text: [Themes: grimdark fantasy, serious]
  
  Probably a fool's task, but if you survive this you're going to have to still deal with the Xi. A flying fortress would give a significant advantage.
  
  You stop using your own energy to support your mages and refocus on a creating a personal shield around yourself. You give the order for everyone to get out of your way or grab on to Telis if they can.
  
  It isn't too bad, most of your mages hold their own, and continue to protect a majority of the army, but its yourself that you're concerned about as you attempt to reach Telis which is slowly becoming completely airborn. You ride your horse as hard to the point where it probably isn't going to survive after you intend to make a leap forward off of it.
  
  You pass your soldiers, you pass the Xi fighting them, you pass over the torn up ground from the battle and bombs and you look up and see Telis escaping your reach.
  
  "No, I've come too far!" you say and you stand on top of your horse, nearly falling off in the process while still attempt to upkeep your shield...
  
  You make the jump towards the city and manage to grab ahold of one half of Telis' front gate doors which is currently hanging off its hinges. Your shield is down, your body hurts and you're practically deaf from all the explosions going on around you.
  
  You hang on for dear life as the ground gets further away and attempt to climb up, but your strength is failing you and even if it wasn't the door is slowly loosing its weak attachment to the rest of the city.
  
  "Shit! Shit! No! No! No! Not like this! Fuck! Hate this weakness!" you exclaim as you prepare to either lose your grip or for the door comes loose. And you doubt you'll be in any condition to "repair" yourself when you take this long fall.
  
  Fortunately it doesn't come to that.
  
  "Emperor! Take my hand!" a human soldier shouts and reaches over the side. You waste no time in accepting his help and soon a couple of other soldiers help him lift you up just in time for the door to fall to the ground.
  
  After catching your breath and assuring the soldiers that helped you that you're fine, you get a better assessment of your surroundings.
  
  "Okay first things first, what's your name so I know what to call you."
  "Lieutenant Renly, my Emperor and this what's left of my platoon." Renly says and waves his arm to six other soldiers. "We're not the only ones here, I believe there's a couple of orc platoons further in the city. They're probably fighting the Xi that managed to get in or combating the gnome clockwork golems. Hell even the teams of gnomes with their rapid repeaters isn't something you want to deal with and that's not even counting the ones probably trying to spot us from the nearby airships."
  "So wait, are there no humans or regular citizens in this place?" you ask.
  "Not from what anyone can tell. It's like the whole place is empty other than the Xi, the gnomes and us. Unless the Telis citizens are all hiding somewhere."
  "Or maybe the gnomes did something to them all. Well it doesn't matter we need to figure out where the hell the controls are for this thing. We get control and we can get rid of those airships with a lot more ease."
  "Not sure where something like that would be located Emperor."
  "That's easy, we keep moving towards the areas that have most of the little bastards and their damned contraptions. It's going to be the most heavily defended place because it's the most important thing in the world to them."
  "Well then I believe we should take a left down that street over here. Saw a gnome patrol accompanied by two clockworks not long ago."
  "Okay, but when possible we should probably stick to the back alleys. Don't need one of those airships floating by and spotting us. In fact our best chance is to do this as stealthily as possible. A rare tactic for us I know, but our main task is getting control of this thing."
  
  You, Renly and the rest of his platoon make your way towards where you hope some sort of master control is located. Along the way, you see the remnants of where small skirmishes have already taken place. Bodies riddled with bullets or in some cases chopped up. They're mostly bodies of the Xi, but some of your soldiers as well. You don't see any gnome casualties other than pieces of their golems.
  
  The sounds of battle can still be heard throughout the city, but it gets concerning when the sounds get less infrequent, since that means the gnomes are probably mopping up invaders to their city, which means less distraction for them.
  
  Your attempts at sneaking around are fairly successful. As you stealthily avoid these patrols, you finally see the gnomes and you can't get over how radically they've changed. With their dark red caps, goggles and stylish leather uniforms, they couldn't look anymore different than their pathetic ancestors that you helped round up centuries ago to have their souls utterly obliterated.
  
  Really though, after an event like that and who knows what else during the Cataclysm you suppose it shouldn't be surprising that the gnomes decided they wouldn't be victims and became hostile towards other races. Let alone rely on other societies to defend them any longer.
  
  They shaped their own destiny and you can certainly respect and even admire that; after all you never hated them. That was the Emperor. You were just following orders at the time.
  
  Eventually the gnome patrols are getting too thick and you can't really properly proceed without engaging the enemy. Just as well, you were getting sick of acting like a shadow.
  
  "Alright, everyone get ready, because it's going to be killing time from here on in. I'll take the lead on this." You say.
  "Emperor, shouldn't you stay behind us so we can better protect you?" Renly replies.
  "While I appreciate the sentiment, I've been doing this a lot longer than you have, if anything you all should try to stay behind me and in cover until I clear out most of the rabble. Don't worry, I may be old, but I'm not out of this yet. And if you all survive this, you'll all be getting promotions and whatever else I think might be an appropriate reward, so it behooves you all to listen to me if you want to reap the benefits of this situation."
  
  With this understanding, Renly and his platoon follow your lead. Still unseen, you take advantage of a group of gnomes tanding around with their clockwork creations.
  
  You unleash a flurry of fireballs, which not only has the desired effect of killing some of the gnomes outright, but also causing an explosion due to their hand thrown bombs they carry on them The explosion takes care of the golems.
  
  "That's one group down, but the rest aren't going to be as easy!" you say and advance with a shield up.
  
  Not easy is correct because the little bastards start coming out in full force. You just try not to get surrounded. The unrelenting repeater weapons are bad enough, but the gnomes also come out with weapons that emulate some of your spells! A single gnome who managed to sneak up on two of Renly's men blasts them with some sort of weapon that emits flames. Renly shoots the gnome in the head before turning his attention to grab one of the repeaters from a nearby dead gnome.
  
  "They're all coming out of that big red building, that's probably where we need to go! Come on!" you shout and take out another golem."
  
  During the carnage you think back to how you used to mainly use your sword during battles. During this one, you haven't even used it yet. In fact you haven't done so for so long, you wonder if you'd even be able to use it effectively anymore. Granted in this situation like this you've practically got no choice but to rely on your magic, still though you miss the good old days.
  
  The closer you get to the building, the waves of gnomes lessens, until you see one of them close the door just as the last few golems are shot to pieces. The sky above you grows darker and you notice an airship looming overhead. They don't throw bombs at you, but they certainly unleash a volley of gunfire, which manages to kill another one of Renley's platoon before he and the rest can get into cover.
  
  As for you, your shield is working just fine, but you need to get into that building which is probably locked and barricaded. You aren't going to be able to blast it open with that airship firing at you.
  
  > launch a fireball at the airship
  Best way to get them to stop shooting at you is to return the favor with superior firepower literally.
  
  You unleash a torrent of fireballs at the airship, which land all over the place. Some hit the gun shooting at you, which causes it to explode. In fact other your hits cause several explosions and then one large one creating a blast that knocks you down on the ground even from you were standing.
  
  The airship is in flames and falling out of the sky, unfortunately since it was directly hovering over the city that means it's crashing into it. You scramble off your feet and hope to find some sort of cover and maybe at least get away from where the major impact is going to be.
  
  You keep your barrier up to protect yourself from the falling debris, but Renly and the others have no chance at all especially when the airship begins hitting the larger buildings causing them to collapse and setting what looks to you like the whole sky ablaze.
  
  When the airship finally hits the city surface it is engulfed by fire and the impact strikes your barrier so hard that even you are pushed away by the force. Your entire body hits the ground and you lose concentration of your spell. Fire is all around you and you pass out.
  
  You never wake up to experience Telis falling out the sky and causing an even greater explosion on the surface.