Much like King Arthur, Charlemagne (french king who conquered a good chunk of Europe) had a fuckton of legends to his name back in the days, legends which are the source of many turn of phrases or mythology gags still used to this very day. Ever heard of the Hyppogriff? Legendary creature born of a griffin and a horse? This comes all the way back from Orlando Furioso. You play DnD? The term "Paladin" comes specifically from the Twelve Paladins of Charlemagne. You play games from the Fate serie, the Project Moon serie, the Fire Emblem serie? You're even passingly familiar with Vanitas no Carte? Then the names of Roland, Astolfo, Renaud or perhaps Argalia might be familiar to you. Charlie's tales are a huge thing!
Now, I could talk about Charlemagne's tales for quite some time, but the point that is relevant to this post is that one of the most well-known tale nowadays is Orlando Furioso, an italian poem written by Ludicovo Ariosto, which I think everyone should read at least once.
However, I understand that committing to a 300k words-long monster in old english can be very intimidating. Hence my motivation to write Irkalla's Ascent from the Underworld.
The story follows Astolpho, paladin of Charlemagne visiting the goddess Ereshkigal in the underworld. There, the knight will recount to her how exactly they've ended up in Hell- which is to say, most of the major plot points of the original poem.
My aim when writing this was to make Orlando Furioso, as well as Ereshkigal's myths, more accessible (both in terms of language & storytelling) so hopefully people would be interested in checking the original tales afterwards. That being said, I did follow Arthuriana rules- that is to say, I took some liberties here and there, sometimes for readability, and sometimes simply because it tickled my fancy. I confess, I can't be expected to behave when handed a story with a running theme of love as a cause for madness :p