Wow. Okay. No gods on Amenta at all...that should have been obvious. He should have been tracking the nuances of his godspeech more – He does give out both felicity and language learning as blessings. How embarrassing.

"Please wait while I confer with my ally and [acolyte] ideologically-aligned-and-empowered-ambassador."

"Of course."

She's going to keep taking pictures though.

They continue to have no idea what she is doing.

Well then. How to approach this. She cannot even begin to model a world without gods...what does that look like. They can rule out them being dystheists.

If they have no idea what gods are, then the landscape suddenly changing is probably very distressing? They have flying machines but that doesn't mean they have machines that can move the earth the way gods can. Feliya will suggest Damianos explain that.

"In My world, there are landscape-superbeings, such as Myself. All such beings are attached to specific terrain types, such that any territory They claim is changed so. My terrain is subtropical plains. My ally Korrado's domain is alpine volcano. With His help, We are capable of transforming this frozen land.

Will this upset the country of Voa? If Our presence is undesired, We will revert the land to its original state and leave you in peace."

"I'm... not a diplomat. Would you like to talk to a diplomat? Will they be safe here? Is it safe to land a vehicle here?"

"We wish to speak to a person that has executive power in Voa. We guarantee that our ambassadors will not attack the Voan delegation or cause them to be harmed, and guarantee that the landscape will not suddenly shift in a way which so harms them. We do not guarantee their safety from attack from third parties, but We will tell you if We detect any third parties enter this area.

We are currently unable to warm the area sufficiently such that the delegation will be able to stay without insulating clothing. However, We will ensure that no other terrain hazards touch them.

We do not know what conditions your vehicles need to land. We may or may not be able to prepare terrain suitable for landing depending on the conditions."

"A large flat space, and a pass through the mountains would help."

"We will prepare a large flat space and create a mountain pass. Approximately how long will it take for the delegation to arrive?"

"The pass would ideally be to the south. They can be here in a few hours. Do landscape-superbeings sleep?"

He takes a moment to examine the geography. It seems like they can do a pass to the south-southeast.

"We will make a pass to the south-southeast of here. A few hours will work. No, We do not.

My ambassadors will need food soon. We are willing to trade for food – We have gold."

"How many ambassadors?"

Ugh. He realizes belatedly that He should have just asked to do short-term trade more generally – stating their needs too frankly exposes your BATNA and reduces bargaining power. Sigh. He has too little attention to go around right now.

"Two. My ambassador is Feliya," Feliya will bow, "and the ambassador of Korrado is Rendon," and now Rendon will bow.

"We have a very close alliance and you may treat Us as being a single political entity."

"The diplomatic team can bring food; we don't need any gold. Are you sure that Feliya and Rendon can eat Amentan food?"

He supposes that says something about their likelihood of operating in good faith.

"I am not. Please bring a variety of foodstuffs in both cooked and raw forms, preferably unmixed."

Hopefully they bring seeds so that he's spared from having to dig through the permafrost and find long buried and frozen seeds to grow.

Hm. He realizes that if they must have the ability to communicate over long distances even without gods – otherwise, how is the scout supposed to tell the others things without going back? But how? What is the mechanism of action?

Asking about that at this stage doesn't seem productive. He'll keep it in mind, though.

"How does your translation magic work?"

"Landscape-superbeings understand and speak [godspeech] landscape-superbeing-language. Landscape-superbeing-language relies on the intention to communicate. However, non-landscape-superbeings cannot understand landscape-superbeing-language, which causes them to hear it in their own languages instead. Likewise, landscape-superbeings can understand all non-landscape-superbeing languages because They receive what they are intending to communicate – not just the physical mundane speech."

"Wow - does that work on writing?"

The snow between the acolytes and her will suddenly have a big "Yes" written on it, in Voan script, angled to be facing her.

"Whoa!" She takes a picture of that too.

"I believe that the conversation between the diplomats and us will go more productively if you know more about our world, and We know more about Amenta. Do you wish to mutually exchange information? I propose we ask questions of each other in turns, with the unlimited ability to refuse and have a different question."

"Sure - I'm mostly here because I know how to parachute and take photographs, I wasn't expecting to be able to talk to you, but sure."

Damianos will permit the acolytes to ask questions if they want to, but He'll still be the one speaking.

"How are you capable of communicating with people very far away?"

"We have devices that use light-like waves to send and capture information."