The War of the Quick Elves, pt 1

A new story I've been working on, alongside my other felarya story. First part in hopefully a short series. writing tips welcome!


Mark shouldered his crossbow. The sun was setting in the forest, and the dim light flitted through the leaves of the canopy in tones of sepia. He and the others were starting to sit down for a meal before the night set in, and it would be a considerable length before they had the chance at daylight again. His backpack slid down his arm in a practiced, fluid motion he had learned during his days in the war. His pack was considerably light, considering its contents: three heat tanks, two hydromagnets, an ammunition generator (Amgen, for short), and his camping supplies (if you could call it that, he thought). Their tents had been abandoned long back after an incident involving a large creature that resembled a six-legged wolf and the loss of their Rifleman, Edman, when his neck was severed in the surprise attack. Not that they needed to sleep anymore; the Department of Alchemy & Elixir had long since discovered how to make only one hemisphere of your brain sleep. They could walk for days.
Their predicament had started when they had been ordered to take the long march around a heavily fortified enemy encampment. The barren plain had abruptly ended in a forest, an error in their maps, but the Mage had sensibly commanded them to press on, both for being outside secure communication range and under a time restraint. Their target was a supply depot to the west, and after one day in the forest, they had not found the depot, or any signs of the enemy camp or presence at all. When they turned back, the forest had covered the plains in the first leg of their journey, to the confusion and frustration of Mage Philip.
After several tests, he had determined that, somehow either by trickery, deception, or conspiracy they had wound up in a different dimension. After seeing smoke in the distance, Phil decided that contact with intelligent life, hospitable or hostile, was now the top priority.

They ate silently; each of them had nothing to say, and no need to draw any attention to themselves in this strange forest. After muscling down the ration pack, Mark went to urinate in the nearby bushes, then created a myriad of pockmarks in the nearby tree using his Amgen. Since all the ammo had been left with Edman's body, they had to start using these. The small device looked like a small machine gun barrel, with a small assembly of clockwork and a steam port at the back end. It extracted and compressed material into slugs (in this case, half-bolts for his crossbow) using miniscule amounts of steam; any material worked, but some were better than others, and less wood was required than dirt. He worked them in small rows, tempted to leave his name in the pits he was creating.
"What are you doing to that tree?"
Mark spun around, drawing his pistol in his right hand and his knife in his left. A tall, slender woman slapped his wrist and took the pistol from his hand, examining the small steam bottle in its handle while turning it about in her hands. Mark had left the safety on, knowing that gunfire was inefficient at those ranges, only meant it as a deterrent. He ducked to the left, getting some distance between them, and assumed his stance. When he looked back, the pistol hung in the air for a moment before falling, the woman having taken several steps toward him already. He hesitated for a moment, shocked at her speed. Her hand started for him and he swung with the knife in his left hand. Her arm flicked to the side and the knife cut only through the air, it's blade reflecting in the moonlight. The large sleeves on her arms extended long, ornate blades with a locking sound in a quick pose, before bringing up her foot to his chest. The kick landed square in his chest plate, and she managed to put an elbow across his face before he hit the dirt. His knife, its edge sharpened to a width of nanometers, pierced the ground to its hilt as it dropped.
When he finally got the chance to look up at his attacker, he took the time to actually look at her. She had a beautiful face with freckles, short red hair, and her blue eyes seemed backlit. The blades, crossed at what looked like an inch from his neck, extended from ornate holsters attached to her forearms and were partially covered by strange-looking fabric. The clothing was, to his distracting enjoyment, skin-tight and form-fitting, and reflective plates that looked strikingly like feathers covered parts of her body in an exotic fashion of armor. A form-fitting breastplate affixed her chest, the top of some design visible just above the edges of her blades. Her long legs were bent at the knees as she knelt atop his fallen body, and her hair hung around down around her apparently angry face. Disgusted that he had been surprised and subdued so quickly by someone, he didn't move--only contorted his face in anger greater than hers.
"Draw a blade against me again, human, and I will draw your head from your body." she said in a grim tone; the tempo of her speech struck him as rather odd, though. Each word was pronounced with excruciating exactness, but very quickly--he felt a little astonished he could even understand such fast language.
"I'm sorry, you just happened to sneak up on me in the middle of the night!" he said, dripping with sarcasm.
"Who are you? There aught not be humans in this section of the forest. Why are you here?"
"Maybe we could talk without the blades--" he said, pointing his fingers at them, but being careful not to move his arms.
"Answer me, human, before you die on your back!" Her arms inched the blades closer.
"Fine! Fine. We're lost, me and--"
"There are more of you? Where?"
"The mage and the others are over that way." He pointed his finger again, the only part of himself he dared to move.
"Why are you here? Why do you wear such strange clothes? What manner of human technology is this?"
"Look, if I don't get back soon, they'll come looking for me. And I don't think your super-speed is any match for Phil's PFM."
"Answer my questions! And what's PFM?"
"We were supposed to march around the enemy's fortifications, take out all high-priority targets, destroy any support assets, and report back. Simple mission, but somehow someone managed to fuck it all up. Probably you, ya damn--"
"Lower your voice! Draw the others near here, and I will kill you and your friends quickly and without mercy."
"The tech is steam, something far beyond the tribal ook-ook shit you wear."
"Do not mock the blades that thirst for your blood, insolent human. What is PFM?"
The magical resonance unit woven into his vest began to vibrate. They used it to detect mages and the like when scouting to find the proximity of magical power sources, the remains of large magical attacks, or any incoming. This was good, for him at least. He grinned. "Pure FUCKING Magic!" as he spoke, he spit into her face.
A lightning bolt arced through the brush, screeching like grating metal, and burned straight through her chest. The shock lifted her up and off of him, writhing in pain at amazing speed. Mark, blinded for a moment from the dazzling bolt, rolled to his feet and grabbed the knife from the ground. He started toward her, until he saw the gaping, cauterized gap in her chest. The glow was gone from her eyes, her armor flash-welded together at the joints, and her body smoked lightly in the night. Phil emerged from the bushes behind him, wearing a large set of bug-eyed goggles with glowing frames.
"Nice job, Mark. Two hours in, you've already got the enemy's attention." He remarked disappointedly.
"I was only taking a piss here, and she snuck up on me."
"Some fairy with a couple swords almost killed a marine? A -most- embarrassing story. I'll be sure to tell the guys about this."
"Can it, Phil. She's like ten times faster than me. Kicked me, then planted an elbow in my face before I hit the ground."
"Ok, sure. But because of you, now we'll all have to piss in view of each other. Just to 'be safe.'" he smirked at the idea of his embarrassment, "Wouldn't want another fairy incident to happen again, huh?"
Mark muttered curses under his breath. Damned mage! Who the fuck put him in this squad anyway? Guy couldn't read a map if his life depended on it--hell, OUR lives depended on it.
Phil put a lightning enchantment on their suits, preventing an enemy's second physical hit, but still managed to poke fun at them, saying he shouldn't have to do something like this, that they should have learned hand-to-hand, blah blah blah. As Phil droned on, Mark hoped another strange woman surprised him and went straight to the beheading part. They trudged on, with the occasional jab about how Mark couldn't take females anymore.

Ooh...very nice.... You must continue this....XD

Thanks. I really appreciate your encouragement; sometimes it gets hard to keep writing.


Here is part 2:

The two elves inspected the corpse, the female now dead for at least a cycle. Flies floated above her, their wings moving with slow rhythm, propelling them through lazy arcs above her. The male looked to his partner, her outfit shimmering even in the still-starry sky of dawn.
"The ancient ways are unravelling," he said, glancing down again to the gaping hole in the dead elf's chest.
"So? It is only natural that they would. We have been here countless millennia, bound to ancient rules, intended to hold us back," she said. He thought he heard a bit of eagerness in that voice.
"Forty thousand cycles ago, she would have felt the presence of a caster a mile away, and kill him before he could say a word. I think we are becoming a lot more vulnerable here in Felarya."
"She did not feel that kind of presence?" her eyes lit up as she spoke. He turned to her with a look of surprise.
"Is that supposed to be a good thing?"
She paused for a moment, a smirk creeping onto her face.
"Yes...Yes it is."

Mas sat at the top of a tree, overlooking the forest as the sun rose. A soft wind blew leaves and dust into the air, becoming brilliant shades of yellow-green as they caught the sun's rays. Birds sang in low tones, their long notes almost like a chorus, welcoming the day. He felt refreshed, soaking up the feelings of the forest at the end of another cycle. Something else was in that feeling...someone was coming his way.
"Hey! Mas! Get down here!" a female voice said. He glanced down to see Trey standing near the base. "There has been some trouble!" She stood with a concerned look on her face, marring her beautiful face. Her usual sway when she stood was markedly absent, compounding his worry.
"What is it?"
"A new group of humans, more advanced technologically than the ones that live here. From the looks of things, they have a mage."
"Another wizard? So what? We have seen them before."
"No, no. They have killed one of us!"
Staring at her for a moment, his mouth formed half-words in silence. He thought of the implications of this situation. A human had killed a Quick Elf, which was extremely rare, considering how sluggish and clumsy their entire race was. The last one of them to die by human hands was over a year ago by their standards. The Quick Elves retaliated, and the poachers had been slaughtered in a fashion so as to set an example. Each neck had been sliced so quick and clean that when the men reached up to feel it, they pushed their head off their own shoulders; no human living in Felarya would touch them after that. That meant...
"Wait," he said, holding up a hand, "Are you saying one of us did it?"
"How else could they have killed her, if she was not Rushing?"

Mud continued to cling to the bottom of Mark's boot, its weight increasing with each step. He watched Arthur, ahead of him, kick the mud off onto passing trees, striking whatever small branch or insect that had the misfortune of being along their path. He laughed with each fling of his boot, the energy of the man continuing to boggle Mark's mind. The guy never seemed to quit. Mark had never seen him act tired, worn, or weary; sure the man complained from time to time, but you'd never see him unwillingly drowse. As far as Mark could tell, Arthur had only two speeds: awake and asleep.
"Wuh-oh." Arthur's 'quirks' were only offset by his uncanny senses and speed, Mark reminded himself. If this guy think's there's trouble, Mark thought, I'd better keep my eyes open. Arthur drew his hands to his face, his shotgun pointing to the sky, sticking out a finger to his right. "Munsters a'comin!" he said with a sqeak.
The sound to their right brought with it a flash of tiny mirrors, and leaves blurred past them through the air. Phil snapped down his goggles and looked after whatever had just passed them, cursing under his breath.
"Ha!" Arthur shot his foot to the left, the mud spattering against a tree as he stood posed like an action movie hero.
"Dammit Arthur...." A small, single white flag stood out of the tree, covered in mud. Mark lowered his weapon, looking down and shaking his head. "Be serious, would you?"
"A flag? Is that what shot through here?" Logan strode over and pulled it out of the tree. A stripped twig had been tied to a white strip of cloth. "Uh...who's supposed to be surrendering?"
"I just wish to talk, human." Mark recognized the speech: clipped, precisely pronounced, and devoid of contractions. To their left a tall woman, clad in reflective plates of armour, stood with her hands up. The shimmering figure dashed to the side, dodging Arthur's immediate shotgun blasts, blowing holes into the trunks right behind it as the barrel swept along.
"Dammit Arthur!" Phil jumped forward, lowering the man's weapon. "It had its hands up!"
"Well, maybe it shouldn't surprise me like that." Their eyes didn't meet, and he stared at the ground. Phil turned back to the woman, who had by now stopped moving, and shot his hand forward, gripping something invisible. She stiffened immediately.
"Who are you? and what do you want?"
"You must not be from this realm, human." Her face tensed while she struggled to move. "Please, release me. I mean you no harm." The edge in voice sounded a tiny bit like fear. Her armor consisted of long thin plates, almost like feathers, interlocking across her chest, legs, and arms. She looked like an elf out of fantasy books, with short, pointed ears, fair features, and light red skin. Her golden-red hair was pulled back with equally reflective ornamants. Cloth held fast to her where her armor didn't, and dull streaks in the plates on her chest seemed to form a symbol like an upturned capital L. Along her forearms, again similar to the one last night, what he presumed to be sheaths glistened in the morning light.
"Answer the question."
"My...my name is Lexico. I am what humans call 'The Quick Elves.' You have just recently transferred dimensions to Felarya, where-"
"Wait, transferred dimensions? When?" Phil raised his eyebrows and stepped forward.
"This would be much easier..." She again struggled to break free of his grip, "human, if you would release your ward. I promise you I mean you no harm."
"Oh come on, Phil," Mark sighed, "If she actually 'meant you harm', she'd have popped that big 'ol head of yours." He shrugged at Phil's glare. Reluctant, he released her; her feet barely touched the ground, as if she had only just decided that she would like to stop hovering.
"Sometime within the last few days and nights, you changed dimensions. This is common in Felarya and is not to be feared."
"We've been transa-morga-fied to the twilight zone!" Arthur oo-ed up and down, waggling his fingers at Mark and Phil.
"Shut up, Arthur," Phil quipped at him, "Alright, so we're in a another dimension. Who attacked us last night, and how do we get home?"
"I know not who attacked you, but I can tell you why: You are a mage, and our race despises those who can manipulate the powerful magics. If you know any techniques for suppressing your abilities, I suggest you use them. I am sorry, but that is what you humans say 'How it is.'"
"Oh really?" Phil sneered. "Well get fuckin' used to it! It was my magic that saved..." Although Phil was wearing his gloves, the long, lone finger he pointed at Mark still looked plenty accusatory. "...his ass last night! I sure don't intend to lose another friend in this god-forsaken moss farm!"
"Should you disregard my advise, your next encounter with the Quick Elves will not go as smoothly as this one." Mark heard an edge of desperation in her voice, and Arthur twitched to his right. Phil swung his pointing finger down and up again to face her.
"I'd stop with the veiled threats if I were you, you tree-hugging fairy! I aught to--" Phil's last word was literally cut short, as another glistening figure plunged his arm-swords into his throat and chest. Mark was still looking at Arthur, who caught the blades in the same place mid-fire. Adrenaline coursed through him, allowing him to see the innards of the elf that caught Arthur's shotgun blast move in the opposite direction. As he turned, both elves were bearing the brunt of the lightening enchantment, causing them to roll forward in coils of electricity. One of Lexico's blades pierced the stomach of another elf, the other swinging through it's neck. It's left arm had already been severed, and Mark spotted several cuts on Lexico already. He tried to think of how long that fight between them must have been; from when Phil got stabbed to when he turned to look.....
At that moment he remembered the fail-safes installed in their suits: their tanks were set to explode should the wearer ever die. The three-hundred-degree water and vapor weren't the only things contained in those suits either. An ever-burning coal sat right next to a water reservoir kept under extreme pressure, which also would rupture at death. They had been lucky with Edman, who died after the attack was over, giving Phil time to remove the sorcery. This, though, happened within the span of only two seconds....
Mark's arms had instinctively already brought up his crossbow, and they slammed into his face when Phil's suit exploded. He rolled three times longways, gaining speed when the second blast--no, Arthur--hit him. A tree stopped him, catching his stomach. He heard flocks of birds screeching and flapping away right before the dead silence overcame the forest. He uselessly tried to wipe his goggles, lifting them when his glove only served to make them even dirtier. Walking back, the smaller trees around where Phil and Arthur had been were splintered stumps, and the larger trunks nearer had pieces of brass, cloth, and glistening armor embedded in their skin around the pockmarks. For a moment, he stood and stared down at the shallow dips in the moistened, red-stained ground that signified the final resting places of his only two companions, friends, left in this dimension...
A thought struck him. He stepped away from the horrid place.
"Lexico!" He shouted at the top of his lungs, "Lexico!"
She peered around a nearby trunk, and stepped lightly around to face him. She held the barrel of Arthur's shotgun in her hand, like an axe. Mark sighed and put his hand up to his face, wiping it down.
"Yes, human?" She almost whimpered. Points of blood speckled her face, where blood--instantly frozen from the rapid depressurization--had hit. Drops of it came from the points of her armor, and her blades were hidden.
"What..." he started out softly, sharply raising his voice, "the fuck was that?! Is that what you were fucking threatening us with? Am I next? Are you going to slice off my head too, or are you too scared to get lightning shot out your ass?"
"I am...truly sorry for their deaths. But the others, the others attacked me as well. I fear that things...many things...are changing."
"Just, just gimme the gun, before you hurt yourself." She paused for a moment, considering the new weapon, and handed it over. Mark expertly reloaded it and refilled the steam cartridges without even thinking. He sighed, looking around, then down.
"Well, what now, elf? How the fuck am I going to get home? Where am I going to go? It's obviously too dangerous here for me..."
"I think I should take you to our leader. We have drawn you into something terrible, and I do not know the proper course of action. She will."
"Yeah? Fine. Where is she?"
Lexico looked him up and down.
"How fast can you run?"

Another great chapter.

Yeah...i just don't get a lot of crit XD so i just give compliments and such.