Jason turned around to find the statue had been replaced with a woman. She looked much the same as the people outside in the square, at least the human ones, with colourful clothes and Mediterranean features. She was beautiful, yet there was something detached and untouchable about her. Jason noticed that, unlike the statue, she wasn’t holding a book.

“So, were you the woman, or were you the book?”

“Neither.”

“Misdirection,” Jason said. “That’s a magician’s trick.”

“I’m not the Wizard of Oz, Jason.”

“You know my world?”

“I am Knowledge. Everything that is, or ever was known in this world. You brought your knowledge with you when you arrived.”

“What about the other gods?” Jason asked. “Knowing everything they know would be a bit overpowered.”

“We deities are of this world, but do not exist within it. Therefore their knowledge is not mine.”

Jason looked the goddess up and down.

“It looks like you exist within it,” he said.

“If you look at a pond and see a moon,” she said, “is that moon within the pond, or is it a reflection of something much greater, very far away?”

“Nice metaphor,” Jason said. “Classic religious imagery, but I suppose that’s part of the job. You say you’re not the man behind the curtain, but for all I know, you’re just some pretty lady with several judiciously-placed mirrors.”

“You think I’m pretty?”

“Well that’s just blatant manipulation,” Jason said. “If you already know everything, then asking me questions is just pantomime.”

She laughed, a pleasant, tinkling sound. It gave Jason the sense of a country stream on a warm summer’s day.

“You’re quite fun,” she told him. “You’ve felt my aura. And Hero’s.”

“A month ago I still thought auras were made up,” Jason said. “Who knows how many ways there are to trick someone like me.”

“I do, as it happens,” she said. “What about all the people outside when Hero appeared? Do you doubt them all? Do you think we hired actors?”

“Argumentum ad populum?” Jason said. “If you’re going to convince me you’re a god, you’ll need to do better than a second-rate apologist.”

“Have you considered how well the banana fits in the human hand?”

Jason burst into laughter.

“You’ve got jokes,” he said. “I like that.”

“If it makes you feel any better, just think of me as a vastly powerful, immortal entity. No need to use the G word.”

“Then what’s the difference between a god and some crazy-powerful super-being?”

“From your perspective? Very little. The nature of transcendent beings is not bound up in physical reality. God and goddess are mortal words.”

“It doesn’t matter until I hit the level cap, is what you’re saying.”

“Something like that.”

“Can you read my mind?”