Weekly Lore Post #5 (Patreon)

Alright, sorry for the delay on getting this all to you!

---------------------------------

Now, as for the lore, we're actually gonna go BACK in time and clarify a bit of what happens at the start of the game; most of this stuff will be in the game's opening cutscene and tutorial.

In the year 1000 AD, multiple monarchies were vying for a large swath of land, and Talia and Faye's king, the most peaceful, charitable and wise king in the land (think like Bill Gates + Elon Musk or something), realizes that if any of the other kingdoms have their way, it'd be a pretty dark day in the neighborhood, as it were.

The main reason he rose to power, to note, is his insane level of magic skill; the guy's basically like Merlin combined with Houdini, sporting a level of natural magic talent unheard of by anyone else, and to top that, he's able to quickly teach people how to use magic, regardless of their actual talent levels.

So, a combination of his own immense power, as well as being able to quickly amass an army of skilled magicians (with Faye and Talia being at the top, and thus getting special, personalized training from him), has allowed him to quickly bring his kingdom up to snuff with the other neighboring kingdoms in just a few years.... or so it seems that way, on the surface.

Unfortunately, with his genius, he realizes that despite his own skill and experience, simply training and bestowing other people with magical power does not a skilled defense force make; they need time and experience to hone their skills, and with a war on the horizon, he knows many innocent lives will be quickly sacrificed, and slowly, but surely, his kingdom will lose and be crushed.

However, all isn't lost; with his mastery of magic, he starts peering into other timelines to see if there's any way to avoid the fate of the kingdom that he's foreseen. Luckily, he finds one; a suit of armor from the year 3000 that adapts to the wearer, granting them immeasurable strength, making them into a one-man army, as it were.

If someone were to get this suit and bring it back, they would be regarded a hero to the kingdom; by wearing it, Talia or Faye would be able to prevent any harm coming to the kingdom, rendering the other kingdoms powerless, drawing them into a stalemate at which point the other kingdoms would have to give up and surrender control to the almighty power of Talia and Faye's kingdom and their benevolent king.

So, it is with a gigantic burst of power (this is why the King doesn't go to the future himself; using all this power to rip a hole to the future open completely drains him to a near death state), he rips open a hole to the future, allowing Talia and Faye to go on their quest to recover the fragments of the suit and assemble it, aka the Future Fragments.

Whomever makes it out with the fragments first, is of course granted the right to become the hero of the kingdom, but given that the suit only has enough power to rip open a temporary hole to the past, whomever DOESN'T have the suit... well, Talia and Faye don't really have that on their minds.

In fact, they both actually have separate motives; Talia believes that using such immense power is cowardly, and she's a patriot of her kingdom enough that she believes with enough grit and will power, they can survive any attack and continue to thrive, showing others that being charitable and good-natured would result in a far, far better world than constantly fighting.

Conversely, Faye actually agrees with the King; might makes right, as it were. However, she isn't satisfied with just being the kingdom's protector, she wants to be its RULER, and throw the King out of power as she believes his charitable nature, although admirable, is only going to lead the kingdom into ruin due to backstabbers and people who would take advantage of his kindness (the irony isn't lost on her, but it's not going to dissuade her.)

So, we've got three wills here; the King's will of strengthening his kingdom, Talia's will of wanting to fight fair, and Faye's will of wanting to usurp the King.

Depending on how the player plays, any one of these three results could happen. Or, maybe even something else entirely...