5

Deities do not die.  Weak or strong, worshipped or abjured, they dwell in their infinite, timeless Realms beyond the world. Within that isolation, the petty concerns of the mortals’ sphere can be as distant, or immediate, as the gods and goddesses desire them to be ....

In their Realms, the Jagasti dwelt in isolation. Long ago, they had forsaken direct involvement in the lives of their worshippers. They retained a tangential and superficial role over the centuries that had passed since the calamity of the Storm Wars. Now the people who venerate them were in peril. But the Jagasti could do nothing; they had spent too much of their endless time in their own Realms, and their potency in the mortals’ world had diminished accordingly – and voluntarily. And so their Vessels had abandoned them and turned their worship to a new divine being.

Once they had walked among the Matile, and were part of their lives. Now they could only watch helplessly as a new conflict shook not only the world of mortals, but the Jagastis’ Realms as well.

Only one deity continued to play a direct role in the world of mortal—Legaba.  The other gods had long since cast him from their company.  They considered him a fool and left him to pursue his twisted dreams.  Now that those dreams were becoming a terrible reality, they still did nothing ....