"Greaves. Grief. Aromatic Polyamide. As I hung by my shins on two hooks over a wide, shallow glowing pool littered with ancient stones and the slow-dying bodies of my predecessors, my thoughts centered on these. The polymer greaves, glorified soccer equipment, had been a gift of fortune. Our Province Guard gave them to me at my send-off, a poor substitute for a breastplate, the last of which had been destroyed by the Cannibals. Snagged in a forest of hooks, the greaves lynched me above the deadly surface below. The slow, boiled expressions of the floating people below me filled the future tomb with grief. One of the men still gripped the corner of a steel shield, the likes of which hadn’t been employed in a hundred years. He gave new meaning to the word “centurion.” Though his eyes and matted hair retained the vibrance and color of youth, the great gravity holding him down and unholy liquid cast him in a breathing death mask. I stopped looking down on the pool when I recognized the face of the last man we sent." When Gard Brodford sneaks through a siege to offer a sacrifice to a long-silent diety, the last thing he expects is a lesson in vanity. Too bad he is unlikely to survive the traps set before him, or the army at his heels. The God of This World is a Story of the Future Past.