I was 14 when Rani and I traveled to their homeland of Fae to deal with something called the Iron Road. It was a blight on the land, though not one I fully understood at the time. That was my first time, at least according to my memory, that I ever truly and intentionally fielded against the Risen Kingdom. I didn’t know it at the time, but that one decision to field that day changed the trajectory of my adventuring career.
I was freshly 17 when we pushed back the Risen Kingdom’s invading force out of the Realms as we know it. I remember it was a tough fight and thinking “well, this is a hell of a way to celebrate being 17”. I remember thinking that the universe gave me a great present in the form of vengeance against Virgil Triskwater, the person who led the invasion into the Realms in the first place.
And now I get to say: I was 23 when we liberated Gi from the Risen Kingdom, and freed Jack from the Fallen King. In just ten days, we pushed back the armies of the Fallen King and delivered Gi a future that had been robbed from it so long ago. Here’s what happened during those ten days.
One the first day the party and I had gone out for our first engagement. Somehow, I ended up leading a squadron of masons to support a squadron of stone golems. I know nothing about masonry but watching those masons dive into the fray the same way I do to heal, was extraordinary. This was unfortunately the only time I would field with that squad.
While getting some rest on Day two of our invasion, Fern asked me if I wanted to participate in a funeral of sorts for the souls of Gi that haven’t passed on yet. One of the things the Fallen King was doing to Gi was taking the souls of the dead for himself. He had long since erased the concept of death from the minds of Gians, so there wasn’t a god of death who could oppose him in doing so. The Grayman agreed to come into Gi to help ferry souls away from the Fallen King and onto the afterlife that befit them, we would just have to give him a signal.
Fern led a lovely service where those who gathered we able to say a few words. Then Jean Baptiste read out loud every known name of those who had fallen before us in Gi. Grarr, using a lent out Boon of Hashinabe Ur, and I, using a surge of my own magic, were able to put a hell of a lot of power into signaling the Grayman to start reaping souls. However, Fern, Grarr, and I were pulled into a vision.
It was complete darkness around me. I was myself, but not really. Looking back, I think I was inhabiting one of the souls that had been left behind. A voice suddenly called to me, said it was time, and asked if I wanted to go. I paid him two coins and suddenly I was beyond the reach of the Fallen King. That’s when we heard a deafening shout, declaring that these souls were his. How dare we rob what is his?
Fern definitely made the right call to postpone this ritual until after we had begun the invasion. The three of us awoke shortly after, with an interesting new ability. If we had the coins to pay the Grayman, we could put those souls to rest without the use of hematite. Unfortunately, going on a soul quest to bring death back to an entire plane will leave you feeling weird and Fern, Grarr, and I took a small respite for the rest of the second day.
Sometime on the Third day, we went out into an area with a tall portal gate and what looked to be a stone monument next to it. Ryu and Cressida were gathering Bards to sing the adventurers into battle. While it’s been a while since I had gone on a stage and performed, I couldn’t resist the call. It was towards the end of the song when I spotted him, the Fallen King. I saw red after that. The was the man who had taken over Gi, robbed them of their land, of the ability to move on in death. Most of all, this was the man who was still currently inhabiting the body of our ally: Jack. I came too when he began to go after Margaret. Right then, I had to be a pretty good speed bump. He pursued us pretty far. In the end, Orion and I ended up in a conversation with him. He asked us if we were ready to see the end together.
We took each other’s hands, looked the Fallen King in the eye, said something I can’t put in the view, then proceeded to promptly get out of there. All to the sound of a very confused Fallen King proclaiming that “He will never understand Mortals.”
It was between Days four and five that we were able to launch two teams to activate the portal we had seen earlier. There was the team that was going to take the direct fight to the Fallen King and a smaller strike team to activate the portal we were going to send him through. I was on the strike team. We snuck through, dealing with any “witnesses” along our way until we were able to flank the enemy. We rushed in and activated the portal. Some of us elected then to teleport out into the Dreamliner. I don’t remember why I didn’t, I just remember waking up in the tavern with my soul hurting.
I then took a small rest and changed my focus away from on field support to off field support. Seagan had found an interesting runic set and was working on translating it. I lent about as much brain power as I could to it, though in the end I had to walk away before the full translation. Half because it felt like my brain was melting out of my skull and half because a small handful of us realized that we had not seen the rest of the party since they had gone out on a mission. Of course, it’s just my luck that by the time I made it out there, I was only able to look at the remnants of the “Soul Boulder.”
As Day seven blurred into day eight, a portion of us went to go recover more of the pieces of the former gods of Gi. We went to a guarded area. They weren’t live guards, but rather some sort of automated sweeper system. The rest of the party was able to find these small stones that had runes on them. They were a mix of the runes that we had encountered before and futhark. We were able to figure it out in the end and were able to put an end to the “Endless night” that seemed to always be plaguing the plane.
The sun had just begun to warm us up on day eight when we went out again to collect more for the old gods. This time, the challenge was to bring boulders that had rolled of the mountain back up while dodging wraiths. The key to defeating these wraiths was to have someone else distract them and attack them from behind. Swoop ended up being my MVP as he was able to come up with a song to help us pass the time rolling boulders up mountains.
I rested again on day nine. Like actually slept rested and not just sitting down rested. I knew the next day was not going to be kind to me and wanted to be in decent shape for when we inevitably had to fight the Fallen King for the final time. I fielded briefly once as a part of a rescue mission that was… less than successful. I don’t remember many of the specifics, but when I came back to, all of the items that were once on me were gone. Thankfully, another group worked on recovering these. Though as a side note, for reasons completely unrelated to the items being returned to me broken, if you have the spell reforge and want to make some gold: flag me down at the next gathering we’re both at! Just, don’t tell Tao please.
The final day of our invasion was when we made the final push to take the fight back to the Fallen King. We positioned ourselves to be able to fight of a good amount of the Risen Kingdoms forces before facing them head on.
We made our way to where the Fallen King was, the field swarmed with our armies clashing. The Fallen King paraded himself around the battlefield, proud even as we slaughtered his army. That's when Jean Baptiste decided to take matters into his own hands. After figuratively wrestling the final piece of the old gods from the Fallen King, JB began to literally wrestle him. Which worked to be able to physically subdue the Fallen King so that JB and those around him could soul channel the Fallen King out of the body he was inhabiting and give it back to its original owner: Jack.
We have been able to get most of our armies out since then, with a handful of us staying behind in Gi to enable them to rebuild. Not me though. Power to those guys, truly, but after ten days, I started to miss home with its cold showers and actual beds.
My griping about the conditions or war aside, the fact remains that we did it. We were able to give Gians a future free from the tyranny of the Fallen King and the Risen Kingdom. We brought hope to a dying world. Gi for the Gians!
By my hand,
Sir Magus Kara
Knight of Blackwood
Magi of the Realms