With the Benefit of Hindsight [Lady's Library, Morning 0]

[Akh Uur Hoon]

"Shall I speak from experience?" There was a curious look. "I have never been omnipotent... I grew up in the Convent of Aulasha in Elirhondas, where studying the ups and downs of the ascendancy of the demigoddess was the point. A patron of books which couldn't save her own library from barbaric pirates. There are many lessons to be drawn from Aulasha's example, but one that has stayed with me the most is that godhood is a trap. Power enslaves, as there is never enough of it. I could speculate that sublime existence is insufferable."

[Dare Shah]

"Do you know how many positions there are in chess? Over one billion times one billion times one billion times one billion times one billion. Were to you try to solve the game through raw processing power isto es by analyzing each an every possible moves, you would still be there looking at the board by the heat death of the universe. I'd wager even gods would have issues with such a brute force approach.

A lot of gods seem more subtle than that though, solving complex problems in roundabout ways, like proclaiming laws, appointing a champion, et cetera. I'm not sure that failing into that neurotic quest for always more power is so much a consequence of already holding a lot of it than of other troubles. Your Aulasha for example appears to be suffering from a survivor guilt induced depression.

With the double bias that the more power you already have the more likely your actions are to be documented and to have a psychological profile encouraging hoarding it."

[Akh Uur Hoon]

Akh Uur Hoon chose not to comment on those remarks. Instead, she inquired.

"Would you care to explain the concept of the heat death of the universe?"

[Dare Shah]

"The end of the road. The closing of the infinite book. When even death will die.

I admit heat death is not the most poetic name that has been given to it. Likely, I'm biased toward seeing everything through the prism of chemistry rather than poetry due to being neck deep in alloy manipulations at the moment.

The idea is that any mix of substances, left to its own devices long enough, will eventually cool down until it becomes fully inert. And thus it can be theorized the multiverse as a whole is no different.

As for whether it's true or not, we're looping on the subject of philosophical questions that might not need a definite answer."

[Akh Uur Hoon]

Something about the account unsettled her.

"But nothing is left to its own devices until all milieu becomes indistinct. Which would mean inertia won't happen until it happens everywhere?"

There was a pause.

"I believe in Chessenta they have started worshipping an entity called Entropy, perhaps one of the Primordials. Would that be the force to hurry the heat death?"

[Dare Shah]

"Maybe?

A closed system indeed is a physician abstraction that doesn't effectively exist in a perfect form in this reality... Except if we assume the universe as a whole fits the bill, as there's nothing outside of it for it to interact with. Which would imply that panentheism is wrong... And...

You really like the big questions to which no clear answer can be given, don't you?

As for Entropy with a capital E, maybe? For me, who's the egg and who's the chicken between the god and the phenomenon they look after is yet another rhetorician's delight."

[Akh Uur Hoon]

Akh Uur Hoon agreed with a nod. "At this point in my existence only the big ones matter, though not all of them. Just several. Our conversation has been a dance around some of those several, for which I am grateful. It may be some time before I arrive at any answers, but such exchanges like with you, lady Dare Shah, seem to be steps in the right direction."

[Dare Shah]

It would not be proper to ask a fellow lady about her age. But Dare was nonetheless curious about whether Akh was as ancient as she sometimes sounded.

"The pleasure was all mine miss Hoon. I hope you do find the answers to some of your questions eventually."

[Akh Uur Hoon]

"My own death depends on that I do." She made this cryptic admission that could nevertheless contextualise what Dare was thinking of asking. "I hope the results of your own pursuits prove to be worth your time."

[Dare Shah]

/fade to bookworming?

Thanks for thread.