"Why?"

"That I do not know," he says. "There have been others who it has bound itself to in this manner, but I have never known its exact criteria; I am certainly not its master."

"And it lets you - yank me from right before I died - and you're going to send me back - where presumably he just kills me again, if it's the very moment before I die?"

"Not quite. I retrieved you from the moment before you died, yes, but I can return you to the moment after you died - his attack will seemingly have had no effect. Had you been injured before you came here, you would have noticed that your wounds would heal over. In addition, should you come to me low on your arcane reserves, you may rest in my realm and prepare your spells anew. The only limit on this power is that it can happen at maximum once per celestial day - suffer a fatal injury twice in the same twenty-four hours, and you will be as dead as anyone else. Which is, of course, not insurmountable, but it is certainly less convenient than my ministrations."

"Huh.

Do you happen to know about the 'extradition to Pharasma' question?"

"I believe that you would be 'locally managed', to use your term, and sent to the afterlife appropriate to your alignment and worship."

"Alignment and what now."

"A worshipper matching the alignment of their god is sent to that god's domain. A worshipper with an alignment mismatch is sent to a more appropriate realm for their leaning. A nonbeliever... is sent to the Wall of the Faithless."

There's an old, dull resentment in his voice as he says this.

"I believe they exist, I'm not psychotic, I'm just, uh.

Rah, rah, Eilistraee, you sound super cool, do you take refugees."

"It's something of a habit of hers, yes," the figure says. "She can't hear you at the moment, though; the Gatehouse is beyond her concern. You may want to discuss it with your traveling companion when you return to the world of the living."

"I will absolutely discuss it with my traveling companion. Wow, I hate Pharasma's guts but this manages to be worse, congratulations! Okay, so... why are you grabbing possesors of your arrowhead? How did I get your arrowhead in the first place?"

"I am bound to the relic, as it is bound to you. I know this is not a full answer to your question, but it is the only answer I can give. And as I said, I do not know for certain the mechanism by which the relic chooses its masters."

"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?"