This still feels off to you, no your company isn't going to scatter themselves looking for odd colored rocks, the dark elves first found this place they can do the leg work. Edolith of course is annoyed that you aren't going to help and for a moment she almost says if you're not going to participate in the search then they aren't either. However it's quite clear her desire to put more of her kin to the sword is a lot stronger than defying you, she throws up her hands, mumbles something about you being scared monkeys and orders all of her men to start searching the area. You tell your own men to set themselves up in a defensive perimeter, so just in case this is still an ambush, you're at least no going to get caught off guard and have a weak point open. About an hour passes and one of the dark elves finds the rock with a hidden door in the ground nearby.

"Well we found it, some of my more enthusiastic men have taken it upon themselves to head down there already. Just as well considering you monkeys can't see in the dark." Edolith says to you.

You have your own men light up torches and follow the dark elves down the ladder and into the darkness. As it turns out there wasn't anything to worry about. There was no trap waiting to pick anyone off the ladder, just like there wasn't any ambush.

When you finally get down into the elven hideout, many of the dark elves and some of your own men have already gone on ahead. Edolith has opted to stay near the back, closer to where you are. A few moment after traveling down the dark dirt corridor, you hear a bunch of yelling up front, followed by high pitched squeals further up ahead and then something spoke in the elven that sounds like a command. Then a bright light appears far in front of you.

"SHIELDS AND DUCK DOWN!" you yell, realizing this is a fireball. There's no place to run because you're stuck in the corridor, you duck down behind the large shields that the men in front have and hope for the best. You feel the heat of the flame that incinerates the unfortunate souls caught in front, and you're even burned a little, but you were lucky that the blast didn't extend too far back.

Having survived the blast, you and the survivors run over the burned bodies and out of the corridor into the large open dimly lit area beyond as soon as you can before another fireball comes at you. It is then you see an older elf mumbling something in his language. Obviously a wizard of some sort. The dark elves that survived are attempting to shoot bolts at him, but he has a magic shield up. He strikes a couple of them down with well placed lightning bolts.

"Don't just stand out in the open catching lightning bolts! Take cover and keep firing!" you hear Edolith shout.

You tell your own men to take cover as well. With all their metal armor they'd end up being mass fried by the lightning. As for you, you find cover behind a house structure where you hear whimpering inside.

You peer out from behind your cover and see your men pinned down behind cover, but safe. The dark elves can't break through his barrier, the only option will be to get in close enough to chop his head off or get him to drop his shield, but how to do that without getting fried is another matter.

Still hearing the whimpering from inside the house structure, you quickly run inside to investigate. Inside you see a female elf with a younger one cowering in the corner of their home. They say something in their language, which you can only guess is pleas for you not to kill them. You also see a crib with a baby in it and you quickly get a plan.

You grab the baby and push aside the mother's feeble attempts to stop you. Carrying the crying baby under your arm you run out of the house. You see the wizard still blasting bolts at the dark elves and you make a beeline towards him. He notices you and as he begins to cast his spell you throw the baby at him as hard as you can. The shock of having a baby thrown at him catches him severely off guard and he stops casting. He also drops his shield to catch the baby.

"FIRE!" you hear Eldolith shout and the dark elves comply.

Bolts sinks into the wizard's head dropping him.
Another bolt ceases the baby's cries.

"WATCH OUT CAPTAIN!" you hear one of your men shout and you instinctively attempt to get back into cover. Several bolts just miss you, but your still catch one to the leg before scrambling behind another rock.

The sounds of battle between your men and the dark elves fills your ears as you try to pull the bolt out. You just get the bolt out of your leg, when Edolith attempts to cleave your head in. You roll out of the way and pick up your sword, though you're having a little trouble standing.

"I have to admit, baby throwing was a tactic worthy of a svelk. Too bad I have to kill you, you were okay for a monkey. But I got a reputation to maintain among my men."
"So do I." you answer and clash weapons with Edolith.

She's quicker and lands a few good hits, but her mistake is getting in close enough for you to grab her long flowing hair. She attempts to pull free, but you yank hard and grab her wrist. You then break it causing her to drop her weapon. She holds back yelling out in pain and knees you as hard as she can in the groin and jamming her sharp fingernails straight into your eye.

This doesn't cause you to release your grip. With the pain slowly creeping up from your nuts and into your stomach and bloody ocular jelly leaking out your socket you take both of your arms and wrap them around Edolith's waist and squeeze tightly in an attempt to break her back. You then smash her in the face several times with your head, breaking her nose completely and even knocking out a few teeth. The pair of you crash to the ground and you finish her off by viciously biting out her throat. The copper taste of her blood fills the taste buds of your tongue and you spit a thick glob of it on her face as she gurgles and dies.

After it's all said and done, you stagger to your feet victorious over your opponent. One of your men comes up to you.

"Sir! Are you alright?"
"No. But I'll heal."
"Okay…well all the treacherous dark elves are dead and it looks like all the regular elves are too. There are only women and children left hiding in their homes and none of them are fighters."
"Are they still elves?" you ask.
"Well yes."
"Then kill 'em all. I'm sick of the whole fucking race at this point." You say and stagger off.

After the grim business of extermination the elves, you and the remainder of your company set off back to Fort Destiny. A day later when you finally arrive at the fort you notice it's a lot more empty from when you left it. In fact Captain Krozer isn't even here. Lieutenant Verant seems to be in charge though he's almost subservient when you address him.

"By the Emperor! Lieutenant I think you need to see a medic, you've got a limp, your skin is burned and cut up and your eye is missing!" he says when seeing your wounds.
"Where's Captain Krozer? I wish to report our total victory on the elves as well as the treachery of the dark ones that we'll no longer have to pay."
"Captain Krozer? She went with most of the men to do battle with the wendigo tribe. Their territory is quite a ways, but I imagine she'll be back soon. Congratulations on your victory, but go see the medic right away!"

You nod and allow yourself to finally relax at the medic's office. You've been running on adrenaline for quite some time and now that your safe, you at last feel like you can rest a little. Most of your wounds aren't particularly bad, except for the eye, which can't be repaired. The medic just does his best to remove the permanently damaged orb, clean the socket and give you a patch.

"You'll be able to fight good enough with one eye. You just have to move your head a lot more." He says.

You rest for a couple days, which are still pretty quiet around the fort. You and everyone else are expecting Captain Krozer to show up, but the worst is starting to creep into everyone's mind.

"We need to send a search team." You say.
"We can't afford to! Between the men you lost fighting the elves, and the entire missing company that Krozer lead, we need all of them here in the area!" Verant says.
"Oh come on Verant! We can't spare at least ten? I'll lead the search!"
"(Sigh) Look I didn't really want this responsibility. I figured she'd come back and I could go back to filing out reports!"
"Well if we don't find her or if she's dead, then you're going to be in this job a lot longer than you thought."
"I know…I know…hey why don't you take over?"
"What?"
"Sure! You're a leader of men and a big tough Eternal! You'd do a better job than me."
"Well of course I would, but doesn't this have to be official, like assigned from a higher commanding officer?"
"You said it yourself, Krozer may already be dead, if that's the case then who's really going to know? Besides I'm in charge I can hand over the reigns of power if I feel I am no longer fit to command."
"Okay, but what if she's not dead? When she comes walking in, she's going to wonder what the hell's going on, and both of us are going to get in trouble and I am not getting in trouble over nonsense."
"I shouldn't think we'd get in that much trouble. I mean you know Captain Krozer, she's fairly easy going as far as commanding officers go. She's probably yell at me more than anything, but not likely to put us on report or anything serious."

You seek out Captain Krozer first

"I would still like to seek out the captain first. If I can't find her after my search, then I will take command."
"But, what if YOU go missing then?"
"Well I guess you'll still be in power then won't you? But you feel it would improve my chances of coming back then perhaps you better authorize some soldiers to come with me."
"Oh very well! But be careful!"

You shake your head at Verant's meek style of leadership and gather your men for a search mission. You have no idea why such a man would go into the military if he didn't want the authority over others, let alone how he got as high as he did in the first place.

When you gather your men, you set off on your journey to find out if Captain Krozer is dead or alive. As you make your way to Wendigo territory, you travel through a few towns you get a lot of pleas and complaints from the peasants. Apparently they've been suffering from attacks, but not in the traditional raiding sense. People have been going missing, or sometimes there have been pieces of bodies found, but no outright raids. You of course ask where are all the normal patrols that guard the area and the peasants either tell you that they've all disappeared or they stopped showing up days ago. More of Verant's lack attention. The fool should've been investigating these incidents a long time ago, as soon as soldiers stopped reporting in. After this is over with, and assuming Captain Krozer is indeed dead, you definitely will be taking command and most likely have Verant executed for extreme incompetence.

It's obvious the Wendigo tribe must have something to do with this, but this doesn't really seem like their style based on their reputation and your own brief combat with them in the past. They are the most brutal and vicious of the barbarian tribes, they out of any of them wouldn't rely on covert tactics like this, something must've have severely changed.

You continue your journey and just before you get to the territory of the Wendigos you pass through another town. This one looks like it was a fairly new one made up of some determined settlers. It also looks like it was attack recently which is amazing since there are actually survivors. Some of the townsfolk fixing a building see you, wave you over and you approach them

"Citizens, why have you built a town here? Nevermind the fact that the Empire has not authorized such a settlement, but this is dangerously close to Wendigo territory. It would be for your own safety to leave this place." You say.
"Oh yes, we know, we suffered an attack by them about a week ago, but we won't be scared off! Really they aren't nearly as bad as their reputation claims." The carpenter says while looking around at his fellows as they nod. Something is very strange about all this. The peasants all have a peculiar smirk like they're hiding something.
"Hey, wait aren't you Roger from Keplavisk? Your wife mentioned her husband going missing and you match his description." One of your men suddenly pipes up.

"Huh, uh no. My name isn't Roger and I've never been there. Never married either. You must have me mixed up with him. I just got one of those faces y'know. Hey why don't you guys rest at our inn? I mean you probably will want to, before you fight the big bad Wendigos in their home territory and all." The carpenter
"Who said that's what we were going to do?" you ask.
"Well I assumed you were…if you aren't well I suppose that's fine too! But you'll probably still want to rest in our inn."
"You're acting very strange citizen…"

It's at this point you draw your weapon, the rest of your men do likewise. The townsfolk don't look too bothered, but they do back up smiling the whole time which reveals that their teeth are decidedly less human looking.

"Good, prefer it this way anyway. Fuck all this sneaking around!" one of them remarks and in complete unison they howl an unpleasant noise and begin to transform.

You manage to chop down a few of them before they complete their change, it doesn't make things any easier though. Despite their great strength, you and your men are winning the skirmish and that's when more of that awful howling penetrates your ears.

Many more Wendigos come running into the town, completely cutting you off from any sort of retreat. You continue to fight as your own men begin to fall under the onslaught of the Wendigos eventually you are the last one left and severely outnumbered. You attempt to ignore the pain of their claws digging into your flesh and their powerful blows knocking you around like a ragdoll, you do your best, but your weapons is ripped from you along with your hand that was welding it. Desperate, you bite the current Wendigo, holding you in his grip, though you find that his bite is much more damaging than your own when part of your shoulder is chewed off.

You feel a snap and the bone in your other arm is broken through the skin. The wendigo throws you up against the wall of one of the damaged houses and you fall to the snow bleeding profusely from several wounds. You struggle to stand, but you just don't have the strength left. You expect the killing blow to come soon, but you hear one more of those awful howls before it's over.

Captain Krozer stands over you, though you know it can't be her.

"Y..you are not th…the captain…" you say.
"You would be correct Eternal, however she did mention before her mind was absorbed that you would stop us. Good thing her mind was so full of strategies and tactics for me to impliment. I think it really was time for us to update our way of life anyway. Can't stagnate and remain in barbaric bodies forever. I would have you just us…but in your current state, well I just don't think you would be as effective anymore. A shame, your body would've provided as an excellent host. Oh well I still should be able to enjoy the succulent life blood from your heart."

The last thing you see is the inhuman face of whatever it is inhabiting Krozer's body as it reaches into your chest to pull out your still beating heart.