...Ero-World, you say. 

Like the light before dawn, Beryllia's presence in the world at all; like a flower unfurling, the holy act of healing; and most of all, like the first few brightest stars that come out as the sun sets, as Her Name is spoken and a little of the Word begins to spread, just what Beryllia was able to convey, and the worthy begin to hear.

It turns out that it spreads fast, in this place. 

You and you and you and you-

"I come from an extremely distant world. We were alerted - by an experimenting wizard, and by careful astrologies and divinations, and finally by communion - to the existence and availability of a Far Realm, this one, of some sort of incredible promise. We were unable to determine what, exactly. ...We have an extremely heavy burden to carry, and many dangers to face. We judged the risk worth it. I am here to make contact, to seek to learn and to trade, to spread the word of God."

Aphrodite quickly begins to get an image of what Starlight is like. 

The norms are modest: it is not the style to flaunt sexuality in public, where it will distract passerby and obstruct traffic. But practically every cafe and every club and every lounge has space set aside for sexuality. They call the cafe-with-a-clothing-optional-back-room an il'ka, here. 

There is also a big and obvious problem. Ellecol. An endemic aphrodisiac and stimulant, harvested from the roots of the Elishes, another plant introduced to this world by Adventurine. It is a very common party drug, served in lounges and nectar dens and clubs. It's used to warm up before sexuality, and used for focus for creative works - and it's as addictive as alcohol and slowly burns out the nerves of its habitual consumers. Many people have had their lives ruined by it. There is a growing temperance movement, but as of yet no solution to its endemicness. 

Witness Whitefur nods, a recording device at her hand blinking softly, a lens focused on Beryllia. "What was the realm you originated from like? What works do the Five do there regularly?" 

(And those who once believed in the Asrai take up hope, hope they had forgotten long ago, of a divinity that would care and move in the world and lift up its people —

Many, many new cults are founded. Most of them are sanctuaries, as Aphrodite does not extend her strength to all those who crave to be a goddess in their heart. But people are healed, and love spreads, and joy, and care. The impetuous and rash pretend to powers they do not have, and are quickly found out.

Ellecol will take much strength to extract from this plane's sexuality. But the beginnings of the work are starting.) 

They call the cafe-with-a-clothing-optional-back-room an il'ka, here. 

She calls them temples we aren't quite there yet, but!

One shows proper reverence for Creation by enjoying it all in right measure: She is often seen as a wild and carefree spirit, and that is not wrong, but one could just as well see Her as deeply wise and judicious. Life is a careful balancing act or a complex glorious dance to dance, whichever metaphor you prefer. That is what temperance really means. Her strength lies less in raw power than in this sort of depth and richness, and oh darlings She can do you far, far better than Ellecol. 

(She is also objectively an extremely ancient and powerful god of Whom there are few equals, if you insist on powerscaling, She hopes you get off on it, if you do.)

"The world I came from is - the home of the Prophet, and has the Church established. I am the Most High Priestess of Sirenna, the goddess of liberty - there are four other gods who each have a Most High Priest - although currently that is complicated, there are three of us in office. The Church delegates temporal power to the princes of the world, and advises and supervises them. From what little I have seen of your world, magic - ah, extraordinary powers over reality - is in less... casual use there. Wizardly devices like your clamshells and elevators are less commonly used, and far more dangerous than what I suspect here."

"The Five Gods... only sometimes intervene directly. It is not well understood why They cannot solve all the world's ills Themselves, it is not for lack of trying. Primarily, They Choose clerics, like myself, those who are worthy to be a vessel of divine power. What we do is - heal the sick, and guard against horrors, and provide spiritual counsel, and coronate kings and hold them to account, and name children and anoint youths and marry couples and bury the dead, and provide teaching and learning, and offer loans and credit, and bless the soil, and hold off plague and famine. ...We're quite busy."

"A busy office indeed. What your church accomplishes in your world is instead accomplished by a tangled web of institutions in ours.

Doctors and surgeons heal the sick, and have their own conspiracies to share and sustain the knowledge of medicine; Asterism and the Concord protect against horrors, at small and large scales, though their reach is not perfect; spiritual counsel is provided by soulhealers and psychiatrists and counselors and sworn advisors and the better of the Asrai; kings are not cornonated here, we instead elect smallleaders who elect broadleaders who federate under the Constellation and Concord; they are held to account by the judiciary and their armed hands Asterism and Concord, by the office of the witness, and by those they represent; children are generally given use-names as babies by their parents, but take their proper-names later in life, often on their sixth or twelfth or eighteenth birthdays, each of which is a significant date at which they are granted more responsibility; teaching and learning is provided by conspiracies and by sworn advisors and by the individual's clan; marriage is possible here, usually used to affirm a bond as keeper and kept, and usually officiated by either someone from the office of the local representative or one of the Asrai. Loans and credit are provided by conspiracies generally. Fertilizing the soil is the work of farmers using techniques developed by our wizards - we call them scientists here and I am sure some people will quibble that most of what we do is not magic, but frankly at the point at which we've taught lightning to perform computational and artistic work the difference is academic. Plague is mostly the province of the doctors once again, with assistance from Asterism to enforce quarantines if need be. Famines are usually more of a question of logistics than a problem of actual scarcity in the modern world, and there are branches of Asterism that specialize in getting food to places where there isn't enough."

Whitefur takes a long breath. "These arrangements are relatively modern. Before about four hundred years ago kings ruled, variously effectively and variously cruelly. Then a scientist invented a way to throw small lead bullets extremely quickly and reliably in such a way that even someone with no training could kill a seasoned veteran. We call them rifles and pistols. There was a tumultuous period where many of the worst kings were assassinated and governments elected by the people were installed instead. Many of these governments were themselves corrupt in various ways, some of them to the point of purging their opponents. But some of the resultant governments were stable and effective - particularly that of one country in particular, Erestas, which introduced the office of the Witness. It became the template for new nations going forward, and over the course of some four hundred years most of the world took up the new form of government in a series of wars and peace deals and alliances. In the modern world, the resultant grand alliance enfolds ninety percent of the globe and is known as the Constellation of Asterion. There is a lot of regional variation, but the largest political body, that federation, enfolds the vast majority of people." 

"You say that Far Realms are difficult to access, insane to attempt to travel to, and rarely so welcoming as this world. What desperate circumstance compelled you to come here? What enemy or disaster so hard-pressed you?"

...

"We're losing, that's what."

The world ended five hundred years ago. Nobody knows how or why. Nobody even remembers the name of the old world. Best guess on casualties is "most people". Everyone knows where the Great City is supposed to be, nobody can find it, and almost nobody comes back from looking. You can go out to the ruins of other old places, if you're brave enough, but there are no solid answers there, only riddles and treasure and death. 

The wilderness is deathly dangerous, the places nobody ever settled, and it does not entirely make sense. Too many inexplicable things happen out there. The ruins of the Old Kingdom might be worse. You don't go out into the wilds, you stay to the towns and villages and roads and the legal forests if you're feeling lucky, and you say your prayers and hold hope in your heart. 

It's growing all the time, the wilderness. 

The spiritual problems are far worse. 

Beryllia is not going to go into detail even here, but - the oldest and easiest sort of wizardry is... foul. It is a terrible truth that to the right sort of mind, magic of a sort really is not that difficult. 

There are many, many things that could create unspeakable disasters if the wrong person learned them. They think they've got most of them for now. 

And beyond that - 

- certain horrible truths are dangerous merely to know. 

There are many Powers in the world. There are Five Gods of the Church. 

...And in the vaults beneath the Holy Citadel, and in the Black Archives, and in many other places she won't name because they are far less defensible, there are... things out of another time. Things kept secret and safe, things kept in reserve, things in doleful lead vaults, that hint at uncomfortable truths. 

And then there's the really scary parts. 

"We are - bleeding from a thousand cuts, all the time. Everything we do leaves something else exposed. We can't keep everywhere, it just never holds. We keep on losing places, it's never enough. I don't know where it ends, if it ends. As for now... We lost a whole kingdom about ten years ago, an ancient place of evil, there are things out there and one of these days some idiot heathen king is going to unseal One. There's a distant empire we've pissed off, I am not sure how much of the south we could hold on to if they rose up. But then- we got another province back, after centuries. We have another Ninth-Circle cleric. We have several more... at least vaguely allied archmages, now, gods know how." Specifically Aphrodite, She's fucking up to something. "So - we're not waiting for the next horrible disaster. We're doing something about it now. ...Also stable rifts to the Far Realms are either fantastically rare or unheard of, we're not sure, and ones with favourable omens might be literally unprecedented. So we jumped at it."

"I see. I am not a diplomat and cannot promise anything, but I think you will have no shortage of help from this world if you are as good intentioned as you claim. We are peaceful people, but there are some who practice the arts of bearing arms still, to be certain that liberty might be preserved." 

She exhales, and clicks off the recording device for a moment. 

"We're off the record for the moment so I can convey some knowledge that shouldn't be publicly shared. As a Witness at the highest level I'm allowed to know more of the evidence of other worlds' touches upon ours in the past - while the public largely only knows about Adventurine, the Persines, and the Elishes, plus one or two other minor artifacts, there are several places on Starlight known to the Witnesses and certain members of Asterism where there are places that are... coterminous... with other planes. We don't share their locations broadly because we don't know what might come through, and we don't want to encourage people to try and figure out a way to reach through them when contacting the other planes could be a massively negative event for us. The evidence points to there having been a larger multi-planar civilization before two thousand years ago, but they've vanished from history. We don't want to attract whatever caused their downfall."

She pauses. 

"However, there is one person we might be able to ask. We believe Adventurine died on this world sometime very shortly after introducing the Persines and Elishes. If you can resurrect her... we'd have a primary source to go by. And you showing up here suggests others still could. The calculus has shifted in favour of exploring, I think, though that's my personal opinion."

"...Thank you. That is - better news than I dared to hope for. Our problem in many ways is that - simplifying - we can either hit extremely hard or not at all, we don't have the kind of ordinary everyday influence we need. Your... lead bullets could potentially change that. But it's the other things I'm most interested in.  What we really need is breathing room, to be able to do things that aren't just survival. Doctors and the fertilisation magic - if you're making lightning elementals draw pictures that's certainly wizardry - that could be it." 

"I see. There's... we are not actually sure how large the Old Kingdom was. Plausibly interplanar, or further, there's some evidence but again - riddles and madness. The timelines don't match, though, unless Time Itself is flexible across worlds. ...How many such places, and how large? There is a means I have to forbid any planar travel in an area, if that would help. Typically expensive, but not for me. You are wise to be wary of the planes, frankly, even the nearer ones are - maddeningly difficult to understand."

"And - I wanted to end this day with a resurrection in any case. You mentioned..." she turns to the women she met at first, "something like a burial custom, preserving bodies? Having the body helps a great deal, but it is not necessary. I wanted to - demonstrate that there is hope. That what we lose may not be lost forever. Can this be public knowledge? Shall I raise Adventurine, here and now?"

"We don't have a body for Adventurine, no, but we do have the place where we believe she spent her last days, if that would help. As for raising her here and now... keep in mind that she's someone who there are many legends about and who verifiably had the ability to walk the planes. She could have all kinds of abilities we know nothing about. I wouldn't want to surprise her by pulling her into an unfamiliar environment with a lot of people she barely knows. This place is a mob scene already."

She taps her fingers. 

"Also, her motives are unclear. She seems to be someone who cared about sexuality - the persines and the existence of Ellecol are evidence of that - but her judgement seems poor if she deliberately spread Ellecol here. We don't know enough to be certain of her character."

"I see. That would help a little, though it isn't necessary. ... I have heard persines and elishes mentioned but have no idea what they are, and have not heard of Ellecol. Well. I would say that it has been two thousand years and it will bide a little longer, but I am here. Possibly this world... grows closer to others in general, somehow. But... hmm. Is it known how she died? Perhaps a more comfortable environment could be arranged for her, with plans to subdue her if she panics."

"...I will be here again in all my power tomorrow. Would you like proof of resurrection being possible in any case?"

"Persines are a peach-like fruit tree that, if you eat the fruit regularly, render you temporarily barren and immune to most venereal diseases. Modern contraceptives are derived from them. Elishes are a kind of broad-leafed plant that produce a drug in their roots that acts as a somewhat addictive aphrodisiac and stimulant that causes nerve damage with chronic use. That drug is called Ellecol. Both are extremely common on this plane, can grow practically anywhere abundantly, and have shaped society here significantly. The abundance and ease of growth of persines has made it almost impossible to deny people food sustainably, and their contraceptive effects have enabled many people to avoid unwanted children. Ellecol on the other hand is a popular party and study drug and has ultimately degraded the bodies and minds of many, many of its users over the centuries. It's still popular today despite its risks - I'm a member of a temperance movement that wants to find a formulation of Ellecol that has the enjoyable effects without the deleterious ones. We succesfully did that to the persines - the native fruit is an abortifacient, not safe for anyone pregnant to consume - so there is some hope we may be able to produce a safer drug than Ellecol with modern science, that might replace it."

"As for how Adventurine died, we don't know. We know she was residing in a comfortable house at the time, and there's no evidence of struggle we were able to find... but a lot of the evidence is simply lost." 

"Let's get the proof of resurrection being possible on camera, then. The cryonics facility beneath the hospital hasn't been gone through yet, and there are many people there that could use resurrection." 

"Ah - cryonics is a misnomer these days, that implies cooling but it's a chemical process we use now - but essentially what the process does is preserve the body and especially the brain, which we understand to be the seat of the mind, as intactly as we can in the hope that eventually the process will be reversible and the person will be able to restored to life. Hopefully the bodies downstairs will be in good enough condition to make this very easy for you and your goddess."

Witness Whitefur gets up. "Practically everyone who dies has a will that specifies under what conditions they want people to try to revive them. 'Literal magic' is on that list for at least some of them." 

Witness Whitefur looks over at the Asterism guards. "Bring her in," she says with a small smile. 

The door opens, and a pair of guards bring in a stretcher with a pale-as-death woman on it and lay her on a mat by the conference table.