While it's an interesting possibility, you're not training soldiers anymore; you're done with that mess and quite frankly, you doubt if Ulivik would make a good warrior of any kind.

"Look kid, I've put up with you for quite some time now, but enough is enough. I told you, go down to Kenneth's Rest and get a job. If you're too much of a sissy to disobey your parents, then you ain't gonna have what it takes to be a merc in the first place. Now leave me the hell alone, or I'm gonna hurt you very very badly and you don't want that."

Ulivik tries to beg some more, but after a few menacing glares and threatening steps towards him, he backs off, saddened by your hostility. Having gotten rid of Ulivik, you set off for a different town further north, they're always having problems up there.

A few months later when you're back in Keplavisk, you fully expect Ulivik to be bothering you again, but you see no sign of him which is odd since he always seems to know exactly when you come into town. While getting a drink at the tavern you ask the barkeep in passing where he is.

"Oh that dark elven boy? Ran off and got himself killed a couple months ago. Damn fool was trying to be a mercenary and I guess some bandits finally taught him that he wasn't. Good riddance I say. Don't need any of their kind around, didn't like 'em when they were doing thug work for the Empire…erm, no offence Mr. Bane…"
"Hmm, just gimme my drink." You say.

While Ulivik's death doesn't affect you on any emotional level, you are a little surprised to hear about it. You didn't think he actually would have the heart to try to strike out on his own. Oh well, that's how it is in this business though, one moment you're here the next you aren't. Everything is fleeting and you can't worry about tomorrow, you just have to live for today.

Life for you continues on as usual.

Year 50

You wake up from another night of debauchery and predictably you feel pretty terrible from it. Your head hurts and your body aches all over, of course your body would ache anyway. The years have been taking a toll on how you push yourself physically and the battles you fight. The excessive parties in between really don't help though.

You just lay in bed for a while dreading the fact that you'll be running out of coin soon again and have to go to work again. It's an endless cycle, and while the freedom you've enjoyed since leaving the Empire has been nice, the past couple of years you've started feel like something is missing. Namely purpose and direction. The Empire had numerous faults, but in the beginning it did give you such things and part of you misses it.

You begin to wonder if you shouldn't go join Edgar in his Eternal Dominion or maybe offer to serve the Felkan Kingdom to give yourself some sort of goal larger than yourself. You quickly dismiss such thoughts though for several reasons, one of the biggest ones being that you now you've had your taste of freedom, you don't really want to be following orders from a large government again. (Let alone Edgar)

Of course maybe you just need a change of scenery and just leave this area entirely. There certainly nothing really tying you down except perhaps your own comfort of familiarity. You've spent more than half of your life in Rask, hell it's actually been more of your "home" than the Empire ever was so despite your emotional disconnect with people, you 're a little attached to the area.

You stick around

You may be in a "rut" but you realize you're too old to just start all over again, somewhere else and quite frankly you don't really want to. Rask is your home now, and while life might not be perfect here, it's a lot better than how your life was during the Empire. You just need to push that lingering Empire indoctrination from your mind that you thought was gone.

You roll out of bed and get yourself in the frame of mind to go to work again…

Year 54

"And that's how I killed the last giant in Rask! Another round!" you exclaim as everyone in the tavern hangs on your every word. Later you continue your tradition of bedding whatever wench that is pretty enough and willing that night.

The past four years have been relatively good for you, or at least you've been trying to make the best of them. Since your last self reflection you've funneled your energy in not only your mercenary work, but to be the best one in Rask by deliberately taking on the most dangerous jobs as well as blatantly stealing jobs from other mercs. While this has made you a lot more famous with the average citizens who appreciate your monster and bandit slaying, it's also made you quite unpopular with all the rest of the mercs.

Naturally this unpopularity puts a target on your back and while most of the mercs are far too scared to actually to confront you face to face they do eventually build up a coalition to take you out once and for all.

One day on your way to take out what you believe to be a bandit hideout, you're traveling into a wooded area and get the impression that something is amiss, like you're walking into an ambush.

At first you think it might be the bandits who caught on to you, but you've dealt with too many of those types to know that they're either too stupid to lay an ambush or they're smart enough to have already run away.

That's when you draw your sword…

"Alright, I know you're all out there! I guess this has been a long time coming, so let's get this shit over. The merc population needs a little thinning out anyway." You shout.

Predictably Flog comes out hiding with a motley group of humans and even a couple of ogres he must've intimidated into joining him.

"Flog told you he'd kill you one day! Today is da day!"
"Took you long enough and you still need a group to help you…" you hear the crunch of a twig behind you and you instinctively duck and roll to your left as several bolts go flying into trees narrowly missing you.

"Reload!" you hear a female svelk voice shout while you run for cover behind some rocks.
"Hey! This is Flog's kill! Told you not to try to kill him, just prevent his escape!"
"Hah! You got Eldolith to help you? You working for orcs now Eldy? My how far you've come from once working for the Empire!" you mock.
"You won't be laughing for too much longer Eternal. You've stolen your last job from us!" Eldolith shouts back.

While you hide behind the rocks, Flog orders some of the other mercs to go after you, doesn't take any time for you at all to kill several of them. Eldolith orders another volley of bolts from her men, but you use a merc you grabbed as a shield and run deeper in the forest.

Flog's ogres run after you and thanks to their great stamina, they manage to catch up to you before long, you stop your running, spin around and with as much force as you can you chop at one of the ogre's legs. He doesn't stop in time and you nearly chop it completely off, unfortunately he crashes into you bellowing in pain the whole time. You crawl out from under the one leg ogre and finish him off, only to have his buddy nearly cave your head in with his club.

You shove your dagger upwards into the ogre's balls and his low growls and snarls become high-pitched squeaks as his manhood is now shredded. He falls to his knees and before you can finish him off, the svelks arrive with their blasted repeating crossbows again. A couple take aim immediately while two others attempt to run around behind you. Having little in the way of options you run to the nearest tree for cover and try to get close enough to cut one of them down.

You succeed in dodging and reaching the first two, who put up a poor showing of swordsmanship, but the other two that ran around in back of you fire their own volleys and you feel the piercing pain of two bolts going into your left leg and another going into your back. You collapse on top of one of the other dead svelk. The pain is coursing throughout your body, but you're in a vulnerable position, and in order to survive you can only hope you're fast enough to get the drop on them.

Playing dead you rely on your hearing to sense how close the svelk are stepping through the snow to check on you. This is harder than in sounds with a severely wounded ogre moaning about his wounds the whole time. You also see two other images running towards you, it's Flog and Eldolith. You can't wait any longer.

You grab one of the dead svelk's crossbows and with all your strength you roll on your back (Biting your lip at the pain due to the bolt there) and fire at the surprised svelks moving towards you. You were never an expert on ranged weapons, but you don't miss at your range and the two svelk go down. You then point it at the balless ogre and put him out of his misery with a single bolt to his head.

"Shit! He's got one of the crossbows!" Eldolith shouts and pulls out her own with taking cover. Flog on the other hand doesn't seem particularly worried.

"No more hiding! Flog put an end to Bane once and for all!" he yells and charged at you with his axe. You shoot your remaining bolts at him, but only succeed in hitting Flog in the arm, which barely stops his stride. You scramble to get up and throw the crossbow at Flog who bats away the oncoming object.

Flog swings his axe and catches you with a glancing blow to your chest, ripping your armor and breaking the skin. You stagger backwards trying not to fall again.

"Yooze gonna die today Bane! Ha ha ha ha ha!" Flog laughs followed by a sudden yell of pain as he feels several bolts go into his own back. He immediately stops his advance on you and falls to one knee coughing up blood.

"Traitorous dark elven bitch!" he shouts.

This gives you enough time to stagger away again and grab another one of the dead svelk crossbows and hide again. You aren't feeling so great yourself; you know the svelk bolts probably were dipped in some sort of poison. In fact you're surprised it hasn't incapacitated you yet. You just hope you can get through this quick enough to drag yourself back to the closest town.

You look out from behind your cover just in time to see Flog attempting to advance on Eldolith and her firing another volley into his body. She ends up having to step back quite a bit and reload again before finally finishing him off. He falls backwards into the snow looking like a pin cushion.

"Bad move Eldy. Should've let Flog wear me down a lot more and then killed him." You shout.
"Wear you down? Hah, he would've killed you, in your current condition. No, I want the pleasure of killing you myself."

While she pontificates you attempt to shoot at her from behind your cover, but you miss.

"Nice try. How are you feeling over there Bane? Not too good I imagine. Had to make sure the poison was really strong, I know how you Eternals got that annoying resistance to the stuff."

At this point, you are indeed starting to feel quite unwell. You begin to feel nauseous and you're having a hard time standing up. When you begin retching, you hear Eldolith speak again.

"You know Bane, this is near the same area where I helped your old captain kill all those elves. That was a good day too. You're starting to sound pretty bad over there Bane, how about you just give yourself up and let me finish you off? Wouldn't you rather be killed by a worthy foe rather than just succumb to the poison? There's no shame in being beaten by your betters."

You're running out of time and you know it.

"Alright…you got a point damn you. I'm coming out, here I'll throw out the crossbow just to reassure you!" you shout and throw your crossbow from behind your cover.
"Good, good, glad to see you submitting to the inevitable. Now come out slowly."

The way you're feeling right now, you doubt if you could come out any other way. You see Eldolith pointing her crossbow at you while stepping out from her own cover and moving closer towards you. She smirks and in typical svelk fashion can't help but gloat.

"I must say I am surprised that you decided to surrender, I would've thought your eternal pride would've prevented such a thing. But I guess those days are long gone just like the Empire you once served eh?"
"Just get this over with." You say and then fall to your hands and knees in the snow vomiting up blood.
"Mmm, perhaps I'll enjoy watching you squirm some more. The once great Bane of Rask finally…"

You knew you could count on Eldolith being a typical svelk. While she's taunting you, she doesn't pay attention that your hands are doing something rather simple such as balling up the hardened snow. With all your strength you throw the snowball at her. Being caught off guard she dodges it and shoots wildly at you. You manage to roll out of the way and grab the crossbow you threw away. You unload the entire thing at her and as luck would have it, the bolts land true for the most part. Three of them go into her side and another into her neck.

She falls into the snow coughing up blood and holding on to her side. You hear her cursing you with her dying breaths as you attempt to leave the area. While you have won, you know you aren't going to survive too much longer.

You manage to crawl a few more meters before the poison finally takes it toll. Your last thoughts are nostalgic ones. You allow yourself to smile at the times you got to enjoy life and your past victories, even this one. Yes this is a good death you think and then you pass on.