How Rell Lived

Rell took a deep breath and smiled at the day that dawned before her. She’d seen the exchange between Osiris and CrIsis and felt happy to have been on the periphery. It wasn’t that he’d been unfair to CrIsis, but that he’d once again been harsh, as all the gods had ever been harsh. The gods weren’t kind to those here below, and Rell only hoped that the new gods would be better stewards than the previous ones had.

She rubbed the manacles on her arm and smiled sweetly. These were not comfortable manacles, but they would fix the change that the demi-god Grignak had set upon her. Rell was free from the pain of her previous life, the mental and emotional pain that had always followed her, and it was these new gods, the demi-gods and godlings who had provided this peace, and not the ancient gods.

The balance that had been brought by the return of Osiris wasn’t the balance of the old guard, but the balance and compassion of the new. The new gods had ended the war that the old gods started. Apis had done nothing to relieve the pain of Rell’s past life. The old gods did nothing but demand.

The new gods had done nothing but give. They gave of their lives to the quest. Even Rell had given so much. They’d given so much gold, time, health, effort, love and hate to the gods and gotten barely a thanks in return.

But the new balance could be felt if you looked for it. It didn’t happen overnight, but it did happen, especially as Rell began adventuring again. Always before she had been alone. Operating in disguise, infiltrating the enemy and eventually returning the object of their desire, had been everything to Rell in the past.

Now, however, life was more important to her than things. She began acting more in a legal capacity. She would offer her services to the destitute, the downtrodden, and the slaves. The slaves were her special priority as she truly began worshiping Grignak. He deserved it for all he had given without price.

When asked, she would tell people truly of her past. Some listened and some reviled. Some went with her to her bed. None ever wanted to stay beyond the night, something that in her heart was a loss greater than any in her life. She was an exotic delicacy that they simply wanted to taste.

It was a year after the Return of Osiris, or the beginning of 2 RO, that Rell first got pregnant. Briefly she considered fostering the child after it was born, but the more it grew, the more she felt that this, even more than justice for the lost, that was her calling in this new life. She made a sacrifice to Grignak on the day of her first daughter’s birth. Rell named her Almaia.

When Almaia was three, 6 RO, Rell joined up with the Legion of Northmoor. Six month later, she was pregnant a second time. They tried to send her home, as adventuring was no place for a pregnant woman, as they said, but she refused. After her time trapped in her former body, she was happy to be in her new one. She would not give up who she was, either as a mother or as an adventurer. She did hire a companion who would look after her medical needs. The self named ‘doctor’ who went by the name of Flandry took care of her through the pregnancy, and was the first to consider that she did not look like a woman of forty.

She gave birth to her son, Ewan, on the frozen steppes of the Northern Wilderness. Flandry asked Rell to marry him the week after she gave birth. That same week, a psychic diagnosis was able to determine that she was, physically, twenty four, and not forty.

Over the next sixteen years Rell and Flandry traveled with the Legion. Only in the most gravid periods of her pregnancy did Rell ever stop fighting alongside the Legion with her two axes. During those sixteen years, she had another eight children, the eldest of which assisted Flandry with their care as their mother fought for the safety of all mankind.

By this point, Flandry was growing too old to continue along the campaign trail. The Legion had changed so much in the past few years that few of the members that she’d know when she originally joined were still fighting. A letter finally found her as she entered Haven city in Selestra of 23 RO. It stated that her long standing in the Collector’s Guild had been noticed by her fellows, and she was being elevated to the post of Guildmaster.

She sent her family on ahead to the guild city of Just-Rest and took a pilgrimage to Sekti Abtu. She’d been feeling for a while that she needed to visit with the Pontiff Grignak, and so she travelled there.

She made her way though the streets without fanfare to the Pontiff’s palace, and there acquired an audience with the Pontiff, or so she thought before she entered the room. Inside was not Grignak, but Osiris. He looked down at her and she stood, unsure what was happening.

“You have reached a point at which many in CrIsis attained a basic level of godhood. We had thought that we would never again raise another, but the dark has raised one of their own. As such, you have been chosen as one who once walked the path for my renewal to join the ranks of the new demi-gods and godlings.”

With that, he reached out a finger and touched her on the forehead. Her eyes burned and she closed them tightly. When she opened them again, Osiris was gone. In that moment, she came into her own godhood and became the demi-goddess of True Confessions, The Lost, and Motherhood.

She returned to Just-Rest and her family having undergone a second life-changing event. She decided to live quietly, slowly growing her followers as she continued to live her life as she had been, protecting the weak. In time her children grew old, married, and moved away, each one to their future in an ever more balanced palladium, if still not quite fair.

On the 23rd of Od, as the dawn broke over a cloudless sky in 62 RO, Flandry died without again waking and seeing his wife of so many years. Rell cried for a day. When her tears were dry, she left the role of Guildmaster to another and walked out through the gates of the city into the world once more.

Image from .portcities.org.uk