Chapter 1
It is said in the ancient legends that one day, warriors will rise across the land.
These combatants from around the realm will do battle.
Why? Only the gods know.
When? Only time will tell.
Where? Perhaps on this plane, perhaps another.
For what? A prize beyond the imagining of mortals.
On the western plains, a lone swordsman squares off against a platoon of fifty men.
With blood-soaked armour gleaming in the sunset, he slays foe after foe with strikes from his blade.
Raising his sword, he cuts down his final opponent with practiced ease.
He wipes his weapon on the fallen man's coat to clean it and he grins "Another glorious battle ends."
In the eastern deserts, a caravan slowly makes it's way across the harsh sands.
Wandering near the back of the caravan, a man covered in a ragged cloak mulls over his past mournfully.
Screams from the front draw him from his slumber as a giant sand scorpion ambushes the guards from below.
With a sigh of resignation, he begins walking towards the monster as others push past him to flee.
Crushing the head of a guard between it's mighty claws, the scorpion is suddenly distracted from it's future feast by the smack of metal against it's shell.
Turning to face the threat, it takes another hit as a second metal chain smashes into it's left eye, the dagger-like tip slashing through the bulbous orb.
The scorpion, now enraged, charges toward the man causing it so much pain.
The man in question, wielding a chain wrapped around each forearm, dives to the side with lightning speed.
As the beast passes him, the man wraps his left chain around the scorpion's claw.
Finding it's claw tangled, the monster decides to stab at the man with it's poisonous tail.
Reacting quickly and fluidly, the cloaked figure turns his body and avoids the deadly tip, wrapping his right chain around it in the process
Before it has time to move, the man passes the left chain under the beast's head, leaps off a nearby rock and sends himself skyward.
"What a pain..." the man complains to himself as he ascends.
Pulling his right chain taut, he wrenches on the left and propels both himself and the tail downward
The bloody tip, red with guilt, pierces the scorpion's tough shell and brain.
Within seconds, the beast lay dead and the man begins walking onward in penance.
In the north, on a freezing tundra, two humans do battle with a mighty frost troll.
A boy no older than eighteen, armed with a spear, jabs at the monster's chest as a girl no older than him slashes with a pair of daggers at the back of it's legs.
The troll turns to attack the girl, when it receives a painful stab to the chest as a reminder of the other threat.
Swinging it's mighty arms, the monster wards off the proceeding thrusts but collapses when the girl cuts through a hamstring.
It collapses in the snow and the boy leaps upon it, finishing the troll off by impaling his spear through it's heart.
The two humans, tired but not done, face each other and slap their gloved hands together in celebration.
"And there's our dinner, sis!" The boy shouts jovially over the fierce wind with a large grin.
In the southern forests, a pack of dire wolves surround what they believe to be an easy meal.
A hulking brute of a man stands alone, showing no concern for the threat around him.
With aggressiveness only attributed to this cousin of the common canine, the pack attacks.
Raising his arms, he grabs two of the wolves by their growling heads as others latch onto his arms and legs.
Attempting to bring the man to the ground, the wolves first warning that something is wrong arises when they taste his blood and flesh.
Foul in nature, the meat tastes rotten and diseased.
The second warning comes when their two companions drop dead, skulls crushed by his bare fists. Suddenly, the brute attacks.
One wolf is slammed against the ground, it's back broken.
Another is sent flying with a kick.
Yet another is simply torn in half between the man's trunk-like arms.
Within seconds, the wolves find their numbers halved.
Whimpering in fear, the beasts turn and run into the darkness of the trees.
The man, rotting and unliving, resumes his march.
Beneath the central Capitol, a woman chants in a darkly mystical room.
Runes fly as the woman murmurs in an arcane tongue.
The candles reveal a body that men would die to touch, and many have, wrapped in a black robe that does nothing to hide it.
As the spell escalates, the body of the sacrificed girl at the woman's feet begins to glow dark red.
Before long, the witch completes the incantation and a hand wreathed in flame emerges from the corpse. This is followed by another and soon, a demon coated in fire pulls itself out of the grotesque portal.
It turns toward the witch and kneels in servitude.
The woman smiles in wicked glee as she sees her dreams coming to fruition.
Those nobles would soon pay for killing everyone she loved, she pledged.
These men and women are the Gods's Chosen for this mighty battle.
Defeat means death.
Victory means losing something and yet gaining everything.
Soon, the Battle of the Eternal Realms shall begin once more.
