I had a plan, a really slim and desperate plan. I quickly went and got my beloved brother Utu and asked him for his help. I needed him to go and talk to Sin, who I had just wasted, and convince him to help the two of us raise enough energy to resurrect both Alora and Sargon before they saw their reflections in Ereshkigal’s eyes. With all our power, the Earth, the Sun and the Moon, I thought we might be able to save these two warriors who had bravely died fighting for their beliefs. At the temple Ishtar told Enheduanna and me that we were gonna raise the spiritual energy to save those two. I’m thinking this is totally nuts; Alora and Sargon are dead, they’re Ereshkigal’s now. But I told them no, they had to have faith in me. And then I told them that Ninshubar must attend to Sargon and Enheduanna must attend to Alora! Boy oh boy, did they both go ballistic or what? We did! Ha! Of course! But I told them it would only work if they could cast off their hatreds. They had to have compassion for their enemies. They had to forgive unconditionally. We had no choice. We put our faith in Ishtar and took our positions. I just focused on letting go. Then all three of us, plus Utu and Sin, combined our energies. It was explosive! Alora and Sargon were already on their way to the underworld, but at the gates they were stopped by Ereshkigal's vizier, Belili. She would not take them to meet Ereshkigal! They could not believe it! Belili asked Alora if she has not heard Enheduanna calling her name and Sargon if he had not heard Ninshubar? They both said they had but assumed they were being cursed. Naturally. Then Belili asked where were their wounds? They looked and found they were healed! Belili said: If you come to Ereshkigal wounded she will gladly keep you wounded. Ereshkigal is just, but she is not a healer. If you are healed then it is the work of Ishtar. She sent them back. So we got them back, both of them! And boy was Sargon ever surprised to find himself embraced by Ninshubar and Alora could not believe she was in the arms of Enheduanna! Hahaha! Amazing! I would have loved to have seen that! Yes, it was beautiful and sad and we were all laughing and crying at the same time. Then Sargon stepped up and took ownership of his error in attacking the temples of Sumer, but he was confused at how he could accept the Gods of both Sumer and Akkad and how we could be one? How could I be the Akkadian Goddess of war and the Sumerian Goddess of Love? Then I said, you are both a warrior and, being a father, also a lover. So why cannot a Goddess like Ishtar also be both? Sargon got it! He understood there is room on earth to see our many faces. His faith, his view, was not the only path to the Goddess. Then we asked Alora why she needed to wage war to solve her problems? Why go to war for revenge in the name of faith? Enheduanna, who served both the Gods of Akkadia and Sumer, talked her way through how it is possible that many people can see the same divine, each in their own way and that the many paths to truth can come from the same source. Enheduanna is an amazing woman! She did a great job of enlightening Alora! She made Alora understand that all religious wars are about the blind intolerance of closed minded men! That people’s path to enlightenment can take many routes; there is no sense in fighting wars over faith. So what happened to Alora? Where is my Granddaughter? Alora decided to stay with Enheduanna; her home has always been Lagash. Together they are working to unite the faiths of the Sumerian and Akkadian people. Fantastic you two! I could not be more happy or proud. So I have not lost a Granddaughter? No Grandfather, but you have gained another enlightened being - although a half human one. I'll drink to that! Now you two take your baths and then let’s celebrate the beginning of a new era! To Alora! To Alora!

I am going to have a lot of trouble continuing this series if Renderosity does not wake up and expand the size of our text entry box. If you love the artists such as myself (and I imagine Rayvn and Arthur) who are telling tales, PLEASE, write to the admins and ask for the boxes to be expanded. It is impossibly difficult to get my 2-3 pages of text done properly in these miserable little boxes. Things will not change if we do not ask and complain.

I thought it was my PC JAVA update today that had messed with the box size.... guess not. Simple interim solution would be to write your story in another app (Word, email, even notepad!), then copy and paste it when happy. Best, Steve

Fantastic work on the image and the story. Nice little recount of the adventures. I agree with you on the size of these boxes.

Tommo - that's what I do but Renderosity reformats paragraphs and all punctuation, which must then be edited... in the tiny boxes.

Excellent - great chapter

This is a gorgeous image Roxy. Everything about it is superb! As Mike noted, it's a wonderful recount of their previous adventures and brings everyone up to date. I noticed they toned the white down a bit with some greyish masks and helps some, but I completely agree with you about the text boxes! They're ridiculous. And then they went and put a slider bar on the bottom of the text box, which actually makes it worse because everything keeps shifting...not to mention the issue with the reformating. I noticed that as well. I also type my stories in wordpad and then paste them. This box takes up a 1/4 of the space here. The rest is wasted.

superb story and the image is filled with great things to observe Roxy, love your style hon.

You know what I just noticed (literally, like a couple of gallery comments ago)? In the bottom right corner of the text box is a little dotted triangle that lets you resize the box. I know it should default to a normal size, but until it's fixed, just try expanding that little triangle...Makes it sooooo much easier to read & write. :)

Wonderful Work,

A wonderful refresher on a beautiful tale - one our modern cultures could learn much from. And on top of that, a magnificent work of art to support the story. Magnificent, Roxy - and that (like any words I can come up with) falls far short of what this deserves! As I understand it, the final 'tweaks' including the narratve / comment text boxes have not been completed yet - so I'm assuming they will be addressed in the next few days. I hope... I'm a bit rusty on my HTML, but when I do updates to my website (and I need to....), I check it - on IE, Firefox, and Chrome - BEFORE it goes live.... I have to wonder if Rendo's web designers ever consider doing that...

Great image, and another wonderful Ishtar story! YAY!

I have to agree with Rod. I Have never, ever done a website that I didn't have on my computer and then load up into several browsers to check to see how it looked before I published it. Any changes were always verified there first. I still had a few 'ooops' moments, but they were few and far between. The way Rendo is going about this seems so on the fly, I have to wonder at the process. Beautiful story, and the illustration speaks of comeraderie and good times. I wish I had the beer, atm. LOL

This scene and your tale are amazing Roxy... beautiful, the both. I've found that by clicking and dragging the little arrow in the lower right corner, you can expand the box a great deal. Awesome work my dear friend.

What a sensational chapter in the story Roxy, you truly are a master of your craft. I'll be sure and write Rendo to let them know you need more space in the text box for your story. I think that is a reasonable request

yeah i just posted in the forum. in firefox it works ok i can expand the box. but this is not true for internet explorer. i dont know about other browsers. oh yeah someone wrote me in opera its working fine as well.we get there roxy be patient lol.

Beautiful and Delightful render, Roxy-sensei! love poses of the left girl. So sexy!

Awesomely detailed scene, love the expressions

Very beautiful scene and great composition... wonderfully done!!!

Hey Roxy great to see a continuation on this series. I admire the way you make the stories come to life along with getting your point accross :-) Another option to the box would be to just put in the first paragraph and add a link to a .pdf you upload somwhere in a web domain. There you could include the image in the beginning of the pdf and have the whole chapter underneath to present both together. Blessings Ash

Fantastic scene and posing!!!!!

Nice job on this scene! Great work.

Amazing cool image Roxy, superb work in every way....love it.

Excellent work in both art and story.

Just,Outstanding story and supporting render work my friend! I can see your talents again,Also the place that they chatting, is really beautiful:-)))Totally magnificent Art Roxy:-)))) As for the text entry box;I think you mention about the Rendo uploading pages text entry box,If I didn't mistake,there's no Max.Character limit, I tried but couldn't enlarge that box today,I use Mozilla but, this happens now,While My previous uploading process,I Wasn't encounter with this kind of problem before!?It seems, we need to corresponding Rendo admins!...

I remember well the previous images documentig this part of the story and this is a great summary and re-telling of the event. Really fantastic setting. I love the soft and misty atmosphere and all the detail that is part of your art. All those subtle details add so much to the image. Great costuming and great poses and expressions. The play of light and shadow is exquisite. I really hate these little boxes too. It makes editing nearly impossible. I use the free 'Open Office' software to write, then transfer that to note pad. In notepad I space the paragraphs. I don't use quotation marks in my writing anymore, because they can't be translated here, but I use to change the quotes to apostrophes in notepad. I've only posted one story in this little box so far, but I had to preview to really proofread therefore adding yet another step and work. I guess it will make me doubly attentive to the initial write. At Deviant Art, there are no major limits, in image size or word count and $30 a year to have that is a small price to pay in my mind. I have a strong feeling we're stuck with this.

Excellent composition and great characters.Well done.

Excellant render and as usual your postwork is awesome!! Great story!! Use IE so a few problems with the new rendo pages.

The picture is just as wonderful as the story magical. I'm amazed where you hernimmst the time to create much. You really are very creative. Rendo your wish has apparently not yet heard ... shame! Maybe would also other user to like to write their thoughts...

Wonderful scene and story my friend!!!