Hephsut's First Invasion of Nioba

W hile Kitesh waged his triumphant Dawn Conquest, shadows slithered across the heart of Nioba. From the Sulfur Sea’s mist-choked wastes, sporadic raids swelled into coordinated assaults, probing the kingdom's defenses like talons scraping against fragile armor. Outposts along the Bonewall Mountains—silent sentinels meant to guard against distant threats—fell eerily quiet. Their garrisons were not merely overrun; their soldiers were risen again, bound by necromantic chains, their hollow eyes reflecting the death they now served.

The Prophet-Kings, proud and unyielding, had underestimated the gathering storm. Nioba’s armies were stretched thin—half scattered across foreign lands under Kitesh’s banner, the other spread too sparsely to defend the homeland. Into this vulnerability stepped an ancient horror, a nightmare wearing the guise of royalty.

From the sulfurous mists emerged Hephsut, the Immortal, clad in regal decay, his flesh like brittle parchment stretched over bone. A crown of bleached bone adorned his brow, and in his withered hands, he wielded necromantic power so vile it left the earth beneath his feet blighted and barren. With a voice that sounded like whispers stitched from a thousand dying breaths, he declared himself the Immortal Lich King, sent not to conquer, but to reclaim Nioba from the “folly of life.”

Hephsut’s first act was not one of conquest but of blasphemy. He marched upon the Valley of the Prophet-Kings, Nioba’s most sacred resting place, where the tombs of revered rulers, oracles, and priests lay undisturbed for generations. Nestled within the only passable road through the Bonewall Mountains, the valley was both a gateway and a graveyard—a perfect crucible for Hephsut’s dark design.

Through sorcery that curdled the very air, he twisted the valley into a grotesque garden of undeath. Gilded sarcophagi split open like rotten fruit, spilling forth the once-holy dead. Prophet-Kings rose with crowns tarnished, their divine wisdom reduced to hollow obedience, their spirits enslaved to Hephsut’s will. Generations of ancestors, meant to guide Nioba from beyond, now marched as puppets of decay.

This army of the forgotten surged like a tide, unstoppable and unrelenting.

The flood was swift and merciless. Cities along the Niobe River, once vibrant with life and commerce, crumbled beneath waves of the dead. The undead did not tire. They did not falter. Every victory for the living was temporary, for the fallen rose again, bolstering the enemy’s ranks with familiar faces twisted into grotesque parodies of humanity.

Kingdom after kingdom fell, their proud banners torn and trampled, their Prophet-Kings slain or corrupted—turned into mockeries of their former glory, bound to Hephsut’s malignant will. Temples of Amnut were defiled, their sacred fires extinguished, replaced by foul pyres belching ash and despair into the sky.

Yet Nioba did not fall completely. Amidst the ruin stood Imbali, a city older than Nioba itself, its walls etched with sun-etched sigils meant to repel darkness. Its streets became battlefields, its ancient stones soaked in both blood and prayers. Survivors flocked to its gates, and the last embers of Nioba’s resistance gathered under the flickering banner of Amnut.

Within Imbali’s walls, the remnants of the Prophet-Kings’ bloodlines rallied, their voices raw with grief but unbroken in defiance. Desperation became their shield, and fury their sword. They fought not for victory, but to delay the inevitable, to buy time for a miracle—or a legend—to return.

But Hephsut’s hunger was boundless and impatient. Satisfied with Nioba’s near-collapse, he turned his gaze northward, his ambition stretching beyond borders. Unknowingly, he retraced the very path carved by Kitesh during the Dawn Conquest, seeking to shackle the once-warring kingdoms under his necrotic dominion.

His legions surged beyond the Bonewall Mountains, spilling into the territories Kitesh had only recently united. The sky darkened with ash, and the earth trembled beneath the march of bone and rot.

But fate is not without its irony.

Upon the narrow plains and winding passes near the shores of the gulf—where the settlement of Kaf’nia Bay would one day rise—Kitesh returned. Triumphant from his conquests, his army tempered by victory and bound by unshakable purpose, he marched southward with a force unlike any Nioba had ever seen.

His legion, thousands strong, met Hephsut’s undead tide in a clash that would shake the heavens and scorch the earth. The living and the dead collided, not just for Nioba’s survival, but for its very soul.