Cute.

"Well, everything. But we can start with why I could channel through that knife? I tried other knives and none of them worked."

Sadiqa nods sagely. "You did not ask why I'm naked. You have passed the first test."

    Penny rolls her eyes. "The tests are not part of the faith."

"It is important to find out quickly if an ally is also a friend!"

She sticks up a finger up in the air.

"The reason you could channel through that knife is because you did something so profoundly Calistrian with that knife that it was imbued with that symbolic meaning directly. It would probably not have kept working forever, so I'm glad Penny gave you one of my spares."

"What does Calistria care about? I've heard that She's the goddess of 'unchecked fornication' and of 'female violence', but... I'm an extremely sexual person, it turns out, but when She chose me I wasn't actually thinking about sex. I was thinking about... um, I think I was thinking about how men want women to play along with the story that the lawful way is for our own good, and how that meant it wouldn't be wrong, it'd be righteous, even, if I... treated those men like story-props in the same way? This sounded better in my head."

"I like those head sounds! That is a very Calistrian head-sound."

She shifts position on Penny's lap, going from a side-saddle to a straddle, spreading her legs wide.

"You see, Calistria's domains are lust, revenge, and trickery. But there are a lot of gods that have at least one of those. Our dark lady of sexy vengeance is all about that turnabout! That thing you were thinking proves that you already have a perfect understanding of Calistrian revenge! Which is much better than boring old normal revenge!"

"As for Calistrian lust, it's kind of the same thing. They say Calistria likes it when people are free to act on their desires toward other people in the same ways that those other people would act on their own desires. And what is more that than sex? What is more not that than a lawful system that completely breaks that symmetry by being super sexist while also considering pleasure and desire only as an afterthought, if that?"

She gives Sadiqa's nude body a quick stroking, her eyes briefly smoldering as she pets her lover's bare skin.

"I think I understand."

Gamila wets her lips a little as she lets her gaze linger between her fellow cleric's spread thighs, then follows Penny's roaming hands. Watching Penny and Sadiqa interact is putting a warm feeling in her chest and an ache in her loins. They're cute together, and just casually horny for each other in a relaxed way that Gamila doesn't think she's ever seen anyone be around her before.

And there's an ease here, where Gamila's curiosity isn't hitting a stone wall. This is the highest density of satisfying answers she's gotten in a single conversation since she shook a foundational comprehension of magic out of her father.

"How many Calistrians are there in Sothis?"

Sadiqa preens.

"You did not turn your nose up at my beautiful bald baby-hole!"

Her vulva and mons are, in fact, shaved bare.

"You have passed the second and third tests by embracing a feeling of attraction and by raising rather than revoking the esteem you feel toward my nubile body when I present it to you for your enjoyment! You are definitely a new friend."

"I hate when you call it that," Penny says with an amused headshake. "I'm the one who has to stick my arm up there when you take a turn at the-"

Penny shakes her head in amusement and then gives Gamila a serious look.

"There are two hives of Calistrians operating in the city right now. The Beachhead and the Dark Nest. We're the Beachhead. We mostly operate in the Crimson Island. We try not to fuck with the Eyes openly, but we're freedom fighters, it can get harrowing when we have an urgent mission. We do what we can to help people the law screws over. Freeing slaves. Assassinating the occasional rich asshole. That kind of thing. The Dark Nest operates in the Rose Quarter, and what they do is keep the brothels honest, provide resources for prostitutes, and cater to the rare kinks that you really have to be a spellcaster to get into safely. The Dark Nest funds our operations."

She pauses.

"We have... twenty people? Total? About half of us are clerics, mostly the women, though we do have one boy-cleric. And me. Sadiqa is third-circle and also the third-strongest cleric we have. I'm the strongest combatant we've got. Long story."

"I'm curious about the story but I'm more curious about; go back to what you said about sticking your arm up- "

Gamila leans forward.

"How do we do birth control? What spells work? How do you use them?"

"Ah. Right, so. At first circle, your best bet is Chill Touch combined with a True Strike. You have to stick your whole are arm up inside and touch the womb directly, or have aim so good it breaks all the rules. I'm pretty good at it, so it's my go-to, but it's really dangerous if you're gonna mess up, 'cause Chill Touch can fuck you up if you miss and hit yourself instead. Even if you don't mess up, you still might need healing after you do it, if your body doesn't handle a miscarriage well."

More petting for Sadiqa.

"The big one is for second-circle arcane casters. Alter Self. Safest way is to turn into a man right after the sex is over. That pretty much always works, has no risks, and no downsides, and the spell has lots of other fun uses in bed too, so if you're a second-circle wizard you're golden. Trouble is you can only cast Alter Self on yourself, so it doesn't help your friends, and the gods don't give it out to clerics for some fucking reason."

Of course...

Gamila recalls what she's read about both those spells, in her days at the Temple.

"I knew Alter Self was the one to go for. I did consider Chill Touch; it didn't seem better than just using the knife again... But you're right, that even Alter Self doesn't solve the larger problems."

Time for turnabout.

"I want to invent a cantrip. Or get the right spell researchers on the project of inventing a cantrip, that specifically targets and destroys a man's seed. Something to put birth control into the same magical category as laundry. Then I want to... spread it, far and wide. Make it as common as I possibly can. And I think I can do that. Because I think I've stumbled onto the key to doing that in a really big way; a way no one is going to expect."

"When you aim a Chill Touch with a True Strike, you are almost certain to leave the unwilling mother unharmed!"

Sadiqa leans forward.

"You are an excellent person for being willing to share your awesome secret with us. I really appreciate the faith and future friendship! What's the secret?"

"Do you have Detect Magic? If you do, cast it."

"I do!"

"Detect Magic."

"Dancing Lights. Dancing Lights. Dancing Lights. Dancing Lights. Dancing Lights. Dancing Lights. Dancing Lights. Dancing Lights."

Sadiqa tilts her head.

"So you're a sorcerer...?"

"I'm not a Sorcerer."

Gamila does feel ever so slightly bad that Mister Narvet's sudden insanity was caused by an actual misunderstanding, but honestly she has better things to do than think about Mister Narvet.

"I'm mostly self-taught in arcane magic. I thought I was learning wizardry. But it turns out that my naïve experimentation led me into something... rarer. According to Dana's research, Dana's my Nethysian friend, I'm something called an 'Arcanist', not a Wizard."

Pause.

"Anyway, I figured this out when I lost my first round of orisons. I didn't realize you had to catch them, see. My arcane spells were prepared out of a spellbook just like a Wizard but I cast them like a Sorcerer's innate spells, at the cost of not being able to hang as many prepared spells as a Wizard can. But it means that I only have to prepare a spell once, and then I have that spell forever unless I deliberately discard it."

Gamila is still impressed with herself for having this clever idea.

"Learning how to prepare spells reliably can take weeks or months of tutoring and practice because learning to manipulate the magic is really difficult to do from a cold start. But what if we found a way to prepare a single cantrip on someone else's behalf? And then what if we did that my way, the Arcanist way, not the Wizard way? Then that person would have that cantrip forever. They could cast it as many times as they wanted without ever losing it, despite not knowing the first thing about magic nor how to use a spellbook nor how to catch a cantrip nor any of it. If that worked we could permanently give a chosen cantrip to anyone. Or. To everyone."

"Wait, can you do that?! Can we do that?"

"Not yet," Gamila admits. "And I doubt it'll be easy. But it's... a way out. And I think it can be done."

And that was before she found her fellow Calistrians.

"Does the Beachhead already have anything like that in the works? Does the Dark Nest?"

Sadiqa contorts herself to share a look with Penny without de-lap-ing.

"Do you think- ?"

    "Should we- ?"

"Azizi would- "

    "It sounds insane, but- "

"We should."

The two young women nod at each other.

Penny stands up, effortlessly hefting Sadiqa in one arm in an almost comical manner. With the other, she reaches down to throw aside a rug.

Under the rug is a large trapdoor. She grabs the handle and flings it open.

"Come on," she says to Gamila. "All the good stuff's downstairs."

Is that a secret lair? That looks like a secret lair.

"You said twenty Calistrians, right? Divided between the two 'hives'? Which group is bigger?"

"Most of us are in both."

She sage-nods, dangling from her girlfriend's grip, still mostly posed like she's sitting on a lap, though sideways now.

    "Twenty active Calistrians," Penny adds. "Not everyone is driven by purpose or devout enough to seek us out, and we don't go looking."

"Mmhm. Mmhm. It's probably just us, though. If there is anyone else, they're being very quiet. And our dark lady of sexy vengeance doesn't usually favor people who keep their heads down."

"Just out of curiosity, is 'dark lady of sexy vengeance' actually a canon title..."

"Our dark lady of sexy vengeance does not care about the canonicity of her titles! Proper respect is shown by sentiment and by action, not by being picky about words! This too, is Chaos!"