Golden Sun series/Detailed plot summary/Golden Sun and The Lost Age

This is an extensively detailed writeup of the events in Golden Sun and Golden Sun: The Lost Age as they occur from the player's point of view. For the extensively detailed writeup of the events in Golden Sun: Dark Dawn, see Golden Sun series/Detailed plot summary/Dark Dawn.

A Point of Warning: This page contains a detailed writeup of the Golden Sun  story with no holds barred on the spoilers and almost a blow-by-blow  account of what happens in the games. Read this page at your own risk.

If you are looking for a spoiler-free walkthrough, please consult one of these pages instead.

Background
The world of Weyard is a flat, disk-like plane where there is a clearly defined edge  dropping into the abyss below, much like the classic  Flat Earth idea of Earth. The oceans of the world endlessly flow over the edge of the world's entire perimeter, and  all points along the perimeter where the water of the world falls into  the abyss below is collectively known as Gaia Falls. To the denizens of modern-day Weyard that live near Gaia Falls, it is an  as-of-yet-unsolved mystery how it is that the world's waters never "run  out".

All matter on Weyard, living or inanimate and including humanity itself, is comprised of any combination of the four  elemental building blocks of reality, which are modeled off the four  Greek  Classical Elements: Venus, the element of earth, ground, and  plantlife; Mars, the element of fire and heat; Jupiter, the  element of air and electricity; and Mercury, the element of water  and the cold. An individual that has the ability to manipulate at least one of these elements from their surrounding environment using a mental,  spiritual power is classifiable as an Adept of that element, and the  act of elemental manipulation, which resembles magical sorcery, is known  as using Psynergy of that element. While it seems all lifeforms on Weyard are innately aligned with a given element and all sapient and/or  sentient lifeforms among them have the potential to manipulate that  element with Psynergy, the ability to do so is typically not developed  within most individuals; an individual is only truly able to employ  Psynergy at will once special circumstances have been met, the most  typical of which is either prolonged exposure or sudden contact with a  rare, rocky substance called Psynergy Stone, the existence of which  is generally unknown by the world at large by the start of Golden  Sun.

Ages before the start of Golden Sun, Weyard was a much different place; taking residence upon the lands of  the world were thriving civilizations and clans based on each of the  four elements. This was made possible by a great power named Alchemy, which is apparently similar to Psynergy, but is much more  powerful in that all four of the building blocks of reality are  manipulated simultaneously as one rather than just a single element at a  time. Alchemy could allow for fantastic effects, such as the transmutation of lead into solid gold, and the ability to thwart death  itself.

Alchemy, being what fueled the rise of civilization in this era, would similarly fuel the rise of untold  strife, however. Mankind's dreams of endless riches, and then of eternal life, eventually turned to dreams of dominion over all that lived, and  aspirations of conquest. The world became the stage for a great conflict, as the nations abused the power of Alchemy to raise armies and  wage war against each other. The world was nearly torn apart, but was ultimately saved from its own denizens by the bravery of a few wise men:  They sealed away the power of Alchemy out of the reach of the nations  of the world of Weyard, and the wars subsided. The secrets to Alchemy were hidden within a dungeon-like shrine named Sol Sanctum,  constructed within Mt. Aleph at the western part of the modern-day  north-central continent of Angara, where they would remain outside  of public knowledge and reach for the ages to come. By the time of Golden Sun, a village named Vale had been  founded at the foot of Mt. Aleph. The residents of the village were all Adepts to varying degrees, and they recognized it was due to having  lived life in the proximity of a large Psynergy Stone formation near the  foot of the mountain, a structure they had adopted as a village  monument. Holding their power to be a blessing and gift by gods and by Mt. Aleph, the Valeans had made it their tradition to stand guard over  the entrance to Sol Sanctum and to refrain from entering it freely so as  to preserve the shrine's sanctity (though they remained unaware of the  true secrets locked deep within the shrine). Believing that Psynergy was a craft unique to Vale, the villagers also made it a law never to  reveal Psynergy to any visitors from the outside world.

The disturbing of Sol Sanctum
Three years before the present day in Golden Sun, a terrible  thunderstorm spontaneously appeared and struck Vale and Mt. Aleph. A massive boulder situated somewhere on Mt. Aleph was dislodged and began a  destructive descent down upon the village, and though the adult Adepts  of the village tried to slow its descent with their Psynergy so that the  rest of the village could evacuate, tragedy was sowed, as several of  the townspeople appeared to perish when they were hit by the boulder. Lost and confused, two of the surviving young Adepts of the village, the Venus Adept Isaac and the Mars Adept Garet, were soon happened  upon by a menacing pair of strangers who were like humans but had  vaguely reptilian features, and who indicated that the storm was caused  by them triggering a trap when they had tried to infiltrate Sol Sanctum. The mystery man and woman promptly made the boys forget witnessing them by knocking the boys unconscious with their extremely powerful Mars  Psynergy before fleeing Vale.

The families of the victims of the disaster had a very trying time over the years to come. Isaac and his mother Dora were devastated by the loss of his father Kyle, but their grief was eclipsed by that of his and Garet's  friend, the Mars Adept Jenna, who had lost her entire immediate  family; both her parents and her brother,  the Venus Adept Felix, were with Kyle in the direct path of the  boulder as it fell, and none of their bodies were ever found in the  searches conducted by the villagers after the disaster. Even though all of Garet's family was safe, both Garet and Isaac believed that the  disaster might have played out differently had they been stronger as  Adepts, so they resolved to study hard to develop their abilities as  Adepts, and Isaac, Garet, and Jenna developed strong bonds of  friendship.

Three years to the present day, the three teen-aged Adepts had also become friends with an elderly and kindhearted  scholar that had been living in Vale for years since he first arrived  at the village, Kraden. Kraden had a great interest in the mysteries of Sol Sanctum, and he and the young Adepts planned to sneak into Sol  Sanctum for what Kraden claimed merely to be for the sake of their  education as Adepts. By coincidence, the very day Kraden and the Adepts had set themselves to do this was the day when a group of outsiders  visited the village. On their way to Kraden's cottage, the young Adepts happened upon two of the visitors, who they did not recognize as the  very pair of Mars Adepts that had attacked Isaac and Garet three years  before. Named Saturos and Menardi, the Mars Adepts had a brief but tense interaction with the teenagers until they decided to let them  go without incident.

Kraden was quite troubled, because Saturos and Menardi had approached him and attempted to glean whatever  information he had of Sol Sanctum they could, and they had spoken as  though they had seen the Sanctum with their own eyes. Isaac and his friends concluded they were thieves who came to rob the Sanctum, but  rather than report them to the village elders, Kraden believed it better  to carry on with their trip into Sol Sanctum and confirm whether the  Mars Adepts were telling the truth about the sanctum before telling the  elders. With this decided, Kraden and the three young Adepts sneaked into Sol Sanctum.

The crew employed their Psynergy to discover their way deeper into Sol Sanctum than anyone else in Vale  previously knew possible, and soon ascertained that Saturos and Menardi  were telling the truth and that they indeed intended to rob the Sanctum. But, because they were so close to whatever secret lay dormant in the Sanctum, Kraden opted to press further. After disarming and solving their way past a trap that apparently would have caused a cataclysm had  it been set off, they made a most amazing discovery: the Elemental  Star Chamber, the final room of Sol Sanctum, wherein lied four colored  jewels that Kraden had previously thought to be mere legend, the  Elemental Stars. Scholars like Kraden were educated on the legends of Alchemy, which held that these four jewels, each of which contained  the purified essence of one of the four Elements, were essentially  "keys" to an all-dominating vessel that apparently embodied Alchemy, the  Stone of Sages. Perhaps letting his excitement overtake his better judgement, Kraden had Isaac and Garet collect and fetch the Stars for  him to study.

Kraden's group was followed into the Sanctum. Saturos and Menardi promptly sneaked in and took both Jenna and Kraden hostage, and demanded Isaac hand them the Elemental Stars in  exchange for Jenna and Kraden's safety; when Kraden asked what guarantee  they had of that, Menardi obliged by showing them two additional  companions they had picked up: a powerful Mercury Adept named Alex  and, to everyone's complete astonishment, none other than Felix,  revealed to have survived the disaster three years prior. Saturos and Menardi explained that the two of them were present in Vale three years  ago, and had saved Felix from death after the boulder disaster had  transpired. Felix had since accompanied them on their objective, effectively betraying his hometown. With the fact that Felix would never allow Saturos or Menardi to bring harm to his own sister being their  guarantee, Isaac and Garet were effectively shocked into submission, and  handed the Mars Adepts the three Elemental Stars they had collected. They went to fetch the final star, the Mars Star, for them.

When the final Star was removed off its pedestal, the formerly dormant  volcano that was Mt. Aleph instantly began to erupt as though the  Elemental Stars were originally set in place to keep the lava repressed. With Isaac, Garet, and the Mars Star in peril, Saturos' group realized they could not get the Mars Star, and were forced to leave matters up to  fate; against Felix's wishes, they took Jenna and Kraden as captive  members of their group as they fled the quaking chamber and volcano, the  purpose of that being that if Isaac and Garet made it out alive, the  boys would pursue Saturos' group and bring the Mars Star if they wanted  Jenna back.

Isaac and Garet, meanwhile, came face-to-eye with the newly awakened guardian entity of the seal placed  on Alchemy, the being spoken of in Valean legend as the Wise One. The all-powerful being explained that the Elemental Stars would be used to light the Elemental Beacons atop four towering structures  situated across the world, the Elemental Lighthouses, the execution  of which would bring the power of Alchemy back to the world - a power  which the Wise One painted as dangerous to unleash because it would be  abused by the people of Weyard. Isaac became convinced that the world would be put in danger if the four Lighthouses did not remain unlit, so  after the Wise One imbued the Mars Star in his possession with a  mysterious property, he teleported Isaac and Garet back outside to  safety, and used his godlike power to prevent the flow of Mt. Aleph's  lava from seeping down into the direction of Vale. Isaac and Garet returned to Vale and explained everything that transpired in  Sol Sanctum to the worried populace. The decision fell to Isaac to decide both for himself and Garet whether to act on the Wise One's  warning and set out on a quest to pursue and stop Saturos' group from  accomplishing their objective to bring back the apparently destructive  power of Alchemy. Isaac selflessly accepted, and he and everyone else decided for Isaac and Garet to spend one last night at home with their  families. Thus did Isaac and Garet depart from their hometown the next day to embark on their uncertain and perilous journey.

Mercury Lighthouse
The eruption of Mt. Aleph instantly began to have a profound and radical  effect on Weyard; a massive stockpile of Psynergy Stones that resided  within Mt. Aleph was expelled by the eruption and showered all across  the world. Various individuals across Weyard that would come into sudden contact with these stones would suddenly discover Psynergy powers of  their own and unwittingly become Adepts, while lesser lifeforms such as  wildlife, unable to mentally handle the spiritual influence the stones  exuded, were driven mad and feral, making the countrysides of the world  dangerous places. These and other horrors that the stones made manifest, such as Zombies and Ghosts, would become common obstacles that  the young warriors Isaac and Garet would have to contend with over the  course of their journey.

Furthermore, released into the world by the removal of the Elemental Stars were 72 elementals named  Djinn, friendly creatures that proceeded to go in hiding after  being freed. Whenever Isaac's group would find a Djinni, defeating it in battle if necessary, it would permanently accompany them on their  journey, enhancing their Psynergy powers and combat abilities and  granting them the ability to summon powerful elemental  spirits to inflict great harm on their foes.

Isaac and Garet's hasty journey quickly brought them to the town of Vault  in the heart of Angara. Here, they learned that Saturos' group proceeded northeast through Goma Range, but then Isaac and Garet met  Ivan, a mild-mannered young man who was revealed to be a Jupiter  Adept with the Psynergy power to read minds. He hailed from the town of Kalay down south and was the servant of Kalay's  lord, the world-famous merchant Hammet, and he and Hammet traveled  north to Vault, but in the confusion of Mt. Aleph's eruption, an  important keepsake formerly in his possession, a rod named the  Shaman's Rod, was stolen by thieves. Hammet left Ivan behind at Vault to search for the missing rod, and with Isaac and Garet's help,  Ivan cornered and defeated the thieves hiding in  Vault and retrieved it. Ivan was then distressed to learn, however, that Hammet was then captured by the empire of thieves based at the  closed-off town of Lunpa to the north, and after  failing to find a way into Lunpa, Ivan decided to join Isaac and Garet  on their journey; he learned about everything that happened to Isaac at  Mt. Aleph by reading his mind, and decided he wanted to help prevent  terrible things from happening to the world. The three-Adept group proceeded through Goma Range by crossing through the subterranean path  that was Goma Cave.

Beyond Goma Range, the next town Isaac's party arrived at was that of Bilibin, lorded over by  Lord McCoy and Lady McCoy, and there they learned that Saturos'  group headed northwest to the wintry northern portion of Angara, where  the Mercury Lighthouse was located. As pressing as the need to follow this lead was, another worrisome issue reared its head: Bilibin  was in a state of panic over a curse that McCoy's own lumberjacks had  set off, where bringing their axes to a sapient tree spirit named  Tret within Kolima Forest to the northeast enraged Tret and  prompted him to turn all of the people of Bilibin's sister town Kolima into inanimate trees, as well as some of the people of  Bilibin. The original reason for cutting Kolima Forest was for lumber to supply the construction of the haughty Lady McCoy's personal,  separate estate. Lord McCoy had sent his own warriors to try to investigate how to undo this curse, but to no avail, so Isaac's group  decided to take matters into their own hands and traveled to Kolima. Upon arriving at the motionless town, the Adepts were instantly mentally attacked by Tret from afar, but when Tret attempted to lay his curse on  them, the Psynergy within them instinctively manifested to shield their  bodies from the glamour, as though there were certain types of Psynergy  within Adepts that only manifested when needed.

Immune to the curse thanks to their Adeptness to Psynergy, Isaac's party  proceeded into Kolima Forest, and climbed into Tret's wooden interior. There, they battled and successfully downed the enraged aspect of Tret's spirit, allowing Tret's kindlier side to manifest, but Tret was now too  weak to undo the effects of his own curse, and was set to gradually  wither and die. Fellow tree spirit Laurel advised the Adepts that, were the healing waters of Mercury Lighthouse still around, they would  be able to revive Tret and also save all the cursed townspeople. Isaac's group resumed their journey to Mercury Lighthouse with all haste,  passing through Bilibin Cave to do so.

Now in the winter-locked northern region of Angara, Isaac's party passed through  the village of Imil near Mercury Lighthouse, and briefly crossed  paths with the young, kindhearted Mercury Adept who used her  healing powers to treat the townspeople ailing from the cold and  flu season, Mia. The Mercury Lighthouse suddenly glowed briefly to indicate that an intruder had gained entry into it, to Mia's great  concern, since only she and her cousin Alex, the last two known  remaining members of the ancient Mercury Clan, had the ability to  grant access into the structure, and as such were the bloodline  recipients of the responsibility to ensure that the Lighthouse never be  lit. Alex, originally the apprentice to Mia's presumably deceased  father, had been missing from Imil for some time. Isaac's group accompanied Mia into and up through Mercury Lighthouse, and Mia came to  trust Isaac's group as companions.

When Isaac and Mia's party of four Adepts reached the aerie, they were all disheartened to  find that the Mercury Beacon was lit atop Mercury Lighthouse because the  Mercury Star had been cast into the well at the aerie, a process that  could not be reversed by any known means - meaning that Saturos' group  had accomplished one of its four objectives. Saturos' group was still there; after ordering Menardi and Felix to take Jenna and Kraden and  flee to the next Lighthouse, Saturos pridefully challenged the four  young Adepts to battle him four-on-one, certain that they would all die  by his hand. Saturos was an extremely powerful and deadly warrior as a Mars Adept who could very well have slain the four Adepts under normal  circumstances, but he was shocked to discover that due to his proximity  to the now-lit Mercury Beacon, the purified essence of Mercury now  exuding a potent Mercury-aligned influence across the world, his own  Mars-aligned powers were being weakened, forcing him to fight with an  enormous handicap in his opponents' favor. Still confident in his abilities, he engaged Isaac's party, but after a fierce and drawn-out  battle, the four Adepts miraculously bested Saturos and left him lying  defeated on the ground.

Alex chose then to reveal himself to the Adepts, and Mia was horrified to learn that Alex had  broken their shared bloodline oath. Alex, stalling for time so that Saturos would recover, simply chose to explain that power such as what  has been released atop Mercury Lighthouse, which he obviously admired,  should not remain locked away, and that this was the reason he had  allied with Saturos. He complimented Isaac's party for having become such great fighters within the short amount of time that had elapsed  since Mt. Aleph, and confirmed that they still had the Mars Star in  their possession. After Saturos recovered and proclaimed that he had lost to the Lighthouse rather than to the Adepts themselves, Alex fled  Mercury Lighthouse with Saturos using a Warping Psynergy, representative  of an extremely high degree of Psynergy proficiency which even Mia was  shocked to see Alex having apparently attained.

Mia was despondent over these events, but quickly resolved to join Isaac's  group and beat Saturos and Alex at the next Lighthouse. Mia was no longer bound to a responsibility as a caretaker of Imil's populace, for  now that Mercury Lighthouse was activated, the fountain at its base now  flowed with enchanted healing water that would ensure optimum health and  safety from disease for all of the townspeople - the Hermes' Water. After bottling some of the fountain water, and after Mia bid goodbye to her two young apprentices Justin and Megan, Isaac's group resumed  their pursuit of Saturos across Angara, and traveled back southeast to  Bilibin, and from there, east.

The bottled healing water they carried from Mercury Lighthouse was exactly what Isaac's  four-Adept party needed to save Tret, so they stopped back at Kolima  Forest and poured it into Tret's roots. Life flowed within Tret once again, and in gratitude to the Adepts, he lifted his curse from all the  people of Kolima and Bilibin. Isaac thus did a great service to Bilibin and Kolima, a deed which Lord McCoy would recognize and reward. After receiving more guidance from Tret and Laurel, Isaac's party resumed  their pursuit of Saturos across Angara.

To Gondowan
Isaac, Garet, Ivan, and Mia continued to pursue Saturos, Menardi, Felix, and  Alex, and their two captives Jenna and Kraden, as both groups traveled  clockwise through the entire continent. They first briefly met and received sage advice from the monk Master Nyunpa at the pilgrimage  site Fuchin Temple, who also had the Psynergy-based ability to read  minds. They then traveled through what was originally Mogall Prairie but was now a dangerous forest, one that was made to grow  out of the prairie literally overnight by the presence of the fallen  Psynergy Stones.

Isaac's next stop was at the oriental village of Xian, where he briefly met Feizhi, a young woman who  had gained the Psynergy power of foresight from having been hit on the  head by a Psynergy stone that had fallen from the sky. However, the path west through Alpine Crossing, known as part of the merchant caravan  route Silk Road, was blocked off by a landslide set off by Saturos  to slow Isaac's pursuit, so Isaac was forced to detour to another  village named Altin, whose mines were said to provide an alternate  route west. Psynergy Stones had aggrieved this town as well, for a series of guardian statues originating  from deep within the mines were brought to life and began spouting  enough water to flood the town and the mines. It was up to Isaac's group to individually slay each one and allow the floodwaters to recede,  saving the town and clearing their way through to the west.

The group came across one more temple, Lama Temple, headed by an oracle  named Master Hama, who was in truth an experienced Jupiter Adept  like Ivan. She expected their arrival because she had the power of foresight and the ability to see events from afar with her mind. Speaking as though somehow she knew Ivan from before, Hama was content to teach Ivan the Jupiter-aligned Psynergy power of perception  of hidden truths within environments. Though Ivan was unsure why Hama would care so warmly for him, Isaac's group decided to put that question  on hold as they resumed their journey. After they used Ivan's new Revealing Psynergy to help Feizhi and to allow for the rockslide at  Alpine Crossing to be cleared away, they proceeded west through the  region of Silk Road known as Lamakan Desert. The desert's scorching heat had been driven up to unbearably high levels by the presence of  Psynergy Stones that had fallen into the desert, so they were only able  to successfully pass through because the Psynergy taught by Hama allowed  them to find oases otherwise veiled by heat mirages.

Isaac's party eventually made it to Kalay, Ivan's hometown, and they sought  counsel with Hammet's wife ruling in his absence, Lady Layana. Layana, of course, was deeply concerned over Hammet's incarceration in Lunpa and the likelihood tha the current leader of the empire of thieves  at Lunpa, Dodonpa, planned on using Hammet to extort money from  Kalay, but she urged Ivan and Isaac to continue on their own journey  nonetheless. Layana chose then to reveal to Ivan that his true heritage lied not in Kalay, but in a society at a land at the southwest part of  the world, where Hammet had been made to swear an oath to a Jupiter  Adept to take in a baby Ivan as an adoptive son. A prophecy had been handed down by the Adepts at this society that Ivan would go on a  journey three years after the thunderstorm that hit Mt. Aleph, and that  it was imperative for an undisclosed reason that the Shaman's Rod that  was also handed down to Hammet be used to find a particular object. Hammet had traveled up north to Vault in pursuit of a lead concerning the Rod and the object it was supposed to lead to, which was why Ivan  was in Vault at the time Isaac's party passed through there.

Since Isaac's party had completed one full loop across Angara, Isaac and  Garet decided to stop back in Vale to temporarily reunite with their  families; though the reunions were heartfelt, Isaac was dismayed to find  that his mother had developed a cold from worry over her son's fate  since Isaac first departed for his journey. Resuming their quest, they found that the direction Saturos' band took was west across the enclosed  Karagol Sea via a ferry service, so they used  the same ferry service to cross the sea in pursuit. The voyage was not pleasant; several times, recently awakened sea monsters in the Karagol,  including a mighty Kraken, attacked the ship and forced Isaac's  group to battle them off while protecting the passengers. Through their efforts, the ferry made it to the western side, arriving at the  continental landmass conjoined with Angara's main landmass that was  officially recognized as "Gondowan" for the most part, except for  its northern region, which was recognized as Angaran territory.

Babi
Having touched down on Gondowan, Isaac's party arrived at the sole Angaran  town on the continent, the bustling town of Tolbi. Tolbi was easily the most prosperous town in Weyard, and a critical contributor to this  status was that it held an annual festival, central to which was a  prestigious tournament of warriors known across the world as  Colosso, and it was entirely incidental that this year's festival  and tournament was in full swing by the time of Isaac's arrival. However, the imposing lord of Tolbi and the originator of Colosso, Lord Babi, had been missing since the previous day, privately sending  Tolbi's ruling house into a state of alarm. Hearing from Babi's chief minister and de facto vice lord, Iodem, that Babi was last seen  entering the foreboding Altmiller Cave to the north, Isaac's party  once again decided to briefly deviate from their quest and investigate.

In Altmiller Cave, Isaac and his friends found Babi and helped him by  fetching for him what he originally entered the cave for, a lone bottle of mysterious fluid. Babi's life was dependent on drinking this draught, and he said he now owed his life to Isaac. When Babi saw that Isaac and his friends were Psynergy-wielding Adepts, he  briefly mistook them as a people named "Lemurians", but decided anyway  that he wanted to see Isaac's full capacity as a warrior and an Adept. Babi returned to Tolbi and had Isaac entered into the Colosso Finals as a dark horse contender to serve this purpose. Isaac had no choice but to compete, so he gave it his all against the powerful gladiators  that were qualified to be Colosso's finalists, and would fight  brilliantly to the end.

Following Colosso, Isaac and his friends convened with Babi and Iodem in Babi's throne room. Babi revealed a great secret to Isaac: because of having drunk this draught,  Babi was 150 years old. He originally gained this stockpile long ago when, during a great flood, the ship Babi and his  close friend, Lunpa the Righteous Thief (the one who founded the  town named after him), was sailing was driven into the fog-shrouded  heart of the world's Great Eastern Sea, whereupon he happened upon a  society of Adepts hidden from the outside world named Lemuria. Seemingly the only place on Weyard where the power of Alchemy remained unbound, the people of Lemuria had lifespans lasting centuries, and  consuming the draught they bottled could allow someone from the outside  world to extend their own lifespan far beyond what was human. Babi left Lemuria on one of Lemuria's own Psynergy-powered ships  with a large stockpile of the draught, and had stored it in Altmiller  Cave when he returned to Tolbi to govern it for the next century.

However, Babi knew from since a long time back that his draught was limited, and  thus was how long he could extend his life. Having learned from the Lemurians about the legend of the Stone of Sages as a bestower of  immortality, Babi sought to continue extending his life beyond his  normal years - it was he who had sent Kraden, his favorite scholar  originally from Tolbi, up north to Vale to study the Alchemy-related  secrets of Sol Sanctum up close. Babi needed more Lemurian Draught, but since Lemuria was hidden from the outside world within a fog-shrouded  area of sea whose entire perimeter was enclosed by an impassable  labyrinth of whirlpools and stone crags, all of his previous attempts to  send ships out to find Lemuria and bring back Draught were futile.

Babi had been preparing for one ultimate attempt to reach Lemuria by  decreeing the construction of a great tower named Babi Lighthouse at  the easternmost point of Gondowan, the point of known land closest in  proximity to Lemuria's believed coordinates in the Eastern Sea. The bright light he planned to have shining upon its aerie would serve to  solve the issue of ships failing to keep a straight course into Lemuria  because of the fog and whirlpools surrounding it. Furthermore, only a ship as strong Babi's Lemurian Ship could be relied on to sail into  Lemuria safely, and such a ship could only be helmed by Adepts. This is why Babi needed Isaac to go on an additional quest for him; after Isaac  would deal with his own business with Saturos and Felix at Venus  Lighthouse, he would be loaned Babi's Lemurian Ship, and would use it  to find Lemuria and retrieve more of its Draught for Babi before it was  too late. Isaac and his friends agreed to Babi's terms and earned the authorization to travel southeast, and it was agreed that Iodem would  accompany Isaac to Babi Lighthouse and Venus Lighthouse.

From Tolbi to Lalivero
Despite being burdened now with two separate objectives on their journey,  Isaac's traveling band did not neglect the emotional burden that  Hammet's continued incarceration in Lunpa continued to have on Ivan. Responding to Ivan's concern, the group searched along the southern coast of the Karagol and discovered an underground cave  trail that provided an effective bridge between Angara and Gondowan,  and used it to return to the Angaran mainland up north. They arrived at the town of Lunpa, and used a concealing Psynergy that Babi  had passed down to them to sneak stealthily into the thieves' fortress, intent on freeing Hammet.

No sooner did Isaac's Adepts locate Hammet then when Dodonpa himself  appeared to taunt them all. Having had no intention to release Hammet after accepting Layana's ransom money, Dodonpa declared the Adepts' luck  to have run out and let loose a hulking monster named after  himself to kill the Adepts, but Isaac and his friends managed to  survive and win the battle. Dodonpa's own father Donpa, an elderly man who had previously been rendered bedridden from despair over his  son's evil, stepped in to thank Isaac and Ivan for helping put Dodonpa  in his place, and helped them covertly escort Hammet out of Lunpa and  back into Kalay without either the people of Lunpa or Kalay knowing what  had happened. Though both Hammet and Layana were grateful to Ivan and his friends for what they did, Layana admonished Ivan for putting his  and Isaac's own important quest on hold. Isaac and Ivan resumed their quest posthaste, and crossed back into Gondowan.

Rejoining with Iodem, Isaac's party began their journey southeast through the  upper region of Gondowan. When they passed by a tiny desert village named Suhalla, however, Iodem was alarmed to see Tolbian soldiers  resting wounded in the Suhallans' care. To summarize: Located at the easternmost region of Gondowan in the immediate vicinity of both Babi  Lighthouse and Venus Lighthouse was the Gondowan town of Lalivero,  which had been under Tolbi's control for a while. Babi Lighthouse's construction was being carried out by workmen from Lalivero as well as  Tolbi, and Babi had press-ganged the Laliverans into laboring for him by  keeping Lalivero's most popular resident, a young girl named Sheba,  in his palace as his guest in Tolbi. Once Isaac's party came along, though, Babi had allowed Sheba to return to Lalivero to encourage her  people, and had tasked the solders now resting in Suhalla to be her  escort.

Located in between Suhalla and Lalivero was the blustery Suhalla Desert, which Sheba and the soldiers serving as  her escort were attempting to pass through. The desert, however, had become much more dangerous since the eruption of Mt. Aleph, for the fall  of the Psynergy Stones had driven the whirlwind-generating lizard monsters local to the desert  violent. As the soldiers explained to Iodem, the monsters of the desert separated them from Sheba and drove them off, leaving Sheba lost in the  desert. However, the soldiers had then seen the group Isaac was pursuing pass through the desert and defeat the monsters safely. Isaac and Iodem's group urgently traveled through Suhalla Desert themselves, and  the Adepts successfully fought off the enraged tornado lizards that got  in their way, but Sheba was nowhere to be found. After clearing the desert, the group decided to carry on to Lalivero.

Isaac and Iodem proceeded through the Tolbi-owned checkpoint of Suhalla  Gate, and then arrived at what appeared to be the main entrance to the  main structure of Venus Lighthouse itself. Iodem was shocked to find that the Lighthouse, which had long been sealed off from the outside  world, now had its front doors opened up; as wounded Tolbian scholars  unlucky enough to have crossed Saturos' path explained, Saturos' group  successfully gained access into the structure with the help of Felix as a  Venus Adept (just like how Alex as a Mercury Adept allowed Saturos into  Mercury Lighthouse; a Lighthouse could only be opened by a group that  includes at least one Adept of a Lighthouse's corresponding element),  but then they came back out and determined that this was actually a  one-way exit out of Venus Lighthouse, and that the true entrance into  Venus Lighthouse lied within the ancient ruins north of Lalivero that  Babi Lighthouse was being constructed on. Isaac and Iodem traced Saturos' path north to Lalivero.

The townspeople of Lalivero were especially distressed because Saturos and his group passed  through the town with none other than Sheba accompanying them as yet  another one of his captives. Isaac and Iodem entered the half-completed structure of Babi Lighthouse, where Lalivero's mayor and Sheba's  adoptive father Faran had been unable to open an ancient door that  Saturos' group somehow passed through. This door was an entrance into Venus Lighthouse that only a party of Adepts that included at least one  Venus Adept could enter, so both Iodem and Faran agreed to let Isaac and  his friends continue the pursuit of Saturos and Sheba in their stead. Determined to rescue both Jenna and Sheba and stop Saturos' scheme to break Alchemy's seal for good, Isaac, Garet, Ivan, and Mia descended  into the subterranean path that connected the ruins  under Babi Lighthouse into the true lighthouse portion of Venus  Lighthouse.

Venus Lighthouse
While Isaac and his friends climbed up through Venus Lighthouse in pursuit of  Saturos' group, Saturos and Menardi ordered Felix, Alex, Jenna, and  Kraden to exit out of the Lighthouse's frontal exit portion and group  and wait at a peninsula near Suhalla Gate named Idejima, where the  Mars Adepts had previously moored a Lemurian Ship of their own a long  time back, while the pair took Sheba with them up to the aerie of Venus  Lighthouse. Soon afterward, however, Felix decided to follow Saturos back up to the aerie by himself to confront him over having taken yet  another previously uninvolved party captive. Felix arrived just as Saturos was about to light the Venus Beacon to demand that Sheba go back  down with Felix to safety; a falling out between them occured, in which  Saturos and Menardi declared that they could no longer trust him and  that he would pay dearly for his rebellious attitude.

It was at that exact point when Isaac's party arrived. Saturos immediately seized control by threatening that Sheba would come to harm if they did  not yield the Shaman's Rod, also known as the "Rod of Hesperia", but  craftily worded his proposition to give the impression that they were  making an exchange, as if he was trading Sheba for the Shaman's Rod. So naturally, Isaac's group was appalled when Saturos only clarified after  Ivan deigned to give Felix the rod that he never said he would let Sheba  go. As Saturos explained, Sheba was actually a Jupiter Adept just like Ivan, and he knew long in advance that both her and the Shaman's Rod,  for whatever reason, were necessary for the eventual, successful  activation of Jupiter Lighthouse in the future. Proclaiming Isaac's party to have meddled in their affairs long enough, Saturos and Menardi  engaged Isaac's party with the intent to kill. They were both fierce combatants, and they were not fighting with an elemental handicap like  Saturos had on Mercury Lighthouse, but Isaac's party won a surprising  victory and rendered the pair unable to stand.

Isaac then attempted to invite Felix to leave Saturos, believing that his  former friend had no choice but to submit to Saturos' will ever since  Saturos saved his life three years ago. All of Isaac's group was horrified, however, when Felix declared his full intention to continue  lighting the Lighthouses even after Saturos and Menardi were taken out  of the picture, forcing Isaac's side to declare him their enemy. But Saturos, weakened by his defeat but not out of the picture yet, shocked  everyone by tossing the Venus Star into the well at the aerie of Venus  Lighthouse, starting the process that would establish the Venus Beacon. The energy that began flowing out of the Venus Lighthouse recharged the pair's bodies and Psynergy power - the Venus-aligned energy benefited  the Mars Adepts because the elements of Venus and Mars share a symbiotic  relationship - and Saturos and Menardi executed a terrifying ability:  they merged their two bodies into a single, massive,  two-headed dragon of awesome power. Isaac's party engaged in their most harrowing battle yet, but through tactics and will they  miraculously slew the beast. Saturos and Menardi fell to their shared demise. All of a sudden, Venus Lighthouse wracked itself with a violent earthquake as part of the process that established the  Venus Beacon atop Venus Lighthouse. This caused Sheba to lose her footing and fall off Venus Lighthouse, and Felix, beside himself, jumped  clean off the tower after her, and both appeared to fall to their  deaths. The quaking subsided, and Isaac's group, though shaken, quickly resolved to leave the Lighthouse and search for Jenna. But despite a long and tiring search, Jenna was nowhere to be found.

When Isaac's group returned to Lalivero to convene with Faran and Iodem,  they learned that witnesses saw Sheba and Felix being "caught" by the  ocean as though the ocean had a mind of its own; the Laliverans attested  this to be  another example of an unexplainable phenomenon of  coincidental miracles that would always seem to follow Sheba, just like  how Sheba, as a baby, appeared many years ago by falling out of the sky  in the form of a shooting star and crashing into the ground without  sustaining any bruises or injuries whatsoever. Isaac and his friends believed that Felix and Sheba were alive and resolved to find them and  Jenna.

Iodem lead them to a harbor in Lalivero where Babi had long ago hidden his Lemurian Ship, and gave Isaac ownership and  control of the ship by giving Isaac the ship's Black Orb; all  Lemurian Ships were designed so that one could be piloted by  Psynergy-wielding Adepts while the ship's corresponding Black Orb was  present. Reminded of his other objective to discover Lemuria and retrieve Lemurian Draught in time to stave off Babi's eventual death,  Isaac, Garet, Ivan, and Mia set out on their ship to explore the Great  Eastern Sea and seek out their multiple goals.

The Tidal Wave and Felix's journey
After Felix had gone back up to confront Saturos atop Venus Lighthouse's  aerie, Jenna, Kraden, and Alex were forced to fight their way through  large groups of Laliveran workmen and Tolbian soldiers waiting outside  Venus Lighthouse that demanded the group give back Sheba, and the three  waited at Idejima for Saturos and Menardi to arrive later. When the Venus Lighthouse wracked itself and the surrounding lands with a violent  earthquake, Idejima was torn away and became its own buoyant island  floating east out into the Great Eastern Sea, with Alex, Jenna, and  Kraden on it. At the same time, the area of ground at the base of the Lighthouse broke away and filled with water from the ocean, which safely  caught Sheba and Felix and saved both of their lives. Seeing the floating island, Felix swam with all his might and successfully brought  himself and Sheba onto it, rejoining the other three.

Felix, Jenna, Sheba, Alex, and Kraden were now marooned on an island that  floated east out into the sea. After Felix and Sheba fully explained what had happened, everyone determined that they could not use Saturos  and Menardi's Lemurian Ship, being carried along with the island, since  the ship's Black Orb was lost along with Saturos. But then, all of a sudden, an enormous tidal wave originating from the  Great Eastern Sea approached the island and proceeded to wash over it,  as well as impact much of the lower right portion of the world of  Weyard. Idejima was driven into a small island continent named Indra to the south.

When Felix, Jenna, Sheba, and Kraden regained consciousness, they noticed that Alex had gone off on his own,  and that they could now explore a new continent. Felix and the others determined that his objective to light the two remaining Lighthouses  could only be continued once they found themselves a boat they could  use. Jenna wholeheartedly supported her brother in his quest because, in truth, their parents were alive - they had also been rescued by Saturos  and Menardi on the night of the disaster at Vale, but they had been  kept at Saturos' hometown ever since so as to coerce Felix into joining  Saturos on his journey to unseal Alchemy. Felix and Jenna's ultimate motivation in lighting the Lighthouses was to win their parents'  freedom.

Sheba, on the other hand, insisted that she stay with Felix over the course of his journey for a reason she did not  disclose, instead passing it off as her "destiny" to do so. Having her as the Jupiter Adept of his group, as well as having the newly acquired  Shaman's Rod in his possession, Felix's capacity to successfully enter  and climb Jupiter Lighthouse was now assured, and thus would no longer  be a concern on his journey until much later when they would eventually  reach the Great Western Sea. As for Kraden, though he was an old man who could not fight, he nonetheless was eager to accompany Felix on his  travels, for he wanted to continue sating his curiosity by exploring  the world, as well as potentially delve further into the secrets of  Alchemy partially for his master Babi's sake. With Felix's new group of travelers assembled, he began their search for a ship by stepping down  into Indra.

While Felix accompanied Saturos on his journey, he was never allowed to fight, and Jenna and Sheba had no  combat experience either, so the development of their current Psynergy  abilities to hold their own in an increasingly dangerous world was as  much a priority as finding a ship. Therefore, after passing through the washed-up town of Daila on the northernmost part of the continent,  Felix detoured to the Kandorean Temple, where his group trained and  developed their rudimentary Psynergy abilities under the head monk  Master Poi. They flexed their newly acquired Psynergy at a shrine dedicated to a sea god east of Daila,  where they helped free a pair of Dailan children that  were stuck because of the Tidal Wave. Also, similar to Isaac's group, Felix's group began to discover and amass Djinn of their own.

Felix and his party decided to briefly stop in Daila one more time for  information before they continued south along the continent. By coincidence, they bumped into none other than Alex, who had been  searching for a boat himself. Alex reported that Daila did not have any boats all, for sale or otherwise, but the town mayor told him to try the  town at the southern end of the continent, Madra. When Felix offered for Alex to accompany his group, though, Alex seemed eager to  turn him down, stating that he simply preferred to work alone, and then  left Felix and the town in a visible haste. Having to let Alex be, the remaining four travelers proceeded to cross through the rocky Dehkan  Plateau, and they arrived at Madra down south.

Piers and the Lemurian Ship
It became evident to Felix from gossip in Madra that the tidal wave had  managed to shift the entire continent southwest until it made physical  contact with both the lower tip of Gondowan to the west and the upper  right region of the continent of Osenia to the east. Prior to the tidal wave, a dread pirate named Briggs, who hailed from the  seafaring town of Champa across the sea, had been pillaging towns  and settlements across the Great Eastern Sea for food, but Madra managed  to capture him and temporarily jail him. The rest of his crew soon invaded Madra and busted him out of the prison, and Briggs and his crew  looted the town's gold before fleeing.

At the same time that Briggs made his escape to Osenia, a strange ship washed up on  Indra's eastern shore near Madra, with its lone  captain having been knocked unconscious by the tidal wave. The Madrans held him to be one of the Champa in league with Briggs and imprisoned  him in their jail without any reliable basis. The Elder of Madra and his son, the Mayor of Madra, did not sit well with having a likely  innocent man languishing in their prison, so they had taken it upon  themselves to leave Madra and pursue Briggs into Osenia personally. Upon investigation, Felix and his friends found that the man being  wrongfully jailed was a Mercury Adept named Piers, and that his ship  was yet another Lemurian Ship. Interested in Piers as both an Adept and the owner of a ship they could possibly use, Felix's party decided to  trace the Elder and Mayor's path into Osenia to help them put Briggs in  his place and secure his vow that Piers was not one of his men.

Both Felix's group and the group of Madrans made it through the Yampi  Desert to reach the Osenian town that Madra traded with, the port town  of Alhafra, ruled by a mayor known for being a  greedy oaf. The town had recently completed a design of sailing ship that was radical for its time: an especially massive vessel that  derived its propulsion not from the rowing of oars, but entirely from  catching the wind with its sails, but the tidal wave had damaged it. Briggs used the gold he stole from Madra to purchase the ship and use it as a hideout. Felix's group went into the ship and defeated Briggs and his Sea Fighters in battle, and Briggs was jailed in Alhafra's prison  while the proof of Piers' innocence was secured for the Madrans. As Briggs and his family confessed, he stole from towns in the Great  Eastern Sea because the oceans of the world had been heating up, which  was having a serious impact on Champa's fishing trade and way of life. Before leaving the town, Felix attempted to fix the sailing ship to help out, but the group's Psynergy proved insufficient to remove the  enormous rock that was pinning the broken mast out of place.

While Felix's group was exploring Osenia, they continued to pursue their  interests in developing their Psynergy, so when they heard about Air's  Rock - an enormous lone mountain in a desert said to have been  present on Weyard since the world's beginning and containing an  expansive, riddle-filled complex - they tried their hand at its  challenge and eventually earned the Jupiter Psynergy it contained. Then, the group traveled south of Air's Rock and discovered what Kraden was  astounded to see was more than the mere legend he had heard about:  Garoh, a society of people that turned into werewolves  when they looked up at the moon at night. They convened with the village leader, the elderly werewolf Maha, himself every bit as much a  theorist and philosopher as Kraden, and discussed with him principles of  Psynergy and how they applied to the world, as well as how the people  of Garoh came to be werewolves to begin with. Maha hypothesized that their transformation into shape-shifters over the ages was a natural  defensive that had come about by the course of evolution, but they  determined that the limited Jupiter Psynergy the werewolves could use  had been acquired due to the town's relative geographic proximity to  Air's Rock. Maha and the people of Garoh thanked Felix's group for not being terrified of them, since their race had long been considered  accursed and were once burned at the stake as abominations in the name  of "purification".

Felix and his companions returned to Madra hoping to find Piers, but only to find that another woe had  befallen the town while they were gone: warriors of the tribal  Kibombo society from the heart of lower Gondowan had ransacked the  town while they were gone. They only took a single item before retreating back into Gondowan, however: none other than the Black Orb to  Piers' ship. After the invasion, when Madra had received notice that Piers was innocent and had let him free, Piers immediately followed the  Kibombo west into Gondowan to retrieve his Orb. Felix's party traced his steps west and crossed into lower Gondowan themselves, and headed north  through the village of Naribwe, then successfully snuck their way  through the Kibombo Mountains, a mountain pass that the Kibombo had  stationed warriors at to drive back intruders.

Nighttime had fallen when Felix arrived at the core village of Kibombo, and the  entirety of the village populace was in attendance at a ceremonial  ritual that the aspiring witch doctor, Akafubu, was attempting to  perform to earn his title as the figurehead of the Kibombo: he was  attempting to offer Piers' Black Orb, which he had his warriors retrieve  because he needed a jewel, to a giant statue named the Great  Gabomba. Felix and his partners found Piers spying on Akafubu's ritual and introduced themselves as Adepts, and Piers shocked Kraden when he  introduced himself as a Lemurian - an individual who had lived in the  legendary society hidden in the center of the Great Eastern Sea until  recently, when the tidal wave had driven him out. Piers sought to regain control of his Orb, and therefore his ship, so that he could find a way  back into his home.

When Kraden, excited about the prospect of seeing Lemuria for himself, offered to help Piers so that  Piers would take them with him to Lemuria, Piers claimed he could not  permit it because Kraden was acting in Babi's interest; Babi was a  figure resented by the Lemurians because the Lemurian Ship Babi used to  flee the isle, as well as the entirety of Lemuria's stockpile of  life-extending draught that Babi brought with him, were both stolen by  him. Kraden assured that he wanted to see Lemuria for more than just Babi's sake, that he wanted his own long-standing questions on Alchemy  answered, and he and Felix's group resolved to help him retrieve his  orb. Piers told them he would save his answer on Kraden's offer for later before accepting their help. Ultimately, they retrieved the orb by climbing into the mechanical Gabomba statue and fixing the mechanism  that was preventing Akafubu's ceremony from completing successfully. The four Adepts and Kraden proceeded to travel all the way back down to  Indra to return to Piers' ship.

Upon returning to Indra, Piers announced to his newfound companions that he had decided he  would take them with him on his journey back into Lemuria; impressed by  Felix and Kraden's willingness to help someone whose affairs needed not  concern them, he saw they truly were good people. Before they boarded Piers' ship, they briefly returned to Madra to put the minds of the  Elder and the Mayor at ease about Piers' circumstances.

It was at that point in Madra, however, when Felix's group first  encountered Karst, the younger sister of Menardi, who had arrived  from the Mars Adepts' hometown in search of Menardi and Saturos. The news of the Mars Adepts' demise at the hands of Isaac came out quickly,  and Karst, consumed by rage and a driven sense of vengeance against the  one who murdered her dear sister, swore that she would hunt Isaac down. Karst made it clear that she expected Felix to focus on his duty to reach and light Jupiter Lighthouse, and find his own way into the Great  Western Sea to do so, even though the tidal wave had effectively blocked  naval access into the Western Sea by sandwiching Indra between Gondowan  and Osenia. After Karst left in a huff, Felix's party considered whether they should seek out Isaac's party to protect them from Karst's  wrath, but everyone knew full well that Isaac was actively trying to  stop Felix from lighting Jupiter Lighthouse and would fight to do so.

Felix and Piers returned to the Lemurian Ship beached at Indra's eastern  shore, and after they cleared out all the sea monsters that had taken up  residence, they employed the Black Orb to propel the semi-automated  ship out into the ocean. Roughly the entire eastern half of the world opened up for the adventurers to explore at their leisure, and with a  working ship now at their disposal, Piers allowed Felix to take the  tiller and direct their new journey across the world's waters. They would not be able to revisit Vale, however, due to the steep mountains  across Angara blocking off much of the continent's inner landmass from  anywhere accessible from the sea itself, and they made sure to avoid  Lalivero as well.

The Great Eastern Sea
Felix, Jenna, Sheba, Piers, and Kraden, upon Piers' Lemurian Ship, began an  extremely lengthy exploration of all the waters, landmasses, and  continents accessible throughout the Great Eastern Sea. The primary cause for this was the fact that Indra had corked up the naval passage  between itself and lower Gondowan that previously would have been taken  to travel between the Eastern Sea and the Western Sea, and the newly  formed rock barriers between the two continents blocking the Lemurian  Ship could not be removed with the Psynergy abilities they currently  had. Their aim for the time being was to continue developing their powers and abilities as Adepts and warriors, leading them to explore  whatever great sanctums, caves, and ancient ruins they came across for  their treasure and opportunities to further their training. Even though they were sharing the same ocean with Isaac's group, who was actively  searching the ocean to find and stop Felix, the two groups of Adepts  would never cross paths in the Eastern Sea.

Of course, it was still Felix's ultimate priority to find a way into the Great  Western Sea to accomplish his quest objective, and he would be reminded  of this. When the party first entered Champa, located on the southern coast of Angara, Alex was there to greet him, where he revealed himself  to have joined the company of Karst and her partner, the imposing  warrior Agatio. Alex admitted that following Saturos' death, he thought Felix would hardly be capable of his quest and felt fit to  abandon him after the tidal wave, but later he came to see that Felix  was competent for the job after all. So, rather than let Karst and Agatio relieve Felix of the Jupiter Star so that they could light  Jupiter Lighthouse themselves, he let Karst and Agatio put pressure on  Felix via threats so that Felix would hurry up in his responsibility. Alex stated in very blunt terms, however, that he did not consider Karst and Agatio terribly useful or intelligent either, and reclarified that  his ultimate position in all this was as a neutral party whose aim was  to see all four Lighthouses lit and Alchemy restored to the world.

After Karst and Agatio left and before Alex followed suit, Alex broke the  news to Kraden that he had gotten hold of the news that Babi, the lord  of Tolbi, had finally passed away. Kraden, of course, was deeply taken aback by the passing of his former master, but everyone else wondered if  this meant that Kraden was now relieved of his responsibility to seek  out the secrets of Alchemy for Babi's sake and would no longer need to  continue putting himself in harm's way to do so. But Kraden insisted he wanted to continue accompanying Felix and see Lemuria for himself,  especially because by now he was starting to form a theory about the  state of the world from all the travels he had been on. Piers surprised Kraden by claiming he suspected Kraden's theory as well, and that it  would likely be confirmed once they arrived to Lemuria.

During their expedition throughout the Eastern Sea, Felix's group attempted to  sail into the fog-shrouded area of the Eastern Sea that Lemuria was  hidden within, which was known abroad as the Sea of Time, but they  were turned back by the labyrinth of whirlpools and stone crags that  surrounded the sea's perimeter. They would eventually come to learn the secrets of successful navigation into the Sea of Time by listening to  childrens' songs written by the late master sailor Yepp at the  downtrodden town of Yallam in eastern Osenia, but other gossip they  heard at other places alerted them to something far more disconcerting  about the Sea: recently awakened within the Sea of Time was a monster of  mythic proportions known as Poseidon, who was painted by folklore  as once being the true, rightful king of the seas in ages past before he  became feral. Poseidon would ensure that any attempt made into the Sea of Time would ultimately end in doom.

Nautical folklore held that Poseidon could not be assailed by any offense, except for one  weapon: a legendary weapon named the Trident of Ankohl. This trident would allow the wielder to fear nothing from the sea, but it was  not known to be present anywhere on Weyard. As fate would have it, Felix's continued journey to increase his Psynergy and combat abilities  would lead him to discover the three individual prongs of the Trident in  locations connected to the world's ancient past: he discovered one  prong sealed in the mysterious, lone tower in  Tundaria, the glacial, uninhabited, southernmost continent of the  world; another prong was found in the tower ruins of the  ancient Ankohl culture a short ways east of Champa on Angara; and the  third prong was contained within, as it turned out, the Shrine of the  Sea God just east of Daila. The matter of having the three prongs reforged into a coherent weapon would have to wait until later.

The party's continued interest in the development of their Psynergy had  previously prompted them to climb and solve the riddles of Air's Rock,  and two more Elemental Rocks just like it were present in the Great  Eastern Sea as well: Aqua Rock, located amongst the Apojii  Islands at the eastern edge of the world, where they acquired new  Mercury Psynergy; and Gaia Rock, located at a small island northeast  of the Sea of Time inhabited by a people and culture named Izumo. A dragon-like monster that had previously slumbered within Gaia Rock,  known simply as the Serpent, had awoken when the eruption of Mt. Aleph showered Psynergy Stones across the world, and had been terrorizing Izumo village since.

The people of Izumo had been forced to believe that offering a young female to the Serpent  as a sacrifice was necessary to their survival, and the offering was a  young woman named Kushinada. Her lover, former wild man Susa and younger brother to Izumo's leader, Lady Uzume, selflessly went into  Gaia Rock to confront and try to defeat the monster on his own. Felix's party entered and explored Gaia Rock on their own, and eventually found  Susa having fed the monster enormous amounts of a fluid  that put it into a drunken stupor. With Susa's help, Felix and his companions battled the Serpent at length and ultimately slew it, saving  Izumo and granting themselves new Venus Psynergy from Gaia Rock. Thanking Felix's group for their help, Susa and Uzume revealed that they were Adepts as well.

Eventually, the Psynergy capabilities of Felix and his companions had become strong enough that  they decided to return to Alhafra and finish their original attempt to  help matters by destroying the rock pinning down the mast of the sailing  ship. As soon as the ship's repairs were completed, however, Briggs chose then to make his escape: with the help of his wife Chaucha and  his young son Eoleo, who happened to have the powers of an Adept,  Briggs and his crew busted out of their jail, stole the ship from under  everyone's noses, and headed back to Champa. After the enraged mayor of Alhafra chastised Felix for letting this happen, Felix decided to pursue  Briggs to make him answer for his piracy. It was not at all an errand for Alhafra's mayor.

Briggs returned to Champa bearing the fruits of his expedition: an enormous stockpile of food to save his  town's starving people, and for this he was viewed as the town's savior. Felix arrived at Champa and chased Briggs into his mountainside home, and soon encountered him in a hall with a great, circular pit leading  into the depths of the earth, accompanied by his grandmother, the town  matriarch Obaba. Briggs convinced her that Felix had come to take him away, so she employed the powers of the pit - in reality an ancient  forge that had its historical roots in the Ankohl - to empower a  lizard monster to destroy Felix. She was shocked to see her monster fall at the hands of Felix's group, however. Obaba was even more taken aback when she learned from Felix afterward that all the food  Briggs back for the town was stolen from the other towns across the  Eastern Seas, and she let loose the fullest extent of her wrath and  contempt upon Briggs for a moment. But Briggs had always intended to pay back the towns he stole from after having saved his own town from  starvation, and Felix agreed that all would be well once Briggs lived up  to his promise.

Following the Briggs family dispute, Obaba offered to serve Felix counsel on subjects related to smithing. She had long been considered the foremost smith on Weyard due to her seemingly magical mastery over the powers and processes of the forge of  Ankohl, so when Felix showed Obaba the prongs to the Trident of Ankohl,  Obaba was astounded; all of the experience with the forge she had  amassed was ultimately so that the Trident could be reconstructed. The three prongs were dropped into the pit, the forge worked its magic, and  Obaba was content to bestow the completed trident upon Felix. With the trident, Felix and his companions had everything they needed to make a  legitimate attempt to enter the Sea of Time and search for Lemuria  within.

Lemuria
Taking heed of the knowledge they gained from the childrens' songs in Yallam, Felix and his  companions successfully navigated their way through the whirlpools that  surrounded the perimeter to the Sea of Time. As though on cue, Poseidon emerged from the deeps and attacked the Adepts on their ship; it was  indeed impervious to their attacks and Psynergy at first, but the  Trident did indeed allow true harm to be dealt, and thus was Poseidon  eventually defeated at the end of a difficult battle. The victors sailed into the Sea of Time and discovered the island that Lemuria was  situated upon, and sailed into its harbor.

After Piers convinced the guardsmen at the front entrance to grant him and his  companions admittance into their city, Kraden marveled at its abundance  of culture and detailed architecture, but Piers told him that Lemuria  was once a far grander and lovelier city in the past. The reason for this would be brought to light once they convened with the Lemurian  king, Hydros, but when they came to Lemuria's palace, Piers was  frustrated to hear that the head of Lemuria's senate, Conservato,  was currently in discussion with Hydros. So they stopped by the house of Piers' uncle, who was happy to see that Piers was alive, but Piers  was devastated to learn that his mother had passed away while he was  gone. While Piers went to Lemuria's cemetery to be by himself for the time being, Piers' uncle was confused to learn that Piers had not told  Felix's group anything about his true mission, handed down to him by  Hydros; Piers would have left Lemuria to explore the outside world even  had the tidal wave not forced him out. Piers' uncle then granted Felix and his companions an audience with another resident of Lemuria, Lunpa.

Lunpa, the one and only Righteous Thief from history and founder of the town  named after him, had indeed been left behind by Babi after the two men  originally ended up at Lemuria during the Great Flood a century  beforehand, and he had aged beyond his natural years while still  maintaining a relatively youthful appearance - more youthful than that  of his own son Donpa, certainly - thanks to the enchanted springwaters  of Lemuria from which Lemurian Draught had once been distilled from. Their discussion quickly turned to the theory that Kraden had formulated and had promised to tell the others once he had come to confirm  Lemuria's modern-day state for himself, a theory of the world which  Lunpa and the king also suspected: Lemuria's culture was advanced  because of the presence of Alchemy's influence, unlike any of the towns  and cultures that laid across modern-day Weyard, who couldn't have  possibly created the great sanctums and lighthouses Felix and Kraden had  come across. These were constructed in an age long-past when cultures all across Weyard were similarly advanced - this meant that the sealing  of Alchemy in the past had caused civilization to gradually wane over  the ages, rather than develop. Lunpa shocked Kraden by explaining that there was the possibility of another form of decay that came to be as a  direct result of the absence of Alchemy...

Lunpa brought Felix, Kraden, and their companions to Lemuria palace to obtain  an audience with Hydros in his throne chamber, where he was accompanied  by both Piers and Conservato. It first came to light that Hydros had tasked Piers to leave Lemuria and explore the entirety of the Great  Eastern Sea, in direct violation of the will of Conservato and the  Lemurian senate, but that he would probably not have done so had he  known that the tidal wave would have forced Piers out of the sea in a  way that reentry into the Sea of Time would have been so difficult. It then came to light that it was the return of Poseidon from within the  Sea of Time that generated the tidal wave to begin with, and that the  reason for the monster's arousal from its slumber was none other than  the fact that the Mercury and Venus Lighthouses had been lit - the  combined influence of their respective beacons had begun having an  effect on the world of Weyard at large. Conservato was appalled at Felix, for he believed that Alchemy was a force that would doom the  world to destruction and war if its seal were ever broken, and not even  Felix was certain that Alchemy wouldn't destroy the world the moment it  would be released.

Hydros displayed a map of Weyard as it was in its ancient past, when all of  civilization thrived, Lemuria traded with many nations, and Alchemy  reigned supreme. The arrangement of the world's landmasses was much more uniform on Hydros' map, in stark contrast to the world map that Lunpa  had brought with him when he came to Lemuria a century ago, where the  original landmass had clearly divided itself into separate continents  that did not even appear to have enough mass to comprise what they had  originally. Piers confirmed from his mission that Lunpa's 100-year-old map was more accurate, but that the continents of the present day world  had become even smaller than before. An incredible revelation came to light: it was not just human civilization that was waning, the  physical being of Weyard itself was also declining, and would certainly  wither toward an eventual doom if Alchemy was not restored. Weyard itself was analogous to a living being that had been deprived of its  sustenance, the combined influence of the four lit Elemental Beacons and  the power of Alchemy they provided.

Felix’s objective to light the remaining Elemental Lighthouses was shown to be more  important than anyone had ever imagined. Since the world was now shown to have a limit to its existence brought about by Alchemy's sealed  status, chances would have to be taken with Alchemy's release, and so  Hydros called upon Felix's group to light Jupiter and Mars, and for  Piers to accompany him on the remainder of his journey. Lunpa bestowed upon Felix the rock-grinding Psynergy that would allow his  group the means to make their way through the Great Western Sea. Conservato was outraged at all of this, perceiving their hypothesizing and what they planned to do to be folly, and remained insistent that the  world was going to be fine the way it always had been, free from the  inherent dangers Alchemy entailed. He assured Piers that the latter would be forever banished from Lemuria if he left to join Felix, but  Piers stuck true to his conviction and accompanied Felix and his party  out of Lemuria and the Sea of Time. Using Lunpa's Psynergy to clear the rock barriers that had formed from the collision between Indra and lower  Gondowan, the Adepts entered the Great Western Sea, where the remaining  two Lighthouses awaited.

Jupiter Lighthouse
Two island continents were present in the Great Western Sea: Hesperia,  to the north, and Atteka, to the south, which contained Jupiter  Lighthouse. Because the Shaman's Rod that had remained in Felix's possession all this time was also known as the "Rod of Hesperia", the  Adepts touched down upon Hesperia first, and discovered a secluded  village named Shaman Village. They came before the village leader, Moapa, and presented him the Shaman's Rod; Moapa was astounded, for  the rod was a national treasure that Shaman Village had originally  traded to the settlement of Contigo in Atteka down south as an act  of mutual goodwill, long ago in the ancient past, after the war between  the two nations subsided when Alchemy was sealed.

The hero of the equivalent to Shaman Village in the ancient past,  Hoabna, had exchanged the Shaman's Rod with the hero of the ancient  past equivalent to modern-day Contigo, Yegelos, and received  Contigo's national treasure, an object that bestowed the Jupiter-aligned  Psynergy power of hovering, the Hover Jade. The two heroes agreed that should a descendant of Contigo come to Shaman Village in the  modern day and age to return the Shaman's Rod, the Shamans would return  to them the Hover Jade. This was the object that Hammet had taken upon himself to search for, and this was the reason the Shaman's Rod was  necessary to obtain it, as well as the reason why the Shaman's Rod was  effectively necessary to be able to successfully climb through Jupiter  Lighthouse - mastery of the Hover Psynergy was what the Lighthouse's  riddles demanded of those who would attempt to climb it.

Obviously, though, none of Felix's group were from Contigo, and Moapa initially  refused to hand over the Hover Jade on that basis. But Sheba was a Jupiter Adept herself, much like those of Contigo that figured in the  ancient past, and she used her Psynergy to pretend that she actually  was. Moapa was perturbed that the one who had come to fulfill Hoaba and Yegelos' ancient vow was a young girl, though, so it still took some  effort to convince him to allow them to compete against Moapa in a race  and competition of skill and power known as Trial Road to earn the  Hover Jade. They successfully defeated him in battle and earned the Hover Jade, and Moapa declared Yegelos' vow to Hoabna fulfilled. The Adepts departed from Shaman Village and sailed down to Atteka.

Felix and his group docked their ships on Atteka and went to Contigo, whose  residents were currently constructing what appeared to be a pair of  giant, metallic wings that were to be attached to a ship. Contigo was the true hometown of Ivan, the place where Hammet was entrusted with  Ivan as a baby by Ivan's now-deceased mother. Though the people of Contigo were not Jupiter Adepts, for the most part, their  ancestors were the legendary tribe of Jupiter Adepts known as the  Anemos, a people who could employ Psynergy to achieve flight. It was their power that the Hover Jade contained and provided to a limited  degree, and it was those living in Contigo years ago that entrusted  Hammet with the Shaman's Rod and the objective to use it to discover the  Jade and thus satisfy an important requirement of the prophecies of the  Anemos.

The Anemos, who presumably had the Jupiter-aligned abilities of foresight and precognition, had handed down  several different prophecies over the generations, chief among them  being that in the modern day and age, a pair of siblings directly  descended from the Anemos that would have previously left Contigo would  return, and that the Jupiter Lighthouse would once again be lit, the  facilitation of which would be helped by the power of the Anemos  represented by the Jade. Another prophecy also called for the creation of a pair of wings attachable to a specific design of ship to be  completed by the time the siblings' return and Jupiter's ignition were  predicted to have transpired. The fate of the Anemos themselves, according to modern-day Contigan folklore, was reflected in the enormous  crater just east of Contigo; this was once the location of the ancient  city of the Anemos, but when Alchemy was sealed and the Elemental  Beacons had been put out, the city and the land beneath it, as legend  would have it, rose up off the ground and into the sky, becoming what  was now Weyard's moon.

Felix, Jenna, Sheba, Piers, and Kraden entered Jupiter Lighthouse, just northwest of Contigo, and began  their climb up through it, assisted by the Hover Jade's hovering  Psynergy that simulated the power of the Anemos. Late in their exploration, however, they were shocked by what they were able to watch  from afar: Isaac and his companions Garet, Ivan, and Mia had entered the  tower in pursuit of them, but Garet and Mia had fallen into a trap set  up by none other than Karst and Agatio, who were also in the tower. The Mars Adepts traded thorns with Isaac and Ivan, during which Karst  introduced herself as the younger sister of Menardi out to satisfy her  personal grudge against Isaac, and that like Menardi, she was also of  the Fire Clan hailing from the world's frozen  northlands, whose home settlement was named Prox. In response to Isaac and Ivan saying that they never heard of such a place, the Mars  Adepts decided to let slip that it was because Prox had lied on the  brink of extinction for a long time, and that the seal placed on Alchemy  was responsible. They then gloated that once the Lighthouses were ignited and Alchemy was released, Prox would regain its standing and be  able to establish dominance over all the other peoples of the world.

Isaac, of course, swore he would stop that motive in its tracks by preventing  the activation of Jupiter, even if it meant fighting them two-on-two,  but Karst declared that they had a third Adept on their side, Alex. It was only then that the Mars Adepts noticed that Alex had disappeared as  though to abandon them. Labeling him a traitor, they swore to exact their vengeance on him later, as they began dueling Isaac and Ivan to  the death. Having watched all this, Felix rushed up through the Lighthouse intending to save Isaac's life, despite the fact that they  had been at odds on their respective quests up until now. Alex approached him along the way, saying that he knew that Felix would not  light Jupiter while Isaac's life was in danger because Felix lacked, in  Alex's own words, Alex's ability to "discard" people who were no longer  "of use" to him. Therefore, Alex healed and empowered Felix's group with his Psynergy to help him save Isaac from Karst, so that Felix would  light Jupiter later.

Karst and Agatio defeated Isaac and Ivan and left them unable to move or stand, and the Mars Adepts were  about to kill them when Felix and his companions stepped in. They forced Karst and Agatio to spare Isaac and his party lest the pair fight  all of Felix's party, and Karst had no choice but to concede, since  they were weakened by their fight with Isaac. The deal was made that Felix's group could do what they wanted with Isaac's group if Felix took  the Mars Star that was in Isaac's possession, and then went on to  ignite Jupiter Lighthouse with the Jupiter Star. Isaac, despite his prior antagonism with Felix and despite his objective to prevent what  Felix was trying to achieve, announced he would place his faith in  Felix's actions and judgements, and willingly handed over the Mars Star. Felix and Piers accompanied Karst and Agatio to the Lighthouse's aerie while the others remained behind to treat all of Isaac's party.

At the aerie of Jupiter Lighthouse, Felix cast the Jupiter Star into the  well of Jupiter Lighthouse, and the Jupiter Beacon was established in a  spectacular display. But then, Karst suddenly stole the Mars Star from Felix, and declared that she and Agatio would be able to ignite the  final lighthouse themselves, since it was located right next to Prox. In other words, they had no further use for him, and because he had  betrayed them earlier... it was now time for him to die, even though his  parents would be allowed free by the people of Prox once all four  Lighthouses were lit. Karst and Agatio attempted to kill Felix and  Piers, but both Jenna and Sheba arrived to help Felix, and it became a  desperate fight for both sides.

When one side in the conflict was about to finish off the other side, Alex stepped in to  prevent blood from being spilled. Even though Karst and Agatio painted him a traitor because of his abandonment of them earlier, Alex was able  to convince them that their petty grudge should be permanently set aside  and that they should flee with him while they had both the opportunity  and the Mars Star in their possession, because Isaac's party had  regained their strength and was also headed toward the aerie. Karst and Agatio fled Jupiter Lighthouse with Alex on this note, and the Mars  Adepts would part ways with Alex as they headed up to Mars Lighthouse to  finish Saturos and Menardi's original objective. Isaac and his group arrived just as Felix's antagonists had left, and a brief but tense  standoff ensued between the two, during which Isaac demanded an  explanation from Felix about his actions. It was quickly agreed that the circumstances warranted a formal meeting between the two groups of  Adepts, so everyone left Jupiter Lighthouse to convene back in Contigo.

The Reunion
In a lone, abandoned house in Contigo, Felix and Isaac's respective  parties held their meeting. First, Isaac learned that Felix had not been able to face Isaac because of how Felix had betrayed his hometown,  Vale, when he was in league with Saturos and had conspired to steal the  Elemental Stars from Sol Sanctum, as well as how that betrayal ended up  causing Jenna and Kraden to be captured by Saturos. Isaac was shocked when he heard that the reason Felix wanted to help Saturos was because  both of his and Jenna's parents, as well as Isaac's father Kyle, were  alive and well at Saturos' hometown of Prox to the north, but would only  be freed by Prox's denizens once the Lighthouses were ignited. Isaac learned that the disaster at Vale three years ago had indeed been caused  by Saturos and Menardi attempting to raid Sol Sanctum for the Stars but  triggering a trap that generated a thunderstorm, and that after the  pair knocked young Isaac and Garet out to make them forget witnessing  the pair's secretive presence in the town at the time, they rescued all  four people believed killed by the boulder - Felix, his two parents, and  Kyle - and brought them back with them to Prox, which was why their  bodies were never found by Vale.

Then Felix and Kraden proceeded to recite what they had learned at Lemuria about the true  relation of Alchemy to the world of Weyard - that its sealed state since  the ancient past had gradually caused both the civilizations and  cultures of the world and the physical state of the world itself to  wither and wane over the ages, and that the world would gradually but  certainly reach a premature end in the future if Alchemy was not  restored in time to re-sustain it. Isaac, of course, was enormously taken aback by this revelation, since he had been lead to believe that  Alchemy would destroy the world anyway, a possibility Felix and Kraden  could not deny. But despite having been tasked long ago to retrieve the Stars and stop Alchemy from being unleashed, Isaac emphatically agreed  that the chance and risk Alchemy's release entailed should be taken over  the certainty of the world ending on its own, a decision he certainly  would have not made long ago, since it entailed violating the sacred  teachings of Vale.

Just then, Hama, who Isaac had previously met in Lama Temple, arrived and joined in on the  conversation. She introduced herself as none other than Ivan's elder sister, and that the two of them were the siblings of the Anemos  described by the prophecies handed down by their ancestors - the  prophecy that Ivan and Hama would return to Contigo when Jupiter  Lighthouse was lit had come to pass. More importantly, Hama had come to announce that a new threat to Weyard had suddenly appeared: Because the  elemental beacons of Mercury, Venus, and Jupiter were alight, the  element of Mars (fire and heat) was being suppressed on a global scale,  and the temperatures of the world were suddenly and rapidly dropping. If Mars Lighthouse was not lit soon, Weyard would continue to grow colder  until the entire world would eventually be plunged into ice.

Hama used her power of distant foresight and precognition to sense that even  though Karst and Agatio were attempting to climb Mars Lighthouse  themselves, they were certain to fall short of their goal, for a  powerful force and will was present at the Lighthouse that did not want  to see Mars ignited. She deemed it necessary for both groups of Adepts to pool their strengths together, travel north to Mars Lighthouse, and  finish the job themselves. Felix and Isaac, having sorted out all of their differences and come to a true understanding, joined forces to  form a final traveling party of eight Adepts - Felix, Isaac, Jenna,  Garet, Ivan, Sheba, Mia, and Piers, and Kraden continued to accompany  the newly formed group for the remainder of their journey.

Felix and Isaac's group returned to Piers' ship, where they had found that  the metallic wings the people of Contigo were working on had been built  onto it. This was the culmination of yet another prophecy handed down by the Anemos - that once the wings were to be completed by the time  Jupiter Lighthouse was lit, they would be built onto the Lemurian Ship  that Ivan would be using to depart from Contigo and contribute to the  final effort to bring Alchemy back to the world. Hama introduced the wings as the Wings of Anemos, which would allow the ship to hover  above the surface of the ocean should every Adept on board the ship  channel their Psynergy into them, and presented them as her gift to the  Adepts. The Adepts boarded their ship and successfully hovered over the newly-formed rocks that would have blocked their way back out into the  Great Western Sea.

While a new sense of camaraderie was apparent among everyone now that they were all working together, Sheba  was melancholy for a moment. She finally explained why she was adamant about joining Felix on his quest after Venus Lighthouse had been lit:  she knew from her life in Lalivero that she had a spectacular origin,  allegedly dropping out of the sky and landing safely, whereupon she had  been adopted by Faran. As a Jupiter Adept, she believed that if she accompanied Felix to Jupiter Lighthouse, there she would have found some  sort of clue about her place of birth, her true parentage, or why she  had apparently been abandoned, but did not find answers for any of these  questions. Kraden consoled Sheba by explaining that he had never known the true comforts of a home or his parents either, because Babi had  taken him away from the village of his birth when he was only four years  of age to live the entirety of his life in Tolbi as a scholar. Unlike Kraden's case, Faran was at least like a father to Sheba.

At some point in the remainder of their journey, the Adepts would return  to Contigo, where they found that Hama had since taken residence in the  house where Felix and Isaac had their meeting. Ivan was surprised to learn that this was the very house he had been born and raised in, and  questioned why Hama had not revealed that she was his sister back when  they had previously met in Lama Temple, but Hama told him he was too  sentimental; Ivan played an important role in events that had transpired  up until now, and the course of fate would have been adversely affected  if Ivan had found out about Contigo, because he would have put his  journey with Isaac on hold to come to Contigo too soon. The conversation returned to how and why the world was going to be plunged into ice  because Mars Lighthouse was the only Lighthouse that remained unlit, and  it was additionally theorized that the world had been fine while  Mercury and Venus were the only two Lighthouses that were lit because  those two elements - the nurturing warmth of the earth and the cold of  the ocean - were able to appropriately balance each other out. Since Jupiter Lighthouse, the lighthouse of Wind, was also of an element that  cooled things down, the balance had been disturbed, and now the element  of Mars had to be ignited to bring back warmth to the world. Hama bid her younger brother farewell and good luck as the Adepts resumed their  quest toward Mars Lighthouse.

Mars Lighthouse
The oceanic route to the world's northern reaches above the Great Western  Sea had been overtaken by glaciers, causing the Adepts to find a  more-or-less literal wall of ice blocking them and their ship from  progressing toward Mars Lighthouse, so they had no choice but to explore  the Western Sea for help. When they discovered an excavation of ancient ruins at Angara's western coast being carried out by dwarves  who had christened the site Loho, they got to see a relic of the  ancient past that the dwarves had managed to unearth: an authentic  cannon, which was a weapon employed by the  civilizations of the past in their wars. The Adepts had no more clue as to how to operate it than the dwarves who had discovered it, though.

The Adepts had also heard about the one Elemental Rock that Felix had not  yet explored and solved: the volcanic Magma Rock, at the western  central region of Angara, which gossip claimed routinely generated  uniquely handlable Magma Balls within itself. Putting two and two together, the Adepts decided to explore Magma Rock to empower themselves  with new Mars Psynergy and retrieved one of these ball-like objects for  themselves, then went back to Loho and used the Magma Ball on the  cannon. The cannon discharged and pulverized a large wall in Loho - a clear demonstration of the awesome and destructive power that a  developed civilization like those of the past could achieve with their  military weaponry. The dwarves, thankful for opening up a new area to dig, placed the cannon onto the Adepts' ship. The Adepts returned to the glacial wall and destroyed it with the cannon, thus opening up the  northern reaches and allowing them to proceed on the last legs of their  journey.

Felix and Isaac made it to Prox, the hometown of Saturos, Menardi, Karst, and Agatio. The people of Prox were as warm and welcoming as those of any other town the Adepts had come across  before, and were certainly different from the vengeful and combative  warriors Isaac and Felix had to deal with in their journey even though  they were of the same humanlike race, but the people were on the verge  of despair themselves; the weather had become bleak and blizzard-ridden  because of the phenomenon Hama described, and they knew that Prox would  likely be destroyed in the future by the growing abyss to the north, the  edge of the world beyond Mars Lighthouse.

As Isaac came to learn, it was the chieftain of Prox, Puelle, who first  discovered that the edge of the world was gradually but continually  eating away into the land in the direction of Prox, and suspected that  the seal placed on Alchemy was the culprit. Prox originally sent emissaries to the town nested at the foot of Mt. Aleph, Vale, to tell  them of Prox's plight and try to convince them that Alchemy had to be  restored to the world, but Vale's elders refused to listen to them and  drove them out by force. Puelle and the Elder of Prox had to take it upon themselves to send Prox's two finest warriors, Saturos and  Menardi, to raid Sol Sanctum, take the Elemental Stars they contained,  and go on a journey to light the Lighthouses themselves. This was the reason behind the Mars Adepts' two separate, subsequent raids of Sol  Sanctum, the first being the one that triggered the Mt. Aleph boulder  disaster, and the second being the one that started Isaac off on his  journey, and this was also the pair's true motivation for releasing  Alchemy into the world - the survival and well-being of their hometown.

Because Karst and Agatio had gone off to light the last Lighthouse themselves,  Puelle had given the order that Kyle and the parents of Felix were to be  let free should Felix return to Prox. So the people of Prox were just as distressed as the Adepts were when it was found that none of the  three adults were anywhere in the village, as though they had gone to  Mars Lighthouse themselves. The Adepts met with Puelle and the Elder, where it was immediately brought out how Isaac was the one that killed  Saturos and Menardi, but the people of Prox quickly found it within  themselves to forgive Isaac on the basis that he proved stronger than  them and was now laboring to accomplish their original goal. It had become apparent to everyone that Karst and Agatio were not going to  achieve Mars Lighthouse's activation, so Prox called upon Felix and  Isaac's party of Adepts to enter the Lighthouse, retrieve the Mars Star,  and finish the job for Prox and for the future of Weyard.

The group of Adepts proceeded to enter and begin climbing Mars Lighthouse. Along the way, they encountered and fought a pair of lumbering Flame Dragons. When the dragons were dispatched, they suddenly transformed back into the defeated forms of Karst and Agatio, both near death and  having had no recollection of the battle. Karst recalled that while they were exploring Mars Lighthouse, a mysterious force materialized before  them, gauged their souls, and determined that they lacked the will to go  any farther before turning them into dragons, preventing them from  activating the Mars Lighthouse with the Mars Star. When they became aware of Felix's group, Karst and Agatio willingly handed the Mars Star  to him and entrusted him with the remainder of their mission, in spite  of their prior antagonism with Felix. Felix and the rest of the Adepts were forced to leave the dying pair behind to head toward the aerie of  Mars Lighthouse, even as Karst and Agatio swore to themselves to stave  off the embrace of death until they could see the light of the Mars  Beacon.

At the aerie of Mars Lighthouse, Felix and Isaac's party encountered something that they could not have expected:  the Wise One, the guardian of Alchemy's seal and the entity that  originally tasked Isaac and Garet with the recovery of the Elemental  Stars. The Wise One demanded to know why Isaac disobeyed his command and came to light the Mars Beacon, and Isaac and the rest of the Adepts  responded with all that they had found out about how the world would  eventually be eroded away by Gaia Falls if Alchemy was not released in  time. The Wise One simply countered that if Alchemy was unleashed, mankind may well become the harbingers of Weyard's destruction  themselves. Even after the Adepts proclaimed that they would take it upon themselves to ensure that Alchemy not be used for evil, the Wise  One simply stated that it was an unshakable facet of human nature that  one man would seek dominion over all, and then said that this was going  to happen sooner than any of the Adepts could have expected.

The Wise One proceeded to notify the Adepts that Alex was currently  climbing the peak of Mt. Aleph even as they spoke; Alex knew far more  than any of them, knowing that once the four Elemental Beacons were  alight, their lights would gather at Mt. Aleph and merge into a golden  beam that would bathe Mt. Aleph's peak. This light, which the Wise One described as the Golden Sun, was the beam of pure, realized Alchemy  that would give shape to the Stone of Sages and herald the return of the  power of Alchemy to the world. The limitless power that Alex was set to obtain by standing in the path of the Golden Sun had been his one true  desire from the very start. The incredible truth came out for the Adepts: Alex had used them all. Even though the Adepts were enormously taken aback by this revelation - Mia felt outright sick with disgust  that her own clanmate could do such a thing - Isaac nonetheless remained  steadfast in his conviction that the Mars Lighthouse would have to be  lit to save the world, even if doing so did satisfy Alex's goal for  ultimate power.

The Adepts were ready to light Mars Lighthouse, but though the Wise One claimed he could not stop them, he  stated that a "miracle" might happen that could, and proclaimed that  only by defeating a miracle could the Adepts be allowed to ignite the  beacon's flame before he disappeared and summoned a monster for them to  battle: a colossal three-headed dragon of immense power. As the Adepts steeled themselves for the battle, Kraden realized what the dragon truly was, and desperately called for the Adepts not to kill  it, but the Adepts charged into their final battle nonetheless. The clash was the longest, most intense, and most harrowing the Adepts had  ever experienced, but they were victorious in the end.

Like what had happened with Karst and Agatio earlier, the defeated form of  the dragon then transformed into the defeated forms of three separate  people, and Jenna broke down when she and her friends discovered who  they were: Jenna and Felix's parents and Isaac's father Kyle, the very  people their children had hoped to reunite with at the end of their  quest. The Adepts were aggrieved to find that they had been tricked into killing their own parents, in an act Kraden described as the Wise One's  final trap, a cruel, wretched trick he played because he knew he could  not stop the Adepts from lighting the beacon. The Adepts tried to heal the adults with their Psynergy but were too tapped from the battle, and  as they mourned, Garet, Sheba, and Piers yelled out into the open air as  though to address the Wise One, calling him evil and unable to  understand the pain he had caused.

Isaac called for his companions to collect themselves; he revealed that he had already known  what he was about to do before he even raised his sword, but went  through with the incredibly difficult decision to slay his own father so  that the world would be saved. Everyone else, even Jenna, found it within themselves to agree that what they did was for all of Weyard, not  themselves, and their parents would understand their decision to defy  the Wise One in order to prevent the world's destruction and save  millions. And so, Felix cast the Mars Star into the well of Mars Lighthouse, and the Mars Beacon was established.

All of a sudden, the Adepts received a form of long-distance telepathic  communication from Mia's young apprentices from Imil, Justin and Megan,  who were at Mercury Lighthouse. The children were told by the Wise One that they would be able to talk to them this way, and that they were to  pass on the message that now that all of the Lighthouses were lit, the  four towers and Mt. Aleph were going to begin the automated process that  would give rise to the Golden Sun and shape to the Stone of Sages. All of the lighthouses and Mt. Aleph were going to expel a lot of energy,  making them dangerous for people to be near, which is why the Wise One  was appearing to people in their dreams and warning them to take refuge;  obviously, the Adepts wondered why he would do that considering what he  did to them, but then Hama telepathically communicated with them in a  similar fashion from Jupiter Lighthouse, where she announced that one's  actions did not always reflect one's true intentions, and that the Wise  One had a caring heart. She warned them to evacuate Mars Lighthouse immediately, and the Adepts had to instantly decide whether to take  their parents' bodies with them or leave them behind, but it made little  difference, for the Mars Beacon quickly engulfed the entire aerie in  its energy.

Epilogue: The Golden Sun
The beacons of the Mercury, Venus, Jupiter, and Mars Lighthouses had been  lit, and the automated process that heralded the forming of the Stone of  Sages and the return of Alchemy to all of Weyard played out in earnest. Balance to the elements was restored with the activation of Mars, bringing back warmth and heat to the world and ending the blizzard that  had plagued Prox, and the combined influence of the four beacons had  resustained the world's life force, allowing for the landmasses of the  world to grow back in size over time. The wave of energy that the Mars Beacon expelled during the process had infused the bodies of everyone on  the aerie because they were all Adepts, and this included the bodies of  the three parents, whose life forces were miraculously renewed by the  energy. The Adepts brought themselves and the three adults out of Mars Lighthouse and back to Prox, where the people of Prox proceeded to nurse  the adults back to health.

Felix, Isaac, Kraden, and the rest of the Adepts were thanked by Puelle, the Elder, and the rest  of Prox for saving their town, for saving all of Weyard, and for  effectively bringing about a new age where Alchemy may once again drive  the advancement of civilization. Even though it was sad that Karst and Agatio were now gone just like Saturos and Menardi, spirits were high. Isaac was personally concerned, though, about what may have happened to Vale due to all the energy that was being released at Mt. Aleph during  the return of Alchemy, and was especially concerned about his mother,  Dora, who was ill the last time Isaac saw her. The Adepts, the adults, and Kraden boarded the Lemurian Ship to return home to Vale.

As everyone was boarding the Lemurian Ship, Isaac also pondered why the  Wise One did everything he did - lying to Isaac about Alchemy's true  relevance to the world at the start of his quest, and trying to stop  them from lighting the Mars Beacon by transforming them into a dragon  that the Adepts nearly killed, but then saving everyone near the  Lighthouses by having them evacuate, etc. Kraden was certain that the  Wise One also knew in advance that the parents would be revived by the  Mars Beacon. These led him to hazard a guess with great implications: The Wise One's true intention was to test Isaac and his friends as  individuals capable of making difficult decisions. Alchemy was a power that could allow for great deeds, but also for great evils, so the  release of Alchemy into the world entailed a great new responsibility  for Isaac and the Adepts to take upon themselves: to try to stand  steadfast against the likely case that the world would now go down the  path of war and strife. Because Isaac was willing to sacrifice what was most dear to his heart to complete his quest for the greater good, he  had risen to the Wise One's challenge.

When the Golden Sun had temporarily formed from the merging of the energies of the four  beacons to bathe the peak of Mt. Aleph in a beam that was the purest  manifestation of Alchemy's power, Alex had made it to the peak in time  to stand in the center of the beam of light. As the power of the Golden Sun passed through his body to infuse Mt. Aleph below, he gained great  power and near-limitless life. Standing triumphant over the success of his grand plan to obtain the ultimate power, Alex eagerly attempted to  test his newfound mastery over the elements by calling out to the sky to  summon storms to unleash their might upon Vale below... but to his  puzzlement, no storm appeared. All of a sudden, the Wise One materialized before him, where he announced that though Alex did indeed  receive nearly limitless life and a great increase in his Psynergy  power, it was imperfect, and he did not command full mastery of the  building blocks of reality. Alex thought the Wise One was trying to anger him, so he used his newfound power to telekinetically push the  Wise One back and gloat, but the Wise One drove Alex into the ground and  rendered him immobile with a single, powerful telekinetic burst.

Alex could not believe that he was not all-powerful as he should have been,  and demanded to know who had robbed him of his dream. The Wise One proceeded to explain that this was set up long ago; when the Wise One  awoke from his slumber during Saturos and Alex's invasion of the  Elemental Star Chamber, he predicted Alex's plan and set up a  precautionary measure against it. The Wise One had imbued the Mars Star that was in Isaac's possession at the time with a mysterious property,  which in the present had ended up causing the Mars Beacon to imbue some  of the power it would have contributed to the forming Golden Sun into  Isaac's body rather than Alex's.

Now that Mt. Aleph had been infused with the Golden Sun, it and all of the landscape  surrounding it began to change and collapse, as part of the final phase  of Alchemy's reestablishment on the world of Weyard. The Wise One announced that the heavens and earth were changing, and that Alex would  be drawn into the earth along with the mountain forever if he did not  flee. But alas, Alex could not even move, and the Wise One concluded that Alex now saw the limits of his power and may not survive what was  coming up. The Wise One's final statement to Alex before the mountain was drawn into the heart of the earth was that, if Alex survived, they  may meet again someday...

Isaac and Felix's companions, Kyle, Felix and Jenna's parents, and Kraden finally reached the last  destination on their trip back to Vale, but were horrified by what they  saw: Mt. Aleph and the surrounding area was effectively gone, and Vale  was completely erased. Despair quickly overtook everyone, who presumed that all of Vale's residents had perished when Alchemy was released, and  Isaac and Garet were hit the hardest emotionally, since they believed  that Dora and all of Garet's family were now gone forever. But all of a sudden, the townspeople of Vale revealed themselves to be okay; Garet's  family explained that the Wise One had evacuated them out of Vale before  the town and everything around Mt. Aleph were destroyed. Dora welcomed both Isaac and Kyle home; as they embraced, everyone celebrated in front  of where Vale used to be.

And so ended the story of how Isaac and his companions, heretofore known as the Warriors of  Vale, came to unleash the "Golden Sun effect" on the world of Weyard.