Homesick:

Answers 4

It all began in the 14th century with a loud rumbling, and a sharp cracking sound. Human peasants looked up from their fields, and turned to face the sound. Then, from the sky, fell an angel. There, one of the noble guardians of the poor folk, a righteous and selfless hero humanity admired, lay bleeding. Their guts were spilling from their torso, as their entire mid section had been split open. They took one last gasp of air, and muttered a single phrase before they died: “Run…”

But it was too late. The demons had grown bored, and the raid had started. A horde of multicolored savages, rushing through the outskirts of the city, ignoring the farmers and heading straight for their target. Town guards didn’t even have a chance to unsheathe their blades before they were sliced in half, disemboweled, or impaled. The gleefully psychotic laughter echoed through the town, as criminals and warriors alike were slain.

The angels could not stand for such a raid to go unopposed though. So, they deployed the elite 43rd Light, headed by the third of the seven archangels, Mariel the Sacrificing.

For one week and four days, the battle roared without stop. lighting, poison, fire, and ice all exploded throughout the angel’s forces, as great beams of yellow light cleaved through the horde of demons. Be it from pride, courage, or a lack of self preservation, not a single soldier from either side fled the battle. Humans fled the city, or died in the crossfire. Corpses piled up, as demon and angel blood pooled together. Finally, only one combatant was left standing; Mariel, clutching their sword in one hand, and holding in their organs with the other. They scoured the battlefield for survivors, friend or foe, but their healing magic was not enough to keep them alive for long.

Finally, Mariel collapsed, making them the 3,000th angel casualty. The demons had taken a hit too though, with 4,000 casualties of their own. The ruler of the 7th circle, Butcher, among them. Neither side would sit still after this disaster. Angels obviously wanted vengeance, and demons… Well, as the saying goes, “even demons have their pride.”

And that, was how the great war began.

At first, the other races remained neutral, but it didn’t take long for faeries to be drawn in upon hearing of the many human casualties. Then, the faeries requested passage through the gremlin scrapyards. Gremlins at the time didn’t have much knowledge of the other races, and trusted them about as much as they trusted a flaming firetruck. So, they refused. Adamantly. It had always been their policy to refuse any contact with outsiders, and they weren’t changing it for something as trivial as a war.

The faerie diplomats were livid about this “trivial” comment, and the first mistake of the war was made. They attacked the gremlins, who did not know their ability to be revived by their king was unusual. Who thought that faeries were the same as them.

The gremlins made the second mistake of the war.

Upon hearing of the death of their diplomats, the sky blue queen was outraged. A brief war between the sky blue faerie kingdom and the pink gremlin kingdom took place, ending with the pink king holding their blade to the sky blue queens throat. Then the third mistake was made, as the pink king put their sword back in their sheath. The war was over after all, now it was time to discuss surrender terms.

The sky blue queen would be discussing no terms though. She knew not why the king had put away their blade, and she did not care. All she saw was an opportunity, blood for blood.

The fourth and final mistake. Had this, or any other of the four mistakes, been prevented, then the battle would never have spread. the gremlins would have returned to their tunnels and to their isolation, faeries and angels would have fought back the demons, and the war would have ended within less than a century at most. But these mistakes did happen, and things were about to escalate.

A cry went out through the scrapyards, gremlins watched in horror as the entire pink clan melted before their eyes. The primal fear in their eyes, the desperate cries for help, to anyone, to anything. It was traumatic, and most would never recover from what they witnessed.

A fierce roar swept through the gremlin’s tunnels, but not in the name of vengeance or justice. It was a simple, cold, pragmatic idea. If peace through diplomacy did not work, they would acquire peace through war.

However, gremlins did not want to risk more king-death, they needed to fight at full force. So, they turned to outside help for the first time. An uneasy alliance was formed with the demons, and a vast trade route was opened with the dwarves. The dwarves supplied parts for machines, and gremlins supplied new technology the dwarves could use to get more work done.

Dwarves were quite happy with this deal, as there was now no shortage of work for them. However, though they now had labor, they lacked materials. The gremlin warmachine industry was hungry for wood. Wood to fuel the fires, and wood to build the main bodies of the machines. The forests of the human realm that they harvested were simply not large enough in size or number, and their trees’ lumber was no flexible or durable enough. They needed elvenwood, and lots of it.

Elvenwood trees grew quickly, and the mother forest was large. So, dwarves sent diplomats to seek ownership of just a small portion. They would bargain with metal tools and meat, rare goods indeed for the elves. Things rapidly turned sour, and although who is to blame is lost to history, three diplomats on each side returned dead.

Enraged by the elves impudence and irrationality, the dwarves began their harvesting operations without elven approval. Unfortunately though, they had underestimated the elves’ love of the mother forest, and not a single member of the operation returned alive. 1,200 workers dead before the job was done, it was the final straw. Dwarves and elves were now at war. The dwarves turned to the gremlins for reinforcements, and by extension, gained the demons as their allies. The elves, now facing theĀ  entirety of the lower realms, found it wise to join with the faeries and angels. After all, they were all fighting the same foe, they might as well do it together.

 

 

Now, sides have been chosen, the motives have been provided, and the great war is about to earn its name…

 

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Comments

  1. So I get that the Gremlins are pragmatic, but how does even a pragmatic race form an alliance with a race that seems, from your description, chaotic?

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