Eternal
As much of a pain in the ass as they may be, you can’t just start planning a mass assassination of them because of it. They really haven’t defied you directly yet anyway. Of course you’ve rather them not get to that point, so you’re going to hope that things get better…
Naturally things like this never just “get better”.
Year 46
“That’s it! They went too fucking far this time. You warned them and more importantly I warned them about this. I told them to stay AWAY from the damn peasants and the villages, they didn’t and now we’ve got a massacre on our hands! Our reputation in this country is bad enough without assholes with short tempers slaughtering a handful of peasants that were rightfully giving them suspicious looks!” you yell.
“I think you need to calm yourself, this isn’t as bad as it may seem. Brother Seminai said that…”
You interrupt Talia.
“Ah yes, the usual instigator and trouble maker. Why wasn’t I surprised to hear it was he that came up with the idiotic plan to steal food from one of the local villages and why the hell were they doing it in the first place? Cyrus and Draven take care of that and they do a fine enough job of it!”
“I believe he just thought it might impress or please you to show some initiative.”
“If I wanted him to go skulking around pilfering supplies I would’ve given the order! His job and the rest of the eternal shadows are to just patrol our territory. It’s not that damn hard! If they were really bored they could’ve went hunting or even sought out a giant to kill. I mean they didn’t even use their cloak to go about their thievery! What the fuck were they thinking? They either wanted to get into a fight deliberately or they’re stupidier than I thought! Either way I’m not putting up with such incompetence, where are the five of them right now?”
“They’re currently in the barracks, but I don’t think you should…”
You push Talia out of the way and head to the barracks, she chases after you and tries to plead on their behalf, but you’re tired of it and them. After today, everything is going to be different in more ways than one.
You get to the barracks and see several of the eternal shadows standing around talking, the five involved in the incident are in the center. All of them look at you when you enter the room.
“You have disobeyed direct orders from me and more importantly Dendrin. I don’t care what your excuses are, because I’m tired of hearing them. The punishment will be death.”
You say and draw your weapon. Talia cries out a “No!” but you are unmoved.
To their credit, Brother Seminai and the other four step forward and kneel before you.
“We accept your decision Shadow Master…but I beg you not to punish all of us. It was my idea. I beg not for my life, but those of my brothers who merely followed my lead.”
“Then they deserve death even more than you, since they were foolish enough to simply follow like sheep. This is my final judgment and the will of Dendrin!”
With those words you kill Brother Seminai first, then you go down the line. All the rest of the Eternals stand watching. You think this might be the first time they’ve actually paid any genuine attention to you. With your sword drenched in blood you point to the five bodies on the floor.
“These five disobeyed and have paid their price, but we may still pay our own due to their actions. You lot always seem eager for battle, well I certainly hope you want that, because I guarantee that it will definitely be coming to us.”
You turn to Talia, who is trying to cry as quietly as possible at seeing five of her “children” dead. You lift her chin up with your hand.
“Talia…my love. See to it that they’re ready to attack Volgst in twenty minutes.”
“(sniffle) You…you’re commanding an attack on one of the villages?” she asks in confusion.
“What choice have I got? These fucking idiots just started an incident that can’t be repaired by diplomacy, which wouldn’t be an option for us anyway. The way I see it, we either start attacking fast and hard now, or we wait around for them to build up an army of some sort. We’re already going to be vilified, might as well go with it at this point.”
Year 48
It’s amazing how quickly the tide of a war can change in just a couple years. You’re sure the Empire felt the same way.
You stand amidst the ruins of Evergloom. Well not really the ruins so much as the “empty halls” of Evergloom. Almost all of the shadows are dead, you’ve spent most of the day clearing the bodies. You knew the Raskians would strike back, that was certain. It was also futile on their part. Even the most skilled militiamen their towns could muster wouldn’t be any match for the shadows. You also knew you wouldn’t feasibly be able to occupy the towns, so you didn’t bother, instead putting most of them to the torch. You might as well been called “The Shadow Butcher of Rask” (The old ghost of Kane must be laughing his crazy head off at that one.)
However what wasn’t anticipated was the amount of wealth the Raskians scraped together in order to fight back. They hired lots of Svelk mercenaries to assist in the war. The dark elves proved to be better fighters and just as ruthless. You knew this having had to fight a few of them during the Empire war, but the new eternals let their arrogance get the better of them as usual and many of them were killed before they figured out that this wasn’t a game anymore.
The major turning point was year ago at the battle of Keplavisk where the Raskians won their first outright victory against you. Since that time, it’s been one skirmish after another. Your numbers slowly dwindling and the Raskians getting support from a warlord south of Rask. (He’s an ex-Empire general, so he’s probably helping due to revenge as well as for his own personal gain on Rask)
Then bad timing struck when Evergloom suffered giant tribe attack, you don’t know what caused them to suddenly stir from their mountains, but they struck hard. Didn’t help that the vicious svelk took advantage of this situation by slipping in their own assassination team. The target wasn’t you or even any of the eternals though. It was any child or mother they found in the Evergloom. They had succeeded in their plan by the time they were all cut down.
This was devastating to the morale of the human shadows, who increasingly began blaming the eternal shadows for causing this mess in the first place. Eventually all that unifying faith in Dendrin bullshit went out the window and ultimately the tempers exploded into an orgy of violence.
What you’re cleaning up right now is the bloody aftermath of four days of infighting. Only a few of the eternal shadows survived and they are now no longer the loyal disciples of Dendrin anymore. The events have changed them into the selfish cold blooded killers that they were always were at their core. The ones that survived abandoned Evergloom, presumably to go wage their own personal battle on the Raskians. You guess that they’ll probably be little better than common bandits and probably survive just as long as one.
The funny thing is they were bred probably in the hopes of destroying the shadows, and they’ve actually done it. Perhaps a little later than what was planned, but the shadows are certainly no more.
The Eternals will soon follow as well. Cyrus is dead. Died defending his “normal” lover Draven. You sort of wish you went out the same way, but ever the survivor you managed to live when others died. Besides, you had to kill Talia yourself when she sided with her “children”, claiming that you always hated them and how all of this was your fault. She never did get over the fact that you killed five of them in front of her and by the time the big fight occurred the both of you weren’t exactly on amicable terms anymore. Still you never did harbor the same sort of feelings of anger for her that she did for you.
As you look down at her bloody body, you shed a few tears and say a few words telling her that you still love her. After a few more moments, you put her body with the rest and set the pile on fire, before leaving Evergloom forever.
You briefly wonder if you should seek your death in battle with the Raskians, but you dismiss that plan since you’d hate to give them the satisfaction. Instead you decide to go further north, to the mountains where the giants roam. Surely you’ll be taken down eventually by a combination of them and the harsh elements alone.
You figure you’ll get there quicker by speeding yourself up, but you immediately find out that your spell doesn’t work. In fact none of your magic works. It would appear that Dendrin has finally lost interest.
“Huh. Well that’s one good thing at least.” You say and begin to walk.
Naturally things like this never just “get better”.
Year 46
“That’s it! They went too fucking far this time. You warned them and more importantly I warned them about this. I told them to stay AWAY from the damn peasants and the villages, they didn’t and now we’ve got a massacre on our hands! Our reputation in this country is bad enough without assholes with short tempers slaughtering a handful of peasants that were rightfully giving them suspicious looks!” you yell.
“I think you need to calm yourself, this isn’t as bad as it may seem. Brother Seminai said that…”
You interrupt Talia.
“Ah yes, the usual instigator and trouble maker. Why wasn’t I surprised to hear it was he that came up with the idiotic plan to steal food from one of the local villages and why the hell were they doing it in the first place? Cyrus and Draven take care of that and they do a fine enough job of it!”
“I believe he just thought it might impress or please you to show some initiative.”
“If I wanted him to go skulking around pilfering supplies I would’ve given the order! His job and the rest of the eternal shadows are to just patrol our territory. It’s not that damn hard! If they were really bored they could’ve went hunting or even sought out a giant to kill. I mean they didn’t even use their cloak to go about their thievery! What the fuck were they thinking? They either wanted to get into a fight deliberately or they’re stupidier than I thought! Either way I’m not putting up with such incompetence, where are the five of them right now?”
“They’re currently in the barracks, but I don’t think you should…”
You push Talia out of the way and head to the barracks, she chases after you and tries to plead on their behalf, but you’re tired of it and them. After today, everything is going to be different in more ways than one.
You get to the barracks and see several of the eternal shadows standing around talking, the five involved in the incident are in the center. All of them look at you when you enter the room.
“You have disobeyed direct orders from me and more importantly Dendrin. I don’t care what your excuses are, because I’m tired of hearing them. The punishment will be death.”
You say and draw your weapon. Talia cries out a “No!” but you are unmoved.
To their credit, Brother Seminai and the other four step forward and kneel before you.
“We accept your decision Shadow Master…but I beg you not to punish all of us. It was my idea. I beg not for my life, but those of my brothers who merely followed my lead.”
“Then they deserve death even more than you, since they were foolish enough to simply follow like sheep. This is my final judgment and the will of Dendrin!”
With those words you kill Brother Seminai first, then you go down the line. All the rest of the Eternals stand watching. You think this might be the first time they’ve actually paid any genuine attention to you. With your sword drenched in blood you point to the five bodies on the floor.
“These five disobeyed and have paid their price, but we may still pay our own due to their actions. You lot always seem eager for battle, well I certainly hope you want that, because I guarantee that it will definitely be coming to us.”
You turn to Talia, who is trying to cry as quietly as possible at seeing five of her “children” dead. You lift her chin up with your hand.
“Talia…my love. See to it that they’re ready to attack Volgst in twenty minutes.”
“(sniffle) You…you’re commanding an attack on one of the villages?” she asks in confusion.
“What choice have I got? These fucking idiots just started an incident that can’t be repaired by diplomacy, which wouldn’t be an option for us anyway. The way I see it, we either start attacking fast and hard now, or we wait around for them to build up an army of some sort. We’re already going to be vilified, might as well go with it at this point.”
Year 48
It’s amazing how quickly the tide of a war can change in just a couple years. You’re sure the Empire felt the same way.
You stand amidst the ruins of Evergloom. Well not really the ruins so much as the “empty halls” of Evergloom. Almost all of the shadows are dead, you’ve spent most of the day clearing the bodies. You knew the Raskians would strike back, that was certain. It was also futile on their part. Even the most skilled militiamen their towns could muster wouldn’t be any match for the shadows. You also knew you wouldn’t feasibly be able to occupy the towns, so you didn’t bother, instead putting most of them to the torch. You might as well been called “The Shadow Butcher of Rask” (The old ghost of Kane must be laughing his crazy head off at that one.)
However what wasn’t anticipated was the amount of wealth the Raskians scraped together in order to fight back. They hired lots of Svelk mercenaries to assist in the war. The dark elves proved to be better fighters and just as ruthless. You knew this having had to fight a few of them during the Empire war, but the new eternals let their arrogance get the better of them as usual and many of them were killed before they figured out that this wasn’t a game anymore.
The major turning point was year ago at the battle of Keplavisk where the Raskians won their first outright victory against you. Since that time, it’s been one skirmish after another. Your numbers slowly dwindling and the Raskians getting support from a warlord south of Rask. (He’s an ex-Empire general, so he’s probably helping due to revenge as well as for his own personal gain on Rask)
Then bad timing struck when Evergloom suffered giant tribe attack, you don’t know what caused them to suddenly stir from their mountains, but they struck hard. Didn’t help that the vicious svelk took advantage of this situation by slipping in their own assassination team. The target wasn’t you or even any of the eternals though. It was any child or mother they found in the Evergloom. They had succeeded in their plan by the time they were all cut down.
This was devastating to the morale of the human shadows, who increasingly began blaming the eternal shadows for causing this mess in the first place. Eventually all that unifying faith in Dendrin bullshit went out the window and ultimately the tempers exploded into an orgy of violence.
What you’re cleaning up right now is the bloody aftermath of four days of infighting. Only a few of the eternal shadows survived and they are now no longer the loyal disciples of Dendrin anymore. The events have changed them into the selfish cold blooded killers that they were always were at their core. The ones that survived abandoned Evergloom, presumably to go wage their own personal battle on the Raskians. You guess that they’ll probably be little better than common bandits and probably survive just as long as one.
The funny thing is they were bred probably in the hopes of destroying the shadows, and they’ve actually done it. Perhaps a little later than what was planned, but the shadows are certainly no more.
The Eternals will soon follow as well. Cyrus is dead. Died defending his “normal” lover Draven. You sort of wish you went out the same way, but ever the survivor you managed to live when others died. Besides, you had to kill Talia yourself when she sided with her “children”, claiming that you always hated them and how all of this was your fault. She never did get over the fact that you killed five of them in front of her and by the time the big fight occurred the both of you weren’t exactly on amicable terms anymore. Still you never did harbor the same sort of feelings of anger for her that she did for you.
As you look down at her bloody body, you shed a few tears and say a few words telling her that you still love her. After a few more moments, you put her body with the rest and set the pile on fire, before leaving Evergloom forever.
You briefly wonder if you should seek your death in battle with the Raskians, but you dismiss that plan since you’d hate to give them the satisfaction. Instead you decide to go further north, to the mountains where the giants roam. Surely you’ll be taken down eventually by a combination of them and the harsh elements alone.
You figure you’ll get there quicker by speeding yourself up, but you immediately find out that your spell doesn’t work. In fact none of your magic works. It would appear that Dendrin has finally lost interest.
“Huh. Well that’s one good thing at least.” You say and begin to walk.
