I sat down, plugged in my phone, and distractedly watched the movie projected on the wall before me. Either the charger that the librarian had given me was utter shite, or my charging port had gotten damaged when I dropped my phone during the attack, but the result was one of the same: the little green battery symbol seemed to take ages to fill up.

This time of year North-Western France should have been cold. It might have even snowed, as it had every year before. But the ground was warm, and the air even more unbearably so, making the camera-work shaky, and the image noticeably deformed.

It was impossible to say if it was the middle of the day, or the dead of night. Well, the dead part was accurate at least, as there was nothing living or otherwise moving, as far as the glass eye of the camera could see; and see it did, under a sky illuminated by flair cannons, and residual could-like traces of magic.

Both sides were getting ready for a frontal assault, having long since left behind any honourable tactics.

The camera panned to a group of soldiers in the tranches. It travelled along, not resting its gaze in one place for too long, perhaps because it did not wish to disturb the anxious footmen, or perhaps because it did not want to show the sorry state of their uniforms and steel and alloy weaponry. Most of these children, for they were all at least half the age of those sitting far, far behind the frontlines in their leather chairs, sipping on their crimson whiskey, cigars and pipes in hand, most of these children had never held a weapon in their hands before. Even those who had an affinity for cold weaponry combat; they simply had had no reason to up until now.

None of them had had any reason to do anything but live their unassuming lives; selling clothes on the busy streets of generic towns, dragging the corpses of monsters to the nearest adventuring cantor, huddling over the price of wine at an inn; as a different, older camera showed, with its slightly cracked lens that flared when looking directly at the magic lanterns lining the wooden storefronts that ran along every street.

Then that old, cracked camera blinked, and the single, shaking eye of the battlefield reporter opened once more.

It was time.

The other side had attacked first, with energy, fire, chunks of earth, weapons and magic beasts flying towards the trembling lens. Barriers rose up from the ground, a few hundred meters ahead. They blocked the view, up to thirty or so meters up in the air, where physical walls morphed into energy shields. Arcane runes danced along those shields, at every point of impact, and for a brief second, they had been effective. But a fireball pierced them in one spot, and a giant snake smashed its head through a few meters further, and soon the only thing stopping the other battalion was the makeshift wall of dirt, which too began to crumble.

Behind the eye of the camera, someone ordered to open fire.

Dust rose from the ground as the soldiers aligned their guns and took aim.

The lens could not see if anyone on the other side had fallen, but it did capture the dimming lights that emanated from the other trench. They were coming. All of them at once; and they no longer needed to light their side of the field.

The ground shook, and with the enemy soldiers finally in range, the mortars opened fire. Dust rose from crates where enemy soldiers once stood, as a second magical shield began forming before this trench.

The gunshots became more erratic and panicked, but no one dared to turn back or run away, not even the one who’d been holding the camera.

Once again a gargantuan snake pierced through the barrier, and fell onto the trench to the left of the lens. With its scaly, slick body it filled the narrow space stolen from the earth, squashing those unlucky enough to have found themselves under its body. Was it the same beast that had pierced through the other shield? Had it survived not one but two magical impacts, and lords know how many rounds of artillery? Or was it another summoned creature, who was just as eager as the last to swallow the helpless soldiers with its toothless mouth?

The camera fell into the dirt, as the transparent lens slowly turned to black, its image deforming more and more as it got exposed to an open flame.

It had been night when the camera had started filing and now it was night again. Powered by magic crystals, it kept silently watching the dark, bog-like land where blood had replaced water, and abandoned weapons saluted the sky where trees might have once stood.

The gloved fingers of whoever had brought this device all the way here could still be clearly seen in its bottom left corner, and would remain visible until some creature would move either the corpse or the device.

But no creature came, leaving this device the unique chance to capture a group of six or so figures silently creeping through the fields. They were led by a very tall man whose name and exact appearance have now been lost to history. Right by his side, a young woman struggled to keep pace, as her long skirt, and almost as long hair kept getting caught up in the kinks of the ground. She was the only one of the group to struggle with the terrain though, as neither of the two other women, one of whom was dressed in a robe most inappropriate for a battlefield, nor the knight-like man, or his more informally dressed companion had any issue with the corpse-ridden soil.

The sky lit up with bright fireworks. Except they were not so, as the recording device quickly realised, once it had adjusted to the change in luminosity. They were not fireworks but fist-sized balls of energy, relentlessly flying towards the group. Yet, none of them reached any of the people, and were soon joined in their fruitless efforts by a rain of arrows.

The knight lifted his shied up, while the lips of the overdressed woman silently moved, weaving a spell. The tall man tried to convince the one with the skirt of something, but she shoved his arm away, and picked up her skirt, as if threatening to go back.

The third woman, the only one who had bothered to dress in battle leather mumbled something that even from this distance could be interpreted as an insult, before dashing towards the origin of the energy fireworks and the arrows. As she passed by the camera, something metal glistened around her fists. She was quickly followed by the knight.

Those who remained at the back continued to argue, minus the small, overdressed, woman who was still silently casting while maintaining a calm front. The other man joined in, trying to convince the woman with long hair to do what they had brought her here to do. The argument suddenly stopped, as the expressions of all three of them twisted into horrified surprise, as their eyes turned towards a single point to the right of the recording device.

The woman with the long hair trembled. The tall man let go of her shoulder, which he had grabbed to prevent her from leaving, and whispered a one-syllable, two-letter word. She shook her head and slowly took a few steps in that same direction her companions had disappeared in.

Gravity seemed to turn off around her, as she levitated a few centimetres up in the air, her hair and her skirt graciously floating around her. The recording device turned off.

This camera had been put on a tripod, so as to allow for its wide-angle to capture as much of the soil before it. The brown earth had turned an ugly brined black, and had through the years had compacted to the consistency of granite. It captured a grey sky, massive metal tanks, of a darker grey, and light-grey silhouettes, all in uniform, walking from one end of the field of view of the camera to the other.

That same long-haired woman was walking next to one of the tanks. She had swapped her previous skirt for a slightly shorter one, and had used that same opportunity to change her apprehensive and borderline scared demeanour to a composed and almost cold one.

A group of people, all riding flying swords, dashed towards the formation. The tanks raised their cannons, and the woman lifted off the ground once more. The opposing soldiers fell to the ground, their flying weapons suddenly locking their magic essence. But they did not lose spirit, and picking up their blades, they ran towards their opponents.

In a burst of dust and explosives, the two tanks at the front fired before continuing on their way.

My phone vibrated in my hand, notifying me that it was charged at 10%.

“Finally!” I exclaimed as I unlocked it and checked the time.

Then, realising how late it was, I nodded and got up from my seat stretching my sore back. I did not understand why these old wooden chairs always needed to be so uncomfortable.

After picking up my belongings, I went downstairs to return the charger to its rightful owner, before heading home.