🪶 Behind the Scenes of Sionareth: The Datlesk Colossus

MAI‑Image delivered another masterpiece and dropped it on my desk. I showed the picture to the whole team. Nobody believed it. Everyone just shook their heads in quiet disbelief. Then the door handle clicked, the hallway door swung open, and our team climatologist walked in. He was wiping his hands with a paper napkin, and his face radiated a strange inner balance. Clearly, he had just managed to align his inner yin and yang.

He looked at the picture and, with a casual shrug, said:
“The Datlesk Colossus. I know that one. I saw it while surveying the fogs in Datlesk.”

The room fell silent.

The hydrologist slowly turned around, as if he had just heard someone claim they’d found the ocean in Thalgorrin.
The geologist took off his glasses, convinced they were distorting reality.
And the sociologist‑stand‑in (who still insists he’s actually the geologist) let out a long, exhausted sigh.

“Wait,” the hydrologist said. “That colossus… it stands in a forest, right?”

“Yes,” the climatologist nodded. “It’s been there for a long time. Nobody knows why.”

The hydrologist blinked.
The geologist rubbed his forehead.
The sociologist‑stand‑in stared at the ceiling, perhaps hoping for guidance from a higher administrative entity.

“A does it work?” the hydrologist finally asked, sounding like a man desperately searching for one stable point in the universe.

The climatologist paused.
“If by ‘work’ you mean guiding ships safely into harbor, then no. But it does shine.”

“It shines?” the geologist repeated, already patting his pockets because he was convinced his glasses had fallen off again.
“When does it shine?”

“Mostly during the day,” the climatologist replied, completely serious.

The room froze again.

The hydrologist slowly sat down — this time on a box of soil samples, because the chair had long since vanished under a pile of maps.
“Why… why would it shine during the day?”

The climatologist shrugged in that resigned way that suggested he had already made peace with the situation.
“The keeper of the Datlesk Colossus isn’t exactly young. He says he’s afraid to climb up there in the dark because his eyesight isn’t what it used to be.”

The geologist grabbed his forehead.
The sociologist‑stand‑in sighed so deeply it sounded like he had tried to inhale the entire room beforehand.
The hydrologist leaned against the table and quietly said:

“So… it only shines when the keeper needs to see the stairs?”

“Yes,” the climatologist nodded.

🦎 Bipilon’s comment from the ferns
“Daylight lighthouse.
Forest.
Fog.
Keeper afraid of stairs.
Honestly? That’s the most Sionareth thing I’ve heard all week.”