Tales of Emberia

**Tales of Emberia** is a Story Arc of the Exteria Multiverse. It takes place in Yggdra, in the subplane of Cindrion, and follows the perspective of the independant Bestian Katerin. It is a sequel to Tales of Demetria.

## Main Arc

### A Sacrifice

In a bleak world where Ashes gradually make the world inhospitable, people known as Messiahs make a pilgrimage in order to purify it. One of such people, Manakel Illoth, is attacked during his inauguration by Katerin, an agent from an organization that seeks to end the Church which controls the movements of Messiahs as well as their individual progress.

However, Manakel manages to negotiate with Katerin, or Kat for short, in order to keep advancing on his pilgrimage a little before she kills him. Dubious, she accepts - and watches as Manakel performs an act known as a Purification Ceremony, rekindling flames in front of altars in exchange for taking in Ashes in his own body, deeply torturing him, much to Kat's horror.

### Guidance in Ash

Helped by the mysterious Aster Stryke who hunts the Undead Cinderborn, Kat understands that Messiahs are sacrificial lambs used by the Church, and thus attempts to seek other solutions. On her pilgrimage with Manakel, Kat also befriends the mysterious Mineth Floralia who is like her a Bestian - a half-animal being - as well as Illuviel, a purified being, or Malakh.

With advice from a mysterious person known as Ash, Kat begins to understand that all messiahs turn into Cinderborn, and in order to spare this atrocious fate, attempts to perform a pseudo-Purification Ceremony instead of Manakel; this results in her almost dying, but she is saved by 'Ash' - in fact her long-lost mother Ashelia, who survived during twenty years as a corrupted husk.

### Dark Revelations

From Ashelia, Kat learns that she is the daughter of her and Thaddeus, the previous Messiah who succumbed and became undead; Ash, who attempted to purify him, ended up caught in a domain known as **Asphodel**, the hellish core of ashes, where the **Progenitor of Ashes** rules. Eventually, Kat manages to save her mother's life with the help of Illuviel's miracles.

Now aided by the mysterious Hashepian ritualist Junko Kyomaru, the group continues their journey, learning several informations thanks to Junko's wisdom. According to Junko, the promised paradise of the church known as **Archadia** and Asphodel were both artificial creations, from a single man, Emmanuah Cypr, in a massive Purification Ceremony.

Due to the steep price of the Purification, Kat correctly deduces that man - revered as a god by the Church has fallen and become the beast known as the Progenitor of Ashes, due to being the one who created the concept of ash. As the group ends up purifying six out of eight regions in the world, a knight named Jura intervenes and forces the group to reach the Church's headquarters.

### The Ceremony

There, the group meets with Mariya Cypr, powerful church leader, and the semi-immortal wife of Emmanuah. Indicating her desire to replicate her lost husband's sacrificial ceremony to 'save the world' (at the expense of many sacrifices) and become an item of torment forever alongside Emmanuah, Mariya disgusts Kat who breaks free from her influence and runs away with the rest of the group.

Planning to cancel Mariya's plot, Kat follows Junko's advice to conclude a pact with the world's Great Spirits, but is interrupted by Jura, whom she defeats and eventually convinces to grudgingly join her side. She then concludes a pact with four out of eight Spirits, Sylph, Celsius, Undine and Volt. However, to conclude the last pacts, she must access the last altars, light and darkness.

### Kat's Torment

To do so, she follows the lead of Mineth who pretends to have an idea; however, Mineth is herself a biological chimera created by the kingdom of Florenzacia to serve as a weapon against Hashep and take control over the Messiah's group. Deeply feeling betrayed, Kat kills the one who manipulated and tormented Mineth, then rejects her, before relenting and still trying to forgive her betrayal.

Armed with the needed technology, Kat leads her group to form a pact with Efreet and Rem, then with Shadow and Gnome. With all eight spirits bound, Kat seeks to undo Emmanuah's spell, but for that she needs the last spirit - Maxwell, hidden inside Mariya herself. Before she challenges Mariya, however, Kat has one last thing to do - alongside Ash, she fights against her father's corrupted form, and finally frees him.

### Katerin Maxwell

As Mariya attempts to channel the world's Mana inside her, Kat's group rushes to confront her, defeating her and causing the world's balance to collapse as the manifestation of Pillar Yggdrasil threatens the world's balance; thankfully, Kat rushes to make a pact with Maxwell, directly taking her mana inside her, and breaking Emmanuah's hold over the world, destroying Archadia's artificial paradise to purify the world.

Still, Emmanuah, now fully manifested in the material realm and growing stronger by absorbing the dispelled ashes, seeks to invade the world, driven by his maddened instinct. Kat's group, Manakel taking the lead, rushes towards the top of the fortress to confront him. After a harsh battle, the group emerges victorious, Manakel taking in Emmanuah's Soul within him in order to show him the world's reconstruction.

## Characters

* Katerin
* Manakel Illoth
* Ashelia
* Junko Kyomaru
* Illuviel
* Aster Stryke
* Mineth Floralia
* Jura
* Mariya Cypr
* Emmanuah Cypr
* Other Tales Series Characters

## Trivia

* This storyline follows the narrative of a traditional Tales of story.