Author's Note: The Park chess board features forest animals (Falstaff) and jungle animals (Azaphael). Pawns are squirrels/snakes, jungle rooks are elephants etc.
Azaphael vs. Falstaff
Harvestmonth 4th, 557
The Park board
Cast of Heroes (pawns upwards):
Skippy, Sam, Jay, Simon, Jack, Slither, Seth, Jonathan
Fluffy, Corporal Chuck, Lou, George, Sylvia, Liz, Captain James, Frida
Also featuring Chip, the mad kamikaze squirrel from the deepest pits of the abyss, who we didn't even manage to get killed before we had to surrender. He still had two thirds his tail intact when he was rescued. This is probably just going to make him even more arrogant. *roll*
The troops had gathered. It was time to solve the differences between the Jungle and the Forest once and for all. The snakes were licking the air expectantly.
The first squirrel squad made their move. The snake team sent out Slither, an excellent field fighter but with horrible hearing, to scout. Some horses gathered into a defensive stance before the endless-looking lines of squirrels. Skippy moved out carefully, and found the queen deer looking like she was preparing to trample him. He trusted Fluffy to cover his... behind half, however, and boldly wiggled his tongue at the deer. He was soon urged onwards to gather closer information about the troops waiting on the other side of the field, and to give more space to Fluffy, who was stomping the ground mightily, full of enthusiasm.
Another horse stepped out. Sam prepared for a fight, but with the newcomer distracting the deer, Fluffy, the mighty war elephant, had just enough time to dash out. She had been thoroughly briefed about the differences between mice and squirrels. The approaching squirrel would not stand a chance against her. The pesky little foam-mouthed rodent could do nothing. Nothing at all.
I realized that there must have had been an intelligence leak when the squirrel impudently winked at me and let out a very high-pitched squeak. Poor Fluffy. After all the therapy she had been gone through after that terrible accident, all her nightmares seemed to become embodied in that distant relative of the race she feared. Fluffy let out an enraged scream. But how could they have found out about her phobia? I called her to retreat a bit, since she was in no state to fight the little furry-tailed menace. This was going to get costly on the peanut side.
Another squirrel advanced, an easy target for Slither. I dispatched a runner boy to explain the situation to the veteran. A moment later, I saw Slither run past his intended kill, right in the way of the deer. Casualties: Slither (viciously turned into a horn decoration), and one runner boy. I called Fluffy to advance, but she wasn't quite under control yet either and stopped short of her intended goal, which might have given the murderous deer something to think about. Promising a certain squirrel my very personal attention later, I turned to see Skippy trampled by a horse. This wasn't starting too good.
I called Corporal Chuck to step out. He swinged over the defense lines gracefully and landed a little ways in front of them. I saw Chip, one of the most arrogant squirrels I've ever had had the displeasure to discuss trade deals with (that was before the war, of course), tie a red bandana around his head. He then charged towards Chuck. Oh gods, kamikaze squirrels. There are some days when you just shouldn't get up. I made a half-hearted attempt at bribing, but at a glance from Falstaff, Chip sent back my runner boy a packet of acorns and an arm poorer.
What was I to do? If I called in Chuck, Chip would slaughter Fluffy. And she wouldn't have a chance of getting away unless someone stayed behind to stall the feral squirrel. Sorry, Chuck, there's nothing I can do. I called Fluffy to retreat once again and made her instructions very clear.
She didn't have trouble overcoming her phobia when she looked back to the carnage. By the glare she fixed on Chip, I was worried she would just squash the murderous squirrel. But she showed great self-control, and only broke a few ribs from the son of a rat before she threw him into the waiting arms of my little torture team. Bring out the thumb screws and pictures of fruit cakes, lads. It's payback time.
While we were trying to get Chip to break and tell us where the red button of "DO NOT PRESS - will ruin all our plans and render our forces useless" was kept, an innocent-looking gopher advanced. I wonder how they always manage to look so innocent despite the dirty work they do underground. I asked Fluffy to move a little closer so we could see what was going on. The gopher never took its beady eyes away from the war elephant as she fell through the ground into a deep crevice dug by the sneaky little dirt-thrower's hidden colleague. Fluffy was luckily unconscious by the time the gophers overtook her.
Feeling somewhat frustrated, I recommended to my first advisor that he get out of my sight and fall on his sword somewhere out of the way. I swore Fluffy would get a hero's funeral afterwards - assuming we ruled enough land to fit her in by then. I was seriously getting on a bad mood, and ordering Chip's tail hairs to be pulled off three at a time helped it rather little.
At this point Captain James was really yearning for a piece of the action. I allowed him to advance before the defence lines after making sure he would not land in the middle of trouble the way Corporal Chuck had. The horned bitch chose this moment to take a threatening step forward. I could see Slither's unmoving body hanging from her horns. However, the sight was too much for Sam. Before I could react, he was already halfway towards his goal, which was either the gopher who killed Fluffy or the horse who trampled Skippy. Maybe he was going for the horse, after all, Skippy and Sam had been rather close even before they were picked into the team. He definitely wasn't paying enough attention to the gopher. Another good soldier was lost.
The troop morale was going down. I could sense it. Not that I would have admitted it if anyone asked. To be sure, I silently sent one of my remaining, amazingly few runners to prepare the escape wagon. The runner I sent after him to find out what was taking him so long returned, somewhat nauseous, with the first one's badly burned corpse and a charred piece of what used to be the escape wagon. I called Lou to move himself a bit. The Skippy-killer horse advanced. I saw it fit to suggest that George, the king lion, start edging towards some more freedom of movement. He, with his old, aching back, would need plenty of space to limp to if he should get threatened by the bloodthirsty deer.
All of a sudden Simon, one of the king's designated body guards, was taken over by a gopher. How on earth (or under it, more likely) could they move so fast? Before I could reach for my diminishing reserve of curses, the dirty little rat had both Sylvia and George on check.
With both the deer and the mad horse waiting behind the bushes, the queen tiger knew this wasn't the best of days to hunt down gophers. But that particular gopher was responsible of so many deaths, it had made a fool of the royal guard and dared to threaten the lion himself. A feline's got to do what a feline's got to do. That gopher would pay.
She leaped for the catnip. After tearing the gopher to little shreds, Sylvia barely had time to viciously growl at the enemy king, sitting in relative safety on the other end of the battlefield, before she was trampled down by the horse.
Jack was the head of the queen's guard. He completely lost it at the sight of Sylvia going down. He went straight for the deer. Queen for a queen. Only problem was the power balance, or imbalance. The poor guy never stood a chance, and after a quick blow, Slither got company.
But why hadn't I seen it before? Captain James was in the perfect position to revenge Sylvia's death. It was one of those times when you just can't stand back and look for cover. I signalled him to go for it, and one more of the murderers fell.
I found that I couldn't stop thinking about mopping up when I saw yet another of the feral squirrels take a step forward. I called out Liz, and the remaining gopher promptly took the chance to hunt down and kill Seth. Only two snakes remained of my defence line. As the gopher was distracted with doing despicable things to his victim, I told Frida to run for it. She didn't get far enough before the gopher noticed. Cpt. James couldn't even avenge her, he was being way too busy keeping the deer from getting to George.
But Liz was free, and her intentions were obvious. I was growing tired of the garnage and had already sent for the white flag. I tried to tell her to just dodge instead, leave the gopher be, he probably has a family too somewhere, but to no avail. Liz and Frida had been best friends. There was no stopping her from avenging the war elephant's death.
Finally, the deer stepped down to where she could get to king George in no time, without anyone being able to stop her, and demanded that we surrender. It wasn't too hard a decision. The small and wary group that was left of my once rather mighty army could not achieve anything more now than getting themselves captured or killed as well.
The actual moves as logged by the board:
1 e2-e4 c7-c5
2 b1-c3 h7-h5
3 d1-e2 h5-h4
4 g1-f3 h8-h5
5 g2-g4 h5-h6
6 d2-d4 c5-c4
7 e2xc4 h6-d6
8 f3xh4 g8-f6
9 e4-e5 d6-b6
10 e5xf6 b6xf6
11 f1-g2 f6-f4
12 c1xf4 b8-c6
13 c4-c5 g7-g5
14 f4xg5 f8-g7
15 h4-f5 e8-f8
16 g5xe7+ d8xe7+
17 f5xe7 d7-d6
18 c5xd6 c6xe7
19 g4-g5 c8-f5
20 g2xb7 a8-c8
21 b7xc8 f5xc8
22 d6-d8+ (and mate, IMO)
Author's Note: Sorry about the formatting; this thing does not appreciate preformat. Any connection between the names above and anything else is purely Freudian, except for Fluffy, which some necromancer would be bound to call his/her undead if they could name them. Not all the snakes are called S-something, I ran out of good S-names long before the end of the match. And despite the mysterious 'I' burning her game pants, *I* had great fun. So feel free to offer to kick my butt in chess, as long as you don't mind me turning it into cheap theatre. (And yes, I've played too much Worms at some point. ;))