Eternal
It’s a good idea, but probably impractical and you don’t have the luxury of being impractical at this time. You’d have to retrain them and everything. No, better to just kill them and get this mission over with.
You and the rest of the shadows search for more derro explosives and find a whole room filled with them. You take your time setting up them up in areas, though quite honestly you don’t really know what you’re doing. Yvette seems to have a little better grasp on them for some reason, but even she’s just guessing since she’s never worked with such weaponry before. Talia tries to find some sort of “kill switch” as a safer alternative, but fails to do so.
When you think you’re prepared, you tell everyone else to leave the complex and you’ll light the extended fuse. You assure Talia that you’ll be all right since you’ll just speed yourself up. Sister Yvette interrupts you however saying that she’ll volunteer to light the fuse since she feels that if anything does go wrong, it would be a greater loss to the shadows if you died instead.
You ask Yvette if she really wants to take the risk and she assures you that risking her life to save a brother isn’t a risk, it’s an honor to all that serve Dendrin.
“Well…I can’t argue with that I suppose. Okay, but I’m sure we’re all worrying over nothing.”
“You’re probably right brother, but just in case we aren’t, I was honored to serve beside you brother.” Sister Yvette says.
You and the rest of the shadows leave the complex as fast as you can and put a good deal of distance away from the camp before you hear a very large explosion. You turn around and see the entire camp sink into itself. You’re guessing it worked.
“Does anyone see Sister Yvette?” you ask looking for a figure running in the distance.
“No, but let’s wait a bit.”
“Yes well we can’t wait too long, that explosion was loud enough to alert someone. Won’t be long before the Empire sends troops here.”
You wait a few minutes, but Yvette still hasn’t shown up. Thinking that maybe she’s hurt, you insist on going back to the camp to search for her.
There isn’t much left of the camp when you see the destruction caused by the blast. You all look around the wreckage, but you find no trace of her body. You get angry.”
“Fuck! She surely had enough time to get out of the blast! I mean that’s what our speed spell is for isn’t it?!” you shout.
“It is regrettable, but this mission was filled with danger right from the start and she died for a reason. That could’ve been you.” Talia says.
“Yes, but…(Sigh) I dunno. If she had fallen in battle that would’ve been one thing, but to die like this after we already achieved victory? She deserved better.” You says.
“Well, I’m sure she’s in a better place with Dendrin now as she has served him well.”
“Yeah…” you mutter, severely holding back on what you really think about Dendrin. “Come on let’s get out of here before any Empire soldiers show up.”
Before heading back to Rask you tell Brother Theo about the new changes. Fortunately he’s still alive, when you check to see how those other shadow cell attack turned out. Reports have started to come in about the attack on the camp, which isn’t too surprising despite all the chaos going on elsewhere that brother Theo caused. He is saddened to hear of sister Yvette’s death and says she was very instrumental in helping him coordinate the shadow cells, but he’ll make do.
Eventually you make your way back to Rask which you’re happy to find out Cyrus was smart enough to not risk attacking Fort Destiny. Unfortunately he caused a different set back entirely. Talia was about the only one keeping the Flog and the rest of his orcs on good terms. You rarely interacted with him and he never got along with Cyrus who was usually condescending to him. While you were gone apparently a small skirmish ensued between the orcs and shadows. Amazingly nobody was actually killed, but several were wounded and ultimately Flog left with the remainder of the orcs.
“Are you fucking kidding me?” you yell in exasperation.
“Where did they go?” Talia asks.
“How should I know, further north I think where the rest of those overgrown idiots dwell. I don’t care, we don’t need them anyway!” Cyrus says.
After your recent loss of Yvette, you’re not really in any mood for Cyrus’ shortsightedness.
“Oh well, I’m glad that YOU decided that for all of us! Did it even occur to you that we might need them if we were going to attack Fort Destiny?”
“Now you think that’s a good idea? What about all the arguing you did, saying it was a rotten idea?”
“I said it wasn’t the best idea at this time, I wasn’t opposed to it AFTER we got rid of the new eternals. Priorities!”
“Sure, that’s great when they’re YOURS brother. When it comes to the rest of our plans you just ignore them.”
“Well that hardly matters now, because you just fucking ruined your own plans by pissing off our orc allies. Nice going with the self sabotage brother!”
Cyrus looks you up and down with distain in his face. “Fine. We’ll do it your way.” Cyrus begins to storm off
“Wait, brother Cyrus where are you going?” Talia asks.
“Well seeing as our chosen brother of Dendrin is obviously correct about everything and as he pointed out that we cannot do anything without our orc allies any longer, I’m going to follow his suggestion that he gave me not long ago. I’m going to lead an assassination squad myself to get rid of Kane once and for all.”
“Hold on! Wait, we need to plan better for something like that we can’t just…” Talia runs after him.
You dismiss Cyrus and whatever he plans to do, you don’t care anymore. You already offered your help to him on this before and the whole plan at the time was dismissed because of his own pettiness. If he succeeds then that’s good. He’s done something useful for a change, if not then he’ll be out of the way and no longer whining about his our feeble plans. Either way he’s on his own on this.
Three days later reports come in on Cyrus’ death and all shadows he took with him on the mission. Kane wasn’t even severely wounded. In fact all this has done is raise his reputation. Talia doesn’t say it, but she implies that you should’ve helped Cyrus even if claimed he wouldn’t have accepted it.
Draven is devastated by the news and commits suicide soon afterwards. With this sudden loss of several prominent shadows, morale takes a bit of a dive, especially since Cyrus was still well liked around Fort Defiance.
Year 31
“So Flog’s dead?” you ask.
“Yes, I couldn’t get through to him. He insisted that if he didn’t keep raiding the northern villages that support us, his people would’ve just seen him as weak and killed him anyway. Ultimately he said he would’ve preferred to die by my hand and so he did.” Talia replies.
“Well, I suppose that’ll stop organized raids, but it won’t stop them completely.”
“Indeed. Flog’s leadership was probably keeping the rest of his tribe in line and all those various ogre tribes as well. With him gone, it’s going to be chaos.”
“I know. I know. Shit. Well we can only hope that they spend more time fighting each other. In the meantime I’ve got to figure out a way of keeping up the pressure south of Rask. Captain Roldan is starting to become as much of a problem as Kane, has he even left that fortress yet?”
“Nope, report say ever since brother Cyrus’ attempts he doesn’t leave it anymore and he’s been getting an influx of troops as reinforcements lately.”
“Damn it! (Sigh) All right, double up on the shadow protection in key towns. Last thing we need is Kane’s mindless scorched land tactics destroying the places that are helping us.”
Year 32
You slash through the jugular of Kane and even as blood gushes from his throat he laughs madly claiming that you’ll never defeat the Empire. You shove his body out of the window just to shut up his final death throes.
You look over at Talia’s body and curse yourself for allowing this to happen. You knew you should’ve gone on this mission by yourself, but she wanted to be by your side. You don’t even have time to morn right now as you hear the rest of the soldiers scrambling up the stairs to defend their now dead master.
You climb out the very window you threw Kane out of and scale down the walls of the fort and make your escape. When you make it back home, you find plenty of time to weep and morn for your dead love.
With Talia dead, a small portion of your own will to go on has died as well.
Year 33
“The south wall of the fort has been breached!” Brother Gannon shouts.
“Well get ready to kill the bastards that are going to be pouring in then damn it!” you shout back.
The situation is grim and getting worse with every passing second. You can’t believe how the Empire has managed to turn this all around, though it didn’t help that you had a few set backs of your own. Now Captain Roldan is at your gates and there’s nothing you can do to stop it.
You watch as the remaining shadows desperately fight the overwhelming number of Empire soldiers.
“Dendrin, if you’re still watching, I hope you had a good run of amusement, because it’s about to end.” You mutter and rush into the hopeless battle.
During Roldan’s life, he would go on to speak about how you were a worthy opponent during conversations about the battle of Fort Defiance. Probably out of minor respect that you were an Eternal.
Ultimately though history only remembered Roldan and how he gloriously destroyed the shadow traitors once and for all.
You and the rest of the shadows search for more derro explosives and find a whole room filled with them. You take your time setting up them up in areas, though quite honestly you don’t really know what you’re doing. Yvette seems to have a little better grasp on them for some reason, but even she’s just guessing since she’s never worked with such weaponry before. Talia tries to find some sort of “kill switch” as a safer alternative, but fails to do so.
When you think you’re prepared, you tell everyone else to leave the complex and you’ll light the extended fuse. You assure Talia that you’ll be all right since you’ll just speed yourself up. Sister Yvette interrupts you however saying that she’ll volunteer to light the fuse since she feels that if anything does go wrong, it would be a greater loss to the shadows if you died instead.
You ask Yvette if she really wants to take the risk and she assures you that risking her life to save a brother isn’t a risk, it’s an honor to all that serve Dendrin.
“Well…I can’t argue with that I suppose. Okay, but I’m sure we’re all worrying over nothing.”
“You’re probably right brother, but just in case we aren’t, I was honored to serve beside you brother.” Sister Yvette says.
You and the rest of the shadows leave the complex as fast as you can and put a good deal of distance away from the camp before you hear a very large explosion. You turn around and see the entire camp sink into itself. You’re guessing it worked.
“Does anyone see Sister Yvette?” you ask looking for a figure running in the distance.
“No, but let’s wait a bit.”
“Yes well we can’t wait too long, that explosion was loud enough to alert someone. Won’t be long before the Empire sends troops here.”
You wait a few minutes, but Yvette still hasn’t shown up. Thinking that maybe she’s hurt, you insist on going back to the camp to search for her.
There isn’t much left of the camp when you see the destruction caused by the blast. You all look around the wreckage, but you find no trace of her body. You get angry.”
“Fuck! She surely had enough time to get out of the blast! I mean that’s what our speed spell is for isn’t it?!” you shout.
“It is regrettable, but this mission was filled with danger right from the start and she died for a reason. That could’ve been you.” Talia says.
“Yes, but…(Sigh) I dunno. If she had fallen in battle that would’ve been one thing, but to die like this after we already achieved victory? She deserved better.” You says.
“Well, I’m sure she’s in a better place with Dendrin now as she has served him well.”
“Yeah…” you mutter, severely holding back on what you really think about Dendrin. “Come on let’s get out of here before any Empire soldiers show up.”
Before heading back to Rask you tell Brother Theo about the new changes. Fortunately he’s still alive, when you check to see how those other shadow cell attack turned out. Reports have started to come in about the attack on the camp, which isn’t too surprising despite all the chaos going on elsewhere that brother Theo caused. He is saddened to hear of sister Yvette’s death and says she was very instrumental in helping him coordinate the shadow cells, but he’ll make do.
Eventually you make your way back to Rask which you’re happy to find out Cyrus was smart enough to not risk attacking Fort Destiny. Unfortunately he caused a different set back entirely. Talia was about the only one keeping the Flog and the rest of his orcs on good terms. You rarely interacted with him and he never got along with Cyrus who was usually condescending to him. While you were gone apparently a small skirmish ensued between the orcs and shadows. Amazingly nobody was actually killed, but several were wounded and ultimately Flog left with the remainder of the orcs.
“Are you fucking kidding me?” you yell in exasperation.
“Where did they go?” Talia asks.
“How should I know, further north I think where the rest of those overgrown idiots dwell. I don’t care, we don’t need them anyway!” Cyrus says.
After your recent loss of Yvette, you’re not really in any mood for Cyrus’ shortsightedness.
“Oh well, I’m glad that YOU decided that for all of us! Did it even occur to you that we might need them if we were going to attack Fort Destiny?”
“Now you think that’s a good idea? What about all the arguing you did, saying it was a rotten idea?”
“I said it wasn’t the best idea at this time, I wasn’t opposed to it AFTER we got rid of the new eternals. Priorities!”
“Sure, that’s great when they’re YOURS brother. When it comes to the rest of our plans you just ignore them.”
“Well that hardly matters now, because you just fucking ruined your own plans by pissing off our orc allies. Nice going with the self sabotage brother!”
Cyrus looks you up and down with distain in his face. “Fine. We’ll do it your way.” Cyrus begins to storm off
“Wait, brother Cyrus where are you going?” Talia asks.
“Well seeing as our chosen brother of Dendrin is obviously correct about everything and as he pointed out that we cannot do anything without our orc allies any longer, I’m going to follow his suggestion that he gave me not long ago. I’m going to lead an assassination squad myself to get rid of Kane once and for all.”
“Hold on! Wait, we need to plan better for something like that we can’t just…” Talia runs after him.
You dismiss Cyrus and whatever he plans to do, you don’t care anymore. You already offered your help to him on this before and the whole plan at the time was dismissed because of his own pettiness. If he succeeds then that’s good. He’s done something useful for a change, if not then he’ll be out of the way and no longer whining about his our feeble plans. Either way he’s on his own on this.
Three days later reports come in on Cyrus’ death and all shadows he took with him on the mission. Kane wasn’t even severely wounded. In fact all this has done is raise his reputation. Talia doesn’t say it, but she implies that you should’ve helped Cyrus even if claimed he wouldn’t have accepted it.
Draven is devastated by the news and commits suicide soon afterwards. With this sudden loss of several prominent shadows, morale takes a bit of a dive, especially since Cyrus was still well liked around Fort Defiance.
Year 31
“So Flog’s dead?” you ask.
“Yes, I couldn’t get through to him. He insisted that if he didn’t keep raiding the northern villages that support us, his people would’ve just seen him as weak and killed him anyway. Ultimately he said he would’ve preferred to die by my hand and so he did.” Talia replies.
“Well, I suppose that’ll stop organized raids, but it won’t stop them completely.”
“Indeed. Flog’s leadership was probably keeping the rest of his tribe in line and all those various ogre tribes as well. With him gone, it’s going to be chaos.”
“I know. I know. Shit. Well we can only hope that they spend more time fighting each other. In the meantime I’ve got to figure out a way of keeping up the pressure south of Rask. Captain Roldan is starting to become as much of a problem as Kane, has he even left that fortress yet?”
“Nope, report say ever since brother Cyrus’ attempts he doesn’t leave it anymore and he’s been getting an influx of troops as reinforcements lately.”
“Damn it! (Sigh) All right, double up on the shadow protection in key towns. Last thing we need is Kane’s mindless scorched land tactics destroying the places that are helping us.”
Year 32
You slash through the jugular of Kane and even as blood gushes from his throat he laughs madly claiming that you’ll never defeat the Empire. You shove his body out of the window just to shut up his final death throes.
You look over at Talia’s body and curse yourself for allowing this to happen. You knew you should’ve gone on this mission by yourself, but she wanted to be by your side. You don’t even have time to morn right now as you hear the rest of the soldiers scrambling up the stairs to defend their now dead master.
You climb out the very window you threw Kane out of and scale down the walls of the fort and make your escape. When you make it back home, you find plenty of time to weep and morn for your dead love.
With Talia dead, a small portion of your own will to go on has died as well.
Year 33
“The south wall of the fort has been breached!” Brother Gannon shouts.
“Well get ready to kill the bastards that are going to be pouring in then damn it!” you shout back.
The situation is grim and getting worse with every passing second. You can’t believe how the Empire has managed to turn this all around, though it didn’t help that you had a few set backs of your own. Now Captain Roldan is at your gates and there’s nothing you can do to stop it.
You watch as the remaining shadows desperately fight the overwhelming number of Empire soldiers.
“Dendrin, if you’re still watching, I hope you had a good run of amusement, because it’s about to end.” You mutter and rush into the hopeless battle.
During Roldan’s life, he would go on to speak about how you were a worthy opponent during conversations about the battle of Fort Defiance. Probably out of minor respect that you were an Eternal.
Ultimately though history only remembered Roldan and how he gloriously destroyed the shadow traitors once and for all.
