Year 75

Another day of aches and pains, getting old sucks.

After a couple of years of finally putting down the rest of the new Eternal hold outs, you’ve been spending most of your time restructuring the Nalin Empire’s command structure, economy, security and all the rest that goes with it. You haven’t done a bad job considering you were bred for war, not administration, then again you’ve been doing it in limited capacity for years, you just decided to totally focus on it for once and the results are excellent.

While you still have the reputation for ruthlessness, you’ve managed to temper that a bit in last few years even with all the changes you’ve made. Most rulers would probably have to worry about coups or assassination attempts, but those haven’t been a problem due to the high amount of respect you’ve earned from the military. General Cynthia Gemma is officially your second in command, so if anything happens to you, she takes over. Though sometimes you wonder if you’ll outlive her given your knack of surviving. Warrick who was the only other Eternal left besides you died last year. Before he did, he sent a letter informing you that his final hours were upon him.

He didn’t exactly say what was wrong, just that he felt the combination of his age and old wounds catching up to him. It wasn’t a long letter, just mostly him saying how he was glad he never had to fight you as he still respected you as a leader. The respect was mutual. Indeed it was one of the factors to as why you never attacked the Felkan Kingdom. You mourned his passing as you morn the passing of all your fellow Eternals. Most of them deserved better ends. All of them actually.

And now here you are the last of not just your old comrades, but of your kind. The last words that Gruz once told you, have at last come true…you outlived everyone.

Whether you were tougher, smarter, or luckier than the rest you don’t know. Maybe it was something by design when the Empire altered you. Maybe it was just common sense and the simple will to live.

Though lately you’ve been wondering about “living.” You don’t have too many thrills left anymore and the constant pain you’re in, doesn’t make things any easier. You didn’t quite understand all of Brenda’s choice to end her life at the time, but as you’ve reflected on it again and again over the years you get it now and you’re starting to wonder if it’s time to join your fellows.

Besides all you victories in battle, you’ve practically rebuilt the Empire. At least you have as best you could’ve done, all things considered and that’s no easy achievement. You have done enough for anyone to feel proud of doing and if you died now, there would be no shame.

Still, part of you wonders if you’ve lived this long what else could you accomplish if you went on a little longer? Granted you could mess up your already strong reputation, but you could also go on to other great things.
> You continue to live
No, there are still battles to be won even if they aren’t of the physical nature anymore.

One of these battles is how to prevent all of what you’ve built from collapsing soon after you die. You don’t believe it’ll fall into complete anarchy immediately of course and you’re sure that your first few successors will probably do a good enough job since you’ve set it up in such a manner, but entropy and decline seem to be factors as certain as death.

You wonder if this would be easier if you had been able to have children. You know that you can’t just by experience and your own past discussions with Brenda when she spoke of Roldan. No Eternals could have children. You never did know why and just chalked it up to it being something in the process of your creation. Maybe nature balancing itself?

In any case you do come up with something. You think back to the old Empire and the emperor. You never did get to meet him…or her…or it! You once wondered if there even was an emperor. You assume there had to have been at one time, probably several, but something changed. Something changed to make people believe that the emperor wasn’t just a mortal anymore, but an immortal of sorts. It’s this sort of thinking that held the old Empire for a very long time.

It occurs to you that you need to start this very same mindset now. Most of the citizens as of right now hold a certain respect for you and the military is in near awe. You need to keep that going even after you’re dead. The population needs to believe that you’re still alive, watching and protecting them forever. You’re not really looking for immortality for yourself so much as you’re looking for immortality for what you’ve struggled to rebuild. Even creating a strong cult of personality so that you still have “followers” long after your death won’t solve the problem.

Basically, you can’t die and you mean you literally can’t die.

Of course this is impossible, so you have to do the next best thing. Fake your life. Create the same lie that the Empire did. Granted you don’t know if they did, but you’re going to have to attempt it the best way you can. It’s a gamble and it might not even work, but you figure it’s worth a shot and you won’t really know if it fails or not since you’ll be too dead to care.

You call General Gemma into your chambers. She arrives promptly as usual though she seems a confused as you never call anyone into your private chambers.

“Ah good, you’re here. We’ve got some important things to talk about.”

You begin to explain your plan to Cynthia. It’s a lot for her to take in, but she certainly understands it, she also provides some input that you didn’t immediately think about.

In time a few more of your closest staff are informed of this plan and sworn to absolute secrecy then the plan is set into motion. You begin to make less public appearances and have little contact with anyone else except your staff, and begin to have propaganda spread about how you seem to be undergoing a transformation.

You confine yourself to your private chambers most of the time and never leave the palace at all. It’s like a prison, but this is what you need to do in order to carry out this grand plan. You keep yourself busy by thinking up more ideas for your grand plan and making notes as you go.

You think about having all your palace guards replaced by some sort of golem, but then that would require having mages around all the time and you’d rather not deal with that factor. So you do something else, you implement your own elite warrior program. The Silent Ones, utterly loyal soldiers conditioned from birth to serve the Nalin Empire and you no matter what. Their tongues are also removed so that they cannot speak any lies or speak out of turn.

Year 88

The Silent Ones have replaced all other normal palace guards and nobody else other than a select few are able to enter the palace at all and only Cynthia is able to directly have contact with you.

The palace becomes a very quiet place which you enjoy as you can now wander more around your own home without bumping into anyone other than your new guards. The Silent Ones may be young still, but you don’t doubt their loyalty or their skill. When you look them in the eyes, you can see the near worship they’ve been trained to have. Reminds you of the old days when you used to feel the same way about your leader, though at least they’ve gotten to see you and know you’re real, you felt you owed them that much for their indoctrination.

Cynthia is supposed to meet with you today as she normally does. You figure it’ll be about the usual stuff She meets you in your private chambers as usual.

“Hello Cynthia, I hope you are well today.” You say.
“I’m fine sir, and you?”
“The usual aches and pain, though ever since I threw everyone out of the palace, I’ve actually felt better than I have in years. Things sort of feel more relaxed when you don’t have a host of advisors constantly chattering in your ear all the time wanting to get your attention about something.”
“Yes, it would be a blessing I suppose. You sure you don’t want a medic or anything to keep track of your health?”
“What for? I’m going to live forever remember? Start bringing doctors in here and all there needs to be is one bystander to see it and start spreading lies about me possibly being dead or dying.”
“Well there are a few rumors about you already…”
“Ah yes, but just that there are strange goings on at this palace, changes and such. That coupled with the ongoing propaganda about me, the commoners and the average soldiers don’t really know what to think. It’s important that they believe that they don’t just have a series of tyrants watching them, they need an immortal sentinel.”
“Why not just create a religion and tie it into the state?”
“Oh no, not doing that. I’ve already seen some of that in action with my countless battles with barbarian tribes. In Rask, several of them were all practically worshipping the same faceless deities and continued to fight each other due to small disagreements in how it was interpreted. They would’ve done better to put aside their petty differences in doctrine and unite under it against us instead. Religion can unite people, but it can also divide them worse than anything else, it’s why I outlawed organized religions and cults a long time ago. It’s a silly concept anyway. The idea of beings with so much power over us, yet do nothing.”
“But who says they don’t? Maybe they work through us or something…”

Your eyebrows rise a bit.

“Why Cynthia, I didn’t take you for a believer in the gods.”
“I…I don’t know. I mean, even though there is less magic in the world nowadays, it still exists. There are so many fantastic things in this world that I just don’t think it’s out of the realm of impossibility to have gods.”
“Hmm, well I’m not convinced. I think holy men of all kinds just perpetuate this lie to serve their own ends.”

At one time Cynthia might’ve been a little too scared to approach you about this, but given how close you’ve been over the years, perhaps she has gotten a little more familiar.

“But, isn’t that similar to the lie we’re trying to perpetuate?” she says.

You look at her with a completely serious expression, one of annoyance actually. She looks slightly worried now, and then you smile.

“You’re probably right, but in our case we’re doing it for the greater good!” you laugh.

As your laugher can be heard throughout the quiet halls of the palace, somehow it brings a little joy to the Silent Ones. Your happiness brings them happiness.


Year 56

“Sir, you want us to completely wipe out all settlements with the plague?” Colonel Gemma asks.
“That’s what I said isn’t it? I’ve already assigned all the medics, healers and hedge wizards in the land to focus on the less affected areas. As for those places really bad off kill all the people, cleanse the area with fire, no more problem.”
“But, you’re going to have mass riots! The people will protest, even soldiers! I mean some of their families are in the quarantined areas!”
“Well I guess you better have those soldiers executed then if you think they’ll be a problem. In fact I’m surprised to hear you balk from these orders, I remember you when you were a young soldier wiping out Belzak women and children without hesitation.”
“I…I’m not sir, I’m just concerned about the repercussions of potentially losing more of our army.”
“You let me worry about the repercussions! Look here’s what you do, gather up all the old guard such as yourself to carry out this plan. In fact get those elves I made into orphans during the tribal wars. I’m guessing they should be good and obedient soldiers by now, but they probably won’t hesitate to murder some defenseless humans. The plague doesn’t seem to be affecting non-humans as much anyway, so they’re probably more resistant. In fact gather some of those kobolds too; they can clear out the bodies. Those little bastards seem to be immune altogether. That’s all for now.”

Gemma nods and takes her leave.

You have more concerns today, but you’re delegating them to the advisors as usual. If it isn’t a problem that can be solved by force, you’re not very interested in it. Brenda was right; ruling is a pain in the ass. When she was alive, you still had the “fun” part to focus on, now you have to do it all. This latest plague is probably the most exciting thing that’s happened in years. Still can’t figure out how and where it originated from though. A passing thought was it might be saboteurs from the Eternal Dominion, but they’ve been fighting amongst themselves ever since Edgar died. Never did find his body. You still wonder exactly what it was he wanted to discuss with you and Brenda. An alliance perhaps? A threat to submit? You’ll never know.

The nation of Nalin has become a lot more totalitarian under your rule. You’ve actually made it even more “Empire like” than it already was mostly because it’s what you know, but also because it makes you at least feel like things are how they “should be”. Lately though even that hasn’t helped your mindset. You’ve become increasingly bored with just plain ruling, and after this plague nonsense is taken care of, you’re thinking of doing something to shake things up a bit.

The obvious idea is to expand again, specifically aggressive expansion into Eternal Dominion territory. It’s been too long since you’ve experienced a good fight.

The other idea you’ve had is one you probably wouldn’t have considered again, but at this point any change would be welcome. You’ve thought about just leaving. Leaving everything behind and the region entirely.
> You leave
You thought you left the Empire because it no longer felt like the government you swore to serve. Now that you’re actually in charge and made things more like how they should be, you still feel dissatisfied. Maybe you’ve just got too much “warrior” in you to deal with the minute details of rulership, maybe you just miss Brenda; maybe it’s a combination of several things. The point remains that you’re burned out on civilization in general and maybe you just need to be by yourself for a while. Granted you’ve always been a bit by yourself even among your fellow Eternals, but you’re thinking you need to be really alone. By yourself and maybe finding your own way elsewhere.

So you pack up some of your belongings and leave. You don’t bother even telling anyone, you just go and head east. You keep to the wilderness and eventually when you step beyond the borders of eastern Nalin, you at last feel like a great weight has been lifted off your shoulders. After a few months, you don’t miss Nalin at all.

In the years that follow you wander, seeing new sights and getting into a few skirmishes a long the way. Sometimes you genuinely attempt to find a place where you feel comfortable, but it just never happens and you continue your wandering.

While you continue to feel the ravages of old age always creeping up on you, you stubbornly refuse to submit to them. Ever the warrior, you eventually meet your end in battle with a group of opportunistic svelk bandits.


Year 56

“Sir, you want us to completely wipe out all settlements with the plague?” Colonel Gemma asks.
“That’s what I said isn’t it? I’ve already assigned all the medics, healers and hedge wizards in the land to focus on the less affected areas. As for those places really bad off kill all the people, cleanse the area with fire, no more problem.”
“But, you’re going to have mass riots! The people will protest, even soldiers! I mean some of their families are in the quarantined areas!”
“Well I guess you better have those soldiers executed then if you think they’ll be a problem. In fact I’m surprised to hear you balk from these orders, I remember you when you were a young soldier wiping out Belzak women and children without hesitation.”
“I…I’m not sir, I’m just concerned about the repercussions of potentially losing more of our army.”
“You let me worry about the repercussions! Look here’s what you do, gather up all the old guard such as yourself to carry out this plan. In fact get those elves I made into orphans during the tribal wars. I’m guessing they should be good and obedient soldiers by now, but they probably won’t hesitate to murder some defenseless humans. The plague doesn’t seem to be affecting non-humans as much anyway, so they’re probably more resistant. In fact gather some of those kobolds too; they can clear out the bodies. Those little bastards seem to be immune altogether. That’s all for now.”

Gemma nods and takes her leave.

You have more concerns today, but you’re delegating them to the advisors as usual. If it isn’t a problem that can be solved by force, you’re not very interested in it. Brenda was right; ruling is a pain in the ass. When she was alive, you still had the “fun” part to focus on, now you have to do it all. This latest plague is probably the most exciting thing that’s happened in years. Still can’t figure out how and where it originated from though. A passing thought was it might be saboteurs from the Eternal Dominion, but they’ve been fighting amongst themselves ever since Edgar died. Never did find his body. You still wonder exactly what it was he wanted to discuss with you and Brenda. An alliance perhaps? A threat to submit? You’ll never know.

The nation of Nalin has become a lot more totalitarian under your rule. You’ve actually made it even more “Empire like” than it already was mostly because it’s what you know, but also because it makes you at least feel like things are how they “should be”. Lately though even that hasn’t helped your mindset. You’ve become increasingly bored with just plain ruling, and after this plague nonsense is taken care of, you’re thinking of doing something to shake things up a bit.

The obvious idea is to expand again, specifically aggressive expansion into Eternal Dominion territory. It’s been too long since you’ve experienced a good fight.

The other idea you’ve had is one you probably wouldn’t have considered again, but at this point any change would be welcome. You’ve thought about just leaving. Leaving everything behind and the region entirely.
> You cythia Gemma (Personnel File)
From all accounts Cynthia had a very average upbringing, though it would appear that her family was never big on the military lifestyle as most of them seem to have had a history of working as laborers of some sort. You can only guess she was a bit of a black sheep.

Actually you’ve never really known Cynthia on a personal level, but you’ve known her to be a competent soldier and later officer. Though currently a colonel, in some ways she’s still a little “unready” than her position would suggest, as she has risen through some of the ranks due to the older officers retiring or dying off. Still, she’s served with distinction during the tribal wars in the east and has kept on top of the bandit rings that sometimes still pop up and you wouldn’t have suggested her promotions if you didn’t think she could handle it.

She’s always been a little too eager to please at times, but you really can’t fault her for being loyal.


Chapter 3A3: Remnant

Year 45

In all the years you served the Empire, you always felt like you were being held back in some way; lack of supplies, lack of equipment, ungrateful rioting peasants, or incompetent commanding officers. In most cases it was never a failing on your part.

For the past few years, you’ve come to appreciate no longer having any of those limitations. In Nalin everyone more or less works for the greater good of the country. In fact it could be argued that this is more the case here than it ever was in the Empire, at least as far as you saw. Brenda eventually declared the biggest town (Now a city) Dalt to be the capital and moved there to better manage things. You of course are head of the army and remained at Fort Glory.

Despite her initial inexperience at running a nation, Brenda has proven to do a fair job at it. Hand picking town mayors and other bureaucratic types to help run things certainly helps. What also helps is Nalin is a much smaller nation than the Empire was. The long arm of the army doesn’t need to go far to catch someone doing something against the law.

Your intimidating reputation as head of the army obviously keeps people in line as well. Still, it isn’t complete fear; they know you’ll also keep them safe. When Usksha raiders started gathering around the southern borders again, you made sure to strike at them before they could attack any of the southern towns. You wish you could just go into the Usksha Desert and wipe them all out, but you know you just don’t have the resources for such a thing. Still, you did find a temporary solution in the form of an equally old annoyance. The kobold tribes who eventually realized that continuing to fight against you would result in genocide, agreed to relocate to the edges of the southern Nalin border where they would help defend it. This has worked out quite well. The harsh terrain conditions closer to the desert as well as the occasional Usksha raids keep the kobold population down as well as aid as a front line defense without having to waste valuable troops.

For the most part everything has been running quite well, perhaps a little too well to the point where you get a little bored, but you don’t even mind that now. You’re just glad to be part of a nation that isn’t crippled by corruption.

“This is the last remnant of the true Empire.” You sometimes think.

Of course a certain person might disagree with that thought, namely Edgar.

Edgar hasn’t contacted you or Brenda. Brenda wonders if it’s because he considers you both traitors for seceding from the Empire, and while that sounds like Edgar, you suspect it’s more because he’s been very busy. Ever since the Empire fell, Edgar has been busily trying to unite all the new “eternals” under his command and his results are quite surprising. He’s not only managed to do it, but he’s forged his own nation calling it the Eternal Dominion. He claims it is the successor to the Empire and as general he has vowed to reunite all the old lands by any means. So far he’s had varying success, but he’s doing well under the circumstances. He’s also created a strict hierarchy system where Eternals are considered to be the superior ruling class and everyone else is below them. You aren’t exactly sure what to make of this ideology.

Assuming he’s successful, you know it’s only going to be a matter of time before Edgar comes marching an army from the north. Brenda has the same concerns and lately a majority of the military has been stationed on the northern borders. You just aren’t sure it’ll be enough. Brenda wonders if an alliance would be best, but the only other major power in the region is the Felkan Kingdom, and you’re not exactly sure if they would even be in a position to help, let alone willing to help. The enemy of my enemy isn’t always your friend.

This ties in with the other matter that has come up is expansion. Nalin has had a steadily growing population for quite some time and since the south is hostile desert, the western side of Nalin is covered by an equally imposing mountain range and to the north is old empire lands suffering from destroyed infrastructure and near anarchy, the only logical conclusion is to the east.

Slowly over time Brenda has encouraged Nalin citizens to systematically settle the eastern wilderness. The Empire for some reason never colonized this territory. It probably was marked, but just never exploited due to other more pressing matters. In any case, things have gone more or less peacefully as there have been no encounters with any hostile natives and it has proven to be great farming land. While things are peaceful there now, there’s no telling what could happen later and due to all the troops on the northern border, the eastern territory has a minimum number of soldiers there. Right now you and Brenda are discussing on how to best to maximize your defenses.

“Have you sent envoys to Edgar? Is it possible that he wouldn’t be a problem in the future?” you ask Brenda.
“I actually have a couple times over the years and none of them ever returned. Which is why I’m convinced he’s pissed at us.”
“Hmm, well guess we better up keep the defenses on the northern borders then. Still, my own reports say he’s still nowhere near us. He’s been trying to tame the core region of the old Empire as well as maintain order in places he’s already conquered. There is the option to take redeploy some of the troops to the east.”
“But of course that would weaken us in the north.”
“Well yes, but if you’re really worried about the east, then that’s all I can suggest other than conscription.”
“Yeah, thought about that, and I’m not exactly keen on that idea. The people have been happy for quite awhile. We start conscripting like the Empire did, they might not be as happy.” Brenda says
“They’ll be even less happy, if Edgar comes barging down here declaring them all inferior while letting his Eternal troops run amok.”
“You wouldn’t allow that to happen.” Brenda says.
“Well I certainly would try my best to not let it happen, but let’s just say I’m not as certain about things as I once was, there is always the chance things can go horribly wrong.”
“Yeah, I understand that. (Sigh) Well, I suppose we can restart conscription. It’s not going to be popular, but I think if we stress how much of a threat Edgar potentially is, we’ll prevent the civil unrest. I’ll get my civilian advisors to start spinning the propaganda. I’ll leave it up to you how you want to deploy the troops; I think it would be best to put most of the conscripts on the east though, as I think we’ll need most of the experienced troops on the northern borders.”
“I’ll certainly consider all the options. I guess I’ll get to it then and leave you to your work as well.” You say and are about to leave when Brenda calls out to you.
“Hey, I know you’re very duty bound anyway, but I just want to say, I’m glad you’re here to help me.”
“Well I’m happy to help, but I’m sure you’d do just as well without me here.”
“Perhaps, but it’s sort of comforting to have another Eternal around to talk to. I just feel like we connect a lot better you know?”
“Yes, I do agree. We do share a bond that most others will never know.”

Brenda goes to hug you and you’re a little unsure of how to react at first, but you hug her back. Before you leave Brenda asks you one more question.

“Do you think Edgar’s ideology for his nation is correct? Do you think Eternals are superior to everyone else?”

You think about the question for a moment, then answer.

“I think Edgar thinks it is correct. In one aspect, I agree with it, I mean look at the pair of us. We’re both in the highest positions of power and people seem to be accepting of it. However, from my own experiences with the new Eternals I’m not actually convinced that THEY are superior to the average human except in combat and sadism which I suppose are good enough to instill fear into the masses.”
“Heh, but isn’t that what we do?”
“Of course, but we do it because we know it’s necessary to maintain order. The new Eternals engage in pointless cruelty because they enjoy it. They’re no better than svelks in that regard. They’re so eager to move on to next atrocity that they let their emotions cloud their purity of battle. I believe this is a weakness on their part and that is why I do not consider them superior.”

Brenda smiles a bit at your answer.

“The Empire really should’ve made you a general straight out of training. I’m certain you would’ve single handedly saved it.”
“I don’t know. Perhaps it was beyond saving by that time. If you’ll excuse me…” you say and leave Brenda’s office.

As you leave the capital building, you think back on how you left the Empire. While you’re satisfied with your decision, part of you does wonder IF you could’ve done anything. Not just at that time, but before then. Is there another decision you could’ve made that would’ve prevented the situation you’re in now?

After a brief run down in your mind of endless possibilities you quickly dismiss such thoughts as a fool’s game. You were right, the Empire was beyond any help you could’ve provided. Nalin is your concern now and you need to make the decisions to how to best protect it starting with deciding where to send the conscripts when Brenda enacts her decree.
> You send them to the east
If the Eternal Dominion ever does decide to attack, it’ll be better if your best soldiers are already assigned to the northern borders rather than having to scramble to pull them back from the east. You also figure the conscripts can put in their time exploring the eastern wilderness along with defending the few settlements you currently have there right now.

When Brenda enacts conscription there is a lot of grumbling as was expected, but nothing more. Many of the conscripts are just glad you aren’t assigning them to the northern borders after hearing all the scary things about Edgar and his “baby eating” army. They won’t just be there without any supervision either, as you’ll still have a few veteran officers overseeing the situation.

Months pass a life goes on as usual, and you begin to get reports on the eastern wilderness. Most of the scouts say that there is evidence of other denizens living further east. In fact there seems to be a small tribal war going on between four separate groups. Two of those are human barbarian tribes, one them is elven, but much wilder than what you know of them and the last one is a race you’re not familiar with called the Slin. They’re apparently reptilian in nature though, similar to the kobolds, but much larger and meaner.

All of them save for one of the human tribes have been hostile to your scouts. Your scouts report that most attacks were accompanied by slurs and curses against the Empire. Even the Slin have been reported to utter a few recognizable insults in their strange reptilian tongue.

You can only guess that all of these folks at one time came in contact with the Empire and it wasn’t a good experience. Makes sense they would mistake you for Empire troops as well considering that all your troops are either still wearing the same armor or very similar armor. Some of the veteran officers are even still wearing the same insignias. Sort of like you do actually.

You’re very disappointed by the reports you’ve been getting on the various skirmishes your soldiers have had. Most of them involve heavy losses or in some cases outright defeats! Most of the conscripts apparently just aren’t cut out to handle these savages, they’re still too green and they also lack the desire to fight in the first place.

The problem is worse than just losing soldiers though. Most of these were young males and females, sons and daughter taken from their homes that didn’t want to be soldiers in the first place. Predictably there is peasant backlash from this.

Not willing to risk any more soldiers, you immediately order a halt to the scouting and make the decision that you’re going to have to go oversee things personally. Normally you wouldn’t mind this since you were getting bored lately, but you don’t like the circumstances to why you have to do it.

Brenda certainly hopes you can fix things, because while keeping the peasants in line through force is a time-honored tradition, it isn’t really helping things right now. You can’t afford to have a full-scale revolt over this. What you’d like to do is wipe out every single one of those tribes as soon as possible before they can unite against you, but you know you can’t really do that without either toughening up the conscripts or taking your vets off the northern borders and since that really isn’t an option, you’re going to have to toughen up the recruits.

The first thing you do is gather all your officers assigned there and reprimand them, stating if they were doing their job properly, you wouldn’t have to come here and do it for them. You might’ve even had some of them executed for incompetence, but you really can’t afford to lose anyone right now.

Second of all you have a new camp built near one the eastern Nalin villages. This is where all the soldiers are going to be housed and training until further notice. Soldier rotations to be stationed at the few eastern settlements will be implemented. But most importantly a whole new training schedule is going to be put into action. You need to get these folks to start thinking the right way. It is your hope that in a couple of months, they start shaping up into the solider you need them to be.

The first few weeks go pretty horrible. Your rigorous and harsh training causes some of the conscripts to go from low morale to suicidal. After three deaths, one of your officers claims you’re pushing them too hard and you’re going to have to ease up.

“Captain Talger isn’t it?” you ask.
“Yes sir.”
“You did serve under the Empire didn’t you?”
“Yes sir, for many years until we…uh seceded.”
“You remember what the punishment was for questioning a superior’s decisions?”
“…yes…yes I do sir.” He says in a very worried tone.

After a moment of silence, you tell him to follow you outside to the training grounds.

You and Captain Talger walk to the middle of the grounds where several people are training, if they aren’t you tell one of your other officers to call everyone to the grounds immediately. When everyone arrives, you address the crowd.

“It has come to my attention that I may be training you lot too hard. This has been told to me, by Captain Talger here and he may have a point.”

Talger looks slightly surprised to hear you say that, he also relaxes a little.

“I understand that many of you do not want to be here. I also understand that many of you are not naturally killers. Few are. Most of you would just like to go back home and live nice little safe lives. And contrary to popular belief, I actually can understand that as well.”

You walk over to a nearby weapon rack and examine a few swords, taking one of fairly good quality. You begin to speak again.

“However, that’s not going to happen.” You say and throw the sword to the ground near Captain Talger’s feet.

“Captain pick up the sword.”
“Sir?”
“I SAID PICK UP THE SWORD!” you shout.

Talger immediately picks up the sword. You see him tremble a little, but manages to keep it together. The crowd looks on anxious to see what will happen next.

“Good, now attack me.” You say and draw your own blade.

Talger nearly speaks, but stops himself. He realizes he doesn’t really have any options in this. He closes his eyes for a brief moment presumably to calm himself and then approaches you.

He attacks you with some skill and nearly manages to hit you, but ultimately you are the superior warrior and you stop holding back. You manage to smash his face with the pommel of your own sword. His nose nearly explodes into a mass of blood, but before he falls, you grab his sword arm and break it, causing him to drop his weapon and cry out before tumbling to the ground.

You kick the sword away and address the crowd again.

“You see this? This man knew he was facing potential death and he did not run away. He faced it like a soldier and tried to do his best. He showed true dedication. You all should be so brave. That’s all I’m asking, it is not such a difficult lesson to learn.”

You look down at Captain Talger who is trying hard not to scream out in any more pain and is having a hard time breath due to his bloody nose.

“However, this man also spoke out against me…Captain Talger are you ready for your sentence?”
“…(wheeze)…argh….(wheeze)…I…acce…(wheeze) accept…”
“Your life will serve as a lesson to the rest, you will have an honorable burial.” You quietly say and bring your sword down on his chest killing him instantly.

The crowd remains silent as you draw out your sword from Talger’s body.

“Learn from this man’s bravery and dedication…but also learn from his mistakes. DO NOT FUCK WITH ME! You all WILL become proper soldiers and you WILL serve Nalin with nothing less than your best! If you do not, none of you will leave here alive. For anyone thinking about suicide I suggest you just come down here now and let me kill you so I’m not wasting my time training you fucking grub worms! Oh and in case you all want to get cute and unite by walking down here together as a group, I suggest that you don’t if you value your lives, because I have no problem killing every last one of you by myself if I have to! I’ve destroyed entire villages of werewolves including their young, it’ll take me even less time to lay waste to you pathetic shitheads.”

You continue your rant.

“Let me make this clear you maggots, we have enemies to the east of us, that won’t fucking hesitate to rip your guts out and eat them. Do you really think if you all just go back home they’re going to leave you alone? No, they’re going to eventually advance westward and invade all those nice little peaceful homes you all so desperately want to go back to. You want a nice safe home, well you’re going to need to earn your keep and fight for it. You either die in here or die out there; it’s your choice. The big difference is out there you have a chance against those fucking savages. In here with me? You’ve got none. So I suggest you all start getting your shit together now, I don’t want to repeat this lesson again.”

You take you leave and head back to your office, leaving everyone to ponder your words.

A few days later there is an improvement in performance. Still a few suicides here and even some training deaths, but its just the weak being culled from the heard as usual.
>
Year 48

“We can’t take anymore forces off the northern borders you know that!” Brenda says.
“I know that better than anyone, but we’re making progress against those barbarians in the east. I just need a company…”
“And I said no! Look I know you’re mainly in charge of all the military stuff here, but you remember that I’m the one that’s in charge of the entire country! In fact I was running this area quite fine until you came along and started gradually changing things! Now I got a war in the east, peasant uprisings, a potential aggressor up north and a troop shortage that can’t possibly deal with all these problems! I’m beginning to wonder if you didn’t create all this chaos just to relive your Empire days again…”
“Hey! I’m done nothing but try to protect this nation and build it up! And I think my success in the east has proven that!”
“Look, I know you’ve done your part, and I hate to sound like an old Empire bureaucrat, but we can’t spare anymore soldiers for the eastern provinces. Can’t you make due with what you have?”
“Believe me, I would if could. Molding the conscripts into proper soldiers took longer than expected and even after I was successful, a small portion of them died in the process. Then I had hoped to get the one tribe that wasn’t initially hostile to us to ally with us as a useful diversion, but due to our initial losses against the other three tribes, the savages assumed we were too weak to make an alliance with and began attacking us too. I still think we would’ve been okay though if they had all stayed fragmented. After we wiped out the Belkaz Tribe for their poor judgment, the other three tribes formed a truce and united under one banner. It’s made fighting them a lot more difficult especially since they know every inch of the land better and they outnumber us. The only good thing is they haven’t really launched any effective counter attacks on our settlements so far, but they have been getting better at it.”

Brenda rubs a hand over her face before speaking again.

“You can’t just build up the defenses on the villages and maintain a solid defense?”
“Well that’s sort of where we’re at right now, and that’s the problem. The elves are no problem; the other tribe of humans isn’t either. It’s those Slin that are causing the most grief. They can replace their losses a lot quicker, or at least they must mature much quicker. In fact I’ve noticed a disturbing tactic by them, if they can call it that. Namely whenever there is a group attack by the three tribes, the Slin will deliberately hold back and the first to retreat when the battle starts to swing the wrong way. I see larger groups of them all the time yet they’re taking the least amount of losses from their side. At this point, I’m even wondering if there is an “alliance” so much as the Slin eventually enslaved the two remaining tribes and is using them to weaken us, while they continue to breed more lizards. If that is the case, we could be overrun even if we adopt siege mentality.”
“So what is it that you want to do exactly?”
“We know where the Slin home is at. I want to launch a full assault on it. I figure if we at least take them out, the other two tribes will be easy, they may even surrender, not that it’ll do them any good…”
“Right and I imagine that you want to lead this attack personally.”
“Of course.”
“Uh huh, and don’t you think it’s very dangerous to go rushing into the heart of enemy territory outnumbered and undermanned like you are?”
“Well I wouldn’t do it without the soldiers.”
“Right, and that’s why you aren’t doing it at all. Look, even I gave you the men you require, you’d have to promise me that you wouldn’t let a single one get killed, and you and I both know that’s not going to happen. The other thing is, I can’t really afford to potentially lose you either.”
“Brenda, have you so little faith in me? I’ve been in more dangerous situations than this! One time in Rask I…”
“Yes, yes, I know all your deeds and they’re all very impressive, but you’re not in your twenties anymore and we don’t have the soldiers! I’m sorry, but we’re dealing with multiple problems right now and I need every capable commander possible even the stubborn ones like yourself. Now that’s it, and I don’t want to hear anymore about this!”

Brenda’s remark dismissing your accomplishments and implying that you’re no longer in your prime is incredibly insulting and you lose your composure. It doesn’t help that you’re already frustrated with how the eastern campaign has been playing out. You grab one side of her desk and flip it over. This noise causes two guards rush in, but they’re a little unsure of how to react given that it’s you. Brenda leaps back and puts her hand on her weapon, instinctively you put your own hand on your weapon as well.

“Have you lost your mind?!” she says.
“No, my mind is quite clear, it’s you who has lost their mind if you think I’m going to just let you forget all the shit I’ve done, and let you just dismiss it like that! How soon you forget that I used to lead you into battle against kobolds and uskshas. I’ve been risking my life for years, what the hell have you been doing except stagnating here behind a desk much like this entire area would’ve been until I came along. I gave you a fucking purpose when the Empire fell!”

You soon find that Brenda is every bit as mad at you as you are with her.

“Yeah? Well maybe I didn’t fucking want it in the first place! You…you know what? If you want to take control, you go right ahead, because I’m done with it! Done! I’m leaving this shit behind.”

Brenda walks past you, without fear and out the door. Her guards try to address her, but she pulls away and continues to walk, leaving you in her messy office. You’re still angry, so you don’t really believe she’s serious, however you ARE going to take those soldiers like you planned.

A couple days pass and you’re about to make your way back to the east when you receive word that Brenda has completely disappeared. She can’t be found at all. You can’t believe that she would really abandon all this just because of an argument and part of you is a little concerned. You wonder if you should set aside your mission for a moment to find her.

However, if she really is gone, then you’ll be head of Nalin by default, while this is somewhat appealing to you, it also means you have to deal with all the stuff that Brenda usually took care of, namely all the unfun stuff that doesn’t involve killing and battle.
> You go look for Brenda
You and her have been through too much to let this end like this, you don’t like it, but you decide to put off your mission. You tell the company commander to proceed to the destination and just help with the defenses until you return. You then inform Brenda’s advisors to take care of things while you personally search for her. They tell you that soldiers are already looking for her, but you say they aren’t doing a good enough job.

You follow some leads based on previous reports, and while nobody else seems to be able to find Brenda, you’re a little more skilled in finding a fellow Eternal. Your tracking eventually leads further south into the kobold reservations. For some reason nobody thought to question these scaly bastards who turn out to be pretty helpful, though it’s probably because they’re very scared of you. They tell you they saw the “Eternal lady in charge of everything” walking by herself heading even further south towards the Usksha Desert. They think she’s going there to kill all the uskshas by herself, now they think you’re going to help her and seem pretty optimistic that the pair of you will eliminate the usksha forever.

Brenda may be an Eternal, you still never pegged her as the sort to deliberately kill herself through battle. This can’t all be because of an argument. You quickly make your way to the last known direction that the kobolds saw her heading in. After a day of non-stop riding, you see her standing at the edge of the Usksha Desert. It’s obvious she hear you, but she continues to look out across the endless sand.

“I thought you’d be on your way to wage war on those barbarians in the east by now.” She says as you get off your horse.
“Brenda, this is silly and not like you. Come on back to where you belong.” You demand.

Brenda laughs at this statement.

“You think you can order me around like a common soldier? Fuck you! You aren’t my commanding officer and haven’t been in years. I’m my own person and I’ll do whatever the hell I want!”
“And what do you want?”
“What I want? I want my husband back and that’s impossible.”
“So…you blame me for his death? Is that it?”

Brenda shakes her head in exasperation.

“No, no, no! This isn’t even about you! This is about me! It wasn’t until our argument, that I finally realized I’ve just been living a parody of life. The Empire is gone, my husband is gone. What the hell is my purpose for living anymore? I’ve just been running Nalin all these years, because quite frankly I don’t know what the hell to do with myself. You think I really care about any of that? No. That’s why I can leave it all behind, just like that.”
“Brenda, something must’ve kept you going, if you only just recently came to this conclusion.”
“Yeah, and that something were delusions. When you first came back, it was a nice. I knew we hadn’t seen each other in years, and I knew you were the same rigid emotionless golem you’ve been since we were young, but you were like a solid anchor in what was a sea of uncertainty during those dark days of the Empire’s fall. I had nobody else I could relate to, but we still had a bond of sorts. So I latched on to you and decided to go along with your ideas and it was comforting…for a while. Then as the years went by, I started to get bored, then dissatisfied. When the little war in the east began and problems began to crop up and headache after headache started, I seriously started questioning what I’m doing.”
“Okay…so you’re bored by the administrative duties…”
“I wish it was just that, but I don’t think you still understand. Let me see if I can explain it better.”

Brenda approaches you and sits down on the ground. You do likewise, but you’re still alert about possible wandering usksha raiders who could ride by. Brenda comments on this.

“See, look at you. Here we are just talking and you’re probably expecting to do battle with some wandering uskshas. That’s what gets you going. I know the fall of the Empire had to be pretty hard for you, seeing a system which you believed in fall apart and dissolve before your eyes. Even though you eventually knew it was all built on lies, a piece of you was still gone forever. However, I don’t think it was your true love. It might’ve been your first, but not your true love. Battle, war, killing. That is your passion. That’s your true love. As strange as that may be to some, I understand it.”

Brenda’s somehow words ring true with you. You still aren’t quite sure on all this love stuff, but you’re listening.

“The Empire was my first love as well. It probably was for all of us Eternals, but Roldan was my true love. I’m not getting him back, and I don’t even have the Empire to fall back on. I don’t know, perhaps by falling in love with Roldan, it weakened me as an Eternal and I should be stronger. I’m convinced it weakened Roldan.”
“We’ve been making progress in making Nalin similar to the Empire. It could even be better or greater if we work at it.” You say, unsure of how to react to her Roldan comments.
“Yes, I know that’s what you’ve been trying to do and for a while that’s what I thought might help me as well, but it’s not. Also, like I said, you at least can keep yourself happy for your love of battle. Nalin won’t replace the Empire, and even if it could, it won’t make any difference. It would be if I tried to replace Roldan with another…it won’t make me happier.”

The way Brenda looks at you with that last statement implying that maybe she feels something for you.

“Brenda, are you developing feelings for me?” you ask and she just smiles.
“As I’ve always said, I’ve always liked your directness. Let’s just say I might’ve, but I came to my senses. And that isn’t an insult towards you; it’s just not meant to be for me. Okay, I think I’ve wasted enough time.” She says and stands up. She begins to walk towards the desert.

“Hey wait!” you call out.
“Goodbye, I’m sure you’ll make an excellent emperor for Nalin, or whatever you decide to call yourself.”

You grab Brenda’s shoulder.

“So this is it? You going to just commit suicide by walking into the desert?”
“I assume the uskshas will overwhelm me before the heat gets me, and why are you trying to stop me. I would’ve thought you of all people would’ve approved of dying in battle.”
“I would, but it just doesn’t make sense here! I mean you still have purpose! You’re still fully capable and healthy enough to accomplish many things!”
“Perhaps, but the thrill of living is gone and I’m not waiting any longer to see if it comes back. Now I’m heading into that desert and you can’t stop me, well you could, but that would no doubt have the same result I’m looking for.”

You let Brenda go and stand in silence for a moment. You think about your own goals and your own past briefly. Brenda is right about several things concerning your personality and your motivations, but she doesn’t know everything. You run up next to her as she makes her first steps into the desert.

“What’re you doing?” she asks.
“I’m joining you. I figure you could use the help.”
“...I don’t believe you. I’m trying to end my life with dignity and on my own terms and you’re going to get in the way of that?”
“Who said I was stopping you? I’m just traveling with you, I don’t have some magical ability to stop the usksha from attacking. And who said I was doing this all for you? My true love is battle remember? Fighting an endless amount of usksha in a hostile environment? Sounds like a challenge worthy of a warrior of my stature.”
“But…you can’t just throw away your life like this!”
“Who said I was? I fully intend on making it to the other end of the desert long after you’ve died.” You remark.

Brenda begins to get annoyed.

“What?! Look I know I’m out of practice, but I’m not going to die that quickly! I’m still a fucking Eternal you know!”
“Yes, I do know and that’s why I’m coming with you. You made a lot of good points about me, but one you forgot is that I’m not quite the emotionless golem you make me out to be. My time with you has reminded me of that bond I used to have with all of you before we all got separated. We’re Eternals, and I’m not going to leave you. Now if that means we die together in this desert, then so be it. BUT I want to propose something.”
“Oh? What’s that?”
“If we do manage to get to the other side of this desert, you need to abandon your death wish.”

Brenda chuckles a bit.

“Okay, I guess that’s fair. Hell, if we make it through I might just have to re-evaluate my fleeting feelings for you.”

You don’t answer her on that comment; you just keep an eye out for potential danger. The heat isn’t a problem right now since it’s getting dark, which is at least one good thing. As you continue to walk Brenda begins to speak again.

“So what makes you think there IS another side to this desert? Not like it’s ever been explored before. For all you know it’s just endless desert” Brenda asks.
“Oh I dunno. I just have a hunch. It has to end somewhere. Besides I’m curious now. I once briefly considered leading troops into here before, when we were first assigned to deal with the usksha.”
“Really? What stopped you?”
“The fact that Edgar was screaming in my ear about it meant it was bound to be a bad idea. Common sense mostly. Strange that I had more of it back then, than I do right now.”
“There’s still time for you to turn back.”
“What and run Nalin by myself? Not for me. I’d likely end up executing the entire nation. I wasn’t meant to rule…shh hear that?”
“Yeah, sounds like those lizards that the usksha like to ride. They’ll be here soon. Just like old times eh?”
“Like I never left.”
“I…I’m glad you’re here with me.” Brenda says looking at you.

You look at her and nod.

“Me too Brenda. Me too.”

The pair of you soon engage the usksha in battle, just one of many during your time in the desert.

Many believe you both died in the desert eventually succumbing to the heat and your wounds. The kobolds still tell an interesting story of how you both died, but then became vengeful spirits that continue to stalk the usksha to this day.

A few believe you managed to make it through and made a new life with each other in a far away land.

What ultimately happened to you and Brenda is unknown and lost to time.


Year 48

“We can’t take anymore forces off the northern borders you know that!” Brenda says.
“I know that better than anyone, but we’re making progress against those barbarians in the east. I just need a company…”
“And I said no! Look I know you’re mainly in charge of all the military stuff here, but you remember that I’m the one that’s in charge of the entire country! In fact I was running this area quite fine until you came along and started gradually changing things! Now I got a war in the east, peasant uprisings, a potential aggressor up north and a troop shortage that can’t possibly deal with all these problems! I’m beginning to wonder if you didn’t create all this chaos just to relive your Empire days again…”
“Hey! I’m done nothing but try to protect this nation and build it up! And I think my success in the east has proven that!”
“Look, I know you’ve done your part, and I hate to sound like an old Empire bureaucrat, but we can’t spare anymore soldiers for the eastern provinces. Can’t you make due with what you have?”
“Believe me, I would if could. Molding the conscripts into proper soldiers took longer than expected and even after I was successful, a small portion of them died in the process. Then I had hoped to get the one tribe that wasn’t initially hostile to us to ally with us as a useful diversion, but due to our initial losses against the other three tribes, the savages assumed we were too weak to make an alliance with and began attacking us too. I still think we would’ve been okay though if they had all stayed fragmented. After we wiped out the Belkaz Tribe for their poor judgment, the other three tribes formed a truce and united under one banner. It’s made fighting them a lot more difficult especially since they know every inch of the land better and they outnumber us. The only good thing is they haven’t really launched any effective counter attacks on our settlements so far, but they have been getting better at it.”

Brenda rubs a hand over her face before speaking again.

“You can’t just build up the defenses on the villages and maintain a solid defense?”
“Well that’s sort of where we’re at right now, and that’s the problem. The elves are no problem; the other tribe of humans isn’t either. It’s those Slin that are causing the most grief. They can replace their losses a lot quicker, or at least they must mature much quicker. In fact I’ve noticed a disturbing tactic by them, if they can call it that. Namely whenever there is a group attack by the three tribes, the Slin will deliberately hold back and the first to retreat when the battle starts to swing the wrong way. I see larger groups of them all the time yet they’re taking the least amount of losses from their side. At this point, I’m even wondering if there is an “alliance” so much as the Slin eventually enslaved the two remaining tribes and is using them to weaken us, while they continue to breed more lizards. If that is the case, we could be overrun even if we adopt siege mentality.”
“So what is it that you want to do exactly?”
“We know where the Slin home is at. I want to launch a full assault on it. I figure if we at least take them out, the other two tribes will be easy, they may even surrender, not that it’ll do them any good…”
“Right and I imagine that you want to lead this attack personally.”
“Of course.”
“Uh huh, and don’t you think it’s very dangerous to go rushing into the heart of enemy territory outnumbered and undermanned like you are?”
“Well I wouldn’t do it without the soldiers.”
“Right, and that’s why you aren’t doing it at all. Look, even I gave you the men you require, you’d have to promise me that you wouldn’t let a single one get killed, and you and I both know that’s not going to happen. The other thing is, I can’t really afford to potentially lose you either.”
“Brenda, have you so little faith in me? I’ve been in more dangerous situations than this! One time in Rask I…”
“Yes, yes, I know all your deeds and they’re all very impressive, but you’re not in your twenties anymore and we don’t have the soldiers! I’m sorry, but we’re dealing with multiple problems right now and I need every capable commander possible even the stubborn ones like yourself. Now that’s it, and I don’t want to hear anymore about this!”

Brenda’s remark dismissing your accomplishments and implying that you’re no longer in your prime is incredibly insulting and you lose your composure. It doesn’t help that you’re already frustrated with how the eastern campaign has been playing out. You grab one side of her desk and flip it over. This noise causes two guards rush in, but they’re a little unsure of how to react given that it’s you. Brenda leaps back and puts her hand on her weapon, instinctively you put your own hand on your weapon as well.

“Have you lost your mind?!” she says.
“No, my mind is quite clear, it’s you who has lost their mind if you think I’m going to just let you forget all the shit I’ve done, and let you just dismiss it like that! How soon you forget that I used to lead you into battle against kobolds and uskshas. I’ve been risking my life for years, what the hell have you been doing except stagnating here behind a desk much like this entire area would’ve been until I came along. I gave you a fucking purpose when the Empire fell!”

You soon find that Brenda is every bit as mad at you as you are with her.

“Yeah? Well maybe I didn’t fucking want it in the first place! You…you know what? If you want to take control, you go right ahead, because I’m done with it! Done! I’m leaving this shit behind.”

Brenda walks past you, without fear and out the door. Her guards try to address her, but she pulls away and continues to walk, leaving you in her messy office. You’re still angry, so you don’t really believe she’s serious, however you ARE going to take those soldiers like you planned.

A couple days pass and you’re about to make your way back to the east when you receive word that Brenda has completely disappeared. She can’t be found at all. You can’t believe that she would really abandon all this just because of an argument and part of you is a little concerned. You wonder if you should set aside your mission for a moment to find her.

However, if she really is gone, then you’ll be head of Nalin by default, while this is somewhat appealing to you, it also means you have to deal with all the stuff that Brenda usually took care of, namely all the unfun stuff that doesn’t involve killing and battle.
> You continue with your mission
If Brenda wants to abandon her duty, you’re more than willing to take up the slack. Wouldn’t be the first time anyway. You don’t know if she’s just sulking or really not returning, but either way you’re pretty disappointed in her right now. You always thought she was stronger than that, you guess that’s what love does to someone. Makes them weak. It’s probably why Roldan wasn’t alert to stop that Shadow Guard that killed him.

You can’t dwell on such things now; you’ve got more important matters to deal with. You tell Brenda’s advisors that as of now you’re taking over rulership of Nalin and that you want them to take care of things while you destroy the eastern barbarians. They tell you that there are several matters that really require your attention, but you say eliminating the threat in the east is your primary concern first.

You head east with your company of veteran troops and meet up with the rest of your forces at Camp Steadfast. You explain your plan of attack and how it is to be carried out. Granted there isn’t much to it other than marching straight into the heart of Slin territory and wiping them all out, but you try to give a motivational speech, to improve their morale and mindset because it isn’t going to be easy.

At the crack of dawn, you begin your march. Doesn’t take long before you face opposition. You defeat them with ease for the most part. When you begin to enter the woods though that’s when things get tougher.

The elves and the degenerate human tribe known as the Fleg begin to attack you from the trees. Or more accurately, the elves stay in the trees and the Fleg throw themselves at you like the suicidal idiots they are. A few of your men catch arrows, and some of them are killed by the various traps the elves have set, but eventually the Fleg are all killed and the elves have either fled or run off as well.

You take a moment to rest and regroup. Your company is still strong, but you aren’t at the numbers you’d like to face the Slin. You curse yourself for not spreading them out a little more, part of you is still a little pre-occupied with Brenda leaving.

“Damn it, get your head in the battle.” You mutter to yourself.

After taking a very short break, you continue towards where you know the Slin make their home. It’s a slightly swampy area. Not as bad as the time you spent in the Delerg Province, but it still isn’t the best of fighting conditions for you and your soldiers. You start meeting large groups of Slin hissing and lumbering at you from all sides. Your soldiers put up a good struggle as usual and you fight through what seems to be the endless horde, but you suffer many losses before you even make it their cave lair.

One of your men begs you to turn back as he does not believe you have the numbers to take on the rest of the Slin. After all who knows how many are in there. You don’t listen though. You’re furious by their desire to leave everything, and it doesn’t help that you’re still angry about Brenda doing the same thing.

“We’re nearly there and you dare suggest retreat on the verge of victory? I’ve faced worse odds and more dangerous enemies by myself! You’ve all been slacking off on the northern borders too long and getting weak! That ends today, I’m in charge of this company, I’m in charge of this army, I’m even in charge of the whole fucking nation of Nalin! Now we’re going to finish this and we’re going to win! There’s going to be a lot of changes after this is over, now come on!”

You and your men fight your way into the cave entrance, several large Slin come lumbering from various tunnels hissing and charging at you. There’s so many that you sometimes have to resort to punching the beasts because there isn’t even any room to swing your sword. The Slin aren’t weaklings though and are creatures of great strength, you and your remaining soldiers are beaten severely. You continue to struggle, but several of your bones are broken, your flesh is ripped and torn and you’ve got a few chunks bitten out of you.

As more Slin run towards your position, you look around and see you’re the last of your company left. You don’t understand what went wrong. You’ve been in worse situations, you’ve survived worse conditions, how is it that you’re losing and on the verge of death?

In your last moments you see your loss as not your failure, but those around you for not being as strong as you. It hardly matters in the end as the Slin still put your skull as a trophy along side the rest of the “weaklings” they killed.


You can’t bring yourself to be some like the svelk and be mercenary scum who have no other goals than to earn coin. By the same token you’re not going to pledge yourself to yet another government that will probably be just as corrupt and decadent as the one you just left. Maybe in a way, Kane was right. He was obviously suffering a mental breakdown as well as being manipulated, but the concept of forming your own nation would be the surest way to ‘get it right.” You could run things the way they SHOULD be.

The question is where to start? You’d need at least an army to conquer anything and right now you don’t really have that. You’re sure you could probably get those “new eternals” to follow you, but there still isn’t enough of them even if you were inclined to subject yourself to the torture of futility. Regular soldiers would probably follow you, but nowadays they’re so scattered that you’d literally have to travel all over most of the Empire to collect them, not to mention all the fighting you’d have to do during this state of anarchy. The only place you can think of is the Nalin province. It’s virtually the one place still left in the empire that isn’t suffering outright revolts, though the citizens are reportedly still severely disgruntled, Brenda is also there in command of Fort Glory. Perhaps she’ll see the wisdom of your plan and help you, if that’s the case you should be able to pull it off.

You find a nearby horse and set off for the south. Along the way you see the landscape of the Empire, which at one time was orderly and even idyllic is now burning and in tatters. Despite the chaos you don’t need to do any battle, not even when passing groups of angry peasants who are taking every opportunity to get revenge on their oppressive government and its agents in all forms. You can only assume your reputation is enough to scare them off or they don’t even recognize you. If it’s the latter then it only confirms your belief that you weren’t making that much of a difference in the Empire anyway.

When you get to the Nalin province you find it in much better condition than the rest of the places in the Empire that you’ve ridden through. Fort Glory looks slightly different, namely it looks more heavily fortified and a lot better cared for than when you left this place. When you approach Fort Glory, you are momentarily halted by the guards, but when you tell them who you are and that you need to see Brenda they immediately let you in.

Brenda is very surprised to see you. She looks a lot different from the teenage girl you parted company with. Her hair is going gray and she has a very “tired” look about her. As if the whole weight of responsibility is crashing down on her, but she still carries herself with confidence and strength.

“When my soldiers told me it was you I couldn’t believe it, it’s been so long since we’ve seen one another. Wow you haven’t really changed at all.” She says almost smiling.
“It is good to see you too, Brenda. Still as pretty as ever.” You say, unsure of how to respond.
“Pretty? Now that’s a word I never thought I’d hear you say. Let alone to me. Maybe you have changed more than I thought.”
“Well I mean I never thought you were ugly, Brenda. I was just trying to reply to your compliment with one of my own.”
“Ha ha, a complete lack of tact. That’s more like the old you. Still it’s nice to hear, though I hope for your sake, you’re a better sweet talker to the other girls out there.”
“Brenda, I have to talk to you in private about something it’s very important and I don’t know how you’re going to react.” You say by passing her statement.
“Oh geez, you’re not going to suddenly confess some sort of hidden love for me that you’ve kept to yourself all these years are you?”
“What?! NO! This is something important!”

Brenda’s a little amused by how you worded your statement especially since she was joking. You just aren’t in a “joking mood” though right now and after what you have to tell Brenda you doubt if she will too.

“Look, I apologize for my outburst. It’s just that this is really important.”
“Okay, we’ll go to my office and speak privately there.”

When you get to Brenda’s office you don’t bother beating around the bush and you just tell her everything. Your thoughts, feelings, actions and ultimately your plan and why you came here. Now she really is amazed. You of all people were practically a paragon of duty and loyalty and here you are openly confessing that you’ve abandoned the Empire.

“Okay, wow. Well you’ve just been full of surprises today.”
“Will you help me?”
“What exactly am I supposed to do? I mean are you seriously asking me to just hand over control of this fort to you while you play pretend emperor?”
“No! I mean shit I don’t know I haven’t thought out all the details yet I guess. It’s just (sigh) Look Brenda, I just left ALL I’ve known. Everything I’ve ever been taught to believe in is GONE, if it ever existed to begin with. I didn’t have many choices on what to do next and this seemed to be the best choice all things considered. I came here because I didn’t know where else to go quite frankly. I see now that this was just as foolish an idea leaving the Empire in the first place, I guess…”
“No it wasn’t.”
“What wasn’t?”
“Leaving the Empire. I mean I certainly understand your reasons. I share them. Maybe not in the exact same way, but they are there. Hell I think in these dark times, everyone shares them. I dunno perhaps you just made that extra step that the rest of us here aren’t quite willing to make yet.”
“What do you mean?” you ask.
“I mean everyone in this fort and probably the entire province would be for seceding from the Empire at this point. I think the only reason why nobody has done it yet or even rioted is due to way we run things here at Fort Glory. We found it much better by just letting people go about their business if we’re not threatening them all the time and actually defending them from real external threats. The only real problem here is the high taxes which the Empire imposes on this region, that of course tends to make people a little grumpy, but not quite enough to riot. They remember what this place used to be like after all."
“Not threatening people you say? That’s a pretty wild concept. Did you think that one up?”
“Nah, the credit goes to Roldan, he was the first to suggest it. He probably would’ve made a better fort commander too and if he had been promoted instead of me, he might still be here…”
“Brenda, okay you can’t think like that. If he’d been promoted then you’d probably be dead and…”
“I know, I know. I just get a little sad thinking about him not being here sometimes. Okay, anyway let’s do it. Let’s break away from the Empire. Like you said, shouldn’t take much convincing, though I hope you’re prepared for a shitstorm from this. We might not much problem from the population, as I said they’ll probably be relieved to not have to pay the high taxes any more, but we’re going to get Empire armies to come down here eventually.”
“Possibly, but it’s pretty bad Brenda. I’m not sure if they’ll be able to really do anything, the government is on the brink of collapse. If anything we might be getting an influx of people wanting to come here to join. You’re just lucky they didn’t saddle you with those new eternals. If they had, I guarantee this place wouldn’t be as nice as it is now.”
“So I’ve heard. I suppose I am lucky. This whole province is lucky.”

Brenda takes a deep breathe before speaking again.

“Okay so how exactly are we doing this? I mean what system are we going to have in place?”
“Well, given what you’ve told me about how you’ve been running things, I’ve had one new idea. How about YOU run this place and you be the leader?”
“ME? But…I don’t know anything about running a nation or anything like that!”
“Seems to me you’ve been running this place pretty well for years. You know the people and better yet, they know you. I think if I was in charge…well they’d think they were living under the Empire again. No, I realize now my place isn’t to rule, but to fight. It really is what I’m good at. About the only thing.”
“Now come on, you have great leadership skills!”
“Leadership skills for combat perhaps, but not for ruling. I think whatever is it that you had with Roldan made you and him more in touch with human nature and that’s a good thing.”
“Yes…it was a good thing. I just wish he was here. I could certainly use his help right now.” Brenda says reminiscing.

You pat Brenda on the shoulder in your effort to comfort her; she tells you she’s fine though. You and Brenda at that point set your plan in motion to split from the Empire.
> You brenda (Loss)
After discussing a few more things about the plan to break away from the Empire, you change the subject to a more personal nature.

“So other than the slow collapse of the Empire…how have you been doing?” you ask.
“Me? I’ve been okay. Just been taking one day as it comes, I guess in times like this though, that’s about all anyone can do. I’ve just been keeping myself occupied, sometimes hard to do since like I said, it’s relatively peaceful here. Guess our plan might shake thing up a bit though.” Brenda remarks.
“Yeah, hopefully for the better.”

There is a long pause before Brenda continues the conversation

“I just want to say, I appreciated the letter you sent when Roldan died.” Brenda says.
“Well I felt it was only right, I probably didn’t have the words that Gerald might’ve had though.”
“No, they were fine. I was almost just as upset to hear about him as well that day, even though I hadn’t spoken or seen him in years. Had a hard time keeping it together for the next few months, don’t really know how I did it.”
“You’re an Eternal, and you’ll always have an inner strength to carry you through the hard times when you need it.”
“Perhaps. (Sigh) It’s been a few years now and I still think about Roldan. I mean I know there was always the potential for danger, and one of us getting killed was a possibility, but I dunno it just doesn’t seem real at times. I remember when we first started to desire one another, it didn’t seem real either, but then it just felt so right. We knew each other, we grew up together, and we just operated in perfect sync.”
“Yes, Roldan mentioned feeling the same way. He loved you very much.”
“I know.”
“So…where did you bury Roldan?”
“I didn’t. I had his body burned and his ashes spread to the wind outside Fort Glory. He would’ve wanted it that way. He said when he died, he didn’t want some lavish military funeral. Still, a lot of the soldier still paid their respects by standing on the battlements and giving a salute in unison.”
“Well, sounds a lot nicer than what I could do for Gerald. After the mission I dragged his body out of the swamp and back to Sinkhole. The local Empire officials said they wouldn’t bother with a proper funeral since he had no family and that it would’ve been better to just leave him in the swamp. After slamming that pencil pusher’s head into the desk, I went straight to the local undertaker and had him dig a hole for Gerald in the cemetary. Not the most elaborate of funerals, but he deserved a proper buried rather than just being left face down in the mud…though I guess in the scheme of things it hardly matters, its still in the ground and getting eaten by worms…”
“No, no, you did the right thing.” Brenda says reassuringly. “You always did look out for the rest of us in some way. That’s why I never blamed you for Roldan’s death. I knew you would’ve prevented it if you could’ve.”
“Yes, I would’ve.”
“Well, let us not dwell on such dark issues too much longer, we’ve got other things to think about. Better ones for a better future, like you said.”

Brenda smiles at you and you return the gesture.

You feel sort of funny about it, but you briefly wonder if you had still been stationed here instead of Roldan, would you and Brenda gotten together?


From the trajectory of the bolt, the assassin is in front and probably was trying to hit you instead of Gerald. You immediately run for the nearest tree as several more bolts whiz past you.

When you reach the tree two Shadow Guards jump down from it and attempt to stab you. You kick one in the groin as hard as you can, while deflecting the blow of the other with your sword. You dodge another attack by falling to the ground and chopping the shadow at one of his legs, nearly hacking it off. When he falls in agony you finish him off with your sword.

The one staggering around with damaged man part, finally recovers, but attempts to disappear again. You throw your dagger at him as he begins to turn invisible, impaling him in the stomach. Meanwhile it appears that Captain Gruz is taking care of the one who was shooting bolts at you.

“Bastard!” he says with his boot on the shadow and chopping the shadow’s head in two with his axe. Blood and brains splatter everywhere.

You move around and scan the area cautiously and try to see if there’s any more shadows lurking about, but if there were they would’ve either attack you by now or run off. When you’re confident that none are left you walk over to Gerald who is dead already.

“FUCK!” you shout while kicking a nearby piece of clumped up mud. You don’t feel sadness this time so much as you feel frustration. All those years he was performing commando raids in Felkan territory and he gets killed like this? Not even in close combat! Somehow it doesn’t seem right. Just like how Roldan died. You search Gerald’s body and find the letter he was planning on sending Brenda about Roldan, it seems you will have to do it now. Perhaps even alter it.

Captain Gruz walks over to you, he has a few bolts in him, but he doesn’t seem particularly bothered by them.

“Feh, I’ve had way worse than this.” He says as he pulls them out. “Y’know we’re on our own now.”
“What do you mean?” you ask.
“I’m saying these bolts, they ain’t Shadow Guard, these are dark elven quality. That fucker over there with his head cleaved in two had one of those fancy repeating dark elven crossbows too. And while I know dark elves to be treacherous bitches that’ll switch sides to whoever’s paying the most, they would NEVER allow anyone to use their equipment. My guess is those mercs that were going to meet us are all dead, well either that or they ran off.”
“Good, I want to kill the rest of these shadows anyway.” You say and proceed on to the ruins.

Your next step of your journey confirms Gruz’s theory. You and he see signs of battle on your way to the ruins. Several of the bodies are dark elven, but an equal amount are Shadow Guard.

“Looks like they were ambushed. Heh, pretty hard to do with dark elves. Still, it also looks like the dark elves gave the shadows a hell of a fight. Looks like those are the ruins up ahead. I’m guessing there probably aren’t too many left, this should be over pretty quick.”

You and Gruz dispense with caution and boldly march into the ruins. You both look around as the crumbling statues of old forgotten gods loom over you. Eventually you find who you’re looking for in the remains of a temple that’s covered in vines and partially sinking into the swamp

A single Shadow Guard stands over the bodies of several others of his kind. Near the bodies are empty flasks.

“I’ll be with you soon my brothers and sisters. And especially you Draven.” Cyrus says looking at the bodies and ignoring you completely.
“Aw, how sweet. Glad you decided not to pussy out like the rest of your buddies by poisoning yourself and are at least are willing to face your death like a man.” Gruz replies.
“Yes, well it still remains to be seen Gruz. Though speaking of being a man, I’m impressed that you actually showed up here. I thought that you would’ve continued to hide and try to keep your involvement of these events a secret as you have for all these years.”

This statement from Cyrus causes you to pause and look at Gruz. He looks guilty of something for a moment and then gives a toothy smile.

“I wasn’t hiding Cyrus. I was waiting. Waiting until the day when I could finally track you down. It wasn’t my fuck up that got us into this mess. We could’ve been strong enough together to make a break from the Empire if you hadn’t decided to backstab us at Fort Destiny to save your own skin. Hah! See how well that turned out. Look at you now.”

Even as jaded as you have become about the Empire, you are somewhat surprised about Captain Gruz…but in retrospect, somebody had to have some sort of input on having all those orcs transferred to Fort Defiance. Despite this revelation you’re too numb to excessively care. All you know is over the past few days you’ve seen two of your fellow Eternals die ignobly while doing their duty for the Empire. Something these traitors have obviously disregarded a long time ago.

“Well, what’s it gonna be lad? You killin’ me or the shadow first?” Gruz asks.
“I think I’ll stick with the original plan. We’ll kill the shadow together, then you and me are going to settle up.” You say calmly.
“That’s the spirit boy!” Gruz laughs and steps towards Cyrus.

Cyrus makes no more small talk or last minute threats. He focuses purely on combat. You expect him to use his Shadow Guard tricks like poison or invisibility, but he doesn’t.

He easily dodges Gruz’s powerful yet clumsy attacks and lands a few well placed strikes on him, but Gruz shrugs them off like you’ve seen him do the whole time you’ve been fighting along side him. You can only imagine what an unstoppable juggernaut he must’ve been back in his younger days.

As for you, you match Cyrus in sword skill. Whatever he learned from the Shadow Guard won’t help him in a face-to-face battle with you. All it takes is for you to take advantage of his divided concentration and you land a mortal blow, slicing his side clean open.

Cyrus falls and deflects your attempt to split his head open, but he drops his sword from the force of your blow in the process. Weaponless, tired and bleeding out from a deep hole in his side, Cyrus accepts defeat.

“Do it. Eternal slave of the Empire.” He says coldly and then you fulfill his request by decapitating him.

You quickly turn to face Gruz, who already has his axe ready.

“Alright Eternal, let’s finish this.”

You and Gruz clash weapons. As you battle, you’re reminded of the times when you were still a child and how he taught you to fight.
CLANG!
How he told you to keep a calm head in battle.
TING!
How he told you to serve the Empire.
SHING!
How he had confidence in your skills.
CLANK!
How he saw you as a leader.
CLANK!
How he told you not to die for the Emperor…but to make the other dumb bastard die so that you could continue serving the Emperor

SWIPE! SLICE! SLISH! SLISH! SLASH!

How he told you that failure wasn’t an option.

Gruz finally succumbs to his multiple wounds and falls to one knee leaning on his axe in an effort not to completely collapse.

“Damn…shit….” Gruz gasps as he breathes heavily and feels his strength completely leaving him.
“Why?” you ask him.
“Why? Heh heh.” Chuckles a bit while at the same time coughing up some blood. “After all you’ve experienced in your service of the Empire, you have to ask me why? My people had already been tamed and conquered decades ago and I bought into the same bullshit you did when I was a little green snot that didn’t know any better. I worked my way up the ranks and did pretty good for myself, but for what? To be a lap dog that begged for a treat every time I did something right and get slapped down because I was rising too much above my so called station? I was still holding on to an idea that was long gone or never existed to begin with. It wasn’t until shortly after your training was complete that I started to seriously change my mind. The Felkan war and the conspiracy that the Shadow Guard came up with just made it easier… I think I’m gonna just lay down for a while.” Gruz says as he loses his last battle with staying conscious.

You step towards him with your sword ready to strike, but instead you just watch him slowly drift off and hear his last words.

“I lived a lot longer than I should have. This is a good death for an orc. I’ve seen your new replacements Eternal. They’re monsters. They’ll finish off what’s left of this decaying husk of an Empire, not save it. Good riddance. Heh, don’t worry though; you’ll probably survive the coming shit storm. You’ll outlive everyone.” He says and then finally dies.

With the way things have been going lately, Gruz may be correct. It doesn’t necessarily make you feel any better though.
> You letter to Brenda (An apology)
Dear Brenda

I’ve never been any good with this sort of stuff, but I hope this letter will explain the exact nature of what happened.

It is with the sincerest regret to inform you that Roldan has died in the line of duty. I will be having his body shipped back to you, so that you may have a proper funeral for him or how ever you wish to dispose of the shell that once contained a great warrior. I suppose I should also mention that Gerald also died during the mission. He actually wrote the first letter to you, but given his death soon after, I felt that it be more appropriate to rewrite it altogether.

How I wish I could at least tell you Roldan died a great noble death, slaying hundreds of enemies before falling, but that was not the case. Instead, he was practically assassinated by suicidal Shadow Guards that blew him up and themselves as well, because they were too cowardly to face him in an honorable fight.

I know the two of you fell in love and were married. I am not an expert on such things, and I can’t imagine the sense of loss that you will feel because of this, but know that you have my sympathies. When I saw him die before my very eyes from a gutless attack I felt a sadness dwell inside me as I had lost a comrade in arms.

I also felt anger. Anger that I wasn’t there to stop it and anger at those who did it. I realize though the anger at myself was pointless. There is no point in blaming yourself in situations like this. Better to deal with the direct cause of the problem and focus all of the anger towards that instead.

I don’t know if it will be of any comfort, but I killed all those responsible. I wish I could’ve killed more, but most of the spineless shadows committed some sort of ritual suicide by the time we reached their hideout. I did manage to kill their leader Cyrus though. I also killed Captain Gruz. Turned out he was a traitor the whole time. I’m beginning to wonder who isn’t a traitor nowadays.

The past few days have seemed surreal, like nothing is making as much sense anymore, but then I think things stopped making sense the day I had to kill Kane. The Empire isn’t like how we learned about when we were children. Everything was so much simpler then.

I’m going to stop writing now, because I think I’m getting off focus of the important topic at hand and that’s Roldan. I’ll close this letter with letting you know that in his last moments he spoke fondly of you, and that he loved you.

We should all be so lucky to have something so certain in life and actually have it last.