The moment Aierlinni and Orianna saw the ranger captain plunge toward the dust, saw the Demon Army flooding in from the direction of the royal court like locusts, like a tidal sea, they understood:
Semberholme's fall was already written in fate.
Even all of Cormanthor would be unable to escape this calamity!
No one knew how many years ago the High Elves, the forest's first "gardeners," had arrived here. Around Lake Sember, they built their first settlement: Semberholme.
And near the northern elf tree, they witnessed a miracle of Corellon, the Supreme God. There, they established a new settlement, tending the trees with the care of royal gardeners. The magical clearings built beneath the trees broke the "Eternal Shadow," while large, dangerous beasts were driven away and slaughtered in great numbers through frequent hunts, bringing dozens of centuries of peace and tranquility to the elves' homeland.
Later, they founded the kingdom of Cormanthor, which to this day was still known to the world by the name of its elven royal court, Myth Drannor.
Yet Semberholme, bordering Myth Drannor, stood far higher than the rest of the forest, nourished by the pure waters of the lake. The limestone caves that had once offered the elves a perfect refuge had now become superb hiding places for surface Drow. Moreover, being close to Brightstar and the Moonlight Hills, and one of Cormanthor's three major elven settlements throughout the region's history, Semberholme had seen frequent and fierce struggles between pure-blooded elves and Drow for control of the stronghold in the five centuries since the Kingdom of Cormanthor vanished. It had changed hands time and again.
But whether elf or Drow, none of them had likely imagined that this tranquil, sacred Lake Sember would one day be visited by creatures like demons.
That shock, despair,