The Rubbish Realm

Interlude 3b

Chapter 67: The Rise of The Second Emperor (1606 - 1617) (excerpts from The Complete History of the Second Era, written by Samuel Fairbanks)
Fighting still raged between elves and humans, as always. Those in the crossfire pleaded for an end, another truce, though one had not happened for generations. The last truce, back in 1272, lingered in their memories, but spurred on by their monarchies, they fought and fought again, those away from the border not caring about the plights of those at the border. Old technologies were used in new ways, new technologies were used in old ways, and the war went on. Commander Tyler Greggs struck a decisive victory at Fredericksburg, destroying a crucial fort of the elves, but a hostile countryside and lack of adequate supplies forced his retreat. Samuel Fairbanks nearly destroyed the human capital with a well-placed bomb, but was stopped just in time when a random passerby noticed their luggage, that they'd placed atop the bomb, was burning and snuffed out the fuse, prolonging the perpetual battle. In those desperate times, the border peoples even remembered those days of terror when the Emperor had ruled, remembering how at the very least he had brought unity, no matter how forced - but the Emperor was long gone, his memory having faded into the wind.
So, in 1606, when a new leader arose, appearing from nowhere with purple eyes blinding to look into, calling himself "The Emperor" as a herald to ages past, and talking to a bracelet on his wrist, setting out to rule the whole world for the humans, or so he claimed, he gained a following. Quickly, after dazzling demonstrations of his impossibly strong affinities, the first of either humans or elves to be strong in more than one affinity in modern history. Humans jumped to conclusions, assuming he must be a god, sent to redeem them against the elves - and he did. He started with the recapture and holding of Fredericksburg. Victory after victory he struck against the elves, every battle drawing him closer.
The elves threw all they had left into a single set of artifacts they thought might give them a chance. Candies, each of them immensely powerful in a single affinity for a short burst of time, usable by even users unfamiliar with that affinity - but before they finished, the capital fell and the monarchy officially surrendered. A string of kings over 1500 years long (according to some sources) had finally been broken, and the candies were lost to time. See Appendix 4F for a list of locations it is presumed to have ended in.
As the new Emperor's reign increased, some humans became wary of his growing power, especially when he was rumored to have spoken against the king. The king was especially against this new rising power, it seemed, and he brought war against his new kingdom. The Third Civil War, as aptly named, was a short affair - the Emperor and his small forces were defeated and disappeared, despite inflicting heavy casualties on the opposition. However, the elves were left without a kingdom and without a ruler. Through this anarchy, the king saw an opportunity to increase the human kingdom to envelop that of the elves once and for all, with a solution to deal with the elf problem forever, looking to spread his ideas of extermination. His miscalculation was brutal. Faced with a common foe, the elves united against him in one great front. Battle after battle was fought, until the human hopes rested on one man - John Greggs, grandson of the great Tyler Greggs. He avoided battle at every turn, wearing down the elves to abandonment of their pointless army and burning everything in his path. His small force of 52 humans ruined an entire kingdom with fire, but unbeknownst to him, his orders were outdated. While he had destroyed the elves singlehandedly, his own kingdom was gone. On June 12th, 1615, the king and queen, along with every heir, were found dead, clearly from knife wounds, the only clue to the assassin a ring of candles, found lit with one candle in the middle. Frequent readers of this article will recognize it as an ancient form of portal. And thus the now-homeless elves struck. At the funeral, the mourners were met by a mob of former farmers, willing to acquire new land and revenge in whatever way they could. Fighting fire with fire, the anger affinities mourning could not stop the raging flames, as they only made them. Every funeral-goer was burned in the worst atrocity seen in the past 1000 years, according to most historians, though some have speculated they may have been humans in disguise. Destruction reigned as the whole world burned, fires starting out of seemingly nowhere to burn down entire farms as starvation swept through the entire world. And into this chaos again stepped the Emperor. Easily subduing those who fought against him, endearing the humans to him by dramatically saving their forest, and forcibly restraining the few remaining warring elves, he truly became the Emperor of all of Perelandrea, his foes dust under his feet.
After setting up a new capital where the previous Emperor's had been, he left puppet governments to rule the lands, though he stopped short of forced assimilation or extermination. Nobody dared to oppose his indomitable power, apart from rumors of a certain Evan Willowbright, who headed a covert resistance. Sailing to the Emperor's castle in the middle of the night, they were quickly captured and publicly executed, all except Evan himself, who seemed to have deserted his crew when they needed him most. And that was the last resistance against the new Emperor.