The Grand Chessboard

Isabelle and her Wrecking Crew became phantoms haunting the edges of the shopping mall domain.

They would appear, strike hard and fast, and vanish before the Tyrant's brutish Ogre hordes could even muster a proper response.

One day, they collapsed the entrance to a major supply tunnel.

The next, they ambushed a patrol, leaving a dozen Orc corpses artfully arranged in a rude gesture.

Ragnar's Giant Bat scouts would report back.

The war of attrition was working, but it was agonizingly slow, a death by a thousand paper cuts.

Ragnar, sitting on his own, still-uncomfortable obsidian throne, found himself looking at the bigger picture.

The Aethelburg region was a chaotic chessboard, and he'd been so focused on the single piece trying to smash him that he hadn't looked at the rest of the board.

The victory was inevitable, but the process was a tedious, soul-crushing grind.