Regroup and Onwards!

A Prince defeated, a dragon slain, a city rescued. All in a day's work (or maybe a month and a half's work) for the God Squad. And while it sure has been fun here under the despair-inducing shadow of the Rot, these heroes have other nightmares to slay and other realms to save.  So maybe the political situation in Kreniko could be better. After the Kreniko Coup, Prince Mazaru Eramzir and the Plague Dragon is destroyed, but the new Vice-Royal and Prince of the Vice-Kingdom of Mikena is unfortunately now Lord Wellim Bakari - a real corrupt little man. The party left the cleanup to Bakari, who was eagerly parading about in his new position and establishing his authority in the city.    Before leaving, the party picked up Zofara from the tavern they had left him and gathered their possessions to leave. They said their goodbyes to Lady Malwa Akuzir and , who promised to do their best to minimize the damage done by the new corrupt Prince. The God Squad promised to get the Emperor to send a new, better Prince as soon as possible.    Lady Ovwa Benibiski wanted to be pen pals with Kipilu of Tezitkal and the two agreed to work out how to make that work. Lady Malwa Akuzir and Potha Sarana exchanged blades and promised to help each other in the future. Makar Mesaba also got Bexi the Gourmand a position with Benibiski and others, where his food purification process could get funding and support. And with that, they met up with their selkie friend Samail Yepahep and hitched a ride on their ship back East.   On the journey from Kreniko to Elorta, Arzet Devadov awoke in the night to the sound of hurried whispering and discordant voices. Going updeck, Arzet began to hear bits of prayers and saw shadowy bodies passing in the depths below the ship. He woke up the other Architects, who each had their own tailored prayers. Makar tried to swim down to investigate the bodies, to no avail. But upon returning to the ship, Makar felt a presence: The Masked One Automata.    After the Automata pranked Arzet with an illusion and douse of seawater, they introduced themselves to the party. They explained that the bodies underwater were the scraps of souls of the plague-ridden dead being drawn towards a functional Plague Engine now that this region's Engine was destroyed. They encouraged Arzet and Kipilu to loosen up and embrace their comedic and violent sides, and they advised Arzet that the only way to bond with Ghavi would be to become more casual with violence. The Automata revealed that Safia, the False Halcyon was making moves in Paradise but was unable to share much more without being censored. The party played around with the limits of that divine censorship for a bit before they agreed to help the Automata get a body - possibly Arzet's cloned body over at The Darzan University augmented with parts of all of the Squad's bodies and essences. And with that promise secured, the Automata bid them farewell.   Next stop: Elorta, where the group would recover their lost companions Ezia Mahabatu, Imora, and Topin. They found that everything but Elorta's Old Town was destroed by the hurricane and floods, leaving massive devastation and camps of displaced people. Zeruan warships were unloading aid to the city and patrolling the waters. An aerial survey by Cobi discovered the corpse of a large lobster-beast upriver.   Using a Sending spell, Kipilu quickly got in contact with Topin and Imora and found that Imora was sick with the Rot Plague. Topin was more serious that Kipilu had ever seen him and was bullying his way to get Kilusha for Imora's recovery. Ezia seemed disturbed at their prioritization of Imora's recovery over the larger group of refugees, but wasn't willing to meaningfully intervene.    Imora described the Rot's attempts to break her into despair, which bounced off of her already cynical and semi-hedonistic worldview, and with the Kilusha she was delirious but always cognizant and recovering. The Gods checked in with the Zeruan commander of the aid fleet and they all agreed to have Imora transported with sick Zeruan elites back to the capital with a large supply of medicine and Kilusha, as well as attending servants. While Imora was prepped for the med-boat, the Gods went to go check out the big lobster corpse. Apparently, this lobster had started eating survivors after the hurricane and even "shot beams" and spewed hordes of infected vermin. Imora helped kill it before it vomited on her face, infecting her with the plague - apparently she had actually been pretty altruistic during this whole "evacuate the city" process, even if she was whining a whole lot about it now. The Gods led work teams to cut up the corpse and burn it, before enjoying a nice noodle soup and saucy flatbreads.   On the voyage back, the God Squad noticed that Imora recovered after 5 days on the medboat and was no longer contagious 2 days after. So, since she was infected 2 days prior to their arrival, the Rot Plague has a 9 day cycle - for a healthy young woman with access to good medicine and constant care. Sarwen the Plaguewatcher helped Arzet conduct tests and keep a symptom log of the med boat patients, but it was revealed that Sarwen apparently thinks of all furry mammals as basically the same, sparking a discussion about if Sarwen is a racist against mammals.    Nearing the capital, the Squad noticed that the capital of the Vice-Kingdom of Azalek, Zalkra, was in full-on party mode. According to the Zeruan escorts, the navy had mass-mobilized Windweavers here at Zalkra to try and stop the massive hurricane that accompanied the Rot. The navy's sorcerers and warriors fought the various dread beasts that came out of the waters, and after a long time spent just holding the hurricane in place and slowing it down, the Rot actually turned out to sea and fled the empire entirely. People were now celebrating having defeated such a supernatural threat, even though the city itself had already been thoroughly infested with Rot Plague before the hurricane and should have been firmly in quarantine. The Gods found that fishy and speculated that maybe the regional government here was also in cahoots with the Apocalypse as well. But they had no time to launch a lengthy investigation into local government and continued on their way to Argena.   The group was brought into Argena's royal dockyards as the navy here recognized them as the Emperor's Special Agents. A celebration awaited them: musicians were assembled, flowers were thrown as they were paraded by carriage down the imperial gardens and pastures to the palace itself, and the heroes were perfumed and given fine wines. At the palace, Emperor Sophan Eramzir proclaimed them heroes of the realm for participating in the battle against the Dread Storm and welcomed them into his war room. The Emperor gave them 5,000 gold pieces and a pair of Immovable Rods from Asalay. Quite the boon.    The Emperor assured the Gods that he was interested in peace with the Kingdom of Esedeta and asked them to get Haru to negotiate a white peace ending the war and returning all boundaries to pre-war states. The Prince's betrayal and hurricane had apparently allowed the Esedetans to break into Western Zerua; the war had turned from Zeruan advantage to Esedetan. This made Zeruan-brokered peace more difficult; a powerful voice for peace would be needed. The Gods said they might not be able to get Haru but they could get a Saraja Family mediator.    The Emperor also brought out Arbiter Sunaba of Vikasha and Priest Amina of the Flooded District, two emissaries from the Vikasha Plague Engine containment group that had mentioned knowing Makar already. Arbiter Sunaba mentioned that she was in a lawsuit with the Aludarzir Corporation over her attempts to publish Makar's words on germ theory. The Aludarzir Corporation claimed that Sunaba had engaged in intellectual theft and that her work purely plagiarized their own internal research documents - and had tied Sunaba up in petty lawsuits that she lacked the time and resources to fight. The Emperor, upon hearing her testimony, pledged his own lawyers to her case; Makar agreed that the case relied on an excessively loose definition of patenting and intellectual theft and was meant more to intimidate and dominate. Faced with real resistance, Aludarzir's case would crumble.   More surprising was Priest Amina's story: that she and Tashaba of the Flooded District had died fighting the Vikasha Plague Engine and had mysteriously revived as a cleric and paladin. After their revival, they were immune to the Rot Plague (though harmed by direct contact, like the Gods), could turn rot minions like they were undead, and cast spells from a mysterious source. Amina talked about how she heard divine whisperings that seemed like nonsense that she was interpreting, which God Squad recognized as things they had said but out of context. Amina had become a Cleric of The Architects!    The Gods decided to retreat to a higher plane - pausing time and entering a spiritual space they could shape. They tried summoning Amina to join them. Doing so created a Temple to the Architects in this place, which Amina appeared in. They talked with their new cleric here and discovered that she could pick an Architect to stabilize her domain.    The Gods tried summoning Tashaba into their mind temple, which worked. After some experimenting, they could only summon clerics who they actually knew - but sensed that others they didn't know did exist out there. After going through everyone they knew, they summoned a small group:

• Priest Amina of the Flooded District 
• Tashaba of the Flooded District 
• Prafella of Dumella 
• Seargant Kevara the Siren 
• Mozler Downbody 

Prafella of Dumella swore her allegiance to Kipilu, as she felt that the Hidden One's mystery was most attractive and best represented her faith. The others remained undecided.   Mozler seemed terrified; he had been one of the teens left in the grasp of Verkon, The False Chimera. Upon realizing that he was temporarily free, though, he was overjoyed. He talked with Arzet, forgiving him for abandoning Mozler and the others and assuring Arzet that the torment really only started when Mozler doubled down and became a cleric when Verkohn tried to break and tempt him. Mozler pledged to do his best to look after the other teens trapped in the nightmare labyrinth.   Potha talked with Seargant Kevara the Siren about the state of the Loanuan Settler War - which had apparently stalled out into a period of chaos and politicalre-alignment. A utopian redistributionist government had taken over the city of Tailotha briefly a number of months ago, but that government had fallen to a coup. The Loanuan tribal federation had stopped advancing and seemed to be bickering, and the old despot Karza - founder of the Kingdom of Karzado - was building a settler army in the Southeast. Kevara had fled Tailotha during the coup and was now participating in a small utopian commune in the North of the island.    With updates in hand and Zeruan threads mostly resolved, the Gods were ready to begin their two weeks of training and their next adventure.