First novel in the series "The Minds of Gods and Demons". Gods and Demons once walked the mortal realm, drawing mortals into their eternal conflict of good versus evil. The wars continued for thousands of turns, until the Gods, out of concern for the mortals of Rit undertook to perform a magic ritual meant to banish Demon-kind from the mortal realm forever. The Gods were betrayed by one of their own and the ritual went horribly wrong. The Gods were banished and the Demons relegated to the Demon Lands. Earthquakes, cyclones, and other natural disasters plagued the mortal world for two turns after the Blessing, collapsing civilization throughout the world. Demons were trapped away from mortals but still influenced their lives. Devils and demon-spawn monsters cross into the Blessed Lands, torturing and killing mortals. Unscrupulous mortals swear themselves to the service of Demons in exchange for power and riches, these Warlocks hunt anyone with significant magic ability in order to sacrifice them to their Demons. The sacrifices keep the Demons immortal and strong. Wizards are those mortals who use their magic for good, battling against the forces of Demon-kind to save the world. Over 300 turns after the failed ritual, a young man discovers a curious and powerful artifact left behind by the Gods that begins an sweeping, dangerous quest to find the banished Gods, return them to the mortal realm and complete the failed ritual to rid the world of Demons and their kind, once and for all.