The short version is that the gods here stuck their fingers where they didn't belong and helped themselves to new worshipers from other worlds so that we could pick up their mess for them.

[Should I be action tagging feelings? Cause for all he looks calm, there's a lot of them. Actively floating around in the mix are worry and stress and frustration and a determination to keep going ANYWAY and the niggling doubt that maybe there is nothing to keep going for anyway. And anger. Sharp and bitter, and getting more resentful as he starts to talk about the gods.]

Good. You're going to have to beg them for favors anyway, though.

They've poisoned everything, and if we want to eat, we have to ask them to clean it up, first.

They claim they were benevolent enough to grant us a "second chance."

They claim they can't send us back, either, despite being able to tamper with time and death.

It's your concern if the gods that are pulling your strings are liars.

Like I said. They arrange time and death to suit their purposes, often overreaching the influence of other gods, in other worlds, who ought to be in control of those things. Then they claim they can't do their own gardening? "Improbable" doesn't stretch far enough to cover it.

[Mistrust. All of the mistrust. And suspicion of an ulterior motive.]

The only information we have is what they tell us. Until we can dig up something more reliable, I'm not taking their word for it.

[Frustration's surging up to the front again- resentment, too. :|b]

[It subsides again to an uneasy mutter in the background but doesn't fade completely.]

Speaking of the gardening we're supposed to be taking care of- if you can't handle yourself in a fight, stay clear of the wild areas. Just about everything out there is deadly.

And the poison extends to the water, as well.

Welcome to Thusia.

[Bitterrrr.]

Not at all.

Ashikawa Mitsuru.

Mm. The same.

[Mechanical formality; no genuine feeling behind that. :|b]