Story of Exp33 so far

The protagonists of our story are the members of Expedition 33, a group of young men and women that have left their island city of Lumiere in order to stop The Paintress, a mysterious entity that each year shortens the maximum lifespan of all humans. Starting 67 years ago, now they can only live up to 33 years. All previous expeditions have all failed to stop her, and each year the oldest generation disappears into dust.

Expedition 33 was immediately crushed by a mysterious old man upon arrival. Gustave, Lune, Maelle and Sciel seemed to be the only survivors. This old man was later revealed to be Renoir, one of the first expeditioners and who has seemingly been granted immortality by the Paintress. The party found a magical creature named Esquie that was willing to help them reach the Paintress, but Renoir made another apperance and tried to stop them. Gustave died at his hands but Maelle was saved by Verso, another mysterious 1st expeditioner who joined our party.

After putting Gustave to rest, the party recruited Monoco, a magical Gestral creature that joined our party. He guided us to Old Lumiere, the part of Lumiere that was separated during the fracture 67 years ago. Verso told us that the Heart of the Paintress was in this city, which is the key to stop her. However, in the end it was not possible for us to reach it. We met Renoir again (who we learnt is Verso's father!) and he stopped us from going any further. Monoco's son was sadly lost in this encounter...

Without access to the Paintress' Heart, the only other alternative is to forge a weapon that would let us carve the way to her. For this, Verso explained that we need to defeat at least two Axons (demi-gods with huge power). After some struggles, the party defeated the Axon Sirene and afterwards, the Axon Visage as well.

With their souls, the mysterious Curator created a weapon capable of breaching the Paintress' barrier. The party was unable to harm the Paintress directly, so instead they traveled into her memories. Renoir confronted us one last time but was ultimately defeated. The Paintress fought us and begged Verso to stop, but to no avail. She was defeated, and the party returned to Lumiere on Esquie's back to celebrate their victory.

However, right after reuniting, all humans were immediately vanished. It turns out that the Paintress was not the one causing them to disappear, but instead she was protecting as many humans from this phenomenon as possible. Each year she grew weaker, and thus the amount of humans saved were fewer and fewer. The humans of Lumiere we know are actually living inside a magical painting all along.

This painting was made by the original Verso before he died. His mother, the entity we know as the Paintress, entered this magical painting world to keep it alive and thus created fake painted versions of Verso (the one we meet) and Renoir, her husband. However, the real Renoir from the outside world is trying to stop her. He wants her to give up this painting world. Versos's sister, Alicia, also entered the painting and was reborn as Maelle inside it. After her experiences, she turns against her dad and tries to protect the painting. She manages to reawaken her magical painting powers to bring back Lune and Sciel. The party is determined to stop the real Renoir from erasing everything in this painting!