I see. For what purpose do you explore?

"The Institute's core mission is to learn all there is to learn, and teach all who would be taught. We explore to find more people to learn from and teach."

Where do you come from?

"I'm travelling from an exploration hub we call The Edge of Eternity it's a place we built to coordinate the efforts of explorers within a week's travel of the hub."

Not on this world? Do you have gods?

"This world is about four days travel from the hub. My people have encountered many cultures who worship either imaginary people, powerful non-sapient magical effects, or powerful humans as gods. I do not know quite how to answer the question beyond that."

Gods are a feature of this world and are not quite like any of the phenomena you describe. A god is magical being who exists within a defined area of land, referred to as their domain. Within their own domain, a god has absolute control of the land and can dictate weather, soil composition, plant growth, and so forth. If you were not warded, I could even speak to you directly.

"Interesting, that's a more comprehensive level of power than any we've encountered so far. Is your attentional capacity similarly vast?"

It scales with the size of my domain. In a very real way, I am the land. The more of me there is, the more there is to go around. In addition, gods have the capability to bestow blessings upon mortals, which are minor beneficial effects. I offer the blessings of speed, stamina, vision, memory, waterwalking, and resistance to cold and damp. If a mortal is very favored, a god may choose to make them an acolyte, investing them with a portion of their power and granting an additional ability. My acolyte has access to a memory palace, which stores and organizes all the experiences she has lived and allows her to show them to others. Any avatars of mine have the same ability.

"Ah, those certainly sound like useful abilities. You seem quite unlike anything we've previously encountered."

In your current state, I doubt you would be able to receive any. One of the most basic powers of a god is the ability to speak and understand any language their audience has. You are blocking that and I doubt blessings would get through where that failed.

"That would be my assumption as well, I'm also unsure whether abilities intended for baseline humans would work correctly when applied to an individual like myself."

They function on animals acceptably well.

"Fascinating, I suppose it depends a lot on the way the underlying magic has learned what targets are allowed. In many respects animals are more like baseline humans than I am."

What are you like, then?

The skin on zabna's hand splits along a previously invisible line in the palm. His fingers go limp and a mass of metal rods pack away the now empty skin in his wrist. Where his apparently human hand was there is now a veritable forest of ever thinner metal spikes. "I'm a human mind wearing an ultra-articulate body. If this body was to be destroyed I'd wake up back at the hub missing some memories but otherwise intact."

How curious. Such technology is beyond anything I have heard of.

He restores his hand to the human appearance. "The institute has had the technology for the last couple decades. It's based on a lot of prerequisites though."

Are you willing to share the information?

"Standard uplift procedures involve explaining the workings of all our technological capabilities including that, we try to do it carefully though, our technology can be used to do terrible things more easily than it can be used to do wonderful ones."

Goddess of libraries, remember. I am good at taking care of knowledge.

"You will forgive me milady but we have no particular guarantees of your benevolence. Perhaps your domain will be selected as the site to host one of our copies of The Archive on this world but I am not empowered to make promises like that under normal circumstances."

Perhaps I might show you more of myself, then?

"I would be delighted. I can't fly like your avatar there but I can run pretty fast when I need to."

My nearest temple is some distance away. Follow the heron, and speak up if you require a rest. The bird waits for him to read the message, then sets off at a quick trot.