Not if she shoots them in the face.

Indeed not.

Yaaaay and then she can heal everyone! ...but Annika has a Heal so why doesn't she—probably her Heal is underpowered. On account of her being a tank. And focusing on strength.

"Thanatos," Annika says once they've regrouped again. "I was Thanatos, in my dream. I didn't know my name, or my party's, but we were—discussing sealing Surt, and—I recognised what was happening."

"...huh."

"I know it makes no sense."

"No, it's just interesting you were a guy in your dream, because I was not a guy in mine."

"...does that matter?"

"No, not really."

Is that a normal thing. Dreaming of people who existed and getting Skills from them. Lucky's feeling horribly jealous of everyone else, if so.

"Anyway, we keep going down tangents. You were saying, about the Jewels?"

"—right! Okay. So. The thing that's really strange is that, like—so usually different types of stones are better for different things? Because of, um, so they're—do you guys know about basic elements?"

"Water, fire, earth, air?"

"No, not those. Hydrogen, oxygen, carbon, silicon?"

"...I might've heard those names."

"So, like, everything is made out of really, really, really small things. Like, however small you're thinking, they're smaller than that. And smaller than that, too. People are made mostly of carbon, oxygen, hydrogen, nitrogen, but there's a bit of a bunch of others, like phosphorus or iron. Anyway, the thing crystals are is elements arranged in sort of a lattice—like, the simplest crystal is ice, so water is two hydrogens and one oxygen, like this, in a triangle, and when water is liquid those triangles are all sort of moving around past each other but when it's solid they get really close together and then they arrange themselves so that one molecule's oxygen is near another molecule's hydrogen, and since they're triangles they arrange themselves in ways that are combinations of triangles, like hexagons, and that's why snow flakes have six points—

"Anyway. Opals are silicon, oxygen, and hydrogen, but rubies are aluminium, oxygen, and chromium, and they're arranged in ways that are completely different, and that's important for magic, the crystalline structure of jewels makes a difference in what kinds of magic they're best for. It's actually really weird, now that I think about it, for an opal to be good at making holy water? I could buy, like, the ruby, maybe, I'd need to think about it, or an emerald, but quartz would be much better for that, that's just silicon and oxygen, but hydrogen isn't, I mean—

"But I bet I could figure out a way to do it. Maybe embed quartz inside the opal, or just have trace amounts of it, if it's not a pure opal. That'd explain why it has to be a special opal and not just any old opal."

"...sure... So there's a special kind of opal that the Sacred Opal needs to be and maybe a special kind of ruby that the Sacred Ruby needs to be?"

"Probably! I really should figure out everything the Sacred Opal can do, I bet I could replicate it."

"Which you want to do because... you think someone is trying to frame a kid for having stolen the High Priest's? Is that the precious religious artefact you were talking about?"

"Right, yes, that's what happened. The Sacred Opal vanished, and so did this kid, who works at High Priest Zhed's estate, and everyone thinks he stole it, and he's a native and very poor, but I think that's bullshit and there's politics involved."

"Why do you think he didn't do it?"

"It just kind of doesn't add up? The guard were all like, this kid's a native and the natives don't respect Freyja and probably think it's just a pretty jewel they can sell for a lot of money, but I asked around and the natives totally do know what the Sacred Jewels are, the High Priests won't shut up about them every sermon—wait, didn't you guys watch a sermon—"

"We did, and there was no mention of the jewels."

"—so they were probably exaggerating when they said every sermon. But. They said everyone knows about them, and also furthermore opals don't actually even sell for all that much, aaaaand this one I don't know for sure sure but I think Phobe is the bastard son of the High Priest's butler with a native who works across the street from him, and the butler isn't a native and marrying a native isn't like illegal but it might as well be, people find the idea scandalous?"

"And you suspect this why?"