Fourteen of the Earth’s seventeen remaining humans sat around a beaten up table. Made entirely of holly, the eighteen foot long giant was, at one point, the poorly thought out purchase of some nouveau riche tech entrepreneur with significantly more money than sense. It was a thoroughly ridiculous thing, a cabinet maker had told Frank, many years ago when he first found it in a recently emptied villa on the coast of Washington state. Holly was wholly unsuited for something like a table, being both easily damaged and hard to maintain. That was why Frank had liked the table so much. It suited the people sitting around it. A bunch of soft, everyday people who had been given a Sisyphean burden. They and every other human. It was more than any one person could bear, more than what humanity could. None of them had been special, they were merely the last bit of humanity to crumble under the impossibility of the task set before them. 

The table was on its last legs. Literally. A decade of being dragged from place to place, of use and misuse had taken its toll. When Anna had died, Peter punched it so hard it cracked. Always the mediator, the calming influence, Peter was the rock of the lot. But that failure made everyone less than they had been. Moving past something so catastrophic wasn’t an ability any of those left were equipped with.

It was barely usable at this point. Three legs had been broken. One had been repaired, before they lost Gerald. But the other two corners of the table rested respectively on a stack of bricks and a tree stump. The crack in the middle meant that you couldn’t safely put any weight on it except for on top of the legs. It was merely a point of gathering now. Frank idly mused that now was the first time it could fit everyone around it seated. When it had been new and whole, there were still hundreds of companions.

Now, at the end, a small group of broken people sat around a broken table. David stood up. The subject of the end would begin now, Frank knew.

“We can no longer hold out.” said David. His weary voice no longer had the absolute confidence of earlier times. “Without Anna, we will inevitably be overrun.” Frank had known this as soon as it happened, as did everyone else. Without a healer, it was only a matter of time. That’s why out of the hundreds of people he’d known and the countless thousands he’d seen die, hers cut the deepest. It wasn’t merely the loss of a friend. Her death was the loss of hope.

“Jane and Steven will leave out the escape tunnel. The rest of us will hold out here for however long it takes.” David continued. His last gambit, an unworkable attempt to grant humanity just a tiny little sliver of hope. The two would be caught within a week. It was a given. Neither of them thought the plan had a hope of success. David probably didn’t either. But having a plan of action was all that kept him together, and they followed along for his sake.

He was about to continue on when a rumbling shook the whole of the dilapidated keep they’d fortified out of a ski hill chalet. The wards had fallen. Ever since the last of the mages kicked the bucket, they'd only been able to estimate how long they would last. Frank knew they had overshot their durability by a ton. He brought up his status, out of habit. Always check before a fight if you have the time.

Frank HP 7173/7665 Level 73 Human MP 0/0 Disruptor SP 2156/4380 Strength: 55 Knowledge: 35 Agility: 92 Intelligence: 23 Constitution: 105 Stability: 31(50) Vitality: 60(90) Wisdom: 28

The fatigue and stress sapped everyone. Not that it would matter either way. The force arrayed against them was overwhelming. An army of soldiers, and enough elites to match their party one for one. He wondered half heartedly if he'd even see them, or if they'd be content to use the combined strength to bombard him into dust with magic. Another rumbling shook the room, and the table they sat around finally gave up the ghost. The vibration finished the job Peter started, snapping it clean in two along the existing crack. Frank glanced down at the two chunks of wood. Then he looked at his comrades. No one seemed much inclined to do anything. Defeat was an inevitability at this point, and there was no chance of escape. He got up, unhurriedly wandering out of the dining room turned operations center and moved towards the roof. Might as well see the sun one last time. He didn't make it all the way. The building gave out under the next barrage of magic, and he saw the roof collapsing towards him and briefly felt the heat behind it. Then he knew no more.