Poet, Speak of the Sky Through Me (I)

Patch: 3.3 · Chapter: The Fall at Dawn's Rise · Mission 06 of 9Previous: Grove, Judge the Past and Present · Next: Poet, Speak of the Sky Through Me (II)

Official summary

Within the Eye of Twilight, you encounter Seliose's two winged companion beasts. Guided by them, you inch closer to Aquila's true form, uncovering the hidden truth of Seliose and the Skyfolk: their fabled glory was a lie. Disillusioned by her kin's folly, the fallen hero fused with the Titan, condemning them to extinction. The Skyfolk of today were merely descendants of an unnamed Chrysos Heir. Undeterred, Hyacine declares her resolve to Seliose, joining you to confront the final Titan — Aquila, the Eye of Twilight.

Synopsis

This mission opens the assault on Aquila, the Sky Titan — the eleventh Coreflame of the Flame-Chase Journey and the last Titan the Heirs must battle (Kephale's Coreflame, the twelfth, is retrieved without battle). Hyacine (Hyacinthia of the Sky people) leads as the Aquila-challenging Chrysos Heir; the party is Hyacine, Phainon, Dan Heng, and the Trailblazer (with Mem). It is a long dungeon-crawl through Aquila's sky fortress, structured as a slow uncovering of buried history: the truth of the hero Seliose and the extinction of the Skyfolk, told through memories Mem reconstructs with Oronyx's power.

Departure ceremony at Dawncloud

A few days after the events at the Grove, the party gathers at Dawncloud for a public send-off. Crowds have come to bless the Chrysos Heirs. In an aside, Phainon is heard entrusting a task to Mnemosyne the Guard — "I hope our concerns don't come true" — before greeting the Trailblazer.

Phainon frames the stakes plainly: this may be the last battle they fight side by side. He explains that if the curse severing Amphoreus from "the world beyond the sky" is truly Aquila's doing, then defeating the Sky Titan will let the Trailblazer return home. Mem notes that Councillor Lygus can help the Trailblazer "fix the car" (repair the Express Coach). In one branch the Trailblazer worries about reincarnating as a Titan; Phainon answers, "We'll need to get you home before Era Nova" — acknowledging the cyclical-history threat now looming over the Trailblazer personally.

Phainon publicly honors two groups the legends usually omit: Hyacine (whom he calls "not just the pride of Okhema, but all of Amphoreus"), and "the two warriors of the outlands" — the Trailblazer and Dan Heng — who "risked their lives for those they've never met."

Hyacine formally accepts the mission, dating the moment:

Hyacine: Today is the year 4932 of the Light Calendar, 1062 years since the hero Seliose initiated the Flame-Chase Journey.

I, Hyacinthia of the Sky people, am prepared to lead the children of humanity back to the sky.

Phainon, observing that Hyacine has "witnessed the return of four Coreflames," names her the executioner of this mission. Hyacine recounts the Skyfolk's mythology — divided into tribes (Sunfolk who worshiped the sun, Rainfolk devoted to storms, Winterfolk who waited on snow) — and her own creed of the rainbow as a bridge linking all colors and all hearts. She prays to her ancestors and conjures the Rainbow Bridge, on which the party flies up to Aquila's fortress. Dan Heng is already waiting at the cliff top; he jokes their repeated reshaping of world history "could even make Akivili jealous."

The Eye of Twilight — legend of Seliose

The fortress is the "Fortress of Dome" Eye of Twilight, Aquila's dwelling and the ancient heart of the Skyfolk's cloud-city. Hyacine identifies it as the spot where Seliose challenged Aquila and took the first step of the Flame-Chase Journey — a journey the present party has come to end.

Phainon and Hyacine lay out the received history: the Sky civilization once wielded advanced technology, and their strategically placed Sky Castrum was the only power able to face Castrum Kremnos head-on in the Chrysos War. But the Skyfolk were divided from within — chiefly between the Sunfolk and Rainfolk — and the wars started by the Chrysos Heirs, worsened after the prophecy descended, drained them; they retreated into the clouds. Seliose, frustrated by her kin's endless strife, "turned her spear towards the Titan above." Legend says that after driving Aquila to the brink of defeat with her two winged companions, Seliose sealed the god's wrath within herself, fusing with the Titan to support Amphoreus's heavens forever. Phainon, who once would have called this a fairytale, now believes it — "after seeing what happened with Professor Anaxa."

The celestial mural and the memory of internal strife

The fortress interior is dark and silent, possibly ruined. Hyacine explains the Celestial Mural: a vast screen "connected to Amphoreus's sky," on which any depicted weather becomes real weather. It once reflected Aquila's moods (clear skies, fog, snow, thunderstorms), and Sky Priests prayed before it for warm breezes and good harvests. It is operated via a celestial globe.

Unable to activate the globe, Hyacine asks Mem and the Trailblazer to read the lingering memories. Mem gathers two:

• A Past Sunfolk boasts that "the great Aquila has already left a mark of their manifestation among the golden clouds" — proof, they claim, that only the Sunborn are the sky's true heirs, guaranteeing Sunfolk victory in the Chrysos War. They pray for eternal daylight.
• A Past Rainfolk rebukes the Sunfolk's arrogance but questions the god directly: "Why do you avoid the pursuit of dark clouds?" — noting Aquila seems to shun rainstorms. The Rainfolk, oppressed and disbelieved, vow to forge their own weapons if the silent god will not answer. They pray for eternal rain.

A further memory reveals the activation rite (a chant: "Wind, snow, rain, shine... In the name of the Sky's Hundred Eyes... commanding the celestial globe... Awaken, Celestial Mural") and, with it, a lethal quarrel: the Sunfolk seized control of the mural to make the days endless, drought-burning the land; a Rainfolk, accused of blasphemy for adjusting the globe, retaliates and murders a Sunfolk with some Titan-granted power. Mem recoils at "such a terrifying memory." Dan Heng and Phainon reflect on faith as a double-edged sword — "The divine set the stage, and the mortals perform the play" — and Phainon connects the ancient feud to the present: Caenis and the "Cleaners."

Hyacine activates the mural with the recovered chant. Golden clouds and blazing radiance appear, and with them the "mark of manifestation" — Aquila's presence in the mural. Recalling that the Rainfolk said the Titan dislikes overcast skies, the party resolves to change the weather on the mural to flush Aquila out. Hyacine confirms this won't harm Okhema, whose light comes from Kephale's Dawn Device, not the (long-defunct) mural. To move around and reach other globes, Hyacine uses a West Wind Compass — Twilight Courtyard technology inherited from the golden age that creates miniature rainbow bridges.

Solabis and Lunabis, the winged companions

Crossing on a rainbow bridge over "a boiling pool of gold" (said to power the fortress's divinity), the party glimpses a winged, sorrowful beast — a "pegasus." Mem senses it is unlike ordinary memories, "surrounded in an air of sorrow... so heavy it's hard to breathe." Hyacine names Seliose's two legendary winged companions: Solabis and Lunabis, her steeds and comrades.

The sorrowful phantom is Lunabis (spirit-form). She leads the party to Solabis, who is alive but twisted and shadowy — corrupted by the black tide. Hyacine addresses him gently: his body is wholly corroded, but she can still heal his "tenacious soul," reawakening him as a heroic spirit. A battle against black-tide enemies frees Solabis's mind. He wakes, speaks, and — after a millennium lost to the tide — recognizes Hyacine as Seliose's descendant, though "you don't have the scent of her on you."

Solabis is skeptical that a healer could challenge a Titan, but Phainon and the party demonstrate their combined strength (they killed Nikador and every other Titan pursued so far). Lunabis urges Solabis to accept their aid; Solabis concedes he sees "a shadow of her" in them and agrees to guide the hunt. Phainon casts the moment as a duty owed to Seliose:

Phainon: Seliose initiated the era of slaying gods and attaining their flames. Even if she could not witness the end of this era, you will all at least bear witness on her behalf.

Crucially, Solabis corrects the record on why Aquila hides:

Solabis: Only then did we understand that Aquila wasn't hiding from the clouds and rain, but from the horror that lurked within the unlit shadows.

That horror is the black tide — which, Solabis and Dan Heng note, has been spreading ever since, breaching "the sky's defenses" first because it is "a calamity from beyond the sky." When Phainon credits the Chrysos Heirs' present reverence to Tribios and Aglaea, Solabis cryptically remarks, "So it was those two who made it to the end" — but refuses to elaborate.

Chasing Aquila through the fortress

The party pursues Aquila's fleeing "mark" across the fortress, altering the mural's weather at successive celestial globes. Mem uses Oronyx's Prayer (amplified by shrine devices) to rewind the wind fans and reverse platforms Aquila's power keeps disrupting. Damaged "circuits" — corroded by the black tide — must be repaired via Prophecy Tablet puzzles, and later a celestial globe must be re-energized by punching its dislodged "hard drives" (energy cores) back into their slots with the Hand of Zagreus.

Along the route, wall murals depict other Titans: an "alien"-looking figure matching no Amphorean myth Dan Heng knows; Aquila as a giant eye in the sky (its most common mythic form); Phagousa's Chalice of Plenty being broken; and Georios, "Aquila's nemesis" — sky and earth warring endlessly, unlike the mutually-benefiting Three Titans of Creation. Hyacine adds that when the Twilight Courtyard descended from the sky to live among mortals, they found the earth had "a gentle, benevolent side," concluding that "all conflicts stem from misunderstandings."

Seliose's true history — the memories

Hyacine, determined that her ancestors "deserve to know the truth behind her legend," repeatedly asks Mem and the Trailblazer to unseal the fortress's buried memories. Solabis grants permission — "You are the ones who hold Oronyx's miracle." Three memory-visions and the winged beasts' testimony assemble the hidden truth:

Seliose's origins (Lunabis's account). Seliose's father was a Sunfolk warrior often away at war; she was raised by her mother, a Rainfolk priest. As the tribes' feud intensified, the Rainfolk feared her mixed blood and never accepted her. When people discovered golden blood ran through her veins — marking her a Chrysos Heir — disdain turned to terror, and she was cast out (the epics falsely say she left to train in solitude). Living alone, she met Solabis and Lunabis, hunted with them, and forged an oath — the bond that kept the two beasts guarding the fortress for a thousand years after her.

Seliose confronts the Sunfolk (memory vision). The Sunfolk beg her not to shatter their faith. Seliose condemns them for calling themselves the chosen while oppressing their weaker kin and refusing to face the true threat of the world. She reveals her motive — belief in a prophecy:

Seliose the Daythunder Knight: A prophecy echoes from the horizon's edge. It heralds the advent of a new age, one not ruled by the Titans, but created by mortal heroes.

I am not a god, but the only mortal in this cage who is brave enough to defy the warden.

Solabis remarks that "at that time" Seliose's heart held only mercy for humanity — an ominous qualifier Hyacine notices.

Seliose bids the Rainfolk farewell (memory vision). Returning to her mother's tribe before the god-slaying, Seliose forgives the Rainfolk for exiling her, promising to walk the path "on behalf of everyone" so that "there will be no more unjust gods." A Harsh Rainfolk issues a chilling warning:

Harsh Rainfolk: I can't imagine how twisted you may become when you realize that shallow and fragile mortals can't bear the immense weight of your boundless love...

The battle and its aftermath (Solabis & Lunabis's testimony). At the mural's dome the trio dealt Aquila a fatal blow: the Sunlit Wings (Solabis) set the Titan's wings aflame, the Moonlit Plume (Lunabis) sealed the divine body, and the "battered hero of the sky pierced the last monstrous eye." The public legend — that a mortally wounded Aquila fought to the end and Seliose sacrificed herself to seal it — is true only in outline. The suppressed truth: when Seliose won, the watching Skyfolk did not cheer. Realizing their centuries-old faith had been overturned by a "cursed child of two clans," they collapsed into pure terror, then into madness —

Lunabis: They regressed into senseless beasts that devoured their own kin. No... that would be an insult to beasts. Solabis and I have never witnessed such madness, not even in the wildest corners of Amphoreus.

Dan Heng judges Seliose "rather naive" — she assumed that, faced with the irreversible death of their god, everyone would come to their senses as she had. Phainon observes that epics "erase the cruelty, the bloodshed, and the cries of the commoners, while glorifying the heroes." Solabis and Lunabis warn Hyacine that the remaining truth "is bound to shake your beliefs."

Hyacine's resolve

Hyacine steels herself. Even if the legend is a distorted, thousand-year lie, she chooses to believe its author "had their reasons... came from a place of goodwill." She declares her mission larger than her feelings and resolves to reveal, at the mural's dome, everything that befell the Skyfolk after Seliose began the Flame-Chase Journey.

Two threads are seeded here for Part (II):

• Little Ica, a small winged creature traveling with the party, sniffs a "familiar scent" on Lunabis. Mem deduces Little Ica is also a winged beast — implicitly a descendant of Solabis and Lunabis's line. Lunabis, moved, murmurs: "Truly a miracle of fate. Perhaps, we did leave something behind for this world... Seliose." Hyacine also wonders aloud about Seliose's unrecorded partner — the one "who must have walked with her to pass on her bloodline" — since Seliose herself fused with the Titan. (Per the mission's own summary, today's Skyfolk descend not from Seliose but from an unnamed Chrysos Heir; the full reveal is deferred to Part II.)

• Phainon's sword, Dawnmaker — "only recently forged," yet Solabis says it "seems familiar," and Phainon feels it grow "lighter and lighter," sensing he could "forge a new dawn" with its golden flames. Aquila, meanwhile, flees ever upward — the one direction the Skyfolk always prayed toward — and both Dan Heng and Lunabis raise doubt over the myth that Aquila is the one sealing Amphoreus from the world beyond the sky (Aquila never tried to breach the veil even while fighting Seliose; perhaps "someone else" imposed the curse).

The mission ends as Solabis directs Hyacine to the final celestial globe, where "the forgotten past will reveal itself to you, one fragment at a time" — leading directly into Part (II).

Key characters

• Hyacine (Hyacinthia) — The Chrysos Heir chosen to claim Aquila's Coreflame; a Twilight Courtyard healer and descendant of Seliose. Leads the expedition, heals Solabis's black-tide-corrupted soul, operates the celestial mural, and insists on uncovering the Skyfolk's hidden history for her ancestors' sake. Vows her resolve will not waver even as the legend of Seliose crumbles.
• Phainon — Presides over the send-off and honors Hyacine, the Trailblazer, and Dan Heng. Fights alongside the party; wields the newly forged sword Dawnmaker, which unsettlingly feels "familiar" to Solabis. Frames the mission as the Trailblazer's route home.
• Dan Heng — Provides analytical commentary (faith as a double-edged sword; the "hard drive" energy cores; skepticism that Aquila is truly the world's jailer). Waits at the cliff top before departure.
• Trailblazer & Mem — Wield Oronyx's Prayer and the Hand of Zagreus to reconstruct memories, rewind wind fans, and repair devices; Mem gathers each memory-vision.
• Solabis — "The Sunlit Wings," one of Seliose's two winged companions; kept alive but corrupted by the black tide until Hyacine heals his soul. A blunt, proud god-slayer who guides the hunt and testifies to Seliose's suppressed history.
• Lunabis — "The Moonlit Plume," Seliose's other winged companion; persists as a spirit bound by their oath. Narrates Seliose's exile and origins; realizes Little Ica is her and Solabis's descendant.
• Little Ica — A small winged beast accompanying the party; revealed as a descendant of Solabis and Lunabis's line ("Doot!").
• Seliose the Daythunder Knight — (Seen only in memory.) The half-Sunfolk, half-Rainfolk Chrysos Heir who began the Flame-Chase Journey 1062 years ago; exiled for her golden blood, she slew Aquila and fused with the Titan. Her heroism is real, but the legend hides that her victory drove the Skyfolk into fratricidal madness.
• Mnemosyne the Guard — Entrusted an unspecified task by Phainon before departure ("I hope our concerns don't come true").

Lore notes

• Aquila, the Eye of Twilight / Sky Titan — The final Titan battled in the Flame-Chase (its Coreflame is the eleventh; Kephale's is the twelfth); its fortress is the "Fortress of Dome" Eye of Twilight. Now black-tide-mad, it flees any overcast weather and ascends "upward" to escape. Its mythic form is a giant eye in the sky; it once dueled Nikador in its prime. Reveal: Aquila never shunned rain out of favoritism — it fled the black tide lurking in shadows. Whether Aquila actually placed the curse sealing Amphoreus from the world beyond the sky is now openly doubted (it never tried to breach the veil even against Seliose).
• Seliose & the true history — Seliose was an outcast Chrysos Heir of mixed Sunfolk/Rainfolk blood, cast out when her golden blood surfaced. She believed the prophecy of "a new age... created by mortal heroes" and slew Aquila to free humanity. The legend that she nobly self-sacrificed to seal a Titan bent on weaponizing the sky is a sanitized lie: her victory instead triggered the Skyfolk's collapse into faithless, cannibalistic madness. Per the mission summary, she fused with the Titan, condemning the Skyfolk to extinction, and today's Skyfolk descend from an unnamed Chrysos Heir (her unrecorded partner) — foreshadowed here, resolved in Part II.
• The Skyfolk tribes — Sunfolk (sun-worshipers, self-styled "Sunborn"/chosen), Rainfolk (storm-devoted, "Cloudborn"), Winterfolk (snow-watchers). Their Sky Castrum was the Chrysos War's only match for Castrum Kremnos, but internal Sunfolk–Rainfolk strife destroyed them from within.
• Celestial Mural & celestial globe — A sky-linked "screen" whose depicted weather becomes real weather across Amphoreus; controlled by celestial globes via a ritual chant ("In the name of the Sky's Hundred Eyes..."). Now defunct — Okhema's light comes from Kephale's Dawn Device, not the mural. The "mark of manifestation" in the mural is Aquila's presence.
• West Wind Compass — Twilight Courtyard technology (inherited from the golden age) that creates miniature rainbow bridges to walk on. Ties to Hyacine's rainbow-bridge motif and title theme.
• Solabis (Sunlit Wings) & Lunabis (Moonlit Plume) — Seliose's winged companions, bound to the fortress a thousand years by their oath. In the final battle Solabis burned Aquila's wings, Lunabis sealed its divine body, and Seliose pierced its last eye. Their pact obligates them to await the Skyfolk's return to reclaim Aquila's Coreflame — a duty they now transfer to Hyacine.
• Dating — Light Calendar year 4932; Seliose began the Flame-Chase Journey 1062 years ago (≈ year 3870, consistent with the digest's "Flame-Chase officially began in 3870"). Hyacine has witnessed four Coreflames returned during the present campaign.
• Dawnmaker — Phainon's recently forged sword that Solabis finds "familiar"; Phainon senses growing power to "forge a new dawn" with its golden flames. [?] Possible foreshadowing of Phainon's Worldbearer destiny or a connection to the Flame Reaver's blade.
• Connections:
  • Advances Open Thread #16 (Remaining Titans) and #11 (Amphoreus as a one-way door): Aquila is now the final target; but the mission itself casts doubt on whether Aquila is truly the jailer sealing Amphoreus, reopening who really imposed the curse.
  • Advances Open Thread #13 (Phainon's destiny): Dawnmaker's "familiarity" and Phainon's "forge a new dawn" sense.
  • Extends cyclical history (3.2): Phainon must get the Trailblazer home "before Era Nova," treating the Heir→Titan reincarnation as a live danger to the Trailblazer.
  • Callback to Anaxa's Kephale fusion (3.2): Phainon now credits it for making Seliose's Titan-fusion believable.
  • Callback to Caenis and the "Cleaners" (Council of Elders, 3.0–3.2): cited as a modern parallel to the Sunfolk–Rainfolk feud. [?] "Cleaners" is a new label for Caenis's faction/agents.
  • Little Ica is retconned/revealed as Solabis and Lunabis's descendant — the party's small companion beast has a lineage tied to Seliose's legend.
• [?] Open questions raised here: Who is Seliose's unrecorded partner (the "unnamed Chrysos Heir" ancestor of today's Skyfolk)? What is the full truth of the Skyfolk's post-victory extinction (deferred to Part II)? Why does Solabis find Dawnmaker "familiar"? What did Solabis mean that Tribios and Aglaea "made it to the end"? Is Aquila, or "someone else," the true author of the sky-curse?

Sources

• Poet, Speak of the Sky Through Me (I) — HSR Wiki

Hindsight (full arc)

• Reread with the reveal: Dan Heng's quip that their history-reshaping "could even make Akivili jealous" lands hard: in 3.7 Nous addresses the Trailblazer as "Akivili," the fallen Aeon of the Trailblaze.
• Reread with the reveal: The party's doubt that Aquila is truly the jailer sealing Amphoreus from "the world beyond the sky" is correct — no Titan imposed the curse. The real barrier is the simulation itself, and the chaotic matter hiding Amphoreus is later revealed to be Cyrene's own memory (3.7).
• Reread with the reveal: Solabis finding the just-forged Dawnmaker "familiar" foreshadows 3.4: the Flame Reaver, whose black blade Dawnmaker copies, is Phainon himself across cycles.
• Foreshadowing: Seliose's "forbidden art that fuses human and Titan souls," said to predate Nousporism, seeds the arc's soul/memory-fusion cosmology (Anaxa's Kephale fusion in 3.2, and ultimately Cyrene as the first Nouspore, 3.7).
• [?] resolved: m06 defers the question of Seliose's "unrecorded partner" / the ancestor of today's Skyfolk — m07 answers it: not a partner but the unnamed Chrysos Heir who begged Seliose for mercy and wagered her descendants' return.