Zabra in Arabek
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This corner of her domain is much like the rest of it: damp, chill, and dark. No one's in the area and there's nothing being grown, so she indulges herself with a shower of the sort of piercing rain that drives straight through clothing to soak a person to their bones. No lightning, though. She doesn't approve of storms.

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A silvery sphere it's surface a perfect mirror appears a scant millimeter above the ground. It vanishes as soon as it appears revealing someone who looks human with his feet slightly above the ground. He lands in a crouch that straightens. On his back is a fair sized backpack but there are no straps apparent to attach it to his body. He seems unbothered by the rain.

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Hmm? That was unexpected. People don't just- appear. Gods do, sometimes, but he's not a god. She would be able to tell.

Wait and watch, for now. What does he do?

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He starts talking to himself, in a language she has never heard before. "Transition compete, time beacons reading as expected." Then he pulls something out of his backpack and fiddles with it for a moment. After that his words will come in the most common language spoken by the people near here. "Translation appears ok."

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Interesting. What is a time beacon? Worth investigation.

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The downpour stops abruptly, and sun breaks through the clouds.

A large heron stalks out of a nearby clump of trees, approaching the man without any sign of fear and peering at him inquisitively.

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"Hello?" The man pulls something else out of his backpack and a glowing field of light appears in front of him. It shows the layout of her domain for one hundred meters in each direction. "Wow, you're really really magic."

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The heron looks at him, expectantly. Then it shakes its head and taps a claw on the ground, where some writing has appeared.

Can you read this?

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"I can, my name is zabna tsani, I'm an explorer for the Starlight Institute for Advancing Studies."

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The writing melts back into the earth, and new words form.

I welcome you, zabna tsani, to my domain. I am Ellayania of Library and Fen. You are apparently insensible to my normal method of communication. Why is that?

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"You're really really magic, my mind, and my body are protected against all magic. It's a safety precaution to protect explorers like myself from being compromised and turned against our colleagues."

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I see. For what purpose do you explore?

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"The Institute's core mission is to learn all there is to learn, and teach all who would be taught. We explore to find more people to learn from and teach."

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Where do you come from?

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"I'm travelling from an exploration hub we call The Edge of Eternity it's a place we built to coordinate the efforts of explorers within a week's travel of the hub."

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Not on this world? Do you have gods?

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"This world is about four days travel from the hub. My people have encountered many cultures who worship either imaginary people, powerful non-sapient magical effects, or powerful humans as gods. I do not know quite how to answer the question beyond that."

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Gods are a feature of this world and are not quite like any of the phenomena you describe. A god is magical being who exists within a defined area of land, referred to as their domain. Within their own domain, a god has absolute control of the land and can dictate weather, soil composition, plant growth, and so forth. If you were not warded, I could even speak to you directly.

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"Interesting, that's a more comprehensive level of power than any we've encountered so far. Is your attentional capacity similarly vast?"

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It scales with the size of my domain. In a very real way, I am the land. The more of me there is, the more there is to go around. In addition, gods have the capability to bestow blessings upon mortals, which are minor beneficial effects. I offer the blessings of speed, stamina, vision, memory, waterwalking, and resistance to cold and damp. If a mortal is very favored, a god may choose to make them an acolyte, investing them with a portion of their power and granting an additional ability. My acolyte has access to a memory palace, which stores and organizes all the experiences she has lived and allows her to show them to others. Any avatars of mine have the same ability.

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"Ah, those certainly sound like useful abilities. You seem quite unlike anything we've previously encountered."

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In your current state, I doubt you would be able to receive any. One of the most basic powers of a god is the ability to speak and understand any language their audience has. You are blocking that and I doubt blessings would get through where that failed.

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"That would be my assumption as well, I'm also unsure whether abilities intended for baseline humans would work correctly when applied to an individual like myself."

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They function on animals acceptably well.

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"Fascinating, I suppose it depends a lot on the way the underlying magic has learned what targets are allowed. In many respects animals are more like baseline humans than I am."

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What are you like, then?

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