"—stop?"

"Um."

She considers the pros and cons of telling a fictional character that has always comfortably had and known about having some kind of afterlife situation about how for many people, death is not where you go to a boring place. Death is where you stop. After some thoughtful and reasoned consideration, she decides that, instead:

"... Nope," she says, firmly, and not really addressed to James. "Nope. Nope, nope, nope, I'm not doing this. I'm not introducing you to this thing. I'm instead going to take over the Underworld, and am going to convert it into a safety net for the multiverse. It will then catch everyone that doesn't get caught by some other afterlife. Nope. This is my ludicrously self indulgent self insert thread, I can do what I want, and now I have decided what I want and that will be that." She crosses her arms, and sniffs. "Nevermind, people do not just stop, I'm interfering."

"Um... o...kay? Thanks?"

"You're welcome. And apparently there were soul eating beasts running around the Underworld, but it's mine now, so there aren't. Because it's mine. So instead they will be coughing up the souls they ate, which will be carefully taken care of and repaired and it's fine now. There will be no soul eating in my Underworld. None whatsoever."

"You might be solving all the problems ever at this rate," he says wryly.

Snort.

"And we wonder why all of our characters immediately try to solve all the problems ever." She considers this statement. "Well. I suppose maybe we don't, we already know, but still."

"I'm curious about what actually happens if a Dragon tries to attack anywhere, now."

"Well, time's still paused in Tyria, so it can't attack anything right now. But, uh." Shrug. "I mean I could go kick its ass immediately, but I'm also fine with subcontracting? And I get the impression you get a lot more out of dragonslaying than I do, personally speaking. But if you'd rather not, I will think of something suitably dramatic and then kill it."

"No, what I mean is, you said Dragons are incapable of killing people now, so I wonder what happens when they try."

"Oh. Depends on what I'm going for. If I'm being obvious about my interference, I'd just have their efforts bounce off hilariously, as if everyone in the world has a personal shield generator that is Dragon-proof. And Dragon-minion-proof. If I were being sneaky about my interference, I'd catch people after they were injured but before they died, and keep them from dying, and conveniently time things so that the Dragon does not have time to consider how this is very strange, because there is instead a Commander that is busy killing it."

He laughs. "I think the latter option raises the fewest questions."

"Yeah, agreed." She pauses, and makes a face. "... I don't want you to feel like your efforts are useless just because no one will die if you don't. I don't think they're useless. Like, okay, bear with me—for one, there is value in not freaking people out about how I exist and am saving the world. I bet a lot of people would freak out. For another, if I'm being sneaky, there's only so far I can reasonably twist narrative convention for my convenience without being too obvious. It's that or like, making everyone mysteriously not notice even though it is obvious, which is... distinctly not better. So causality is ultimately still going to be in effect. And so the people you'll be saving, you'll be saving from pain and fear and despair, because they will not know I'm there. And I think that's still noble? With actual stakes on the line? Just they're... fuzzier stakes than 'people will literally die if I don't.'"

"...okay, that's fair. Thank you. Again."

"You're welcome." She smiles, then gives a little awkward shrug. "I realize you would have done it anyway, but still. I didn't want you to—to have to."

"Well, if I didn't, someone else would. I hope."

"Yeah." She hums. "I keep getting distracted from showing you your house by other things. Pedro and I are plotting in the background, do you want to hear?"

"—sure. And tell Pedro I said hi."

Aestrix giggles. "He says 'Hi' back. Also 'charming motherfucker.'" Sorry not sorry, Pedro, what were you expecting?

—he starts laughing. "I think no one has ever called me that in particular, but I'll take it."

Yep, more giggling.

"Good. All right then, now to work. To be quite frank, Tyria is a mess. A huge, huge mess of truly impressive proportions. Five Elder Dragons, Palawa Joko, keeping your gods from returning once there are no dragons to fight them off, taking over the Underworld, not to mention all of the problems with monsters everywhere and the main sapient races getting into fights with each other." She shakes her head. "But luckily for you, I am a compulsive problem solver, and honestly solving a mess this big and complicated sounds kind of fun. So."

She recalls that she still has the Viduus book on her lap, and gently shoos it in favor of steepling her fingers on her lap. It flies off to re-shelve itself. "I do not think it would be smart to just handwave away the dragon power, because if there are no dragons, then the gods show up and start meddling. I don't like them very much. The way I see it, the first move should be taking out Bubbles, the Deep Sea Dragon. The one that hasn't, you know, surfaced yet or done anything, so no one will really miss it. I feel like instead it should get assassinated, and all of its power should instead go to a dragon that'll rule the Underworld. That way I can disrupt Palawa Joko's control over his Awakened, and replace a dragon with a better one. ... Did all of that make sense, I'm juggling a lot of proverbial mental plates and have trouble keeping track of what you do and do not know about the world."

"Bubbles? The Deep Sea Dragon's name is Bubbles?!"

Aestrix grins. "Probably not, but nobody knows its actual name. So the people that play the Tyrian video game have nicknamed it Bubbles. I don't see why I shouldn't stick to that convention."

He laughs some more then shakes his head. "In any case, what's that about the gods?"

"They left because the Dragons were waking up, and they knew a fight with them would potentially destroy Tyria. Balthazar did not want to go, and wanted to fight them anyway. But conceivably, if there's nothing powerful enough in Tyria to fight the gods, they could come back and start meddling again. But I don't like them, because..." She trails off, putting her thoughts in order.

"... they're better than the Elder Dragons. By a long shot. If it were a choice between them and the Dragons, I'd pick them. But I don't think that means they're good. And I don't think that means they should get to meddle some more. I'm really leery of powerful people that show up and go, 'Hi, yes, worship me as a god! It'll be fine! I am responsible for all good things in your life, even when actually I'm not!' Especially in Tyria. We already had that shit with the Mursaat, I'm not interested in letting someone else play that game. I also get the impression that the gods would be in humanity's corner and no one else's, and then the charr and the asura and the norn and probably especially the sylvari would burn for all they cared. And... no. That is not how this is going to work."

"...huh. So is that why I fight Balthazar?"