Session 75 - Crystalline Mean

Previously, Across the Horizon...
Hope has come to the Starfall.
Ever since the battle with Jacaranda Malison Vale in the Viesen-Croyle factory, Linnet's winds have been absent. The condition reached its worst point when the wind moved with a grace and playfulness that the airship's head chef and its most cheerful face had not shown since that nightmarish day.
A trip back to the scene of the event -- or, rather, near it -- had Serj present Linnet with something he found in the factory that he was sure was hers -- a crystal, a crystal that smelled and sang like Linnet, that blew with a wind like Linnet's, that felt like Linnet's, with the notable difference that Linnet's own crystal was still with her.
With her essence potentially spread across two separate crystals, our brave adventurers have collected the airship's leading minds on sylph biology and history and gathered them in one place, the better to pick their brains with this carefully-controlled information, the better to solve this problem that Linnet has been keeping so quiet over these past few weeks.
We join our brave adventurers just as the very tool they need arrives at their tables...
**
"Coffee's done," Jasper says, balancing a tray of mugs in his left hand.
Orrey grabs a mug and settles into his place at the table.
"Thanks." Bast snags a mug off the tray before Jasper has a chance to set it down.
Yves, who has only barely stopped twitching after some time back on the airship, reaches immediately for a mug. "I should've taken Crystal History instead of Theory Of Domestication, but how was I supposed to know that I'd never need to finish all my gen ed credits anyway?" he complains to no one in particular.
The Starfall cuts through the sky above Caerwyn, and with most of the actors off doing Twelve-knows-what -- the longer they're quiet, the more irritated the captain will be -- Linnet has gathered the officers and her closest sylph friends into one of the labyrinthian ship's many unused rooms. This one has a table in the center, a dozen easels up against the port wall, and a broken pottery wheel in the corner.
Isa collects coffee with a nod of thanks, and settles onto a stool in the corner.
When all the mugs have been claimed and the tray is empty, Linnet sets down her two ankle bracelets and the spare crystal in the empty space. Then, she takes a deep draft of her coffee, nods appreciatively to Jasper, and opens the meeting. "Thank you all for coming. Basically, I could use all the spare brainpower I can get here. I've got a crystal problem and I am totally out of my flight path here."
"I didn't even know a crystal could get that far from a person," Yves says. "...if it did. Because it's yours? Probably? Unless it's not. Or unless it is and isn't. I mean, people can have two, if they have the artificial ones, which suggests they could have two real ones. Maybe. I think. Or an artificial one indistinguishable from a real one. Or an artificial one that sort of, uh, vampires the real one? Doppelgangers it? That's... no, I think that's a plot from a novel I read." He frowns into his coffee. Then starts chugging.
Jasper spins the tray around to give Shula her preferred mug -- burgundy, with a sleepy chocobo drawn on the side -- and then takes his own mug of tea. "Anything we can do, you've got it," he says.
"If you weren't with me previously, to catch you up: you see three objects on the tray before you. The bracelet holding a very faded crystal - that's my normal crystal, the one holding all the bits that make me, well, me. The bracelet with the much brighter crystal is just an ordinary tourmaline. The loose crystal is one that Serj Tarkan picked up from the Viesen-Croyle factory, where I lost my connection to the winds after one hell of a fight."
Bast sips at his coffee slowly, watching the other sylphs in the room for their reaction.
"We found the remains of another wind sylph in there, and I assumed this was her crystal, but recent data has me a little more convinced that it's actually mine...so I'm really confused. Have any of you heard of a sylph soul split across two crystals? Or a crystal connection transferred? Or...anything of the sort? Feel free to pick them up and handle them as much as you need, if that helps. And yes, I know how that sounds, and Rahel, I appreciate your pre-emptive shutting up." ("Handle my soul crystal" is an occasional (and fairly filthy) pickup line between sylphs, but very rarely an actual request.)
"I've never heard of a sylph with two crystals," Shula says, her voice distant and hollow. "I've never heard of anyone with two crystals."
Jasper looks thoughtful, but Jasper usually looks thoughtful. Or irritated.
"Could this have happened due to whatever experiments were being done in the VC factory?" Orrey asks.
Yves has consumed half of his mug of coffee in a single long draught, and looks to be contemplating taking down the rest in a second. "There were crystals in those poor animals' ears, like earrings, weren't there? But we were trying to get them out, not continue--find out--" He decides that, yes, he will consume the rest of the coffee now.
"...from what little I've read, when your crystal starts bleeding out like this one" (Linnet picks up her original crystal in its setting), "you're in fairly deep chocobo dung. Basically, you're starting to leak out and about the only way to fix it long term involves sealing your soul in here, which sort of freezes you in there but at least you don't die, which isn't a solution at all...but then there's this second crystal and it doesn't look sickly at all and it smells like me and I have no idea what it is and I'm so lost. I don't even really know what happens to us when we die; I've been to crystal-returning ceremonies, but never to the actual funeral, and in the factory there was still a very fierce wind hanging around in the room where we found the other sylph's scarf and her blood on the wall and we had some theory that she'd been discorporated and..." Linnet's babbling. "And then just now, I felt the wind again. ...and I want to believe that it's coming back, but I also want to know why and what's up with this second crystal and why it was in the factory and why the winds went away in the first place when all I knew that happened was my getting smacked around by a giant magical cat monster. Where the hell do I even start? Do souls...split, or migrate, or somehow form new crystals? I sort of thought the crystal came first and then the sylph..."
"What's-her-name, Idraen-" Bast gestures vaguely in the general direction of Kuganepo "-kind of went in the other direction, didn't she? Maybe that affected her crystal in some way, and you were the first sylph to come along after."
"Rahel, can you throw a blanket on Linnet or something? She's going to vibrate herself into pieces if she doesn't stop talking," Shula says, sharply but not unkindly.
"More coffee would probably help," Yves says. Helpfully.
Linnet sets down her mug and the jewelry and buries her face in her hands with a groan. "I'm sorry, I sound like a babbling idiot here. I tried to learn as much as I could of our history from the library, but most of what I learned is that most of history doesn't think sylphs are actually people. And most of what I got from my parents was 'there's probably a book on that somewhere.'"
"Well, there's probably a book on that somewhere," Rahel agrees. "Any idea where to start looking?"
"Who studies crystals these days?" Orrey asks. "Is there a university or laboratory somewhere that specializes in that sort of thing?"
(Linnet's parents were academic's academics and were really never quite sure how they ended up with two children. Peregrine and Linnet were essentially raised by the the library support staff and the public school system.)
"I studied a bit," Jasper says.
Linnet looks up from her hands at Jasper with a glimmer of pleading hope.
"Back at Bresha, before I decided I'd have more luck telling a bunch of leads they were supporting at best." He warms his hands on his mug. "My uncle died when I was eleven, and I didn't understand it. Told myself I would understand it. Didn't. But I learned a few things. The short version of what happens when one of us dies," here he points to himself and then Shula, "is a lot like what happens when one of you dies," he nods to Orrey and Yves. The concept of Isa dying doesn't seem plausible. "You lie down, you don't get back up again, and a lot of people are very upset about it."
Yves stands up to contemplate his own death and hunt for a coffee refill.
Jasper continues. "Some time after death, the body crystallizes. If no one does anything to the body, it will turn to crystal entirely, then contract until it's the size of the original crystal. If the original crystal's there, it's subsumed into that. If it's not there, the original crystal goes dormant and the new crystal is what's left. Whole process takes... couple decades, maybe longer depending on the aetheric density of the site of death. And since that's horrifying, we don't do that. When someone dies, we return them to their element, as best we can. Speeds up the whole process, returns the crystal to the world."
"Dormant?" Bast's inquisitive expression has an edge to it.
Linnet has picked up the loose crystal again, and her expression is cycling between horror and a vaguely disturbed sadness. "So this can't be Cirri, then, considering she was only in the factory for a few days."
"It becomes a pretty rock. Sometimes you'll find some idiot human wearing one as a pendant around their neck because some other upper crust piece of garbage told them it'd be pretty. Usually they don't know. Sometimes they do." He calmly sips his tea. "We take care of it then."
"...Jasper, have you ever killed anyone?"
"Me? Of course not. I'm a stage manager, Linnet. Stage managers never kill anyone."
"Or if they do, you don't ask, because they know too well where to hide the bodies."
"There'd be no actors left if they did," Isa comments into her coffee.
"The senior stage manager for the drama department at my university once--" Yves stops, holding a newly filled mug of coffee. "Sorry, that's beside the point. Besides, no one ever proved anything."
"No one ever proves anything," Jasper agrees.
Yves nods thoughtfully, and sits back down to start putting far too much caffeine into himself far too rapidly.
Jasper gets a newly appraising look from Bast.
"Right. Well, that clears some things up, thank you. ...still don't understand about the dual crystals, though," Linnet says.
"Does Bresha have much in their libraries about Linnet's problem?" Shula asks Jasper.
"Not much that I remember," Jasper says, "and it's not that complete anyway. Apparently a lot of that sort of thing is Forbidden Knowledge," he says the last two words in the same tone he uses when he says Apocynthion, "so if you want to study that you have to transfer out to Saine. If they'll even accept anyone in."
"Bleh, doubt you'll find much of anything there of any use." Linnet makes a face. "That's where my parents work. ...and I'd kind of rather not go home right now if we can avoid it."
"What usually happens if someone gets a long distance from their crystal?" Yves asks suddenly. "It just... never came up before. I never really thought about it happening. It's like forgetting your pants. If you only had one pair. And wore it all the time."
"I hadn't thought about it either until I read Serj's letter, hence my taking off my jewelry to check. Never mind pants, it'd be like forgetting both hands. ...also, mental note, take Yves shopping for more pants."
"I actually know the answer to this one!" Rahel exclaims. "I left mine at home last year by accident when I came back after summer break. I know I did, because I sure as hell heard about it in letters from home, and then by the end of the month I just found it on the bookshelf after I came home from work."
"So, your parents mailed it to you?"
"Nope." Rahel grins. "It literally just showed up. Like it'd been there the whole time. I wrote back home to confirm they hadn't sent it, and they were furious with me for having lost it from inside their house, like that had somehow happened."
Linnet snorts with laughter envisioning Rahel's parents furious about anything. They do "I'm not mad, just disappointed" like it's their job.
"I have more than one pair of actual pants," Yves protests. "I picked some up once I realized I wasn't going back to my apartment and needed more than a three-day set of clothes. It was a metaphor." He drinks his coffee sullenly.
"So, we're suggesting that crystals migrate. That's...interesting. Hm. I don't suppose...we have other sylphs on this ship, and I hate to start most of my conversations with Barea Jidoor with either 'hi, I made you tea' or 'hey, I have a sylph question,' but I think he kind of expects it by now..."
"Would Perilune know anything?" Rahel asks. Rahel then watches everyone except Linnet to see if anyone has any interesting response to that name being mentioned.
"Very likely, but she'd have to be able to fit her answer into a hundred words."
Yves is frowning, but that may still be at the implication that he has insufficient pants.
Isa is apparently realizing what a single comfortable stool means in a studio, and trying hard not to think about whether the last occupant before her had sufficient pants or not.
"I mean, I'd love to ask her, but I don't know where she is right now, so I'm stuck writing notes once a day." Linnet shrugs.
"Star-crossed lovers, writing letters to be ferried across the celestial sea..." Rahel declares.
"I don't think we should test it," Yves says suddenly.
Linnet starts hunting for a prop with which she can poke Rahel across the room.
Then, more awkwardly, Yves continues, "Usually I'm all for the mildly risky experimentation, but given the number of weird effects on sylphs we've encountered recently, maybe let's not see how far away they can warp, or how fast, or if it happens while they're observed, unless we have no other options? Or at least not until we've answered some other questions? Like, back to the first one, maybe: are these both really Linnet's? Or is only one? ...I guess 'neither' is maybe an option but, wow, I don't even want to start thinking about that unless we really have to, so let's not. Let's definitely not think about that."
"Be a bit hard on Linnet to just leave things as they were, as I understand it." Bast remarks blandly.
"Wait, wait, we were experimenting? I'm still on trying to figure out why the breezes there are two of these," Linnet says.
"Oh, well, right, we should probably test having her, like, swap them out or swallow one or something," Yves clarifies. "I just meant, let's not have other sylphs start pitching their crystals off the side of the ship to see how long it takes them to come home, or whatever." He gulps more coffee. "But if anyone does, definitely write down all the details."
Linnet hesitates. "...Yves, no more coffee for you this hour, okay? In fact, would you mind seeking out the Jidoors and asking if they have some time for a thought experiment this afternoon? If they're free now it'd be great, if not we can reconvene later. ...swallow a crystal?" Linnet gives Shula a very confused look.
"If it's yours, and you need to re-assimilate it--" Yves finishes off his second mug. "Actually, that's a pretty good point. I'll go ask the Jidoors, and also ask Principia if it has any ideas."
"Shula, I get the sense you have something you've been wanting to say this whole time, and also that you're holding back because you don't want to feel like you're yelling at me in front of people. Am I right? If I'm right, please, out with it."
Shula raises her arm up, and Linnet can see Shula's red-orange crystal, half the size of her watch face, woven into a bracelet that complements her tattoo. "I could swallow mine, if for some reason I was an idiot. And I don't exactly think you're an idiot, Linnet, but I am annoyed that you decided that you couldn't talk to your friends about this and instead had to have a bunch of panic attacks on your own first."
"Swallowing might work," Yves protests, not very strongly, as he heads out the door.
"...that's fair. I mean, panic attacks aren't really a social thing, and they tend to accelerate the rate at which you feel like an idiot, which doesn't motivate you to share the thing that's causing them. And my own ignorance on the entire subject of, well, me is pretty embarrassing. But, I am sorry I didn't talk to you all about this earlier. I'm not sure it would've saved us trouble, precisely, but...it would probably have helped something somehow."
"Are these two crystals identical?" Orrey asks, eyeing them both without even attempting to pick them up. "I mean, in size and composition and all that."
"But, I am sorry I didn't talk to you all about this earlier. I'm not sure it would've saved us trouble, precisely, but...it would probably have helped something somehow."
"Don't forget to weigh them with the micro scale, it's by my chem supplies," drifts back the voice of Yves, as he vanishes down the hallway.
Jasper closes the door, else Yves will never make it out of the section.
"Composition, Orrey, I have no idea; unless it's a rock you use in cooking, it's all pretty much a rock to me. Size, pretty much?" She hands her crystal jewelry and the loose crystal to Orrey. "The thing that really got me was the scent. I never realized crystals could have a scent. Not a thing you notice much when you keep them by your ankles."
Orrey still does not touch the crystals at all, but eyes them. "No way to tell without those jewel measuring thingies. And the scale Yves mentioned."
"They...might be exactly the same. Like a copy. An exact copy." Orrey says, sighing heavily as he examines them side by side, leaning in for a closer look.
The door bursts open, to reveal... that's just Yves, actually, holding a small scale, and in the company of the Jidoors as well as Natron Rensa. "Guess who was conveniently located near the--oh, well, no guessing necessary, you can see everyone once I'm out of the doorway." He leaves the doorway accordingly, and heads for the empty mug he left behind. "Is there any coffee left?"
There is a gust of wind from the center of the table.
It rattles the mugs and wobbles the emptier mugs around and ruffles Isa's shirt and smooths Bast's fur and jangles Yves's belts and musses Orrey's hair and whips through the easels and startles Ryna Jidoor and dislodges pebbles from Natron Rensa and amuses Barea Jidoor and then it is gone.
"Uh, hi, everyone." Linnet snaps her eyes away from the table and waves to the clustered folks in the doorway.
Linnet rests her elbows on the table and stares at the crystals with a look of overwhelmed bafflement.
"Uh," says Yves. "...no one licked it, right?"
"No, Yves." Some of Bast's restrained exasperation is starting to leak through.
"Yves said he needed the expertise of a master scientist and a crystal expert, and I happily told him that that was not me, but in fact the brilliant and suave Natron Rensa here, never mind if he disagrees on the level of his brilliance, and then Ryna said what if we just followed Yves and stopped confusing the poor boy, so here we are!" Barea says jovially.
Yves drops down into a seat, staring at the crystal(s) warily.
"I seem to have two crystals now and we're trying to figure out why, how, and what I do with them."
Natron sits down, Barea's hand under his arm to help him, and then listens as Linnet recaps the story so far.
"...and we've got an awful lot of half-baked theories and none which have actually made any progress on getting me back to a state where I can control the wind again and not have it occasionally randomly gusting out of one crystal when it feels like it, and my original crystal still looks pretty ill, so we hoped to put the problem to some more experienced experts. Any input would be most appreciated."
"I have never heard of anything like two crystals before," he says once she finishes. "But from what you are describing, it seems like your condition is accelerating rapidly. Have you experienced anything other than the loss of the winds?"
"For a while there it wasn't just a loss, it was almost a shield from the winds - we'd feel the wind moving on its own among us like mine used to do, except it wouldn't touch me at all. Wouldn't even rustle my hair. Felt pretty personal, to be honest." For once, Linnet looks a bit angry.
"Don't blame you," Isa says.
"But that was the biggest thing; sudden, immediate, and apparently irreversible disconnect from my element. I didn't even realize my crystal was fading until much later. They're such a steady fact of life and so out of sight that I didn't think to look."
"There was the passage found in the notes on Green Study Volume One, however, which could... hmm. I do not know." He shakes his head. "There was tell of a method to transfer the aetheric energy from one crystal to another. It was not done to a crystal in its entirety, though it is possible that is what is happening here? But that would mean this crystal existed before you were there. I would be very hesitant to follow through on that without knowing the source of this second crystal."
"Mm. As would I." Linnet weighs the loose crystal in her hand with unease. "Do crystals normally have a scent?"
The question clearly strikes him as thoroughly bizarre. "Pardon?"
"Please, observe." Linnet passes both crystals to Natron.
"It smells like the kitchen," Ryna remarks as Natron very respectfully holds each crystal, one by one, in his right hand.
"That loose one has never been in the kitchen. And I'm pretty sure I don't smell like cinnamon all the time. I mean, most recently it was buttermilk pancakes. My healing spells, though, generally carry the scent of my cooking, and by default it's cinnamon rolls."
"I have never experienced anything like that before," Natron says, setting them back down. "Especially on both. It is stronger on the newer one. Interesting."
"Well done, Linnet, you weirded out the experts," Linnet chides herself (gently) as she puts her anklets back on. "The factory where this crystal was found is still in the process of a massive cleanup, investigation, and general industrial fuck-up removal. Revisiting the scene may not be immediately possible. In lieu of that... ...how in the seven hells would a crystal with my essence have been formed when the essence was knocked out of me? What were they doing at that factory?"
"WAIT, what now? Did you say stronger on the new one? BOTH of them have the scent now? Just a little while ago, only the new one had the smell!" Orrey exclaims.
"...and there's still the possibility that this belonged to another, recently deceased wind sylph and somehow my essence found its way into that."
"We tried to answer that and ended up with the Meteor instead," Isa points out.
"Did some of the aetheric whatever the hells move?" Orrey asks, excited.
"...does it move? Particularly in the event of, say, trauma, death, or traumatic death?"
Orrey leans in to see if he can detect the cinnamon smell on both.
"The book talked of aetheric transfer as a possibility, but it did not talk about how it was done," Natron says.
Orrey can smell the cinnamon on both now.
Orrey hesitates, then asks "May I hold them for a second?"
"Certainly." Linnet passes the crystals over.
Orrey awkwardly holds them, one in each hand, then sets them down quickly on the table next to each other so that they're just in contact with each other.
The two crystals bolt apart, like magnets repelling each other. Another gust of wind whips through the small room, with the same effects as before.
"Sorry! That wasn't me!" Linnet exclaims.
Bast frowns at the overactive crystals. "Anyone else see that?"
"...it's like the new crystal's trying to make friends with the old crystal and the old crystal went ZAP, none of your nonsense?" Linnet asks.
"Yeah."
"Smell them and see which one smells more like your baking." Orrey says.
"Oh, it's like seventh grade," Yves says under his breath.
"What I saw was the new crystal...trying to follow the old one? And getting repelled," Bast says.
"Um, okay." Linnet smells each crystal again, carefully, expecting ozone rather than baked goods.
The smell of cinnamon is stronger on New Crystal than Old Crystal.
"Much the same. So all is not right with this new one."
"Hm. I wonder..." Bast gets a firm grip on the two crystals and slides them together to see if they can be kept in touch.
"Bast, please do not break my crystals altogether. I kind of need one of those." Linnet glances at Natron. "I'm assuming I do need at least one intact. I'm also developing a theory of" (she hesitates) "parasitism, for lack of a better word, here."
"You do need to have a crystal, yes," Natron says, watching Bast warily. "I do not think it's good to not have one. I have never heard of anyone without one."
"I like reading history. I'm not so big on making history," Linnet mumbles into her hand.
Bast lets go of the crystals with a strained grunt, leaving them lying close but apart. "At least one of them is really not keen on this idea."
"I would recommend one of the four following courses of action," Natron says once the experiment has come to an end. "The first would be to return to the scene of the accident. Find if either crystal, or you, resonate with that location. See if there are any other clues or points of interest your admirer overlooked. The second would be to find an expert on crystal manipulation here. I have not found any myself, but I was unable to afford much travel out of Cardia before my condition worsened, and surely there is someone in Caerwyn or the Triad that could help. If you have any contacts who know a large group of scientists or doctors, or at the very least have easy access to journals, that could be a help. The third would be to travel to Saine. There is nowhere on Ducorde with more knowledge within its walls than Saine. If you are from there, surely they will let you return. The fourth would be to travel to a place with heavily wind-aspected aether. I do not know if that could potentially aid your crystal, but the winds there could, potentially, resonate in some way. There is a place in the Cardian Mountains called the Howling Eye; I do not know its exact location, but your cartographer might."
"I'm not surprised you couldn't find anyone in Cardia," Isa says.
Linnet makes a fascinated noise at that last idea. "Master Rensa, once again your wisdom has lifted a confused fledgling into the air and, well, if she's not exactly soaring, at least she's floundering a lot less. I am in your considerable debt and have one more request: you and Barea work together to set this weekend's galley menu. Whatever you want." She re-dons her jewelry and pockets the crystal. "I need to start carrying this thing in its box again, or at least a lined pouch or something. I'm becoming much less keen on the idea of having it so close to me. Isa, can you and Celeste plan a side trip for the Meteor near that Howling Eye place? It sounds tremendously dangerous for an entire ship. And we're going to have to visit home eventually, but I need to decide whether I want to write my parents and let them know I'm coming, or try to sneak by them."
Isa's face goes through an interesting series of expressions as several lines of thought die between brain and lips. Finally, she says, "I'll talk to her, but we might want to consider another option first. That's....not a great place to go."
"Better or worse than the Viesen-Croyle factory again, only with AZYS teams crawling all over it this time?"
"That's not great either. If we're rating the relative peril of a security-infested industrial accident site, returning to your hometown, or the Howling Eye, it's honestly going to take a bit to rank them."
"Right off the bat, I would rather jump straight into a hurricane than go home and talk to my mother about complicated facts of sylph life. So, let's hop to it!" When she has something to do, or even better, several somethings, Linnet looks much more cheerful.
"That a family thing, or is someone out for your head back home?" Bast asks.
"Just a family thing. I kind of left at the first opportunity and the fact that I'm coming home with an abnormal magic question does not bode well. ...particularly if Hawk is home. Augh." Linnet shudders and starts collecting coffee mugs.
"So is the Howling Eye full of fraught emotions, or more like...?" Yves makes a little throat-cutting gesture. "...anyway, I'll make sure my good coat is ready."
There's a long moment when it looks like Isa's going to maintain her objection. Something about Linnet's renewed focus strikes her, though, and she nods. "I'll talk to Celeste and we'll have a flight plan by morning. Yves did I ever tell you about the dueling club at the academy?"
Hands full of coffee mugs, Linnet still manages to stop and hug most of the room on her way out. "Thank you, everyone. I don't have a much better idea what's going on here, but I'm a lot less panicky about it, so I think that's progress. We'll figure it out soon, one way or another."
"I don't think so, unless they were dueling arrows, which seems unlikely," Yves says thoughtfully.
Isa hops down from the stool. "Oh no. Swords. Sharp ones. Imagine a dozen aspiring officers, lining up in rows to slash at each other's faces because scars mean you're "brave" and "fearless" and other drivel like that. It's a very popular pastime."
Yves imagines it. And looks increasingly dubious the further his imagination takes him.
Isa nods. "Now imagine a few of those idiots stole a training shuttle from the airfield, and they've decided that whanging each other around the head with swords isn't stupid enough. So where do they go? What do they do? They go see how close they can get to the Howling Eye."
"...how stupid is that, in comparison?" Bast seems to be getting drawn in despite himself.
"More stupid than the sword-whanging and scars," Yves supplies helpfully.
"The record holder got within two hundred meters and, the last I heard, was still drinking on the story," Isa concludes.
"Well, we just have to get close enough to soak my crystal in the aether, right? How hard could that be?" Linnet asks.
"That's within two hundred meters of the edge."
"If you'd rather go fight a factory, we can do that instead," Linnet says.
Isa shakes her head. "Nope. It's your wind, it's your call. I'm pretty sure Celeste will understand, but if not I'll convince her. And hey, if we pull this off? You'll never have to pay for your drinks in Cardia ever again."
"All right! Let's go do something dangerous!" Linnet hoists two handfuls of empty coffee mugs in celebration.
Bast rubs his face to hide his look of resignation, and does not comment.
"...yay," says Yves, trying for an exclamation point without quite getting above a period.
Isa clinks her own mug against Linnet's collection, and goes off to explain the "plan" to Celeste.