The sun rises again, and another battle is about to begin. For the past two days, the armies of Valinor had fought the forces of Morgoth that were spewing forth from the caverns of Anfauglith. The Balrogs had already fallen, now the legions of the Orcs are standing between the armies of the Light and the fortress of Angband.

All the recent victories had given Haldor a courage unknown to himself. The young mage knew that his limited talents would not weight much in the final outcome, but at least he was fighting against the forces of Evil, not like most Easterlings who decided to fight for the Enemy.

And his mentor, Eldorin, was on his side. The powerful Maia had taken a human shape, young, beautiful, and terrible at the same time. With his mighty spells alone, he could defeat an entire unit of a hundred Orcs in no time... Really, nothing could go wrong this day. Soon they would be standing at the entrance of the pits of Angband, and all the darkness would be dissipated...

Suddenly, the sound of the trumpets started to resonate in the sky, and it was the signal all were waiting for. Quickly, the legions of the Orcs perished, exterminated by the swords, bows and spells of the armies of the West. During the battle, Haldor got separated from Eldorin and the friends who were fighting with him. He had to retreat behind a hill after being chased by a dozen of Orcs to regain his magical energies. Using these energies, he could cast minor fire and lightning bolts to dispel the unfortunate Orcs that were stupid enough to attack him...

The top of the hill was a perfect spot to watch the progress of the battle. Looking around, Haldor could only see thousands and thousands of Orc corpses left behind by the armies of the Valar on the desolated plain of Anfauglith.

"Victory!" he shouted, watching the remaining Orc forces fleeing the field of battle.

Suddenly, from the fortress of Angband, came a terrible scream of fear and desperation. Could it be the Dark Lord himself, sensing that his end was coming? And as the scream was turning into a growl of anger, the sky started to become totally black above Morgoth's throne. Surely not a good omen...

And then they came... the great winged dragons with their devastating powers. Fire drakes, storm drakes, all breathing fire and lightning in front of them. Their assault was so brutal that, for a moment, Haldor saw the armies on the plain retreat in front of the raging elements preceding the dragons.

Submerged by the epic battle on the plain of Anfauglith, and in the sky above the plain, Haldor didn't see the huge form coming his way before it was too late for hiding. A massive dragon covered in black scales appeared above him and started to speak:

"Your existance has come to an end, puny mortal. I will destroy you and anyone who will stand against my master, Morgoth, Lord of Darkness. For I am Ancalagon the Black, mightiest of the dragonkind. Now prepare to die..."

Haldor knew he would have to use all he had learned during his training with Eldorin to have a chance of surviving the fight with the dragon. While dodging the first breath, he called for the element of fire and projected a bolt at the massive form...

"Silly mortal, your pesky spells are useless against me!", roared the dragon.

Indeed, the powers of the Flame, Lightning and even Corrosive Vapor were helpless against a creature that seemed to resist all the elements. After spending almost all his magical energies, Haldor could only hope that Eldorin had sensed his fight with the dragon and would come to the rescue... Using his minor teleportation abilities, Haldor managed to avoid the deadly breaths and claws for a while, but the outcome was unavoidable. As his magical energies got finally depleted, he raised his staff high and rushed at the dragon in a final assault.

The dragon's attack in response was brutal and painful. With all the strength of his claws, he threw Haldor to the bottom of the hill. In a last flash of consciousness, Haldor felt the warmth of the Valar enveloping him, as he sensed the aura of Eldorin taking him away from Ancalagon's wrath.

The spell of major teleportation had brought Eldorin back with Haldor's broken body to the camp where most of Haldor's friends had retreated from the dragons. Seeing all the interrogating faces surrounding him, Eldorin could only reply by a negative sign with his head...

In a final effort, Haldor opened his eyes:

"Is Ancalagon dead? Did we vanquish Morgoth?"

"Yes, my friend, the battle is over and the darkness is gone." replied Eldorin.

"Now I can die in peace. The Halls of Mandos are awaiting for me, and perhaps we gonna see each other again in Valinor..."

And with these words, Haldor dies...

I will post here the story of Haldor the Archmage, based on my experience from playing ToME4 beta 13. Since beta 14/15 were released too late to switch to Maj'Eyal, the story will still take place in Middle-Earth. The first twenty chapters were posted on the forums, the remaining parts will be posted here. So stay tuned!

I know some people have been anxious to play Chronomancers but the truth is I needed a break and haven't been working on it much this last month or so.

I spent a lot of time feeling like I was beating my head against a brick wall trying to understand lua. But... things are starting to click more and more. Over the last couple of months I've managed to code four new trees for classes already in the game (two of those trees aren't IN THE GAME yet but they're finished and being playtested for the next beta).

So... soon I say, very soon. I'll probably go back over what code I have done and rip it apart, do it better. There's a few talents I know I could do better now that I've taken a break from it.

Then it's just a matter of getting the rest of the trees coded and prodding Darkgod to help me with the stuff that's beyond my ability. But I imagine once it's that close to being finished he'll be a lot more motivated to help out.

So... One more Anorithil test run. Let's see how long Calvin the hobbit moon priest lives and then get back to working on Chronomancy ;)

The new version of the Tales of Maj'Eyal and T-Engine4 website is now up and running.
This version merges all three old sites (blog.te4.org, tome.te4.org and te4.org) into one, with many additional features.

• News, downloads, documentation as on the old sites
• A list of the last 10 currently playing players
• A detailed user profile for every people with an online profile that lists unlocks, achievements, deaths, ...
• A global game statistic page that aggregates all those datas into fun stats
• Website login are synchronized with online profiles. If you register on the website you can log into the game and the other way around. Note for old accounts: if you have some weird characters in your login it might have been adjusted on the web site, like spaces replaced with _

In the future there will be even more stats, and obviously support for module uploads and module stats.

Have fun!