[center][IMG]http://i59.tinypic.com/13zsayb.jpg[/IMG][/center]

[center][b]Echen Burns[/b][/center]

[i]"Slender warriors, slightly smaller than your average man, but nimble and very quick on their feet. They attacked as the sun descended, stormed right up the beaches. The Dwarven sentries fell to black-feathered arrows without being aware of their attackers' presence, and the unsuspecting docks of the city of Echen fell victim to a brutal assault. Before the garrison could react, the enemy were in the streets, slashing at any Dwarf they could get their hands on with curved blades of blue-tinted metal. Hundreds perished in the opening minutes of this massacre, and little could be done to stop it.

Prince Ryan Stoutlance, Echen's champion and heir to the throne, confronted this mysterious adversary as his peoples succumbed to flame and blade all around him. With shot and axe, he and his Battle Brothers led the counter attack but were dismayed by what they came face to face with; darkened skin, pointed ears, teeth filed to fangs and eyes of a soulless black. After a fierce melee, Prince Ryan Stoutlance, firstborn to the King of the Echen Isles, lay with broken body. His men routed or worse, the city of Echen ablaze."[/i]

The Isles of Echen are under siege by a host of unknown warriors. Fleeing merchant galleys have reported bannerless war ships of darkened wood moored off the beaches beyond Echen City. The very few survivors that claim to have come face to face with aggressors describe them as the fabled Dark Elves, a sinister race once kept at bay by the Imperial Bohaddon legions of Arion. These accounts cannot be verified however.

The black ships that have been spotted in recent weeks sailing aimlessly off the coasts of Orysson have remained passive, ignoring merchant vessels and fleeing from local naval forces. Could this be the early stages of an invasion?