By: Raindrop of Soul and King Saegan of Blackwood (and Truth)
Hello fellow Adventurers of the Realms!
For those who are not aware, off the coast of the Arthurian Isles is a land known as Asteria. Asteria was once an idyllic land, but the gods of the land, the Starlords, created twelve beings to help them manage aspects of the universe. These beings decided the best way to do so was to consume it all. These beings are called the Devourers. Although, saying their name can attract their attention, so we tend to refer to them as the antis or hungerers.
Anti what, you might ask. Well, when the Starlords realized their mistake, they created twelve other beings, the guardians, who would stand in opposition to these hungerers. The idea was that when they collided with each other, they would destroy each other and the power would go back to the Starlords. At that point, the Starlords could create more balanced beings to help rule over reality.
But... then we showed up. Adventurers who made friends with the guardians, and formed relationships. We aligned ourselves to aspects of reality, and set out to destroy the Hungerers without losing our friends. Last year, we destroyed the being known as anti-truth. This year, we sought to slay anti-soul and anti-light.
We all met up in Sanctuary. I will not describe where it is in writing, only that you can find it if you need it. ((There's a lovely discord server for folks who enjoy text RP and e-questing. Although the staff does a really good job in making sure you don't need to do either one to participate in events.)) It is a demiplane that helps provide a home for those who have lost their own. From there, we ventured to the lands of Asteria, to a university known as the Onisac University, where the anti-soul had made it's home. We had a quest to do, and we had to do it quickly or anti-light could join forces and we would be fighting two gods at once.
Before we could face anti-soul directly, we had to do two things. One, we had to find all the soul boxes that it had created, freeing the souls it had consumed and trapped. This involved channeling out the souls from the boxes into hematite, then laying them to rest and sending them beyond the veil. Much of the quest involved various challenges to fight our way to soul boxes, or complete various challenges or puzzles that sealed them away. While we did that, we had to build up sufficient soul magic to destroy anti-soul. I performed a ritual which allowed us to capture the power of moments of vulnerability for us to release all at once upon our foe.
Once we had laid to rest all the souls in the boxes, we could face the Devourer of Souls on the field. We set up a place for last rites and healing in the back line, and ritual space for the ritual to destroy it in the back line, and the fighters fought hard. When we had performed the ritual, it became clear that there was still not enough soul energy. So people had to come up to those who performed the ritual and open up about their hopes, fears, desires, and motivations. Once enough power had been built up, I took it to the Devourer of Souls and it consumed me and all the magic and then exploded. Fortunately, Laika had a powerful magic item that brought me back to life.
We also rescued Perseus, a powerful paladin of an Asterian order, who had had their soul eaten by anti-soul and turned into anti-light's servant. When they were rescued, they took Jasper and one other person as their squires to their order.
From there, anti-light came out, as the sun fell and it grew dark. The fight against anti-light was a defensive one. We found the Astral Forge, a powerful artifact of Asteria, and forged swords that could be used to affect the entity. Meanwhile, Perseus empowered Jasper to lead a ritual to entrap anti-light in a circle of light forged from the astral forge and powered by the astral flame. This powerful light spell destroyed anti-light, and won the day for the heroes.
-Raindrop
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We left on a mission to destroy the Devourer of Soul, and the Devourer of Light, and we succeeded. That’s the base of things.
Asteria, in the ruins of a college, our enemies awaited us. Served by ghosts, goblins, and even an array of chimera. The fight was a slog. The enemies seemed to keep coming; at times they felt unbeatable.
Our powerful magics dwindled, and many of us, were sent, rendered to the Servant of the Devourer of Soul, to gamble for our lives.
Until finally, as the sun began to near the horizon, we found what we needed to bring the Devourer of Soul to the field. Soul brought an army. We fought it back only to watch it rise in our wake to cut us down from behind. We broke through the army, striking at the Devourer, only to have them strike back with a force that would sever our souls from our physical forms, and leave us as a husks on the battle field.
When our morale was nearly tapped, several of our casters brought forth a trap; Raindrop presented a soul bomb. The Devourer took the bait, and Raindrop all the same, Raindrop was lost, but the Devourer of Soul was defeated, and all others were freed.
As sun set we left the field, to plan and prepare.
We returned, in the dark of a dreary cold night, prepared for the Devourer of Light. But first, Laika, brought forth a powerful artifact, and with magic backed by the deep meaning of his words, he called Raindrop back from beyond.
We cheered, our army delighted by the complete victory over Soul, and were ready to take on the Light.
Our first task was to find the Celestial Flame and prepare ourselves with weapons of light to assault the Devourer and their minions.
As we made a forge of light’s power, the Devourer arrived with an army of ghosts and bats. It as a terrible defense. The Devourer tapped into it’s power to turn our Friends against us, forcing us to cut down our own in terrible blood.
Our lines were thin, and surely we would have fallen if Elizah hadn’t called on her mystic forge to keep us going midline.. My armor was barely marked before she was fixing it. And so true for those next to me as well.
The fight carried on. More Friends were turned. More blood. More bats and ghosts.
Until finally, we won. Having carried the Forge bearing the Celestial Flame to the Battlefield, our weapons ablaze, we struck our foes down in final victory. Not every fight can be so clear a victory, I am very grateful for everyone’s hard work in making this challenge such a success.
-Saegan
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