After giving asylum to Galadin and Spak, the last remaining independent natives had all joined a Player faction. There were hundreds of Players who had resurfaced along with Wyatt and Lost Divinities, but most had already been eradicated or were about to perish.
With Gerulf as a witness, Jake saw a Khinchod Player protect two other aliens of his kind by conjuring a seemingly indestructible water shield, but after dozens of blasts, the vaporized water stopped recondensing and the next explosion atomized the trio.
This, however, was not the fate of all the survivors. Not all of the surviving Players were from the superfactions, and some had relied not on luck but on their own strength to fight their way through.
Sorry for yesterday, I was distracted.