"That's -- a good question to which I do not actually know the answer, except, it's not that they need me, I'm not sufficiently important. I have the sense that my [god] has trouble perceiving this place. Perhaps It gave me time to try and make my way back on my own, by any means I might, saving two very valuable spells from our department head; but we have now run out Its hope in our project."
(Esta did at one point think that Asmodeus was feeling a little more distant in prayer, but then immediately crushed down that thought, so it is not currently available to Esta as a first-round hypothesis that this is his own fault for growing more distant from his god.)