She actually doesn't push if he doesn't know much about, but she will theorize occasionally. Pauses occur when pauses are necessary for the computer.

And she seems delighted with his sarcastic jokes.

How nice, an excuse to make more sarcastic jokes.

The computer can now produce pages of text that are about half Jorten and half unfamiliar words. The ratio of foreign words to local ones is higher in the more science-based books, unfortunately... He gets hungry enough to notice, sooner or later. "Can I buy a little food off you?"

"How willing are you to accept knowledge as the currency you're paying me with?" wonders Idania, fishing out food from her pack. Travel rations, by the looks of them, though they don't look as unpalatable as some travel rations sometimes do.

"If you don't mind knowledge being the trade then I don't either. I do have some metal coins from home, I'm sure metal's still valuable here, right?" He doesn't mind not having steak and wine, but the limited amount of hungry fairies can get is unpleasant. Travel rations are fine.

"Yes, but maybe not as valuable as it would be in a world without gods. Because sometimes gods will make precious metals for people, and without them they just show up where ever." Pause. "I mean, granted, fairies have lots of magic to get it, but."

Travel rations! Idania will have some, too. She also pre-emptively offers Nick one of her canteens.

"Do gods have much precision? I think they might make demons and angels less necessary. Not completely redundant, but somewhat." At the canteen, "Thanks." He doesn't bring the canteen to his lips, just the water.

"They have some pretty good precision, Rae regularly makes foundations for people to build houses on, and elaborate cave systems, and will personally nudge people towards things they can use to help themselves, but it all does actually come from somewhere. Without followers, a god's domain will shrink until the god eventually dies."

... Idania seems to find the casual display of magic amusing, but doesn't comment.

"Hm, a tricky business. What other gods are there? Rae mentioned a hostile ocean one to the south but I can't recall her name."

"Varkalosix. There are, uh, lots of other gods. I could name a good portion of the major ones on this continent, but couldn't name all gods in existence. Want the list of gods I know, even though it's incomplete?"

"Sure. And I imagine they all like different things, right?"

"Yep. Let's see, gods nearby...

"North's got Cartolomir, a harvest god who's kind of focused on livestock and people blending in with society. Very boring, doesn't like Rae very much, but they're far enough away from each other that it amounts to exactly nothing. It's also got Tamaryse, more small scale but not nothing, goddess of - I forget the exact thing, but it's basically summarized as 'clouds and rain and stuff.' It rains a lot, there. It's kind of annoying. Don't know about the secondary things she shoots for, but people seem kind of melancholy there. Probably not something cheery.

"The east has got Perinixu, Opedist, and Kalandax. Perinixu's goddess of - well, she'd call it sanctuary, I'd call it healing in the vein of 'anti-plague,' but she's very picky about how her domain is run. Doesn't like troublemakers at all, or things that damage her control of the domain. It is well run, just. She's in charge. Opedist is super old, god of mountains and stubbornness. He's just like - sat on his domain for centuries now, stubbornly not doing anything and not moving except when he absolutely has to. Not a bad place to live if you want divine protection from jerk gods but be left otherwise alone, I suppose. Kalandax, who is right next to him, is a god of volcanoes. Violent change, sometimes necessary, but usually with no regard to who he stomps on. He and Opedist do not get along. They have been going at it for most of my life. It's not so much a war zone on Opedist's side, but Kalandax's - well, watch your step. Might trip into a lava lake.

"South's ocean, and Varkalosix. Storm goddess, gets sailors to pay offerings so she doesn't throw a storm their way and sink them to the bottom of the sea. Only thing keeping her above being on the level of a plague god is how she'll give some favorable winds if she likes people. She's just excessively playing favorites, instead of saying 'worship me or I kill you.' ... Also she has a slavery thing, it pisses Rae off. It doesn't help that their domains are practically cuddling because Varkalobitch decided that she wanted - you know what, this is not unbiased, I am trying to be unbiased. Ahem. She focuses on - er, creative tactics and helping out lots of established systems. Like whaling. Or fishing. She does fishing too, I guess. Also some mercantile commerce. If you trust her to not sink your boat I guess you can make a ton of money." She makes a face. "Favoritism."

Idania coughs, then continues, "West has several smaller gods, and actually a recent god death. Rae uh, helped with that, the god was an asshole. He had it coming. There are two goddesses I haven't had the chance to meet yet, one's a spring goddess whose details I don't know at all because the jerk recently deceased god was in the way, the other's - I don't actually know. Young, or Rae would have heard of her before. But people seemed to have a good opinion of her, so, not a plague god, which is nice. I've kind of needed to check that out, but - free time, bit of a distance to go even with flight, not directly relevant to anything Rae's doing. The last's Bereth, another god of harvest, something about dependability, less boring than Cartolomir but rather small scale. Then, less pleasantly, there's also a god or goddess of decay, but I didn't stick around to figure out the specifics, they're far enough away that they're kind of hard to tackle, but Rae might try to kill them eventually if Varkalosix ever dies."

"Decay sounds nasty, I almost want to go there and smash a temple. If it's as bad as I expected least."

"Probably. The place didn't look to be in shambles when I saw it, so it's not one of the 'so evil it's suicidal' ones? But decay god. They are not nice deities. If you smash a temple I doubt anyone will care, but watch out for acolytes."

"I am somewhere between not really and really not afraid a god or acolyte could actually manage to kill me. Daeva are extremely durable."

Snort. "Hey, different magics interacting could be weird, have half a care for your own safety! You haven't finished translating for the computer, I still need you."

Heh. "Oh, if that's all I am to you, I'll hand over the keys to knowledge before running off to poke a decay god and keel over."

"Thanks! I appreciate it!"

No, he can't respond, too busy laughing.

Idania is giggling, herself.

"Though, if you actually want to go poke the decay god, I can give you tactics advice."

"Not yet, I ought to get used to this world first. In all seriousness, I think we should have someone carefully summon a demon at least once, and get them to make a nice big pile of durable technology, and the things to make more things. With any luck we'll find one who'll take the name of your favorite author or some kind of animal, they can't do living minds, as payment. Instead of wanting sex or a soul or something of that nature."

Nod!

"Works for me. We can summon demons and then go, 'No thank you,' and then immediately put them back if they want things we don't want to give. ... When you say 'soul,' what do you mean, exactly?"

"I've never heard it defined, not sure they're even real, I've just heard that some demons want them and almost all humans really really don't want to give them."

"... Huh. I guess I'll follow suit, then. For safety. I am the squishy mortal and I am delicate and breakable."

She seems to find this sentence amusing, for some reason.

"Somehow I get the feeling 'breakable' is not an appropriate adjective, here."

Giggle.

"I mean, to be fair, if you're comparing me to gods and, apparently, 'extremely durable' daeva..."

But that smile says that he is on the right track.