The story didn't end when THE OVERSEEING ONE left, it was only made...free.
Noah watched from above, unblinking, as the Dark Lord straightened in the middle of his shadow and felt the sky go empty over him. No more gaze pressing down. No more hand moving the pieces. And instead of relief, the thing let out something that in a smaller creature would have been a laugh!
He'd been holding back. That was the part none of the heroes had understood. The whole time the Overseeing One watched, the Dark Lord had fought the way the story asked him to fight, a wall, a thing that stood and took and gave nothing. He hadn't been trying to win. He'd been trying to be left alone, and standing still was the closest a chess piece got to that.
Now no one was watching. Well, or so he thought, so he stopped standing still.
