The War of the Shifting Sands part 2

Fandral Staghelm led the charge, his son Valstann at his side. They had chosen the gorge so that their flanks would be protected against the unending flow of silithid. Shiromar was close behind the front line, casting spells as quickly as her energies would allow.

They had fought their way to the mouth of the gorge, Fandral and Valstann accompanied by the most battle-hardened sentinels, keepers and priestesses, with the druids healing and casting exhaustively. It seemed that for every massive cluster of silithid that was destroyed hundreds more would take their place. So it had been for the past few days, since word of the silithid incursion had first arrived and Fandral had sounded the call to arms.

The priestess Shiromar and her companions had all regained enough energy to call upon the grace of Elune simultaneously; they now watched as a blinding column of light obliterated the swarm blocking the gorge's terminus.

Then, a low buzzing sound filled the air. One by one, flying insect creatures--the winged Qiraji, flew over the lip of the gorge and down, striking at the druids in the supporting positions.

Fandral led the front lines from the gorge into the open sands, stepping over the corpse-mounds of the silithid. The air was alive with the thrumming of the Qiraji as they swooped down and slashed with clawed appendages. Fandral pressed forward to allow the supporting ranks room to spread out.

As she looked to a ridge in the distance, Shiromar witnessed swarms of land-bound Qiraji pouring over the crest like ants swarming from a hill. A towering monstrosity lumbered into view, swinging clawed limbs, looming over all, shouting commands to the insect soldiers.

Among the chattering and droning of the swarms, one sound seemed to repeat in the presence of the commanding warrior: Rajaxx, Rajaxx... though Shiromar did not understand the Qiraji's communications, she wondered if that might not be the creature's name.

As the next wave of Qiraji drew near, a great horn sounded: from the east and west, multitudes of night elves charged onto the field. With a blood-curdling cry Fandral and Valstann pressed straight into the heart of the oncoming swarm; the two sides clashed and melted into each other as the newly arrived forces crushed in on both flanks.

Shiromar felt for sure that they had won out; but as the shadows grew long and day proceeded into night, the battle continued. In the center of the fray, Fandral, Valstann, and the Qiraji general clashed in a desperate struggle.

As Shiromar narrowly avoided several attacks from the winged Qiraji, she glanced to where the general battled father and son. The numbers of the Qiraji were dwindling, and the general seemed to sense this, for with a mighty leap he bounded away, back to the ridge where Fandral had first spotted him. From there he disappeared and the few remaining insect-creatures were quickly eradicated.

That evening watches were set as the night elf forces rested. Fandral knew that the Qiraji threat had not fully been quelled, and he expected the battle to begin anew the following morning. Throughout the night Shiromar slept only in brief increments, the din of battle still ringing in her ears, though the surrounding desert remained quiet.

With morning, as the troops reformed and pushed on to the ridge they were greeted by an eerie stillness. Shiromar scanned the horizon but the Qiraji and silithid were nowhere to be seen. As Fandral prepared to press on, a messenger arrived with dire news: the town of Southwind Village was under attack.

Fandral considered pulling the troops back to defend the village, but he sensed that such an action would only leave an open door to invasion from the remaining Qiraji. They still had no idea of just how many the insects numbered, or even if they had seen all that this new race had to throw at them.

Valstann correctly guessed his father's thoughts and offered to lead a detachment to the village so that Fandral could stay and provide containment.

Standing close by, Shiromar heard the rest of their conversation play out:

"It could be a ruse." Fandral said.

"Surely we can't take that chance father." Valstann answered. "I'll go. I will defend the city and I will return victorious, upholding the honor of your name."

Reluctantly, Fandral nodded. "Just return alive and I will be more than satisfied."

Valstann gathered a detachment and Fandral watched his son depart. Shiromar worried that their forces were divided, but she understood the necessity of the action.

For the next few days Shiromar and the others battled wave after wave of silithid streaming from the hives scattered throughout the land. Still, the Qiraji remained unseen. A feeling of dread began working its way under Shiromar's skin; she felt it a bad omen that the silithid's masters had not appeared for so long. She worried over the fate of Valstann, and at several points throughout each day, during lulls in the continuous butchering she spied Fandral quietly looking back over the horizon, anxiously anticipating his son's return.

On the third day as the noon-day sun reached its zenith, the Qiraji appeared, their numbers reinforced. Once again the buzz of insect wings stirred the air; once again interminable multitudes crested the rim of the horizon. They spread out before Fandral and the others like the shadow cast by a giant cloud obscuring the sun... and stopped.

And waited.

Fandral formed his lines and stood at the forefront of the ranks as Stormcrows circled overhead and Druids in bear form clawed the dirt in anticipation, all watching intently. Moments later the ocean of insects parted, and the hulking form of the Qiraji general approached, carrying a wounded figure in its clawed appendage. It proceeded to the front of the Qiraji lines and held Valstann Staghelm aloft for all to see.

Gasps spread throughout the ranks. Shiromar felt her heart sink. Fandral stood mute, knowing that Southwind had fallen, and fearing that his son may already be dead. He cursed himself for allowing the boy to leave and stood, frozen by a mixture of fear, anger and despair.

Within the general's claw, Valstann stirred and spoke to the general, though he was too far away to be heard.

At once the spell that had fallen over Fandral broke and he bolted forward, followed by the night elf forces, but the distance was great... and even before the Qiraji general acted, Shiromar knew they could not reach Valstann in time.

The Qiraji general fixed his second claw onto Valstann's bloodied form, and with both he squeezed... and pulled apart, separating the young night elf's body at the waist.
Fandral slowed, faltered, and fell to his knees, the onrushing night elves parting around him. As the two forces finally clashed, a sandstorm rushed in from the east, blocking out all light; choking, stifling. Shiromar felt the winds force her movements nearly to a halt. She blocked her eyes as best she could, the howling wind buffeting her ears, drowning out the sounds of battle and the screams of her dying comrades.

Through the chaos she glimpsed the murky, behemoth shadow of the Qiraji general not far away, slashing and reaping through rows of night elves like a harvester shearing wheat. Then she heard Fandral, his voice ghostly through the storm, calling for the armies to fall back.

Much of what followed seemed to happen rather quickly, although in fact it took days: Fandral led his forces out of Silithus, through the mountain passes and into the bowl of Un'Goro Crater, the silithid and Qiraji legions never far behind, consuming those who fell just beyond the protection of the primary forre.

Once inside Un'Goro however a strange thing happened: word spread throughout the ranks that the Qiraji had fallen back, just as the forces had passed the edge of the crater. The Arch-Druid gathered the remaining troops in the bowl's center and gave the order to stand fast. Finally, a lull had come in the fighting, fleeing and dying. But the night elves had suffered a bitter defeat, and Fandral Staghelm's demeanor had changed irrevocably.

Shiromar watched as Fandral stood guard, looking out from Fire Plume Ridge, the steam of the volcanic vents rising behind him, the orange lava glow illuminating his face, a mask that concealed the deepest anguish--a sorrow known only to parents who have outlived their children.

The sudden retreat of the Qiraji puzzled Shiromar. The more she thought on the subject, the more she remembered the legends surrounding the Crater, rumors that it had been built in the primordial age by the gods themselves. Perhaps they watched over the land. Perhaps their blessings still anointed this place. One thing however was for certain: if a plan was not devised to stem the tide of the insect race...

Kalimdor would be lost forever.

The War of the Shifting Sands

The midday sun fixed its unflinching gaze upon the sands of Silithus, bearing mute witness to the multitudes forming ranks outside the Scarab Wall.

It continued its passage, though to the masses gathered below, it seemed as though the orb had stopped to cast down unrelenting waves of heat until the vast armies simply collapsed from exposure.

Amid the restless formations a lone night elf stood in quiet contemplation. Her companions eyed her with admiration; some, almost reverence. The others who were gathered--an assortment of representatives from every race in every land in the known world--viewed her with their own racial prejudices. After all, the blood feud between night elves and the likes of trolls and tauren dated back centuries.

No matter their affiliations, however, all who had come to battle that day shared one sentiment for the night elf: respect. Shiromar was like the sun above--impassive, unwavering, and unflinching. These qualities had served her well in the recent months, providing her with the strength to continue when all seemed lost; when the quest seemed neverending; and when her companions had simply given up.

There had been the watcher, and the Caverns of Time; there was the bronze dragon and the Broodlord and the squirming insect hives; then there were the shards and their keepers, the ancient dragons, none of whom would give up their charge easily. Coercion, ingenuity, and sometimes outright violence, all were employed to accomplish the task.

And all of this for one item, the item gripped in Shiromar's hands even now: the Scepter of the Shifting Sands, reformed at last after a thousand years.

In the end, all roads had led here, to Silithus, and to the gates of the Scarab Wall. Here, where the Scepter was shattered.

Shiromar looked up at the sky and remembered a time when the sun had been eclipsed by dragons; when the Qiraji and silithid flooded over the legions of night elves in seemingly eternal waves; when hope seemed but a shadow. It seemed as if none would survive those terrible months; yet here she was, standing before the sacred barrier that saved their lives all those years ago, during the War of the Shifting Sands...

Final Fantasy XI Valentione's Day Celebration

The charm wand—that endearing single-handed weapon that has become synonymous with Valentione's Day...


Word has it that, this year, a certain activity has become popular among adventurers who possess this heart-adorned wand.
Artis was your average warrior and a pleasant enough lad. Like most of his peers, his definition of a good day involved a plentiful haul of treasure and some improvements in endurance and weaponry prowess. And like most others, he had a regular crew with whom he traveled. More often than not, though, he would be seen in the company of a certain lass. Her name was Velte, and she was a white mage by trade. The two of them had been adventuring together for as long as anybody cared to remember.
It was three Valentione's Days ago that Velte first began giving chocolates to Artis, a tradition that she had religiously maintained ever since. While Artis accepted the gifts gladly, he had always been a tad slow on the uptake—thick, some might say—and had never read deeply into his friend's gesture, much less thought to return the favor. But with this year's festivities fast approaching, it finally dawned on him that perhaps it would be appropriate to do so.
"N-nothing to see here! I-it's just something for a friend, that's all," the overly self-conscious Artis mumbled to himself, attracting cautious stares from passersby about the auction house as he bid successfully on what would be his first Valentione's Day gift to Velte—a white cape lovingly crafted from lavish squares of silk cloth. A nervous smile spread across Artis' face as he visualized the supple garment draped over Velte's slender shoulders. Just three days until this mental image would become reality.
His latest purchase neatly folded and stowed away inside his Gobbiebag, Artis made his way back to his Mog House with a spring in his step. Once there, he picked up the special linkpearl reserved exclusively for contact with Velte and called her. No response. Perhaps she would pick up later in the evening, thought Artis, but there was no luck then either, nor the next day.
Valentione's Day finally arrived without so much as a word from Velte. This was a cause of deep concern for Artis, as the two of them had never gone longer than a day without contact of some description. Where could Velte have gone? Had something terrible befallen her? This and countless other dreadful thoughts battered ceaselessly on the walls of Artis' troubled mind.
"That's one gorrrgeous cape you got there! A prrresent for Velte, yeah? Why, you ol' dog!"

Startled out of the dreary reverie he had been having in front of the auction house by this flurry of playful words, Artis spun around and was greeted by a familiar face wearing a grin that promised mischief. It was the Mithran ranger Cha Shya, mutual friend and fellow linkshell comrade. Ever ready with a jest or two, Cha could always be relied upon to brighten up dampened spirits, but Artis' sullen mood that day was beyond the help of words. Sensing something amiss at her friend's uncharacteristic response, Cha became serious.

"You were supposed to turn as rrred as a faerie apple when I said that. What's botherrring you?"

Artis wasted no time in sharing his fears with his friend. Upon hearing the story, a look of horror crept over Cha's face.

"P-prrromise you won't be angry with me? I, uh...told Velte about this rrrumor I'd heard...an enchantment of sorts..."
Defeat one hundred sheep with a charm wand and you shall be granted whatever your heart desires...or so the legend says. While most adventurers would dismiss such claims as mere fairytale—even a child yet tender in age would know to be skeptical—it was just like pure, innocent Velte to take this story to heart. Likely she was roughing it out at La Theine at this very moment, thwacking one sheep after another. Small wonder, then, that responding to a linkpearl call hadn't been her highest priority these past few days.
Somewhat relieved but deciding that he would not be satisfied until he had at least heard his companion's voice, Artis pressed his linkpearl to his ear, but Velte beat him to it by a split second with a distress call of her own.

"Art! H-help! Being attacked......by a giant ram......at La Theine!"
Without the luxury of time to observe common courtesy, Artis and Cha cut short the nearest white mage's visit to the auction house, commandeering his teleportation spell to the Crag of Holla. A blinding flash and a few heartbeats later, they stood atop the stone structure's teleportation platform in the heart of the plateau. From their vantage point, they promptly spotted Velte—thanks in part to her shrieks of panic. Hot on her heels was an enraged mountain of white fluff, murderous intent playing in its bloodshot eyes.

With the aid of her two friends and a kindly—if not entirely enthused-stranger to turn the tide, the giant ram went down without a fuss, its massive frame kicking up a cloud of dust. Cha apologized emphatically to Velte, eyes glistening with remorse for having misled her friend with tall tales, but her pleas for forgiveness were waved away with a never-you-mind smile. Artis, unable to suppress his curiosity any longer, asked the question that had been hot on his lips.

"In sweet Altana's name, Vel, what wish was it that you wanted so badly to come true?"

But Velte would not give in to Artis' furrowed, scrutinizing eyebrows. She simply stood resolute with chin down, cheeks flushed, and lips pressed tightly shut as if fearing the truth would spill out. In an unashamedly blatant act of diversion, she reached into her Gobbiebag and produced a heart-shaped box of chocolates. Ever silent, Velte thrust the daintily decorated package out at Artis' chest.

Knowing better than to press further, Artis allowed his eyebrows to unfurrow and let out a sigh. "As long as she's safe and well," he thought, as he reached into his Gobbiebag for his own present for Velte. With the fondest smile he could muster, he accepted the chocolates and placed the white cape into Velte's up-turned palms.

"Happy Valentione's Day, Vel."

A look of shock emerged on Velte's face.

"Could that ram have been the...hundredth one?" She breathed out in marvel. Noticing Artis' confused expression, Velte continued.

"Y-you see. My wish was to receive a Valentione's Day present...from you, Art."

A smile of boundless delight, vibrant as the breaking morn, beamed forth from her dust-mottled face.

It is said that from that day onwards, the sight of adventurers setting upon sheep with charm wand in hand became commonplace across the windswept wilds of La Theine.


Story: Miyabi Hasegawa
Illustration: Masae Shindoh

Halo 3 ODST

The game begins with Dutch, Romeo, Mickey and the Rookie discussing plans for assaulting the Covenant Prophet of Regret's ship above New Mombasa. Buck arrives and introduces Dare. The team enter their HEVs and drop through the atmosphere toward the ship; at the last minute, Dare changes their trajectory to miss the carrier. The Covenant ship enters slipspace, sending a shockwave toward the ODSTs; the Rookie's pod collides with another and crashes to the ground, knocking him unconscious for six hours. He awakens and proceeds to find clues as to what happened to his squadmates.

Buck awakens after the drop and fights through Covenant to find Dare. When he arrives at her pod he finds only her charred helmet. Romeo saves Buck from an Engineer and the two resolve to get out of the city. Dutch drops near a nature preserve and helps Marines while he goes to the city. Mickey commandeers a tank and fights his way along a Mombasa boulevard. Meeting up with Dutch, the two defend an ONI base from the Covenant, blowing a bridge to slow the enemy. However, they are quickly overrun and forced to destroy the facility to keep it from being captured. Fortunately, they are evacuated by a Pelican and they make contact with Buck, arranging a rendezvous at the police headquarters. However, when Buck and Romeo arrive, they see the Pelican get shot down and crash. They rescue Dutch and Mickey, but Romeo is seriously wounded in the fight. The squad hijacks a Phantom transport ship, but instead of leaving the city, Buck decides to turn back and find Dare.

Back in the city, the Rookie is assisted by the Superintendent, which leads him to Dare's position. She and the Rookie team up to reach the Superintendent's data core, which possesses crucial information on something underneath the city that the Covenant is looking for. After fighting through a large Covenant force, they reach the core to find an Engineer hiding within. Dare explains that the Engineers have been enslaved by the Covenant, and this particular one decided to defect to the humans. The alien had downloaded the Superintendent's data into itself and Dare's mission changes from destroying the AI, to escorting the alien to safety. The Rookie, Dare, and the Engineer reunite with Buck and manage to fight their way out of the city. As they fly away in the captured Phantom, the squad watches as the Covenant destroys New Mombasa to excavate the portal to the Ark.
In the epilogue, one month has passed, and the squad is keeping guard over the Engineer in a UNSC orbital station. Sergeant Johnson then arrives, informing the Engineer that he intends to ask it everything it knows about the Covenant and whatever it is they're looking for. If the game is completed at the Legendary difficulty level, a scene after shows the Prophet of Truth overseeing some Engineers uncovering a Forerunner artifact buried beneath the Superintendent's data core.

Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2

Modern Warfare 2 is set five years after the conclusion of Call of Duty 4. Despite the efforts of the Marines and the SAS, the Ultranationalists ultimately seize control of Russia and declare Imran Zakhaev a hero and martyr, erecting a statue of him in the heart of Red Square. Meanwhile, Vladimir Makarov, one of Zakhaev's former lieutenants, begins a campaign against Europe by committing numerous acts of terrorism.

The game begins in Afghanistan, where U.S. Army Ranger Private First Class Joseph Allen helps in the taking of a city from insurgents. Impressed by Allen's performance in combat, Lieutenant General Shepherd recruits him into Task Force 141, an elite, multi-national counter-terrorism unit under Shepherd's command. Meanwhile, two other members of Task Force 141, Captain "Soap" MacTavish and Sergeant Gary "Roach" Sanderson, scale a mountain of the Tian Shan to infiltrate an airbase in Kazakhstan to recover a lost ACS module from a downed satellite. Allen is later sent on an undercover mission in Russia for the CIA under the alias of "Alexei Borodin." Allen joins Makarov in a massacre of civilians at the Zakhaev International Airport in Moscow. It is soon revealed at the conclusion of the attack that Makarov is aware of Allen's true identity and before leaving, kills him to expose his identity as an American, leading the Russian police to believe that America was responsible for the attack.

Angered by what was believed to be an American-supported terrorist attack, Russia retaliates with a massive surprise invasion of the United States after bypassing its early warning system, revealing that the ACS module from an earlier mission had already been compromised before its retrieval. Sergeant Foley leads his squad of U.S. Army Rangers, including Private James Ramirez, in the defense of a suburb in northeastern Virginia against the Russian attack. They then proceed towards a war-torn Washington, D.C., where more U.S. forces are fighting a desperate battle against the Russians for control of the capital city.

Meanwhile, Task Force 141 begins its search for evidence that would implicate Makarov as the true mastermind behind the airport massacre. Intelligence leads it to Rio de Janeiro, where the Task Force investigates leads on Makarov's contact, weapons dealer Alejandro Rojas. It finds out that a major nemesis of Makarov is locked up in a Russian gulag east of Petropavlovsk on the Kamchatka Peninsula. As a result, Task Force 141 assaults the prison and manages to free the prisoner, who turns out to be Captain Price. Price agrees to aid in the tracking down of Makarov. While attempting to stop a nuclear missile launch aboard a Russian submarine, he appears to go rogue, himself allowing the launch of a SLBM that is aimed at Washington D.C.. However, he sets the warhead to explode in the upper atmosphere, which destroys the International Space Station, but spares the capital city from utter destruction. The resulting electromagnetic pulse cripples the vehicles and electronic equipment of both the U.S. and Russian forces in the city. Back on the ground, Ramirez and his squad discover that the Air Force has assumed that the Russians have overrun D.C. and plans to launch airstrikes on the city. The only way to abort the operation is to set off green flares on the roof of the White House and other important buildings that are under Russian control. Ramirez and his squad fight their way to the roof of the White House (codenamed "Whiskey Hotel") and manage to set off flares in the nick of time, averting an airstrike. Green flares may be seen on the rooftops of other D.C. landmarks, signifying that the city is in American hands.

Narrowing down Makarov's hiding place to two separate locations, Task Force 141 decides to split up. Captains Price and MacTavish travel to an aircraft boneyard in Afghanistan, whereas Sanderson and Ghost raid Makarov's safehouse in the Caucasus Mountains. At the safehouse, Sanderson and his team manage to obtain vital intelligence from enemy equipment. However, as the player narrowly escapes overwhelming enemies and is seemingly 'rescued' by General Shepherd and his forces, Shepherd betrays Task Force 141 and kills both Sanderson and Ghost, taking the intelligence with him to make him seem responsible for its acquisition. Meanwhile, Price and MacTavish quickly learn of Shepherd's betrayal and escape an ambush with the help of Nikolai. After managing to contact Makarov and learning of Shepherd's location, Price and MacTavish decide to take revenge on Shepherd in one final, bloody suicide mission. During the infiltration, Shepherd tries to escape and a long boat pursuit ensues.
Shepherd appears to have escaped when he drives his boat into the back of a hovering MH-53 helicopter. However, Price manages to shoot the helicopter down just before the boat he and MacTavish are on tumbles over a waterfall. After recovering from the fall, a heavily-injured MacTavish attempts to kill Shepherd with his knife, but Shepherd blocks the attack and in turn stabs MacTavish. As MacTavish lies on the ground, Shepherd prepares to execute him with his revolver, but before he can, Price attacks him and knocks the revolver away. Price and Shepherd then engage in an extended fist fight while MacTavish struggles to pull the knife out of his own chest. Finally managing to do so, he throws the knife at Shepherd, killing him. Price attends to MacTavish's wounds as Nikolai arrives in a helicopter to extract them. Nikolai warns the two that they will be pursued, but Price insists that MacTavish receive medical attention; Nikolai mentions a safe place to go to.

Halo

The year is 2552. Planet Earth still exists, but overpopulation has forced many of her former residents to colonize other worlds. Faster-than-light travel is now a reality, and Earth’s unified government, through the United Nations Space Command (UNSC), has put its full weight behind the colonization effort; millions of humans now live on habitable planets in other solar systems. A keystone of humanity’s colonization efforts is the planet Reach, an interstellar naval yard that builds colony ships for civilians and warships for the UNSC’s
armed forces. Conveniently close to Earth, Reach is also a hub of scientific and military activity.

Thirty-two years ago, contact with the outer colony Harvest was lost. A battlegroup sent to investigate was almost completely destroyed; only one badly damaged ship returned to Reach. Its crew told of a seemingly unstoppable alien warship that had effortlessly annihilated their forces.

This was humankind’s first encounter with a group of aliens they eventually came to know as the Covenant, a collective of alien races united in their fanatical religious devotion. Covenant religiouselders declared humanity an affront to the gods, and the Covenant warrior caste waged a holy war upon humanity with gruesome diligence.

After a series of crushing defeats and obliterated colonies, UNSC Admiral Preston Cole established the Cole Protocol: no vessel may inadvertently lead the Covenant to Earth. When forced to withdraw, ships must avoid Earth-bound vectors—even if that means jumping without proper navigational calculations. Vessels in danger of capture must self-destruct.

On Reach, a secret military project to create cyborg super-soldiers takes on newfound importance. The soldiers of the SPARTAN-II project rack up a impressive record against the Covenant in test deployments, but there are too few of them to turn the tide of the war.

Existing SPARTAN-II soldiers are recalled to Reach for further augmentation. The plan: board a Covenant vessel with the improved SPARTAN-IIs and learn the location of the Covenant home world. Two days before the mission begins, Covenant forces strike Reach and annihilate the colony. The Covenant are now on Earth’s doorstep. One ship, the Pillar of Autumn, escapes with the last SPARTAN-II and makes a blind jump into deep space, hoping to lead the Covenant away from Earth.

Final Fantasy XI

The world of Vana'diel is a crossroads of magic, swords, and technology. It is also a battlefield where those who believe in light face monsters that thrive in darkness.The struggle centers on the control of crystals: sacred stones that are the fundamental source of all creation.

The monsters showed no mercy as they laid waste to beautiful towns, ravaged the land, and polluted the streams and rivers of Vana'diel.

But the people united to seize victory from the jaws of the beastmen, earning themselves temporary respite from a life-and-death struggle.
Twenty years have passed since the people's great victory.But now, even as the memories of battle have begun to fade, a new evil grows inside Vana'diel...

And it hungers for the power of the crystals.

And do begins the world of Vana'diel