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[img]https://i.imgur.com/C7nwoGY.png[/img]
[b]Words:[/b] 1578 (+3)
[b][color=ea590c]Edward Portsmith: Level 10 (28 cells)[/color] [/b][color=ea590c]///////////////////////////////[/color]///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// (34/100)
[b]Location[/b] Frozen highlands - The Midnight Walk - Moon Mountain
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The spirits of the fallen resulted in, unsurprisingly, a lot of items. Still, only a few called out to Edward.

[hider=Items Obtained]
[b][url=https://cdn.imgchest.com/files/e88d77b47d6e.png]Crystal Sage's Rapier[/url][/b]
Thrusting sword with tiny crystals scattered across its blade, used by the dextous and intelligent Crystal Sages for self-defense. The crystals boost the magic damage inflicted by the sword, and the item discovery of its wielder, fruits of the lifetime of research conducted by the sages.

[b][url=https://oyster.ignimgs.com/mediawiki/apis.ign.com/remnant-2/0/0f/Remnant_2_hg_rune_pistol.png]Rune Pistol[/url][/b] Prototype Fae Firearm and accurate semi-automatic pistol that excels at rapid-fire attacks with small-caliber bullets. It is most effective at medium range, allowing for precise and controlled engagements with enemies at moderate distance. It comes with the Soul Brand mod which can be charged by dealing damage. When unleashed, all enemies within 25m and branded for 25s, which causes them to leave behind echoes when slain that can heal whoever picks them up for 25% 
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The blade would make for a good weapon to wield one-handedly alongside a firearm, in a manner the Arche's Guardian sword was a touch too cumbersome for a mere human to wield, while the rune pistol would make for an excellent firearm to wield alongside it. He replaced Odin’s Pinky with said pistol after finding that the spell he had crafted worked perfectly well for it as well, the precision weapon far more his style than the bullet hose.

He lingered a little after that, waiting for everyone to be done before sending the unclaimed items back to the armory, and getting the Strange Feather copied if no other option was selected, after which he set off into the cold dark along with the others.

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For Edward and Edward alone, the rumble of the ironclad didn’t fade away, for his will was in it, and it was his eyes and ears in the same way the scouts roaming ahead where, and the daedra riding alongside them where. 

Instead a charnel ground faded in around them.

With each step, each rumbling turn of the wheel, broken fallen bodies faded into view around them. At first only the odd stray cadaver, but as the dreadnought and his companions pressed forwards, more and more appeared, laying where they had fallen in the snow. Most were human, but among them were other species. Dwarves. Goblins. Orcs. Elves. Giants. Dragons.

The people from home.

This did not sink in at first with the Dreadnaught, nor a myriad of other details that would have clued in his foggy mind.

It was only when the form of a [url=https://cdn.imgchest.com/files/feee8c0cb4a1.jpg]Jugernaught[/url] came into view, its body split open by some devastating spell, that the man seemed to come too. He gazed up at the freshly ruined machine, metals still aglow from its death, cannons still smoking from its last defiant momentage, and then cast around in a half panic.

His eyes found shattered magelocks, husks of lesser warmachines and, most damning of all, banners of the commonwealth, tattered not from time by arrows and spellfrost.

Then, a dozen eyes all locked forwards, towards the locus of this devastation, towards the hill that had been held against all these forces. As he did, the darkness fell away, and he beheld a [url=https://cdn.imgchest.com/files/1c57bdc78427.png]gateway[/url] to another world, through which dark legions marched, their bodies shimmering from the multitude of enchantments.

It had not been a one-sided battle. The hill was littered with the bodies of the invaders, cratered and burned where the guns of the commonwealth had hammered them. Yet their leader still stood, her single exposed eye glaring down and meeting Edward’s own from where he had stepped out from behind the ironclad to gaze up at her in turn.

This was it. This was the day the dream of his nation had died. When he led countless soldiers to their deaths. When the gates linking its world to the others of the astral sea were cracked open despite all his efforts, and the godir returned to claim it as their own.

When his dream of a better world died.

In the face of the memory the man’s knees buckled and he had to grip the side of the Ironclad for support. At first, he was sure it was just a memory, some torment. Then a human hand grabbed his shoulder and hauled him up to his feet and, when he turned and saw the [url=https://cdn.imgchest.com/files/537be24b7f63.png]sourceress[/url] to whom it had belonged.

“Don’t falter yet Edward!” Laryssa Mierabilis (his childhood friend and staunch ally) told him, as she helped him steady himself and her cohort of mages and summoned monsters formed up around her “we can still win this! One last push!”

And with that, he was lost to the memory.

What came next was a blur. A last desperate charge up the hill towards the gateway to other worlds.

Arrows and spellfrost rained down, while lightning and gunpowder thundered in response and allies froze in revitalizing ice. The dead who he had failed to lead to victory rose against them as skeletal thrawls, and were blown apart by the roar of the ironclad’s guns and a fusillade of firecrackers. Then they were charging up the hill as the dark warriors counter charged down it. Blades clashed, shields buckled, demons and horrors brawled, warriors were thrown back by frozen antlers, and then they were through. 

The final stretch, with only one last desperate spell from the invader to endure.

Then, just as it had before, it all went wrong.

The gateway shattered at the invader’s will, ripping apart the fabric of reality around them, [url=https://cdn.imgchest.com/files/fd1ed8624412.png]hurling everyone and everything into the astral void[/url] that separated worlds. 

Clinging to the Ironclad with one hand and Laryssa with the other, Edward despaired at their failure, until a haunting howl pierced the mirage of memory made flesh, as his eyes saw that which had not been there before.

Tumbling through the void, just out of reach, where an eyepatched cat, a skull wearing wolf, and a reindeer headed sea serpent. The cat was desperately hurling explosives in the opposite direction, trying to push them closer to the ironclad. The antlered serpent simply floated there, faithfully awaiting instructions.

It was the skull headed wolf, her eyes shining with far more intelligence than she had started the lengthy engagement with, who saw a solution. By Loona’s will, Laryssa froze solid, slipping from the dreadnought’s grip. Then she hurled herself from the body of the SomnaDrix, formed a blade of amber starlight in her jaw, and then drove it into the heart of the frozen sorceress.

As Edward screamed, she kicked herself back off it, launching herself through the weightless sea, back towards the SomnaDrix, leaving the body of the sorceress to drift. Rather than linger a corpse, or dissolve into ash, however, instead it simply faded away into shadows as all the others who had fallen in the prior battle had, something the man had been too lost in memory to recognize.

[color=ea590c]”YOU! WHY!?”[/color] Edward raged at first, before his mind finally slipped the leash of memory and he recalled that [color=ea590c]”this... this isn't how this happened”[/color]

It should have been the moment when the dream dissolved, but the man had not truly faced his failure. How could he, really, when that failure was that in his darkest moment he had lost his mind to Urrath: the source (so it was said) of all the evil in his reality. 

Could a man ever truly face that? Could the shadows emulate such a cosmic power? 

As Edward came to his senses and used the wings he had not had in this moment to pull the three beings that had interrupted the elaborate setup to his downfall to the Ironclad, the darkness shifted around him. It found another change their presence had caused, the form of the invader. She had been swallowed by her own spell as a result of the minions aiding in the push when before she had won the day unscathed. It then looked forwards, saw her own failure, her own role at the moments before everything ended, and pushed her forwards to it.

Pushed her forwards into the future, into the hands of the evil that had claimed Edward’s mind, and made her its avatar again.

Then the shadows twisted, causing the Ironclad to come crashing down onto an island in the abyss.

As its passengers got to their feet, they beheld what it had in store for them. The first invader of Edward’s home, Lithyl Nightweaver arose as an [url=https://cdn.imgchest.com/files/ee2050cd8dd2.png]Eldrich Sovereign[/url] and Harbinger of Urrath, just as she had in the last days before Galeem had claimed all of reality. At her (many) feet formed a horde of [url=https://cdn.imgchest.com/files/8961a9ab5b02.png]umbral demons[/url], nightmares of flesh, which she unleashed upon the Dreadnaught’s forces.

These servants of Urrath stormed forwards to claim the Dreadnaught for their dread master, charged forward as they had rampaged across the worlds of Edward’s reality as a result of his failure. His failure to keep the gates closed. His failure to protect his home when they were opened. His failure to keep his mind while falling between worlds. His failure to break free when it had driven him to wage a pointless war of rage against future allies against their common enemy. 

Against that tidal wave of flesh, what could one man do? 

As much as a man’s mind could do when faced with the will of a god.

He could raise his blade and refuse to go quietly into the night.