Year 30

“This place won’t be the same without you sir. I don’t know how I’ll be able to run this place as well as you.” Lieutenant Verant says as you finish packing your things.
“You’ll do fine lieutenant, or should I say captain. You’ll probably get an official promotion soon. Just remember, when the citizens protest I’ve found that flogging one family with children at random keeps the rest in line. Can’t really afford to execute them like we did in the old days, too many ogre attacks already doing a good job of that. Well at least you don’t need to worry about the giants as much anymore.”
“You always did know best sir.”
“Well, I tried to do what I could up here. I don’t know why I’m being stationed to Delerg Province. It’s one of the more peaceful places of the Empire next to the Nalin province. I would prefer to be here or on the Felkan frontlines where I could do more to serve, but I suppose the Emperor knows best where my skills will be used.”
“Oh well I’ve heard the war with the Felkans is coming to an end soon.”
“Yes, I’ve heard that as well…and it concerns me the things that I’ve heard why it’s ending. Mass riots in the major cities of the Empire, soldier shortages, even heard about some of those traitorous shadow criminals carrying out terrorist tactics. And because of these problems what do we do with the Felkans? Another non-aggression pact! We should be butchering them and burning down their cities, not making peace with them again. If all of the Emperor’s enemies had one neck, I would sever it with one sword swipe.”

Verant says nothing after your rant. Indeed over the past few years he’s heard you rant about the troubles of the Empire a lot more and knows to keep quiet. But if you’re making more outbursts than usual, it’s only because the Empire has more problems than usual.

Lately you’ve been questioning how “great” the Empire is supposed to be. This is not the place you heard about when you were being trained by Mistress or Captain Gruz. In fact, during your first assignment in the Nalin province you encountered decadent officers and disobedient citizens even then.

This questioning of the Empire then makes you question the Emperor which causes you great concern for that it treasonous thinking. But still…how is it he has allowed this to happen to his land? He is supposed to be all wise and all-powerful, but you’ve not seen much evidence of either. Never mind the fact that you’ve never seen him at all.

It’s a rare thought, but there have been even a few times where you wondered what would’ve happened if you had joined Kane when he asked.

You leave Fort Destiny without another word and board the carriage to the Delerg province.

A few days later you arrive and Delerg is everything you’ve heard about, very swampy. The town you’re scheduled to arrive in looks like it’s sinking into marsh, which might explain why it’s even called Sinkhole.

While you don’t know why you’re here, you do know you’re supposed to meet with a contact here, though you don’t know who that is or where you’re supposed to meet.

As you take in the sights of this dismal town, the villagers look like they can barely contain their fear of you. You aren’t sure if it’s because they’ve heard of your reputation, or if it’s due to their natural suspicious nature. The swamp folk have always been known to be that way. They were one of the few people that didn’t resist Empire dominion at all when they first came to this land, but despite this submissiveness the swamp folk still maintained their wary ways.

“Well if isn’t the Bane of Rask! It’s been a long time!” a voice calls out to you. You turn around and see not one, but two familiar faces.
“Roldan? Gerald?” you say seeing how much older they’ve gotten. It makes you realize just how much time has passed.
“Of course it’s us!” Roldan says.
“Yeah, we didn’t know you’d be the contact.” Gerald adds.
“Contact? I’m not anyone’s contact. I’m supposed to meet someone here, you guys aren’t it?” you say.
“Erm, no. In fact when Gerald arrived I thought he was the contact and vice versa. Well this is odd. I wonder who we’re supposed to be meeting?”

You reply that you don’t know and then begin to feel slightly uneasy. With all your past experiences, you start to feel like this might be a trap, then another carriage comes into the town. When the passenger steps out, it’s an old, but still tough looking orc in battle armor. It’s Captain Gruz! He sees all three of you milling about in the open and shuffles over to you.

“What in blazes are you lot doing out in the open like this? Any potential assassin could strike you down! I thought I taught you better than that! Come on let’s get into the tavern, we can talk there.” He scolds and then heads towards the tavern, you, Gerald and Roldan follow.

The tavern is dark and nearly empty. The patrons inside see you four sit at a table and then move as far away as possible.

“You thirsty? I sure am. Four ales!” Captain Gruz says.
“I’m not thirsty captain.” You say.
“They’re not for you, they’re for me! You guys order your own drinks! Anyway I imagine you’re all wondering what this small reunion is all about. Well let’s just say the Empire finally saw fit to take me off the sidelines and place me in charge of something worthwhile for a change. I’ll get right to the point and tell you, the Shadow Guard is here, or at least what’s left of them. For awhile we thought that they might be working with the Felkans, but they’re just taking advantage of the war.”

This news causes you to sit forward and then look around.

“Oh don’t worry, they’re not right HERE, lad. They’re in this province though; and you might be interested that Cyrus is the one leading this miserable little band of shadows. I imagine you and he got some unfinished business. In fact that’s why you’re here, since you’ve had a lot of experience in dealing with this situation before. As for you two, your own records are excellent and you’re Eternals. The only ones that are going to be skilled enough to handle this situation I think are Eternals.”
“How come Edgar isn’t here? He also had experience with the Shadow Guard and was with me during the Fort Defiance incident.”
“Eh, Edgar’s skills are best served on the Felkan frontlines right now. I know the war might be coming to an end, but there’s still quite a bit of fighting going on. Besides best not to have all you guys in one place.”
“That’s a different perception than I remember you having when you were arguing with Mr. Mol fourteen years ago.” You say.
“Heh, remembered that did you? Well, as I’m sure you know things change, ideas change. You get older and see things differently. Wouldn’t you agree?”

You pause before answering, which causes Gruz to study you for a moment.

“Yes, I suppose so.” You reluctantly reply.
“Of course you do, lad. You’d be a bleeding idiot if you didn’t.” Gruz says taking a drink of one of his ales.
“So, where are these Shadow Guard fanatics anyway?” Gerald asks.
“An old temple deep in the swamps. Used to be their old place of worship back before their Empire days apparently. Looks like Cyrus really bought into that dead religion, though it’s also arrogant of him to try to hide right underneath our noses. Hell, who knows? Maybe he knew he’d get discovered eventually and was just itching for a fight. Anyway, we’ll have some extra help when we arrive there. Trust me, I’ve got it set up.”

The remainder of the time is playing a little catch up with your former team members while Captain Gruz enjoys his ale. It’s interesting to see how vastly different their experiences have been.

Gerald says his time was initially boring until the war broke out. From then on he and Warrick were constantly paired up to perform commando mission deep into Felkan territory. Dangerous work, but he says they were treated pretty well by everyone and held in high regard among their fellow soldiers. Even the citizens were less troublesome in the Arat province and the local women threw themselves at him and Warrick every night he laughs.

Roldan mentions his time was mostly spent cleaning up the rest of the kobolds in the Nalin province, breaking small bandit rings, and ultimately trying to keep the peasants in line. No problems from the usksha again though. When Captain Anu was promoted and sent to the Felkan frontlines, Brenda got promoted to command Fort Glory. The most surprising thing though, he and Brenda apparently married. Wasn’t anything fancy and there was paperwork that had to be filled out (A lot of it) but it was completely approved of by the Empire.

Your own tales sound remarkably grim when compared to theirs.

The strangest thing about all this is how they’ve all had contact with each other either directly or through messages. Gerald and Roldan even mention how they got letters from Kane years ago before his actions at Fort Defiance. They both confirm how the letters sounded very longing of the “old days” and referring to them as “brother.” Warrick and Brenda apparently got similar ones too.

You ask Gerald if he met Edgar when he was transferred there. He replies that he did, but said that he was mostly sent to fight Felkan armies directly right along side most of the orcish detachments.

“Sheesh. He’s gotta love that considering his experiences with orcs at Fort Defiance.” You say.
“Edgar’s an idiot. Always has been. I saw that even when I was training you guys. He’s a good warrior, but lacks vision. Surprised he’s lasted this long.” Captain Gruz suddenly replies.
“Well, I agree he’s always had a tendency to act without thinking, but after my last dealings with him, I think he’s improved a bit. Changed his outlook. You know, got older and sees things differently now.” You reply.
“Hmm. Maybe, but as far as I’m concerned being a meat shield is about the best thing he’s ever been good for, just like all the rest of dumb fuckers on the Felkan frontlines.”
“Hey, I’m on the Felkan frontlines!” Gerald protests.
“Yeah, and you’re not marching straight into those Felkan shooty weapons either. You’re being a lot more than just a meat shield like the rest of those stupid ass orcs.”
“Rest of those orcs? Not to point out the obvious, but you’re an orc, I mean aren’t those your people?” Roldan asks.
“Yeah and? Does that make us all relatives or some shit? Fuck my people! I got no patience for any of them anymore…” Captain Gruz begins to get loud and cause a scene.

“Okay captain I think you’ve had enough. I think I saw an inn across the way, let’s get some rooms there and make plans to deal with the shadows tomorrow.” You suggest.
“Grrm, maybe you’re right…” Captain Gruz replies and then promptly falls to the floor. Gerald tries to pick him up.

“Somebody go get the rooms and the other person help me carry the captain.” Gerald says.
> You go get the rooms
“I’ll get the rooms, you help Gerald.” You say.
“Okay.” Roldan agrees and proceeds to lift up Gruz on the other side.

You exit the tavern and make your way to the inn, which is across the road. You’re half way across when you sense something isn’t right. You notice a little girl across the road staring at something and that’s when you realize there are shadows about.

The first one attempts to stab you in the back, but you spin and dodge, then stab him through the stomach. The second one aborts his own attack and attempts to escape. You however grab him with your free hand.

It is at this point, he pulls out some sort of odd round plant and screams something you don’t understand and a black aura suddenly emanates from him.

“Shit!” you shout and run him through in the hopes of killing him before he can complete whatever spell he’s casting. He drops the plant on the ground, but smiles at you.

“It’s already done Eternal!” he laughs and then you are both engulfed in an explosion and blown several feet from where you were, though only part of you.

What remains of your body is scattered in pieces along the road of Sinkhole. You actually manage to live a few more seconds to see the images of what you presume to be Roldan and Gerald running out of the tavern, then everything goes dark.


Year 30

“This place won’t be the same without you sir. I don’t know how I’ll be able to run this place as well as you.” Lieutenant Verant says as you finish packing your things.
“You’ll do fine lieutenant, or should I say captain. You’ll probably get an official promotion soon. Just remember, when the citizens protest I’ve found that flogging one family with children at random keeps the rest in line. Can’t really afford to execute them like we did in the old days, too many ogre attacks already doing a good job of that. Well at least you don’t need to worry about the giants as much anymore.”
“You always did know best sir.”
“Well, I tried to do what I could up here. I don’t know why I’m being stationed to Delerg Province. It’s one of the more peaceful places of the Empire next to the Nalin province. I would prefer to be here or on the Felkan frontlines where I could do more to serve, but I suppose the Emperor knows best where my skills will be used.”
“Oh well I’ve heard the war with the Felkans is coming to an end soon.”
“Yes, I’ve heard that as well…and it concerns me the things that I’ve heard why it’s ending. Mass riots in the major cities of the Empire, soldier shortages, even heard about some of those traitorous shadow criminals carrying out terrorist tactics. And because of these problems what do we do with the Felkans? Another non-aggression pact! We should be butchering them and burning down their cities, not making peace with them again. If all of the Emperor’s enemies had one neck, I would sever it with one sword swipe.”

Verant says nothing after your rant. Indeed over the past few years he’s heard you rant about the troubles of the Empire a lot more and knows to keep quiet. But if you’re making more outbursts than usual, it’s only because the Empire has more problems than usual.

Lately you’ve been questioning how “great” the Empire is supposed to be. This is not the place you heard about when you were being trained by Mistress or Captain Gruz. In fact, during your first assignment in the Nalin province you encountered decadent officers and disobedient citizens even then.

This questioning of the Empire then makes you question the Emperor which causes you great concern for that it treasonous thinking. But still…how is it he has allowed this to happen to his land? He is supposed to be all wise and all-powerful, but you’ve not seen much evidence of either. Never mind the fact that you’ve never seen him at all.

It’s a rare thought, but there have been even a few times where you wondered what would’ve happened if you had joined Kane when he asked.

You leave Fort Destiny without another word and board the carriage to the Delerg province.

A few days later you arrive and Delerg is everything you’ve heard about, very swampy. The town you’re scheduled to arrive in looks like it’s sinking into marsh, which might explain why it’s even called Sinkhole.

While you don’t know why you’re here, you do know you’re supposed to meet with a contact here, though you don’t know who that is or where you’re supposed to meet.

As you take in the sights of this dismal town, the villagers look like they can barely contain their fear of you. You aren’t sure if it’s because they’ve heard of your reputation, or if it’s due to their natural suspicious nature. The swamp folk have always been known to be that way. They were one of the few people that didn’t resist Empire dominion at all when they first came to this land, but despite this submissiveness the swamp folk still maintained their wary ways.

“Well if isn’t the Bane of Rask! It’s been a long time!” a voice calls out to you. You turn around and see not one, but two familiar faces.
“Roldan? Gerald?” you say seeing how much older they’ve gotten. It makes you realize just how much time has passed.
“Of course it’s us!” Roldan says.
“Yeah, we didn’t know you’d be the contact.” Gerald adds.
“Contact? I’m not anyone’s contact. I’m supposed to meet someone here, you guys aren’t it?” you say.
“Erm, no. In fact when Gerald arrived I thought he was the contact and vice versa. Well this is odd. I wonder who we’re supposed to be meeting?”

You reply that you don’t know and then begin to feel slightly uneasy. With all your past experiences, you start to feel like this might be a trap, then another carriage comes into the town. When the passenger steps out, it’s an old, but still tough looking orc in battle armor. It’s Captain Gruz! He sees all three of you milling about in the open and shuffles over to you.

“What in blazes are you lot doing out in the open like this? Any potential assassin could strike you down! I thought I taught you better than that! Come on let’s get into the tavern, we can talk there.” He scolds and then heads towards the tavern, you, Gerald and Roldan follow.

The tavern is dark and nearly empty. The patrons inside see you four sit at a table and then move as far away as possible.

“You thirsty? I sure am. Four ales!” Captain Gruz says.
“I’m not thirsty captain.” You say.
“They’re not for you, they’re for me! You guys order your own drinks! Anyway I imagine you’re all wondering what this small reunion is all about. Well let’s just say the Empire finally saw fit to take me off the sidelines and place me in charge of something worthwhile for a change. I’ll get right to the point and tell you, the Shadow Guard is here, or at least what’s left of them. For awhile we thought that they might be working with the Felkans, but they’re just taking advantage of the war.”

This news causes you to sit forward and then look around.

“Oh don’t worry, they’re not right HERE, lad. They’re in this province though; and you might be interested that Cyrus is the one leading this miserable little band of shadows. I imagine you and he got some unfinished business. In fact that’s why you’re here, since you’ve had a lot of experience in dealing with this situation before. As for you two, your own records are excellent and you’re Eternals. The only ones that are going to be skilled enough to handle this situation I think are Eternals.”
“How come Edgar isn’t here? He also had experience with the Shadow Guard and was with me during the Fort Defiance incident.”
“Eh, Edgar’s skills are best served on the Felkan frontlines right now. I know the war might be coming to an end, but there’s still quite a bit of fighting going on. Besides best not to have all you guys in one place.”
“That’s a different perception than I remember you having when you were arguing with Mr. Mol fourteen years ago.” You say.
“Heh, remembered that did you? Well, as I’m sure you know things change, ideas change. You get older and see things differently. Wouldn’t you agree?”

You pause before answering, which causes Gruz to study you for a moment.

“Yes, I suppose so.” You reluctantly reply.
“Of course you do, lad. You’d be a bleeding idiot if you didn’t.” Gruz says taking a drink of one of his ales.
“So, where are these Shadow Guard fanatics anyway?” Gerald asks.
“An old temple deep in the swamps. Used to be their old place of worship back before their Empire days apparently. Looks like Cyrus really bought into that dead religion, though it’s also arrogant of him to try to hide right underneath our noses. Hell, who knows? Maybe he knew he’d get discovered eventually and was just itching for a fight. Anyway, we’ll have some extra help when we arrive there. Trust me, I’ve got it set up.”

The remainder of the time is playing a little catch up with your former team members while Captain Gruz enjoys his ale. It’s interesting to see how vastly different their experiences have been.

Gerald says his time was initially boring until the war broke out. From then on he and Warrick were constantly paired up to perform commando mission deep into Felkan territory. Dangerous work, but he says they were treated pretty well by everyone and held in high regard among their fellow soldiers. Even the citizens were less troublesome in the Arat province and the local women threw themselves at him and Warrick every night he laughs.

Roldan mentions his time was mostly spent cleaning up the rest of the kobolds in the Nalin province, breaking small bandit rings, and ultimately trying to keep the peasants in line. No problems from the usksha again though. When Captain Anu was promoted and sent to the Felkan frontlines, Brenda got promoted to command Fort Glory. The most surprising thing though, he and Brenda apparently married. Wasn’t anything fancy and there was paperwork that had to be filled out (A lot of it) but it was completely approved of by the Empire.

Your own tales sound remarkably grim when compared to theirs.

The strangest thing about all this is how they’ve all had contact with each other either directly or through messages. Gerald and Roldan even mention how they got letters from Kane years ago before his actions at Fort Defiance. They both confirm how the letters sounded very longing of the “old days” and referring to them as “brother.” Warrick and Brenda apparently got similar ones too.

You ask Gerald if he met Edgar when he was transferred there. He replies that he did, but said that he was mostly sent to fight Felkan armies directly right along side most of the orcish detachments.

“Sheesh. He’s gotta love that considering his experiences with orcs at Fort Defiance.” You say.
“Edgar’s an idiot. Always has been. I saw that even when I was training you guys. He’s a good warrior, but lacks vision. Surprised he’s lasted this long.” Captain Gruz suddenly replies.
“Well, I agree he’s always had a tendency to act without thinking, but after my last dealings with him, I think he’s improved a bit. Changed his outlook. You know, got older and sees things differently now.” You reply.
“Hmm. Maybe, but as far as I’m concerned being a meat shield is about the best thing he’s ever been good for, just like all the rest of dumb fuckers on the Felkan frontlines.”
“Hey, I’m on the Felkan frontlines!” Gerald protests.
“Yeah, and you’re not marching straight into those Felkan shooty weapons either. You’re being a lot more than just a meat shield like the rest of those stupid ass orcs.”
“Rest of those orcs? Not to point out the obvious, but you’re an orc, I mean aren’t those your people?” Roldan asks.
“Yeah and? Does that make us all relatives or some shit? Fuck my people! I got no patience for any of them anymore…” Captain Gruz begins to get loud and cause a scene.

“Okay captain I think you’ve had enough. I think I saw an inn across the way, let’s get some rooms there and make plans to deal with the shadows tomorrow.” You suggest.
“Grrm, maybe you’re right…” Captain Gruz replies and then promptly falls to the floor. Gerald tries to pick him up.

“Somebody go get the rooms and the other person help me carry the captain.” Gerald says.
> You old Comrades (Catching up)
“…and so that’s what Warrick and I have been up to. Just making things difficult as best we can for the Felkan Kingdom.” Gerald says.
“I’m just surprised that put you on these sneaky commando raids, Warrick I can understand, he’s always been a stealthy individual, but you were usually rushing into battle like the rest of us.” You reply.
“Hey, I’ve changed a bit since you last saw me. Besides, it’s not all sneaking around. Some of it requires just enough to get in and then we can raise as much havoc as we need to. Still, if it’s a mission that requires a lot of covert operations, then Warrick goes in by himself. I’d go to, but I’m too damn tall and stick out like a sore thumb sometimes.”
“Heh, maybe they should put Edgar on your missions, he’s short enough.” Roldan laughs.
“Yeah right, he’d go charging in screaming at the top of his lungs for the entire Felkan Kingdom to attack him.”
“Oh I don’t know about that, he’s changed as well last time I saw him. He’s a lot better disciplined now. Speaking change, how the hell did YOU get married?” You ask Roldan.
“Well you see, when a man and a woman love each other…”

This causes a bit of laughing from Gerald and Roldan, but you’re as serious as ever.

“You know what I mean, Roldan.”
“Yes, I know what you mean, sheesh. I see some things haven’t changed. Well it’s rather simple. Brenda and I spent so much time together and our thoughts, our actions, and just I dunno everything about us seemed to be in relative harmony. It only seemed natural that we end up together. It was like…what other people call love I guess? Hard to know for certain, I mean I think we all know that wasn’t something we were trained to for. Anyway we just ended up taking the next logical step, but we were pretty worried that the Empire would frown upon it and possibly even split us up. Turned out of course they just made us fill out a bunch of annoying paperwork. I don’t even think whatever pencil pusher was in charge even realized we were Eternals. Just bureaucracy as usual.”
“Bah, you just got lucky you had no real competition. Had I still been stationed there, things would’ve been a lot different!” Gerald remarks.

While Roldan gives Gerald a light punch to his arm, you’re about to ask further questions about Roldan’s marriage when Gruz suddenly asks you a strange question.

“Tell me Eternal, what are you going to do when you get old?”
“Huh? Get old?”
“Yes, when you get old, you do realize it will happen right?”
“Well…uh yeah.”
“Okay then, what are you going to do?”
“I guess I never thought about it.”
“Hm. Sounds about right. Most young people don’t.” he replies and goes back to his ale.

This odd interlude is interrupted once again by Gerald and Roldan who were so preoccupied with their little playful banter that they didn’t even hear Gruz’s remarks.

“So… big bad Bane of Rask! Heh.” Gerald says and does a little drumming motion on the table. “Heard a lot of stories about some of stuff you’ve done. Maybe you can clear up some of the rumors and truths.”
“You mean like Kane?” you bluntly say.
“Er…well actually I got some of that story about that from Edgar last time I saw him. I was certainly surprised how bad it was when he told me directly, but after one of the letters I got from Kane months before, it did have an odd tone to it…”
“Wait a minute. Hold on. Kane sent you a letter?”
“Yeah, I assumed he sent one to all of us. Warrick got one the same time I did.”
“Brenda and I received letters as well. Very odd. Kept referring to us as his brother and sister throughout the thing.” Roldan adds.

You’re at a loss that you didn’t receive one considering when Kane first met you he was very eager to have you on his side. You initially chalk it up to Cyrus’ meddling, but then Gerald asks another question.

“You know speaking of letters, how come you never answered any of mine? I had a few sent to Rask a few months after we all got split up, but never got a reply. I was sort of worried you were dead for a while until deeds of your exploits started popping up.”
“Letters? I never got any letters. Never got any letters from anyone.” You say.
“Well that would explain your surprise at Brenda and I getting married because we made sure to send one to everyone on the team. Hell, even Edgar wrote back to congratulate us.”

Gerald makes a remark to Roldan that maybe Rask has shitty mail service, and then Gruz pipes up again while they’re talking with each other.

“Don’t worry about it lad. Isolation makes one stronger anyway.”
“What?”
“Teamwork, cooperation, greater good, its all bullshit. In the end it’s just about survival and who crosses that finish line between life and death last is the winner. Just sucks about those last laps though when you’re practically crawling towards it just to get the shit over with.” Gruz says taking another drink.

You aren’t exactly sure what Gruz is going on about, but you’re getting the impression that he’s had more than enough to drink. You decide that you all need to start wrapping up this little get together soon so you can concentrate better at the true task at hand.


“We can’t leave yet, we have to take care of Kane and Cyrus.” You say.
“What? You don’t think it wouldn’t be a better idea to escape and then come back with an army or something?” Edgar replies
“It would be preferable yes, but by that time they’ll be entrenched and possibly already on the move with their own army of giants, ogres and orcs. That’s less likely to happen without Kane or Cyrus here.”
“You don’t think someone else will take their place?”
“I KNOW someone else will take their place, but by getting rid of Kane and Cyrus that shaky allied army that they’ve built up will fall apart. It will then be far easier to handle seeing as it won’t commanded by Eternals.”
“Well, that’s true…okay let’s do it.”

Edgar suggests getting some basic armor with helmets to disguise and protect yourselves in and mentions the supply room in the human section of the fort should have some. It takes some sneaking around, but Edgar’s knowledge of the layout gets you there with relative ease. When you do get to the room you have to kill a couple human guards, and get dressed in some armor without raising an alarm.

At least not an obvious one.

“I told the others that you wouldn’t try to escape. Glad to see I was right.” A man’s voice says from somewhere. You and Edgar both grab weapons and look around putting your backs to each other.
“Knew it was too easy.” Edgar says.
“It still can be.” The voice remarks.
“Who are you? Show yourself!” you demand.
“And have you possibly kill me? Oh no, I know the skill and ruthlessness of the Eternals all too well having served with Cyrus for years, not to mention seeing Edgar in action. And your own reputation speaks on its own, Bane of Rask. There is no need for animosity however, I am willing to help you.”

“It’s a Shadow Guard, he’s using his blasted magic tricks to stay invisible to us.” Edgar whispers.
“If you’re here to help, why have you allowed this to treason to happen in the first place?” you ask still keeping your guard up.
“Oh various reasons, but let’s just say the major reason is that Cyrus is a very convincing fellow. He probably doesn’t seem like it to you, but he has a certain charm about him. It’s how he’s managed to convince Kane to go along with all this I imagine.”
“So this was all Cyrus’ idea.” You say still scanning the room.
“Eh, it’s a little more complicated than that I think, even I’m not privy to all the details. I only know as much as I do because Cyrus is a little more talkative after sex…”
“Okay, I didn’t need to hear about that!” Edgar exclaims.

“Look we could stand around and talk all day until the guards realize something is wrong, or you can accept the help of me and the rest of the Shadow Guard. We have come to realize for a while now that this plan is not in our best interest and will only lead to our destruction.” The voice says,
“You do realize that you have already participated in treason and this attempt at switching sides because you know you’ll lose anyway, will not save you?” you say undiplomatically.
“Ha ha! Yes, I would expect no less from the Empire and especially not from an Eternal such as yourself. You Eternals, you think in such absolutes and that’s why you’ll be the death of us all…not YOU of course, but for the rest of us. (Sigh) I think the Shadow Guard should’ve broken away from the Empire years ago before you lot popped up. Anyway it hardly matters now, I’m still offering my help…”

Before the man can complete his sentence you have managed to locate his whereabouts in the room and grab him. His invisibility disappears to reveal a mundane looking man in a gray cloak. As you hold your sword to him, Edgar does likewise.

“I hate to burst your ego, but this isn’t the first time an Eternal has managed to detect me, you took longer though.” The gray-cloaked man says.
“How can I trust someone who has defied the Emperor and participated in treasonous acts?” you ask, ignoring the Shadow Guard’s flippant nature.
“You can’t. And being a Shadow Guard probably makes me even less trustworthy. The only thing I can say is you’ll have to make a leap of faith Eternal. I will confess this though. The Shadow Guard’s loyalty to the Empire is starting to be less than absolute. Granted there are still debates about this within our order and not everyone can decide on how we should do it. Personally I felt we should all just leave and not make a big mess about it. Obviously some, like Cyrus feel otherwise. Now I have just relayed perfectly good intelligence on a potential major threat to the Empire. You will be able to warn others after you take care of Kane and Cyrus.”
> You kill him
There is no way you’re going to trust a Shadow Guard even if he has given you good information. He’s still a traitor that would betray you at the nearest opportunity he deserves no less than death. Without another word you run him through and muffle any yelps he might’ve made during his death.

“Good idea, no way we could’ve trusted him.” Edgar says.
“Come on, we should head to Kane’s office, that’s probably where he’s at, hopefully Cyrus is there as well.”

You manage to walk through the halls of the fort without difficulty thanks to the face covering helmets. Everyone just assumes you’re just two soldiers going about your routines. When you arrive near the office there are several heavily armored orc guards milling around there. You and Edgar briefly wonder how quickly you can kill them before more come running, but unfortunately, when another one comes running your potential plans of distraction them are gone.

“Ay! Ay! You guyz! The prisoners have escaped! Come on!” the orc yells.
“Wha?! Well we can’t leave, da boss is in his office! Go get dem shadoze ta help!” one of the guard says.
“Hey we’ll tell the general and you take care of the prisoners. You orcs are tougher so you’ll be able to handle the situation better than we would.” You pipe up and say.
“Hmm, you might be right about us bein’ stronger, but even weaklings like you should be able to handle two unarmed prisoners. We gots orders, we stay here wit da boss.”

“To hell with this.” Edgar suddenly says and attacks one of the orcs.

You do battle with the orcs, though it isn’t an easy fight, they’re obviously Kane’s bodyguards for a reason. You haven’t even defeated all of them yet, when Kane comes out of his office.

“What’s going…assassins!” Kane shouts, not immediately realizing it’s you and Edgar with your helmets on.

You attempt to engage Kane, but one of the last orc guards knocks you into the wall and attempts to get you in a bear hug. You manage to get free, and after landing a couple of good strikes, the orc collapses to one knee where upon you finish him off. You turn around in time to see Kane taking advantage of Edgar’s own fight with the last orc guard. Kane runs his sword through Edgar’s side. Edgar pauses his attack from the blow which allows the orc guard to follow up with a good strike with his mace.

A sickening crunch of Edgar’s skull along with the clang of metal accompanies his helmet being knocked off of him. Edgar crumples to the floor and doesn’t move.

“Edgar?” Kane says to himself. You waste no time more time and attack.

You dodge the last orc guard’s clumsy attack with his mace while blocking Kane’s own as well.

“Why are you fighting me?! We should be on the same side brother!” he exclaims desperately, realizing who you are.

The orc guard winds up another swing, and you aim low taking out his legs, when he falls to the floor, you kick Kane away from you so you can finish off the last guard.

After killing the orc, Kane attempts to attack you but fails and you land a blow across his chest and then another across his face, blinding him in one eye. He drops his weapon and staggers back holding his hand on the gaping bloody wound.

“(Pant) Why…you…I can’t…” he wheezes and tries to escape past you, but you stop him completely by running him through. You wrench the sword upward to slice further into his internal organs. Blood spills out from the wound and onto the floor and your feet. He looks at you with his remaining good eye. Surprisingly, he smiles.

“I…forgive you…broth…” he gasps and dies.

You don’t have time to check on Edgar or anything else when you feel several bolts go into your back. You collapse to the floor and feel that same toxin you felt when Cyrus shot you, except this time you feel a whole lot sicker, due to getting a heavier dose.

“I have to say this probably worked out a whole lot better this way. With Kane out of the way, perhaps we can use these orcs to our more direct advantage after all.” You hear Cyrus remark as several Shadow Guards circle around you.

“Don’t expect to wake up from this one.” Is the last thing you hear before another bolt goes into your skull.


Chapter 2A: For The Empire!

Year 20

“Watch it the last ones are coming from the left side!” you shout, pointing at the barbarian wolfmen breaking through the barricade.

Two of your number go down before the might of the wolfmen. As always you find yourself having to do things yourself. Not that you’re adverse to placing yourself in the thick of battle, but sometimes you get a little tired of having to micromanage.

One of the wolfmen goes down by your blade with ease, the other three however are shot full of bolts, though you were very nearly in the crossfire.

“DAMMIT, watch where you’re shooting!” You shout at the dark elven mercenaries.
“Oh stop being so dramatic, we’ve been shooting with these crossbows longer than you’ve even been alive I’d wager.” One of them replies, followed by a few snickers.

You shake your head at the fact that you have to routinely work with them, let alone having to put up with their kind. Then again you’ve had to put up with a lot around here for the past four years.

“Are we done fighting these dogs now? When are we going to get back to killing more sveld? That’s a lot more fun.” One of the mercenaries says.
“You aren’t getting paid to have fun svelk! You’re getting paid to do your job. If you really want to go murder your tree loving cousins so bad, we’re not stopping you.” You say.
“Whatever monkey, our job here is done, we’re heading back. Let us know when you need our help again.” The mercenary says and they leave.

You survey the damage to the logging camp and it’s going to be awhile before this place is up and running to it’s full capabilities again. Still, today is a victory and despite everything, you’ve managed to eliminate more enemies even if it does seem like they are everywhere in this harsh cold land.

Unfortunately nowadays the Rask frontier isn’t the only place where the Empire has been having problems. Open war broke out with the Felkan Kingdom a couple years ago. Sometimes you wonder how things are going with Warrick and Gerald, but you’ve never heard anything about them, or from them.

In fact you rarely hear news from anywhere unless it directly concerns you defending mining towns, logging town, or outposts from barbarians or the forest elves. It’s never pretty here, but you can only imagine what they deal with up at Fort Defiance where they routinely face ogres and sometimes even giants. You have heard that Edgar has made quite a name for himself with some of his actions. In a way you’re glad, because he’s living up to the title of an Eternal and doing honor by serving with distinction…still, knowing him he’s doing it all to try to “beat” you.

As for you, you’ve made quite a name for yourself as well. You have improved the mortality rate of the soldiers here a little (most notably the ones serving under you), but you’ve also managed to successfully defend several towns with low citizen casualties too.

The greatest accomplishments of yours are the complete destruction of several hostile barbarian tribes. The Black Wolves, the Enclave of the Bear, the Blood Boars, and other minor shape changing tribes have all been exterminated thanks to your relentless nature. Indeed, you’ve become so infamous that the barbarian tribes in this land have come to call you the “The Bane of Rask.”

This recent battle was a last desperate regroup attack by one of the tribes, the “Silver Fangs” after you wiped out all their women and children in an attack on their camp. Grim business to be sure, but it wasn’t first time and it certainly won’t be the last. These tribes must learn that they cannot stand against the might of the Empire or the Emperor. If they can only learn that with their extinction then so be it.

You report your victory to Captain Krozer.

“Excellent as always lieutenant. I know time after time I can count on you. Which leads me to the next major task. From what I can tell we’ve managed to eliminate the major threats in this particular area of the Rask frontier, but we have two left. The forest elves and the Wendigo tribe are the two in question and I’m wondering which one we should focus our attention on first.”

“Well I can tell you that the Wendigo tribe will be a challenge. They’re the biggest, toughest and meanest of all the barbarian shape shifters. So far we haven’t had a large battle with them yet, but with our extermination of the other tribes, the time is getting closer. As for the elves, it will be more tedious than anything as they use a lot of guerilla tactics and such. We’ve still never found any sort of home, base or camp of theirs, but I suppose those dark elven mercs will be more than willing to help us with eliminating them. I’m sure their leader, Edolith will most likely demand a high price as usual though.” You say.

“(Sigh) Yeah, I’m sure she will. Things are never easy here. Fuck it; we’re pushing forward on both groups right now and putting an end to it once and for all. The question is, would you prefer to lead a company against the Wendigo tribe or go on a seek and destroy mission on the forest elves.”
> You seek out the elves
“I’ve had to work around those svelk for a while now. If they’re going to help us attack the elves, it might be a good idea for me to go on that one so I can keep an eye on them, captain.” You say.
“Yes, you do have a reputation even among those shifty bastards, though they’d never admit it. Okay, sounds good. I shall send another officer to lead the mission against the Wendigo tribe. I may even just go along on that mission.” Captain Krozer replies.
“You are captain?”
“Yes, I find that I’ve been getting stuck behind the desk too much lately. It’ll be good to be back out in the field. Don’t want to become like one of those fat self-important generals that do nothing except point to maps and make equally fat musings on tactics. A true leader should lead from the front, I’m sure you agree.”
“It is preferable yes…but I do understand the need to keep those with keen military minds safe from major war zones. Such people have their place as all do in their service of the Emperor.”
“Why lieutenant, are you complimenting me on my intelligence? It’s not like you to flirt.” Captain Krozer asks in a tone slightly friendlier than usual, it catches you a little off guard.
“I…no! I mean yes, you are very intelligent, but…”
“Relax lieutenant, just having a little fun, didn’t mean to put you on the spot. Anyway, we’ll pick this up later, you better get prepared for your mission, and good luck.”

You do exactly that. You know that this is going to be a tedious mission. The elves rarely ever fight in straight up combat. It’s typically a series of ambushes and hit and run tactics with some traps thrown in for good measure. Attempting to locate their hideout is going to be equally as tedious. While the dark elves will certainly be helpful, you wish you had a few battle wizards, but most of those have been assigned either at Fort Defiance or on the frontlines of the Felkan War.

The first thing you do is talk with the leader of the dark elven mercenaries about how would be the best way to track down the elves. Eldolith normally is outwardly disdainful of humans, but she manages to just barely contain that distain in your case. She’s typical of her kind, arrogant and acts like she’s doing you a favor just by being in your presence. Reminds you of the days when Mistress trained you.

“Ah the Bane of Rask, if it isn’t my favorite mon…human. What do I owe this dubious pleasure?” she asks while polishing one of her leather boots.
“We want to find the elven home and destroy them for good.”
“Finally ready to destroy those sveld eh? About fucking time. The whole time we’ve been playing around with your semi-evolved barbaric kin, I’ve had a few of my men out scouting this entire forsaken frontier. We got a lead a few months ago and we’re pretty sure it’s good.”
“Wait. Hold on. You’ve known where they’ve been hiding and you didn’t report it to us?”
“As I recall your superior isn’t paying us for reconnaissance. We’re just here to fight. Besides, it’s still not necessarily a one hundred percent sure thing.”
“If you’re so opposed to doing jobs that you aren’t being paid for, why’d you do this secret scouting mission anyway?”
“We’re also not just here for YOU, human. We have our own agenda. The only reason why we have not followed up on this lead, is because we’ve been busy helping you monkeys, not to mention we all felt it would also be best if we had more warm bodies to distract our hated kind with. Congratulations.” Eldolith sneers.

In typical dark elf fashion she’s attempting to provoke you to get angry for her amusement and to put on a show for her men. Won’t work though.

“Wise decision Eldolith. No way you could’ve handled them yourselves.”
“We could have, but as I stated we were busy helping YOU.”
“If you say so. Anyway I’ll expect to your group to be ready in a couple hours.” You say and leave, but your own dismissive behavior annoys Eldolith so much that she boldly grabs your arm. This is all the excuse you needed.

“Don’t you turn your back on…ack!” Eldolith is interrupted when you quickly turn around grab her arm, spin her around and twist it behind her back. You other arm is wrapped tightly around her neck.

Her men grab their crossbows and point them at you, but it’s a futile gesture, she’s in front of you, they’d be more likely to hit her than you.

“Put your bows down you fools!” she struggles to yell.
“I advise you all to heed your leader’s orders. Even if you did manage to kill me, not one of you would make it out of this fort alive. I might remind you that you initiated this by putting your hands on me in the first place, surely I had the right to defend myself correct?”
“(Sigh) Yes, it would’ve been foolish to react in any other way I suppose. The mistake was mine. Ugh, I’m going to have the stench of human on me for days. Release me!”

No please or begging of course, just more orders. Still, you’ve made your point. You let her go by shoving her down on the floor. As you leave you can hear her verbally abusing her own men. She’s going to have problems maintaining her leadership position now after looking so weak. You’re going to have to be careful as well, lest you “accidentally” get a bolt in the back during the heat of battle, but then again you’re always alert while dark elves are around.

Eventually you set off on your mission. For a while it’s a simple uneventful march through ice and snow. Eldolith mentions that the Alabaster Pines are where they think the elves are making their home, but not in the traditional sense. There is evidence that they are actually making their home underground.

“Can you believe it? Members of our kind actually living like those disgusting rock eaters? It shames me to even think that these sveld were actually even related to us at one time.” Edolith says.

When you reach the Alabaster Pines, you remind your company to keep alert for traps and potential ambushes. You also tell them to keep alert of your so called “allies” as well.

It doesn’t take long before you’re attacked. The elves predictably engage in their guerilla tactics. These attacks might’ve taken a greater toll, but with the help of the dark elves, the long range attacks that they favor are less effective. The deeper you go into the forest, the more desperate the attacks become. They begin to attack you directly in hand to hand combat and to the death. They scream curses and obscenities in your language and their own calling you all murderers and evil.

The dark elves of course are enjoying all this. You and your company on the other hand aren’t. Not due to any sort of sympathy they are the enemy after all, but this is just another mission to you. Funny that you should have a more “detached” attitude than the mercenaries themselves.

Soon you enter a part of the forest where the trees are so tall that they completely block out the sky. There isn’t even that much snow ground. Almost a “warm” feeling encompasses the place.

“One of my scouts said they made it this far before and that’s where he found evidence that these sveld had an entrance to an underground lair. Should be near an odd blue rock. Let’s look around.” Edolith says to you.
“Where’s that scout of yours, shouldn’t he be able to show us directly?” you ask.
“The useless bastard is lying dead with two sveld arrows in him a mile back. Now come on, we’ll be able to find this place better if all us look.”
“I’m not sure. Something about this seems too easy. Why don’t you look, and we’ll stay alert to make sure this isn’t an ambush.”
“If the sveld were going to ambush us, they would’ve done it by now or haven’t you noticed how desperate their attacks have gotten? They probably already know we’re coming and building up defenses as we speak. The longer we take, the tougher it’s going to be to root them out.”
> You help in the search
Edolith’s right, the elves would’ve attacked already. You order your men to help in the search. It doesn’t take long to find what you’re looking for.

“Lieutenant! I found a blue rock and it looks like there’s a hidden door in the ground.” One of your men yells.
“Your monkeys are as subtle as ever with their howling.” Edolith says. You ignore her and make your way to the location along with the rest of your company.

You look down the hole and see a long ladder descend into the darkness. This will probably be the most dangerous part as the elves could pick you off as you attempt to climb down. Elves can see in the dark, while you and your men are going to have to rely on torches. You’re about to go down, when several of your men volunteer first, claiming that they’d rather you not be placed in potential uncertain danger as your combat skills will be necessary for the final battle to come. You reluctantly agree and allow it.

“Ah blind loyalty, such a wonderful thing is it not?” Edolith says. “I could only wish my own men would volunteer their lives so selflessly rather than me having to threaten them. Of course if I didn’t threaten them every now and then, they’d forget their place and try to stab me in the back.”

While Edolith’s speech on dark elf culture is fascinating, you are in no mood to hear anymore of her musings, so you descend down the ladder next.

As it turns out there wasn’t anything to worry about, your men that have proceeded before you are safely waiting for you at the bottom. They say they haven’t even noticed any traps, though it’s pretty dark down here. You call up and say you want the svelk to start coming down since their own night vision will come in handy. When enough of them have descended down the ladder, you begin to proceed ahead.

You travel down a long corridor of dirt with a couple of the dark elves leading the way. You arrive at what is a larger open area with minor lighting and that’s when you hear more shouting followed by higher pitched screams. One of the dark elves yells at everyone to either get out of the way or duck. A bright ball of flame then appears. You just barely manage to scramble out of the mouth of the corridor and into the dirt before the fireball engulfs a good portion of it. Most of the people who were near the front end of it are incinerated instantly while the ones towards the back you can only hope that the blast didn’t travel that far.

You and a the few dark elves that got out of the way engage what looks to be an older elf mumbling something in his language. He’s obviously a wizard. The dark elves attempt to take him down with their repeating crossbows, but he has some sort of magic shield up. The dark elves keep firing as he picks them off with well placed lightning bolts, you take cover behind some sort of house structure. You can hear whimpering inside and also hear the rest of your men and dark elves who didn’t get caught in the fire blast rush into the area.

“Don’t just stand out in the open catching lightning bolts! Take cover and keep firing!” you hear Edolith shout.

You peer out from behind your cover and see your men valiantly attempt to rush the wizard, but only succeeding in dying to his lightning spell which conducts and spreads very well due to their metal armor. The dark elves can’t break through his barrier either, the only option will be to get in close enough to chop his head off or get him to drop his shield, but how to do that without getting fried is another matter.

Still hearing the whimpering from inside the house structure, you quickly run inside to investigate. Inside you see a female elf with a younger one cowering in the corner of their home. They say something in their language, which you can only guess is pleas for you not to kill them. You also see a crib with a baby in it and you quickly get a plan.

You grab the baby and push aside the mother’s feeble attempts to stop you. Carrying the crying baby under your arm you run out of the house. You see the wizard still blasting bolts at the dark elves and you make a beeline towards him. He notices you and as he begins to cast his spell you throw the baby at him as hard as you can. The shock of having a baby thrown at him catches him severely off guard and he stops casting. He also drops his shield to catch the baby.

“FIRE!” you hear Eldolith shout and the dark elves comply.

Bolts sinks into the wizard’s head dropping him.
Another bolt ceases the baby’s cries.
Several more bolts enter your body. You crash to the ground severely wounded.

You attempt to crawl away, but you’re coughing up blood and already breathing hard. Edolith runs over to you and kicks the sword out of your hand when you weakly attempt to defend yourself.

“Baby throwing…I gotta admit that was a good one. A worthy tactic of even a svelk. It’s almost a shame I had to kill you. You weren’t bad for a monkey, but I got a reputation to maintain among my own men. Just business, nothing personal. Well okay, maybe it is a little personal.”

You grab at her leg while she gloats, your grip is strong enough that she has to hack your arm off before she can get her foot away. You lose consciousness just before Edolith announces the gleeful massacre of the remaining elven women and children.


“I’ve had to work around those svelk for a while now. If they’re going to help us attack the elves, it might be a good idea for me to go on that one so I can keep an eye on them, captain.” You say.
“Yes, you do have a reputation even among those shifty bastards, though they’d never admit it. Okay, sounds good. I shall send another officer to lead the mission against the Wendigo tribe. I may even just go along on that mission.” Captain Krozer replies.
“You are captain?”
“Yes, I find that I’ve been getting stuck behind the desk too much lately. It’ll be good to be back out in the field. Don’t want to become like one of those fat self-important generals that do nothing except point to maps and make equally fat musings on tactics. A true leader should lead from the front, I’m sure you agree.”
“It is preferable yes…but I do understand the need to keep those with keen military minds safe from major war zones. Such people have their place as all do in their service of the Emperor.”
“Why lieutenant, are you complimenting me on my intelligence? It’s not like you to flirt.” Captain Krozer asks in a tone slightly friendlier than usual, it catches you a little off guard.
“I…no! I mean yes, you are very intelligent, but…”
“Relax lieutenant, just having a little fun, didn’t mean to put you on the spot. Anyway, we’ll pick this up later, you better get prepared for your mission, and good luck.”

You do exactly that. You know that this is going to be a tedious mission. The elves rarely ever fight in straight up combat. It’s typically a series of ambushes and hit and run tactics with some traps thrown in for good measure. Attempting to locate their hideout is going to be equally as tedious. While the dark elves will certainly be helpful, you wish you had a few battle wizards, but most of those have been assigned either at Fort Defiance or on the frontlines of the Felkan War.

The first thing you do is talk with the leader of the dark elven mercenaries about how would be the best way to track down the elves. Eldolith normally is outwardly disdainful of humans, but she manages to just barely contain that distain in your case. She’s typical of her kind, arrogant and acts like she’s doing you a favor just by being in your presence. Reminds you of the days when Mistress trained you.

“Ah the Bane of Rask, if it isn’t my favorite mon…human. What do I owe this dubious pleasure?” she asks while polishing one of her leather boots.
“We want to find the elven home and destroy them for good.”
“Finally ready to destroy those sveld eh? About fucking time. The whole time we’ve been playing around with your semi-evolved barbaric kin, I’ve had a few of my men out scouting this entire forsaken frontier. We got a lead a few months ago and we’re pretty sure it’s good.”
“Wait. Hold on. You’ve known where they’ve been hiding and you didn’t report it to us?”
“As I recall your superior isn’t paying us for reconnaissance. We’re just here to fight. Besides, it’s still not necessarily a one hundred percent sure thing.”
“If you’re so opposed to doing jobs that you aren’t being paid for, why’d you do this secret scouting mission anyway?”
“We’re also not just here for YOU, human. We have our own agenda. The only reason why we have not followed up on this lead, is because we’ve been busy helping you monkeys, not to mention we all felt it would also be best if we had more warm bodies to distract our hated kind with. Congratulations.” Eldolith sneers.

In typical dark elf fashion she’s attempting to provoke you to get angry for her amusement and to put on a show for her men. Won’t work though.

“Wise decision Eldolith. No way you could’ve handled them yourselves.”
“We could have, but as I stated we were busy helping YOU.”
“If you say so. Anyway I’ll expect to your group to be ready in a couple hours.” You say and leave, but your own dismissive behavior annoys Eldolith so much that she boldly grabs your arm. This is all the excuse you needed.

“Don’t you turn your back on…ack!” Eldolith is interrupted when you quickly turn around grab her arm, spin her around and twist it behind her back. You other arm is wrapped tightly around her neck.

Her men grab their crossbows and point them at you, but it’s a futile gesture, she’s in front of you, they’d be more likely to hit her than you.

“Put your bows down you fools!” she struggles to yell.
“I advise you all to heed your leader’s orders. Even if you did manage to kill me, not one of you would make it out of this fort alive. I might remind you that you initiated this by putting your hands on me in the first place, surely I had the right to defend myself correct?”
“(Sigh) Yes, it would’ve been foolish to react in any other way I suppose. The mistake was mine. Ugh, I’m going to have the stench of human on me for days. Release me!”

No please or begging of course, just more orders. Still, you’ve made your point. You let her go by shoving her down on the floor. As you leave you can hear her verbally abusing her own men. She’s going to have problems maintaining her leadership position now after looking so weak. You’re going to have to be careful as well, lest you “accidentally” get a bolt in the back during the heat of battle, but then again you’re always alert while dark elves are around.

Eventually you set off on your mission. For a while it’s a simple uneventful march through ice and snow. Eldolith mentions that the Alabaster Pines are where they think the elves are making their home, but not in the traditional sense. There is evidence that they are actually making their home underground.

“Can you believe it? Members of our kind actually living like those disgusting rock eaters? It shames me to even think that these sveld were actually even related to us at one time.” Edolith says.

When you reach the Alabaster Pines, you remind your company to keep alert for traps and potential ambushes. You also tell them to keep alert of your so called “allies” as well.

It doesn’t take long before you’re attacked. The elves predictably engage in their guerilla tactics. These attacks might’ve taken a greater toll, but with the help of the dark elves, the long range attacks that they favor are less effective. The deeper you go into the forest, the more desperate the attacks become. They begin to attack you directly in hand to hand combat and to the death. They scream curses and obscenities in your language and their own calling you all murderers and evil.

The dark elves of course are enjoying all this. You and your company on the other hand aren’t. Not due to any sort of sympathy they are the enemy after all, but this is just another mission to you. Funny that you should have a more “detached” attitude than the mercenaries themselves.

Soon you enter a part of the forest where the trees are so tall that they completely block out the sky. There isn’t even that much snow ground. Almost a “warm” feeling encompasses the place.

“One of my scouts said they made it this far before and that’s where he found evidence that these sveld had an entrance to an underground lair. Should be near an odd blue rock. Let’s look around.” Edolith says to you.
“Where’s that scout of yours, shouldn’t he be able to show us directly?” you ask.
“The useless bastard is lying dead with two sveld arrows in him a mile back. Now come on, we’ll be able to find this place better if all us look.”
“I’m not sure. Something about this seems too easy. Why don’t you look, and we’ll stay alert to make sure this isn’t an ambush.”
“If the sveld were going to ambush us, they would’ve done it by now or haven’t you noticed how desperate their attacks have gotten? They probably already know we’re coming and building up defenses as we speak. The longer we take, the tougher it’s going to be to root them out.”
> You stay vigilant
This still feels off to you, no your company isn’t going to scatter themselves looking for odd colored rocks, the dark elves first found this place they can do the leg work. Edolith of course is annoyed that you aren’t going to help and for a moment she almost says if you’re not going to participate in the search then they aren’t either. However it’s quite clear her desire to put more of her kin to the sword is a lot stronger than defying you, she throws up her hands, mumbles something about you being scared monkeys and orders all of her men to start searching the area. You tell your own men to set themselves up in a defensive perimeter, so just in case this is still an ambush, you’re at least no going to get caught off guard and have a weak point open. About an hour passes and one of the dark elves finds the rock with a hidden door in the ground nearby.

“Well we found it, some of my more enthusiastic men have taken it upon themselves to head down there already. Just as well considering you monkeys can’t see in the dark.” Edolith says to you.

You have your own men light up torches and follow the dark elves down the ladder and into the darkness. As it turns out there wasn’t anything to worry about. There was no trap waiting to pick anyone off the ladder, just like there wasn’t any ambush.

When you finally get down into the elven hideout, many of the dark elves and some of your own men have already gone on ahead. Edolith has opted to stay near the back, closer to where you are. A few moment after traveling down the dark dirt corridor, you hear a bunch of yelling up front, followed by high pitched squeals further up ahead and then something spoke in the elven that sounds like a command. Then a bright light appears far in front of you.

“SHIELDS AND DUCK DOWN!” you yell, realizing this is a fireball. There’s no place to run because you’re stuck in the corridor, you duck down behind the large shields that the men in front have and hope for the best. You feel the heat of the flame that incinerates the unfortunate souls caught in front, and you’re even burned a little, but you were lucky that the blast didn’t extend too far back.

Having survived the blast, you and the survivors run over the burned bodies and out of the corridor into the large open dimly lit area beyond as soon as you can before another fireball comes at you. It is then you see an older elf mumbling something in his language. Obviously a wizard of some sort. The dark elves that survived are attempting to shoot bolts at him, but he has a magic shield up. He strikes a couple of them down with well placed lightning bolts.

“Don’t just stand out in the open catching lightning bolts! Take cover and keep firing!” you hear Edolith shout.

You tell your own men to take cover as well. With all their metal armor they’d end up being mass fried by the lightning. As for you, you find cover behind a house structure where you hear whimpering inside.

You peer out from behind your cover and see your men pinned down behind cover, but safe. The dark elves can’t break through his barrier, the only option will be to get in close enough to chop his head off or get him to drop his shield, but how to do that without getting fried is another matter.

Still hearing the whimpering from inside the house structure, you quickly run inside to investigate. Inside you see a female elf with a younger one cowering in the corner of their home. They say something in their language, which you can only guess is pleas for you not to kill them. You also see a crib with a baby in it and you quickly get a plan.

You grab the baby and push aside the mother’s feeble attempts to stop you. Carrying the crying baby under your arm you run out of the house. You see the wizard still blasting bolts at the dark elves and you make a beeline towards him. He notices you and as he begins to cast his spell you throw the baby at him as hard as you can. The shock of having a baby thrown at him catches him severely off guard and he stops casting. He also drops his shield to catch the baby.

“FIRE!” you hear Eldolith shout and the dark elves comply.

Bolts sinks into the wizard’s head dropping him.
Another bolt ceases the baby’s cries.

“WATCH OUT CAPTAIN!” you hear one of your men shout and you instinctively attempt to get back into cover. Several bolts just miss you, but your still catch one to the leg before scrambling behind another rock.

The sounds of battle between your men and the dark elves fills your ears as you try to pull the bolt out. You just get the bolt out of your leg, when Edolith attempts to cleave your head in. You roll out of the way and pick up your sword, though you’re having a little trouble standing.

“I have to admit, baby throwing was a tactic worthy of a svelk. Too bad I have to kill you, you were okay for a monkey. But I got a reputation to maintain among my men.”
“So do I.” you answer and clash weapons with Edolith.

She’s quicker and lands a few good hits, but her mistake is getting in close enough for you to grab her long flowing hair. She attempts to pull free, but you yank hard and grab her wrist. You then break it causing her to drop her weapon. She holds back yelling out in pain and knees you as hard as she can in the groin and jamming her sharp fingernails straight into your eye.

This doesn’t cause you to release your grip. With the pain slowly creeping up from your nuts and into your stomach and bloody ocular jelly leaking out your socket you take both of your arms and wrap them around Edolith’s waist and squeeze tightly in an attempt to break her back. You then smash her in the face several times with your head, breaking her nose completely and even knocking out a few teeth. The pair of you crash to the ground and you finish her off by viciously biting out her throat. The copper taste of her blood fills the taste buds of your tongue and you spit a thick glob of it on her face as she gurgles and dies.

After it’s all said and done, you stagger to your feet victorious over your opponent. One of your men comes up to you.

“Sir! Are you alright?”
“No. But I’ll heal.”
“Okay…well all the treacherous dark elves are dead and it looks like all the regular elves are too. There are only women and children left hiding in their homes and none of them are fighters.”
“Are they still elves?” you ask.
“Well yes.”
“Then kill ‘em all. I’m sick of the whole fucking race at this point.” You say and stagger off.

After the grim business of extermination the elves, you and the remainder of your company set off back to Fort Destiny. A day later when you finally arrive at the fort you notice it’s a lot more empty from when you left it. In fact Captain Krozer isn’t even here. Lieutenant Verant seems to be in charge though he’s almost subservient when you address him.

“By the Emperor! Lieutenant I think you need to see a medic, you’ve got a limp, your skin is burned and cut up and your eye is missing!” he says when seeing your wounds.
“Where’s Captain Krozer? I wish to report our total victory on the elves as well as the treachery of the dark ones that we’ll no longer have to pay.”
“Captain Krozer? She went with most of the men to do battle with the wendigo tribe. Their territory is quite a ways, but I imagine she’ll be back soon. Congratulations on your victory, but go see the medic right away!”

You nod and allow yourself to finally relax at the medic’s office. You’ve been running on adrenaline for quite some time and now that your safe, you at last feel like you can rest a little. Most of your wounds aren’t particularly bad, except for the eye, which can’t be repaired. The medic just does his best to remove the permanently damaged orb, clean the socket and give you a patch.

“You’ll be able to fight good enough with one eye. You just have to move your head a lot more.” He says.

You rest for a couple days, which are still pretty quiet around the fort. You and everyone else are expecting Captain Krozer to show up, but the worst is starting to creep into everyone’s mind.

“We need to send a search team.” You say.
“We can’t afford to! Between the men you lost fighting the elves, and the entire missing company that Krozer lead, we need all of them here in the area!” Verant says.
“Oh come on Verant! We can’t spare at least ten? I’ll lead the search!”
“(Sigh) Look I didn’t really want this responsibility. I figured she’d come back and I could go back to filing out reports!”
“Well if we don’t find her or if she’s dead, then you’re going to be in this job a lot longer than you thought.”
“I know…I know…hey why don’t you take over?”
“What?”
“Sure! You’re a leader of men and a big tough Eternal! You’d do a better job than me.”
“Well of course I would, but doesn’t this have to be official, like assigned from a higher commanding officer?”
“You said it yourself, Krozer may already be dead, if that’s the case then who’s really going to know? Besides I’m in charge I can hand over the reigns of power if I feel I am no longer fit to command.”
“Okay, but what if she’s not dead? When she comes walking in, she’s going to wonder what the hell’s going on, and both of us are going to get in trouble and I am not getting in trouble over nonsense.”
“I shouldn’t think we’d get in that much trouble. I mean you know Captain Krozer, she’s fairly easy going as far as commanding officers go. She’s probably yell at me more than anything, but not likely to put us on report or anything serious.”
> You take command
Verant is right about one thing, you’ll probably get more accomplish if you’re in charge. You agree and take command, of course your first order of business is to have Verant catch you up on what exactly has been going. He explains that in addition to Captain Krozer’s disappearance, there have been a few patrols not reporting in either, when you ask what has he done about this, he says nothing, in fact that’s why he didn’t want to send you out for fear of losing you too.

“So your approach to everything has been to just adopt a siege mentality and not let any of the soldiers out while someone is obviously picking us off? By the Emperor I should have you killed right now for extreme incompetence, but quite frankly I’m going to need you for all the bureaucratic stuff that I’m not exactly familiar with.”

You breathe deeply to contain some of the anger you’re feeling with Verant’s cowardice before continuing.

“Okay I want double men on all the patrols, I want them to question every townsperson within the area about what they might know. I also want you to send word to the generals back home about the situation, maybe we can get some reinforcements up here. In fact send a well armed group up to Fort Defiance too, maybe they can spare some help too.”
“Very well sir, and Captain Krozer?” Verant asks.
“Well with this new information that you gave me with missing patrols, we probably should hold off on the search. If anything she’s probably dead and the wendigos are most likely behind the missing patrols too. This seems a little sneaky for them though, who knows maybe we’ve got another threat that we don’t know about.”

Your first orders as head of Fort Destiny are carried out. It takes days of waiting, but eventually you get some results, though not all good.

Your patrols aren’t attacked, but the townsfolk are very upset with how things have been going for them. They’ve been victims of kidnappings as well as the occasional outright murder. The main problem is nobody has been caught doing any of it. People are either just turning up missing, or pieces of their bodies are being found have eaten and mauled. Again, this part points to the wendigos, but this is still very odd behavior for them if it is them. They have never been known for their stealth tactics, and have always been the most outright brutal of all the barbarian tribes. You can only wonder if its due to them being the “last” major ones in the area that they’ve changed.

Regardless, you don’t really have enough troops to go marching into wendigo territory now. Which bring you to your second problem.

Word from headquarter approves of you taking command and even officially promotes you to captain. Another letter from Mr. Mol even states that he’s impressed with your progress and says you no longer need any sort of supervision. Unfortunately that’s all the help you get. The top brass claims that they can’t afford to send you anyone as most are needed on the Felkan border. As for the team you sent to Fort Defiance, it disappeared. You can only assume they were killed, this also makes you wonder if Fort Defiance is alright. You can’t think of a time any communication has really gone on between the two forts since you’ve been here. In any event you’ve got your own concerns for now and you’re going to have to figure out what to do with your limited resources…

Year 23

“Get the bastards on the north side! They’re climbing up the fucking walls!” you shout.

Boiling oil is thrown over the side of the wall, scalding the wendigos as they fall to the ground several feet below. You look around and see a nearby soldier laughing uncontrollably.

“Its heh heh heh heh heh all so clear! We should stop fighting. We need to EMBRACE THE BEAST!” he snarls and runs at you. You decapitate him and throw his body over the battlements below.

“Why do you resist us Eternal? Your skills would be most welcome to our…”
“SHUT UP! SHUT UP!” you shout at the disembodied voice.

The years of battling the wendigos has all lead up to this. Surrounded by an army of them. You did your best to try to curb their growth, but ultimately they replenished their numbers with greater ease than you did. Even when you did manage to get reinforcements it still was never enough. The wendigos as you would come to learn aren’t truly flesh and blood creatures. They are spirits that possess the minds of others. You demanded battle wizards, but none were sent. You demanded golems, but none were sent. You did get a company of orcs, but this was more of a detriment as their minds were even more susceptible to wendigo influence.

You chop off the hand of another wendigo that attempts to make it over the wall. You look around and see that they’ve already broken through the front door.

How the wendigos suddenly became so sneaky is still somewhat of a mystery and it hardly matters at this point, but if you had to guess; When captain Krozer attacked them all those years ago, they must’ve possessed her, learned from her and adapted her tactics. They realized that if they did not they would’ve been destroyed without any more hosts. So they watched, they waited; they picked off victims and possessed converts one by one. And even with you opposing them at every turn town after town fell. Those peasants that weren’t killed or turned, fled to the southern parts of the Empire. Even some of your soldiers deserted.

The wendigos deprived themselves of food for far too long though and over the past few months it has finally unleashed itself into this orgy of violence. An all out attack on the fort, which really is the only bastion of civilization left in the Rask frontier.

You see what few men you have left get slaughtered below before struggling against two more wendigos of your own. You shove your sword through a wendigo’s heart while trying to ignore the pain of it sinking its teeth into your flesh. Despite swiveling your head around as much as you can to see all your opponents, you feel a heavy blow to your back and claws ripping through your armor. You’re then thrown from the walkway and to the ground.

You try to get back up as quick as you can and then foot to the face prevents you from doing so. Your weapon is ripped from your hand and another foot comes down on top of your head cracking your skull. The internal bleeding in your brain causes a delirious effect for one moment and then you pass out forever before the wendigos feat upon your body.


This still feels off to you, no your company isn’t going to scatter themselves looking for odd colored rocks, the dark elves first found this place they can do the leg work. Edolith of course is annoyed that you aren’t going to help and for a moment she almost says if you’re not going to participate in the search then they aren’t either. However it’s quite clear her desire to put more of her kin to the sword is a lot stronger than defying you, she throws up her hands, mumbles something about you being scared monkeys and orders all of her men to start searching the area. You tell your own men to set themselves up in a defensive perimeter, so just in case this is still an ambush, you’re at least no going to get caught off guard and have a weak point open. About an hour passes and one of the dark elves finds the rock with a hidden door in the ground nearby.

“Well we found it, some of my more enthusiastic men have taken it upon themselves to head down there already. Just as well considering you monkeys can’t see in the dark.” Edolith says to you.

You have your own men light up torches and follow the dark elves down the ladder and into the darkness. As it turns out there wasn’t anything to worry about. There was no trap waiting to pick anyone off the ladder, just like there wasn’t any ambush.

When you finally get down into the elven hideout, many of the dark elves and some of your own men have already gone on ahead. Edolith has opted to stay near the back, closer to where you are. A few moment after traveling down the dark dirt corridor, you hear a bunch of yelling up front, followed by high pitched squeals further up ahead and then something spoke in the elven that sounds like a command. Then a bright light appears far in front of you.

“SHIELDS AND DUCK DOWN!” you yell, realizing this is a fireball. There’s no place to run because you’re stuck in the corridor, you duck down behind the large shields that the men in front have and hope for the best. You feel the heat of the flame that incinerates the unfortunate souls caught in front, and you’re even burned a little, but you were lucky that the blast didn’t extend too far back.

Having survived the blast, you and the survivors run over the burned bodies and out of the corridor into the large open dimly lit area beyond as soon as you can before another fireball comes at you. It is then you see an older elf mumbling something in his language. Obviously a wizard of some sort. The dark elves that survived are attempting to shoot bolts at him, but he has a magic shield up. He strikes a couple of them down with well placed lightning bolts.

“Don’t just stand out in the open catching lightning bolts! Take cover and keep firing!” you hear Edolith shout.

You tell your own men to take cover as well. With all their metal armor they’d end up being mass fried by the lightning. As for you, you find cover behind a house structure where you hear whimpering inside.

You peer out from behind your cover and see your men pinned down behind cover, but safe. The dark elves can’t break through his barrier, the only option will be to get in close enough to chop his head off or get him to drop his shield, but how to do that without getting fried is another matter.

Still hearing the whimpering from inside the house structure, you quickly run inside to investigate. Inside you see a female elf with a younger one cowering in the corner of their home. They say something in their language, which you can only guess is pleas for you not to kill them. You also see a crib with a baby in it and you quickly get a plan.

You grab the baby and push aside the mother’s feeble attempts to stop you. Carrying the crying baby under your arm you run out of the house. You see the wizard still blasting bolts at the dark elves and you make a beeline towards him. He notices you and as he begins to cast his spell you throw the baby at him as hard as you can. The shock of having a baby thrown at him catches him severely off guard and he stops casting. He also drops his shield to catch the baby.

“FIRE!” you hear Eldolith shout and the dark elves comply.

Bolts sinks into the wizard’s head dropping him.
Another bolt ceases the baby’s cries.

“WATCH OUT CAPTAIN!” you hear one of your men shout and you instinctively attempt to get back into cover. Several bolts just miss you, but your still catch one to the leg before scrambling behind another rock.

The sounds of battle between your men and the dark elves fills your ears as you try to pull the bolt out. You just get the bolt out of your leg, when Edolith attempts to cleave your head in. You roll out of the way and pick up your sword, though you’re having a little trouble standing.

“I have to admit, baby throwing was a tactic worthy of a svelk. Too bad I have to kill you, you were okay for a monkey. But I got a reputation to maintain among my men.”
“So do I.” you answer and clash weapons with Edolith.

She’s quicker and lands a few good hits, but her mistake is getting in close enough for you to grab her long flowing hair. She attempts to pull free, but you yank hard and grab her wrist. You then break it causing her to drop her weapon. She holds back yelling out in pain and knees you as hard as she can in the groin and jamming her sharp fingernails straight into your eye.

This doesn’t cause you to release your grip. With the pain slowly creeping up from your nuts and into your stomach and bloody ocular jelly leaking out your socket you take both of your arms and wrap them around Edolith’s waist and squeeze tightly in an attempt to break her back. You then smash her in the face several times with your head, breaking her nose completely and even knocking out a few teeth. The pair of you crash to the ground and you finish her off by viciously biting out her throat. The copper taste of her blood fills the taste buds of your tongue and you spit a thick glob of it on her face as she gurgles and dies.

After it’s all said and done, you stagger to your feet victorious over your opponent. One of your men comes up to you.

“Sir! Are you alright?”
“No. But I’ll heal.”
“Okay…well all the treacherous dark elves are dead and it looks like all the regular elves are too. There are only women and children left hiding in their homes and none of them are fighters.”
“Are they still elves?” you ask.
“Well yes.”
“Then kill ‘em all. I’m sick of the whole fucking race at this point.” You say and stagger off.

After the grim business of extermination the elves, you and the remainder of your company set off back to Fort Destiny. A day later when you finally arrive at the fort you notice it’s a lot more empty from when you left it. In fact Captain Krozer isn’t even here. Lieutenant Verant seems to be in charge though he’s almost subservient when you address him.

“By the Emperor! Lieutenant I think you need to see a medic, you’ve got a limp, your skin is burned and cut up and your eye is missing!” he says when seeing your wounds.
“Where’s Captain Krozer? I wish to report our total victory on the elves as well as the treachery of the dark ones that we’ll no longer have to pay.”
“Captain Krozer? She went with most of the men to do battle with the wendigo tribe. Their territory is quite a ways, but I imagine she’ll be back soon. Congratulations on your victory, but go see the medic right away!”

You nod and allow yourself to finally relax at the medic’s office. You’ve been running on adrenaline for quite some time and now that your safe, you at last feel like you can rest a little. Most of your wounds aren’t particularly bad, except for the eye, which can’t be repaired. The medic just does his best to remove the permanently damaged orb, clean the socket and give you a patch.

“You’ll be able to fight good enough with one eye. You just have to move your head a lot more.” He says.

You rest for a couple days, which are still pretty quiet around the fort. You and everyone else are expecting Captain Krozer to show up, but the worst is starting to creep into everyone’s mind.

“We need to send a search team.” You say.
“We can’t afford to! Between the men you lost fighting the elves, and the entire missing company that Krozer lead, we need all of them here in the area!” Verant says.
“Oh come on Verant! We can’t spare at least ten? I’ll lead the search!”
“(Sigh) Look I didn’t really want this responsibility. I figured she’d come back and I could go back to filing out reports!”
“Well if we don’t find her or if she’s dead, then you’re going to be in this job a lot longer than you thought.”
“I know…I know…hey why don’t you take over?”
“What?”
“Sure! You’re a leader of men and a big tough Eternal! You’d do a better job than me.”
“Well of course I would, but doesn’t this have to be official, like assigned from a higher commanding officer?”
“You said it yourself, Krozer may already be dead, if that’s the case then who’s really going to know? Besides I’m in charge I can hand over the reigns of power if I feel I am no longer fit to command.”
“Okay, but what if she’s not dead? When she comes walking in, she’s going to wonder what the hell’s going on, and both of us are going to get in trouble and I am not getting in trouble over nonsense.”
“I shouldn’t think we’d get in that much trouble. I mean you know Captain Krozer, she’s fairly easy going as far as commanding officers go. She’s probably yell at me more than anything, but not likely to put us on report or anything serious.”
> You seek out Captain Krozer first
“I would still like to seek out the captain first. If I can’t find her after my search, then I will take command.”
“But, what if YOU go missing then?”
“Well I guess you’ll still be in power then won’t you? But you feel it would improve my chances of coming back then perhaps you better authorize some soldiers to come with me.”
“Oh very well! But be careful!”

You shake your head at Verant’s meek style of leadership and gather your men for a search mission. You have no idea why such a man would go into the military if he didn’t want the authority over others, let alone how he got as high as he did in the first place.

When you gather your men, you set off on your journey to find out if Captain Krozer is dead or alive. As you make your way to Wendigo territory, you travel through a few towns you get a lot of pleas and complaints from the peasants. Apparently they’ve been suffering from attacks, but not in the traditional raiding sense. People have been going missing, or sometimes there have been pieces of bodies found, but no outright raids. You of course ask where are all the normal patrols that guard the area and the peasants either tell you that they’ve all disappeared or they stopped showing up days ago. More of Verant’s lack attention. The fool should’ve been investigating these incidents a long time ago, as soon as soldiers stopped reporting in. After this is over with, and assuming Captain Krozer is indeed dead, you definitely will be taking command and most likely have Verant executed for extreme incompetence.

It’s obvious the Wendigo tribe must have something to do with this, but this doesn’t really seem like their style based on their reputation and your own brief combat with them in the past. They are the most brutal and vicious of the barbarian tribes, they out of any of them wouldn’t rely on covert tactics like this, something must’ve have severely changed.

You continue your journey and just before you get to the territory of the Wendigos you pass through another town. This one looks like it was a fairly new one made up of some determined settlers. It also looks like it was attack recently which is amazing since there are actually survivors. Some of the townsfolk fixing a building see you, wave you over and you approach them

“Citizens, why have you built a town here? Nevermind the fact that the Empire has not authorized such a settlement, but this is dangerously close to Wendigo territory. It would be for your own safety to leave this place.” You say.
“Oh yes, we know, we suffered an attack by them about a week ago, but we won’t be scared off! Really they aren’t nearly as bad as their reputation claims.” The carpenter says while looking around at his fellows as they nod. Something is very strange about all this. The peasants all have a peculiar smirk like they’re hiding something.
“Hey, wait aren’t you Roger from Keplavisk? Your wife mentioned her husband going missing and you match his description.” One of your men suddenly pipes up.

“Huh, uh no. My name isn’t Roger and I’ve never been there. Never married either. You must have me mixed up with him. I just got one of those faces y’know. Hey why don’t you guys rest at our inn? I mean you probably will want to, before you fight the big bad Wendigos in their home territory and all.” The carpenter
“Who said that’s what we were going to do?” you ask.
“Well I assumed you were…if you aren’t well I suppose that’s fine too! But you’ll probably still want to rest in our inn.”
“You’re acting very strange citizen…”

It’s at this point you draw your weapon, the rest of your men do likewise. The townsfolk don’t look too bothered, but they do back up smiling the whole time which reveals that their teeth are decidedly less human looking.

“Good, prefer it this way anyway. Fuck all this sneaking around!” one of them remarks and in complete unison they howl an unpleasant noise and begin to transform.

You manage to chop down a few of them before they complete their change, it doesn’t make things any easier though. Despite their great strength, you and your men are winning the skirmish and that’s when more of that awful howling penetrates your ears.

Many more Wendigos come running into the town, completely cutting you off from any sort of retreat. You continue to fight as your own men begin to fall under the onslaught of the Wendigos eventually you are the last one left and severely outnumbered. You attempt to ignore the pain of their claws digging into your flesh and their powerful blows knocking you around like a ragdoll, you do your best, but your weapons is ripped from you along with your hand that was welding it. Desperate, you bite the current Wendigo, holding you in his grip, though you find that his bite is much more damaging than your own when part of your shoulder is chewed off.

You feel a snap and the bone in your other arm is broken through the skin. The wendigo throws you up against the wall of one of the damaged houses and you fall to the snow bleeding profusely from several wounds. You struggle to stand, but you just don’t have the strength left. You expect the killing blow to come soon, but you hear one more of those awful howls before it’s over.

Captain Krozer stands over you, though you know it can’t be her.

“Y..you are not th…the captain…” you say.
“You would be correct Eternal, however she did mention before her mind was absorbed that you would stop us. Good thing her mind was so full of strategies and tactics for me to impliment. I think it really was time for us to update our way of life anyway. Can’t stagnate and remain in barbaric bodies forever. I would have you just us…but in your current state, well I just don’t think you would be as effective anymore. A shame, your body would’ve provided as an excellent host. Oh well I still should be able to enjoy the succulent life blood from your heart.”

The last thing you see is the inhuman face of whatever it is inhabiting Krozer’s body as it reaches into your chest to pull out your still beating heart.