Archdemon's Raid

Archdemon's Raid was a semi-coordinated raid on the then-prosperous trade city of Selim on Southern Rida. That was triggered by Archdemon breaking out of its nearby prison in the Mannailu Forest and promptly turning on the nearby city with a horde of Demons. Though it was eventually repelled, this attack not only caused great material damage to Selim, but also resulted in casualties in the order of thousands, including those of Claudia Zerin and Marius Zerin, who gave their lives to banish Archdemon to its prison again.

## Background

Archdemon was originally summoned around the year 743 BN by the Kingdom of Jo'Wöhn during the Iserial War, and was eventually sealed away in a vault fashioned from Creatanium in a then largely uninhabited region of southern Rida. There, it spent centuries in dormancy, though reports of tectonically inexplicable earthquakes suggest that it might have attempted escape at several points in time.

## Preface of the Raid

During the days leading up to the raid, successively stronger earthquakes occurred, and eventually, Demons who had managed to slip through the forming cracks of the prison started roaming the countryside and causing mayhem. This caused the local authorities as well as the Wild Geese to investigate. However, neither were aware of the nearby Creatanium prison, which by now lay buried and forgotten under centuries of growth and earth in the Mannailu Forest, and did not find out about it in time. And even if they had, it is dubious whether they could have done anything to prevent the eventual escape from Archdemon from its prison. As it was, the authorities and the Wild Geese had their hands full enough protecting outlying hamlets from erratic Demon attacks.

## The Raid

The actual raid began in earnest when Archdemon finally broke free from its prison and Demons in the order of thousands started flocking the landscape, and quickly converging on the nearby city of Selim. With the city having already been in a heightened state of alert, they were able to fend off the initial attacks with relative ease, though many flying Demons still made it into the city and started causing mayhem.

The tide of battle turned when Archdemon itself entered the fight. The massive demon simply tore through the city wall at the Varle Gate and would have doubtlessly laid waste to all of Selim had it not been confronted by the Wild Geese. However, even with their combined powers, and with the sage Michael Lucius fighting at their side, they were eventually overwhelmed by Archdemon's sheer power. Eventually, in an act of desperation born from the love for their children Sylvia and Bokay, Claudia and Marius managed to draw upon Minayero, forfeiting their own lives in order to seal Archdemon away once again and save their children, and the city.

## Aftermath

With large parts of Selim in ruins, many of the survivors did not return to the city after the raid, and when it became known that Archdemon was still alive and imprisoned beneath the nearby Mannailu Forest, many of those who had initially opted to stay decided to leave after all. As such, Selim quickly degraded from being the most influential city in South Ride with several thousand inhabitants to a rural town with only a few hundred inhabitants - many of them elderly. Once the capital of the Principality of Fagnos and with it of all of Southern Rida, the capital of Fagnos was moved to Kumia, and Fagnos lost the title of Principality to Vernezi, making Maaring the new capital of Southern Rida.