Beneath Yon Burning Star (FFXIV)

You cannot find it in yourself to blame the young man. It is the way of your people to turn to violence in times of strife, and carve themselves a path into the future with the edge of their blades. Your ancestors came to Gyr Abania in the wake of calamity, guided by Rhalgr's star as they fled a flood that consumed half the world, and though they found sanctuary in those highland peaks there was precious little else. Stone and salt and searing winds, and they made each of them their virtue, going out into the world as mercenaries and raiders and bringing the wealth back home. The great stone citadels of your homeland were built with bloodstained gold; how then can you hate this child for turning to a familiar path?

Yet you do not have to hate someone to oppose them. You are too old and set in your ways for personal revelation now, and the truth at the heart of your being is a simple one - you are no bandit, and what score you held with Soaring Peak and his caravan has already been settled. So you stay silent, and you shake your head, and you watch as Jayk's expression turns ugly and cold.

"Fine then. Guess we're done here," he growls, rising to his feet and glaring down at you, hands balled into fists at his side. "Should have known better than to ask. Only lapdogs grow old in a place like this."

When you were a young man, you would have answered an insult like that with steel, but you are older and wiser and more tired now than you ever were when first you took up the spear. So you wait in silence, and when Jayk eventually storms past you and out the door and Roger by the bar looks over in curiosity, you shrug and raise your empty cup.

"Family drama," you say simply, "don't worry about it. Another tea, if you would, and a bit less poison this time."

-/-

That night you are spared the dreams of Carteneau. Instead you find yourself wandering amid memories of home, watching as the peaks are ground to dust and the great salt flats bridged by trains belching oil and smoke. The Tomb of the Errant Sword is broken open, and the hallowed blades within wielded by your fallen brothers to pluck the gryphon of its wings. You wake to the sound of a train entering Black Brush, and in the solitude of your inn room you allow yourself the luxury of tears.

The sun has yet to cross the horizon when you slip out of the Coffer and Coffin, your pack strapped tightly to your back and your spear balanced against your shoulder. The sky is a melange of red and orange, just now coming alive with the morning chorus of insects and scavenging avians, and there are only a handful of labourers to see you leave down and walk towards the rising sun. The mountainous bulk of Ul'dah squats on the southern horizon like a tumour, an ever-present landmark in this desolate land, but you're not looking to travel there or anywhere else its residents would deign to call a town. Every settlement in Thanalan has its mirror, a pale copy where the desperate and the dispossessed congregate, and the Brush's echo is the charmingly named Lost Hope.

It takes you a little over an hour to find it, a fact that causes no small concern. The miners at the tavern knew only the rough location of the settlement, and you had planned to guide yourself in via the trail of workers migrating into Black Brush with the morning sun, but though your eyes are keen and the ground flat and open you don't see even a single soul. When at last you cross a ridge and see the settlement spread out in a valley before you, with a roof of tarpaulin stretched from one cliffside to the other and deadwood posts to hold it all together, your first thought is some manner of affliction or disease. The whole place looks dead and silent, unmoving in the morning light, but scarcely have you hesitated for more than a few moments when a scraggly looking child emerges from the mouth of one cave and then vanishes into another mere heartbeats later.

Not dead, then, merely sleeping or enjoying a leisurely morning. The thought surprises you, for surely there must be work in the nearby town for at least some of the populace, yet it seems to be the case. Frowning, you begin to make your way down the narrow dirt path towards the valley mouth, hesitating only a moment when you see the smooth stone dome of a roadside shrine a few dozen yalms off the beaten track. The outer surface is marked with the cowrie-shell sign of Nald'thal, where perhaps you might have expected Ochon for patronage of wanderers or Rhalgr for his protection of your people, but you know the Trader is a highly respected god in Ul'dah. Perhaps your countrymen are simply trying to fit in… in any case it would be bad luck to walk past such a place without at least paying your respects, so you shrug and make your way over.

Your confusion only grows when you step inside. The stone shell of the dome is smooth and seamless, carved with the exacting care and mathematical precision of a master artisan, but the interior of the shrine is almost completely bare. There is a small pedestal at the centre bearing the symbol of paired scales, and on the wall beyond a humble sketch of a robed lalafell sitting atop some kind of old-fashioned cart, but beyond that there is nothing. You can't even imagine how they hold services to the Traders in here, or where you are meant to deposit your offering, and you're still standing there in confusion when a boot scrapes against the stone behind you and someone coughs politely.

"You lost, son?" You turn to see an old highlander man is standing in the doorway to the shrine, regarding you with some mild amusement. His air is iron-grey and his frame fairly withered, but there's nothing dull about the pale brass eyes that regard you with an elder's patience. "Thought I saw someone walking down the trail, but when you didn't arrive, well, there's only so many distractions on the way."

"I thought… where is everyone?" You frown at being called 'son', but while your hair is going grey even the merest glance tells you this man must be at least twenty or thirty years your senior. You're honestly somewhat impressed he's still hanging on. "Or everything, for that matter? Did someone steal the temple trappings?"

"Oh, no, we leave the place empty," the old man chuckles, turning away and limping back out into the sunlight, "I'd be happy to explain, but first, let us find somewhere to sit. These old bones aren't as sturdy as they used to be."

Shrugging, you follow in his wake, letting the old man lead the way down the path and into the township of Lost Hope. He says nothing as you walk, just ambling along in the vaguely carefree way of men too old to really concern themselves with the content of one day over the next, which gives you plenty of time to study the settlement and its people as you pass through. The conclusions you draw are, predictably, somewhat depressing.

Lost Hope is a township on the verge of falling apart. There are holes in the tarpaulin canopy, shacks that list sideways and cavern entrances that are halfway collapsed, and what repairs you can see are slapdash and ramshackle at best. There are piles of material resting next to each significant problem, old desert stone and dried deadwood dragged in from malms around to repair the faltering structures, but there are none here with the skills to properly put them to use. You see no young men or adult women as you pass through, only the elderly staring listlessly at you from the door to their hovels or immature children scrapping with each other in pits of dust, and while a few nod to your guide as he passes through none give you more than a passing glance.

The heat is oppressive. It is barely an hour past dawn, but there is no wind in the valley, and the insulated building techniques of your homeland require expertise lost and scattered in the conquest. What clothing the people here have is ragged and threadbare, pieced together from scavenged remnants and the cheapest of discard fabric, while the only water you see comes from an old sandbrick well slowly worked by a weary woman with her grey hair shorn close to the scalp. The children are playing in the dirt, taking advantage of this brief period of time where the heat is merely uncomfortable as opposed to outright agonising, while their grandparents and elders watch silently from the mouths of their caves or play games of strategy using flecks of coloured stone.

Eventually the path you follow takes you to the other end of the valley, where it slopes up gradually until it reaches the upper edge of the cliff. There you find a low stone bench carved out of a boulder, its arms carefully shaped into the form of a gryphon's flaring wings, and when the old man takes a seat you set your weapons down and do likewise.

"My name is Hamund," the old man says simply, fishing an old bone pipe and satchel of herbs from inside his undyed linen tunic, "I'm the oldest one here, which back home would have made me something of an authority. How about you?"

"J'zhuvu Tia," you say politely, accepting a pinch of the herb when he offers it to you. It's no breed you recognise, but it fits in the simple travelling pipe you carry well enough, and the cloud of blue smoke it produces does wonders to soothe away those aches you hadn't even really registered remained from yesterday. "I came out here to, well, lay low for a bit. Lost my temper with a merchant brat back in Black Brush, decided I'd go seek work with my kin until everyone calmed down."

"Hmm. I sympathise, but you won't find much work here. Lost Hope is… well, the name says it all, doesn't it?" Hamund says with a bleak chuckle, relaxing into his seat. You enjoy the silence together for a moment, watching as the sunlight creeps slowly over the covered valley beneath you. "Most anyone who can work moved out years ago. All that's left here now are the old fools like me."

You quirk one eyebrow, patting the arching sweep of the gryphon wing carved into the bench you sit on. "You sure? This is good stonework. If I had to guess, I'd say home is Ala Ghana, right?"

"Ah, you know your maps," Hamund chuckles, a nostalgic look in his eyes as he takes another drag on his pipe. "Yes, I'm from Ala Ghana. Time was, the stone from our quarry decorated the walls of the royal palace, but the rock around here isn't nearly as good, and I'm not as skilled as I used to be. Took me thrice as long to carve that shrine as it would have in my prime… speaking of which, I did promise an explanation. Do you know the story of Saint Zozonan?"

You shake your head, settling in for a long rambling story. You'd resent the obligation, but Hamund is still standing and talking despite everything your people have gone through in his lifetime, so putting up with a bit of self-indulgent lecturing is the least respect you can afford him.

"Hmm. I'm not surprised - it's not a popular story nowadays," Hamund sighs, stretching out his legs with an audible crack. "Zozonan was a friar in a rich and mighty city, many years ago. Some say Belah'dia, or something from a prior age, but it doesn't really matter. When the great city's neighbours were consumed by war, refugees flocked to Zozonan's city in their multitudes, and their piteous state was as a knife in the kindly friar's heart. He went to his neighbours and his congregation, asking for alms and aid, but was denied at every turn, the collection plate left empty."

Hamund smiles bitterly, but you say nothing. There's nothing to be gained from pointing out the obvious parallels, and so you stay silent and wait for him to continue. "So, determined that he must act alone, Zozonan returned to the shrine of his god. He sold every trapping and implement within the walls, going so far as to tear the silver candle-holders from the walls, and with the money raised purchased carts full of food and supplies. The sight of him heading out to tend to the refugees, nothing left to his name but the clothes upon his back, stirred shame in the hearts of his neighbours. One by one they followed, and together salved every hurt and fed every hungry mouth. For this dedication, Zozonan was named a Saint of Nald'thal."

Oh. The sun is fully risen now, the desert heat growing with every passing moment, but you feel cold. You look at the valley and the settlement within, at the ragged tarpaulin that keeps out the wind and the thin linen that Hamund is forced to wear. You think of the empty shrine and the symbol of the Saint, and the way that wind has begun to wear at the masterful stonework. It must have been erected years ago.

"You were…" you say, then hesitate. How do you even begin to broach such a topic?

"I was too old to do a full day's work, and too principled to take work that younger men could use to feed their children, but I thought I could help. I thought I could make something pleasing to the Saint, and that he would intercede to warm the hearts of our hosts," Hamund says, his voice bitter, his brass eyes staring at nothing. "I was a fool. Zozonan enkindles compassion and shame, and the hearts of Ul'dah feel neither. What else can one expect from a people who go so far to split the Trader into two, that they might pretend the sins of one's life are hidden from the one who judges their worth in death?"

You wince. You've never cared to learn why the deity you name Nald'thal is worshipped as a pair of brothers in this land, but you know full well how a man might cling to faith when all else is lost to him. To perform such an act of devotion, to pray for succour with such sincerity, and to see it denied… "Did nobody come?"

"A few. Vultures picking over the corpses of our people, mostly, taking only the young and healthy away to work for their masters' coin," Hamund says bitterly, closing his eyes and slumping back on the stone bench. He looks so thin, so dreadfully still, that for a moment you fear his heart just gave out. "I've heard the Sultana wants to help, but she is little more than a pretty ornament on Ul'dah's crown, even with the Bull of Ala Mhigo at her side. I'm too old to see any change there in my lifetime… what else is there to do, but sit in the sun and tell old stories, until at last the vultures strip what little flesh remains from these tired old bones?"

You understand the despair, the frustration, the resignation to what seems like an inevitable end. How often have you been dogged by such thoughts, more with every grey hair upon your head? The thought that you will never see a free Ala Mhigo, that your people will slowly fade and die with none to sing their funeral song, haunts you every night. Rhalgr tests you sorely, as he tests every soul in this world, and sometimes those trials are too much for even the staunchest of spirits. In your youth you thought it meant the Destroyer was cruel and inhumane, but with age came something resembling wisdom. That there are trials in this world which no one soul can endure is proof of Rhalgr's grace, for he gives you no choice but to band together with your brothers and so learn the strength of company. Now you find a kinsman buckling under the weight of despair, and no matter how your own soul might ache and cry for rest, the path of duty is clear.

"You can teach," you say firmly, rapping your knuckles against the elegant stonework of the bench the two of you sit upon. "Skills such as these should not be allowed to lie fallow, elder. Pass them down to the next generation, and when Ala Mhigo is free, they will sing your name into the wind."

"Teach? And what students do you see here, J'zhuvu Tia?" Hamund asks with a caustic snort, cracking open one eye to glare at you balefully. "Nobody who can leave Lost Hope remains. I'd have left myself, but I have neither coin nor supplies, and one cannot travel on charity. Not beneath the banner of the Sultanate."

You grin, your heart suddenly elated, and dig your coinpurse out from within your pack. It fairly bulges with coins, the debt Soaring Peak owed you built with interest. You cannot know for sure what circumstances are owed to Rhalgr's intervention, not until you perish and stand before him in the Heavens, but you'll not deny that this strikes you as too perfectly aligned for mere coincidence.

"I can pay for us both, and any of your family that might wish to come. We can go to Little Ala Mhigo, Gundobald runs the place and he's an old friend," you say, words spilling out like a bubbling stream, your doubts and worries washed away beneath a sudden surge of enthusiasm. "There's plenty of youngbloods there, stuck with nowhere to go. You can teach them stonework, I can bring in more coin with work on the border - maybe I'll even train a few as Myrmidons, to carry on the work after we're both dead and gone."

"You think that's wise?" Hamund raises one iron eyebrow, but even his old cynicism cannot entirely deny the potential in your words. "We're still subjects of Ul'dah's grace, even that far south - you really want to test them by training an army in the old style?"

You hesitate for a moment, then nod. "Well, maybe not, but I have other skills too, ones worth passing on. I might not match you in years, elder, but I dare say I've travelled further, and picked up a thing or two along the way…"

Article:

Choose two of the following to be your Secondary Skills. The winning options will begin at a rank of "Distinguished", bringing with them one technique each, and say something about what J'zhuvu has spent the last twenty years doing alongside his mercenary work as a Myrmidon.

[ ] Cooking. A mercenary who can turn trail rations into a feast is always welcome, and you take comfort in recreating the meals of your childhood. Alas the salts and spices of your native cuisine are harder to come by nowadays, especially on a budget, but you have learned enough herb lore to compensate.

[ ] Dancing. Once a form of meditation, then a martial art, the dances of your homeland are frenetic and joyous. It is said that masters of the art could shake the earth with their steps and stir fire in dead hearts, but for you it was only ever a way to relax, and let the cares of the world drain away.

[ ] Hunting. The sport of princes and the salvation of paupers, a mercenary who can hunt and gather from flora is never at risk of starving. You learned to hunt with stealth and trickery, laying traps and following tracks with equal skill, and studied alchemy to anoint your weapons with poison.

[ ] Metalshaping. Though you were never the equal of your Ananta teacher, you did manage to pick up some of her tricks for weaving metal and sculpting crystals into things of beauty. Practice is hard to come by nowadays, for an Ala Mhigan bearing such exotic wealth is often assumed to have stolen it.

[ ] Prospecting. While you are no miner to labour in a shaft, you did learn to scout and search for sources of water and flora amid the barren lands of your home, and to deduce the most subtle details of the world through taste and touch. Frustratingly, finding natural wealth is easier by far than keeping it from the Syndicate's grasping hands.

[ ] Write-in. Subject to QM veto. Secondary skills aimed at making you a better Myrmidon are specifically banned - this is about breadth of experience, not depth of synergy.