The room was filled with a cacophony of raised voices. Even Sçæaisøh has joined in with Leanne’s on-the-fly interpretations. Ada decided that twenty minutes of this was long enough. She held out her hands and cleared her throat with what she hoped was great authority. It must have worked for the room instantly quieted.

"I can see that we’ve no consensus on what exactly Dartho is capable of and what he’s done. We don't even know what he exactly looks like except that he's perpetually surrounded by a black fog. He wasn’t present in the past few wars but he’s quite prevalent acting in the shadows throughout known history according to various folklore. What does he exactly do with his free time? Judging people and sending their souls back to other worlds in cycles of reincarnation? Torturing people for fun and sending them to their own personal hells for eternity? Turning the dead into hordes of zombies to attack hapless towns? Granting dark powers over death to hidden conclaves of cultists? Creating pandemics to kill the living to acquire vast numbers of new servants to serve him in the afterlife?”

“Well, it would be a lot easier if those in the afterlife actually come back and just tell us,” Ruciella sighed.

Sçæaisøh chuckled. Leanne translated, “Unfortunately, little girl, as far as we know, once you die, you don’t come back.”

Ruciella glared at the man for a moment before turning to Leanne. “Does he really have to say little girl every time? I’m getting rather fed up with it. I’m almost your age and he doesn’t call you little girl.”

Ada wanted to point out that despite the man’s condescending tone, from his perspective, Ruciella was a little girl. She was a teenager. Leanne was probably a little girl from the man's perspective as well but probably he didn't say it out of fear or respect for Ada. For the sake of group harmony, Ada concurred with the young mage, “Ruciella is right. She deserves a little more respect. She is a mage at an important Academy.”

I hope that didn’t sound sarcastic from Ruciella’s standpoint, Ada thought. Leanne translated Ada’s words and the man nodded reluctantly. Ruciella glanced at him and sighed. With the dispute resolved for now, Ada continued, “Back to the topic at hand, let’s list out what we know for sure.”

Ruciella held up her hand. “Hold on. We’ve been discussing all these gods this whole time but no one has written anything down. Ada can remember everything since she’s divine but I certainly can’t. Do you have anything I can write with?”

“Hmm, good point, I haven’t thought of that. I was just going to put it all in my head and then create a few more books for you. But you may have other thoughts besides what I put…Why not? Let’s do this. Give me one moment.”

Ada closed her eyes and quickly wrote two new scripts. She has become more acquainted with the process and it took her only two minutes. One script created a pen and the other created a piece of paper. Just to be whimsical she added a random color in the pen creation script.

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Ada felt several Cloud objects change its properties and turn into three stacks of twenty sheets of paper each and three pens on the table. She has realized that unless she focused on a particular object to use for transformation, by default here in her Domain the sources were always Cloud objects.

“Where is your pen?” Leanne asked.

“I don’t need it. I’ll just make another book in the end that we can go over. Everyone, take one stack of paper and a pen.” Ada explained.

Ruciella remarked. “Wow, I’ll always be impressed by what you can do, Ada. Interesting color choices by the way. Purple, green and black. Can I have the purple pen?”

Seeing that no one else expressed a strong preference, Ada nodded. Leanne explained to Sçæaisøh what was happening and the man looked at the pen and paper curiously. He gingerly reached out and took his pile.

Looking at the man, Ruciella scoffed, “You know that thug can’t read or write, right? Paper is wasted on him.”

Leanne didn’t bother translating this and retorted, “That doesn’t matter. He can draw his thoughts.”

Playing mediator was getting increasingly tiresome, Ada sighed internally. Thankfully, Ruciella didn’t argue the point and just shrugged. Sçæaisøh spoke. Leanne translated, “He says he’s good at drawing.”

“Oh good, since I’m a terrible artist,” Ada chuckled and then continued. “A picture book is a very good idea, especially since a lot of people can’t read. Sçæaisøh, I designate you an unofficial artist to sketch up anything of relevance we discuss.”

The man nodded. Ada wondered about his quick willingness. Was it genuine or was he looking to gain her trust to betray her for his own selfish ends? Maybe I shouldn’t be so quick to judge like Ruciella but he just looks so thuggish, Ada thought.

Leanne’s next words grabbed her attention. “There is one myth that I neglected to mention about the God of Death which involves summoning him.”

Ada waited for Leanne to continue. The Seer opened her mouth as if to say something and then closed it without a word uttered. Ada started at her curiously. “What? Is it that scary?”

Ruciella spoke up for Leanne. “Oh, she must be talking about that old wives’ tale on saying Dartho’s name twelve times while spinning around counterclockwise in a circle twelve times while in a room with a mirror.”

“What do they say would happen if you do that?”

“Just that Dartho would appear and bring the person who called him to the depths of Dartho’s realm where he or she would be trapped there forever,” Ruciella explained and then dismissively waved her right hand. “Complete crock of fishbones if you ask me. If it was true, we’ll have idiots randomly dying everywhere in rooms with mirrors. Some upperclassman at the Academy have tried this so-called ritual once on a dare with some friends and nothing happened to him except some nausea from spinning.”

Leanne asked, “Did he do this in front of a reflection of his entire body and stare at it for a minute after spinning?”

“Yeah, I think they were in one of the halls which had full length mirrors. Absolutely nothing happened.”

“Was it a perfectly clean and clear mirror?”

“Well…those mirrors have been there a while and I’ve noticed most of them do have quite a few scratches. Maybe they casted magical mirrors.”

Leanne explained. “It has to be a perfectly clear reflection undisturbed for at least half an hour. Also, there can be no magical items or magic performed of any kind in the room where the ritual is performed. These are hard conditions to find and hence why most people are never able to summon Dartho.”

Ruciella shivered. “That probably explains why this ritual never worked at the Academy. Every wall is filled with magic. You know I always thought that the ritual was complete nonsense but if you’re right, I’m glad it’s not easily done.”

Ada pursed her lips. “We can do it here. There are perfectly clear full length mirrors in all the bedrooms and no magical items in any of the rooms. The Divine clouds are outside. I can also create mirrors here.”

Concurrently, there was a resounding “no” from both Ruciella and Leanne. The two girls looked at each other in surprise but then both nodded. Leanne shook her head and spoke firmly. “No, it is too great of a risk.”

Ruciella appeared a little ashamed that she felt the same way but she also nodded. “Yeah, I think it’s a little too creepy for me.”

Ada turned to Sçæaisøh. “What do you think?”

The man stared at her and paused a split second before shaking his head. Leanne quickly said, “That settles it. We are not doing this!”

“Hold on, as the Seer of a goddess, shouldn’t you hear what Ada has to say? I can’t believe I’m the one pointing out that you can’t make the decision for your goddess.”

Leanne blushed. Ada smiled reassuringly at her Seer. “I admit that I’m curious but at this point, from a pragmatic standpoint, we’re not equipped to handle a primal god. I’ve seen how powerful Ayula is and it’s scary if I had to face her. Thankfully, she’s on our side. I can’t expect the same for Dartho and I expect him to be on the same level.”

There was a collective noticeable sigh of relief from the three mortals. Ruciella asked, “What now? Do you want to move on to the next god?”

“Not yet. Let’s do what you suggested earlier. Take a few minutes and write down your thoughts on the gods that we have discussed so far. Sçæaisøh can draw out what we discussed. At the end, which hopefully we can do before arriving at the Academy, we’ll compare notes and compile them all together.”

Ruciella shook her head. “I hate to be the bearer of bad news but I don’t think we have enough time to do this and talk about all the remaining gods. We just passed the Mystic Mountains and going at our speed, we’re only an hour away from the Academy. They probably have already noticed us.”

“Even at night and with us so high up?”

“Well, usually no but since I’m here and there’s a tracker for all Compasses in the valley with individual IDs, there’ll be raised heads for sure. I mean that both figuratively and literally. The ones who check the Compass maps would know that it’s me and are probably wondering how I’m flying impossibly high at such speeds.”

That definitely reminded Ada of a magical GPS. Ada asked, “Even if they know that you’re here there’s nothing they can do until we descend right?”

The girl nodded. “We do have ornithopters and airships but they can barely reach the lower clouds. The moment we land though we’ll be greeted by the curious and the wary.”

“In that case, change of plans. We don’t have time to go through all the other gods right now. We need to put our heads together and figure out how to introduce us to your Academy mages. Ruciella, this is a question for you. If I just introduce myself as I am, would they accept us?”

“I’m sure my master would and probably most of the students, but we’re going to have issues with most of the other professors and older mages. They’re prideful idiots and are highly suspicious of anything new. Outsiders are definitely new and outsiders which are divine gods especially so.”

“Not something I wanted to hear but not entirely surprising. How strong are they?”

“Nothing they can do can harm you but that won’t be true for your followers here. More importantly, they can make sure you don’t have access to the archives we need for our research.”

“What if we go with our identities as members of the Galacia Club and as fellow mages from outside the continent?” Leanne suggested.

“Hmm, that’s one possibility but how would you explain your farmer companions with their kids and a fishbrain thug? Also, don’t forget that the whole Divine Cloud with the Palace here really can’t be explained if you’re just mages. Powerful mages are impressive but none of them would ever have this.”

Ada grimaced. “This is exactly why we need to bounce some ideas around. We have one hour.”