Shentu Wo: 3429 Power, 2,716 Followers
Kikai Senso: 9,910Power, 350 Followers, Next Form Progress: 28%
Lin Sun: 1,040Power, 875 Followers
Con Lai: 2431 Power, 3, 821 Followers
Caine: 5064 Power, 1,785 Followers

The Snake cult has been heavily damaged in Akhetaten with the Vua Cai taking over operations. While Sheridan was a good information hunter it was largely because of his power as a glamor vampire. The shinobi house of Hanzo led by Jin is far more effective in this clandestine war spanning multiple nations. Several of their movements have been discovered and with the help of Emilia we figured out just how deep they have infiltrated Hale’a Jeongsin already.

Now for the bad news, its a pretty deep web and they struck once again. Adelaide ports are burning, Abel is dead, Rena is dead, Ilo Hae is dead, and there were several other prominent assassinations carried out within a single mass orchestrated day. Vris was also a target of an attack but Johnathan Zhi prevented it with his fancy perception powers. Lo’c was also a target of assassination but that one was thwarted by the fact that Lo’c apparently didn’t realize he’d been poisoned and suffered no effects. The only reason anyone even noticed was because Roku caught the assassin due to an entirely unrelated investigation. However, the Jinko want Lo’c moved to Kagayakashi and locked up tight before they go after him again. Also concerning, several Jinko project chassis’ were stolen and have not been recovered.

On an amusing note, they also tried to gain an alliance with the pirates to further their agenda of just total chaos. It seemed the perfect alliance, until they apparently forgot that unlike Rackham – Eli does not tolerate their religious beliefs and killed them. Since their plan is to release a god from its imprisonment, they’re on the Atlantean shit list now too.

The Moses project was actually pretty easy for Ishikama Hanzo. Despite this being the biggest hit on the entire list, even factoring in the snake boys, Hanzo accomplished it without any problems at all and sent Moses to meet An Lahn Tien. Who also managed to easily extract the conspiracy from Moses to confirm what Naomi believed, he can’t speak to Jehova at all. No one can. However, Jehovah can still grant blessings and Moses can control who they go to. However, there is no way to indicate who to revoke them from as the way he tells which ones should receive it is by presenting the individual before the altar and making some gestures that Jehovah seems to have figured out as “please bless this dude”. Though the level of Jehovah’s involvement is questionable, if he really comprehends why they want the blessings or what they’re used for is up for debate.

However, the spy network cannot find any further conspirators actually in on it other then two cardinals. It turns out each time a new high prophet is chosen they are let in on whats going on, if they weren’t already one of the two, and given a lot of reasons to keep it going. In fact, the illusion that Moses does speak to Jehovah has a lot of major benefits in keeping away a lot of scary things like the snake cult or more bold demonic moves as well as deeper corruption within the ruling powers and church. Reports also indicate many will join her side purely to uproot the church and shake up the established order, usually in a way that will benefit them more then staying in their current living situation. Given the close proximity of the church to the ruling powers, it is expected most higher ranked nobles will side with the church whereas lower ranked ones might go with Naomi except for those who are truly faithful to the church as Moses has portrayed it.

While we’re at it Naomi also feels it might be super important to actually tell people what Excalibur does in case that impacts people’s planning. It is, obviously, the most famous and powerful weapon in the known world but the stories of what it does changes dramatically between sightings and tales. The truth is, it learns the power of any other weapon that comes within its vicinity and permanently gains the abilities of that weapon at its own power level, since it is the most powerful artifact weapon in the world that usually means its more powerful then whatever it stole the ability from.

Meanwhile to the east, Drakon has taken over Svarga. Everyone in it has either been enslaved by Krovkom or murdered. A large part of the problem came from within, traitors sold out information on its defenses and assisted in sabotaging them as well which made it easy for the striders to completely overpower those who remained loyal. However, despite now holding the city Krovkom seems to leave the temple of Brahma alone. Innokenti passed word on from Shenlong that if anyone messed with that temple he would personally incarnate and kill them. They haven’t actually learned what the gates are according to our spies. Shenlong has been careful not to tell them about it and instead spoke more of the sacredness of Brahma.

Moraxus of Si Da managed to encounter and kill the Strider of Nazarious Galina, though for the most part Si Da has opted to leave Nazarious’ legion alone now. The Jade empire is already damaged enough and it is defensively focused as it cannot really attack the Jakaal remnant now that the Pit is destroyed. Instead, Si Da “Invaded” Shahira. Turns out Shahira doesn’t give enough of a shit though and so they’ve been allowed to just pass through along the sands to avoid the wild lands that Song Yi has turned against them. They seem to be moving around the Jade Empire and the now powerful colonies of Nazarius to try and get to Svarga. Since Nazarius does not really know or care about the importance of Svarga he isn’t really trying to stop them and instead focusing on expanding his new empire. He seems to be colonizing the Lengdon mountains specifically, someone had to pin Song Yi down to stop her from going to attack them.

Shento:

On the upside Emilia is pretty good at homeland security and already found 18 traitorous individuals within the nation. On the downside this means she found out your nation is pretty much infiltrated on every level. Vua Cai movements are sold to Atlanteans, Si Da champions live in the jungles to kill off or recruit your best up and comers, Svarga is basically just a mess all around, doomsayers report to Drakon from within the Aetas, this goes on and on. This is primarily because not necessarily all these things are actual enemy spies, just citizens who will sell information about you guys to others. Song Yi has always led her nation with an open nature, as you may recall she held government meetings in the gardens that all of Yaosai could attend. This has made it exceptionally easy for anyone else to find out whatever they wanted about you, and is a large factor in how the cult of Apophis assassinated so many people so quickly.

Speaking of which – three more high ranking vampires, including Abel, were also recently assassinated during the more fledging stages of Emilia’s agency. Kaja predicts they’re trying to piss you off enough to get a reaction that could devolve into further chaos.

We also found out the snake cult tried to contact Atlantis for assistance in spreading their anarchic dream. They apparently forgot that just because Eli spreads chaos doesn’t mean he’ll tolerate their religious beliefs. So that delegate team died.

Sheridan has largely sounded a full retreat from Akhetaten as ordered, this snake cult shit is getting out of hand and the Vua Cai seem to be taking over this show under the command of Jin Zhang with the shinobi house of Hanzo.

Unfortunately, Hayate can find no orcs with the actual talent to become blademasters. Only Kekoa has the violent nature needed to be a full blown warrior. He could train some anyways though, just no gaurantee they’ll be comparable to a paladin or vampire.

While the plan to intercept the tyrants and send them home went fairly well, they aren’t happy about it. After the night of the assassinations in which Abel died, several of them went rogue again. Many are now hunting the snakes without supervision and some even act on behalf of Atlantis now. With so many tyrant vampires leaving the  nation, the Feral Scion seems to have also disappeared. Later in the year he would reappear with an entire clan of ferals again, now flying the banner of Krovkom.

A long and lengthy network of tunnels runs under Divya with the help of Bahamut though no action is currently being taken. However, a lot of Templars are sitting around your place in Hale’a along with Akhetaten and Altepetl ready to march on Krovkom as was arranged for previously.

Alex maintains power in the vacuum Carmilla left through pure force. With the Crimson Order loyal, she was able to use them to overwhelming threaten anyone who tried to cross her. While things are still overall a  mess, she’s not doing too bad at damage control. Emilia has her under heavy guard, she is likely to be the next target of the Cult of Apophis if they don’t take you leaving Akhetaten as surrender at least.

Lin Sun:

Despite the assassination attempt Vris doesn’t seem all that phased. Even when the would-be assassin was caught just minutes before trying to kill her she didn’t look up from her project and just mumbled something about them dealing with it. So she’s handling it well.

Con Lai:

With Sheridan pulling out of Akhetaten, its now the Vua Cai’s show in dealing with the snake cult. Fortunately, you have a bunch of ninjas. Unfortunately, just as Shento discovered, they retaliate pretty hard. The Vua Cai in general have never really dealt with this kind of sneaky cult and one of the main ports in Adelaide was set on fire, while the perpetrators were found and killed, thus identified, it didn’t stop the damaging effects very well. While it wasn’t the whole place and only two or three ships burned, all were visiting merchants and not members of your own fleet. This has been a major blow to PR and the port’s commerce. Fortunately the monopoly on the river of dreams makes it hard for them to get too worried just yet at least. But Jin and the gang report that this is just starting. While they uprooted another cult base of operations, several members of his team were assassinated over the last few months as well. Malati was killed when she found Maliken himself, and then promptly lost that fight.

Rena was assassinated by the snake cult as well, which definitely didn’t help the PR problem of the burning ships. Jin’s Report indicates that Nergal’s apprentice Maliken was directly responsible for the entire night of murders throughout Hale’a. Though he has been unable to actually find Maliken, he also has discerned the cult of Apophis is not entirely aware he is working with them and helping them along. Granted, exposing that proves to be near impossible given the skillset of Nergal’s forces.

Submarine progress: They can make it go under water, but not come back up. Lo’c still hasn’t worked out how to do that second part, at least its easy to retrieve the prototype from the dock.

As for the drakon spying, the most notable weakness they find could be exploited is the Dragon Master’s individual greed as they try to build their wealth to gain status and power. They theorize the more reasonable masters could be negotiated with and bribed if the wealth was sufficiently appealing. They also found out that while it isn’t obvious back home to you guys, by the talks of dragons here it is clear this very weakness is being exploited by Mammon and that is how Krovkom suddenly appeared and decided to take over Svarga very specifically even if he didn’t know the wasteland of a city’s significance.

Kikai:

The Jinko want Lo’c kept safe at Kagayakashi. Lo’c says thats silly and doesn’t want to be locked up in a dungeon for his own security. Roku’s entire strike team is now just hovering around Lo’cs general vicinity on full paranoid guard until a more official order is handed out for dealing with the subject.

Caine:

The nation takes a major blow as Ilo Hae is somehow assassinated. As the primary PR figure, the loss was rather prominent and has sparked outrage. Without orders several of the hunters are now dispersing across the nation looking for snake cultists out of a mix of revenge and paranoia.