User:Rellin/War of Sages

Yeah. War of Sages. The game idea that I attempted to turn into a fanfic before getting totally sidetracked with life. Not that surprisingly, though, I know every single detail of the story even though most of it hasn't been written down. It's been stewing in my mind for several years, and it's finally hit a point where I'm really happy with it.

I'm not totally sure if I'll start re-writing the fic in the future (when my life settles down a bit), so I don't know how much of it I want to reveal. Of course, just giving hints and whatnot would be total crap, so here comes the warning!

Background Information
It's been a little over four hundred years since the end of The Lost Age. Yeah, you read that right, 400 years. Isaac and the others are all dead and gone. Well, mostly, but we'll get to that later =P Anyways, Alchemy's return caused a lot of turmoil and confusion in the beginning, but thanks to the efforts of the heroes who brought it back and a good deal of divine intervention from the Wise One himself, everything gets settled out in a few years.

The Wise One didn't just give people the guidance and knowledge to understand what was happening, though. He also led their leaders in creating a group of massive temple-like constructions near each of the four Lighthouses. He also personally supervised the construction of Sol Lighthouse, the new Sol Sanctum. Naturally, everyone assumes that this is simply the "will of the gods" and goes about their business building them. But what kind of story would this be if it was that simple?

In truth, the Wise One foresaw was trying to manage a problem he saw developing at some point in the future, but was unsure of how long it would be before it came to pass. Under normal circumstances, the Golden Sun's initial appearance would've charged up the Stone of Sages within Mt. Aleph, imbuing Weyard with Alchemy and causing a golden age. And in truth, that did happen; the Stone was restored to power, Weyard has been growing again (slowly turning back into it's original form, the one shown in Lemuria by Hydros on the map), and Adepts are no longer reliant on proximity to Psynergy Stones or sources of Alchemy to develop their powers (though it's worth noting that only about half of the world's population actually are Adepts at present). The problem arose in the formation of the tangible power of the Stone of Sages; the part that caused Alchemy's sealing in the first place and became the object of Alex's desires.

Raw, unfettered Alchemy in its purest form is only found in the Golden Sun, and obtaining every bit of that at once would destroy a person. However, the closest thing anyone could get to that without disintegrating was in a crystalline object that was also called the Stone of Sages. In the lost age of man, this shiny little rock floated in the Golden Sun above Mt. Aleph, just waiting for somebody to come and get it. The fact that the closest a mortal could get to becoming a god was just there for the taking sparked the War of Sages, a massive conflict that nearly destroyed all civilization on Weyard and only ended when the Sages assembled and sealed Alchemy, thereby "destroying" the Stone of Sages.

Now, normally, when the Golden Sun forms and the Mt. Aleph Stone gets charged up, the floating-grabbable-crystal Stone would appear on Mt. Aleph's peak and just sit there. And had it not been for the Wise One's intervention, it would've appeared within Alex without any ill effects (speaking relatively, of course). Thanks to splitting the Stone's power between Alex and Isaac, though, our favorite cycloptic boulder prevented that from happening. And that's not a good thing, lemme tell ya.

The power of the Stone being divided wasn't necessarily catastrophic; after all, it's counterpart within Mt. Aleph was powered up, and that was all Weyard needed to survive. The crystal form of the Stone was just a nice little "extra." The problem lay in the fact that the stone was so powerful that it just had to stay together. It was eventually going to recreate itself, and destroy any person, animal or landmark in the way to do it. On top of that, an uncontrolled appearance would set off a massive discharge of Alchemy in the Golden Sun (read: Alchemic solar flare) that would cause such an enormous spike in the amount of energy being used by Weyard that it would stunt its growth.

The Wise One saw in the temples and Sol Lighthouse a safeguard against that. They were specially designed and given a sort of blessing by him to attract the component elements of the Stone should it start to reform; a safe, side-effect free way of dividing its power. In order to restore the Stone, the four individual elemental sections (called Shards) would have to be brought to Sol Lighthouse and recombined in a special chamber that wouldn't disturb the Golden Sun.

--Work in Progress