Azaphael vs. Falstaff
Harvestmonth 4th, 557 
The Park board
 
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 defense 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 defense 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         12      c1xf4   b8-c6
2       b1-c3   h7-h5         13      c4-c5   g7-g5
3       d1-e2   h5-h4         14      f4xg5   f8-g7
4       g1-f3   h8-h5         15      h4-f5   e8-f8
5       g2-g4   h5-h6         16      g5xe7+  d8xe7+
6       d2-d4   c5-c4         17      f5xe7   d7-d6
7       e2xc4   h6-d6         18      c5xd6   c6xe7
8       f3xh4   g8-f6         19      g4-g5   c8-f5
9       e4-e5   d6-b6         20      g2xb7   a8-c8
10      e5xf6   b6xf6         21      b7xc8   f5xc8
11      f1-g2   f6-f4         22      d6-d8+ (and mate, IMO)

Heroes:
Skippy    Sam     Jay  Simon   Jack   Slither  Seth   Jonathan
Fluffy  Corporal  Lou  George  Sylvia   Liz   Captain   Frida
         Chuck                                 James

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*


[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. No, 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. *g* 
   And yes, I've played too much Worms at some point. ;)]