Eternal
Maybe its because you feel slightly sorry for Jacob or maybe its because you do see Cyrus as a potential liability if left unchecked and his traitorous ways are an insult to the name Eternal, but whatever the reason you decide to help Jacob.
“I believe I shall help Jacob in this matter. I started out crushing shadows and rebels, I might as well finish the job.” You say the Emperor.
“Very well, but I trust you won’t take as long as Jacob has. Remember I need you for important tasks for the war!”
You and Jacob both leave the Emperor’s presence. As soon as you’re out the door, Jacob addresses you.
“I thank you for your assistance.”
“I haven’t done anything yet.”
“I’m not talking about the situation with the shadow, I mean intervening before the Emperor found a reason to have me executed.”
“Oh I doubt if that would’ve happened.”
“I don’t know. Lately I can’t seem to do anything right by him, I really try to serve to the best of my abilities. I always have.”
“I know you do.”
Jacob and you don’t speak too much too each other normally, but your relationship has always been a cordial one.
“I guess I should be glad the Emperor is so fond of you, it might be the only thing that’s keeping me alive. You are the Eternal that wasn’t a failure of course and for that I am very thankful.”
Because you were directly trained by Mistress you sometimes forget that Jacob (or Mr. Mol as you once knew him) was the one that was primarily in charge of your development at least in a behind the scenes way. You’ve never really thought about your other classmates since you always had more pressing matters, but now you’re a little curious.
“Just how many of my other classmates survived?”
“Not many. Besides you? Eight and three of them are already dead and one of those became a traitorous shadow.”
“And another one is the last shadow still giving the Empire grief.” You say.
“Yes. (Sigh) I had such high hopes for Cyrus, he showed so much potential. Damned shadow indoctrination. Anyway that just leaves four who I assure you are not losers or failures and are in fact very accomplished soldiers of the Empire. They finished out their training with Captain Gruz, who I’m sure you’re familiar with.”
“Yes, I am.” You say somewhat wishing that you could’ve been so lucky.
“I still keep apprised of their activity since they are all still technically under my watch. I’m just glad the Emperor didn’t take the project out of my hands and proceed with Marik’s crazed ideas.”
“Could you tell me a little more about them?”
“Certainly!” Jacob remarks perking up a bit. He’s genuinely glad someone is showing an interest.
He tells you that Kane has been instrumental in taming the Rask frontier. Says that he’s even developing a bit of a reputation of his own given his merciless slaughter of the barbarian and ogre tribes up there. He’s being considered for a fort commander position.
Brenda and Roldan have been doing similar things in the Nalin province with the kobolds and usksha desert raiders that sometimes plague the area. Either one could also become a fort commander as well, though he believes Brenda might be the better candidate as he believes Roldan can go on to greater things. He goes on to say that the both of them have become unusually close though and Roldan has even requested that they be allowed to marry! Jacob sees nothing particularly unreasonable about this request and is considering allowing it.
“You’ll actually be working with the last one, Warrick. I assigned him to the Eyes and so far he’s been the closest to catching Cyrus. Excellent tracker. I nearly considered Warrick to become an infiltrator for the shadows initially, but it’s a good thing I didn’t considering how things worked out with Cyrus.”
This is all somewhat fascinating to you as you do remember all of them, but mainly as your opponents in the fighting arena when Mistress was sending the entire class to try to kill you on regular basis. In fact Jacob realizes this and suddenly asks you if it’ll be a problem working with Warrick.
“No, why would it?”
“Well I know that due to Mistress’ training you had a less friendly relationship with your classmates than everyone else.”
“It’s all in the past, for me it is at least. I survived and grew stronger from the experience. And it certainly wasn’t his fault. He was just doing what he was told. Everyone was. Besides, might be interesting working with someone from the old class on more cooperative terms this time.”
“Good. I’m glad to hear you say that.” Jacob says with a smile.
Eventually you reach Jacob’s office where you see not one but three desks piled in paperwork. Jacob grumbles about how his underlings were supposed to there to take care of some of it today, but as usual he’ll probably have to do it all himself. After rummaging through a stack, he pulls out a few pieces of parchment and some scrolls and then says you’re taking a carriage ride to an Eye staging ground near Bucklesburg in the Arat province. Jacob says he’ll explain more about the situation along the way (as well as doing some of his paperwork.
A carriage ride later, you’re all caught up on the area as well as the specifics of Cyrus’ most recent attacks. When you arrive in Bucklesberg you’re met by who you presume are Eyes and one face that while a little older now you recognize as Warrick. He stares at you at a bit and obviously recognizes you as well, but says nothing since it isn’t his time to speak.
“Eyes, you may have heard of this man you see before you. He is the main reason why we managed to stop this potential full scale rebellion and keep it to a few crazed traitors that are desperately trying to hang on to their lives a little while longer.” Jacob starts off telling all of them. A little bit of an exaggeration of course, but then only a few know about the derro involvement in the destruction of shadows, and most of them are currently the same rotting bodies in Gloom. Your involvement on the other hand is infamous.
“Now I leave you to it.” Jacob says and leaves.
Since you are already up to speed on everything due to Jacob’s briefing, you basically tell the Eyes that how they’re planning to catch Cyrus is all wrong and how they need to do things differently.
“Waiting around for Cyrus to attack patrols and caravans and then attempting to stop him in the act isn’t working because Cyrus is quicker and a better warrior than all of you. You know how I know this? Because you haven’t killed him yet. Even if he hasn’t managed to recruit his lackies into following that silly religion of his, he’s obviously trained them into an efficient hardened fighting force. Taking rebel captives and torturing them for information isn’t working because Cyrus is smart enough to change his plans completely when he knows his people have been captured. Besides, I guarantee you could catch and kill all of his people and he’d just disappear for a few years and pop up again with a new group. Which brings me to the point of why trying to search the wilderness for him isn’t working either, you don’t have the numbers to do it.” You say before turning to Warrick. “And as good as you are at tracking, Cyrus is still a shadow and he’s got the magic to mask himself. If he doesn’t want to be found, he won’t be.”
Before you can continue, one of the Eyes is brave enough to question you. Unsurprisingly it’s the one in charge, Sightmaster Davison.
“So what’s your solution?” Davison asks.
At this point Warrick’s own face displays a grimace with a small shake of his head knowing that his immediate superior is going to be punished for the disruption.
You walk up to the Eye and backhand him in the face.
“Do not interrupt.” You say calmly. Davison nods quickly while holding on to the side of his face. Then you slap him a couple more times followed by a punch to his face. He falls to the floor and you launch into a speech.
“MY solution is to bring down this shadow which all of you have failed to do! The Emperor is tired of your failures! We are to conquer the Felkan Kingdom soon and yet you cannot eliminate a few measly traitors! It is only because I decided to intervene that the lot of you haven’t been executed for your incompetence on this matter! While you may all be the Eyes of the Emperor, I am his terrible weapon that carries out his righteous justice. Pray that justice is never to be carried out on you.”
Now that you’ve given a proper “inspirational” speech all you have to do is come up with a solution. The thing is one of their attempted tactics of trying to ambush Cyrus while he’s attacking caravans could still work if YOU get a hold of him. Of course you could come up with your own plan.
“I believe I shall help Jacob in this matter. I started out crushing shadows and rebels, I might as well finish the job.” You say the Emperor.
“Very well, but I trust you won’t take as long as Jacob has. Remember I need you for important tasks for the war!”
You and Jacob both leave the Emperor’s presence. As soon as you’re out the door, Jacob addresses you.
“I thank you for your assistance.”
“I haven’t done anything yet.”
“I’m not talking about the situation with the shadow, I mean intervening before the Emperor found a reason to have me executed.”
“Oh I doubt if that would’ve happened.”
“I don’t know. Lately I can’t seem to do anything right by him, I really try to serve to the best of my abilities. I always have.”
“I know you do.”
Jacob and you don’t speak too much too each other normally, but your relationship has always been a cordial one.
“I guess I should be glad the Emperor is so fond of you, it might be the only thing that’s keeping me alive. You are the Eternal that wasn’t a failure of course and for that I am very thankful.”
Because you were directly trained by Mistress you sometimes forget that Jacob (or Mr. Mol as you once knew him) was the one that was primarily in charge of your development at least in a behind the scenes way. You’ve never really thought about your other classmates since you always had more pressing matters, but now you’re a little curious.
“Just how many of my other classmates survived?”
“Not many. Besides you? Eight and three of them are already dead and one of those became a traitorous shadow.”
“And another one is the last shadow still giving the Empire grief.” You say.
“Yes. (Sigh) I had such high hopes for Cyrus, he showed so much potential. Damned shadow indoctrination. Anyway that just leaves four who I assure you are not losers or failures and are in fact very accomplished soldiers of the Empire. They finished out their training with Captain Gruz, who I’m sure you’re familiar with.”
“Yes, I am.” You say somewhat wishing that you could’ve been so lucky.
“I still keep apprised of their activity since they are all still technically under my watch. I’m just glad the Emperor didn’t take the project out of my hands and proceed with Marik’s crazed ideas.”
“Could you tell me a little more about them?”
“Certainly!” Jacob remarks perking up a bit. He’s genuinely glad someone is showing an interest.
He tells you that Kane has been instrumental in taming the Rask frontier. Says that he’s even developing a bit of a reputation of his own given his merciless slaughter of the barbarian and ogre tribes up there. He’s being considered for a fort commander position.
Brenda and Roldan have been doing similar things in the Nalin province with the kobolds and usksha desert raiders that sometimes plague the area. Either one could also become a fort commander as well, though he believes Brenda might be the better candidate as he believes Roldan can go on to greater things. He goes on to say that the both of them have become unusually close though and Roldan has even requested that they be allowed to marry! Jacob sees nothing particularly unreasonable about this request and is considering allowing it.
“You’ll actually be working with the last one, Warrick. I assigned him to the Eyes and so far he’s been the closest to catching Cyrus. Excellent tracker. I nearly considered Warrick to become an infiltrator for the shadows initially, but it’s a good thing I didn’t considering how things worked out with Cyrus.”
This is all somewhat fascinating to you as you do remember all of them, but mainly as your opponents in the fighting arena when Mistress was sending the entire class to try to kill you on regular basis. In fact Jacob realizes this and suddenly asks you if it’ll be a problem working with Warrick.
“No, why would it?”
“Well I know that due to Mistress’ training you had a less friendly relationship with your classmates than everyone else.”
“It’s all in the past, for me it is at least. I survived and grew stronger from the experience. And it certainly wasn’t his fault. He was just doing what he was told. Everyone was. Besides, might be interesting working with someone from the old class on more cooperative terms this time.”
“Good. I’m glad to hear you say that.” Jacob says with a smile.
Eventually you reach Jacob’s office where you see not one but three desks piled in paperwork. Jacob grumbles about how his underlings were supposed to there to take care of some of it today, but as usual he’ll probably have to do it all himself. After rummaging through a stack, he pulls out a few pieces of parchment and some scrolls and then says you’re taking a carriage ride to an Eye staging ground near Bucklesburg in the Arat province. Jacob says he’ll explain more about the situation along the way (as well as doing some of his paperwork.
A carriage ride later, you’re all caught up on the area as well as the specifics of Cyrus’ most recent attacks. When you arrive in Bucklesberg you’re met by who you presume are Eyes and one face that while a little older now you recognize as Warrick. He stares at you at a bit and obviously recognizes you as well, but says nothing since it isn’t his time to speak.
“Eyes, you may have heard of this man you see before you. He is the main reason why we managed to stop this potential full scale rebellion and keep it to a few crazed traitors that are desperately trying to hang on to their lives a little while longer.” Jacob starts off telling all of them. A little bit of an exaggeration of course, but then only a few know about the derro involvement in the destruction of shadows, and most of them are currently the same rotting bodies in Gloom. Your involvement on the other hand is infamous.
“Now I leave you to it.” Jacob says and leaves.
Since you are already up to speed on everything due to Jacob’s briefing, you basically tell the Eyes that how they’re planning to catch Cyrus is all wrong and how they need to do things differently.
“Waiting around for Cyrus to attack patrols and caravans and then attempting to stop him in the act isn’t working because Cyrus is quicker and a better warrior than all of you. You know how I know this? Because you haven’t killed him yet. Even if he hasn’t managed to recruit his lackies into following that silly religion of his, he’s obviously trained them into an efficient hardened fighting force. Taking rebel captives and torturing them for information isn’t working because Cyrus is smart enough to change his plans completely when he knows his people have been captured. Besides, I guarantee you could catch and kill all of his people and he’d just disappear for a few years and pop up again with a new group. Which brings me to the point of why trying to search the wilderness for him isn’t working either, you don’t have the numbers to do it.” You say before turning to Warrick. “And as good as you are at tracking, Cyrus is still a shadow and he’s got the magic to mask himself. If he doesn’t want to be found, he won’t be.”
Before you can continue, one of the Eyes is brave enough to question you. Unsurprisingly it’s the one in charge, Sightmaster Davison.
“So what’s your solution?” Davison asks.
At this point Warrick’s own face displays a grimace with a small shake of his head knowing that his immediate superior is going to be punished for the disruption.
You walk up to the Eye and backhand him in the face.
“Do not interrupt.” You say calmly. Davison nods quickly while holding on to the side of his face. Then you slap him a couple more times followed by a punch to his face. He falls to the floor and you launch into a speech.
“MY solution is to bring down this shadow which all of you have failed to do! The Emperor is tired of your failures! We are to conquer the Felkan Kingdom soon and yet you cannot eliminate a few measly traitors! It is only because I decided to intervene that the lot of you haven’t been executed for your incompetence on this matter! While you may all be the Eyes of the Emperor, I am his terrible weapon that carries out his righteous justice. Pray that justice is never to be carried out on you.”
Now that you’ve given a proper “inspirational” speech all you have to do is come up with a solution. The thing is one of their attempted tactics of trying to ambush Cyrus while he’s attacking caravans could still work if YOU get a hold of him. Of course you could come up with your own plan.