"Edie said Ava but given the existing patterns either sounds plausible."

"Lemme take a picture of that picture and I can send it around, see if anyone knows her fate."

"If we connect you guys to the HexVPN she could probably just send it, no need to take a new picture."

"Oh sure, how do I - oh it's in the - I see. I haven't used an electronic in four years, sorry."

"No, that's so totally fair."

Picture get.

"...should I be trying to be a witch?"

"Well, I like it but if you're fine with wizarding alone it's not an emergency or anything."

"You would get mana from sleep."

"- okay I'm gonna, uh. Is there a standard from, like do I say, hail Lucasta full of grace, or something..."

Veerrrrrrry gentle tug out of his body. 

"- eep here goes -" Hello?

Undefined psychic void!

Giggling goddess! "You just have to form the intention to talk to me; I don't generally use repurposed Marian prayers. But I'm also not offended."

"Sorry, I grew up in Brazil, it's very Catholic. How does... this... work."

"--So the first thing is that there is one string attached, which is that handing out magic is, strictly speaking, an ability I have for my followers; if you are especially Catholic it's fine to slot me in as a patron saint and not a goddess qua goddess, I have an arrangement with the Christian god, we're cool, but you do have to write my name down in the religion tab on your internal demographics spreadsheet."

"Oh, I'm not at all, but I went to Catholic school anyway, it was convenient to my house. I can be a Lucastan."

"Cool. Also I can only make you a warlock, not a sorcerer or an academic, sorry about that."

"Is a more full-featured witch-becoming process in the works?"

"Not at this time, sorry. There are various reasons why not, that I can get into if you prefer."

"If it's not too complicated for me to follow."

"Not in the relevant detail. So one part is that while there is a lot of me to work on problems with, the amount is still finite and there are also a lot of problems to work on. Another part is that the giving-out-magic and the warlock-patron part are sort of hooked into each other; it's not impossible to figure something else out but I don't have an obvious place to start working on it. And the third part is I called in a lot of favors and took out several more getting my system for producing Lifeweaving talismans set up; starting another major arcane project like that so soon would be politically complicated, with the other gods."

"Oh, I don't necessarily mean are you working on it. Is anyone?"

"Oh. Almost certainly. I haven't been keeping track of who or how they're doing."

"They are at least not putting out press releases, then?"

"They are not. I'd go looking, now, but I try to respect people's privacy."