"Oh. Okay. Um. Well, there's—I don't know how much of this stuff is common knowledge? Like, uh, the thing about natives? Or the Sacred Jewels? Do you guys know about those?"

Annika looks at Taharqi.

"...I guess I do know a bit about the history of the place," he concedes. "Uh—Arunafeltz was colonised by migrants from the Kingdom of Rune-Midgard, but there were already people living here before. They didn't worship the gods, though, or not in the same way. They have concepts and stories that can be mapped to similar entities, but much less personified, and in their stories they occasionally merge some Odinist and Freyjan gods with each other or split gods Odinists and Freyjans consider to be the same. And the Freyjan colonists were pretty religious and unhappy with the idea of coexisting with people who didn't share their faith. They were also more technologically advanced so they subjugated the natives and now there's sort of a class separation between natives and non-natives. It's a whole mess.

"I don't know a ton more about it than that, though."

She nods along with his explanation. That was more or less what she'd managed to piece together, with a bit more historical context. "So there's this bounty I found that's not an official Eden bounty and it was posted by the police. It's a bounty for a fifteen year old who vanished a few days ago at the same time as High Priest Zhed's, uh, symbol-of-office? It's a crystal, it's called the Sacred Opal, every High Priest has something like that, High Priestess Niren has a Sacred Ruby. Anyway it vanished at the same time as Phobe did—that's the fifteen-year-old—and Phobe is a native orphan who Zhed employs—employed—at his estate." It was very much an estate. She thinks she's never used that word before. She's not sure. "And there's, um, some stuff about politics, there seem to be two factions? Two big ones, anyway. And High Priest Zhed is the leader of one and Niren is the leader of the other. Zhed's faction is friendlier to natives."

"Why don't you tell us more about it while we make our way to the Ice Cave? That should give us some time and privacy."

"—yeah okay."

"So there's the natives, right, like, the people who were around here before the followers of, um, Freyja, uh—"

"Neither of us is particularly religious."

"—really?" She thought people from the Kingdom of Rune-Midgard were all religious aaaaaand now that she actually says that thought out loud in her head with full words it sounds stupid.

But, still, isn't Annika a monk?

"Really. Annika's a monk because their philosophy aligns with hers not because she particularly loves Odin or Freyja or whatever."

"Mm."

How did he guess what she was—she supposes it's probably an obvious source of confusion.

"Okay. Well, so, there's natives, right, they already lived here before the followers of Freyja left the Kingdom of Rune-Midgard, but they didn't believe in Odin or Freyja, they follow this other religion called, uh, deism I think? Which is sort of like Odinism and Freyjanism except it's not so big on the whole, like, gods are individual people with personalities that you pray or make offers to. And so the Freyjans, um, kind of subjugated them? And, uh, killed a lot of them. That was a long time ago."

"Which, uh, is the thing you said earlier, I know, I'm just trying to organise my thoughts."

"Sure."

"Right, so, like you said there's a class divide kinda, because of all those historical reasons natives tend to be a lot poorer and stuff, and the descendants of the Midgardians generally see themselves as the ones who are really Feltzeen, even though the natives were here first. There's something about this being kind of a promised land for Freyjans? People I asked about this were really vague, I'm not sure if it's, like, an actual part of their theology? But they named the temple you guys were just at after the temple Freyja supposedly presides over in Valhalla so they're really possessive. Of the land, I mean."

"Anyway so there's these Sacred Jewels, they're symbols of office kinda, and they're supposedly given to the High Priests by the Pope herself and the power of Freyja is invested in them? No one was really clear on what that power was, like, they can make holy water with the jewels but I think you don't need jewels for that? Usually?"

"You usually need a blue mana gem. If they can do this with their jewels without the jewels being consumed then probably the jewels have concentrated mana in them."

"—wait do you just need mana for holy water?"

"Specifically blue gems, they're—"

"No, I know how they work, I kind of specialise in—I mean I made these legs, I know how magic crystals work."

"I don't! Care to explain to the less magically-inclined of us?"

"—sure!" Boy oh boy does she. "So, like, the things we call gems, right, they're consumed after a use, and there's three of them, or three common ones, blue, red, and yellow."

"Right. Blue gems are used for Skills like warp, red for offensive Skills, and yellow for..."

"So it's a bit more complicated than that. They're kind of, solidified Skills, in a way? Except, not quite, but they're solid mana and they kind of have intent imbued in them, if that makes sense. Blue gems have a sort of focusing effect, so they're used for Skills that concentrate power into a small or very precise targets, red ones are kind of volatile, they amplify power and increase entropy, basically they're good for explosions, and yellow gems have a kind of stabilising effect, so Skills that have to last for a while and especially that have to be in a specific place for a while will use them often?

"But anyway gems are never actually really necessary, actually, they're usually just there as sort of helpers because the Skill itself was built with them in mind or because it's an inefficient Skill that needs the boost. Usually Skills you can just, like, learn by thinking about them don't need any gemstones, but sometimes they do, but since they tend to be a lot more efficient than the ones people develop in general new Skills will sometimes use them to give them a leg up."

"I don't need blue gemstones to make holy water."