While it’s entirely possibly that you’d come out of this thing alive, (You’ve certainly been through worse) there’s little guarantee that anyone else will. If you’re going to keep your “rescuers” alive, you’ll need to be unhindered.

“What’re you doing?!” Jennifer asks as you leap on a horse.
“I’m getting off this thing, and I suggest if you don’t want to be a big target you will too, there’s another horse here, jump on it and we’ll unhitch the wagon!”

Sensing that you’re going to do this whether she likes it or not, she realizes that she doesn’t really have a choice. She jumps on a horse and you take your sword and cut the harness. You tell Jennifer that she should order everyone else to concentrate their gunfire to the left.

“Where are you going now?!”
“I’m going to take care of the ones on the right!” you shout and ride in their direction.

The orcs are so agitated about you heading directly towards them, they practically stop focusing on the caravan and begin firing arrows at you. Of course you anticipated such a thing and cast a shield to protect you and your horse. With your other hand you spray a cone of cold on the orcs closest to you, freezing them quite literally in their tracks.

This feat of magic is enough to cause the orcs to attempt to rear up their boars and change direction back towards attacking the caravan. Others are undeterred and continue to head toward you with large weapons in hand. You aim your next spell at their boars, which consists of a couple fire blasts. The pigs go up in a blaze and soon so do their riders who end up dropping their weapons in an attempt to beat out the flames.

You turn your attention at the orcs who decided to attack the caravan instead. At first glance the expedition crew have held their own fairly well considering none of them seem to be warriors and they seem to have fended off most of the orcs on the left side. However you see orcs getting the best of a couple of them when they close the gap and begin jumping onto the wagons.

You ride back to the caravan and put your own combat skills good use. Orcs may be fierce and unrelenting fighters sometimes, but without the heavy armor that you remember they used to wear for the Empire, they get killed as easily as anyone else if you’re skilled enough, and you’re more than skilled enough. As you battle the orcs, the remaining expedition crew tries to help, though you’re nearly shot a couple of times in the process. You end up yelling at them to stop “helping” you before you start firing at them with something a lot more accurate.

Soon after you’ve killed your last orc after hopping from wagon to wagon, you hear Jennifer shouts to everyone that you’ve won and the rest have rode off. The caravan stops for a moment to take some time to clean up dead bodies on the wagons, and gather up any equipment that fell off during the fight.

Jennifer comes up to you as you’re cleaning off your own sword.

“Well that was exciting to see a real Eternal in action! I knew we were going to be safe with you!”
“Hmm, yeah well I almost wasn’t safe with your people, because I nearly got shot a couple times!”
“Yeah, sorry about that. Fear of the orcs actually on the wagons was probably causing higher nervousness than usual.”
“You should get some soldiers on these trips. Then at least you’d have some people who actually know how to fight when things get a little close.”
“We do have soldiers, can’t you tell by the uniforms?”

Honestly you hadn’t really paid much attention to the fact that several of the people on this expedition crew do have similar outfits. It’s just regular clothing though, none of it is proper armor, light or heavy. You also now notice that the firearms are much different too, namely they can fire multiple shots before being reloaded. A very handy improvement indeed.

You realize that time has definitely marched on, it would seem that shooting someone with a rifle or pistol is the order of the day. Not much use for the old armor if that’s indeed the case. Still, you’re also reminded of the Felkans and their over reliance of such weapons. It would seem the Nalin Republic has the same technological disease. And these people are the supposed “successors” of the Empire.

“Guns.” You say shaking your head.
“What’s wrong with guns? You don’t think they’re honorable or something?” Jennifer asks.
“No, I believe they are very useful and it would be foolish to not employ such weapons of fantastic destruction during battle and war. I just have a problem with the reliance of them in place of natural combat skill, because one day you’re going to run out of bullets and then you see who the real soldier is.”
“How is using a gun any different from casting down lightning from your fingers or throwing fireballs around?”
“It isn’t in the scheme of things. I just said I don’t have a problem with gunpowder weapons. However you also noticed I didn’t just toss around magic like I had unlimited energy either. I used it when it was needed and engaged in close combat for the rest of them. I could’ve easily just rained down a firestorm and wiped out all of the orcs, but that would’ve taken out the caravan too. Something I’m sure nobody wanted. The Empire used firearms AND magic during the Felkan War, but individually the soldiers were still some of the toughest warriors you’d ever want to face. The Felkans soon learned that fatal fact. Perhaps if their soldiers still had the formidable close combat skills of an Empire soldier, they might not have lost so many battle when physical prowess was needed.”

Jennifer doesn’t debate your views or experience, she just thanks you again for your help and you’re soon underway. The rest of the journey is relatively silent.

Eventually you arrive in the Nalin Republic. The landscape here is more like you remember, though it isn’t until you get towards the capital of Dalt that you start seeing a resemblance to civilization, but even that’s different when it comes to the architecture and such. You get a few stares from passing citizens.

Jennifer and you disembark from the wagons when you arrive at Quintus’ house, or rather his very large mansion, which has guards posted at the gates. Honestly it’s the closest thing resembling the Empire you’ve seen since you got here.

“You wait here, I’ll have to speak with Quintus about all this first. While I’m sure he’ll really want to see you, there is protocol to follow.”
“Sure, do whatever it is you have to do, I’m not going anywhere, but who is this Quintus anyway?”
“Quintus Arillicus is one of the most influential leaders in the senate and as I’ve already mentioned an admirer of old Empire history, but he’ll tell you more when you meet him.”

As Jennifer walks through the gates, you’re left standing around with a few guards who give you the stares that you’ve come to expect from everyone. You wait for about ten minutes before you begin to wonder why you’re even entertaining this again.

Then you remember, it’s because you don’t have much else to do right now. Though you’re wondering what place you’re going to have in this new world. You imagine that maybe you could be a soldier again though it doesn’t look like there’s a war going on. Doesn’t even look like this place is suffering from any discontent from the citizens, but then looks can be deceiving.

Jennifer eventually comes back to the front gate and waves to come with her.

“You can come in now. Quintus is very excited to see you!”

At this point this Quintus better be just as impressive, because from what little you know of this guy, you’re not nearly as excited to see him.

You and Jennifer walk into the mansion and while it’s certainly fancy and has a design style similar to Empire architecture, it isn’t nearly as extraordinary as the first time you saw the Emperor’s palace. Of course you’re a harder sell from those old days. Jennifer and you enter what is apparently a conference room. She says that he shouldn’t be long and you both take a seat at the table.

Soon a middle-aged man walks into the room with some guards, but he dismisses them at the door so that you three can be alone. He’s dressed in an older style suit that looks more like those you remember Empire bureaucrats wearing and carries a staff of some sort with him. He also wears several rings. You sense that they all might be magical.

Either way you fail to be impressed, just as you suspected you would be. Quintus on the other hand, now that he sees you in person, he’s very impressed.

“I never believed in all these years…all the digging…all the research…everything. And none of what I’ve found compares to this! Yes! This is indeed a glorious day! A real live Eternal! Not just any Eternal either, but the one who served the Emperor himself!” Quintus exclaims as he sits down across from you.

“Now let me stop you right there. I know you’re all excited and shit, but for me this is going into unknown territory. Possibly even enemy territory. I have no idea WHAT exactly you want with me. I’m going to tell you right now though if you’re thinking of putting me in some sort of museum or some weird aristocratic version of a sideshow like they have at the fairs peasants go to you better get that idea out of your head right now.”

Jennifer tries to temper your words, but Quintus raises his hands as if no offense was taken.

“It’s alright. Our Eternal friend is quite right to be suspicious of me, but I can honestly tell him there is no reason for him to be because I think my goals will fit his honorable ideals. I’m still sure there is much he wants to know and questions that he has, but I will say that it is my hope that he and I will change history together!”

Quintus and Jennifer try to get you fully up to speed on everything first…
> The Nalin Republic (Successor to the Empire)
After hearing about the terrible state the rest of the former Empire is in, you ask about the land that managed to somewhat keep it together thanks to Brenda.

Jennifer says that the cataclysm did hit Nalin, but it didn’t change the landscape so much as it changed the weather patterns. For the longest time, Nalin was about as wet as Delerg was before most of that place just submerged under water. It got so rainy that the Usksha Desert actually started receding. After a hundred years of this, Nalin’s territory grew just due to weather as the usksha nomads retreated deeper into their desert and border raids became non-existent.

Meanwhile Nalin continued to slowly evolve. After Brenda’s death, her second in command, Tarna, took power. She ruled much in the same way Brenda did, but not as wisely. She was considered far too authoritarian to an unreasonable degree and she did not have the charisma or respect to pull it off. There were even accusations that she had Brenda assassinated.

Whatever the case, after a few decades of her rule, the general public had had enough her. There was a rebellion and she was violently disposed. At first an attempt to rule the Nalin Dominion by a small council of leaders, this worked for a while, but there were still problems with this. In time it was decided that the people wanted to be even better represented, it was around this time that the beginnings of the republic were truly born.

The republic in its current form has lasted about two centuries, with alterations in certain procedures and laws here and there. During that time slavery has been completely done away with and there is trade with some of the more reasonable city-states in Arat. There is also trade with the recently re-emerged usksha nomads who apparently have formed their own new government of sorts called the Usksha Emirates.

Population here is mostly human, though there are elves here as well. In fact it’s about the only area where they’re treated as full equals now. While kobolds were “assimilated” even during Brenda’s time, they’re still not entirely accepted by everyone despite most of them now being productive members of society. There are even a few usksha that have set up permanent shops and live within the republic. These oddities mostly live on the desert borders and are viewed with suspicion even if there is a peace with their people now. Quintus in particular believes they should go back to their desert and doesn’t like the idea of them not being proper members of the republic since they don’t adopt the language or customs.

“Look, I don’t have any problem with the sand savages on a personal level. I’m just saying that if they want to live in the republic, they should learn the language and adopt OUR culture! Even the kobolds make the effort! Of course most of those fat bastards in the senate are just concerned about is maintaining a good relation with the Usksha Emirates so they can line their pockets with the coin made from trade kickbacks. Not to mention all the drugs they allow to go through.” Quintus
“Drugs?” you ask.
“Oh yes. You haven’t been here long enough to see it, but despite the republic’s veneer of peace there lies a very serious drug problem. The sand savages trade more than just their crystal trinkets and cloth. They deal in a drug known as sandman and make it out of a type of lizard creature that only exists in that desert of theirs. A basilisk I believe. It puts people in a sleep state to the point of near paralysis. I mean it’s almost impossible to wake them up while they’re under the influence. I guess it gives people really intense dreams that most really enjoy, because a lot of people get addicted. Of course a lot don’t wake up either. It’s a major problem yet it’s not the only instance of the senate turning a blind eye to illegal substances coming into the country.”
“What else do the usksha bring in?”
“Oh it isn’t just the sand savages. It’s also the pirates and smugglers from the Delerg islands. Besides attacking our pathetic excuse for a navy they sneak in that foul brew that makes people go blind. I have no idea why people even want the damn stuff when we have our own superior alcoholic beverages right here. It’s this kind of moral degeneracy and apathy that’s going to lead to our demise if we don’t start doing something about it!”
“Can’t the military do something about this or maybe a police force? You ask.
“Hah. Jennifer told me of your opinion on our military, and you’re absolutely right. Most of them are not up to the task. They’re not disciplined like they should be and they certainly don’t have the most intensive training. I’ve read about how the Empire used to train its average ground troops. Our soldiers wouldn’t last one day in that form of basic training. As for a police force, we do have the peacekeepers, but they’re even less effective than the military mainly because they have limits on what they’re allowed to do to citizens. Even if said citizen is behaving in a suspicious manner they can’t do anything unless they’ve already slit the throat of some old woman for coin so they can go buy more sandman.”

You can certainly understand Quintus’ frustration. The Empire had its share of problems, but maintaining order over the plebs wasn’t one of them.

“The senate is made up of a bunch of corrupt plutocrats who aren’t interested in making Nalin better. As I said most of them are only in it for money. Others are just weak willed and go along with the crowd. A few are genuinely dangerous idealistic fools who want to introduce even more liberty amongst the populace! Can you believe that? This place needs more order not less!”

You knew this “republic” concept sounded terrible when Jennifer first explained it to you. Looks like you were right.

“We’ve become lax and complacent! The orcs of the Quala Badlands are only going to grow in numbers. How long before their numbers become too unmanageable? How long before the Usksha decide to backstab us while we allow them to infiltrate our borders? How long before the svelk unite the six cities and become a power to be feared? How long before the Xi Hive consumes us all?”

Quintus continues ranting, you get the impression he’s given a similar speech to the senate on many occasions.

“We should be growing stronger by expanding! Instead we’re just rotting on the inside! Even our research in new technology has become stagnant! The gnomes are ahead of us in this way and if the rumors are true, so is the city state of Telis!”’
“What about magic power?” you ask.
“Well, even since the cataclysm, magic isn’t very common anywhere anymore. In fact as far as I know the only place that does have it is the city state of Lenay and even then the svelk only have it to a limited degree. If it weren’t for me, we wouldn’t have anything at all. I’ve been funding all these expeditions in the hopes of unearthing powerful magic weapons of the old Empire, but other than the few personal rings you see me wearing, this staff and a few other things I have locked away, I haven’t had much luck. I’ve even tried getting a magic school started in the hopes that perhaps there are some latent mages or perhaps a hedge wizard out there, but the idea was dismissed as a waste of public funds.”

Quintus goes on about the failings of the republic for quite some time, but it all is sort of boring you. The republic is a weak inefficient state that coddles its citizens and is run by corrupt fools. You got it the first time. Jennifer told you Quintus was influential, but so far all you’ve heard is a lot of his failures to get things accomplished.

You certainly hope he’s got a better plan of action than just whining.


In for a silver, in for a sack as they say. If this spell is going to protect you from the Emperor, you’d best stick with it and worry about Semra’s intentions later. Though at this point you don’t even feel any pain on your side of things, but maybe that’s because you aren’t trying to hide anything from her.

Your life has more or less always been an open book. You’ve never really hidden anything because you’ve usually come clean eventually anyway. You’re not even going to be hiding your desires to kill the Emperor pretty soon. If Semra’s hoping to learn something to use against you, she’s in for disappointment.

She already knows most of your combat techniques having taught most of them to you. She already knows your mindset well enough that she has more influence over you than you’d like. She already is well aware of your feelings towards her. There is quite literally nothing she is going to find out that won’t give her any advantage that she doesn’t already have.

Yet you can sense she STILL wants more, its almost as if she’s insecure about not having total control over you. You sense a lot of that actually. She can’t comprehend why you can have a sexual desire for her, yet not desire her in the way you did with Alison. She’s at a loss on what to do about it. And that confusion is a big ball of anger, frustration and pain.

Suddenly you see the image of a young svelk girl. You aren’t sure how old, but by human standards she would definitely be considered a child. It’s Semra and she is holding the hand of an adult male svelk though you can never quite make out his face.

They are both in a city where a large crowd of svelk are gathered having a good time throwing what looks to be sveld babies against a nearby wall which has a big target on it. Semra looks very happy and cheers whenever one splats into a bloody mess in the center.

It would seem that Semra’s entertainment preferences didn’t change much for her. Several images of her enjoying similar activities with the same adult male flood your mind. You can only guess that the adult male might be her father, but Semra must be blocking you from confirming that.

In any case, the idea that she was once a child is bizarre, but then everyone starts as one at some point right? She had a twisted childhood to be sure, but she had more of a childhood than you ever did.

Just as think you’re starting to see more images of a personal nature, the contact is broken off and Semra pushes you away.

“There. It’s done. Let’s get this over with.” She remarks while rubbing the sides of her head. She also starts rubbing her eyes and is sniffling a bit.

You’re silent for a moment, just staring at her. You know that she must be hiding loads of whatever unhappy memories she does have. And she certainly can’t have you seeing them, she can’t trust you enough to believe you wouldn’t mock her in some way or exploit a weakness.

“WHAT?!” she shouts when she notices you staring.
“Nothing. Keep your secrets. Like you said, let’s get this over with.”

As you make your way to the door to the Emperor’s chamber, you do feel the connection of your mind to Semra’s. Its not like you can read her thoughts, but its rather a sixth sense kind of feeling. You’re curious how this will play out during battle.

After speaking the password, the door opens and you both enter the Emperor’s chambers. You look at each other, simultaneously cast your magical shield spells and spread out. Almost immediately you hear the voice of the Emperor, though he hasn’t made an appearance yet.

“So it’s come to this has it? After all I’ve done for you. After all I’ve given you. You turn traitor for a piece of svelk tail?”

The Emperor steps out from his bedroom.

“Son, I am disappointed.” He says and then just stares immediately in your direction. You feel a slight pain in your head, but its muted. Semra’s shielding spell must be working.

The Emperor looks genuinely shocked. Its an expression you don’t think you’ve ever seen before on him.

“You…you let this…creature into your mind?! Have you gone mad?!”
“Probably.” You remark and cast a lightning blast at the Emperor, but he easily deflects it back at you causing it to hit your force shield and knocking you to the floor.

Semra casts a spray of acid, and while it sizzles and melts objects within the designated direction, the Emperor’s own defenses absorb it. Realizing he can’t just explode your brain, he casts a spell, which starts to turn the room very cold. You’re reminded of the time you cast this spell on Cyrus’ crew and you immediately cast a ring of fire around yourself in the hopes the heat will be enough to keep you from freezing. You follow up with a volley of small fireballs, which set the many bookshelves in the room ablaze.

“You’ve made a dire mistake son, trusting this svelk whore. Even if you could defeat me, do you really think she’d allow you to live? She’s lying to you son. She always has and I thought you were stronger than that.” The Emperor remarks as sheets of ice cover the room extinguishing some of the flames.
“And you weren’t lying to me?! You had Alison murdered and you planned to kill me as well!” you shout back as you release your feet from the ice that has managed to encase around them.

The Emperor sends a flash of light that blinds you and Semra. You stumble around to the left since you remember there being a solid stone table you can take cover behind.

“(Sigh) Even if any of that was true my son, what of it? I was your father! Your master! Your life was mine to do with as I saw fit! Of course none it matters now. You’ve decided to stand against me and now your life is most certainly mine to take.” You hear the Emperor say and then suddenly hear loud lighting blast followed by a yelp sound to your far right. Must be Semra, but you’re still half blind from that flash of light.

“Ha ha! Not as strong as we thought eh Semra? You always were an overconfident bitch. Won’t be long before I break through your pathetic force shield.”

Your eyes clear up enough and see Semra across the room struggling to maintain her shield from a steady blast of lightning unleashed by the Emperor. Seeing that trading magic isn’t going to work, you put up your own shield and try to make your way over to the Emperor to just butcher him, but the combination of your hampered eyesight and icy floor are enough to slow you down.

“Ever the warrior aren’t we son? Here, play with these!” the Emperor shouts and stops his attack on Semra, waves his hands and suddenly five hovering undead figures appear. You cast an enchantment spell on your sword and press forward to battle. Meanwhile Semra has taken advantage of her second wind and cast a telekinesis spell throwing a table directly into the Emperor. She follows this up with smacking him with several other smaller objects. He falls to the floor and re-establishes his own magic shield.

“Keep up the pressure!” Semra shouts.

You’d love to, but right now you’re trying to destroy the undead creatures in from of you. While you’ve never faced such things before, you keep your cool and successfully cut down three of them.

“You fools know nothing of the power you face! Now face the true supremacy of a necromancer!” the Emperor shouts and the entire room gets even colder, but this isn’t even like the cold of ice or snow, this is something unnatural. You start to feel the tips of your fingers go numb and feel your energy starting to be drained. It’s like when Cyrus touched you, but this is all around you.

You nearly get your head cleaved in by one of the wraiths as you start feel dizzy. You dodge the attack and slash the thing in two. The last one is taken down with a blast of fire from Semra who you sense is feeling the affects of the Emperor’s magic too.

You stagger and prop yourself up on a burned lab desk. The Emperor stands only a few feet away, but he seems so far for you to do anything. You look over and see Semra staggers towards him, but collapses and begins screaming. You aren’t sure what the Emperor’s doing, but his eyes are glowing red.

“A scared little girl still crying about her lost birthright. That’s all you are and all you ever will be. You svelk think you know about pain and death, but you know nothing! I’ll show you true pain and soon I’ll show you death and the endless torture that can come after it!”

Semra’s confidence that the Emperor couldn’t do anything to her mind because of her race has proven false. While he’s not exploding her brain you do sense he’s creating some sort of waking nightmare in her mind. She’s literally crying and begging for him to stop, she even looks over to you reaching out with both hands telling you she’s sorry. She pleads with you to help her and that she needs your strength.

You never thought you’d ever feel a slight twinge of sympathy for her.

In any event, you’re not exactly doing so well yourself. You aren’t even sure if you could help Semra even if you wanted to given how weak you feel. Though your chances of making a lunging attack to kill the Emperor are equally as slim.
> You attack the Emperor
Semra’s just going to have to suffer a bit longer because you need to kill the Emperor. Besides, if you do kill him, you will have helped her anyway.

You stagger towards the Emperor and raise your sword in an effort to strike him, but it’s a clumsy attack that he easily evades. He instead grabs your sword hand and you feel an even greater drain on your energy than you did before.

“Tch. Tch. What were you thinking son? I guess you weren’t otherwise you wouldn’t have tried to kill me in the first place.”

The Emperor continues to drain you of your life and it doesn’t take long before you see your hand shrivel and wizen before your eyes. Your entire body soon follows this sequence until your organs fail and death is instantaneous though definitely not painless.


Year 35

While you’ve never been excessively fond of these important meetings because they take you away from the battlefield, you like them even less nowadays due to having to see the Emperor in such a weakened state. You remember when he first started displaying the signs of being unwell; you dismissed it and thought that he’d eventually get better. Five years have passed since you found out and he’s only gotten worse.

He barely gets out of bed anymore. Most of these important meetings take place while he remains horizontal under his blankets. He’s still mobile, but he tries to conserve his strength for when it’s necessary.

He’s never even told you what it is that’s causing his decline, though you’ve never thought to ask. (And Jacob certainly hasn’t) It may just be old age finally catching up with him which means there is nothing that can be done hence why he doesn’t bother bringing it up.

Its funny how when you first met him that he looked so healthy. You thought he was immortal despite him telling you that he really wasn’t. Now you know he wasn’t just being humble.

You and Jacob have been doing your best as usual in carrying out his most important orders. Though today the order is given specifically to you. You have to go meet with Marik.

Marik’s been running a secret experiment for the last sixteen years and says that its finally ready. The Emperor knew about it and actually told him to abandon it on more than one occasion, but Marik insisted that it would be a good idea, so the Emperor relented as long as it didn’t interfere with project that would be of a more direct benefit for the Empire.

When you arrive at Marik’s underground lab, he takes you through a metal door that opens up to a platformed level, which overlooks a huge room. It’s nearly the size of a small hamlet you think. There are several ladders that descend down to the lower level which contain translucent containers all hooked up with tubing and connected with each other and large strange machines. Even from this distance you can make out figures floating in liquid within the containers.

This experiment: Breeding a new army of Eternals. The derro has been growing them in these tanks. Literally hundreds, possibly even a thousand.

“So…this is what you were hiding behind this metal door when I came here over ten years ago. Knew something else was going on.” You say as you stand on a balcony overlooking all the rows of tanks.

Unlike you and your siblings these Eternals were practically “made.” From your understanding they went from some woman’s womb to the tank immediately. (You can only hazard a guess what might’ve become of the mothers, but nothing good no doubt) From there they’ve been getting “grown” into the perfect soldiers.

Marik has explained to you the “science” of what he’s done, but some of it is going over your head. Personally you don’t even think Marik understands all of it himself, he just believes it all works. While Marik did use human babies for this second generation of Eternals most would probably tell you that there isn’t anything human about them. Given what’s been said about you as well you can’t really disagree. You are better than the average or even above average human in every way.

You watch as two of them are released from their tanks, already teenagers and able to understand everything that is told to them. They’re given weapons and display great skill with them when ordered to fight each other. Probably just as good as most Empire soldiers.

Still, there’s something about these Eternals that doesn’t sit right with you. Maybe its because Marik was involved and that his experiments can be hit or miss. Maybe its because you feel that without the experiences of training they don’t truly know what its like to struggle and earn their place.

Whatever the reason, you don’t feel like they are Eternals. As little in common as you have with your own siblings you still feel a small bond there. You have nothing in common with these tank babies. They’re something else as far as you’re concerned.

However, none of this matters. What does matter is if these so called new Eternals are going to actually be an asset to the Empire. From what you’ve seen they aren’t without skill, but they’re going to need to be field tested along with drilling the concepts of loyalty and duty into them.

“Sure, they look pretty, but can they fight?” you say after seeing the demonstration. This annoys Marik. He starts sputtering and stammering to the point where you think he’s going to go into a seizure.
“You just SAW what they’re capable of! How can you even say such a thing?”
“Yes, they were okay for children. I suppose we can find a place for them somewhere. Perhaps we can…”
“Bah! You’re just jealous!” Marik interrupts.
“Excuse me? Jealous?” you ask.
“Yes! They’re already the perfect warriors and didn’t need any training at all! They didn’t need all the hand holding nonsense that you had to go through to become a killing machine. Face it, these Eternals are the future!”

You stare at Marik in disbelief that he dares to say such a thing to you. To his credit, Marik doesn’t back down, he stares back at you, ignoring your eyes burning through him.

“You can give me that stare of death all you want Eternal.” Marik remarks.
“Alright…open up ten of the tanks. Let’s put them to a real test.”
“What? So you can incinerate them with your magic?”
“If they’re truly as good as you claim then my advantages shouldn’t matter, but since you seem to be unsure of your creations now. I’ll make it easy for you. Open up twenty of the tanks and I won’t use one damn cantrip.”

Marik starts making that annoying high pitched laugh you hate so much then he suddenly gets very serious.

“Were you planning on fighting them right now?” Marik asks.
“While I’m sure watching me slaughtering twenty naked teenagers would prove my point, I said I was going to make this easy. No, you go equip your twenty creations with whatever armor and weapons you wish. I’ll wait.”

You wait as Marik orders twenty tanks opened up and has a few of his derro friends herd these children into another room presumably to get outfitted. Marik soon follows behind to oversee personally.

While you wait, you reflect on the fact that they’re all the same age as you were when you first got to meet the Emperor. It was one of the greatest days of your life when that happened. This happy moment passes very quickly when you have to dwell on the fact that the Emperor is now on his deathbed. You have no idea what’s going to happen when the inevitable happens. Sometimes you look at the Emperor now and you wonder if that is what you have to look forward to when you get old.

Is that the fate of everyone? No matter how powerful? What’s the point of it all? Will the Empire even survive when the Emperor dies? He doesn’t have a successor. You have often wondered if you would be it, but he’s never mentioned it. Even if you were, you can’t imagine ever doing the job better or even as well than he could. Leading armies is one thing, but an entire nation? You don’t know if you’d have the patience for it. You’re a soldier not a ruler and yet you couldn’t dream of serving any other ruler except the one you think of as father.

Your mood starts getting worse because you also start dwelling on less pleasant aspects of your sixteenth year before you met the Emperor. It always comes back to her. Why the hell can’t you get her out of your head?

Even now the woman hasn’t been seen in three years and yet she still comes back to fucking torment you.

Alison’s dead, the Emperor’s dying, these new “eternals” are obviously meant to replace you, your own future is uncertain, Semra still haunts your thoughts…

At this point you wonder if it wouldn’t just be best if you let these damn tank babies kill you. It would at least be a warrior’s death and you’d die when the Empire was going through a second golden age of sorts.

You had some good times and saw several major threats to the Empire destroyed. Why stick around to see a man you have nothing but respect for continue to whither and die? Why see the potential slow decline of a nation you spent all your life trying to keep from the brink of chaos?

Maybe it is time to step aside gracefully and be replaced…
> You retire
You think back to when you had to “retire” Kane. Different circumstances of course, but he knew when it was time. You know when its time too and the time is now.

However, you aren’t going to accept death so easily. It’s going to have to be earned.

Doesn’t take long before twenty tank babies along with the other two that were involved in the first demonstration come out fully decked out in armor and weapons. Surprisingly the derro didn’t deck them all out in the heaviest body encasing armor they could give them, though there are at least half of them dressed in such a manner. You can’t help notice that the derro didn’t limit their weapons to close combat, you see some with firearms.

“Well here they are! Where the hell are you? Hehehehehehe! Did you lose your nerve and run away already?” Marik says calling out for you.

Then you jump from the top of one of the tanks you climbed up on and bring your sword down on one of the tank babies, and quickly stab another in the throat with your dagger. You take advantage of their confusion by dispatching the ones with gunpowder weapons first. After snatching one of their flintlocks and blowing the head off of one, Marik tries to rally the tank babies with a simple instruction.

“Don’t just stand there letting him massacre the lot of you, kill him!”

You cut down another three and begin to get into battle mode.

“Marik, release more of them!” you shout ducking a mace at your head.
“What?!”
“I said release more of these tank babies! If they’re going to replace me, they need to learn and these aren’t going to be enough to teach that lesson!” you shout back and dispatch the mace wielding tank baby.

You’re too busy fighting to pay too much attention to what Marik is doing, but the sound of several tanks opening up followed by the sound several new footsteps are an indication that he listened to you.

You slay more of them and demand that Marik keep throwing more at you. The tank babies aren’t without skill, but you’re proving to be a little too much for them to handle. Thoughts of “retirement” begin to leave your mind, and this thrill of battle is giving you that renewed incentive to live.

Unfortunately you don’t anticipate your derro host to take matters into his own hands. Seems Marik isn’t pleased with you easily killing off his experiments.

“Svelk loving bastard!” you hear Marik shout and then followed by a shot from a high platform above. The bullet hits you in the side and causes you to fall to the floor. The tank babies that you were currently fighting take advantage of the situation and gleefully stab at you or bludgeon you with maces and clubs.

You try to get back up, but you’re overwhelmed and too badly wounded. Boots stomp and kick your body followed by several blades through your internal organs. You’re finally finished off by another gunshot to your head.

Later on Marik explains to the Emperor that you insisted on fighting fifty of the new eternals to test them and that despite his warnings you were killed in the ensuing melee. If you were still alive you probably would be honored that the Emperor had Marik killed soon afterwards.


With revenge filling every inch of your body you immediately open the carriage door with the intent of climbing up to meet your attacker. No sooner have you opened the door when a rotting hand from above attempts to stab you in the face with a dagger.

The blade superficially wounds you as it slices across your cheek. Unfazed you immediately grab the hand and pull down as hard as you can. The moment you do so you suddenly feel an unnatural drain of energy. Magic is definitely at work here and it’s sapping your strength. Despite this, the shadow tumbles off of the roof, but on its way down it grabs your own arm with its other hand and the pair of you fall from the carriage.

Unfortunately, when you’re pulled out of the carriage you don’t clear it completely and your ankle is run over by one of the back wheels of the carriage that is still in motion. The bone snaps and you know it’s broken along with your nose when you fell flat on your face on the hard road.

The shadow has recovered from his own fall much better having landed on his feet. You push yourself up just in time for his foot to kick you in the ribs. You roll away struggling to put some distance between yourself and the attacker.

“Y’know when I was brought back I was given very specific instructions not to kill you…but I believe I will ignore them. After all I’m already dead, what else can be done to me?” you hear the shadow hiss in a raspy tone.

You attempt to raise your hand to cast a flame blast, but the shadow grabs your wrist and you feel an even greater drain on your strength than you did before. At this close range you can smell the rot more strongly.

“Oh no, you burned me once before, not again.” The shadow hisses as it drains your energy. With its recent comments, you realize this isn’t just a shadow or even some undead horror possibly masquerading as one. It’s Cyrus.

Your whole body feels like its been beaten with a stone pillar yet you manage to muster the strength to pull your dagger and stab Cyrus repeatedly. You aren’t even aware of where you’re aiming, you stab it in the arm, in the shoulder, in the chest, in the face and wherever else you can reach until it lets you go and staggers back with your dagger still in its body.

You’re dizzy, weak, and have only one good foot, but try to stand up anyway. Cyrus pulls the dagger from his body and does his typical shadow speed tactic in an attempt to rush into you with the dagger. You barely manage to put up a small force shield to block the blade from going into your stomach. Still the impact of the hit knocks you back down to the ground breaking your concentration on the spell. Cyrus kneels down to grab your neck, he’s not even squeezing and you feel the life leaving your body. You start to fade in and out of consciousness.

“Now I’m going to show you something truly eternal. Death. They say the dead feel nothing, but that’s not true. It’s a lie just like the lie I believed about Dendrin meeting me for the afterlife. You know what I experienced instead? A very dark place filled with pain until I was ripped out of it and put back here on this mortal realm. That’s where you’re going brother. You’re going to a very dark place filled with pain and I’m going enjoy every moment putting you there.”

At this point you have no idea what the hell Cyrus is speaking about, all you know is he’s more talkative in death than he ever was in life and that if he’s going to kill you, you wish he’d just shut up and do it already.

Things get fuzzy again just as Cyrus’ fingers release your neck. What happens next is a blur. You do hear familiar female voice though.

“This one is not yours to take, revenant.”

This is followed by an inhuman scream and a bright light which is piercing even with your eyes nearly closed. Between the screaming, the bright light and your weakened state it’s all too much for you and start to pass out.

You see a female shape with long hair standing over you, but you can’t make out the face.

“…Alison?” you struggle to whisper.
“(Sigh) Blind to your true allies and lovers as always.” The figure says and then lays your dagger on your body. “Here, I know how much you treasure this gift to you.”
“Oh…fuck…” you say as you pass out.

You don’t know how long you’re out for, but when you come to you’re in a spare bed in the Emperor’s quarters. Your ankle and nose feel tender but they don’t feel broken anymore.

You look to your left and see the Emperor standing nearby with a walking stick in hand.

“Ah, you’re awake and looking much better too. You looked about as bad as I do when Jacob first dragged you in here.” The Emperor remarks, sitting in a chair near you.
“Jacob found me?”
“No, actually Warrick and some of the Eyes picked you up off the road when a travelling patrol reported coming across your body and an overturned carriage crashed into a tree a few feet away. I requested that you be brought to me personally when I heard the news. You were severely injured, and I was damned if I was going to let anyone else bumble in the attempt to help you get better.”
“Alison?” you ask.
“I’m sorry son, but she’s dead. If that bolt to the eye didn’t do it, her neck was broken in the crash.” The Emperor remarks.

You want to cry out, but you just don’t have the energy right now. You still feel woozy for one thing, the other is you had little hope that she was still alive anyway. The moment you saw that bolt in her eye, the moment you felt her blood on your face, the moment you felt her body go completely limp in your arms…you knew then she was dead.

“Did you need some time alone?” the Emperor asks.
“No…I suppose I already knew.” You respond. “I’m sort of overwhelmed by everything that happened. I imagine I will grieve later for her.”
“I know how much she meant to you. I know she was also a loyal soldier and officer. She will be missed not just by you, but also by the Empire as a whole. Whatever type of funeral you wish for her, you know you’ve got it. I mean if you want a holiday to…”
“That…isn’t necessary. I believe I will just have a simple funeral for her. She was like me, she didn’t seek out a lot of attention.”
“As you wish. Remember though, whatever you need. You got it.”
“Can you manage an execution for a certain svelk bitch?”

The Emperor starts one of his coughing fits before answering.

“I assume you’re talking about Mistress. Yes, I fear I did uncover some evidence that it was she that was behind all this chaos. How did you know about her involvement though? Is she the one that attacked your carriage?”

You explain to the Emperor what happened. He seems surprised to hear that the shadow wasn’t alive and was in fact undead. He concludes that Mistress must’ve raised Cyrus from the dead since she certainly has the skill to do it.

“Necromancy eh? Raising the dead is dangerous stuff to dabble in, especially when summoning something as powerful as a revenant. (cough cough) Very difficult to command something that’s dead, yet still control of most of the skills they possessed in their old life. Too willful. Still I didn’t think that even she would be insane enough to try something like this. Her obsession (cough) with you must be great indeed. I’m not even sure what she hoped to accomplish, other than more chaos and strife I suppose. Hmm, well I guess that does sound like a svelk.”
“All I know is she deliberately set this up. Her standing over me as if she was my savior. I’m not fucking fooled! Next time I see her, she’s dead!”
“Well unfortunately Miss Semra D’vessa has fled the Empire and who knows where she’s gone. There aren’t even many svelk mercs within borders of the Empire anymore. There still might be a few in Rask, (cough cough) if you’d like I could make that law to have all svelk executed on sight. Hell, I think I’ll do that anyway. Someone needs to take the blame for this and it’ll certainly make the citizens happy to have mass hangings of dark elves. I know the elves will love it.”

While the Emperor’s attempts to cheer you up with small acts of genocide are kind, you begin to feel the need to be by yourself. Your silence and your eyes looking downward are all the signs that the Emperor needs to take his leave.

“Don’t worry son. We’ll get her.” He says and then leaves you to your solitude.

You sit in bed for a long time trying to take everything in. Alison is gone. You’ll never see her smile, you’ll never feel her touch, you’ll never hear her voice, you’ll never enjoy anything involving her ever again. You almost feel like you don’t want to go on living and you never thought you’d ever feel something like that especially since survival has been beat and ingrained into your very being.

That isn’t the worst of it though. You didn’t even get revenge on the one that killed her. In fact her assassin would’ve killed you as well if you hadn’t been saved, but that’s still not the worst of it.

Semra…Mistress…svelk bitch…whatever you call her. She saved your life.

As far as you’re concerned that’s the worst of it. However you’ll get over it and grow stronger from this experience. You always do.

All it takes is time.
> You empire Expansion (Year 33)
Year 33

While the Emperor may be physically sick, his ambition remains perfectly fine and the Empire continues to grow thanks to you leading its armies.

Shortly after the death of Roldan, you were assigned to the eastern frontier of Nalin just as you thought you might. Though with Roldan dead, you also thought you might immediately get reassigned to take care of the gnolls, but expansion westward was put on hold since there was no longer an immediate danger.

You worked with Brenda for some of the campaign. She was most familiar with the region east of Nalin and had scouts sent that way many times. You remember during Roldan’s funeral you wondered if she might be angry with you for your inability to kill the assassin that killed her husband, but apparently what really happened was made a secret. You got credit for killing Cyrus and then Semra ambushed you and left you for dead. As a result, Brenda has always treated you with a lot of respect and gratitude. She may even feel a certain kinship with you since you both experienced loss of a significant other.

Brenda however has never forgiven Warrick who she felt was supposed to be in charge of security that day. Indeed he and several Eyes might’ve normally been executed for incompetence or even suspicion of treason, however he swore up and down that he believed everything to be secure. As upset as Jacob was, he said Warrick was not at fault and surprisingly neither did the Emperor. Besides you all know it was really the work of Semra anyway.

In any case, Brenda’s scout information proved most useful. There was a small tribal war going on between four separate groups, though all of them are hostile save for one of the and that’s mainly because the other three have come in contact with the Empire before. Two of them are human barbarian tribes, one them is elven, but much wilder than what you know of them and the last one is a race you’re not familiar with called the Slin. They’re reptilian in nature though, similar to the kobolds, but much larger and meaner. The fools obviously thought they could escape the reach of the Empire by hiding, they soon learn that they cannot hide from the Emperor’s wrath.

The Belkaz were one of the human barbarian tribes. Since they had no prior hostilities to the Empire, they were dealt with first diplomatically. Of course your version of diplomacy meant that their most argumentative and hostile members were executed as an example and the rest were given warning that if they do not submit then the rest of them will be put in chains at best or follow their executed brethren at worst. Doesn’t take long for them to submit and provide further intelligence on their rivals.

The other human tribe, the Fleg were the next to fall. The Emperor told you that he vaguely remembered the Fleg. Said they were a very minor cult that cropped up and became disruptive in the Nalin province about a century ago. The Emperor doesn’t quite remember what the hell they worshipped, but that like most religions it was subversive to the proper order of things. The Empire stomped it out, but it can be assumed that some of the members fled here and these were their descendants. They didn’t provide much of a challenge despite their fanatical beliefs in whatever gods they worshipped. Ultimately their cult was finally wiped out for good when you got to their last village you found that they all committed ritual suicide.

The wild elf tribe was next. They were fierce fighters at first, but after you wiped out the Fleg and started making great progress against the Slin, something in them must’ve changed. It’s as if all their courage left them. These elves were all former slaves that managed to run away from the Empire during the chaos of the Halfling rebelling long ago. The elder that lead them actually called for a white flag parley with you and spoke of how he should’ve known it was folly to run away and that the Empire would eventually find them again even if it took them hundreds of years. You told him that it was indeed foolish, but that his realization of this reality wouldn’t be enough to save the remainder of his people.

You have all the elves slaughtered like the cowering dogs they are. Their begging and pleas fall on deaf ears and sicken you. Part of you briefly wonders if you should spare the children and take them back as slaves, but then you think, why run that risk again in another couple decades? They’re already tainted with the idea of “freedom” and will only repeat the mistakes of their parents and grandparents.

Finally, the last to fall are the Slin. The Emperor told you that he remembered the Slin and thought he’d made a point of making them extinct centuries ago. They originally dwelled in the swamps of Delerg and were once at hostilities with the Shadows that lived there as well. Wasn’t long after the Shadows made their convenient alliance with the Empire that the Slin started taking heavy losses against them. It was thought to be the case that the shadows were successful in killing them all, but it seems they were not and the Slin ultimately had the last laugh of outliving their former foes. Though not for long.

Still, they fought to the last, giving no quarter and showing none themselves, they were about the only worthy enemy you fought against in this region. In many ways to be admired.

With the four major inhabitants subdued, the region was claimed and it will only be a matter of time before proper Empire citizens settle it. Further east leads to vast open sea. You predict that in time as the coast is settled the Empire will eventually have a navy to rival its army and who know, new lands may be conquered across the ocean. There are certainly tales of other such lands.

After this victory, the next bit of business was finishing off the gnolls. You were put in charge of this as well and it didn’t really take too long. You and Alison had broken most of the might of the gnoll tribes long ago. Roldan was just mopping up the remnants and you complete the task at last.

With the last major gnoll lair destroyed the Empire expanded its western borders even further. What lies beyond is a little bit of a mystery as there are no major reports of any organized societies, though there are certainly reports of other civilizations beyond the immediate western wilderness, they are very far away. Whatever they may be you’re confident that they will be no match for the Empire.

Of course these thoughts of future victories are all you have now to keep yourself in a positive mood nowadays. Your recent success has basically ensured that further major expansion and conquest won’t be necessary for quite some time. Alison’s gone and the Emperor’s health is still poor and showing no signs of improving.

It is no wonder that your mind drifts into possible better days ahead.


With revenge filling every inch of your body you immediately open the carriage door with the intent of climbing up to meet your attacker. No sooner have you opened the door when a rotting hand from above attempts to stab you in the face with a dagger.

The blade superficially wounds you as it slices across your cheek. Unfazed you immediately grab the hand and pull down as hard as you can. The moment you do so you suddenly feel an unnatural drain of energy. Magic is definitely at work here and it’s sapping your strength. Despite this, the shadow tumbles off of the roof, but on its way down it grabs your own arm with its other hand and the pair of you fall from the carriage.

Unfortunately, when you’re pulled out of the carriage you don’t clear it completely and your ankle is run over by one of the back wheels of the carriage that is still in motion. The bone snaps and you know it’s broken along with your nose when you fell flat on your face on the hard road.

The shadow has recovered from his own fall much better having landed on his feet. You push yourself up just in time for his foot to kick you in the ribs. You roll away struggling to put some distance between yourself and the attacker.

“Y’know when I was brought back I was given very specific instructions not to kill you…but I believe I will ignore them. After all I’m already dead, what else can be done to me?” you hear the shadow hiss in a raspy tone.

You attempt to raise your hand to cast a flame blast, but the shadow grabs your wrist and you feel an even greater drain on your strength than you did before. At this close range you can smell the rot more strongly.

“Oh no, you burned me once before, not again.” The shadow hisses as it drains your energy. With its recent comments, you realize this isn’t just a shadow or even some undead horror possibly masquerading as one. It’s Cyrus.

Your whole body feels like its been beaten with a stone pillar yet you manage to muster the strength to pull your dagger and stab Cyrus repeatedly. You aren’t even aware of where you’re aiming, you stab it in the arm, in the shoulder, in the chest, in the face and wherever else you can reach until it lets you go and staggers back with your dagger still in its body.

You’re dizzy, weak, and have only one good foot, but try to stand up anyway. Cyrus pulls the dagger from his body and does his typical shadow speed tactic in an attempt to rush into you with the dagger. You barely manage to put up a small force shield to block the blade from going into your stomach. Still the impact of the hit knocks you back down to the ground breaking your concentration on the spell. Cyrus kneels down to grab your neck, he’s not even squeezing and you feel the life leaving your body. You start to fade in and out of consciousness.

“Now I’m going to show you something truly eternal. Death. They say the dead feel nothing, but that’s not true. It’s a lie just like the lie I believed about Dendrin meeting me for the afterlife. You know what I experienced instead? A very dark place filled with pain until I was ripped out of it and put back here on this mortal realm. That’s where you’re going brother. You’re going to a very dark place filled with pain and I’m going enjoy every moment putting you there.”

At this point you have no idea what the hell Cyrus is speaking about, all you know is he’s more talkative in death than he ever was in life and that if he’s going to kill you, you wish he’d just shut up and do it already.

Things get fuzzy again just as Cyrus’ fingers release your neck. What happens next is a blur. You do hear familiar female voice though.

“This one is not yours to take, revenant.”

This is followed by an inhuman scream and a bright light which is piercing even with your eyes nearly closed. Between the screaming, the bright light and your weakened state it’s all too much for you and start to pass out.

You see a female shape with long hair standing over you, but you can’t make out the face.

“…Alison?” you struggle to whisper.
“(Sigh) Blind to your true allies and lovers as always.” The figure says and then lays your dagger on your body. “Here, I know how much you treasure this gift to you.”
“Oh…fuck…” you say as you pass out.

You don’t know how long you’re out for, but when you come to you’re in a spare bed in the Emperor’s quarters. Your ankle and nose feel tender but they don’t feel broken anymore.

You look to your left and see the Emperor standing nearby with a walking stick in hand.

“Ah, you’re awake and looking much better too. You looked about as bad as I do when Jacob first dragged you in here.” The Emperor remarks, sitting in a chair near you.
“Jacob found me?”
“No, actually Warrick and some of the Eyes picked you up off the road when a travelling patrol reported coming across your body and an overturned carriage crashed into a tree a few feet away. I requested that you be brought to me personally when I heard the news. You were severely injured, and I was damned if I was going to let anyone else bumble in the attempt to help you get better.”
“Alison?” you ask.
“I’m sorry son, but she’s dead. If that bolt to the eye didn’t do it, her neck was broken in the crash.” The Emperor remarks.

You want to cry out, but you just don’t have the energy right now. You still feel woozy for one thing, the other is you had little hope that she was still alive anyway. The moment you saw that bolt in her eye, the moment you felt her blood on your face, the moment you felt her body go completely limp in your arms…you knew then she was dead.

“Did you need some time alone?” the Emperor asks.
“No…I suppose I already knew.” You respond. “I’m sort of overwhelmed by everything that happened. I imagine I will grieve later for her.”
“I know how much she meant to you. I know she was also a loyal soldier and officer. She will be missed not just by you, but also by the Empire as a whole. Whatever type of funeral you wish for her, you know you’ve got it. I mean if you want a holiday to…”
“That…isn’t necessary. I believe I will just have a simple funeral for her. She was like me, she didn’t seek out a lot of attention.”
“As you wish. Remember though, whatever you need. You got it.”
“Can you manage an execution for a certain svelk bitch?”

The Emperor starts one of his coughing fits before answering.

“I assume you’re talking about Mistress. Yes, I fear I did uncover some evidence that it was she that was behind all this chaos. How did you know about her involvement though? Is she the one that attacked your carriage?”

You explain to the Emperor what happened. He seems surprised to hear that the shadow wasn’t alive and was in fact undead. He concludes that Mistress must’ve raised Cyrus from the dead since she certainly has the skill to do it.

“Necromancy eh? Raising the dead is dangerous stuff to dabble in, especially when summoning something as powerful as a revenant. (cough cough) Very difficult to command something that’s dead, yet still control of most of the skills they possessed in their old life. Too willful. Still I didn’t think that even she would be insane enough to try something like this. Her obsession (cough) with you must be great indeed. I’m not even sure what she hoped to accomplish, other than more chaos and strife I suppose. Hmm, well I guess that does sound like a svelk.”
“All I know is she deliberately set this up. Her standing over me as if she was my savior. I’m not fucking fooled! Next time I see her, she’s dead!”
“Well unfortunately Miss Semra D’vessa has fled the Empire and who knows where she’s gone. There aren’t even many svelk mercs within borders of the Empire anymore. There still might be a few in Rask, (cough cough) if you’d like I could make that law to have all svelk executed on sight. Hell, I think I’ll do that anyway. Someone needs to take the blame for this and it’ll certainly make the citizens happy to have mass hangings of dark elves. I know the elves will love it.”

While the Emperor’s attempts to cheer you up with small acts of genocide are kind, you begin to feel the need to be by yourself. Your silence and your eyes looking downward are all the signs that the Emperor needs to take his leave.

“Don’t worry son. We’ll get her.” He says and then leaves you to your solitude.

You sit in bed for a long time trying to take everything in. Alison is gone. You’ll never see her smile, you’ll never feel her touch, you’ll never hear her voice, you’ll never enjoy anything involving her ever again. You almost feel like you don’t want to go on living and you never thought you’d ever feel something like that especially since survival has been beat and ingrained into your very being.

That isn’t the worst of it though. You didn’t even get revenge on the one that killed her. In fact her assassin would’ve killed you as well if you hadn’t been saved, but that’s still not the worst of it.

Semra…Mistress…svelk bitch…whatever you call her. She saved your life.

As far as you’re concerned that’s the worst of it. However you’ll get over it and grow stronger from this experience. You always do.

All it takes is time.
> You kane's Retirement (Year 34)
Year 34

Through the extreme cold, the wailing the winds and the relentless snow, you look up and finally see your destination in sight; A lonely outpost which consist of a small watch hut on a hill near the Rask Mountains.

How the hell such a structure continues to exist is amazing. The rough weather around here is bad enough, but the fact that it exists on the very edge of ogre and giant territory and who knows what else living in those mountains is almost impossible to believe.

Yet the very fact it continues to exist is a testament to the man who lives inside it. A man who has been doing his best to serve loyally despite his condition.

A condition that has at last become too unbearable for him. You received the letter a week ago. As far as you know, you’re the only one who knows this. He apparently hasn’t even told this to Jacob.

This has been a long time coming. You knew it was only a matter of time, you just hope it isn’t too late.

You wake your way up the long winding path up to the hut. There are signs that a battle occurred here weeks ago. Fresh ogre skulls have been put on several sharpened wooden poles like a grisly totem pole. A frozen giant head lies nearby the poles, some of it looks like its been eaten. This is a good sign at least. Kane has probably still managed to contain his hunger to his enemies and hasn’t been thinking about other potential victims.

The closer you get to the hut, the more cautious you become. You have no idea what Kane’s state of mind is right now. Has he completely lost it? Is he still relatively in control? Will he attack you as soon as you enter the hut?

You’re about to find out when you open the door up with sword in hand.

Kane sits by a kettle making some sort of stew; you can guess what it might be. He looks up and you can see in his face that he is much different than when you last saw him. The beast within is taking over. His mouth is wider and exposing his teeth which are now fangs. His hands have become more like claws. Just like you saw him temporarily during your visit at Gnome’s Home.

Despite his appearance, he doesn’t seem hostile or out of control.

“Got my letter I see. Glad you could make it. Wasn’t sure if you were busy, I don’t get much news this way.” He says testing his soup.
“Actually I don’t have much to do nowadays. The Empire has stopped its period of expansion for now and all of its enemies are inconsequential.”
“Huh, tell that to the giants that lumber down from the mountains around here. You know how hard it is to instill a fearsome reputation among creatures that are twice or three times your size? It isn’t easy.”
“I would imagine it isn’t, but given that Rask doesn’t suffer as many giant or ogre raids anymore I’d say you’ve done a good job.”

Kane gives you an unsettling toothy smile.

“That’s all I’ve ever wanted to hear, you know? However, I’m not entirely successful since there are still attacks I have to stop. I don’t think there’s much for it though, some are just too plain stupid to know the meaning of fear. When I’m gone make sure Fort Defiance gets extra troops. I know we’ve since invented all these great killing machines and new weapons that can kill a lot faster, but extra manpower can’t hurt.”
“Is it really that bad now?” you ask.
“What do you think?” Kane answers as if his appearance is enough to prove his condition is indeed getting to the point of no return.

“I can’t take the hunger pains any longer. Each day I grow closer to giving in completely. The funny thing is, this… creature inside me is probably the closest thing I’ve ever had to a friend. It sometimes even speaks to me as if it is a comrade in arms. In some ways it is. I don’t believe I could keep up some of the things I do without its great strength helping me. It has allowed me to serve the Empire longer than I probably would have otherwise.”

You almost want to say that the abomination that has possessed Kane’s body is not his friend and has only been using him to help feed its unending hunger, but Kane is probably struggling to find some measure of peace in his situation, so you do not lecture.

“Perhaps it was meant to be.” You say.
“I like to think so…but I also know it is time. As much as I would like to continue serving my duty forever, I know I cannot. So I called upon you. The only one I know that could take me down if need be. The only one worthy to. I know even though we never spoke much, those moments we did talk in Gnome’s Home I knew you to be a man of honor. You found out the truth about my situation, yet you saw that I was still an Eternal at heart. You will always have my thanks for that brother.”

Kane continues to sit focusing on his stew. At this point you feel as if it would be best to get this over with quickly. You walk over to him with your weapon still drawn. He makes no effort to defend himself and even puts his head down so as to expose the back of his neck to you for a better cut.

“I was sorry to hear about your wife. Major Krozer was an excellent warrior. It was also a loss to the Empire. So was the death of Roldan, as will the death me, but I know the Empire will survive. And because it will survive, I will survive along with all others who died within its duty. Just promise me two things brother.”
“Yes?” you ask preparing to strike.
“Tell them I died in battle with ogres and giants.”
“And the second?”
“Steel your mind. The demon will attempt to possess you, but I imagine you’ll be stronger to resist it than I. You always were the best of us. Perhaps the only true Eternal.”

“You’re an Eternal Kane, you always will be.” You remark and bring your blade down on his neck. It isn’t a quick death mainly because Kane isn’t himself. The wendigo inside is finally unleashed and Kane begins howling and snarling as he writhes on the floor with his neck half severed.

“You will torment this honorable man no longer, demon.” You say and finish the decapitation. Kane’s body still twitches on the floor even with his head now detached. It even manages to weakly kick at you. The deed is done, but now you do indeed feel the invading presence of the wendigo.

“I remember you from that wonderful place where all those delicious gnomes and that obnoxious svelk woman were. You are strong and powerful, but just think how much more powerful you could be if you just let me in…” the wendigo remarks.
“If you do remember me, then you also know that I’ve been psychically assaulted by hundreds of angry gnome souls at the same time. Do you really think you stand a chance?”
“Ssssss! I am no weak gnome soul! I am wendigo! I am hunger everlasting and forever yearning! And soon YOU will share that desire!” the wendigo hisses.

The wendigo’s threats are in vain however. You are more than equipped to take care of one now. You’ve long since strengthened your mind from psychic attacks and you also took the time to study wendigo lore before even coming here. You begin chanting.

“What…what are you doing?” the wendigo asks, but you ignore it and concentrate on banishing it. In the middle of this process you sense that the wendigo halts its pathetic attempts to possess you and instead attempts to escape back to the land that it was originally bound to, but you aren’t letting it get away.

“No! Not oblivion! Stop or I’ll make you suffer mortal!”

More empty threats. Funny how even a demonic spirit like this one when faced with the possibility of ultimate death it still pleads for its “life” just like…well a mortal would.

Eventually its voice disappears along with its very essence. The wendigo is gone and you’re left with another dead “sibling.”

After a bit of clean up you report the incident to Jacob, who while not as upset when Roldan died, is still visibly saddened.

“I didn’t know it had gotten that bad. He never said…” Jacob remarks.
“I don’t think he wanted you to know. Probably thought you’d keep trying to protect him, especially since Roldan died two years ago. And he knew I’d take care of it. Not just killing him, but killing the demon within him too.”

Jacob begins looking through his paperwork for a blank piece of paper and starts writing. It’s probably some decree to give Kane a proper military funeral along with the usual accolades about how he died gloriously in battle with several giants.

“His duty to the Empire won’t be forgotten. I’m going to make sure of that.” Jacob says.
“That’s all he ever wanted.” You reply and take your leave.


If this is some sort of shadow attack then the first thing you need to do is keep the palace secure, in particular the Emperor. Besides the city streets are going to be mayhem, you doubt if you’ll be able to track down the assassin that killed Roldan. Hopefully others will get him though.

Despite Alison getting most of the people back into the palace, Jacob is still sitting on the balcony in shock.

“He…he…he’s not…he can’t…” Jacob stutters.
“Jacob get your ass inside now!” you shout and drag him inside.

You and Alison both start taking control of the situation telling the guards to lock up every opening they can and the mages on duty to magically seal up the rest. Alison tells the guests to find some place safe to gather, but you don’t really care about any of them. Your number one concern is the safety of the Emperor.

“Alison, I need to…”
“I know, the Emperor. Go. I can help with keeping shit together here.”

You rush down to the Emperor’s den constantly looking around the whole time. You keep thinking that a shadow, or whatever that was that killed Roldan is going to suddenly materialize at anytime.

When you get inside the Emperor’s chambers, he’s in bed asleep. You don’t want to wake him, but he needs to know the situation.

“Huh? Mmmh? Oh hey…(cough cough) what’re you doing here? Are the festivities already over?” he asks.
“Emperor, there’s been an assassination. General Roldan was killed during the parade by what I think was a shadow. We’re currently trying to secure the palace just in case this is part of a greater attack.”
“Sounds like a lot happened while I was taking a nap. Shadow huh? Thought we killed all of them. Guess they were just playing a waiting game as usual. Always a few loose ends aren’t there? (cough) I imagine Jacob isn’t taking Roldan’s death too well.”
“Not at all, he’s pretty much in shock and was babbling the last time I saw him.”
“Hmm, well it is a shame. Roldan did turn out to be one of our best generals. I’ll have to make sure he gets a nice funeral. If we can’t celebrate his successes in life, at least we can honor him in death. (cough cough)…what’s wrong my son?” the Emperor asks when he notices that you’re looking slightly troubled.

“I was one of the ones chiefly in charge of hunting down the shadows. The fact that I missed one or possibly several so that something like this could happen…I feel like I failed.” You explain.
“Nonsense, you did what you could to the best of your ability. I’ve always known that. Don’t even start playing what if for this situation, because it’s not worth it. While this event has certainly been tragic in that it ruined what was supposed to be a happy day, this really isn’t excessively serious in the scheme of things. (cough cough) If you were worried about me, don’t be. Even in my less than magnificent state, I’m more than able to handle a shadow or even a dozen of them. Assuming they could even get in here in the first place. Its probably just one crazed shadow that somehow hid under a rock all these years from our purges and thinks this one act is going to bring us down. Foolish of course, but what can you expect from such fanatics?”
“You don’t think this sort of thing could cause instability in the Empire?”
“Hardly. (cough cough) The citizens might panic about things for awhile, they’ll be fearful of the big bad shadows’ return for revenge or whatever stories they’ll make up, but ultimately it all works in our benefit I’m sure you know. (cough cough) We get to continue to display how without us they would be at the mercy of dangerous forces that would have destroyed them long ago.”
“So…what did you want me to do now?” you ask.

The Emperor begins to sit up a bit more before answering you.

“Nothing. In fact (cough cough) after things calm down a bit, you can return to your regular duties in the newly acquired Gan and Ibim provinces. I can handle things here in the palace and the city, just get Jacob down here and I’ll start hammering out the plans.”
“You really don’t need me to do anything?”
“No, your talents are far more useful doing what you’re doing right now. Besides, with Roldan dead you might be needed more than ever on that side of the Empire. Last I heard there were still gnolls running about. (cough cough) I of course appreciate your concern as always my son.”

The Emperor begins to slowly get out of bed and you take your leave. When you get back upstairs everything is more or less peaceful. Alison and some of the other officers have been making sure the palace is secure. Alison tells you there have been no signs of any potential attackers. Reports from outside the palace are about the same, other than Roldan’s assassination the only other causalities have been from soldiers trying to maintain order or from people getting trampled in the initial chaos. No shadows or anything else like that.

“So what’s the next move? What did the Emperor tell you?” Alison asks.
“He told me not to worry and when things calm down outside to just return to my normal duties.” You respond
“That’s it?!”
“That’s it. He wants to see Jacob though, is he in a more coherent mindset now?”
“Compared to before? Yeah, but he’s still pretty shaken up. I know he’s been crying.”

You walk over to Jacob who is sitting quietly in a chair with his head in his hands. He’s still very upset. You have to repeat yourself twice when telling him that the Emperor wants to see him.

You and Alison stay at the palace for a few more minutes, but when you get news that a carriage is able to take you back to Fort Stalwart you decide to leave immediately. Its hectic trying to leave at first since there is still a bit of turmoil in the streets as well as the surrounding countryside, but once you’re a few miles from the capital the ride becomes more relaxed.

Alison asks you if you’re certain about leaving.

“The Emperor told me to just return to more normal duties and not to worry, so that’s what I’m going to do. If he says he can handle this incident himself then I have no reason to doubt that. Besides, he also said with Roldan dead I might be needed more on the western borders anyway.” You say.
“Hmm. I guess all those times I worried about you being punished seem sort of silly now…sheesh…today was surreal. I mean I’ve seen a lot of stuff in my years of service, but nothing like this. The general consensus seems to be that it was a shadow that killed Roldan. Certainly looked like one from where I was sitting.” Alison replies.
“I don’t see what else it could’ve been. Similar style of clothing, invisibility, incredibly quick, sneak attack, the elements were all there. (Sigh) Damn.”
“You alright?”
“I just…well I dunno. I just can’t believe we…I missed a shadow. Really thought we got them all when I killed Cyrus. The Emperor said it wasn’t my fault and I know it really isn’t but I still feel like this is a major loss.”
“Yeah, I can imagine you’d feel that way having worked together with Roldan during the Felkan War.”
“Heh, well to be honest Roldan and I were never close. I mean we were professional and civil, but we never really did become what you’d call friends. Still though he didn’t deserve to die like that. He wasn’t just an excellent solder and general, he was an Eternal and I guess that bond was there to an extent even if it was faint. Now there’s one less of us.”
“I guess given that you all grew up together and were subjected more or less to the same training, the other Eternals are sort of like, your siblings?”
“Yeah, I suppose in some ways they are. Funny that I never thought of that before.” You remark.

As you reflect on all that’s happened, Alison reaches out to touch your hand, you look over at her and return her smile with one of your own. Happy that you have her.

Then your smile disappears when a bolt grazes your ear and hits Alison right in the eye. Her blood splatters on your face and her body slowly goes limp in your arms.

You turn your head around just in time to see the assassin hanging outside the carriage window with one hand and his other arm reeling back from having launched his bolt from his armbow.

It’s definitely a shadow, but from this range you can also see it’s also not human. The face is either severely burned or rotten. It grins at you with blacken teeth and before you can react, it rapidly climbs up which is followed by brief scream from the carriage driver and then the ride gets a lot bumpier really quick.

The shadow has probably killed the driver and is probably in the process of detaching the horses. Meanwhile you’re still holding the body of you beloved Alison.
> You try to heal Alison
Ignoring the increasingly bumpy ride and still holding Alison in your arms, you concentrate as hard as you can trying to heal her.

“Hang on Alison. I can bring you back. I know I can. Just hold on…” you say.

The carriage doesn’t hold on however and soon its bumpy ride comes to a sudden stop when it crashes into a tree and turns over. You and Alison are thrown about causing you to lose focus.

“SHIT!” you shout followed by several other curses as you scramble back to Alison’s body which is now starting to grow cold.

Once again you attempt to heal her, trying not to break down emotionally, but once again you are interrupted. This time by her killer who appears above you standing on the outside of the now ruined carriage. You don’t react in time to avoid the bolt he shoots at you which pierces your skull. Your body falls on top of Alison’s though you’re not quite dead yet. The brain is a funny thing when damaged in a very specific way. Instead of dying immediately, your body is twitching involuntarily and you’re helpless to defend yourself against any further attack.

In your final moments the assassin jumps in the carriage with you and grabs you by your neck. You feel a great drain on your remaining strength. You can’t see very well at this point, but the assassin’s face even in this rotten form looks somewhat familiar. It almost looks like Cyrus.

But it couldn’t be him…could it?

The assassin’s grinning expression seems to say it all.

But why or how he came to this state will remain a mystery to you along with whoever it was that raised him in the first place.


You’re sure the Emperor means well and he probably does have more knowledge on these things. But he doesn’t know Alison the way you know her. You also can’t and won’t spend your life in fear that something might occur that will cause strife between you and Alison.

That’s why you’re going to tell her what happened two years ago and face whatever the consequences may be.

You leave the palace and the capital to make your way to where Alison is currently stationed, which means a long ride back to the new eastern frontier of the Empire. You eventually arrive at Fort Stalwart, which is actually just a renamed and rebuilt fort once held by the ex-Felkan Kingdom.

Given your reputation, the gates are immediately opened for you. A few of the older soldiers are also probably aware of your relationship with their commanding officer so orders are already given to alert Alison of your sudden arrival. She meets you even before you make it to her office.

She flashes a smile when she sees you and goes to put her arms around you presumably to kiss you. While you’d love for her to do so, you stop Alison, which confuses the hell out her.

“What’s this? Oh. The other soldiers around. You and your insistence on keeping protocol. Very well let’s get to my quarters so we can get you back into your comfort zone, because its been too damn long.”
“It has and we should get back to your quarters, but I’m not sure if you’re going to be in the mood for what you probably had in mind after I tell you what I have to tell you.”

Alison steps back and gives you a tilted look.

“Hmm, sounds serious. You look even more grim than usual. Well let’s get this over with.” Alison says and the pair of you head towards her quarters.

Her private quarters are neat and clean, as you’d expect, on the right wall you see your portrait, which is right across from her bed. Placed in such a way so the first thing she sees when she wakes up is you.

“Alright. Out with it and let’s see exactly how mad you think I’m going to be at you.” Alison remarks closing her door. You sit on the bed and take a deep breath then exhale giving her a look on your face which contains a mixture of shame and guilt.

“Geez…this must be bad. I don’t think I’ve ever seen you like this. Its almost like you’re afraid to tell me. Shit, maybe I better sit down too.” Alison says taking a seat in one her chairs.
“Alison…I love you. I want you to know that before I say anything else. I never thought I could ever feel this way at all about anyone. It just wasn’t something I was taught or even learned. (whew) Okay enough stalling. Here it is…”

You tell Alison everything that happened two years ago at Gnome’s Home and afterwards. You also explain that you didn’t want to tell her in a letter because you felt something like this should be face to face. You expect Alison to show some sign of anger at this point, but she remains stoically silent just listening to everything.

Lastly, and you weren’t planning on telling her this either, but you mention that the Emperor suggested that you break up with her and how you obviously ignored this advice because your feelings are just that strong for her. This one causes her eyes to widen a little.

“Wow, obsessed svelk, rape through magic trickery, warnings from the Emperor, defying orders…sheesh. Bet you never thought you’d have to deal with things like this.”
“Rape?” you say.
“Well, yes. Its not like you willingly had sex with her, you willingly had sex with what you THOUGHT was me. It might’ve been a civilized form of it, but it still was rape since you wouldn’t have had sex with who it really was. What else would you call what that svelk bitch did to you? The act doesn’t always include a bunch of men holding down a hapless young girl and ramming their dicks into her you know.”

Hell, you never even thought about that. For a brief moment you feel slightly…violated.

“And here I thought she was just making up shit and posturing.” Alison continues.
“Wait a minute. You…knew? When?” you ask.
“For about two years now. Though as you might expect she told things a little differently. Never mentioned about disguising herself as me.”
“So she visited you? You never mentioned it in your letters.”
“Well hey guess what, neither did you. Though in your case I can understand why. In my case it was more I thought she was just so full of shit that I didn’t believe her in the first place and in the second place I knew you were so busy with the Felkans that I didn’t want to distract you with unpleasant thoughts of her in my letters. Figured it would be best to keep her out of them.”

“What did she tell you exactly?”
“She appeared in my office one night claiming that she would always be the main woman in your life. And how I didn’t stand chance against her and that I should just give up now. She said this along with the predictable insults of monkey and my general appearance. Then she mentioned how she easily seduced you into having sex with her and that you would always be hers. Like I said she was so overly dramatic about everything I thought she had to be lying.”
“So what did you do?”
“Nothing, I mostly just shrugged my shoulders and told her I thought she was lying. I also mentioned that I found it pretty sad that for all her superior svelk talent and beauty she was still jealous of a mere monkey like myself and obsessed with a man who obviously did not share the strong feelings she obviously has for you. Then to finish up my retort I also told her that even if what she said was true, that even if you did have sex with her it would only make you appreciate me all the more.”
“Yikes. I can imagine she didn’t like that.”
“Oh no, she did not like it at all. Her face turned from a smug sneer to one of frothing anger. I thought she was going to attack me, some flames started emanating from her fingers and for a moment it felt like a force was keeping me from drawing my own weapon. I couldn’t even call out for other soldiers to help. I guess she thought better of it though because she just stood there for a moment staring at me and then made her way out the window. Wasn’t long after that incident the svelk merc support was transferred out of here, which was fine by me and everyone else of course. Not like we needed them against gnoll attacks anymore anyway.”

“I can’t believe all this happened and you aren’t mad.” You say.
“Oh trust me I’m mad, but if you think its with you, you’re mistaken. I can’t do much about it though I suppose. I’m not really concerned with your little svelk stalker. I’m a little more troubled with what you just told me about the Emperor. I get the impression he doesn’t care for my influence, not that I think I really have any over you.”
“Oh that? I wouldn’t worry about him. I believe he’s just overly concerned with my well-being again. He’s always been a little over protective at times, like a father with an only son I suppose. Right now though I’m just wondering how you feel about me after all is said and done.”
“I don’t feel anything. Ha ha ha …wait that came out wrong. What I mean is I still feel the same way I always have about you. I love you. Nothing has changed.”
“Good, then let’s get married. Let’s take our relationship to its next logical step.”
“Married? You serious?”
“Well sure. I mean don’t people who feel the way we do get married?”
“Usually I guess…but I dunno…seems like there some forces against us, and that’s not even including one of us dying violently in battle. I mean in some ways the Emperor might be right. You might save yourself some pain if you ended our relationship now.”
“Perhaps, but I won’t get to experience the good stuff if I did that.”
“Good stuff eh? Is that what you’re calling it now?” Alison jokes. “Well, you sure you’re ready for the pain of possibly losing me on some forsaken battlefield somewhere?”
“How do you know you’ll die first? You could outlive me.”
“Pfft, please. You’ll outlive everyone. You’d outlast this entire world, if you had the time.” Alison laughs.
“So will you marry me?”
“Yes, of course I will.”

As fitting for two soldiers, you and Alison don’t have a fancy wedding; in fact you get married the next day in some small town in the Arat province by a local bureaucrat. Alison is still on duty for the next week so you return to her post and spend your wedding night in her quarters at Fort Stalwart. She tells you though as soon as she has time off, the pair of you are going to spend quality time doing something fun which doesn’t involve the bedroom. You don’t see the need since the bedroom is just fine with you, but you agree.

While waiting for Alison’s time off, you take it upon yourself to have a pair of proper rings made for you and Alison. You also have what possessions you actually own sent to Fort Stalwart since you don’t know where you’ll be stationed next and there is as good of place as any.

After you’ve taken care of all that, you still have a day left to wait for Alison, so you go back to see the Emperor, you figure he should know what you’ve done and he’ll know eventually anyway.

When you see him again, he’s still coughing a lot and moving slowly when he walks. He seems happy to see you though.

“My (cough cough) son. This is an unexpected (cough) visit. I would’ve thought you would’ve been off enjoying your down time.” He says.
“I am, but I have also come to tell you something. I have married Alison.”
“Oh. I see. Well (cough cough) whatever makes you happy son. I trust she makes you happy.”
“Yes.”
“Then I’m happy for you. (cough cough) Heh, that was quick. Have to admit I didn’t expect you to marry her. You should’ve told me though (cough cough) I could’ve ordered a big city celebration like what (cough cough) we’re doing for the victory over the Felkans. You two could’ve walked down the streets with fancy guard and everything.”
“That would’ve been very generous, but I don’t think that would’ve been either of our style.”
“I suppose not. Well as I (cough cough) have said, I’m happy for you, enjoy your time together and cherish it. So was there anything else?”
“No, nothing of any note.”
“Very well…(cough cough) ugh…I’m still afflicted as you can tell. I need to just rest, so if you’ll excuse me.”

Again, you feel like asking if he needs help, but you resist. Instead you just quietly start to leave. The Emperor speaks to you as he makes his way back to his bedroom.

“Oh. Don’t (cough cough) worry about Semra. I spoke with her earlier a couple days ago about bothering you again.”
“Semra?”
“Yeah, you know (cough cough) Mistress. I made it quite clear to her if she did do it again that she’d be executed, along with every other svelk in the Empire. (cough cough) Funny thing is, she went into a complete breakdown exclaiming that I didn’t need to worry about that ever again, because as far she was concerned she never wanted to see you ever again. Then she (cough) proceeded to swear in common tongue as well as her own language. Mostly about you. Then she stormed off. If I didn’t know better I thought she was going to cry. I actually wondered what it was that caused all that. Now I know. I guess you had a hidden witness (cough cough) to your wedding.”

“Shit.” You say quietly to yourself in amazement. Then you address the Emperor.

“Thank you, sir.”
“No problem. (cough cough) Think of it as my wedding gift to you.”

Well you couldn’t have asked for a better one, assuming she really does stay away.
> You married without children (Year 31)
Year 31

You didn’t mean to get into a minor argument about this, but you like to be prepared for all eventualities, so you had to ask the question…

“Alison, I actually don’t care if you’ve been drinking stillness potions to avoid unwanted burdens, because I’d understand. I just wanted to know if you were drinking them.” You explain.
“No, I haven’t. I used to before I met you and I did even in the beginnings of our relationship, but I stopped taking them years ago.”
“Really? I would’ve thought you would’ve waited until after marriage.”
“What for? It wasn’t like I had any intimate encounters after you got transferred, well other than my hand.”

You quickly start counting up the times in your head when you’ve had sex with Alison since you’ve been married.

“Yes dear, it’s been MORE than enough times for an accidental burden as you put it to have occurred.” Alison remarks. “I’m not sure why you’re even concerned about this, I’ve never known you to want kids. Is this something you want?”
“Well no…(Sigh) I just wanted to know if it was something you wanted because I think…and I don’t know this for certain, but I believe I am unable to provide you children. I probably should’ve told you this before, but honestly you’re right in that I’ve never gave children much consideration before. In fact, I’ve probably only been pondering this more because I’ve had more downtime than I ever had since we defeated the Felkans.

Alison gets silent for a moment.

“I see. But why do you think this? I mean do you have any proof? It can’t be an equipment problem because we both know that works. You might take into consideration that sex doesn’t always lead to a screaming infant. Just most of the time.”
“Yeah, but as you pointed out, once is all it takes. I guess I’m just thinking about Roldan and his own marriage with Brenda. He once told me they’ve genuinely tried to have children on several occasions. Even to the point of both of them imbibing fertility potions. Nothing worked.”
“So? Just because Roldan or Brenda sterile that means you are too?”
“Quite possibly. You forget, we’re all Eternals. Roldan told me that he and Brenda came to that conclusion. He believes that it might have something to do with all the enhancements that are made on us when we were still babies. I mean its not like Warrick or Kane have any children either.”
“I’d hate to think about Kane having any offspring given what I knew of him and what you’ve told me since you saw him again. Look, I think you might be worrying over nothing.”
“I’m not worrying for me, so much as I’m worrying for you. I mean I don’t know if you’ve ever wanted children. You’ve never mentioned it much. But I don’t know if you’re going to change your mind one day and if that’s the case then you’re going to be mighty upset with me.”
“Funny enough, I thought you bringing up the subject was going to result in you being upset with me.”
“Why the hell would I be upset with you?”
“Well, I don’t know if you’re aware of this, but stillness potions aren’t exactly the best thing for your lady parts. I mean they don’t do any fatal damage to the drinker as far as I know, but given that they are designed to kill potential offspring, it can make it a bit hard for future pregnancies. I guess it’s the mixture that stays in your body or something. So for all we know, the problem might lie with me.”
“Oh. Didn’t know that. Um…are you okay?”
“Sure. I mean I knew the risks every time I drank the foul tasting potions. That’s why I don’t even think you should concern yourself with this. I mean if we create a future hell spawn then we do, if not well that’s fine too. I didn’t marry you for the idea of hanging up my sword so I could pop out kids. And as far as your potential sterility problem it’s not like you’ve got much to test that theory on. If you were some super stud that fucked multiple women and didn’t get any of them pregnant I could see your concern. You’ve had at exactly two women in your life and in my case we’ve already explored the possibility that it could be me. And as for the other…well she’s a svelk. It isn’t like elves and humans can produce offspring.”
“Thank the Emperor for that.” You say.
“Although as you’ve pointed out, you’re not quite the average human are you? So for all you know you’ve got some half svelk bastard running about that your obsessive stalker hasn’t told you about.” Alison jokes.
“That’s not funny Alison.”
“Hey it would explain why she’s still carrying a bit of a torch for you. Okay, I’ll stop I can see you’re getting grumpy. Let’s get off the subject entirely.”

At this point you’re more than willing to do just that rather than dwell on very unlikely yet very depressing possibilities.