"…w…hy? Uh, to be clear, my bafflement does not mean I intend to cause you problems about your sleep ritual, just … why."

Ok time to not technically lie without mentioning the elephant in the room. Luckily this is something he has multiple lifetimes of practice with. Admittedly mostly with species that have enough shared galactic culture to know when to play ball about it, but ey has also spent some time on Earth.

"So there are actual reasons for us having the rituals we do rather than chanting at sunrise or something but at this point it's mostly because we have a covenant about it. Like how Jews have to... Actually you probably don't have Jews so let's not get into circumsision."

Ey understands Judaism less well than ey thinks because ey has latched onto it as the the one remotely comon anglophone religion with certain features that are the norm in galactic religions and thus glossed over how much it doubles down on other weird human things like monotheism.

"If you don't want to talk about it you really don't have to, but a covenant with whom?"

"Multiple groups involved in the creation of our species and also sorta with the Galactic Empire as the successor state of multiple no longer existant institutions the negotiated our existence with the dying species our first generation got it's home planet and seed capital from."

"I don't really understand why any of those groups would demand a commitment to death before improper sleep, but if your time here is limited that may not be the most productive conversational thread. Bar may be able to offer you some stimulants if those are ritually acceptable?"

"Stimulants are a really tricky grey area. If it does come to that I'll ask bar so I can get precleared formulas from home.

Backing up slightly how well contianed to your world are your gods?"

"Currently I wouldn't worry, they're paused and I'm not, and I'm committed to going home but not until I can fix things, which should by Milliways physics make them stay paused."

Great if they're ever going to be unpaused this is actually ey's problem. Now to decide if it's better to help Griffie win or to make sure there is no connection back to the real world* when ey starts fighting.

"If they do get into Millyways are they the type of being that can exist outside their world?"

"Yes, definitely."

"And are they likely to try that? Also, are they any books bar can provide on the subject?"

"Yeah, you don't really get to be a god without being really dedicated to spreading some ideal? And Bar has lots of books, I'm sure she can get you a who's who of Suaal deities and powers."

Literally superhuman reading speed time!

Ey already personally has lots of money even without needing to tap the nearly unlimited lines of credit available for dealing with outside context problems. 

Ey will take a "who's who of Suaal deities and powers" or three (for perspective) as well as checking up on this Griffie succulent.

Axis has a very bland who's who summarizing themselves as the (Greater Planar Plane, not with a deity-shaped concentration of quintessence) Power of Pure Law, responsible for maintaining order throughout the multiverse by balancing the interests of various powers. According to them, Heaven and Hell are at least fairly sane, though both distracted by their moral commitments (Heaven's are friendship and kindness and such, Hell's are making sure that everyone occupies the appropriate posture of terrified submission to Lord Asmodeus) enough that they won't coordinate with Axis on conquering the universe and dividing it into Axis-supervised Heaven and Hell patches based on their compared military strengths. The rest of the Upper Planes are … at least sort of vaguely kept in line or at least documented by Heaven, which makes fighting them not a priority even if some of them would be so Chaotic as to disrupt signage in order to rescue slaves. Proteans and the Abyss are Chaotic and have no Heavenly protectors, so Axis is at war with both of them. Abaddon, the plane run by the Horsemen of War, Plague, Famine, and Death, is at least not as insane as the Abyss and can at least sort of keep to treaties, so its interests do get reflected in them, though they really don't have the best track record of keeping to treaties, which is why the treaties are often revised to penalize them.

The broad themes of Hell's public-oriented documents are oriented towards "immediate, total compliance is the torture-minimizing option" and "working with Hell will get you the power-over-others and recognition you deserve", oozing with the message that compliance with Lord Asmodeus is what any reasonable agent would do. According to Hell: Axis is an admirable example of Law second only to Asmodeus. While they seem to be missing out on the ethical aspects, they've already agreed to immediately surrender and be brought in line with Asmodeus's vision when his absolute authority becomes clearer. Abaddon has little to offer, being a plane of omnicide. The Abyss is a disordered cancer which would run much better under Asmodeus's rule, and the Maelstrom is pure insanity of no worth. The Upper Planes treat their servants with far too light a hand, due to their insane values which will lead them to failure. The Archons are, at least, capable of some basic understanding of Law, while the Azatas lack even that.

Public documentation from Abaddon is sparse, ranging from "Life is a lie that Charon will mercifully shatter. The other planes perpetuate it and they will, like everything else, die.", to praise of war and advice that one get help from Szuriel the Horseman of War with it, promotion of dangerous fasting, glorification of disease, and some confusing promotion of a ritual that involves killing a lot of people to become an undying skeletal spellcaster.

Bar does not offer many publications from the Abyss, as distributing documents in a language you have to be insane to read doesn't count as publication. What remains is along the lines of… If you call on the King of Wind Demons, [name redacted], he'll grant you wishes. If you want to have fun torturing your slaves, demons can help. The other planes will be swarmed over to make more Abyss, and obviously they are hateworthy and should be destroyed/enslaved/corrupted, just like every other demon lord besides the current publisher.

There's a lot of publications from the Maelstrom! They contradict each other a lot, but do form a vague consensus that the Hell-Axis-Heaven cluster is really boring, and Elysium and the Abyss are less boring even if they let weird stuff distract them from fun sometimes.

Despite the difference in attitude across Heaven and Elysium documents, the Upper Planes documents reflect the same broad consensus: Archons think that Azatas are reckless and Azatas are disappointed by Archons' adherence to patently immoral interplanar treaties, but they'd all be thrilled for any kind of Upper Planes victory. People move freely between different gods' domains, and even the God of Blissful Ignorance and the God of Libraries can be friends. The Upper Planes think that Axis and the Maelstrom are concerningly willing to commit evil acts but at least are amoral not actively evil, and that Hell, Abaddon, and the Abyss are all horrible atrocities that ought to be ended as soon as possible.

As for the identity of this Griffie succulent, Bar can loan but not sell her copy of a meeting of the gods for which Griffie was present and discussed.

Great. Does bar happen to have any books on how to destroy worldsheaves from outside of them.

Possibly from a bubble of stopped time. Hypothetically speaking.

Asking for a friend.

No actually for a friend ey is technically going to need to have a human or some other patsy push the button if they are initiating the violence.

"My hospitality requires that I not enable my guests to go to war with each other. I do not have any such books for you."

"Thats fair. I guess I'll have to help... Wait, if I convince Griffie to destroy ey's own world would you be able to facilitate that since there are not currently any other guests from Suaal?"

"If you manage such a feat, you may ask me again."

"Right glad we're on the same page."

Thats not a 'yes' ey doesn't say.

"The kind of person who uses me to organize a stand against the god of omnicide is not going to change eir mind about the issue of whether all eir loved ones and eir home worldsheaf should be murdered," Bar doesn't say.

See if bar had actually said that it would have actually that it might have effected Inovemekio's strategy.

"So Griffie, I want to lead with saying that I am on board with you winning and have some ideas for helping you with that. But have you considered setting up failsafes so that if you loose it doesn't spread to the rest of the multiverse?" 

"That'd be nice if you have ideas, but even before Milliways I was expecting whoever wins the second round of the god-and-such-war to spread as far as they can possibly reach."

"Milliways strongly implied, but did not actually state that she would be able to help you with that. Specifically, I looked into the possibility of doing it myself and her objection was that she can't aid patrons in making war against each other."

Ok yeah, this is not how ey should have done things if ey really considered 'destroy Suaal' plan B and not A, but nothing ey asked of bar is actually incompatible with that plus mild incompetence. Right? And ey does actually prefer Griffie winning (given some caveats) just not enough to risk the Galaxy if 'destroy Suaal' was still on the table as a viable plan A. 

Griffie raises an eyebrow. "The plan you proposed to me does not constitute making war against me. I can tell you're being evasive, and I am fairly familiar with Bar, she hasn't brought up that as an objection when other people have proposed interventions for my world thus far. Care to explain?"

'My exact request was "Do you happen to have any books on how to destroy worldsheaves from outside of them. Preferably via methods actually available to me."

Bar inferred that I was planning to destroy Suaal before the lower plains overrun the rest of the multiverse.

Some important context, my species was built to be obligate closer to lawful than any word you have but maybe not quite the same concept in a way that is both verifiable by bar and meant to ensure that we can keep explicit deals and alliances with people who might have strong reasons to distrust us. For example, because we have a clear military reason to prefer their homeworld stop existing. In fact successfully tamping down on cycles of pre-emptive strikes by having us serve as moderator in an manner similar to what Axis attempts was one of the motivations for our creation. However it obviously requires that the parties involved our more willing to cooperate conditional on trust than the upper and lower planes are. Another, considered to be overlapping reason was to tamp down on existential risks.'

'So anyway I was planning on destroying Suaal or at least making sure it was possible if your plan started falling below my thresholds of safety. But given that I can't do that I'm interested in helping you win. If I am understanding "Good" correctly then I think it would make sense for you to set up a dead man's switch based on a risk tolerance level that doesn't privilege my worldsheaf, but I don't understand "Good" enough to press the point.'

'Oh also, I'm noticing some translation weirdness around alignments and fictional human media. I don't think thats key to anything but flagging translation magic instability is a standard best practice in my world.'

Griffie looks upset at the beginning of that but thoughtful than upset by the end.

"Your reaction to me voluntarily giving you useful information leaves something to be desired, but the desire to defend oneself from the Lower Planes is quite reasonable. I'm in principle interested in your 'if Good loses, destroy the worldsheaf to prevent fiends escaping' plan, but I have concerns that anything omnicide-ish is something that Charon could leverage."