I'm going toplace a bet on Vlaakith being the Absolute.
We know she's plotting to ascend to godhood from lichdom, she's been putting her needs ahead of the Gith purpose for centuries already, this could be her endgame.
The artifact could be her phylactory or something of that sort. Semi-sentient and containing much of her pre-lich personality and ambition - lead the Githyanki to victory over the mind-flayers. It is opposing Vlaakith, and doesn't want to fall into her hands via the Gith who have been sent out hunting the "weapon", or the cultists.
Vlaakith has fought Illithids for a long time and probably understands them very well. Discovering and manipulating an Illithid plot to her benefit instead of destroying it would be risky, but if the reward is tricking her ancient enemies into helping her ascend, it would be tempting.
Remember when Lazy talks about the K'lirr library? Vlaakith is smart and extremly well informed about every race religion and organisation, powerful in her own self and with forces to command and with a racial portfolio there for the taking, she's halfway there already.
If I had more confidence in the writing and the set up, then the Absolute could just be
Time.
That's what I thought they were going to do with it on my first run. Like that they were going to make the Baldur's Gate version of Dark with a traveler theme, since it was just gaining popularity when this one came out. Or Time but with a "memory-travel" or "dream-travel" riff on the more standard time-travel motif, like where we never actually left the tank. It would have explained many things about the gameworld, including why the gameworld feels like Time is notably absent, or perhaps how this game connects with the originals etc. I mean BG1 actually opened with that Nietzsche quotation from "Beyond Good and Evil: Prelude to a Philosophy of the Future" way back in 1998, so it's not like it couldn't work there with some provenance. Maybe explains how we get Minsc back or whatever. But now I don't want them to go that route, because I don't really trust Larian to do it justice. I'm not sure they are sophisticated enough in the writing to pull it off, while still keeping the tight lid on. I think it's something they could have done, but not when the game is releasing in an EA like this with everyone watching over their shoulders, and where a plot reveal of that sort early on would probably ruin it. For a concept like that to work, the game really needs to present as more cohesive from the getgo, since the concept tends to fall apart on close scrutiny and pacing is key. They have enough in the set up for it to carry though, or at least I thought it did, and that would have provided some meta interest for a gameworld that already routinely includes Planar Travel. Probably the only thing left untapped from a narrative standpoint that hasn't already been done to death in D&D campaigns. You know, trying to build the idea of 'replay' right into it at the foundation hehe. But again, I think they'd be hard put to do it up proper now, without it feeling overly gimmicky. I think it would be derided as too derivative or out genre at this point, to do a Matrix version of Faerun, but it would have been cool a year ago lol.
