Light peeked in through the forest canopy as the Imperial platoon marched. Captain Marcus Fastidius kept his eyes on the path in case there was another decayed hunting trap. It didn't help him much, because his foot found another elf-made pothole and tripped him over. "Bunch of cowardly, spineless, mutton-headed, lily-livered..." he cursed. The soldiers were in as much of a joyless mood as their Captain, mainly because sourness was contagious, but also because they would all go toppling like dominoes if they failed to avoid those the Captain discovered.

Marcus stopped short at a log in the path. He threw up his arms and kicked it. "Great, just great! Just what I needed for this god-cursed day! Men, move this overgrown stick and-" His instructions were interrupted by a rumbling sound. Suddenly, logs rolled down the slopes on either side of the path. They slammed into hapless soldiers and crushed them or knocked them out. One of the logs dissolved into sawdust, getting in their eyes and every oriface. "It's a trap! Retr- [i]cough[/i] -retreat! It's a trap!"

The soldiers crawled out of the kill zone as best they could. With broken limbs and shattered morale, they could not move quickly enough to escape the finale. First they smelled smoke. Then all the atmospheric sawdust combusted. Soldiers screamed in agony as their eyes, mouths, ears, and throats tore apart in the resulting flames.

Only one soldier made it through unscathed. He scrambled out from the kill zone and ran headlong into a towering figure. The man looked up to find himself staring into a squad of five elves, face to face with a strange silver-haired elf woman. He started to back away, but the elf girl reached out and grabbed him by the shoulder.

"Remember."

That was all she said before she let him run back down the road.