Session 8 - Sindarius Rising

Previously, across the Horizon… The Sindarius Valles Memorial Auction took place at the expansive Valles Estate in Caerwyn, run by Dearica Valles, presented by one particularly harried young woman with incomplete notes and entirely too much pressure weighing her down.
Linnet came to the auction with one goal; the acquisition of Green Study, Vol. 2, a rare book on the suppression of magic as it related to Job Crystals in the Alternan Empire.
Orrey came to the auction with one goal; documenting anyone who purchased the three books in which he planted secret messages to further the Avengers’ goals in Saron.
Isa, Bast, Ingrid, and Yves mostly came to keep up appearances, though the behatted Yves did decide to purchase a painting for no other apparent reason than he could.
After a pitched battle of gils between Linnet and a viera named Ryna Jidoor over the book, Linnet agreed to try to copy down as many of the important passages Ryna needed to save her friend inside of 12 hours. She would need to pull an all-nighter at the Velvet Sundown to get that done, but with steady friends and enough coffee, it could be done.
Outside of the restaurant, though, they found two people waiting for them; the wealthy Lord Kelsey T. Arendall, who purchased the book Alexander for a truly ridiculous sum, and Alitheia, his heavily-armored companion.
And then, another joined…
**
Sindarius Valles looks at his unlit white oak lantern, resting on the cobblestones, and then up at the assembled people outside of the Velvet Sundown. “Why am I alive?”
Yves stares, still in his Black Mage getup, and then says indignantly, “Does /nothing/ about tonberry death rituals work the way I thought? Why didn’t they give me even a /memo/ on how this works around here?”
Bast blinks slowly, taking in the scene. “I don’t suppose two tonberries really liking each other is relevant to that question?”
Linnet does a credible impression of a fish sylph and finally manages “…I think we all have that question, sir.”
Lord Arendall takes two steps toward Sindarius, his struggle to understand plain on his face. “My — my friend, you are… heavens above, Sindarius, are you there? Are you well? How do you feel?”
Alitheia, behind him, does not move.
“Reports seem exaggerated,” Isa quips.
“…Sindarius?” Bast looks at Arendall, plainly wondering if the man has lost his mind after dropping a fortune on a book.
Sindarius places a hand on his chest, then on his forehead. “I do not feel well, Kelsey, and I would prefer you not drop dead of fright before I can understand why I apparently have stopped doing just that.”
Yves clears his throat, and then raises a gloved hand. “Excuse me, sir, but, uh, how long have you been… not dead? Like, did you die and then wake up again, or was there a point where you were /supposed/ to be dead and you just kept not being so, or…?”
Linnet covers her face with a wing, muting a groan.
The tonberry squints, then winces, holding his head. “A week. Who are you? Unless you mean how long have I not been — gah, this headache…” Sindarius, with effort, concentrates. “I have been newly aware of myself for… thirty minutes to an hour?”
Arendall walks over to him, crouching down as he does so. “Here, let us find you a place to sit,” he says soothingly, passing his jeweled cane into Sindarius’s hands. “Off to the side here, off the main road. No sense in causing a scene.”
With a frown, Bast glances at the bodyguard to see if Alexander is still in evidence – and if it’s still chained.
Yves digs a notebook out to jot this down. (This requires a certain amount of shuffling around with gloves and the painting he’s still carrying.) “…well, what happened about thirty minutes to an hour ago? Anyone have any good ideas on that?”
“A scene? A miracle happens and you don’t want to create a scene?” Orrey looks skeptically at the old man.
“The end of the auction?” Bast points out, matching up the times.
“A miracle?” Sindarius says, Orrey’s words cutting through. “What about this is a miracle?”
“I was going to go with ‘scientific oddity’, but that seemed impolite…” Yves trails off.
Linnet desperately glances around for somewhere slightly more private, but it’s clear the Velvet Sundown is not the venue of choice. Sindarius doesn’t seem in a celebrating mood.
“Giving life to the unliving? Science has never done that, that I know of. This must be an act of the Gods,” Orrey says.
“Or maybe he wasn’t actually /dead/, merely in a deep coma. We shouldn’t jump to conclusions too quickly. That leads to poorly reviewed publication and the scorn of one’s peers,” Yves says.
“I assure you,” Sindarius says coldly as he sits on a tonberry-sized bench, both hands gripping the cane for support, “I know when my time is up, and my time certainly was up. This is… this is uncalled for.”
Orrey scrunches up his face in confusion. “You’re…here against your will?”
“Short of attempting a de-resurrection, how can we help?” Linnet asks.
Yves says under his breath at Linnet’s comment, “I don’t think that’s legal.”
Linnet whispers back, “Neither is being undead! I think! I don’t know!”
Yves looks alarmed at the notion of laws against being undead. Insofar as anyone can see alarm in his current costume.
Arendall nods approvingly. "An excellent suggestion, my book-loving friend. “Sindarius, these children are here to assist you. They were all at the auction earlier tonight. I am sure with all of us here, we can determine what happened to you, and… and proceed from there.”
Arendall, you will all note, looks to be perhaps in his late thirties, so the ‘children’ thing is a bit much.
“I mean, if we accidentally auctioned Master Valles back to life, we can probably figure out how to…work backwards from there? But failing that…cart, horse, ordering of such,” Linnet says. “And watch the ‘children,’ buddy.”
Arendall smiles blankly. “It is a compliment, friend, of course!”
“Where did you…come back?” Bast asks.
Sindarius sighs. “This was not intentional. This would never be my intent. I… came back to myself, for lack of a better term, inside my vault. Few things remained in there. The first thing I saw was my lantern, sitting on my favorite shelf, and…” He looks up at the stars, quiet for a moment. When he continues, he’s much quieter. “And my son’s.”
“…did you see anyone else in there?” Linnet asks.
“When did—” Yves cuts off abruptly, and shuffles slightly behind Linnet.
“I saw no one else.” He may not be feeling well, but his eyes are still sharp. Ears, too, not that you can see those on a tonberry. “Black Mage, ask your question. Your knowledge of the arcane could be the answer we seek.”
Yves’s shoulders droop, but he says, “I was wondering… when that lantern was placed next to yours. Because I’m certain that wasn’t until… quite recently.”
Alitheia steps between the group and Sindarius, but only to set the lantern next to the old tonberry. They then step back next to Lord Arendall, their motions smooth and silent in the heavy armor.
“I could not answer that,” Sindarius says.
Arendall looks interested. “What makes you so certain?”
“Because, and I think I’ve got this right – but feel free to correct me, Yves – the junior Master Valles’ lantern was in our party’s possession until shortly before the start of the auction,” Linnet says.
This gets some attention.
“Yves, ah, attempted to return it to family – to your younger son, I would guess – but encountered some difficulties, so it passed into my hands. I handed it off to a servitor of yours, a moogle named Kulin.”
“Kulin. Good sort.” Sindarius does not say anything about Enrico.
“And that’s the last I know of it, as this was just a few minutes before the auction began. I haven’t seen it since,” Linnet finishes.
Sindarius’s shoulders droop. “I found out about Elijhaa’s passing on my last day. I wish I had had more time to grieve my boy. Such, such a shame.”
Arendall frowns companionably sadly.
“Given the…circumstances…under which Elijhaa died, I wondered if it might, uh, be, in some way…” Yves makes some uncertain hand gestures. “…creating an unexpected effect on your own lantern by proximity. But this is well outside my area of expertise.”
Sindarius looks at Yves, searching for eyes beneath that floppy brim. “You had Elijhaa’s lantern. Did you know him? How did you come to bring my son here?”
“I worked for the same lab,” Yves says bleakly. “Though I didn’t work alongside him daily. I was luckier in that incident than some. The people in charge…asked me to bring his lantern back to his family.”
Sindarius doesn’t look away. “Thank you. Having him here next to me… it will help the rest of the family.”
“Speaking of the rest of the Valles clan,” Arendall says diplomatically. “Have you introduced yourself to any of them?”
“No,” comes the reply. “I left quickly.”
“Hm. Alitheia,” Arendall says in a crisp, commanding tone. “Stand watch for any members of the staff who may be coming to drink the night away.” To Linnet, he adds, “Your knight there would do well to watch the fields, the servants like to avoid the main road if they’re darting out before the end of their shift.”
Yves pulls off his enormous hat, now that he doesn’t have to pretend not to be himself, since at least /this/ Valles isn’t inclined to throw him out of the estate. Again. “If the servants were dashing through the fields to stab us, couldn’t they have done that more easily at the auction, in any case?”
“Uh, right. Isa? Ready position?” Linnet still looks baffled, trying to recall all she knows about tonberry memoria, which is…next to nothing.
Isa nods. “My lady,” she says with dry sincerity.
“Oh, the servants wouldn’t be looking for you to stab or anything so crass,” Arendall says, dismissing that fear with a wave of his hand. “No, I assume they are combing the fields for the thieves that tore apart the vault before the auction.”
Sindarius frowns. “Thieves?”
“Who would be so foolish?” Isa wonders quietly, as she watches the verge.
Yves shakes his head. “I imagine it’s that Liga fellow. Certainly /fun/ in his own way, but not exactly…reputable. I’m glad we were away when he was doing whatever he did that ended with him riding that chocobo flock. But whatever he was up to in that regard, he doesn’t strike me as the type to engage in necromancy.”
Alitheia stands impassively by the edge of the little alley the party has set up in, watching.
Sindarius shudders at the mention of necromancy.
Linnet snorts. “Unless by that you mean ‘shouting at the dead until they get up and join you in shenanigans,’ not likely.”
“And I really don’t think that’s how it works,” Yves adds.
“Um, if you don’t mind my asking, Master Valles…were you, ah, laid to rest in the vault? I…this would be my first experience with tonberry funeral customs. Director Thornwell would proffer her best regards if she knew you would hear them,” Linnet asks.
Sindarius brightens. “You know Jehu? Ah, you must have come for the book. I hope you weren’t disappointed.”
“Far from it, sir. The library will benefit greatly from this tome, and the director will probably disappear into her office for a week straight and growl at the interns when they bring her coffee. That’s how she tends to be when faced with an interesting research puzzle.”
“Um…actually, we were looking to help an acquaintance of ours with information in the book, but we haven’t had a chance to read much of it yet.” Orrey awkwardly pauses.
“I should imagine not,” Arendall says blithely. “You’ve only had the book for some twenty-odd minutes, dear boy!”
“Speaking of books,” Linnet turns her sunniest you-obnoxious-peacock smile on Arendall, “what’s the deal with Alexander there?”
Yves takes the domino mask off his face, shoving it deep into the hat he holds, and stares thoughtfully out into the distance. At the back of Isa’s head, as the case happens to be, but that’s probably incidental.
“Oh, that?” Arendall preens. “My associate there asked me for assistance in finding it. We’d hoped to find a particular clockwork city — you know the one, Sindarius, of course you would, forgive my impropriety — here as well, but apparently the thieves made off with it before the auction. Quite a shame, as there’s no one to whom it’d be more valuable than Alitheia — and, by association, me.”
Sindarius gives Orrey a blank look. “Did you need something?” he asks, clearly struggling to remain in the full conversation.
“I wonder,” Yves says, mostly to himself, “if an Earth sylph turning to stone and a tonberry returning to life could have a similar cause, in that they’re both an instance of a people’s inherent traits going into a sort of…inappropriate overdrive.”
Orrey steps closer. “Azjol-Ruvan syndrome. Is there anything in the book that would help an Earth Sylph Geomancer combat the disease? Perhaps by suppressing the Job Crystal?”
He just smiles a little. “I spent life living, not reading. What’s inside that book is beyond me. What else was stolen from me?” he asks Arendall, returning to the offense.
“Well, from the items missing from that flier, your swords, the city, that Crystarium book you found six years ago, that boring tome on architecture, one of your daggers, they tried to pass it off as a set of five but Dearica really struggled on getting the staff working in concert together…” he thinks. “There was also rumor of a few other items you had hidden away, but the auction had no surprises. Some spirited bidding, though,” he says, smiling broadly at the memory.
“Actually, speaking of surprises, the young woman running the auction clearly had a few. Was that your daughter, Master Valles?” Linnet asks.
“No, Dearica is a cousin of mine,” Sindarius replies, clearly thinking of a different person.
“Ah. No, we met Dearica. Charming woman.”
Bast opens his mouth as if to comment on that, then seems to change his mind.
Yves glances furtively about. She might be lurking. Anywhere.. In a field.
“Sindarius, we must get you out of here,” Arendall says, looking around, worry plain on his face. “I will have my cactuar ready my train, and you can come back with me. No sense in alarming the rest of the Estate in the interim while we sort this out, eh? Alitheia,” he says, louder. “Stand watch here, please. Artist, stand guard in their place. You,” he points at Isa, “come with me to the station. I do not know who is out there meaning us ill, but no one shall go alone for even a moment.”
Isa gives Arendall a flat look. She does not move.
That gets Bast’s attention. “Is someone after you?”
Yves is muttering to himself about nature-enhancing Jobs and jotting things down in his notebook.
“Am I artist?” Orrey asks, confused. “What am I guard…wait, you’re not my boss.”
GM/MattLast Wednesday at 9:56 PM “Simple rank, boy!” He looks affronted. “Just as Alitheia stands for me, you all stand for your lady, do you not?” Arendall gives Linnet a very sympathetic look.
“What lady are you talking about?” Orrey asks.
“Oh, that’s…rich.” Bast snickers softly.
“Wait, what? Master Arendall, I hold no rank over my companions. I’m just one of the more talkative of us. If anything, the guard you just called out would be the one to be asking, as she at least has experience being around nobility beyond bidding at their auctions.” Linnet is doing her best to keep a straight face. It’s only working due to extensive lip-biting.
Arendall looks dumbly at Linnet, and then turns the dumb look on Isa.
Isa’s face is smooth and patient.
“I mean, I used to be salaried, but that was back at the lab, and it exploded, so I’m more of a, uh, an independent contractor now, I guess?” Yves wears the expression of an occasionally feckless young man who has just really and truly realized he no longer has /income/.
Arendall mouths “salary” like he just bit into a bad piece of fruit.
“I mean, they just salaried us because they knew that way they could get us all to work really long hours, but I kinda like being nocturnal anyway so it worked out, and, uh, never mind.”
Semi-desperately seeking an exit from this entire conversation, Linnet turns back to Sindarius. “Is there any way we can be of assistance, Master Valles?”
“…well someone is escorting me to the train so I can then escort Sindarius out of here safely…!” Arendall trills.
Yves raises a still-gloved hand. “I mean, I’ll go, if you’d like. Happy to, uh, help and stuff.”
“You have a lackey,” Isa points out helpfully.
“What danger is he in? What danger are any of us in?” Orrey looks around suspiciously.
“And I can’t help but notice that he hasn’t even agreed to go with you yet,” Bast says.
“Just need to get back soon to work on speed-reading this book,” Yves says.
Sindarius looks defeated. “I don’t know. Someone has attacked my family and stolen from them, and they have somehow defiled my lantern to… to wrest me back from peace! Who could want such a thing from me? What connects these things?”
“Alitheia is staying here to guard the Alexander and my dear friend!” Arendall exclaims.
Alitheia tilts their head, the first movement you’ve seen since they moved to watch the entrance.
“Guard the book and my friend, Alitheia. I’m sorry.” There is a clear note of apology in Arendall’s voice, and then Alitheia turns back to watch.
“If it helps any,” Yves says, “I’m almost certain that would be at least two different sets of people. Liga is probably who stole your things, along with your chocobos, and he was riding off into (or away from?) the sunset before you came back.”
“Liga?” Sindarius asks.
“Big boisterous fella,” Linnet says. “Supposed to be training your son Enrico in master swordsmanship. Didn’t seem to be working for either of them.”
“I think Enrico may have left some dents in the walls,” Bast adds.
“He said that he was cheated out of his promised payment,” Yves explains helpfully, “and that he was going to go back and collect it that night. The next I saw, he was riding a herd of chocobos away, and when I got back here, the estate was in an uproar. I can see how it would be very upsetting, but I think that’s coincidental to your current…state.”
“Of course he would have, if the damned fool thought he could be a master swordsman,” Sindarius gripes.
“Not his strong point?” Bast asks.
Linnet, seemingly out of useful things to contribute to the conversation, has opened Green Study, Volume 1 and begun speed-reading the first few chapters.
Sindarius shakes his head. “Nothing is the boy’s strong point. He does everything for a week, fails once, and never tries again. I’d given up on him long ago.”
Arendall half-prances over, frustrated but desperately attempting — and failing — to not let it show. “Could one of you fine and independent people please go over and ensure that no one is in the station that would recognize Sindarius and cause us all quite the commotion before I can take him away from here safely back to Saron?”
Yves blinks. “But how would any of /us/ know all the people who would recognize him? I don’t think any of us are local.”
Orrey’s eyes narrow at the mention of Saron.
“Isa, if you have any desire to go, you’re welcome to, but I’m certainly not going to force you.” Linnet doesn’t look up from the book. The table of contents was really long.
Yves leans forward to read over Linnet’s shoulder. Oo. Science.
“If I can be frank, my lady,” Isa’s got to be doing it on purpose now, “I’m not here for them. I’m here for you.”
Arendall sputters incoherently for a moment, and then just barges off without saying another word.
“Of course.” Linnet motions Isa closer and mutters in her ear, “Look, could you take one for the team and go after him just to make sure he doesn’t do anything really nefarious? Or criminally stupid? Possibly take Bast with you? He knows from nefarious. Team Academic over here has a date with several pitchers of coffee and a speed-reading marathon.”
“I knew someone like that once – last thing he tried was testing a glider he built on a mountain. Turned out he wasn’t as good an engineer as he thought.” Bast cocks his head curiously, looking at Sindarius. “So…do you want to go with him? Seems odd that he’d be trying to get you away from your home like that.”
“If I stay here, it can only go poorly,” Sindarius says. He looks at his estate, back the way he came. “if I was brought here to hurt them, staying makes them a target. Kelsey’s a good man, and a friend.”
Once Linnet’s in close enough, Isa allows more than a few words. “I’m not leaving his muscle here alone with you, no.”
“…right. Sorry, didn’t think that one through,” Linnet acknowledges.
“That’s why you pay me,” Isa says with a firm nod.
“I can provide an escort,” Yves says. “The station’s not far. I just need to be fast about it, as I’m already promised for help with the book tonight.”
Isa nods again. “We’ll let Yves do it.”
“If you’re up for it, you’re welcome to. Just…keep an eye on him.” Linnet’s eyebrows are attempting to indicate all that is left unsaid in that sentence.
“I’ll be very watchful,” Yves says earnestly. And he’s probably better at watching now that the hat is off. “And back by the time the coffee is ready and the sections divvied up between readers.”
Bernier Station is almost completely empty — there are two cactuar here, poinging at each other, and then the new one is wearing the conductor’s hat, and Yves is sure he didn’t see it actually change heads.
Yves looks around for any suspicious characters, or people who might be long-lost relatives and/or enemies of tonberries.
There is a train at the station, a luxurious purple and silver train, and Arendall is standing just inside, having an animated conversation with someone Yves cannot see. Arendall’s back is to the rest of the station.
Other than the cactuar, there is no one here.
Yves hurries over to take a quick look at who Arendall is talking to, so that he can report back that there is Nothing Suspicious At All going on and everyone can return to drawing, reading, guarding, being undead, and so forth.
As Yves gets closer, he can see, around Arendall’s coat as the nobleman paces about, that he’s talking to a cactuar in a purple conductor’s hat. Yves can also overhear Arendall, as he’s not keeping his voice down.
“…ready the finest room for him! I cannot tell you how distraught he is. My chambers, the best meal we can put together, anything at all he needs. Consult the map, find the best medical station, I demand that we have a doctor look him over at the earliest possible opportunity! Alitheia will understand — you agree, don’t you? Of course you do. The city is gone, I don’t know who took the city, but we can still find it. The most important matter was the book. The book is in hand. Surely they’ll understand that we could only get one of the two.
“No, I don’t know where those others are coming from or where they are going, but — no, absolutely not. They could mean him harm!
“They brought his son’s lantern, then suddenly Sindarius has been roused from his eternal slumber? Entirely too dangerous. Entirely too risky. They can go about their merry way, and the sooner they do, the better.”
He pauses. “Oh, yes, please, that would be delightful. Any other information you can find would be tremendous. Capital.”
Yves makes a tiny note or two in his notebook, so that he doesn’t forget important things later when distracted by coffee, and then hurries right on back to where he left everyone.
A few minutes after that, Arendall rejoins the group. “The engine is warm, the meal is being prepared. Sindarius, please, allow me to escort you to safety. Alitheia, with us.” To the rest of you, a bow. “It has been an experience meeting you. Give my best to all of yours, and if you are ever in Saron, do feel free to stop by and say hello. North side of town, Kelsey T. Arendall. A-R-E-N-D-A-L-L. No E at the end, everyone wants to put an E at the end.”
“Master Valles, before you go…would you like me to get a message to Director Thornwell? As both a friend of yours and the most academically-minded individual I’ve ever met, I’m sure she’d be, uh, interested? to learn of your situation and to search for an answer,” Linnet asks.
Sindarius thinks.
“Tell her I said ‘she was right.’”
“…will do, sir. Um…best of luck? We’ll be happy to help should we run into you again, but I hope you won’t take it amiss if I express the sincere desire for that not to happen?” Linnet looks embarrassed, but in earnest.
“One last thing, Master Arendall. Who was the gentlemoogle who purchased the musical instruments at the auction, and was bidding on the book you won?” Orrey asks. “The one in the top hat, if that helps.”
Arendall stops and spins around, mid-exit step. “Ah, that would be Mogikesh Andrade III, who hosts the most excellent monthly tea parties. Why, just three weeks ago I was sitting in his parlor as he told me all about the day’s events! I’ve never bothered to keep up with those, hardly important. Upstanding citizen! Or so he tells me.”
Orrey nods his thanks and gets out his notebook/sketchbook, writing down a few notes and drafting a quick sketch of Sindarius as well.
Bast deliberately turns slightly more away from Arendall so his eyeroll can pass unnoticed.
The three of them pass into the night, heading for the train station.
“Interesting conversation with, uh, his cactuar,” Yves notes, once those three seem well out of earshot. “I don’t know what all that conspiring is about. Maybe it’s just outsourcing. Should we get to work on the book?”
“More conspiring?” Bast asks.
“Preferably inside, now that we’re not in the company of obvious and distinctive individuals?” Isa prods.
“Obvious and distinctive? You mean, aside from Hatbunny here?” Linnet picks up Yves’ hat and grins at him.
“Yeah, we could use better lighting and more caffeine,” Orrey says.
The Velvet Sundown has many large tables and some understanding staff, Most of them know you all pretty well by now, since you’ve been dozing off in the booths.
“He wanted the missing city and that creepy book for an unspecified ‘them’. But he seems sincere about watching out for his old friend,” Yves says.
Orrey freezes midstride at the mention of THEM!!! " ‘Them’…Saron…this can’t be good."
Yves is more than ready to head into the land of caffeine.
Isa turns. “Pray tell why not?”
Yves looks back at the window. “Do… do we need to follow that train? Because, I mean, we have this book to read, and I can do it in a tavern, but I don’t think I can do it while galloping after a train or something like that.”
“I’m perfectly fine with letting them go on their mostly-merry way.”
Linnet nearly walks into a coat rack, still flipping through the book – having encountered nothing relevant so far – but looks up when Yves asks. “I mean, he did tell us exactly where to look him up. I think we can spare ten hours or so.”
“Good point,” Yves says, and grabs his /first/ cup of coffee.
“The civil war. The unrest. The Avengers, or some group masquerading at them kidnapping people. Whatever that Alexander book is, it can’t be good for the people of Saron,” Orrey says.
Isa’s eyes narrow, but it’s more confusion than suspicion. “Avengers.”
“One of the two political factions, much more liberal and progressive thinking.”
“Right. I hadn’t heard them descend to kidnapping.”
400 pages of dense scientific tome. Eleven hours before your train takes you away from Caerwyn at long last. Caffeine on tap. The all-nighter… begins.
The book is complicated, as you’d imagine, but it’s more complicated than you actually ended up imagining. There’s a lot in here about Job Crystals and how one would change the crystal itself with the blessing of the Empress.
The book is best served being broken into two categories: Theology and Science. They are both very long, mixed in with each other, and profess to have much to do with each other despite barely ever speaking to each other. The Empress was said to both control the crystal and speak for the Crystal’s will, and it was through petitioning the Empress that the Crystal could alter a man’s fate. The Science of it is peculiar — repeatable, but difficult, and it had to be done in stages. Brought before the Great Crystal and the Empress, work would be done in stages, shifting the nature of the Job bit by bit. The rituals had to be done on a certain time of day for each Job; Farmers, for example, could only be shifted in the late afternoon, as the sun drifted toward the mountains. For more challenging Jobs, the shift could also be limited by season, mandating that these rare, powerful Jobs only be allowed for petitioners under a blood moon, or when a certain constellation was overhead.
The theories that have sprung up around this focus on the physical Crystal itself, and how the veins within the Crystal focus its innate power. Channeling an art through a Crystal allows the Crystal’s power to enhance the user’s own, stepping outside of actual physical limitations. Examinations of Black Mage Job Crystals show that the Crystals have fully identical internal constructions, with the only difference being the skill of the wielder.
There were times where more skill was called for, where a Crystal had to be changed to something advanced, or an ill omen had to be remedied. The Job Crystal could be transmuted to a more powerful Crystal, giving the skill of a seasoned warrior or an expert farmer to a fresh neophyte. The skill of the wielder made no difference; in this case, the Crystal itself supplied all of its own guidance and its own power. The example given in the text is one of benevolence, a young woman with the curse of Polytheistic Sight, and to free her from the madness of her visions, her Crystal was changed to that of a simple Archer, until she died in Saine.
These advanced alterations could only occur inside something called the Crystarium, under the guidance of the Crystal Exarch.
(Upon reading that last part, Linnet pulls the Crystarium book out of her bag and holds it ready on her lap.)
Bast gives Linnet a look and tosses one of the cleaner napkins from the table over the book.
This earns him a slightly wild-eyed glare between frantically flipped pages.
“You’re glowing, Linnet.”
What can be said about the Crystarium, the crystal tower that appeared in the heart of Machanon without warning and remained for exactly a year before disappearing just as abruptly, that has not already been said? Much, for Alterna did their best to wipe it from history. However, records recovered in Saine speak to the magical impossibility that the Crystarium represented, and shadows of its breakthroughs remain in our society.
…but it’s hard to read at 9 AM, when your eyelids want to slam shut and your fingers are ready to fall off.
Between the full group, though… you are pretty sure you have enough information to give to Ryna Jidoor.
Isa nodded off long ago, legs stretched out and ankles crossed so that anyone attempting to charge the nerd table would at least trip over her.
Yves sleeps with his head pillowed on his arms atop the table, an overturned (empty) cup resting beside one outstretched hand.
Linnet finishes copying a last sentence in slightly shaky handwriting and slams Orrey’s spare notebook closed, emphatically enough to jolt her companions.
Orrey is massaging his cramped hand and sort of staring off without focusing on anything.
“Orrey, Yves?” Linnet asks. “Want to come with me to the station?”
Isa snaps awake instantly, and is alert with impressive speed. “All done? How much time until the train?”
“Right around an hour.”
Only if there’s something stronger than coffee there. Orrey realizes he only thought that last sentence. “Coffee…”
Yves jerks awake. “THOSE AREN’T MY—” He blinks several times, and yawns enormously. “Is. Train? The thing? With the thing. Done. Is it? Yes? …coffee….”
“…or I can go and you two can nap. Or mainline more coffee.”
“Right. Coffee all around.” Isa sets off to acquire this stuff, and her greatest flaw is revealed. She’s a morning person.
Thus released, Yves puts his head back down, and is asleep in seconds.
Linnet looks at the bleary-eyed Orrey and Bast. “Last call in case anyone wants to come along. Not planning to hunt for coffee on the way.”
Orrey stands up. “I really don’t think I want to go to sleep with all of these diagrams floating around in my brain. I’ll come with.” Orrey pokes Yves a few times and then gives up and follows Linnet out.
Isa has left a pot of coffee behind for the layabouts, and is sipping from her own tin cup as she follows Linnet outside.
Linnet nudges Yves’ painting a little further under the table, then leads the way, anxiously clutching a notebook.
The morning sun is bright and cheery, at least to some of you.
Ryna is waiting in line at the station, perhaps four people back from boarding.
“Ryna!” Linnet waves the notebook and runs over.
She looks over, eyebrows raising, ears tipping forward. “Linnet?” she says, hopefully.
“Take this. If there’s anything with even a remote chance of helping your friend, it’s in here. I’m very sorry to have caused you so much distress over the book…hopefully this will go some small way toward making up for that.”
Ryna looks like she’s about to burst into tears with relief.
“And…drop me a line if it does work? I work at the Bresha University Library in Caelonde. Well, I’m on a leave of absence, but I think they’ve still got a mailbox for me.” “Fair winds go with you.” Linnet is kind of blushing. And slightly swaying. She might need a nap.
The train whistle blows, and Ryna tries to gather up her bags while also clutching the notebook in both hands. “I will. I will! Thank you! If it does, I’ll let you know!” she calls out, trying to board backwards.
Linnet sticks around long enough to wave the train off, then turns back to her companions. “Orrey, you’re amazing. Isa and Bast, thank you for going along with this. I’ll give Yves his own round of squishy thanks when he wakes up.”
Orrey blushes a bit, smiling as he avoids Linnet’s gaze by looking at the ground. “We should get back to Yves before he wakes up and sees we’re all gone.”
Isa shrugs, after a sip of coffee. “I literally have nowhere else to be.”
“And coffee,” Orrey adds after a yawn.
“Might as well.” Bast looks more awake, but decidedly not into train stations at this hour.
“Yeah, let’s go,” Linnet says. “And then maybe we can find somewhere slightly more intended for sleeping? I’m about ready to peace the heck out of here.”
When you return to the Velvet Sundown, at least one member of your group is still fast asleep — Ingrid gave up on all of you at about 3 AM and has not moved from the booth she’s curled up in.
Yves is lounging at a table flipping through his notebook, a cup of coffee in hand. He looks… surprisingly perky.
There’s no one else in here, either.
Linnet gives Yves a scapula-crushing hug, but her planned thanks are cut a bit short by the odd silence. “I was going to get all squishy on how awesome you are, but…what the hell…”
And then a shadow isn’t a shadow after all.
Yves flushes a bit golden under the hug. Right up until there’s something else to notice.
That broken mask is resting on the back of the booth seat behind Yves.
The mask tips to the side, gaping eyeholes looking at the back of Yves’s head.
And then it leans forward, just a bit, and… bumps its forehead against the back of Yves’s head, almost… lovingly.
Then you hear footsteps from the kitchen, someone returning with a new pan of batter, and the mask tips back, lifeless.
Yves glances back to see what bopped his head. “Thought that was in my bag,” he says, and scoops up the mask to stuff back into his satchel. “But I got pretty punchy around five in the morning, with all that coffee in me.”
“…Yves, that mask just moved. Like, bumped you in the back of the head. By itself. What the flippin’ tornado-filled hells are you doing carrying it around?”
“I didn’t want to,” Isa says flatly.
Yves opens his bag, and peers inside. “It could’ve just been vibrations from a train passing. It hasn’t been twitching in my bag or anything…”
The mask does not move at all inside Yves’s bag.
“Yves, there was no train passing. …call me crazy, but I swear on the Director’s lantern, that thing moved by itself. You might want to weigh it down with some heavy things. Or, like, wrap it in lead or something.” Linnet has still not actually let go of Yves.
Yves takes the mask out, and turns it over in his hands. This is a slightly awkward proposition with a Linnet limpeted to him. “…well, that’s weird, but I guess we already knew this was weird. And I don’t think it’s a good idea to leave it behind. I’ll keep it buckled up in the satchel from now on. Or I could wrap it, sure. Safe handling protocols.”
“Or split it up,” Orrey says.
“Like, take turns carrying it?”
Linnet only now realizes she’s still hugging Yves, and she disentangles herself while being careful not to touch the mask. “I’m not sure breaking it would necessarily solve the problem of it moving by itself.”
“That depends on how thoroughly you break it,” Isa considers.
“I mean, it wasn’t particularly threatening just now, but still, it’s a mask that moves by itself. And I know this sounds like sleep-deprived madness, but that generally doesn’t set in for another two days minimum,” Linnet says.
Iv’d like a closer look at it, at some point," Bast says. “Before Plan Sledgehammer, by preference.”
Yves clutches his bag to his chest. “You can’t just go /breaking/ rare artifacts involved in mysterious possibly hostile metaphysical events! That could do any number of terrible things!”
Isa shrugs. “I’m not committed to it. If it moves from loving nudges to eating your skull, let me know.”
“…I think we all need another round of coffee,” Linnet says.
Bast hops into his side of the booth. “I’ll join you. …so, what is the plan for this painting?”
Yves looks down at it under the table. “…hang it up once I have some walls, again? Or trade it for drugs. Could go either way on that. Guess I’d have to find an artistically inclined dealer.”
Bast just smiles in response.
End session.
Linnet’s telegram:
[To: Director Jehu Thornwell From: Field Agent
Mission accomplished! Plus extras. Should I return right away or give the fires more time to die down? Also, Sindarius sends regards, says “she was right.” Exact quote. Not making this up; interesting trip. ~L]