Eternal

Year 20

“Watch it the last ones are coming from the left side!” you shout, pointing at the barbarian wolfmen breaking through the barricade.

Two of your number go down before the might of the wolfmen. As always you find yourself having to do things yourself. Not that you’re adverse to placing yourself in the thick of battle, but sometimes you get a little tired of having to micromanage.

One of the wolfmen goes down by your blade with ease, the other three however are shot full of bolts, though you were very nearly in the crossfire.

“DAMMIT, watch where you’re shooting!” You shout at the dark elven mercenaries.
“Oh stop being so dramatic, we’ve been shooting with these crossbows longer than you’ve even been alive I’d wager.” One of them replies, followed by a few snickers.

You shake your head at the fact that you have to routinely work with them, let alone having to put up with their kind. Then again you’ve had to put up with a lot around here for the past four years.

“Are we done fighting these dogs now? When are we going to get back to killing more sveld? That’s a lot more fun.” One of the mercenaries says.
“You aren’t getting paid to have fun svelk! You’re getting paid to do your job. If you really want to go murder your tree loving cousins so bad, we’re not stopping you.” You say.
“Whatever monkey, our job here is done, we’re heading back. Let us know when you need our help again.” The mercenary says and they leave.

You survey the damage to the logging camp and it’s going to be awhile before this place is up and running to it’s full capabilities again. Still, today is a victory and despite everything, you’ve managed to eliminate more enemies even if it does seem like they are everywhere in this harsh cold land.

Unfortunately nowadays the Rask frontier isn’t the only place where the Empire has been having problems. Open war broke out with the Felkan Kingdom a couple years ago. Sometimes you wonder how things are going with Warrick and Gerald, but you’ve never heard anything about them, or from them.

In fact you rarely hear news from anywhere unless it directly concerns you defending mining towns, logging town, or outposts from barbarians or the forest elves. It’s never pretty here, but you can only imagine what they deal with up at Fort Defiance where they routinely face ogres and sometimes even giants. You have heard that Edgar has made quite a name for himself with some of his actions. In a way you’re glad, because he’s living up to the title of an Eternal and doing honor by serving with distinction…still, knowing him he’s doing it all to try to “beat” you.

As for you, you’ve made quite a name for yourself as well. You have improved the mortality rate of the soldiers here a little (most notably the ones serving under you), but you’ve also managed to successfully defend several towns with low citizen casualties too.

The greatest accomplishments of yours are the complete destruction of several hostile barbarian tribes. The Black Wolves, the Enclave of the Bear, the Blood Boars, and other minor shape changing tribes have all been exterminated thanks to your relentless nature. Indeed, you’ve become so infamous that the barbarian tribes in this land have come to call you the “The Bane of Rask.”

This recent battle was a last desperate regroup attack by one of the tribes, the “Silver Fangs” after you wiped out all their women and children in an attack on their camp. Grim business to be sure, but it wasn’t first time and it certainly won’t be the last. These tribes must learn that they cannot stand against the might of the Empire or the Emperor. If they can only learn that with their extinction then so be it.

You report your victory to Captain Krozer.

“Excellent as always lieutenant. I know time after time I can count on you. Which leads me to the next major task. From what I can tell we’ve managed to eliminate the major threats in this particular area of the Rask frontier, but we have two left. The forest elves and the Wendigo tribe are the two in question and I’m wondering which one we should focus our attention on first.”

“Well I can tell you that the Wendigo tribe will be a challenge. They’re the biggest, toughest and meanest of all the barbarian shape shifters. So far we haven’t had a large battle with them yet, but with our extermination of the other tribes, the time is getting closer. As for the elves, it will be more tedious than anything as they use a lot of guerilla tactics and such. We’ve still never found any sort of home, base or camp of theirs, but I suppose those dark elven mercs will be more than willing to help us with eliminating them. I’m sure their leader, Edolith will most likely demand a high price as usual though.” You say.

“(Sigh) Yeah, I’m sure she will. Things are never easy here. Fuck it; we’re pushing forward on both groups right now and putting an end to it once and for all. The question is, would you prefer to lead a company against the Wendigo tribe or go on a seek and destroy mission on the forest elves.”