"Is there any reason I shouldn't trust them, they sound nice?"

"Oh, they are, I just wasn't sure if you wanted to withhold judgment until you asked a priest or whatever."

"They have priests, I don't think my priest knows better than their priests particularly."

"Then go ahead and you can learn to summon angels. How that one works is that each rank is a different type of celestial, and each requires a virtuous act. They get more difficult to do - rank one is just kindness and you can get a Mediary to approve of you by, like, cooking a good meal for someone who's in the dumps. Acts of charity have to be bigger than that - find those in real need, roughly, and then you can summon a Servitor. Cheraphim at rank three want acts of mercy - forgive a real wrong done to you, and they won't answer if you're carrying serious grudges you haven't forgiven. And then Contemplars want acts of justice with big stakes, traditionally a life justly saved or justly condemned. Celestials's powers are mostly defensive and healing, but contemplars are warrior angels - they only take summons if you're in danger, but they will neutralize the threat and take the fight to evil on your request."

"Well, I... guess I am maybe looking at some wrongs I could work on forgiving sometime if you want to believe the pagan deities!"

"Does that count as a silver lining?"

Dear God, please prevent that from being inflicted on this sweetheart if there's some way you can overrule the pagan gods or persuade them to change their mind about their prophecy or something. I don't know if that's metaphysically possible but if it is, this would be a really nice time to do it. Amen.

"I guess!" Sigh. "It's kind of looking like all my choices are between trying to make myself be my best self forever versus being an awesome superhero."

"You could definitely do some of both. Your patron's quests won't take up most of your time - maybe a quarter at most, usually much less. And if you want to be a cool flashy superhero, you could still summon some angels to help. The Mediaries at rank one can help you pacify little demons and angry spirits - necromancy isn't just zombies and stuff, it also helps you work with restless ghosts and things. And the Servitor would be helpful to heal people who you could save superheroing but couldn't prevent from getting injured."

"There are ghosts? Why are there ghosts?"

"The dead go to divine afterlives when the reapers collect them, but some fear what afterlife they'll get, or are too angry or distraught to move on peacefully, or just hide for no real reason."

"Oh. If the ones who are afraid of their afterlife are right that's pretty understandable they'd want to be a ghost instead I guess."

"Yeah. Most afterlives aren't bad, but they might worry they earned Hell... It's not like most people know where they're going. But the longer they stay in the world, the more likely they get muddled and dangerous."

"Are there more than two? Afterlives?"

"Yeah, all the pagan afterlives exist. Pagans mostly go there, not to Limbo."

"Oh. But they're all right mostly? I remember Valhalla didn't sound very nice."

"A lot of them are pretty weird but they mostly seem alright. Some people like the idea of Valhalla."

"If you say so! Is there a way to tell where you're going? To reassure the ghosts?"

"Not easily, I think. You can ask a god or archangel or something, and strong diviners can get that kind of information, but I think it's one of the things that Fate makes hard for inscrutable reasons."

"Bummer."

What else are warlocks good at?

Hexes and Divination are the non-creepy kinds.

Hexes is also called Transmutation, and it's about turning things into other things. A basic hexer can turn stone to mud or tin to iron, and polymorph small animals to other ones with about the same mass. They can do more complicated things at higher ranks, like turning gasoline to bread (at the same calorie count), eggs to chocolate, meat to vegetables, and they can change the shape of larger animals and turn them into imaginary (nonmagical) animals. Higher ranks can also turn random objects or statues into slightly-intelligent moving servants.

Divination is somewhat about telling the future and mostly about handling information in all kinds of ways. Identify people you see, getting a name and some details, more detail like their magic if you have higher ranks. Check the health and status of people and possibly get details of what would fix it. Make magic maps of an area, or store sights you can see like eidetic memory. Higher ranks let you ask about whether an action will work out well for you, and activate a passive magic that lets you see a second into the future so you can react in advance.

Those seem okay but do lack the awesomecool factor of the elementalism. Hmm.

"How much stuff can I even get, like, I get wind for being a siren, and one more elementalism but only one?"

"Outside of elementalism and the factions's magics, you can get as many things as you can pay for. Which usually looks something like three or four types at rank four, about that many at lower ranks, a handful of minor magic, and a handful of drawbacks."

"So it would be specializing pretty darn hard to get all that many elementalisms anyway."

"At your max strength, yeah, but getting a bunch at rank three is easier. Each higher rank costs more than the one before it. But also you can improve later - when I started out, I only trained wind and earth past the first rank, but now I've gotten plants up to rank three and most of the rest to rank two."

"This is so complicated, wow."