Challenge #03126-H217: War By Other Means

Two warring factions on a planet that had often been ravaged. The people were begging for help. The humans came and taught them a way to continue to fight in their war without bloodshed. Now, the battlefields were silent, all of the soldiers as grim as death, were in a large building where none were allowed to speak, other than neutral judges. The battles were as fierce and as aggressive as any war could be, pawns being captured, knights rushing to save their kings, for the new battles, were fought upon the chess boards. The winners heaped with honors as if they had won immense field victories, and those that lost... went off in silence. -- Fighting Fit

In battle fields, new flowers grow. Between the craters of not so long ago. The land heals, as land does. Time erases the scars of war from the surface of a living planet. Little birds make nests in the barrels of war machines long since grown cold. Yet the war is not over. It is fought in other places.

In the bustling city hosting the war, the citizens carry on their daily business. Goods and services exchanged for finance. Finances exchanged for even more finance. The war itself was happening in an otherwise plain and ignorable warehouse, cleared for the occasion.

There on the pied field, troops and important figures fell. Kings lay down after their queens perished. Castles were lost, territory gained. Gambits played between masterminds. And not a drop of blood was shed.

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