Well, since the person who I pulled off to his permanent death posted, and he pulled me off to my permanent death and we both 10%... *offers fist bump to Rick* ... and I promised another story about the time I permed to Ali...
So no **** there I was...
It was a somewhat surreal experience. I had been having barbarian superstition premonitions the whole weekend, like I somehow knew I was going to die. I made sure that my good friend Lithae had a Sacrifice cast on her so that my not-wife Demona, should she die, be saved. Rabbits kept running from me into the underbrush as if to disappear into another world, and I continued to stay within a ward. My oath forced me to, though I had been warned it would weaken my spirit. I stayed with the gypsies, and loved them dearly, my not-family and not-wife. Our fallen comrade Virid was sung for by Ghost in the tavern. Then Tiberious and the Harkonians attacked. I was lumped together with the strongest of the town, but was not strong at all. Gaps needed to be plugged though, and I was there. Looking to my not-wife I kissed her and said "Just in case I don't come back. I want my last words to you to be 'I love you'". Then off to the battle.
I took a fallen Harkonian's pole-arm, needing the reach to keep myself alive. Then I saw it. Not-family Prashka's mate had fallen behind the lines. So I did what any brave person would do, I sought to rescue him. Out into enemy territory I went, and being a fighter with no magic defenses, I was dropped like a rock. Rick, double hooking for this, picks me up and hands me off to another double hooking player, Bryan Gregory, who whispers to me "Sorry... the put ensure rez on the card." I whisper back, "It's fine, I'm okay rezzing." Six minutes later I take off my stuff and go to plot. I pull the black bead and I begin to laugh hysterically, jumping around and grinning like I just won a prize. Everything... EVERYTHING just seemed to lead up to that moment, and it was perfect.
So Plot takes me back to field, my dead body held by a Hark, who said something snotty and then rolled me into the fray where I did my best "dead man's flop". Later people told me they knew I was dead upon hitting the ground because of that flop. From way back in the back a Life packet comes sailing and hits me in the back, to which I call "No Effect". People start trying to keep my OOG wife, IG: Not-wife , from seeing my dead body, but they do eventually move me out of the fight. She comes up to me "Healing Arts". "No effect". She then does some of the best grief roleplay I've seen. Later she told me she just drew on how she'd feel if I had really died. Found out that day that the eyes of the dead do sometimes leak tears. She goes running off into combat to die and take down as many Harks as she can with them so that she could go with me on my new journey.
Lithae used that Sacrifice on her.
Then Ghost comes up to me, the battle over, and she begins to sing. That same song. Many of you have heard it. I hope some day to hear about it in game as my new character, because if there is a funeral song in Alliance... it's that song. She sang it and I leaked tears. Lithae brought Demona back, and performed a Sarr ritual of rememberance. They laid my body to rest among the gypsies, and my not-wife, tore into them, about how I had loved them, even the ones that hated me, and in death... in Death Maxvell was what he wanted. He was named Rai of the Band of the Fabulous Pants. He finally found acceptance.
It was weird mourning "my own" death, and weirder still to watch as my friends made a small plaque for him that I keep on my desk to this day. Maxvell d'Irons "Lovable but Frustrating". I watch as my wife continues her story, with his child, and wonder if some day someone will play my in game kid. It's an odd thing to say that the best, most immersive, and most intense role play I've ever had was lying there doing absolutely nothing. Of being acted upon and not being able to act in turn. That game... well... that game showed me what Alliance can be at its best, not just combat, not just role play, but truly deeply emotional and life changing in all the good ways.
Edit: Too many deaths, had the wrong person Ghost sang for. Corrected.