Night Encroaching

"Are Life and Death really enemies? I think only one who goes through both has an answer. A shame we can't ask them" - Rivet Manakos, in his book "Great Omen"
 
Dear journal,
 
I write in here with a weak hand. I... I don't have much left in me to give, right now. I am trying to pull myself together. I want these words here to finally matter. I need some order in my head. I feel I have finally cried enough.
 
We stand at a crossroads. Before us lies our adventure around the seas, encircling our great continent. A dangerous journey, with hard moments, with beautiful moments, with some good friends lost, and other new friends gained on the way. I am grateful for all I've learned on this journey. For all I've received. I may be an idiot, but even I can see that I'm changed. For the better? In some ways, yes. I see how stupid I am, today. I see how weak. I feel the need for more. Self-sufficiency is the worst disease a man can bear. And I think I bore it, especially since I liked to engulf myself in my inescapable situation of used-up-woman waiting for her mage for one year.
 
I've had to face all fears that men can face during a lifetime. I failed this test, obviously, but somehow I'm still alive. Do I deserve it, even? I see so much death around, I can hardly believe it. It's hard to tell. Those who deserve death, what does it mean? Or those who deserve life? Is it a reward to live through destruction and grief, to be pummeled by your own weakness and consumed by your regrets, day in, day out? Isn't death sweeter? Isn't dying for the Almighty, for your people, for your friends, for love, for hope, for all of humanity and all the souls on this Earth, a gift? Isn't it preferable to a miserable life?
 
So, no, I don't know what I deserve, or what all the people around deserve. Life always is preferable, when nothing happens around. But when Life is corrupted, then Death may be finer. I don't know. I know that dying a clean soul, a mind at ease, and a clear heart, will mean bliss afterwards. Death is not an enemy to Good. And Life is not an ally, all the time.
 
But....... Who does have a clean soul, a mind at ease, and a clear heart? And... is it selfish to want life, if your life is about giving? About loving? About saving others from a Death that might be bad for them? Not all are ready. Not all should die the moment they do die. That's why Death is not ours to dispense. So maybe, just maybe, it still makes sense to pray for life. Not for me, though.
 
Many people much better than me are dead. And I'm alive. It's just a fact, at this point. It's impossible to make more of it.
 
But why am I so dramatic all of a sudden? Ugh, I have to tell. To explain.
 
We traveled closer to Metherol yesterday. We whipped up a plan to kill necromancers during the siege, which meant that Bart had to stay behind, to act covertly using his invisibility powers and his time-altering spells. I am so proud of Bart. If he hadn't have a kind heart and a predisposition towards fun, not blood, he would've become an expert assasin. I'm so glad he's not one! I hate assassins. I love people like Xixi or Verfy, who kill you face to face, sword in hand. Well, granted, Xixi can do that regardless of her actual body position. Details.
 
Im just trying to cheer myself up. It's not working, though. Xixi actually came to visit me and ask me if I wanted to come see how many undead she destroyed. She's almost like a child, but I know she understands, and just wants to help. Thank you.
 
Coming back, I had to say goodbye to Bart, before this huge battle for the city of Metherol. I tried to joke around, saying I'll punch him if he gets hurt, but... I was afraid. I was afraid I would not see him again. And that I wouldn't even know, until so much later. I couldn't even help him with my kindred spirit rune. He is my kindred spirit, it's not fair to have him separate from me...
 
There I am, obsessive nutcase that I am, can't bear separation. But... It's a deadly battlefield, and I am here to help and protect people... I know he can handle himself, but... I tried to hide it as much as I could, at least. I bet the others would believe me clingy or unfair towards them. I have to protect everyone, right? I do want to. So I hugged him as hard as I could and there we went our separate ways. We flew tied to several birds each, across the field and into Metherol, while Bart remained with the 71 Enneth elvish soldiers.
 
We flew high in the air, above the besieging army. It was basically thousands of undead, all dead silent, all motionless, surrounding the city. What kind of image is that...? Can you imagine a huge, motionless army? Waiting? You can barely hold your breath, but they have no breath. Or fear. Or tiredness. A force that will not stop. That will not falter. Truly terrifying.
 
We devised a plan to hold the walls for as long as we could, but ultimately we knew we would lose the walls. We had a last stand prepared in the central square, behind trenches. We had to rely on our initial plan to kill necromancers. Because their death would make the undead who were raised by them attack at random and lose cohesion and will.
 
We split, from there. It was getting dark. Tallion went with Orman and Dillen to the port. Heron, the Fastodans and Brunek took the northwestern wall. Verfy, our new friend Anevys and Marv took the north gate, while Xixi volunteered to stay in the east, near the river Senel. Vas went with Miremis in the south, and Marc stayed with the Enneth druids in the south-west. The rest (Nixie, Drenizek, Isbel and I) stayed near the west gate. Kelly remained on the castle rooftop, with two catapults, and that Gilders guy stayed with the Elvish command in the centre.
 
The night had settled. Darkness encroaching from all sides. And silence. Not a single light, or sound, from the other side of the walls. The undead were still motionless. We could actually hear the breath of each and every elf on the walls. Poor guys. I could see them. They had bows in their hands, some of them. Others had short spears, or knives, or short swords, or various kitchenware. I saw an Elf with a pitchfork. No armor, or barely any armor (padded or leather at most). We were waiting for a massacre. But their eyes were piercing forwards. All of their eyes. Not with hope, but not with despair. I could only feel cold steel determination. To hold. Hold and not falter, until the end.
 
I felt their minds. Their time had come, but they would not move aside or let the wave wash them onto the shore. They would face the tides like a jagged rock protruding from the sea. God have mercy on us all, I muttered behind my breath. I was tense, I couldn't move, even if I wanted to. I instinctively reached my right hand to Nixie's left, and we held tight. We were on the wall, waiting, waiting, until....
 
We heard it. At first, it was mild, or distant. But it increased, and increased. A shriek. A thousand shrieks. Twelve thousands shrieks. And like beacons on the walls, thousands and thousands of small purple lights filled the darkness that stretched in front of the walls. The undead had awoken. Soon, they brought their siege towers in place, and them we heard the drums and the horns. A monstrous army had just started its devastating attack.
 
I never felt so nervous, so... afraid, yes. I was afraid for my life, obviously, I'm a coward, ain't I, but also I was afraid for everyone. Not just Nixie and the party and the crew, or the city even, I was afraid for the entire world. Never have I seen an undead army before. I can understand why it is so hard to fight them. It's not that they are hard to kill. Or that they don't need air, they don't tire, they don't flee. No. It's that.... that is your fate, right there, in front of you. It's an image of what you are about to become. And, more than that... If you falter, if you think twice, if you lose hope, it matters. You die. But they... They don't care. They won't stop moving. Can any imperfect soul stop such a thing?
 
The towers were moving towards our wall. To our left, the western gate was crumbled already from days of hard siege. The Elves, led by one of the Wise Elders from Enneth, were defending the surmountable rubble that was left. To the right, we knew Heron and further away Verfy were holding the line. I prayed for everyone's safety, for the thousandth time.
 
A tremendously scary siege tower was coming our way. Nixie waited. She was our hope, there. We had no other chance than to knock those towers down. Our captain lifted her beautiful staff and made the ground rise in spikes beneath one of the towers, jiggling it violently. It refused to fall, the bloody thing, so she tried again, and this time the tower faltered and fell on a few dozen enemies. The sound of the desintegrating wooden structure falling on shrieking undead was something I'd never thought I would hear.
 
Nixie continued, destroying another tower's front-right wheel. The tower faltered, too, and fell to smithereens. I would've rejoiced, but the elves were so... still... like it did not matter.
 
It didn't, in the end.
 
They came to our walls with big ladders, with iron clamps that sunk into the rock of the crenellations, breaking it. No way to remove those. We had to fight. To our left, we could hear the sound of fighting. The undead must be forcing the demolished gateway. We could hear the sound of war everywhere. Soon, they started climbing. Soon enough, they were there. I hit my first undead with a ray of light, but it did not desintegrate. He swung at me with a one-handed axe, but thankfully an elf stood in its path and parried its hit. But then the poor guy got obliterated by the hit of another undead. I once again threw purifying light on the monster, finally breaking it. Nixie, in the meanwhile, wanted to unleash more power. But something went terribly wrong and the white fire she was trying to invoke exploded before it could even fully form, throwing her violently to the back, past the wall and onto the roof of a nearby house. I panicked for her safety and immediately jumped the wall to follow her. I fell like the sack of Potato-Eve that I am.
 
I then tried to focus all my magic into helping Nixie, but I overwhelmed myself with my own magical aura and fainted, like the stupid novice that I am.
 
I remember waking up shortly afterwards, to a ghastly sight: Nixie had started to throw balls of white fire upon the walls, to stop the undead, six at a time, but the undead kept coming. The walls were almost theirs, and the few Elves who survived were withdrawing to the left, trying to descend on the damaged wall to the rubble beneath, were there was a huge fight. I could see hundreds of undead trying to get past the rubble, but I saw glowing lances in the hands of the Elves. That Elder must've blessed them with arcane powers. There was a chance we could hold this gate, still.
 
We both descended from the roof and tried to join the fighting at the gateway. But just as we were doing this, we heard the horns of retreat from the north. The North gate must've fallen. I tried not to think about the fate of Verfy and Anevys and Marc. I had to believe they were safe. I also knew nothing of Heron's men... We found Isbel and Drenizek below, fighting amongst the Elves. Drenizek was in the first line, punching undead to death with glowing fists. It sounds laughable to idiots who weren't there. I was left deeply impressed. And the Elder, though more than 100 I think, fought with vigour, too, sending rays of light on the undead to cleanse them.
 
Nixie and I joined the fight, I helped Drenizek and Nixie threw more white fire on the undead. Our men held tight, they didn't budge an inch. But, in the distance, we could hear the sound of armies running. The undead were overwhelming the city. We had to go. Drenizek and the Elder didn't budge at first, they were so busy fighting the undead. But soon we all started to retreat in order. The undead took the West Gate, but only because we had to go back.
 
By the time we reached the intersection with the main road coming from the north, the undead had almost cut our path. But we charged past, and Nixie threw even more arcane on our pursuers. But then more undead attacked from the street. We met several other Elves withdrawing from the walls. Drenizek launched himself in a charge, and the Elves followed him. And they breached the undead army and made room for our entire unit. We ran, as fast as we could, for we could see a gigantic force of undead coming from the north.
 
But I had left a mirror image of myself on the roof of a house around the intersection. And through it I could sense a necromancer. I told Nixie, and she tried to reach him, but we were too far away, and she had no way to get to him. Hundreds of undead were in the way. Plus the houses of the city. Ugh. We had to believe in Bart, and Tallion, and...
 
We all saw something. Rising from the south, someone, holding the sky itself, and unleashing rays of light, then suddenly disappearing in a bright spear that threw itself at the ground. The skies were all brighter that second, then it extinguished like a magnesium flame. It was... Both beautiful and worrying. Was it Tallion? Didn't look like it. What was going on there...?
 
We had no time to worry about the others, though. Nixie was getting tired from all the spellcasting, and so was I. There was little we could do against those undead. Horribly powerful warriors. Some were clad in armor from head to toe. We could only see purple rays escaping their armor trapping through the orifices left on the helmets. Grisly sight.
 
But as we retreated we encountered even more Elves. They were with Marc, who was badly hit. He had a huge cut in his shoulder, which had almost cut his right hand off. Poor boy. He was alive, still, and I healed him best I could, before sending him to the central square to look for more help. I like to think I saved his arm that night.
 
As we approached the central square, we saw hundreds, if not thousands of Elves were already there. And all were being pursued. It was a mess. We jumped the trenches and fortified inside the ring. The undead came after us and started filling the trench and climbing it to fight us. Some went over the others' heads just so they could reach us better. Unforgiving and unrelenting.
 
We met with others, there. Vas and Dillen, Kelly and Gilders. They were all battered. No news of the North. I was afraid, very afraid. Were they all dead? Already? Then we heard a horn coming from the east. More Elves were trying to get inside the central square. But there was barely any room. And we were being pushed back anyway.
 
Tallion then showed up, and started to pulverise the undead with an enormous purge which I think he did by using the powers of that orb we took from Vazakis. I was proud of him that moment. He saved us all. He then continued to fight, unrelenting himself, cleaning the field of those abominations. That bought time for us to reorganise the ranks. But we had lost part of the central square.
 
Then Nixie returned from the castle (she tried to go in to organise its defense) saying that a horrible shadow roughly matching the description of Cato was inside. What!? So he is real!? God......
 
Tallion actually fought him, as I'd soon find. We then all saw a flaming head thrown from the castle walls directly in the middle of the square. It was......... one of the Elders. The one from the north........ Did Cato... Kill them all? I was more afraid than ever. We went inside, Gilders had a plan to stop Cato, it seems.
 
The horrible spectre (it was basically a dark spectre, ethereal and deformed, roughtly in the shape of a man-leopard) jumped from somewhere and attacked Nixie with all he had (a baneblade and an elvish sword I think), but Gilders used his gun to shoot a knife from his baneblade-holding hand, and Tallion destroyed the knife, and the spectre howled and desintegrated, sending a shockwave of hate all around. Pheeesh. Good job, guys. Good job. What a pest.
 
When we returned, we saw only Doom: the undead and their pirate (!?) allies were almost done taking the sqare, as the Elves were rushing towards the castle. But we would not falter. Not that night. We saw a ray of light in the distance. Morning was coming. It could not find us defeated, or dying, or giving up. I picked up a sword. I said I won't fight. But I did everything else I could. I was no warrior. But I am a human of this world. And I be damned if I won't give everything, adn I mean EVERYTHING to take down this night. Light always shines through.
 
So we charged. All of us. And as we did, we heard the sound of horns, and an Elf shouting "Woranians!" We were surprised and confused. Were they allies? Enemies? Who were they? But the Elf seemed glad, so we presumed allies. The Elves around were so amazed, they almost stopped fighting.
 
Then, after a while, we saw them. A few hundred knights charging down the eastern road. And the Elves, who had faced the undead undaunted, but stern and almost at peace, lost themselves into crying. They cried. And they rose up. And they tightened the grip on their swords and spears and knives. And they charged.
 
I barely remember what happened. I was lost in that fight. I was so tired, I could barely watch my step. But we fought. We fought with everything we had. And the Woranian charge, and our charge, and Tallion's purging arcane.... in the end, we stopped. We looked around. The undead were gone. The pirates were gone. We... won.
 
We looked at the mountain of bodies, of those who died that night, or who died a long time ago, but were devilishly resurrected to fight for necromancers. So many had died. Barely anyone was left alive.... We tried to find each other again. Some of us had been separated. We found Verfy and Anevys and Marv, all three thankfully alive and well. But where were the others...?
 
As we grouped, we noticed no one from the north-west was there. Verfy told us the walls had fallen. It didn't take long to understand... In the same time, Dillen told us he had lost sight of Orman during the fight in the central square. He saw him fall to a big pirate swinging some kind of jagged blade. The one Verfy and Dillen and Nixie and I slew. I remember Dillen shouting at us that the pirate had killed him, but I almost thought it was not true. Unfortunately, it was...
 
Alas, none of Heron's people returned. We did find them, in the end. In the square.... They had fallen. All of them. Heron, Brunek, Lafk'u, Raizo, Menn'e.... And then, they were resurrected, and fought as undead... And they reached the square. Thankfully they were killed by arcane, so their bodies were still whole so we could bury them. Thankfully... what a word to use in such context, Eve... I'm trying to look at the bright side, I guess. I don't know. I can't think straight. I knew we'd lose people this fight. I was fully aware that we could all die. But to win, and to then find how many of us perished... It was hard.
 
At least... At least they died for something. I don't know what Nixie or the others think of it, but I treasure this victory. It may not mean very much for the war effort or whatnot.... I don't know. Yes, I don't want to think their sacrifice was for naught. But, also.... I saw Elves and humans and a fire elemental and a marshlander and a Strygian and people from other dimensions fight side by side. I saw them unite their hearts into one. And prevail.
 
As I heard that the last surviving Elder said, the undead are strong, but they lack one thing, which makes them weaker than us all: souls. As frail and scared and divided and sinful we are, we have souls. And that gives us something that, in one way or another, helps us prevail all these trials. Souls are immortal. Maybe that's why. Or, maybe, it's because souls are what makes us closer to the Almighty. Where we resemble Him, even in a tiny-tiny bit....
 
I salute the fallen. They were brave men, who fought to their last breath. I.... I am still shocked. About their deaths. Except Verfy and Xixi, they were our best warriors, I never thought they could even be killed, heh. I will miss them. Heron, most of all. He was a dear friend. Yes, I might have had a problem with him, a little, when he was used by Nixie as a spy-machine into our less-than-holy-thoughts, but I always felt close to him, I always treasured his friendship. He saved my life several times. He was very harsh on the crew and we had our differences, but... Goddamnit, Eve, did he even know? Maybe his last memory of me is that of an idiot shouting at him...
 
Many perished that fight. Almost everyone, actually. Of the three Elders from Enneth, two died. Miremis also somehow died. Miremis!!! The monstrously powerful Elf whom even a dragon could not budge! I heard she single-handedly destroyed the southern armies.
 
But then we had more coming. As if it wasn't enough. The Woranians gave us news of the surrounding world. They were led by Sylvia Halvel, a young girl who doesn't even have fitting armor, but who fought alongside the knights as one of them. She's only 18, same as Bart, who incidentally said she was his first love. I was already very tired and very sad and very angry at the whole battle and the world in general and I didn't take it very well then, I feel sorry for it. In any case, Sylvia told us that, well, an alliance of undead and Orcs and furry four-eyed monsters I think Tallion referred to as Ikain anihilated the Common Front's armies in Vormiol. Including ALL the Ionolian mages, as well as the Ionolian army, which joined the Front. May the Almighty forgive them. Brave souls. 500,000 brave souls.
 
Vormiol is vanquished. Rascodia is probably getting destroyed. But, most heinous of all, this bastard demon Xantinya levelled the entirety of Marion, destroying not just our holy Temple, but the very hill itself, as if to erase history. Yes, Xantinya obliterated the one holiest place for all of humanity. She also destroyed Usa-Laominis. None survived......
 
I can't imagine what Tallion must be feeling like. But, in all truth, I am equally shook. I, despite appearances, I.... loved my city. Most of all.... I am sure this means Father is dead. I cried a lot when I heard what had happened, because so many countries and people died, forever lost.... But knowing I lost papa was just too much. Even now it's hard to write. I mean... He thought I'd die first, going on this stupid journey. Not stupid, sorry. I hate everything now, because I'm weak and dumb. Leave me alone!
 
I'll do something someday to get better. Now I just want to mourn.
 
The battle was on the 15th of September. Astornomers say the days are shorter than the nights after the 15th. So that's your Night encroaching upon us, Xantinya.... Now you sit back and enjoy. You have Weldyn, and Haldric in your palms. You have Orcs and Ikains and undead. You destroyed the Temple. You re-write history and change everything. You can re-write whatever you like. You can ruin as many things as you like. You can't steal our souls. You can never do that.
 
One day, I hope to be strong enough to show you that.
 
May the Almighty have mercy on the many who died in His name, be they believers or not.
 
Dear Sea, please look after Father. He's lonely. Unless he can find Mother. Which I hope he does. I know he loved her very, very much. I'm just an ungrateful daughter whom he never really saw. Who wasn't there when he needed her the most.