"Only answer you can give me because why."

The figure considers what he can say. "I am not the master of my own fate," he says eventually. "I am many things: the Reaper, the Gatherer of Dust, the Gatekeeper. But I am bound by ancient laws, which tell me what I can say and what I can do."

"On the whole are you helping me because you have to or are you on my side more generally?"

"An interesting question," the Reaper says thoughtfully. "There are, as I said, limits to how much I can do... but I think I would like to be on your side."

"I appreciate that and in particular it makes me more comfortable about falling asleep here. How are you getting your info on me in general?"

"The Relic allows me a to pay a certain amount of attention through it, mostly as a means of detecting when my interference is required, but allowing me to discern information about your surroundings in the process. I do not get much: mostly, it is a catalogue of the people around you, their intentions towards you, their alignment, and their god."

"Huh. Slightly sketchy but only slightly. Any intentions I should know about as long as they're being spied on anyway?"

"I assure you I did not come up with the system. Of the people currently in the vicinity of your physical body, only one has any hostile intent. A Lolth-worshipper, chaotic evil. I imagine it is the same one who murdered you."

"That would also be my guess! Hopefully they do not do it again and put me beyond your excellent hospitality, at least not before I can have a lickety-split conversion experience."

Again, the featureless mask somehow gives off the impression of a smile. "Hopefully not."

"Commentary on the overall dungeon and quest situation?"

"In truth, I know little of your quest; I know what you have fought, and I have an idea of who you fight beside, but the context is largely mysterious to me. I am unlikely to have any great insight even if you explain; I am something of a homebody, you might say, with very particular interests."

"What are those besides the possessor of your apparently not very cursed arrowhead?"

"The maintenance of my realm. The distribution of petitioners to their appropriate afterlives. And..." He hesitates. "...another matter, the discussion of which is forbidden to me by the ancient laws. It is no threat to you. I would not mention it, except that to omit it would be incorrect."

"Who's making all these ancient laws?"

"The ancient laws I refer to were put in place by a coalition of gods shortly after my creation," he says, with the same dull resentment with which he mentioned the Wall of the Faithless. "I was deemed too dangerous to exist without being bound. And so, using my True Name, they bound me. I am no more capable of disobeying than water is of flowing uphill."

"Wow. Uh, True Name?"

"Every being has a True Name," the Reaper explains. "Knowing your own grants you power over yourself; knowing another's grants you power over them. There are ways to find one's own True Name, but if you wish to find the True Name of another it must be told to you - either by that person or by the Knower of Names, one of the natives of the eighth Hell, Cania."

"There's a resident of a Hell who knows controlling magic words about everybody and not the entire planet's gone to shit yet?"

"She is not a devil," the Reaper clarifies. "She was there before the devils colonized the Hells. And she is barred from using the names she knows, and she cannot reveal a name under duress."

"Oh good. Should someone, uh, rescue her, or is she doing okay down there."

"I believe she remains in Cania by choice," the Reaper says, "and that she enjoys being largely unreachable."

"If I write stuff down here do I keep it?"

"Yes; when you return to your physical form, your possessions will overwrite their physical selves."

"Cool." She pulls out a notebook and takes notes on all the stuff he's just told her.