"If it's ambiguous which cats are me, interacting with any cat works as worship, which fits more neatly into most peoples' lives than asking them to visit a temple or make offerings."

The cats begin making their way down from the tree.

"Ooh, so you're powered by worship. That's interesting."

"Yes. That's true of all gods, here; we each have a domain and a terrain type and a focus, and the ability to modify our domains and make human and animal avatars, and to bestow up to six blessings on whoever we like and one larger power on ourselves and our acolytes if we choose to have them, and a few other miscellaneous powers."

"Like your translation ability. It's very nice, I have translation magic but it's a little uncomfortable to have new languages crammed into my head periodically."

"Yes, we don't need to worry about that. I may be able to offer you a translation blessing, if your stay is going to be too short to justify your version."

"I'm willing to pay the cost of mine. I'm just mentioning it because I'm always looking for ways to improve my magic, and copying magic is one of the ways I do that."

"Ah." She sounds interested, if still rather reserved. "- can you tell me more about how your magic works?"

"The short version is that I can teach magic to recognize things and then do things when it recognizes them. The long version includes all the various basic things magic can do, most of which are really dangerous if you don't use them carefully, and all the things other people over the years have taught magic how to recognize."

"Dangerous in what way?"

"If you're using the magic in it's most basic form there's no safeguards. If you tell it to push on you and you don't specify how it could snap your neck. If you tell it to freeze time in an area that you're partially inside it'll cut your hand off. Warnings to prevent you from doing that are things you need to add intentionally."

"Ah-hah." Yeah that's something she's going to need to keep an eye on. "It seems like letting you copy blessings will be safer for all involved, then."

"Perhaps, copying magic isn't always straightforwards though. I suppose it's possible that eventually there will be some problem caused by stuffing too many languages in my head but I only have five so far and I've heard of people speaking more than that without any magic involved."

"Memory blessings are fairly common, if you do have trouble. I don't offer one, but I expect at least one of my neighbors does."

"That sounds interesting, I wonder how much magic it would cost to maintain, I'm usually near enough magic that it isn't important but I wouldn't want to be reliant on something that might fail."

"I wouldn't expect it to; blessings are usually permanent."

"Perhaps, but magic is quite abundant on your world. I wouldn't expect it to be an obstacle here. That said you haven't been consuming magic while I watch, and in fact you're shedding some. Maybe your magic is very unlike mine. It has something of a different aesthetic than the magic I've seen before too."

"Your magic is very unlike mine, yes - some things require upkeep, but blessings aren't among them; the only way you would lose a blessing would be if the god who gave it to you removed it, replaced it in their repertoire, or died."

"That's good to know then. Thank you. I doubt the world will be convenient enough to let me copy that feature of your magic." Luna sighs.

"I suspect it won't, not without a god involved. But you can try, if you like. Are you studying magic toward some goal, or for its own sake?"

"I want to help people, and enjoy my life. I don't really have any specific goals. I also hope I'll be able to find more people who Wanderdeep will like. What it did to me was ok for me but it would hurt most people."

"Hmm?"

"Oh, Wanderdeep is the origin for my magic. When everyone who has my magic dies or is otherwise unable to use magic it makes a copy of somebody who fits the definition of a good user. That happened to me."

"Ah-ha. Well, if it's straightforwardly teachable, I can help you find some suitable volunteers."

"I learned it from books, and some experiments which varied in how dangerous they were in retrospect. I think I could teach it pretty well, but it isn't my choice who gets magic, and I don't fully understand the criteria."

This tail-lash is brief and not directed at her. "What do you know?"