Ok ok I’m thinking abt. Erestolf lostbelt right. A world where two kingdoms have been at war for centuries: the land of the dead, trying to encroach upon the living one, and the kingdom of the living, beating it right back into place. Ereskigal leads the former, Astolfo the latter.
The thing is, prior to this whole mess, those two were friends and even now they’re still deeply fond of one another- and that’s why that war has been at a stalemate for centuries. This isn’t just two kingdoms at war. It’s two people who know exactly how the other functions. So they’re perfectly evenly matched, and neither of them has ever managed to keep the upper hand for long. This unfortunately means that progress has been pretty much brought to a halt, hence the dead end.
Their reason for fighting? Simple. “I wish to protect humans. I need absolute authority over them to manage that, and that’s something I can only get by conquering the overworld.” “Humans don’t belong under some god’s rule. Humans are free beings. That’s what I believe in.”
(And it’s not a lie! But it’s not the entire truth either, obviously.)
(”They hate being a king, and they won’t give it up because no one else has the will or abilities to be one. This needs to stop. By force, if it must.” “She wants to shoulder the entire world by herself. Isn’t the underworld enough?! I refuse! I won’t let her do that to herself!")
“Ok but you said centuries, how is Astolfo not dead yet?” How do you want to keep dead someone who knows all the inner workings of the underworld?? Astolfo is very hard to keep locked virtually anywhere, and that includes Hell itself. They die quite often, but they always crawl their way back up.
In the event of a tree of emptiness appearing here you’d need to kill Ereshkigal first, as getting rid of the underworld is the only way to ensure Astolfo doesn’t have anywhere to crawl back from
which leads to either of these scenarii:
1) you team up with Astolfo to finally put an end to this war. They’re the story support to fight Ereshkigal. Once you defeat her, they hug her as she’s bleeding out and whisper things in her ear that you cannot hear. When the goddess has crumbled between their fingers, they get up, face you, and say: “Well. Have at you, master of Chaldea. I own my people this fight, for following me for so long.”
2) you don’t team up with Astolfo and end up killing Ereshkigal on your own, which makes them massively pissed at you. “How could you?! She deserved better! Did she even know she was loved?! How could you deny her a friend’s embrace in her last moments?! How DARE you?! This conflict never had anything to do with you!” And you have to face the full sorrow and grief of a lostbelt king wo has endured countless years and countless deaths and has long stopped caring about things like “pain” or “a fucking spear in their lungs.” Their last words aren’t even at you. They’re just “Ah… Ereshkigal… I won’t get to see you after this death, will I? I can’t even apologize for leaving you alone… how cruel…”