Episode 1: We're Gonna Die, Aren't We

'''We're Gonna Die, Aren't We? '''is the first episode of The Sunfall Cycle.

Summary
Nearly ten years ago, on the day known as Sunfall, the sun began to die, shedding its corona in a firey aura across the heavens. Riding the waves of burning sunflesh came foul demons rampaging across the land. The world, peaceful in these late years, turned to scarcity and war. The greatest city in the known world, Ire, fell under the rulership of King Astaphon IV, a hermetic and cowardly man. As he and his wealthy allies closeted themselves inside Ire's grand palace complex unrest spread within the city. Within a few short years, it had fallen to civil war. Four months ago, after years of intense fighting, the revolutionaries had finally seized control of the city and beaten Astaphon back to the walls of the palace compound itself when all of a sudden the ailing sun went dark. By the time it reignited a short while later, a peace treaty had been signed with all parties dedicating themselves to harmony and jolly cooperation unified under a single purpose: to collaborate on finding a remedy for the dying sun.

That was four months ago, but now a desperate call has gone out from the city promising wealth beyond imagining if you are successful. Some great spell erupted within the palace compound birthing what is called the Phenomenon: an oil-slick rainbow bubble of energy, a permeable barrier surrounding the palace compound. Legions of warriors have been sent in, but legions are made for fighting on battlefields and none has ever reported back or made their way back out of the Phenomenon...

Armaros, Aya, Enkara and Sarrek have entered the Phenomenom and now stand on the path leading towards the palace compound of Ire, having traveled from distant realms under the burning eye of the late red sun. The palace compound is ringed by a wide crevasse with the only clear way to cross being a drawbridge guarded by two towers. The road towards the bridge has several burnt corpses on spears.

A blackened, cloaked figure approaches the group and says "Azi-Dahakar will... save... us!" before collapsing to the ground with an ornate dagger carved to look like a snake in his hand. Armaros shows no hesitation in investigating the body which explodes into snakes.

Suddenly, two of the impaled corpses pull themselves off the spears they are on. The two zombies pluck the spears out of the ground and proceed to attack the surprised adventurers. The zombies swarm around Armaros and begin biting into him, knocking him unconscious. Enkara is bitten but revives Armaros and the adventurers kill the zombies.

Aya tells the others that in exchange for coin she could provide healing services and flirts with Enkara. Sarrek begins sketching everything and taking notes in his journal, painting himself as the hero of the fight. Armaros begins to take the corpses of the spears and hacking their heads off in case they come back to life. Aya attempts to explain to him they didn't reanimate because their bodies were burned whilst the zombies were unburnt, however, she soon realizes Armaros is too stupid to argue with and lets him get on with it. Sarrek shares his notes with Enkara, proving that whilst he's a great note keeper and landscape artist, he is terrible at drawing people.

Approaching the palace compound, they find a single female guard called Ellisavet sat outside the closed gate. Armaros demands entry to the palace which she refuses. Aya suggests they try to talk to her and Armaros agrees but says he'll only give her so much time before he kills the guard and takes her keys. Aya flirts with the guard, but the guard affirms that they'd find the palace compound boring and Aya might prefer seeing a bar in the city behind her. Aya continues to flirt and eventually convinces Ellis to take her inside the tower for some "fun." When Ellis stands up and turns around, Aya attempts to pickpocket the keys off of her but fails. Ellis mistakes it as Aya trying to grope her and tells her to wait until they're upstairs.

Enkara, Armaros & Sarrek follow Aya and Ellis. Ellis comments that they have no sense of privacy. Aya says that her friends like to watch. Ellis says she'll allow Enkara to watch but Armaros and Sarrek will have to wait outside. Armaros says that he doesn't understand what three girls can do in a room together and Sarrek says that he'll explain it to him.

Ellis takes Aya and Ellis into the guard's quarters in the archway above the gate. Looking through the windows to the drawbridge, they can make out a dragon on top of the walls and three guards at the gate on the other side of the drawbridge but their skin looks burned and their eyes are ink-black shadows. Suddenly, Ellis shouts out a warning as Halla, her fellow female guard rises from one of the beds and stabs Enkara in the back with her shortswords.

Meanwhile, outside the tower, Armaros scales down into the crevasse, leaving Sarrek at the entrance to the tower, to search the bodies down there for loot, but only finds a silver drinking flask engraved with a spear-through-a-skull insignia on it which has whiskey in it. Sarrek is exasperated with his choice of companions. Then they both hear Enkara screaming.

Ellis, Aya, and Enkara fight with the shadow-eyed guard. Aya quickly falls unconscious beneath the guard's onslaught of shortsword attacks. Enkara and Ellisavet's attacks scrape off of the guard's armor, doing minimal damage. Eventually, Armaros and Sarrek burst into the room and Armaros kills the guard. Armaros proceeds to stabilize Aya and takes a gold coin from her since earlier she said it costs money to heal people.

Ellis is shaken by why Halla was acting that way, explaining that she'd been on watch with her twenty minutes ago and then headed upstairs to sleep. Armaros shares the whiskey he found with others (except for Sarrek, who doesn't drink) and shares a story of how he used to drink whiskey with his brother and they were best friends but he had to kill him and it has plagued him ever since.

Aya tells Ellis that she better hands over her keys or else Aya will summon a swarm of tiny bugs to eat the flesh off of her beautiful face. Ellis is effectively intimidated and convinced to leave this to the "professionals." Sarrek and Enkara question Ellis on what is going on inside the palace compound and who Azi-Dahakar is. Ellis explains that King Astaphon IV is working on a solution to the sun with his closest confidants inside the palace compound whilst Az-Dahakar is the demon prince of sands and the wastes.

They can now see the sun has changed, being cracked along the surface with purple veins, and is now seething and bubbling in the sky. Sarrek points out the other shadow-eyed guards on the drawbridge to Ellis, which frightens her since she hadn't noticed. Sarrek examines Halla's body and determines that a spell or curse altered her in some way.

Aya convinces Ellis to abandon her post and leave the palace compound to "professionals" like them instead. Armaros swipes a brick of cheese from the table as "payment" for killing Halla. Sarrek sketches the scene of the dragon, guards, drawbridge, and compound walls from the window.

Main Cast

 * Armaros
 * Aya
 * Enkara
 * Sarrek Bashaa

NPCs

 * King Astaphon IV (mentioned)
 * Mysterious Cloaked Snake Man
 * Azi-Dahakar (mentioned)
 * Ellisavet
 * Halla

Cumulative Statistics
Statistics that track across the entire series.