The Archives of Master Arcanist Eamin Horan 182de - eight years before the breaking of the echo.

In the years of the Carvers, when the island kingdom of Erudor was rocked by civil unrest, the Orc chieftains of the eastern coast of Parthenea sensed the emperor's weakness and defied him by bringing war to the Black Peaks, seeking to expand their territory and establish new strongholds in the high places.

Their swift and brutal campaign brought them to Lothsrock Keep in the northern pass of that feared mountain range, and there they laid siege for seventy-nine days.

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On the eightieth day, the Orcs stormed the gates and found the great castle empty. Its people had fled into the mountains, and its waters were poisoned with the bloated carcasses of the dead. Body parts of captured Orcs hung from the walls, the signs of brutal torture clear on their bodies.

Incensed, the Orcs gave chase, and, finding the bodies of the sick and the weak that had been left behind, they knew that their enemy's retreat was like some great dying beast that left pieces of itself on the mountain trails, and they pressed on.