Eternal
Given that the captain said he had eternals all over the swamp, going deeper into it probably isn’t going to help. Hell, who knows what else could attack, not like the swamps are exactly a friendly place and all you need to do is get yourself killed stepping into quicksand because you’re tired and not paying proper attention.
You and Talia race to the temple, dispatching eternals that get in your way, but the constant arrows flying from what seems to be everywhere are what prove to be the most hazardous in this gauntlet because despite your unnatural speed, it doesn’t make it impossible to get hit.
“Ah! Damn it!” you hear Talia shout and fall to the ground. She’s got an arrow in her back by some lucky shot. You barely avoid getting shot yourself when you stop to pick her up.
“You got enough in you to cloak yourself?”
“Yeah I think so…”
“Okay do it.”
The pair of you cloak yourselves and you get out of the area as eternals continue to fire blindly at where they think you’re located.
It takes you a little longer to make it back to the sanctuary under cloak, carrying Talia over your shoulder, as well as trying to avoid the eternals swarming the swamp, but eventually it’s in sight. Unfortunately you were right and a large group of eternals are stand watch around the place.
You sneak by just long enough to make it to the steps and that’s when your own energy starts to give out and you collapse breaking your cover completely. First eternal that reaches you gets a sword blow to his face causing him to fall backwards into two of his fellows. You engage two more and Talia, despite having an arrow in her back manages to fight off another one. Though she’s still far from peak condition. A sword strike catches her across the leg and then a dagger is shoved into her stomach. Before you can react to help her, she manages to helps herself by slitting the throat of the eternal who believed her to be already defeated.
Talia manages to drag herself into the temple while you attempt to fight the rest of the eternals off as long as you can. When you dispatch them you see more eternals begin to swarm out of the swamp and approach the temple.
Finding Talia in the temple entry way bleeding out, you pick her up in your arms once again and make haste for the sanctuary. While you’re running down one of the corridors you hear the work of your various traps going into action when death screams echo throughout the temple.
“I told you not to enter the place you fools! I knew this place was going to be trapped! We’ll wait them out!” you hear another voice shout.
Nobody sees you enter your sanctuary and only when you seal it up do you take time to worry about how much Talia’s been hurt. It’s bad and while you’re good at fighting and even some basic first aid, you can’t fix this. Not even your magic can.
“They’re going to be waiting awhile…we’ve got unlimited food and water down here…” Talia says.
“Shh, don’t speak. We gotta…Dendrin! Dendrin will help!” you say and start praying to Dendrin in desperation.
After a few minutes of this, Talia speaks again.
“Why are you praying…you don’t believe he’s going actually help anyway…you never have…it’s okay I know you did it for me. You’ve always done it all for me…that’s your real faith...”
You stop and look at her; she looks so pale now due to the blood loss.
“I’m going to go back up there and kill every last one of those sons of bitches!” you exclaim, trying to fight back the tears.
“No…stay here with me my love…please…”
You hold on to her hand and watch as life slowly ebbs from her and eventually she begins to drift into unconsciousness.
“I…heard him…” she says with a faint smile and then passes on.
You sit by her side quietly sobbing in a small pool of her blood on the floor for what is probably an hour or so. Eventually you pull yourself together and do what needs to be done. You take her body to the garden and bury it there. It’s as fitting of a gravesite as any for her and really you don’t have many options right now anyway.
You were tired when you arrived here and now after burying your beloved you’re exhausted along with being emotionally drained. If those new eternals come for you now they’re going to have to kill you in your sleep, because that’s what you do in the garden.
Unconsciousness takes you followed by the numbness, though now the numbness is welcome.
“You probably don’t believe it, but you have my sympathies Eternal. Talia was always devoted, no matter what hardship was thrown in her face, she always believed even if her own logic told her not to at times.” Dendrin says.
“And look where it got her.”
“Yes, and look where it got her. Are you honestly going to keep blaming me for everything tragic in your life? You could easily blame yourself for not being quick enough to help her, or those new eternals for killing her in the first place.”
“I’m done blaming you for anything, because ultimately you don’t DO anything, which is what I’ve been saying for years. Tell me, was it ever in your power to bless Talia with a child?”
“No.”
“Really? You admit this so freely? The great Dendrin admits to something he can’t do?”
“Why wouldn’t I? You know there are already limitations to my power so why tell you I can do something when I can’t? I’m not a fertility god and I can’t cure the sterility that infects you eternals.”
“Hold on, so you’re saying it wasn’t just Talia, it was me as well?“
“Yes. Cyrus too, though it wouldn’t have mattered in his case. So I imagine it has something to do with the process of how you Eternals are magically altered. Perhaps it’s nature’s way of balancing itself out. Who knows? But procreating was never really on your high priority list nor was creating a new line of shadows, so the question is what are you going to do now?”
“Well when I wake up I intend on carrying out my promise of killing every one of those bastards up top.”
“For what purpose? Revenge? Talia already killed the one directly causing her mortal wound and killing the rest won’t bring her back. Even if you did manage to kill all the ones currently up there, more are just going to come and you’ll fall to them eventually.”
“Then that’s what will happen.”
“Eternal I urge you to reconsider. I know of your love of battle, I know it’s probably one of the few things that stirs something within you and ultimately that’s how you want to die. I can respect that. But I also know that you have a strong survival instinct as well. Not to mention I don’t think Talia would want you to just throw your life away on a hopeless battle when there is no need to.”
“Why the sudden sense of concern, afraid of losing your source of entertainment? Besides, I don’t think I’m going to have a choice anyway. If I wait down here, all they’re going to do is eventually storm the place anyway, traps or not. Then they’ll eventually find the button that leads down here.”
“You’re correct on the first assumption with the traps, but they won’t find out how to get down here. They just won’t, trust me.”
“Trust you? Are you trying to be funny?”
“Not at all, but you do what you want. I can’t stop you. I will say this though, despite our unstable relationship I think you do know I HAVE been looking out for in small ways. Perhaps I haven’t helped the way you’d like me to, but I have helped. And yes it is true that if you died I would be losing my favorite form of entertainment, but I do genuinely like you Eternal and I don’t see your part in this world at an end yet. Far from it actually, I still see much potential in you, but you’re going to have to be patient for a while. There is always time for revenge if you still desire it. Trust me.”
You can’t argue with Dendrin on that one, he would know all about planning and waiting to make the right time to serve revenge. That’s what the rebellion started by the shadows’ was all about for the most part. He seems pretty adamant that you won’t be found down here, so you’re guessing he’s probably going to make it impossible for anyone to even stumble upon the hidden button that leads down here.
“Dendrin, I just have one more question. Did you really speak to Talia before she died?”
“Yes. As I said, as devoted as she was, she deserved to hear the voice of her god.”
“What did you say exactly?”
“Ha ha. I fear that would be telling Eternal and also a private matter. Let’s just say the words were of a comforting nature in her final moments of life.”
“Then I guess it was all worth it.”
When you wake up, you don’t follow through with your suicidal plan of charging into battle and you decide to take Dendrin’s advice and wait. Fortunately the place is stocked with it’s own library. You never really bothered glance at the books before let alone read them, but there’s no time to start like the present.
A few weeks pass and you start hearing noises from up above. You take that to mean that they finally got tired of waiting you out and are searching the temple along with many of them falling afoul of the traps no doubt. You stay alert at this time, believing that they will find their way down here eventually, but as Dendrin told you, they never do.
At one point the whole underground sanctuary shakes and you hear several loud crashing noises from above. You’re ultimately okay, but if you had to guess they probably just destroyed the temple either with magic or maybe even with a catapult they dragged through the swamp. For all you know you might be trapped down here now, but you’re not worried. You’ll get out of here eventually, when you feel that the time is right.
You and Talia race to the temple, dispatching eternals that get in your way, but the constant arrows flying from what seems to be everywhere are what prove to be the most hazardous in this gauntlet because despite your unnatural speed, it doesn’t make it impossible to get hit.
“Ah! Damn it!” you hear Talia shout and fall to the ground. She’s got an arrow in her back by some lucky shot. You barely avoid getting shot yourself when you stop to pick her up.
“You got enough in you to cloak yourself?”
“Yeah I think so…”
“Okay do it.”
The pair of you cloak yourselves and you get out of the area as eternals continue to fire blindly at where they think you’re located.
It takes you a little longer to make it back to the sanctuary under cloak, carrying Talia over your shoulder, as well as trying to avoid the eternals swarming the swamp, but eventually it’s in sight. Unfortunately you were right and a large group of eternals are stand watch around the place.
You sneak by just long enough to make it to the steps and that’s when your own energy starts to give out and you collapse breaking your cover completely. First eternal that reaches you gets a sword blow to his face causing him to fall backwards into two of his fellows. You engage two more and Talia, despite having an arrow in her back manages to fight off another one. Though she’s still far from peak condition. A sword strike catches her across the leg and then a dagger is shoved into her stomach. Before you can react to help her, she manages to helps herself by slitting the throat of the eternal who believed her to be already defeated.
Talia manages to drag herself into the temple while you attempt to fight the rest of the eternals off as long as you can. When you dispatch them you see more eternals begin to swarm out of the swamp and approach the temple.
Finding Talia in the temple entry way bleeding out, you pick her up in your arms once again and make haste for the sanctuary. While you’re running down one of the corridors you hear the work of your various traps going into action when death screams echo throughout the temple.
“I told you not to enter the place you fools! I knew this place was going to be trapped! We’ll wait them out!” you hear another voice shout.
Nobody sees you enter your sanctuary and only when you seal it up do you take time to worry about how much Talia’s been hurt. It’s bad and while you’re good at fighting and even some basic first aid, you can’t fix this. Not even your magic can.
“They’re going to be waiting awhile…we’ve got unlimited food and water down here…” Talia says.
“Shh, don’t speak. We gotta…Dendrin! Dendrin will help!” you say and start praying to Dendrin in desperation.
After a few minutes of this, Talia speaks again.
“Why are you praying…you don’t believe he’s going actually help anyway…you never have…it’s okay I know you did it for me. You’ve always done it all for me…that’s your real faith...”
You stop and look at her; she looks so pale now due to the blood loss.
“I’m going to go back up there and kill every last one of those sons of bitches!” you exclaim, trying to fight back the tears.
“No…stay here with me my love…please…”
You hold on to her hand and watch as life slowly ebbs from her and eventually she begins to drift into unconsciousness.
“I…heard him…” she says with a faint smile and then passes on.
You sit by her side quietly sobbing in a small pool of her blood on the floor for what is probably an hour or so. Eventually you pull yourself together and do what needs to be done. You take her body to the garden and bury it there. It’s as fitting of a gravesite as any for her and really you don’t have many options right now anyway.
You were tired when you arrived here and now after burying your beloved you’re exhausted along with being emotionally drained. If those new eternals come for you now they’re going to have to kill you in your sleep, because that’s what you do in the garden.
Unconsciousness takes you followed by the numbness, though now the numbness is welcome.
“You probably don’t believe it, but you have my sympathies Eternal. Talia was always devoted, no matter what hardship was thrown in her face, she always believed even if her own logic told her not to at times.” Dendrin says.
“And look where it got her.”
“Yes, and look where it got her. Are you honestly going to keep blaming me for everything tragic in your life? You could easily blame yourself for not being quick enough to help her, or those new eternals for killing her in the first place.”
“I’m done blaming you for anything, because ultimately you don’t DO anything, which is what I’ve been saying for years. Tell me, was it ever in your power to bless Talia with a child?”
“No.”
“Really? You admit this so freely? The great Dendrin admits to something he can’t do?”
“Why wouldn’t I? You know there are already limitations to my power so why tell you I can do something when I can’t? I’m not a fertility god and I can’t cure the sterility that infects you eternals.”
“Hold on, so you’re saying it wasn’t just Talia, it was me as well?“
“Yes. Cyrus too, though it wouldn’t have mattered in his case. So I imagine it has something to do with the process of how you Eternals are magically altered. Perhaps it’s nature’s way of balancing itself out. Who knows? But procreating was never really on your high priority list nor was creating a new line of shadows, so the question is what are you going to do now?”
“Well when I wake up I intend on carrying out my promise of killing every one of those bastards up top.”
“For what purpose? Revenge? Talia already killed the one directly causing her mortal wound and killing the rest won’t bring her back. Even if you did manage to kill all the ones currently up there, more are just going to come and you’ll fall to them eventually.”
“Then that’s what will happen.”
“Eternal I urge you to reconsider. I know of your love of battle, I know it’s probably one of the few things that stirs something within you and ultimately that’s how you want to die. I can respect that. But I also know that you have a strong survival instinct as well. Not to mention I don’t think Talia would want you to just throw your life away on a hopeless battle when there is no need to.”
“Why the sudden sense of concern, afraid of losing your source of entertainment? Besides, I don’t think I’m going to have a choice anyway. If I wait down here, all they’re going to do is eventually storm the place anyway, traps or not. Then they’ll eventually find the button that leads down here.”
“You’re correct on the first assumption with the traps, but they won’t find out how to get down here. They just won’t, trust me.”
“Trust you? Are you trying to be funny?”
“Not at all, but you do what you want. I can’t stop you. I will say this though, despite our unstable relationship I think you do know I HAVE been looking out for in small ways. Perhaps I haven’t helped the way you’d like me to, but I have helped. And yes it is true that if you died I would be losing my favorite form of entertainment, but I do genuinely like you Eternal and I don’t see your part in this world at an end yet. Far from it actually, I still see much potential in you, but you’re going to have to be patient for a while. There is always time for revenge if you still desire it. Trust me.”
You can’t argue with Dendrin on that one, he would know all about planning and waiting to make the right time to serve revenge. That’s what the rebellion started by the shadows’ was all about for the most part. He seems pretty adamant that you won’t be found down here, so you’re guessing he’s probably going to make it impossible for anyone to even stumble upon the hidden button that leads down here.
“Dendrin, I just have one more question. Did you really speak to Talia before she died?”
“Yes. As I said, as devoted as she was, she deserved to hear the voice of her god.”
“What did you say exactly?”
“Ha ha. I fear that would be telling Eternal and also a private matter. Let’s just say the words were of a comforting nature in her final moments of life.”
“Then I guess it was all worth it.”
When you wake up, you don’t follow through with your suicidal plan of charging into battle and you decide to take Dendrin’s advice and wait. Fortunately the place is stocked with it’s own library. You never really bothered glance at the books before let alone read them, but there’s no time to start like the present.
A few weeks pass and you start hearing noises from up above. You take that to mean that they finally got tired of waiting you out and are searching the temple along with many of them falling afoul of the traps no doubt. You stay alert at this time, believing that they will find their way down here eventually, but as Dendrin told you, they never do.
At one point the whole underground sanctuary shakes and you hear several loud crashing noises from above. You’re ultimately okay, but if you had to guess they probably just destroyed the temple either with magic or maybe even with a catapult they dragged through the swamp. For all you know you might be trapped down here now, but you’re not worried. You’ll get out of here eventually, when you feel that the time is right.