Necropalypse: The River of Souls

Necropalypse: The River of Souls is a forum based RP based in the world of Val. It's the sequel to an earlier RP called Necropalypse.

### Plot summary

#### Chapter 1

The Chaoz guild has to deal with the aftermath of the attack from Necropalypse. An organization of Necromancers whose goal was to turn every living being in Val into an undead creature. They managed to fend off the attack and kill the Wraith king, the leader of Necropalypse. After that Necropalypse disbanded itself.

But they soon hear rumors of groups of undead creatures attacking small towns. They send a team to investigate. Roltharus the lightbulb, a bounty hunter with control over shadows. S.C.O.T.T-79747, a robot. Doomy, a soul reaper and Death's nephew. And Reganya, A faceless woman and former Necropalypse member.

Once they get to their destination it doesn't take long before things go wrong. The moon begins to shine green and mummies swarm all around the town. They quickly take care of the mummies but these undead just get back up again, and again and again. That's when a mysterious figure shows up and kills the mummies. The stranger introduces himself as Herst and then promptly disappears.

Reganya thinks Mekheris, an ex-Necropalypse member, is the one behind this. Since his specialty is mummies, that and there's a giant silver pyramid in the distance. Mekheris likes to show off. So the party heads towards the Pyramid to confront Mekheris.

They travel through a dark swamp to get there and then break into the pyramid. Making their climb up to the very top. Somewhere along the way they leave S.C.O.T.T-79747 behind after he runs out of batteries. They confront Mekheris but he summons three undead sphinxes and runs away. They deal with the Sphinxes and race after Mekheris. They manage to block off his escape. But then Mekheris tells them Undead creatures can't die as long as the moon is green. Which includes him.

That's when Herst jumps in and kills him by destroying his soul. The group then discusses how to get rid of the green moon and end this mess. They find a book with Mekheris his plans. As they read it they find out that the silver pyramid is diverting the River of Souls, which is causing this mess. So they decide to blow up the Pyramid.

After retrieving S.C.O.T.T-79747 they use a duplicate of his mana core to build a bomb. And then they get out of there as fast as possible. After the bomb goes off Herst offers his help to the others. Because they are far from done. According to Mekheris his notes they still needed to realign the River of Souls to fix this mess. To do this they must go to it's source. But they have no idea where it could be.

They had one clue however. The River of souls was made by Death herself. And Doomy was her nephew, unfortunatly Death died when Necropalypse attacked the Guild. Luckily Doomy had a sister who might know more, empress Valkyria. So that's where they headed next, after dropping off S.C.O.T.T. at the guild.

#### Chapter 2

The party used the guilds ornithopter to fly to the castle of empress Valkyria. Once there they debated wether to attempt to ask to see the empress or sneak into the castle. They eventually went with the first option. At first the guards refused to let them in. But the empress herself was watching and ordered the guards to let them in.

At first the throne room was empty and the party could only hear the mysterious empress her voice. She then intimidated them and questioned them about their role in Death's death. When they gave satisfying answers she revealed herself and her mood switched to a more pleasant and welcoming one.

They told her what happened and asked for her help. Meanwhile Doomy got nervous because this was the first time he had seen his sister and he hadn't told her who he was. The empress told them that she had no idea how to fix the river of souls but she did know where its source was, it was right there in here own castle.

She suddenly got a report of a hostile army marching to the castle and requested the party to help defend it. Afterwards she would show them the source of the river. They agreed and helped her fight off the army. They captured the commander and interogated him. Normal torture methods didn't work but Rol suggested tickling him with a feather, which worked extremely well.

The commander, who was the brother of General Maleroth, revealed his brothers plan and the possibility of spies. Valkyria sent her soldiers to snuff out the spies but none were found. The General was also planning a second attack. Valkyria decided not to give him the chance.

She took some of her soldiers and Rol with her to confront the General. But the General's army was already under attack by a horde of undead. With the river of souls still broken the undead were unable to die (aside from under certain circumstances.) so the General's army was completely overwhelmed. This forced the empress to make a hard choice. Attempt to save the innocent people of the town and get caught up in the undead onslaught? Or make sure the undead couldn't spread further by trapping them with barriers. She chose the latter option.

The choice weighed hard on her even afterwards. She kept her promise and guided the party to the source of the river. It was hidden deep beneath the castle with only one way in or out. The source itself was a giant black orb of energy floating in an otherwise empty room. Valkyria told them they needed to enter the orb, which they did. Herst gave her a charm that allowed him to communicate with her telepathically.

Inside was a wasteland of black sand and the river of souls was flowing through the sky above them. A strange light in the middle of the place caught their attention, they headed towards it. At first the place seemed empty but then they saw strange creatures called Lemures. Even though they looked like they should not be able to walk they could move in extremely fast bursts. The party was forced to run.

They escaped but Herst and Doomy were knocked out. A lemure followed them out into the castle but it could not handle the normal laws of physics and collapsed. Their mission was a failure but they would try again later, when Doomy and Herst had woken back up.

#### Chapter 3

The next morning Rol is woken up by Empress Valkyria. She tells him the barriers they put up to contain the undead have broken. And the undead are spreading again. This made her feel even more guilty and nearly caused a mental breakdown. But Rol managed to cheer her up.

During breakfast the charm Herst gave the Empress began to act weird. It turns out Herst mind was trapped inside as his body needed to recover. This caused him to panic, putting the charm back on his body seemed to calm him down.

In order to deal with the undead outbreak The Empress sent out several letters asking for help. That help came in the form of Archon and Riaden (from the ChaoZ guild), Jazmin and her dwarven body guard (from the Order guild) and Reaver (An old friend of Kiro's DCGF days).

Together they fought off a horde of undead that attacked the castle. In the middle of the combat Herst woke back up and joined the battle. Once they dealt with the Giant undead that was leading the horde they blew up the rest.

The Empress had also sent other letters to various organizations in northern Centrea. Each of them were now preparing to defend the cities and towns of the region from the undead. But she had one last ally to call upon, an old friend of hers, Mioki the Succubus. Mioki had musical powers that caused the undead to become vulnerable.

The Empress then planned out a survival strategy against the undead hordes. She sent out a team to deal with the hordes of undead popping up all over her empire. This team included Herst, Reaver, the Order guild girls and Mioki. Archon and Riaden stayed behind to protect the castle. And Rol was assigned as her bodyguard. Meanwhile Reganya was attempting to find out why Doomy wasn't waking up.

Herst and the team arrived at a coastal town that was threatened by a horde of undead that came out of the sea.

While trying to wake up Doomy Reganya possessed his sleeping body. This allowed her to see Doomy's dreams which were his traumatic memories looping endlessly. She tried to intervene but failed.

Meanwhile Rol guarded the Empress as she met with foreign diplomats to ask for their help. One of these was a self proclaimed king who tried to get her to marry him in exchange his help. She called out his false claim to royalty and kicked him out.

#### Chapter 4

The next day starts off with the Empress and Rol meeting even more foreign diplomats. Only to be interupted by terrible news from the scouts. The Undead that had broken out of the village had started marching their way to the castle and would arrive in a few hours. With the General now leading them.

Without Mioki they would not be able to kill the undead the undead would easily overrun the castle. Valkyria immediatly called for Mioki and the others to return. Which meant that they would not be able to support the people fighting the undead elsewhere. And the Empress her plans were completely thrown into chaos. Even worse was that she knew that Mioki would never make it back before the undead arrived.

Luckily she had another plan. She asked Rol to help her set up shadow barriers again, this time to keep the undead out of the castle. Together they created three layers of shadow barriers and hoped that would be enough to delay them until Mioki returned.

General Maleroth however had his own plan to get past the barriers. The undead dug tunnels and went right underneath the barriers. Valkyria responded by desperately attempting to cover up the holes. But they could not cover them up fast enough. So with a lot of magic effort she lowered the two inner barriers a bit and made them cover the ground around the castle.

This bought them enough time for Mioki and the others to show up. Herst and the Order guild however had stayed behind to deal with the other army that was marching towards the castle. This was the army of the false king that had tried to marry the Empress the day before.

With Mioki's help they could now finally launch a counter offensive. A great battle erupted.

Meanwhile inside Reganya had reached Doomy and helped him overcome his looping memories. He finally mastered the art of soul reaping with her help. He also saw a vision of his dead aunt who congratulated him.

Soon after waking up again Reathy joined the fight outside as a full fledged soul reaper. He took on one of the generals officers, an elven archmage by the name of Vesbàoth. Archon battled a cyclopse by the name of Polyphemus. Riaden and Reaver took on Æwynne and her squad of wyvern riders. And Rol went toe to toe with General Sygeon Maleroth himself.

The battle went back and forth for a while. Near the end the undead seemed to have the advantage and had gotten into the castle. But then Archon took out the catapults and the cyclopse. Followed by Rol critically injuring the general while he was trying to drain his health. This caused the General to order a retreat. And the battle was won. They regrouped and discussed their next course of action.

#### Finale

With Doomy awake again they could again enter the source of the river of souls. Also known as the Well of souls. Herst still had not returned so Valkyria went along instead. Reathy and Rol went too. The others stayed behind just in case the castle would be attacked again.

Once inside they quickly noticed the place looked very different than last time. Where there was once a wasteland of black sand there was now a gigantic crater. Inside the crater were floating islands made of black glass circling around a larger island in the middle. On that Island stood a tall pillar that was connected to the river of souls obove their heads that now looked more like a whirlpool of souls. And at the bottom of the crater was a pitch black bottomless hole.

After discovering that the sand seemed to whimper under their feet the group started making their way to the center island. They did so by jumping across the floating islands. Everything was going smoothly until they encountered another Lemure. They managed to take it out quickly but it was followed by an entire hoard of the creatures. They raced towards the middle island while fending off the horde. Many of the odd creatures fell into the crater and disappeared into the pitch black hole.

Upon reaching the middle island they spotted a suit of armor made of the same black glass as the islands. It wasn't moving. While they were arguing about what to do about it a dark figure walked out of the river of souls. Reganya recognized him as Anhiroman, the Wraith king and former leader of Necropalypse.

He revealed that after h was killed his soul traveled here following the river of souls. And with Death gone he was free to take over the Well of souls for himself. Mekheris' pyramid had just been a distraction and he was the true cause of this third undead invasion. So that he could rule of all of the people of Val who would be turned into his army of undead.

He then took control over the armor of black glass that he had made and the final fight began. It quickly became clear that none of the groups attacks were damaging the armor. So they came up with a plan to push him off the edge of the island and hope he'd fall into the hole. Rol managed to do this by ramming a high shadow wall into him.

But that's when Anhiroman turned his attention to the GM and took control over the fourth wall. He sacrificed his dread armor and went to fight in his wraith form. He attempted to take control over the narrative but he was not that good at storytelling. Allowing the group to question him repeatedly. This frustrated him to the point where he brought in the lemures which had been his failed experiments.

Valkyria and Rol again put up barriers while Reathy battled the Wraith king. Once the Lemures were held off the group began to plan and realized they would not be able to win as long as the Wraith king had control over the fourth wall. Knowing that he was similar to a wraith they figured he could be beat in a similar way. Wraiths are made of part ectoplasm and part pure shadow and they would rip those two parts from each other.

As they began their assault Valkyria discovered that she too could tap into the river of souls and control the fourth wall. Anhiroman and Valkyria began to struggle over control over the narrative. Valkyria discovered her reaper powers and grew a pair of black wings. While this was going on Rol grabbed on to Anhiromans shadow and Reathy grabbed on the the ectoplasm parts. They started to pull. He tried to attack them both; giving Valkyria an opening to cut him in half with her sword. Reathy absorbed the ectoplasm and the shadows disappeared. Anhiroman had been vanquished.

With Valkyria in control of the fourth wall they easily fixed the river of souls. Returning it back to normal and burying the lemures. Outside the undead were no longer invincible and were driven away. A third undead invasion had been prevented. Val was somewhat safe again.

### Epilogue

Valkyria and Rol hooked up. Reganya and Doomy bonded, Reathy OTP. Herst took control over the army of the false king and made a deal with the Order guild girls. Also S.C.O.T.T woke up again at some point and missed everything.