Caelathar and his archer team rushed towards the Great Speckled Fir of Blood. The elven druids in charge of the Fir's blood rituals have shot an Arrow of Distress, but oddly enough, with no note indicating anything of the nature of the threat, just a seal of the Druids of the Great Speckled Fir of Blood. Normally the druids would launch these hollow arrows even when there is no threat to their lives, but when they do they would insert inside a shaft a note in elegant Elven lettering indicating that their stocks of human blood has gotten low, thus the recipients should acquire fresh humans for the druids' magick research to continue. Had the druids not written their notes in human blood in the first place, perhaps they would still have had an ample supply of human blood to fuel their experiments.
This particular arrow though had no parchment inside, but it still has the seal. It having no message indicated one of two things: that either something grave has happened to the druids, or that the druids are going to do something grave to them if they don't haul their sorry asses to the Fir pronto. And seeing how the druids have remained unchallenged by the weak humans, or by the elves, or even by age itself for all the centuries they have had the grove, it seemed pretty unlikely that they would be in danger now.
Caelathar still wondered what the druids were up to when they could hear a reverberating noise from the direction of the Fir. Have the druids finally given up on their Treant project, and developed golems instead? From the distance, odd booming sounds similar to human city-guns can be heard, followed by distinctly elven screams. That surely can't be right; maybe the druids have accidentally summoned a human city on top of their heads. Well, now that's a sight that is worth watching! Caelathar smacked his lips at the idea that the pesky druids have finally been shut up with all their demands for blood; now maybe the rest of the elves can go back to the important matters of life, such as killing all those lumberjacks threatening the poor trees.
He could hear some sort of rusty creaking near the Fir before a flash suddenly illuminated the white cloud that mysteriously seemed to permeate the entire Black Forest. He then could hear something whizzing towards him, quickly. A human bullet, but one he has never quite heard before; arrows have a faint yet distinctive sound of ruffling feathers while this had none. Nimbly tumbling away to avoid the bullet, Caelathar realized that the bullet was much larger, and was aimed dead center at him. Despite his perfect elven reflexes, he still barely avoiding this large bullet as it grazed into his arm and continued forward into a mighty tree, piercing it without stopping and leaving a jagged scar on the tree trunk which made it crash down into Caelathar. The commotion distracted his archer teammates, who thus were not able to avoid the bullet on time as it skewered the bodies of three elves before smashing into a rock and exploding into shrapnel all over the rest the archer group, severely wounding them. This must be one of the knights, humanity's best warriors for a long time, able to defeat an elf in close-combat battle, but still pretty much arrow fodder. But what is this new weapon he is using?
Caelathar crawled out of the tree as he heard the earthy, unearthly din of the nefarious human knight as it bumped into another of the great trees. With horror he watched as the grumpy form pushed its metal head into the tree stubbornly, the tree spirit moaning as it was ruthlessly uprooted from the nourishing earth. Surely, if that knight can uproot one of the mightiest trees of the forest with such ease, he must be humanity's champion. This must be the same knight that the druids of the Great Speckled Fir of Blood must have shot an Arrow of Distress for; and he has slain them. All of them. Clearly, this human champion must be killed at all costs, to avenge the druids and protect the elves and the forest.
Caelathar nursed his arm back to health with some nature magicks, and lay in wait to ambush this champion. He could hear his foe getting closer and closer, its grey shape barely visible in the midst of the Black Forest, outlined only by the thunderous lightning lighting up the forest. He then lay just beside the path of the champion's mount, drew his sword and played dead, waiting for the foe to come closer, its groveling growing louder. No horse has its legs fully armored, and that would be Caelathar's first target. He would lop off the horse's legs, and then the champion would fall off his horse. A quick stab on the neck and this champion, no matter how big he is, is done for.
The very noisy champion passed very close to him. He swung and stabbed into the grey form. His sword recoiled in horror at the unnaturalness of the foe, but it seems the knight did not notice him. Withdrawing his sword, he swung it again at the sides of the human mount, and felt it chip into a nick in the armor. He smiled...and frowned as his sword got stuck, and cringed in horror as this mysterious mount kept twisting its sides and pulled both sword and him, dragging Caelathar awkwardly. What machine is this? Letting go of his grip, Caelathar took a second to regains his sense of direction, and realized that he was in front of the champion, his graceful elven foot already pinned by the champion's mount. He struggled to get free, but the champion trod over him, moving up his foot, breaking all the bones of his legs, then pelvis, before continuing on through the rest of his body. It was a gruesome way to die, and Caelathar could only scream.
Inside the mount, a gloomy Teutonic genius in drab gray coat with bright brown Lederhosen underneath watched from the peepholes of the L. K. A. 2 turret as the accompanying vehicles' 2 cm Breda autocannon-fire sawed down the trees of the Black Forest, bringing them down crashing together with the elven snipers hiding in the trees. A similarly glum German beside him then loaded a shell into the cannon, and waited as the commander drew a bead on a straggling elf. He shot – and missed.
"Needs more accuracy."
The driver, yet another morose man with a penchant for grey, gunned the mount's Maybach HL 38 TR engine and quickly ran over the elf while the commander let off another shot, a 3.7mm headshot that exploded another elf's brains. The other vehicles showed their flags, indicating that their respective missions are done as well. The commander then wound up his FuG 2 and contacted the mayor of the nearby town.
"It's done. The forest is clear for agricultural purposes."
Silence. The mayor was genuinely shocked that the centuries-old threat to his town can be defeated, and has been defeated so quickly. Back in the day knights would fall under elven arrows, and whole brigades of musketeers and riflemen were led into the forest where they would be stealthily picked off one by one; now they are defeated. All defeated by the metal monstrosities carrying town-cannons. Finally, still fumbling with the new-fangled radio, he cracked a joke to mark the beginning of a new era for his town. "So, we should carry those vehicles 'tractors' then."
The tankers groaned, of course. They wanted to name the vehicle after their pet cats, since every Teutonic genius had a classy cat to sit on his lap, or lurk in the den. Besides, 'tractor' is too agricultural; they were thinking big, real big, and calling their creations as a mere 'tractor' might divert state funding from their gigantic projects. "Just call it 'light tractor'; we have plans for even larger and more invulnerable machines."
With all the elves either dead or running away, and the mayor having dispatched the message to Berlin about the success of the 'light tractors', the commander finally opened the safebox in the tank. The crew looked on in an anticipating manner as he took out a silvery metallic bar, and broke it with his hands. He then handed a piece to each of his crew, who unwrapped the foil to find something dark and slightly melted inside. Chocolate.
And there was much rejoicing.
