The mountains crumbled as the iron star fell. Beneath its wreckage, there we stood. No more fruit upon the trees, no more fires for the night.
O Sun and stars, you answered us no more. O clouds and night, you wept in silent tears.
In the hust of a lightless night, Across frostlands tripped of warmth,
Only the Giant, blazing like the sun, remained. Only the Giant, blazing like the sun, remained.
“Keep living,” So It said. — An excerpt from the Royan folksong For the Giant Was Here
According to the Royan myth and surviving historical records, before the Lament fell upon Lahai-Roi, the Roya lived on the surface, amidst the fjord forests. But in the aftermath of the Lament, Solaris’s ████ ████ underwent significant changes. Temperatures plunged, followed by the fall of ████ and ████.
The Roya of that era could only take refuge within the remains of the ████, wandering the desolate frostlands in search of life upon newly snow-covered plains.
A pillar of colorful light, a rainbow undone. Fingertips, hands, and shoulders… Mother faded like candlelight.
A dark land, the sinking plains. Broken wood, shattered ice, wind, and snow… We fell like lemmings into the end.
The Giant and ████ at war— The end of the plains, the end of the Old Epoch.
Darkness descended, It was the roar of ████.
The sun ascended, It was the Giant’s beating heart.
How could the rainbow light be extinguished? How could the darkness withdraw? How could we have survived?
For the Giant was here. For the Giant was here. For the Giant was here. — An excerpt from the Royan folksong For the Giant Was Here.
Despite their struggle for survival in the frostlands, the Roya found no peace. Instead, they faced the first Void Storm in their recorded history. Royan chronicles tell of a blinding radiance that pierced the ice and speared the sky. Everything touched by that storm was consumed, stripped of substance, and erased from the world.
It was this calamity that triggered the unprecedented collapse of the frostlands, catapulting the ancestors of the Roya into a vast, subterranean cavern. Yet within that endless darkness, a rumbling Reactor Drive rose like a new dawn, for the Exostrider had plucked its own Core and set it alight to become the sun of this underworld.
As for ████, the foe who once waged war against the Exostrider, the ancient records only offer fragments. Perhaps, to the Roya, the terror of their enemy mattered less than the sacrifice of the one who shielded them.
