The Chains that Bind

Elan stood up from where the blast had thrown him, and fitted an arrow to his bow "Well diplomacy is out! Take down as many on both sides as you can, maybe we can end this war the hard way!"

The Captain drew his sword "Fight your way to the leaders, once the king and queen are out of the picture, we'll have an easier time convincing their armies to stand down."

The Resistance charged into battle like a calming wind in the storm, with each fighter having a clear mission: Prevent the battle's escalation while it can still be controlled.

Elan fired his first arrow hitting a human knight in the eye socket; he pulled another arrow out of his quiver and ran forward shooting another knight in the leg. He charged into masses of humans and elves riddling the fighters with arrows. He ducked a sword swing and fired an arrow into the chest of its wielder. He spun and shot another arrow through the throat of an elf who was charging up behind him.

The Captain charged into the human ranks spinning and slicing his sword across armor and flesh. He carved his way through the spearmen, knocking them aside like leaves. The knights however were tougher to crack.

A knight used his shield to turn aside the Captain's blows, and counter attacked with his sword. "I know your every move traitor!" The knight gloated as he turned aside every blow.

"That's the one problem with the way you knights fight, you focus on knowing everything." The Captain flashed a smile at the knight and hurled a kick knocking the sword from the knight's hand. "Which leaves you vulnerable" He swung his sword reliving the knight of his shield as well. "When your foes improvise!"

He spun as he finished and sliced the knight's head off of his body, and smiled as the body fell at his feet.

"One down, a couple thousand more to go!"

Kol charged towards a group of elven archers with his daggers out. He ducked the volley of arrows that came his way and hurled both daggers burying them deep into the chests of two archers. He rushed forward and retrieved his weapons, without slowing down. He leapt towards the other archers and swung his daggers slicing through their bowstrings before they could blink. He reversed his swing and slashed the weapons across the throats of the archers, letting them fall at his feet.

Kol kept running across the battlefield throwing his daggers at any hostile that came into his sights. Kol drew another dagger and ducked a sword swing as a knight charged his way. He began to back away as the sword whistled by him, trying to get enough space to throw his weapon. With my hand to hand skills, I don't stand a chance against a trained swordsman! Come on give me some room!

The knight kept walking forward trying to spit the thief on his sword blade, and deny him the chance to use his weapon. "Stand still!" The knight roared, cursing his heavy armor.

Kol ran circles around the knight and grabbed a fistful of hair from behind. The knight screamed as he felt the dagger jab into his back.

Kol slashed the dagger between the armor and the knight collapsed. He walked away from the dead body before hurling himself back into the combat.

The Werewolf charged into a group of human knights, prying the shield wall apart with pure strength and animalistic fury, regardless of the spears and weapon strikes that stabbed and sliced his fur and skin. He roared and lashed out with massive paws sending knights and knight body parts flying into the air. The knights began to spread out jabbing and hacking at the beast from all sides, but the werewolf rammed his paws into the ground and the shockwave sent the knights backward.

Zebel simply walked through the battlefield, keeping fire flowing from her hands. Those in her way either leapt clear, or were burnt the second they were touched by the fires of the underworld. An elf leapt clear from the spouts of flame and shouted "Impossible! We destroyed all the magic on this world!"

Zebel cackled and flung a fireball in his direction "This world perhaps, but not the underworld!"

Siegfried reeled back from Mael's strike, both physically and mentally, "A…a daughter…."

Siegfried looked around seeing that the chaos of the battle had only exploded into something much worse, and the knowledge that his daughter was running around, made him angry. A world under constant threat of attack from elves was no place to raise a daughter!

A fire of protectiveness was alight in Mael's eyes. The battlefield was already chaotic, but having her daughter running around the field that was plain scary, and very quickly the fear turned to anger. A world under constant pressure from humans wasn't a place to raise a daughter!

Siegfried parried more dagger strikes with his shield, attempting to digest the new information. "We had a daughter…" He blocked another strike "Mael, please listen to me! I didn't know about….."

Mael stamped on Siegfried's boot and he grunted as she sliced at his arm. "Of course you didn't know, you weren't supposed to know!"

Siegfried slashed his blade towards Mael's locking their weapons together. "Why would you keep something like that from me?"

"A world like this is no place for a daughter! If you knew about her it would just cause more conflict!"

"You didn't know that, you couldn't have known that!" Siegfried shoved his blade against hers angrily pushing her backwards. He stepped forward slashing his blade against hers as she struggled to parry his attacks. Mael ducked a strong strike and rammed herself into Siegfried knocking him backward. He shouted in surprise and rolled with the shove, regaining his footing.

Mael charged forward swinging her dagger faster than the eye could see. Siegfried raised his shield but for every single blow he deflected, two more dagger swipes scraped against his armor, or pricked his skin. He stabbed his sword upward, knocking the dagger off course. He swung his shield towards Mael striking her in the chest with a powerful bash.

Mael fell backwards with a grunt and Siegfried charged, leaping into the air with his sword held high. He slashed his blade downward and sliced across Mael's shoulder, seeing blood seep through her armor. The sight of blood drove him crazy and he raised his sword above his head. His mouth opened and he said a sentence he then cursed himself for.

"I can't believe I ever loved you."

"You never did." Mael replied with tears of pain glistening in her eyes. She stood with a roar and slashed her dagger across Siegfried's other cheek, giving him a matching scar.

Both combatants stood opposite one another, breathing heavily and wincing at their wounds.

They charged towards each other again, but were interrupted again by a scream of:

"Now!"

Siegfried spun as the Captain rushed toward him and the Captain rammed himself into Siegfried knocking him away from Mael. Caewen followed the Captain, and before Mael could cry out to her daughter an energy blast hit her in the back, a familiar energy blast.

Magic, but how?

Mael spun to see the mage smiling stupidly at her with weak balls of magic in his hands. He began to laugh and hurled more weak magic blasts.

Mael easily ducked the blasts and smiled "You can't beat me with that wimpy magic!"

The mage simply cackled, and hurled another blast of magic at Mael who ducked the weak blast. "You can't hurt me!" She explained, but the mage kept advancing.

"Crazy old man! Fine, then I'll just have to beat you." Mael charged forward and the mage hurled a ball of magic at her. She ran through the ball of magic and winced as the smell of elven magic entered her nostrils and her mind.

She inhaled the magic and felt her rage grow. My mother was right! Magic caused all this, and we were right to take it away from the world!

The mage shot a stream of weak magic at Mael, who took the blast and barely felt its effects. She lashed out with her sword and knocked the mage backward with a powerful swing, but the mage simply stood up and kept advancing with the same crazy smile across his face.

Mael lashed out with her sword knocking the weak blasts of the mage away. She closed the distance between them quickly and swung her weapon slicing the chest of the mage.

The mage screamed as the knife carved a path across his chest and his face finally showed another emotion besides that childlike grin. It was one of fear, as his shattered mind realized that he was too weak to defeat anyone, and against the elven queen he didn't stand a chance.

Mael charged forward towards the downed mage and placed a foot on his chest, spitting out words of rage. "Magic killed my mother and started all of this! We took it away, but still you keep using it!"

She lashed out with her sword slashing at the Mage's skin and clothing drawing magical blood. Mael let her anger explode, and she kept screaming in rage.

She screamed at the loss of her mother, at the war that was now spinning out of her control and the fact that her daughter was running around in this chaos, so close but so far away. She cursed her decision to send her daughter away, and every single scream and curse was punctuated by bringing the blade down.

Finally her vison cleared and she stared down at the bloody corpse of the mage. She looked around seeing orcs, humans, elves, thieves, pirates, and others fighting over the island with each group having their own motives.

Orcs battled humans with a vengeance, many of them fighting to avenging their fallen brothers. Battle-axes and curved swords clashed with the swords and shields of the Tempest Vanguards, as the orcs struggled to keep their Captain in sight.

Thieves ducked around both humans and elves, they sliced at bowstrings and hands, focusing on disarming the fighters rather than killing them. They saw each fight like a job, where they needed to get in, disarm their targets and get out as quickly as they could. Knights and elves grunted as their weapons seemingly flew from their hands, and punches and kicks rammed into them knocking them to the ground and separating them.

Cannon fire boomed like a thunder storm as the pirates and humans fired at one another. Pirates worked their ships like machines firing the cannons, reloading, and firing again.

Humans braced themselves as the cannonballs smashed into their ships, but they also fired, reloaded, and fired with practiced ease.

One pirate sloop sailed closer to its human counterpart, with the crew hurling ropes.

"They're going to board us! All hands on deck!" screamed a human voice.

The human knights rushed to the deck and held their shields high, riflemen stood behind them poking their guns through the gaps in the shields.

"Fire! Repel boarders!"

Pirates leapt for cover as the gunfire ripped over their heads. They quickly seized their own rifles and returned fire with their guns tearing through the shields and armor of the knights.

"Pull men, pull! Reel them in!" Screamed a pirate.

The pirate sloop moved alongside the human sloop and the pirates charged forward leaping or swinging across the small gap. The pirates lashed out with swords and axes knocking shields aside and breaking defenses. The human knights swung their swords biting into flesh and spattering the deck with blood.

The battle for control of the sloop soon was spread over the entire deck with the clash of melee weapons and the crack of gunfire drowning out the crash of the waves and the sounds of the ship.

The biggest ship of the pirate fleet sailed forward letting loose its fearsome arsenal of cannons and swivel guns. Smaller human sloops and frigates were shredded by the rain of cannon fire that came down upon them.

"We've got them now!" shouted the Pirate Captain to his crew members, who cheered in response.

"Captain, look!"

The Pirate Captain raised a spyglass to his eye as his boatswain continued. "That big ship there…it's staying relatively clear of the battle."

The Pirate Captain swept an eye over the human ship. "It's about as big as we are, has the same about cannons that we do, and the deck is crawling with human knights and riflemen. It's odd that it isn't leading the defense."

"What do we do about it sir?"

The Pirate Captain winced as a nearby ship exploded raining debris into the water. "Do we still have that stolen human ship?"

"Aye sir, we've been keeping it out of the battle, thought that it could be used for an ambush."

"Once this battle clears up a bit take that ship and get as close to the big one as you can. We need some answers."

"Aye sir."

Back on land the humans bombarded the elves from afar with their cannons and rifles, and any charge that was sent to dislodge the humans failed. The humans were enjoying their position over the elves and made it clear as they fired.

"Hah, this is so much more fun when they can't shoot back."

"Yep! We're ripping them to shreds!"

"I still can't seem to hit anything!"

The cannons fired again and again sending elves scurrying back to cover. Fired arrows and hurled spears fell short of the humans' position and gunfire cut down any elf that was in the open.

"Well, you humans certainly have ideas about our tech."

The humans spun around to see the dwarf staring at them intently. His scarred body and face along with the two oversized guns in his hands, unnerved the humans a bit, but his eyes sent the humans into a state of pure panic.

The two eyes of the dwarf seemed to stare into the humans' very souls, piercing their defenses like two pieces of burning ember. The dwarf squeezed the triggers of his guns and balls of burning fire sailed out towards the humans.

They leapt for cover as the projectiles struck the cannons and exploded sending clouds of smoke through the air. The dwarf smiled "Yeeha!" as he dealt out his revenge.

"You humans abandoned us to die, but you loot our tech! That's all you care about, cannons not lives?" The dwarf kept firing as the humans around him ran for cover. "It's time to use my tech to destroy your lives!"