"Neat trick," remarks Isabella. "Is the ghost here, will he be able to follow okay?"

"He is right over there, he'll be following through just fine, I made it very ghost friendly."

"Thank you."

"It's the least I can do."

Here is Spring, with a book. "Hi, Isabella."

"Hi," says Cypress, somewhere between amused by the scene and trying not to be bothered by being described by something he technically doesn't have anymore.

"This other person is the Adarin alt we were on our way through here to see," explains Isabella. "His name is also Adarin, so for disambiguation, mine is Cypress and the old one is Prime."

"Well, nice to meet you, Prime, I don't look it but I'm one of her," Spring gestures at Isabella, "and my name's Ayabel but you can call me Spring."

"And I'm Idania. But so far it's just been me, so - no fancy nicknames, I'm special and unique."

"Just passing through, or visiting?"

"Visiting, I am sadly not fulfilling today's weirdness quota, so of course I need to go chat up some literal gods."

"Do you want to play a board game with me and Rae? He's a god, I don't think it's weird but other people do."

"Just - make sure the ghost follows us through the Chamomile portal, and then you can play board games with deities. One deity. Spring, I will give you the full story later if Prime doesn't." Isabella makes for the Chamomile portal.

"I will tell her the full story," he agrees, reasonably. "And yes, he is following you just fine."

Home goes the witch with both sections of her spouse.

"She was seriously nettled."

"Yeah, uh -" Idania glances at Prime, then frowns. She noticed the vaguely guilty look. "Wait, what did you do?"

"Accidentally killed her husband," sighs Prime.

"He lost his magic in the process of the resurrection and also his daemon. They are going to fix that."

"Erg," is the response Idania makes. It's enough to make her flip back right side up and land. "Yikes, okay then."

"I guess one disadvantage of do-your-own-detail-work magic is going to be - unexpected side effects. We don't have ghosts, do we?"

"I mean like, superstitious people sometimes talk about it, but they've got dandruff and bits of string as proof, so - no. I'm going with no."

"When a magic user of my type dies," sighs Prime, "they leave a ghost, basically the manifestation of the part of them with magic. And, of course, only mages can see or hear them."

"That... is interesting."

"In an academic sense, fascinating, but in the personal sense - somewhat distressing."

"Yyyyes. We woke up without our magic, too, but - got it back pretty quickly."

"Yeah," sighs Prime. "It's - there's a method to fix it, apparently. But it can't be done here or at my home, so I needed to make a portal here."

"Weren't they - oh - got it," says Spring. "How do you accidentally kill your alt?"

"Thirty-seven hours with no sleep and an absurdly complicated shield. Also five centuries worth of paranoia."

"... Uh that's about half of an answer, but okay. You were paranoid, trapped him, and messed up on a thing doing that and that killed him?" clarifies Idania.

"Yes," sighs Prime. "That."

"I can see why Isabella would be nettled, then. Well. Welcome to Pantheon, although I'm not actually from here originally."

"I am, though. I found her in a magic bar."

"I was surprised, although not flabbergasted. My original world's magic is unpredictable and there isn't a known limit to what it can do."

"... Directionless, or can you aim it?"

"It's locations, called 'magics'. Things that go in them get randomly magicked. It's not something you do to yourself unless you're suicidally desperate, since it is many times more likely to turn you into something you'd sooner not be than to do anything more useful, let alone unambiguously useful. I was extremely lucky. The people I was with when I fell in were not."

"You are unlikely to fall into any magics here. You'd have to go to Tayane."

"I figured," he agrees. "But they continue to exist and people get - randomly magicked. That in itself is horrifying."

"Yeah, also it has slavery and is basically terrible."

"There's fences around the magics. I'm less concerned with the fact that maybe five people a year get magicked than with the fact that larger numbers of them suffer from diseases that I could now heal with a touch, among other things. So eventually I want a portal back there to shake some things up and possibly install some Perinixu holy water and see if it takes."

"Would you like me to look for it, when I have not recently made a portal and have mana to work with?"

"That sounds likely faster than waiting for Ice and Cypress to come back."

"Probably," agrees Prime. "Though maybe it'll take an afternoon and they'll be back before - I don't know, dinner or something."

"I got the impression her spells took more development time than that."

"As did I, but I try and nurse the tender half-dead thorny bush that is my optimism where I can."

"You do not seem particularly similar to Cypress. Maybe Rae can confirm for sure when he gets here for board games."

"I doubt it's a mistake, five hundred years is just a very long time. He's - what I would be if I were twenty and in love instead of five hundred and not."

"Well, Rae can check anyhow. That's how they found me, actually, he heard Isabella talking and thought she was me."

"Useful. How can he tell, is it magical sparkly god powers?"

"Magic sparkly god powers, yeah." Idania retrieves her vial of sand. "Psssst. Hey. Rae. Remember magic nap guy? He's got another him that's up for playing board games with us, and also he's like - super sarcastic." Pause. "Okay, see you then!"

"It's accurate!" defends Idania.

"It is," confirms Aya.

"I suppose so," shrugs Prime, with a sigh.

"By the way, do not let Rae win just because he's a deity."

"It annoys him!"

"Then by all means, I will do my best to win on my own merits."

"You'll still lose. Just don't do it on purpose."

"Thank you, ray of sunshine, you're helping the optimism bush immensely."

"Do you want help with your emotional shrubbery?"

"No," he snorts.

"Awww, but we could get emotionally healing watering pails and everything! Little shears of brutal honesty to snip away the bad parts!"

"Don't needle him, Idania."

"Awwww. Heartbreak, I might have actually been able to not have a gardening attempt backfire terribly for once! I was excited!"

"Well, restrain the pyromania around here and we'll get along, I imagine."

"I'll manage. Somehow," he says, dryly.

"What gave me away? Was it the lack of soot and ash on my clothes?"

"Mm-mm. You're the buildy-repairy type, I can tell. Can smell you from a mile away."

"I'll have to change soaps," drawls Prime.

"Do they make a soap for that? I'd try it."

Idania giggles. "'Essence of builder'! Made by Bob, sold in shops everywhere."

"They must have made millions."

"Well, in certain markets, anyway."

"Of course, nothing sells well everywhere."

"Birth control."

"Fruit."

"Flavored water."

"Catch-all term for all drinks ever. Alcohol, wine, those wussy citrus fruit drinks. You know. Juice and - I seriously don't know the technical term for drinks that aren't water. I've been in the desert too long, help."

"Of course. Birth control, no, because some cultures have magical solutions or support rampant children underfoot. Fruits as a catch-all term, yes, but you can't say that all types of fruit sell well everywhere, it changes based on the culture, climate, cooking habits, and transportation from where ever the fruits come from. Same with - 'flavored water.' If you pick a broad enough category of course you can say it sells well everywhere. Food, food sells well everywhere in some fashion, but it's quite vague."

"I assume you'll have the same objection to 'clothes' or 'human labor'."

"Yes."

"Wooo!" says Idania, and she flies over to high-five Aya.

High-five!

"Technically she was unspecific about who it would be fun to test it with."

"Technically," he agrees.

"Did Isabella immortalize you yet? Apparently it has a slow de-aging effect."

(Idania, meanwhile, is trying very hard not to giggle.)

"She hasn't, she was rather busy." He shrugs. "No rush, I'm fairly certain I've got a century left in me anyway."

"And it comes free with resurrection, anyway, we didn't die this perky."

"That's convenient, though let's avoid assisted suicide in the name of vanity."

"Wasn't suggesting it."

"I knew people that would have tried it."

"Thaaat's depressing. Dying sucked, I don't recommend it."

"I was not a fan," agrees Aya.

Prime nods. "I never said I liked the people that would have tried it."

"Hello," says Prime, completely unaware that he is talking to a god.

"Hi, Rae," says Aya.

"Hello," he replies. Then he goes back to looking at Prime.

"No volcano sacrifices, try not to cry about their loss," snorts Idania. "Gods don't sacrifice people, that would be stupid."

"Nevermind the other things that it would also be. Thank you for your discretion, regardless."

"This is an Adarin, right, Rae? That is, he sounds like Isabella's husband the same way I sound like her?"

"Yes." Head tilt. "But he's the same in the way that a tree came from a sapling..."

"The gardening jokes continue."

"... Or charcoal in comparison to a roaring fire," finishes Raezenoth.

"Which of them is which object in this analogy?"

"Either."

"What about a caterpillar becoming a butterfly? A really sarcastic butterfly?"

Rae shakes his head. "It seems accurate on the surface, but butterflies fundamentally change. He's different, but not - other."

"Damn, I was hoping to call him the sarcastic butterfly."

Prime snorts.

"I am surprised you're letting this assessment stop you from calling him the sarcastic butterfly. Rae, you don't mind answering questions about this sort of thing, do you? Because if I know my alts - and this seems to be the point of having alts - there will be more of us who might need double-checking."

"I don't care," the god shrugs.

"I can't call him something that's not accurate! Sarcastic charcoal, maybe, but that doesn't have the same ring to it. Don't worry, I'll figure something funny to call you eventually."

"I'll wait on bated breath."

"You assume correctly, I've never played - whatever that is before in my life."

Aya explains the rules as she sets up.

Idania helps with the explanations, and gives various examples of what has been done in previous games.

Rae, meanwhile, silently helps set up the board game. The acolytes are doing a fine job explaining things, he's not going to bother to help.

Prime listens raptly, asks occasional questions, and then gets the general idea of it and understands enough of it to get by.

Aya takes the swamp territory this time.

Rae gets deciduous forest. He frowns at this, but he will accept the dice's ruling. Grudgingly. (He wants to be a desert. Tundra, volcano, and mountain are okay, but desert's his favorite.)

Idania gets volcano. She then spends the next few minutes cackling. Because lava.

And Prime gets desert. He feels utterly ambivalent about this.

Rae looks at him. With what might be annoyance.

"I've played variants of this where people get to pick their territories," says Aya mildly, "but they wind up always getting the same things and it becomes boring."

"Aha. And I just rolled his favorite territory."

"Yup!" says Idania, chipper. "And I just rolled mine. Bwuahahahaha, volcano goddess, look upon me, ye mortals, and despair!"

"Shush, you're just miffed because you didn't get desert."

Rae is incredibly smug about this victory. It's subtle, but there, if you look close and squint - smugness.

Idania throws a pillow at him.

Aya giggles.

"... Did you keep that in your pack for specifically that purpose?"

"Rae's secondary job description after 'god of the desert wind' is 'target of Idania's pillow throwing'."

"It is a job I do magnificently," says the god gravely.

"This is why he wanted her resurrected. No one else throws pillows at him quite the same."

"I'm very proud of this fact, I am the master of pillow throwing."

"As you should be," snorts Prime. "It is a rare and under appreciated art."

"A pity it's so unpopular, or I'm sure she'd win trophies."

"All of them, too, not just some. I would have a little trophy shelf and look at it every morning and feel proud and accomplished. People would be mad at me for hoarding them."

"Eventually they would build you a Hall of Fame and you'd be disqualified from competing. It would be unfair."

"So unfair! I would have won everything with only minimal cheating! It's practically fair!"

"Yes, truly," drawls Rae. "That is the definition of fairness. Only minimal cheating."

"No one would know."

"With your plainly masterful ability to be quiet as a mouse about it?"

"Yup. That and killing all of the witnesses."

"Won't stick, anymore, depending on who you get."

"Damn, foiled again. Gah, next you'll have me required to play fair!"

"The horror."

"The travesty," says Rae, in the same tone.

"The inconvenience!"

"I know! Ugh, it's so terrible!"

"Thank goodness we don't live in a world with pillow-throwing tournaments after all."

"The world is safe from the wrath of the pillow volcano goddess."

"A pillow volcano would be fun. It'd drop pillows knee-deep miles around. Much pleasanter than the usual sort of volcanic eruption."

"It would be," giggles Idania, "the best thing, people could take naps anywhere."

"Walking would be troublesome," points out Prime. "You take a step, trip, and then - buried in pillows."

"Get a pushbroom."

"My domain would be desecrated by pushbrooms," laughs Idania.

"Oh, are those offensive? How about a snow shovel?"

Aya taps her chin. "Pointy sticks with which to spear the pillows and put them out of the way?"

"I could make a shield that sends pillows flying," adds Prime.

"Fly over the pillows and avoid touching them entirely."

"You might have trouble attracting worshipers if they have to wade."

"I will have a tiny domain of pillow fanatics."

"Ah, yes. Circular pillow forts, where they perform unholy volcanic pillow rituals."

Idania laughs maniacally. "Yeeeeeeeeees!"

"If Idania the Pillow Volcano Goddess authorized them they would be holy volcanic pillow rituals," corrects Aya.

"Ah, of course, my mistake."

"My acolyte's power would be absurd aim with thrown pillows. We'd be a scourge on all of the lands."

"I will have to be vigilant. The pillows will block out the very sun."

Idania cackles some more. "Feaaaar meeeee!"

"Aaaaaah," says Aya, deadpan. "Please. No. Mercy."

"Never, unless you forsake Perinixu and worship me!"

"I will be martyred for my anti-pillow beliefs, I guess. Isabella will be annoyed about me making her repeat that elaborate process again."

"Curse you, friendly alt of my friend who was kind enough to resurrect the both of us at - what, how old is my body, I think I'm in my twenties? It was when I was hottest, for sure. Anyway, alt who did that!"

"I don't remember her specifying an age. I think the idea is that we work like her species, now, stopping somewhere around 'young' and continuing in that vein."

"Oh, okay then. Then doing that! I approve of it stopping somewhere around 'young.'"

"I do too. I was not a fan of creaky bones and getting up to pee three times a night and so on."

"Yeah, that was annoying. Also I can dance again, I sucked at it when I was old and crinkly."

Prime doesn't comment. But he does raise an eyebrow.

"At least you could still fly. I spent age seventy up wishing I'd ordered the hoverbike with more cushion to the seat."

"Yeah, but I got all - dumpy. With scrawny arms! If I flew too much I couldn't walk at all!"

"Well, no more of that, anyway. I feel great."

"Yay, youth and immortality! Though I wouldn't have minded being stuck at like - forty, I was a foxy old lady."

"Forty was okay. Although I did go gray kind of young, that's pure vanity, not a real quality of life issue." She glances at Prime. "It works better on you than it did on me."

"Thank you," he says, faintly amused. "Though I'm definitely not forty."

"No, I know, I just meant the gray."

"To be honest, I think I prefer it over the white hair. I could fix it, easily enough, put it back - but as I am now I don't automatically stick out in crowds."

"You might have to notify Ice of your cosmetic preferences when she gets around to immortalizing you."

"Probably. That'll be a fun conversation, 'Yes, no, I'd like to stay looking like this, my bones don't creak and people at home would be confused if I suddenly looked like I was in my twenties again.'"

"She can probably do it. Her magic is pretty damn good."

"True. I'll ask, when - she is not busy and rightly upset with me."

"Yyyyeah. Because, timing. I'm also going to wait before I ask for a portal from here to Iobel's world."

"Cypress is not the only one who can make portals," points out Prime, amused.

"Ooo, oo, I could then explore the world! That's exciting, I'd love to explore the world! Yours, too, but I was being polite and not tackling you to give me world-access."

"Thank you. I dislike being tackled."

"Is your world good for tourism? Should we go check it out, since there's already a portal?"

"I don't suppose there are large swaths of people who need to be healed of diseases?"

"Not large swaths, but there are sick. Why," he asks, grinning, "can you help with that?"

"I'm a healing goddess's acolyte. I can heal pretty much any disease with a touch." She holds up a hand. "I'm not the only one, so Perinixu's domain is well in hand there, and visiting the neighbors and curing their adherents is a good way to start a fight, but you don't have any gods, do you?"

"Not any personified ones, no."

"Is there any reason I shouldn't haul in a large quantity of holy water and see if I can get a satellite domain for Perinixu started across planar borders while I'm at it?"

"Well, what effects does that have, and what sort of goddess is she?"

"She's a healing goddess. She likes things tidy - some people find her nitpicky about it, but she only imposes the requirements on people who are actually in her service. Places that are part of her domain are places where she can send her physical form, if she has one at that time, and generate new holy water - water is her specifically, it depends on the deity, Rae does holy sand - and issue blessings and so on. It also has slow terrain shift effects. In Perinixu's case, highlands with plenty of springs."

"Hm. That's - doable, but fair warning, New Kystle's tidelocked. I don't know if that'll cause problems or not. You might be better off snagging an unclaimed part of Kystle, it's currently being resettled after terraforming. Lots of free space to grab, and no problem with tidelocking."

"I may as well try both if Perinixu's up for it. Is there a way to get holy water to Kystle?"

"Well, I could put a portal from here to there, or you could go to New Kystle and take the portal from there to Kystle."

"The existing portal chain would be fine, I just wasn't sure if there already was one. Perinixu, do you want me to see if I can establish sites for you in other planes?"

"Perhaps," says the goddess to Aya. "What gods are there?"

"None in the planes in question, or at least not as make themselves clear. The ones from Ice's world that resurrect people can apparently reach across planes just fine but they aren't bothering you here so I don't imagine they'd be a problem anywhere else except maybe Ice's home world, which I wasn't suggesting."

"Hmmm. Then, yes. This would please me, if there were people with ailments to cure."

"The planet that sounds like it has more people on it is tide-locked. Sound worth trying anyway?"

"Yes, I'm just wondering how it'll interact with the temperature - if it's boiling or freezing how your springs will come up. Well, I guess we'll see."

"That we will," she agrees.

"If I just go fill up a couple of barrels of water," Aya says to Prime, "and bike through this portal, is anyone going to stop me or give me trouble or anything, and is there a good obvious place to put a spring?"

"No one is going to stop you," agrees Prime. "I can pick out some good places for it, near the portal hub's an obvious choice so you can get to lots of places quickly, though if you prefer you can just get a portal to it and be where ever."

"Should I go fill up now or should we schedule this for a later date?"

"Now works, I don't see why not. Fair warning, this portal goes through my house."

"Unless your house is too cramped for my bike I don't see why that would be a problem." Aya goes and gets her bike.

Prime eyes the bike, and then pronounces, "It's not, I was just being thorough."

"If Aya's going on an adventure to another plane, can I come, too?"

"You may. Don't break anything, please, I would be annoyed with you."

"Okay," shrugs Prime.

"No problems with me going?" asks Idania, addressing Rae.

"None. Have fun," says Rae, and then he stands and flies off.

Aya is back within her promised time frame with plenty of holy water.

Aya laughs. "Yeah, all set."

Cards are packed up, and then Idania looks musingly at Prime. "Hmm, you can't fly, can you, that'll make this more annoying 'cause Aya's carrying the water."

"Who says," says Prime with a smile, "that I can't fly?"

"Aw, I'm all left out. Nothing but my cool bike to keep me company with the not technically flying."

"Technically it's my staff that lets me fly, so don't feel too bad."

"Ooh. Are those for sale?"

"I am willing to make more, but for casual sale, no, they're expensive to make mana wise. And I forsee several portals in my future. So I need that. But if you'd like one - we can talk about it, certainly."

"The bike will do for now. It has done this long. But I have always wanted to really fly."

"It's because I totally show off all of the time, isn't it. Prime, I will make faces at you until you give my friend a flying staff, I have been a bad friend."

"Oh, by all means, if my options are 'make a staff for flight' or 'suffer the onslaught of your disapproving looks' the answer is obvious."

"No, no, I said always, I didn't meet you till I was seventeen," chuckles Aya. "Not your fault. Though to be fair you didn't help."

"I call that exoneration, nevermind on the faces, Prime."

"Ah, yes. True loyalty, there."

"Hopefully my possible acquisition of a flying staff doesn't depend on Idania's threats."

Prime snorts. "It doesn't."

"Well now I feel impotent. Stop it! Base your actions around my whims, damn it!"

"I will get right on that," says Prime, sounding exactly like he's going to do nothing of the sort.

"How gratifying. Anyway, we all have our methods of locomotion. If you'd lead the way."

Idania floats in after him, looking around the house curiously.

Bike goes through. Aya's curious about the surroundings too.

Aya's cargo space sloshes as she disembarks temporarily to peep at things.

"Ooh, pretty."

"Thank you," says an amused Prime, staff in hand. It's got a glass orb on one end of it - but otherwise is rather unassuming, if well taken care of.

"What does this do? Or is it just decorative?"

"That's a clock - it's impossible to tell the time by the sky, for obvious reasons. I'll have to tweak it so it tells Kystle time, now, too, but I haven't gotten around to it yet."

"Among other things," says Prime with a smile.

"... Can I kidnap you and make you make me cool magic things? Because man do I want cool magic things."

"Probably a better idea to ask nicely."

"I imagine you're difficult to kidnap. Anyway. Where should I try putting the holy water? Actually first -" Aya speaks into her holy water vial around her neck. "Perinixu, I'm in New Kystle now. Can you still hear me?"

"Do you still want me to try installing a spring?"

"Yes. I will adapt, it is just briefly surprising."

"Okay. Prime? Where should I put her?"

"Well, would you like a place that is out of the way so no one will ask strange questions with a portal to a portal hub, or just be by the portal hub from the start?"

Aya relays this question to Perinixu; it's her water.

"While I am still gaining a foothold, I would like for it to be out of the way. I will need room to grow, if transportation is not an issue."

"Out of the way it is."

Aya just waits politely.

No response from Prime. Idania gets bored quickly and floats off to investigate the clock some more.

And then, a few minutes later: "Found one."

"Lead the way."

"Of course," he agrees, and then he pauses and crooks a finger. Two glass - things come flying at him, and he catches them. "First, to prevent you from being locked outside of my house - keys. Let's not have you need to break in to get home."

Aya pockets one. "Thank you. Oh - and please don't lead us too far into the night part, my bike is solar powered and can only go about six hours continuously on its present charge."

"I was going to put you on the day side of the planet - it's used mostly for farmland, so if I set you up somewhere unsuitable for farming, you'll have some space."

"Okay, that works great."

"Eeeeeee new planet," says Idania, taking her key. "Let's go, I'm curious!"

"It is. Though the magic roads and lights are everywhere by now."

"Oh, are they fairly cheap to do?"

"Reasonably cheap, yeah. There are a few mages that make them for a living. I think some of the more out of the way towns are missing them, but we're working on that."

"Resurrection is relatively easy to spin as a Perinixu obscure power. I wonder if portals could be spun as a Rae power. You know, 'be free, wander into this entire other world if you feel like it' - and then we could publicize without more of an earth-shattering revelation than people could handle, and there could be gains from trade and so on. Magic roads and lights everywhere. Blessings for New Kystle denizens."

"Bet we can spin it like that, Rae won't mind!"

"The only problem with that is that people here know exactly where portals come from. So if any travelers arrived here and talked about how a god made the portals, people from here will correct them."

"Yes. And anyone who gets resurrected will notice that Ice is there and there's a lot of ashes scattered around and dead birds and might likewise have questions. But to get people interested in the concept, 'these gods can do these things' is less likely to get us written off as crackpots from hundreds of miles away than 'there are lots of worlds and they have all different magic and some of it is this useful thing'. I published a partial autobiography, but I had to do it as fiction."

"Fair," snorts Prime. "Then feel free to inform people about it however you like - at some point in the future there will be another portal that doesn't lead to my house, so we could get tourists."

"You have to set up little vendor stands by the portal with like - translation guides and tacky souvenirs and over-sized hats."

"I'm sure some enterprising sort will fill the gap if Prime does not do so himself."

"Good, because that's half of the fun of going to new places, the tacky souvenirs."

"Maybe a mage will want to make tacky magical souvenirs."

"That's the best idea, I would love tacky magical souvenirs!"

"What would they be magicked to do?"

"Probably something absurdly simple, like glow - they would be cheap tacky magical souvenirs, of course."

"Magic glowing objects, even tacky ones, could be useful."

"Certainly. It's just - so common here that it's not really anything to be impressed about."

"Where I live, being able to call over an acolyte if more than half a dozen people in a town have the same illness and get them all healed before it gets any farther is commonplace. We could gain a lot in practicality as well as in oohs and ahs if we lay the right groundwork."

"Oh, I'm not disagreeing, it's a fantastic idea."

"I may want to play tourist for a bit - if Perinixu's spring takes, maybe even have a residence here, perhaps above a new temple. How do locals feel about whatever religions exist here already?"

"There are a few mages who worship the Fae - basically the entire reason any of us have magic, but if they're gods and not just extremely powerful otherly creatures, they are terrible ones. Demon hunters have a - weird religion-like thing involving my deceased mother, but since she is now extra-dead I don't think you'll have any trouble with that. There are a few people who believe in what are basically guardians of the planes, with each plane having new aspects of the same gods, but it's not widely popular."

"Sounds like excellent missionary-ing territory, then. Although I'll be very pleased with today if all that happens is Pernixu getting a foothold where no plague gods know to come looking for her and make trouble."

"As long as the religion isn't objectionable on ethical grounds and heals people - feel free to play missionary."

"I stand behind it fully. My missionary-ing usually takes the form of making it extremely clear to everyone around me why I can heal people like I do, anyway."

"I approve of your missionary methods. Please, feel free to heal as many people as you like."

"I will."

"Yeah, you would not be able to stop her from healing people," snorts Idania. "Maybe stop her from healing these people, but people would be healed."

"I believe you," he snorts.

"Hey, I worked really hard to earn my healing people power. It will get used."

"I'm not saying it shouldn't be used," she laughs. "Heal people all you like, have a blast."

"Mm-hm. Not knocking any of the new and exciting systems of magic we've lately become acquainted with, but I have a huge soft spot for the first controllable constructive magic I ever encountered."

"Yup! Meanwhile I am like, 'Oooo, shiny!'"

"It is definitely shiny. The drawback being that we can't learn it, alas."

"I know! It's upsetting, I have half a dozen ideas I want to try and I can't try a single one of them."

"Perhaps a plane might be found where everyone can learn magic," offers Prime. "Even people from other planes."

"That'd be so great, I would tackle that first opportunity I get and then learn that magic and run away cackling into the night with it."

"It might be nice of you to, you know, stick around and collaborate some with whoever gave it to you."

"Well, if that's possible, then yeah, I'd do that, too. But I'm - I'd want to see the edges of what the magic can do, like what are the boundaries of things that can be done with it and if I can push them to any interesting limits."

"In, I hope, a scrupulously ethical manner."

"Well, yeah, I'm not going to use other people as test subjects or something. That would be bad."

"Good, just checking. How far is the place you have in mind for the spring, Prime?"

"A bit of a distance, we'll take a portal to cut travel time."

"Okay. Lead on."

"Is there a ramp? The bike can do stairs, but not gracefully."

"There are portals that go to other levels. That one over there goes to the correct level," he informs, pointing.

Idania, meanwhile, forgoes the stairs and portal both. She'll just fly through the open center, directly to the portal they're aiming for a level above. She waves, when she gets there.

Aya bikes through the portal upstairs to join her.

"I don't mind."

"Me, neither. Pretty scenery!"

The sun's easily visible from where they are - it's low in the sky, like it's early morning, but of course they know better. They're standing under a partially-translucent green cloth-like canvas, supported by ordinary looking pillars, leaving them in shade. Some light still bleeds through, though, and the light has an interesting subtle rainbow effect to it. Not overpowering, but it's there if you look. There are plants nearby, though they're a deep, light-swallowing purple, almost black. The ground's a mundane brown, and the plants sparse, but they add a bit of color to the place.

"Purple plants. I wonder if they'd transplant? Not that I'm a gardener personally..."