Lucky Phonecall

Erione finally spotted the poor phone at the bottom of the fountain. It was made of a lot of glass so he reached out with his power and began lifting it out. Of course there was a lot of non-glass material too so it wasn't super fast or easy. His own phone had been easier because he always added more glass to his.

His head and shoulders damp from the rain, he stepped back under the umbrella with Eliza. The phone was held in his hand and offered towards her. Water was still dripping off of it. "My domain is anything made of glass. I can move it, travel through it, shape it, produce it and when people appreciate glass it makes me really happy. I have my own power but worship makes me stronger and without worship I go away forever. My world has tons of gods- for anything you could think of. I think there are a lot of gods or goddesses that could be related to glass here but they seem to be a lot less specific in their domains here sometimes." He answered all of her questions except the one about cuteness in a very rapid fashion, similar to the way she was talking. He was full of enthusiasm and seemed completely unbothered by her rapid questions.

He did however need to breathe so he paused before answering the final question. He looked her up and down and pretended to think about it for a moment. "On a scale of one to ten I'd say you are... very cute," he grinned and laughed. "Ok, you asked for a number so probably an 8 or a 9 if you want me to be honest. Have to save my 10's for all the cute little animals people keep posting pictures of online." She was actually really, really cute. It wasn't a question people usually asked after only knowing someone for a few minutes but, that was ok. He was pretty sure anyone who just said '10' was just saying what they thought she wanted to hear.

He moved closer to her so she could do whatever she needed to do with her waterlogged phone and so the umbrella could lower a little to keep out the rain that was starting to get heavier and blow a bit in the wind.

"So, can I take you somewhere so we're out of the rain? Unless you like the rain. I think some people find it fun."

Erione smiled at Eliza as she continued her unbridled excitement. "You have asked me a lot of questions really quickly but I don't mind. Better you go ahead and ask than stand there wondering."

He watched curiously as she concentrated on the phone. What kind of magic could she be doing to get the water out and fix it? And then the phone just lifted up and... vanished? Well no, she probably sent it somewhere or did one of an infinite number of magical things to it. But it was pretty cool. "Wow, what did you do with the phone?" He was very much interested, even if it was something really simple.

And then right back to the swarm of questions she went. Erione had to keep almost all of his focus on her just to make sure he didn't miss any of them. Fortunately he could keep that glass umbrella floating above them without too much concentration on it and he grabbed his phone out of the air to just hold onto it. He took a breath and then happily dove right in to answering her. "It's not exactly just a certain number of worshipers per so much power. It's a little more vague than that but yes, more worship means I get stronger. In my home world I have thousands of actual worshipers and a lot more who just really appreciate glass for a bunch of reasons. As for getting more people to worship me? Mostly that's done by showing off how wonderful glass is or by showing people why i'm a great person to follow. I don't tell my worshipers to go out and convert people- if i'm not an attractive enough option or my glass isn't good enough to bring people in then I don't really deserve more people worshiping me."

It was true many of the gods in his world competed to attract worshipers but Erione had found himself just attracting worship for doing the things he was already working on. For being, well, himself. Then he had decided to come to this world and was hoping to gather at least a couple worshipers here.

Erione looked around for a shop or something where they could sit out of the rain. Across from the gallery was a tiny little specialty coffee shop sort of tucked in between a few other businesses. That would work nicely. He nodded towards the little shop and took a few small steps towards it, hoping she would walk with him as he continued answering the questions. "I don't really treat any one group of my worshipers differently than the others. Some might need a little more help than others but there aren't any ranks or anything. Aside from getting to spend time with me," he grinned and winked, "my worshipers receive beautiful gifts of glass, I help repair their glass items and I generally watch over them and help with anything I can. Y'know god stuff, with a little slant towards glass. I'm pretty sure though that I need a shrine here if I want to be able to make sure I stay connected properly."

Erione paused his walking for a second as he got to the final question. The one that wasn't quite like the others and was just slipped right on in there. "Sure we can go out some time. I have to ask though, do you mean like on a date or just hanging out in general?" Not the smoothest answer but Erione honestly wasn't sure with her. He'd known her what, less than half an hour? Really either answer would be fine but he wanted to know what she was expecting so he didn't make her uncomfortable.

Erione was really impressed. Stowing the phone but not the water inside it seemed like a really tricky thing to do. Eliza was clearly very smart as well as excitable and cute. It would be fun to hang out with her- and apparently she had meant as a date too.

Erione collapsed the glass umbrella as the two of them stepped under the canopy of the little coffee shop and reshaped it into a sculpture of a teddybear about a foot tall. Together they found a nice table for two kind of tucked away in the corner by the window. Erione ordered a small coffee and offered to get something for Eliza- he would feel weird sitting in someone's shop and not at least paying them a little money, and he had brought her in with him.

"To become one of my worshipers a person has to make their first offering and prayer to me at one of my shrines. They have to show that they want to worship me. Only trouble is I don't have a shrine here yet- and I can't build one by myself or it won't work right." As he spoke he siphoned some of the glass from the teddybear shape, which was just sitting there on their table, and formed it into a spoon in front of him.

"Oh and to more properly answer your question from before, I would be happy to go on a date with you Eliza." It was the first date he had agreed to go on in this world.

Erione was having a pretty nice day himself. He'd made arrangements to have some of his art shown and then now he was sitting in a coffee shop with a cute girl and talking about how his worship worked. And of course various people were enjoying the gifts of glass he had made, including the teddybear in front of him, giving him little pings of joy.

While they waited for their coffees to be made Erione noticed that Eliza seemed to be doing a fair bit of thinking. Or at least he assumed that was why she was quietly looking at him and kind of running her hand along the glass sculpture he had put on the table. While he was focused on their conversation, he had a bit of a hard time sitting there doing nothing so he set about re-arranging some of the random looking pins on his shirt.

"The shrine can really be almost anything, but there has to be sort of a central piece made of glass so I can visit through it. Sometimes it's as simple as a really nice pane of glass on its own table and decorated with candles and other stuff. One of the larger ones I have at home is a small building filled with all kinds of glass sculptures- that one is more of a public shrine," his eyes seemed to light up at the topic and he was definitely excited. The grin that was already on his face widened.

"But, you mean it? You're interested in worshiping me after just meeting me? Not that there's anything wrong with that- I just didn't expect it and it's a huge deal for me and...," he began to babble and then realized his mistake, stopping himself to take a breath. "Sorry. Got a little carried away," he said with a sheepish smile. Boy was he making a bit of a fool of himself.

The glass spoon that Erione had put in his coffee to idly stir stopped moving as he was focused on Eliza. It felt really nice to have someone holding his hand like that and she was so warm and comforting about it too.

"I'm so excited to have your worship Eliza," he smiled back. His eyes might not have had hearts in them but they were shining with happiness. "You can call me whatever you want really. My friends sometimes call me Eri for short. The only important thing with names or anything is that you have to use my full name, Erione, to pray to me. Otherwise I think it gets lost in the mail or something."

He was feeling a little silly so he reached over and put his other hand onto their existing hands pile and laughed. "Welcome to the faith." After chuckling a little more he gestured to the glass teddybear on the table. "Actually if you want this bear I can give it to you as a gift. I'll know if and where it is when you appreciate having it. Once I have a working shrine you could also use it to pray to me whenever you want."