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      | Welcome       || Lore: The Battle at Crescent Lake                                                ||  _   ___   _o |
      | Announcements ||                                                                                  || | | |...| |.| |
      | ~~~~~~~~~~~~~ || After the last  humans had escaped from Nightfall City the  orcs started to loot || | | |.o.| |.| |
      | Web Client    || the  buildings. While his  soldiers kept  plundering, king  Veltins cut  off the || '-' '---' '-' |
      | Clients       || heads of  Sir Marvin, Tares,  Ploi and  many other brave  men and stuck  them on ||              \|
      | Quickstart    || lances. He  ordered some orcs  to march  in the first  row of the  army carrying ||               |
      | Wait, What?   || those lances  when they'd set  out for Crescent  Lake where general  Romulus was ||               |
      | ~~~~~~~~~~~~~ || fighting against  the elves. Veltins thought  that it would lower  the morale of ||               |
      | Races         || the elvish  troops if they'd  see that the  orcs were able  to kill some  of the ||               |
      | Guilds        || greatest human knights and mages.                                                ||               |
      | Map           ||                                                                                  ||               |
      | Lore          || After  a long  day of  plundering the  conquerers of  Nightfall-City  started to ||               |
      | ~~~~~~~~~~~~~ || celebrate their  victory. Many barrels of  best wine ran through  the throats of ||               |
      | Who's online? || orcs who  didn't know what kind of  delicacies they were drinking,  for orcs are ||               |
      | Finger        || unable to  taste even the difference  between best wine and  insipid beer.  When ||               |
      | ~~~~~~~~~~~~~ || the orcs were  drunken quite a lot  of them became very aggressive.  They had no ||               |o
      | The Guide     || captives which they could maul and  it didn't take very long before many tussles ||               |
      | Player Help   || between them  had started. In that night  more orcs were killed  than during the ||               |
      | The Sky       || conquer of Nightfall-City.                                                       ||               |o
      | ~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ||                                                                                  ||               |
      | Imprint       || King Veltins might have been able to  keep his men away from killing each other, ||               |
      |               || but he was lying under a table  with a mighty intoxication.  When he woke up the ||               |
      |               || next morning  his soldiers had  already brought aside  the dead bodies  of their ||               |
      |               || comrades  and he  didn't notice  that the  rows of  the warriors  had  cleared a ||              \|
      |               || bit. The only thing he noticed was  that the wine of those damn humans wasn't as ||               |
      |               || harmless as he thought. His head was aching like never before. He was not in the ||               |
      |               || condition to march down to Crescent Lake,  but he was to haughty to show that to ||               |
      |               || his  underlings. He  ordered his  captains  to tell  them that  they would  stay ||               |/
      |               || another  day  to  find the  last  of  the  treasures  that  might be  hidden  in ||               |
      |               || Nightfall-City.  The soldiers searched  for treasures with great eagerness while ||              o|
      |               || His Majesty tried to cure his headache.                                          ||               |
      |               ||                                                                                  ||               |
      |               || When the next day broke and the red sun rose out of the waters of the Azur Ocean ||               |
      |               || the orcs' army  set of to Crescent  Lake. King Veltins marched in  the middle of ||               |
      |               || his troups as  usually. He was too important  a person to march at  the front or ||               |o
      |               || the rear where  one could easily be killed  by the arrows of elves  who might be ||               |
      |               || hidden in trees. It was of course His Majesty himself who thought that he was so ||               |
      |               || important. His soldiers would have liked it much more if he had marched in front ||               |
      |               || of the  army. Some of them  even hoped that an  elven arrow would  kill him, for ||               |
      |               || Veltins had no son and so the  strongest of his generals would become king after ||               |
      |               || his death.                                                                       ||               |
      |               ||                                                                                  ||               |
      |               || It was near midday when they saw the first smoke rising to the south-west.  They ||              \|
      |               || had passed  the border  to the elven  kingdom and  had left half  of the  way to ||              o|
      |               || Crescent Lake behind them. When Veltins saw the smoke he ordered to send a scout ||              \|
      |               || to find  out what was  happening in  front of them.   Two hours later  the scout ||               |
      |               || returned  and reported  that  Romulus' army  had  burned down  a village  called ||               |
      |               || Glastonbury. He had found neither sign of orcs or of elves.                      ||               |o
      |               ||                                                                                  ||               |
      |               || Meanwhile General Romulus' army was fighting against the main force of the elves ||               |/
      |               || at the western shore of Crescent  Lake where the Forbidden City was located. The ||               |
      |               || Forbidden City was the  only huge city of the elves. It  had been entirely built ||               |o
      |               || of wood and the  houses and streets were not on the  ground as in common cities, ||               |
      |               || but high above the ground at the tops of the trees.                              ||               |
      |               ||                                                                                  ||               |
      |               || That was the reason  why the elves were winning the battle.  The clumsy orcs had ||               |
      |               || never climbed  trees before and  the elves could  easily shoot hundreds  of them ||               |
      |               || before a few managed  to reach the city. Some orcs tried  to burn the trees, but ||               |
      |               || Romulus, just in time, prevented them from  doing so. It wasn't such a good idea ||               |
      |               || to burn  down a forest  while still being  inside it.  The battle  continued for ||               |
      |               || hours and  hours and while  two thousand orcs  died only five hundred  elves got ||               |
      |               || killed. Romulus had lost  half of his army when he decided  to retreat and shoot ||              \|
      |               || burning arrows at the houses of the For- bidden City from a secure distance.     ||               |
      |               ||                                                                                  ||               |
      |               || Fear got a hold  of the hearts of the elves when they  realized that they had no ||               |
      |               || choice but  to leave the security  of their city  and face the orcs  which still ||               |
      |               || outnumbered them by several hundred.                                             ||               |
      |               ||                                                                                  ||              \|
      |               ||                                                                                  ||              o|
      |               || At this point the half-elves entered the fray. No one could ever tell where they ||               |
      |               || really came from. Some  say they were the descendants of humans  and el- ves who ||              \|
      |               || had benn caught by  the orcs in the great war two  centuries ago and were forced ||               |o
      |               || to carve endless  tunnels into the rocks of the Northern  Mountains in which the ||               |
      |               || orcs were  building a big  city. Rumor had  it that there  was an up-  rising of ||               |o
      |               || those slaves and lots  of them escaped from the orcish caves.   It was said that ||               |/
      |               || they fled to an island. Humans and  elves lived together in peace on that island ||               |
      |               || and married each other, but that is just a rumor.  Nobody knows if it's true. It ||               |
      |               || is just known that the half-elves came  by ships from the Sea of the Unfulfilled ||               |
      |               || Dreams.                                                                          ||               |
      |               ||                                                                                  ||               |
      |               || Among them was  a wise seer who had  advised them to arm themselves  and sail to ||               |o
      |               || the old  continent, for the  time had  come again that  the orcs had  left their ||               |
      |               || caves to bring war upon the world. He foresaw that the elves would be extirpated ||              o|
      |               || if they  didn't get  help from the  Pereldar (which  is how the  half-elves call ||               |
      |               || themself). Many Pereldar thought that these  were nothing more than the words of ||               |
      |               || a mad man, but  Joern, their king believed in prophecies and  ordered to arm all ||               |
      |               || men and set out to the old continent.                                            ||               |
      |               ||                                                                                  ||               |
      |               || The army of the Pereldar arrived at the Forbidden City just one hour before king ||               |
      |               || Veltins and his  troups arrived there, too. And there, between  the trees of the ||               |
      |               || Elvenwood, the  greatest battle in the  history of Nightfall  was fought. During ||               | o
      |               || that battle  the Forbidden City  was burned down  and Randyandy the king  of the ||               |/
      |               || elves and sovereign  of the realm of the halflings was  badly wounded. His First ||         o    s|
      |               || Adviser Feanor  took over the  command and enabled  some other wounded  elves to ||     o  /    /x|
      |               || escape and bring their king to  the halflings. The battle continued two days and ||      \/ __o/xs|
      |               || sometimes it seemed as if the  combined forces of the elves and half-elves could ||       \/   \xx|
      |               || prevail against the still  superior forces of the orcs, but in  the end they had ||        \    \s|
      |               || to retreat. And they fled to the Isle  of the Magi in the middle of the Crescent ||         \   /x|
      |               || Lake and  broke down the  bridge to  the mainland behind  them. The orcs  had no ||        nmsxxsx|    
      |               || boats to follow them so they were safe. But for how long?                        ||       xsxxxmxs|      .
      |               ||                                                                                  ||      sxmxxxxmx|     -_|=
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