#synnove is gonna find a way to resurrect vatete vate just to kill her herself

[dragons-bones]

FFXIV Write Entry #22: Code 'Buncle

Prompt: fulsome || Master Post || On AO3

A/N: Sequel to "[INDIGO ABRASAX]" from earlier this FFXIV Write!

--

Synnove pressed her palm to her forehead and groaned. Not for the first time, she wanted to strangle Vatete Vate.

Too bad she was a couple thousand years dead.

Mama, you’re going to need to rope in Nero, Galette said waspishly.

Synnove groaned again. “Noooooooo.”

Yes.

As was her wont when working on a carbuncle’s physical array system, Synnove had taken over an unused lecture hall within Mealvaan’s Gate. Unspooling a carbuncle and making sure the physical arrays had enough space was a frequent part of her routine and an important aspect of carbuncle maintenance. Just because the written arrays were still flawless did not mean that the physical ones couldn’t be affected by any number of factors.

She should have known trying to get a grasp on Ipomoea’s array system wasn’t going to be easy when the carbuncle didn’t unspool. Ipomoea unfolded.

When unspooled, Galette had the densest array system of all the carbuncles, her ribbon of self tightly coiled to fit, even in a room as large as a Guild lecture hall. She was an old carbuncle, the frequent first recipient of any upgrades Synnove devised or needed to test, and the bearer of a number of unique functions that neither construct nor summoner ever openly advertised. (Some were benign, or minor tweaks. Others not so much.)

But Ipomoea’s physical array system wasn’t a tidy ribbon of aether folding or curling in on itself however many times it needed. It filled nearly every ilm of space in the room, a chaotic jumble of geometry and equations and Allagan coding language. Synnove had been at this for the entire morning and she had only examined perhaps a sixth of the mess and understood even less of it.

[Senior Construct Galette, who is Designation: Nero?]

Ipomoea’s blandly pleasant aetheric harmonic seemed to physically echo, and Synnove made a conscious effort not to twitch. Galette’s tails lashed once against her shoulder, before the emerald carbuncle regained control of herself and chirped, Nero Scaeva is our not-so-resident expert on Allagan technology and programming. You will end up meeting him sooner rather than later. Also, he’s an annoying prick.

[Should I assume by the negative appellation that Designation: Nero Scaeva should not be listed as a New User for the purpose of debugging my array system?]

“That is correct,” Synnove said. “Never, ever, ever.”

[Designation: Nero Scaeva categorized as ALLIED UNIT, Subcategory: Annoying Prick.]

Synnove allowed herself a mean little chuckle at that. Galette just flat out cackled, eerily similar in sound to Garuda’s high-pitched mad shrieks.

But reality reasserted itself, and Synnove found herself scowling again soon enough. Galette, unfortunately, was correct: she was going to need to call in Nero. Synnove was good at untangling Allagan bullshite, but Nero was better, especially since this was his bread and butter and not a side hobby as it was for herself. And Vatete Vate had done some truly disgusting things while bashing arcane geometries into fairy logic into Allagan service node programming; she’d probably need to get Halulu or Setoto in on this, as well, for the fairy logic components of Ipomoea’s system. What a fucking mess, and even poor Ipomoea couldn’t explain half of what was inside her; Vatete apparently hadn’t bothered to include even a fucking table of contents in either Ipomoea or the soulstone.

And then there was all this other fucking nonsense in the physical array that seemed to have no bloody fucking purpose! Strange squiggles and shapes that she dearly hoped weren’t Vatete’s own shorthand, because there would be no deciphering that. Honestly, some looked like little…

…oh, she fucking didn’t.

“Ipomoea,” Synnove said slowly, and pointed to a flourish currently floating near Galette’s ear, “are you able to explain what this is?”

[Certainly! That is a hedera.]

Seven fucking hells, she did.

“Vatete put PAGE BLOCKS in your fucking physical array?!”

[That is correct.]

Synnove bit down hard on her lower lip, but that merely turned the shriek she wanted to indulge in into something closer to a whistling teakettle. Galette rubbed her head against her cheek in commiseration.

“Ipomoea, are you able to locate each hedera in your array?”

[I am.]

“Please light them up for me.”

She did.

“…I fucking hate Vatete Vate.”

[You are not the first.] Ipomoea’s harmonic, for once, forewent polite neutrality in favor of wry, dare Synnove think it, agreement.

“How the fucking fuck do you put a page block into an equation, Twelve fucking help me.” Synnove rubbed her temples and sighed heavily. “All right, sweetness, let’s see if I can’t find your bloody personality matrix somewhere in this mess.”

[…What is a personality matrix?]

Galette made a noise, and it was angry.

Synnove felt similar. “I am going to find how to murder a woman three thousand years dead, I swear to the fucking Traders. Ipomoea, look for anything related to…”

PREVIOUS || NEXT