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

Chapter 13: The Loss of Innocence

Elvadith knew a Sun Elf must reach the Sun Altar below and sound the alarm, or all of Elithradë would suffer a fate akin to Al’Elromir. Truly ancient now, the old Elf moved into battle completely unarmed and unarmored. Using his powerful and long-honed willpower, he paralysed a dozen Gnolls around him with merely a thought, and proceeded to dispatch them with a flurry of strikes too fast for the eye to follow. The highest-ranking Master Sun Elves gathered quickly around him - forming a sea of calm amidst a raging torrent - and although they lacked any true battle experience, they had trained their whole lives in the arts martial, and with no weapon other than empty hand and striking foot, the group fought their way towards the Portal and the Sun Altar below - that were their sacred blood-duty to protect. As they finally neared the Main Chamber, there were hundreds of Gnolls scrambling about, and many had begun to pour into the streets of Elithradë, outside the Temple proper.

For each weaponless Master Sun Elf that died that night, forty Gnolls were sent to their final resting places. Finally, with no living Master Sun Elves remaining around him, old Elvadith reached the Sun Altar itself, and as he reached for it, a Gnoll crossbow bolt buried itself in his chest, followed by a second and a third. He fell across the Sun Altar dead, but with his dying breath he moved his hand into the palm print engraved in the Altar stone.

The dreaded and dire magical alarm of the Sun Altar, which had been designed with the hope to never see actual use, was sounded. A brief shining column of purest azure energy leapt from Sel’Sha-Tinolad into the heavens above Elithradë, illuminating the darkened sky for a thousand leagues. Then, originating at the palm print of the Sun Altar, a faint and glowing azure sphere appeared. Nearby Gnolls cringed instinctively, but the harmless sphere merely grew outwards, washing harmlessly past them as it expanded. A silent but forceful magical nudge, which only the Elves could detect, it expanded outwards rapidly - first encompassing Sel’Sha-Tinolad, then the entire floating city of Elithradë, and finally expanding to the very edges of the horizon, washing over the other Elven floating cities as it went.

Far away, Eluldor felt the magical sphere wash past him, as he observed the towering pillar of azure light fade from the night sky, visible even from his great distance. The foolish Gnolls had allowed the Elves to sound their alarm. It was of little consequence, he reasoned - by the time the Elven army from Tinadia-Bael reached Elithradë, the Gnoll’s would have a solid foothold in the Elf-capital, and the destruction they would wreak there would at last require the harsh Elven response he so desired...

Many thousands of Elves woke from their reverie that fateful night, too dazed to properly fathom the ramifications of the magical warning and the strange twilit darkness all around. Nobles, artisans, wizards of renown, master swordsmen, Council members, commoners - all as one they were in a state of utter bewilderment.

The Elven Elite, the only other combat-capable unit in Elithradë besides the Sun Elves, fully understood the meaning of the alarm, and flew from their beds and barracks and chambers and assembled in the courtyard beneath the Council Tower in minutes, as they had been trained to do for just such an event, clad in the mightiest non-magic armors and weapons that Elven craft could design. The Captain of the Elite ordered them to head for the High Sun Temple immediately - and at full-flight they literally flew on their feet across the floating city, past dwellings and shops with startled owners still awaking.

When the Elven Elite reached Sel’Sha-Tinolad, they were already too late. The vista that greeted them was one of hundreds of heavily armed Gnolls spilling from the temple and into the surrounding wide roadways, burning and pillaging as they went. The temple itself was in the throes of a massive battle, as the remaining and scattered Sun Elves inside fought for their very existence. Without fear or hesitation, the two score of Elven Elite - the greatest collective swordsmen of their time, and the mightiest military unit on all of Lareleth - charged down the wide laneway and engaged the countless masses of rampaging Gnolls.

In a whirlwind of flashing star-lit steel, and with an impossible grace almost dancelike, the outnumbered Elite decimated the Gnolls in the streets without even breaking their rapid pace. There was no ringing of steel or clamor of voices in this eerily silent confrontation, for none could parry the passing Elves’ lethal strokes: each slash - a kill. There existed no Gnoll armor to find resolve against the Elite's deftness, and no Gnoll's prowess could have landed a blow against the Elite's quickness. In seconds, scores of Gnolls littered the streets, their deaths quick and painless, and the Elite reached the very entranceway of Sel’Sha-Tinolad unslowed. It was here, in the expansive Sun Temple's courtyard, beneath the sullen and uncaring altered moons of Lareleth, that the Elite charge finally faltered, for here the Gnolls were simply beyond count, and for every Gnoll they slew, twenty took its place. At last the eerie silence of the Elite's charge was broken - as outnumbered by the hundreds, they began to perish one by one amidst growing Gnoll battlecries.

With the Elite dispatched to the last Elf, the Gnoll forces spread into Elithradë, shedding Elven blood like water as they went. The majority of the growing Gnoll army in the Elf-capital was quickly lead by the Gnoll Warchiefs towards the promised Coucil Tower with its Portals, and the other Elf cities accessible there-in. The Warchiefs knew that by the time the Elves could mount a formidable resistance, all five Elven city-states would be under Gnoll siege from within...

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