The human mythos isn’t clear on the origins of their game called “chess.”

The simple activity played upon a sixty four square grid and involving two players playing black and white pieces respectively, has become one of the more controversial points for historians studying human history. This is mostly due to its significant cultural influence against its relatively esoteric origins. From arguments ranging to an invention in the ancient dwarvish-human border cities in pre-cataclysm Aiagon, to even a religious tale speaking of an original inventor from beyond the realms themselves; there is but one thing that almost every person agrees on.

It’s pretty damn strategic when you really get into it.

And if asked on what the most important part of the game is, any real chess player’s answer would be simple:

The opening move defines the rest of the game.

A total of seventeen gathered gang members in the midst of a full charge; a melee about to be met in seconds as they roar forth a battlecry of incomprehensible obscenities and screams. An expected enemy of easily conquered patrol officers, of a crime to be done without evidence beyond the watchers in the street.

Not against the men and women of the Heavy Response Division.

Let’s see if you die tonight.

Weave concentrators burn in activation, the police mage calling forth power as ocean-blue electrical arcs roar past a three leveled arcane circle and across fingertips. The scent of ozone consuming the air, droplets of rain suddenly caught mid fall as magnetic fields invert against a mind boggling voltage.

Lightning called forth from the strings of reality, the weave buckling under the pressures of a new master as Officer Underfoot barely holds back a crazed smile. A voice yelling out operational language, a warning against uncontrolled power about to be unleashed. “LUX LUX!!!”

Electricity bridges from fingertips along a compressed rod of pure weave energy out to the closest suspect, electron movement at the speed of light slamming into the body of flesh like a torrential river.

An amperage low enough to avoid lethally stopping hearts, yet powerful enough to literally burn neurons into unconsciousness. A first target enveloped in a blinding flash, their mind literally whiting out from stimuli. A form unable to absorb power as limbs convulse in random movement, the bolt of electricity simply arcing onto its next victim with the same results.

Rain soaked bodies provide ample opportunity for the flow of current, a river of electrons taking out suspects as the majority of the northern front simply collapses onto the wet cobblestone in mind-shattering pain.

The crack of thunder, a sound that threatens to shatter windows as arcs of lightning finally dissipate. Ears left ringing as the resultant shock wave nearly deafens the squad.

Behind him, Sergeant Jarka shoulders her assault lute. A concentrator barrel pointing outwards to the incoming force, her gritted mind connecting with the casting focus as she rips power from her very being.

Soul attuned to the very heart of the living world, golden energy weaves upon the instrument of destruction as she levels the thing right atop nine incoming hostiles.

The forty foot line is crossed, then the thirty; a ranged spell sprung as gangers sprint right into the trap. Gold light flashes across the frames of living beings as a small tune carries through the chaos, a woven power reaching into the subconsciousness of minds like a parasitic monster feasting upon thoughts and dreams of lovers and families.

Five stop in their tracks; eyes glowing pale yellow as entire existences are enraptured in utter terror. A horror personalized to their very being; living hells torturing minds as jaws are left agape in unspeakable fear.

The remainder still hold their charge, fueled by adrenaline and mindless wanton for violence.

Your turn.

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The last line of defense is left to the true specialists of the party; bodies at the apex of creation created by raw fitness. A being of actionable sinew and muscular flesh, instinctive neurons trained in the reaction against all incoming threats. Bodies preparing for combat, idle stances lowered as they step forth into the carnage of melee.

Officer Alse Ican readies her maul, electrical energy carving its way through the droplets of rainfall. Immense musculature flexing upon itself as a four-on-one duel is decided by fate, body suddenly calm in the moments before contact.

Rage, controlled by a will of steel. A calmness created from the pure and utter suffering of life itself, focused by a conscious mind towards actionable, physical power. A berzerk state expressed through the first swing, the two handed maul swung in an arc towards her left most target. Bludgeoning damage crushing ribs, an electric shock stunning the ganger’s nervous system beyond the ungodly pain surging through her form.

A second attack created from immense speed; the heavy, unwieldy weapon seemingly weightless in the hands of barbaric strength. The wounded ganger’s reaction time just barely manages to survive the incoming assault; the targeted soul raising their blade in a desperate block attempt. Wrists still crack and fingers still dislocate, a physical form unable to fully contain devastating damage.

Jason Ford is left; blue eyes staring down two attackers as the arcs of electricity from his partner’s arcane lightning clears in the slow motion of reactionary times. A first combat already sending him against bad odds, a sword gripped heavily as he tries to take a deep breath.

This is for real, you could die here.

One attack formed by the first ganger, a lower handed strike with a shortsword in a wild, untrained form; easily countered. A body simply moves with training, the steel of his bladed weapon gliding through the air as Jason Ford matches the incoming attack with a brilliant, almost academic counter parry from the opposite direction.

Steel on steel sends a shower of sparks into the rain, magical enhancement rejecting foreign metalloids as the incoming attack is deflected away from flesh. A kinetic energy still preserved as the ganger’s attack soars towards uselessness, the reaction time within the young soul’s brain noting the slower form of the second ganger giving at least two seconds for the completion of the current engagement.

A mind allows it, Jason Ford’s own voice speaking to himself. Keep it moving overhand, flat of the blade into jawline.

Arms swinging the sword over his head, the fighter surprises even himself at the speed of his action. The flat edge of the lethal weapon exposed as it crosses its apex, a non lethal strike targeted right at the critical point of the nervous cluster.

Jason Ford misses.

A strike several inches above the covered jawline of the ganger, the concussive force of the nearly four pound sword instead transferred directly into the skull. The crack of bone against impossibly stiff steel rings with a horrible thud, the attack still non-lethal but not as clean. He watches as the stunned and damaged body is thrown back in the shock of pain and possible concussion, the fellow gang member following up with an intended strike from behind the wounded.

More proactive, more power; always found in the arcane. Jason Ford’s sword glows greenish blue as he speaks the concentrator phrase, youthfully scrawled runes from the homebrewery of spells suddenly activating in response to a master’s bidding.

Energy condenses, kinetic force violating physical laws as it hangs micrometers above the blade; chaos barely contained by arcane fields.

The ganger hesitates, body grinding to a stop as a conscious mind attempts to quantify their attack against the police officer. Thoughts consuming what should be a simple strike, beaten to the punch by a vicious reaction time.

Jason Ford’s strike only grazes leather armor, a hair trigger released as the burst of kinetic fury slams into its target. Arcane sigils collapse reality itself, a wave of thunderous power throwing the ganger’s body back almost ten feet back and onto cobblestone roads.

Hostile creatures regathering breath as they regain footing, two strikes enough to cement a microcosm in a larger battlespace. Ford’s cold, readied stance prepared for another round, a fight barely beginning as vision tunnels towards the pair of criminals at his very front.

Jason Ford, a child of South, completely outmatches an initiated group of gangers through physical prowess and arcane talent.

He barely perceives it.

Forty feet away, a shadowed form raises something towards him; a ranged weapon aiming directly on target. Neurons tear through panic, the reaction of the young soul to an incoming projectile found in an instinctive reaction.

A sequencer circle ripped into existence with immediacy and barely passable craftsmanship, the advice from the police mage taken with grave seriousness as Jason Ford creates the half dome of shielding abjuration energy centered right on the palm of his left hand. Glowing pale green, an eight sided arcane sigil ignites the sheets of rain as the fortification condenses into a wall of hyper-dense weave-matter; unbreakable by conventional bolts and arrows.

The flash of a black powder explosion from the weapon forty feet beyond brings forth unconventional means; a rifled bullet of lead and arcanite dust sent into the world at lethal velocity right into the half-orc police officer.

The Age of Magic is over.

You’re dead.