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.