Directly following the March of the Mortal Machine, The Sunsations delved deep beneath the Imperial Palace of Bastile on a desperate mission to save their old friend from himself...
Descent into the Depths
The Immortal Emperor watches impassively as Admiral Aegis reboots and stands with mechanical precision. A slight crackle of Rift Energy surges through his frame as his luminous eyes flicker to the Sunsations. Without hesitation, he waves his hand, motioning for them to follow.
The Knights of the Krakenstone fall into formation behind them, their black-and-gold armor gleaming under the dim light of the imperial palace. They move with the weight of duty, their bootfalls synchronized with a chilling precision that echoes through the gilded halls.
At the far end of the Imperial Palace, a massive archway looms, its intricate carvings of golden krakens twisting in an endless cycle of devouring and rebirth. Beyond it, a spiral staircase descends deep into the heart of the earth. The air is thick, oppressive, as if they are walking into the depths of something ancient, something forgotten.
The descent seems endless. The path is lit only by braziers of purple flame, their unnatural light casting elongated shadows along the curved walls. Every few steps, they pass pairs of Kraken Royal Guards, clad in ceremonial obsidian armor, standing silent and motionless as statues.
Time becomes meaningless.
Step after step. Hallway after hallway. They feel as if they are walking beyond the world itself, deeper than any mortal should tread.
At last, they arrive before a massive vault door—forged from black marble and reinforced with layered rot-iron. Two Kraken Guards stand on either side, their hands resting on colossal crank mechanisms.
Aegis nods. The guards immediately begin to turn the cranks. The sound of grinding metal fills the corridor as the vault rumbles apart, splitting down the middle like the jaws of a great beast.
Beyond it—another door. And another.
With each passage, the air grows colder, heavier, as if they are pressing against some unseen force, some slumbering titan waiting just beyond the veil of reality.
At last, they reach the final gate.
Unlike the others, this one is not turned by cranks. Aegis steps forward and places his hand upon the obsidian surface. Tiny microchip conductors spark to life, arcs of energy tracing the surface like veins of lightning. The door shifts—its very structure reordering itself, shifting like a living puzzle until at last, with a final pulse of energy, it slides open.
The doors behind them seal shut, locking them in.
And then, they see it.
The Containment Chamber
They stand in a small control room, separated by a reinforced observation window.
Inside, the chamber is a monument to the Empire’s mastery of technology—a massive cylindrical chamber, lined with mechanical conduits and particle collider rings, all pulsing with erratic purple rift energy. The air crackles with an unnatural hum, the very walls humming with restrained power.
But their attention is drawn to the center of the chamber.
Floating—suspended in a column of cerebral fluid—is Talyen.
His body is weightless, drifting in the stasis field, his form still yet occasionally convulsing, as if some unseen force wrestles for control within him. Wires and conduits run from the ceiling, feeding into the chamber, constantly monitoring his elemental readings.
Aegis motions toward a large monitor screen, filled with complex, ever-shifting graphs and arcane diagnostics. Elemental readings spike erratically—Sun, Earth, Water, and Air, all fighting for dominance, fluctuating like a raging storm barely contained.
Aegis:
"A containment chamber unlike anything we've ever constructed. It suppresses the embattled souls within his own, but it will not hold forever."
His cold mechanical gaze flickers to the readings. The chaotic fluctuations are growing worse.
"His elemental rift energies are beyond anything we've recorded. More than an avatar—he is a star, a living sun ready to collapse upon itself. If we allow him to awaken like this..."
He trails off, shaking his head. The implication is clear.
The would burn the world to ash.
The Clockwork Brain
Behind them, laboratory seats sit along the control panel, each fitted with a hovering cranium-like mechanism, linked by hundreds of wires to the central observation station.
"This machine—the Clockwork Cranium—can interface with his subconscious. If you link your minds to it, you may be able to reach him in his dreaming state. You must convince him to ease this raging tempest before it consumes him entirely."
The scientists watch in silence. The air is heavy.
The choice lies before them.
To let him sleep, forever trapped in this unrelenting stasis.
Or to venture into the depths of his fractured mind, to pull him back from the abyss before he destroys everything.
The seats await.
The metal hums.
Aegis steps back, allowing them their final moment of consideration.
And if they choose to proceed—
The machines activate.
The world turns black.
And the void welcomes them.
Requiem for a Dream
The world flickers with an unnatural translucence, shifting between reality and dream.
A burning forest stretches endlessly, its charred remains still crackling with ember glow.
A lone figure, draped in tattered white and gold robes, stumbles through the ashen woodlands.
The echoes of a thousand voices—some familiar, some unknown—cry out in agony and anger, reverberating from all directions.
The figure falls to his knees, clutching his bleeding golden eyes, as his hands clasp his ears.
The vision distorts, the fire blazes brighter, and suddenly—darkness.
...
The party awakens within Talyen's subconscious, an ethereal world composed of memories, distorted by time and trauma.
...
The Sun-Bathed Halls of Itela
The Avatar’s Tower overlooks the golden city of Itela, seated upon the western cliffs of Osira.
The marble halls glisten in the dawn, the rising sun casting long beams of golden light.
Talyen, a young Solir boy, dashes through the halls, holding a small lantern in his hands—when he catches the sunlight, the crystal inside begins to glow radiantly.
He rushes up the stairs to show Avatar Lumina, who stands at the tower’s observatory.
Lumina, a striking figure with white-gold hair, olive skin, and flowing golden robes, watches the ocean with a grim expression.
Alistair Emrys (aka Altair Emris), a well-dressed and flamboyant historian, stands beside her, offering silent comfort with a hand on her shoulder.
Talyen, excited, waves the glowing lantern:
"Look, mother! I caught the sun!"
Lumina kneels, smiling through golden tears, and sets the lantern down.
"One day, you will hold the sun itself in your palm, my son."
Alistair smirks, tousling Talyen’s hair.
"And soon, we’ll go on an adventure, won’t we? To the Southern Sands!"
Lumina’s smile fades as she gazes toward the ocean.
"But I must stay for now… I must meet someone very important."
Avatar Rozan, the first Avatar of the Sun, watches from the far end of the hallway, his fiery red-orange hair flickering like a dying flame.
As the dreamscape fades into golden light, Rozan speaks:
"Even the brightest star must one day fall beyond the horizon."
The Earth’s Embrace
A vast mountain cliff, overlooking a green valley of wildflowers and pastures.
A stoic Njordir monk stands at the edge, watching a young Talyen unknowingly manipulate earth-rifting magic to grow dandelions.
As the wind carries the dandelions away, the monk turns away, his face etched in silent grief.
The dandelions grow in reverse, withering and drifting into the winds—Talyen lets them go.
Lumina talks to Avatar Rok about how one day they will be together at last… as a family, not having to hide their relationship from both The Earth Realm and The Sun Realm
Avatar Umber, Avatar of Earth, materializes beside the monk, placing a spectral hand on his shoulder.
As the vision quakes and fractures, Umber whispers:
"Even the mountain crumbles to dust in time."
The Tides of Fate
Talyen sits on the Avatar Tower's railing, peering through a spyglass at Solir longships cutting through the waters below.
Alistair Emris joins him, his voice full of wanderlust.
"A whole world beyond the waves, Talyen… I hope to see it all. Maybe one day, you will too."
The ocean reflects no sunlight, appearing like a vast abyss—only by adjusting the spyglass does Talyen restore its light.
Avatar Atla, Avatar of the Sea, rise from the depths.
As waves crash over the vision, they whisper in unison:
"The tide pulls all things home…"
The Forgotten Knowledge
A grand Solir library, where rain lashes against stained-glass windows.
Lumina reads aloud from a tome, explaining the four Worldstones—Sunstone, Earthstone, Seastone, and Ether.
Alistair bursts in, breathless, "He’s here."
A black lightning strike cracks across the sky.
The pages of the book begin to blank as their ink bleeds off the pages...
Avatar Aegis, Avatar of the Air, is seen momentarily from the whipping winds beyond the stained glass windows.
Before the vision shatters, they murmur:
"The wind carries the past forward… but does not return it."
The Shadow Beckons
Talyen, still a child, stands at the hallway’s end as a black silhouette with haunting purple eyes approaches.
Malekith looms over him.
"Do you think the sun shall never set, boy? Even the greatest stars must burn away."
Talyen’s body refuses to move as he watches his mother’s silhouette vanish upstairs.
The hallway stretches endlessly, trapping Talyen—he must step forward to break the illusion.
The past Avatars now all stand together, their spectral forms solidifying.
As the memory burns away, they chant:
"The light must first chase the veil of shadow, before it may rise anew."
The Burned Woods
The air reeks of charred wood and smoldering ruin.
The sky is red, choked with smoke and embers.
A forest burns all around—ashen trees reduced to skeletal husks, their leaves nothing but falling soot.
Screams echo from all directions—familiar voices, lost voices. Some whisper his name, others weep, others cry out in agony.
Talyen stumbles, his white and gold robes scorched and torn, his face smeared with soot. His vision is blurry as he collapses onto his knees.
The Avatars materialize through the flames—Rozan, Umber, Atla, Vapora, Aegis, Kelak—their spectral forms encircling him, their voices rising in unison as they recite the Prophecy of Elemental Elysium.
But Talyen refuses to hear them. He clutches his head, shaking violently, his eyes streaming golden tears.
"NO! STOP! I DON’T UNDERSTAND!"
His own voice shatters through the chorus, silencing the Avatars.
He screams. The flames rise. The world collapses into darkness.
The last thing seen is his hand reaching for help, before it is swallowed by fire.
As the vision begins to burn away, the Avatars speak once more in unison:
"The past may burn, but its embers yet remain in the soul."
The Sands of Serrakhan
The sun is blinding, beating down upon a vast, endless desert of golden dunes.
Wind howls across the wasteland, shifting sand that buries and unburies bones with each gust.
Talyen stumbles forward, his body wrapped in tattered desert hides, his hands blistered and raw from exposure.
A wyvern-bone bow is slung across his back, its string frayed with age.
His face is older, more gaunt, hollow, his eyes sunk into deep, dark rings.
Every step he takes feels like a century—as if he is walking through time itself.
He walks for what seems like decades, his mind breaking.
He cries out into the desert, his voice raw and cracked:
"STOP! PLEASE! I CAN’T TAKE IT ANYMORE!"
"I DON’T REMEMBER! I DON’T KNOW WHO I AM!"
His own echoes mock him, carried by the wind.
A shadow stretches over him.
He turns. A towering figure looms above—a wraith of shadow...
Malekith reaches down, his fingers wreathed in shadow, touching Talyen’s forehead.
The vision warps and blurs, as if time itself is breaking apart.
A shadowy figure—part Valekith, part Malekith—stands in the mirage-like distance, watching him in seething silence.
The Emris Adventuring Guild
The warm glow of lanterns and the scent of aged parchment fills the air.
Talyen stumbles through the wooden doors of the Emris Adventuring Guild, disoriented and weak.
His ears ring, muffling voices, making everything feel distant—like an echo of a memory.
A man approaches him—Altair Emris (disguised as a human, though now recognized as Alistair).
Altair smiles, his arms open in welcome.
"Welcome home, Talyen. There’s a place for you here."
The guild is warm, familiar—but something is missing.
Talyen blinks, and suddenly he is tossing and turning in bed.
A storm rages outside, lightning illuminating the School of the Phoenix dormitory.
He is cupping his head, muttering and trembling.
A hand gently touches his face.
He opens his eyes. Lumina sits beside his bed, softly humming a song.
She begins to sing—a lullaby from his childhood.
Lumina’s Song: (Solir Elven Lullaby)
"As the dawn rises, the shadows fade,
Light ever fleeting, yet ever made.
The sun falls, the stars ignite,
Yet always returns, banishing night."
Lumina’s golden tears fall onto his cheek.
She looks directly at the party—the first spirit to acknowledge them.
A sorrowful smile graces her lips.
As the storm rages outside, she whispers:
"Even in the darkest night… know that the sun will rise again."
A flash of golden light—and the dream shatters.
The Snakebite Tavern
The warm, boisterous atmosphere of the Snakebite Tavern.
Talyen sits at a wooden table, surrounded by familiar faces—Professor Henry Endsworth, Losk the Wanderer, Kairus the Brass, Josu, Mal the Marbled Man, Guy, and the rest of the Sunsations.
Drinks are shared, laughter fills the air. Everything is exactly as it should be.
Talyen smiles for the first time in many years, but his jovial cheer begins to quickly fade.
He stares at his drink, the light from the tavern’s torches flickering in his golden eyes.
He is stoic, distant—a man who has seen too much.
He finally looks up, truly seeing the party for the first time.
"I remember all of you. But I don't know if I remember myself."
When he hears them speaking of their shared history, his hands tremble. He looks at them in shock.
"How do you know that? …Who are you?"
The tavern distorts, breaking apart at the seams.
A black abyss swallows the world, pulling everything apart.
The dream is fracturing and breaking...
(His voice cracks between anger, grief, and desperate hope. The dreamscape around him flickers—burned forests, shattered thrones, the endless sands—shifting with every broken thought.)
"I... I was... I was someone once, wasn't I?
A child... a survivor... a warrior... a sunbeam caught in glass.
I remember faces... guiding me, lifting me, pushing me onward.
... were they real? Or was has this all been a lie?
(He stumbles through the smoke and ash, reaching for shapes that vanish like mist.)
I hear them... whispering. Terra, Typhon, Lumina... Guy... even Valekith.
Their voices—my voice—a thousand voices—they scream, they sing, they fall silent.
(His hand presses against his chest where a faint ember flickers.)
Am I a spark they sheltered?
Or the storm they tried to chain?
(He shudders violently, falling to his knees.)
They said I was chosen.
They said I was forsaken.
(A bitter laugh, raw with sorrow.)
Chosen for what?
To burn the world?
To save it?
(He clutches his head, as images of the Sunsations, the deserts of Serrakhan, the black sun, and a cracked crystal flash around him.)
I remember them... my friends... my family born from fire, not blood.
(Soft, pleading now.)
Please... if any part of me remains...
Show me the path.
Show me what I must become.
(He tilts his head back, crying out into the endless storm of the dreamscape.)
I am not your weapon.
I am not your god.
I am not your mistake.
(A fierce whisper, barely audible.)
I am Talyen.
(The dreamscape trembles—something stirs.)
I am Talyen.
(The ember in his chest flares brighter—then fades to a faint, stubborn glow.)
I will remember.
I will choose.
(A final whisper lost to the rising winds.)
...even if the stars forget me.
The Edge of Elysium
Silence. Then, an explosion of sound—roaring flames, crashing waves, howling winds, and quaking earth.
The Sunsations are suspended in the void of Talyen’s dreaming subconscious, weightless in the maelstrom of raw elemental pandemonium.
There is no sky. No ground. No air to breathe—only the relentless, unforgiving chaos of creation and destruction colliding in an eternal, spiraling storm.
The elements form and shatter in moments, birthing stars, splitting atoms, churning endless tides, and igniting radiant flares that burn as quickly as they vanish.
At the epicenter of the maelstrom, Talyen’s form fractures and shifts, his body warping between different shapes, his limbs elongated and split by writhing streaks of energy.
His golden hair burns like sunfire one moment, then hardens into stone, then dissolves into water before vanishing into the endless void. His eyes flicker erratically—gold, blue, green, purple—never the same twice.
He screams, and the sheer force of it shatters reality.
All around him, five spectral forms fight against his collapsing subconscious, their essence pulling away from him, yet bound by the chaos that fuses them together.
- Avatar Terra—his form cracked and crumbling, his once-unshakable foundation splitting apart with tremors of uncertainty.
- Avatar Typhon—his body caught between tides, torn between violent storms and still waters, unable to reconcile the depths with the surface.
- Avatar Guy—his figure twisting within the wind itself, his form scattered like dust in an eternal storm, unable to remain whole.
- Lumina—her radiant light flickering, torn between brilliant gold and consuming darkness, her voice lost to the echoes of eternity.
- Valekith—his shadow elongated and distorted, a monstrous form of void-stained arrogance, yet his voice trembling with recognition.
Each of them is trapped, locked in a battle for dominance within Talyen’s unraveling mind, their essences pulling, twisting, fracturing.
The party can feel it—his subconscious is reaching a breaking point.
If they do nothing, he will lose himself completely.
If they fail, he will ascend—but not as himself.
His voice erupts across the abyss, filled with raw suffering and denial.
"I CAN’T—THIS ISN’T—NONE OF THIS SHOULD EXIST!"
"THEY AREN’T ME! THEY CAN’T BE ME!"
"BUT THEY ARE ALL ME"
"I CAN’T BE ALL OF THEM!"
(His voice fractures, breaks, echoes like a shattering world. Each line feels torn from the elemental maelstrom engulfing him.)
"Fire! Water! Stone! Wind! Light—shadow—they tear at me!
(he clutches his chest, trembling as his limbs warp and flicker between elements)
I am burning... drowning... breaking... flying... falling.
(The void twists with every syllable.)
I hear them ALL!?!
(He staggers through the roaring elements, eyes flickering gold, blue, green, violet.)
I am none of them! I am all of them!
(he gasps, convulsing as arcs of fire and water erupt from his body)
They made me a vessel...
A weapon...
A sun to scorch the sky!
(Voice drops to a pleading whisper.)
But who... who am I?
(he claws at the maelstrom around him)
I was a boy once... a name whispered in the sands...
A dream beneath the burning sun...
(he howls, broken)
Where did I go?
(The elemental chaos shrieks in response—firestorms ignite and drown in the same instant.)
I won’t be your god.
I won’t be your mistake.
(he stares upward, light bleeding from his eyes)
I am not Terra’s might.
I am not Typhon’s tides.
I am not Guy’s will.
I am not Lumina’s light.
I am not Valekith’s curse.
(and yet, whispered like a secret)
Yet...I am all of them.
(the storm slows for a heartbeat)
(Softly now—like a child lost in a storm.)
Help me remember...
Please...
Before the last of me breaks upon the shores.
(the dreamscape shakes as the Sunsations' voices rise...)
He clutches his head, shaking violently, and the elements rage harder, spiraling toward a point of total annihilation.
This is where the Sunsations plead to their friend—not to fight the elements, not to deny them, but to walk the path of the four elements and embrace what he has become.
Each line they speak stabilizes a different element, drawing it into harmony rather than discord.
The elements begin to settle—no longer clashing, but flowing together.
Talyen’s fractured body reforms, his once-tormented expression softening, his golden eyes now deep pools of understanding.
One by one, the Avatars cease their struggle. Terra stills the quakes. Typhon calms the waves. Guy soothes the wind. Lumina steadies the light. Even Valekith… falls silent.
Silence falls.
The maelstrom slows, like a monstrous heart finally exhaling its last furious beat.
Talyen stands alone at the center of the abyss, suspended over the raw void of creation itself. His body still shudders—fractured by the endless war of the elements—but now, slowly, with aching reverence, the broken pieces begin to mend.
Around him, the Avatars find absolution:
Terra, the rock beneath all things, bows his head, the last tremor stilling in his stone-hewn form.
Typhon, the abyssal tide, sinks into stillness, his storm-wracked hands folding like the ocean after a hurricane's passing.
Guy, the soaring wind, exhales a final gust—and falls silent.
Lumina, the radiant flame, flickers once more... and steadies into a quiet sun.
Even Valekith, his shadow long and coiled, retracts into a hushed silhouette—no longer seething, no longer fighting.
Talyen opens his eyes.
They are no longer mere gold—they are universes unto themselves. Deep, infinite, shimmering with hues no mortal tongue can name: violet suns, black rivers of starlight, white-hot lines of cosmic force.
He spreads his arms wide.
- The elements rise to him—not as raging forces, but as disciples returning to their master.
- The earth forms beneath his feet, solid and unbreakable.
- The tides swirl up around his waist, a crown of flowing stars.
- The winds coil like serpents of silk around his shoulders.
- The fire wreathed in light itself dances across his palms.
For a moment, the dreamscape becomes an infinity, a shining coil of existence—violent, beautiful, unstoppable.
A serpent of pure elemental Rift Energy winds around Talyen, binding earth, air, fire, water into a perfect, searing violet helix, shimmering brighter and brighter, until the Sunsations must shield their eyes.
He speaks—and his voice is not merely sound.
It is the crack of mountains, the hush of oceans, the howl of gales, the roar of suns:
"I see now."
"My destiny laid bare"
"Path of the Four Elements"
With a single, graceful motion, Talyen draws the elements inward.
They collapse into him, not with violence, but with reverence—merging into a singular sphere of blinding violet light that hovers above his hands. Within it swirl galaxies of power, elemental forces spun together into the purest form of Rift Energy the world has ever known.
The dream quivers. Cracks splinter across the infinite horizon.
Talyen turns to face the Sunsations.
His expression is calm now—no longer the broken warrior they once knew, but something greater. Something whole.
His voice, when it comes, carries a resonance that shakes the very bones of the dream.
"Thank you."
"Because of you… I remember."
He gazes at the swirling sphere in his hands, and his eyes burn like twin stars on the edge of becoming novas.
"I know now what I must do..."
"I will restore the Realms—"all of them."
The dream shatters.
Reality surges back into being.
The Sunsations awaken, gasping, their hearts hammering, sweat beading down their faces as the sterile air of the Bastilian control chamber rushes over them.
The containment cell before them hums with suppressed, unfathomable power—but it holds.
And within it, floating with effortless poise, Talyen opens his eyes once more—whole.
They gleam with the brilliant, terrible, beautiful light of a star reborn.. Yet the mechanical wires of the Clockwork Cranium above his stasis chamber are still embedded deep into this spine...