As much as it might be wise to have Talia keep Cyrus in check, you'd rather her come with you on this mission, as you'll need all the skilled help you can get. Talia's shadow magic is certainly more powerful than your own, even though you've found in recent years that yours isn't weak as it once was.

When the pair of you confront Cyrus, he's predictably furious claiming that the pair of you are wasting time and not following Dendrin's plan like you should be. He goes on about how the attack on Fort Destiny should take top priority. You don't bother arguing, it's all been said before and if he wants to do anything about it, then he can try to stop you. He doesn't of course, but there's definitely a hostile glare as you leave.

"You think he'll go ahead with his attack anyway?" Talia asks.
"If he does, I can only hope he's as determined to drive the Empire out of Rask like he seems to be because that raw desire might just win him through the day. Anyway we'll deal with it after this mission."

Talia and you travel a couple of days to the Quala province and eventually reach the meeting spot at night. There await around twenty shadows you picked which also includes Sister Yvette. You would've picked Brother Theo as well, but you needed someone to coordinate the other shadow cells in Quala.

"As soon as I got the message that you were coming, our other shadow cells got into position to strike out at the other targets across Quala. I assume you're ready to assault the camp brother?" Sister Yvette asks nearly as soon as you arrive.
"Yes, let's get this over with, because this is going to be pretty grim business. Now I know some of you have already done a few necessary things, but probably not on this scale. These new eternals are only going to be children, and if the rumors are true, hundreds of them. Despite this they will still be dangerous, as they have no doubt gone through some of the Empire's brainwashing techniques and training. You are not to hesitate just because they are young. Slay all of them…for Dendrin." You add at the end.
"For Dendrin!" the rest of the shadows say in unison.
"Also be aware that there will no doubt be battle mages around and who knows what else. Let's try to do this as silently as possible until it's no longer an option. Everybody cloak."

Sister Yvette and couple of the other shadows take the lead due to their basic knowledge of the outside of the camp and even some of the interior. When you have to go below ground though, it's going to be anything goes. You know going in that you'll be severely outnumbered, but the whole point of doing it this way is to utilize your strengths which is stealth and terror on a grand scale. Something Cyrus doesn't really get despite his dedication to Dendrin.

Neck snaps, bolts to the head and blades to the back dispatch the patrolling soldiers quietly and quickly. You then move from bunkhouse to bunkhouse slitting the throats of the sleeping soldiers inside. With everyone up top dead, it's time to descend into the underground.

"I'll take the lead for this." You remark. "Everyone remember, we've got a lot of killing tonight, there's A LOT of these new eternals. Try not to speed yourself up unless it's necessary. You don't want to exhaust yourself prematurely. In fact save the magic for just cloaking if possible, we're still going to try this the stealthy way."

You make your way through the underground complex, which is very well made. In fact the solid stonewalls remind you of Gloom…and that might not be a good thing.

"Where do you think they're keeping these new eternals?" Talia asks.
"I don't know, they have to be around though. I mean I'm a little surprised that they'd all be asleep. As I remember our training we didn't get much of that and were even woken up in the middle of the night to perform tasks." You reply.
"True, I can still remember Mistress' domineering voice commanding that we all wake up followed by a whip crack…maybe she's not in charge anymore?"
"I hope she is, I'd like to repay that bitch while we're here." You remark.
"You don't think they moved everyone out do you?" Talia asks.
"We've been watching this place for a few months now and just yesterday I saw a large group of those new eternals training up top. I don't see how they could've moved them all so quickly without us noticing." Yvette answers
"We are underground, who knows maybe they've got escape tunnels. (Sigh) Shit, I really hope that isn't the case, because I'm already concerned with the architecture of this place." You say.
"What do you mean?"
"The walls, the archways, doesn't it look a little familiar? Like Gloom right? And who originally made Gloom?"
"…the Derro." Talia says.
"Exactly and while I was expecting battle mages or elite guards, I wasn't expecting those little armored juggernauts on legs. Okay fine, we'll deal with it, we just need to decide on what to do next."

Your comment is met with silence, mainly because everyone figures that you're the one to come up with the plan on what to do next.

"Everyone stay here, Talia and I will scout ahead a little bit then come back with a plan." You say.

You and Talia continue down one of the corridors hoping to find something, almost anything really and that's when you finally stumble upon an argument between a derro and a mage at the far end of the corridor. The pair of them don't sense either of you, but there's no reason to be foolish, you and Talia quickly get out of their possible line of sight and you listen for a moment.

"When the hell are you dwarves going to start harvesting those trolls? I want to get on with the enchantment process!" a disheveled looking mage with a scraggly beard says.
"When Marik's done brewing the last batch of regeneration serum. No point in doing it until then and I'd remind you to watch your words with me wizard." A short figure in heavy armor remarks in a very deep tone. This is the first you've ever heard a derro speak common before, you don't know if that's his voice or his armor causing it to sound like that.
"Watch my words? I'll do as I please! I don't even want to be here with you rock eaters! Your boss is a mad man that barely knows what he's doing. I swear we were better off with svelk mercenaries as trainers."
"I'm not surprised you would praise such a decadent race as your own race is decadent as well. You are lucky to even have us as allies due to a pact, now I suggest you go back to your quarters where the rest of your kind may play with your magic lights until you're called upon to actually do something useful for a change. Do not speak with us again until such time."

The wizard nearly says something, but decides not to and storms off in one direction while the derro warrior walks off in the other.

"Well if that's any indication we know where the wizards are and we know where the derro are." Talia says.
"Yeah, but where the hell are the eternals?"
"Perhaps we'll find them after we dispatch those two groups first?"
"I sure hope so."
"We probably should split up the group and tackle them at the same time, because I'm sure we won't remain stealthy for too long while fighting either group and we certainly don't want the other to come running and attack us from behind when they hear the sounds of battle."

As far as you can tell magic isn't all that effective on the derro and while Talia's an excellent fighter, her superior magic skills would probably be more effective eliminating the mages. You tell her that you'll take on the derro and to go get the rest of the group.

After retrieving the rest of the group, you and Talia part company. Yvette goes off with Talia as well. You're confident that they'll easily succeed in their task, you're a little more concerned with how you're going to accomplish yours though especially if it turns out to be a lot of derro.

Your groups heads off in the direction that you saw the derro walking towards. Doesn't take long for you to start seeing a few of them milling about in the hallways and side rooms. None of the shadows in your group have ever faced the derro before, they've just heard the stories of how they destroyed Gloom. Naturally they want revenge.

"We're not attacking them yet. We'll find a better way… Dendrin always provides a better way." You say which calms them down. You can't believe how effectively either. It's a little unsettling to control a group with just the mere mention of a name, but that's how shadow masters have been doing it for centuries you suppose.

Your group takes to spider walking on the ceilings to avoid the derro, It worked back in Gloom and it works here too. As you creep through, you can hear rumbling and monstrous growling followed by shouting in the derro's language. You follow sound and eventually you reach a large lab area filled with contraptions, a lot of alchemy equipment and several metal boxes of what you would guess to contain very angry trolls. From their growling they sound as horrible as the stories you've heard. You've also heard how strong they were too; whatever the derro got them locked up in must be some very strong material because you can see several punch marks even from this distance.

Several derro warriors stand near the boxes with weapons ready, a few more are standing guard at strategic areas. In the center of all this is another small figure, but this one isn't armored. He's bald with a gray skin color and dressed in a white robe of some sort, which is covered in blood, and several other unidentifiable fluids. He's frantically going back and forth to several tables with mutilated bodies on them, waving a sharp knife in his hand all the while yelling in his language. You're guessing that's what one of these derro really looks like. Certainly less impressive.

You have no idea what exactly is going on here and what it has to do with the new eternals, but you need to attack the derro fast before Talia attacks the mages and causes enough noise for some of the derro to investigate it.

You suppose you and the rest could just drop down from the ceiling in a surprise attack, speed yourself up and hope for the best, but circumstances have given you something else to work with.

It's a simple magic trick that most shadows take for granted, in fact most never really appreciate its uses and that spell is one that unlocks regular locks which the derro have seen fit to use on the boxes they're holding the trolls in. If you did that, you could unleash the trolls on the derro, of course the problem with that plan is you've never faced trolls before and they could be ten times worse than the derro. Not to mention you'd have to deal with both groups.

You unlock the boxes

You all move close enough so you're above the boxes and then with a brief whisper, every lock on the troll boxes clicks.

And then all the box doors are suddenly torn open.

"TROLLS! TROLLS! TROLLS!" is all you can make out from the derro who are now shouting rushing into the lab to combat the trolls now emerging from their prisons. Their appearance is indeed as fearsome as you heard in stories. Tall with long gangly limbs and blackish green skin. You sort of expected them to be more massive much like an ogre, but there isn't an ounce of fat on them, and even though they're relatively thin they're all solid muscle. They definitely look hungry though with their large teeth though.

The trolls also prove to be a lot quicker than you expected as well. You watch them leap and dodge the derro attacks, which look slow and clumsy by comparison. You see a troll smash a derro to the floor with one punch, leap on top of him and easily peel off his armor with its talons. A scream soon follows when the troll eviscerates him. Several more derro begin lighting some sort of round metal objects and toss them at some of the trolls. These devices explode into flames and seem to hurt the trolls who howl in pain, but continue to attack while still on fire. The unarmored derro tosses a few glass beakers at the trolls too. You assume it must be some sort of acid given how it starts to eat away at a troll's skin when it hits.

As you and the rest of the shadows stay cloaked on the ceiling watching this carnage unfold, you're unsure of whom to start attacking because you can't let either group completely dominate the other.

There are more derro, but the trolls are very tough and are putting up more than enough of a fight. You see the unarmored derro run away to a locked door on the far side of the room, and just when he manages to open it; you shoot him in the back with your armbow, which causes him to collapse to the floor. You don't know where he's trying to go, but he's not getting far.

"SHADOWS!" one of the derro shouts as you all decloak to join the fight. For the most part you all keep your distance when you can from the trolls and attempt to finish off any severely wounded derro.

"Kill everything!" you shout and make your way to the staggering unarmored derro to finish him off. He fumbles with some sort of strange weapon he takes out of his pocket, but you kick it from his hand and smash him in the face with the pommel of your sword.

"Shadows! You narrow minded religious fanatics dare desecrate the progress of science? Your actions will not go unpunished here toAGH!" the unarmored derro is cut short on his dying monologue with your blade to his chest.

You look around and see that most of the derro have been literally shredded open by the trolls who have focused most of their attention on them, but they've started to pay more attention to the shadows now that the derro numbers have dwindled. Speeding yourselves up at least manages to match their own swiftness, but they're still no pushovers as you find out when you're locked into one on one combat with one of the trolls. Being this close to the creature, you get the full force of its horrible odor and that combined with the smell of its still burnt flesh are almost enough to put you off your fight. You haven't smelled something so bad in…well ever.

You do manage to overcome though only after nearly hacking off its leg long enough for you to realize that the derro were using fire and acid on the trolls for a reason. Troll may not instantly regenerate, but you need to stop it before you give them time to do so. As the troll continues to rapidly crawl after you on three limbs, you grab one of those firebombs from a dead derro and light it with a near by torch.

You narrowly avoid the explosion when you toss it at the troll who is successfully blown to pieces.

"Really hope those pieces don't reform into little trolls." You mutter.

The remainder of the battle involves much of the same tactics, though some of your shadows aren't quite as skilled as you are and fall in combat. Fortunately reinforcements come in the form of Talia and Yvette and with their help you finally finish off the remainder of the trolls and whatever derro that are still attempting to cling to life.

"Were those things actual trolls?" Yvette asks.
"Yep and if they weren't such savage monsters I'd be thanking them for killing most of the derro for us. Are you two the only ones left?"
"No, but only Brother Haze besides us made it and he's currently tending to his wounds. He would've been in no condition to help fight the trolls and derro. The fight with the mages wasn't an easy one." Talia says.
"I'll bet, but I never had any doubt that you wouldn't be victorious. Did you see any sign of any new eternals?"
"No, the mages' quarters didn't seem to house any of them and there weren't any other bedrooms in that direction either. I saw some training facilities and a large library, but nothing more. What about over here?"
"Well other than this big lab, we haven't seen anything of any note either. We passed a lot of derro bedrooms a long the way, but that's about it."
"What about that door?" Yvette asks pointing over to the one where the unarmored derro lies dead.
"I don't know where that one goes to. That derro certainly was in a rush to escape out that way though. Guess we all might as well check it out."

You quickly take a head count and altogether there's six of you left, seven if you count Haze who isn't even with you. If this door leads to the hundreds of young eternals, you question if you'll even be able to kill them all before they can overwhelm you.

When you open it up you find yourself on a platformed level, which overlooks a huge room. It's nearly the size of a small hamlet you think. There are several ladders that descend down to the lower level which contain translucent containers all hooked up with tubing and connected with each other and large strange machines. When you climb down the ladder you inspect the containers more closely and make out a small figure floating in liquid within it.

There are hundreds of these containers, possible even a thousand.

"I think we just found the new eternals." You say.
"Wait, are they in those tanks?" Talia asks.
"I believe so. Looks like the Empire has a whole new way of breeding Eternals or at least altering them. I assume they take them out to train them and then pop 'em back in when they aren't needed. Pretty convenient I suppose."
"This…this all seems wrong somehow. Against nature. We should destroy this place as soon as possible. Those derro weapons you were using on the trolls were explosive, if we could find more we use some of them to collapse this place." Yvette says.
"Or maybe there's a some sort of switch that kills them in the tank. Seems like the Empire would be inclined to implement something like that." Talia adds.

Normally you'd be all for killing all these little bastards while still lying in their "cribs", but it suddenly hits you that you might have an opportunity here. You didn't think about it before, because you thought you were going to have to fight these little runts in the corridors of this place. However circumstances have definitely changed.

Maybe you could get them to be on YOUR side. Why not? They're young enough that they could probably take re-indoctrination. Problem is, it still might take a lot of time and while this was a great blow to the Empire, it doesn't put them out of the fight yet. They may eventually find out what's happened and come back for this place and you're not really in a position to defend it.

You kill the new eternals

It's a good idea, but probably impractical and you don't have the luxury of being impractical at this time. You'd have to retrain them and everything. No, better to just kill them and get this mission over with.

You and the rest of the shadows search for more derro explosives and find a whole room filled with them. You take your time setting up them up in areas, though quite honestly you don't really know what you're doing. Yvette seems to have a little better grasp on them for some reason, but even she's just guessing since she's never worked with such weaponry before. Talia tries to find some sort of "kill switch" as a safer alternative, but fails to do so.

When you think you're prepared, you tell everyone else to leave the complex and you'll light the extended fuse. You assure Talia that you'll be all right since you'll just speed yourself up. Sister Yvette interrupts you however saying that she'll volunteer to light the fuse since she feels that if anything does go wrong, it would be a greater loss to the shadows if you died instead.

You ask Yvette if she really wants to take the risk and she assures you that risking her life to save a brother isn't a risk, it's an honor to all that serve Dendrin.

"Well…I can't argue with that I suppose. Okay, but I'm sure we're all worrying over nothing."
"You're probably right brother, but just in case we aren't, I was honored to serve beside you brother." Sister Yvette says.

You and the rest of the shadows leave the complex as fast as you can and put a good deal of distance away from the camp before you hear a very large explosion. You turn around and see the entire camp sink into itself. You're guessing it worked.

"Does anyone see Sister Yvette?" you ask looking for a figure running in the distance.
"No, but let's wait a bit."
"Yes well we can't wait too long, that explosion was loud enough to alert someone. Won't be long before the Empire sends troops here."

You wait a few minutes, but Yvette still hasn't shown up. Thinking that maybe she's hurt, you insist on going back to the camp to search for her.

There isn't much left of the camp when you see the destruction caused by the blast. You all look around the wreckage, but you find no trace of her body. You get angry."

"Fuck! She surely had enough time to get out of the blast! I mean that's what our speed spell is for isn't it?!" you shout.
"It is regrettable, but this mission was filled with danger right from the start and she died for a reason. That could've been you." Talia says.
"Yes, but…(Sigh) I dunno. If she had fallen in battle that would've been one thing, but to die like this after we already achieved victory? She deserved better." You says.
"Well, I'm sure she's in a better place with Dendrin now as she has served him well."
"Yeah…" you mutter, severely holding back on what you really think about Dendrin. "Come on let's get out of here before any Empire soldiers show up."

Before heading back to Rask you tell Brother Theo about the new changes. Fortunately he's still alive, when you check to see how those other shadow cell attack turned out. Reports have started to come in about the attack on the camp, which isn't too surprising despite all the chaos going on elsewhere that brother Theo caused. He is saddened to hear of sister Yvette's death and says she was very instrumental in helping him coordinate the shadow cells, but he'll make do.

Eventually you make your way back to Rask which you're happy to find out Cyrus was smart enough to not risk attacking Fort Destiny. Unfortunately he caused a different set back entirely. Talia was about the only one keeping the Flog and the rest of his orcs on good terms. You rarely interacted with him and he never got along with Cyrus who was usually condescending to him. While you were gone apparently a small skirmish ensued between the orcs and shadows. Amazingly nobody was actually killed, but several were wounded and ultimately Flog left with the remainder of the orcs.

"Are you fucking kidding me?" you yell in exasperation.
"Where did they go?" Talia asks.
"How should I know, further north I think where the rest of those overgrown idiots dwell. I don't care, we don't need them anyway!" Cyrus says.

After your recent loss of Yvette, you're not really in any mood for Cyrus' shortsightedness.

"Oh well, I'm glad that YOU decided that for all of us! Did it even occur to you that we might need them if we were going to attack Fort Destiny?"
"Now you think that's a good idea? What about all the arguing you did, saying it was a rotten idea?"
"I said it wasn't the best idea at this time, I wasn't opposed to it AFTER we got rid of the new eternals. Priorities!"
"Sure, that's great when they're YOURS brother. When it comes to the rest of our plans you just ignore them."
"Well that hardly matters now, because you just fucking ruined your own plans by pissing off our orc allies. Nice going with the self sabotage brother!"

Cyrus looks you up and down with distain in his face. "Fine. We'll do it your way." Cyrus begins to storm off

"Wait, brother Cyrus where are you going?" Talia asks.
"Well seeing as our chosen brother of Dendrin is obviously correct about everything and as he pointed out that we cannot do anything without our orc allies any longer, I'm going to follow his suggestion that he gave me not long ago. I'm going to lead an assassination squad myself to get rid of Kane once and for all."
"Hold on! Wait, we need to plan better for something like that we can't just…" Talia runs after him.

You dismiss Cyrus and whatever he plans to do, you don't care anymore. You already offered your help to him on this before and the whole plan at the time was dismissed because of his own pettiness. If he succeeds then that's good. He's done something useful for a change, if not then he'll be out of the way and no longer whining about his our feeble plans. Either way he's on his own on this.

Three days later reports come in on Cyrus' death and all shadows he took with him on the mission. Kane wasn't even severely wounded. In fact all this has done is raise his reputation. Talia doesn't say it, but she implies that you should've helped Cyrus even if claimed he wouldn't have accepted it.

Draven is devastated by the news and commits suicide soon afterwards. With this sudden loss of several prominent shadows, morale takes a bit of a dive, especially since Cyrus was still well liked around Fort Defiance.

Year 31

"So Flog's dead?" you ask.
"Yes, I couldn't get through to him. He insisted that if he didn't keep raiding the northern villages that support us, his people would've just seen him as weak and killed him anyway. Ultimately he said he would've preferred to die by my hand and so he did." Talia replies.
"Well, I suppose that'll stop organized raids, but it won't stop them completely."
"Indeed. Flog's leadership was probably keeping the rest of his tribe in line and all those various ogre tribes as well. With him gone, it's going to be chaos."
"I know. I know. Shit. Well we can only hope that they spend more time fighting each other. In the meantime I've got to figure out a way of keeping up the pressure south of Rask. Captain Roldan is starting to become as much of a problem as Kane, has he even left that fortress yet?"
"Nope, report say ever since brother Cyrus' attempts he doesn't leave it anymore and he's been getting an influx of troops as reinforcements lately."
"Damn it! (Sigh) All right, double up on the shadow protection in key towns. Last thing we need is Kane's mindless scorched land tactics destroying the places that are helping us."

Year 32

You slash through the jugular of Kane and even as blood gushes from his throat he laughs madly claiming that you'll never defeat the Empire. You shove his body out of the window just to shut up his final death throes.

You look over at Talia's body and curse yourself for allowing this to happen. You knew you should've gone on this mission by yourself, but she wanted to be by your side. You don't even have time to morn right now as you hear the rest of the soldiers scrambling up the stairs to defend their now dead master.

You climb out the very window you threw Kane out of and scale down the walls of the fort and make your escape. When you make it back home, you find plenty of time to weep and morn for your dead love.

With Talia dead, a small portion of your own will to go on has died as well.

Year 33

"The south wall of the fort has been breached!" Brother Gannon shouts.
"Well get ready to kill the bastards that are going to be pouring in then damn it!" you shout back.

The situation is grim and getting worse with every passing second. You can't believe how the Empire has managed to turn this all around, though it didn't help that you had a few set backs of your own. Now Captain Roldan is at your gates and there's nothing you can do to stop it.

You watch as the remaining shadows desperately fight the overwhelming number of Empire soldiers.

"Dendrin, if you're still watching, I hope you had a good run of amusement, because it's about to end." You mutter and rush into the hopeless battle.

During Roldan's life, he would go on to speak about how you were a worthy opponent during conversations about the battle of Fort Defiance. Probably out of minor respect that you were an Eternal.

Ultimately though history only remembered Roldan and how he gloriously destroyed the shadow traitors once and for all.