"You're also usually a different species, but there's another world with human instances, you won't be the odd one out."

"What species?"

"Elves, but I think my translation magic's glitching on that and I'm for obvious reasons wary of trying to fix it right now, if you think I'm referring to a local species I'm not."

"Yes, it sounds like you are referring to a local species. Okay. I appreciate the explanation. So, the evil god you're chasing?"

"In addition to there being alternate universe versions of people there are alternate universe versions of universes. One of them plays out along this trajectory that involves an evil god, among other things. He is very evil. We have three ways to kill instances of him that are verified to work - sort of four I guess but effectively three - but two only work in specific universe-neighborhoods; I don't even know if this world is in one of those or not because my stuff is broken and I can't check. The other one's portable. I am a scout and evil-god-detector to find where we need to port it, because one of the evil gods ran away when confronted instead of staying in the neighborhood where he could be easily killed. The nerve."

"And you're trying to determine whether he ran away to here? We have a lot of evil gods, he'll probably fit right in."

"Well, that's a problem in its own right."

"Yes, it is. I had an uncle whose ambition it was to fix it."

"Things haven't gotten noticeably eviler around here lately or anything?"

"No. When would your god have arrived?"

"Couple years back."

"To my knowledge nothing particularly evil started happening a couple years back, and certainly no new gods declared themselves. But I can ask around. What precautionary measures might we be able to take, beyond 'find someone epic and pray'?"

"Ummm - sorry, my eidetic memory is broken and so is my usual notetaking system. He has probably brought some smaller-versions-of-the-kind-of-god-he-is servants. These can be repelled with a symbol I don't remember how to draw inscribed in walls. If he has found a place he likes and parked there he can invest power in it and probably won't budge unless he has a really good reason and is extra powerful there. He's fond of taking prisoners, fiddling with their memories, and dropping them into elaborate hallucinations of varying levels of tortuousness which include escaping or being rescued and then turning out not to be rescued over and over again so when they really get out they think they're still in; there is actually a way to distinguish the hallucinations from reality but only if you're a that-kind-of-world Elf, for you all I've got is that he can read memories but not actually minds per se. Unless he's getting local help or something, I don't know what you've got here in that department. I would seriously worry about him having it in for your family because he usually murders your grandfather but I don't know how interesting he'll find y'all in this circumstance."

He looks not particularly bothered by any of this. "Oh, okay. We'll definitely keep an eye out.

...subtle artists can read minds but that's innate, I don't think even a god would have it if he's from a plane that doesn't have subtle arts to begin with. Why does he usually find my family interesting?"

"We haven't sat any of these guys down and quizzed them about it. Usually you're the royalty of this tribe of Elves called Noldor and have particularly accessible fracture points for him to lean on, I guess? Also his main servant, Sauron or Thauron or way too many other names I can't remember without my eidetic fucking memory, has a particular creepy thing about your oldest cousin-you-don't-have, that won't be in play here..."

"That's good. 

If all he does is settle down somewhere and torture people he can catch I doubt we'll have any luck convincing any other gods to intervene, but that's the perfect setup for some epic adventurer. If we identify his location I can make sure they all at least know the opportunity is available."

"Epic adventurers are your local divine pest control solution?"

"...another difference? So just like the universe objects to people trying to experiment on it, it objects to hubris. If you think too highly of yourself, which includes thinking too loudly that you don't deserve to get squished or tortured or cursed because you ran into the wrong something-powerful, then you will die badly. If I tried to raise an army and go off to fight an evil god the universe would check whether I am thinking myself overly important and then it would drop a brick on me out of the sky, or a dragon, or - 

- epic adventurers are people who the universe likes, and who have done lots of the sort of things that make glorious awesome stories, and if they fight a god the universe will not squish them for having the nerve to try."

"D'you suppose my credits transfer?"

"If you have killed some gods then yes, you are probably epic."

"Okay good because deinstalling hubris from my brain sounds like a pain and a half and would not be good for me long term."

"You still probably want to be cautious with it. Don't go around giving speeches about how no one deserves to be munched on by dragons or anything. ...is it a good idea to make an ethernet post asking for information about the possible operations of a new evil entity, or will that likely provoke him?"

"...is the ethernet a fantastic agglomeration of media, reference material, ephemera, random cruft, anonymous racism, and mediocre design which people can access from personal devices of some kind?"

"Yes. You have one back home?"

"Yes. But the evil god doesn't, I'd be very surprised if he were conversant with it this fast, his kind of god is slow at..." gesture, "things. Sauron might be quicker on the uptake. Go hard on the anonymity just in case, I don't know them to have any means of divination that would get around that except insofar as regular people could do it."