Well, he was human before he was a god, and he was still Aroden then, right, everyone agrees on that. He was an immortal human, too, and when he died as a god, his immortality magic brought him back again as a human.

(He's going to keep implying it's something like a very weird elaborate long-lasting Contingent True Resurrection, because he doesn't exactly want to spread what it really is.) 

She's not buying it but it doesn't really matter what she thinks about it. Her government signs the terms of surrender.

Then, at this point, there is mostly just a lot of logistics to do. A really, really, really absurd quantity of logistics, which will be ongoing for weeks if not months. Clerics are borrowed for healing, and for clean water in cities where this was disrupted, though Velgarth mages can also quite effectively sterilize contaminated water and make it safe to drink. Temples are re-consecrated to cut Asmodeus off from them. Donated food and supplies (including some from Velgarth, via inter-world Gate) are brought to the cities hit worst by the fighting, mostly Egorian. Aroden's commanders coordinate with local secular leadership in each city, who will ideally stay put if they seem willing to cooperate with Aroden's rule.

Asmodeus' priesthood, however, definitely can't stay. He's expecting more of them to take up Asmodeus' offer to evacuate, but if they don't want to go straight to Hell, he can also offer them transport to Absalom, where they're unlikely to make much trouble, or to one of the more nominally Chelish colonies that he intends to just make independent, where multiple gods are worshipped including Asmodeus. Or they can renounce their god and stay. Aroden expects most of them not to take up that offer.

The other Chelish colonies are a thorny problem, one he's thought about a lot with no clear right answer. Isger is next door to Cheliax, and he's decided he can govern it just as part of the country for a while, since the alternative seems likely to include Asmodeus keeping it and he really doesn't want Asmodeus as a neighbour; maybe he can make it independent in a few years. Sarcova is even worse, since it's south of the Sodden Lands and very inaccessible from Cheliax, making it difficult to govern, though Gates mitigate that issue a lot. He would just give it independence, but it's also kind of terrible. 

Rahadoum is about to have another election, though, since its elected leader just revealed himself to be Aroden of all people in hiding and then ran off to conquer Cheliax. He can ask if they want it as a colony, along with a dozen Velgarth mages who announce that they'd be delighted to retire to a cushy government job there.

And, announcements. Taver gets a day to rest, and then is back on an even more thorough tour, this time on foot with a couple of Heralds, informing everyone within his prodigious range of Asmodeus' offer and its terms, and the nearby transportation points where Gates can collect them and scheduled transportation days. No one will try to coerce them into not going, if they show up there, though they'll be checked for enchantments. 

Then he makes a separate announcement about Aroden's terms, among them, various plans to help most of Cheliax get to Neutral, if they want, and not go to Hell when they die. Most people are going to be Evil, mostly because of the currency, but there are already plans in place to replace that system, and many people won't be very evil and can counter it with good works, which there will be opportunities for. Also, Aroden commits to offering anyone who wants it the chance at Atonement; he'll arrange clerics to cast it and provide the costly material component. Taver gives some other info on what Aroden has planned, what living in his country will be like, and the fact that Aroden is considering whether to himself go for the Starstone and ascend to godhood again.

(It's mostly going to depend what the final casualty numbers end up being, once that's been tallied, but they seem to have been on the low end of the optimistic projections.) 

And Taver asks the city-folk to help the occupying forces retrieve bodies, and to list relatives who died in the fighting, because Aroden has allies who can provide diamonds to raise everyone who died in the invasion. Clerics will be available to cast the spell in every city starting in a day or two, and can cast Gentle Repose to buy more time for the cheaper Raise Dead to work, but even those who require True Resurrection will be returned to life if at all possible. But Aroden needs the locals' help to make the lists. 

(Things are going smoothly enough that Vanyel's ability to make very large fireballs is mostly unnecessary, and he would MUCH prefer sitting in a quiet workshop churning out diamond after diamond over patrolling a recently invaded city full of terrified civilians.) 

Clerics of Asmodeus leave. Mostly for Hell, where they've been promised comfortable lives in Asmodeus's service; most of the people who leave are clerics or their immediate families. It's about five percent of the population, all told. 

People get him lists of their dead. No civilization in all of history has had so many diamonds; they're very very surprised when he says it, and more surprised when he means it. 

Rahadoum can put whether to have some kind of relationship with Sargava on the ballot too. Rahadoum is kind of mad at Aroden.  There is a resolution on the ballot that is just denouncing him as kind of a jerk. 

People are wondering, if he goes for the Starstone, who will rule Cheliax. 

Aroden thinks it's very fair of Rahadoum to be angry with him. He's planning to return their army before whoever else is officially elected and takes their seat, since it will at that point definitely not be his army anymore. Leareth's able to bring another nearly ten thousand troops over from Velgarth, the ones he wasn't able to line up for logistics sooner, which will cover any gaps. Though, of course, he doesn't intend to keep occupying his own country with an army, or for very much longer at all if he can help it.

He's still considering the question of leadership, but if he does go for the Starstone it won't be for a little while. 

A couple of days after the terms are signed, the Chelish army in Nirvana gets the same announcement from Taver. They're given a few hours to consider and then two Gates will go up, at clearly marked opposite ends of the enclosure. One goes straight to one of the Hell evacuation zones; this isn't ideal but Aroden is hoping it'll reduce the incidence of troops loyal to Asmodeus coming back and then trying to stage rebellions or something. The other Gate goes to Egorian, which of course has its own regularly scheduled transport to the Hell pickups, and Taver strongly encourages people to go to Egorian so they can have more time to think, even if they're still considering Asmodeus' offer. 

Asmodeus is almost definitely going to consider that disloyalty, though. 

Most of the soldiers go to Hell. 

This is pretty unsurprising. Aroden doesn't like it, he would preferred to have offered them more plausible deniability, not made the choice to think about it in itself visible disloyalty, but - he needed to avoid an organized resistance that would kill more innocent people, and make it harder to transition to a stable rule that the civilian population is happy with, more. At this point he thinks a large scale resistance is unlikely, and Taver's countryside tours and Teleport-hops around can catch smaller underground resistance movements before they gain too much momentum.

He dispatches Leareth back to Osirion to talk to the pharaoh about replacing Cheliax's currency, and about setting up temples to Abadar. Even if he does go for the Starstone, which he probably will given the low casualty numbers, he's going to wait a while and it'll be good to have established temples in the meantime. And - well, it was a disaster when he died and suddenly none of the cities in Cheliax had clean water. He should diversify. He also makes it known that any other church (to a Good or Neutral god) that wants to open a temple in Cheliax should coordinate with his temporary administration, and will probably be approved to do so. 

And now for the part that he's not exactly looking forward to. 

Aroden goes back to his personal demiplane, it's where he feels safest and he thinks it should still work from there. He sheds Alter Self like someone else's skin. 

He prays. To Iomedae. It's not a mental motion he's done in a very long time - or ever, in this body - but they clearly need to talk, She's probably been waiting and he wants Her to know that now he's ready. 

And there's a sensation like falling headfirst into rushing water and then - landing, and sitting across from a sharp-eyed Chelish woman of forty. The formerly human gods are better at this sort of thing. 

Her eyes are glittering. 

"Is there," she says, "something I could have done, such that you would have told me."

He ducks his head. "Perhaps. But - I am not thinking of an example, even now–" He cuts off. Shakes his head, smiles sadly. "Choosing Leareth as a cleric demonstrably worked for Abadar, but I think he is not your type. And, how could you have known to do it at all, when you were not aware I was alive. A circular problem."  

"And, while I would not have complained about you telling me a week ago, it's not the thing - the thing I should never have allowed to happen, even if neither of us can think how I could have prevented it. I would have wanted to know a hundred years ago, Aroden, so we could figure out the fastest route here."

"I know. And - I am very sorry. I never thought it was you, not really, how could I. I was so desperate for your help - for anyone's help. But, I was so scared." Here in this place that isn't a place, in his human body that isn't his real body, there can be tears in his eyes. "I did not understand what had happened, how it had happened... I was so weak, it would have taken a mere flicker of thought for a god to eradicate me from the world. Maybe forever, once they knew my immortality method had survived my time as a god. I was very scared, and - perhaps I was a coward, I think in my place you would have been braver - but, it is what I did. I am so, so sorry that it took me so long." 

- she's going to cross the imaginary distance and hug him, here, where this is a metaphor she is sustaining for the sake of his mind anyway. 

"I would've been braver. But I wouldn't have been in your place, I would've been dead, because I do not have so many backup immortality plans that one of them would survive dying as a god. Only you -"

He leans on the metaphor that is her shoulder. Lets himself weep, a little, because even eight-thousand-year-old humans who used to be gods can hurt, and can need the comfort of a friend. 

"I missed you so very much. I hope you will forgive me - that we can work together now, as we did before." 

"Are you still planning to fix everything."

"Of course. I do not think I could be myself and ever stop. Though - I feel much older now, and at this moment very tired, and it is an even more daunting task than I realized. I am not sure how long it will take. I hope you will make sure I do not resign myself to slowing down."

Sigh. "I think I will go for the Starstone, though. Not immediately, but quite soon. I wish I could take a year, or ten, just to - be human - but I do not have much more time left in this body, and - I would not have all the suffering people in the world wait just because I am weary." 

"There is a year or ten of work to be done in Cheliax that will be harder, as a god."

"There is an ally who I would trust with it, as thoroughly as I trust myself. It may still not be this year, that I go, if it proves thorny in Cheliax, but I do not intend to leave them governed by one insufficient to the task." 

She pulls back from the hug. "I will have you know it is actively a lot of work not to read everything in your mind when we are doing this."

"Oh, I was assuming that you were reading everything in my mind and my willingness to speak with you accepted that as a precondition. I should tell you this part anyway, I think, Abadar is aware and it is strategically relevant. Nethys also knows but only in the sense that He knows everything in all the worlds." He takes a metaphor-deep breath. "Leareth is - myself. From another world, another history, but a remarkably similar one, though his tale is at the point before where I became a god in mine. I had many levels of contingency-plans to win the war by an overdetermined margin even without his help, of course, but I did not even need to touch most of them, thanks to his aid. Anyway, he does not rule a country in his world and his local gods dislike him - I think even our gods find them impossible to work with, Abadar at least. I do not think he would mind moving here to inherit my realm, though I have yet to pose him the question directly." 

"It's a lot less frustrating to read you but I really want to be someone you'll talk to! 

- and that - makes sense of the bits of the war that I think everyone was most taken aback by. I - wish he were Chelish, I think it matters, but probably less than it matters to actually be competent and trying.

My country, Aroden, my people - there were so many children, who understood, who would've done so much for the world, and it would kill them, if I chose them, and maybe it would have been better anyway."

"I know, Iomedae. I know. I watched it happen from across the sea, and I knew what it meant - every piece of it." Sigh. "If there is someone else who is competent and trying, I will consider them too, but - I cannot justify staying human another few decades just for that, and I doubt that Asmodeus will have left me much to work with in the shorter run."