You arrive in the Sunwell Fragment, and you quickly realize that living beings are not meant to be here. Mere seconds have passed, and you can already feel the sweat collecting on your brow: what could minutes of exposure to this heat do? But the heat isn’t what has drawn your attention, no. You are on your hands and knees, the skin of your palm digging painfully into the gritty sand beneath, like some great weight it forcing you to bow to some unknown cosmic force. However, you were prepared for this eventuality: reports had already described the situation, though they did not do it justice. You strain to reach into your pocket, and as you do so, you glance back to see the portal behind you, still gaping and leading back home. Nothing is preventing you from leaving this goddess forsaken place… save for your determination to complete the mission you were given. Your hand finally grasps around that cool, amethyst orb. Immediately, cool relief washes over you as a protective penumbra fans out from the sphere. You hold it up before your gaze: powerful enchantments were laid upon this orb so that you might move more freely in this realm. The suppositions of the mages on the other side were correct, you find, as you stand to your feet, the weight lifted now. Light seems to, inexplicably, be connected to the gravity of this place, and affecting one affects the other. Indeed, it seems the sand around you seems to be less tightly packed, whence before it was nearly solid ground. Now that you’ve been able to acclimate to your new environment, with some magical assistance, you take a moment to survey your surroundings. Should all the water in the Great Sea be replaced with sand, you imagine this is much what it would look like. In all directions, you see nothing but glittering gold, the dunes rising high as mountains. You see the occasional marring of that color, and on closer inspection, you see that these aren’t boulders or rocks, but leftover remnants of an ancient civilization. Pillars, walls and slabs are buried in years—decades? Centuries? Who can tell—of sand, and you move to investigate one such outcropping. You arrive without much event, though you hear the distant rumbling of something—hopefully just far off earthquakes. Now that you’ve gotten closer, you can tell that this place used to be a tower. Seeing no better use of your time, you continue to investigate, scooping sand out with your clasped hands. A few hours pass, though the sun doesn’t seem to have moved at all: does night exist here at all? Having excavated around what was exposed of the ruins, you find your hypothesis correct, as battlements point to the sky. Your efforts have also revealed a trapdoor, though you have yet to enter the tower. All thought is interrupted by a cacophonous explosion, as a massive creature bursts forth from the sand hundreds of meters away, and is what could only be described as a great, plated wurm. Fire plumes out from the joints between plates, and the heat emanating from its great maw, and belly, distort the air. Hurriedly, you enter the tower. Panting heavily from the sudden appearance of so great a monster, it takes you a moment to retrieve your flint and steel to light a torch. The pitch burns easily, but your breath catches in your throat as light flickers out around you. Down here, where the light of that sun cannot reach, it seems a different world entirely: particles of sand and stone float about, with nothing to bind them to the ground. You realize that you, yourself, are only barely attached the ground. Without your initial dive into the tower, you may have been left to simply floating mid-air, like a puppet with invisible string. You gather your bearings and look about, finding writing scrawled upon the walls. It appears almost Hylian in nature, but is closer in form to Ancient texts, though your unrefined capabilities in linguistics may just be seeing things. Still, you recognize a collection of symbols that appear similar to a map, not of the tower, but of that outside, hostile world. You realize, then, that there is some place out there, buried in the sand, with a portal to the place you must go, though perhaps it is more a gateway. If your crude understanding of the text is correct, your final destination is the very thing looming in the sky. You are to travel to the sun itself. Fenris, Devouring Beast Like some perversion of nature, this beast towers over you, even while down on all eight of its legs. Purple and red flames twist away from what can only be described as its fur, tiny star motes crackling and dancing in those patterns. It bares its large, obsidian teeth, a deep obsidian like the depth of space. With further inspection, this monster is not dissimilar from a Wolfos, its elongated muzzle snarling at you. It paces its prey, sizing it up, its eight feet—hands?—padding against the ground. With a lunge, it bites deep into the fiery sun beneath its feet, tearing out a large gout of flame. You see the glow of a core of red travel down its throat, and with a howl, it unleashes a searing beam of light from its maw. It burns the very air it touches, warping it with such great heat. But even surviving this, approaching the great wolf is no easy task. With a stomp of its eight feet, shockwaves ripple throughout the battleground, agitating the star upon which you fight. The star’s light grows in intensity, bearing down upon you with heavy weight, and your feet grow sluggish as its pull upon you increases. Can you overcome the very laws of nature? Shadow Orb The Shadow Orb is a spherical object that appears to be made of amethyst: and yet, with even a single glance, one can tell that it is not. Strange, dark wisps of shadow undulate like eels through its core. Even stranger yet, is that its form seems hazy and undefined, despite being able to feel the chill of its stone upon your skin. Gazing into the orb, you understand its function. Upon concentrating on the magic held within, the shadows inside begin to swirl, devouring surrounding light in a radius of four meters. Using this in an area of bright sunlight, will reduce the light within its influence to that of daylight shade. In a room lit by a few torches, light will be all but snuffed out. The Shadow Orb is even capable of reducing the power or effects of magical light. -------------------------- The presented scenario is only one of many possibilities for this dungeon. Ultimately, its structure is up to you, and how you ultimately face the master of this place rests on your shoulders, and yours alone. Several themes are fitting for this dungeon: light, gravity and mechanical devices. Moreover, this fragment is inspired by the world contained within Skyward Sword. Additionally, a new enemy for this dungeon is presented below: Furnace Leviathan Unseen anywhere on Hyrule, this towering worm has a length of at least half a kilometer, and a diameter of roughly fifty meters. It burrows through the sand, consuming all in its wake with its great maw: it seems that a furnace for the digestion of all that passes into it is at the heart of this beast, though the blinding brightness of molten glass and metal prevents you from seeing its core. Fire is periodically expelled from its exterior, venting from holes just beneath its exoskeleton plates. Its passing generates so great a heat that it leaves a shimmering path of glass in its wake. ----------------- This Dungeon will be graded similarly to a Quest, though the rewards include both 50 rupees as well as the unique dungeon item that will be obtainable only through this dungeon. However, it should be noted that the dungeon item is awarded to the character at the onset of the dungeon, and should generally be involved in completion of the dungeon. As previous dungeons, those who complete this dungeon are eligible to have their triumph become an official part of Hyrule Castle Lore. However, unlike before, there is no "time limit": the first to complete this dungeon will have their run become an official part of the lore, assuming it meets quality standards. As a side note, completion of this dungeon is in no way connected to what characters are eligible for becoming a Sage: completion of all three fragments serves as a triggering event for the awakening, and nothing more. Also, like previous dungeons, the Sunwell Fragment will become available to be run as a Classic Dungeon, once the first thread is completed, albeit with reduced rewards. All Sunwell threads begun before the end of the first thread will receive rewards as normal. When creating a Bureau thread for the Sunwell Fragment, treat it as any normal Quest Bureau thread. When creating your Quest Bureau thread, please include the tag [Sunwell] in its title. Code: [b]Name:[/b] [b]Description:[/b] [b]Players/Characters:[/b] [b]Reward:[/b]
