Eternal

The whole point of changing your surroundings is to go someplace where you haven’t been before. You’ve been through Quala and Arat and you’d rather not have to travel through them again. You’re going to off in a completely new direction.

Your journey through the eastern swamp is an ordeal to say the least. The swamp eventually becomes more of a jungle it almost seems as if the land itself is protecting something or otherwise it just doesn’t want anyone going further east.

You do battle with several beasts that you’ve never seen before and probably nobody else from the “civilized” world has either. It’s not just beasts that are hostile, or even the plants, but also a short dark race of humans. Their small stature doesn’t make them any less dangerous. If it wasn’t for your magic abilities you doubt if you’d be able to handle so many because you swear the trees must be spawning the little bastards. Thankfully as an eternal you’re also somewhat resistant to poisons.

Still the constant attacks are taking their toll and you’re exhausted from fighting and magic use. The moment you are able to get a small bit of sleep, even Dendrin is suggesting that perhaps you should go back. You ignore him though. He’s always giving you contradictory suggestions. One moment he’s telling you to something like change your surroundings, and the next he’s telling you how that’s bad. You wish he’d just leave you alone once and for all.

You press onward and eventually the jungle thins out a bit and you discover what looks to be some very old ruins. Another temple perhaps, but its design isn’t like the shadow temple. Your curiosity gets the better of you and you decide to enter. If nothing else, it’ll give you a bit of relief from the tree dwelling attackers.

You cautiously explore, but so far the ruins seem empty. You don’t even come across any of the jungle fauna making their home here. Your guess that it was once some sort of temple seems to be on target as you come across several altars and odd symbols. Lot of drawing of snakes too. You’re guessing it was dedicated to some sort of snake god.

Not finding anything of interest, you step back outside only to suddenly feel four sharp darts going into your body. The pygmies set up an ambush! You stagger back inside the ruins cursing yourself for not being more observant.

You can hear them shouting excitedly from outside while you’re pulling out the dart from behind a fallen stone pillar. Given that they typically attack you with abandon of their own well-being, you fully expect them to come rushing into the temple to attack you. It’ll be taxing, but you’ll have the advantage in the cover of the darkness.

That doesn’t happen however. They don’t enter the temple at all and seem to be waiting for you to come out. You wonder if they consider this place taboo or something. In any case you decide you’ll take advantage by resting a moment and when you feel like you’ve got the energy, you’ll cloak yourself and sneak past them all.

You wait in the darkness for quite a while and keeping an ear out for the pygmies. Though while you’re listening out for them, you then hear another sound which sounds very close. A hissing sound that is right behind you…

You turn around and swing your weapon, but the instant you do, an incredibly bright light blinds you. You then feel the whip of a tail smashing you in the chest causing you to fall backwards and hit your head on the stone floor.

Through your grogginess and hazy eye sight you manage to just make out your attacker which seems to be some sort of serpent creature, but with arms like a human holding a staff with a glowing tip.

You attempt to mumble a spell to speed you up, but the serpent creature is faster even without magical enhancements. Its head lunges forward and you feel its fangs sink deep into your throat puncturing the jugular. You die instantly.
End Of Story