Soul of Light

**Soul of Light** is a Story Arc of the Exteria Multiverse. It takes place in the Nootaph and follows the perspective of Josue and Aurore.

## Main Arc

### The Land of Fell Dreams

Aurore wakes up in an eerie dark, decayed realm, only lit by a strange constant aurora borealis, with little to no recall of what she is, or what she does there. Searching for answers, she is guided towards a castle and a wandering man, also suffering from amnesia. The man, Josue, has some kind of connection to Josue, which neither of them can explain. Villagers inform them they are in the land of **Caro-Kann, Fortress of Dreams and Lies**, under the rule of the terrible dark lord known as Great Gargaroth.

A mysterious peddler, Oberon, gives some more information: Gargaroth and his six Knaves have invaded and conquered the world's seven regions, leaving the world's light to dwindle. Oberon mentions the power of Forget-me-nots, who would allow Josue to call powerful allies by his side, and warns about the all-consuming entity known as Walpurgisnacht. Finally, he hints at the existence of a castle in northern Caro-Kann, which Josue and Aurore investigate, encountering the wandering Kora there. Kora joins the party as a fellow pawn to Aurora in the world's ritualized combat system.

### Into Caro-Kann

Exploring Caro-Kann leads the party to find a Forget-me-not that unseals a crystalline dollhouse, freeing Queen Dianthea from her slumber. She immediately swears fealty to Josue and joins him. Stronger than before, the party faces Gargaroth's defenses and manages to fell the tyrant, but Aurore notices something about him is off, and tries to understand him; but her good intentions are interrupted by herself, grabbing a knife of pure darkness and killing Gargaroth, before turning to Josue and attempting to kill him.

Trapped inside her own body, Aurore is haunted by the voices of one who claims to be called **The False Narrator**. Taunted about the importance and purity of lies and fiction, as well as the true meaning of "being true to oneself", Aurore barely manages to wrest back control of her own body and spare Josue, who is even more intrigued. Although shocked, Aurora learns that Gargaroth's defeat has opened up his kingdom's realm, allowing the party to reach into the other kingdoms, perhaps in order to learn more about the world's true nature.

### The Nameless Journey

Their first destination is **Alekhine, Sky of Ambitious Folly**, where stars shine bright and people keep building to reach them. People there seem to worship Suzanne Ultima Estrella, a powerful woman who bears sacred blood and is viewed as deity; but Aurore is wary of her. An encounter with Alekhine's pawn, Naella, seems to confirm this: Suzanne is most probably Alekhine's knave. Without ways to take Alekhine's forget-me-not and with Aurore unwilling to fight Suzanne, fearful that she would kill her as she did with Gargaroth, the party leaves once more.

Their next destination is **Sozin, Land of Illusory Pride**, beautiful plains inspired by feodal Japan, where the party is joined by shadowy pawn Yoru. In that place, Aurore also unwittingly performs a miracle: restoring the appearance of a faceless, shadowy woman merely by describing her facial features. This prompts Josue to reflect upon the world's true meaning. Sozin's Forget-me-not also allows the group to break Nisoku's prison, increasing the party's size further, and they depart, refusing again to fight the land's knave, grim and bloody ronin **Darkedge**.

### Understanding the World's Nature

As the party wanders towards abandoned **Philidor, Desert of Lone Desires**, finding Forget-me-nots allow the party to slowly understand the nature of their journey. From what they gather, the world they are in is called the Nootaph, and is a pataphysical realm where ideas and stories go to die: that is, a massive graveyard for all the fictional characters and stories that were abandoned, discarded, or unable to find their place in the real world. A repository where lies are slowly consumed by Walpurgisnacht into an eternal stasis, without anyone to acknowledge them.

Gargaroth and his Knaves' existence is also understood, as characters who, due to distorting the story around them and bending the narrative, were responsible for their world's own fall into the nootaph, and were branded as criminals for their existence. With that in mind, the party visits Philidor, where they encounter broken, over-sexualized androids, manifestations of people's lonely fantasies with nothing but a fragmented soul, and with the help of Molly, a girl who claims to have been in their party from the start, the group rescues Hesper, another pawn.

Despite Josue and Dianthea being distrustful of Molly and feeling like something is off, Aurore wholeheartedly accepts her, causing Molly to break down crying. She reveals herself to be a Knave, whose powers of self-insertion allow her to forcibly appear in other people's story; which had caused her own story to break down in the past. But now, accepted by Aurore, her "lies" are granted the status of "truth", therefore allowing her to fully exist. Although unable to manifest herself in Josue's army, Molly remains by their side, helping them orient themselves in the world.

### A Journey of Lies

The next destination is **Nimzo, Graveyard of the Damned**, where characters hated and villified are willingly destroyed by their creators. The Knave here is **Percival Sankt**, a knightly individual who believes himself to be the chosen one, and claims Josue's army usurps his own role. After rescuing pawn Billie from an ocean of darkness, the group faces off against Percival and manages to defeat him, with Aurore encouraging him to break free from his cursed "definition", managing to resist the pull of her inner darkness with more ease.

**Grunfeld, Forest of Innocence Lost** awaits next: a place where childhood dreams and imaginary friends are discarded upon adulthood. With Josue musing over the concept of childhood, the group rescues pawn Elizabeth (despite her strange hatred of Aurore), faces off against the chaotic, unpredictable and absurdist **Randominus**, and even finds the Forget-me-not to awaken Trelmarixian, a new Knight for Josue's army, before leaving towards the last region.

This is **Tarrasch, School of False Promises**, an underwater region where a high school houses all the archetypes constructed by fictional depictions of one's youth, a world of false identities and dissonnant nostalgia. There, the Knave is a nameless boy, a stand-in for anyone who would like to reimagine what it felt to be in high-school, who faces off against Josue and binds itself to him, although Josue is able to overpower him and affirm his own identity, refusing to be associated with an empty shell. In Tarrasch, Josue also finds the last Pawn, Lochness.

### Reconstituting the Puzzle

It is now time for the party to return to previous regions and gather the missing pieces. They defeat Suzanne (revealed to be an attempt to create a perfect, flawless character) and Darkedge (an accumulation of traits meant to inspire fear and grim darkness), also rescuing the last pieces: Emma Dantes in Philidor, Alma in Tarrasch, Vesta in Sozin and Szuriel in Nimzo. The army is now complete, and the found Forget-me-nots allow to piece back the world's full story, as well as Josue and Aurore's investment in it.

It is revealed that the Nootaph was initially a lightless world, inhospitable, unfit for even being explored; however, Josue found potential in Aurore, a woman found wandering in the Abyss he resides in. Aurore's existence was a contradiction; she was living, yet abandoned by her creator; another had found her and used her instead. Although unable to write stories by himself, Josue took advantage of the 'twisted love' the new creator had for Aurore to fuel a powerful spell, able to even bring light to the Nootaph.

To do so however, Josue had to part with part of his own soul: the Tragoedia Seed of Nihilism plaguing his own heart, thus explaining Josue's lost memories. The powerful pieces Josue collected along the way are revealed to be parts of his own army, whom he forgot during the ritual. In exchange, light was returned to a minuscule part of the Nootaph, allowing Aurore to act as a witness and acknowledge the existence of the lost and damned, even if for a brief moment.

### Light in Darkness

To make that light eternal, though, one last opponent persists; Walpurgisnacht, the very concept of "death of fiction". To face off against it, the party needs the help of Oberon, who reveals himself to be the False Narrator and the Seed of Nihilism, Josue's other half. After reuniting with Josue, the Tragoedia manages to break through the world's fine boundaries and reach one last area, a sinister castle where Gargaroth's corpse stands, now animated by Walpurgisnacht's miasma. The party challenges the cursed corpse and manages to defeat him once and for all.

After his defeat, Aurore infuse life in him, helping him to break free of the shallow, archetypal evil overlord behavior he was forced to exhibit. As she does so, however, the darkness within her surges once more. This darkness, the "lie" within her, the contradiction of her own existence and remains of her first creator, attempt to incite her to destroy her own story. As she affirms her own existence, free of the creators' whims, her light allows to turn this "lie" into "truth", and she breaks free, allowing her, with timely intervention from Suzan, to build a bridge between the Nootaph and Josue's palace, securing the existence of the small fragment of darkness they saved.

## Characters

* Josue (King)
* Dianthea (Queen)
* Emma Dantes (Rook)
* Alma (Rook)
* Vesta (Bishop)
* Nisoku (Bishop)
* Szuriel (Knight)
* Trelmarixian (Knight)
* Aurore (Pawn)
* Kora (Pawn)
* Naella (Pawn)
* Yoru (Pawn)
* Hesper (Pawn)
* Elizabeth (Pawn)
* Billie (Pawn)
* Lochness (Pawn)
* Oberon (Other)
* The Great Gargaroth (Other)
* Suzanne Ultima Estrella (Other)
* Molly (Other)
* Other Soul of Light characters

## Trivia

* This storyline's main theme is **Feint** by **Epica**.