===== Vol IV: Onslaught =====
//11th year of wolf//

The first year of the war went very badly for the defenders. The empire – finding the way up the main road well defended – sent expeditionary forces to Naye Bay and Noma.

In Naye Bay they met with very little resistance. Warned by master ranger Aragorn Aremanne, who had come all the way through the woods with the grave news, most inhabitants were already leaving the town. The defenders including Guardian Robin Loxley, and Storm Seekers Annalina Gaidin and Adamus Tenderbottum fought a valiant rearguard action, giving the remaining citizens time to escape through the woods to Vesper or Bushbarrow. Both Guardian Loxley and Master Aremanne fell in that battle, while Lady Gaidin and Lord Adamus managed to reach Bushburrow sorely wounded.

The Empire tried to advance through the newly grown woods, but after having lost many to elven arrows and the powers of Guardian Em Dana they gave up on that route and never used it for major offensives throughout the rest of the war.

In Noma the large number of armed ships prevented the empire from landing their troops directly. Rather they made landfall a bit to the south and took the city from the landside. The city guards and mercenaries were no match for the armed soldiers, and most of the resistance stemmed from the clerics and paladins of Ra, who led a charge through the invader’s lines to lead a group of Noma citizens to safety. Most of the other inhabitants fled to the sea, some to Memee and some all the way to the mainland.

The invaders then laid siege to Dyoa – it would fall a few months later – and advanced further southward, until they reached the bandit pass.

There they met with heavy resistance. And were not able to advance further. For the rest of the war there would be skirmishes all over the north of Derimir, with no lines being stable for more than a few weeks.