"You're not sure that... what is a thing, exactly? You don't think Lawful Good and Lawful Neutral have their own afterlives?" This is deeply weird but it's the closest he can come to making sense of what she said.

"I don't believe in Heaven or Hell anymore because every source that talked about them turned out to be bullshit. Which is a lot of peoples' reaction when you get into the magical world, it seems like. As for Axis, isn't that a math thing? And Nirvana is supposed to be a state of perfect detachment and contentment or something. I mean, if you showed me Heaven and it had compelling evidence, I'd believe it, but..."

"I think there are spells that can show you the afterlives? But also you can, like, go visit them!" Well, not Hell, probably, or at least he won't be trying that anytime soon. "It's expensive but you can talk to people who did it, and to summoned outsiders, and even people who've been resurrected. I guess if you don't believe any of them or any priests, you'll have to save for a couple of plane shifts yourself, and that's a lot of money" (even for most wizards) "but it's might be important to get it right? I suppose if you're sure of your alignment it doesn't matter that much what you think about the afterlives." This is a novel and bizarre worldview to Ahmose but he isn't going to judge her for it.

"Maybe where you're from, but not on this planet. Visiting the afterlife isn't a thing here. Unless you count dubious visions on drug trips."

Wait, didn't Shining Black Lily also say something about not knowing if there was divine magic around? 

"Who are the major gods who grant their clerics powerful magic in this world?" he asks both her and Jasper. Huh, English doesn't have a god-pronoun?

"There... Aren't any."

[There are some people who believe their sorcery comes from gods such as Yahweh, also called Allah, or Amaterasu, or Shiva, or Thor, or a number of others, but it is unclear if that is actually the case, or if their powers come from another source. A being called Amaterasu does seem to exist, for example, but its capabilities and nature are also unclear.]

If you were a cleric, maybe not of a very high circle, and your god granted you spells but no visions, how could you prove, or even know yourself, what you were? This is a fascinating question Ahmose is wholly unequipped to answer!!

Of more immediate concern: if no clerics here have plane shift - or raise dead? - or if they don't advertise it publicly, what does that imply? That no clerics are strong enough? Less adventuring, without life insurance? Less banking and governance, without Abadar? More terrible sickness and disease, less food, less everything that only clerics can do back home - but their cities are clearly rich - maybe they have other magic that can do those things without clerics? Maybe that's related somehow to why the gods don't choose any?

Most importantly, it means if he can't get his planar portals to work, he can never go home again. Unless he becomes super wealthy and finds a way to still own it after he dies despite having no access to Abadar's - never mind that for now.

He... supposes he could try praying? But surely any gods Who wanted to choose clerics here would have already found someone better suited than him, and people in greater need too if that's what They were looking for.

Boat plan it is, unless he can get the portals to do something better in a few days' time. He can't open a planar portal home because he's already on the Material, so his only remaining hope is to figure out how to open two planar portals at once after all, or else to make a portal somewhere he likes better than that river.

Something else is bothering him about this, but he can't quite put his finger on it and he's frankly too worried about his personal situation to pay it much mind.

"I... can't really imagine what life is like without any clerics," he offers with a weak smile.

[What do clerics do? Modern human society has replaced many tasks with machines. I think alternate solutions to the same problems people face might be seen in different societies.]

"What he said," agrees the green Magical Girl, who has failed to give a name so far. "Geez. That would be like... Falling into a hole and learning that lightning isn't a thing anymore, wouldn't it? I think clerics are really important in the stories I've heard that include them."

"Clerics - provide all the things divine magic does and arcane magic hasn't figured out yet. Healing, curing disease, raising the dead, making clean water, making crops grow. Probably a lot of rarer stuff I'm not thinking of. Plane shift, for visiting the afterlives. And spells that asks their gods questions. Those are the important ones."

"But most clerics don't just sell spells, they - promote the things their gods want. Abadar does banking, Erastil farming, Nethys magic - he's the god of wizards - Sarenrae fights evil... There are hundreds of others. Without their help, all those things probably wouldn't get done nearly as much. But, um, there are also evil gods, so if both were gone that might be fine actually, I don't know."

Ahmose has indeed noticed she hasn't given a name and has no idea how to ask for one politely! Being deep in conversation without someone whose name he doesn't know and is too late to ask is a horrible circumstance that happened to him bizarrely often in Sothis. He dreads the moment he has to refer to her when talking to someone else. Asking Jasper her name later will be mortifying but so will asking her name now so he's not doing that either, just dreading it inevitably happening.

"Well, some witches and magical girls are pretty good at healing. Succubi too, I guess. And modern medicine is no slouch, though it's not as convenient as magic. We... Don't raise the dead very much, unless they're very fresh and mostly intact. Clean water is a tech thing, crops too. I should show you a YouTube video on it... There are priests that talk about what they think their gods want, at least."

Wait, what?

"You have succubi for healing? The demons?" This is weird enough that it makes him completely ignore for the moment the other things one might want succubi for, if one could trust them with anything at all.

Oh look, return of the blush. It's lighter this time at least.

"Well, sure! Succubi are really good at biomancy, generally. I, uh, pay 'em to keep me thin and fit. Fighting shape. Lots of people do. Magical people anyway. They're... I don't know if demons is even the right word? Some are pretty evil, and some are basically fine, especially if you have a written contract."

This is extremely confusing and contrary to everything Ahmose has ever heard!

"Contracts are for devils, not demons! I mean - do they follow contracts? Demons are chaotic - no, not that, how do you say - what is wrong with this language - what do you call the... dead people are judged on two measures and sent to one of nine afterlives, one measure is good versus evil - what, not that either? What do you call them? The - axes on which the nine afterlives are arranged?"

"We don't believe in afterlives, remember?"

"You don't believe... that there are nine afterlives, one for each alignment?" Do they think everyone goes to the same place? That would be so weird.

"No. You said good and evil. And law and chaos? Are those 'alignments'?"

"Yes! Good and evil, chaos and law. Neutral between each two, a grid of nine. But - if you don't know about alignments, and you can't detect them or talk to the afterlives, how do you avoid Hell?"

"Hell's not... A thing. And the people who believe in Hell, who, who fucking use it as a threat to make people conform to their own ideas, deserve to go there if anyone does."

[I think you're getting a bit heated, Sporty Lime! Ahmose thinks Hell is bad.]

"I- Ugh. I have history with this shit, I'm not unbiased, okay?"

"Hell isn't, isn't something you deserve! It's something that's done to you! You need to avoid it, like you'd avoid the plague, or - it's categorically the worst thing there is!!!" She clearly doesn't get it. There are probably not enough exclamation marks in the universe to explain Hell if you haven't been raised in its shadow. And he's so, so tragically un-splendid.

"Prove to me Hell exists, then. Prove it. Because I don't believe it. I think- I think what happens when we die is oblivion, just, not existing, which, is worse than Hell for some people and not for others, and- I don't believe in Heaven either. I can't. Let alone a bunch of other extra ones. There's nothing I've ever seen on it but wishful thinking at best and manipulation at worst. Since I don't think Hell exists, or Heaven, all I can do is- Be, and try to help people where I can, and- Damn, I should be in the big ritual sink right now, Jesus Christ." She is holding back tears.

"I really really do!!! Want to prove it to you! Because it's so important! You can be a perfectly normal good person and then go somewhere bad because the Judge isn't good or lawful and she has rules you can't guess, that's why you need her priests to tell you about them!!" Ahmose is close to crying himself.

He looks at Jasper. "I, I have to go back. Back to my world, and then bring the priests here, bring the gods - we have to make the planar portal work. We have to."

[I'm afraid as Cute Guardians, we don't actually know if you're correct, or if the gods would be good for this planet. We will certainly help you investigate responsibly, especially if you trade your help to us a little bit. But the thing is that if any gods have operated on Earth before, we can't tell for sure. There are things that might match what you are describing, but they're rare and inconsistent. The prophets Jesus Christ and Mohammad did actually perform things that were declared miracles, like creating food and drink or rising from the dead or curing leprosy or using powers of prophecy, but it sounds like you think MANY priests can do them. Such things are very, very rare on Earth and we can't take it as definitive proof that a god, or multiple gods, exist. Have you considered that these gods may have had influence over your previous plane and world, but not this one?]

"Obviously they don't have any influence here! Clerics with spells and miracles is what their influence looks like! It's what happens after you die that's the problem!"

Ahmose is so, so deeply glad that Jasper is taking him seriously and the Really Serious People Running Things are smart and will do the right thing, because he really, really can't do this himself.

"Of course I'll cooperate and trade and - I, I'll do" - anything, he barely stops himself from saying, because that is not how you negotiate with non-Abadarans, but it's true, he'll do almost anything - he won't go to Hell himself, or - he'll do everything he actually can do, to save these beautiful free people from damnation.

"At home we have the whole government working on this, they track how many people go to Hell and they set policies to get better results and make sure everyone knows how to avoid it - it's the most important thing the government is for, probably - I can't do it myself. I'll tell you everything I know and, and I'll try to convince you it's true, but I really really need to - get people from Golarion here to help you."

[I've asked someone to increase the urgency of our arrangements to get a big boat and someone to keep you safe from the ocean so you can try going home. I still don't know how quickly they will arrange it. Are there other things we can do which might point at the existence of afterlives, other than scrying or visiting them?]

"...I think you've been fooled and lied to." Following this announcement, Sporty Lime stomps away from the kitchen, leaving the portal looking at a green-furred Puchuu who leaped off and shook itself as she left.