Swamped

"Is there any way you can get more details? It might have something to do with whatever's been going on around here lately."

He shakes his head.

"Everything I've heard suggests the gods only tell you what they think you need to know, and most of the time that's nothing. Supposedly, the priests at the main temple can commune directly, but even if that's true they rarely do it. Never been there myself, since I didn't get formally ordained. Probably just as well, though. I've never cared much for ceremony."

You wonder if that has something to do with his family. But you doubt you'll get an answer, so you opt to change the subject.

"One thing I've always wondered is where the gods even came from. I was always told they created the world, and us... but who created the gods?"

"The official church line is that the gods have always been, and it makes no sense to ask what came before them," Jebediah says. He sounds more than a little annoyed. "But there's a theory going around that maybe we've got it the wrong way around. Maybe the gods didn't create us, maybe we created them."

You're more than a little confused, so you let him continue.

"You heard anything about ether? Dominique studies it."

"It's what wizards use to cast magic," you say. You opt not to mention your own use of it for now.

"Yeah, but thing is, supposedly there used to be a lot more of it in the world. An absolute flood. There was so much that people with no ether-sense at all were doing magic - the ether was just that sensitive."

"It sounds like there could be a lot of accidents that way."

"Probably. In fact, so the theory goes, maybe the gods were one of them. Maybe a lot of people started believing in something, and they believed in it real hard, and the ether around them took the form of what they believed in. And that ether-being is what we call a god. Just a massive concentration of ether, able to manipulate itself."

You were having enough trouble dealing with just the ether you know about already. An entire being made of it... You're having trouble fathoming it. But then you think on it a little harder.

"And if ether can be easily manipulated in such intense quantities," you muse, "then a god could potentially be very sensitive to being around people. Their very form could start to shift unpredictably. That could explain why they'd isolate themselves, even from their own believers."

"Yeah, there's been some talk along those very lines from proponents of the theory. But our church has made very clear that this idea is heresy and not to be taken seriously by members of the clergy," he says. "So obviously you shouldn't believe it for a moment."

He's making as clear as he can that he doesn't give a damn if you believe it.

"Of course not," you reply, with a similar amount of seriousness. You're not sure what to think about it, but it's certainly an interesting idea.

You wonder if you should continue asking questions. For all you know, Rider might finish soon.