You attempt to block everything out in your mind a concentrate on your spell. More voices invade your mind and you begin shouting out Dendrin’s name loudly during your chanting in an effort to drown out the supernatural voice in your head. You also shout to everyone to try to shut out the voices you know they have to be hearing as well.

“NO! You cannot escape us! You are MEAT!” you hear and the voices begin to fade a bit. You notice that your shadows aren’t struggling with their mental assaults anymore either and regular combat goes a lot better. Soon, all attackers are killed and Talia comes over to you rubbing her head a bit after dispatching her orc.

“What the hell are these things?”
“Well I’m not exactly sure, but if I had to guess, they’re wendigos. Evil spirits that take over the bodies of the living and try to consume anyone they can. Found notes written about them after we took Kane’s fort. He apparently fought them all the way back to their home territory and trapped them there. Looks like these idiots let them loose again or something. We should be safe now and I’ve got everyone shielded, but everyone else should keep up their own shield just as added protection. We can link that mental power to each other if we just focus.”
“Just like back in shadow training when we all fought that brain lurker huh?” Talia asks.
“I believe it was a thought lurker, but yeah something like that. Odd that we never encountered another one of those creatures.”
“I think I remember Brother Gray said they typically only lived underground or something.”

Probably some sort of “gift” from the Derro no doubt, but you stop dwelling on the past and pack up you camp so you can continue your journey. You’ll have to get some sleep later.

The rest of the journey is more of an endurance test against the elements rather than any more fighting. Even while sticking to the forests you feel the full strength of the cold winds and snowfall that has decided to grace you with its presence. You see a village in the distance, and briefly ponder if you should head to it and sleep at an inn, but the fact remains you don’t know what you can expect there. You’re guessing Flog might’ve enslaved most of the towns in Rask, but who knows what they’ve been turned into. Chances are they’re probably the equivalent of slave camps now patrolled by a bunch of over eager orcs or ogres ready to attack anyone they don’t know.

“I certainly hope Flog told his people to expect us when we finally get to Blood Tooth!” Talia says wrapping herself up and walking on as you decide to avoid the village.

When you finally arrive at Blood Tooth, you see that Flog hasn’t changed your old home too much, other than the typical orc totems that their kind seem to favor. A group of orcs stand outside looking off in several direction as if they’re expecting someone, but that might not necessarily be you though. They still haven’t noticed you though.

“Well, this is it. We might as well just approach. Be ready for anything though.” You tell everyone.

You reveal yourself from your cloak and begin to walk towards the group. They finally see you and begin waving you down.

“Shadows! Come quickly! Not safe out here!” one shouts.
“Well I’m guessing we’re being welcomed at least.” Talia says.
“For now. Like I said be ready for anything.”

The orcs waste no time in calling for their fort doors to be opened and you’re lead in. Now the place looks less like how you remember. It’s definitely got that orcish touch now, not to mention smell. Eventually you meet Flog on his throne. The years have taken their toll on him to the point where you don’t feel so old any more. Flog stands up slowly and limps over to you, refusing the use of any sort of cane. His face bear the scars of multiple battles and he’s only got one hand, though the stump naturally has some sort of crude weapon grafted to it. His reign is most likely in danger being the age he is, let alone some of his obvious injuries. Still he’s hanging in there somehow, you’ve got to give him credit.

“Shadow Master, its been a long time. And your mate Talia…wait you did not bring the strange lover did you?”
“Strange…oh!” you realize. “No, Cyrus is back in Delerg.”
“Good. Good. Never liked him. You two. Like. Treat Flog fairly and with honor. Um, let us go to my meeting room. Much to discuss. Very important. Your shadows can stay here, drink and partake of our females!”

You look over and see several female orcs AND ogres attempting to look seductive towards some of your shadows. You think this is the first time you’ve seen any of them look genuinely scared during this mission.

“Ah no, I don’t think that’ll be necessary Flog.” You say.
“All strange lovers too huh? Just as well, couldn’t survive being with an orc woman anyway. Let us go.”

Flog takes you and Talia to the very place where you used to hold small meetings and you all sit down before he speaks.

“Flog is old and will die soon. Flog know this and accepts it. Flog can only hope that Flog die in combat, but that time is not yet now. Flog cannot let it be so, so Flog call on those who may help.”
“Well that’s the whole reason for this, but I don’t understand the need for secrecy and why the hell we had to drag ourselves all the way up here. You know there are wendigo prowling about in Rask now?”
“Yes, Flog well aware of it because Flog’s son Mog foolishly attempted to harness them in his grab for power. Now Rask have evil spirits wandering about and Mog is making his move against Flog. Mog need to die.”

There’s your contract, but you still don’t get all of this.

“Okay, but…well normally I don’t ask why, however my curiosity about all this is still there. I mean in orc culture is it not the tradition of the strong to kill the current chief, most preferably one of his sons?”
“Indeed that would be the case, but Flog not feel that Mog deserve it. Mog’s reckless behavior with the wendigo is just one example. Mog also prove to be wasteful with slave towns. If Mog take charge, all of this will collapse. Flog not want it to collapse. Flog want orcs to continue to expand kingdom. Crush puny Galen one day and then beyond.”
“Beyond huh? That include the shadows Flog?” Talia asks.
“Heh. Perhaps one day the shadows and orcs will do battle and on that glorious day orcs will stand on top of the burning ruins of your god’s temple…but not today or even in Flog’s lifetime. All Flog ask now is for help, willing to pay large fee. You shadows also left things here when you abandoned this place. Stuffed things in a storeroom, perhaps you might want them back?”

That sounds very familiar.

“So if you don’t want Mog to take charge who did you have in mind?” Talia asks.
“Next son in line of course. Skog. Skog smart like Flog but not strong enough to beat Mog. Skog from proper orc woman. Mog from terrible drunken night with an ogress. Glad cannot remember much, but Flog do remember a lot of hair and…”
“Okay didn’t quite need those details. So where is Mog?” you say.
“Mog at Mogtown further north plotting my death and preparing to invade Bloodtooth. Be here soon, that’s why he needs to die soon. Mog prefer the company of ogres and giants mostly. Mog also have slave witch with him. Human. She one who released the wendigo and try to tame. Foolish. Cannot tame spirits. Bad idea.”
“I see…well Talia and I need to talk privately first. Just to discuss the exact details.”

Flog nods and lets you and Talia go off in a corner to speak quietly to each other.

“What’s wrong?” Talia asks.
“I dunno that part about giving us old shadow items as payment got me suspicious.”
“We can always sanctify them first, but I doubt if Flog put any sort of curse on them. If he’s honest enough to say the orcs will wage war on us one day he’s not going to bother with the same trickery the dark elves did.”
“Well there’s that too. I’m wondering why the hell should we help a potential enemy in the future.”
“Really anyone we perform jobs for could be our enemies in the future.”
“True, but they’re all human and they generally have a healthier fear of us and death in general than orcs. Flog only has some sense because he’s a little smarter and he’s known us longer.”
“Exactly, these are orcs we’re talking about, do you really think it’s going to matter who takes charge? While that idea in Flog’s head is a nice dream for him, I think we both know it’s just that. There is no way orcs are going to stay unified long enough to form some major kingdom of any kind, not for long anyway. Even with Rask more or less under their rule, its still very tribal here and prone to infighting. Besides, with Dendrin on our side, how would then even stand a chance?”
“Heh, yes I suppose so. Though I’m just wondering if rather than dragging our asses further up north and facing giants, ogres, witches and who knows what else out in the open and by ourselves, if we shouldn’t just make a different offer to Flog.”
“Like what?”
“Well like staying here and helping him in a more direct way. Flog claimed that Mog would probably be coming to invade soon. There will be so much chaos going on, we could probably slip out the fort and move around behind the army to assassinate Mog that way. Might even be easier.”
“Yeah, but who knows how long it’ll take him to invade or if he’ll even come personally and I don’t think Flog is going to go for that idea. Besides don’t you think being involved in a siege would be even more dangerous than trying to sneak into a town when they aren’t expecting trouble?”
> You propose to help Flog against the siege
“It can’t hurt to ask, if he declines we can just go through with the regular plan.” You say.
“I guess so, but I still don’t see Flog going for this idea.”

You approach Flog about your idea and just as Talia said he isn’t keen on it.

“The whole point of having you kill Mog is so Flog doesn’t get siege!”
“But you have the advantage now of us helping you. Think about it Flog, if you send us to assassinate Mog you get rid of your rival, but you still need to bring his followers under control who will all break up into petty warbands that you’ll have to chase down. That’s time wasted. On the other hand, if Mog were to die in battle against you, that would be different. You’d not only be killing him, but also killing most of his troops on top of it. You might even get some to switch sides and pledge new allegiance to you. You’ll also have the added bonus of still looking like a powerful chief who can defeat would be rivals. You could be ruling a lot longer than you think.”

You just said all the right things because it doesn’t take long for Flog to think about your words and agree.

“Hmm, you shadows might be right. Okay you help with siege instead, but must prepare quickly!” Flog says and leaves to go bark orders at his people.

“Well you convinced him, but I’m curious why this change in tactic? You don’t really think we couldn’t have succeeded the other way?”
“I’m sure we could have, but let’s just say I think we would’ve suffered greater losses. I suppose the recent battle with the wendigo and this very trip up here has made me realize that I AM getting old and trying to prove that I can wade into battle either by myself or with only a small group isn’t necessarily the best option for me anymore, especially not when your life is in danger too. Here, we can keep low and not be the main targets. Mog is going to be focused on tearing down the defenses and killing Flog first and foremost. He’s not going to expect us sneaking up on him and neither are his troops. I’d prefer if we had as many orc grunts taking the brunt of the fighting.”
“Just like the old days huh?”
“Just like.”

You make your plans to stay; you just hope you don’t have to wait too long for an attack. A couple days pass and you get a visit.

“Slumming nowadays are we?” Dendrin asks.
“Trust me I’m regretting that I ever came here now.” You answer.
“Oh, I think we both know you had to do this, if only to see if you still could do it. After this is all over, this’ll be out of your system and you’ll content setting up assassinations from the safety of your desk again.”
“Thanks for your confidence in me, and while you’re probably right, I can’t help but think I’ve just given up and accepted mediocrity and the eventual limitations brought on by old age now.”
“What limitations? You’ve made the shadows a force of fear to entire nations. You’ve got some of the leaders of those nations to even show deference to you in the form of gifts just so you might not take a contract out on their miserable lives. So what if you aren’t as effective with a sword anymore? You’ve got magic to compensate! And what is any of that compared to the influence you’ve spread?”

You have to admit, Dendrin is right.

“When that half breed moron comes marching down with his army over grown brutes, you needn’t go skulking around his camp like a common thief. You don’t even need to rely on ducking and weaving while casting shadowfire from behind some boulder. Stand on top of the world and tap into your full potential and most of all trust in me.”
“What do you mean exactly?” you ask.
“You’ll have to figure that out for yourself, but it’s pretty easy. You don’t much time though.”

Just as you’re about to ask Dedrin what he means, you’re sudden awakened by a general alarm.

“Mog’s coming! Everyone to arms!” you hear shouted several times throughout the fort.

Talia is already preparing for battle, she sees you’ve awakened.

“Good, you’re awake we’ve got to get moving.” She says approaching you.

You slowly get up and take your time as you shake away your grogginess.

“No we really don’t. You go gather all the rest of the shadows and meet me on the battlements as soon as you can.”
“What are you going to do?”
“Not sure yet, but I’m going to do something.”

You don’t even get fully dressed in your armor. You just head to the highest battlements, which you know to be at the roof of the tower portion of the fort. When you reach the top, the cold wind whips around you and there are no orcs here. You imagine they’re all on the lower battlements or reinforcing the doors.

From the top of the tower you can see Mog’s army in the not so far distance. Besides the orcs and ogres, he’s also got several giants with him along with hordes of human slaves dragging the baggage carts and pushing war machines.

You continue to watch Mog’s army get into position to attack the fort. You look up into the sky and see that more snow is starting to fall. Funny, but you don’t feel the cold at all now.

You close your eyes and concentrate. You mentally chant in your head and try to draw on the power of Dendrin and of the shadow realm.

Talia and the other shadows eventually arrive during your chanting and while you hear a couple of them call out to you, you ignore them and then you can’t hear them at all. It’s like your whole body has shifted into the shadow realm and nothing around you exists save for that numbness.

The attack on Blood Tooth begins and a boulder goes crashing into the side of a wall and you don’t even know about it. Talia and some of the shadows try to pull you back in since they fear a boulder could hit the tower next. But its silly, you have nothing to fear because you’re about to bring it…

The sky begins to darken unnaturally and you suddenly find yourself outside in between Blood Tooth and Mog’s army except it isn’t “you” its some sort of shadowy avatar of yourself. You see hundreds of Mog’s orcs and ogres before you. They looked confused at first, but they should be scared and they soon will be. You move in for the attack.

You cut down the first row of attackers in front of you with ease and then the next, and then the next and so forth. The hundreds of weapon blows you experience are nothing to you as they pass through your avatar. Eventually they wise up and start panicking, crying out about dark magic and running in the other direction.

A couple of giants try to stop you, but they don’t have any more luck than anyone else. Their large bodies eventually just become large corpses that only manage to crush a few unlucky souls that don’t get out of the way in time.

Eventually you make your way through to Mog’s encampment where you see a very large orc with light green skin and a great fat belly. You’re guessing that would be Mog. Mog still isn’t fully aware of why his men are breaking and running. All he knows is his battle plans are falling into disarray. One of his lieutenants sees your shadowy form and points at you shouting several things in orcish.

Mog shouts something as well, motioning a haggard looking human woman to help; you’re guessing that this is his witch. She begins to cast some sort of spell, but she blinks once and you’re suddenly before her eyes. This breaks her concentration, but not as much as your blade through her abdomen.

Seeing his only source of magic power killed and most of his troops running away he attempts to do likewise. He may as well be running in slow motion though due to your speed. He doesn’t even feel it when you thrust your blade through his back and pierce his heart. He just looks down long enough to see the tip of the blade disappearing from the newly made hole in his chest as it is being pulled back out. He doesn’t have time to ponder anything else except his own death within that split second and then fall down dead.

Your goal here in Rask is done and you slowly fade from the battlefield. You suddenly find yourself back in your own body, which is still standing on top of the tower. Talia and your Blades are standing by.

“It is done. Mog is dead.” You say.
“What happened exactly? I mean we tried to approach you, but a force of some sort suddenly protected your body so we didn’t wish to proceed any further. We just observed, but we could hear the fighting still going on from below.” Talia says.
“I tapped into my full potential like Dendrin suggested. Though I might not be doing that all the time in the near future, I actually feel a little drained from it. Still, it felt good to be on the battlefield just one more time. We better go find Flog, I’m sure he’ll be wondering what the hell is going on.”

Your actions were seen by most of Flog’s soldiers and they were in awe. Flog himself is pretty humble when talking with you again. You do not gloat over any of it though because you believe you’ve made a lasting impression here. Even if the orcs do manage to keep some sort of kingdom together, your actions today are going to remembered well enough for them to tell stories about to their offspring and those offspring will fear the shadows properly just as their parents do today.

Eventually you take your payment and begin your journey back to Delerg.

While you appreciate Dendrin’s suggestion and it helped you out immensely, but if his goal was to make you more into a “believer” it didn’t entirely work. One act of channeling divine power doesn’t make you believe in him as your “god” so much as it makes you desire that power on a more stable basis.
>
Year 65

Delerg has been completely transformed. No longer is it known as just that dismal swamp where the shadows make their home. It’s literally been transformed into the land of shadows.

You called upon powers of Dendrin in one great ritual to forever cast a cloud of darkness over the area. Delerg is now a land of perpetual twilight. Most in Quala would not ever dare raise an army to invade it now even if they wanted to, for fear of the unnatural shadow magic that now pervades the place. Indeed the High Council of the Quala Freelands pay you tribute due their border touching Delerg. Since nobody even wants to visit Delerg anymore, you’ve established a smaller settlement in the Freelands for a few reasons. One being for potential recruits of which there are always a few that wish to join and another for those that have need of the shadows’ services, which are still in demand.

Skog’s tribes of Rask may very well overrun the magiocracy of northern Quala one day, but they definitely will never set one green foot into Delerg, but then ever since your actions in Rask you didn’t have much concern about that happening anyway.

The svelk have all been run out of the immediate area. You’ve either hunted them all down, or they moved further east towards the Felkan Kingdom, which has begun to spread to the west in an attempt to establish order in the still chaotic Arat province.

Still despite Delerg’s fearsome appearance and reputation now, there are still those that would prefer to address you directly…

“An emissary from the Nalin Empire on the Delerg border wants to see you. Says she has an offer that you’ll find most enticing.” Gannon tells you.
“Don’t they all? Very well give her passage to approach the temple.” You say wondering what this could be about.

The Nalin Empire is still the only major power nearby that you have not had a major effect on. It continues to be run by Warden Matron Brenda whose hatred for the shadows is quite well known. As your influence has steadily grown beyond Delerg relations between that government and your organization have grown in intensity. The Nalin Empire has made it quite clear that any shadow found within its borders or anyone enlisting the aid of shadows will be executed.

Still it doesn’t keep you from having a few agents still there though information is still hard to come by. At least any meaningful information. Brenda is a private person and her citizens are all fairly loyal. You’ve only ever gotten a few people from there actually trying to hire you and that was only in the early years. You’ve had no contracts from there for maybe ten years or more and never any meeting from a formal member of the government there. So to get an emissary from there now? This is an odd day indeed.

When you find out this emissary is Tarna, your preoccupation dwindles a bit and focuses more on this meeting. Tarna is known to be Brenda’s second in command and the one who enforces most of the laws of the land. When she arrives she looks like all the reports you’ve heard. Long brunette hair, swarthy skin, warrior type with a haughty air about her, etc. She travels only with a couple servant types who look scared shitless to even be in Delerg let alone the actual temple of Dendrin. Tarna though looks genuinely unimpressed and you don’t even sense any fear in her. A state of combat readiness perhaps, but she’d be a damn fool not to feel that way…actually she’s a damn fool as far as you’re concerned seeing as she isn’t afraid.

She should be.

Normally Talia would be with you to meet her, but Talia’s currently meeting with Cyrus and Dravin in Quala to see if any of the potential shadow recruits are worthy. So you meet with Tarna privately.

“So what brings such a high ranking member of the Nalin Empire to Delerg? Has the Nalin Empire finally decided to lift its ban on shadows traveling through its domain?” you ask.
“Hardly, and I’m fairly certain the illegality of it doesn’t stop you from doing so anyway. But I’m not here to make small talk with you fanatics, I’m here on a matter that I think you’ll want to take.”
“Do tell.”
“It’s about Warden Matron Brenda. She needs to be…removed.”

A little surprising perhaps, but not really. You’ve heard that Tarna has shown signs of great ambition.

“Just like that eh? You wish for the death of your master so easily?”
“That old bitch is NOT my master…” she begins to say, but you interrupt.
“Yes she is. We ALL have a master in some way. I am master for example of all the shadows, but then Dendrin is master over all of us. Sometimes it is even natural to want to overthrow our masters…” you say with a very real double meaning, though Tarna isn’t concerned with your own thoughts.
“Whatever, I didn’t come here for your loony shadow philosophies. I came here to hire your people. I can promise you more than payment in the form of money, I can also promise you legality. Make it so it isn’t an offense for shadows to enter Nalin or to hire them.”
“Well, I suppose that would make things easier, and that’s quite generous. However, I question why you would do such a thing. I mean what do you gain by letting us freely in your newly acquired country?”
“Safety and a powerful ally.”
“Heh, don’t think either of those terms have been ever used to describe the shadows, but I’m intrigued.”
“You shadows are the most powerful organization in this part of the world. More powerful than some so called governments. Far more power than you should have actually, if I had been Brenda I would’ve sent an army to crush you long ago before you got too entrenched. I never understood how she could hate you so much yet never act directly towards you. She claims her actions are tempered with caution, but I say they are riddled with cowardice.”
“Strong words…so how would putting you in charge benefit us? You just said you’d attempt to destroy us.”
“Because I’m pragmatic and I see such a war would bring ruin to Nalin and I wish only to bring glory to it. For far too long the Nalin Empire has remained stagnant, still clutching on to the skeletal remains of the old Empire that Brenda served. It needs to grow and I intend to make it do just that. The shadows can help in this task. I believe I should want to call upon your services many times when usual tactics aren’t enough in the future. And then there are those that may want to call upon you to stop me from achieving my goals. If we have an understanding, it can be profitable for you.”

Sounds like Tarna really wants to be in charge. She gives you the price she’s willing to pay and it certainly is reasonable, doesn’t make you immediately agree to it though.

“So, you desire the shadows to serve as your government’s personal assassins? We had an arrangement like that once before…I believe you know how that ended.”
“No! This would be different! The shadows would remain completely independent. You could still worship your silly god and not answer to any government. I do not even wish to conquer Delerg, you can have this swampland. I just want the rest! Quala, Arat, Rask, even the Felkan Kingdom! And as I said the shadows would still have free reign to ply their trade anywhere in the glorious Empire of Nalin.”

She’s certainly confident and upfront about things, of course perhaps not too much since she is here attempting to hire you after all. You can certainly see an upside to such an arrangement. It also sounds like a lot of promises that might not be kept, however it isn’t necessarily because Tarna’s a liar. Her big plans may just fall flat due to arrogance. If so, it’ll probably be better than her being successful and you’ll have your foot already in the door to start gaining more of a presence in the Nalin Empire. There is always the fact you could just kill her if she attempts to betray you, the problem though is the Nalin Empire isn’t like the many mini-states of Quala, or even the orc tribal alliance in Rask, it’s a much larger unified entity. A war with them could get very costly though you’ve certainly faced bigger and you’ve got the resources.

A bigger concern for you is getting distracted with a war. Your growing obsession over the past few years is with wanting to somehow harness Dendrin’s power independent of him. He’s vaguely hinted at several times in the past that he isn’t a real “god” just very powerful. What if you could do the same and somehow take his place? You’ve been trying to study all the old tomes you have in your possession over and over again in the hopes of finding something and you believe that you’ll probably have to mix several complex incantations and rituals in order to even attempt such a thing. Most likely you’ll have to study some non-shadow magic as well. You received some of those books back that Brenda snagged from the Derro lab when Flog gave those that were left behind at Evergloom to you, but you still haven’t found quite what you’re looking for in them.

Still, you’re fairly certain the magiocracy of northern Quala probably has more books that you lost years ago when you had to flee General Ackerson’s attack. Flog’s already at war with them, it might be time to give him a little extra help again and forget about helping Tarna achieve her petty dreams entirely.
> You help Tarna
You’ve done some questionable things, but you’ve always honored a deal and never pursued a war of aggression. As much as you might want to loot the Quala magiocracy for their magic treasures in an effort to pursue your own plans, you do have an agreement of non-aggression with them.

That just leaves Tarna’s offer which you could still decline, but you see an opportunity here.

“Okay we might have an agreement, but do you have any old magical tomes laying around or treasures of a magical nature? Because that’s what we’re going to need to get this job done.”

Tarna is understandably hesitant.

“You want me to deliver potential weapons that be used against us in the future?”
“Well if you want to put it that way, yes. However, if you really want the throne as bad as I think you do, you’ll find it to be a fair offer. Besides, I’m risking giving you the throne and taking it on your word alone that you won’t ever attack us, though I’m fairly certain whatever we have now is more than enough to defeat you anyway. You really wouldn’t be giving us an advantage.”
“Shadow arrogance…(sigh) well I mean we have a few gathering dust in our treasury. Powerful mages aren’t exactly common in our realm, but I don’t want to risk stealing them away and then you tell me that you don’t want them for whatever reason.”
“Just bring what you have along with the payment you mentioned, but we’re not doing the deed until we get paid first.”
“What?! That means I have to have an excuse to make another trip up here, which might take me a few months from now!”
“Not my problem, but like I said you’re the one who wants the throne, surely if you’ve waited this long, you can probably wait a little longer. There’s always the option of sending someone else to deliver the payment though.”

Tarna is getting more and more frustrated, but she can’t help but capitulate to your demands.

“Fine you’ll see me in a few months from now because quite frankly I don’t trust anyone else enough to handle what I’ll turn over to you.”
“So be it. See you then.”

Tarna leaves and its back to business as usual, when Talia returns she has a lot of reservations about the deal with Tarna for several reasons, but after a bit of debating she stops since you being the chosen of Dendrin means you presumably know what you’re doing.

After a few months pass, Tarna comes back with the payment as promised. The spell books she’s hands over to you aren’t quite what you hoped, but a deal’s a deal and you send the best Blades to assassinate Brenda. Within the week the job is successful…though unfortunately not without a hitch since some of the shadows were killed during the job and it becomes well known who did the deed.

Naturally Tarna attempts to save her own ass by accusing the shadows of aggressive behavior and proof that you all need to be invaded. This doesn’t entirely work in her favor though as it was long suspected that Tarna’s ambition was what caused this in the first place. The Nalin Empire ends up going through a minor power struggle and by the time the dust settles Tarna has been executed for treason and one of Brenda’s loyalists takes power.

Unfortunately this loyalist faction now in power decides that Tarna’s suggestion that the shadows be invaded is the only good idea she ever came up with and steps are made to do just that in revenge for the death of their beloved leader.

The initial phases of the Nalin Shadow conflict begin in the Quala Freelands where the shadows have an outpost. It not only serves as a way of hurting you, but also expanding their own territory. Tarna might not have gotten throne, but her dreams of a new expansionist Nalin Empire are coming true.

Year 67

The shadows have been pushed back to the Delerg province entirely now. The Nalin Empire in the meantime has managed to completely annex the Quala Freelands into its territory and has even managed to “tame” a few of the eastern Quala warlords.

On the shadow front, you’ve been doing all you can to keep the Nalinites out of Delerg to the point that it’s distracted you from your original goal of attempting to figure out a way to free the shadows from Dendrin’s whims and harness his power independently.

Year 69

Nalin’s attempts to repeatedly conquer Delerg continue to fail, but the attrition on the shadows is starting to take its toll. You just can’t replace your numbers like the Nalinites can. Worse is the fact that they’ve been using kobold “commandos” which continue to dig underground tunnels in an effort to launch sneak attacks. The only reason why that tactic hasn’t been more successful is due to the soft swampland that collapses very easily or just starts filling tunnels with water. Still there have been a few times it has worked.

The shadows have had to go completely on the defensive and all involvement in assassination for hire has been stopped. The shadows are also starting to lose their aura of “fear” they once had due to the Nalinite’s determination to destroy you as a result you no longer have what you could consider “allies” anymore.

Year 73

It took nearly all your energy but you’ve just turned back an entire Nalin battalion along with their svelk mercenaries. Damned dark elves would have to come back like opportunistic scavengers.

You look around at the blasted area. Your last spell probably destroyed several miles of swampland, trees, wildlife and most likely Sinkhole. The temple is still intact more or less, though you can’t say too much for the shadows themselves. Cyrus, Dravin, Glen, Gannon are all dead from this war. Even your beloved Talia died in this latest attack.

You’ve won this day, but you question the next time. There are only a few shadows left and while you probably could continue to fight you wonder why bother, the Nalin Empire has practically won at this point even if you have made it very costly for them. Your only consolation is that you’ve probably depleted much of their coffers in this war.

Dendrin himself has been suspiciously quiet during this time and hasn’t spoken to you at all. You almost wonder if he some how set up events due to his knowledge of what you were originally planning concerning him. Hardly matters you guess since that isn’t a possibility anymore.

You bury Talia and order the rest of your remaining shadows to prepare for the next attack.

It takes a while, but eventually another attack does come. Not quite as big as last time, but it doesn’t need to be. You’re so tired at this point that you don’t even fight as hard as you could. When the finale comes in the form of several swords and spears pointing at you, you welcome it just to put an end to it all.


Year 65

Delerg has been completely transformed. No longer is it known as just that dismal swamp where the shadows make their home. It’s literally been transformed into the land of shadows.

You called upon powers of Dendrin in one great ritual to forever cast a cloud of darkness over the area. Delerg is now a land of perpetual twilight. Most in Quala would not ever dare raise an army to invade it now even if they wanted to, for fear of the unnatural shadow magic that now pervades the place. Indeed the High Council of the Quala Freelands pay you tribute due their border touching Delerg. Since nobody even wants to visit Delerg anymore, you’ve established a smaller settlement in the Freelands for a few reasons. One being for potential recruits of which there are always a few that wish to join and another for those that have need of the shadows’ services, which are still in demand.

Skog’s tribes of Rask may very well overrun the magiocracy of northern Quala one day, but they definitely will never set one green foot into Delerg, but then ever since your actions in Rask you didn’t have much concern about that happening anyway.

The svelk have all been run out of the immediate area. You’ve either hunted them all down, or they moved further east towards the Felkan Kingdom, which has begun to spread to the west in an attempt to establish order in the still chaotic Arat province.

Still despite Delerg’s fearsome appearance and reputation now, there are still those that would prefer to address you directly…

“An emissary from the Nalin Empire on the Delerg border wants to see you. Says she has an offer that you’ll find most enticing.” Gannon tells you.
“Don’t they all? Very well give her passage to approach the temple.” You say wondering what this could be about.

The Nalin Empire is still the only major power nearby that you have not had a major effect on. It continues to be run by Warden Matron Brenda whose hatred for the shadows is quite well known. As your influence has steadily grown beyond Delerg relations between that government and your organization have grown in intensity. The Nalin Empire has made it quite clear that any shadow found within its borders or anyone enlisting the aid of shadows will be executed.

Still it doesn’t keep you from having a few agents still there though information is still hard to come by. At least any meaningful information. Brenda is a private person and her citizens are all fairly loyal. You’ve only ever gotten a few people from there actually trying to hire you and that was only in the early years. You’ve had no contracts from there for maybe ten years or more and never any meeting from a formal member of the government there. So to get an emissary from there now? This is an odd day indeed.

When you find out this emissary is Tarna, your preoccupation dwindles a bit and focuses more on this meeting. Tarna is known to be Brenda’s second in command and the one who enforces most of the laws of the land. When she arrives she looks like all the reports you’ve heard. Long brunette hair, swarthy skin, warrior type with a haughty air about her, etc. She travels only with a couple servant types who look scared shitless to even be in Delerg let alone the actual temple of Dendrin. Tarna though looks genuinely unimpressed and you don’t even sense any fear in her. A state of combat readiness perhaps, but she’d be a damn fool not to feel that way…actually she’s a damn fool as far as you’re concerned seeing as she isn’t afraid.

She should be.

Normally Talia would be with you to meet her, but Talia’s currently meeting with Cyrus and Dravin in Quala to see if any of the potential shadow recruits are worthy. So you meet with Tarna privately.

“So what brings such a high ranking member of the Nalin Empire to Delerg? Has the Nalin Empire finally decided to lift its ban on shadows traveling through its domain?” you ask.
“Hardly, and I’m fairly certain the illegality of it doesn’t stop you from doing so anyway. But I’m not here to make small talk with you fanatics, I’m here on a matter that I think you’ll want to take.”
“Do tell.”
“It’s about Warden Matron Brenda. She needs to be…removed.”

A little surprising perhaps, but not really. You’ve heard that Tarna has shown signs of great ambition.

“Just like that eh? You wish for the death of your master so easily?”
“That old bitch is NOT my master…” she begins to say, but you interrupt.
“Yes she is. We ALL have a master in some way. I am master for example of all the shadows, but then Dendrin is master over all of us. Sometimes it is even natural to want to overthrow our masters…” you say with a very real double meaning, though Tarna isn’t concerned with your own thoughts.
“Whatever, I didn’t come here for your loony shadow philosophies. I came here to hire your people. I can promise you more than payment in the form of money, I can also promise you legality. Make it so it isn’t an offense for shadows to enter Nalin or to hire them.”
“Well, I suppose that would make things easier, and that’s quite generous. However, I question why you would do such a thing. I mean what do you gain by letting us freely in your newly acquired country?”
“Safety and a powerful ally.”
“Heh, don’t think either of those terms have been ever used to describe the shadows, but I’m intrigued.”
“You shadows are the most powerful organization in this part of the world. More powerful than some so called governments. Far more power than you should have actually, if I had been Brenda I would’ve sent an army to crush you long ago before you got too entrenched. I never understood how she could hate you so much yet never act directly towards you. She claims her actions are tempered with caution, but I say they are riddled with cowardice.”
“Strong words…so how would putting you in charge benefit us? You just said you’d attempt to destroy us.”
“Because I’m pragmatic and I see such a war would bring ruin to Nalin and I wish only to bring glory to it. For far too long the Nalin Empire has remained stagnant, still clutching on to the skeletal remains of the old Empire that Brenda served. It needs to grow and I intend to make it do just that. The shadows can help in this task. I believe I should want to call upon your services many times when usual tactics aren’t enough in the future. And then there are those that may want to call upon you to stop me from achieving my goals. If we have an understanding, it can be profitable for you.”

Sounds like Tarna really wants to be in charge. She gives you the price she’s willing to pay and it certainly is reasonable, doesn’t make you immediately agree to it though.

“So, you desire the shadows to serve as your government’s personal assassins? We had an arrangement like that once before…I believe you know how that ended.”
“No! This would be different! The shadows would remain completely independent. You could still worship your silly god and not answer to any government. I do not even wish to conquer Delerg, you can have this swampland. I just want the rest! Quala, Arat, Rask, even the Felkan Kingdom! And as I said the shadows would still have free reign to ply their trade anywhere in the glorious Empire of Nalin.”

She’s certainly confident and upfront about things, of course perhaps not too much since she is here attempting to hire you after all. You can certainly see an upside to such an arrangement. It also sounds like a lot of promises that might not be kept, however it isn’t necessarily because Tarna’s a liar. Her big plans may just fall flat due to arrogance. If so, it’ll probably be better than her being successful and you’ll have your foot already in the door to start gaining more of a presence in the Nalin Empire. There is always the fact you could just kill her if she attempts to betray you, the problem though is the Nalin Empire isn’t like the many mini-states of Quala, or even the orc tribal alliance in Rask, it’s a much larger unified entity. A war with them could get very costly though you’ve certainly faced bigger and you’ve got the resources.

A bigger concern for you is getting distracted with a war. Your growing obsession over the past few years is with wanting to somehow harness Dendrin’s power independent of him. He’s vaguely hinted at several times in the past that he isn’t a real “god” just very powerful. What if you could do the same and somehow take his place? You’ve been trying to study all the old tomes you have in your possession over and over again in the hopes of finding something and you believe that you’ll probably have to mix several complex incantations and rituals in order to even attempt such a thing. Most likely you’ll have to study some non-shadow magic as well. You received some of those books back that Brenda snagged from the Derro lab when Flog gave those that were left behind at Evergloom to you, but you still haven’t found quite what you’re looking for in them.

Still, you’re fairly certain the magiocracy of northern Quala probably has more books that you lost years ago when you had to flee General Ackerson’s attack. Flog’s already at war with them, it might be time to give him a little extra help again and forget about helping Tarna achieve her petty dreams entirely.
> You decline her request
You’ve got other important things to concern yourself with; you don’t have time to risk backing a potential wild card. When you decline to help her, she’s surprised.

“What?! Are you serious? Since when do the shadows decline a contract?”
“Why does everyone assume we take everything? We only accept deals that would be in our favor and quite frankly dealing with you seems like it would be a losing game at best, so if that’s all our business here…”

“But you would be destroying an enemy!”
“An enemy who as you just said is too cowardly to make a move against us. I think the status quo is working just fine right now. Now I suggest you leave before you make me angry.”

Tarna stares at you for a moment and looks exasperated, but realizes there will be no convincing you.

“Fine! But remember this shadow. Brenda isn’t going to be in charge forever and I will be taking power one day. You may find that declining to help me now was not a good idea. I will remember this shadow.” She says and walks out of the room.

You sit there for a moment thinking, and then you get up to follow her. Just as she is storming out the front temple doors with her servants you hit her in the back with a small bolt of shadowfire, not enough to kill her, because you’re not done with her yet.

Her servants attempt to run, but you tell the nearby shadows to dispose of them which they do so with ease and then drag Tarna’s body towards you. She tries to pull her sword out, but her hand is stepped on by a shadow and then her sword taken away completely.

Despite all this, she remains defiant.

“Fool! You kill me and you’ll have the entire might of Nalin on your head! You really think I won’t be missed?”
“Not really. I know for a fact, you were on a mission to meet with the High Council of the Freelands before you came on this little detour. I mean come on; you came here to hire us to assassinate your master. You weren’t going to report your sidetrip here. Even if you have co-conspirators back home, I doubt if any of them have the balls you do and they’ll most likely keep quiet about your disappearance. Oh they may very well try to blame the shadows for your death, but I believe at worst, Brenda will assume you were killed by bandits in the wilderness of the Freelands.”
“You assume much, shadow.”
“Perhaps, but just to be safe, I’ll keep you around for maybe a few months. Just in case a Nalin army does come sniffing around, then I can drag your ragged ass out in chains where you can fully admit you were plotting treachery to them first hand and prove that not only did we not act against the Nalin Empire, but in fact helped it…heh heh. Who knows? Maybe it’ll even be a brand new era of peace between our two people.”

Tarna is starting to break at this point, she’s starting to realize that she has vastly overstepped her bounds.

“You…you really think they’ll believe that? You really think I would admit it?”
“Oh yes, because IF they do arrive, you’ll tell them everything and practically be begging them to execute you if only to end the nightmares you’ll soon experience.” you say and then move your face closer to hers. “I can sense your fear…funny how you should feel it only now when its too late. Take her away.”

Nobody will come for her, you’re sure of it. Now with that out of the way you can get back to your own plans.

Aggressively pursuing conflict with the magiocracy is probably going to be a violation of your agreement with them, but with Skog’s help you don’t see any need to worry. As for Skog, he’s very much like his father in that he knows a good deal when it presents itself.

The shadows will follow as long as you tell them that Dendrin commands it. You’ll get no dissent, that hasn’t been a problem in quite some time.

You begin to make the preparations.

Year 66

“We’ve completely looted the magiocracy’s treasury of their most prized magic items and tomes. Some of them are items we lost long ago, but most of it is stuff we’ve never seen before. Possibly old Empire.” Glen tells you as he hands you a few books.
“Makes sense. Most of those mages running that place were ex-Empire after all. Well good, our mission was a success then. I trust the magiocracy is probably on its death knell?”
“It is Shadow Master. While it hasn’t collapsed completely yet, I believe Skog’s rabble is doing its best to make sure it stomps out.”
“Good. Just bring in the rest of the stuff and we’ll sort through it. That’ll be all for now.”

Glen nods and takes his leave. As you leaf through the pages of one of the books, Talia addresses you.

“When are we going to hold the ceremony for all those shadows lost in the service of Dendrin?”
“Huh? Oh, I dunno, soon I suppose. You can take care of those details.” You say without looking up.
“…I will…but…”
“What?” you say starting to get annoyed.
“Well you could show a little more sympathy. I mean these brave shadows died. Our brothers and sisters died. They should at least be given the honor and respect they deserve.”
“Talia, they died serving Dendrin. That’s what they’re SUPPOSED to do. By all means have the ceremony honoring the dead, but I have other living concerns that require immediate attention.”
“And that’s the other thing I’ve been wanting to speak to you about. I’ve noticed over the years, you have become obsessed with magic of all kinds. You pour over the old shadow tomes even more than I do. In fact I practically have to snatch them out of your hands if I need to look up something at times. You’ve also become much colder and distant. It’s almost like you don’t even care about any of us anymore and see us all as minions and henchmen. You talk about spreading fear to our enemies and how it is Dendrin’s will, but is it absolutely necessary to treat your fellow shadows in the same manner?”
“Talia, I never treat you with anything other than respect and honor. You know that.”
“For now, but I’m not talking about just me. I’m talking about everyone else. Look I know you’re the chosen of Dendrin and you know his plan better than anyone, but have you become so far removed that you don’t even feel a shred of empathy anymore? I mean remember Master Ebon? He cared for all of us…”
“He’s also dead, so I don’t see how following his example is going to get us anywhere the shadows need to be which is what I’m trying to accomplish. You say that I’m far removed from the rest, when in actuality I’ve been trying to keep my knowledge of my surroundings to damn near omnipotent level. I’ve kept the shadows thriving by implementing changes. Changes that Dendrin obviously agrees with, but what you don’t realize, what none of you realize is that I’m trying to accomplish something that will establish shadow survival long after I’ve shuffled off this mortal realm.”
“And what is that exactly? You mind at least telling me?”
“I’m talking about transcending.”

Talia pauses and thinks she knows what you’re talking about.

“Are…are you talking about performing the ritual of ascension?”

She’s only partially right. You’ve read through the ritual and while you don’t exactly understand all of it, you believe that you should only implement a large part of it. You do not believe it is the direction the shadows need to go and you are still seeking out a way to alter it to suit what you want to accomplish.

“I cannot give you an answer yet as I’m still working on the specifics, but rest assured you will be the first to know when I figure everything out. Just trust me as you would trust in Dendrin. Have I ever lead the shadows wrong? And if I was doing something wrong, would Dendrin not smite me?”

Once again invoking Dendrin’s lack of action towards you manages to convince Talia that whatever you’re planning it must be for the greater good of the shadows.

And you are, just not for Dendrin’s sake.
>
Year 75

“Do you really believe you can separate yourself from me? You think that you can actually steal my power without consequence?” Dendrin asks.
“Yes, I have figured out a way and you will do nothing about it. You know why? Because you are a being of much power sure, but you and I know that you are no god and. More importantly we would not even be stealing any power from you, because I also know you are not even native to the shadow realm; you are merely using it as a source to act as a god. In my years of study, I have come to learn what you truly are and that is a Yequk, a whimsical being of the planes that loves to leech of the energy of a plane. Your kind also has a tendency to masquerade as gods or demons for amusement purposes and will bestow magic powers to those who believe in you or in my case, for the hell of it.” You reply.

There is silence for a while, but eventually Dendrin speaks.

“Well done Eternal, I always thought I would manage to make you a believer though. I always thought that eventually you would come around, and for a while it looked it like you might, but ultimately you resisted. I suppose it’s my own fault for not killing you immediately, but your potential for amusement value was too great to resist. However even with this knowledge do you really believe the shadows will survive without me granting them powers?”
“The shadows could directly draw upon the source of the shadow realm under the right circumstances. Circumstances that I have finally unlocked, all I need to do is perform the ritual.”
“Well, it looks like you’ve got it all figured out Eternal. I just hope there aren’t any unforeseen consequences to your plan…”
“Is that supposed to be a threat?”
“Perhaps, but not necessarily one from me because let’s face it what would be the point? No, I believe your problem is of more mortal matters.”
“The shadows will follow me in performing the ritual.”
“Oh of that I have no doubt, you know why? Because you’ll tell them what you’ve always told them, that it’s my will that must be carried out! But tell me this Eternal, what is the point of this endeavor if I am most likely going to be worshipped anyway? Do you really believe that you can just expose the truth so easily? If you could, you would’ve done so long ago.”
“No! Now is different, because I can actually do something about it. I can show the shadows that they don’t need you to sustain their powers. That’s the whole point of this.”
“No, the whole point of this is I’m the only enemy that you’ve never been fully able to beat. You’ve denied me, you’ve ignored me, you’ve blatantly insulted me and you’ve even changed the religion to something that you prefer better…though I always agreed with what you did in that aspect. This whole thing is nothing more than an attempt to defeat me before you die of old age and it’s a pointless endeavor based on your pride if you ask me.”
“Well nobody asked you.” you say starting to get angry.
“I genuinely don’t understand what your problem is, because we’ve ALL benefited from this arrangement. You’ve even called on me for help in the past.”
“Moments of weakness, I assure you.”
“Yes, I’m sure seeing as you’ve been hung up on the whole instilling fear into everyone and no room for the weak type of thing for the past couple of decades. Your problem started when you started believing in your own rhetoric. YOU want to be the one that the shadows worship. YOU want to be the god of fear and shadows. You don’t want to share any of the credit with me.”
“And why should I? I’m the one whose really been guiding them all these years! You’ve done absolutely nothing! They’d all be fucking dead if you had your way! You even admitted as much. You’ve claimed on several occasions that you’ve been bored of the shadows for years and you’ve only taken a more direct interest in them recently because I came along.”
“While all of that may be true, what you’re forgetting is I’ve been guiding them a lot longer than you have. I gave them purpose for centuries! And what did you think other shadow masters were doing all those years? Twiddling their thumbs? No they were also guiding the shadows! You think you’re not the only shadow master to have these sorts of feelings? You already know by Master Ebon’s own dying admission that he never spoke to me and lied the whole time. You really think other shadow masters didn’t have their own doubts of whether I was a god, or even existed? You’re just the first one to figure out the entire truth and let the bitterness get to you. So by all means perform your little magic ritual and tap directly into the power of this shadow realm. I’m sure it’ll be a success, but you will never be free of the religion tied to it. My name will always be attached to the shadows. Perhaps now more than ever, for a day may have soon come that I would’ve abandoned the shadows entirely and moved on to other things. On that day, they would’ve lost all their powers and undoubtedly the organization would’ve soon collapsed afterwards. Now? You’re going to give them access to the power directly whether I’m here or not. Who do you think is going to still be worshipped? That’s right.”

“So I’ll risk exposing the truth.” You say in an attempt to continue to be defiant.
“Before or after the ritual? If its before, you’re not even going to get a chance to complete it because you’ll be strung up as a heretic or you’ll be forced to kill them all. I doubt even your own mate would side with you even if she and possibly a few others might suspect you’re right. Faith is a powerful thing and you know this. If it’s after the ritual, you might have better success, but I doubt it. At best you’ll end up getting utter chaos because you’ll get rogue shadows that will see no reason to be part of the group anymore. Just think about those in the past that dared to oppose the status quo like Theo, Yvette or even Shade. Don’t you think there will be MORE dissident types when they know there is absolutely no chance of them losing their powers now? The shadows will eventually splinter apart through selfishness. Of course perhaps you don’t care, but I think you do care about the shadows more than you let on sometimes. If you didn’t, you wouldn’t be making such a grand effort of trying to free them from me.”

You hate it when Dendrin makes good points and this time he’s made several.

“I’m…not going to win this one am I?” you say.
“My advice? You’d be better off letting this one go. You’re a mortal and have limitations. Enjoy what little time you have left. But it’s your choice, and I’ve always believed that you work better without guidance, so do what you will.”

You wake up from your mental ordeal and sit up placing your head within your hands trying to come to grips with your own short sightedness. It’s almost enough to make you cry.

“What’s wrong? You seem upset. Bad dream?” Talia asks when she sees you after rousing from her own sleep.
“No…I…no. I’m fine. Just still tired I guess.”

You lay back down and Talia soon goes back to sleep. You’re left wondering what you’re going to do, but it all seems so pointless now no matter what you decide.

If you go ahead with the ritual anyway and expose the truth, you’re going to face all the potential problems Dendrin mentioned. Of course you could just keep up the lie about Dendrin, but that seems to be defeating your original purpose.
> You perform the ritual and tell the truth
The whole point of this is to free the shadows from the lie. They’ll be pissed at first and there will probably be violence, but you see this will be for the best in the long run.

You get up and gather the books you’ve been studying and go over one more time this ritual you have planned. You don’t even know if it’ll even work, but you’re fairly certain you haven’t gotten any of the magic words or signs wrong.

You send a general announcement out that after all assassination missions have been completed, no more are to be given and that all shadows are to remain at the temple until the Ritual of Ascension is to be completed. (Which is what you’ve called it, because you’re practically performing the same thing just with some of your own alterations)

Many of the shadows immediately cheer at the news, others aren’t entirely sure what you’re talking about which isn’t surprising since the Ascension Ritual isn’t common knowledge to the newer shadows. Still when you explain it, they all seem excited about the plan.

When the time comes you stand outside the temple in front of the several hundred shadows with their heads down in prayer. From the ones nearly as old as you to the ones that are barely out of the crib, all shadows are lending their own energy to your own in the effort of pulling off this historical moment.

Talia stands by your side as always. You look at her and wonder if you would’ve even come this far if you hadn’t fallen in love with her. Lately you’ve been a bit distant with her, but you promise that’ll change when this is all over.

“We are shadows! We have endured for centuries no matter what the struggles. From before the Empire and through it, and after it’s inevitable demise. We will continue to thrive in the years to come. We feel we are ready for this power. I feel we are ready. This is the destiny of the shadows!” you say and then begin the incantations.

Most of your people recite what you say in unison while others stand at the far ends and chant supporting verses, which are essential to the ritual. Talia is also chanting yet another portion of it while making gestures with her hands to begin the first part of opening up the portal to Dendrin’s realm. This part is almost like the initiation ritual, but of course much more complex and involved.

A large portal opens up above all of you and even with the sky already in perpetual darkness; it seems to get even darker. There is no wind or lightning or anything that most would connect with such a grand attempt altering reality. Instead, it just gets very dark and you start to feel a tingling numbness.

You begin to see some of the shadows fall to the ground. You don’t know if they’ve died or just fainted. None of them are deterred though; they all continue to perform their parts for as long as they are able. This is like one of your personal encounters with Dendrin when you’ve slept, but instead everyone is experiencing it in the real world. You begin to feel all five of your senses becoming non-existent and the numbness is close to complete at this point.

Eventually you can’t even see most of the shadows in front of you and you can hardly hear them anymore. Still you know you’re on the right path, the blackness is engulfing everything. You briefly look over at Talia who is barely visible now. She continues to chant like a true believer that she’s always been.

A few minutes pass and you soon can’t hear anything except your own voice now and even that is very faint, though you can’t be sure it’s due to losing your hearing or your voice. Probably both. You look over one more time at Talia who you see start to teeter from exhaustion. You see her look over at you as well before you lose sight of her completely to the blackness.

You continue to silently chant while your mind fights the fatigue you’re experiencing. It feels like you’ve been doing this forever, but you have to finish. You wonder what’s happening to everyone else. You wonder if they’re still alive. You wonder if Talia is still alive.

“Decided to go through with it after all eh? I thought you might.” you hear inside your head. It’s Dendrin, you can’t talk to him though, you need to focus since you’re going into the part of the ritual that you’ve created yourself with other non-shadow incantations.

“Eternal, are you sure this is even going to work? Perhaps you should stop before you continue any further.”

And now you know that you’ve made the right decision. He’s trying to talk you out it.

“Eternal, are you sure this is what you want?”

Of course it is. This is what will be for the best for the shadows. You’ve been their true master for over decades now. They would’ve ultimately been destroyed without you. When you’re gone the shadows will fall prey to something else, whether it be from external forces or internal ones. Dendrin doesn’t give a shit about them despite his fondness for you. By doing this, they’ll always be strong and independent of him whether they know it or not.

You begin the finishing lines of the ritual.

“Very well, I can see you have made your decision.”

With those last words you succumb to absolute numbness and pass out.

Hours later you awaken to Talia’s face staring at you along with several other shadows.

“Thank Dendrin, he’s still alive.” You hear Gannon say.
“My love are you all right?” Talia asks.
Yes. Yes I’m fine, just a little disorientated. How is everything else? Did it work?”
“Well I suppose so. I mean we all feel a little different now. Some have expressed an increase in magical abilities. What exactly was the ritual supposed to do?” Talia asks.
“It was to make us more powerful and our shadow magic stronger.” You say.
“You mean like make our link stronger to Dendrin?”
“More like the opposite.”
“What do you mean?”

As you attempt to explain what you did and why you did it the reactions are varied but most are not positive. Some of them are in such a state of shock they don’t know what to think. Others are angry to the point of saying you have damned them all in the eyes of Dendrin. Others are angrier that you were lying to them this whole time. Faith is a powerful thing and when you directly challenge it like you’ve just done, it tends to result in bad things.

Talia herself can’t even look at you, she leaves your side as an angry mob of shadows begins to close in on you. You tell them all to back off before you’re forced to destroy them, then you call them a bunch of ingrates that should be thankful for what you’ve done. This goes over about as well as can be expected.

You end up vaporizing several shadows to ash and wounding many severely before you’re eventually mobbed and restrained. They don’t even give you the dignity of stabbing you to death, one of the shadows smashes your head with a rock and you crumple to the ground feeling the countless kicks and punches to your body. Eventually you’re beaten to a bloody pulp, but the shadows continue to torment your body in death by ripping it apart and throwing it to the Sul Monkeys.

The order of the shadows doesn’t survive too much longer after your gruesome death. Most shadows are unable to come to grips with reality and commit suicide. The more cynical ones simply walk away and pursue new lives as independent “shadow wizards.”

Some of the more fanatical ones descend into outright insanity and continue to worship Dendrin and commit increasingly bizarre and bloody acts in order to “regain his favor”. Talia ends up leading a group like this for a while before she finally loses it completely and kills herself.

As for Dendrin he sticks around to watch the final death throes of the religion he once posed as a god for, and when it’s finally over he moves on to new and more entertaining things.


Year 75

“Do you really believe you can separate yourself from me? You think that you can actually steal my power without consequence?” Dendrin asks.
“Yes, I have figured out a way and you will do nothing about it. You know why? Because you are a being of much power sure, but you and I know that you are no god and. More importantly we would not even be stealing any power from you, because I also know you are not even native to the shadow realm; you are merely using it as a source to act as a god. In my years of study, I have come to learn what you truly are and that is a Yequk, a whimsical being of the planes that loves to leech of the energy of a plane. Your kind also has a tendency to masquerade as gods or demons for amusement purposes and will bestow magic powers to those who believe in you or in my case, for the hell of it.” You reply.

There is silence for a while, but eventually Dendrin speaks.

“Well done Eternal, I always thought I would manage to make you a believer though. I always thought that eventually you would come around, and for a while it looked it like you might, but ultimately you resisted. I suppose it’s my own fault for not killing you immediately, but your potential for amusement value was too great to resist. However even with this knowledge do you really believe the shadows will survive without me granting them powers?”
“The shadows could directly draw upon the source of the shadow realm under the right circumstances. Circumstances that I have finally unlocked, all I need to do is perform the ritual.”
“Well, it looks like you’ve got it all figured out Eternal. I just hope there aren’t any unforeseen consequences to your plan…”
“Is that supposed to be a threat?”
“Perhaps, but not necessarily one from me because let’s face it what would be the point? No, I believe your problem is of more mortal matters.”
“The shadows will follow me in performing the ritual.”
“Oh of that I have no doubt, you know why? Because you’ll tell them what you’ve always told them, that it’s my will that must be carried out! But tell me this Eternal, what is the point of this endeavor if I am most likely going to be worshipped anyway? Do you really believe that you can just expose the truth so easily? If you could, you would’ve done so long ago.”
“No! Now is different, because I can actually do something about it. I can show the shadows that they don’t need you to sustain their powers. That’s the whole point of this.”
“No, the whole point of this is I’m the only enemy that you’ve never been fully able to beat. You’ve denied me, you’ve ignored me, you’ve blatantly insulted me and you’ve even changed the religion to something that you prefer better…though I always agreed with what you did in that aspect. This whole thing is nothing more than an attempt to defeat me before you die of old age and it’s a pointless endeavor based on your pride if you ask me.”
“Well nobody asked you.” you say starting to get angry.
“I genuinely don’t understand what your problem is, because we’ve ALL benefited from this arrangement. You’ve even called on me for help in the past.”
“Moments of weakness, I assure you.”
“Yes, I’m sure seeing as you’ve been hung up on the whole instilling fear into everyone and no room for the weak type of thing for the past couple of decades. Your problem started when you started believing in your own rhetoric. YOU want to be the one that the shadows worship. YOU want to be the god of fear and shadows. You don’t want to share any of the credit with me.”
“And why should I? I’m the one whose really been guiding them all these years! You’ve done absolutely nothing! They’d all be fucking dead if you had your way! You even admitted as much. You’ve claimed on several occasions that you’ve been bored of the shadows for years and you’ve only taken a more direct interest in them recently because I came along.”
“While all of that may be true, what you’re forgetting is I’ve been guiding them a lot longer than you have. I gave them purpose for centuries! And what did you think other shadow masters were doing all those years? Twiddling their thumbs? No they were also guiding the shadows! You think you’re not the only shadow master to have these sorts of feelings? You already know by Master Ebon’s own dying admission that he never spoke to me and lied the whole time. You really think other shadow masters didn’t have their own doubts of whether I was a god, or even existed? You’re just the first one to figure out the entire truth and let the bitterness get to you. So by all means perform your little magic ritual and tap directly into the power of this shadow realm. I’m sure it’ll be a success, but you will never be free of the religion tied to it. My name will always be attached to the shadows. Perhaps now more than ever, for a day may have soon come that I would’ve abandoned the shadows entirely and moved on to other things. On that day, they would’ve lost all their powers and undoubtedly the organization would’ve soon collapsed afterwards. Now? You’re going to give them access to the power directly whether I’m here or not. Who do you think is going to still be worshipped? That’s right.”

“So I’ll risk exposing the truth.” You say in an attempt to continue to be defiant.
“Before or after the ritual? If its before, you’re not even going to get a chance to complete it because you’ll be strung up as a heretic or you’ll be forced to kill them all. I doubt even your own mate would side with you even if she and possibly a few others might suspect you’re right. Faith is a powerful thing and you know this. If it’s after the ritual, you might have better success, but I doubt it. At best you’ll end up getting utter chaos because you’ll get rogue shadows that will see no reason to be part of the group anymore. Just think about those in the past that dared to oppose the status quo like Theo, Yvette or even Shade. Don’t you think there will be MORE dissident types when they know there is absolutely no chance of them losing their powers now? The shadows will eventually splinter apart through selfishness. Of course perhaps you don’t care, but I think you do care about the shadows more than you let on sometimes. If you didn’t, you wouldn’t be making such a grand effort of trying to free them from me.”

You hate it when Dendrin makes good points and this time he’s made several.

“I’m…not going to win this one am I?” you say.
“My advice? You’d be better off letting this one go. You’re a mortal and have limitations. Enjoy what little time you have left. But it’s your choice, and I’ve always believed that you work better without guidance, so do what you will.”

You wake up from your mental ordeal and sit up placing your head within your hands trying to come to grips with your own short sightedness. It’s almost enough to make you cry.

“What’s wrong? You seem upset. Bad dream?” Talia asks when she sees you after rousing from her own sleep.
“No…I…no. I’m fine. Just still tired I guess.”

You lay back down and Talia soon goes back to sleep. You’re left wondering what you’re going to do, but it all seems so pointless now no matter what you decide.

If you go ahead with the ritual anyway and expose the truth, you’re going to face all the potential problems Dendrin mentioned. Of course you could just keep up the lie about Dendrin, but that seems to be defeating your original purpose.
> You perform the ritual and keep up the lie
It’s not the most ideal plan that you had, but at least if you perform the ritual, the shadows won’t be left in the lurch whenever Dendrin decides to cut out on them. Sure they’ll still be paying tribute to an uncaring and possibly empty god, but then again haven’t they always?

You get up and gather the books you’ve been studying and go over one more time this ritual you have planned. You don’t even know if it’ll even work, but you’re fairly certain you haven’t gotten any of the magic words or signs wrong.

It suddenly occurs to you that maybe you should also create a new initiation ritual too. It won’t be necessary for new recruits to be brainwashed into meeting with Dendrin anymore, in fact it would probably be a hindrance.

And that’s when you suddenly realize a bunch of things you can’t believe you overlooked!

You’re not going to “beat” Dendrin in your lifetime. He probably won’t even be beaten decades after your death, but you still have time to set the plans to do it now. First things first though.

You send a general announcement out that after all assassination missions have been completed, no more are to be given and that all shadows are to remain at the temple until the Ritual of Ascension is to be completed. (Which is what you’ve called it, because you’re practically performing the same thing just with some of your own alterations)

Many of the shadows immediately cheer at the news, others aren’t entirely sure what you’re talking about which isn’t surprising since the Ascension Ritual isn’t common knowledge to the newer shadows. Still when you explain it, they all seem excited about the plan.

When the time comes you stand outside the temple in front of the several hundred shadows with their heads down in prayer. From the ones nearly as old as you to the ones that are barely out of the crib, all shadows are lending their own energy to your own in the effort of pulling off this historical moment.

Talia stands by your side as always. You look at her and wonder if you would’ve even come this far if you hadn’t fallen in love with her. Lately you’ve been a bit distant with her, but you promise that’ll change when this is all over.

“Dendrin, we are your shadows! We have served your will for centuries no matter what the struggles. From before the Empire and through it, and after it’s inevitable demise. We will always be your faithful servants in the years to come. We feel we are ready for this power. I feel we are ready. This is the destiny of the shadows!” you say and then begin the incantations.

Most of your people recite what you say in unison while others stand at the far ends and chant supporting verses, which are essential to the ritual. Talia is also chanting yet another portion of it while making gestures with her hands to begin the first part of opening up the portal to Dendrin’s realm. This part is almost like the initiation ritual, but of course much more complex and involved.

A large portal opens up above all of you and even with the sky already in perpetual darkness; it seems to get even darker. There is no wind or lightning or anything that most would connect with such a grand attempt altering reality. Instead, it just gets very dark and you start to feel a tingling numbness.

You begin to see some of the shadows fall to the ground. You don’t know if they’ve died or just fainted. None of them are deterred though; they all continue to perform their parts for as long as they are able. This is like one of your personal encounters with Dendrin when you’ve slept, but instead everyone is experiencing it in the real world. You begin to feel all five of your senses becoming non-existent and the numbness is close to complete at this point.

Eventually you can’t even see most of the shadows in front of you and you can hardly hear them anymore. Still you know you’re on the right path, the blackness is engulfing everything. You briefly look over at Talia who is barely visible now. She continues to chant like a true believer that she’s always been.

A few minutes pass and you soon can’t hear anything except your own voice now and even that is very faint, though you can’t be sure it’s due to losing your hearing or your voice. Probably both. You look over one more time at Talia who you see start to teeter from exhaustion. You see her look over at you as well before you lose sight of her completely to the blackness.

You continue to silently chant while your mind fights the fatigue you’re experiencing. It feels like you’ve been doing this forever, but you have to finish. You wonder what’s happening to everyone else. You wonder if they’re still alive. You wonder if Talia is still alive.

“Decided to go through with it after all eh? I thought you might.” you hear inside your head. It’s Dendrin, you can’t talk to him though, you need to focus since you’re going into the part of the ritual that you’ve created yourself with other non-shadow incantations.

“Eternal, are you sure this is even going to work? Perhaps you should stop before you continue any further.”

And now you know that you’ve made the right decision. He’s trying to talk you out it.

“Eternal, are you sure this is what you want?”

Of course it is. This is what will be for the best for the shadows. You’ve been their true master for over decades now. They would’ve ultimately been destroyed without you. When you’re gone the shadows will fall prey to something else, whether it be from external forces or internal ones. Dendrin doesn’t give a shit about them despite his fondness for you. By doing this, they’ll always be strong and independent of him whether they know it or not.

You begin the finishing lines of the ritual.

“Very well, I can see you have made your decision.”

With those last words you succumb to absolute numbness and pass out.

Hours later you awaken to Talia’s face staring at you along with several other shadows.

“Thank Dendrin, he’s still alive.” You hear Gannon say.
“My love are you all right?” Talia asks.
“Yes. Yes I’m fine, just a little disorientated. How is everything else? Did it work?”
“Well I suppose so. I mean we all feel a little different now. Some have expressed an increase in magical abilities. What exactly was the ritual supposed to do?” Talia asks.
“I believe that’s what it was supposed to do, increase our abilities. The ritual was vague. Maybe it just brought us a little closer to Dendrin’s power source…allow us to tap directly into his divine energy as it were.” You say.
“You mean like make our link stronger with him?”
“Yes, I suppose so.” You say in a non-committal way.

As you are helped up and give a squeezing hug to Talia, you realize you need to get several things in order now. You aren’t exactly young anymore and you have much to accomplish.

After things have calmed down a bit and it’s back to business as usual, you announce that you will be choosing a successor. This comes somewhat of a surprise, but not entirely as you are of advanced years. You and Talia go through a list of the potential candidates and eventually you settle on a young twenty year old girl by the name of Celia. She shows much promise in her combat and magic abilities and Glen had been considering her as a Blade before you picked her.

Mentoring her begins immediately, but that isn’t your only plan. The shadows are still going to believe in Dendrin for quite some time, you don’t have years left in you to make such a large change in that system, but you have set up the foundation as best you can.

So you begin to write a journal, a journal containing the truth. You intend on passing this on to Celia when you die. Hopefully you can mold her a bit in such a way that when she does read this, she’ll be strong enough to accept the truth about the shadows, about Dendrin, about all of it.

It’s all a bit of a gamble, but then most of your actions have been your entire life.


You’ve got other important things to concern yourself with; you don’t have time to risk backing a potential wild card. When you decline to help her, she’s surprised.

“What?! Are you serious? Since when do the shadows decline a contract?”
“Why does everyone assume we take everything? We only accept deals that would be in our favor and quite frankly dealing with you seems like it would be a losing game at best, so if that’s all our business here…”

“But you would be destroying an enemy!”
“An enemy who as you just said is too cowardly to make a move against us. I think the status quo is working just fine right now. Now I suggest you leave before you make me angry.”

Tarna stares at you for a moment and looks exasperated, but realizes there will be no convincing you.

“Fine! But remember this shadow. Brenda isn’t going to be in charge forever and I will be taking power one day. You may find that declining to help me now was not a good idea. I will remember this shadow.” She says and walks out of the room.

You sit there for a moment thinking, and then you get up to follow her. Just as she is storming out the front temple doors with her servants you hit her in the back with a small bolt of shadowfire, not enough to kill her, because you’re not done with her yet.

Her servants attempt to run, but you tell the nearby shadows to dispose of them which they do so with ease and then drag Tarna’s body towards you. She tries to pull her sword out, but her hand is stepped on by a shadow and then her sword taken away completely.

Despite all this, she remains defiant.

“Fool! You kill me and you’ll have the entire might of Nalin on your head! You really think I won’t be missed?”
“Not really. I know for a fact, you were on a mission to meet with the High Council of the Freelands before you came on this little detour. I mean come on; you came here to hire us to assassinate your master. You weren’t going to report your sidetrip here. Even if you have co-conspirators back home, I doubt if any of them have the balls you do and they’ll most likely keep quiet about your disappearance. Oh they may very well try to blame the shadows for your death, but I believe at worst, Brenda will assume you were killed by bandits in the wilderness of the Freelands.”
“You assume much, shadow.”
“Perhaps, but just to be safe, I’ll keep you around for maybe a few months. Just in case a Nalin army does come sniffing around, then I can drag your ragged ass out in chains where you can fully admit you were plotting treachery to them first hand and prove that not only did we not act against the Nalin Empire, but in fact helped it…heh heh. Who knows? Maybe it’ll even be a brand new era of peace between our two people.”

Tarna is starting to break at this point, she’s starting to realize that she has vastly overstepped her bounds.

“You…you really think they’ll believe that? You really think I would admit it?”
“Oh yes, because IF they do arrive, you’ll tell them everything and practically be begging them to execute you if only to end the nightmares you’ll soon experience.” you say and then move your face closer to hers. “I can sense your fear…funny how you should feel it only now when its too late. Take her away.”

Nobody will come for her, you’re sure of it. Now with that out of the way you can get back to your own plans.

Aggressively pursuing conflict with the magiocracy is probably going to be a violation of your agreement with them, but with Skog’s help you don’t see any need to worry. As for Skog, he’s very much like his father in that he knows a good deal when it presents itself.

The shadows will follow as long as you tell them that Dendrin commands it. You’ll get no dissent, that hasn’t been a problem in quite some time.

You begin to make the preparations.

Year 66

“We’ve completely looted the magiocracy’s treasury of their most prized magic items and tomes. Some of them are items we lost long ago, but most of it is stuff we’ve never seen before. Possibly old Empire.” Glen tells you as he hands you a few books.
“Makes sense. Most of those mages running that place were ex-Empire after all. Well good, our mission was a success then. I trust the magiocracy is probably on its death knell?”
“It is Shadow Master. While it hasn’t collapsed completely yet, I believe Skog’s rabble is doing its best to make sure it stomps out.”
“Good. Just bring in the rest of the stuff and we’ll sort through it. That’ll be all for now.”

Glen nods and takes his leave. As you leaf through the pages of one of the books, Talia addresses you.

“When are we going to hold the ceremony for all those shadows lost in the service of Dendrin?”
“Huh? Oh, I dunno, soon I suppose. You can take care of those details.” You say without looking up.
“…I will…but…”
“What?” you say starting to get annoyed.
“Well you could show a little more sympathy. I mean these brave shadows died. Our brothers and sisters died. They should at least be given the honor and respect they deserve.”
“Talia, they died serving Dendrin. That’s what they’re SUPPOSED to do. By all means have the ceremony honoring the dead, but I have other living concerns that require immediate attention.”
“And that’s the other thing I’ve been wanting to speak to you about. I’ve noticed over the years, you have become obsessed with magic of all kinds. You pour over the old shadow tomes even more than I do. In fact I practically have to snatch them out of your hands if I need to look up something at times. You’ve also become much colder and distant. It’s almost like you don’t even care about any of us anymore and see us all as minions and henchmen. You talk about spreading fear to our enemies and how it is Dendrin’s will, but is it absolutely necessary to treat your fellow shadows in the same manner?”
“Talia, I never treat you with anything other than respect and honor. You know that.”
“For now, but I’m not talking about just me. I’m talking about everyone else. Look I know you’re the chosen of Dendrin and you know his plan better than anyone, but have you become so far removed that you don’t even feel a shred of empathy anymore? I mean remember Master Ebon? He cared for all of us…”
“He’s also dead, so I don’t see how following his example is going to get us anywhere the shadows need to be which is what I’m trying to accomplish. You say that I’m far removed from the rest, when in actuality I’ve been trying to keep my knowledge of my surroundings to damn near omnipotent level. I’ve kept the shadows thriving by implementing changes. Changes that Dendrin obviously agrees with, but what you don’t realize, what none of you realize is that I’m trying to accomplish something that will establish shadow survival long after I’ve shuffled off this mortal realm.”
“And what is that exactly? You mind at least telling me?”
“I’m talking about transcending.”

Talia pauses and thinks she knows what you’re talking about.

“Are…are you talking about performing the ritual of ascension?”

She’s only partially right. You’ve read through the ritual and while you don’t exactly understand all of it, you believe that you should only implement a large part of it. You do not believe it is the direction the shadows need to go and you are still seeking out a way to alter it to suit what you want to accomplish.

“I cannot give you an answer yet as I’m still working on the specifics, but rest assured you will be the first to know when I figure everything out. Just trust me as you would trust in Dendrin. Have I ever lead the shadows wrong? And if I was doing something wrong, would Dendrin not smite me?”

Once again invoking Dendrin’s lack of action towards you manages to convince Talia that whatever you’re planning it must be for the greater good of the shadows.

And you are, just not for Dendrin’s sake.
> You twilight of the Eternals (Year 73)
It’s been a strange year. You’ve outlived two more of the original Eternals. In both cases it was suicide and oddly enough, for similar reasons.

The ruler of the Nalin Empire, Warden Matron Brenda was found dead by her own hand earlier this year. It was quite the big event, but it doesn’t look like it’ll fall into chaos though, as there was already another successor established soon after Tarna went “missing.” You always knew nobody was going to come looking for her, hell perhaps Brenda knew of her treachery and just gave her the rope to hang herself with.

Brenda apparently left no explanation other than how she had wanted to join her beloved Roldan at last and had grown weary of life without him.

Right now you’re in the attendance of the burial ceremony for Cyrus who did the same thing. Dravin died last year of natural causes and you know it was a major loss for Cyrus who had been with him so long. Still you thought he’d get over it eventually, but then again what else did he really have? After you established your undisputed dominance as well as crippling him, the only thing that he had to keep him going was Dravin and his faith in Dendrin. And his faith was probably a lot less than it once was given all that had happened to him. Really Dravin was his only constant and the only one who had stuck by him.

Perhaps it was an eternal thing? Something within that causes eternals pre-disposed to suicide after losing their mate? Still not likely since Brenda went on for decades and none of the new eternals display such behavior, though granted they were created in a much different manner than the originals. Also while you love Talia, you can’t imagine killing yourself if she died. You’d morn certainly, but you’d have to carry on. Especially with what you’re attempting to accomplish. You briefly wonder if that means you love her less, but you dismiss such thoughts, after all if every person committed suicide after the death of their own mates there would be a hell of a lot less people in the world. You wonder if you died if Talia would end her life. You certainly hope she wouldn’t and would go on with living life. There are enough things trying to kill you without doing it yourself.

Now you and Talia are the last of the originals and it’s a bit of a sobering thought. You were bred to serve the Empire and neither of you ever did. You’ve outlived the Empire, you’ve outlived all the other original eternals and you’ve outlived several shadows you once considered friends and peers. People like Murk. Like Bianca. Like Brother Gray. It all seems so long ago. You can’t even remember their faces anymore.

You’ve even managed to outlive most of the second-generation eternals. A handful of them still live, but it seems funny that barely any of them have survived up to this point when there were so many more than the first generation. The age old “They don’t make them like they used to” statement you suppose could apply here.

As you stand and stare at Cyrus’ body you don’t even know you’re here. He’s dead and that’s that. You’ve got much more important things to do. You very nearly didn’t bother to come, but Talia’s insistence was a large part of your attendance.

“Well Cyrus, I always thought it would come to one of us killing the other, and I suppose it nearly did a couple times, but it would seem fate had other ideas.” You quietly say to Cyrus’ body.

Okay perhaps the other part of your attendance was out of the genuine respect you once had for him.

“(Sigh) You’re an idiot. You didn’t need to kill yourself. What did it accomplish? I could’ve still used your help on certain things. You weren’t useless you know, you were always loyal despite everything.”

Perhaps your attendance was out the genuine respect you STILL have for him.

“Now you’re useless of course. Now I have to have someone else look after the temple security. Heh. You probably killed yourself just to inconvenience me. Bastard. Good one though.” You chuckle.

You take one last look at Cyrus. He does look peaceful. Free of worry, concerns, and all of that other shit. He probably thought he was going to meet Dravin in the shadow realm where Dendrin holds a party for all loyal shadows. Of course that’s a fool’s idea. You know the truth about Dendrin and you need to get back to that particular problem right now.

“So long Cyrus…my brother.” You say and take your leave.