As the clear up after the battle began the team saw an unnusual figure walking over the water of the battle carrying a body. There suspicions were confirmed as they saw it was a projection of Ashima-Shimtu. She walked over to them and spoke
"She struggles to understand mortals, she had thought that it was the meddling of her kind that brought strife to mortals. But she see's blood in the water here and none of her kind are free to walk this world. She has watched this one for many years like another fisherman before him he caught her eye although no great destiny or power touched him she saw him married and saw him as a father of his children, she saw him hit his wife and abandon her to join the navy , now his story ends and his choices stop here in a battle he understood nothing of. What do the choices of individuals mean if the choices of others lead them to fight and day in war beyond there understanding? "
They spoke with her and Manuel explained the legal concept of guilt and that she had not intended either this or the death of the Eladrin to come from her actions and so she would not be guilty in they eyes of the law, Nevla said that too many choices had been made leading to this battle to place the blame on events 500 years ago and that she did not blame Ashima-Shimtu for the death of Ssramma and so many Eladrin. They spoke a bit more about freedom and choices then the image faded and the Demon Lord faded away. They thought it was probably a good sign that she was interested in guilt and redemption and Manuel suggested that Nevla ressurect this randome sailor to show that they too had concerns and perhaps influence Ashima-Shimtu. She agreed and added a raise dead to her spell list for the next day
The Coaltongue flies to Cherage and there is a discussion with Brakken about objectives they agree on gathering information and having Brakken try to push a pro-peace and Diplomacy line to try and prevent a war. They also plan on what they can do to help, they can give advice and in an emergency Ulvaar could help Brakken fight and Nevla can provide spellcasting she makes a point to prepare a Word of Recall so that she can pull Brakken out if things go wrong....
They land in a valley prepared by El Extrano's commando's and get the latest report from the rats revealing no major changes so Brakkens infiltration is on.
Brakken arrives at the city and see's the signs of the military build up. The players note the installation of several lantern cannon and the Ob military constructs as they did not plan to attack Cherage anyway this is not a problem but they are glad the constructs are not full on Golems as this means that the Risuri army can possibly defeat them unlike the powerful Iron Golems. They also note that Witch oil is not being used in these Golems.
Brakken arrives at the Symposium and passes through security. They check who the guests are and are dissapointed to see Betronga Sidhon,present they talk with him and the other representatives of minor nations and come to the conclusion that while most are actually happy about events Lord Kulp is definetly keeping his opinions to himself and Betronga Sidhon, is largely there because he respects the strength and power of the Ob and resents the Eladrin enclaves not because he approves of them.
Brakken ends up talking to the leaders of Crissily and Drakr as well as Eloise Duffet the Danoran military commander and with some coaching from Nevla and William he is able to convince them to share the war plans with him as Ber would be a great help to the invasion and is willing to help provided at least some diplomatic efforts are made. The plan seems workable to the pc's as the Risuri fleet is weak , although they note that the Drakran and Crissylian navies need to delay while they are fitted out to defend against She Who Writhes, Brakken shares vague reports he has heard that the new Risuri monarch has allied with Granny Allswell, Father Thunder and the Ash Wolf and so invading armies will need big cannon and anti-gremlin protection, which results in more preperations being planned which will further dealy things. They have by this point decided that the Cardinal is either a cleric of Asmodeus or is going to get into trouble when the gods get round to auditing their faithful in this world.
Heids arrival and conversation amuses them, they support his needling of the Chancellor and are concerned that the Cardinal has sufficient control of a Planatar to send it out shoe shopping. They consider ways to reverse that but in the end GM reluctance to let them mess with contacting outer planes with Gate spells to bring the Planatars boss up to speed thwarts them, I decided I had to draw a line on the use of planar travel magic to the traditional outer planes as that Cosmology is a bit stretched if applied to this universe and drawing a firm line prevents me having to spoil some later scheme when they were counting on such access.
With this out of the Way Nicodemus starts his speech, they quite like the concept but don't think he believes it and would not trust him to actually manage to be benevolent and stay out of the way of people building a better world but the concepts are good. When he finishes Brakken gets the first question in asking about reports from Beran astronomers that Av may be pulled into the Gyre soon. Nic confirms this blaming the sabotage of the Ritual, he says they are unsure about the effects of the destruction of Av but do not think they will be immediatly catastrophic and they hope to restore Av when they renew the Ritual which unfortunatly will take most of a year. They have a few more questions but decide they had better let others ask questions as they don't want Brakken to attract too much attention. They also spotted Lya here and plan to use Sending to contact her later as they hope to try and start a dialogue although they fear as a ghost she will be too much under the control of Nic for negotiations with her to work.
As the leaders all talk about eliminating those who do not contribute they spot an incipient hive mind at about the same time Nicodemus does and start trying to sport signs of it, as Nic retreats they spot the Hive mind and realise it is growing fast and hidden by psychic powers which must have defeated the Obs monitoring . As the Hive mind forms they have a quick debate and before they are aware of all that is going on William teleports himself and Nevla into the council chamber where they hope to disrupt the Hive mind, they manage to overcome all the obstacles to teleportation and maintian control of their minds. There they encounter Sighim who taunts them before departing, they are so glad to see him and the Gidim back, although they were expecting the Gidim or a Demonic army since the Ob turned off the planar protection.
Looking round they realise they need to act fast and Nevla calls on a Miracle to free the people of the Hive mind and is slightly surprised when a blast of Holy flame and not grinding gears answers her call burning away all the evidence of the Hive mind, while the stunned , confused and dazed delagates slump to the ground they feel a lurch as if the building was falling after being lifted in the air, quickly they decide to leave. Nevla grabs Brakken, and the nearby Heid and his bodyguard, William grabs Lord Kulp , Betronga Sidhon, and between them they also grab quite a few represtnatives from the Malice lands, basically everyone they can reach and depart via teleportation and word of recall.
They day has been saved , tens of thousands in Cherage will live and almost no one will know what happened , the Risuri will catch the blame for what did happen and they will get no credit from anyone in Cherage. Also I don't get Giant Dwarf hacking his way into a walking building atop a giant hive mind which is sad. They do get credit in the Malice lands and with Betronga Sidhon, in Elfaivar , the Malice lands largely end cooperation with the Ob shutting down the railroad and delaying troop movments. Betronga Sidhon, and his people join the Risuri/Eladrin enclave in Elfaivar strengthening it against any Ob attacks.
The team heads back to Risur for a short rest, briefings, planning and a quick wedding. Also Nevla gets around to actually making them all Dukes of somewhere. Padme gets Romanov's old duchy along the coast facing Ber , next to the New Duchy of Greenland which covers most of the Voice of Rots territory and goes to William , Ulvaar becomes the Mountain duke, and Manuel becomes the Duke of the Risuri colonies in Elfaivar where he can work to cement ties with the Eladrin as well as to develop a synthesis between technology and magic. Manuel is concerned by his lack of Social skills so Nevla suggests appointing Isobel as his Seneschal who will handle a lot of the people skills, she is an Eladrin which will go down well but not one of the Enclave Eladrin and they hope she can help bring everyone together.
The various disasters facing nations are discussed and they agree that helping with those should help derail Ob plans, although of course letting the apocolypse wipe out most of Drakr would be even more effective but they are heroes so rescueing they will do. They decide to deal with Crissily first as it is close and go to Sid Minor and Ashima-Shimto first even though several of the players more than their characters are nervous about messing with a demon lord. They also send to the Coaltongue into Drakr and sailing ships to Seobrigga and Ursalina so they can teleport around after Crissilyr, they are using Wind walk cast by Nevla to get to Sid Minos as it is fast and not dependent on prior knowledge
