The Sunfire Palace

My remaining eye flattered open.

Immediately I felt a sharp pain stabbing away at me where my right eye used to be.

Besides that, an intense ache ran through my entire body and even the simplest motions cursed me with great pain. It seemed I had well and truly overdrafted my strength.

As I hesitantly touched the right side of his face, my fingers were met with the course feeling of papyrus bandages.

After struggling to sit upright, I woodenly scannned my surroundings, and was met with a plain chamber.

I sat on the sole bed in a room made of a material similar to dark oak.

Like a statue, I was still as an almost tangible sheen of hopelessness rose above me.

The door of the chamber clicked open and one of the elves stepped through.

He was the one who had spoken to the monstrous cyclops when I had first arrived. 

"You're awake," He said in a dreary monotonous voice infused with false joy.

"So it seems." I replied lightly, forcing a slight smile.

He paused slightly when he took in the despairing aura around me, then he continued. "You know, you saved us, beings you barely knew at great personal cost. We owe you great debt, its unfortunate that we may never get the chance to repay you."

At the very least despite his bleakness I could sense the sincerity around him and so I asked. "I can call you...."

"Riviel" He replied unenthusiastically.

"Who-what was that creature?" I now asked darkly.

"One of their beast!" He croaked in a despair.

When he saw my uncomprehending stare he continued. "It belongs to the Chaos phenexes. Ever since we were exposed, we had known that this was our fate, but...they actually...really won't stop until all of us, men, women, and....children are well and truly extinct."

His expression became utterly warped with hate. "They already enslaved most of our men and forced them to work in their forges. Even when we deteriorated to this state the impose inhuman taxes on us. Worse they leave their henchmen to murder, maim, rape, and torture as they will. We are already on the verge of extinction and this is also the last colony left."

As he spoke tears filled his eyes. "But we will not leave. 

We cant."

His voice contained grief and sorrow but above all, certainty. His mind could not be changed. 

"Why?". I asked.

He showed a hesitant expression for moment but relented in the end. "Follow me." He instructed.

After escaping the hut, he led me straight to the heart of village. 

It's state was pathetic, to say the least. It was a barren wasteland barely being supported by the fruitless toiling of several sun fire elves.

Wherever we passed, only bleak expressions rested on their faces. It seemed that they were truly, hopelessly passing the days by until their eventual deaths.

As we passed a certain point I felt my surroundings changing.

"Illusion magic." I realized.

When my pupil focused on the terrain before me it suddenly enlarged.

Suddenly before me was a colossal golden brown pyramid. Its entire mass hummed with a forceful, magnetic power searing across its metallic skin.

'Beautiful' I whispered.

"We call it the apex and within it….." He proudly led me through giant golden doors.

"Lies the ancestral forge".

My eyes instantly dilated.

It was a forge. But one so large and complex that the wisdom behind it was surely divine. Several symbols were inscribed on it and its body was comprised of pure gold. Yet it sat dully in the darkness.

"You cannot leave it can you?" I realized.

"Our race predates the shura race. All nature spirits do. The forge requires its core: The celestial flame pearl. When our race faced annihilation by the hand of our sworn enemies, the old nature gods pitied our plight and teleported the remainder of our race to Vanaheim. The forge was filled with enough illusion magic to protect us for millennia. Sadly millennia arrived too soon. Now only enough illusion magic exists to protect the forge itself." An air of prophesied doom laced his every sentence yet a strange feeling arose in my heart.

"From what you said you were originally denizens of Vanaheim correct." I asked expressionlessly after sime time.

"Yes we were." He answered. Not comprehending why I would ask so.

"What does the flame pearl look like?"I asked again.

He chuckled before answering. "Its quite large and radiates-"

"A dense homely energy?" I finished for him, no emotions could be sensed within my tone.

"How do you know this." He asked. Now a bit wary.

I responded by raising my palm. A crimson light flashed, eliciting a yelp from the elf next to me.

A large deep vermillion pearl sat on my palm, the pearl I had taken from the treasury of the void fey.

"Is that….It?"I inquired in a bland tone, however a small satisfied smile sat across my lips

Riviel eyes clouded over with haze as he frigidly stared at the pearl within my palm with a worshiping gaze. His eyes told me that he would not wake up from this fantasy for a very, very long time.

***

I stayed with the Sunfire elves for another day.

It was just a day but the now barren land seemed to have regained his its soul.

Freedom and the peace to live among themselves, concepts they prayed desperately for but did not dare to hope for, had suddenly found them.

The very air around me sizzled with the power of the Celestial flame pearl, somehow it had breathed a new energy into the dwelling of the sunfire elves.

In just a single day the bleakness and despair I had sensed from them where replaced by a great hunger and determination.

A shame it was, that I could resuscitate their resolve, but my own remained eternally broken.

And indeed broken it was as I sat hopelessly at the tallest peak in the land, overlooking the distance.

"Hello sir." A sweet innocent voice prompted me to turn.

It was a small elf that had snuck up on me. She seemed to be a girl that was at most only eight years old.

As my attention fell in her entirely she fidgeted nervously, however after finding the resolve she suddenly screamed while her cheeks and neck had already become a field of red.

"Thank you for saving my life!!!!!" 

I smiled gently at her, already touched by her cute appearance. "I could never watch as someone harmed a cute child in front of me!" I comforted.

"Hehe" She laughed sweetly before drawing closer to me, however when she neared me, her childish visage seemed to take on a sadness beyond her age as she touched my bandaged right eye. 

"Big brother, does it hurt?" She asked while tearing up.

"It doesn't hurt anymore." I consoled smilingly.

I hadn't noticed yet, but most of the darkness within my soul had dissipated, the belief that with the cheap price of my right I had saved the girls life rejuvenated me.

My mother was right it seems. In the pursuit of happiness so many living beings selfishly harmed others.

However that could bring about a tortured existence. 

True happiness came from worthy self sacrifice.

***

"We may be unable to repay the debt we owe you." The clan chief Riviel exclaimed tearfully.

"I need no gestures. Just take care of little Xara for me." I answered with a laugh.

Still, the chief nodded seriously. 

For a moment i thought of something and changed my tone. My ring glinted and a deep crimson crystal fell into my palm, the crystal marcel had left me.

"I found it while traveling with friends. I cant seem to find its use though. So ill leave this too you as well. "I explained.

"No how can we take anything else from you at this point." He waved his hands agitatedly in rejection.

"Haha." I laughed. "Then you can return it after you find its use." I placed it in his arm before he could reject it.

I then remembered the reason I sought out civilization in the first place. With a disappointed face palm, I asked.

"Do you know anywhere called the red cross?." His eyes betrayed his chock at my question. 

"It is the most horrendous location in the entire of Muspell. A chasm that devours life itself. It is to the extreme north under the jurisdiction of the crimson phenexes. Used to end their most hated enemies." 

His eyes told me he wished to know why I would ask such a question out of concern.

"I was just curious about it." I lied fluently.

"Listen" I continued "I need a way to the north quickly. I have some business with the crimson phenexes."

Riviel contemplated this before having a few of his clan members bring a strange machine. It looked like a hybridized cruise ship and a double prowled canoe.

However, it was made almost completely out of a strange golden metal. Several symbols were inscribed on it. Despite its unorthodox appearance it was quite beautiful.

The chief tapped my forehead sufdenly. "There, I have transferred its ownership to you.

It is called the sun fire palace. The fastest divine warship we have ever created. It doesn't have an appropriate power source right now so it can only display a thousandth of its speed. However even that should be sufficient."

I was honestly at a loss, I wanted to turn down such an extravagant gift but his expression warned me that he wouldn't relent no matter what.

I was also no hypocrite. This ship suited my needs perfectly. I could already feel the hushed thrum of its powerful engine. With a leap I was already on board. I waved at the elven chief as I willed the engine of the chip to ignite. I expected a roar, yet I was met with a deep reverberation of silent power.

"Let's go." The ship reacted to my thoughts. A torrent of golden energy exploded from two dual canons where rudders should have been. 

Soon my surroundings were nothing but a blur, several consecutive sonic booms resounded as the ship broke barrier after barrier. I urged the ship toward the direction the elder had pointed me in as I laughed uproariously in elation, joyful for the first time in a long while.

But then something about the the strong winds rushing by me was particularly calming.

I rested on the deck of the ship as my heart calmed, the lid of my remaining eye draped it and my hum merged with the thrum of the engine as I fell into my dreams.

***