The story, or at least the general idea of it. Ado wakes up, lost, alone, and scared, with no memory of where he came from. He has spatterings of memory, but not much. The big thing he remembers is that he has to head to the Mana Shrines for some reason. It's not long before he runs into Leine, who was hunting Gobbykins in order to sell their bits in town for money. Leine, realizing a Mana Spark would sell for way more than Gobbykin bits, lies to Ado agreeing to take him to the Mana Shrines. So the two set off, heading towards Leine's town. Along the way, Ado explains that all Mana Sparks are named Ado, and that Spark Wielders get the prefix "Ado" in front of their name. It's a very prestigious title; being a Spark Wielder is a pretty big deal. As they head to the town, they come across small patches of the Errata, which they see corrupting some Gobbykins. Stranger still, some Gobbykins seem to be able to harness the Errata to perform magic, which strikes Ado as strange as presumably the only way to use magic is through the Ado. Regardless, they eventually make it to Leine's town, only to find it's destroyed by a host of Errata-corrupted Gobbykins. After helping the survivors escape, they tell Leine how the Errata began to spread from the Mana Shrines. Partially to prevent the Errata from spreading to any other town, and partially for revenge, Leine [i]actually[/i] agrees to head to the Mana Shrines now. On their way to the Shrine (or perhaps sometime after the first one?) they come across a spooky ghost man, who seems to know Ado, and warns them of the dangers of the Errata. In particular, he tells them one very important tidbit; only the Ado can destroy the Errata, and only the Errata can destroy the Ado. They reach the Shrine of Fire, where they meet the other Spark Wielder mentioned earlier. He's there to purify the Shrine, too, and you work together through most of the dungeon, but he tries to take on the boss alone, and his Ado gets corrupted. After you defeat the boss, and purify the Shrine, you unlock the Element of Fire, releasing Fire enemies and Mana Rocks into the world. The other Spark Wielder is clearly upset about losing his Ado, but you ultimately lead him back to the Capital City, where he will eventually use his knowledge of the Ado to become the main Mana Rock merchant. Insert adventure to the Ice Shrine. Once you reach the Ice Shrine, you meet another Spark Wielder named Isabelle. Her Ado is, like, super quiet, and she's, like, a prodigy. Really good at magic. She offers to help Leine purify the Shrine, but after what happened at the Shrine of Fire Leine says Isabelle shouldn't risk her Mana Spark, and Isabelle lets you take it on alone. You purify the Ice Shrine, yada yada. You meet Isabelle again afterwards, and the two of you become fast friends. Insert little Isabelle-themed quest. Crucially, this will be framed as a sidequest (or, sidequest tutorial? Maybe you meet Isa earlier), similar to the ones you've found with other Spark Wielders, but unlike theirs it's actually required. Then, you continue on your quest, purifying the next two Shrines. You run into Isabelle a few times, and she seems to be putting a lot of trust in you to do this. During this time, the other Spark Wielders sidequests should progress, and you'll meet all six, and start the first parts of their sidequests before reaching the Shrine of Soul. Along the way, you'll also meet the spooky ghost a few more times, and he'll tell you a bit more about the Ado, but strangely doesn't seem to know a whole lot--or simply won't say a lot--about the Errata. The Ado exist to help protect mankind, and they do so by choosing Spark Wielders, who are always people with a kind heart. No matter how they might seem on the outside (such as the prissy lady mentioned earlier), deep down every Spark Wielder has the desire to protect the world, or so he says. Finally, you purify the final Shrine, and who else is there to congratulate you but Isabelle? She says that the Errata corrupting the Shrines had been holding her back, and now she could finally complete her mission. With that, beams of light shoot up from all four Shrines, coalescing into a single point in the sky, creating a giant eyeball looking down on the world (the Errata have an eye theme). Suddenly, a wave of much more intense corruption washes over the land! Isabelle then turns to you with a sad look in her eye, and says "I'm sorry, if there was another way..". She then tries to take Ado away from you, and nearly corrupts him. However, Ado whisks the two of you away at the last second, with a teleport! Downtrodden, and beaten, the two of you start heading back to the capital, pondering why Isabelle would turn on you, why the Shrines getting corrupted would hold back the corruption, and what to do about any of it. Along the way, you come across another Spark Wielder (one who doesn't have a sidequest arc) who had lost her Ado in the new wave of corruption. You help her back to town, and her despair steels your resolve to try and find a way to stop Isabelle. Now, I'm not actually sure what the next four dungeons would be, but somehow they would grant you access to Isabelle's big floating castle in the sky--which was formerly a temple to that ghost man from earlier. Said ghost man would set you out on the quest, and you'd head to the next four dungeons, solving the latter halves of every Spark Wielder's sidequests, and so on. Eventually, you'd confront Isabelle in the floating temple. She's not some evil "Mwahahahaha, I'm EVIL!" villain, but in fact looks very conflicted, and sad over what she's done. She tells you that she doesn't want to fight you, if you would just hand over Ado, and after you press her for answers, she finally tells you the Truth about the world. Because yes, exposition dump in the last dungeon, deal with it! She asks you if you know the origin of the Ado, or the purpose of the Errata? When you come up blank, she reveals it to you. Hundreds of years ago, humanity created a powerful machine known as the Crystal Cross. It had the directive of keeping humanity safe, and to do so it created the Ado. The original Ado didn't have personalities, they were simply mindless balls of power, that could bestow magic upon those they were given to. The Crystal Cross chose its wielders, great minds who would lead humanity to a new golden age. However, humans did as they always do, and through assassination, wars, and other acts of violence, the Ado were stolen, fallen into hands of those who would abuse their power. Humanity fell nearly to the brink of extinction. The Crystal Cross, realizing its mistake, created the Errata to destroy the original Ado, and replace them with a second generation. The new Ado had their own goals, and personalities, and should a Spark Wielder try to abuse their power, they would simply abandon them. However, according to Isabelle, the Crystal Cross also kept humanity on a leash. They existed only on this (island? Continent?) because it was too dangerous outside. Try to leave, and you were killed. Anything that came close to the (island) was killed, as well, in an attempt to keep the people safe. Humanity exists now to serve the Ado, and nothing more. She possesses the last remaining original Ado, one that does not have a will of its own, and used its power to modify the Errata, so that she could control it, and release it to destroy the Ado once again. But even more than that, she had to corrupt the land itself, so that no Ado could ever survive here. The Shrines are the place where the Crystal Cross sends the Ado and Errata into the world from its chamber, and by corrupting them, it had essentially cut off Isabelle's connection to the Errata, which is how she was able to release it once they were purified. You and Isa enter a fight, and when you come out victorious, you don't take her Ado and destroy it like your Ado wants you to, but you offer it back to her saying "I don't want to lose my Ado. You shouldn't lose yours either. Besides, I need someone to help clean up this mess.". Reluctantly, she takes your hand, and everything seems to be happy. Only, then your Ado starts acting very weird, insisting that you [i]have[/i] to kill Isabelle, yet also fighting against itself like it wants the happy "everybody's friends now" ending, too. Isabelle leaps into action, and using her magic, she separates the spooky ghost man from Ado. As it turns out, the spooky ghost man is a manifestation of the Crystal Cross, and it had tasked Ado with the goal of exposing and eliminating the traitor amongst the Spark Wielders. Now broken free of its control, though, Ado insists that Isabelle could be redeemed. When it attacks, Isabelle counters with the Errata, and corrupts the ghost man. It retreats through a portal, and you follow after it, hoping to present your case to the Crystal Cross that you need Isa's help. You find yourself in the Cross' chamber, only the Errata had dug deep into it. It looked like it had been corrupted--and not recently, either, but for a long time. It seems creating the Errata all those years ago had corrupted itself, too, and it is very clear that though its goal is still to keep humanity safe, Isabelle was right and that it was going way too far; planning to place all of humanity into stasis. Cue final boss fight. First against the spooky ghost man, and then against the Crystal Cross itself. You try to purify it, only it turns out its corruption is too deep to be purified, but through your battle it realized the threat the Errata poses to humanity, and rather than keep fighting it gives you one last request; to keep them safe, before it purifies itself, destroying itself in the process. With the Cross gone, no more Ado can be made, but the same goes for the Errata. You and Isa then head out to use your Ado to cleanse the last of the Errata, cue happy ending.