Letters from The Empire - Part 1

A piece of parchment across your path blows by, if picked up there would be faint traces of glitter and a lip print. Damaged but readable, the letter would say:

To whoever reads or finds this,

I’ve seen war in my time: countless bodies, endless suffering, people begging for death’s release. I have survived battles with demons, Krackens, vampires, and other Liches.

But this is a different kind of Lich.

Roughly a year ago, the Black Lich and his army came for us. Or started to, rather. We prepared with what we knew. He was after the world, as so many villains always are. His journey to do such was driven by one singular desire; To recapture his daughter and re-enthrall her under his control—a control he had held for many centuries and lost.

But why the city of Vlorissfarne’s Empress? So many wondered and asked. So few knew. I had my suspicions, if I’m being honest. Based on things she’d let slip over spiked tea and gumbo. But I could never imagine what the truth was.

She is and has been the embodiment of the Necrotic Leyline. The cross beams of energies where all undead magic meets and dark arcane stirs. She is more than his pseudo daughter, and she is the key to his entire plan to use all the undead in the world to destroy it.

His obsessions with various people in the realm have driven him to do mad things. Kidnap people, torture our citizens, force monsters on our lands, towns, and people as though they are nothing. 

We thought very little of him. A nuisance, a puzzle perhaps, a “future problem.” But the future caught up with us faster than we could imagine. 

Lyrid’rosvilmirev. A Dracolich that had once terrorized Isk’waere and threatened the realm once already had teamed up with the Black Lich. With Ra’altherus himself. 

Her rage against being “vanquished” and thought dead was deep, and with this hate, she demolished the entire city of Hem Malduris. She was leveling the town, creating wreckage, destroying everything that the Archon and dwarves had built before him. The battle raged on, refugees flooded through the portals to the Vlorissfarne’s Mage Tower. The city was lost.

Though renewed over time and rebuilt, the scars of that day haunted us all, and it was far from over. 

Another Lich, one on our side, come to be known as the Silver Lich, had arrived at our lands and used his armies to hold back the forces of Ra’altherus from a great wall that protected our borders. But even his power was no match. His forces destroyed, Ra’altherus marched forward. 

The brave people of Fae’run banded together and met him at all the force we could muster. It wasn’t enough. Vlorissfarne’s Queen, the Silver Lich, a powerful mage Changling, and many others were taken that day.

It was only thanks to the scrying pool of Isk’waere and the compassion of their Princess that allowed us to get anyone back at all. Though the former three were returned, in rough and ragged shape but alive and rescued by our forces, others were lost to us completely.

We didn’t know how bad it would be. We couldn’t know. 

He attacked the Soul Tree of Whispermere and the Mother Tree of the Faewylds. He was looking for power and information, for more thrall to use against us when he came. He would demolish whole kingdoms in our realm to achieve his goal. The trees suffered. Mirrored images of each other, they felt the other each time. Our people did all we could and repelled him. But the full scope of his carnage was revealed to us. And soon, we would see it ourselves.

As the enemy finally arrived at our realms, all we could think was to throw ourselves against their line. But that line has broken now too.

Every day, every moment, the dead march forward. The dead reanimate on the field. For each of us fallen, another of his rise. The tides of war rage against us, and hope is so very far from our sights. 

Banshees, Amalgamations, flesh monsters, skeletons, zombies, all manner of foul and frightening things arrived. They came for us all. They took some of us for their master or themselves. Some returned, others not. So many have already died or become mortally wounded by his forces. The strange undead that are powerful and intelligent. Thoughtful in their actions as they pinpoint our weaknesses as we would each other. It’s slowly becoming clear to us all; we aren’t facing undead with no thoughts. We are facing a hive with power behind its thousand of eyes.

We throw ourselves at our enemy. We cry out for our dead, lost, and wounded. We’re hounded, chased, and tormented by the ever-present reality of the Black Lich and his reign in our land and on our soils. 

But hope, as far off as it seems, is not gone.

We fight. We fight not only with swords and shields. Not only with spells and tricks. We fight with our hearts; we fight with our spirits, souls, and very beings because those are the things that are genuinely at stake.

We cannot let the Black Lich’s reality become our own. We cannot be content to wage battle after battle forever. The spirit of our lands has always been unity. In this unity, we will be victorious. 

Trust me on this one. I’ve lived a long time and seen far too much, seen the faces of so many warriors, willing and drafted. But I have never seen the determined faces of the people of our Empire, of what has become known as the Aramile Conglomerate.

Strong people, willing people. People who will not bend their knees to the will of a tyrant and his wicked ways. Who will not bow their heads to the wants of a world-ending monster. 

These people aren’t like the others I’ve seen. They are vital in the best of ways and weak in the most beautiful ways. 

Together, and only together, will our wills combine and our power genuinely form. The Black Lich, Ra’altherus, is a plague. 

The people of this realm are the cure. 

If you find this, if you come to these lands and manage to read this letter, just know that you are not alone in your fear and rage and confusion. Just know that you too can be part of the cure to this Black Lich and his evil.

Perhaps you could even be our key to victory. Only fate and time will tell.

Signed,

The Shinemera