With a heavy heart, Set absorbed the diminished power into his being. While this raw, unshaped faith lacked the potency of his divine authority, it eased the burden of his current struggles.
After masking the fractures in the threads of fate, he resealed the temple beneath the earth's crust and hastened toward the Water Grass Oasis. The journey to the underworld could wait; the plague threatening his followers could not.
In his role as a god of humans, he knew that widespread mortality weakened not just the body but his dominion as well.
---
In a moonlit oasis, Shu, the deity of order, surveyed the suffering before him with a deep furrow. The afflicted moaned under the cold glow, their pain echoing through the still desert air.
"Master Shu, what should we do?" asked Jassie, the sea buckthorn god, her voice tinged with desperation.