Sunk Cost

Having entered the city of Elorta, established a base of operations, and defeated several of the city's threats, the Gods were ready to investigate the city's quarantined districts. They hoped that this city, with all its hazards, would be the home of the Plague Engine before any more lives were lost...

Diagnosis

After sending Bucefalis away to the ship and resting for a while, the Gods split into two groups to investigate the city. Makar and Kipilu went to the Fringe district - one of the city's newer residential slums and work districts - and Arzet and Potha went to the Blackwater district, one of the city's older and swampier slums.
Makar and Kipilu took the form of cats to swiftly and easily pass over the quarantine walls, and kept an eye out for any other cats around. Inside the diseased district, they found a diseased cat that seemed to be possessed and "programmed" by a Jellicle Warlock (perhaps even the one they had recently fought) to spy on the streets below. The Gods taunted the Warlock before dispatching the puppet, and started to survey the area to figure out what the Warlock had been watching and why. Specifically, it seems that it was watching the public well; it seems that diseased birds were, when the coast was clear, diving into the well or coming out of it. Makar scaled down into the well to investigate while Kipilu stood guard. Makar found that the wellwater had tunnels burrowed into it, connecting it to a network of powerful water currents moving under the city. Makar tentatively began to explore these, but struggled with the sheer strength of the current and the danger of exploring alone. And while Makar was down there, Kipilu had spotted an odd character approaching the well. An odd young man, a shirtless local worker, had approached Kipilu and was making weird small talk about how he also used to be small.
Makar and Kipilu decided to regroup, and became rather curious with the ramblings of this random guy. Eventually, the man mentioned knowing Zofara - a name that matched Makar's mercenary companion. Makar and Kipilu followed the strange man to his apartment to meet this Zofara, in case this was another intrigue or warlock's ruse. What they found was even stranger: an abandoned plague-ridden apartment complex occupied by shirtless young squatters who were all employed by the same carpenter as apprentice and seemed to be recruiting other people to work there as well - promising Kipilu that he would grow tall if he joined. Apparently, the carpenter (a master carpenter named Kevka) was taking on apprentices from poor households, isolating them from their families, forcing them to be constantly hyper-positive, and making them work out and look pretty around the shop for... customers? Like... a Hooters if it was a furniture store that used cult recruitment tactics??? Or was it for the owner's enjoyment? It was unclear, as these boys were baked and drunk out of their minds. The young apprentices seemed to lack boundaries and generally had a really strange vibe, but it was becoming clear why, and soon the Zofara mystery was solved. It tuirns out that was just a guy who sold the boys weed who had the same name as Makar's companion. Before Makar and Kipilu could leave, though, they found a new mystery: the odd one of this group of young men, a rigidly robotic-sounding one named Ebeba. Ebeba's fellows seemed to have accepted his forced and scripted speech style readily enough, and said that Ebeba started acting like this after he got sick from drinking puddle water off the street in a dare. Frankly, Ebeba was acting like someone stiffly struggling to pretend to be Ebeba - it was warlock programming, just like with the cat. Thankfully, Ebeba was so poorly programmed that he was completely impossible to take seriously or listen to at all. Kipilu and Makar found Ebeba's antics hilarious, even when he urged them to drink infected water. They took him to the alley behind his parents' house and executed him softly and quietly, sending him to his rest. They mourned him and demanded that the Rot give him back to them. The Rot could not.
Meanwhile, Arzet and Potha magically slipped into Blackwater, the flooded slum in the North part of town. They found the district eerily abandoned; the streets were muddy canals now, and the first floor of every building had become unlivable. People seemed to hide Arzet and Potha's approach. There were signs of brutal violence between local residents, though the evidence had largely been washed away by the flooding rain. Most buildings were barricaded against approach. Vicious vermin and mosquitoes seemed to infest many of the buildings. Finally, the Gods found a sign of life - someone lowering down a basket from an upper story apartment window. As the Gods watched, an Infected person waded through the muck to place supplies in the basket before wandering off with single-minded intent. The Gods talked with the basket-lowerer, who explained that they and some other survivors used the Infected to exchange supplies, deliver messages, and safely interact without risking the flooded streets below. They described how, when the quarantine fell, the Cult of the Stormlord had taken over - had made people fight to prove their strength and to earn a chance to escape this place and the plague. The Strong, after all, Survived. The flooding had unleashed a mass panic of people desperate to earn the mercy of the Cult, desperate in the face of sudden overcrowding and rising floodwaters and ruined foodstocks. Without even being ordered to, the district had devoured itself, transmuting desperate hope into violence. After this burst of violence, remaining people had pulled together and formed apartment block communities, barricading away the violence below, which was soon swept away by the waters anyway. The block communities competed with each other viciously in a complicated web of alliances, isolated and confused and afraid. The plague was still spreading, though, and the vermin were growing dangerous. More and more apartments were becoming unusable. The people in the Mainstreet Apartment Block wished the Gods well and urged them to find safe harbor from the floodwaters, and Arzet and Potha hurried onwards.
Potha and Arzet followed the flow of the water to the Blackwater marketplace and plaza, what had once been the center of district life. The old temple, elevated on massive stone foundations, remained inhabited; it was, in fact, full of Cultists burning votives and watching over the district from their perches. In front of the temple, where the main market and plaza once was, a huge black sinkhole now sat, water lazily swirling around it and downwards into the depths. Whatever was wrong with this city, Potha and Arzet concluded, it was here. They pulled against the tide and clambered, flesh burning from Rot-ridden water, into nearby apartments. The two Gods brandished fire and magic against the vermin inside and built a safe circle of controlled fire and protective magic in which to sleep. It was not good sleep, and it took many more hours than it should have, but it was sleep. And while Potha and Arzet were under siege in their decaying apartment, Makar and Kipilu slept, geared up, and got ready.

Treatment

After a long rest, the group gathered on the rooftops overlooking the sinkhole, across from the Cult-occupied temple. Kipilu and Makar first set out to infiltrate the occupied Temple as cats, to gather information. They found that the Cult of the Stormlord was essentially preaching that the city was doomed, perhaps even the empire, and that only total surrender to the Stormlord and Masked One could provide any kind of hope. They were still taking in new recruits, people who had made the desperate decision to risk it all to swim through infected water to get here for whatever reason. Much of this was expected - what was unexpected was that the Cult seemed to be preparing their initiates to primarily serve their Emperor, rather than the Masked One or Stormlord. The cult, it seems, was searching for the truly desperate and committed to be minted into plague warlocks, but was doing so for its own purposes rather than in service of the Rot. Whoever their Emperor was, they were an opportunist hoping to hijack the Rot rather than a loyal servant to it.
While that was going on, the Gods starting carefully exploring the sinkhole. Deep in the pit, the water seemed to be pumped through a series of tunnels that moved throughout the city, like this was the heart of the city's body. A main tunnel seemed to take in the initiates from the temple, but there were other main arteries that seemed well-used as well. Arzet decided to abandon caution and explore one of these side arteries, and was swept by the current into a Cult base's basement in Stormside. The base was preparing initiates to be sent to the Temple or Heart by the current system, but Arzet started interrupting and telling the initiates not to go. A fight broke out; Arzet sought cover. Potha rode in to help, and the two of them slew the main cult officers with ease before escaping. 
Regrouping once again, the Gods decided to take the plunge into the depths of the sinkhole. They clung to an initiate as he plunged into the sinkhole and into the Heart, and the group finally entered the central chamber of Elorta's operations. They found warlocks gathering and organizing supplies and weaponry, the remaining Jellicle cats (including a traitorous Bucefalis), a number of Infected with strange fungal weaponry grafted onto them, and a Paladin with colorful fungal growths across their armor. The Gods immediately went to work, blasting the munitions, targeting the cat casters, and using area of effect spells to cut through the gathered warlocks. The paladin proved to be a substantial threat, as she issued orders to the fungal-enhanced Infected that enabled them to march and attack with unusual competency. The sheer mass of the Infected proved damaging for the party, who were pushed back to the entrance of the chamber. The spellcasters worked to limit their exposure to these Infected soldiers and grouped together, while Potha jumped forward on her moa bird and charged the paladin. Potha won her duel against the knight, while the casters held their ground and survived the onslaught. With the dark paladin dead along with the lead warlocks, the remaining warlocks surrendered while the Infected soldiers mindlessly marched about, having lost their targets and lacking an officer with a mind to get them back on track. 
With the threat dispatched, the Gods went and looted the offices of the leaders here. They were dissapointed to find no Plague Engine here - just another channel, heading to Kreniko. The administrative documents proved more useful, though. They indicated that Prince Mazaru Eramzir, viceroy of the Vice-Kingdom of Mikena and lord of this land, was the Emperor that this cult followed - and that he had been using Elorta as a recruitment ground for warlocks to bolster his forces in Kreniko. The documents described how he was mass mobilizing and liquidating the city's resources, since a massive hurricane was approaching the city - a storm that would wipe Elorta off the map, headed by the Rot himself. The letters also described how the Prince was parlaying with Safia, the False Halcyon, and had received intelligence from a spy of hers that the Gods were in Elorta. The Prince planned to bog them down in the city, to be struck by the storm and hopefully driven away. And that plan had almost worked - the pounding rain was only getting worse, and a storm was on the horizon. 
The group gathered and considered their options. They decided to leave their companions behind to evacuate the city the best they could. The Gods decided to race ahead, and would not be bogged down in this place any longer. They would take along Eada, though, as they highly suspected that she was the spy - and they planned to confront her on the sea, where she couldn't run. It was time to sail into the storm.

Components

Goals

QUEST:

• Destroy the nascent Zeruan Plague Engine, to prevent a new Plague Variant
• Scout out the powers and weaknesses of the Nemeses
• Make connections and allies
• Marshal resources

Relations

Protagonists

Makar: The Masked One reborn, from Etekamo . Divine Soul Sorcerer, Courtier Background (?)
Potha: Halcyon reborn, from the Sarana Tribe . Beastmaster Ranger, Outlander Background

• Coco: a friendly moa with a sweet tooth, Potha's bonded companion
• Cobi: a determined falcon loyal to Potha
• The Prison Rat: a rat with a sense of style, loyal to Potha

Kipilu: The Hidden One reborn, from Tezitkal . Glamour Bard, Acolyte Background.
Arzet: The Chimera reborn, from Adov . Conjuration Wizard, Sage Background.

• Darana, a Nefkan Vesper priest who can speak with dead and resist fear, but requires burial of the dead
• Kiji, a Calazan Kobold explorer who can help Arzet super-leap, returns thrown weapons, but requires curiosity
• Sarwen, an Inasan dryad scholar who can see disease auras and helps with research, but requires everything to be recorded
• Siru, a Bilgazan Healing Church alchemist who can help Arzet make healing potions and increases Arzet's speed by 10 ft/round, but requires that the secrets of alchemy be kept guarded
• Thuma, a Nafenan squiddle blackguard who can help Arzet turn invisible underwater (when not attacking or casting) and increases swim speed by 30 ft/round, but requires Arzet to take no quarter against any foes

Allies

Zofara: A fatalistic warlock who presents as hyper-goth. Sworn to the Scarred One.
Eada the Sellsword: A mercenary and shapeshifter experimented upon by a strange magician
Ezia: A dryad childhood friend of Makar. Studying wizardry under Arzet
Topin: A Guardian of Hokzin, a child-soldier with a long rifle, a pious idealist
Imora: A Sunekan Fox Priest, a Sunekan secret police officer who has become hopelessly cynical

Neutrals/Bystanders

Bucefalis, the Coward Cat: A pathetic little mew-mew.
Ebeba: An infected carpenter in the Fringe
Other Zofara: A guy who grows marijuana in abandoned apartments in the Fringe, friend of the carpenter boys
Kevka: The master carpenter who makes the boys act like this

Parent Plot

City of Decay

Subplots

• Eye of the Storm

Related Organizations

• Vice-Kingdom of Mikena