PART II: AFTER THE SEALING OF THE BLACK MAGE

Chapter 7: Special Explorers

• On Victoria Island, new Explorers arrived from Maple Island in order to train under the four job instructors: Athena Pierce, Grendel the Really Old, Dances with Balrog, and the Dark Lord.

• One day, a large ship called the Nautilus docked on Victoria Island, from which an adult Kyrin emerged. Having learned about the threat of the Black Wings on her voyages, Kyrin returned back home to warn the people of Maple World that the Black Wings were planning to revive the Black Mage, for which she decided to train Explorers in the way of the pirate, carrying on the legacy of her father, Destonen.

• One Explorer-hopeful was on his way to Victoria Island when his ship was attacked by a Crimson Balrog. Crashing on Coco Island, he was rescued by a Monkey and met a man named Cutter, who had been the chief architect of the Nautilus. Having crashed on Coco Island while devising a superweapon on Kyrin’s orders, Cutter worked with the Explorer and Monkey to escape inside the giant cannon that he had created. After escaping and arriving aboard the Nautilus, the Explorer was given the cannon superweapon and became the Cannoneer, with Monkey at his side.

• Another Explorer was recruited by a Dual Blade named Ryden while on their way to meet the Dark Lord. The Explorer was convinced to follow Lady Syl and joined the Dual Blades.

• Posing as a regular thief, the Dual Blade was sent by Lady Syl to train under the Dark Lord and spy on him. During their investigation, they learned that the Dark Lord, rather than killing Lady Syl’s father, had actually been working with him to find the unknown threat which had been erasing the history of Maple World.

• After learning the truth about how the mysterious force had possessed Syl and killed Syl’s father and Tristan, the Dual Blade reported back to Lady Syl, who was shocked to learn the truth. Soon after, Syl agreed to set aside her grudge against the Dark Lord and united with him as one faction.

• Another Explorer was a bowman known as the Pathfinder, who was Athena Pierce’s greatest student. On the hunt for ancient ruins and artifacts, the Pathfinder one day discovered a compass relic inside the ruins of Partem, which cursed her upon contact.

• In order to break the curse, the Pathfinder began investigating Partem and came across the native Karuppa race, which was afraid of the cursed ruins that emitted terrifying noises. After the Karuppa learned that the Pathfinder was in possession of the cursed relic, many of them turned away from her, though a girl named Brie decided to help her and put an end to the scary noises from the ruins.

• Together, the Pathfinder and Brie braved the dangers of the ruins and discovered a Soul inside a chamber at the heart of the temple. The Soul revealed that during the era of the Ancient Gods, the Karuppa had once created the relic from the wood of a sacred tree containing the power of an Ancient God.

• Fashioned in the shape of a compass, the relic had been worshipped by the Karuppa, capable of healing the injured and guiding the lost. However, after the Overseers had established order in the universe by suppressing the Ancient Gods, the relic had lost its power after the gods had disappeared, eventually becoming nothing more than a legend.

• Centuries ago, Kirston - described by the Soul as merely a black-robed man - had cursed the relic before disappearing. The Soul told the Pathfinder that the relic contained both Kirston’s cursed energy and the Ancient God’s divine energy, which had melded together into one. Though the curse on the relic itself could not be erased, the Soul explained that if the Pathfinder became the relic’s true owner, the curse on herself could be lifted.

• The Pathfinder decided to become the relic’s owner and decided to go on a mission to grow closer to it. Meanwhile, Brie returned back home, having learned from the Soul that the strange noises had been meant to ward the Karuppa away from the cursed energy, which it would cease producing, now that the relic was no longer there.

• As the Pathfinder grew stronger, she was directed by the relic to a stone in Perion that contained a portion of the relic’s divine power. After absorbing its power, the Pathfinder had a vision of Kirston, who had obtained the keys to the relic and had rejoiced that he would be able to reproduce the ancient power. He had also declared that he now had proof that the ancient power had existed in Maple World as well, causing the Pathfinder to wonder whether Kirston had come from another world.

• The Pathfinder was later directed by the relic to Aqua Road, where it absorbed more divine power from another stone there. She had another vision of Kirston, who had lamented that the relic’s power had been “blocked”, just as anticipated.

• Seeking answers, she returned to Partem and met with the Soul, who recognized that the curse had completely lifted on her, now that she had become the relic’s true owner. The Soul explained that Kirston had been attempting to turn back time on the relic to reproduce its full power from the era of the Ancient Gods, though he had been stopped by a temporal barrier, which - unbeknownst to the Pathfinder - was the same barrier created by Freud to prevent time from flowing back beyond the point that the Black Mage’s seal had been created.

• Having become the relic’s true owner, the Pathfinder vowed that she would use its power to help the world.