S P I N N I N G R E A L I T Y

Chapter 12: Eluldor's Revenge

Finally, as Eluldor turned to take his leave of the gathered Gnoll Warchiefs, he turned and demanded one last thing, using their primitive tongue:

"Once the double eclipse begins, it is an omen that the mighty Gnolls Gods have given their blessing, and you must advance the Gnoll armies under cover of darkness. Lead them to the rocky bluffs in the heart of this desert, and there scale the highest bluff! Atop it you shall find an empty Elf temple, plainly visible to the naked eye! Inside it, a shimmering golden portal will take you to the Elf-capital high overhead! The portal exits into another Temple in the Elf-capital, and there you must slay every living Elf before you siege the city proper."

Eluldor Anadir then took his leave of the Gnoll Warchiefs for the last time, passing from their encampment and journeying farther north, high into the surrounding Mountains of Nyriand. For the first time in many long years, he allowed his magical Gnoll guise to slip away. When at last he reached the highest point he could safely make - far above the Desert of Nyriand below - Eluldor began casting the most powerful spell ever woven by any Elf on Lareleth. Eyes closed, he tapped the immense runic power of the Lotharic Stone in far off Elithradë via his fragment, and then he reached out and focused on altering the orbit of the two smallest of Lareleth’s three moons. As the Elf cities quivered imperceptibly in the skies overhead due to his drain on the Lotharic stone, he stood unmoving for eight hours before he finally collapsed, exhausted from the immense channelling effort. His research in the sands below had proven correct, however - for when he opened his eyes, Lareleth’s two suns were wholly obscured by two of the planet’s much nearer moons. He had never seen such a strange darkness, for as the two moons now moved in perfect tandem with the two suns, there was only a starlit twilight all around. He knew his timing was perfect - many Elves would be sleeping at this hour of their eternal day in the Elf-capital Elithradë. There would be none able to fully anticipate what was coming. Yes, tonight the Elves would be reminded of Al’Elromir - but since that time, Elven power had grown nearly indominatable - and the response he hoped to elicit from them this very night would change the face of Lareleth forever.

However, even the mighty Eluldor Anadir could not have predicted that his flawless plan was indeed flawed...

And so it was - in the magically-contrived twilight of Lareleth - that an age-long, dark time of trial for the Elves would begin. Seeing the impossible omen overhead and the strange unholy darkness all around, the Gnolls were at once convinced of their promised and god-given destiny, and they mounted their long-anticipated assault. They rose from their desert sands, from their fortresses, and from their hidden places, by the tens of thousands, heavily armed and armored, a fierce bloodlust radiating from their red-rimmed eyes. Their Gods had called them to serve…and serve they would. Like an ominous cloud of doom they swept across the darkened desert floor, unseen under cover of Eluldor’s artificial twilight, and at a full run moved to the bluffs he had indicated them.

Eluldor unfolded the next component of his plan. The Gnolls would not be able to find the hidden Elf Temple atop the bluff without his additional assistance, for he himself had aided in its hiding long ago. Concentrating from his distant mountain perch, he carefully unwove the spell hiding the Lower Sun Temple against the bluff, and just as the leading Gnoll warriors crested the bluff’s high lip, the Elf Temple was clearly illuminated in the twinkling starlight before them.

The first wave of Gnolls that entered the deserted and darkened Elf Temple moved straight for the shimmering portal at its center. Genetically selected by nature’s own hand to fear anything resembling Elf magic, the leading Gnolls hesitated. However, many omens that night had already indicated their gods' will. The time had come to finish what they had started so long ago, and in unison the first wave overcame their fear, charging through the waiting portal with weapons drawn.

When these first Gnolls emerged high above in Sel’Sha-Tinolad, the High Sun Temple which housed the portal connecting Elithradë to Lareleth, the dozen Sun Elves stationed there were hopelessly distracted, staring bewildered at the unnatural darkness all around them. And so they died with little resistance - several even stabbed brutally from behind with their backs turned on their ceremonial duty. Eluldor knew that most Sun Elves, although powerful fighters, were typically too young and too sheltered to have sufficient discipline to properly maintain their ceremonial post when presented with such an impossible celestial alignment in the heavens. He knew in recent times, many of the temple’s more powerful Sun Elves had taken to meditating in the upper chambers of the High Sun Temple - a more productive task for them than guarding the uneventful portal below - a task that had quickly become left to younger Sun Elves.

Like a spreading plague beyond control, countless Gnolls entered Sel’Sha-Tinolad via the portal, and for minutes that lasted an eternity, they killed every Sun Elf they encountered, many deep in slumber in their small resting quarters. Like the last seconds of calm before a breaking storm, the murderous silence finally gave way to the shouts of battle, when a large group of Elder Sun Elves was attacked while meditating in the Higher Temple Chambers. The remaining Sun Elves all throughout the temple were awoken by the noise - and unarmed, unarmored, unprepared, inexperienced, outnumbered and caught unawares - they were decimated by the Gnolls. When Elvadith Lómodien - meditating alone in the highest chamber of Sel’Sha-Tinolad - finally overheard the commotion, he moved down into the temple proper, and right into a desperate fight for survival. The older and higher-ranking Elder Sun Elves in Sel’Sha-Tinolad were now strongly resisting the unexpected invaders, but there were more and more Gnolls filling the temple with each passing minute, intent on killing all before them...

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