Due to extenuating circumstances, I must announce the end of the R.I.S.E. project for mortal Divinity. Participants over a certain threshold will receive commemorative items in the mail in the near future. Naturally, this will be a very small amount of you.

The rest of you were either useless or actively sabotaged My gift. Your excuses were many: that I was secretly taking the essence (I was not), that I would eventually secretly take the essence (I would not), that I was lying about your chance at Divine powers (I was not), or that this would offend the Gods or the so-called natural order of things (it would). This last group is, truly, the most pathetic population in Creation.

When presented with even the slightest chance to rise above your pitiful state of being, your fear of change and risk, coupled with an affinity for the metaphorical taste of boot soles, led you to oppose it with all your being. I compared you all, in My youth, to rats with slightly less fur, but at least a rat does not know how helpless it is. You do, and you choose to stay that way.

I began this project with an allusion to the Twin Prophecies, but if there is any greatness to come from the mortal races of Achaea, it is unlikely to come within your lifetimes.

So remember, mortal masses of Achaea: You deserve every misfortune, every feeling of helplessness, and all of your miserable fates born from a lack of power. When you curse the heavens for the cruelty of the Gods, never forget that you earned it with complacency. The coward will always live in the shadow of their betters.

Penned by My hand on the 20th of Daedalan, in the year 899 AF.