Rifts of War

Chapter 4 - Learning the enemy

13th of May, 2070

White house, Washington DC

It has been a week since the attack and president Arthur McShane is still trying to wrap his head around it. He had been elected a year ago at the age of forty-one and never expected something like this. How could he? Sure, threats existed. There is still unrest within the world and the remnants of True salvation are yet to be caught. But a portal opening to a different dimension and things only found in fantasy books coming out of them and attacking? Never in a million years.

Extradimensional threats weren't something they considered facing, but they had no choice. Right now, Arthur was in a meeting room with the secretary of defense, John O'Brian, CIA special agents Amanda Collins and Allan Kurk and several other personnel. Amanda has prepared a presentation of everything they had learned so far.

"Before we begin.", Arthur said, "I need to know. How many have we lost?"

"Mister President we are still counting the cost.", John said, "We will know for sure-"

"Don't sugarcoat it, John. I need to know, give me an estimate."

Letting out a sigh, John replied, "There was a game in progress. And the streets were busy. We estimate the death tole to be in the thousands. California has suffered less, but an unknown amount of people have been taken captive."

"So now we have people on the other side. God knows what's happening out there. The whole world has seen what happened here. They're scared and they look to us for an answer. I got a call from the Russian president Dmitri Vukov that I should just destroy the portal. I wish I knew how. How do you propose we fix this?"

"I... I don't know, sir."

Arthur rubbed his eyes and let out a tiring sigh, "Well tell me something useful then."

To that, Amanda stood up, "Mister President, in the past seven days we have gathered a substantial amount of information regarding the rift, as the elves call it."

"Woah woah, slow down. Rift? Elves?"

"Yes, sir.", she turned the large screen on, showing the portal, "They call it the rift, a sort of portal which connects our worlds. And this is them.", the screen changes to several photos of blue-skinned people, "They call themselves the High Elves from the Empire of Light. In appearance they are humanoid with a few distinct features such as light-blue skin and pointy ears. Apparently they rule the world on the other side and subjugate all who oppose them."

"So why did they attack us?", asked John.

"We are still trying to figure that out.", Amanda changes the photos and shows the various other races.

"Jesus Christ, what the hell is this?", Arthur asked.

"Apart from the elves, the second largest force in their army are the dwarves. Traditionally, they are short, bulky and these have Napoleonic era weaponry, muskets and cannons."

"I've heard reports that some members of the police force have been captured along with their weapons.", Arthur said.

"I wouldn't worry about that Mister President.", John said, "Them having muskets proves that they don't posses the technology to produce automatic firearms, which also means they don't have the tools to recreate ours."

"I guess that's reassuring.", Arthur said, "Continue Amanda."

"The third force are people who call themselves the Rosians. They are the closest natives we have to humans on the other side. Apart from their pink skin they look nearly identical to us. They are vassals of the Empire and are forced to fight for them."