"And people still devote themselves to them." It continues to boggle his mind! But that isn't the point, so he shakes his head. "Ours - they have their own realms, their own planes, but they can walk among us whenever they like. Well, most of them."

He remembers what was, in retrospect, the first hint of Asmodeus as he truly was; the contemptuous growl of prime deities.

"Thousands of years ago, the gods - twenty of them, at the time - found our world and started changing it. All the life that exists there was shaped, at least in part, by them. But then it all went wrong, and they started fighting over it, and about half - eight of them - were banished. Not together, but alone, for...eternity, apparently."

And even now, even now his voice is taut with sympathy. As he lapses back into silence he seems fragile again, but then his shoulders straighten and there's steel in his voice, a glimmer of starlight in his gaze.

"I never cared about gods in general. But I care about people being condemned and forgotten just because it's easier that way."