text: [Themes: grimdark fantasy, dystopia, villain protagonist, serious, grimdark]
  
  You aren't going to wait around and marching your troops off to Telis seems like a waste of time when you're so close to finishing off the Arat Confederacy. Most of all you want to get your revenge on Eldolith for her attack on you in your own palace years ago.
  
  You gather all the mages that are currently within your war camp and explain that you're going to bring down that barrier. It's going to require a great deal of energy and that it's completely possible that some won't even survive the process, but once that barrier is down, Lenay will be ripe for the taking.
  
  In the meantime, the regular army is going to have to deal without magic back up for awhile when repelling Xi incursions.
  
  You and your mages focus on the massive barrier protecting Lenay. You envision it coming down and staying that way. Doesn't take long before you begin to feel a force combating your efforts. With a personalized touch that only Semra can do.
  
  "What do you think you're doing my eager eternal? If you wanted me to let you in, you could've just asked you know." You hear her voice inside your head.
  
  You try to block it out, but that's a losing task. You and Semra are locked in more than just a battle of the wills right now. Your minds are still linked.
  
  "This is a useless endeavor eternal. Even with your little followers you aren't going to bring down this barrier. I can keep this up forever."
  
  One good thing about having a linked mind, is you can sometimes tell an outright lie, though in Semra's case it's always better to assume that she's lying anyway. However, you know she can't keep this up forever, her power is nowhere near how it used to be, otherwise she wouldn't have wanted you to "join her" years ago.
  
  "Very well, continue if you must..." Semra's voice says and thankfully you're just left with silence.
  
  Five days pass and your army is fending off the Xi well enough, but the barrier still stands strong. You have not eaten, slept or drank anything and are really starting to feel those effects even if you are in a trance like state right now. The only thing that's managed to sustain you is...well leeching off the energy of your other mages of which you've lost seven at this point.
  
  Still, you really feel that you're making progress. You can sense that the barrier is weakening, perhaps only a little, but it's still something.
  
  Unfortunately you may never know if you would've succeeded eventually because something occurs that interrupts everything. Something big and something you and probably nobody else could've ever envisioned...
  
  An incredibly large object hovers high above the earth and moves slowly towards the city of Lenay. It's high enough that it's fairly safe from conventional weapons. It isn't an airship either; it's something much more.
  
  It's Telis.
  
  The gnomes have somehow managed to uproot an entire city and have it floating in the fucking air.
  
  While your army is certainly panicking about this, you're nearly completely oblivious due to your continued spell focus on bringing down the barrier. You hear some of your officers shout at you about a flying city or something similar, but you're more or less out of the loop.
  
  Even when Telis begins to unleash a volley of mortar rockets in your area you still aren't completely entirely cognizant of the situation. Loud explosions strike all around you and it's amazing you aren't killed in the blast, you do finally lose focus though and fall to the ground.
  
  It is then when you realize how much danger you're in. The gnomes are continuing their vicious bombardment of the area, probably hoping to wipe everyone out and they're doing a fairly good job all things considering.
  
  You look around and see your army completely panicked and running away. They are some of the bravest men and women from all walks of races, but they've never had to face something so large and massively destructive before. In fact you don't even know if you're going to be able to make it, you feel so weak and the most recent blast just killed or severely maimed the soldiers that were trying to carry you away from danger.
  
  Dizzy, tired and very drained, you struggle to retreat from the area as your legs feel very wobbly.
  
  "Can't let it end like this. Argh! Hate this fucking weakness!" you exclaim as pain shoots all through your body and you collapse. It shames you, but you almost feel like just giving up and letting the gnome weapons finish you off.
  
  "You see what happened my darling eternal? You were so focused on revenge on my idiot daughter that you completely neglected keeping up on what those red cap miscreants were up to. Now look at you, you're all spent, just like when we first made love. Remember that?" you hear Semra's voice say in your head. Apparently she's still in contact with you. You make an audible groan when you believe that mocking voice of Semra is going to be the last thing you hear in your final moments.
  
  However, as usual her mysterious and still baffling obsession with you might be your salvation...again.
  
  "Fear not, lover. Mommy can save you. It will have to involve me lowering the barrier for just the briefest moment, but I can open a portal to your safety. Enter it and you'll be back with me, right where you should've been all this time."
  
  No sooner do you hear these words uttered when you see a portal open up not far in front of you.
  
  "Come to me, let us embrace again. You know it was always meant to be. We are the survivors. We did it once and we can do it again."
  
  Semra's creepy attempt at temptation aside, you don't have much time to react to your situation. The gnomes are undoubtedly going to unleash another volley of explosives and who knows if you're going to be lucky enough to avoid a direct hit this time.
  
  Then again, if you enter that portal who knows what the hell is in store for you.
  
  > run for it
  Mustering up all the strength you can, you pull yourself up off the ground and run around the portal rather than through it.
  
  "Stop! What're you doing!? I'm your only chance! Don't you remember last time?!" you hear Semra's voice exclaim in your head.
  
  You answer back in your head, hoping Semra hears the message.
  
  "Semra, I was an idiot to listen to you five hundred years ago, not repeating that mistake again."
  
  Whether or not she heard you, you'll never know because several large explosions occur behind you and the force of the blast even from this distance causes you to fall again.
  
  With the barrier temporarily taken down, the gnome rockets were able to hit Lenay quite hard, you turn over to see the portal disappear and Lenay in flames. What you don't see is the barrier going up again.
  
  While you temporarily sit there looking at the destruction, some of your troops see you and rush to your aid. You're carried away and you survive this day, but you know it's definitely no victory.
  
  Year 560
  
  The Empire that you resurrected from the ashes is now returning to that state. Maybe not quite yet, but it will be soon.
  
  It wasn't the increased overwhelming Xi attacks on your borders. You were managing them.
  
  It wasn't the superior technological machines of the gnomes. Even the mass fire bombings of Arat and Quala from their airships weren't enough. In time you would've caught up and crushed them.
  
  It was however another gnomish "invention" that has lead to your ruin. Biological warfare of the likes nobody had even seen.
  
  They created a disease to wipe out the Xi and it worked spectacularly. The Xi began dying off almost immediately when it took affect. Unfortunately this plague also affected your people as well. Or perhaps maybe they engineered another one for other races, you don't know, it doesn't matter because people started getting sick and dying. Elves, humans, even orcs. The only ones with somewhat of a resilience were the kobolds of all races. Well them and yourself. Despite your physical frailties and age, it would seem your Eternal roots have protected you from the disease.
  
  Everyone you knew who was close to you has died of the plague. Your top advisor David, Sightmaster Crowley, even Jennifer. Your citizens are dead or sick. Your workforce is non-existent and all you've got left for a military force are fucking kobolds and quite frankly they aren't going to be enough to stop the gnomes from finishing everyone off. And you know they'll be coming soon.
  
  You're tired though and you don't have the fight left in you to oppose the red-capped bastards anymore. Indeed there isn't much left to fight for. Your own life doesn't even mean much to you any more, you doubt if you'd live much longer anyway given how much your body is in pain and much weaker than you used to be.
  
  It's no kind of life. Not for an Eternal.
  
  That's why you aren't going to run. When the gnomes come in their flying machines to bomb Nalin to cinders, you'll be right here to go along with it.
  
  And in a few months, you meet your fate.