Session 0 - Bast

The Triad carry the lifeblood of the remnants of the Alternan Empire, so the saying goes. Hundreds of ships, seagoing and flying, pass through the multi-tiered ports of the three islands every week. Each ship carries with it a story. Journeys yet to be taken. Sights yet to be seen. Valuables yet to be sold. For a particular band of people eking out a living in the Triad’s shadows, one of those carries more weight than the others.
One particular moogle has a foot already out the door for something else, but you know what they say when you’re about to get out…
It’s late afternoon one spring day, and the rain has been falling for hours. It’s the perfect type of day to avoid, to stay indoors, to stay out of trouble. At least, that’s what all right-thinking people on the Triad think.
Not everyone who knows Bast is what could be considered a right-thinking person, and one of them is currently pleading their case to him.
Eteri Treno, one of the more impressionable-yet-violent members of the Reclaimers, put out word she wanted to talk to Bast about an hour ago. A human with short brown hair in a jagged cut and a twice-broken nose, she has a particularly disturbing scar on her left cheek down to her jawline, which would be a lot more intimidating if you didn’t know it was stage makeup. Appearances can be deceiving, but they’re also very important. “Your part’s easy, I swear. A quick smash and grab. An hour, you’re back in the shop banging wrenches together or whatever it is you do.”
Bast sniffs. “We’ve got muscle for those. What’s interesting enough about this one for me to jump in?”
Her eye glints, and she leans over the pair of empty glasses on the table. “It’s a ship from the old empire. One of those Scion ships that go in to find the good stuff. The rare stuff.” She pauses for effect, and then adds, “The WEIRD stuff.”
Bast leans forward, putting his drink down. Maybe this won’t be as dull as it first seemed. “Do tell.”
“So a ship got added to the docket this morning called the Seventh Dawn. It’s the fifth time it’s been in over the last two weeks, and it’s always here for the same amount of time, 36 hours. Arrives same vector, leaves same vector. Soren’s got a guy in the tower that gave us a bit of intel on it, and Berk mapped it out. It can only be heading into Alterna if it’s going on such short trips. And if it’s comin’ back here every time, it’s delivering goods to either a specific buyer or someone else on a drop off. And if it’s doing THAT, we can figure out who that is, see if we can’t get in the middle somehow. We just need to confirm that it’s actually an Alternan ferryjob.”
“No eyes of ours on any of the previous visits?”
She shrugs. “Diamante and Orlen are supposed to be watching it, but they just keep making moon eyes at each other. You’d have to hit ‘em in the face with a chocobo to get them to see a race happening in front of them. They’re stupid and they think they’re in love. They’ll get over it. So yeah, but nah.”
“Sounds like we could use someone else to keep them in line. Or just take them off this job entirely, don’t need children screwing this up. Same dock every time? We know anything about how they unload? Guards? "
“I can tell you we got someone watching it right now, they declared a crew of twelve, and ten of ’em took off for the inn tonight. And I think the others are just the low-ranking guys, from what I heard on the way over here to get you.” She scowls at the empty glasses, as if they’re someone else’s fault. “All we need for you to do is a simple job. There’s a door on the port side that no one’s used, it’s not even connected to a walkway. Rain as cover, we can get you up there, get you to pop it open, and we go in and crack anyone that’s in there.”
Bast frowns, taking a long sip from his mug. “Short notice. Who do we have for this job? And tell me we’re not going to be cracking any skulls that paid up this month.” Something doesn’t smell quite right about this, but he pictures one of the ham-handed louts they send out to collect shoving relics in a sack, and his heart skips a beat.
“Sorento, Berk, me, Sensa, Varix, and the Duchess. And you, if you’re in. It’s simple, it’s quick, you just have to get one thing open for us…”
“See if someone can find the Orphans for lookouts – and if Orlen doesn’t get the message from being paired up with Yinha’s kids, we’ll sort him out later. Split Diamante off to set up a distraction if we need to bail in a hurry, she’ll do better on her own. And…” He looks into what’s left of his wine, trying to decide. This was not the time for flash. This was the time to pack up and slip away, while things were still quiet. He knew Aurin would just love to jump on something like this – but that wasn’t Aurin’s call anymore now, was it? Wherever he might be.
Eteri looks expectantly at Bast, hope crossing her face, the scar creasing in a decidedly unnatural way.
Bast ignores her. On the other hand…Alternan artifacts. “Shit and shards” was one of the first curses he remembers, and he’s certainly got enough of one on hand. And a chance to balance things out like that doesn’t come along often. The mug makes an almost offended scraping noise as he pushes it away. He’s gonna need a clear head for this.
“…yeah, I’m in.” Against my better judgment, he thinks. “We treat this like a mansion job – I give the word, the kids holler, or we find more than we can chew on the other side of that door, we scatter and go to ground. Make sure everyone’s clear on that.”
Less than an hour later.
The rain is still falling, great cover for footsteps, especially those on top of an airship’s hull. The Orphans are in position. Diamante has a barfight and something this side of a riot on standby. Everyone defers to Bast on this, which feels almost a little weird, since he were brought in last minute.
No matter.
The lock on this unused door takes him a bit, not because it’s particularly tricky, but because it’s barely been used in months. It’d be so much easier to blow it up, but that probably won’t help. Things would certainly be faster in the immediate future, but not right after. But with a satisfying CHUNK, the seal breaks, and the team moves in. The room here is the captain’s quarters, and as the others sweep through to make sure the sailors aren’t around, Bast is left on his own for a moment.
Alternan ships carry treasures from a fallen empire. A lot of those things end up being tremendously valuable, if you have the right buyer. A few books, a captain’s ledger, some sort of red crystal by the window, and quite the fancy dagger catch his eye.
Bast glances at the books first, scanning the titles for anything unusual.
“The Swordsman of Chaos” “Relis: A Biography” “ATMA” “Time of the Dreamwatch”
ATMA should fit in his sack quite nicely, with plenty of room left over for the ledger. No point in examining it now, but later it might be useful to know where this ship has been off to.
Item Gained: “ATMA” Item Gained: “Seventh Dawn Captain’s Ledger”
He has yet to hear any sounds of violence, which is likely a good thing.
The dagger is nice, but the crystal…well, that might be the sort of thing that pays for a job like this ten times over. And things like that usually aren’t just left lying around. Best be careful.
It’s a deep red. Definitely special, and just sitting out. Kind of a diamond shape. Sparkly.
Footsteps, and a hiss at the door. “Orphans say party’s over,” Eteri says. “All’s clear, but we need to ghost.” She’s gone without elaborating — when it’s time to scatter, they scatter. Snap decision, Bast. Crystal or no crystal?
Bast grumbles. Shit. No time to dawdle. Swallow caution, compromise by sweeping it into a pocket with a sleeve without touching it directly, make scarce.
Inside of ten minutes, he’s a shadow in a rain-soaked city.
A few hours later, after the debriefing, he’s back alone in his workshop. Another job done — another easy job done — and he has a book, a ledger, and a crystal. The ledger confirms earlier suspicions — the Seventh Dawn was just heading back and forth from Triad to Alterna and back. Apparently, always to the same place within Alterna, too. Less a grab-valuables trip and more a looking-for-something-specific trip.
The book is illegible, but… that’s because something weird is specifically happening with the letters. They keep changing. As to WHY that’s happening, well, weird.
And then there’s the crystal.
And as you think about the crystal, you get an impression that the crystal is thinking about you. It’s sitting on the table, seven, eight feet away from you. Is it pulsing, or is your lamp poor?
“Nothing’s wrong with this damn lamp.” Bast has to consciously stop his hand from going for one of his Welcome Specials. It’s not like there was someone trying to knock his door down. Just a piece of magical whatthehell that…feels like it’s acting like it owns the place? He stares at the crystal, trying to decide if this would make any more sense outside his head.
A pulse.
A second pulse.
And then a vision.
A clock, stretching up to the sky. A flash of lightning. Chains wrap around the clock, connecting up to the sky. Flash. Shatter. Twelve.
Then his head and his eyes are his again, the only sense anything was ever wrong the feeling of intense…. longing.
The crystal does not pulse again.
Bast shakes his head, trying to clear it. It’s almost as though the flash has reached in through his eyes and…marked him, somehow. The chains twine through his thoughts as he finds a set of calipers and puts the crystal away into one of the thicker metal boxes. The face of the clock looks back at him as he takes out the bottle he last opened for what they decided was Aurin’s birthday and pours most of a glass.
An hour later, the glass is still sitting in front of him, untouched.