Start Where Things Ended: Druengar Falls

What happens after one story ends? Where do our heroes go? What becomes of them? Will we ever see them again? This week’s challenge asks us to explore these questions and many more in order to create something new from the ashes of the old.

For my part I have chosen a story that will require some introduction. The story opening itself can be read without knowing what came before. For those who would rather just read the story please skip to after the giant image. For everyone else stick around for a minute.

My wife and I are huge Dungeons and Dragons nerds. It’s our main activity when we’re at home, and almost out sole source of human interaction. Together we have cobbled together a campaign setting we call Bri. In this world we have a canonical set of adventures we play through. She is the game master for some of these, and I for the rest. The particular story in question revolves a game she led and we both story boarded. We played once a week for a little over a year on this story.

Long story short we were on a continent blocked away from the rest of the world by an artificial storm. Our characters had managed to get lucky and befriend a few gods and also find a magical airship which allowed us to gain the help of a powerful and advanced military while securing lucrative trade routes for our characters. In doing so we managed to put an end to two major wars in a span of a few weeks, and we ended it all by stopping a major frost giant invasion from another plane in just three days. We even pushed into their territory, and slew their king in honorable combat allowing our party NPC to become the new king of the frost giants. It seemed as if we had done everything right and secured a lasting victory for the world.

But had we?

I hope you all enjoy this story. I’ve spent a good amount of time working on what I have so far. In spirit of the challenge it’s only the beginning of the story. I will finish this up, and if there is interest I will post it in its completed form on here. Either way I will be using it as an introduction to the next game I run and will need to finish it.

Let me know what you think.

#startwhereweendwriters

Two things stood out in the room, the tangy, gunpowder scent of alchemical cartridges from the ever-growing munitions pile and the dim blue light of the cursed portal that washed over everything like water. It was an otherwise normal warehouse. A normal warehouse that was now the only connection this strange Vinland had between themselves and the rest of the world. I’m uncertain of the details, and if I were to be blunt with you I’d say I didn’t want to be. King Ddanwyn might be my predecessor, he might be the rightful king chosen by Aneil himself but it didn’t make him any wiser or less reckless for it. He worried me.

   Men and women had been milling through the portal for the last twelve hours piling the munitions higher and higher. The mission had been a success. These ice giants we were hired to eliminate had proven to be little more than fodder for the tanks and artillery. Word had it the stench of blood was so strong that it could be smelled for hundreds of miles and the blood was so thick upon the ground streams were forming as it flowed into the sea. I shivered and gagged at the thought. Blood was never something I enjoyed smelling. It always dredged memories along with it. Memories I’d rather forget.

   I stared at the portal intent on dragging myself back from memory lane. It was still. I don’t mean the flowing surface of it stopped. That still rippled like a pond on a rainy day. It was something far less dramatic, our line of troops had stopped. Simply ceased their endless chain of munitions. It was far too early for that. I looked around the room. The last group to have come through had just finished stacking and documenting their load.

   I looked at one of them. Not anyone specific, just the first of them who made eye with me. There’s a certain effect that meeting someone’s gaze has on people. It’s almost as if you can communicate without speaking to them. He gulped appropriately before clacking his boots together and saluting me, “Sword Vercingetorix, sir!”

   “Is there a reason no one has followed you?”

   His eyes seemed to say something like how should I know, I’m not in charge. “No, sir.”

   “Then there weren’t orders for a break on the other side?”

   He shook his head. “There were several groups loading up ammunition right behind us. They shouldn’t have been more than a few minutes behind us.”

   My stomach flopped. “Check on them for,” I stopped mid-sentence and my hand fell to my sword. The color must have drained from my face because the man I was addressing panicked and ran through the portal. He ran through the portal to find what I now knew had caused the pause.

   The king was dead.

   It took me a moment to get my bearings. Emotions are powerful things. You’d think they were something you can get over, but when they hit hard, fast and unexpected you learn the truth. There are some things you just can’t get over. My knees quaked for a moment and I rocked hard as the tears flooded down my face. Ddanwyn, previous Sword of Aneil, and perhaps the most powerful man in Druengar was dead. My face flushed, and my teeth clenched as the anger came over me. Whoever did this would pay. Whoever did this would…

   A figure fell, rolling onto its back, out of the portal unleashing some kind of magic upon it. A hush fell and the watery surface turned red, hard, and still as a garnet. Blood was already pooling beneath him starkly contrasting the pale greys of his military uniform and his close kept black hair. At the rate he was going he wouldn’t last another twenty minutes, and judging by his pallor I doubted even that long. My heart fell even further as Aneil’s mantle flared over him and immediately began to flicker out.

   Long live the king.

   Vengeance could wait. If Donovan were still alive that was his domain. For now, I had a dying king on my hands and I didn’t think I could take a second loss of that sort in one day. I rushed to his side and put his head in my lap so I could massage a potion of health down his throat. He was cold. Colder than a corpse already. Aneil’s mantle pulsed and he felt alive again. Then something surged, sending tendrils of pain and fear through my entire system. It was cold. Colder than anything I had ever felt before, and it was fighting the mantle. This time the shivers weren’t from the cold, cloying entity. This thing was fighting the power of a god, I gulped, and it was winning.

   The king let out a moan as I felt whatever it was inside of him begin to spread. Frost began to fill the air. My brain screamed at me to run. To cut my losses. To do anything but be overwhelmed. My body didn’t listen. It felt numb. I know that sounds a bit cliche with all the talk of cold, but it was a different variety altogether. This was something deeper, more emotional, perhaps even spiritual. It screamed at me to give in and just obey. It screamed to surrender.

   I could just kill the king. That sounded like a good idea. Whatever was inside him would surely die alongside him, right? I could feel it lashing out at my sword as if it could hear me and wanted to stop me. I reached for the sword to knock it away from its grasp. A white light greeted my eyes and flung me back with deafening force.

   It was then the others in the area seemed to snap out of it and take action. I was roughly dragged to my feet as several others fetched a stretcher. Two others began pouring potions down his throat to stabilize him. The damage whatever it was had been done. I stared at the portal red and dormant and wondered which one of us was safer. May Aneil have mercy on our souls.

   I turned to the soldiers attending the king. “Get him to the clerics. Something is horribly wrong.”