A Third Of Love

Chapter 11: A Tale Of Misery

Ah, you're back. How have things been since I last saw you? I'm hoping more exciting then they have been for me... researching is not fun.

I may know a great deal of information, but the answers to many things in life still elude me. Especially when it comes to PSI. It's so complicated, but I have to look into this because of the twins. You ever wondered how the twins can telepathically communicate to a deity? Well, funnily enough, that shouldn't be possible.

And the more I look, the more questions I ask. Nothing makes sense. But PSI has always been weird, it's just how much of the weirdness you explode yourself to. I've always found it interesting how the use of PSI differs from culture to culture. For some, it's revered and for others, it's commonplace.

To gods, it's certainly the latter — heck, we even use PSI in games. I remember times when Pluvar, Spelea, Lored, Avi and myself would play poker — of course, they didn't know what it was when I first brought it up to them, so I had teach it to them all first.

But poker turned out to be a real mind game between the five of us, and I mean that literally... because of mind reading. Poker essentially turns into a giant mental battle between us, as we try and read each others' minds to see what cards they have.

Because of that, playing poker has actually been one of the best forms of training for me — blocking your mind from four psychic deities all stronger than you isn't easy at all.

It's very interesting though, because of the various intricacies of mind reading. Familiarity breeds ease with mind reading — the more you know a person, the more you know about their nature, the lower their mental guards are, and so the easier it is to read their minds.

For instance, Spelea and Avi are undoubtedly the closest, so it's very easy for them to read each others' minds — the flipside is that it's also near impossible for them to prevent the other from doing so.

By contrast, it's very difficult to get a read on Pluvar, because it's difficult to know what they're thinking.

But Lored is undoubtedly the best of us at poker, because he's the best mind reader — he's an incredibly accomplished deity with near perfect control of every psychic ability.

Now, Spelea may be the more powerful psychic, but the thing is, she's always been a fan of brute force, which doesn't lend itself very well to the subtlety that mind reading requires.

If I had to compare the two, Lored's approach to getting around mental barriers is akin to the sea gradually eroding away at rocks over time. Spelea's approach is more akin to getting a wrecking ball and smashing the wall down.

And as for me? Well... I suppose I prefer a mixture of subtlety and brute force. Either way, I've had to learn how to defend my mind. You see, I'm often the subject of many mind reading attempts from Lored — and against my will, I should add. I've had to learn how to defend my mind, lest he, and the others, become aware of my secrets — and I don't mean what cards I have.

Yes... Lored is certainly an interesting deity. He was actually my mentor — he taught me the majority of things I know. I did learn a few things from Pluvar and a lot about one particular subject from Spelea that she knew even more about than Lored, but for the most part, he basically taught me everything about divine matters, and then some.

You see, Lored is the God of Lore — yes, he literally derived his own name by adding one letter to his role. He's that lazy when it comes to names.

But he does take his job very seriously, and is anything but lazy with that. He's among the oldest gods in existence and is somewhat old fashioned because of that.