Eternal
This still feels off to you, no your company isn’t going to scatter themselves looking for odd colored rocks, the dark elves first found this place they can do the leg work. Edolith of course is annoyed that you aren’t going to help and for a moment she almost says if you’re not going to participate in the search then they aren’t either. However it’s quite clear her desire to put more of her kin to the sword is a lot stronger than defying you, she throws up her hands, mumbles something about you being scared monkeys and orders all of her men to start searching the area. You tell your own men to set themselves up in a defensive perimeter, so just in case this is still an ambush, you’re at least no going to get caught off guard and have a weak point open. About an hour passes and one of the dark elves finds the rock with a hidden door in the ground nearby.
“Well we found it, some of my more enthusiastic men have taken it upon themselves to head down there already. Just as well considering you monkeys can’t see in the dark.” Edolith says to you.
You have your own men light up torches and follow the dark elves down the ladder and into the darkness. As it turns out there wasn’t anything to worry about. There was no trap waiting to pick anyone off the ladder, just like there wasn’t any ambush.
When you finally get down into the elven hideout, many of the dark elves and some of your own men have already gone on ahead. Edolith has opted to stay near the back, closer to where you are. A few moment after traveling down the dark dirt corridor, you hear a bunch of yelling up front, followed by high pitched squeals further up ahead and then something spoke in the elven that sounds like a command. Then a bright light appears far in front of you.
“SHIELDS AND DUCK DOWN!” you yell, realizing this is a fireball. There’s no place to run because you’re stuck in the corridor, you duck down behind the large shields that the men in front have and hope for the best. You feel the heat of the flame that incinerates the unfortunate souls caught in front, and you’re even burned a little, but you were lucky that the blast didn’t extend too far back.
Having survived the blast, you and the survivors run over the burned bodies and out of the corridor into the large open dimly lit area beyond as soon as you can before another fireball comes at you. It is then you see an older elf mumbling something in his language. Obviously a wizard of some sort. The dark elves that survived are attempting to shoot bolts at him, but he has a magic shield up. He strikes a couple of them down with well placed lightning bolts.
“Don’t just stand out in the open catching lightning bolts! Take cover and keep firing!” you hear Edolith shout.
You tell your own men to take cover as well. With all their metal armor they’d end up being mass fried by the lightning. As for you, you find cover behind a house structure where you hear whimpering inside.
You peer out from behind your cover and see your men pinned down behind cover, but safe. The dark elves can’t break through his barrier, the only option will be to get in close enough to chop his head off or get him to drop his shield, but how to do that without getting fried is another matter.
Still hearing the whimpering from inside the house structure, you quickly run inside to investigate. Inside you see a female elf with a younger one cowering in the corner of their home. They say something in their language, which you can only guess is pleas for you not to kill them. You also see a crib with a baby in it and you quickly get a plan.
You grab the baby and push aside the mother’s feeble attempts to stop you. Carrying the crying baby under your arm you run out of the house. You see the wizard still blasting bolts at the dark elves and you make a beeline towards him. He notices you and as he begins to cast his spell you throw the baby at him as hard as you can. The shock of having a baby thrown at him catches him severely off guard and he stops casting. He also drops his shield to catch the baby.
“FIRE!” you hear Eldolith shout and the dark elves comply.
Bolts sinks into the wizard’s head dropping him.
Another bolt ceases the baby’s cries.
“WATCH OUT CAPTAIN!” you hear one of your men shout and you instinctively attempt to get back into cover. Several bolts just miss you, but your still catch one to the leg before scrambling behind another rock.
The sounds of battle between your men and the dark elves fills your ears as you try to pull the bolt out. You just get the bolt out of your leg, when Edolith attempts to cleave your head in. You roll out of the way and pick up your sword, though you’re having a little trouble standing.
“I have to admit, baby throwing was a tactic worthy of a svelk. Too bad I have to kill you, you were okay for a monkey. But I got a reputation to maintain among my men.”
“So do I.” you answer and clash weapons with Edolith.
She’s quicker and lands a few good hits, but her mistake is getting in close enough for you to grab her long flowing hair. She attempts to pull free, but you yank hard and grab her wrist. You then break it causing her to drop her weapon. She holds back yelling out in pain and knees you as hard as she can in the groin and jamming her sharp fingernails straight into your eye.
This doesn’t cause you to release your grip. With the pain slowly creeping up from your nuts and into your stomach and bloody ocular jelly leaking out your socket you take both of your arms and wrap them around Edolith’s waist and squeeze tightly in an attempt to break her back. You then smash her in the face several times with your head, breaking her nose completely and even knocking out a few teeth. The pair of you crash to the ground and you finish her off by viciously biting out her throat. The copper taste of her blood fills the taste buds of your tongue and you spit a thick glob of it on her face as she gurgles and dies.
After it’s all said and done, you stagger to your feet victorious over your opponent. One of your men comes up to you.
“Sir! Are you alright?”
“No. But I’ll heal.”
“Okay…well all the treacherous dark elves are dead and it looks like all the regular elves are too. There are only women and children left hiding in their homes and none of them are fighters.”
“Are they still elves?” you ask.
“Well yes.”
“Then kill ‘em all. I’m sick of the whole fucking race at this point.” You say and stagger off.
After the grim business of extermination the elves, you and the remainder of your company set off back to Fort Destiny. A day later when you finally arrive at the fort you notice it’s a lot more empty from when you left it. In fact Captain Krozer isn’t even here. Lieutenant Verant seems to be in charge though he’s almost subservient when you address him.
“By the Emperor! Lieutenant I think you need to see a medic, you’ve got a limp, your skin is burned and cut up and your eye is missing!” he says when seeing your wounds.
“Where’s Captain Krozer? I wish to report our total victory on the elves as well as the treachery of the dark ones that we’ll no longer have to pay.”
“Captain Krozer? She went with most of the men to do battle with the wendigo tribe. Their territory is quite a ways, but I imagine she’ll be back soon. Congratulations on your victory, but go see the medic right away!”
You nod and allow yourself to finally relax at the medic’s office. You’ve been running on adrenaline for quite some time and now that your safe, you at last feel like you can rest a little. Most of your wounds aren’t particularly bad, except for the eye, which can’t be repaired. The medic just does his best to remove the permanently damaged orb, clean the socket and give you a patch.
“You’ll be able to fight good enough with one eye. You just have to move your head a lot more.” He says.
You rest for a couple days, which are still pretty quiet around the fort. You and everyone else are expecting Captain Krozer to show up, but the worst is starting to creep into everyone’s mind.
“We need to send a search team.” You say.
“We can’t afford to! Between the men you lost fighting the elves, and the entire missing company that Krozer lead, we need all of them here in the area!” Verant says.
“Oh come on Verant! We can’t spare at least ten? I’ll lead the search!”
“(Sigh) Look I didn’t really want this responsibility. I figured she’d come back and I could go back to filing out reports!”
“Well if we don’t find her or if she’s dead, then you’re going to be in this job a lot longer than you thought.”
“I know…I know…hey why don’t you take over?”
“What?”
“Sure! You’re a leader of men and a big tough Eternal! You’d do a better job than me.”
“Well of course I would, but doesn’t this have to be official, like assigned from a higher commanding officer?”
“You said it yourself, Krozer may already be dead, if that’s the case then who’s really going to know? Besides I’m in charge I can hand over the reigns of power if I feel I am no longer fit to command.”
“Okay, but what if she’s not dead? When she comes walking in, she’s going to wonder what the hell’s going on, and both of us are going to get in trouble and I am not getting in trouble over nonsense.”
“I shouldn’t think we’d get in that much trouble. I mean you know Captain Krozer, she’s fairly easy going as far as commanding officers go. She’s probably yell at me more than anything, but not likely to put us on report or anything serious.”
“Well we found it, some of my more enthusiastic men have taken it upon themselves to head down there already. Just as well considering you monkeys can’t see in the dark.” Edolith says to you.
You have your own men light up torches and follow the dark elves down the ladder and into the darkness. As it turns out there wasn’t anything to worry about. There was no trap waiting to pick anyone off the ladder, just like there wasn’t any ambush.
When you finally get down into the elven hideout, many of the dark elves and some of your own men have already gone on ahead. Edolith has opted to stay near the back, closer to where you are. A few moment after traveling down the dark dirt corridor, you hear a bunch of yelling up front, followed by high pitched squeals further up ahead and then something spoke in the elven that sounds like a command. Then a bright light appears far in front of you.
“SHIELDS AND DUCK DOWN!” you yell, realizing this is a fireball. There’s no place to run because you’re stuck in the corridor, you duck down behind the large shields that the men in front have and hope for the best. You feel the heat of the flame that incinerates the unfortunate souls caught in front, and you’re even burned a little, but you were lucky that the blast didn’t extend too far back.
Having survived the blast, you and the survivors run over the burned bodies and out of the corridor into the large open dimly lit area beyond as soon as you can before another fireball comes at you. It is then you see an older elf mumbling something in his language. Obviously a wizard of some sort. The dark elves that survived are attempting to shoot bolts at him, but he has a magic shield up. He strikes a couple of them down with well placed lightning bolts.
“Don’t just stand out in the open catching lightning bolts! Take cover and keep firing!” you hear Edolith shout.
You tell your own men to take cover as well. With all their metal armor they’d end up being mass fried by the lightning. As for you, you find cover behind a house structure where you hear whimpering inside.
You peer out from behind your cover and see your men pinned down behind cover, but safe. The dark elves can’t break through his barrier, the only option will be to get in close enough to chop his head off or get him to drop his shield, but how to do that without getting fried is another matter.
Still hearing the whimpering from inside the house structure, you quickly run inside to investigate. Inside you see a female elf with a younger one cowering in the corner of their home. They say something in their language, which you can only guess is pleas for you not to kill them. You also see a crib with a baby in it and you quickly get a plan.
You grab the baby and push aside the mother’s feeble attempts to stop you. Carrying the crying baby under your arm you run out of the house. You see the wizard still blasting bolts at the dark elves and you make a beeline towards him. He notices you and as he begins to cast his spell you throw the baby at him as hard as you can. The shock of having a baby thrown at him catches him severely off guard and he stops casting. He also drops his shield to catch the baby.
“FIRE!” you hear Eldolith shout and the dark elves comply.
Bolts sinks into the wizard’s head dropping him.
Another bolt ceases the baby’s cries.
“WATCH OUT CAPTAIN!” you hear one of your men shout and you instinctively attempt to get back into cover. Several bolts just miss you, but your still catch one to the leg before scrambling behind another rock.
The sounds of battle between your men and the dark elves fills your ears as you try to pull the bolt out. You just get the bolt out of your leg, when Edolith attempts to cleave your head in. You roll out of the way and pick up your sword, though you’re having a little trouble standing.
“I have to admit, baby throwing was a tactic worthy of a svelk. Too bad I have to kill you, you were okay for a monkey. But I got a reputation to maintain among my men.”
“So do I.” you answer and clash weapons with Edolith.
She’s quicker and lands a few good hits, but her mistake is getting in close enough for you to grab her long flowing hair. She attempts to pull free, but you yank hard and grab her wrist. You then break it causing her to drop her weapon. She holds back yelling out in pain and knees you as hard as she can in the groin and jamming her sharp fingernails straight into your eye.
This doesn’t cause you to release your grip. With the pain slowly creeping up from your nuts and into your stomach and bloody ocular jelly leaking out your socket you take both of your arms and wrap them around Edolith’s waist and squeeze tightly in an attempt to break her back. You then smash her in the face several times with your head, breaking her nose completely and even knocking out a few teeth. The pair of you crash to the ground and you finish her off by viciously biting out her throat. The copper taste of her blood fills the taste buds of your tongue and you spit a thick glob of it on her face as she gurgles and dies.
After it’s all said and done, you stagger to your feet victorious over your opponent. One of your men comes up to you.
“Sir! Are you alright?”
“No. But I’ll heal.”
“Okay…well all the treacherous dark elves are dead and it looks like all the regular elves are too. There are only women and children left hiding in their homes and none of them are fighters.”
“Are they still elves?” you ask.
“Well yes.”
“Then kill ‘em all. I’m sick of the whole fucking race at this point.” You say and stagger off.
After the grim business of extermination the elves, you and the remainder of your company set off back to Fort Destiny. A day later when you finally arrive at the fort you notice it’s a lot more empty from when you left it. In fact Captain Krozer isn’t even here. Lieutenant Verant seems to be in charge though he’s almost subservient when you address him.
“By the Emperor! Lieutenant I think you need to see a medic, you’ve got a limp, your skin is burned and cut up and your eye is missing!” he says when seeing your wounds.
“Where’s Captain Krozer? I wish to report our total victory on the elves as well as the treachery of the dark ones that we’ll no longer have to pay.”
“Captain Krozer? She went with most of the men to do battle with the wendigo tribe. Their territory is quite a ways, but I imagine she’ll be back soon. Congratulations on your victory, but go see the medic right away!”
You nod and allow yourself to finally relax at the medic’s office. You’ve been running on adrenaline for quite some time and now that your safe, you at last feel like you can rest a little. Most of your wounds aren’t particularly bad, except for the eye, which can’t be repaired. The medic just does his best to remove the permanently damaged orb, clean the socket and give you a patch.
“You’ll be able to fight good enough with one eye. You just have to move your head a lot more.” He says.
You rest for a couple days, which are still pretty quiet around the fort. You and everyone else are expecting Captain Krozer to show up, but the worst is starting to creep into everyone’s mind.
“We need to send a search team.” You say.
“We can’t afford to! Between the men you lost fighting the elves, and the entire missing company that Krozer lead, we need all of them here in the area!” Verant says.
“Oh come on Verant! We can’t spare at least ten? I’ll lead the search!”
“(Sigh) Look I didn’t really want this responsibility. I figured she’d come back and I could go back to filing out reports!”
“Well if we don’t find her or if she’s dead, then you’re going to be in this job a lot longer than you thought.”
“I know…I know…hey why don’t you take over?”
“What?”
“Sure! You’re a leader of men and a big tough Eternal! You’d do a better job than me.”
“Well of course I would, but doesn’t this have to be official, like assigned from a higher commanding officer?”
“You said it yourself, Krozer may already be dead, if that’s the case then who’s really going to know? Besides I’m in charge I can hand over the reigns of power if I feel I am no longer fit to command.”
“Okay, but what if she’s not dead? When she comes walking in, she’s going to wonder what the hell’s going on, and both of us are going to get in trouble and I am not getting in trouble over nonsense.”
“I shouldn’t think we’d get in that much trouble. I mean you know Captain Krozer, she’s fairly easy going as far as commanding officers go. She’s probably yell at me more than anything, but not likely to put us on report or anything serious.”