Hephsut's Second Invasion of Nioba
Military: War
NC. 150
Hephsut’s second invasion of Nioba unfolds like a nightmare etched in blood and shadow. Drawing on the Infinus Maledus, he unleashes the Scarab Plague—swarms of blighted beetles devouring flesh, spreading sickness, and reanimating the dead. The Prophet-Kings’ bloodlines are severed, temples defiled, and cities reduced to ash. Betrayed by opportunistic Merchant Princes, Nioba crumbles under the weight of necromantic domination. In a final, desperate stand at Imbali City, the Sun Ward Commander severs Hephsut’s control over the scarabs but succumbs to a devastating curse. Her death marks the empire’s fall, the sacred Sun Spear shattered, and Nioba’s golden age extinguished under the eternal shadow of the Immortal Lich.
T
hirty years after dismantling the Sun Ward, Hephsut recommenced his relentless campaign to conquer Nioba. The scars of the War of the Undying had left Nioba vulnerable, its armies fractured, and its people weary.
The Scarab Plague
Hephsut turned his gaze to the Infinus Maledus, drawing upon its abyssal knowledge to unleash the Scarab Plague upon Nioba. Born from the cursed pages of that dark tome, the plague swept across the land like a living nightmare. Swarms of blighted scarabs poured forth, their obsidian carapaces glinting like shards of shattered night beneath a sun they sought to eclipse.
The plague was more than pestilence—it was an apocalypse made flesh, devouring skin and bone, spreading sickness with every bite, and reanimating the dead as grotesque parodies of life. Its ravenous tide consumed not just the bodies of the living but the very bloodline of Nioba’s Prophet-Kings, severing their sacred link to Amnut and casting the empire into leaderless disarray.
Hephsut’s armies followed in the plague's wake, marching through the remnants of Nioba like reapers in a harvest. Temples of the sun god Amnut were defiled and the land that once basked in the eternal light of the Kiteshi Empire was plunged into darkness, its heartland scarred and shattered, heralding a new era under the shadow of the Immortal Lich.
Betrayal of the Merchant Princes
Merchant princes, whose wealth had once fortified kingdoms, now bartered their legacies for fleeting safety, only to find themselves enslaved by fear and corruption. Some capitulated to Hephsut's rule, securing their power and wealth by betraying their own people. Their houses were absorbed into the new order, granted dominion over provinces in exchange for unwavering loyalty.
Cities that once gleamed with golden spires crumbled beneath the relentless onslaught, their grandeur buried under ash, their streets haunted by the echoes of forgotten prayers and the hollow footsteps of the damned.
Despite the battered state of the Kiteshi Empire, Nioba's defenders fought with a fervor born of desperation, clinging to the remnants of their ancestral pride and the dwindling hope that the light of the sun would endure.
The Battle of Imbali City
The final stand came at Imbali City, the last bastion of Nioban resistance. Its walls bore the scars of relentless sieges, their brilliance dimmed beneath layers of soot and blood. Amid the rubble and ruin, the leader of the Sun Ward—a formidable woman whose name was etched in the hearts of her warriors but scoured from history—confronted Hephsut on a battlefield littered with the blood of the fallen. She wielded the ancient Sun Spear, the legendary heirloom passed through generations of Sun Ward commanders.
Their clash was a grim reflection of the battle fought centuries before, but this time, the stakes were heavier, the hope dimmer. The air trembled as divine light clashed against necrotic shadow. Amidst the chaos and carnage, the Sun Ward Commander, with a radiant arc of her spear, carved free a crucial page from Hephsut’s black tome—the page that bound his dominion over the scarab swarms. As the foul parchment was severed, the scarabs perished en masse, littering the battlefield like chitinous rain.
Yet victory came at a terrible price.
Enraged, Hephsut unleashed a blight upon the commander so potent that even Nioba’s most powerful clerics and healers could not have purified it. The curse ravaged the Sun Ward commander, corrupting her flesh and soul and forcing her into a desperate retreat. She fled with her most trusted allies, her strength waning with each labored breath. Before succumbing to the curse’s withering grasp, she entrusted the stolen page to her loyal companions, who sealed it within a hidden Nioban crypt, veiled from Hephsut’s gaze and protected by ancient wards etched with prayers to Amnut.
Eventually, Hephsut found her lifeless body among the sun-bleached dunes. In an act of spite and dominance, he shattered the sacred Sun Spear, splintering it into fragments, its divine light snuffed out like a dying star.
With the fall of Imbali City, Nioba’s golden age crumbled to ash and legend, its once-glorious empire reduced to whispers carried on winds haunted by the echoes of the past.
