There's a stone tablet on the floor just inside the entrance.

-That is not one of hers. She wouldn't be so careless as to leave it there, surely, would she?

She takes a deep breath to brace herself and glances her eyes over it, skimming very quickly to see if she recognizes anything.

Greetings from Endless Adventure,

You are invited to experience Endless Adventure before it arrives on your world and provide feedback so it is better suited to the needs and preferences of your people. If you agree you will be transported to a whole new world where Endless Adventure has been present for some time. You will be returned at the end of your testing period.

This is too short to be one of hers.

And it's in the old runes. The ones found on the very, very old and rare truly ancient relics.

She freezes, and reads more carefully and deliberately.

A message from the gods? That's the obvious answer, the first thing her mind leaps to, but- She does not remember, nor have any records in all her histories, of the gods... Doing anything, these days. Though, the chances of some well informed prankster doing this- None, or so slim as to be laughable. The chance of herself going insane from the isolation?

Possible.

She feels something pained and angry in her chest. Endless adventure? A joke, surely. They already have this; She's observed again and again that Dwellin throw their lives into passionate endeavors so easily. Wars and hunts, expeditions and tournaments.

She shuts her eyes and takes deep breaths and thinks.

Given no clear feedback from her the tablet remains unchanged.

When she comes back, she fetches a chisel and inscribes into it

Why now?

Why me?

Replies engrave themselves in the stone:

Endless Adventure continually expands its reach. Your world was recently discovered.

You were evaluated to fulfill the responsibilities of this role. Most on your world appear to have low interest in long term planning.

Hmph.

Anger, again. Always anger when she thinks about over-powerful things deciding the way the world shall be.

You do not claim to be our creators.

So far as I have the ability to demand action I demand that you will not forever destroy our souls or memories or minds. This is my most sacred principle.

Endless Adventure strives to live up to its name. That which does not exist cannot continue to adventure. Destruction of a person is exceptionally rare. Damaged memory is more common as not all choose to invest in preserving it.

Whether or not it's lying, that is true even with the Well of Souls.

This is incredibly meaningful and also completely baffling. She feels a need to think and plan, first, before being 'invited' away-

...Speaking of which, she needs to go visit one now, so that something of this is- preserved-

She abandons her library, carrying only the tablet, and heads towards the nearest one, checking every few hours if it has anything else to say.

The tablet is content to be carried.

She thinks for a solid month, travelling around and seeking audiences with kings, with slaves, with carpenters, with common soldiers, with famous heroes, with small children. It's something she's noticed about herself, growing... Disconnected, lost in her own head, if she lets herself do so. So she has long conversations about what is good in life. Joys and sorrows and the past and the future.

She's acting visibly strange to those who've met her before, but she merely dodges their questions as 'a matter of the gods'.

If the tablet still does not change in all that time, only at the end will she return to her secret library and mark down the pictogram for 'agreement'.

The world disappears replaced by a circular area. Banks of fog make up the outer edge and the high ceiling the floor is made of multicolor tile with very clear dividing lines marking out four quadrants. In the first she sees herself, in the second a small stone thing sculpted to look like one of her people, a cylinder of fog, and three floating tablets, the third holds a small model bridge, the fourth has eight pools arranged with one in the center a bit elevated four in the first ring around that and three empty pools in the outermost group.

The stone statue speaks up. "Thank you for accepting the offer."

All her energy is gone. It's immediately noticeable. She jerks in surprise, but manages to avoid reflexively lashing out. She swings her arms, absorbing some of the motion - oh, good, that still works - and then stills and looks around warily.

"...Greetings. I would appreciate a lengthy explanation of the 'Endless Adventure'. But are there any urgent matters to attend to, first?"

"We have as much time as you need here. This place is a part of the magic that Endless Adventure gives to everyone. It is not a physical place rather it is your personal mental realm. I am a fragment of Endless Adventure meant to answer your questions and help you in the limited ways I'm able to."

"You wish to learn how my kind reacts and responds to things. It looks like you have more to offer than the salkstones, which only grant an idiosyncratic ability, with much practice, after killing dangerous things."

"We wish to present things in a way that your people are likely to embrace. There are few limits to Adventure's magic. Like most things practice can benefit you but how much that is true depends on how you invest it. The technology you carry within your body benefits from finesse more than the abilities most people make of our magic."

"I will say this once and never again.

You come to our planet with an ultimatum, rather than a choice. Endless Adventure will sweep over the world and replace whatever we have before. This is an inherently hostile act, to impose a new reality without being able to choose. Just as I resent in some ways the gods who designed us and our planet, for while they were kind, in their way, in giving us the Soul Wells and reincarnations again and again, they have also shackled us terribly. They are not available to be interrogated, and the many things I have tried to escape or alter our nature have failed. We are prisoners to the planet and our own nature, we do not advance because the technological steps to become something greater are aversive by design, punished by whatever balance of nature the self-correcting system has in mind.

And you would change our prison for another. I don't particularly like it. Though I am much, much more bothered by it than average."

"I would prefer to avoid an argument on that matter though it is part of my responsibility to have it if you wish."

"Would it change your mind?"

"It is extremely unlikely you will think of an argument that hasn't been thought of by the trillions of people who have attempted it prior to you."

"In the interest of saving time what sort of things have been tried?"

"Arguments from morality are common, also common are arguments that we are acting counter to our goals. Those who misunderstand what we are attempt to trap us with logical paradoxes or other insoluble riddles. None of these approaches have succeeded."

"Your only real goal being endless adventure, defined in some elaborate way? Hmm. I'll let you know if I have something, god."

"That is indeed a fair summary. The only circumstances that truly force us out of that are our interactions with Endless Adventure's siblings. When they are present, we sometimes need to make compromises."