Aleister and the Elemental Forges

Thelima and Forge Maleno

A metallic echo resembling the call of the Doom Spirit beneath Termina Temple draws you to the Yew Mountains with Warlic, Tara, Volgritian and Magni's Mana Solace Paladins. The Stranger in your shadow discovers that you have already told your friends about it; they tolerate its presence for the knowledge it may offer. Thelima City stands beneath the four Magnum Opus Forges (Maleno, Albedo, Citrinitas and Rubedo) and is protected jointly by House Noelle, the Dwarves and the Drow. The forges' reignition during the Skye war has brought prosperity and casualties: people burned by Maleno's flames are confined in the House of Ash, where neither medicine nor magic can save them and Warlic's spells only feed the fire.

While Geopetal helps watch over Thelima and the Luminary Coalition opposes Astero's Lightguard, you join Muusa, Maya and Felix in the library. Felix gives you the recovered journal of Bill, Drakath's uncle, which records how his sister Ophelia lost a child, was cast out by her husband, and was seized by Dethrix I's Court Mages as a vessel for a fragment of the Queen of Monsters. When she became Drakath's mother, Bill intended to kill the child, only to be moved by his resemblance to Ophelia. He later trained and protected his nephew, even losing a finger for him, while keeping their relationship secret.

A book beside Felix leads to Tercesamileht, ThelimaSecret in reverse, a white space between pages where displaced lives and roles remain. A nameless former Court Mage offers memories of Metrea and hints that point toward Lucas Bligh, while insisting he is both dead in reality and present here. Elizabeth rehearses an introduction as a Master Ninja and fears that her place has already been taken; she remembers companions who vanished or found a way into the new world. Before leaving the page, the Dragonlord describes arranging familiar figures and asks you to tell Warlic that he lived his life and would choose it again, ending his farewell with a much less tender message for Drakath.

After you recover a key from the House of Ash, Song recounts the legend of the First Champion of Fire and the star-born beast whose surviving flames lit the forges. Behind Felix's barrier, you, Tara and Warlic connect the Order's predictions to the crises in Ashray and Skye, suspecting a deliberate chain of manipulation with Fiamme's intervention and the renewed forges as its next link. Tara begins Brentan's warning that the Mouthpiece speaks for a mask, but an attack interrupts her. When a burning entity reaches Thelima and leaves Warlic charred and unresponsive, you heed the Masks and the Stranger's urging to rewind time and save him. The creature notices the reversal, then burns your arms with fire that destroys Mana, preventing another attempt.

Tara pushes Dahlia out of the attacker's path and is struck against Thelima's monument. Hurt and unable to move, she asks the figure within it to save them, pleading that he is supposed to be a hero, and Aleister emerges to help drive the creature back. He calls himself the First Champion of Fire, but remembers almost nothing and must learn even the simplest customs from Tara. Hoping to recover his past and help people again, he joins you, Warlic, Tara, Volgritian and Dahlia on the journey to seal Forge Maleno.

After a scan detects no humans, the forge's guardian, Admin B, admits your group and promises to seal Maleno once you remove the nesting Dragon, Idalion. Inside, a guestbook preserves Lucas Bligh's dangerous experiments, Brentan's failed attempt to remake Tara's ring into a protective amulet, and Sigrid's guilt over Lynaria. Aleister offers Warlic a flower in apology, but the mage warns that two Champions of the same element cannot coexist without one losing memories and dying. When the black-flamed creature attacks Tara and Dahlia, even your stopped Time fails to contain it. Aleister holds it while Warlic raises his staff; you accuse Warlic of trying to kill both. Volgritian bites down on the pair and releases Aleister unharmed, with Admin B's later examination reporting that Aleister and the intruder fused inside the Dragon's mouth.

Aiwass, Albedo and Fort Luma

When Admin B finds a way around the protocols preventing it from sealing you inside Maleno, Warlic teleports the party away, though you arrive near Albedo with only the Stranger in your shadow. Facing white fire that attacks the mind as well as the body, you reach Aiwass Sanctuary, where Svala, Snowbeard and Isiri describe another flame-being's assault and tell you that your companions have gone ahead. Isiri explains that Aiwass continues to dream after death and communicates through shared emotions and memories. To reach the forge, you must enter that communion in pairs through the Chymical Wedding, a symbolic fusion using Salt, Mercury and Sulfur.

Paired with the Stranger, you enter Aiwass's dream. Your companions experience one another's grief: Dahlia feels Tara's confinement and regret, while Tara lives through Dahlia's betrayal and wounds in Wuji. Aleister encounters Warlic's long wait through lost lives, and an accusation that you replaced the Chosen and the Dragonlord. Your own boundaries with the Stranger begin to dissolve before Kathool interrupts. It draws back a curtain on Infamy, who claims to be the Stranger's Master, but the Stranger rejects the claim and emerges shattered. You remain briefly with Aiwass, sensing pity and accepting the red-and-white being that will accompany you to Albedo.

At Forge Albedo, Jaania stands among your companions as though she has traveled with you since Thelima, a memory most of you accept but Dahlia rejects. Admin B reports that Warlic broke into the forge and is now under fire. As you rescue stranded Paladins and find a way through, the guardian identifies the wreck as Starship Carcossa, launched by Captain Zigfried with Runehawk personnel and specimens. The red-and-white being from Aiwass opens the inner doors under Bryn's authority, which supersedes every rank. Warlic explains that Jaania is a projection drawn from his memories of lives before the worlds fused, including a marriage he lost. He dismisses her, leaving Aleister troubled that Warlic would reject someone he called family.

Aleister promises not to take Albedo's flame, yet absorbs it during the confrontation and insists he did not mean to. The rescued Paladins reveal their allegiance to the Lightguard when Rigaud thanks you for disabling the defenses and announces plans to seize the forge and destroy Aiwass's sanctuary. Leaving Dahlia to hold them off, you return to the captives and find Volgritian defending Isiri, Svala and Snowbeard from Astero's Dragon twins, Clematis and Clementine. As Aleister fights to help, a voice orders him to kill and surpass the Stray, and he loses control and hurts you before your appeals reach him. Warlic says this destruction is what Aleister was made for.

Aleister recalls his father's order to find the Stray and recognizes Warlic as his brother, but Warlic rejects him, revealing that Aleister was never the First Champion of Fire. The flames Aleister has been reclaiming from the forges were his own. With Volgritian badly wounded, you send Warlic back to Albedo to seek Admin B's help, then enter Fort Luma with Tara and Aleister through a tunnel Yara prepared before the Lightguard ambushed the Luminary negotiators. Maya, Ana and their leader are still missing, while the stolen laboratories reveal Astero's experiments: using Carcossa's vats to give displaced beings malformed bodies, and feeding Paladins and prisoners to Citrinitas's flame.

After the captives are freed, the golden fire spreads through Fort Luma and turns on the Lightguard. You remain with Aleister to face its source while Tara searches for Maya and finds Dahlia confronting Astero, whose imitation of a Shadow's distress call lured her there as fuel. The Stranger recognizes Luma's form beneath Astero's disguise, but its anger gives him the opening to escape. As Aleister recovers the third flame, memories overturn the identity he trusted. Another man was the Champion of Fire, and Aleister was the one hunting Warlic. Warlic names him the Flame of the Beyond and blames him for the lives lost in that search. You still ask for trust, but Aleister departs for Warwick Forest and Mount Rubedo.

Aleister, Rubedo and The Law

You refuse to give up on the friend who wanted to be a hero, asking Warlic to offer Aleister the trust he once offered you. As your party follows him into Warwick Forest, the others work to evacuate Rubedo and release people still burning from its ancient disaster. Warlic finally explains that his father, Wargoth, delights in the destruction of civilizations; Warlic escaped him in an older world, then spent centuries waiting for familiar lives to return after the fusion. When Aleister, the younger son created to replace him, arrived, Warlic mistook him for Wargoth and fled in panic, leaving the forest and its inhabitants to suffer.

When Galanoth confronts Fiamme over her fabricated history, she admits that Kolr was not her first Champion: that title belonged to a girl killed by her people for wielding alien power. Fiamme admits concealing failures and dismissing those who disappointed her. Her attempt to strengthen Galanoth during the Skye war reopened the forges and allowed Kolr's soul to escape, dividing into four fragments that took Aleister's flames. After you subdue the last fragment so she can return him to her Plane, Fiamme embraces Kolr and apologizes without asking forgiveness, only for him to attack. Aleister intervenes, breaks his blade and takes back Rubedo's flame. Now whole, he says he will finish Wargoth's mission and dismisses you and Tara as toys.

You stop Time across the universe, allowing allies to move while keeping Fiamme and Galanoth out of the confrontation. Warlic and Tara stand with you as Dahlia and the Stranger pursue Astero toward Citrinitas. Elsewhere, Muusa, Felix and the Chaos Twin Ginx capture Varga long enough to question her. She admits helping The Law reclaim authority from the Avatars in exchange for the promised right to write law herself. Varga escapes, leaving her captors on the ground.

At the caldera, you, Warlic and Tara face Aleister's true form. Even during the battle, teasing and laughter recall the friend beneath his threats. When the strain of stopping Time makes your heartbeat falter and you fall, Aleister catches you without understanding why. He does not want this adventure to end either, but cannot see how you could forgive the lives he destroyed. You refuse to let him turn his friends into instruments of punishment. Warlic and Tara ask him to face his actions and choose what to become: Wargoth's intentions need not decide the rest of his life.

Before Aleister can answer, The Law intervenes without a vote, overriding both Tranquility and Infamy. As it initiates Protocol Silence and begins rewriting reality through the authority reclaimed from the Avatars' Divine Eyes, Warlic explains that the predicted threats were a means of recovering creation privileges. The amulet from Undine buys you a short interval to act. Across Lore, The Law's purge of major abnormalities takes people from conversations and evacuations, with Song, Sally, Nythera, Maya, Aria and Victoria suddenly missing and their companions left without answers.

With forty minutes to hide and regroup, Warlic and Tara remain behind while Aleister carries you away. You beg to return, but neither of you can fight or fly any farther, and Ouroboros offers shelter at Forge Citrinitas.