After Action Report Expedition Omega Events of 18 November 1023 B.M.R.
The morning was cool and dry when I left the city to board Revenge. A perfect day for sticking it to the Risen Kingdom.
Quite a lot of work had gone into preparing for this Expedition. Research from the Subtle Thread and individual adventurers poured in as soon as I set foot on the recently expanded Dreamliner. Magus Prime James Swift was already preparing what he called a “mass silvering” ritual, so that our party would be well-equipped to defeat Void-infused creatures. And perhaps most importantly, Cap’n Cimone needed to load all of her provisions into the galley. That’s right, Revenge has a galley now. I’m always impressed by the modifications that the artificers make to this vessel.
The most crucial upgrade to the Dreamliner for this mission was the ability to navigate into lesser-Known parts of the Dreaming, allowing us to access far more enemy-occupied demiplanes than ever before. Ever since we pushed them out of our Realms, the Risen Kingdom has established resource harvesting operations in numerous other planes to sustain their ravenous regime. We have previously attacked four of these outposts (three during Expedition Alfa last year and a fourth this past October), but this accounts for only a third of the total number of successful attacks we need to make against the enemy’s infrastructure in order to trigger Total Void Cascade. And with signs that the Risen Kingdom was imminently reinforcing their harvest portals, we needed to move against them with urgency.
Unfortunately, the complex systems of a vehicle which travels physically through the Dreaming are rather laborious to start up. But as always, the individuals who controlled these systems soon fell into an efficient rhythm. I passed the captain’s chair to the Baron Diamond soon after getting underway (though come to think of it, I doubt he ever stopped moving long enough to sit in it) as he had a natural intuition for piloting the Dreamliner and the Reforged Iron blades on my belt were keen to lay into the enemy.
The briefing for Expedition Omega was straightforward: navigate Revenge to a demiplane and send in a strike force to attack the Void portal in that world while the vessel moved on to the next one. Once our forces reached the portal, they were to flip its attunement and recall back to the Dreamliner. And we needed to do this at least eight times during the six-hour mission.
Following a recommendation from Sir Saka, we organized into two “away teams” so that we would be able to attack multiple portals simultaneously. This strategy yielded mixed results, as our divided efforts were defeated on several demiplanes. With time working against us, the decision was made to throw our full strength at one target at a time, with the hope that the increased likelihood of success would outweigh the cost of moving more slowly.
Attacking each demiplane in force did in fact significantly increase our success rate. And incredibly, we were achieving these successes faster than we had before. Both Dreamliner crew and the away team became orchestras of war, each moving more and more efficiently with every beat. Our final attacks were so rapid that we would recall to the Revenge after flipping a portal and immediately teleport out to attack another one. The Risen Kingdom must think that we attacked them with a force threefold larger than we actually were.
I am deeply grateful to every single person who came on this Expedition. The many hands, minds, swords, and spells that we brought to bear against the enemy made our mission a clear victory! Of the ten portals we flipped in this attack, nine still remain active. This suggests to me that the Risen Kingdom is still unaware of the full extent of the damage we have inflicted upon them. The tenth portal—according to reports—no longer exists, and neither does the world it had been built in. Even before we set out on Expedition Omega, we had heard rumors of a deadly new superweapon in the hands of the enemy; I fear that the lost world might be confirmation of its existence.
In the light of these successes and in the face of the dangers ahead of us, I bid you—remember these words from the old Gidan Resistance:
We shall not yield
We shall not fear
In service to all who oppose the Risen Kingdom,
Commander Sir Orion