So with the king dead and defeated, we helped Tria into the role of new ruler, solidifying her power base and taking care of those who tried to depose her and take the throne from themselves during this transition period. This included getting our cousin Belak appointed as the new diplomat. Given the current state of the world, we knew we couldn't stay at the capital too long, as our presence there was endangering the city. But, we couldn't return home either. So, Tria gave us an estate by the coast, as that would give us easier access to leave and go where we want.
Once things were more or less settled, we met with Marianne. She too considered us very lucky that the Empress hadn't blown us off the face of the world with the defense grid, but perhaps while a threat, we weren't as big a threat to warrant blowing us the satrap utterly. The empress did label us Anathema though, as were anyone who opposed the Empress' rule, and the Wild Hunt was quite busy nowadays hunting all these “Anathema” down. Anyways, Marianne had the ability to forsee the threads of fate and the future, and could tell we had an important role to play. There would be a hero rising to save the people from this current danger. None of us were that hero, but she suspected we would be the ones to find that person.
Eventually, it was decided we should meet with the Orphans since we had similar goals. She said we could do this at Nexus, and she could take us there. But it involved drugging us for some reason. In any case, we managed to make it there way quicker than we could have conventionally, so it was worth it. We basically ended up crashing a meeting the Orphans were having with some trade guild members of the city. Basically, we made the proprietor of the establishment think we were the ones meeting with the Orphans, and when those guild members actually showed up, that we were part of the meeting.
It did cause Opheria's cousin Berrel some consternation- obviously given the rebellious nature of the Orphan's endeavor, strangers showing up wanting to meet were quite suspicious. But, we managed to iron it all out. We may not necessarily have the same end goals in mind, but we all wanted to see the Empress' war against us stopped. But, since we could trace our blood to hers through our family line, the only way the Orphans would ally with us is if we cut our familial ties through magical means. That way she couldn't use our blood connection against us. This would mean we could never “legally” have claim to the throne ever. But given we were more or less insurrectionists now, the victor gets to decide terms anyways- either we lose and die, or we win, and it doesn't matter what the “rules” say, it would be a new world order.
So we did. The only other problem was our connections to our manses. They were safe for now, but it would only be a matter of time before the Empress and her forces claimed them and severed our link to them. As part of our new alliance, Berrel pointed us in the direction of some manses in creation we could try and take over. Since Rathimund was the one who needed his hearthstones the most, we decided to claim his new manse first.