So we went to check on the king, and he seemed to be fine. But then Az appeared out of nowhere (well, the king's balcony) and started acting all accusatory towards the king. He was very suspicious that the King had a hand in this, but the king seemed on the up and up and had an answer for everything. Perhaps it really was Rathric acting on his own. The king even accused him of being from a rival house and merely a political appointment, so this may have been his attempt at a coup.

He promised that he would scour the city for the traitor, and insisted we continue to accept his hospitality. We accepted to stay in the castle, albeit in different rooms.

The next day we went to the Dancing Sirocco for that meeting, where we met with Opheria and some chick named Maryann. Apparently Opheria was part of something called the Righteous Orphan Rebellion. It was formed because while we were gone, apparently the Empress had outlawed all House legions, and was starting to claim first age artifacts from the houses!

Maryann filled in the blanks. Apparently the Empress dispatched human messengers to the various House satraps, and conveniently, the House Ambassadors all soon died under mysterious circumstances. Then, the satraps began building up troops. This happened in each satrap, except for one. The one we were investigating. What was different? For one, the Ambassador's daughter, Song, exalted, which caused him to be away from the city when the Empress' emissary arrived. Also, the message was apparently received by the king's daughter, Tria, who disappeared soon afterward. Coincidentally, she was Song's best friend.

Did she learn of the plan to kill the Ambassador, and warn her friend? Was she caught by the king or someone in the government, and hidden away to prevent her from doing that?

In any case, as we saw, a few days later, the plague came. Mary Ann referred to it as the Green Sun Wasting. Apparently it was a magical disease caused by the Anathema. And Song had become one of these particular types of Anathema. But anyways, it was her theory that the plague was meant to kill the Ambassador off since he escaped the assassination attempt back at the capital. Which was kinda crazy that they'd wipe out a whole city to kill one guy.

Speaking of, that big explosion we saw from Thorns days ago was indeed the city being destroyed by the Empress activating the defense system. What is going on with the Empress? She seems to be consolidating power and eliminating any threats to her, from the dragonblood houses to the Mask of Winters.

Maryann tasked us with finding Tria- she was sure she was not dead, but her “thread” was being masked somehow. Perhaps by going to the Underworld or the Wyld or the like. So, we went about doing that. Unfortunately, our efforts proved fruitless. So we asked the King, who didn't seem as worried as he should be.

He said a guard had witnessed his daughter leaving the city. We asked to speak to the guard, and we did. He told us the tale of how he saw the Princess leave on horseback, but we soon determined he was lying. And he was paid to do so by the King! Perhaps Az's accusations were well founded. Did the king learn of the letter, and knowing his daughter was friends with Song, do something to Tria just to prevent her from warning her friend?

We decided to interrogate the would be assassins, but the prison guard captain claimed they were already interrogated by their people, and they unfortunately didn't survive the questioning. How convenient. In any case, we asked to see the interrogation room, which was just a broom closet. However, we did find a secret door, which led to an underground tunnel that led to the docks.

At the other end, we found ourselves in a warehouse, and looked around. We found a log, and looking up the date of Tria's disappearance, saw a package was picked up by a merchant of the Opal Pavilion. Unfortunately, when we questioned the local merchants, they knew nothing about such an organization. We're going to need to figure it out and hopefully this will lead us to Tria and some answers.