The Song So Far…
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This section contains SPOILERS for The Sound of Starfall and A Memory Of Song. This is meant as a recap section for anyone looking to catch up on the past events of the story.
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Spoilers beyond this point.
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The Sound of Starfall:
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Three thousand years before the events of A Memory of Song, a cataclysm known as the Starfall befell the Known World and destroyed the world-dominating force known as the Yehvenki Empire. It was from the ashes left behind that the Order of Warlocks, still known in present day as the Ailaryan Order, was born.
The Yehvenki Empire ruled the world with their magics—Words that, when sung, could manipulate the world in any way they saw fit. The Yehvenki called themselves the Usurpers of Nature.
The Warlocks inherited their empire and their magics from the Creators, whose entire race vanished over the course of one single night. They were believed to have Ascended to join the level of their god—Karaat. The more worship Karaat receives the stronger his Words become.
The Yehvenki had conquered all of the Known World and indoctrinated nearly the entire globe with the teachings of Karaat. His prayer was echoed from the Sheed Mountains to the Mongrel Hills.
The Yehvenki took their power too far—they abused it—and the death cult known as the Abori came to stop them. The Abori used their magics and a mage to bring a star down on Yehven to destroy the Warlocks and their Words. The Abori dream eaters sent dreams to the Warlocks—dreams that showed the Warlocks being slaughtered along with all of their guards and servants. They showed the city of Ailar burning, and the star falling. They showed the Warlocks' own deaths—for one hundred years the Warlocks had dreams of the Abori’s coming, so when they finally came, the Warlocks were terrified.
With a looming comet burning up the sky, and the Abori deathcult approaching, A Warlock in self imposed exile named Adeqor, and his wife Sera make a decision to betray their former allegiance to the New Order, and join the Ailaryan Order and their leader Eralis in the tunnels instead.
Adeqor travels into the burning, riotous city of Ailar to find his old partner, Insa Rolin, hoping to find out if he had finished their long time work of gaining Ascension. After some trouble with Insa, Adeqor takes the mysterious book written by Insa called Necro, which contains multiple spells, including one to extend life.
Adeqor finds his way back to Sera amidst danger. Their servant Mose shows up just in time to lead them to apparent safety in the tunnels to join the Ailaryan Order.
Chaos unfolds in the city and betrayals are boiling. The Abori attack, and the comet impacts, but the tunnels hold, and the Ailaryan Order survive. Using the spells inside of Insa’s book, the Warlocks of the Ailaryan Order extended their life, and in exchange they gave up more than they could have ever dreamed of.
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A Memory of Song:
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In the immediate aftermath of the starfall, the surviving Warlocks of the Ailaryan Order delved into the dark magics that Adeqor gifted them through Insa Rolin’s book. They traded their ability to love for long life, and set into action their plan to Ascend to godhead, just as the Creators had before them.
Three thousand years after the starfall, the Ailaryan Order still holds sway over the rulers of Ardura, though, the Order has become riven and sundered and their reign has all but slipped through their fingers.
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In Ayeland, the Banshee Ellorin has recently helped King Calen Alder, the ruler of Solace and King of Ayeland, conquer the northern kingdoms of Mal Hallow and the Fells. Some of the former Mal rulers bent their knee and swore allegiance to Alder, earning them their lives. Others, like James Culdaine’s family, refused to accept the Ayelish as their overlords and died fighting.
When the Lord of Kallahorn, Baleth Longsongs, a former Mal king who bent the knee, declares himself a king and sacrifices his Ayelish-born heartbound, Annie of Morland, to summon dark magics, Ellorin convinces King Calen Alder to attack him.
Alder and Ellorin succeed at taking Kallahorn. They hang Baleth, and they find that his daughter, Fiora Longsongs, and his heartbound Annie, have escaped. They also find out that Baleth has been singing songs of old Yehven—the Words of Karaat. And not only that, but they are spreading throughout the continent, surfacing as if from a long slumber. Karaat’s power is still weak enough that the threat can be quelled, but to prevent the magics spreading any further and pulling the world into oblivion, Ellorin invokes the Ailaryan Order’s “failsafe” and commands the Mother of Nature to close the Gateway to the Otherworld, blocking the spirits of fire, earth, wind, and water from entering the mainworld.
Drought and darkness infect the world as the elements refuse to live. Fires won’t burn, the rain won’t fall, and no wind will blow. The earth sits stagnant and bloated without the ability to eat its refuse. And now, King Calen Alder of Ayeland has summoned an army of sellswords and brigands, bigger than Mal Hallow has ever seen, to re-conquer the north and join him in Kallahorn. And here, our story begins.
James Culdaine’s family, the rightful king and queen of Mal Hallow, died fighting Calen Alder and the Ayelish. Afterwards, James abandoned his duty as heir and ran into the mountains of the Fells where he fell in with a clan of Feldarra led by the fearless kihl’dor, Wulfee. He spent ten years with Wulfee, and in that time he met and fell in love with Maggie, a melancholic mage who has spent most of her life being abandoned by those afraid of her. His love for Maggie came to define him.
Soon after the elements stopped working, Wulfee’s clan was attacked by a horde of Hawka, bipedal beasts that roamed the northern hills, separating James from Maggie and the rest of the clan.
James is hunted by the hawka for an entire day, from sun-up to sunfell, until he finally finds refuge in a small cave. There, nearly freezing to death, the souls of the dead come to him and give him life. A quirky transporter from the Raven’s Guild named Eurick arrives and claims to be searching for James. Soon after, the dead crowd in the cave and begin to sing and call out to James saying, “help us.”
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When Eurick realizes James clearly sees something he doesn’t, the raven becomes intrigued, calls James a seer, and tells him that he has been sent to retrieve James by the wizard, Adeqor, and if he comes with him, Adeqor can tell him more of why the elements died.
Along the way, James runs into a band of Rangers led by Haro, who wants to kill James in vengeance. Before Haro can seek his revenge, they are attacked by a horde of Hawka, and forced to fight with each other instead of against.
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James’ monster comes out. He eats dead souls to heal himself. He is the only one who sees them. He is a Druid of the old blood of the Mal, capable of walking between the worlds of life and death, and not only seeing the dead, but gaining life from them by breathing in their ghost bodies.
Eurick and James finally find Adeqor. The wizard takes James and Eurick to a cave and explains that the spirits of earth, fire, air, water have a cycle that flows from the Otherworld to the above world and back again. If the Gateway is closed, the spirits cannot flow through.
Adeqor takes James to Lindis, where James pulls the great sword called Essikah, crafted by the ancient wizard Bazal, from the ground where it was growing like a tree.
Travelling past the great Standing Stones of Fever, James and Eurick see Adeqor’s true nature when he brutally kills a village of stragglers. They learn that Ellorin, the Banshee, is hunting them. Adeqor is terrified.
Traveling through the Wick Arbor on a detour James, Eurick, and Adeqor are captured by another group of Rangers led by Florence, and are brought to Ockam to be sold to Lord Derudin.
In Ockam, Lord Derudin and the Blood Company greet the party by cutting off Adeqor’s hands. Derudin then bids James, Eurick, and Adeqor travel with him to Dawning to brag to Lord Brinley. Really, Derudin is scared that the world is dying and wants to ask Brinley what he thinks happened, but having James, Eurick, and Adeqor show up on his doorstep gives Derudin the excuse he needs to leave his home.
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Derudin’s son, Eridan, arrives, and James recognizes him from when they were young and their dads fought together against the Ayelish. As the group is leaving, James meets the bard Itchy, and the Lovasi scholar Mineera.
Travelling to Dawning, the Blood Company is attacked by Hawka, and Adeqor escapes. James’ monster comes out again, and this time it really disgusts him.
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The other survivors regroup at Dawning where Brinley tells them about the coming war. An army of sellswords from Mal Hallow, led by The Wolf, has joined a mass host of soldiers in Ayeland. Together they are marching. They have already taken Tusk and Ockam.
In Dawning, James learns that Maggie has been captured by Rangers and is being held close by as a hostage. Before the ceremony of a mass funeral for people of whom James killed many, he slips away from Ockam to find Maggie. As he leaves, Adeqor finds him, and captures him with magics.
James awakens to find that Adeqor has brought him to the Hermit’s hole, also known as an earth faerie’s hole, in the Hallow Hills. Knowing that it is time for him to finally face his demons, James enters the Hermit’s lair to finish what he started as a child. There, the Hermit helps James visit the Otherworld, and talk to gods.
In the Otherworld, James talks to the Old Gods and learns how he can harness his power, known as the Ways, to defeat the evil of the world and bring back the elements. The Old Gods also tell James that a powerful Warlock named Bazal has escaped, and that he is a danger. If any black magics were to be used in the Otherworld then the elements could die forever, and the world could become a grey wasteland.
When James rises up from the Otherworld and escapes the trap set for him by the Hermit, he is reunited with Maggie, but she is badly sick. She was hurt in the Hawka attacks and her face is scarred, but not only that, it seems that she is dying because the world is dying.
James sets out to face Ellorin, the Banshee, and her hoards of Hawka with the new found use for his power. He raises an army of dead and uses them to spook the hawka. He kills Ellorin in one on one combat. After defeating her, he eats her soul, gaining many of her memories. The remaining Hawka charge away, disbanding the Glennish army led by Richard Brynmor that was fought beside Ellorin.
In Rosen, the last blood of the Mal assemble to make a last stand. James and a small party leave to travel to the Mountains of the Mother at Kallahorn.
Along the way to Kallahorn, Ellorin’s memories begin to attack James. He learns that Adeqor had lost his ability to use the Words from a curse inflicted on him by the Mother. In an attempt to reverse the curse, Adeqor broke into the Otherworld and freed Bazal, then taught Baleth Longsongs to use the Words of Old Yehven, which attracted Ellorin. Adeqor had hoped all along that Ellorin would rush in and close the Gateway to kill the elements. When she did, it allowed Adeqor to recruit James, get him to Essikah, and make his way back to the Gateway to re-open it. Now, Adeqor could convince James to kill the Mother by telling him he was saving the world. Once James killed the Mother, Adeqor could reverse the spell she holds over him and gain his powers back.
James’ party arrives at the Mother’s Shrine, and, with Adeqor’s help, they enter the Mother of Nature’s abode. Eurick leaves. Calen Alder, carved with Blood Words, is waiting for James, bloated and infected with magics. James is nearly killed in combat with Calen. Maggie finally lets loose some of her power and kills Calen Alder.
The Mother sends James through trials that make him face his trauma’s as a young person. After learning that the Warlocks want to send the world into darkness where they will survive in tunnels and “restart” human civilization. Just as they did after the starfall. She tries to convince James not to kill her, and to let it happen. The alternative would be to watch the world become infected with the Words of Karaat, and that would be much, much worse.
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James kills the Mother of Nature and the elements return to the world.
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Adeqor seemingly gains his powers back from the Mother of Nature after James kills her. A mysterious red mist swallows Adeqor and he disappears. As the mist approaches James and Maggie, they find that they are trapped. Just in time, Eurick arrives to save them.
As Winter fast approaches, James and Maggie along with the other rulers of the Hallow, gather as many folk from the north as they can and make a stand at the Lovasi castle Kallahorn, where James has strange encounters with dead gods.
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Wulfee, a kihl’dor of the Fells, has spent the last ten years hunting her ex-heart, Sweyne. Sweyne started to go mad near the end of his and Wulfee’s relationship. He wore a wolf mask that was cursed by old magics, and it drove him into debauched madness. Sweyne got their youngest son, Tarek, killed by forcing him to fight in single combat at a young age. That, amongst other things, drove Wulfee to hate Sweyne.
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One night, Wulfee left Sweyne, and she took two thirds of his army and their son, Braden, with her. She rode all through the night to get Braden somewhere safe—the village of Barley, in the Fells—where she could leave him to keep him away from the war she was about to have with Sweyne. Her son cried and begged her not to leave, but she had to do what was best to save him from violence.
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Now, ten years later, Wulfee is still searching for Sweyne, and she has not seen her son in all that time. The only family she has is her clan. It is an old northern belief that a person’s soul cannot go to the sky halls—a place for warriors and elders to spend their afterlife in glory—if they have vengeance in their heart. Wulfee believes the only place she’ll ever see her dead son again is in the sky halls. It means the world to her to track down Sweyne and gain her revenge so her soul can rest easy.
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Shortly after the elements die, a horde of Hawka attack Wulfee’s clan of about fifty folk. Many of the clan are killed or separated, and Wulfee manages to escape with only three others, Pike, Gen, and Maggie, who are very injured from Hawka scratches. Even after the Hawka attack, Wulfee insists they keep hunting Sweyne instead of looking for potential survivors of the Hawka attack.
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Wulfee, Pike, Gen, and Maggie travel to the small village of Lorne, where Pike was born. They meet the Widow of the White, a strange prophet who tells the crew there is a person calling themselves the Wolf, who has just passed through Tusk heading south, causing a lot of trouble. Wulfee is convinced that it is Sweyne. She and her crew head south towards Tusk.
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Travelling along the White River, Wulfee and her crew stop at the village of Barley. Wulfee fears seeing her son here, she fears he will hate her. In Barley, Wulfee doesn’t find Braden, but instead, finds his heart and his son, Tara and little Sweyne. A healer named Benn helps Pike try to heal Maggie. He tells them of a shaman named Shaqqa Ro who lives close by in the Dark Arbor and will be able to help Maggie. The crew spends a night and then heads for the shaman.
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Wulfee and her crew arrive at the shaman’s hut. The crew and the shaman make a deal to leave Maggie with the shaman for seven days. There, they meet a mysterious Ranger named Haro, who offers to help the crew get to Tusk. Wulfee reluctantly accepts the help.
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At Tusk, the Ranger waits for the crew outside of the city at the Standing Stones of Tell. Wulfee, Pike, and Gen, go into the city and split up to try and find information on who the Wolf is.
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They learn that the Wolf is a sellsword from Mal Hallow who was purchased by Calen Alder to bring an army of Mal mercenaries south to meet up with a larger host of Ayelish soldiers. The Wolf and his army would then turn around and move north again to sweep Mal Hallow. Wulfee decides to seek the Ranger’s help in learning more about the Wolf. She wants definitive proof that the Wolf is Sweyne before she commits herself to this war.
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Haro allows Wulfee to use an old Lovasi tool, the Eye of Olan, which allows her to see far distances. On a hill, overlooking the Wolf’s garrison, Wulfee spots enough proof to convince her that this Wolf character is Sweyne, her ex-heart.
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She returns to Tusk and tells her crew. When the crew tries to leave for Maggie, they find that the guards of Tusk have closed the gates, and everyone inside is trapped. The Wolf and his army are coming, and they need every person they can get to defend the town and Castle.
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The Wolf attacks, and the people of Tusk are slaughtered. Before the Wolf breaches the gate and captures Mammoth’s Head castle, Wulfee and her crew manage to overwhelm the guards and escape. They meet Haro outside of the city and ride away to get Maggie.
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Wulfee finds that Shaqqa has sold Maggie to the Rangers. Wulfee questions Haro, but Haro swears he isn’t involved. Instead, he offers to help. Haro leads them into the Hallow Hills to find Maggie.
In the Hallow Hills, Haro leads Wulfee and her crew into a trap, wherein he imprisons them in an old Druid barrow. Haro recognized Wulfee and Maggie, and he plans on using them as hostages to attract James Culdaine, so Haro can kill him for revenge. Fearing Gen would be a liability, Haro scares away Gen and sends him off into the Hills alone.
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After some time in the barrow, Haro comes down to inform the crew that they will be leaving, as James Culdaine is dead.
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After travelling for some time with the Rangers, they are attacked by a pack of Giy’er. Gen is with them. He is injured. Pike and Maggie have a chance to escape and run to Foulds to join the wizard. Wulfee chooses instead to stay with the injured Gen, and the two of them are captured by the Rangers once again.
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The Rangers are in distress—their leader Haro has been killed and they don’t have a plan. Wulfee convinces the Rangers to travel to Pool, where Kihl’dor Odhran will accept them. Pike knows this is a lie and confronts Wulfee. The two argue. Pike reminds Wulfee that his daughter lives in Pool and believes him to be a murderer, and they aren’t welcomed. Wulfee drives them towards Pool anyways, saying it will all be okay.
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Being pursued by the Wolf and his army, Wulfee and the crew are backed up against the Fell River, where their only choice is to fight a losing fight or risk drowning by crossing the great river. Gen can’t swim; he is ready to fight. Wulfee accepts that she will die rather than abandon Gen to die by himself. Pike stays with her, and the three face death heroically. Wulfee makes Gen a karl in a makeshift ceremony.
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At the last moment, Gen pushes Wulfee and Pike into the river, saving them, and he stays to fight. It takes twenty folk to bring him down, but eventually they do, the Wolf giving the final blow. Wulfee vows to find the Wolf and kill him if it’s the last thing she does.
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On the other side of the Fell River, Kihl’dor Odhran Ironfist takes Wulfee and Pike as prisoners to the island of Pool. Pike challenges Odhran to single combat, which he accepts. Pike narrowly wins the battle and earns himself and Wulfee freedom. The two of them leave Pool and head for Rosen.
At Rosen, Wulfee leads an army of misfits to a great victory over the Wolf and the army of sellswords and Ayelish. Wulfee finds the Wolf on the battlefield. The two fight, and Wulfee injures him badly. Before she kills him, she removes the Wolf mask and finds that it is her son Braden. He looks at Wulfee with hate in his eyes and tries to deliver a fatal blow to her once more. Wulfee kills him. She realizes that he wanted to kill her for his own revenge—for his own place in the sky halls.
Wulfee walks away into the mountains, alone.
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Months later, Wulfee is with a small group of survivors in the mountains, who call themselves si’darra, or people of peace. Her grandson, young Swey, is playing. Tara and Benn are sitting around the fire with her. Wulfee has become unrecognizable after so much hardship and having her hair shorn. When asked her name, Wulfee hesitates. Being Wulfee is too painful for her, so she decides to be someone else—she decides to hide. Finally, she tells Benn and Tara who she is. Etta.
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