“In a way,” she said. “My knowledge of this world is absolute. So long as you know what you are thinking, I know what you are thinking.”

“So you know what I’m going to ask?”

“I know that which is, and that which was, but not that which is yet to come.”

“I bet you make some bloody good guesses, though.”

She laughed again, the sound flooding his body with pleasant feelings.

“I know everything in this world,” she said, “yet you mortals are a constant source of surprise. I did not expect, for example, that you would turn back and save the people in that sacrificial chamber.”

“That one surprised me too,” Jason confessed. He looked the goddess up and down. “Why do you look like a local?”

“To appear requires an appearance, and this is as good as any. When I show myself to people looking as they do, it helps form a connection.”

“Then why don’t you look like someone from my world right now?”

“Because you didn’t come here for a connection. You came in wondering what happens when an atheist meets a god, so I met you as I would anyone else here. But now we have met, and the questions you came in with were not about me.”

“Yet I can’t seem to help myself,” Jason said. “Why would a goddess even bother to answer any of my questions?”

“I am Knowledge. It is my nature.”

“That feels like a lie.”

The corners of her mouth twitched up in a slight smile.

“Call it an incomplete truth.”

Jason laughed. “You have your own agenda.”

“Don’t we all? But whatever my motivations, you still have questions, and I still have answers. If it makes you feel better, know that you are insufficiently consequential to be worth manipulating.”

“That’s a little hurtful, but kind of reassuring, I guess. Can you actually smite me down?”

“We transcendent beings are limited in our ability to affect physical reality. We can affect magic, creating essences and awakening stones. We can also affect our area of influence. I am Knowledge, therefore I can bestow any knowledge I have at will.”

“And you have all the knowledge.”

She smiled.

“So, can the god of the oceans or whatever create tsunamis and such?”

“Yes, but direct intervention is antithetical to our nature, other than to redress an imbalance. More often we work through our followers.”

“So if you wanted to smite me, you could just find the nearest silver rank on the membership rolls and point in my general direction.”

“More or less,” she said. “Of course, another god could send their own agents to intervene. It is something akin to a matter of etiquette to let our followers determine the outcome of a conflict between deities.”

“Who doesn’t love a holy war?” Jason asked. “I suppose I should get on with the actual questions I came in here with, shouldn’t I?”

“Please do.”