You know this probably isn't going to end well, but if you jump into the portal you at least know you'll buy yourself a little time and a chance at survival. Staying out here is probably going to result in your getting blown to pieces.

You don't think anymore about it and you take a crawling tumble into the portal. When you go through you're instantly transported before Semra again. Same withered body, same chair, same plain room without any doors and the portal behind you is gone. You then hear an incredibly loud noise coming from above. It's enough to even shake your surroundings a little.

"Glad you finally decided to listen to me again. Those little redcap assholes nearly managed to hit Lenay with their crude explosive weapons. If I had held that portal open any longer for you, they might've even destroyed this city. I hope you appreciate the sacrifices I make for you." Semra says.
"Right…so what now? What's your plan?" you ask getting up off the floor.
"Plan? I assumed you knew that by now. I mean you did come through my portal."
"Yeah, I only took your escape route because I would've been a dead man had I not. That doesn't mean I'm siding with you and I'm still not done with your daughter or this city."

"I see…well perhaps we can arrange something to appease you better."
"I doubt it."
"Your faith in my capacity to see what you desire wounds me, especially since you have stated it so plainly here. Now if you give me a few moments, I can give you what you want, but I suggest you prepare yourself."

At first you're about to ask what she means, but even if you couldn't get a glimmer of her mind, you believe you'd guess correctly fairly quickly.

And within a few moments another portal opens up and soon after that Eldolith steps through.

"Mother, the barrier went down for a few seconds and those gnomes nearly killed us all! You've got one job to do and you failed to do it! What the fuck are you doing down here? It's bad enough that we had to stop the annual sveld infant hurling competition because…"

Eldolith suddenly stops her complaining when she notices you in the room. Her eyes grow wide and she says nothing, but instead tries to re-enter the portal, but Semra has closed it. Having chosen to unsuccessfully run rather than attempt to defend herself properly, you easily give her a large shock with lightning. She falls to the floor, her body convulsing from the jolt, but not dead yet.

You sort of expected that when you finally faced her, she'd put up more of a fight and inevitably you'd either kill her with a powerful magic strike or perhaps a quick sword thrust if you managed to get that close.

But now that she's more or less at your mercy, something comes over you. A desire for cruelty. It's strange, but you haven't felt that way towards…well anyone for quite sometime. In fact the last time you felt this way was when you stopped yourself from giving in to such feelings when Eldolith was smarting off to you in Alison's war camp. You remember some of the things you wanted to do to her.

Maybe this is some sort of repressed emotion that's been coming for a very long time…

"We're not finished Eldy. We're not finished by a long shot. This has been a long time coming." You say and kick her in the stomach and chest several times as hard as you can. You then get on top of her and begin to just punching her in the face. Her svelk "beauty" quickly starts to diminish as teeth become broken and her nose follows suit.

"Moth…ARGH!" Eldolith cries out as she desperately attempts to call for a maternal figure that just looks on in sadistic pleasure.

Eldolith weakly tries to claw at your eyes with her hands, but you easily grab them both and break her wrists. Eldolith screams at this point, begging you to stop and just kill her already.

"Apologies, but this is too much fun, in fact don't you feel my…excitement?" you whisper in her bloodied ear and then slam the back of her head on the stone floor.

Aches and pains shoot through your joints, your hands, arms, your legs and your feet, but such things are overridden by the enjoyment you're getting by beating the shit out the Eldolith.

Eventually Eldolith's breathing becoming very "automatic." It's getting near the end where her body is just "functioning" and higher brainpower is quickly fading. Even through the blood all over her face, you notice the tears coming from Eldolith's eyes.

"Oh no, not yet. I'm going to take you up on that offer you once gave me so long ago." You say and roll Eldolith's body over…

"Yes! YES! Do it! Do it my lovely eternal! Do it for mommy! Teach her that you are the master and that she is to be utterly destroyed!" you hear Semra's voice in your head exclaim.

These calls of encouragement are followed by Semra's real sounds of excitement made by her own withered body. The wheezing sickly noises are only drowned out by your half crazy rants of pure hate and grunting sounds.

After a short but brutal process later you end it by shoving your dagger through Eldolith's skull, cracking through bone and brain. You even enjoy the sound it makes as you slowly pull it back out.

Painting heavily and covered in blood, you don't feel nearly as bad as you usually do from such energetic activity. You almost feel…invigorated.

"There now. Don't you feel better? Don't you see this is how it should've always been? And just think you can enjoy this sort of thing all the time if you stay here with me. You think what you just experienced was revitalizing? When you fully embrace the power of your mind, you will truly know freedom."

You just stare at Semra's disgusting wizened body in a semi-trance as you listen to her alluring voice.

"You will have an entire city to rule and defile! To torture and humiliate! Let the gnomes burn the outside world to a crisp! Let the Xi overrun the land with their hives! WE will be still here LONG after their time in the sun has gone! We will be like the GODS of old here FOREVER."

Semra's personal barrier that surrounds her body goes down and another chair materializes next to her own.

"Join me my love and we can have everything…"

Semra's voice is so entrancing. She's making a lot of sense. You don't detect any lying and you can even see into her mind more clearly. She's letting you in. You still don't quite understand a lot of it or see all of it, but you catch a glimpse of perhaps why Semra harbors "romantic" feelings for you.

You see the image of another svelk. A male, obviously a soldier, but a mage as well. You also see images of him battling creatures and conquering foes all in the name of his Empire. He obviously enjoys the violence and takes great pleasure in battle, but there's a certain "honorable" trait about him though too.

It's odd and you're loathed to admit such a thing, but despite being a svelk he seems very similar to…well you. He even looks vaguely like you in your younger years if you had black skin and the pointy ears.

You think you're about to see more, but Semra finally shuts you out. You guess she's decided you've seen enough. Whether that means she's trying to hide something or just merely unwilling to because the memories are too painful, you cannot be sure.

Is this why Semra's been so obsessed with you? Was it really that simple? You reminded her of a long dead lover?

She could've just said something, but then of course that wouldn't be the svelk way, let alone Semra's.

Maybe this is all a trick. Maybe she's making you see something that isn't real to make you more sympathetic towards her despite all the rotten things she's done.

Maybe she intends on killing you. Maybe the spell she cast on you over five hundred years ago was all part of some incomprehensible long range plan that only she understands and you're finally falling under her complete influence.

Or maybe she's just scared of dying alone.

You don't know. What you do know that you're probably never getting out of here. (Wherever "here" actually is, though you assume its somewhere under Lenay) Even if you kill Semra, you don't have the ability to create magical portals or anything like that so you'll essentially be in a living tomb waiting to die.

Of course you probably won't be waiting too long. Considering she's currently the only thing up keeping the protective barrier over Lenay as soon as you kill her, you'd wager that the gnomes are going to bomb the shit out of this place and you'll die in a cave in and that's assuming the Xi don't come digging through and overwhelming you first.

You join Semra

You realize you don't want to die yet.

You also realize that events have conspired against you to lead up to this moment, so perhaps maybe you should just give in to fate.

You hate Semra. You've always hated her. And whenever she's helped you've resented it even more. And when she's right that's when you hate her the most.

But you can't deny her appeal. Even after all these centuries, that part of you, that sick twisted part of you that thought was gone forever is still there and as strong as it ever was.

So you give in. You take your place by Semra's side and sit in the chair that Semra has provided for you. You can sense the delight in her mind.

"So…now what?" you ask.
"Now the fun begins, lover! Just close your eyes and relax. As always mommy will take care of everything…"

You feel your magical essence join with Semra's own and together you both feel stronger. Most of the energy goes towards the barrier protecting Lenay, but the rest goes towards your own whims, which are now endless at least within your mind, and the city is concerned.

You and Semra take a more direct control over Lenay now without Eldolith in charge. You both instill fear into the populace and give commands via your mind to the next highest in rank. (Who just happens to be Eldolith's latest ambitious girlfriend who gladly accepts the position of Domina).

For the most part you just let the city run itself and enjoy watching the excess the city has to offer. Semra herself says things like gladiator matches, the torturing of sveld slaves and the baby throwing competitions are much more enjoyable now that she has someone close to share them with.

And when you aren't doing that, you engage in an activity that's more common. Of course seeing that your bodies are in no longer suitable for that activity, you engage intimately on a whole mental level. Semra was right about this too, it is somehow more intense than you imagined that could be. Your mind is not limited like the body and you and Semra indulge in many twisted fantasies.

You have to admit though, you don't ever really see baby throwing as a "sport", but more like an activity. You and Semra constantly have debates over this issue…

"But there's a target and points and everything! How the hell is it not a sport?!" Semra asks.
"Just doesn't seem like one to me. Gladiator matches I can see. There's clearly skill and training involved."
"You think there isn't any training or skill with baby throwing? Do you realize how much sveld babies squirm about before your throw them? It's not like just lobbing a nice round rock you know. They don't tend to fly straight, you have to practice and adjust for wind and all kinds of other little factors. Like whether or not the baby has eaten within the last couple of hours or so."
"What? If you're going to kill them anyway why the hell would you even feed them so close before throwing them?"
"It shouldn't surprise you, but baby throwing is taken VERY seriously in svelk society. So much so that some like to cheat by secretly feeding their opponent's babies before hand. Nothing worse than a baby-spraying diarrhea all over you while you're swinging it around to throw. Even the smell could distract you from your throw and cause you to lose valuable points."
"I dunno, still just seems like a celebrated svelk activity to me. I mean why don't you consider torturing elves a sport? Surely the torturers have practiced their trade enough to keep victims alive long enough to give a good show." you ask.
"Because that's not a sport, that's a fucking art! (Sigh) You humans are such uncultured barbarians."

While you and Semra remain safely inside the barrier of Lenay, the world outside goes on, but not in a good way. The Empire suffers greatly without your leadership. The Xi begin overrunning the borders and the gnomes continue to bomb the hell out of both.

Doesn't take long before holdings in Arat fall completely and Quala is well on its way. Sightmaster Crowley does his best to fill your shoes, but it just isn't enough when the gnomes come out with an even deadlier weapon than their airships.

They develop a plague of some sort to kill the Xi and it works spectacularly. The Xi die off by the thousands. Then the citizens of the Empire start to die off as well. Whether it's from the same disease or a different one the gnomes created, it doesn't matter. Elves, humans and even orcs begin to sicken and die. The only ones with somewhat of a resistance are the kobolds and they quickly abandon their duties and scurry back to the safety of their underground dwellings when the gnomes start fire bombing the dying husk of the Empire.

The gnomes don't give up on Lenay either. They attempt to use different weapons to breach the barrier and continue to use the old ones in the hopes that eventually the magic on the barrier will weaken, after all you had the same idea that even Semra couldn't keep it up forever.

And it's true she can't by herself. With your help though it isn't quite as much of a problem. Unfortunately even with the two of you, you can't keep it up forever either, especially you when you realize that Semra's been slowly draining all your energy little bit by little bit. You were so wrapped up in enjoying decadence that you didn't think about how Semra was ultimately using you and eventually killing you.

You try to free yourself, but her spell that melded your minds keeps you in place and too weak to resist her.

You try to reason with Semra by stating that if you die, it'll only buy her a bit more time and the gnomes will eventually break through anyway.

"Perhaps, my sweet eternal, but not today…I will miss you…" Semra says sounding genuinely sad.

You curse yourself for being so weak as you have nobody to blame but yourself. Semra was just being true to herself, something you should've done. You were so afraid of death that you ran from it only to die a slave rather than a warrior or even as a free man.

You lament your poor judgment as your mind begins to fade into the ever-lasting darkness.