to understand what you're doing at all and practice the Skill for a while?  Two-year-olds can't cast spells because they're too young to learn, not because there's anything in magic that says they can't.  Magic is what you do with affinity-aspected mana.  Mana is just everywhere, the base state of everything, but the vast majority of it is unaspected and untouched by Creation so it doesn't turn into spells or planets."

"How do people find out what their elemental affinities are."

"They touch affinity gemstones as soon as they're old enough to channel?"

"Which is how old."

"Uh, I was four, two is smart, six is dumb.  It's just like - hey feel this mana I'm making flow through you, now, you do that into this little jewel here."

"What determines which elemental affinities people have? Is it like hair color, coming from parents? Is it random?"

"A little bit inherited, like two Earth parents probably have an Earth kid, but not like two Plasma-potential parents have a Plasma-potential kid."

"Most people have one affinity? What share have more?"

"Don't remember exact stats for everything... but one in thirty people can be Adventurers without a special exception, which requires potential for at least three Tier-2s, and that's three unopposed elements or maybe four elements with two opposed pairs.  Having both Light and Dark is very rare but I don't remember how rare."

"And then you adventure, you level, you pick up some of the Tier-2 elements, if you're really unusual you pick up some of the Tier-3 elements. How many people are, uh, Tier 4?"

"Uh... maybe twenty, I'd guess?  Not counting elder dragons and so on."

"Do summoned heroes usually have their own magic from their own world, or just very convenient elemental affinities?"

"When they get here they can do little incredibly strange things but not huge ones.  I've never heard about them reading minds on arrival but that doesn't mean it never happened, it means it wasn't in my history book."

"So where do they get the power to do - huge things, if they didn't arrive with it? I can become higher-tier in my system and maybe fix the fire that way but it sounds like that's - probably not what the Tea God had in mind."

"I think they usually just get a lot of power within our system?  Like, sometimes they've got uncanny knowledge from beyond Kekaro, and sometimes they mix in a bit of their unnatural powers into their great workings.  But mostly they have all the affinities and can channel a ton of mana and they form Skills rapidly.  If you're thinking that sounds like the System could've just made one of us be the Hero, when our world needed it, you're not the first person to think that."

"I assume someone has tried killing the Tea God and that is widely considered an even worse idea than most other meddling?"

"I don't think the Old Man With Tea is a god, if he was a god I'm pretty sure a lot of Summoned Heroes would've murdered him."

" - it seems like whether or not He's a god doesn't have much to do with whether to murder Him? Or do you mean more - He holds together all Creation and to destroy Him is to destroy it?"

"No, I just mean, he's probably not a sort of thing that can be killed, because if he could be killed, one of the Summoned Heroes would've killed him by now."

"I see. - I don't particularly want to kill Him, I don't have anything against gods, it just seems like He's your problem much more than Erastil is."

"I don't think he chooses Heroes, that I've read, he just - talks to them before they get here.  And, whoever or whatever he works for, his annual bonus sure doesn't depend on the Heroes getting good directions."

"If you somehow interfere with the part of the System that chooses and summons Heroes, our planet will die the next time it catches on fire.  I mean, I don't think you can, because it's such a big important part of our reality that a Summoned Hero would've definitely messed with it before now if that were possible.  But if you were the first who could do it, we'd die."

"I'm not trying to kill your gods or your overgods or whatever! It sounds like a lot of heroes just do completely random horrible things, but I'm from a Lawful Evil place that isn't going to either try to destroy everything or dogood about it all when no one wants that! I would like to not die, and ideally also get rich! I assumed that other people also wanted that but if actually they are terrified of anyone messing with anything because the lunatics keep murdering your gods along the way, then I won't! Whatever! I am not going to be more invested in whether someone dies than they themselves are, that sounds like a horrific waste of time!"

Almys is unreadable, at this point, without Detect Thoughts.  "What's Lawful Evil?"

"It's how we sort people where I'm from. Lawful, not-Chaos, keeping your oaths, obeying the law, having a chain of command, not doing things on random whims. Evil, serving your interests and not your self-image or the story in the histories that makes you look noblest or your version of other peoples' interests. I imagine you'd sooner have Lawful Good, most people would, but from my perspective it sounds like you've mostly had too many people trying to dogood at your planet and you just need someone to make it not be on fire and not try to leave a grand legacy.

"Lawful sounds - promising, I guess.  And Evil sounds like me, so maybe I'm not as bad of a Companion for you as I thought.  But are you going to still be Lawful when you've doused the fire, and look around and there's no one on this planet, let alone any gods above, who could still oppose you, and you see that your interests say the world could look a little more pleasing to you, if it were different from how it was?"

"You don't have to lie to me about this part.  I'll work for you either way, if I get a Companion's rewards and the fire gets doused.  If you wreck Kekaro a little more, I'll be sad about that, but if you don't do whatever, the next Summoned Hero will."