1363 Dalereckoning, the Empyrean, the Pole Star Encampment, seat of the pantheon of the Forgotten Realms.
Helm, God of Guardians-the ever-sleepless eye-was putting the pantheon hall in order. As the representative of Overgod Ao's will and his appointed Arbiter, Helm was forever vigilant, forever alone. Ever since Ao had elevated him and entrusted him with guarding the pantheon, Helm had silently carried out his duties. He rarely spoke and seldom offered an opinion. Whenever a dispute arose, Helm ruled solely according to the law. Justice never entered his considerations.
Alas, Helm had not always been like this. Before he became what he was, he had once had a lover and a life of his own. Only after the Dawn Divine Calamity had he begun facing all living beings with eternal coldness. Children alone could make Helm a little more lenient. The God of Guardians only ever relaxed slightly in their presence.
Above the Sea of Chaos, Ao's Pole Star Encampment stood in magnificent splendor. Amid an ocean of disorderly energy, an enormous complex of buildings in the style of Ancient Greece towered above the chaos. Though the Sea of Chaos directly beneath the encampment was constantly decaying, vanishing, reassembling, forming, and collapsing, that spectacle only served to accentuate the encampment's grandeur.
A narrow path paved with slabs of light led to the pantheon hall. Every deity approaching it inevitably wondered what would happen if they fell into the Sea of Chaos. No one knew whether a deity could truly die, but they had already tasted the consequences of such a fall once. A few years earlier, when the Tablets of Fate were stolen, Overgod Ao had gouged out Tyr's eyes in a fury and cast every deity down into the mortal world. Whether they were greater deities at the pinnacle