And the first drink's free

[the_fires_deep]

A young woman opens a door, and quirks an eyebrow. There is a bar where there should not be one.

She considers her options, briefly, then decides that she really can't resist investigating. Risky? Perhaps. But it'll bug her if she doesn't figure out what's going on. She informs several people that should likely know that she is going into a strange magic bar thing, and then in she goes.

Comments

[seewhathappens]

"I thought so."

[the_fires_deep]

"I think I might borrow it. I can afford to make a replacement manifestation."

[seewhathappens]

"This place is too useful to abandon."

[the_fires_deep]

"Agreed. I'd forgotten that leaving my manifested form here was an option. I'm not used to parking them places, usually they're travelling all over creation to poke people."

[seewhathappens]

"Here, the people from all over creation come to you."

[the_fires_deep]

She laughs. "Yes! Very convenient. I can have a body dedicated to sitting. That'll be novel."

[seewhathappens]

"Yes."

[the_fires_deep]

"Feel free to tell me if you find someone interesting that you think should be blessed and poked."

[seewhathappens]

"I will. Feel free to do the same."

[the_fires_deep]

"Yep!"



They turn out to make a really excellent team. They want the same sorts of things. They have powers that work in similar, companionable ways. Somewhat hilariously, they even have blessing sets that work extremely well together. ("Danger sense and a resistance to panicking, both - I don't think we could have planned that better unless we sat down after starting and working it out," comments Tisvetaia.)

More holy objects are exchanged to bless each other's mortals. They bless each other. They bless and poke people they meet in Milliways, often taking different sides of the bar to cover more ground and informing each other when they find someone who could use some blessings or pokes of a specific kind. And sometimes the bar is empty, and they can keep each other company and talk about how their domains are doing.

During one of these moments: "It strikes me that you could send a couple animal manifestations to my domain, to spread and collect disease immunities. I already have a system set up for people petting animals for immortality, my mortals will adjust pretty well to it, and obviously we can just coordinate as we like. I don't think my neighbors will mind."

[seewhathappens]

"I'd like that," says Kirovalin. "You could do the reverse, too, but I have a lot more people to cover than you do."

[the_fires_deep]

"Just a bit," she snorts. "But I'd be happy to. I could get your advisers and acolytes for sure."

[seewhathappens]

"That would be extremely helpful."

[the_fires_deep]

"I try," she says lightly. "Give me a little while, I'll send some critters over and open the door for them when they get here."

[seewhathappens]

"I'll do the same."

[the_fires_deep]

"Thanks!"

After a span of time, her animal manifestations arrive, and she opens the door for them. They are birds, because flight is handy.

[seewhathappens]

Kirovalin opens the door to let her birds out into his domain and his birds into the bar.

They're very large. Not outrageously so, but definitely in the top tier of ordinary bird sizes.

[the_fires_deep]

Huh. Well, that's pretty reasonable. They need to be recognizable. Hers are not so large, but they are rather distinct.

In they get to go to her domain!

Her domain is nice. It's warm and fertile (which is unsurprising, since she's a volcano goddess) and her temples accept people in need and provide them with food and lodging and if they would like, something to do. She gets along with the established mortal government (and has a habit of prodding the nasty members of it to get them to stop mistreating their people, and blesses those who are good...) and makes a habit of making it clear that if people would like to talk to her they can address her directly. She organizes regular immortality poking rounds, of which she neatly incorporates Kirovalin's birds into.

[seewhathappens]

Kirovalin likewise introduces Tisvetaia's birds to his acolytes. It all goes very smoothly. She gets the chance to regularly poke his acolytes and advisors (of which there are... a lot) and also to go out and distribute ten-year lifespan extensions freely among his population.

His population is very pleased about this cooperative effort of his.

That is to say: Three hundred million people discover Tisvetaia's existence and are pleased about it.

[the_fires_deep]

Ooo.

There are some things she loves more than the rush of power from lots of people thinking about her, but it's not a long list.

There's only one thing to do in response to that, isn't there? Make more birds, obviously, and cover more of Kiro's domain, and distribute lifespan extensions more thoroughly. Whee!

(Also expanding her domain a bit and maybe adding more to her efforts to make that decay god neighbor of hers go away, and add another human manifested form or two to run around and poke more people outside of her domain...)

[seewhathappens]

As she makes more birds and covers more of his domain, his people naturally end up thinking about her more.

A few months into this cycle, Kirovalin says: "Some of my advisors have suggested I raise a seventeenth province out of the ocean and turn it over to you."

[the_fires_deep]

Blink blink.

"We are likely to need some expansions to deal with extra population," she muses. "Ultimately part of your empire but technically under my control and general authority, prod you for major problems or things I don't know how to handle? It's not like I have practice ruling mortals. I'm not unwilling, mind, just - logistics and organization structure are important."

[seewhathappens]

"I'd appoint a human governor to start with who would answer to me on matters concerning the empire as a whole, but you would be the local source of divine intervention and the local authorities would answer to you on local matters. I can take your manifestations on a tour and show you some of the uses of power that my citizens expect of me, so you know what you're getting into. You could decide later whether you preferred to take over the governorship or leave that in mortal hands."

[the_fires_deep]

"The tour sounds good. Baby's first province, and all, I wouldn't want to be a lackluster god."

[seewhathappens]

"All right."

He describes upcoming public works projects to her: routine adjustments like managing the water table and boosting crop growth in underperforming areas, rarer interventions like altering the course of rivers, things rarer still like creating veins of ore to be mined - if 'mined' is the word when all the mortals have to do is come chip it out of the walls of caves. His people know that they can petition him for these things and be pretty sure of getting them if they put persuasive enough arguments or numerous enough supporters behind it.