Year 56

You enter Brenda’s office where upon the pair of your smile at each other.

“So, how’s the new bride?” you ask.
“Wonderful, of course. I’m happier than I’ve been in a long time. Thank you for performing the wedding personally.” Brenda remarks.
“No problem. Glad to do it, but I said it before and I’ll say it again. Never did I EVER believe that you’d remarry. Let alone to Warrick of all people! I remember when you hated his guts!”
“Ha ha, yeah…that seems so long ago now. I was too full of misplaced anger and hate. Glad I moved past it and reconnected with Warrick again.”
“Sure, but I just never knew how well you two were reconnecting. When you both told me, I was completely taken by surprise.” You chuckle.
“Well of course you were unaware. You were too busy fighting demons, monsters and sorcerer kings. Yeah, I know it still seems strange, but Warrick and I have a lot more in common than not, you know? I mean we grew up together, we trained together, and we served together. We’re both Eternals. We’re just always going to have that special connection. I mean I will always love Roldan, but why spend the remainder of my life alone if it feels right with another? We both came to that conclusion.”
“Hey, you don’t need to explain to me. I understand and I’m happy for the pair of you. Anyway I just came here to let you know that the new Eternals have been released from their tanks.”
“So did they meet with your standards?” Brenda asks.
“Yes, most of them seem to be very much like the third generation though perhaps with signs of displaying higher intelligence overall. I’d definitely say they’re ready for your training.” You reply.
“So you do still want me to train them?”
“Sure, you did well enough with the third generation didn’t you? I’m just wondering where the hell we’re going to send them when they’re all grown up. It’s likely that Nyttrus will be completely under our control by that time.”
“Maybe we’ll discover a new continent?”
“Maybe, I’m certain they’re out there, though I’ve cut down on spending for exploration for awhile. I’m trying to focus on rebuilding the destruction that was caused to the Nakol and getting Nyttrus under our control as well
“How is it going over there anyway?”
“Better than I expected, worse than I hoped. We’ve got more than a few strongholds there now, but the Iznac are far from being beaten, unfortunately most of the humans there are sick or dead due to disease and Iznac magic. Flog’s also dead and the orcs have become slightly less disciplined as of late without his calmer leadership. There have been a few reports of deserters running off into the jungles and forming their own communities. (Sigh) Going to have to do something about them of course.”
“What about the kobolds?”
“Heh, Dedicated as always. The original leader I sent, Snilkez’ka is still alive and kickin’. She and the rest of them are the main ones holding down the forts. Never thought I’d be so glad of their high birth rates. The third generation Eternals are getting shipped over there soon, so hopefully things will get better.”
“Will you be going over there?”
“I dunno. I might, if only to keep myself busy. There are no more major challenges here on Evigrus anymore and I’d rather not send Decena there. Wasn’t a pleasant experience for her and its not necessary for her to go through that again.”

Brenda nods and you suddenly go into a brief speech about Decena and how proud you are of her and engage in general praising of Decena’s accomplishments.

“You know…and I’ve never addressed this because I didn’t think it was my place to do so, but I still don’t understand why the two of you split up…I mean granted the age difference might normally cause difficulties in being able to relate to one another, but considering that you’re both warriors, you both have an unwavering dedication to preserving the Empire and more importantly you are both Eternals, you have a lot more in common than most people. I mean she is your protégée is she not? It only seems natural that the pair of you would be an item.”

Brenda’s bluntness takes you a bit off guard. She normally isn’t so confrontational.

“It’s complicated.” You answer.
“No, it really isn’t. Look I don’t know the whole story, but I DO know at one time you and Decena were together even if you didn’t make it public knowledge. I also know that you DO care for her and its not just in an average friendly way or a master-subordinate way. You love her and for some reason you’re denying yourself of it.”
“I’m not denying myself of anything.”
“Well what then? I know it wasn’t Decena’s idea, that girl still worships the ground you walk on. Probably more than anyone in the entire Empire.”
“Look Brenda, I understand you’re still on a positivity trip due to your own newfound marital bliss, but my situation is different. It will ALWAYS be different all right?
“It’s not that much different…”

At this point you slam your hands down on Brenda’s desk and get in her face, knocking over a few things on her desk.

“IT IS DIFFERENT. You can’t understand and be glad that you don’t.” you remark. Brenda is silent at your aggressive stance. You stare at her for a few seconds and then back away.

“Now then, the new eternals will be transported here in a few days, I suggest you prepare yourself.” You say and turn to leave.

Brenda though is in rare form and can’t help but continue.

“Emperor?” she says.
“What?” you answer.
“You didn’t do to Decena, what that svelk bitch did to you and I don’t think Alison would want you spending the rest of your life mourning her.”

You stand in the doorway for a moment with your back to Brenda.

“I know I didn’t do what Semra did. I was hideously more successful…and as for Alison…she doesn’t want anything. She’s dead.” You reply and leave the office.

Well you’re in a shitty mood now.

You spend the rest of the day doing a lot of introspection, weighing pros and cons, taking into consideration every side and all your personal feelings on the matter. Every once in awhile you speak to Alison’s portrait as if she’s going to answer. All of which ends up pissing you off even more because you find it to be a pointless endeavor when you should be focusing on more important matters.

You’ve got a damn Empire to run and here you are struggling on what to do about a girl (Or actually a full grown woman now, that has a bit of an arrested development) that likes you. What the hell are you an idiotic hormonal teenager? You thought you settled this a long time ago.

You begin to mentally blame everything and everyone. You blame Brenda and Warrick for their new happy marriage. You especially blame Brenda for bringing this up to you. You blame Decena for becoming so attached to you. You blame Semra for…well everything. You blame Alison for dying on you. You blame Cyrus for killing her. You blame Casimir for setting up the assassination. You even blame Marik for having a hand in creating Decena and then not successfully killing her.

Ultimately though you’ve got nobody to blame, but yourself and you know it and you need to just make a final decision on what to do about Decena.
> You forget about her
You’re not going down that route again, you broke it off for a reason and while there have been relapses of that reason; you’re not just going to give up completely on it.

In fact the best way to put all this behind you is to involve yourself in the Nyttrus campaign. You figure immersing yourself in what you excel at is a good way to get your mind off this. Namely killing lots of things.

You prepare for your journey to Nyttrus and leave orders to Decena that she has full authority to act in your stead while you’re in Nytrrus.

“I don’t anticipate anything going severely wrong while I’m gone, but you never know of course. In any event, I’m sure everyone will accept your authority and if you have any problems Warrick and Kivan are probably your best people to ask advice if you need it. I don’t expect you’ll need to though.” You say.
“I thank you my Emperor and as always I am honored that you would place this much faith in my ability to oversee an entire continent.”
“You are the best suited and this is what you were ultimately trained for in case the worst should happen.”
“That won’t happen.” Decena says.
“Well, let’s hope that is indeed the case.” You reply.

Leaving Decena in charge you finish preparing for your trip to Nyttrus and soon leave with several hundred third generation Eternals.

When you eventually do arrive in Nyttrus the place does indeed remind you a bit of Delerg though even hotter. The kobold leader Snilkez’ka is the first one to greet you and exclaim that now that you’re here, the war will go much quicker and victory should come swiftly.

The first few weeks are indeed very successful ones, and it does appear that victory will come quickly if the Iznac are falling as quickly as they do, but as always not everything is so clear cut…

The Iznac realizing that they are facing a power that they’ve never encountered before resort to unleashing a powerful “secret weapon” in the form of three very large flying lizards. And these aren’t wyverns either. They are creatures that Casimir once told you were rare even back in his day. They’re dragons and the first thing they do is completely obliterate one of your forts.

To make matters even more complicated the orcs that abandoned their duty have somehow come to an agreement with the Iznac and are now allied with them. The Iznac have also rallied the other major race inhabiting the island, the Glip against you, though some of their villages were already hostile anyway.

You fall back a bit on the advance and regroup realizing that the conquest of this continent is going to take a lot longer than anticipated.

Year 60

“We’ll hold the line at Fort Canopy and Fort Tangle, then after they’ve expended all their energy on this massive assault of theirs, we can make our own advance and wipe them out for good.” You say and then promptly stagger a bit away from the table in pain.

General Flevas and Captain Snilkez’ka move towards you and ask if you need help, but you of course decline. Though the truth is, you could use some help, just not in the way they are offering.

Ever since the dragons reared their ugly heads this campaign has been one struggle after another and taken a great toll on your body. While you’ve managed to kill two of the giant lizards already, it’s almost been at the cost of your own life. Your last battle with one of the creatures practically cost you half of the left side of your face given that you’re missing an eye and an ear now. You’re even missing part of your non-dominant hand. While healing magic is powerful, even you can’t regenerate completely lost limbs or other organs and you’ve been pushing it to the limit as it is. You might be holding off death in the in the short term, but you’ve probably been shortening your life span just by using it as much as you have.

You’ve been in contact with Decena who has been giving updates via letters on what’s been going on in Evigrus since your absence and the general reports are always fairly boring. No major problems or anything, in fact Decena on several occasions has requested that she come help you on the Nyttrus campaign and while she would’ve been of great help you still want to keep yourself separate from her. Not really because of any possible feelings between the pair of you anymore, but more because you want to keep her safe.

Quite honestly, you don’t think you’re going to survive this campaign and even if you do win, how many years do you really have left anymore? Or years WORTH living?

Decena is your successor. While you sometimes briefly thought that you might find a way to live forever, deep down you always knew that it was always going to be Decena to take your place when you died. It’s probably why you’ve wanted to be away from her. She’ll be able to take your death with less pain when it does inevitably occur. She also needs to be alive and while you have no doubt in her abilities, there is no point in playing with her life. Perhaps your own, but not hers.

You dismiss Flevas and Snikez’ka and tell them you’ll be fine defending Fort Canopy by yourself and that they should focus on Fort Tangle’s defenses and with any luck the airships will take out the dragon.

Days pass and you and your troops prepare for the inevitable assault, which comes in excessive force just as predicted. Perhaps even a little more.

You look over the battlements and see several Iznacs climbing the walls of the fort like an army of ants. They aren’t even using ladders, they’re just scaling the fort with their bare hands. It’s actually rather impressive, until you unleash a chain of lightning to zap all of them. The shock is enough to at least cause most of them to fall off if not outright kill them immediately.

Your people are doing their best though they can’t stop every Iznac from scaling the fort. Soon the gunfire is replaced by sounds of close combat weaponry. No matter how far the advances in technology, it always eventually comes down to looking your opponent in the eye and feeling their blood splatter as you end their life.

While you’re busy hacking off the limbs of an Iznac warrior, another loud explosion in the distance is heard followed by a bright flash in the sky. It’s the destruction of your last airship from the dragon. Flaming wreckage crashes down in the distance. Won’t be long before the dragon turns its attention towards one of the forts.

Iznac, glip and orcs all attack the fort and while it’s a brutal affair, your Eternals are holding their own in the face of overwhelming odds.

You then hear a roaring sound getting closer and the sounds of great wings approaching.

You shout a general command for the still working cannons to be pointed towards the dragon and to prepare to fire when the beast is in range. In the meantime you try to keep that side of the fort relatively free of invading forces.

The dragon gets closer and you give the order to fire and unleash your own magic bolts at the creature. It’s definitely wounded from its ordeal with the airships, but given your experience with the other two dragons, you know it’s far from being out the fight.

In fact it’s so determined that it doesn’t distinguish friend from foe when it blasts its flame breath on the fort. You manage to protect most of your people with a magic barrier, but for those outside its protection, most are set on fire if not incinerated immediately. On the positive side, it reduces your enemies, on the negative it ignites the gunpowder barrels for the cannons causing a massive explosion and completely destroying one side of the fort.

While the barrier still protects you and everyone within initially, it’s still a lot of strain on your energy and you begin to feel the fatigue setting in. and you can’t hold out any longer…

Your strength falters and the barrier goes down and the flames envelop you and several of your troops.

In the last moments of your flesh melting off your bones you only regret that this fort will fall.