Wow! What a game! What a win! What a statement to the nation! We finally played our best game of football when it mattered most! Now onward to Northwestern and a Big Ten Title, and then whatever awaits us from there, be it a Rose Bowl or the playoffs.
Go Buckeyes!
Day the Four and Twentieth of the Eleventh Moon, Year Two Thousand Ten and Eight
There are victories and then there are triumphs. There are triumphs and then there are moments of apotheosis, when ordinary men by dint of their strength, craft, and valor are elevated to godliness. Such was the day when Lord Urban of Meyer and the knights of Columbus stood against the goblin hordes of Michiganus and smote them upon the tall alabaster ramparts of Columbus.
At the start of the battle, the armies of Ohio were much beleaguered by their recent bout against the terrible Terrapins of Queen Mary's Land. Whilst they nursed their wounds, mended their shields, and sharpened their dulled blades the great darksome horde of Michiganus descended from the barren slopes of their wintry northern land. The goblins outnumbered the men of Columbus near ten to one, and had an even greater advantage in mounted arms, many goblins having trained fearsome wolverines as mounts. At the start of the battle, the goblins commanded the high ground, but they surrendered this advantage quickly, decamping from the hills so as to crush the men of Ohio in a single pass.
But it was not to be so for the goblins or their nefarious leader, King Harbauggio. The brave and stout men of Ohio held firm, adopting a formation they had learned from their erstwhile turtle foes: the testudo shieldwall. Again and again the goblins threw their massed ranks against the Army of Columbus, but Lord Urban's men repulsed every attack, inflicting terrible casualties on their diminutive, rather smelly foes. The battle was not without its setbacks, however. Near noontide, a spectacular mistake by the aged but as yet unseasoned knight Sir Mack de Mario allowed the goblins to break the left flank and stream past the defenders. For a moment, if only a moment, it seemed as if the lines might collapse and the goblins would triumph.
But Sir Haskins's leadership and the quick thinking of the young squire Olave allowed the men of Ohio to seal the gates, repelling even this most promising of goblin forays. From there, there would be no return to power for the goblins, and the tides of war had turned for good and perhaps for always. Distraught by their repeated failures and weakened by losses, it was the goblins whose ranks broke, and Lord Urban of Meyer wasted no time pressing the advantage. Thousands of goblins were cut down by arrows or trampled under the hooves of a cavalcade of warhorses. Sir Haskins vowed that not one goblin would be left alive, and so they ran down their foe mercilessly, dashing their heads upon the rocks, skewering them on lances, and hacking them to pieces. They gained upon the camps where the goblins' women and children were cowering in their tents, and these tents they burned. They smashed tiny toys and blunted winecorks found in the goblins' holds. They shredded out of fashion pantaloons that some unwise goblins still believed were "in," and they splintered the tiny teacups that Harbauggio had cherished. King Harbauggio was not himself killed or captured, though an arrow struck his heel as he ran and some of the outer-most knights in the pursuing force did claim to see him hold his hands out such as a churlish fisherman who might measure a fish would, as if to gesture to a comrade how close he had been to victory, though in truth, all the annals of history will mark that the goblins and their king were soundly defeated. Thus ending their threat against Ohio and the rest of the world.
Lord Urban of Meyer allowed himself the smallest of smiles as he proclaimed victory, but he could ill afford to celebrate now. Even with the goblins bested, there were still battles to fight, wars to win, and new lands to conquer.
