The newly saved angelkin knelt on the crystal balcony, her body wracked with shuddering sobs. She was alive. The concept was so foreign, so overwhelming after an eternity of dissolution, that her mind could barely process it. She tentatively reached back, her trembling fingers tracing the edge of one of the golden, blade-like plates of her new wings. It was warm, solid, and hummed with a quiet, vibrant energy. It was real.
Liora was at her side in an instant, her own cosmic wings folding gently around the newcomer in a protective embrace. The cold light of the stars mixed with the warm glow of the sun.
"It is alright," Liora whispered, her voice a soothing balm. "You are home now. You are safe."
The golden-winged angel looked up, her tear-filled green eyes wide with a thousand questions. She looked at Liora's wings, so different from her own. Then her gaze drifted past her, to Theia, a solemn figure holding a great black tome, and to Vesper, a phantom of silent intensity who seemed to be a part of the shadows themselves.
Finally, her eyes landed on Rhys. He was just standing there, looking utterly relaxed, as if he hadn't just plucked her out of the jaws of oblivion. He was the center of it all, the anchor point around which these impossible women orbited.
"Who...?" the newcomer choked out, her voice raw. "Who are you? What is this place?"
Before Liora could offer the carefully practiced, reverent explanation, Rhys spoke, his tone breezy and casual.
"I'm Rhys. And this is my, uh, floating island getaway. The Argent Sanctum. Welcome aboard." He gave a little finger-wave. "What's your name?"
The question struck the newcomer like a physical blow. Her name. It was a word she hadn't heard or thought in an age, a casualty of the long fall. "I... I don't remember." The confession was a fresh wave of grief. To be saved, but to have nothing of her old self left—it was a cruel, hollow victory.
Rhys just nodded, completely unfazed. "Amnesia, huh? Yeah, that seems to be a running theme around here."
Okay, another companion character acquired, he thought, mentally opening a character sheet. Race: Angelkin (Solar Variant). Name: To be determined. Class... those wings look sharp. Let's slot her in as a high-DPS melee fighter. A Warrior or maybe a Berserker. Excellent. My party composition is looking much more balanced now. Liora is the tanky Paladin, Theia is the Scribe/Mage, Vesper is the Rogue. And now we have a proper damage dealer.
Theia stepped forward, her obsidian stool materializing silently behind her as she sat. "What is the last thing you do remember?" her voice was not unkind, but it was the incisive query of an archivist, not a comforter. "A sigil? The name of your homeland?"
The newcomer shook her head, tears still streaming. "Only the fall. The hiss. The grey..."
Rhys decided to intercede. The melodramatic amnesia scene was fine, but they couldn't just keep calling her 'the new girl.'
"Well, you need a name for the time being," he said. He looked at her radiant, golden wings, then at her golden hair. "You look very... solar. What about Elara? It's got a nice, bright ring to it."
He'd pulled the name from a long list of minor goddesses he'd once created for a pantheon in one of his home-brewed worlds. It meant nothing to him beyond its pleasing sound.
But for the angelkin, his words were a second act of creation. The Progenitor had not just given her life; he was giving her an identity. The name settled into the empty spaces of her memory, not as a replacement, but as a new foundation. It felt… right.
"Elara," she repeated, the syllables a lifeline in a sea of forgotten things. "My name is Elara." She looked at him, the awe in her eyes so profound it was almost worship.
Liora helped the newly-named Elara to her feet. The rivalry that might have sparked was, for the moment, subsumed by a powerful sense of sisterhood. She saw not a replacement, but a kindred spirit, another soul redeemed by the same god.
"He is The Progenitor," Liora explained softly, her hand on Elara's shoulder. "He is the Weaver of Fate, the one who defied the end. He unmade our despair and gave us purpose. I am Liora, his First Knight, his Shield."
She gestured to Theia. "She is Theia, the Crimson Archivist. He gave her dominion over Truth. Her words give history its shape."
Her gesture towards Vesper was more hesitant. "And that... is Vesper, the Penumbra Queen. He granted her mastery over secrets and shadows. She is his Eye."
Elara took it all in, her mind reeling. Shield, Scribe, Spy. And the God who spoke of it all as if he were running a resort.
Vesper, who had been silent through the entire exchange, finally spoke, her silken voice cutting through the emotional air. "Her wings are weapons. Sharper than any I have seen." It wasn't a compliment. It was an assessment of a resource.
Elara unconsciously shifted her new wings. They made a soft shing-shing sound, like a thousand razors sliding against each other. Vesper was right. They felt less like tools for flight and more like instruments of destruction.
She looked at Liora, the noble Knight. At Theia, the wise Scribe. At Vesper, the deadly Shadow. They all had their purpose, their holy designation. What, then, was hers?
Her soul, so long a drowning moth, was now a nascent flame. The terror and confusion were calcifying into a new, hard emotion: fervent, zealous devotion. He had pulled her from the fire of non-existence. She would gladly throw herself into any other fire for him.
With a newfound strength, Elara straightened her back. She walked forward and knelt before Rhys, not with the shuddering weakness of before, but with the unbending straightness of a soldier pledging her life. Her golden, bladed wings spread wide behind her, casting a brilliant, intimidating light across the balcony.
"Liora is your Shield," she declared, her voice ringing with a conviction that was shocking in its intensity. "Then let me be your Sword. My light will not just defend. It will smite. It will purge. I offer you my life, my wings, my fury. Command me, my Progenitor, and I will be the instrument of your divine wrath."
Rhys stared down at the ferociously devoted angel warrior kneeling at his feet. Liora looked on with pride and just a hint of something else—jealousy? No, more like a competitive unease. The Shield and the Sword. A classic combination, but a natural rivalry. Theia was already writing it down, codifying Elara's title in her eternal scripture. Vesper simply watched, her face impassive.
A full party. The roles were set. The stage was built. Rhys felt a thrill of pure, unadulterated creative satisfaction.
This is great! he thought, his inner monologue giddy. My party of super-powered, ridiculously hot, trauma-bonded NPCs is fully assembled! The tutorial phase is officially over.
He clapped his hands together, the sound sharp and final.
"Excellent!" he boomed, a massive grin on his face. "Welcome to the Architects, Elara! Now," he looked around at his four apostles, his mind already leaping ahead, "what we really need is a kingdom to infiltrate."