Eternal
While it may be just a “little” snow and wind now, you’re quite familiar with just how bad the weather can suddenly change in Rask, especially as far north as you are. You aren’t going to get yourself half frozen to death due to bad planning. You tell everyone you’re all returning to Evergloom,. Nobody protests, but by the looks and whispering, you can tell they aren’t happy about it. They’re obviously all in the mood for more killing, but they’re going to just have to wait. You need to talk to Talia about some of the new eternals’ recent behavior anyway.
When you arrive back at Evergloom, the snow has already gotten past ankle deep and it’s still falling. You believe now you’ve made the right decision and you probably won’t be able to pursue Flog until this sudden snowstorm lets up. In the meantime you go to Talia and explain the situation at Flogtown and what happened with one of the new eternals. The funny thing is she doesn’t seem entirely surprised by the behavior.
“Well, it was definitely wrong for any of them to grumble about your orders. I will speak to all of them about this on our next training session, but I don’t think you need to worry, they are still just young and prone to a bit of undisciplined behavior at times. They all still know you are the Shadow Master and must be obeyed.”
“Talia, I’m not even worried about that since I’m sure if they got too out of line I could handle any one of them. I’m more concerned with this uncontrolled bloodlust that they seem to display along with other more unsavory acts when engaging in battle.”
“As I said they are just young and full of piss and vinegar. Besides, don’t you usually enjoy battle too?”
“Yes I don’t deny that, I never have. I believe it’s part of being an Eternal, but I don’t get a sadistic gleeful pleasure out of it like they seem to do and I certainly don’t try to violate anyone.”
“The one you’re speaking about, Brother Seminai, was he successful in his attempt?”
“No, I told you I stopped him before he could.”
“Hmm, perhaps you should’ve let him continue.”
You are genuinely shocked to hear Talia say this.
“What?! Are you seriously encouraging that we allow our people to rape others?”
“Not encouraging, but…(sigh) look I’m sure you’re aware that the numbers of our order currently aren’t that great and the ratio of men far exceeds the women. Our human members are either single men or attached to other human women and while I expect our female shadows to do their duty to help bring in new shadows to this world, it still isn’t enough.”
“Talia, We tried recruiting…”
“Yes, I know and that hasn’t been successful either. Now my point was, our eternal shadows are also mostly male, there are currently only a couple of females and the pairing of an eternal male and female seems to result in no offspring. So…”
“Wait a minute! Just stop right there. How do you know this?”
“Simple, I caught two of them raping one of the girls in a storeroom three years ago and after nine months the act produced no offspring.”
Now you’re floored. You can’t believe what you’re hearing.
“And you never thought to tell me this?”
“I never told you about it, since I saw no reason to trouble you with it especially since you had other matters on your mind at the time. The new eternals are primarily my concern and as such it was my responsibility to keep them in line. My initial thought was to put them to death obviously, but then I realized we don’t have the numbers to just throw away like that and I saw an opportunity to see IF the new eternals were fertile, unlike us. If they had been, it would’ve solved both of our problems by replenishing our numbers with superior eternal blood. So instead I only harshly punished the boys and reminded them that Dendrin does not permit the harming of fellow shadows and that if they ever do it again, then they will suffer final judgment by your hand. They obeyed and understood.”
“And what of the victim?”
“It took some time, but I calmed the sister and reassured her that it would never happen again, but to never speak of it for it may disrupt the order of the shadows. She understood. I watched her for a while to see if she was pregnant, but nothing ever showed up and that was the end of it. A pity, but I still held out hope that maybe it was only one gender that was sterile. I don’t know which one though, so that’s why I was saying earlier that it might’ve been in our best interest to let the Brother Seminai have his way with that peasant girl. A potential half eternal is still better than none.”
You know Talia sees the new eternals to a certain extent as her “children” and as such she’s tends to do the protective mother thing on rare occasions. You also know that Talia still harbored the idea of re-creating the shadow order with hundreds of eternal babies. Especially after you told her of how you and her couldn’t have any, but you never thought she’d go to these lengths. This is almost delusional, no, it IS delusional and you’re putting a stop to it right now.
“Talia, this is…misguided. It’s obvious that these eternals are just like us in that they are sterile. And I don’t think replenishing our numbers by raping the population is the answer.”
“Oh? Just like your choice to allow Flog to enslave several towns was misguided? Well I don’t see you coming up with any better ideas on attempting to preserve the order from dying out, let alone the eternals! Don’t you dare make me out to be some monster, I’m only trying to figure out a way to keep us from just disappearing from history once we’re all dead and turned to dust!” Talia yells getting upset in the process. She’s completely ignoring all “protocol” that you’re Shadow Master at this point, but you don’t care about that, never have when it comes to her. Still, you’re going to have to settle this matter before the night’s over and to be fair, she’s right in that you aren’t in any position to judge her. Ultimately the both of you make up and you make the decision that you’re going to call a meeting of the shadows.
It’s just as well you decide to get your “house in order” because the snowstorm only gets worse as the night goes on and you’re literally snowed in for about a month, but fortunately you’ve got more than enough food stored up. You take the time to re-establish the rules and what is acceptable and what isn’t.
This goes about as well as can be expected. Nobody speaks up out of turn or protests, but you know that there is a simmering resentment underneath. By the time the snowstorm is over, you’re glad to send them all out to go seek out Flog and murder him along with anyone under his command..
When you get to the next enslaved village, you find the place in even worse shape than the first one. The snowstorm hit this place pretty badly and apparently not much food had been stored up. Gruesome sights of half eaten bodies on spits are prominent and not all of them consist of human slaves, some of them are of other orcs, even an ogre. You’re attacked on sight immediately, but it’s probably more due to hunger than anything else. After a quick skirmish you don’t find anything else alive in the village. All the slaves have either been eaten or froze to death. Flog apparently wasn’t here either, you shake your head and mutter “Of course it would have to be the last one.”
Going to the final village, you find it in better condition than the last one, but that isn’t saying much. Looking at the mostly eaten giant laying outside the village, it looks like Flog got enterprising in his cannibalism and rationed out the meat on a larger target.
The gate isn’t even guarded and you walk right in. Orcs and slaves alike both take notice. It is there you finally catch sight of Flog.
“Flog.” You call out.
“Shadow.” He answers.
There is a brief pause of wondering what your intentions exactly are, but not for long and he orders his people to defend themselves. It’s a futile order as the new eternals have been itching for a real fight since they left Evergloom and are more than a match for the orcs and ogres. You can only hope none of them decide to take out their enthusiasm on the human slaves like last time.
Flog himself is cut down in a joint effort between you and Cyrus. Flog never does question why you’re attacking him, probably because he was too busy trying to survive at the time. Wouldn’t matter anyway, his fate was decided long ago.
“What are we going to do about the slaves?” Cyrus asks.
“Free them before we leave of course.” You remark.
“Do you think they’ll really survive? None of them look too good.”
“Well of course they don’t, they’re fucking slaves, Cyrus. What are you suggesting, that we take them with us?”
“Well no, I just wasn’t sure, since you seemed to want to help the ones in the other village.”
“If there’s anything I’ve learned, it’s that we’ve done enough to these folks. The best thing we can do for them has been done. We’ve freed them. It’ll be up to them if they want to survive.”
“Understood.”
With that last bit of wisdom, the slaves are freed though none of them are in any particular condition to enjoy it. You take your leave before they muster up the strength to start cursing you like the last ones did.
On the long trek back home, you ponder the future of what you’re going to have to do to keep this order sustainable and right now you’re coming up blank. You hope that you can to better than that soon, because that’s an unacceptable solution. It’s times like this when you wish you had a misplaced faith in a god so that you could pray to them for guidance.
Of course it wouldn’t do you much good, if that god were anything like Dendrin.
When you arrive back at Evergloom, the snow has already gotten past ankle deep and it’s still falling. You believe now you’ve made the right decision and you probably won’t be able to pursue Flog until this sudden snowstorm lets up. In the meantime you go to Talia and explain the situation at Flogtown and what happened with one of the new eternals. The funny thing is she doesn’t seem entirely surprised by the behavior.
“Well, it was definitely wrong for any of them to grumble about your orders. I will speak to all of them about this on our next training session, but I don’t think you need to worry, they are still just young and prone to a bit of undisciplined behavior at times. They all still know you are the Shadow Master and must be obeyed.”
“Talia, I’m not even worried about that since I’m sure if they got too out of line I could handle any one of them. I’m more concerned with this uncontrolled bloodlust that they seem to display along with other more unsavory acts when engaging in battle.”
“As I said they are just young and full of piss and vinegar. Besides, don’t you usually enjoy battle too?”
“Yes I don’t deny that, I never have. I believe it’s part of being an Eternal, but I don’t get a sadistic gleeful pleasure out of it like they seem to do and I certainly don’t try to violate anyone.”
“The one you’re speaking about, Brother Seminai, was he successful in his attempt?”
“No, I told you I stopped him before he could.”
“Hmm, perhaps you should’ve let him continue.”
You are genuinely shocked to hear Talia say this.
“What?! Are you seriously encouraging that we allow our people to rape others?”
“Not encouraging, but…(sigh) look I’m sure you’re aware that the numbers of our order currently aren’t that great and the ratio of men far exceeds the women. Our human members are either single men or attached to other human women and while I expect our female shadows to do their duty to help bring in new shadows to this world, it still isn’t enough.”
“Talia, We tried recruiting…”
“Yes, I know and that hasn’t been successful either. Now my point was, our eternal shadows are also mostly male, there are currently only a couple of females and the pairing of an eternal male and female seems to result in no offspring. So…”
“Wait a minute! Just stop right there. How do you know this?”
“Simple, I caught two of them raping one of the girls in a storeroom three years ago and after nine months the act produced no offspring.”
Now you’re floored. You can’t believe what you’re hearing.
“And you never thought to tell me this?”
“I never told you about it, since I saw no reason to trouble you with it especially since you had other matters on your mind at the time. The new eternals are primarily my concern and as such it was my responsibility to keep them in line. My initial thought was to put them to death obviously, but then I realized we don’t have the numbers to just throw away like that and I saw an opportunity to see IF the new eternals were fertile, unlike us. If they had been, it would’ve solved both of our problems by replenishing our numbers with superior eternal blood. So instead I only harshly punished the boys and reminded them that Dendrin does not permit the harming of fellow shadows and that if they ever do it again, then they will suffer final judgment by your hand. They obeyed and understood.”
“And what of the victim?”
“It took some time, but I calmed the sister and reassured her that it would never happen again, but to never speak of it for it may disrupt the order of the shadows. She understood. I watched her for a while to see if she was pregnant, but nothing ever showed up and that was the end of it. A pity, but I still held out hope that maybe it was only one gender that was sterile. I don’t know which one though, so that’s why I was saying earlier that it might’ve been in our best interest to let the Brother Seminai have his way with that peasant girl. A potential half eternal is still better than none.”
You know Talia sees the new eternals to a certain extent as her “children” and as such she’s tends to do the protective mother thing on rare occasions. You also know that Talia still harbored the idea of re-creating the shadow order with hundreds of eternal babies. Especially after you told her of how you and her couldn’t have any, but you never thought she’d go to these lengths. This is almost delusional, no, it IS delusional and you’re putting a stop to it right now.
“Talia, this is…misguided. It’s obvious that these eternals are just like us in that they are sterile. And I don’t think replenishing our numbers by raping the population is the answer.”
“Oh? Just like your choice to allow Flog to enslave several towns was misguided? Well I don’t see you coming up with any better ideas on attempting to preserve the order from dying out, let alone the eternals! Don’t you dare make me out to be some monster, I’m only trying to figure out a way to keep us from just disappearing from history once we’re all dead and turned to dust!” Talia yells getting upset in the process. She’s completely ignoring all “protocol” that you’re Shadow Master at this point, but you don’t care about that, never have when it comes to her. Still, you’re going to have to settle this matter before the night’s over and to be fair, she’s right in that you aren’t in any position to judge her. Ultimately the both of you make up and you make the decision that you’re going to call a meeting of the shadows.
It’s just as well you decide to get your “house in order” because the snowstorm only gets worse as the night goes on and you’re literally snowed in for about a month, but fortunately you’ve got more than enough food stored up. You take the time to re-establish the rules and what is acceptable and what isn’t.
This goes about as well as can be expected. Nobody speaks up out of turn or protests, but you know that there is a simmering resentment underneath. By the time the snowstorm is over, you’re glad to send them all out to go seek out Flog and murder him along with anyone under his command..
When you get to the next enslaved village, you find the place in even worse shape than the first one. The snowstorm hit this place pretty badly and apparently not much food had been stored up. Gruesome sights of half eaten bodies on spits are prominent and not all of them consist of human slaves, some of them are of other orcs, even an ogre. You’re attacked on sight immediately, but it’s probably more due to hunger than anything else. After a quick skirmish you don’t find anything else alive in the village. All the slaves have either been eaten or froze to death. Flog apparently wasn’t here either, you shake your head and mutter “Of course it would have to be the last one.”
Going to the final village, you find it in better condition than the last one, but that isn’t saying much. Looking at the mostly eaten giant laying outside the village, it looks like Flog got enterprising in his cannibalism and rationed out the meat on a larger target.
The gate isn’t even guarded and you walk right in. Orcs and slaves alike both take notice. It is there you finally catch sight of Flog.
“Flog.” You call out.
“Shadow.” He answers.
There is a brief pause of wondering what your intentions exactly are, but not for long and he orders his people to defend themselves. It’s a futile order as the new eternals have been itching for a real fight since they left Evergloom and are more than a match for the orcs and ogres. You can only hope none of them decide to take out their enthusiasm on the human slaves like last time.
Flog himself is cut down in a joint effort between you and Cyrus. Flog never does question why you’re attacking him, probably because he was too busy trying to survive at the time. Wouldn’t matter anyway, his fate was decided long ago.
“What are we going to do about the slaves?” Cyrus asks.
“Free them before we leave of course.” You remark.
“Do you think they’ll really survive? None of them look too good.”
“Well of course they don’t, they’re fucking slaves, Cyrus. What are you suggesting, that we take them with us?”
“Well no, I just wasn’t sure, since you seemed to want to help the ones in the other village.”
“If there’s anything I’ve learned, it’s that we’ve done enough to these folks. The best thing we can do for them has been done. We’ve freed them. It’ll be up to them if they want to survive.”
“Understood.”
With that last bit of wisdom, the slaves are freed though none of them are in any particular condition to enjoy it. You take your leave before they muster up the strength to start cursing you like the last ones did.
On the long trek back home, you ponder the future of what you’re going to have to do to keep this order sustainable and right now you’re coming up blank. You hope that you can to better than that soon, because that’s an unacceptable solution. It’s times like this when you wish you had a misplaced faith in a god so that you could pray to them for guidance.
Of course it wouldn’t do you much good, if that god were anything like Dendrin.