Wrong Move (story) (Patreon)

While some parts of the new world have been living in a new era of peace and harmony for several decades after the end of the war, today (around the year 2280), there are still vast areas of the world are mired in violence and instability. While some civilizations flourished in the far north and on the plains in the central-west, and the southeast remained uninhabited, irradiated with condensed magic that makes it impossible for any human being to live there, the general population of most of the world is now populated by nomadic groups and independent fiefdoms that are generally categorized into three groups: the nomads of the north, the nomads of the south, and the warlike independent Slavic fiefdoms of the center-north. Particularly within these independent fiefdoms, which for the most part have been at war throughout the last 50 years, 10 years ago, under the tutelage of Ardeal and Thuringia, a sort of confederation of city-states was established west of Thuringia and south of the fiefdoms: Trizegardia, which would serve as a neutral zone where these fiefdoms would resolve their conflicts. However, in the first months of those last years, the efforts of both powers to achieve peace between the fiefs did not seem to work, so a method for conflict mediation had to be found, using one of the oldest and most played games in these fiefs: chess.

Thus, after long discussions and disputes, all the fiefs agreed to resolve their conflicts and even dispute entire territories from chess games: There are those who, in their ludopatia, bet entire territories in a single game of chess, leaving many feudal lords in ruin and some others, the best playing chess, becoming powerful lords of large and vast territories, although always over time, there were those who lost everything and others who rose to greatness. However, after a malevolent outsider girl (who is not even from that universe but traveled to that universe by accident) and who likes to cheat at chess without anyone noticing, there was a disruptive change in Trizegardia and the fiefdoms. Alicia Kerragin, this cheating girl in her twenties with long wavy honey-gold hair and deep blue eyes, began to humiliate countless feudal lords and take over vast territories after she appeared one day in Trizegardia and began to win every chess game she played in, taking advantage of the game's mechanics as well as her innate abilities: Alicia was very quick thinking and had no hint of warrior pride or honor like the feudal lords, so she took advantage of the fact that the time limit for each game was 10 minutes for each player. If a person ran out of his or her 10 minutes, that person lost, so each chess player had to have a very agile mind and make quick moves, even though the old feudal lords usually tried to take the necessary time (but without being slow) to think about their strategies in real time. But Alicia's strategy took advantage of the not so extraordinary speed at which these feudal lords played: she did not play offensively or defensively, neither to win nor to defend her pride, but she played with fast and unpredictable moves that were not dedicated to more than disconcerting her enemy in his insecurities, moves in which Alice did not take too many risks, but instead invited the enemy to approach offensively, in which she only took advantage of the enemy's opportunities to take some of her pieces, but without wasting any second for her to move her own pieces, causing the time of her opponents to pass faster and this lack of time against Alice, who always had plenty of time, put emotional pressure on the feudal lords who, fearful that time was running out, tried to make faster moves and think less about them, leaving them more vulnerable in their strategies, moments in which Alice took advantage to steal some more pieces. In the end, most of the time the outcome was always the same when playing against Alicia: the feudal lords' time was running out and she won. This caused much frustration in several feudal lords, who bet more and more against Alice, indignant that a brat beat them in such a miserable way (as they saw someone in their twenties when most of them were over forty years old), until each feudal lord, one after another, was ruined and without any territory in their power.

Alicia believed that her moment of glory had arrived discovering that vulnerability in that form of conflict resolution, and she was already dreaming of her future as empress unifier of those fiefdoms, until a mysterious woman with black hair as deep as emptiness and intense red eyes appeared in front of her and challenged her to a game of chess in that temple of Trizegardia: a private game of chess where all or nothing was at stake, whoever lost would lose all their territories and even their freedom, for the loser would become part of the winner's property. Alice is not normally the type of person who usually risks so much in a game of chess, unlike most feudal lords, but on the other hand, since she has never lost a game of chess in that world, she is foolishly confident of her skills and her cheating. Besides, that black-haired girl would surely be worth a fortune as a slave if she sold her on the black market, after winning the game and enslaving said girl, of course. Be that as it may, Alicia asked her new opponent, since she was not someone she knew and, unlike the feudal lords who introduced themselves before anyone asked, making luxury of their long names and all their noble titles, that red-eyed woman answered her boldly:

Haha, does that even matter? If I don't even care about your name, since toys don't need to have a name, I don't think you should care about mine... But if you insist so much, you can call me Erina the witch.
[Drawing 1]

Even though Alicia felt somewhat indignant at Erina's dismissive answer, this only motivated her to give her best and make use of her best traps in that game, which would begin at that moment.

The minutes went by, and for Alicia, despite her fast movements, the passing of time felt slower and slower... especially because Erina moved her pieces with a speed that was hardly human. It was as if Erina knew Alicia's moves and tricks beforehand, and her moves were so fast, if not instantaneous, that they overshadowed and filled Alicia with nervousness, as she was slowing down in front of her opponent.

After only 2 minutes of play, Alicia, submerged in a nervous breakdown, sees how Erina has won after taking all her pieces, leaving only the queen, and making an impeccable checkmate in record time. This is how Alice sees her evil dreams of being Alice the Great, unifier of all the fiefdoms destroyed and, to her misfortune, it seems that her destiny would be, as her new owner has predisposed, Alice the Tiny, being blinded by a powerful beam of fuchsia energy and seeing how around her she becomes bigger and bigger, while she feels smaller and smaller... Alice would regain full consciousness a few minutes later, noticing that after all she did somehow achieve her dreams of being a queen, but no more than the queen of the black pieces on a chessboard, now owned by Erina. The witch Erina, amazed by the beauty of her new possession, and by her own nature as a collector, then decides to undertake a little trip around the fiefdoms looking for more pretty girls to turn into chess pieces.
[Drawing 2]



A few days later, wandering in the woods, a warrior and a priestess were looking for some fruits to eat or animals to hunt, as they were lost in the forest, after going too deep in the middle of a mission of the adventurers' guild. Soma, the priestess, had a bad feeling, plus she felt the presence of a very strong dark deity in the surroundings, while Jana, the warrior, tried to calm Soma down by telling him that everything was going to be fine as long as she was there to take care of him.

However, Jana's calculations turned out to be wrong when she was hit by a powerful fuchsia lightning  from behind shot by some kind of forest witch, who seemed angry for entering her quarters... So, finally, Erina the witch got two more pieces: the bishop and the knight, personified by Soma and Jana. The reflection and shine of her new pieces, in addition to their delicate figures, excite and fill the witch with pleasure as she observes them with attention and detail to appreciate her new work of art, while she caresses a little everywhere her new acquisitions, filling Soma and Jana with indescribable pleasure.
[Drawing 3]

Some time later, in a cave between the borders of Ardeal and the fiefs, Imperia, a dragon woman, was having a leisurely lunch, until she was treacherously attacked by a strange and misaligned witch with a powerful lightning bolt coming out of her core. However, this dragon woman was able to react in time, containing the beam with the energy of her sword as a shield. Imperia, irritated, trying to resist as much as she can to the momentum of the witch's beam that is becoming more and more powerful, asks the witch who she is and why she is attacking her, while the witch only smiles while her eyes give off red eyes full of evil.

Finally, the ray that was more and more powerful, consumed and absorbed Imperia, leaving of her only a pretty little figure of shining and reflecting black color, or better said, a chess piece, resembling a tower.
[Drawing 4]

At that time the witch was undecided, because she still needed to find someone to become the king's piece, and the pawns' pieces, even though on the other hand she cannot wait to use her new pieces in a game of chess. In this way the witch Erina returned to Trizegardia and had a lot of fun playing again and again against the feudal lords... Even in these cases, the witch forgave the defeat of her enemies and allowed them to keep their territories, not to mention that she made a distribution of territories among some feudal lords who lost everything and among some peasants (with the territories that Erina obtained from her victory against Alice), at the end of the day, the old witch is cruel, but fair.
[Drawing 5]

After days of intense chess games, the witch Erina got bored of playing the same and finally decides to keep her chess pieces for some time, even though she still hasn't got a king nor the pawns, but she doesn't care so much for now. Since then and for a long time, the chess pieces that those girls were turned into will wait patiently inside the box, because that is their place while they are not used, because they are only objects, toys, chess pieces, and they will wait in the deep and dark abyss of the box while their minds sink into pleasure until their owner wants to use them again.
[Drawing 6 bonus]