I need to preface this account with the fact that, I, Saegan, am not from the lands of Middenheim, Helheim, Asgard or the like. I don't understand their culture, and I find it strange and different.
Beginning our adventure, the people of the Realms and I were informed that we’d be traveling into the realm of the dead, Helheim. We were told that Hela was besieged by her former generals, who were trying to prevent Ragnarok, and that we were to undertake covert missions to diminish their strength and allow Hela to retake her realm.
We were also told that Hela doesn't like to give up things or people that venture into her lands, and that we were have to trick our way out.
I was surprised that the people of the Realms thought this was a good idea. Particularly my friends Tao, Torolf, and Vawn. We were literally venturing into the Realm of the dead. To help an aspect of death, bring about Ragnarok, dear reader. Which if you didn't know, is the end of life, liberty, and existence to those in the encompassed lands.
Yeah. We’re the bad guys.
Torolf is of these lands, and I know him to be of good judgement, and he’s convinced that this is a good idea, so I was resolved to, at the very least tag along. You may not know this reader, but as a Knight of Blackwood, I am sworn to protect it’s people, and sometimes that means charging after them into the land of the dead.
No, really, I can't make that up. Pay attention to the oaths you make.
Charging into the land of the dead was like running into pea soup. The air was thick with a miasma that felt like fighting on your saddest day. Kind of like you found out your puppy had died after three days of forced marching across Blackwood.
Our weapons seemed heavier, our magic seemed just too hard, and most everyone just wanted to nap.
But that wasn't an option as hordes of undead lurched upon us.
I was resolute in my opinion that we were not doing the right thing here, and opted to stay out of the fighting as much as possible. However my allies were crashing against hordes of dishonored undead and it became apparent that there would be times where I would need to step in, less others die undeserved.
Allies looting the bodies quickly found what we believed to be the embodiment of honor. It became quickly clear just how effective honor was in helping people feel better about being among the dead on helheim. Over time people found the strength to lift greater weapons and swords, and spirits were high enough to bring about powerful magics as well.
I couldn't help but wonder about the honor people were stealing from the downed bodies of the dishonored dead. Was this honor collected by the dishonored dead in order to redeem themselves? Were we robbing them of their chance of a better afterlife to power ourselves? Was it actually honor at all?
I opted not to take these tokens. It was exhausting choosing to be affected by the miasma of the lands, but I will not let any land determine my honor for me. It is mine, and it cannot be stolen, stripped away, or taken by force.
There were other ways to garnish power, weird fetishes, involving bones, and dark powers. And while I feel no moral objection to these things, it seemed wrong to forsake “honor” in favor of “fetish”. So sluggish I remained.
There were many doors and challenges throughout our adventure. Many of the doors were locked by strange bone magic that would only be keyed open by strange bones cut to make specific notes when whanged against.
Had we assembled them into one piece I'd like to think we’d call them the xylobones, but this was not a place of humor or puns, rather it was raw despair.
Trudging through many doors and numerous undead, we’d come across a mythology that a hero had managed to escape the lands of the dead by creating a likeness of himself to trick the guard.
The dishonored must've heard of this too because we found many dolls, mommets or simulacrum perhaps, that bore no likeness. Perhaps the undead were plotting their escape? I don't know. But we were able to collect enough to make a copy of ourselves for each of our party members.
One of our missions for example involved us taking souls of the dead and bringing them to a pit so that they could await Ragnarok. We were literally trapping souls to inescapable damnation. We were the bad guys.
Finally we came across a missive from the person sending us on this hellish debacle. The message stated that we were to break into a lab and smash it to bits. But carefully. It said that there was a being there and that the sender did not know what to make of it, but it was a problem. We were to destroy everything.
We got there, and fortunately, and perhaps for the first time in Realms history we stopped and thought before smashing everything like we were told we ought to. This was fortunate because the being caught in the lab was a Bois. A Bois being sapped for power to infuse the dishonored undead with.
This left me was a moral conundrum. The “enemy” was using Bedlam to empower the undead army. But they were doing it to stop the end of all days. How far would I go to stop the end of all days? Perhaps not that far. But I have not been pushed to a point where I would need to make that decision, reader.
On the other side, our “informant” had sent us in with the intent to destroy everything. To burn the place down. Had they wanted us to release Bedlam? If we had done things a different way, would we have both Ragnarok, and Bedlam on the loose? I don't know. It just brings me to question right and wrong further.
I don't know the right side of this final section. But we did the best we could, and the Bedlam seemed to fade from existence, so we were seemingly in the best possible end condition. Then it was just to escape Helheim’s clutches.
This turned out to be easy. The guard at the gate was just a massive wolf. And he liked to play fetch with our simulacrum. We literally just slipped away as easy as that.
So to sum it up, friend reader, we snuck into the underworld, robbed the dead of their honor, messed with powers and magics we did not understand, trapped souls in eternal damnation, played chicken with Bedlam, and all in the name of stopping the guys trying to prevent the end of everything.
We were the bad guys.
-Saegan
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OOC-
Guys this was a truly great event, and it should be noted that this WYM has been clouded by Saegan’s bias, although it is accurate to his perspective. A big thank you to Rhiassa and friends for all the effort put into this event, and I hope to see you all on the field.
-Keith