#i hope we get just as many options in xiv

[gatheredfates]

(COUNT)DOWN TO DAWNTRAIL FREE DAY ･*☆

When I made the (Count)Down to Dawntrail challenge, the one thing I was most excited for was the Free Day. I had specifically stated one of the options you could do for this day was to talk about how the people you met through XIV and how they made a positive impact on your life, and that was what I was going to do.

For me, when I started doing my question drives however long ago, I was committed to being the change I wanted to see in the world. While the XIV community is a cut above the rest in that people are genuinely interested in other oc's, ships and work(s), I have been in communities where that's not the case, and I know the sensation of feeling like you are putting your work out there, putting your work out there and putting your work out there... and it feels like no one is interested.

Equally, I have also felt the cut of anxiety as it goes, 'I really want to interact with this person, but what if they think I'm weird? What if they take it the wrong way?'

—So what if they think I'm weird?

That was kind of my whole mantra. I was going to make as genuine effort as I could muster to interact with the community, send asks to people and to try and learn/remember as much as I could. I wanted people to feel like someone was reading their work and confident to reach out to people they were interested in getting to know.

If someone wanted to take a bad-faith interpretation of my work, so what? So what if they think I'm weird; so what if they don't like me? Nothing I could do was ever going to change their mind, so why should I worry about an insignificant possibility that wasn't going to affect me beyond a block and a funny story to tell my friends? And if that small risk was going to earn me more friends with whom I could share more funny stories with... isn't the risk worth it? Be kind, take no shit; the same mantra I have carried with me since 2023.

Not only that, but if I could inspire other people to reach out and interact too, wouldn't that be amazing? I think we're all conditioned online to be afraid of being 'too much'; too weird, too forward, too outgoing. We all want interaction but are afraid to interact in case its misinterpreted. That sucks. In my mind, if I interacted—if I even showed other people who would respond to their efforts positively—and they reached out behind me, that was worth it.

Cultivating that kind of community is always worth it.

It's been a very healing journey for me, honestly. I've come out of my shell a lot, dispelling my own anxieties and coming to grips with my traumas that were honestly the result of just bad happenstance and the fact I was young—rather than me doing anything obscenely wrong. I have met lots of wonderful people, read so many interesting stories and learned so much about a myriad of fascinating WoL's (and regular ocs!). I've also met people who are interested in my work, even if I tend to showcase it a lot less.

So, from the bottom of my heart, thank you.

Thank you for supporting me with the Compendium. Thank you for enthusiastically replying to my asks. Thank you for supporting me with (Count)Down to Dawntrail. Thank you for setting aside a little space for me in your day, because none of these projects would have a hope of working without the support of the community. That's the honest truth.

Before I go, I'd like to extend a couple of personal thanks:

—To SEAFLOOR (Tumblr Community & Discord): thank you for your constant support for my projects. A huge thank you to everyone in the discord with the social role who just wanted to hang out and be friends. I am honoured to have fostered a healthy, vibrant community full of wonderful people who uplift, support and help each other. Running this space hasn't once felt like a burden and that is entirely a credit to your maturity, kindness and accommodations. Thank you. Sdmin and mof are warm in my heart.

—To Firelight Trading Company (and associates): my best pals, I love you! Thank you for always being by my side. Thank you for all the laughs, the endless shenanigans and your unwavering support with The Fireside and the Parlour. Without you, none of my stories would be where they are. Thank you for making my life (and my roleplay) richer. You all mean the world to me, really. Even if you are little shits.

—To Pepper, the platonic love of my life: I love you. This goes without saying. Thank you for being my best friend for all these years. Thank you for being a grounding force and support, even if you're an introvert riding the coattails of a sadistic extrovert who loves thrusting you into 'situations'. I'd like to sum up our friendship with two images that articulate who we are as people.

Okay, okay. I lied (kinda). Here's the real one.

—To anyone who has ever liked a post of mine, made a nice comment, tagged me in a dash game, went to the Fireside, etc. etc: know you hold a special place in my heart. I really, really mean it. I am god-awful at sincerity, but I hope it reaches you all the same.

With that, however, onwards—to Tural!

[risingoflights]

Hmm, you don't feel comfortable talking about it unless someone asks your opinions? Then this is your official ask!

I've never played the critically acclaimed- er, you know. And I have no idea what the Ilsabard Region is or what its story and tone are.

So! What is it, and how does it compare to what you've experienced of Rebirth so far? What do you get from one that's missing in the other? What are the strengths and weaknesses of each narrative, and which do you feel, at this point, will have the most replay value?

(Plus anything else that's crossed your mind!)

ah friend, you should know better than to ask, but thank you for asking <3

leaving xiv out of this for a moment, i can tell you exactly why chapter 7 specifically of rebirth is the one to have caused me to openly gripe.

and, as you might expect, it's to do with hojo.

i was always going to judge the entirety of this game by its handling of hojo, and so far i've been sorely disappointed. standing by what i said in my previous post about nostalgia and fandom goggles, i still believe there was more written into hojo in og than, say, scarlet and heideggar. and since remake did a decent job rounding out president shinra, i was hoping hojo would get similar treatment. so far though, it seems like they've gone the opposite way.

i try not to make too many comparisons to og because many characters are pointedly deviating away from their og characterisations (rufus seems a standout so far), but this point in og was importantly where hojo started shaping up to be more than the trope he began as. it was crucial that as soon as sephiroth reappeared, hojo abandoned shinra. in fact if memory serves, someone (heideggar or rufus?) even points this out in og - hojo's 'disappeared'. then when you see him in costa and cloud asks why he's there, hojo admits 'the same reason as you'. cloud was chasing sephiroth, so was hojo. and he was doing it without shinra because finding sephiroth wasn't on shinra's agenda - at least not at that point.

i was actually so hopeful and happy at the end of remake where the camera pans across the executives lined up in front of rufus, and hojo is decidedly missing - off laughing to himself...! excellent! that defiance seems to have led nowhere in rebirth!

you could argue that in rebirth, hojo decided to continue using shinra resources to go after sephiroth and he's still playing his own long game. doesn't change the fact that rufus was openly out to kill sephiroth now - so what did he tell hojo to make him stay, if hojo had wanted to leave? i mean, you could argue a lot of things to make things make things deeper. and maybe things will get deeper - i'm only halfway through rebirth after all - but rebirth hojo was still on the beach to capture the robes and study them. that single-minded drive and obsession with sephiroth just isn't present. it felt like the icing off the original cake. the bikini girls fawning on him, really fun! him throwing off-handed remarks about recruiting them for his sephiroth breeding program, noooooot... as fun! the whole shinra bigwig come to town, johnny being made to carry his briefcase and push crowds on the beach out of his way? ish! sort of a... dazzling superficial picking of what that scene originally was? did i laugh? yes! was i let down? also yes!

the other thing that really grated on me was the optional aerith dialogue, but that's no surprise - the whole aerith situation has been one big headache for me so far and promises to continue to be so. talk to aerith on the beach and she says a bunch of things about hojo culminating in 'i hate him'. oh. oh, like we really needed this explicitly said? you know, what i really loved about og here is twofold - 1. hojo doesn't appear to even remember aerith's name, which is such a good demonstrating of him not registering her as worthy of ifalna, compared to rebirth where hojo literally yells this at her during battle. this was one of the neat little consistent touches about og hojo - he didn't give a shit, but passively and dismissively - like, it's not so much he deliberately chose to harm others as he just didn't even register harming others as a concept, which made the few people and times he did choose to be sadistic stand out more. and 2. og aerith, instead of... any of the ugly things she could've said to and about hojo, asks him about her lineage and connection to sephiroth instead. how loaded does that make their relationship? that no matter what he did to her and her mother, she still registers him as a source of knowledge and felt pressed to ask him despite the subject being a particular sore point for her?

og aerith probably also hated hojo - i mean, that just makes sense. but the way that scene played out really sets precedent for more questions... what more? what else? which. i guess summarises a lot of the issues i have with rebirth so far. that whole sense of wonder is just not there. the game likes to hand you everything, tell you exactly what to think. this is often done at its detriment, because real complexity simply cannot be spoonfed! BUT - i have to keep reiterating - nostalgia and fandom goggles. they're grafted to my face and i can't take them off.

....so after all that, would you still like to hear about ilsabard? i realise i've just completely failed to answer all your questions but, thank you for allowing me to vent a little!

[the-corner-window]

Endwalker: A Retrospective (1/2)

Final Fantasy XIV's most recent expansion "Endwalker" has been a big point of conversation within the community for some time since its release back on December 3rd, 2021. It released to high critical acclaim as the summation of a ten year long saga within one of the most popular MMORPGs available on the market today. I want to look back at the long walk to the end before we blaze a new trail unto the dawn. As someone who's logged several thousand hours over the course of my journey throughout Etheirys I've finished many quests, ran a majority of the content (excluding Ultimates, in due time...), and met a wide range of folks sinking time into one of my favorite games. First off, we dive right into the Main Scenario Questline, hereon referred to as the "MSQ". Most of anything the expansion entails requires you to have conquered the arduous journey the game lays out before you. The production quality of the MSQ is well above where it started, and the increase in quality of the cinematic direction, the voice acting, and the narrative intrigue have all played into making Endwalker truly feel like the culmination of all that came before it. The emotional beats hit hard in some spots, and there's a good mix of light-heartedness in between momentous crescendos that act as a sort of palate cleanser to keep things from becoming strenuous or overbearing for an expansion story the length of a standalone single player RPG. I want to refrain from going into much detail in consideration of those players that have yet to complete the MSQ, but there were a few scenes that actually choked me up, and I'm not typically one to get emotional consuming media. Though that can be said for the base Endwalker MSQ, or the "6.0" content, there was something lackluster about the narrative that followed the climax that felt weaker in comparison. The quality is still there, and in some ways they showcased more of what I hope we get to experience in Dawntrail, however nothing about the more isolated adventure really had me buzzing off the same high as some of the previous post-patch story content such as within Shadowbringers or Heavensward. I do hope that we see some payoff in content down the line, perhaps in the next expansion or even further out, but as of now it felt like getting a lukewarm brownie as a dessert after eating a perfectly seasoned steak. That may seem a bit harsh, but I did still enjoy the brownie. On the topic of the endgame however, I must admit I'm speaking in near isolation since I was a much more casual player before Endwalker released. The encounters ranging from Extreme Trials to Savage Raiding feel really solid, if a bit intense at times. Raiding has been my primary focus in the game for nearly 2 years at this point aside from MSQ completion and it's been fun, but frustrating. Having done some of the more mid-tier content in Stormblood and Shadowbringers such as Eureka, Bozja, and Ishgardian Restoration, the options available to me in the post-patches of Endwalker seemed to amount to either Savage Raiding or using a spreadsheet to upgrade my Island Sanctuary which isn't my favorite kind of content by any means. I had no real drive to push through the new Criterion Dungeons since there was nothing they offered that I felt worth the hassle of pursuing, and Deep Dungeons have never been my favorite content so I've gotten little time in with the new Eureka Orthos. In the end, here just weeks away from Dawntrail's release, my biggest drive to log in is getting my alternative Jobs I've neglected up to the current max level, meeting new people through the more social aspects of the game such as visiting player-run venues, and running PvP activities to finish off my Series.

[kdndigital]

I was so busy and tired the last couple days of Gen Con that I didn't take many pics and didn't write much down. I played in about 8-9 hour of DnD each day and walked a ton, so no surprise that I wore myself out.

But I want to note some highlights so I don't forget about them:

--I played 6 games of dnd 5e, and all except one of them was super fun.

--Dungeons and Doggies was particularly adorable and hilarious. I was even almost moved to tears. Since there were some kids at the table, I let everyone else choose characters first until only 2 were left: a golden retriever wizard or a cattle dog ranger. There was only ever one option for me...

--I also loved playing Dungeons and Desserts with my friend, Chris. It's based on the book Legends and Lattes, which I have just started reading. During the game, I realized my character with a folk hero background would vehemently disagree with the rest of the party's decisions. My artificer would have to go a bit rogue in his attempts to do good. Not my usual style to split off and be secretive, but the GM and the rest of the players helped me roll with it. We ate cookies, successfully established a coffee shop, and turned a mob-like thieves guild into an HOA.

--I saw some cool cosplays, but not as many as previous years. Either there were less cosplayers, or I was so holed up in dnd games that I missed them. I particularly enjoyed the giant balloon gnomes, an excellent Lup with hand-sewn rib cage, Tim the Enchanter, and these two Final Fantasy XIV characters who were super nice people...

--I had a very good time just talking with people. One convinced me that next time I go to Gen Con I should go to one of the burlesque shows because apparently they are phenomenal. Another helped me pick out the perfect color dragon eye earrings and sold me her Urban Dragon book. Some shared their love of NADDPOD and we reminisced about the Band of Boobs and shared thoughts on the latest campaign. Some folks gave good game and podcast recommendations, and other folks shared cosplay tricks and details. A sweet bartender shared her story of sobriety and paid for my NA beer. And most others were just superbly cool.

--In fact, I better give a shout out to Mimic Dice. On Thursday night I was on my own at a busy Thai restaurant, waiting for my food order. I had sat at a high top with another girl waiting for her order, but she had left after her food arrived. I was planning to move out of the way as soon as a group needed my table or I would stay if some other lone person wanted to share. A group of tired folks with matching Tshirts came in, so I told them they should take my table. They insisted that I stay while a couple of them went to wait in line to order food. So I chatted with a woman named Andrea and she was very cool and nice. My food arrived and she insisted that I should stay and eat with them. So I did. I felt a little bad since their food didn't even arrive until I was finished, though I did share some spring rolls. They were fabulous company, with stories of fun and frustrations playing DnD. Of course I made sure to stop by their booth the next day, and I picked up some fabulous dice for me and kiddo. Thanks, Mimic Dice crew!

--Before we left, I hit the dealer's room one more time. I walked away with more tea and stickers, picked up a TS bracelet for kiddo, and bought 5 beautiful art prints for her and myself. I could say I bought too much, but we did skip 5 years of the con, so I had catching up to do, right?

Who knows what will happen next year, but I hope to go again soon :) Thanks, fabulous people at Gen Con!

(Don't ask how many selfies it took to get most of the words to show on the shirt without making myself looking awful and awkward. It was on the long car ride home after 4 days of the con...so this is the best ya get.)

[crossroadsdimension]

I know it hasn't come up here a lot because a lot of the posts I've made in the last couple of years have had something to do with Final Fantasy XIV (or other FF games, since I've played 16) -- but I'm a Pokemon fan. Not on a competitive level, but I definitely like to dig into the lore and the story and go on a collection spree when the games let me.

(That last bit is why I haven't completed Legends Arceus yet because I've been trying to perfect as many entries as possible. I've got the last of the Nobles on my hit list and I'm terrified because I've heard he's...big. I'll face him soon, is the plan.)

But with Pokemon Day coming up on Tuesday, I figured I'd throw my hat into the ring for guessing at what games they're going to be announcing next for the main console stuff. Personally, I don't expect they'll get a lot of attention because The Pokemon Company has a lot of pies to put fingers in, but I hope for at least one new main series game teaser. Two at most.

What games, though, is a question, because I'm seeing 4 options here.

Black and White Remakes (or Sequels depending on what they decide to do with the plot)

Another Legends game (potentially Jhoto, which I'm seeing rumors for, or maybe Unova.)

Let's Go Jhoto games

Pokemon Mystery Dungeon Explorers remake (wishful thinking on my part, I know.)

I'm gonna go ahead and put my thoughts as to why for each of these under the cut cause this post is gonna get long.

So, firstly -- Black and White Remakes/Sequels

Thinking they'll announce this is honestly pretty obvious. With all the hints that Scarlet and Violet dropped in the Indigo Disc DLC, what with the location of Blueberry Academy and the Elite Four kids being from Unova (Lacey being Clay's kid, Drayton being Drayden's grandson, etc), you'd be a fool not to think about this being a possibility. Not a guarantee, certainly, but a possibility all the same.

How they could tackle Unova, though, is another question, because either they're gonna remake Black and White wholesale and leave B2/W2 to collect dust, or they're going to continue the storyline further forward from where B2/W2 left off. I mean, I'd love to see how insane Ghestis got after we trounced him so thoroughly and the Shadow Triad spirited him away. The ninjas said their boss was broken when you run into them in Iccirus City post-game, after all. I'd love to see how far he spiraled!

But that's just wishful thinking. We're probably just going to get a bog-standard B/W remake. Whether or not it's in the same style as Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl, well...we'll have to wait and see.

(But I would love it if the acknowledged Ingo's absence from the Battle Subway somehow...and maybe gave us an in-game event if the game acknowledged that we completed Legends Arceus? One where Ingo comes home?)

Speaking of -- a new Legends game

With how popular Legends Arceus has gotten, it wouldn't surprise me if they continued the trend of games that cover some of the Pokemon world's history. What region and what story are probably going to be up in the air, but I could see it going either for Jhoto or Unova. Both because they're due for remakes (either the Let's Go variant or the bog-standard generation remakes we've been seeing) and because of the hints being dropped about Unova. And if they do the "protagonist gets time traveled" bit again, Jhoto would make more sense just because of Celebi's presence. Although I'm gonna withhold judgement until we get more info. I think, at this point, I'm just wondering who else from a battle facility is gonna get ripped across time and space and lose their memory in the process. Because first it was Anabel from the Battle Tower in Hoenn (via Ultra Wormholes to another dimension), then it was Ingo to Hisui (via space-time rift because of the absence of Ultra Beasts)....

...if Emmet was with his brother at the moment the rift opened and swallowed Ingo, I wouldn't be surprised if they fell together and were separated in the rift, I'll be honest. He could pop up in the next Legends game for all we know.

Moving on! Let's Go Jhoto

Considering it's been a few years since Pikachu&Eevee, we're probably overdue for another Gen 2 remake. And if they pair up a region remake and a Legends game, that means that Legends Jhoto and Let's Go Jhoto could be a pair, like BDSP and Legends Arceus. What Pokemon you'd have as your partners, though, I have very little idea. I remember seeing someone suggest Togepi and Wooper, which...I'll accept the first one, but I'm not so sure about the other.

Now for some wishful thinking.

It's been 4 years since Pokemon Mystery Dungeon Rescue Team DX was released in March 2020. I don't know about you guys, but I would love to see the Explorers games get the same treatment. An announcement at Pokemon Presents would be something I plan to squeal non-stop about. But I'm not expecting it, because not a lot of people are talking about wanting a remake for it on social media right now.

I'll be honest with you, I'm mostly putting this here because I'm nostalgic and I want to be able to play as a Vulpix in a Mystery Dungeon game on my Switch. And cry when the Emotions hit, because Explorers is very good at making the Emotions hit.

And those are my speculations! I'm not expecting anything to come from making this post, nor am I expecting to see these during the Pokemon Presents on Pokemon Day 2024. But I wanted to get my ramblings out in the open somewhere because I think I'm gonna explode if I just sit on them in a house where I'm the only Pokemon fan.

[holofoiltowercard]

The Journey of The Tarot Haiku

XIV: Temperance - Searching for balance

I often return to the subject of mental health while trying to relate the story of the book, because it has been a major aspect of my life for over a decade now. At the end of one year, I was a fresh graduate filled with hopes and prospects, and then the next year started and I was had completely collapsed. Some of my reality came falling down and pinned me under the rubble, and even though it was clear that something was deeply wrong and I was hurting, it took almost a decade to seek any kind of help. Everyone wanted me to just get over it, whatever it was, but god forbid I have to take medication or anything. Everyone warning me off it and never considering it as a viable and worthy option kept me for reaching out to a therapist. Out of the past twelve years, I have only been on medication for three. I am on medication right now, and today I'm telling you that it is okay, because sometimes getting help of this kind really is the answer to becoming more balanced and experiencing a renewal.

Again, I burned out at one point during my big project. I was on medication at the time, but I was also actively processing a lot of past and present trauma. Medication alone would not get me far, but I wouldn't have even reached this point without any. At one point when I could get off my past medication, I felt really good about it and got a little stubborn about staying off it, but I still needed help, I just ignored the idea because I desperately wanted to believe that I was in the final stages of my healing journey. And... I was not. I could have at least spared myself some of the pain and distress by going back and saying, my needs are the same, or they are different but they are needs all the same. Now I'm on medication again, and between taking my first dose and my next appointment, I finalized my manuscript and self-published it.

I guess my message for you all today is that you should do whatever it takes to achieve balance in your life, and keep in mind that you never do it all alone, by yourself, without any help whatsoever. No matter how many new age gurus tell you that you've got the power, always remember that we humans are social animals, and we got to where we are today because we have been there for one another. I could lie to your faces and say that I did my healing work completely on my own, but it's just not true and it's not helpful. I had family that took care of me as I slugged through the days bleak and suicidal. I had friends recommend videos to me that I watched and followed the advice of the person in them, and related my progress to listening ears. I told my therapists about my life and looked at their stunned and horrified faces and used that reaction as validation of my past trauma, validation that I needed so I could move forward. We all need validation of what we are struggling with; the tricky part is actually how much validation there is. If we only ever get validated for our pain, we will want to stay in pain otherwise we risk losing the one thing that we have to remind us that we did suffer. I needed the validation that I was not making up my depression, but from that point I also needed the reassurance that I don't have to settle for it because I deserve healing. It's a balancing game, always, and a lot of it depends on the support we can find to sustain us as we deal with it. So I just want you all to know that it's okay to seek help and to need support because we all need it. Please be kind to yourselves and to each other.

And for more wisdom, consider buying the book. All the insight I could muster within the framework of the Tarot is in there.

Buy the ebook

Buy the paperback

Buy the hardcover

[stresslitzia]

Rhapsody!! :D

Song rolled: Bad Luck Charm - Jeff Williams Themes: Shame, despair, the yearning to do what's right. Characters: Meteion (Final Fantasy XIV), Sora (Kingdom Hearts) Setting: One who's beyond used to destroying everything she touches returns to an old mission, and meets the one person who can mend everything that can be broken. Length: ~1.1k words

Pain is your reward for being near me Fate won't be your friend when I'm around Blame me for the tragedies that follow Grave, the situations that surround

The silence of the rift was deafening. Were it not for her sisters' constant chittering from the other Stars, Meteion felt she'd have long since succumbed to the selfsame despair as the rest of them. That world that intrigued her the most, that network of Stars in the furthest corner of the Sea of Stars, couldn't be much further now.

Wings to soar the Heavens, she reminded herself. Hermes gave me wings to soar the Heavens. Hermes wanted to know what distant Stars thought of being. The azure bird paused in her flight, turning to face the Star she'd come from. Why did she still yearn for her creator's approval? Hermes was long gone. And yet… "I have to do this for Hermes," she told herself- out loud, so she could hear something that wasn't just an echo in her own mind. "Such is… my purpose." And with that, she turned back to the network of distant Stars, pressing on with the intent of at least seeing what was there.

Clusters of Stars like this only formed when one was destroyed. Admittedly, she hadn't been too hopeful about the cluster as a result- but one of her sisters had mentioned seeing Starships traveling among the cluster. If a large enough Star could shatter into several smaller Stars, then perhaps it truly was worth a look. Perhaps it was akin to the Source and its Shards. Perhaps some traumatic event had shattered the Star, leaving it to merely exist with clones of itself…

The Sundering did not leave physical debris, she reminded herself, slowing her flight upon entering the cluster's range. There were so many options… so many Stars. It was hard to believe they were connected, once- but they were too close together to not have been. And each of the Stars, as she approached, gave off such a strong aura… She paused at each one, checking what the ambient emotions would be, before finally deciding to simply dive into one. The Star she chose had turned her blue feathers silver on approach- a sign that the ambient emotion was fear. Or perhaps anxiety. But it was not sorrow, or despair, so it was already better than many others she and her sisters had visited. The forests here seemed to stretch on forever in one direction, with a castle near the sea in the other.

"Individual self suspended," the bird spoke, fluttering down to the trees of the forest. "Connection with shared consciousness stable. Starbird number one hundred thirty-seven has made contact with the anomalous Star cluster. One Star within has been visited. Locals have yet to be seen. There is a castle, a lush forest, and a healthy sea." She paused, checking the leaves on the branch she now stood upon. "There is an anxious aura, but the Star seems stable. There is no immediate risk. We will reconnect ere we depart. …Suspending connection to shared consciousess. Individual self restored."

Meteion shook herself quickly to remove the stardust from her feathers before setting off through the forest, seeking out signs of life. Sure, the woods were lush- there were definitely animals here. But she needed to speak to someone sapient. Someone like… There! There, near the rock! She swooped down, hovering beside the person she'd found. A boy, about the same age as her keeper's youngest companions, dressed in black and red with short, spiky hair. He seemed to have companions who were prone to advancing without him, and when they disappeared into the brush, she chirped to get his attention.

"Greetings and salutations!" She chirped, earning a startled response from her target. Before he could speak up, she continued. "Do not be alarmed. I mean you no harm. I wish only to hear your words, share your feelings, and know your thoughts."

As though on instinct, the boy held a hand out to the mysterious, talking bird- and she landed with a grateful sigh, before tilting her head at him.

"May we please be friends?"

There was a moment of silence. It was less deafening than the silence of the Sea of Stars, but Meteion couldn't help but believe she hadn't been understood. That is, until she closed her eyes to transmit her message again, only to suddenly lose her balance as she was lifted a bit higher.

"What are you?" The boy asked, observing the silken silver feathers of the bird he held. "And why do you want to know so much about me?"

Meteion rose from his hand, moving instead to perch on his shoulder, where she would not be flipped around like a butterfly knife. "I am… Starbird one hundred thirty-seven… One of several thousand. Collectively known as the Meteia. You may call me Meteion. I was created on a distant Star known as Etheirys, and my purpose is to ascertain the meaning of existence. …To that end, I have caused Calamities, all inadvertent. My new keeper entrusted the goal of visiting distant Stars to me, such that I would cause no further harm while maintaining my original goal. This Star is an anomaly, part of a cluster that should not exist. …I seek to learn more of it."

It was only after her speech that Meteion noticed the look of sheer confusion in her companion's eyes. "…In short. I seek knowledge of where I am. All that you know- and your name, if you would be so kind."

"Oh! My name's Sora," the boy replied, practically beaming- glowing, even. "As for where you are… You're in the Kingdom of Corona. Or at least, the woods near it. …What do you mean, 'a cluster that shouldn't exist'?"

Meteion perked up, realizing she could finally actually explain the Stars to someone. This boy- this Sora- had crossed the Rift, too. He held an aura of hope and the scent of stardust. Just as she did. As such, she let herself spiral, sharing as many things as she could, answering every question, and accumulating as much knowledge as she could about the cluster. With her goal no longer requiring her to pose existential questions, it was much easier to prevent the conversation from becoming sorrowful. Over time, her plumage shifted from silver to a striking leaf-green. The color of friendship, not anxiety. And a color she had never been before.

"…But I'm not the one you want to ask about most of these things," Sora added, once the conversation had gone for so long that the duo had made their way to the shore of a pond. "I have friends who would know more. Maybe you'd like to meet them?" "Oh, yes, please!" Meteion replied, fluttering her wings excitedly. "There are plenty of me to go around. I can stay here and carry out my mission as normal." "Then you can join us. Visit more of the cluster you're interested in, and-" "And actually help?" "Yeah."

[thetoxicgamer]

Controversial WoW lookalike wants you to give it a shot

There is an absurdly wide range of enjoyable options available when it comes to MMO gaming. It can be challenging to compete with more well-known brands like World of Warcraft, yet many MMOs manage to do so. An new Tencent game called Tarisland made the rounds online a few months ago after World of Warcraft enthusiasts noticed how much it resembled the well-known MMO. In the present, Tarisland is scheduled to participate in closed beta testing for a period of time. Tarisland is a cross-platform MMO, so it’s launching across Android, iOS, and PC. We recently covered some of the reactions to it looking like WoW, a resemblance that did not go unnoticed by World of Warcraft players or developers, with WoW creator Dan ‘MrGM’ Carter tweeting out the game’s trailer with the caption “this new game from Tencent seems extremely familiar.” Despite the heat from the WoW community, Tarisland has just announced its closed beta, which is launching on June 27. The beta will be available to mobile players from certain regions, including Brazil, Canada, the Philippines, and the United Kingdom. PC players from all around the globe will be able to take part in the closed beta, with region locks applying solely to mobile fans. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lS1HZxsr_34 In the closed beta, you will be able to select one of the following character classes: Ranger, Paladin, Warrior, Mage, Priest, Bard, or Barbarian Fighter. You can then set off to explore maps like the Ancash Canyon, SilverLit, and the Misty Forest. Each area has its own respective storylines and quests for you to play alone or with friends as cross-progression is enabled. As most MMOs do, Tarisland will also offer other group-centered experiences like dungeons. The developers state, “Understanding the classes and how they interact will be necessary as players team up to take on raids and dungeons.” They also say that the closed beta will offer opportunities for unique rewards, writing that “the first to defeat the four dungeon bosses with a team of ten will receive exclusive Closed Beta rewards, including titles.” It seems that Tarisland is trying its best to get us to give it a chance, ensuring the community that it will also not be pay-to-win. All I can say is that I hope it all ends up ringing true, and that the game offers something new to the MMO crowd. Goodness knows I could use something other than Final Fantasy XIV or WoW to pour my time into when bored. If you are a hopeful World of Warcraft player yourself, be sure to check out some of the best WoW addons to help spice up your gameplay a bit. You can also read through our WoW Dragonflight review for some insight on the game’s latest expansion if you have been taking a break for a while and want to jump back into some new content. Read the full article

[kamoe]

Relaying my hopes and dreams for patch 7.0 in XIV. I’ll stick it under a read more cause it’s gonna be really long but I’m mostly writing this out for my own sake since I’m starting to become forgetful lately.

Firstly, I want 90s and 180s cooldowns to make a comeback. The 2 minute buff standardization was a massive flop for the game’s combat. Everything being on the same 2 minute loop with little to no variation is exceptionally boring and really sucks a lot of the fun out of doing harder content where part of the fun was planning buffs and burst windows around downtime to maximize party damage. When everything is the same every 2 minutes, a lot of that optimization is done for you, which sounds nice but it’s really boring in the long run. 6 minute rotations were a lot of fun and staved off a lot of the boredom associated with the repetitive nature of the game’s harder content. Some jobs like Machinist and Monk that have non-standard rotations that don’t loop “properly” are rare breeds that I frankly miss quite a bit.

I really want Dragoon to not get gutted like Paladin and Warrior did when it gets it’s rework. It honestly doesn’t even really need a rework from a functionality standpoint, it just needs a few tweaks and it’s there. Put Spineshatter on a 120s (or preferably 180s) cooldown, remove the second charge, and let it proc Mirage Dive. That way you can enter burst in the opener, delaying Life will no longer be required, and you’ll be able to double Life when Spineshatter is off cooldown. To compensate, I’d honestly also remove Dragonfire Dive and absorb it’s potency into your other oGCD’s to reduce button bloat and give you a weave window.

The level 100 abilities need to be good. So many of the level 80 and even 90 skills were just underwhelming. Scholar got, functionally, a really good mitigation tool and utility with Expedience, but thematically it just doesn’t work with it’s aesthetic. Monk’s level 80 skill is an exceptionally small use case optimization that you rarely get to use. Dragoon’s level 90 skill is cool but it’s uses clash with it’s rotation and adds to it’s weaving problem. Warrior’s level 90 skill is only a pinch stronger than it’s level 80 skill, so it really doesn’t have the impact it deserves. I’d really like the level 100 stuff to be really powerful, long-cooldown skills that serve like mini personal LB’s. Level 100 is a big milestone, it really ought to reflect that in the level 100 skills. Tanks are the only jobs that deal with long cooldown abilities, I’d like that to be extended to the other roles as well.

Boss hitboxes need to stop taking the entire damn floor. Melee optimization, and the reason their damage is so high, depends on the player’s ability to maintain uptime. If there’s no threat to their uptime and they can hit the boss from the far corner of the map, they shouldn’t deal as much damage as they do. Ranged, by design, deal less damage because they can damage the boss from anywhere on the map, with physical ranged DPS dealing even less because they lack the cast time that casters do. So you have melee that have the threat of being pushed out of the boss’s hit range but deal the most damage, casters that deal reduced damage from anywhere but are threatened by being forced to move and potentially interrupt or delay casts, and physical ranged that have neither limitation but deal the least damage as their tradeoff. If you remove that limitation from the melee, there’s no reason for their damage to be the highest anymore, especially since Square evidently wants to eliminate positionals as well. So either standardize the damage output and make everyone deal the same damage, or shrink the hitboxes and make us melee players work for our uptime again.

Square really needs to work on their accessibility options. Namely, we really need to be able to change the color of the standard “yellow” AoE ground marker ourselves, or that color needs to be made more visible at the very least. My reasoning for this is colorblindness and other disabilities that make seeing certain things more difficult. I’m colorblind, and I know a few other people that are as well, and when AoE markers blend in with the floor, it’s not fun. It adds an extra layer of unnecessary difficulty for a select few people that can easily be remedied with some customization options or a different shade of yellow. Additionally, please STOP using those really thin yellow thread tethers forever.

[anghraine]

That weapons aren’t tied to jobs or skills threw me for a loop until I remembered vaguely how GW2 works - I remembered the lack of trinity job play but because my brain is FF, that series strongly ties RPG party members to a weapon-job type. (Many games, many job and magic systems, of course. But especially in XIV professions are tied to tool- which is why the 3 of 7 crafting jobs use hammers have to label if it’s a hammer for blacksmith versus armor or versus fine metalwork.) A lot of animation sharing for skills I guess?

GW2 weapons actually are tied to skills, contingent on profession (as in class, not crafting profession, which is completely separate). The weapon-locked skills of GW2 are a major point of difference from GW1 that my dad some people are still mad about, lol.

You have some "free" skills separate from your weapon, but half your skills are based entirely on your equipped weapon or weapons. However, weapons bestow different skills to different classes—so, say, any Guardian (paladin type) who wields a torch in their off-hand gets a skill that lets them immolate themself without damage (to themself) and another skill that lets them breathe fire. But a Mesmer (illusionist mage type) who wields a torch in their off-hand gets a smoke-themed invisibility skill, and a fire-themed phantasm, and the animations are completely different.

It looks like land spears will work similarly, except that every profession gets access to them (while something like torch is limited to specific professions). But the skills and animations will be based on the profession, I think, like any other weapon.

The official announcement says:

Some professions will employ the spear as a ranged projectile weapon, some will wield it as a melee weapon, and others will utilize it as a magical focus to cast powerful spells.

Seems like a lot of work for them, honestly—I'm surprised. I really hope it works out (and didn't take too much attention from housing, lol—I'm hoping for something roughly like your game's!).

City of Heroes, neat! Saw that was coming back.

It's been back on various pirate servers for years (I know because I used two of them, haha), but my preferred server finally, over years, negotiated an official license from the IP owner to run it legally. Getting the license was a big relief, honestly, and we were even able to resuscitate our characters from when the original game was live and import them into the server. Wild.

COH has always been an odd one for me because I have such a strong preference for classic SF/F settings in games and am not at all interested in superheroes (unless She-Ra counts), but there are so many options for flavor and costuming, and I like the interplay of mechanics so much that my family has been really fond of it regardless.

[total rambling tangent]

There's one very underpopulated region from the final live expansion that I specifically love and am sometimes the only person in, and a bunch of my characters basically live there because it's the most remote from superhero stuff. It's an alternate universe of the main superhero land where the AU versions of the heroes are now villains running a shiny dystopia that gets dirtier and more industrial the further you get from the glorious city center. Among many, many other problems, people who in the main dimension would have been superheroes but who are native to the Shiny Dystopia dimension (aka players who chose the dystopia origin) are forcibly enlisted into "Powers Division," an agency of superhumanly gifted people doing various tasks for the state.

At creation, you choose whether your true loyalties are with the state or with the underground revolution against them, which is already more interesting to me than just being a random superhero. And then you have chances throughout the story for you to switch allegiances. But also, there are internal factions within both the Loyalists and Resistance: as a Loyalist to the state, you can side with an obliviously well-intentioned faction trying to protect the citizenry without oppressing them, or with a ruthless and power-hungry faction. If you're a rebel, you can side with a faction that's trying to limit unnecessary casualties while still achieving revolution, or with terrorists bombing hospitals and such.

BUT ALSO you don't actually have to play the storyline for your preferred faction and some other factions' missions are also available for you to play (depending on how extreme you are, basically) as an undercover agent for your original faction. In that case, your changes in alignment can become cover stories as you work towards your true faction's goals and you'll periodically get the chance to report to your true boss and get orders from him.

The writing is sometimes shaky on multiple levels, but I love the sheer amount of character choices even though they don't ultimately change that much (I personally find "well-intentioned and oblivious Loyalist who genuinely switches sides to the Resistance in the end" the most rewarding storyline). But regardless, all storylines converge at level 20 with the dystopia's plan to invade the standard dimension of the original game and you have to travel to one of the main settings where you're naturally perceived as either a superhero or supervillain. Your different origins sometimes come up in dialogue referencing your choices, badges you can win, and stuff involving the war with the dystopia dimension, but by and large you're funnelled into the generic superhero narrative, so I often just stay in the dystopia and do low-stakes spying missions, lol.

In any case, a lot of the playerbase really didn't care for the more complicated and sometimes finicky mechanics or dystopic setting of that expansion and the setting essentially expiring at level 20 out of 80. So the dystopia zones are often largely neglected except me, specifically, running around shooting water blasts at the dystopia!Mafia as a principled Loyalist with an increasingly troubled conscience :D

[end ramble]

Anyway, thanks again on both gaming fronts <3

@anghraine saw the trailer for the new GW2 trailer, thought of you so congrats on your upcoming Pacific Northwest adventure

[greenmagic-oilspill]

Prompt: The Trust System

Here’s a new prompt for everyone - which NPCs would your character take with them in their trust party? Anyone is open to choose from! My characters might not necessarily know the person IC but some might be thematic fits. I’m not gonna worry about proper party compositions but you can choose to! Here’s mine:

Baithin would pick Alphinaud and Alisaie, any sylph, Leofard, Hildibrand, G’raha Tia

Azionne would pick Ysayle, Estinien, Unukalhai, a kobold, Edda

Edge would pick Arenvald, Lyse, M’naago, Hien, Yugiri, Hozan, Fordola, a sahagin

Granny would pick Matoya, Louisoix, Isildaure, E-Sumi-Yan, Buscarron, a Vanu Vanu, any and all old people , Coultenet

Gogo would pick Biggs, Wedge, Cid, Jessie, Nero, Alpha, Mide, a goblin

Lini would pick Aymeric, Lucia, Fufulupa, Hoary Boulder, a moogle

Siz’ir would pick Gosetsu, a coeurlclaw, a gnath, Zakuro from the NIN quests, Thancred

Yue would pick Haurchefant, Leveva, Jannequinard, Quimperain, Hab, Papalymo, an ixal

[chaoswillraen]

FIC: Untitled (1/4)

Fandom: Final Fantasy XIV Rating: Mature? but on the light side of it; full male nudity is described in some detail but sex is only implied, not shown. Characters: Nabriales, Warrior of Light (Rakuyo Yatsurugi) Word Count: 906 Summary: A different end to events in the Chrysalis. Eventual WoL/Nabriales ship.

There is a tail wrapped around Nabriales' left wrist; he can feel the spines of it, ready to pierce him should he make even the slightest of motions.

And that isn't even the worst of his predicament: the au ra knelt over his chest has over a fulm of height on him, possibly a hundred ponze, thick scales protecting his skin in case the Ascian wants to try anything.  Blue, blue eyes, blue like the aetherial sea, stare down at him, cold and hard and calculating.

After all the stories he'd heard, he didn't think the Warrior of Light had it in him--one more miscalculation amongst many, this day.  Any of them alone he might have survived, but the weight of so many, the weight of his own carelessness amidst impatience stacks up, and he doubts he'll be making it out of this one with his soul intact, not after the way these gathered companions had dealt with Lahabrea.  And he's no Unsundered, resilient and timeless--no, he's sundered, with sundered weaknesses, and he curses the ancient 'goddess' whose fault that is.

It draws a snarl from the au ra.  "If you will cease your spitting, I offer you a bargain."

Oh now that's unexpected, in the wake of all that just went down.  For certain nobody seems to have come to any permanent harm just yet, but the insults have stacked up, the prides of many are damages, and the Roegadyn woman will need healing, and soon, if she is to recover in full.  In spite of his interest, Nabriales manages a scoff.  "What sort of bargain?  I see an impasse'--I am unwilling to join your side, you're unlikely to join mine, and I can hardly see your friends accepting peaceful neutrality as an option at this late stage.  So: what bargain?"

The tail around his wrist clenches a little tighter.  "In the Chrysalis, in the Rift, you changed time.  I want to know how.  For it, you keep your life and swear no harm to the people of the Toll while you and they remain within its bounds.  Or I kill you," he nods towards the auracite, "and neither of us gets what we want.  But I think you will accept--I think you are like the Garleans we have captured.  They have a saying amongst them--dum spiro, spero.  While I breathe, I hope.  And you, like them, you believe.  You think yourself part of something greater than yourself, with a bigger part to play than you have now.  You will not throw away your life for so little benefit."

The au ra grins, white teeth to match white scales.  "And you are curious.  What manner of man am I, who thinks he can learn what you have mastered?"

Nabriales resists the urge to snarl again: he has been read well, and both of them know it.  "Fine, I'll take your bargain, and add a condition of my own.  Before every lesson, we spar.  You and me alone, no others to join the fight.  Outside the town."

The Warrior of Light blinks slowly, then smiles like some great croc as his tail loosens its grip.  "You think to get lucky, or wear me out.  We shall see who of us has greater stamina!  But today I grant you a boon--though we have fought, take your rest, and I will take mine.  Recover.  Tomorrow we meet by the shores of the lake, in the hour after lunch."

It's impressive to watch the au ra unfurl himself from the way he'd been crouched as he stands up from Nabriales' chest to his full height, and now that he's stood still, he's revising the estimate of his height upwards still further.  He'll have to take that into account tomorrow and all the days to come as well: any fight that comes down to grappling between them will be a fight already lost, if he cannot cast.

He stands himself, and a portal is already forming under his fingers when he turns back to face the Warrior.  "How did you know I was left-handed?"

"You favored the side as we fought," he says, glancing at his companions.  Two of them have already moved to the fallen woman's side, swift about their healing, and Nabriales feels a brief pang.  He had been at the Emissary's side when Lahabrea lurched into the Chrysalis following his sudden ejection, and Elidibus had tended him with the same gentle surety.  Would he treat one of the sundered the same way?  Nabriales does not know, but the Warrior of Light is speaking again, and one curiosity wins out over the other.  "Either it was stronger, or you were already injured.  I took a gamble."  He favors the Ascian with an odd look.  "I do so often.  In Hingashi, the betting-houses file the edges of their tokens so they are more likely to fall to one side.  The secret to winning is knowing which one.  There is no such thing as a surprise.  There is only information discarded or misinterpreted."

The Roegadyn woman is moving to stand now, and she seems less than pleased with the bargain.  Tupsimati and the blonde are safe.  Nabriales has no business lingering here, and he doesn't even acknowledge the au ra's words before he vanishes.

The Unsundered will want to know of what has transpired, and of what he has learned.

And of the tangled mire he has gotten himself into.

[yetanotherfanficblog]

Elation, Trepidation, Dejection, Destruction

Fandom: Final Fantasy XIV

Characters: Captain Jifuya, Male Xaela Aura Dark Knight Warrior of Light, Yotsuyu goe Brutus (mentioned)

Rating/Warnings: Mature (Mentions of past Sexual Abuse, Child Abuse, and Slavery, Slight Gore, Minor Character Death)

Summary: Hien refuses to judge Jifuya, and the Warrior of Light decides to take matters into his own hands. It is not the first time the Dark Knights have had to punish crimes that weak little lordlings would not, and it will not be the last.

Also on Ao3

It was with slowly dawning horror that Enkhjargal heard Jifuya unfold his story - of buying Yotsuyu from her abusive parents, of using her as a doll for his lecherous customers, of his eagerness, even, to specifically exploit her trauma, a story he told not with regret, but simply with fear that he might finally face consequences. Enkhjargal cast a look at Gosetsu. It was Gosetsu's choice, first, but surely, he'd understand this man could be no part of-

"...I see," Said Gosetsu, as Jifuya still cringed before him, "Then I shall recommend that you be assigned to a new post."

Enkhjargal took a step backward, a look of shock at Gosetsu that he quickly stifled. The practice of taking prisoners in war or camp raids was one thing, but this type of slavery, buying and selling of a person? He had seen Gosetsu's code in action, respected it. Did the code truly stop here? With allowing this buyer and seller of unwilling young women to continue as if his sin had been nothing?

Perhaps he only meant to leave the judgement to his lord. Yes. That must be it. Certainly, Hien would have the wisdom to deal with this properly. It was... not the best way to deal with it, frankly, in Enkhjargal's mind, but perhaps allowing Hien to serve justice would make Doma stronger in the long run, even it delayed the justice Jifuya so clearly deserved by a few hours.

---

"I would not presume to defend the life Jifuya led before he joined the Front," Said Hien, "Nor will I condemn it. Frankly, it is not my place to judge. I will only say this: the Jifuya I know has ever been a man of courage. That he should feel driven to flee bespeaks the depth of his terror. Even now, Yotsuyu casts a shadow over the realm..."

Enkhjargal narrowed his eyes. Had Hien just suggested that he would not condemn or judge bloody slavery-

No. Not here. Not like this. Confronting Hien right now is unlikely to change his mind.

But we must do something.

It won't be the first time we must dispense justice because some pampered noble lordling either couldn't or wouldn't.

And it certainly won't be the last.

He will be alone at some point. We only need to find out when, and where, and be there when he is.

Bide your time until then.

---

Enkhjargal kept his body language as casual as possible as walked out of the House of the Fierce - to get some fresh air, he had told his comrades. It wasn't even completely a lie, although mostly he meant to put as much space between him and Hien as possible, before he said something he might regret.

But before he did, he spoke to the sentry at the entrance of house of the Fierce, where it lead out to the fields of Doma once again.

"Have you seen Jifuya since he got back?"

"Oh! He stepped out again. Don't worry though, sir, he ensured me he was coming back this time. He's only off duty for a bit, at Lady Yugiri's suggestion."

"Hm. Do you know where'd go at times like this?"

"Well. I know he sometimes likes to head out past Monzen, to gaze at the Castle. Even though it's in ruins, it's still a grand view."

Enkjarghal nodded, "Very well. Carry on, Sentry."

The Sentry bowed as Enkhjargal strode past him, out of the House of the Fierce.

When he rounded the bend, he pulled out his whistle and blew a short blast. A few moments later, his Yol swept down the sky. Enkhjargal leapt upon her, and pointed her west.

---

Not his place to judge? By the twelve, it is EXACTLY his place to judge! What is the bloody point of having lords and kings if they will not judge the sins of the common folk and ensure their kingdoms protect the weak and prevent the strong from abusing their power? What in the Seven Hells is Hien thinking? Why are we freeing Doma if it will only perpetuate the sins of the Empire against the poor and orphaned and destitute? Will he create a hundred, a thousand new Yotsuyus, poor young folk, orphans and destitute, driven to hatred and desperation by their treatment of the hand of rich old lechers and greedy landlords and cocky soldiers, because he refuses to do his bloody duty?

The voice screamed at the back of Enkhjargal's mind as he flew his Yol toward the river, and Enkhjargal let it. It was right, as usual. Whether Imperial or not, Eorzean or Hingan or Xaela or otherwise, too many of these nobles and monarchs and generals were such selfish, shortsighted fools, interested in the path of least resistance, or their own comfort, and as always, it fell to the bloody warrior of light to fix it.

And fix it he would, one way or another.

His black-scaled tail twitched restlessly, angrily behind him as he flew on. ---

A few moments more, and he landed his Yol, patting it gratefully on the neck before taking a bit of Dzo jerky from his pack, holding it out letting the Yol nibble it from his hand.

"Wait here, my friend," he murmured, "I shall not be long."

He walked toward the river bank, and soon spotted Jifuya, staring out toward the ruins of the castle as the lookout had suggested. The man did not notice him. Enkhjargal's hand went to the spare dagger at his waist. He could end it now, with a well-aimed throw, or a shove of the dagger at just the right point on his spinal column-

No. Jifuya should KNOW. He should see it coming. He should face the weight of his sins, as we have. As all should.

So Enkhjargal walked closer, drawing his sword, ensuring the sound of scraping metal was just loud enough to be heard.

Jifuya leapt with a start and turned around.

"Oh!" He said, breathing a sigh of relief, "Hello, Lord Enkhjargal. I didn't expect to see you out here. I come here sometimes. Staring at the castle helps center me when I'm feeling a bit out of sorts."

"I know. I heard one of your comrades mentioning it. I had hoped to find you here."

"You... You hoped?" Jifuya said, his face confused.

"Yes. You and I have something to discuss."

"Oh! Of course! Anything for the hero of Doma," Jifuya said, smiling graciously, simperingly, "B... But what could you have to discuss with me?"

"Your Profession."

"My-"

"Before you joined the resistance. Was Yotsuyu your only victim? Did you kidnap your other girls? Buy some of them from slave markets? Seduce a few of them off streets, convincing them their only option to avoid homelessness was to work in your dens? Or did you simply buy them all from lecherous, greedy old monsters eager to pawn a daughter or a wife to pay off gambling debts, or just to move on to their next pretty plaything?"

"Wha- What?"

"ANSWER ME," Enkhjargal said, his voice rising in volume just a bit, infused with the dark anger of his other half, as he stepped closer, now towering over Jifuya.

"I-I- I was a legitimate businessman, I had the full sanction of the Em- I mean- I... I got my girls from a variety of places! But I- It was Imperial times! We all had to survive, one way or another-"

Jifuya stopped, cringed, looked up at Enkhjargal. Enkhjargal stared back.

"S-Some of them were there by choice..." Jifuya continued, whimpering.

"SOME of them," Enkhjargal repeated his words, stone-faced, monotone, putting just enough emphasis on the first to remind Jifuya of what it implied, that even more were there against their will.

If the man means to dig his own grave, who are we stop him?

"I. I know what I did to Yotsuyu was... not my best moment," Jifuya said, "But- But- I have heard what you've done! You fought her! Rumors say you can even stare into the past of your enemies! You've seen her sins firsthand! You KNOW she's a monster!"

"I am not here to judge her, Jifuya. I am here to judge you. But how, I wonder, did she become a monster? I have seen enough of her past to know she was not born that way."

He took yet another step closer to the Doman. Jifuya tried to step backward, but his foot nearly slipped off the enbankment. He looked back at the water, and Enkhjargal wondered for a moment if he was planning to try his luck in the swift current. Yet still, he turned back to look up at Enkhjargal, cringing.

"No, she was made a monster," Enkhjargal continued, "By neglectful, hateful parents. By a cruel, callous slavemaster who saw her pain and saw in it a way to put more gil in his pocket."

"I...I already said I felt shame-" Jifuya began to stammer.

"No you didn't," Enkhjargal said, his voice a low hiss, simmering with rising fury, "You said you were afraid of your past, not sorry for it."

"I-I- I'm saying it now! I'm sorry! I swear!"

"Remorse given at the last possible second out of fear is no remorse at all."

"P-Please! Hien already passed judgement! HE forgave me, sh-shouldn't you?"

"He is not my lord," Enkhjargal said, "And thus I have no reason to be bound by his judgement."

"It's a shame, really," Enkhjargal continued, "Maybe if he had done what a king should and put you on trial for your crimes, you could have gotten something softer, something that still served some sort of justice. Maybe exile, or a prison cell, or hard labor. Or restitution paid to Tsuyu and any other of your living victims. Some sort of thing to ensure that craven, beastly men like you will not be tolerated in his new kingdom. But instead, he'll let you go free."

"B... But he DID let me go, right? I'm free. He said so..." Jifuya's voice barely sounded as if it came from a human now, broken and whining as it was.

"Yes. He did. But Doma wouldn't be the first nation I've travelled in where the upper class are either too cowardly or too complicit to reign in the wicked and corrupt. And you know what I've done in those countries?"

"W-What's that?"

"This."

Enkhjargal raised his weapon, and as he did, dark crackles and swirls of aether played around every inch of his body, around his massive sword, as his inner flame finally unleashed, fueled by the anger and rage he'd being feeling every since he found out Jifuya's crime, ever since Hien refused to judge him.

"Oh Kami!" Jifuya cringed back, "Warrior! Please! Show Mercy!"

"The same mercy you showed Yotsuyu? Your other victims?" Enkhjargal answered, coldly, as he swung his sword downward.

Jifuya opened his mouth to scream, but Enkhjargal gave him no chance to sound the alarm.

The pieces of the former slaver's body fell silently into the River, the swift current carrying them out of sight in an instant.

---

"They might find out, you know," His Dark Double, Sometimes called Fray, sometimes Esteem, murmured at his shoulder, as Enkhjargal stood at the edge of the riverbank, still staring into its churning waters.

"No," Enkhjargal said, his mouth set in a grim line, "They'll never suspect me, I'm a hero, a bloody icon. Surely I would never harm as innocent a soul as the brave Jifuya, decorated Captain of the Great and Noble Doman Godsdamned Resistance. Besides. He already tried to run once, who says he didn't do it again? He must have slipped off into the night, too afraid of Yotsuyu - or feeling too guilty at a reminder of the weight of his sins."

"You have a point," Esteem said, with a dark chuckle.

"Besides, if they do find any part of his body," Enkhjargal continued, "They'll likely assume it was someone who died in the assault on Doma Castle. Even if the fish don't eat it first, the water should wear down the meat enough that no-one could tell for sure that it was him - or that he died quite some time after the end of that bloody battle."

"So that's one problem taken care of. But there's one left. How do we deal with Hien?"

"We watch, and we wait, like we always do," Enkhjargal answered, "I thought he had the strength to lead, but if he was too cowardly to judge Jifuya properly, perhaps I erred. So we watch. And if need be, we take action."

"Yugiri will not be happy, if it comes to that," Esteem noted.

"She won't," Enkhjargal said with a nod, "But I have hopes she won't let her love for her lord blind her should he continue to allow such gross oppression, and for all her loyalty, Yugiri's always been a friend of the oppressed. A Lord can only rule as long as they have the consent of their people."

"Hmph. We both know people consent to some messed up things. In exchange for a peaceful life, many would simply ignore the corruption which festers beneath the surface. Cast aside that which is dirty and broken. Speak not of things which would disrupt their dreary little lives."

"Many. But not all."

Enkhjargal could feel Esteem's smile at his shoulder, bemused, slightly bitter, but warm and genuine all the same.

"That we still have that optimism after all this time," Esteem said with a note of wonder, before switching thoughts, "Very well. As always, I shall follow your lead. But if the truth of the matter comes out as I suspect it will, and if you need help..."

"I shall clutch my crystal to my breast, and remember,” Enkhjargal said, fiercely, every word the truth. 

"Good."

And with that, he felt Esteem simmering no longer. He turned from the riverbank, and strode back toward his waiting Yol.

---

NOTE: Text in italics is meant to be the words of Esteem in Enkhjargal’s mind, ala Dark Knight job quest text in-game.

[slytherinbarnes]

Sub Rosa [43]

xiv. red sky at morning

Pairing: Bellamy Blake x reader

Word Count: 5.6k

Warnings: violence, fighting, death, angst, blood, drugging for safe passage. 

Summary: things don’t go according to plan on Luna’s rig, and everything you’ve been running from finally catches up.

a/n: hello lil moons, good news! I have now written and edited s6, which means we only have s7 left to fix write! also, I have a few things in the works so stay tuned for a few future announcements! okay, ily all and I hope you’re well! the taglist for this series is open! I hope you enjoy, please let me know what you think!!!

previous chapter // season masterlist // series masterlist

Luna disappears from the top of the rig before any of you can even catch her. 

Instead, you’re all led into the rig and into a large room, where people are sitting around, eating, talking, listening to someone telling a story. One of Luna’s people tells you to wait here, and then they leave you alone, the five of you all staring at each other in confusion, wondering what to do next.

Jasper quickly decides that he no longer cares, and he leans back in his seat, listening to the story being told by the girl at the front of the room. Octavia sits motionless, and you start to worry that she’s in shock, not expecting that the Luna that Lincoln had told her about would turn you all away. You, Clarke, and Bellamy look around the room constantly, head turning towards the door every time you hear it open, searching for the woman who denied you. 

You’re the first to spot her, Bellamy and Clarke looking the other way, and you reach out to touch each of them, getting their attention. “She's here.”

“Maybe she changed her mind,” Bellamy mumbles as he stands, and you and Clarke do the same, following him across the room and stopping in front of Luna.

Clarke opens her mouth to say something, but Luna beats her to the punch. “The boats return at nightfall. Then, you leave.” She pauses, and then adds, “Forever.”

Clarke tries again, “Luna, let us explain.”

“I said no.”

“No, you need to hear this.” Bellamy tries to reach out and grab her to stop her as she tries to walk away, but the man at her side reaches out for him and stops him. Still, she pauses, allowing Bellamy to continue, “There is something out there that is going to destroy us all.”

“Whatever it is, it can't reach us here.”

She brushes right past you, heading over to sit beside Octavia. You all stand there, dumbfounded, sure that you could convince her if you were given a second chance. Jasper gets up and leaves the two women, and you see Luna pass Lincoln's journal to Octavia, before you turn away with a frustrated huff. 

After a brief conversation, Luna stands and leaves Octavia, before walking over to a couch against the wall with the man from earlier. They both lay back onto it, instantly cuddling, and you turn away, feeling like you shouldn't be watching. Bellamy leads you and Clarke back over to his sister, and you all sit around a small fire in silence, much like before. Bellamy and Octavia seem much more resigned to Luna’s denial, while you and Clarke continue to radiate anger and frustration. 

Bellamy breaks the silence first, glancing over at Jasper and then back to your group with a smile. “Jasper's actually smiling.”

None of you say anything, and beside you, Clarke turns to glare at Luna. Bellamy shakes his head and sighs, “Hey, Temper Twins, let it go.”

You look up at him with a glare, and you’re sure Clarke is doing the same. You shake your head at him. “We can't just leave.”

Octavia mumbles, “It's not like we have much of a choice.”

Clarke turns to look at her, backing you up. “Maybe we do.”

“What are you talking about?”

“I'm talking about putting the Flame into her head without asking.”

You turn to Clarke in shock, instantly shaking your head, “Wait, that's not what I meant.”

Octavia gives Clarke a look of indignation before adding, “This isn't like Emerson, he was trying to kill us!”

“You think I don't know that?”

Bellamy gives Clarke a serious look. “Clarke, we don't have to do this. We can fight, we can go back to Arkadia. We can arm up.”

“Fight who? It's an army of our own people. I don't like this any more than you do. But if Raven's right and the code in this thing can stop Alie…” She trails off, and sighs, “Give me a better idea.”

Someone nearby calls Luna, and she exits the room. Clarke’s eyes follow her movements until she’s gone, and then she turns towards you, her eyes pleading. You run through the options in your head. How to stop an army of chipped people who want you dead? Can’t shoot them, because they’re chipped. And they’re your people. Too many chips to fry with EMPs. Plus, no more bracelets. And that leaves…? You sigh, knowing that she’s right, and there’s no other way. You turn to look at Bellamy, and his eyes search your face, trying to decipher what you’ve decided. As soon as he figures out you’re with Clarke, his face morphs into one of resignation, and he turns to your twin. “We'll stay here. It's the only way they'll leave you alone with her.”

Octavia mutters, “Even Alie gives people a choice.”

Bellamy shrugs, “We gave Luna a choice. She said no.”

Clarke nods at you and Bellamy in thanks, before getting up and leaving the room, following Luna’s path out the door. The three of you wait for her to return, your eyes occasionally falling on Jasper, sitting in the corner, talking to the girl that was telling the story. You smile as you watch them, his face split in a grin, the first one you’ve seen on his face in months.

You don’t have enough time to contemplate what that means for him, because Clarke is back almost as quickly as she left, and based on the pissed off energy radiating off of her, she failed. She plops down beside you, and you all turn towards her with expectant looks. She doesn’t offer much in her explanation, just a grumble of, “She took the Flame and said I'd get it back when we leave tonight. So that’s it.”

You and Bellamy exchange a look, before your eyes land on one of the couches along the wall. Realizing there’s nothing to do now except wait, you turn to the others, “If we’re stuck here until nightfall, I’m catching up on some sleep at least.”

You don't wait for them to answer, you just stand and head straight for the comfiest looking one, and stretch out on it. The stress and lack of sleep from the last few days finally catches up with you, and you close your eyes, falling asleep in seconds. 

-

Your mom stands in front of you, a small, clear chip in her outstretched hand. You peer down at the blue logo, the infinity symbol, before looking back up and meeting her gaze. She smiles, tilting her head to the side. “The City of Light is so wonderful, you’re going to love it. All you have to do is take the chip.”

You shake your head, and try to pull away, but realize that you can’t. Panic washes over you as you realize that you’re restrained, chained to the wall behind you. But you don’t want her or Alie to see your fear, so you lift your chin, defiant, and tell her, “I won’t do it. Nothing you say will make me do it.”

She smiles again, and turns to look at an empty space on her left. “I told you she’d resist. Bring him in.”

You feel dread drop in your stomach at the thought of who she’s talking about, but she doesn’t leave you waiting for long. The doors behind her swing open, and Bellamy is dragged in, bloodied and bruised, barely hanging onto consciousness. But he perks up as soon as he sees you, and you both try to run to each other, you pulling on the chains at your back, as he pulls against the guards holding him tight. He is brought to your mother’s side before they push him down to his knees and chain him to the bolts in the floor. Your eyes are locked on each other, and you miss your mother’s movements until she kneels down beside Bellamy, into your line of sight. 

You glance over at her and almost immediately glance away, until an alarm goes off in your brain, triggered by the glint of metal in the light. You swing your eyes back towards her, and you see that she’s holding up a knife, your knife, a serene expression on her face. “Last chance to take the chip before I turn to other methods of persuasion.”

You don’t need to ask what she means, and you turn to Bellamy with a look of panic. He shakes his head, hard. “Don’t do it. No matter what, don’t take the chip.”

Your mother uses the knife to rip open his shirt, and you feel your lip quiver. He gives you a reassuring look. “I’ll be okay. Just promise me you won’t take the chip.”

Your mother lifts the knife to his chest, resting the blade against his skin, and tears spring to your eyes. You shake your head, and Bellamy pleads, “Promise me!”

You whisper, “I promise.”

As soon as the words leave your mouth, your mother drags the blade across his skin. You can see him clenching his teeth together, trying to hold back his cry of pain, but it eventually bursts free, tearing right through your heart. You watch a line of blood run down his chest as your mother asks, “Will you comply?”

Your voice shakes, thick with emotion, but you keep your promise. “No.”

She lifts the knife again and drags it across his stomach, as Bellamy screams in pain. A sob breaks free from you, and the tears track down your face. 

“Will you take the chip?”

“No.”

The process repeats: your mother cuts the love of your life and asks you to take the chip, but you keep your promise to Bellamy and deny her, every single time. You don’t know how long she’s been doing this when she drops the knife, the serene expression slipping from her face a fraction of an inch. She turns to the unseen figure, “This isn’t working.”

You ignore her one sided conversation, whispering Bellamy’s name, begging him to look up at you. His head dropped to his chest a few cuts ago, most of his skin stained with blood, nearly every inch of him covered in a cut. He weakly lifts his head and smiles at you, and it feels like a punch to the gut, the way he's still trying to reassure you, despite how weak he is. “Bellamy, you can’t take much more of this.”

He lifts his head, keeping it up. “Yes, I can.”

“If I take the chip, they’ll leave you alone. You’ll be safe.”

“No, I won’t. Because they’ll just use you against me like they did to your mom with Raven. And I’ll break. You’re so much stronger than I am, that’s one of the reasons why I love you.”

The tears rush to your eyes again, a new wave of emotion taking you over. You don’t get the opportunity to say anything else, because your mom is back, along with her calm demeanor. 

And a gun.

You feel your stomach drop as soon as you see it, and you see the flash of fear on Bellamy’s face, one he quickly hides. She lifts the gun to his temple, and turns to you. “Take the chip, or he dies.”

You start to sob, “Mom, please. Stop, just stop! This isn’t you!”

She starts to countdown, “Three seconds.”

“Mom, stop! What would dad say? You can’t do this!”

“Three.”

You turn to look at Bellamy, panicking, but he shakes his head, mouthing, “You promised.”

“Two.”

You watch a single tear run down his face and you start to cry harder, begging. “Leave Bellamy out of this, please don’t do this!”

“One.”

Bellamy looks at you, his eyes full of love, and he mouths, “I love you more than the stars.”

You have a split second to process the words before a shot rings out, too loud in the small space, and Bellamy’s body hits the ground a second later. It takes a moment for you to process, your head stuffed full of cotton, your thoughts slow to connect, but as soon as you do, a gut wrenching scream tears from your chest and you lurch towards him, trying to reach him, despite the fact that you are still chained up. The chains pull at your body uncomfortably hard, but you don’t notice, don't care, as you drop to your knees and sob, staring down at Bellamy’s lifeless eyes.

You start to scream at your mother, yelling anything that comes to mind. “I’ll never forgive you for this, do you hear me? And I'll never give you what you want! We’re gonna shut you down, Alie! Are you listening to me, you evil bitch, you’re done! You’ll never win!”

Your mother turns away from you, still just as calm, waving at the guards by the door. “Get rid of him.”

They nod and start to walk towards him, and as they reach his body, she adds, “Oh. And bring me Clarke.”

You grow still, before the anger rips through you, and you jump towards your mother, filled with white hot rage, the intensity of it-

forcing you awake with a start. 

You sit up with a gasp, looking around you, trying to gather your bearings. You almost cry with relief when you realize you’re still on Luna’s rig, and every part of that hellish nightmare was just a dream. You feel a hand touch yours, and you jump in surprise, turning to your left, and realizing that Bellamy is on the couch beside you. Judging by the sweat marks on his pants, he let you use him as a pillow. “Bad dream?”

You nod, still on edge, and he seems to sense that, because he gives you a soft smile. “You’re safe. I was here the whole time.”

You feel heat rush to your face, now embarrassed that you sweated all over him. And that he witnessed your panic. He reaches up and brushes a finger over your cheek, and the bruise on your face from Emerson, and you close your eyes, leaning into the touch. The first bit of quiet intimacy you’ve shared in a while.

He pulls away abruptly, and you open your eyes quickly, gaze lifting to his face. You can see the guilt written all over it, and it sends a wave of sadness through you. You reach for him, hands caressing each of his cheeks as you force him to meet your eyes. They lock with yours and you whisper, “I need you to love me.”

His eyes widen in surprise, and then switch to confusion before he mumbles, “I do.”

You know he does, but he still doesn’t get it, not yet. He still doesn’t realize that his guilt is holding him back from being with you fully, because he’s gotten in his head and told himself that he’s a monster, and he doesn’t deserve this, or you. But you know that he’s not quite there yet, and that’s okay, so you lean towards him, resting your forehead against his. He closes his eyes, relishing in the nearness of you, and you think of all the love you have for him, and how wonderful you think he is, hoping that he can sense it. 

Someone clears their throat beside you and you pull back and turn to see Clarke, looking guilty for interrupting. “It’s time to go.”

You and Bellamy nod, silently standing and following her. You meet Octavia at the door, who’s already standing and waiting with your Grounder guide. When you reach them, he turns and leads your group outside, taking you through the oil rig and back up to the shipping container you started in. You look up at the sky as you walk, marveling in the brightness of the moon and stars out here over the ocean. 

You're pulled back to the earth by the sound of the container doors being opened. You watch as the man who brought you here steps out, and Luna materializes out of the darkness to tell him, “Sorry, Cap, we gotta take them back.”

Someone hands her a bag, and she tosses it inside of the container before turning to you. “Your gear. You get your weapons once you land.”

You look around, realizing that you’re missing someone. “Where’s Jasper?”

Octavia nods back towards the room you came from. “Saying goodbye to his new friend.” 

Everyone looks that way, exchanging a look, trying to decide who’s gonna go after him. When you realize that no one is moving, you sigh. “Okay, fine, I’ll go get him. But don’t leave without me.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it.”

You head back towards the rig as you hear one of the men grunt to the others, “Inside.”

You turn and glance at them, watching as they step inside, before you turn back and start to walk towards the inside of the rig. You head straight for the room you just left, and stand in the doorway, searching every face, looking for Jasper. You roll your eyes when you don’t see him, and turn to the first person you see, a woman, with kind eyes and a warm smile. “Have you seen my friend? He has short hair, kinda tall and lanky?”

The woman gives you a knowing look. “He’s with Shay. They’re down below, with the storage. Taking the long way.”

You’re surprised at the amount of detail, but smile at her in thanks. “Thank you. Mochof.”

She smiles at your use of Trigedasleng, before you turn and jog off again, following her directions. You take the nearest staircase to the next level down, and step inside the room, pausing to listen. You smile when you hear voices, Jasper’s among them, and you start to walk that way. You come around the corner, coming face to face with them, and you yell his name, “Jasper!”

He looks up at you, and then his gaze focuses on something behind you as someone yells, “Shay, run before-”

They’re cut off by the sound of a loud thud, and you quickly turn around and see the man that guards Luna, Derrick, slumped in a Grounder’s arms. You glance at the other Grounder and see Luna thrown over his shoulder, and you start to back up quickly, away from the chipped men, and back towards Jasper and Shay. One of the men looks at you suspiciously, and you turn and run towards them, yelling, “She’s here, Jasper!”

He quickly turns to Shay, frantically pushing her towards the exit. “Go, tell your people to not take the chip.”

She hesitates, and he yells, “Run now! Go!”

You reach him just as she turns to run, but she freezes in place when an arrow lands in her back, and she hits the ground with a scream of pain. Jasper yells out in anger, and you turn to look at the chipped men, realizing that the Captain is lifting his crossbow again, aiming at Jasper. “Jasper, run!”

You dive towards him, pushing him out of the way as the arrow flies towards him, and he hits the ground beside you. A scream tears free from your chest as the arrow sinks into your shoulder from behind, the head of it coming out the other side. You look down at the arrowhead sticking out of you as you drop to your knees, the pain making you dizzy. You hear Jasper jump up and punch the Captain, but he’s unfazed and punches Jasper back, the force of it immediately knocking him unconscious. 

You hear them coming towards you and you fall to your side, eyelids closing, hoping that they’ll fall for your deception. The footsteps come to a stop right beside you, and someone nudges you with their shoe, turning you over to get a good look at you. The movement causes you to roll over onto your shoulder, pushing the arrow deeper into your skin, and you have to work hard to fight back the scream of pain that threatens to tear from you. You keep your face neutral and your breathing even, waiting for a long second until you hear someone say, “We’ll come back for them. We need to get Luna tied up before she wakes.”

You hear the footsteps retreat and you lie there for an agonizingly long minute, waiting until you can no longer hear them before you peek an eye open. You’re relieved to find no one there so you sit up, groaning in pain as you do. You spare a look at your shoulder and the arrow sticking out of it, before you hear a soft gurgle from in front of you. You scramble to your feet, realizing that Shay is still alive, before running over to check on her. You drop to your knees beside her, sinking into a pool of blood, and you have a horrifying realization that the arrow must have hit an artery because she’s bleeding out fast. 

She lets out a whimper of pain, and you look down at her, meeting her eyes. You whisper, “Shhh, it’s gonna be okay, you’re gonna be okay.”

Her hand shakes as she reaches for yours, and as you look into her eyes, you recognize them as the same eyes from the woman who told you where to find her. A pang of sadness pulls at your chest, and she gasps out, “Jasper says you’re from the sky, what’s it like?”

“It’s beautiful.” She coughs, hacking up blood, and you know the end is near. “If you think the stars are incredible from down here, you should see them from the sky. And the Earth? It’s the prettiest thing you've ever seen. So much blue, the ocean, covering the planet, kissing everything it touches.”

She smiles, coughing again, and you can hear the breath rattling in her lungs. She whimpers a little, caught up in the pain, and you try to hide your distress. She looks up at you, her eyes falling on the moon around your neck. “I thought nothing was prettier than the view from space, until I came down here. There’s so much color here. On the Ark, everything is gray, muted. But down here, everything is so bright and colorful. And the sounds, they’re like nothing I could ever imagine. My entire life I heard the quiet hum of the machines that powered the Ark, but on Earth, you can have complete silence or a cacophony of sounds. The sound of water rushing through the rivers, and the birds singing to each other every morning. The laughter and amazement of 100 teenagers and one fake guard stepping foot onto the ground for the first time in a century.”

You trail off, listening as her breathing struggles for a second, and then just stops. You lift a finger to her neck and feel nothing, and you drop your head, mourning for this girl that you barely knew. “Yu gonplei ste odon.”

You start to stand, deciding what to do next, when you hear the sound of footsteps coming back for you. You scramble back towards your earlier position, laying down on your side. Your eyes fall to the arrowhead sticking out of your shoulder, and you get a split second idea, one that you know you won’t like. Still, you grit your teeth and reach up, snapping off the end of the arrow, holding back a cry of pain as you do. You slip the sharp object into your sleeve and close your eyes, right as the footsteps come around the corner. You hear them stop near Shay, checking for any sign of life, and when they realize she’s dead, they come to you. 

They stick their hand under your nose, checking for your steady breathing, before they reach beneath you and lift you, slinging you over their shoulder. They start walking and you open your eyes, watching carefully to see where they take you. They move lower and lower, deeper into the rig, until the sound of machine hum grows louder, reminding you of the Ark. And then they turn down a hallway, taking you to a single door that sits on the end. Beyond it, you can hear Luna pleading for someone to stop, and you know this is the right place. 

You take a deep breath, and slide the arrowhead from your sleeve, gripping it tight in your hand. In one swift movement, you plunge it into the man’s neck. His reaction is immediate, and he drops you before he falls to his knees, dying quickly. Knowing you have no time to waste, you take off running, following the stairs to the top of the rig, and back out into the open air. You head straight for the container, looking around for other people as you do, relieved that no one is here. You unlock it the best you can with one arm, the pain in your shoulder making it impossible to use both. As soon as you swing the door open, Bellamy, Octavia, and Clarke all rush towards you. Clarke spots the arrow in your shoulder first, muttering, “Ohmygod.”

She pulls you towards her so she can get a better look, and you see the worry on Bellamy’s face, but you wave them both off. “I’m fine, but if you want to get to Luna before Alie does, then we need to go.”

You start to run off, but Clarke grabs your arm to stop you. “Wait.”

Before you can ask why, she reaches up and breaks off the end of the arrow, making it shorter. You let out a yelp of pain, and turn to her with a glare. She gives you an apologetic look. “No time to take it out, but at least this way you won’t hit it on anything.”

You shake your head before turning to run off again, this time with the trio on your heels. You run through the rig as fast as you can, practically flying down the stairs to reach P level again. You don’t stop until you reach the door at the end of the hall, past the man you killed earlier, and you rush in without hesitation, despite Bellamy yelling at you to be careful. 

When you come into the room, you’re shocked at the scene in front of you. Jasper is tied up in the corner, and he seems okay, but there’s a girl, a child, crying near him. Luna is on the ground, clutching the dying body of the man she loves. Around her are the other chipped men, all dead and unmoving. You and Bellamy run to check on the child, cowering in the corner, while Octavia goes to Jasper. Clarke moves to Luna and Derrick, reaching them just as he takes his final breath. Luna’s reaction is instant, and she lets out a heartbreaking cry, clutching him close to her, and there’s nothing that any of you can do but watch as she mourns.

-

As soon as Luna realizes the rest of you are there, her tears stop. Just like when Octavia locked her emotions away after Lincoln's death, Luna does the same, putting away her sorrow in favor of anger. She agrees to take the Flame and fight Alie, but only after she gives a funeral for those that were lost.

As Luna informs her people of what happened and what her plans are, Clarke comes up to you with a knife in hand. “They have no medical supplies here, and I left everything I had in the rover. We’ll have to do it the old fashioned way.”

You grimace, but nod. “Great, sounds fun.”

She leads you outside, to where Bellamy is waiting with a torch, eyeing Clarke with suspicion. “Are you sure about this?”

“It's what we did with Lincoln, and he healed fine.” She passes the knife to Bellamy, “Heat the blade in the fire.”

He does as she asks, before looking at you. “I have to pull the arrow out before I can take off your jacket to cauterize the wound. Are you ready?”

“Do I have a choice?”

“No.”

You nod, “Then sure.”

You look at Bellamy, meeting his eyes as Clarke puts one hand on your shoulder, and one on the end of the arrow. With no warning, she pulls it out, and you groan in pain. She helps you out of your jacket, tugging your shirt down at the neckline to inspect the wound. “Okay, it looks good. No signs of poison.”

Bellamy passes her the knife and you give him a wary look. He reaches out for your hand, pulling you closer to him, and you lean against him as Clarke lifts the knife. “One...two…”

You grimace, waiting for three, but it never comes. Instead, you are met with the white hot flash of the knife as it touches your skin and closes your wound. You let out a cry of pain, the sound muffled by Bellamy’s shoulder as you press closer to him. Clarke gives you a second to recover, reheating the blade again, before turning you around to look at the exit wound. After nodding in satisfaction, she holds up the knife again. You turn away, not wanting to watch, and Bellamy holds you close. This time she presses the knife to the wound with no countdown, getting it over as quickly as possible. You let out another cry of pain, along with a string of curses, and Clarke looks over her work before tearing off a strip of her shirt and wrapping your shoulder the best she can. 

She smiles at you, nodding towards the door. “All done. Now let’s go join the others.”

Bellamy puts out the torch and you follow her inside, all three of you handed cups full of an unknown liquid as you join Octavia and Jasper. You all nod in thanks, searching for Luna, watching as she prepares for the ceremony. Your eyes watch the people too, uneasy at the thought that Alie could still be lurking in someone nearby. Bellamy voices the same concern. “Any one of them could be chipped and we'd never know.”

Clarke nods. “If they are, they'll make their move before we put the Flame in Luna. Stay sharp.”

Luna comes from the other side of the room, stopping in front of Clarke. “The ceremony is about to begin.”

She starts to turn away, but Clarke reaches out for her, stopping her. “Luna, wait. I'm so sorry, but now you see that we're facing an enemy that will do anything to win. She won't stop until she has everyone.”

“People I love died today. Needlessly, at my hand.” She lifts her hand, the one not occupied by a cup, revealing the Flame. She looks down at it as she finishes, “I can't let that happen again.”

She turns away, to face the others, lifting the Flame high for them to see. Everyone in the room stands. “As we prepare to give our brothers and sister to the sea, we honor their lives.”

She lowers the Flame and lifts her cup, “Kom woda 'so gyon op, gon woda 'so kom daun.”

As the room repeats the phrase, Octavia translates, “From water we are born, to water we return.”

Everyone lifts their cup and takes a drink, and your group follows suit, honoring their tradition. Luna turns back to you as she finishes, and Clarke steps right into business. “If we're gonna do this, we have to hurry. Alie will send reinforcements, and we have to find someplace private to perform the Ascension.”

“You believe that to defeat an enemy who will stop at nothing, you must stop at nothing. How is that different from 'blood must have blood'?”

You all freeze, realizing that she doesn’t seem to be on the same page with the rest of you. Octavia protests, “Wait a second, Luna. You can't just-”

She cuts herself off when she falls unconscious, sinking to the floor. You turn to Bellamy, worried, just in time to see him sink the ground. Jasper is next, and Clarke turns back to look at you, her cup falling from her hands in shock. You watch the glass fall, and you fall with it, going unconscious before it even hits the ground. 

-

You wake up to the feel of fingers brushing over your face, pushing your hair back. 

You open your eyes and see Bellamy looking down at you, concerned. You sit up, clutching your head, wishing the heavy feeling would dissipate quickly, the thick cloud too difficult to think through. Bellamy continues to watch you and you meet his eye, and smile, trying to reassure him. “That was not how I was expecting that to go.”

You hear a groan from your right, followed by, “Me either.”

You look over and meet Clarke’s eyes, as she sits up, gathering her bearings. She looks down at the container in her hand, sliding the lid back and sighing in relief when the Flame is tucked neatly inside. You find your knife near your boot, and Bellamy and Clarke find their guns beside them. You all stand, just as Octavia rolls over, picking up Lincoln’s notebook and sword. Jasper is the last to pull himself to his feet, following the rest of you as you wander to the shore, staring out at the water. 

The clouds are hanging low today, blocking any view of the ocean beyond, but you already know that even if the sky was clear, you’d never spot the oil rig. As you all look out at the water, contemplating the events of the last 24 hours, Bellamy voices the thought running through all of your minds. “Now what?”

-

next chapter

[aion-rsa]

Final Fantasy’s Multiverse Fan Theory Will Change How You Look at the Franchise

https://ift.tt/3C7lXDN

Many beloved video game franchises try to maintain a semblance of continuity and worldbuilding. Usually, those attempts consist of linear a-to-b narratives across sequels, but there are times when the connections between games in a franchise can be a bit perplexing. For instance, each Legend of Zelda game seems insular at first, but they actually take place in a shared world and timelines. The timeline barely makes sense, but it’s there. Final Fantasy, meanwhile, seemingly reinvents its wheel with each entry. Every title takes place in its own world with its own history and lore that is, on paper, completely separate from the rest of the series.

If you scour Reddit and other internet forums, though, you may eventually find theories that claim the Final Fantasy franchise utilizes one big, interconnected multiverse. A popular variation of that belief purports that Final Fantasy XIV sits in the center of that universe or that other titles sprung from that game’s world.

In fact, many players who have extensively explored Hydaelyn and the other worlds of Final Fantasy (not to be confused with World of Final Fantasy) eventually reach the same conclusion: Final Fantasy exists in some kind of multiverse. Do those claims and theories have any merit, though, or are audiences letting their apophenia take them for a joyride? Let’s try to find out together.

Final Fantasy’s Familiar Faces

We might as well get the most obvious evidence for a shared multiverse out of the way first. If you’ve played more than one Final Fantasy game, you probably know the series has a lot of recurring elements (such as Chocobos, Behemoths, and engineers named Cid). However, some common elements go deeper than shared names. Sure, every now and then unrelated characters will sport the same moniker for the sake of references and callbacks (such as Zeromus from Final Fantasy IV and Zeromus from Final Fantasy XII) but some recurring faces who only seem like they exist for the sake of tradition actually help tie the games together.

The first recurring character we have to talk about is everyone’s favorite pillar of buffoonery, Gilgamesh. In virtually every entry, he is portrayed as a bumbling wanderer who seeks power through collecting weapons. Moreover, most Gilgamesh incarnations sport the same red hood, kabuki face paint (sometimes a mask), and awesome battle theme that transcends music genres, but that isn’t because Square Enix is lazy. The majority of Gilgameshes tend to appear and/or disappear into an Interdimensional Rift (more on that later). That implies they’re the same character in an unending, world-hopping obsession for new weapons.

Indeed, after Gilgamesh is beaten in Final Fantasy IV: The After Years, he cries out the name of Final Fantasy V’s protagonist, Bartz. In Dissidia 012 Final Fantasy, Gilgamesh claims to have dueled “strange opponents” countless times. If that’s not enough for you, consider that in later entries, Gilgamesh wields replicas of weapons from past Final Fantasy games. Gilgamesh doesn’t just talk about the Final Fantasy multiverse; he almost literally beats players over the head with it. However, Gilgamesh isn’t the franchise’s only cross-dimensional tourist.

Whenever you finish a Final Fantasy story and beat the final boss, each game offers additional challenges in the form of “superbosses.” One of the franchise’s most consistent superbosses is the quadrupedal robot known simply as Omega. Throughout its various Final Fantasy appearances, Omega’s physical appearance is portrayed with a startling amount of consistency. However, the robot’s true nature is a bit more up in the air. As some fans have discovered Omega has two possible incarnations: shards left behind to collect data and demi-knockoffs created by local geniuses who drew inspiration from the original Omega. Either way, Omega is a dimension-hopping robot whose sole purpose is to defeat its arch-nemesis, Shinryu. According to lore provided by games such as Final Fantasy XIV and Dissidia Final Fantasy, every Shinryu that players face is also actually a minor fragment deposited to help the original grow stronger.

It’s certainly harder to argue against a multiverse when you have three recurring characters that practically rely on it for their motivations and design.

Dissidia Final Fantasy Wouldn’t Exist Without a Multiverse

When Nintendo set the world on fire with the Super Smash Bros. franchise, other companies started making their own mascot fighter game that they hoped would print money. Square Enix’s Dissidia Final Fantasy set itself apart with a vastly different combat system. However, Dissidia’s bigger claim to fame is its story, which breaks from mascot fighter tradition by leaning on and expanding its source material’s canon (especially the parts that concern the multiverse).

Since Dissidia is a spin-off, you’d probably assume it exists outside of the Final Fantasy canon with character facsimiles standing in for the original protagonists. After all, that tends to be the industry standard (Nintendo’s Shigeru Miyamoto once confirmed that Super Smash Bros.‘s characters are actually toys). However, Dissidia’s fighters are surprisingly the real deal. That’s because, according to the narrative, the real Final Fantasy characters have been summoned from their own worlds to fight on behalf of the gods in Dissidia’s World B. Every Dissidia game starts off with this statement, and, in fantasy properties, disparate worlds usually imply a multiverse. Since there are three Dissidia games (four if you count the mobile entry), the entire franchise is arguably one big multiverse confirmation. 

Moreover, Dissidia goes several steps further since World B is a near-geographic replica of the first Final Fantasy’s setting, World A (albeit dotted with arenas ripped from the fragmented memories of its characters without rhyme or reason). For instance, one of the battlegrounds in World B is a blasted moonscape. Why is a location like that on a planet with an atmosphere? Well, it’s because it was pulled from the memories of Cecil Harvey: a character who traveled to the moon in Final Fantasy IV. Without a multiverse, there would have been no memories to pull from.

Now, since characters die left, right, and center in Dissidia, you might wonder how the series canonically fits into the Final Fantasy franchise without shattering the space-time continuum. Well, time works differently in World B, and that plot point is used to insert new canon into older titles. Everyone is caught in an endless cycle of battles, death, resurrection, and amnesia. They barely remember where they came from or why they are fighting and just know that they need to fight. But, after what is implied to be countless cycles worth of combat, the first game’s ending explicitly states that the various heroes and villains return to their respective worlds. Everyone except for the Warrior of Light, that is. He was created on World B by Cid of the Lufaine (a character retroactively added to rereleases of the first Final Fantasy) and retconned into one of the World A’s heroes from the original Final Fantasy. From there, Dissidia Final Fantasy NT pulls them all back for one more round.

Without a Final Fantasy multiverse, Dissidia wouldn’t make a lot of sense and would certainly be a very different spin-off series from a narrative standpoint.

Read more

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By Matthew Byrd

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Final Fantasy XIV and the Collaboration Connection

Now that we’ve established the general existence of a Final Fantasy multiverse (or the strong possibility of its existence), it’s time to address a particularly popular fan theory question: Is Final Fantasy XIV the root of the Final Fantasy multiverse?

It’s no secret Square Enix loves to stuff Final Fantasy XIV full of collaborative content. Players have gone on quests and collected equipment ripped out of properties such as Yo-Kai Watch and Garo. Square Enix also tends to collaborate with…well…itself and place the results in Final Fantasy XIV. For instance, Lightning and Noctis showed up for limited-time events in the game, but those instances hardly prove that the game sits in the middle of some kind of Final Fantasy nexus. After all, Lightning can don the iconic getups of characters such as Cloud, Yuna, and Lara Croft in Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII. Does that mean her tailor lives in the center of a Final Fantasy or Square Enix multiverse? Probably not since those crossover costumes are all optional DLC (and ultimately probably meant to advertise different Square-owned games). All Lightning and Noctis demonstrate in their Hydaelyn vacations is how the different Final Fantasy worlds are connected.

Lightning and Noctis visited Hydaelyn thanks to the Interdimensional Rift (the same one Gilgamesh, Omega, and Shinryu use to get around), and they aren’t the only characters who have taken an interdimensional tour. The Stormblood expansion introduced the Aetherial Rift: a raid dungeon hosted by a surprisingly friendly Omega (friendly in that he tests players before trying to stomp them out of existence). Thanks to Omega’s control over the Rift, gamers can square off against recreations of past Final Fantasy game bosses, including Chaos, Kekfa, Exdeath, and the Phantom Train. Again, you might assume these crossovers imply that Hydaelyn rests at the center of the multiverse. Instead, they most likely suggest that Omega either visited or used networked knowledge of different worlds to create these arenas, which lends credence to the theory that most Omegas seen throughout the franchise are either the same killbot or are linked in some way. Square Enix also apparently just loves to reference/advertise its older titles.

Now, some of you might ask, “What about Ivalice? Doesn’t Ivalice’s presence in Final Fantasy XIV prove the game is smack dab in the middle of the Final Fantasy multiverse?” Again, no. The Ivalice you’re thinking of is the world from Final Fantasy XII, while Ivalice in Final Fantasy XIV is just a kingdom. Confusingly, both Ivalices share certain elements, such as the Viera and Yiazmat, but those shared elements don’t necessarily demonstrate worlds colliding. Instead, they are likely indicative of design singularities you usually see in multiverses from other franchises (multiple Marvel universes have a Spider-Man/Woman, and multiple Final Fantasy universes have an Ivalice).

Final Thoughts on Final Fantasy‘s Multiverse

Considering the Interdimensional Rift and characters such as Gilgamesh and Omega, you really can’t argue against the likelihood of some kind of Final Fantasy multiverse. However, is Final Fantasy XIV really at the center of it all? Elements from different entries (as well as unrelated games, such as NieR:Automata and Monster Hunter: World) are certainly more likely to bleed into Hydaelyn, but does that make it the center of the multiverse? Signs point to no. Odds are Final Fantasy XIV’s above-average interdimensional crossover rate is merely a result of its MMORPG nature and good old-fashioned marketing.

cnx.cmd.push(function() { cnx({ playerId: "106e33c0-3911-473c-b599-b1426db57530", }).render("0270c398a82f44f49c23c16122516796"); });

At the end of the day, it doesn’t matter which Final Fantasy world, if any, spawned the others. They all are clearly interconnected through countless narratives and world-building elements, so unless Square Enix reveals the identity of this fabled origin world, all we can do is speculate. Then again, if we knew which Final Fantasy universe spawned the others and exactly how the game’s multiverse elements work, that might suck some of the magic out of the series.

The post Final Fantasy’s Multiverse Fan Theory Will Change How You Look at the Franchise appeared first on Den of Geek.

from Den of Geek https://ift.tt/3nvYjNk

[houseisekai]

House Isekai: A Realm Reborn - Part 1, Old Places and New Faces (1 of 2)

House Isekai ARR Masterlist Here

—

Upon their return to Fodlan, Kazuma, Rean, Towa, and Aigis have found that it has changed drastically. Whether it was for better or worse, was unknown.

All they knew was to find Sitri, who had requested House Isekai's aid...

[Life at Garreg Mach Monastery - Fire Emblem: Three Houses OST]

Kazuma, Towa, Rean, and Aigis walked awkwardly through the crowds of students and guards, trying not to stare at their technology.

(Aigis) "Their devices seem...eerily similar to yours, Rean."

(Rean) "Arcus units and Soldats..."

Rean looked at the bipedal golems with swords and shields walking through the courtyard. It looked like students were trying to use them properly.

(Kazuma) "Soldats? Those things kinda like Valimar?"

(Towa) "Yes, but far easier to produce and a lot less strong, to put it simply."

(Rean) "How did they even get something like this? In our world, they took so many years to develop, alongside orbal technology..."

(Towa) "And their version of arcus units, didn't they look like the crystals from the Zanado tower?"

(Aigis) "Perhaps we should ask these questions to Sitri. Though, I am unsure of how to find her, since we do not have the proper clearance."

(Kazuma) "Hmph. Not to mention we aren't students, I'm pretty sure we're weirding people out just by being here."

Towa turned to where the Cathedral used to be, only to see a massive hangar full of the bipedal golems and guards from all three nations populating it.

(Towa) "The Cathedral was going to be my guess, but I don't think that's an option."

(Rean) "Maybe the listening hall?"

(Kazuma) "Are we even going to be allowed up there?"

(Familliar Woman's voice) "...Oh my goodness! It really is you guys!"

Everyone turned around to the woman's voice and were greeted by an old friend.

(Kazuma) "Merce-! HOLY SHIT!"

Mercedes was accompanied by two of the massive golems, armed with a shield and lance just as big as them.

(Rean) "WOAH!"

(Towa) "EEP!"

(Mercedes) "Haha, oh, I am so sorry! I didn't mean to frighten anyone!"

(Aigis) "It is amazing how that got behind us without anyone hearing them-"

(Rean) "U-Um, it's good to see you again Mercedes!"

(Towa) "AHEM! What are you doing here?"

(Kazuma) "More importantly, why are those golem things following you around?!"

(Mercedes) "I am simply a visitor, just like you four! Sitri thought it best to have bodyguards accompany me. Those bodguards happen to be the form of Knights."

(Towa) "...Knights sure have changed since we last saw them, huh?"

(Aigis) "Speaking of which, do you happen to know where Sitri is?"

(Mercedes) "Indeed I do! Would you like me to take you to her?"

(Rean) "Yes please."

Rean looked at the golems called "Knights" and couldn't help but feel nervous.

Now he knew how it felt to have Valimar follow around the old House Isekai.

(Mercedes) "Please, follow me!"

Everyone nodded and let Mercedes guide the way, the Knights following closely behind.

(Aigis) "It seems Fodlan's technology has greatly improved since we left."

(Mercedes) "It has, my mind is really having trouble keeping up nowadays. It seems every other month some new device for communication is put out!"

(Aigis) "That's a familiar feeling..."

(Kazuma) "So...everything's been fine since House Isekai left?"

Mercedes stopped outside the main hall's entrance and turned to the knights.

(Mercedes) "Worry not, these four protected me during the Five Year War. I will return shortly."

The Knights' heads nodded.

They went up into the building of the main entrance hall, making their way up to the second floor of Garreg Mach. The knights remained outdoors and Mercedes looked around her to make sure they were alone.

(Mercedes) "To be quite honest, it has been a bit...troubling. There's a host of new problems ever since this new partnership between the empire, kingdom, and alliance began. But, that shouldn't be anything you have to worry about! Actually, why are you here?"

(Rean) "We received a call from Sitri, requesting help from us. I guess the four of us were the only ones able to respond."

(Mercedes) "I see. If she requested House Isekai, then I am not sure it is a good thing...Oh? I believe she's speaking to someone inside."

[Arcana Code - Fire Emblem: Three Houses OST]

(Sitri) “Then let’s get started. I have called you five here, because you are the best and brightest Garreg Mach Monastery has to offer."

Sitri put her hand to her chest and closed her eyes.

(Sitri) "We live in troubled times, as you can no doubt see for yourselves. Even with the advancement of our technology ever since the calamity two years ago, tensions between our nations remain at an all time high."

The students looked at each other, not sure of where this speech was going.

(Sitri) "Garreg Mach Monastery was created to represent the very best our nations had to offer, and pave a way for our youth to shape our world. That is why you all are here.

Of our three Houses, you have been chosen for an experimental class, and will be leading from example."

(Stefan) "E-Experimental how?"

(Sitri) "Surely you have heard of House Isekai?"

(Helena) "Think I remember hearing rumors about them with my old mercenary group."

(Astrid) "Those group of weirdos and undead!?"

(Kazuma's Voice) "Who are they calling weir-"

(Towa's Voice) "K-Kazuma! They'll hear us!"

(Kairos) "I only know from what I read from reports. They were the fourth house of Garreg Mach, right?"

Sitri nodded.

(Sitri) "They were a group of people that came from beyond our world, all with different histories and personalities. The reason I bring them up is because they worked with all three classes before the Five Year War began. And they were the ones who stopped the calamity from destroying our world."

(Elizabeth) ...?! "Hold a moment, Lady Sitri! Have we been called to work with these off worlders?! They have no place in meddling in the affairs of Fodlan!"

(Kairos) "Hmph. For once I agree with her, this matter should be left to us-"

Sitri raised a hand and interrupted them.

(Sitri) "These "off-worlders" had the opportunity to leave us to our fates when the calamity was at its worst. Instead, they chose to stay and fight for our sake. I trust them with my life. And so do your nations' leaders."

(Everyone) "..."

(Sitri) "Prepare yourselves to travel out, grab any essential gear and report back. We will continue the briefing once you are more situated."

[Musica Universalis - Final Fantasy XIV: Shadowbringers OST]

The students quietly left the room, keeping their thoughts to themselves.

They were too preoccupied to notice that they had walked by Kazuma, Rean, Aigis, and Towa.

(Mercedes) "I have my own business to attend to unfortunately, so I will see you all later!"

Mercedes bowed while everyone else waved goodbye, and she followed the students down.

Once they went downstairs, Rean was the first to enter the room.

Sitri took a deep breath and smiled when she saw them.

(Sitri) "Hello, everyone. I hope that speech I gave was alright."

(Towa) "I like to think so, but I can definitely see why the kids are so confused."

(Aigis) "You do not seem shocked that we are here."

(Sitri) "Well, I did have someone looking out the door for me."

She motioned behind her, Sothis materializing in front of everyone and waving.

(Sothis) "Besides, with how loud Kazuma is, I don't think it was too hard guessing who it was."

Kazuma rolled his eyes.

(Kazuma) "Yeah yeah, whatever."

(Rean) "I see you've been keeping yourself busy!"

Sitri sighed again, though sounding far more tired.

(Sitri) "You have NO idea...I hadn't realized how exhausting being a professor is, not to mention leading the reconstruction effort."

(Towa) "Oh, so that's why Garreg Mach is active again! You're doing such a good job!"

(Sitri) "Thank you, Towa. There's far more that needs to be done, but we've been getting by."

(Kazuma) "So, what exactly did you need us here for? We got your message."

(Sothis) "Well, a number of things really, but we should get to the most troubling news first."

(Sitri) "Right. We'll have time to catch up later. It's about the Zanado Tower."

Everyone straightened their backs and frowned.

[Spider Web - Fire Emblem: Three Houses OST]

(Sothis) "We've been getting reports from the guards that...strange creatures are emerging from it."

(Kazuma) "That's descriptive. What makes them strange?"

(Sitri) "They seem to have intelligence but...they're nothing like we've ever seen before. Claude is in charge of the area around Zanado, so he ordered his men to just keep observing. These creatures never get too far, on account that they are killed by an unknown group."

(Aigis) "Do we have any visual references for any of these?"

Sitri nodded, and pulled out a crystal-like device.

It appeared similar to a tablet, but the information was displayed floating above it, which Sitri began swiping at it, making it show a picture of the creature.

(Rean) "What in the...?"

(Aigis) "It does not appear to be a Shadow."

(Kazuma) "Hmph. Nothing I've seen in my world."

(Sothis) "To be honest, we were hoping at least one from every group showed up to confirm this or not, but for the time being we can only guess it's from a world none of us are familiar with."

(Towa) "But, I thought we stopped the Tower from continuing to rip apart other worlds?"

(Sitri) "We did. And that's why we're concerned."

(Sothis) "It doesn't seem like it's having any overall negative effects on Fodlan, but this only showed up recently."

(Sitri) "I put the message out a week ago, and if you all only now received it..."

(Rean) "Then we shouldn't waste any time. We need to investigate immediately."

(Sothis) "Our thoughts exactly. Which is why..."

Sothis turned to the door and disappeared, the students of Garreg Mach arriving back in the room, each carrying a small bag with them.

The students realized that there were more people in the room now.

(Astrid) "Wow, they look weird."

(Elizabeth) "Astrid! Where are your manners?!"

(Stefan) "Sorry about tha-...Wait a second..."

(Helena) "Hmph, maybe that's why. Are you guys from House Isekai?"

(Kairos) "Wait, these are supposed to be the people who saved us?"

(Rean) "Well, obviously we're not the full class but we were the core members. I'm Rean Schwarzer of Class VII."

(Kazuma) "Kazuma."

(Towa) "I'm Towa Herschel, it's a pleasure to meet the new generation of Garreg Mach's finest!"

(Aigis) "Aigis of S.E.E.S. Hello."

(Astrid) "Huh. Don't look like much to me."

(Stefan) "Well, we are pleased to meet House Isekai in the flesh after all the stories we've heard!"

Helena looked to the others. Astrid was frowning while Kairos and Elizabeth looked mutually revolted.

(Helena) "Least two of us are. Good job on getting those two to agree on something, though."

(Towa) "I-I'm sorry?"

(Kairos) "Lady Sitri, with all due respect, this is something that WE need to do ourselves. Getting outside help-"

(Sitri) "-Is necessary, considering what we're going up against. We all will be visiting the Zanado Tower in order to investigate the strange creatures coming out of it."

While Sitri recounted what she told House Isekai, the members of the old House looked at each other.

(Kazuma) "The hell do they got against us?"

(Aigis) "I am unsure. Did we do something wrong?"

(Towa) "Rean..."

(Rean) "I know, Towa. Well, I kind of have a suspicion."

(Aigis/Kazuma) ?

(Rean) "When my country occupied another, we were seen as meddling outsiders who had no business interfering in their affairs, causing all sorts of grief for every citizen involved..."

(Kazuma) "But it's not like our Houses have been taking over the territories here-"

(Towa) "True, but it's not like we had zero impact on the world either. I mean, just look at their technology! I think it's safe to say without us, they would not have progressed so fast."

(Aigis) "That is...a fair point."

Rean took another look at the students.

(Rean) "They remind me a little of my own class. And if that's taught me anything, is that they'll come around eventually. It's not like we all got along straight away either."

(Sitri) "...Now, without any futher delay.-"

Sitri closed her eyes for a moment as a portal slowly began to open behind them.

(Sitri) "I will take the lead for now. Everyone, please follow me."

They nodded and Sitri and the old members of House Isekai went in first.

(Elizabeth) "Ugh, this will NOT go well..."

(Kairos) "It's not like we can say no to Lady Sitri. We'll have to follow along for now."

(Astrid) "I mean, I don't think they seem that bad, just weird."

(Stefan) "We have to give them a chance at least!"

(Helena) "Fodlan's been through worse anyway. What's the worst that could happen?"

...

Meanwhile, inside the Zanado Tower...

Class VII stepped through the portal and found themselves in a completely alien environment.

(Juna) "Woah..."

(Kurt) "What in the...?!"

(Altina) "Hm...The structure does not match any known signatures from our world."

(Ash) "Think that much is obvious."

(Musse) "Where's Instructor Rean?"

(Juna) "Uh, I think the better question is how do we even leave?"

(Kurt) "There appears to be a doorway ahead. Perhaps we can take that?"

(Ash) "Beats standing around."

Ash and Kurt moved first, with the rest of Class VII following..."

...

Through the scope of a sniper, a helmeted soldier slowly watched Class VII exit and wander the facility.

He was accompanied by three other soldiers, all wearing the same helmet and suit, with slight variations on their armor making them distinct from one another.

They were extremely high up on the platforms as they continued to fly past them, yet they still made an effort to remain out of sight.

(Buck) "What do you see Romeo?"

(Romeo) "Five kids. All wearing the same uniform, humans from the looks of it. Carrying some weird lookin weapons too."

Dutch lowered his weapon and sighed.

(Dutch) "Finally, some good news."

(Mickey) "Is it? How the heck did they even get here?"

(Buck) "One thing at a time. Right now, we go and get those kids to follow us, before whatever the hell those things were finds them first."

(Romeo) "Or, we could just find the exit instead."

(Mickey) "And leave them to die?"

(Dutch) "Really?"

(Buck) "..."

(Romeo) "Jeez, tough crowd."

(Buck) "Just shut up, Romeo. Let's get moving."

Everyone picked up their equipment and followed after Class VII.

(Romeo) "Besides, the weapons on them were-"

(Buck) "Romeo. Remember when I told you to shut up?"

(Romeo) "Yeah?"

(Buck) "Consider that a standing order."

...

(Amber) "Hm..."

Amber dusted off some of the crates around her and found food inside.

Although they packaging was covered in dust, they appeared to be fresh.

(Venti) "Ugh, finally food! I'm starving!"

Duvalie walked past Venti and her face scrunched up seeing how fast he stuffed it down his throat.

(Duvalie) "Tch, don't let that dust stop you from inhaling the food."

(Jean) "I suppose if it tastes alright...?"

(Kaeya) "No need to see if it's centuries old or poisonous, just go 'head and eat it."

(Lisa) "Perhaps we should worry about this food situation later? I do believe I saw another Abyss Mage run this direction."

(Diluc) "Then we have no time to waste."

Diluc grabbed his sword and moved the direction Lisa pointed.

(Duvalie) "Right!"

She drew her sword and shield and tagged along right beside him.

Even though they had found Duvalie by herself in this strange tower, she was already feeling like a part of the group.

Though Diluc didn't want to admit that. He already saw how ecstatic she was seeing Jean and himself fight. Though, a part of him wondered where she came from. She certainly wasn't from their world...

...

Outside the Zanado Tower...

Sitri stepped through the portal first, and the former members of House Isekai, and the Garreg Mach students came in right behind.

Drawing the Sword of the Creator, she took a deep breath before turning to the group.

(Sitri) "Students of Garreg Mach, begin the mission!"

[To be Continued]