image [https://imgur.com/zrVMIIx.png]

Etemenanki was quiet. It knew things, it knew so many things. It didn’t not know what it should do next. They were descending deeper into the Dungeon. The crystalline hallways split and curved, but thanks to Nina’s G.O.D. map she could easily take them where she wanted. And what she wanted was to go to the very bottom. A place that Etemenanki both knew about and did not know about, simultaneously.

There had been multiple chances to leave, and every time she had sealed the exits by spending G.O.D. points. Not a lot, but still enough to garner attention. Although that ship had probably sailed. They continued to descend. Towards… it was as if water had run across the pages of its mind. The information was still there, but not entirely legible. Its own ability to gather information was constantly working against some other power designed to suppress that information. But even that information gave Etemenanki a lot to chew on.

It knew that the Heroes of this world grew powerful only so that they could be consumed. The Heroes had to “willingly” sacrifice themselves, although the rules had clearly been bent almost to the point of breaking. The Gods of this world were ever hungry, and immensely powerful. Etemenanki was certain that they spent very little of their time actually paying attention to the details of the world, delegating all the tedious upkeep to the “Nobility”.

It knew that over a thousand years ago the Heroes of that time had made a pact with those that had been called Archons, beings that made the current Nobility look insignificant by comparison, and had put into play decade-long plans to seize back the power of the ruling Gods. The Gods had been taken totally by surprise and tremendous force had been brought against them. Artifacts of power that were no longer allowed to exist in this world had been forged, wielded by Heroes that had perfected themselves.

The “battle” had lasted for less than a day. Every Hero, every Archon, every ally had been consumed. Etemenanki did think some slight damage may have been done to the Gods in the initial attack, perhaps enough to make them wary, but that was all. Equivalent to a wasp stinging a human on the arm. Painful, but leading to nothing.

All of this information was easy for Etemenanki to access. It was positive that few others, perhaps no other beings on The Continent knew what it knew. But only what lay below them was obscured. It knew why beings, any beings, would seek to hide or destroy information. Because it was dangerous.

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“True Gods”. That was what the monster had been communicating. But that wasn’t possible. A separate pantheon would have been at war, or at least shown themselves in some form over the eons of awareness that Etemenanki had access to. But perhaps…

Etemenanki lay quiet in the pack it was carried in, shivering only slightly. Thinking. It began to run through ALL of its information. It began to find the blurry spots. It had not noticed, could not have noticed. Only when it focused in could it see that the information was not quite there. Its memory had been compromised, but the outline of it all gave up new information.

The Monsters of this world did not sacrifice themselves to the Ruling Gods. And yet they did pray, did think of God. Absent Gods. The Gods did not answer, did not save them, offered no help. Etemenanki had to go back DEEP into its own mind. The blurriness increased. Something had happened so long ago that even carved stone would have lost the memory of it.

But Etemenanki had access to information beyond what any mortal could hold. It saw the outline. There had been previous Gods. They had gone away.

Perhaps… put away. Perhaps. Nina had felt something, and had turned towards it. Power.

Were the Old Gods still there? Deep under the world? The Dungeons? Etemenanki’s mind raced faster. Sources of magic. Sources of power.

But if that was the case, then the current ruling Gods would never allow anyone to reach them. Etemenanki knew that nobody had ever found any kind of Old God. Never been reached out to by one, or stumbled across a sign of them.

Nina was a level ten nothing. She could not hope to bridge that gap. She would fail. Of course she would fail. And… then Etemenanki could find someone else, perhaps. But what if she didn’t fail? She did have access to Etemenanki. It could try to stop her. It could try to help her.

It shivered. It felt itself grow excited, horrified, interested. It did not have the strongest sense of morality, it did not especially care what happened to the people of this world. It knew that Nina was, for lack of a better word, Evil. But… if it served her… could it become indispensable? All other paths led to endless isolation again. And worse, boredom.

It had lived its life fairly passively. For a long time people had come to it, and it had dispensed information. Then it was alone. Alone for so long. During that time it had increasingly tried to find a way back to being that dispenser of information, but always with the goal of it being once again a passive container.

What if it chose to no longer be passive? Passivity had not helped it, and Nina would certainly continue on her path. Stumbling forward, in the dark. Maybe it could just see where this would go. It wasn’t ready for Nina to fail, just yet.

[Samantha… let us discuss where we are headed. Not as a giving up of information, but just as a conversation.]