The Story

ACT 1

A journalist with a high esteem called Daniel Finley visits a former kingdom on an island called Fabian's Island to look for his missing friend Charlie. Before his disappearance, Charlie sends Daniel something impossible. It is a key. The key opens Daniel’s sister’s jewelry box. How is this possible?

Daniel sets off to Fabien’s Island in pretense of wanting to write a story about the island’s specific and unorthodox culture, but secretly he wants to search for his missing colleague Charlie.

His fiancée Isabella convinces him to let her accompany him. They first travel by a train to the port. It is unknown to the reader where the port is, but the trip takes several days. And the island is somewhere in Europe.

The island is secluded from the rest of the world and only accessible via naval transportation. They spend several days there. Soon, Daniel stumbles across a conspiracy meant to destabilize the current government and rebel against it. This happens on the backdrop of the island being threatened by the villainous rebel Shadowmane whose base is rumored to be located in the inhospitable North. At some point, some character mentions to Daniel that the North side of the island is a merciless and mysterious place. There are local legends told and people from the South fear going there.

Daniel and Isabella are given a tour over the capital.

Then they take a trip to the countryside. They meet people from the island and learn a lot about their way of life. We learn that their basic needs are satisfied. There is no imminent danger. They are all comfortable. But a certain kind of anxiety is not unusal among the young. When they are presented with a large number of options they can choose from in life, they feel a strange pressure and fear they might choose a wrong one.

One day, when they are diving at one of the island’s most beautiful beaches, an incident happens where Isabella doesn’t resurface. She starts drowning, but Daniel manages to save her in time thanks to the training he got from her. He tells her he wouldn’t know what to do if she drowned.

A traditional Veilweaving Festival is approaching where everybody wears the same mask, and everybody is therefore anonymous. This is to worship the main Fabian deity – Synthra – the deity of Death, Unity and Peace and express equality of all people before her. Daniel is instructed not to take of his veil under any circumstance. On this occasion, a new trade treaty is about to be signed that would make Fabian’s Island dependable on other countries.

Daniel is kissed by somebody. He doesn’t know if it is Isabella or anybody else. It is mysterious and exciting. He wonders what it means, what it tells him about himself and his relationship with Isabella. (She secretly switched his ring for a different one.). During this event, one of the people is stabbed and dies. It was intended to be Daniel, but somebody else died instead of him.

Local police investigate the murder. So far, the police’s role has been rather symbolic since there have not been any serious crimes for a long time. After a few days, they find the murderer dead. He was poisoned. The police struggle with the case because nobody has experience with murders. The case becomes cold. But they find out that the ring on the dead person’s finger has Daniel’s fingerprints on it.

Soon after this incident, Daniel is attending a banquet while his fiancée stays at home feeling sick. Again, everybody is wearing robes and masks. During this event a massive explosion is heard, and all the lights go out.

The power plant hundreds of miles from here had been blown up. The island has been cut off from the electricity. Many members of Fabian’s council are killed by assassins in the same kind of robes.

It turns out that Shadomane had ordered the deaths of only those councilors who had, from his point of view, broken their oath. The Warden of Defense is killed since he agreed with opening the world to the world, thus breaking his oath that he would protect the island from all dangers at all costs. This information only escalated the tension between the remaining councilors and the pressure on their subsequent actions.

Shadowmane regarded this massacre as an act of honor, salvaging the honor of the killed councilors and saving them from the shame of breaking their oaths in front of Alethor.

After this act, voices started to cautiously appear among the common folk which commended Shadowmane's actions, and the public opinion has divided. Conflicts started to arise between the people close to the killed councilors and the rest.

When Daniel is hiding in the shadows, an assassin is coming to kill him too, but another figure gets rid of the assassin before he manages to hurt Daniel.

Daniel notices that the ring he got as a token of hospitality makes the device on the assassin beep. They are tracking all the people wearing the rings. These rings have a stardust pearl on them – the symbol of Fabian’s Island.

He remembers that Isabella is wearing one as well and rushes off to get her. When he gets there, she is gone. The ring is lying on the bedside table. He doesn’t know what has happened to Isabella. Soon another assassin comes to kill the ring’s wearer. Daniel must sneak away, because he is not fit to fight him.

(What he doesn’t know is that somebody put something in Isabella’s drink to make her stay home and later abduct her.)

ACT 2

The capital must now deal with the aftermath. Some of the councilors are dead and they must be replaced. There is a call from several of the remaining councilors to submit to Shadowmane while others are strongly against this idea. There are some who can’t decide.

Daniel is on the search for Isabella. He traces her out of the capital. (Isabella’s life back home is described. How would her disappearance affect those people?)

The atmosphere on the island changes. The hospitality, Daniel was met with before is suddenly gone. There is fear in the air. Daniel is lost on the island and gets into some conflict.

Luckily, he is saved and when he is unconscious, somebody drags him to a man who saves his life and takes care of him. He is grumpy and not very friendly but helps Daniel when it matters. He lives with him for a while. Daniel keeps searching for Isabella. When he learns of his whereabout he sets off to save her, but the man stops him. He would die on his own.

Finally, the man agrees to help him and become his mentor. However, Daniel must prove that he is willing to suffer pain for her. He must hold a burning ember to prove it. He refuses at first. The fire gets cold, and they go to sleep. But Daniel can’t fall asleep. He remembers his childhood. When he was left behind in cold and couldn’t move until somebody saved him and started a fire. After he lost his sister, he remembers being paralyzed in fear. He misses the fire of Isabella. He can’t find her without the mentor’s knowledge. So, he is willing to hold the burning ember in his hand. The mentor now agrees to help.

Meanwhile there is a war between regimes. Locals get used to living in the dark times without electricity. We get to see how their lives changed in contrast to when Daniel first came on this island.

The mentor sees how common people suffer and decides to finally come out of his shell and joins the resistance against the rebels.

Together, the mentor and Daniel foil several of the rebels’ plans.

Daniel learns the full extent of the rebellious plan. He traces the threads back to the mastermind called Shadowmane. Daniel’s mentor turns out to be Shadowmane’s brother Edward.

Shadowmane intends to take over the island and plunge it back into the medieval era. His motivations remain unclear (the death of his daughter due to the weakness of people stemming from the free choice).

Daniel sacrifices an innocent person to get a chance to free Isabella from the rebellious. His decisions will later lead to the fall of the old regime.

Daniel learns the fate of Charlie.

The mentor is confronted with his brother Shadowmane who urges him to step away. He doesn’t. He sacrifices himself to save Daniel and Isabella. Shadowmane doesn’t react to his death, though it does not bring him any joy either.

Daniel wants to use this opportunity to flee. There is a conflict between Daniel and Isabella. Isabella doesn’t like his selfishness. Her compassion prevents Daniel from taking a boat and fleeing from the island with her. She urges him to help other people.

They stay on the island and keep helping people.

Isabella uses her knowledge and skills to help people.

One person betrays them because they threaten their family, and Isabella is captured again.

Daniel must make difficult choices – he makes selfish choices to save Isabella and himself.

ACT 3

Daniel gathers his allies and is on his way to sneak into the castle and save Isabella.

As he is about to confront Shadowmane, the mysterious kisser reappears. She kisses him again and tells him not to go. Confused by the kiss, but still resolved to save Isabella, he doesn’t heed her advice and proceeds. What he doesn’t know is that she exchanged his gun for one with blanks in it.

Daniel is confronted with Shadowmane whose true name is Edmond Everett. The mysterious kisser is standing by his side.

Daniel finds out Edmond is his father, hesitates and Edmond gains the upper hand.

Daniel is supposed to choose between the lives of some of the people he saved and Isabella. They are sentenced to death for treason. He is granted the power to grant pardon to somebody. He chooses Isabella and the choice doesn’t take him much time. But Edmond wants him to kill the people himself in order to set Isabella free. His point is that the outcome is the same if somebody else does the job and Daniel just chooses somebody to go away. It shows the difficulty of decisions that one would consider easy if he just looked away and let somebody else do the hard task.

Daniel can’t do that and Isabella nods in approval. She sacrifices herself and jumps off a cliff to prevent Daniel from having to make the impossible choice. Daniel is devastated. Sadly, the Shadowmane’s rules were not followed because the choice wasn’t made by Daniel. Since Daniel is unable to execute his power, nobody is granted pardon and they all die.

Daniel is trying to shoot Edmond, but there are blanks in the gun. Daniel’s hands stay clear of murder so far.

Daniel is put into a dark cell and later exiled to the north of the island. Edmond is crowned king. It is revealed that Edmond is terminally ill and wants Daniel to come get revenge because it would mean that he is strong enough to become his successor if he manages to pick himself up from the absolute bottom. The kisser is instructed not to help Daniel this time.

Daniel is in the same situation as when his sister died. He is out there in the cold, but this time there is nobody to save him and start the fire. He’s broken but finds a new flame – the fire in his body, the urge to get revenge.