Behold, the Sun Shards, born of Sol's flesh and soul, the Celestial Luminary, Star Child of the Holy Sun, whose divine light hath graced the cosmos since the primordial dawn, for eons untold, a span of four and a half billion years, as is inscribed in the ancient texts.
These are not mere treasures within the Solarium; nay, they are the very essence, the divine spark that forged the Solarium into its sacred form. By their power, the galaxy was ordained to revolve around this hallowed star.
And it came to pass, as is chronicled in the sacred lore, that this saga commenced upon the ancient lands of Afreqyah, in the twilight of the Stellar Age. Humanity, in its hubris and its glory, ascended to the stars, mastering the arts of technology and the intellect of artificial spirits, achieving a greatness that touched the heavens. Yet, as is the way of all mortal things, with every ascent came fall.
Then, in the fullness of time, a Prince arose, destined to unite Earth and all the scattered colonies of the Solar System beneath his righteous banner. His name was Kamaru Adawala, who would later be known as the Consort of the Sun, the Blessed Father of Sol Imperius, and the revered Founder of the Solarium.
For many years did Kamaru Adawala strove, with sword and will, to forge a greater unity for the Solar System. Yet, the more he sought to conquer, the more his dominion fractured, and instead of boundless expansion, he found himself embroiled in ceaseless strife against secessionist factions and heretical rebels, even within the very halls of his own household.
His final earthly struggle unfolded upon the fiery plains of Venus. Perceiving that his mightiest warriors were faltering, he ascended to the prow of his Stellar Ark, rising into the celestial expanse. There, facing the Great Sun, he made the ultimate sacrifice, offering his very life, in a desperate plea to preserve his sacred dream.
And lo, the Sun answered his fervent plea! A magnificent avian entity, radiant as pure gold, descended upon him, bearing him aloft with its mystical third foot, before ascending back into the heart of the solar disc.
As is recounted by the venerable Grand Vizier of the Solarium, Jaffar the Undying, Kamaru Adawala communed with the very spirit of the Sun, and in a sacred union, planted his seed into the celestial star. Nine months thereafter, the Sun, through its divine messenger bird, sent forth a child. This progeny, born of mortal man and celestial star, was named Sol Imperius, the Imperial Sun.
And the remainder of this divine chronicle is etched into the annals of time. Sol Imperius, by his divine will, united the Sacred Solar System, bestowing upon it the hallowed name of Solarium. When the Infernal Incursion erupted, threatening to engulf all creation, the Galaxy found its salvation in Sol Imperius, who, with celestial might, repelled the very forces of Hell.
Yet, the Great Old Ones, in their ancient malice, unleashed their Eldritch Hivers upon the Solarium. In that dire hour, Sol Imperius, in an act of profound sacrifice, drew forth fragments of his own divine body, bestowing them upon his Companions, his noble royal guards, until his own celestial might was nigh diminished. These very fragments were the Sun Shards.
Having repelled the Great Old Ones, who returned to reclaim the ancient world of Urd, Sol Imperius withdrew to the Forbidden City, a sanctuary where only he, the divine one, may dwell, said to be situated upon the very North Pole of the Sun.
Though mortal minds deem it a myth, for no Solarium artifice can convey a man to the heart of a star, yet the Forbidden City was frequented by the Valkyriean Order, the sacred consorts and messengers of Sol, as well as the Companions, Sol's immortal custodians.
Beyond these hallowed beings, Jaffar the Undying was the sole mortal permitted to tread its sacred grounds, and all subsequent revelations stem from his blessed visits to the Forbidden City.
Then did Sol Imperius assume the mantle of the Great Spirit of the Sun that had birthed him, thereby merging with its celestial essence, a being of absolute power, yet paradoxically confined to an unreachable domain of divine existence.
But to perpetually champion his Solarium, Sol Imperius would project fragments of his own divine being to make warriors of the like of his Companions. Thus were the Star Paladins forged, through sacred surgery, arcane technology, and an unshakable faith in the Patron Saint of Humanity.
Though perhaps lesser in their genesis than the immortal Companions, who were individually crafted by Sol himself, they were nonetheless formidable warriors whose powers could uplift worlds and annihilate star systems.
Each Solar Paladin was divinely augmented with three specialized organs and thirty-six intricate energy conduits, which wove themselves into their existing organs, their life-blood vessels, their sinews, and their very bones, binding them to these core augmentations.
Thus was established a singular bio-circuitry system, designating them as the Sunforged. Consequently, the Legions of the Solarium rose ever upwards to heaven, each warrior bearing a sacred fragment of Sol Imperius enshrined within mechanical hearts, beating in unison beside their mortal ones.
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Adam Clay closed the book that he had read on many prior occasions and asked his girlfriend, Megan Dorsett, to pass him a water bottle to quench his dry throat.
He had read through a large chunk of the book titled 'Sol Imperius, the Heir of Light,' one of the most common lore books of Wartopia, and one that they had looted a few copies of from the Mallwart raid.
It was an introduction to those who were new to the madness of Wartopia, a book that explained the basics of lore and outlined most of the heroic characters, the legends, and the game factions without delving too deep into the advanced heresies found in other books like 'The Black Chronicle', and the ones related to non-Solarium factions.
"Well, that was quite the lore dump."
In the command chamber, where only five individuals were gathered, Kave complained while massaging his temples, as Adam had been reading nonstop for the better part of an hour.
"Why are you complaining? I am the one who should be complaining. I'll need a new throat after this!" Hoarse and light-headed, Adam retaliated but preferred to sit back and watch the Command Terminal's screen displaying updates.
Captain Creed and Sergeant Elena stood over him, looking patiently at the screen for Adam to read any updates that might come from it. Adam, letting out a tired sigh, turned to the screen and rebooted the OS, which was now completely overwritten by the Sacred Code, before viewing the changelog.
> DATA — 2364 ENTRIES REGISTERED
> MEMORY — INSUFFICIENT CORE SPACE
> DIRECTIVE — INSTALL ADDITIONAL DATA CORE
"We've run out of Data Core space," Adam said before lazily collapsing onto the desk in front of him.
"What of the Scripture's Record?" Captain Creed asked.
"Thankfully, most of it was recorded in fragments," Adam replied. "This part of the Code is unfamiliar to me, so I'll have to study and observe its execution for some time. But the Code is changing in other parts, and I am familiar with these changes." Adam pointed to another window on the screen.
"It looks like Python," Kave said as he observed the screen.
"An over-glorified Python, a bit inefficient and rough around the edges," Megan commented.
"Yes, I was trying to reshape the Sacred Code a little, make the coding more conventional, but the more I did so, the harder it became to control. Somehow, doing all these prayer shenanigans…" Adam tensed up a bit before turning his eyes to Creed and Elena, who were watching him intensely, before changing his tone: "…these… ritualistic lines… adding them just made the Code run smoother, yet a bit unpredictable."
"Well, stick to the prayers then. Become a Script Monk. You've got a Tech Shrine and all," Megan said with a giggle, feeling a bit at ease as she started getting used to Captain Creed's presence.
"Hey!" Adam turned to her, a bit offended. "I can't be a monk yet; I still want to marry you first."
"Ahem, Commander!"
As he was about to turn lovey-dovey with Megan, Elena cleared her voice, strictly adhering to not mixing work with pleasure.
"Oh, yes," Adam turned back to face Elena and Captain Creed on his other side. "The Scripture I recited to the Tech Shrine just now has certainly made changes to the Code, but from the looks of it, we need to be careful what we feed the Code from now on."
"That is most natural, Adam Clay," Captain Creed said as he turned to the Tech Shrine and grabbed the copy of the lore book Adam was reading. "It may have sounded like a Sanctioned Scriptorium Text, but it must be meticulously purified of any HereTechia. We absolutely must not taint the Sacred Code with any corrupt knowledge, lest we conjure upon ourselves a disaster, or even worse, a Daemon."
What Creed had said made everyone in the room tense up. A Daemon is the last thing they need, and he was right; no one could argue with it. Why would they doubt the existence of a Daemon when a Sun Shard exists in a world that shouldn't have any?
It was all confusing, and Adam needed to take Megan and Kave to a corner, just the three of them, and brainstorm this situation together.
Adam and his Puppeteer Rune were the conduits that summoned Soldiers from the Solarium. It made sense to summon only Soldiers with his power, but anything else emerging from the Solarium was definitely outside Adam's scope of power. After all, he couldn't possibly summon a Sun Shard.
But it was here, right in front of him: a treasure of no equal, a power that could grant eternal life to a man, give him superhuman abilities, and even power an entire Solar Reactor, which could subsequently power an entire city.
To gain insights into such knowledge, Captain Creed and Sergeant Elena beckoned Adam to speak to the Sacred Code, a task that could only be done through the Tech Shrine.
The semi-sentient and semi-living programming language of the Solarium was much more fathomable than any could have imagined. Just like Adam's miniature soldiers, it came to this world via his runic summoning power when he first spawned a piece of Solarium machinery into the world: the Refinery Rig.
With that seed, Adam expanded the code, and it grew with his instructions, adapting to him. But as Captain Creed made the Tech Shrine for the urgent need of finding answers, the Code could now hear Adam's voice.
Through his words, the Sacred Code would learn, evolve, and analyze the deeper meaning in the knowledge poured into it, subsequently unlocking more crafting recipes and base structures. For that, Adam needed to stand at the lectern of the Tech Shrine inside the Command Center, open a lore book that contained no apparent heresy that might add corrupted technology to the Data Core of the Command Terminal, and recite it like a scripture during a prayer or a sermon.
Funny? Of course. For an extended hour? Definitely not.
Sadly, only Adam, Kave, and Megan were the three people who were in on the secret of the Wartopian summons, thus the only ones capable of performing this task, due to the fact that the Wartopians can't read English. Still, both Kave and Megan were undergoing training to be Auxiliaries, and Adam was the only one adept enough to fiddle around with the sacred code, so it fell to him to perform such a sacred task.
"So, what will we do regarding the Data Core issue?" Sergeant Elena raised another related question.
Adam rested his back, thought for a while, and answered with clear reluctance:
"Well, we've managed to loot some SSDs. I can install them on the Command Terminal's motherboard, but I don't think we have enough space. I'll have to design a whole new circuit board to accommodate as many of them as possible. It can be printed on the Rig and etched at the Workbench with the Blazer welder if we modify its laser intensity, but all of that will take until the morning if I pull an all-nighter."
Adam's soul was draining in real time as he summarized all that.
"Good luck, Commander. I believe in you," she said, patting Adam's shoulder.
"I admire your competence, Adam Clay," Captain Creed said, patting his other shoulder.
"You guys are so mean." Adam looked at them, knowing that these two had the technical abilities to assist him, yet they cruelly chose not to.
He was the summoner; they should be doing things for him, for crying out loud!
He turned with puppy eyes to Kave and Megan.
"I've got training," Kave said, pointing out as he skipped past the Command Room.
"I can assist," Megan offered, with words of a true saint.
"Aw, babe!" Adam looked at her, touched to his core.
"You can't," Elena Skarn's cold voice declared, dropping a bucket of cold water on his head. "The moment you two are in a room together, I can already see this task undone two days from now."
"I affirm that," Kave said before walking out.
"Ugh! At least we tried." Megan rolled her eyes and walked out, following Kave and Elena, leaving only Adam and Captain Creed in the Command Center.
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