Alric stepped up to the podium and looked down on the assembled teams standing before him on the Field of the Dawn. "They have grown so," he thought, "from warring factions we have forged them into a brotherhood of champions. But will they be strong enough to face the coming darkness?"

Putting aside his fears for the moment, Alric smiled up at the audience who filled the tiers of seats all around the stadium. He lifted his arms in a grand gesture and declared in a booming voice, "The Myth World Cup is over!" A torrent of cheers greeted this proclamation and he grinned, waiting for the tumult to subside.

"These brave warriors, the Quad-Cities All-Stars, have defeated all opposition in their path and proven themselves to be the mightiest team of champions in the land. By their triumph here today, they have earnt their prize - the Myth World Cup itself!" With a wave, Alric signalled Cormac to come forward and the warrior gravely ascended the dais to stand next to the podium.

Alric reached into the podium and drew out a small silver cup that sparkled in the sunlight, its jewels catching the sun's flickering rays as racing clouds cast fleeting shadows across the field. Admiring it for a second, he turned to the proud warrior captain. "Cormac, as captain of the winning team, I hereby present to you this trophy in recognition of your achievements. Well done, my friend." As Cormac took the cup and held it high, the crowd roared its excitement above the rising sound of flapping pennants around the stadium's edges.

With tears streaming down his face, the warrior captain passed the trophy down to his team and they clustered around it, touching it with stunned faces. Alric smiled to himself, thinking "How they have earnt it. It has been a hard road for these men, but in the end their spirit has triumphed over all the fearsome obstacles in their path. Mighty trow, fiery dwarves, immortal herons - the heart of a warrior has seen them past all odds." Seeing that the warriors had finished congratulating each other, he turned once again to Cormac.

"But the cup is not all that you have won here today, Cormac. As I said in the call to arms so long ago, the winners of the Cup would earn a boon of their Emperor. Come, speak your mind."

Cormac stepped up to the podium and cleared his throat, wiping his eyes dry. "When we first assembled in Madrigal Yards," he began, "our purpose was sure. We would win the Cup and ask as our boon that you abandon this doomed project out here in the desert, my liege. None of us believed in Muirthemne or the Cath Bruig empire. We would have asked you to come back home to Madrigal and put aside these dreams."

"But the path to the cup has led us through many changes, myself most of all. Since that night in the catacombs, I don't believe that any of us could deny the power that the empire has to bring together the hearts of so many different races. It would not seem right to destroy such great promise, and so, my lord, we have a new boon to request of you."

The hot wind picked up even further, whipping through the stadium and causing some spectators to shift nervously in their seats. As the racing clouds started to thicken and darken, the black-robed figure seated beside Alric put a warning hand on his arm. "Not yet," hissed Alric, "let him finish." With a worried glance, the figure subsided.

Looking down at his team, Cormac continued, "We wish you to let us participate in this dream. The Province has kept to itself for too long, only looking outside its borders when invading armies started to mass. On behalf of Madrigal, Tyr, Covenant, Scales and all the towns and villages of our nation, please, let us join this bright new future." To a wave of applause, Cormac stepped down from the dais and rejoined his team.

Smiling broadly, Alric got up and took the podium once more. "It would be my profound honor and great pleasure to welcome you all into the empire. No city is closer to me than brave Madrigal, and it has pained my heart to have you be such strangers over the past year. Thank you, Cormac. It is a great gift you give me."

With a crack that echoed throughout the stadium, one of the flagpoles snapped clean in two before the rising wind and sailed away over the edge of the stadium. With a nervous glance at the figure beside him, Alric continued, "and so the cup comes to an end. But this competition is only one of our achievements here - greater by far has been the unity that we have seen built between the races. Never did I think to see Northmen drinking with Mauls, or Bowmen leaning on their bre'Unor cousins. We have forged something special here, and I would call on an old friend of mine to show you what I mean."

With that, Alric stepped aside to let the black-robed figure take his place. With a sudden gesture, the figure cast back his hood to reveal the stern features of Uabh-Bheist, the master of the warlocks. A gasp arose from the crowd as Uabh-Bheist stepped forward to the podium, a smile on his face that looked out of place on those angular features.

"I know, you all thought me dead," the warlock said in a voice that somehow cut through the babble of nervous voices that filled the stadium. "But through my arts, as I fell under the ghol attack I was able to save myself in extremis until my brethren could recover my body and restore my spirit. Alric has called me before you today to show you something... special." With that, the black-robed mage nodded to a cluster of acolytes standing unobtrusively at the side of the field, and they began their incantation.

"Do not be alarmed," the warlock leader called out across the stadium, where numerous spectators were struggling to make their way to the exits. "We bring you nothing but a story... in some ways the story." Suddenly, the rising noise of the desert wind was cut off, and the crowd looked up in amazement as a lacework of light raced across the sky and solidified into a transparent dome above their heads.

Across the empire, in thousands of towns the villagers had gathered around their town square to watch the closing ceremonies as dreamcast to the network set up by warlocks weeks previously. At that instant, Northmen looked up at a flash of light, thinking the aurora had come early that day. In the Province, peasants cowered and clutched each other in fear as the sky overhead was covered by some magical web. Even far to the east on the Blind Steppes, Maul tribes looked up from their dreamcast to see a wondrous sight above them.

The light started to dim slowly across the land, as Alric moved up to the podium and said softly, "Do not be afraid, my brave people. This day is one that will be remembered for all time. The Cup comes to end, and so does our time living in the shadow of monsters." As the sky darkened further, people shouted and pointed up at the sun, still visible through the dome sheltering them from the whipping wind. Before their amazed eyes, the disc of the sun started to disappear and shadow fell across the land.

"This eclipse comes once in ten thousand years," Alric continued, "and this time it marks the end of an age. We have thrown off the tyranny of the fallen lords and their master, and forged the beginnings of a new golden age. Here, now, is Uabh-Bheist to show you what I mean."

The shadow moved completely across the disc of the sun and the people looked up to see the outline of the corona shining from a center of solid black. The warlocks standing around the field of the dawn completed their incantation, and a soft silver web of light sprung up across the stadium, drinking in the power of the eclipse and channelling it into the warlocks and thence to the net of power that spread across the land. A great sense of calm rolled across the spectators in muirthemne and everywhere else, as the dome above their heads darkened and then cleared. Before their amazed eyes, images formed to show them a view into a green and fertile land where a comet blazed in the heavens above.

"Our story begins some hundred and ten years ago," Uabh-Bheist intoned, "in the Cath Bruig empire at the height of its power. The comet that had signalled the coming of Connacht in the Wind Age and the founding of the empire now returned, and the people rejoiced to see it. But far in the east, at that moment the Leveller took human form. This time, he was known as Balor and he brought nothing but destruction to the people of the Cath Bruig..."

Harnessing the power of the eclipse, the warlock called up moving images from the distant past to show the nations their history. Hours passed as Uabh-Bheist described the the coming of Balor and the defense of the nations in the Great War. Telling the story from all viewpoints, he showed the binding of the legions of the Dark to their sorcerous masters, and the courageous deeds performed by the great heroes of that war. Rabican, Maeldun, Alric, all played their part in the great tapestry being unfurled before the crowd's eyes.

The crowd remained rapt as the warlocks described the victory of the light as Balor's head was cast into the Great Devoid. But then they turned the images away from the kingdoms of men as they rebuilt, following Soulblighter in his escape from the Devoid down into the Untamed Lands. With a horrified fascination the spectators saw him cut out his still-beating heart and sacrifice it to his master the Leveller, then turn his force of will upon the helpless, innocent mauls.

Uabh-Bheist then turned the images forward to the beginning of the next great war, as Soulblighter's hordes poured out of the south and into the civilized lands once more. The images painted a gripping picture of the struggle against overwhelming odds, following the heroes and deeds of that war. Cormac's defense of Gonen's Bridge, the unsuccessful maul revolt against their tyrannous master, Four Flint Motion Sun's band and their pursuit of Shiver, how the bre'Unor were forced to defend their shrine from Alric's fierce intruders - all of the untold tales spilling forth, showing the true story behind the war. Showing the bloodshed and destruction caused by the Leveller's warping of the natural order through his minions.

Finally, as the first rays of the sun licked around the edge of the great shadow, the images turned to the Cup itself. The preparations for the eclipse that must come were shown - the warlocks' journeys to set up the dreamcast net months in advance, the careful construction of the Field of the Dawn to harness the power of the eclipse, Uabh-Bheist's secret recovery. The Myrkridia were there also; lurking in the wilderness after their expulsion from the tournament, their use of the brigands as pawns to distract attention from their attack in the catacombs.

Under the myrkridian assault, the images showed the teams coming together to fight off the horde of monsters and emerging from the catacombs together. The images on the dome slowed and flickered away as the shadow retreated from the face of the sun, and the wind slowly died to reveal a blue, cloudless sky.

Alric stepped forward to support his friend as the warlock collapsed, exhausted to the bone. Laying him gently beside the podium, the Emperor turned to address the stirring spectators. "And so, you have seen what the cup was all about. An end to all this strife, the chaos brought upon us by the Leveller and his Fallen Lords. We have come through the shadow of war and emerged into the light of understanding - and with each other's support, we can build something marvellous and new."

"It is time for us to put Balor, Soulblighter, all our monsters behind us."

"It is time to lay our myths to rest."