"That's good. Was there anything else you wanted to know?"

She wants to ask when the Tapai delegation will arrive, but that might make them think she's bored. That would be rude, but it might also scare them, because some gods can be scary when they're bored. Puna isn't one of them - at least, she doesn't think she's scary - but these people don't necessarily know that yet. 

"We're curious what you can tell us about other gods and polities of Corth."

She starts by quickly explaining her own pantheon again, because probably not everyone here overheard that part even if some of them did.

"As well as motu, Corth has..."

She takes a deep breath, mostly for effect. "Humans, elves, dwarves, mardik, dragons, dragonfolk, hyenafolk, lizardfolk, aaaand kobolds. A lot of them have their own gods, making...six different major pantheons plus at least that many minor ones. We don't tend to interact much with other gods, but I can tell you a little bit about most of the major ones..."

"- are the polities solely a matter of species, then, not - multiple countries of kobolds, or -"

"What makes a pantheon minor or major?" a different blue asks.

"Oh, no, every species has multiple political units. They just all have different systems, so it's easier to think of them as grouped by species first," she clarifies.

"The difference between a major and minor pantheon is the number of worshippers. If a species only has one religion, like motu, that pantheon will be a major one - we have about sixty million followers, but I don't have estimates for the others. The other major pantheons are the mardik, elven, dwarven, and draconic gods. Humans have lots of gods but they aren't all one pantheon, so none of them are big enough on their own to make the list - plus, a lot of humans worship the elven gods. Hyenafolk don't have gods, they worship their ancestors instead, and lizardfolk and kobolds worship the draconic gods, or sometimes just dragons." 

"- 'they worship their ancestors instead' makes it sound like the worship somehow precedes the gods -"

Puna responds immediately, almost speaking over the end of the blue's sentence. 

"Well, obviously if they don't worship any gods then they can't be said to have gods, can they? Instead of worshipping any of the gods that exist, they worship their ancestors, who are spirits not gods. That's all I meant."

She says all of this like it's obvious and should be self-evident to anyone who thinks about it for half a second. 

"...I'm sorry, we don't have the phenomenon here so things that are obvious to you may not be self-evident to us. What is a spirit?"

"Sorry, I keep forgetting you don't have magic! I'm used to explaining things to motu." 

She thinks carefully about how to explain spirits without mentioning other kinds of undead.

"Spirits, um...they're like people minus the physical body? Your spirit is your personality and memories and knowledge, all that sort of thing, and - at least on Corth, it might be different here - it doesn't necessarily die when you do, so spirits can sometimes stick around and help their descendants, a little bit like a small version of a god." 

"How interesting. We don't have that. Under what conditions does that happen? What powers do they have?"

"I'm not sure. Death really isn't my area of expertise," she admits. 

"I think Father said it varies by species, so it might just be that Amentans don't become spirits at all." 

"Are we likely to meet your family? Or other gods?"

She nods. "My family are fairly likely to come over and help out at some point. We don't tend to have much contact with other gods, so they'll probably only come through if they notice the portal on their own."

Since this is probably important, she takes a second to estimate how likely that is.

"It's on motu land, and nowhere near any settlements of other races, so the only reason they might notice is if they were watching a bird that flew through, or something. That could take years. Or...I suppose we could tell one of our people to ask someone else to pray to their god about it?" 

"If they aren't likely to be particularly helpful in terraforming planets or relevant to international relations, nor upset about being left out, then there's no tremendous hurry. If distance is a factor - we couldn't get a whole helicopter through, but we could probably get pieces of one across and assemble it there."

She laughs, both at the mental image of a helicopter being disassembled and reassembled and at the idea that a god might need one.

"No, it's not that they can't get to the portal! They just aren't likely to notice it because they don't have a reason to look there. Gods go where we're needed, mostly." 

Running through all the gods she knows in her head, she concludes, "I know of at least three gods, outside my pantheon, who would be particularly able to help with terraforming. I'm not sure they'd work together, though, or that all of them would want to work with me..."

"Well, you could work on separate planets."

"We could! Should I get someone to ask them, then?" she says to the Princess.

"It might take a day or two, but I'm pretty sure at least one of them will help!" 

"The more planets the better, as long as we can get to them!"

"Okay!" 

(Somewhere on the other side of the portal, a god appears to a motu priest worshipping at a temple in a multicultural city. The priest is instructed to deliver the following message to the nearest temples of Elpida, Shakhter, Ashkharh, and Shūcài...)

"Do you want to know about the gods I'm sending messages to?"

"Yes, please!"

She starts listing them. "There's Elpida, the elven goddess of spring. She's basically my counterpart in the elven pantheon, so I'm pretty sure she'll want to help. She does get less excited about new things than I do, but she'll come and help you because she's nice. Then there's Shakhter, the dwarven earth goddess - my priest might have to be pretty creative to get a message to her, since outsiders aren't allowed in most of her temples..."

Puna is momentarily distracted by making sure the priest knows about that restriction and has a plan to get around it. 

"Where was I? Elpida, Shakhter...Ashkharh! She's the mardik goddess of earth! She's my mother's counterpart, like Shakhter, and they're really similar to each other - they're both mother goddesses as well. Shakhter is in charge of her pantheon, but Ashkharh isn't, not that it really matters for this. I bet if one of them wants to help, so will the other one. And finally, there's Shūcài! He's the draconic god of nature. I have no idea if he'll help! But I thought I should at least try the draconic gods, and he seemed like the one to ask."

Having said most of that all in one go, she pauses to see if there are any questions.

"Why aren't outsiders allowed in the temples?"

Puna shrugs.

"I'm not sure...something about surface people not being holy enough? You'll have to ask Shakhter. I know it's not true for all the dwarven gods, just some of them, but I don't know what the difference is."

"You don't talk with them much?"

"Why would we?" she responds, shrugging.

"We all look after different people, and we only tend to watch what's happening when someone asks us for help. So most of the time, we don't even see other gods."