Eternal
There were a lot of things you didn’t have full knowledge on and you risked going through with your ideas anyway. Seems to have worked so far, and since you’ve never been one to play it too safe, you’ll go through with the Ascension Ritual.
After another couple days of being completely sure of your dedication, you make the announcement to everyone. Many of the shadows immediately cheer at the news, others aren’t entirely sure what you’re talking about which isn’t surprising since the Ascension Ritual isn’t common knowledge to the newer shadows. Still when you explain it, they all seem excited about the plan. The ritual takes a bit of planning on your part, but eventually you’ve got everything in place.
When the time comes you stand outside the temple in front of the several hundred shadows with their heads down in prayer. From the ones nearly as old as you to the ones that are barely out of the crib, all shadows are lending their own energy and faith to your own in the effort of pulling off this historical moment.
Talia stands by your side as always. You look at her and wonder if you would’ve even come this far if you hadn’t fallen in love with her. Of course maybe that was part of Dendrin’s plan too.
“Dendrin, we are your shadows! We have served your will for centuries no matter what the struggles. From before the Empire and through it, and after it’s inevitable demise. We will always be your faithful servants in the years to come. These forms however are limited and we would wish to continue serving you in a less restrictive one. We feel we are ready. I feel we are ready. This is the destiny of the shadows! We will become one with you forever at last!” you say and then begin the incantations.
Most of your people recite what you say in unison while others stand at the far ends and chant supporting verses, which are essential to the ritual. Talia is also chanting yet another portion of it while making gestures with her hands to begin the first part of opening up the portal to Dendrin’s realm. This part is is almost like the initiation ritual, but of course much more complex and involved.
A large portal opens up above all of you and darkness spreads across the sky, even beyond your own area. There is no wind or lightning or anything that most would connect with such a grand attempt altering reality. Instead, it remains true to Dendrin, and it just gets very dark and you start to feel a tingling numbness.
You begin to see some of the shadows fall to the ground. You don’t know if they’ve died or just fainted. None of them are deterred though; they all continue to perform their parts for as long as they are able. This is like one of your personal encounters with Dendrin when you’ve slept, but instead everyone is experiencing it in the real world. You begin to feel all five of your senses becoming non-existent and the numbness is close to complete at this point.
Eventually you can’t even see most of the shadows in front of you and you can hardly hear them anymore. Still you know you’re on the right path, the blackness is engulfing everything. You briefly look over at Talia who is barely visible now. She continues to chant like a true believer that she’s always been.
A few minutes pass and you soon can’t hear anything except your own voice now and even that is very faint, though you can’t be sure it’s due to losing your hearing or your voice. Probably both. You look over one more time at Talia who you see start to teeter from exhaustion. You see her look over at you as well before you lose sight of her completely to the blackness.
You continue to silently chant while your mind fights the fatigue you’re experiencing. It feels like you’ve been doing this forever, but you have to finish. You wonder what’s happening to everyone else. You wonder if they’re still alive. You wonder if Talia is still alive.
“Eternal, do you know what you do?” you hear inside your head. It’s Dendrin, he’s made his presence known at last. You can’t talk to him though, you need to focus.
“Eternal, once you complete this ritual there will be no going back. Things will never be the same and I do not believe the results will be what you envisioned.”
He’s testing you. He is always testing you. Of course the results won’t be what you envisioned! For one thing you went into this not knowing what was going to happen exactly. Second of all when it comes to Dendrin you know that nothing ever happens the exact way it should. That doesn’t matter though, because things always work out in the end.
“Eternal, are you sure this is what you want?”
Of course it is. You want the shadows to be free of anymore harm. You’ve been their shepherd for over decades now. They would’ve ultimately been destroyed without you. When you’re gone the shadows will fall prey to something else, whether it be from external forces or internal ones. Dendrin still cares very little for them despite his fondness for you. Dendrin knows this as well, that’s why he had the plan to make YOU care.
You see that now. You see it all so clearly no.
By directly uniting the shadows with Dendrin, the problems of the past will no longer apply. The shadows will be an extension of Dendrin himself and he’ll have no choice but to care.
You begin the finishing lines of the ritual.
“Very well, I can see you have made your decision…an interesting one and you’ll get your wish. Farewell Eternal, I shall always remember you as you were and your deeds, even if nobody else will.”
With those last words you succumb to absolute numbness. Your mind however is being bombarded with the voices of hundreds of voices. Many of them confused and scared, you can’t help but feel similar, you don’t know where you are. Are you still at the temple? Are you dead? Are you in Dendrin’s realm?
Your mind calls out to the rest of the voices to cease, but it’s of little help. You keep trying until you hear one familiar voice in the crowd.
“You’ve done it my love. We have joined with Dendrin! Join with the rest of us!”
“Talia? Where are you?”
“Am I everywhere! We are everywhere! Do you not sense it?”
“I can’t sense anything. All I hear is the noise of voices.”
“Ignore them, eventually all of them will be silenced and it will soon just be one voice. I was singled out by Dendrin to help guide you though.”
“I don’t understand, are we dead? Where are we?”
“You will understand everything when you let go. You once told me to trust you, now I’m asking you to trust me…better yet trust in Dendrin.”
Talia was your link to the shadows for the longest time and now she’s your link one last time. You let go and eventually the voices become quieter and quieter and then silent.
Then nothingness…
In the days following the Shadow Rift of Delerg, several of the super powers fighting over the Quala region actually stopped fighting for a moment out fear that something much worse potentially threatened them all. A united group of explorers eventually traveled into the shadow covered Delerg province to see what was going on.
They returned unscathed, but said the swamps were now completely devoid of life. The largest settlement Sinkhole was now a ghost town and the Shadow Temple was completely gone. As if it had never existed. Nobody knew what to make of this so for awhile there was an uneasy peace.
Years passed and eventually the same lusts for power started cropping up again and eventually it was business as usual. Delerg was still off limits to most people, but not considered particularly dangerous. Every once in awhile a group of adventurers would explore it, in some attempt to find hidden treasures of the mysterious shadow order, but these always ended in failure.
Within a century the shadows that once blanketed Delerg began to disappear and once again life started to flourish there. People even started moving there to live again and as with all things, another government eventually placed its flag in the area declaring the land as its own.
As for the shadows, they lived on as a memory and in time that memory faded into legend and then forgotten completely.
Except by one being, who had long moved on from this world to seek out a new one to with which to entertain itself.
After another couple days of being completely sure of your dedication, you make the announcement to everyone. Many of the shadows immediately cheer at the news, others aren’t entirely sure what you’re talking about which isn’t surprising since the Ascension Ritual isn’t common knowledge to the newer shadows. Still when you explain it, they all seem excited about the plan. The ritual takes a bit of planning on your part, but eventually you’ve got everything in place.
When the time comes you stand outside the temple in front of the several hundred shadows with their heads down in prayer. From the ones nearly as old as you to the ones that are barely out of the crib, all shadows are lending their own energy and faith to your own in the effort of pulling off this historical moment.
Talia stands by your side as always. You look at her and wonder if you would’ve even come this far if you hadn’t fallen in love with her. Of course maybe that was part of Dendrin’s plan too.
“Dendrin, we are your shadows! We have served your will for centuries no matter what the struggles. From before the Empire and through it, and after it’s inevitable demise. We will always be your faithful servants in the years to come. These forms however are limited and we would wish to continue serving you in a less restrictive one. We feel we are ready. I feel we are ready. This is the destiny of the shadows! We will become one with you forever at last!” you say and then begin the incantations.
Most of your people recite what you say in unison while others stand at the far ends and chant supporting verses, which are essential to the ritual. Talia is also chanting yet another portion of it while making gestures with her hands to begin the first part of opening up the portal to Dendrin’s realm. This part is is almost like the initiation ritual, but of course much more complex and involved.
A large portal opens up above all of you and darkness spreads across the sky, even beyond your own area. There is no wind or lightning or anything that most would connect with such a grand attempt altering reality. Instead, it remains true to Dendrin, and it just gets very dark and you start to feel a tingling numbness.
You begin to see some of the shadows fall to the ground. You don’t know if they’ve died or just fainted. None of them are deterred though; they all continue to perform their parts for as long as they are able. This is like one of your personal encounters with Dendrin when you’ve slept, but instead everyone is experiencing it in the real world. You begin to feel all five of your senses becoming non-existent and the numbness is close to complete at this point.
Eventually you can’t even see most of the shadows in front of you and you can hardly hear them anymore. Still you know you’re on the right path, the blackness is engulfing everything. You briefly look over at Talia who is barely visible now. She continues to chant like a true believer that she’s always been.
A few minutes pass and you soon can’t hear anything except your own voice now and even that is very faint, though you can’t be sure it’s due to losing your hearing or your voice. Probably both. You look over one more time at Talia who you see start to teeter from exhaustion. You see her look over at you as well before you lose sight of her completely to the blackness.
You continue to silently chant while your mind fights the fatigue you’re experiencing. It feels like you’ve been doing this forever, but you have to finish. You wonder what’s happening to everyone else. You wonder if they’re still alive. You wonder if Talia is still alive.
“Eternal, do you know what you do?” you hear inside your head. It’s Dendrin, he’s made his presence known at last. You can’t talk to him though, you need to focus.
“Eternal, once you complete this ritual there will be no going back. Things will never be the same and I do not believe the results will be what you envisioned.”
He’s testing you. He is always testing you. Of course the results won’t be what you envisioned! For one thing you went into this not knowing what was going to happen exactly. Second of all when it comes to Dendrin you know that nothing ever happens the exact way it should. That doesn’t matter though, because things always work out in the end.
“Eternal, are you sure this is what you want?”
Of course it is. You want the shadows to be free of anymore harm. You’ve been their shepherd for over decades now. They would’ve ultimately been destroyed without you. When you’re gone the shadows will fall prey to something else, whether it be from external forces or internal ones. Dendrin still cares very little for them despite his fondness for you. Dendrin knows this as well, that’s why he had the plan to make YOU care.
You see that now. You see it all so clearly no.
By directly uniting the shadows with Dendrin, the problems of the past will no longer apply. The shadows will be an extension of Dendrin himself and he’ll have no choice but to care.
You begin the finishing lines of the ritual.
“Very well, I can see you have made your decision…an interesting one and you’ll get your wish. Farewell Eternal, I shall always remember you as you were and your deeds, even if nobody else will.”
With those last words you succumb to absolute numbness. Your mind however is being bombarded with the voices of hundreds of voices. Many of them confused and scared, you can’t help but feel similar, you don’t know where you are. Are you still at the temple? Are you dead? Are you in Dendrin’s realm?
Your mind calls out to the rest of the voices to cease, but it’s of little help. You keep trying until you hear one familiar voice in the crowd.
“You’ve done it my love. We have joined with Dendrin! Join with the rest of us!”
“Talia? Where are you?”
“Am I everywhere! We are everywhere! Do you not sense it?”
“I can’t sense anything. All I hear is the noise of voices.”
“Ignore them, eventually all of them will be silenced and it will soon just be one voice. I was singled out by Dendrin to help guide you though.”
“I don’t understand, are we dead? Where are we?”
“You will understand everything when you let go. You once told me to trust you, now I’m asking you to trust me…better yet trust in Dendrin.”
Talia was your link to the shadows for the longest time and now she’s your link one last time. You let go and eventually the voices become quieter and quieter and then silent.
Then nothingness…
In the days following the Shadow Rift of Delerg, several of the super powers fighting over the Quala region actually stopped fighting for a moment out fear that something much worse potentially threatened them all. A united group of explorers eventually traveled into the shadow covered Delerg province to see what was going on.
They returned unscathed, but said the swamps were now completely devoid of life. The largest settlement Sinkhole was now a ghost town and the Shadow Temple was completely gone. As if it had never existed. Nobody knew what to make of this so for awhile there was an uneasy peace.
Years passed and eventually the same lusts for power started cropping up again and eventually it was business as usual. Delerg was still off limits to most people, but not considered particularly dangerous. Every once in awhile a group of adventurers would explore it, in some attempt to find hidden treasures of the mysterious shadow order, but these always ended in failure.
Within a century the shadows that once blanketed Delerg began to disappear and once again life started to flourish there. People even started moving there to live again and as with all things, another government eventually placed its flag in the area declaring the land as its own.
As for the shadows, they lived on as a memory and in time that memory faded into legend and then forgotten completely.
Except by one being, who had long moved on from this world to seek out a new one to with which to entertain itself.
