The end came, and went. The apocalypse arrived in a blaze of blistering light, and the death of something that might as well have been a god. A calamity came upon all things. Heroes died, and were forgotten. Worlds were rendered to kindling for the flames of ruin.
Five years later, the world struggles to move on, to rebuild what was lost. Survivors fight for a new beginning, to see their Realm reborn. And this seventh dawn brings upon the world another generation of heroes, scions of a newborn age. Among them stands a child from a foreign star - and with them comes the echo of another calamity, past or future...
(Post-Canon Worm / Final Fantasy XIV)
I close my eyes, tell us why must we suffer?
Release your hands, for your will drags us under...
My legs grow tired, tell us where must we wander...
How can we carry on if redemption's beyond us?
Chapter 1 - Down in the Dirt
Colin, to his eternal surprise, woke up.
He had not expected to survive - to live through the end of all things. Yet here he was, alive. Still alive. For several stomach-churning moments, instants of despair, he wondered why. Why him, out of all those billions of people!? Trillions, across all the multiverse? Why?
He had the taste of ashes on his tongue, the remnants of a million souls rendered to nothing by golden light. In his ears echoed the calls of the dead and dying, a cacophony that resounded in all directions while everything fell apart. He envisioned portals opening all around him, disgorging bodies that moved in lockstep with each other, bent to a single purpose. His own body had joined them despite itself, mercilessly efficient at performing a task he could only barely grasp, to construct the weapon that would end the war. All of that was fresh in his mind.
And after that, there was… nothing. Darkness. A void in his thoughts, in his memories, filled with little more than shimmers of shadows and light, the echoes of events. Death, he'd thought, in the moments after the device he'd helped construct fired at its target. The end had seemed so terribly inevitable, a final price to be paid for victory. Had they won? They must have, because surely all the Earths would have been destroyed if Scion had completed his onslaught? Yes. Yes, they had achieved victory - and he'd even regained control of his body in the end, which meant that the Master behind the final push was gone as well. Whatever had happened there, at the end of all things, it was all over. Finished.
Colin smiled crookedly, and the expression felt unnatural on his face. There had been precious few things to laugh about since he'd learned of Dragon's fate at the hands of Teacher, and things hadn't gotten any better since. Still - humanity would survive another day. The victory didn't resolve much of anything beyond the immediate threat, of course, and squabbling would doubtlessly begin anew - but they'd survived the apocalypse.
Humanity, defiant.
That had to mean something.
Colin opened his tired eyes to a sparse desert under a clear blue sky, and found himself sprawled in the dirt on the side of a rocky canyon, surrounded on all sides by rough sandstone boulders and sparse vegetation. It was an unexpected but not actively hostile place, which was better than most of the alternatives that had occurred to him. There were no immediate signs of habitation, though he noticed distinctly avian tracks inches from his face - too large to belong to any species he was familiar with, even Ostriches. Too many toes to be that species, too.
This was not Earth Bet, Colin decided, unless he'd had the bad fortune of ending up in some Biotinker's playground. Not Earth Aleph either. Given the state of Bet the last he'd seen it, it was probably preferable to be elsewhere in any case. He paused at an errant thought, reexamining the tracks he'd found with a more critical eye. Were they really avian, or just theropod? The latter possibility existed in a multiverse with wildly divergent histories, and he'd prefer to know if a tussle with a Tyrannosaur was a legitimate prospect.
Spurred on by that possibility Colin clambered to his feet, letting out involuntary grunts of exertion when his muscles protested against the abuse. He felt heavy, cumbersome, his armor weighing him down like it was made of lead. The familiar heads-up displays in his helmet failed to activate, and even percussive maintenance failed to elicit as much as a flicker. That explained the weight, at least - the 'power' in 'power armor' was the operative word, after all. Without electricity it was little more than a backache.
Reluctantly he reached for the manual release latch and gave it a sharp tug. With a hiss of released pressure and uncoiling springs the weight fell away, and his precious armor was reduced to useless chunks of debris at his feet, leaving him in his green-and-gold under-suit. 'I told you so,' he imagined Dragon telling him with an exasperated smile. She'd insisted on that emergency release, back when they'd first designed Defiant's suit together - just in case he'd ever need to get out of a bind.
They'd had an argument about the system's inclusion, Colin recalled. With all the extensive cybernetic enhancements he'd received in the wake of Mannequin's attack, he had argued that anything which would render the suit inoperative through all its EMP-resistance would surely kill him in the same stroke, so there really was no need to carry analog backups for the basic functions. When Dragon had persisted in her arguments, of course, he'd decided including them was only a minor inefficiency, and did so because it would set her mind at ease. Evidently she'd had the last laugh on that subject.
Colin winced as he thought of her... He missed her. So, so much. He'd given up on Earth Bet and all the rest of it in a heartbeat if it meant she was safe, here, with him. He was hopelessly lost on some alien Earth, without even his technology to aid him, in the wake of the apocalypse with a thousand unknown dangers to face - and yet she was first in his mind. Would anyone go after Teacher to retrieve what he'd taken and perverted, to rescue Dragon and pay the bastard back for the indignities he'd subjected her to? Would anyone free her from the monstrosities inflicted by Saint, and release the chains that held her in a stranglehold? Was it too much to ask for that much, at least…?
Colin bent over to pick up his polearm, abandoned in the dirt just like he had been, and pressed its buttons without much hope. Burned out, just like his armor - if there was any charge left in the circuitry, it wasn't enough to activate even the most basic of systems. He didn't have a backup energy source to check the connections, so it might as well be a particularly ornate pointy stick now. Fantastic.
Surprisingly - or perhaps not, given what he'd picked up about conspiracies going on behind the scenes - he'd never really explored the practical logistics of being stranded on some other Earth. He supposed it might've come up as a hypothetical once or twice, but for the longest time he hadn't considered it a credible possibility, and since Aleph shared many things with Bet, he doubted he'd have come up with particularly in-depth plans even if he had brainstormed the possibility. That left him feeling… lost.
His first order of business, then, was figuring out where he'd ended up. If this was some uninhabited Earth, he'd have to figure out what he was dealing with in the context of survival. He'd need food, shelter, fresh water. Without access to his technology he'd be hamstrung in tackling any of those issues in the way he normally would, but he was not completely helpless - he'd been a boy scout, once upon a time.
If this Earth was inhabited, of course, things would get rather more interesting. Given enough time and a viable technological base, Colin imagined he could probably construct himself a way home. Maybe. He'd never demonstrated such capabilities before, true, but he hadn't participated in a massive cross-specialization tinkering project involving alternative dimensions before either. He'd picked up a few tricks while he was watching his own hands work. He'd figure it out.
Colin had made his way a few dozen feet down the canyon before he realized what was wrong with that particular picture. His armor had been rendered inoperable, powerless - and the argument he'd offered Dragon about its systems was no less correct now than it was then. Anything which could disable his armor so thoroughly as to render it dead, should surely have done the same to him. At the very least he should have been crippled, his artificial parts defunct. He looked down at his arm, peeling back the sleeve of his bulletproof under-suit. He expected to find the sleek metal of his prosthetic. He found skin. Smooth, seamless, and far too realistic to be a facsimile. He pinched himself and felt the sharp twinge of pain rush up nerves which he'd lost years before.
Somehow he had his organic arm back, as if it had never been lost.
"Am I not me…?" Colin murmured in confusion, staring at the exposed sliver of skin. Was he a clone of some sort? Maybe he'd had been delivered to a newly freed Panacea, only to get dumped by the side of the road on some other Earth after she was done repairing all the damage? Those theories sounded terribly far-fetched to him, but the words of Sherlock Holmes came to mind - if you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable...
He flipped up the visor of his helmet, touched his scalp, and found the neat outlines of his surgery scars beneath his short-cropped hair. They were still present, so this had to be his real body - just rebuilt, repaired. A quick check confirmed that his leg was organic once more, as were his eyes. What about his cerebral implants? How would he be able to tell the difference between defective ones and ones that weren't even present anymore?
What had happened to him? He didn't recall Scion's defeat, exactly - he only remembered a brilliant golden glow at the end, and the outlines of people enveloped by the flash of light that accompanied the activation of the tinker super-weapon, rendering them as mere silhouettes. What confluence of events could have led from there to here? Why would it include regrowing his missing bodyparts before stranding him on another Earth? He didn't see the purpose behind any of it.
Colin's confused deliberations were interrupted by the strangest sound, a squawking 'Wark!' that he quickly connected to the huge bird tracks. Tightening his grip on his twin-pronged spear, which could still serve as a crude weapon even in its current state, he prepared himself for the worst. The noise came again, much louder, and he swallowed. Nobody knew what sounds dinosaurs had actually made, and he wasn't going to get himself devoured just because nobody had predicted they would sound cute.
What came around the corner was decidedly not a dinosaur. (In the common parlance, of course. Taxonomically, it probably still counted.)
"Ho! Ho! Slow down!" a high-pitched voice resounded while a peculiar vehicle rode into view. Two enormous yellow birds were strapped into harnesses and pulled along a small cart suspended beneath a set of balloons, in lieu of something more practical like wheels. "Calm down, you li'l blighters!" the driver yelled at the creatures, flicking a tiny whip to and fro, though it never came close to actually hitting his animals. "Ho!"
The driver of the vehicle was… odd. He seemed to be a dwarf - a little person, he should say - or perhaps a particularly precocious child, though his miniature mustache would seem to disprove the latter notion. He had rather large eyes and peculiar, pointed ears, so Colin was forced to wonder if he was dealing with some form of divergent evolution here - a branching path in human development, perhaps? Was this man a derivative of Homo Floresiensis, rather than Homo Sapiens like himself? Still, the words he'd spoken were clearly in English, which seemed rather unlikely if the divergence between their respective worlds was back far enough for there to be significant biological differences. Strange.
"Oy! You deaf?" the driver shouted. "Could ya get off the road, tall spiky stranger? You're scarin' my Chocobos, you are!"
"Ah." Colin stepped aside, coloring slightly. Tall and spiky? "I apologize," he said as calmly as he could manage. Right - first contact with another Earth. He was... nowhere near the right person for this. It was probably best he try to fit in, at least for the moment, lest he get accused of witchcraft or the like for talking about other worlds. Practical concerns were more important than indulging his curiosity, at any rate, so he left the question of the dwarf's genetics for another day as well. "If I may ask, where are you heading?" Basic geography would be useful, especially since there was clearly some form of civilization here, however unusual and primitive. "I seem to be lost, so I could use directions."
The short man studied Colin, taking in the gold-and-green armored under-suit and the elaborate dragon-themed helmet and spear. "You do look a bit lost out here, 's true." He reached out to pat the back of his 'Chocobos' to calm them, then shrugged. "Well, ain't no secret I'm headin' for Ul'dah. It's the only place of note 'round here, 'specially these days. You from Ishgard, then? Didn't think you Dragoons made their way down to Thanalan much. Not too many dragons need slayin' here. Jus' some peistes, I s'pose…" He cocked his head to the side. "Or are you one of them new Adventurers? More an' more seem to be poppin' out of the woodwork lately, helpin' with every little thing, killin' beasties and voidsent. Y'look the part."
"I've been known to help out where I can," Colin said neutrally, wondering how literally he should be taking the reference to 'dragons.' Between the giant birds and the tiny people, this world's evolutionary history was clearly rather different than Bet's, so there was no telling what sort of creature might carry that storied label. "I don't suppose I could hitch a ride?" he asked, eyeing the balloon-hefted cart. "I'm not sure what I can pay you, since I don't really have much on me, but I'm willing to negotiate."
"Huh! Honesty. I like that!" the driver replied, stroking his tiny dollop of facial hair and nodding thoughtfully. "You seem the competent sort, lookin' at you - if you promise to help with movin' some of my cargo when we arrive at the city, I'll take you along for the last stretch. Only a couple hours left in any case." He gestured over his shoulder. "You can find a spot in the back, yeah? Ain't too crowded, I don't think."
Colin inclined his head, then hesitated. "Ah. I should note that there are a few pieces of armor I don't want to leave lying around here." He gestured at his defunct exoskeleton, now reduced to useless remnants in a ditch. "Would that be an issue? It's decently heavy stuff, I'm afraid."
"You brought more armor than the stuff you're wearin'? Pays to be prepared, I suppose." The little man peered at the breastplate as Colin lifted it, and his eyes widened. "Now there's a strange sight!" His expression shifted from astonished to something near fearful. "Wait, is that… Garlean!?"
"I don't know what that means," Colin replied blankly. "It's mine."
"Sure it is," the diminutive man replied with a sudden wicked grin, banishing the spot of fear that had been there. "Headin' for Ul'dah to sell your precious trinkets before the wrong parties find out about 'em, eh? Been there before, and it's always gone well for me in the end, monetarily speaking. Ain't nothing you can't buy or sell in Ul'dah, I reckon! Garlean or not." He snorted in amusement. "Tell you what. Next time y'see me around town, pitch me a couple gil for all the trouble you're puttin' me through, and I'll consider us square, yeah? I'm not too fussy. Name's Neneharu."
"I will do that. Thank you." Colin lugged his armor to the cart, dumping the pieces in some of the tough burlap sacks that hung along the sides. He doubted he could ever get the armor working again given the look of the exposed circuitry, but if the relatively primitive technology of bird-drawn carriages was any indication, leaving advanced machinery around might accidentally launch some sort of industrial revolution. He filed away the mention of 'gil', presumably a local currency. He'd have to figure out how to earn some money to pay for his living expenses, especially if this place was as quasi-medieval as it seemed at first blush. The poor rarely had it well in such times - or at any time, really.
The floating cart already held three passengers, all of whom seemed caught up in their own affairs. One of them looked as human as Colin, sharing a similar height and rounded ears, while the other two were shorter and distinctly different, with thinner features, pure white hair, and lengthy, pointed ears. Were they the same species as the child-like driver, or yet another variety of hominid? Regardless, it seemed this world had rather more phenotype variation compared to Earth Bet - barring Case 53s. Did that mean he was particularly far from home, on some Earth whose history diverged heavily? That still didn't explain the English, though. Perhaps this was a dumping ground for Cauldron's experiments, which would explain the strange physical mutations…
Leaving the question for later consideration, Colin let himself relax a little while the Chocobo-drawn carriage headed onward. Between the soft calls of the Chocobos and the utterly smooth ride courtesy of a lack of wheels, it was rather easy to doze off. Without the assistance of his cerebral implants he could no longer get by with six minutes of sleep per day either, and it seemed his body needed to catch up. Leaning against the side of the carriage he watched the canyon walls pass by through lidded eyes, and saved worrying about the future for later.
"Stop this cart! Halt!"
Colin started awake from his light slumber, his hand flashing to his polearm with practiced ease.
The man across from him winced, looking at the weapon with a grimace. "Y'mind keepin' that thing to yourself?" he asked. "Ain't had the best history with Dravanians, 'fraid to say." He looked up with fearful eyes. "Y'ain't gonna make an issue out of me bein' here, are you?"
"...I don't even know who you are," Colin answered blandly. He thought vague, generic statements were his best ally when people assumed a level of knowledge that he did not possess. Playing on people's expectations was part of Dragon's approach, too, and she'd made it work for years. "I'm not here on behalf of anyone, or any government," he said as a wide-reaching catchall. "I'm just a traveler lost on the road."
"Okay," the man replied with a sigh. "That's nice. Good luck convincin' the Brass Blades of that, though. They ain't too keen on outsiders..."
The Brass Blades, Colin concluded, were the people shouting about stopping the cart. They rode in on the back of Chocobos, which evidently took the place of horses on this Earth, possibly for lack of an alternative. Perhaps the species had evolved from Phorusrhacids, and out-competed early horses somehow? One of the chicken-knights climbed down from his feathery ride, patting the animal's side. "You know the drill," he yelled. "This is an inspection. Men, search the carriage for contraband!"
Colin glanced at the bags where he'd stashed his armor, remembering the driver's secretive grin after identifying the pieces as 'Garlean.' If he had interpreted the man's reaction correctly, there was probably something subversive about owning 'Garlean' paraphernalia. That could become an issue, especially if these Blades laid claim to the armor - that would cause exactly the problem he'd tried to prevent by dragging it along in the first place. Perhaps he should have buried it? Too late now.
The Blades were clad in full chainmail armor, and kept curved swords strapped to their hip, while a buckler hung from the middle of their back, ready for use at any time. Their most distinguishing feature, however, was their masks - right beneath their red bandannas they wore a thick metal covering that should be impeding their vision, since the only way for light to get through was a smattering of tiny pinpoint holes. Colin wondered if they served the same purpose as his own mask - identity concealment. He imagined being a government agent who inspects cargo might be less than popular among the populace, never mind actual criminals who were smuggling goods.
His neighbor shivered a little when the armed men approached, and tried his best attempt at looking innocent. "I'm just an honest peddler," he lied unconvincingly. "So, er… don't be too disappointed if you don't find nothin', eh?"
The inspectors didn't seem to buy his claims either. "You'd best mind your tongue, old man," one spat with rather more aggression than seemed warranted. "...lest I cut it out!" The man rifled through bags stacked up at the far side of the cart and retrieved a small pouch. "Hah! Captain, look, I found a bag of Somnus!" He crossed his arms and glowered at the nervous merchant. "Honest peddler, was it? Since when do honest people deal in prohibited herbs?"
The Captain of the Brass Blades took a quick look at the pouch before pinning his gaze on the peddler - or Colin assumed he did, since his mask was just as opaque as those of his underlings. "This is a bit of a problem, isn't it? You'll rot in a dungeon till the end of your days for this… unless you can afford the fine." He smiled thinly. "So, how about it?"
Ah. This was a shakedown, then. In a peculiar sense, the familiar refrain felt nostalgic.
"Just business as usual," the peddler grumbled under his breath, getting out some money without much fuss. "Nothin' ever really changes, does it? Calamity or not."
Feeling a little out of his depth at the reference, Colin was almost relieved when the conversation was interrupted by an arrow which descended silently from the skies and embedded itself through the floor of the cart.
Hear… Feel… Think...
The peddler cried out in surprise and shock. Colin would have done the same, if he wasn't frozen in place for a different reason. For a moment there, just an instant, the world had felt utterly unreal, flimsy around the edges, a paper thin membrane that could tear at any moment. Then it had snapped back into focus, and time had resumed its shuttered flow. He took a deep breath, and another. His galloping heart refused to calm, and his fingers turned white around the handle of his spear. What... was that?
"Amalj'aa! Amalj'aa! To arms!" one of the Brass Blades declared, rushing back to his Chocobo as his compatriots did the same, and they quickly started unstrapping the bucklers from their backs. The Captain considered Colin and the others for a moment, grimacing as he seemed to realize they'd all be caught up in the assault if the battle strayed towards the road. "Seven hells… Consider this a warning, peddler! Now go - all of you. We'll take care of this!"
Colin shook off the unnatural chill that had grasped him and moved to the edge of the cart. "Hey! Who are these 'Amalj'aa?'" he demanded. "Why are they attacking? Are they after the cart, or are they here for you?"
The Captain rolled his eyes. "Ah, does it matter?" he asked, turning away. "This ain't the business of some foreigners! Leave these matters to the professionals!"
As the Captain rushed off on Chocobo-back, the carriage jolted forward in a flurry of loud 'Wark!' noises and left the conflict behind, and Colin reluctantly went back to his seat. He caught a glimpse of what had fired the arrow, and stared in disbelief at the sight. They were… Orcs, or something like them. Gigantic, muscular animal-people with lizard-like tails rushed out of the wastes wielding bows and bladed knuckle-weapons, their reptilian faces partially covered by ornate headdresses. Wast his another sapient species, even more divergent than the others? How many could one planet even support? This one didn't even seem like a primate!
"Is this kind of thing normal around here?" Colin asked. "Open combat on the road?"
"...Pretty much, yes," the peddler answered his question, sighing in relief as the ongoing combat between Chocobo-mounted troops and the 'Amalj'aa' disappeared from view behind the next bend of the canyon. "That kind of excitement ain't good for the heart, I'll have you know," he said. "You be careful 'round them Brass Blades, now. Bastards'll have the shirt off your back if they fancy it. Like common bandits, they are, only less honest!" He grimaced, and looked as if he'd smelled something particularly heinous. "Truth is, they work for the Syndicate, though I doubt they'd come out an' admit as much… Bunch of low-lives...."
"Hm. So, did you actually have Somnus, or was that evidence planted to get you in trouble?" Colin inquired, honestly curious. That forbidden herb had ensured the inspectors never discovered his broken armor pieces, for which he was inordinately thankful. He'd have to figure out some place to stash it in the city of Ul'dah, just in case anyone else was going to make an issue out of his alleged 'Garlean' possessions.
The peddler shrugged sheepishly. "Yes, that stuff was mine. Figured I could sneak it by 'em, but them's the risks of smugglin'..." He said it without a hint of concern - business as usual, as he put it. "Thank the gods for sendin' some beastmen to the rescue, eh?" He leaned back against the railing, his earlier nervousness gone. Being a smuggler, it was presumably because of Colin's rejection of affiliation with any government. "Brendt's the name, by the by, an' peddlin's me trade. An' judging by your unusual garments, I'll wager you're one of them adventurers. 'S that right?"
Colin raised an eyebrow. "If helping the needy, defeating villains and saving people is what they do, sure."
Brendt nodded. "Yea, that's the essentials of adventurin' alright." He raised one hand to his chin, stroking his well-maintained beard. "It ain't no secret that it's a risky business, these days especially. What attracted you to it? The search for power? A desire for glory, perhaps? Maybe you jus' wanted a little coin?"
Colin frowned. Power was all well and good, and money was useful, but they were ultimately in service of something else - or they should be. They were only desirable in what they allowed you to achieve. What was the point of being strong and rich beyond belief if you never used that power or money for anything? He figured that out of the three options, only one seemed to be an end in itself - even if it was self-centered. He could almost feel Dragon's judging glare, and he grimaced. He couldn't lie, though - to prove himself was one of his original motivations, even if it had been tempered with time.
Brendt seemingly read the answer off his face. "Glory, eh? If you're willin' to take on them tasks that other folks ain't, an adventurer can win fame what money can't buy. When you arrive in town, you'll want to report to the Adventurer's Guild. You can find out everythin' you need to know about the business in there. Just remember, though: there're more important things than fortune and glory. Such as breathin'. Ain't no profit in bein' dead, an' that's a fact!"
If 'adventuring' was the local equivalent to being a hero, perhaps it was worthwhile to have a look at the Guild, if only to get better bearings for the Earth he'd found himself on. Either he'd find some information on his circumstances, or he'd have something to do with himself in the event he was stranded here indefinitely. Either way, at least he'd be moving forward.
"I'll be sure to give the Guild a visit," he said with a smile. "Thank you."
"So, is this your first trip to Ul'dah? You don't seem like a native, if you pardon me sayin'." He winked cheerily. "Ishgard, Garlemald… you've been places, haven't you?"
Neither of those place names were remotely familiar - but why would they be? "First timer."
"Wonderful!" Brendt exclaimed. "Well then, let this journeyed itinerant tell you the ins an' outs of your destination!" He spread his arms wide in a dramatic gesture. "First thing y'should know is that Ul'dah's ruled by the Sultana in name, but as most folks know, it's really the Syndicate that holds all the power." He grimaced. "Them and their Monetarist cronies would happily get rid of Her Grace altogether, but that won't happen while she still commands the loyalty of the Royalists - an' the Royalists are nothin' if not loyal. Those factions have long fought over power, throwin' the weight of their wealth against each other, an' they show no sign of stoppin'..."
"Monetarists?" Colin wondered. "From that name, I assume they are a rich upper class of inherited money who own much of the local business, and don't want that to change?" Some things stayed the same, it seemed.
"You're pretty much on the money," Brendt agreed, and then he snorted. "On the money. Heh!" He shook his head. "There's also the lizardmen to think of - that's the Amalj'aa, if you're wondering. They couldn't care less about Ul'dahn politics. They have their own interests, see - an' they ain't afraid to use force to serve 'em. They say war is a gift to peddlers, with need breedin' profit, an' though it shames me to say it, I'm inclined to agree…"
Colin frowned. "So what are these -" He trailed off, distracted from the conversation by the shapes that loomed on the horizon, outlines of minarets and rounded roofs just barely visible through the midday haze. The gargantuan city soon came into view, far more elaborate than he could have expected from a relatively primitive society. "Huh, how about that."
"Ah, at long last!" Brendt declared as he followed my gaze. "Behold Ul'dah, jewel of Thanalan, where folk turn sand into gold! Deep in the sunbaked south, surrounded by the shiftin' sands of an endless desert, she rises! A solitary rose amidst the dust and rock, a symbol of defiance!" He nodded. "Good food, too!"
Colin's lips quirked up. A symbol of defiance, huh? That worked for him.
As the carriage trundled closer to the city, he took in the scenery with interest, comparing and contrasting with the places he'd been before. The city seemed vaguely middle-eastern in hard to define ways, but that could just be part and parcel to a desert lifestyle. There were brown robes and turbans everywhere, after all. Despite the rather drab choice in clothes, though, the people were of every possible stripe and color - and it went rather beyond mere color.
Aside from regular humans and more lanky, pointy-eared people like the white-haired twins on the cart, he spotted several new and even more outlandish species. There were burly, overly-muscled, grey-skinned people that seemed entirely too outlandish in color and size to be fully human, as well as a man with a lion's snout for a face, and at least one girl with cat ears and an honest-to-goodness tail. And among them all walked a veritable army of little people - it seemed they really were a species in themselves.
"Got to be a Biotinker," Colin decided when he noticed a woman with bunny ears sticking out of the top of her head. "It has to be." There really was no possible way that evolution could account for the degree of variation between all these different people. The presence of anatomical traits from entirely different branches of the tree of life was the clinching factor - the only thing that made sense was genetic engineering. If he figured out how to construct a scanner from medieval parts, he could probably narrow down the specifics...
"What'd you say?" Brendt wondered. "Bio-whatsit?"
"Ah… it's nothing. Just thinking out loud," Colin answered, and promptly shut his mouth. He'd gotten so used to speaking his every thought aloud for Dragon's benefit - when not communicating mentally though his implants - that it'd slipped out without meaning to. He supposed it was no surprise that it happened right when the topic broached tinkering. "There's nothing to worry about, I assure you," he promised the man, who didn't seem convinced.
The cart came to a halt, and Brendt sighed in relief. "Well, it's none of my business, I suppose. Here's where we part ways. I'm off to the markets to deliver me wares, then it's back on to the high road for me." He reached into his pocket. "Here, I want you to have this - by way of thanks for puttin' up with me prattle." He stuffed something small and cold into Colin's palm, closing his fist around it. "You never did tell me your name, come to think of it, but here's an idea - become the sort of storied personage I can brag about havin' met, an' I'll consider us square!"
The man immediately rushed off, dragging a sizable bag full of supplies over his shoulder with surprising ease. In his wake, Colin opened his hand and revealed the man's final gift - a ring. "Thanks for the, uh, jewelry?" he muttered in confusion, rolling the strange gift between his fingers, idly attempting to identify the metal. Brass, maybe? "I suppose I could sell this, might get me a place for the night…"
"Ahem." Colin glanced up to see the cart driver staring at him meaningfully, gesturing at the bags on the side of his cart. "Do y'mind? Ain't got all day, you know! Gotta make sure this stuff gets stashed away and unloaded. I'm headed towards Camp Drybone before long, can't delay f'r long!"
Right, he'd promised manual labor. He'd almost forgotten, and sort of hoped the driver had too. How far the mighty had fallen! Once he had been leader of a whole subsection of the Protectorate - now he was a penniless errand boy for an irritable dwarf. With a vague sense of amusement, Colin concluded that curbing his over-inflated pride had been useful after all, or he would never have been able to put up with this indignity. Ah, if only Dragon could see him now!
"You can do it faster than this, you big oaf! Don't make me use the whip!"
He sighed.
"You ain't tired yet, ingrate! Get your back into it!"
Colin appreciated the majesty of the enormous walls that towered over him as he walked into the city of Ul'dah, marveling at the sheer scale of the construction for a society that, as far as he could see, still relied heavily on manpower. Wide paved roads were flanked by tall sandstone buildings that rose high into the sky, each a testament to the skill of its architects. Colin was reminded, in a vague sense, of the city of Rome - which was a rather generous compliment, he thought, for any city. Every surface seemed to be decorated with engravings, banners, or streamers - most bore earthy colors, various browns and grays, but there was the occasional splash of blue here and there. The color palette gave the place a rather distinctive desert ambiance, which was probably what they'd been going for.
Finding the Adventurer's Guild turned out to be simple - it was housed in the first building inside the gate, a tavern called the 'Quicksand,' directly across a busy thoroughfare that spanned the entire city, the 'Steps of Nald.' It was located right next to the Chocobo stables, where weary travelers presumably let their animals recuperate. Although the font on the tavern's sign was a bit hard to make out, it took Colin mere moments to decipher - he'd been required to read Kid Win and Clockblocker's handwritten reports, once upon a time.
Dragging along his bag full of defunct equipment, Colin got a few odd looks from passersby, but nobody actually approached him before he passed through the double doors. The inside of the tavern had a nice and homely feeling to it, its warm brown decor illuminated by the light of half a dozen lanterns that were spread around the circular room. In the middle was a common area where people could spend their time, while an expansive outer ring granted easy access to various booths along the walls, although only the bar was actually in use at the moment.
The place was quiet when Colin entered - there were maybe a dozen people there, spread throughout the room in groups of two or three, and none seemed remotely surprised or interested by the arrival of a man in armor - it was the afternoon, though, so perhaps he should not have expected anything particularly raucous. Alternatively, walking around in somewhat outlandish apparel was expected in a guild for 'adventurers?'
Colin headed over towards the bar right away, and found it crewed by a child - or that's what she seemed to be at first blush. Diminutive and child-like, the red-haired girl's eyes nevertheless bespoke experience, and far more years than her appearance would suggest. She was another of the cart driver's species, clearly - a dwarf, or perhaps a hobbit, in the Tolkienian sense of the word. Given his suspicions regarding her genetic heritage, the latter term was perhaps more appropriate.
"Hello there!" the girl - woman - said. "My, you're a tall one! So, who might you be? If you're lookin' to join the Adventurers' Guild, you've come to the right place! The name's Momodi!" She looked over the gleaming bulletproof surface of Colin's under-suit - which was meant to serve as an emergency costume in a pinch - and lingered on his twin-pronged spear. "You're clearly no newcomer at this trade, are ya? Ain't seen a spear like that in years, I daresay! Excellent craftsmanship. Ishgard, yes?"
That name again. "I'm a freelancer," he said neutrally, hoping the term would get across his meaning. "No particular ties. Right now, I'm just looking for a place to rest my feet and consider my options." He scratched the back of his head. "Get my bearings, too."
Momodi hummed agreeably, leaning forward over the counter. "Well, I can help you with that! Without someone to steer you right in this city, you might get caught up in business you don't understand, like our conflict with the Amalj'aa…" She gave him a meaningful look. Clearly she'd already gotten wind of what happened on the road, somehow. "Those beast-men have been plaguin' the Sultanate for nigh on forever, now. Then there's the Garlean Empire. None can say for sure what they're plottin' these days, only that they are."
"I'm not from anywhere near here," Colin said at length. "I haven't kept up with current events, or politics. Anything I should be worried about?" He hoped, in a roundabout way, that he could get some context without being too blatant about his ignorance. "I've heard about these Garleans, and I'm not sure what to think…"
Momodi shrugged. "Well, the people around here drink and make merry… but underneath it all, there's constant uncertainty. Worry." She sighed, reaching for a cup of steaming tea by her side and taking a sip. "That's what everyone's feelin', I think. Worry, and a lingerin' feelin' of loss. Ain't a surprise, I think..."
Colin made a vague noise of assent, and decided he'd have to be a bit less circumspect with his questions if he was going to figure anything out. "Honestly, I do need a bit of help here, just to get my bearings. Truth is, I've been having trouble remembering things," he confided - it wasn't even false, even if the specifics were complicated. "It's…"
Momodi's expression shifted to such heartfelt sympathy that he paused mid-sentence. "Yes, I understand," she said. "Aether-touched, I reckon? Ah, but who hasn't got some of that, these days?" Her voice wavered, and she swallowed thickly. "It's no wonder, really. It's scarce been five years since the lesser moon cracked open like a giant egg, releasin' an abomination intent on turnin' the realm into an eighth hell…"
Colin stared. What could he possibly say to that? Was she being serious?
The Guildmaster teared up, still caught up in her memories. "So much was lost in the blink of an eye... 'Twas like the end of the world had come at last. After that, things begin to get foggy..." She shook her head, rubbing her forehead irritably. "See, everyone's got their own version of what happened next. Some of 'em got two or three! None of it fits together. You'd think people would remember somethin' like that - but the fact is, they don't." She looked up. "Nobody does. So don't feel too bad. You're in good company."
Colin shivered involuntarily. This was starting to sound a bit too familiar. Apocalyptic destruction combined with wide-scale Mastering of people was far too close to his own recollections for comfort. He could imagine a world without previous extra-dimensional contact framing Gold Morning in quite a different way than what really happened - judgment from on high, a monster from space, a mindless tide of chaos. They wouldn't even be wrong, broadly speaking. Still, there was that mention that it had all taken place five years ago, so unless time moved at radically different speeds between dimensions, that didn't match up.
"I remember some images. Moments," he started, hoping she'd pick up on his hints. Or perhaps that she wouldn't. He wasn't sure which of those would be more chilling. "There was this figure surrounded by golden light, brighter than anything…"
Momodi looked at him gravely, and nodded. "There is one thing all the survivors agree on - the part played by a band of far-flung adventurers who laid down their lives for a realm that wasn't their own." She smiled sadly. "We know they all fought valiantly, and like so many, never returned. Their deeds are worth rememberin', I'm sure you'll agree. It's just a shame our recollections of those brave heroes are as jumbled as those of the Calamity itself… Whenever we try to call their faces to mind, it's like they're standin' between us and the midday sun, permanently silhouetted…"
Colin stared into nothing, his last memories of shadowed shapes reflecting in the back of his mind. "That's…" God, had it really been five years since that moment? Five years? Where had he been in all the intervening time? Why couldn't he remember?
"I'll bet that stuff about silhouettes sounds poetic to you, doesn't it?" Momodi wondered, puffing up her cheeks. "Well, it's not. It's bloody infuriatin'. But even if we can't remember them, we'll not let 'em be forgotten, and so we call 'em the Warriors of Light! They'll forever stand as a shinin' example of what adventurers can achieve." She spread her arms wide. "See, that's why I welcome people like yourself to our fair city!"
"Adventurers model themselves after the heroes of Gold Morning?" Colin whispered, barely audible.
"Well, I haven't heard it called that - but yes." Momodi seemed to interpret his stunned silence as solemnity. "You can see why people hold adventuring in high regard, don't you? All I ask is that you lend a helpin' hand where you can and try to leave Ul'dah in a better state than you found her, and I'll be content. If you can promise that, I'd be happy to let you join the guild, even if you might not need much hand-holdin'."
Colin inclined his head, his thoughts still roiling. "Please."
"All right, then!" Momodi agreed cheerily, her serious demeanor vanishing in an instant. "A promise is a promise, now! I'm counting on your help to put the past behind us. We need people workin' and spendin' and bickerin' like the old days! Plus, a happy and prosperous Ul'dah means more business for the Quicksand! Anyroad, let's make this official." Huh, that was the first variation in the local English language Colin had spotted. "Go ahead and write your name in the register - neat as you can!"
Colin looked down at the slip of paper he'd been handed, and hesitated. It was silly, perhaps, but he still felt uncomfortable giving his civilian name when signing up for what amounted to be, in many respects, a local equivalent to the Protectorate. It didn't really make sense, rationally speaking, since nobody in this world knew either of his names. It was the principle of the thing, though. If he was going to act the part of the hero, in any respect, his call-sign ought to reflect that. He jotted down 'Defiant' in neat letters. "Is that good enough?"
"Well, ain't that a charmin' name," Momodi commented, grinning slyly. "Just rolls off the tongue, it does. Your mother give that to you?" She winked. "Private sort of person, eh? I can tolerate tha' from a handsome fella. On behalf of the Adventurers' Guild, I officially -"
She suddenly trailed off, glancing over Colin's shoulder with plain concern written across her face. Colin turned to follow her gaze and noticed a man lying down on the floor of the tavern, his hands over his head as he tried to ward off a trio of people in dark clothing. "Please, sir, be merciful! Twelve as my witness, I swear to you, I'll bring you your money!" he whimpered. "I swear, you'll get your money soon!"
One of the three stepped forward, another hobbit, tiny and less than threatening. He seemingly attempted to make up for it by wearing an eye-patch and sporting a beard and mustache combo that recalled the Three Musketeers. His two compatriots, a woman in armor and another in robes, loomed threateningly behind him to deliver the physical intimidation that their leader lacked. "In the East, it is said that even a merciful god might be driven to vengeance if thrice blasphemed," the hobbit declared grandly, approaching his cowering target with confident steps. "Be grateful you were given a fourth chance to offend. You two, attend to this scum." He snapped his fingers, and the two women reached for their weapons.
"Stop." Colin only realized he'd spoken when he'd already raised from his seat and drawn himself up to his full height. "What are your intentions for that man?" he demanded, considering the full-sized women, gauging their level of threat. "Do elaborate, if you please."
The half-pint scowled. "Why do you intrude, interloper?" He gestured to the fallen man. "This man is under my employ - it is my business what I do with him. If that includes punishing him most severely, then that is my wont. So say the scriptures, do you not know that?"
Colin narrowed his eyes. "I cannot speak on local laws, or God's laws, but I can certainly lay down my own. There will be no violence in my presence, nor any more abuse." He slammed the bottom of his polearm on the ground with a sharp crack. "Leave." He glanced to the two men still holding their third, sobbing victim. "Depart without him, if you please."
"We shall not, insolent cur!" the small man spat, a vicious gleam in his eyes. "Men -"
Colin didn't let him finish the sentence, swinging his spear around and jabbing it forward so the two razor-sharp blades ended up mere inches from both sides of the hobbit's neck. He'd been quick enough that he had barely even had time to react, and froze in fear when he realized his sudden, pointy predicament. The hobbit gulped nervously, his eyes widening.
"You were saying?" Colin asked mildly.
"I… That is to say -" He swallowed thickly. "Th-this is an outrage!" he continued in a wavering tone, regaining some of his poise. "M-my grand-uncle will hear of this!" He complained, gesturing for his men to back off. Colin returned his weapon to his side, and the hobbit quickly waddled off with as much dignity as he could manage, his mustache trembling in rage as he threw one last look at his would-be victim that still lay on the floor in a crumpled heap. "You will rue this day, I tell you, whoever you are!"
Colin shrugged. "Yes, that's what they all say."
"...Th-thank you!" the debtor cried, wiping at the tear tracks across his face as he pulled himself together. "Thank you!" Colin gave him a friendly tap on the shoulder and smiled warmly, content in a job well done. He had no real idea what had gotten the man into trouble with that debt collector, but certainly it could not have been bad enough to cost him his life.
"That may have been unwise," Momodi commented from behind her counter as she watched the retreating hobbit and his cronies leave the Quicksand. "Now, I can't say I disagree with the spirit of your actions, of course, but you must consider their repercussions…"
"I believe I understand," Colin said, considering his words carefully. "Once, I let injustice run free in front of me without interference, trusting it was wiser not to act, based on the words of those who claimed to know better. I've found that approach to be a comfortable delusion far too often to still believe in it." He looked down. "And a close personal friend taught me the value of living without chains to bind you."
"Well, it's your funeral," Momodi muttered.
"I wouldn't count me out yet," Colin answered back. "So, the hobbit's uncle works for the Monetarists, I take it?" He was pretty sure he'd gotten that right. "He's with this, uh, Syndicate?"
Momodi hissed at the last word, glancing around herself nervously. "Now, keep your voice down, would you? I know this sort of thing doesn't look great, but… you know, we gotta deal with the way things are 'round here. Start talkin' about ousting the rich an' powerful and you're gonna end up in a heap of trouble real quick." She looked ashamed for a moment. "I s'pose you already went there, didn't you, by threatenin' that lowlife."
"If stopping some petty abuser from harassing a penniless man brings down the wrath of this 'Syndicate', maybe they deserve my kind of attention," Colin replied darkly.
Momodi didn't seem to care for the sentiment. "Y'know what? Before you go chargin' off to take on the whole wide world o' crime an' politics, you should have a look around town, get a feel for the place. See if you can put up with the way things are before you starts interferin' too much. Sounds to me like you're gettin' in over your head."
He had jumped in without much thought - perhaps his earlier dismissal against the 'Amalj'aa' still bothered him - although he had no idea if either side of the conflict was worth supporting. "I'll have a look around, and try not to get into too much trouble." Between the corrupt Brass Blades and the abusive hobbit mafia, though, that was promising to be an issue. Especially if they were going to keep doing blatantly intolerable things right in front of him. "Where would you suggest I visit?"
Momodi cocked her head to the side. "First, you should visit the Aetheryte Plaza," she declared imperiously. "To get there, you head west from here till you reach Emerald Avenue, then look to the north. You should see a giant, floatin' crystal over there, plain as day. That'd be the aetheryte, obviously."
Colin was thrown. "Uh, a floating crystal, really?" he wondered. "What's that about?"
"You're not familiar with the things? Well, you did say you came from way off," Momodi allowed, tapping her lips with one finger. "They're mighty useful - if it weren't for aetherytes, travelin' around Eorzea would be a damn sight more troublesome than it is. Still, you need to attune with 'em before you can use 'em, so be sure to do that with the one in the plaza. Just lay your hand on the thing and you'll see what I mean."
Colin hummed in agreement, though he wasn't sure he knew exactly what he was agreeing to. "What is this 'aetheryte' supposed to be?" he wondered, somewhat fascinated by the implication of some sort of self-levitating substance. "What sort of travel is it used for?"
Momodi rolled her eyes. "Look, it's got somethin' to do with aether, I don't know. There's probably someone around the damn thing to answer all the questions you could ever ask - I ain't got the time nor interest. All I know is it's some big floating hunk of crystal with machina attached. Some Sharlayans build the things, I hear." She rolled her eyes. "Nobody really cares, long as they work."
Mysterious technology from mysterious creators based on a paradigm that nobody had a clue about, huh. Sounded like Tinkertech.
"After that, you could have a look at the market, the Sapphire Avenue Exchange over on the Steps of Thal - just look for the signs, there's a bunch o' ways to get there." She gestured vaguely over her shoulder. "There, goods from all across Eorzea and beyond turn up every day, so you'll have no trouble findin' some new armor, weapons, or anythin' else you might need. Everything's for sale here in Ul'dah - as long as you've got the gil for it."
"I'll give it a look." Colin looked over at the poor man he'd saved, who was taking a breather at one of the tables, recuperating from his brush with death. Strictly speaking the hobbit had mentioned only a 'severe punishment', but reaching for weapons had seemed a fairly universal sign of intent. "What's going to happen to him?" Colin wondered aloud. "As long as I am here he's safe enough, but what happens after I'm gone and those debt collectors return? They'd surely hurt him twice as much if they catch him again."
Momodi considered the man, and let out a deep sigh. "Yeah, alright. This ain't really my business, but you've already pissed off the wrong people anyroad, so might as well finish the job. I'll contact one of mine, have the poor sod taken to one of the outlyin' towns. Should be safe from the wrong sort there, and could even earn some gil to buy a ticket to some other city where they're a little friendlier to outsiders."
"That's something. Thank you," Colin said. "I have to admit, though - all this does not make Ul'dah seem particularly inviting. The wealth disparity is stark, and it seems some pretty unscrupulous people hold power..."
Momodi fidgeted unhappily. "Ul'dah's not perfect, but she's home. Truth is, a lot of folk are lured to this city by the promise of wealth and power, but what most of 'em fail to realize is that instead of chasin' after gil the moment they get here, they ought to be makin' friends…" She smiled thinly. "If you go out there, check in with me on the regular, would you? That way, I won't spend my days worryin' that you're down to your smallclothes without a gil to your name." She chuckled, moving off to pour herself a drink - nothing alcoholic, he hoped. "It was nice meetin' you, 'Defiant' - heh!"
Colin nodded, turning to head out - and then remembered he still had a bag full of useless armor lying at his feet. Sheepishly he turned back to Momodi. "So, about the benefits of being a Guild member - you don't happen to have a spare closet I can borrow...?"
Just a short distance along the Steps of Nald, down a set of steps and through a gate, hovered an enormous chunk of uneven, softly glowing crystal encased in machinery - the aetheryte. It spun on its axis slowly, while several crystal-studded rings orbited it at different speeds, detached from the main structure but staying in lockstep with each other. A handful of Brass Blades kept watch from the sides of the expansive room it was housed in, watching curiously as Colin entered and stopped dead at the entrance.
The aetheryte was like no tinkertech he had ever seen before, but that was hardly a surprise. Tinkers could be extremely varied in their theoretical approach, practical methods, and even base materials - finding an overlap between specialties often involved a fair amount of experimenting before any common ground was reached. Save for Dragon, no Tinker fully understood another's work, and even she had to work at it. Delving into the work of unknown tinkers was risky business at the best of times, and that was with all the Protectorate backing him up. Here, he was alone.
From a casual inspection, at least, the aetheryte's mechanical parts seemed to serve a primarily structural function. The metal braces kept a variety of crystals in specific configurations, which implied that those crystals themselves were the operative components. Strictly speaking, it was true that Colin had worked with crystalline storage media before, particularly quartz-based ones, but none of those had been macroscopic chunks of raw mineral, glowing or otherwise. He was rather out of his depth.
Whatever powered the object was foreign to him as well - it certainly wasn't any form of electricity, nor the energetic alternatives he'd personally employed before, and he didn't notice the telltale gravitational fluctuations associated with his own methods to achieve levitation. And yet the aetheryte was clearly both powered and floating. It was fascinating, and also the first definite sign of Parahuman activity on this Earth, barring the possible interference of Biotinkers.
Strangely, Colin could actually sense the aetheryte's activity from where he was standing, since it was exuding a certain - pressure. It felt like the prickling sensation of static electricity, the crackle of anticipation before a thunderclap. Sheer energetic potential, in other words, though it wasn't obvious how the sensation was being transmitted. Its mere presence was an implicit threat, so Colin was hesitant to get any closer. Perhaps it was some form of warning system, designed to keep curious tinkers from getting too nosy?
One of the hobbit Brass Blades approached from the side of the room, a genial smile on his face, though much of it was covered by the oddly opaque mask that all his kind wore. "Greetings, stranger. You have come for attunement, yes?" he asked. "That will be one hundred thousand gil, if you please…"
Colin rolled his eyes at the ridiculous request. Even without knowing the exact worth of local currencies, he could tell the number was plainly excessive barring medieval hyper-inflation - and he hadn't noticed anyone selling tulip bulbs. "Pull the other one."
The Blade snickered. "Ah, you're not completely fresh, then. Alas! I do so relish any opportunity to make that jest…" He shook his head mirthfully. "Oh, you'd be surprised how many novice adventurers are convinced I speak the truth! There was a Hyur the other day that nearly pulled an axe on me for askin'! Had to talk 'im down from that real quick!"
"...Hyur?" Colin mumbled to himself. "Not sure I've heard that word."
The hobbit blinked, and a strange expression crossed his face - it seemed those pointed ears of his were rather acute. "Really? You're Hyur yourself, ain't ya? Unless that helmet of yours ain't a helmet at all, and you're the ugliest Au Ra this side of the continent!" He laughed lightly at his own joke as it went over Colin's head. "Where are you from, stranger, that you don't know the name of your own kind?"
"About that..." He recalled Momodi's sympathetic look from before, and silently apologized for taking the easy way out. "Truth is, I'm not entirely well," he explained, gesturing vaguely to his head. "Too much aether, they tell me. Some things are fuzzy, ever since... the Calamity. Words, places, the lot. I've been trying to put things back together, and I'm getting better, but it's taking longer than I'd hoped. I hope you'll indulge me."
"Ah, that's a real shame," the small figure said sympathetically. "Aether is boon and bane alike, sometimes." He pulled himself upright, perhaps to seem taller. "Well, this stuff ain't so hard, really. Just as you are Hyur, I am Lalafell. My people originate from the southern islands, though these days we live just about everywhere." He glanced around. "Ain't any other races here to point out, but the tall dainty ones are Elezen, the felines are Miqo'te, or Hrothgar if they're particularly hairy, and the big 'uns are Roegadyn… probably missin' a couple more besides."
Colin nodded. "Thank you. I'll try to remember." The guard was not a hobbit, but a Lalafell. He wasn't sure if that sounded more dignified, but he'd stick to local custom lest he start offending people. "You guard this room, yes? What can you tell me about the aetheryte? Uh, let's assume I'm ignorant about that, too."
The Lalafell smiled. "Alright! I've been known to give tours to children, so I should be able to manage that!" He winked cheekily. "To start, you should know that aether is an invisible, intangible substance that exists all around us. It flows through every living being, including you and I - that's what the learned say, at any rate! It sustains us, and without it we would perish." He placed a hand over his heart. "When the spirit departs the body upon death, our remains are reduced to aether and returned to the aetherial river known as the Lifestream - this is novice stuff, yeah?"
Colin nodded slowly. This explanation for 'aether' echoed the archaic concepts of the élan vital, Qi, or Prana - the 'vital force' said to inhabit living organisms that distinguishes them from the inorganic non-living world. It had been superseded as an explanation by more empirically verifiable theories in later years, though the emergence of Parahumans had rearranged the field once more, especially in the context of Case 53's like Weld. It made sense, in a generally medieval culture, that such theories would still hold sway.
The Lalafell continued: "Long ago, it was discovered that with sufficient control over one's own spiritual energies, a person could be reduced to aether without losing their connection between body and soul." He spread his arms wide, encompassing the whole room with his grand gesture. "Thus, the aetherytes were created! These huge crystalline agglomerations of aether, a common sight throughout Eorzea, are vital to travel. By touching one, you can attune your body's aether with the crystal. Should you then fall in battle and your body be reduced to aether, you may awaken back at the crystal with which you have the strongest resonance - your home!"
"Huh. So it's used for some form of teleportation?" Colin summarized, looking at the device dubiously. "You say it reduces a body to energy when one 'falls in battle'? Does that mean after death? You've found a method to prevent it entirely?"
"Eh. After a fashion?" the Blade muttered, looking suddenly uncomfortable. "It's more like cheatin' near-death, if you want to be properly accurate. Ain't coming back when the spirit's moved on, no matter how much aether you throw at the problem. Don't let priests of Thal hear you mention that sort of thing, either!" He cleared his throat. "Anyroad, with the proper training you can travel to a different aetheryte than your home, to get around faster. The crystals act as lodestones, you could say, to swim against the current of the Lifestream…"
"Interesting. I wonder how many there are…" Honestly, the scale of the construction was impressive, especially if there had been some sort of of mass production involved like the Lalafell implied - a tall request for any tinker, much less one stuck in a time before the industrial revolution.
"How many? In Ul'dah, you mean? Just the one big crystal - but we've got a bunch of smaller shards scattered across town in useful places. For short-distance hops we don't charge a fee, and it's useful if you're in a particular hurry." He waved vaguely at the aetheryte. "The big ones do have some monetary costs attached for their use, to repay the debts incurred when folks went around reestablishing aetherytes in the wake of the Calamity. You understand, yeah?"
Colin considered the piece of tinkertech doubtfully. On one hand he had no clue how the technology worked - on the other it was a publicly available means to protect oneself from a near-lethal blow, so it seemed irresponsible not to take advantage. It was obvious that many people regularly used these aetherytes without issue, since they were publicly available and commonplace, which implied a certain level of safety. Still, for all he knew the crystals could exude a subtle Master influence on any who used them, or perhaps they cloned a person without preserving continuity of consciousness, no matter the fanciful talk of the 'aether' and 'souls' to explain their function to laymen. How would these people even know without the requisite technology to check for specifics?
"Tell me, how exactly does this 'attuning' work?" he asked, curious if there was a user interface of some sort, analog or otherwise. "You said touching it is enough…?"
"Yup. It comes naturally. I reckon it's because we're made of aether to begin with, yeah?" The Brass Blade scratched his chin. "Haven't thought about that in ages, to be honest. Everyone's used to the bloody things by now, and they go about their business without asking too many questions." He grinned before pacing further into the room. "It's an interesting change of pace, though. Come, attunin' is no big deal. I'll show you how it's done."
With some reluctance Colin followed, the hairs on his arms standing upright at the eerie feeling that cascaded through the room. Presumably the sensation he felt was this alleged 'aether', since the Blade did describe the crystal as a conglomeration of the substance. It was probably not 'life force' like the Blade described, but it was most definitely a form of energy that could be put to a task, tapped for broader use - his fingers itched for a pen and paper, to jot down some observations and calculate the estimated energy output. Ignoring the urge with practiced ease, Colin closed the distance to the spinning piece of tinkertech and looked up at its metal-capped base plate.
"This… feeling it gives off," he said softly, wafting his hand through the air. "It's odd. It felt uncomfortable before, even stifling. Now that I'm closer it feels... familiar. Like I know it from somewhere, though I can't tell from where. Is that normal?"
The Lalafell hummed. "It's the same for everyone, I think." He reached out, laying a hand on the crystalline base without much fuss. "It feels like home."
Colin reached out with one hand, but almost immediately thought better of it. Before he could draw himself back, though, the world skipped. Before he could physically touch the aetheryte or retract his hand, everything went slightly out of focus around him, became a little less real. Or perhaps things were more real - he couldn't tell. Hold on...
"Oh, Children..."
This - this had happened before, back on the road. He'd… almost forgotten. Colin looked around, and it felt like swimming in molasses. A brilliant point of bright light shone within the Blade that stood by his side, his face frozen in the moment. The same light burned within his own chest, but his was different. It sputtered, blinked, trembled - it… it was hurting? There was no pain, but he was sure there should have been.
"I beseech you, oh Children..."
Howling noises filled his head, and the familiar feeling of the aetheryte chamber suddenly engulfed him, unmooring him in a livid and wild hurricane of sensation. For a moment he felt very, very cold, and it seemed like he could wander into the space between atoms. With the slightest misstep, he'd be utterly lost. He heard the distant sound of laughter, or screams, or singing voices. Someone familiar cried his name - but he couldn't tell who, or from where.
"...Children of a Fallen Star."
Colin's hand touched the aetheryte, and reality asserted itself in an instant, rebounding to solid sensibility with a suddenness that shook him to his core. The crystal felt warm beneath his fingers, and a shiver ran down his back at the intense feeling of comfort it imparted - like warming your feet by the fire after a long day at work, or having a shower just because you could. It felt like nostalgia, companionship, and coming home.
He jerked his hand back, but the feeling remained. Had he been right, after all? Did the crystal have a Master influence, one he'd just willingly subjected himself to? Perhaps merely stepping foot in the room had been enough for it to enthrall him. "What the hell was that?" he demanded of the Brass Blade by his side, who stared at him in confusion.
"Uh, you attuned to the aetheryte. Wasn't that what you were intending?" The baffled Lalafell raised an eyebrow. "Ah, was that your first attunement? Those are always a bit special. It means this place is your home, at least for the moment - and Ul'dah's honored to have you, I'm sure!" He glanced to the side, and frowned. "Uh, hope you don't mind, but I really should get back to guardin' instead of yappin', or there will be talk. Pleased to have met ya!"
Colin barely noticed the diminutive man leave, as he was still staring at the hand that had touched the crystal. The uncomfortable pressure of the aether had faded from the room, perhaps because the aetheryte's programming recognized him as a user, but that observation was quickly ignored. He was still trying to understand that brief moment of existential panic, when the world had turned to madness around him. He'd felt, just for a moment, like a piece of a puzzle that didn't fit, a broken gear in a whirring assembly. And then he'd heard something. Voices calling out in desperation. He'd forgotten about all this before - would the same thing happen now?
"Where the hell am I?" Colin demanded, shivering. "What is happening?"
Lost in his own head, he made his way back to the Steps of Nald on shaky feet. Even as he departed, though, he realized he could still feel a connection to the crystal, a steady point of contact that didn't care for such mundane details as distance. He felt… tethered, somehow. In the moment before he'd touched the aetheryte, he'd felt like he was being swept away by some unseen force, dragged off by whatever strange physics the aether represented. Then he'd found himself a lifeline, and grasped it with both hands. The safety net was appreciated, but also highly convenient.
He understood now, experientially, where the locals had gotten their particular understanding of reality - it really did feel, in abstract sense, like someone had tied down his very soul. He knew better than to trust such mental effects, though, since any intelligent Master would ensure their victims believed them benevolent. He'd need to watch himself for any unusual behavior, and hope that the mental effects were not progressive - without anyone around who knew him well enough to tell, who would ever know the difference?
He had a new priority, now - he had to understand more about 'aether.' He had to understand. The crystalline structure hadn't actually given him any orders, and clearly he was still able to consider breaking the connection or looking into the mechanics - but he couldn't afford to be complacent about this. It was possible that the effect only extended to making the process of attunement comfortable, and he was merely dealing with some sort of user-friendliness feature, rather than anything more sinister - but he couldn't rely on that assumption. That thought could, after all, be the Master attempting to dissuade him from breaking free from their control.
Fucking Masters.
Why had he even touched the damn thing? His curiosity had warred with his training, which very much emphasized to never touch strange tinkertech, and it seemed like the latter had won out - he was fairly certain he'd backed off. Had the crystal forced his hand? Or had he instinctively reached out for nearby safety, when that strange, lost feeling overtook him? The last time he'd felt it, after all, he had been nowhere near an aetheryte, so it could hardly be the cause. He didn't really believe in coincidences, though, especially these days.
And whose voice was it that had cried to him for help…?
Colin's gaze roved around the Steps, searching for something that the Lalafell guard had mentioned in passing. He'd claimed that there was only one large crystal in the city - but that multiple smaller shards were used for intra-city transportation. One of those, he decided, could serve as a target for small-scale experiments. He'd have to figure out if he could construct some equipment with local resources, of course, but he could start with simple, analog measurements, and move on from there.
---
Colin quickly realized that the presence of guards at the Aetheryte Plaza was the rule rather than the exception - the moment he'd started inspecting an aetheryte shard located only a stone's throw away from the Quicksand, two Brass Blades had arrived to give him the stink-eye. Indeed, they were watching his every movement like hawks, and if he pulled out equipment they'd surely arrest him right then and there. It was a small blessing, perhaps, that he didn't carry any - he would have been tempted to try his luck anyway.
Unfortunately, he hadn't gotten an iota closer to understanding even the most basic workings of the device, even after twenty minutes of close inspection and watching someone appear from thin air not two inches in front of his face. The process was too quick for the eye to follow, so he'd require a high frequency camera to nail down what this form of 'teleportation' actually looked like - did someone appear all at once, or were they reconstructed atom by atom? Did the process perhaps start from the center outwards, or from the brain, where the consciousness that allegedly controlled the whole affair was housed? Until he got a better idea of the mechanics, he certainly wasn't risking an attempt himself!
Discouraged, Colin flopped down on the empty corner of a bench, his armored under-suit clanging against the stonework. Looking out over the busy streets of an alien city, he considered what he should do next. What had happened with the aetheryte bothered him, and not just his own apparent lapse in judgment. No, there was a discomforting feeling in the pit of his stomach, like someting was terribly wrong and he was too dumb to notice. He wanted - he needed to understand. He rubbed his forehead, wincing as he felt the early signs of a killer headache.
Colin was distracted from his morose thoughts when a passerby suddenly waved in his direction, her cat-ears twitching merrily - she was a Miqo'te, if he was not mistaken. "Hey, Hyur!" she called, and he recognized it as the local parlance for 'Human.' "You're being a lazybones, are ya? I see you!"
Colin blinked. "Uh, are you talking to me?" he wondered, but she'd already turned away.
He heard a sudden chuckle from his side and found a boyish twenty-something with a head of wild brown hair smiling up at him. "Don't worry, Linhbo was actually talking to me," he explained with a slight blush, running one hand through his mane. "And before you ask, my parents weren't actually cruel enough to saddle me with that moniker. The girl you just saw can't be bothered remembering names, and I'm the only one of our kind that she actually likes. That's why I get the honor of representing us all, I think." He shrugged nervously. "At least, I hope that's what's going on. Maybe I've been approaching her all wrong…" He straightened, a devious smile on his face as he offered his hand. "Anyway, Hyur Midlander at your service!"
Colin snorted. "Defiant," he answered as they shook on it. "At yours."
The boy let out a sharp laugh. "Fair is fair, I didn't give you my real name either," he said with good humor. "You've got a nice set of armor on you, gotta say. Where did you get it? It's too finely crafted to be anything but a master's work, but I don't recognize the design…" He studied the helmet like several people before him. "Granted, that cap of yours does seem familiar. I would love to meet the smith that hammered away at that beauty…"
"You have now," Colin answered proudly. "I designed and forged it myself." Strictly speaking the suit was a co-production with Dragon, of course, but the design had been based on his original Armsmaster costume, which he'd been busy refining years before she'd even arrived on the scene. Most of Dragon's contributions involved applying her aesthetic preferences to the suit, not add functionality. Barring the occasional emergency release. The more overtly Dragon-designed elements of his armor were still stashed in a bag at the Quicksand, reduced to little more than a pile of scrap.
Hyur the Hyur looked over the suit's gauntlets with fascination, appreciating the effortless way the joints bent and twisted without leaving any obvious gaps to exploit, which was rather difficult to accomplish without modern production techniques. Colin glowed at the boy's astonished, slightly jealous expression, and he realized that perhaps he had found a way to make the gil he needed to secure a stay at the Quicksand's inn. And yet, he faced that perennial bane of the penniless tinker - a shortage of resources and time...
Given access to a decently good forge, Colin was fairly certain he could construct medieval armor, even without involving his power. He'd gotten fairly good at metallurgy over the years, and he could probably reverse-engineer some of the more common design elements of local armor, provided he had a few examples to work from. Then, when he figured out this 'aether' substance, he could start expanding his horizons towards more esoteric pursuits. It was a possibility to consider, at least, if he happened to get access to a smithy.
"Once I get settled in somewhere, I could sell you something nice," Colin proposed. "Craftsmanship is my primary profession, in a sense, so I've gotten quite good at it. I don't really have the resources to ply my trade out here, however, so it might take me some time..."
"I'll definitely take you up on that!" Hyur exclaimed. "A couple of my friends might be interested too - one is a member of the Lancer's Guild over in Gridania, and I'm sure he'd love a helmet like that!" He nodded sharply. "That spear of yours - you made that too?"
Colin grimaced, considering the weapon with a sour look - without any of its functions, its only merit was being sharp and nice to look at - and at the moment it was neither, covered as it was in stains and battle damage. "Yes, but it's seen better days."
"Well, I wasn't going to say anything," Hyur muttered, rolling his eyes. "Thing took a beating, didn't it? What did you do with it, shove it up some poor monster's -"
"Hyur! Are you still lazing about?" the dark-haired Miqo'te from before shouted as she darted in from the streets, and she grabbed the poor boy's ear before he even knew what was happening. "Idiot! Didn't I tell you to get your butt moving half an hour ago? And yet I find you here, yapping with some old fossil of a Dragoon!"
"...Old?" Colin repeated.
"Dragoon?" Hyur said, blinking in astonishment as he reconsidered Colin. "I suppose the whole dragon theme should have tipped me off. Are you really one of those crazy people that voluntarily go and fight dragons face to face?"
Colin's hand clenched around the haft of his weapon as he recalled facing off with Lung, again and again, ever retreating to avoid the man's furious rage from boiling over and taking the city with him. "Just one," he said, looking away. "Just the one."
"That's pitiful!" the Miqo'te blurted - Colin had already forgotten her name, and he really didn't care to remember it. "What kinda Dragoon are you with that kind of kill-count?" She scowled at him, the light stripes across her cheeks exaggerating her expression. "Ain't you supposed to slay a couple thousand of the blighters for breakfast up in Dravania?"
"Come now, let's not get carried away," Hyur said with an uncomfortable smile, waving at his friend to try and calm her down. "Look, I was just talking with, um -" He stared at Colin helplessly for a moment. "Well, we were talking about his blacksmithing. He made that armor of his himself, you know! Isn't it impressive?"
The Miqo'te rolled her eyes. "Sure. Half of it looks like it's never been used, and the other half looks like someone took an acid dump on it." She sniffed, her nose wrinkling up and her ears flattening out. "Ew. You reek of sulfur too, or something else disgusting. What'd you do, bathe in a pool of piss on top of a volcano?"
"Okay, that's quite enough." Hyur snapped, waving his fingers in front of her face to attract her attention, which worked beautifully. "Why don't you go find the others? Right now, the only thing you're doing is ruining a nice deal on some armor for me. Shoo!"
She hissed at him - hissed! Then she turned on the spot, her tail sticking upright in a way that conveyed her annoyance. Colin was glad to see her go - he'd never been much of a cat person anyway. She weaved her way back into the throng of people on the street and vanished the instant she passed behind a band of burly Roegadyn.
"So, I'm sorry for her… everything…" Hyur said with a pained grimace after he was sure she was well out of sight. "She can be a bit much for anyone to deal with, and she's at her worst when it comes to, you know, the straightlaced sort." He frowned with concern. "No hard feelings, right?"
Colin sighed. "Trust me, I've met far worse than her." Not among cats, perhaps, but certainly among mice.
"Oh, good. Or… not good, but also not terrible." He ran a hand through his hair again, clearly some sort of tic. "Argh. I sort of sounded like an idiot, didn't I? I'll try to shut up." He got up from the bench, stretching. "Look, we'll be in town for a day or two more, then we head back to Limsa. Might not ever see each other again, but if we do - well, it'd be nice to catch up. Maybe you could show off your armor when the damage has been repaired." He smiled at the thought. "If you have any gear to sell by then, you've got one prospective buyer, at least!"
"Excellent. I'll keep an eye out for you," Colin promised, his gaze lingering on the young man as he headed off in the same direction as his 'friend.' Who did she think she was, anyway, to call him old? In cat years, she was probably ancient! With a deep sigh and no twinge of lower back pain whatsoever he got up from the bench, ready to renew his hunt for understanding - hadn't Momodi describes the creator of the aetherytes as 'Sharlayan', whatever that meant?
Right then, of course, a steel-tipped arrow smashed itself to splinters against the side of his helmet, just an inch above his exposed lower jaw.
The first arrow barely made its mark on Colin's helmet before a second followed in its wake, and he dipped his head just in time for it to soar through empty space instead of impacting his exposed chin. He put his forearm across the vulnerable area and used the other arm to bring his spear to bear in his attacker's rough direction - and then he remembered that he didn't have access to all the equipment he'd installed within, and thus lacked a viable ranged option. Wonderful.
First things first, then. "Everyone! You are in danger! Please get to cover!" he called out in his most authoritative tone, attracting the attention of around half a dozen people near him. Unlike a gunshot, an arrow didn't actually make much in the way of noise, so most of them had yet to even notice the danger until a third arrow streaked into their midst and bounced off Colin's armor. Then they quickly changed their tune... by panicking and bolting in every direction, spooking other people on the way and turning the road into a chaotic, panicked mob in an instant.
Colin let out a short, strangled groan, annoyed with the civilians for not behaving rationally, and with himself for assuming they would. He chose to ignore the din and focus on his immediate priority - his attacker. Unfortunately the confused tangle of screaming and running wasn't helping, and without his HUD he couldn't exactly narrow down suspects. At least it was a fairly safe bet that he'd been the specific target of this attack, so it was doubtful the attacker would go after any of the civilians. A small relief, such as it was.
Twisting on the spot, Colin pointed straight at a nearby Elezen woman with a quick "You!" that jolted her from her stupor. Clearly she'd frozen on the spot after she'd been warned to run, going for 'fright' instead of fight or flight. It was a less than fantastic survival strategy, true, but useful for Colin's purposes. "You should head into the Quicksand," he told her. "Tell the Guildmaster that there's been an attack in front of her business, and that Defiant is heading after the perpetrator. Help would be highly appreciated."
"A...ah?" The blond-haired woman stammered back at him in disbelief, but after a few moments she began to move, jolted out of her fear by having purpose. Her awkward stumbling gait turned into a run - thankfully in the right direction. Confident that the message would be delivered, Colin dashed off in the direction the arrows had come from, just as a fourth and fifth arrow ricocheted off a nearby wall and narrowly avoided striking a terrified Lalafell wielding a serving plate as a tower shield. Colin sighed in relief - there was still a chance to catch up!
He passed by the entrance to the Aetheryte Plaza and several luxury shops in his chase, spotting the assassin repeatedly as the man darted in between throngs of confused civilians who hurriedly tried to get out of the way. Finally his target slipped into an alleyway branching off from the Steps of Nald, a passageway which led towards the deeper part of the city, the Steps of Thal. Colin eyed the path warily as he approached - he'd rarely seen a more perfect setup for an ambush. He scoffed at the lack of subtlety or finesse of the trap, as even the Archer's Bridge Merchants had eventually learned not to be quite this predictable.
Slowing down at the mouth of the alley, Colin considered the implications of this sort of blatant daylight assassination attempt. The reason the gangs in the Bay had eventually stopped being quite so transparent was the immediate involvement of the police, who would quickly send in specialists to deal with the more obvious malfeasance - be it SWAT or the PRT. This attack was certainly bold, and they'd passed several locations guarded by Brass Blades - so why didn't local law enforcement rush in to help?
The implications were… troubling. The peddler Colin had met on his way into town suggested the Blades worked for the Syndicate, and the only person he'd pissed off on this entire world was that pretentious Lalafell in the Quicksand who'd been abusing a destitute man. Said Lalafell had threatened, right then and there, to sic his grand uncle on him - a man implied to be a member of the same Syndicate.
Huh. Had he really earned an attempt on his life by a criminal organization within hours of arriving in town? Usually it took longer than that.
Colin put those considerations aside for the moment to focus on the moment, having lost only a few seconds to his hesitation at the mouth of the alley. He cursed his lack of options in dealing with this mess - if this were any other day he would have fired a graphene wire to entangle the bowman's legs and send him sprawling, or shocked him unconscious with a remote taser shot, or - if it came to that - stuck him to a wall with a foam-grenade. If he'd still had his old halberd with him instead of a spear, he could have even hooked the axe-blade behind the man's ankles and taken him down that way! The galling part was that he did actually store a hard-light blade in his spear, just for situations like this, but the circuitry had fused too much to have any hope at using it, like the rest of his gear!
He really, really needed to get some tinkering in, soon. He hated feeling so unprepared, and under-equipped. For the moment he was forced to get by without access to his technology - to use 'Zero Suit' tactics, as Dragon called them when they first brainstormed such an implausible scenario. He's never asked why she called them that, but the term was adequate in its brief, obvious meaning, so he hadn't argued with it. Not like he'd done with half a dozen other names she'd proposed for various inventions - the lion's share of which were references to a wide variety of mythological creatures. Dragon could get a bit too caught up in adherence to her theme, on occasion.
God, he missed her so much.
He frowned, annoyed with himself for allowing his thoughts to wander, for permitting himself distraction. As his boots impacted the sandstone beneath his feet, he concentrated on the chase, and wondered at his approach. Normally, he would not have followed someone directly into a trap. Usually he would have called for backup, informed his superiors, possibly retreated to avoid complications and igniting a volatile situation. Or he would have arranged a two-pronged attack with possible Guild assistance. Neither of those were an option here, but at that moment he didn't really care that he lacked oversight. It made things very, very simple.
Chin tucked down to make it the smallest possible target, Colin pulled out the last of his stops and closed in on his quarry, his spear aimed straight at the man's back. The assassin, a dark-haired Hyur with a rather disastrous handlebar mustache, seemed shocked he was keeping up, glancing over his shoulder every few moments as he booked it. He had ditched his bow at some point, but, probably because the awkward shape made it hard to make one's way through the crowds, but a nearly empty quiver still clung to his back by the thinnest of leather straps, the last few arrows rattling around inside with every step.
Colin supposed it made some sense that the man was shocked that a polearm-wielder in heavy armor could run down a younger, unarmored fleet-foot. He'd taken advantage of people's assumptions more than once in his career - he'd never slacked on maintaining his physical training, even after he'd offloaded many physical requirements to technological solutions, and people never expected that. Without his power armor weighing him down, and lacking the unequal distribution of mass caused by several artificial limbs, he felt stronger than he had in ages - half a decade younger, perhaps.
The Hyur flung himself around a blind corner, and Colin smiled. He'd seen this trick pulled before, and far more convincingly than this. Taking two steps away from the corner and angling his weapon towards the blind nook, he followed his target around - and came face to face with a broad-shouldered man wielding a woodsman's axe instead.
"Drop the weapon," Colin snarled, his eyes darting around the small intersection of alleyways to get an idea of what he was dealing with. He spotted two more people towards the back: one was the man he'd been chasing, the other a tall, pointy-eared Elezen wearing a hooded robe, one hand clasped around some sort of quarterstaff. Neither were close enough to be a threat, so Colin shifted the point of his spear towards the axeman's Adam's apple. "I said drop it, or I drop you!"
The axeman smirked. "Heh. Brave little lancer, ain't ya?" he asked without a hint of fear, though his fingers slid along the haft of his axe as he set the head down on the ground beside him. "You're mighty predictable, though. Baron told me all ya goody-two-shoes work the same, and he ain't been wrong yet..." He narrowed his eyes. "Oy! That was the signal, pointy-ears! Get yer head in the game, yeah?"
"R-right!" the Elezen stuttered, and he raised his hands. It was down to sheer experience that Colin didn't flinch when the rail-thin man, apparently the frailest of the bunch, suddenly manifested a sphere of crackling fiery energy between his fingers and threw it at him. In side-stepping the projectile he was forced him to move his spear, and the axeman took advantage, slowly retreating towards his allies while reaffirming his grip on his weapon.
Colin grimaced at the shift in approach the presence of a Cape would require. While taking down a trio of goons with mundane weapons was no real challenge, powers had a habit of throwing a wrench into conventional battle tactics. Without knowing the specifics of the Elezen's power, beyond it being some sort of Blaster ability, he could run directly into an unfavorable position quite quickly, and he lacked the option to stall for backup. Worse, if he ran for it, he'd just be opening himself up to getting shot in the back.
"Who sent you?" Colin demanded. He knew it was unlikely he'd get an answer - the question was intended to keep his foes busy with verbalizing replies rather than anything else. "Why are you after me?"
"Y'think we're gonna sell out?" the man spat, before literally spitting on the floor. "I ain't no snitch!"
"...You were sent by the Baron, who works for the Syndicate," Colin observed dryly. "How close am I?"
The man flinched. "Hold on, how'd you -"
Colin sprang forward during that instant of distraction, and kept the axeman between him and the Blaster to avoid any more hostile fire. Just a moment before impaled his target with the point of his spear, he shifted his aim to the side instead and sliced along the man's arm with one of its cutting edges. The shock of pain was enough for the Hyur to cringe and weaken his grip on his weapon, which was all Colin really needed. He slammed his spear downwards into the man's knee, forcing him to stumble.
"F-fire, godsdamnit!" the axe-wielder cried furiously. In response Colin kicked the man across the knuckles, which sent him sprawling to the floor sans weapon. This left Colin wide open to the nearby Blaster, though, who tossed another fireball that impacted against his chestplate in a fiery conflagration.
Hissing from the sudden stab of pain, Colin tried to gauge this new threat. While there was no real kinetic impact from the blaster's attack, and little visible damage, the suddenly super-heated metal of his armor seared the skin directly underneath, betraying the sheer intensity of the energy release. Pure heat transfer, then.
This… could become an issue. Without his armor's temperature control systems, Colin couldn't take that sort of hit very often - passive insulation worked much better against cold temperatures than warm ones, and his under-suit was only ever meant as a stopgap solution to begin with. On the bright side, since there was no kinetic component to the Blaster's attacks, he could rush in physically and take his chances in direct combat - the blaster had taken several seconds to charge up their shot, which should be easy to disrupt.
Only a second or two had passed, but the axeman had gathered himself, brandishing his weapon with his one remaining good arm. Colin turned towards the Elezen and the strangely reticent Lalafell attackers instead, exposing his back on the Hyur - and forcefully smacked the blunt haft of his spear into the latter's face. With a satisfying crunch and an aborted gasp he fell over, foregoing any attempt at catching his weight on the way down. Nobody ever seemed to pay attention to the back of his weapon, Colin mused, and once more it proved a useful quirk of psychology to exploit.
"Fuckin' - what the hell was that?" the Elezen blurted, starkly aware there was nobody in between him and Colin anymore. "S-stay back!" He raised his hands again - but something was different about his movement, this time. He pulled his quarterstaff back, then jabbed its blunted end forward into empty air..
Colin gasped in shock when intense cold seeped through his armor and insulating layers like they weren't even there. There had been no projectile, no delay - just sudden cold. He shuddered in place, only barely catching himself by leaning on his spear, and he persisted through the intense blast of freezing temperatures until they finally abated. The effect lasted two - maybe three seconds, but it was quite long enough to chill his bones, and make his teeth chatter in his mouth. Unpleasant.
The blaster didn't wait around for him to recover, flinging his hands forward with another ready-made burst of fire. Colin dodged back towards the safety of cover, unable to counter the ranged attack with one of his own, and lacking any other options. Without its ability to lengthen into a fifteen foot implement, his spear wouldn't be much help - and rushing in seemed a poor idea now that the Elezen had demonstrated a second type of blaster ability which was line-of-sight, rather than a projectile. He could avoid the fire, perhaps - but he couldn't dodge vision. Not without smoke bombs, at any rate.
Colin grimaced, searching for a solution to his predicament even as he ducked behind cover to dodge another blast of freezing power that frosted over a segment of the nearby wall and caused it to erupt into brilliant white icicles. When another fireball followed that, Colin frowned. That had been a wasted shot, while another blast of frost might have had more luck due to its radius of effect. So why had he gone for the fire? There was something there. Some sort of pattern. Two fireballs were followed by a blast of frost, almost like clockwork. Was he dealing with amateur tactics there, or something more meaningful, more useful?
Perhaps… perhaps the two kinds of attacks were one and the same? The nature of cold was, after all, just the absence of heat in the end, and for every action there must be an equal and opposite reaction. What if, to maintain a stable temperature in their body, this cape was forced to switch between hot and cold attacks? Now, how could he verify that hypothesis and take advantage of it…?
"Can't we talk about this?" Colin asked to draw attention to his position, and his answer was a blast of ice - which was exactly what he'd been waiting for. He rushed around the corner, avoided the first fireball effortlessly, and he had made it more than halfway to his target before the second burst forth and burst apart against his chest, searing skin that had already been burned before. He kept focus, spear aimed and ready as he prepared himself for the next shot - ice. He'd just have to divert the man's gaze before he had time to fire it!
"F-fuck!" The cape exclaimed as he stumbled backwards and summoned up another attack, a desperate last gamble before Colin got to him. What appeared between his fingers was not ice, however, but something quite different. Sparks erupted from his palms, arcs of electricity that darted from one finger to the next before suddenly launching forward in a spherical shell that resembled a plasma globe.
"Fuck," Colin agreed feebly, the instant before it hit.
He didn't remember yelling out in pain, but he suddenly found himself down in the dirt with a throat that felt ragged, his limbs twitching through the after-effects of involuntary electrocution. His mask's HUD flickered to life, reporting his heightened heart rate and superficial burns - frostburn and otherwise - before the beleaguered system fizzled out with a burst of short-circuiting wires and acrid smoke.
"Well, that finally did him in," the Elezen said in relief from right next to him, and Colin froze. "Persistent bugger, wasn't he?"
"It's why the Baron sent three of us after 'im, I imagine," a second voice said - the man he'd original chased, and who had kept his distance throughout the fight. "I was gonna step in, y'know. But I've never been one for close-range stuff, you understand, and you were handling him just fine on your own." He snickered as he walked over, kicking Colin's armor without doing much more than stub his own toe. "You still alive in that tin can? That Thunder spell did a nice bit of work on ya!"
Spell? Great - this was a world of Myrrdins. "What did I do?" he demanded, stretching for time so his tingling limbs could regain some power. Perhaps he could make a run for it? It didn't seem like it would work- but the alternative was laying there and getting his throat cut by some two-bit thugs. He'd been - overconfident. Again. He knew most of his gear was down - why hadn't he backed down? He'd taken one of his foes down, and the other had retreated on his own. Couldn't he have retreated while hiding behind cover, and rush back to the open streets?
"You made Lord Lolorito quite mad," the Hyur said, pulling out a dagger and poking Colin's armor experimentally. "He doesn't like it when you interfere with his money, see? And you took quite the lucrative customer from him..."
"I… I thought it was some Baron that sent you?" Colin asked.
The man coughed nervously. "Well, the Baron works for the Lord, so it's the same thing, ain't it? One speaks for the other, see?" He spread his arms. "It's just business, you must understand. You mess with the money - you get the knife. That's the Baron's way. And what's good for the Baron is good for the Lord. Simple as that."
"Interesting - and probably thoroughly false."
"Wha-" It took the Hyur a split second to realize that Colin hadn't spoken a word. He glanced from side to side, eyes wide, and then a figure dropped on top of him from a nearby roof, squashing him into the floor with his weight before knocking him unconscious with a sharp punch. The new arrival then disarmed the Elezen cape with a quick one-two from a sword and a knife - the sort of textbook take-downs Colin would have preferred, were he even halfway equipped and rested. He finished up by cutting the man down with a single slice of his dagger - a rather lethal hit, to Colin's eye, but at that moment he couldn't care less.
"Are there any more?" the figure asked, viciously stabbing down into the unconscious Elezen's arm to pin him to the floor while kicking his staff to the side. "Just these three, right?"
Colin grunted an acknowledgement, slowly inching his way to a sitting position as his arms and legs regained feeling. "Thanks. Who are you…?"
"Well, Momodi sent me to back you up. I've arrived just in the nick of time, it appears!" the man explained succinctly, deftly placing his sword and knife back in their scabbards and running a hand through his ash-blond hair. He was a young, reasonably handsome twenty-something bearing a pair of distinctive tattoos on both side of his neck, though Colin couldn't tell what they were supposed to mean.
"Remind me to thank her," Colin said, rubbing his lower legs until blood started pumping again. "A lot."
"Eh, she figured you could handle it, but I suppose anyone can have an off day." He offered his hand. "Looks like they gave you quite a thrashing there. Can you stand?"
"Yes. Give me a minute. I didn't expect the Elezen with the powers," Colin explained sullenly as he took the offered help and dragged himself upright. "Needless to say, things didn't go exactly as planned." He let out a long breath, wincing at the throbbing of his chest - armor or not, he'd taken far more damage than he expected in the altercation. "I think I'll need... some kind of medical attention."
"There's probably a conjurer or two at the Guild who can help out," the blond replied easily. "When in Ul'dah, perhaps you ought to be more wary of running into Thaumaturges in the future. Their Guild is situated here, after all, so there's bound to be a few around." He tapped Colin's armor with a frown. "Your armor looks quite pretty, but it isn't aether-resistant, so it's not going to help you much against anything but sheer brute force. Where did you even find this stuff? Even Garlemald has moved beyond such basic techniques."
"I made it," Colin answered mulishly. "I just haven't had time to… upgrade." His eyes wandered across the stranger's apparently much less protective garments, pausing when he spotted something peculiar. On the man's left shoulder, looking rather out of place, was a strange device equipped with several lenses and dials. "...What is that?"
The man followed his gaze. "Ah, this? It's an, um…" He frowned momentarily, glancing at Colin with a strange expression. "...It's an aetherometer. Truly a marvel of Sharlayan ingenuity - it's as if you could reach out and touch the aether!"
"Aetherometer…" Colin mused. The name was descriptive enough. "It's Sharlayan, you said? Like the creators of the aetherytes?"
"...Yes, actually. One and the same." The man cocked his head to the side curiously. "That's not exactly hidden knowledge, you know. The city states on the mainland bought the aetherytes openly in the wake of the Calamity." He nodded slowly as something seemed to occur to him. "Momodi did say you were a little - behind the times. Only recently crawled out of whatever hole you hid in during the Calamity, right?" He turned towards the groaning assassins on the ground. "I'll gladly fill you in on whatever trivia you might want to know about - after we take care of this riffraff."
"They were sent after me by some sort of Baron, on behalf of 'Lord Lolorito,'" Colin explained. "Apparently I pissed off someone powerful."
"Heh." The blond snorted. "You should tread softly around here - Lolorito is not a man to be trifled with. Still, I do not believe he is the type to hire two-bit thieves and recent graduates of the Thaumaturge's Guild to take care of an assassination. I suspect this 'Baron' is acting rather outside his purview." He shook his head sadly. "The sultana's enemies grow bolder by the day."
Colin grimaced, looking away. He'd been taken down by a bunch of amateurs - it was a small comfort that it had happened in the back of some alley instead of on the open street. And that he'd survived. Dying here would have been more embarrassing still.
"Ah, but where are my manners?" the blond swordsman decalred. "I have yet to properly introduce myself. I am Thancred, a humble scholar surveying the flow of aether in Thanalan," he said, giving a small bow. "Today, I am also moonlighting as the dashing hero." He smiled broadly. "It is an honor and a privilege to make your acquaintance!"
"Defiant," Colin replied briefly, still reticent to say his actual name out loud, especially in earshot of a bunch of assassins that had already gone after him once. His eyes went back to the aetherometer on the man's shoulder. "...That device allows you to see the aether?"
Thancred laughed. "Hah! Bit of a one-track mind there, huh?" After a moment of deliberation he answered. "It's not quite that simple. Aether is everywhere around us, so a device that showed you literally all of it would just reveal a white fog - it would be useless. This one is set up to trace aether flow, so I can track down specific aether disturbances, extreme congregations, strange disruptions - that sort of thing. It's not the most reliable, since there's a lot of things that can do all that, but…" He shrugged. "It's come in quite handy from time to time."
Colin considered the explanation, as well as the obvious technological nature of the aetherometer, and reconsidered the stereotype he'd formed of this particular Earth. He'd assumed they were stuck in medieval times - but this device looked far more sophisticated, easily surpassing the technological prowess of the Renaissance, and perhaps edging in on Tinkertech territory in some respects. Perhaps the presence of this aether, whatever its exact nature, had sent science on a different developmental track - one away from fossil fuels and electrically powered gadgets and towards… different things beyond his ken. Fascinating.
"Can I…?" he asked hesitantly, the burning on his chest and the tingling in his limbs forgotten in light of professional intrigue. "I'll just have a simple look, I swear."
Thancred sighed, running a hand through his hair. "Why not. Don't break it, or I'll have to finagle another one out of Urianger." He detached the device, revealing it to be a makeshift mask, and threw it over while he went to bind the Elezen's arms together. "Switch is on the bottom. Careful now, it's fragile."
Quickly scanning the surface of the aetherometer, especially the distinctive fogged lenses, Colin shoved his armor's visor upwards and held the device in front of his eyes, flipping the recessed switch on the bottom as instructed. What he saw seemed strangely like water, a hard to describe fluctuation in the air that seemed ubiquitous, just as Thancred had said. This had to be the same thing he'd felt at the aetheryte - the aether, in its raw form, the endless ocean that had nearly swept him away.
Colin raised his hand in front of his face and saw, to his shock, that rivers of aether moved inside his limbs, flowing slowly through his flesh along pathways marked out by his arteries and muscle fibers. This was no illusion - there was really something there that he'd never seen before, a real substance. Looking down at himself, he could even see the aether disruptions along his chest, pockets of white that matched closely to the locations where he'd been hit with fire and cold. When he looked into the distance, he spotted a glimmering shape that matched closely to the location of the aetheryte he'd touched, its glow so brilliant it was visible straight through solid buildings.
"Amazing…" he looked up at the sky, and marveled at the currents he could see gleaming in the sky, only barely visible in the distance. Even as he took all this in, he felt a queasy feeling in his stomach. It was a realization that none of this made sense in light of the assumptions he'd been working from. So either the world was wrong - or his assumptions were. And only one of those scenarios was reasonable, lamentably.
Aether would not have been missed, back on Earth Bet. Even if mundane science might have ignored it through sheer ignorance of what was possible, tinkers had exploited far more esoteric forces than these. Someone, somewhere, would have found this substance and reported on it. Colin had kept a close eye on tinkertech developments out of professional interest, and he'd never seen the slightest hint of anything resembling aether - there was no gap wide enough in existing theories to support it. And yet… it was real. It was like someone had altered the speed of light, and yet kept the universe more or less the same despite this - utterly preposterous. Yet… true. It didn't seem possible.
"You spoke of thaumaturges earlier," Colin said slowly, his fingers twitching with the urge to write rather than residual impulses from electrocution. "You said that my armor needed aether-resistance to protect against… spells." He licked his lips nervously. "Tell me, when did the first powers show up?"
Thancred raised an eyebrow. "Uh, not where I thought you'd start with questions, I have to say. Though, if you're asking about the origins of magic - it's said that the first spells were crafted by prayer in the Second Umbral Era. Why do you ask?"
"...And what's today?" Colin asked slowly, lowering the Sharlayan goggles. "What era?"
"Ah, but a few scant years ago I could have given an easy answer…" He smiled thinly. "It depends who you ask whether we've arrived in the safety of another Astral Era, or if we yet remain in the shadow of the Seventh Umbral Era, and have been since the Calamity." He sighed. "As for how long it's been since the Second Era? Well, thousands of years at least, perhaps more - the Sixth Astral Era alone lasted something like fifteen hundred years, all told. Civilizations have come, gone, and been forgotten since the Second, their cities and wonders reduced to rubble and ruin…"
Colin stared ahead, chilled to the bone by more than aether-borne ice. His hand slacked on the haft of his spear as he stared at the aetherometer in his other hand. "I am… really not from around here, am I?" he admitted, more to himself than Thancred. "This is not Earth."
If he was right - he was further afield than he'd thought in his wildest dreams. He'd assumed, at its base, that the Multiverse of many different Earths all shared the same basic building blocks, the same inherent laws and constants. Earth Aleph was, in most respects, a copy of Bet until only a few decades prior - it shared billions of years of history, and the same fundamental qualities. But what if there were places, out in the Multiverse, where that was not the case? Wherever he'd ended up might be so distinct, so different, that the very planet he trod on might not be the same - because how could the same Earth form in a universe where matter and energy were not equivalent, or where light did not move at c in a vacuum? Or a universe where the mystical fifth element, aether, was real and could manifest as genuine magic?
It made sense, in a strange sort of way, and it had all clicked when aether-resistance was brought up in the context of the unconscious Elezen - aether and powers were linked in this world. 'Magic' like spells of fire and cold were some sort of aether-derived abilities, manipulation of a resource that his own world lacked. They were scientifically explainable in their own way, just not with any science that applied to his own universe.
'Thaumaturge' had been the name Thancred used for the unconscious parahuman - but that label was inaccurate. What he'd fought was closer to an actual wizard - the mystical spell-flinging kind from fantasy books. Thaumaturgy, as he recalled, was the ability to perform miracles, or wonder-working. In this world such capabilities were common enough to form organizations around them - whole Guilds dedicated to throwing fireballs and summoning the thunder. Lamentably, in this world Myrrdin was right. If Colin ever made his way home, he was sure he'd never hear the end of it.
Colin looked up at the huge white moon looming overhead, and wondered at its nature. He recognized its similarity to Earth's Moon, but at the same time he remembered Momodi claiming there had been a second, lesser moon which had fallen from the sky to wreak havoc below, releasing some monster in the process. Perhaps that story had been a local retelling of Gold Morning as he'd assumed, exaggerated and deformed by time and the Master's influence - but what if it hadn't been? Could there have been two different cataclysms which happened close together in time across such different worlds? Surely there had to be a link there, to explain his own presence on this alien planet? Or to explain why local people mostly resemble humans, and spoke English despite the large differences between their histories.
"What do you call it?" Colin asked numbly. "This world?"
Thancred seemed nonplussed at the question, which doubtlessly would sound a little strange to a native. "You mean the whole planet? Hydaelyn, of course."
"Hydaelyn," Colin repeated. His fingers slipped across the edges of the aetherometer, taking in its minute design features without consciously thinking about it. "That name. I've heard it before." He felt a soft tug in his chest, an instant of nostalgia. Was it because of that name, or the aetheryte connection? "I need… more information. Knowledge. Where can I find that sort of thing?" He tapped the aetherometer. "Where could I learn how these are made, or aetherytes for that matter? Where could I study the nature of aether itself?"
Thancred hesitated, but there was a familiar gleam in his eyes. "Well, to start with, Sharlayan technology is… private. It's not shared with outsiders, so you'd be hard-pressed to find any teachers. And don't ask me - I didn't earn these for scholarly pursuits." He gestured vaguely to his neck. "Knowledge of aether is more common, and it's fundamental to working out how our devices work - and the same goes for magic. Ironically, your best bet is probably the Thaumaturge's guild. They're housed right here in Ul'dah, and they've got a library full of tomes on the subject, though you'll have to disentangle it from some… religious interpolations, I'm sure." He smiled thinly. "I might know a couple other places, but… well, we'll see about that at a later time, won't we?"
Colin inclined his head and was about to hand the aetherometer back when his idle fingers found something. There was a small irregularity on the back, embossed within a cleft to the side of the main mechanism. He gave it a look, and found a symbol resembling the Rod of Asclepius, the serpent on a stick used as a symbol for healers, though this serpent had wings and the stick was straighter, more pointed. "A signature?" he wondered.
Thancred took the device back and spotted the image of intrigue. "Ah, yes. It's a depiction of - well, if you're ever in Mor Dhona, you should head over to the lake there, and things should become fairly clear." He shrugged. "Quite the tale behind it, I can assure you. It's ancient history by now. Pre-Calamity, you know?"
"Something else to look up," Colin observed tersely, grimacing against the pain that flared back up across his chest. "You said something about 'conjurers'?"
The blond smiled warmly. "Yes, they'll have you back in fighting shape in but a moment! We're off to Momodi's tavern after we dump this host of rapscallions with the guard." He kicked the Elezen in the side, eliciting a groan. "Trust me, even if they might be on the same side, you won't be seeing them around here again. Nobody likes failures, especially the Syndicate." He gestured back towards the main road as he dragged along two of the unconscious bodies by the ropes he'd tied around their arms. "Come on, Momodi said she prepared a room for you, and you are not going to leave her hanging, right?" He winked. "She took a shine to you, I think. Might get a free night out of telling her what happened here. Who knows?"
Colin grunted an acknowledgement, staring at his fingers as if he could will the aether into becoming visible again through sheer willpower. When he held that aetherometer, he'd felt something… different. Not the aether itself, or even the pull of the aetheryte, but something else - familiarity of some sort that transcended all that. Like a word that lingered on the tip of his tongue, a memory he'd only just forgotten. He fully intended to find out what that was.
Colin sank deep into the warm water of the bathtub and quietly admitted that he'd been terribly uncharitable towards this entire world. He'd assumed, based only on an apparent reliance on beasts of burden and traditional melee weaponry, that the whole place was stuck in an ancient time period Earth Bet had long since left behind, mired in primitive mores. Alongside that view had come a truckload of other associated prejudices, many of which had already proven inaccurate, and all of which were rather patronizing and rude. His quick judgment made him rather uneasy, but at least he'd caught it early.
The truth was a lot more subtle than his rash assumptions, naturally. The world of Hydaelyn was a study in anachronism, bearing elements of various time periods without neatly fitting within any one of them. Its weirdly uneven development was a fascinating counterpoint to arguments made by various Aleph and Bet historians, who seemed convinced that the course of technology was largely fixed and predictable. By their logic, certain discoveries followed each other in lockstep, because they were each built upon one another. It was a sensible argument to make, at least until Tinkers had arrived to mess up all the neat and tidy charts, and Colin had long accepted the hypothesis as generally applicable. He'd never seen reason to consider the question in any detail before.
"Oy! Are you still soakin' in there?" a high-pitched voice suddenly called out from outside his room, followed by two sharp taps on the door. "If you don't get out of there soon, I'll eat your breakfast myself! Don't think that I won't!"
"I'll be right out," Colin called out to Momodi, though he was in no particular hurry to get up. It had been a very long time since he'd taken a real bath, and he meant to enjoy the luxury. Oh, he'd still employed his various cleanliness rituals, of course, but the presence of a host of prosthetics and implants in his body had made the prospect of submerging himself in water a little daunting. That, and sometimes a deluge of water brought back bad memories he'd rather forget.
With his body returned to human standard, and the Endbringers dead or off in some dimension on the other side of forever, Colin couldn't resist the minor indulgence. Truthfully, he hadn't felt this good in years. Dragon might have been right about the deleterious effects of his cerebral implants on his mental state - empirical data had always been too scant to substantiate her views on the subject, however. Curling the fingers of his regrown arm repeatedly, he wondered how long it would take before it felt like his own again - if his brain would readjust. He'd gotten so used to his prosthetic that the renewed organic sensations felt a little bizarre. Was this the first recorded case of reverse phantom limb syndrome, perhaps?
Colin spent another five minutes contentedly soaking in the heat before reluctantly dragging himself out of the water. He watched it drain away into an an anachronistic sewage system, and wondered how widespread that particular innovation really was. While he hadn't noticed storm drains in the streets, it was doubtful a desert city would need a means to deal with flooding anyway, so that wasn't much of an indication. The presence of indoor plumbing was just the latest bit of out-of-place technology he'd noticed on this world, and while electrical power and gunpowder weapons remained conspicuously absent, it was hard to dismiss the feeling that this world was primed for an industrial revolution any decade now. Perhaps the presence of aether had drawn the most brilliant minds of this world away from more mundane research, thus delaying key inventions, while accelerating others in their place?
He put on his smallclothes, and hesitated as he went to pick up the breastplate of his under-suit, which lay at the foot of his bed, stained with sweat and partially molten from the hits he'd taken against the Elezen thaumaturge. The outer shell had soaked up the heat without fuss and looked reasonably intact, but the inside was a pockmarked ruin - it was meant to be protected from unusual temperatures by active measures, most of which were housed in the exoskeleton that lay abandoned in the closet. He had no desire to put the suit back on until he'd washed, repaired, or replaced it - which left him few options for the moment.
Thus far he'd kept his identity a complete secret from everyone, eschewing the use of even his name and keeping his mask on as much as possible. He'd been following general practices when it came to finding oneself in a new and potentially volatile situation - but he had to face the reality of his situation sooner or later. He'd either have to put his costume back on, dirty and sweaty as it was, or wear the cotton garb that Momodi had provided, and pass as a native. The latter could be a decent way to ward off any more assassins gunning for his cape identity, but it would also entail revealing his face to people who only knew him as Defiant. The very idea of doing so rankled him. He'd barely even met these people, and he was supposed to trust them with his identity? It had taken him months to warm up to people at the Brockton Bay Protectorate and take his mask off around them, and they'd already known who he was!
"I could really use your advice at times like these," Colin murmured into the ether - or the aether, he supposed, to make the expression more apt. He imagined what Dragon might have suggested, but he couldn't decide where she'd land on the matter. On one hand she was keenly aware of the risks associated with having one's identity revealed. On the other hand, she'd been prodding him to make more acquaintances in his civilian persona for ages, and she would probably favor an actual solution over pushing the decision forward a few days without any indication that anything would change in the interim. What to do…?
Annoyed with his own indecision, Colin roughly grabbed the chest piece of his under-suit off the floor and watched in dismay as chips of rubber and stray components flaked off and rained to the floor, some pooling in deep cracks that had been carved into the armor by wild temperature differential of fireballs and frost. Reflexively he raised a hand to the two reddish spots on his chest, the only evidence of second- and third-degree burns which should have left him bedridden for days. He didn't really remember being healed, since he'd slipped into the beginnings of shock by the time he'd made it back to the tavern, but he couldn't deny the obvious efficacy of the treatment. He'd have to remember to thank whoever was responsible for that.
Letting out a long sigh, Colin finally made his decision. He put his costume away and grabbed some local cotton-weave clothes instead, helpfully provided by Momodi the evening before. They were a little narrow around the shoulders and hips, but aphorisms about horses and gifts came to mind. He briefly considered taking the spear he'd propped up against the wall, but its obvious draconic decorations would reveal an immediate connection between him and Defiant to any would-be assassins. Without the folding mechanisms he couldn't even hide it on his person, so he was forced to leave it behind with the rest of his belongings. No armor, no weapons, no backup. Fully clothed, and yet he still felt naked.
Colin paced down the halls of the Hourglass Inn towards the central room of the Quicksand, passing by a tall woman with bunny ears and a grim-faced Lalafell as he headed for Momodi's bar. Thancred was already present, nursing a drink of some description as he fiddled with the dials of the aetherometer that was mounted on his shoulder. His ash-blond hair obscured his eyes, and sheer contrast made the purple tattoos on his neck stand out against his pale skin. The moment Colin closed in he glanced up, blinked, and then a wry grin spread across his face.
"Ah! Who might you be, stranger?" Thancred asked laconically, leaning on the bar with one arm as he took up his drink with the other. Something non-alcoholic, hopefully, since the sun had barely even crept up past the horizon yet. "Can I interest you in a drink? It's on the house, as one might say." He looked across the bar. "Well… it will be, as soon as the proprietor returns."
Hesitating only a moment, Colin offered his hand. "I'm Colin. Colin Wallis."
"Ah, manners! How droll. I am Thancred Waters," he answered, shaking Colin's hand with a knowing smile. "Our dear patron is bringing breakfast to a pair of Conjurers that spent the night here - she and Miss Pottopa are taking care of their needs, I'm told." He winked. "She'll be along soon enough, I'm certain."
"I see." Colin pursed his lips. "I seem to be building up something of a debt with her. And that's after she explicitly warned me against getting into debt in this city." He could see the irony, even if he didn't care for the series of events which led here. "...Clearly I have to get better at taking her advice," he admitted.
Thancred snorted into his drink. "True. You should also stop pissing off thaumaturges if you want to avoid being set on fire again," he said smartly. The humor faded as he noticed Colin rubbing at his chest. "Seriously though, your armor did you no favors - I'm told the healers found part of it melted into your skin! Haven't seen them look that appalled since a man walked in here with one severed arm tucked under the other!"
Colin winced in sympathy at that scenario, a phantom itch spreading through his prosthetic arm. He paused, turning that thought over in his head. Since that arm was back, it was probably just an actual itch this time. He scratched it, and the feeling went away. Huh.
"So, mighty warrior, what are you going to next?" Thancred asked curiously. "Will you set out to beat up more thugs, so that I must swoop in to save you in the nick of time, again? I admit, I don't mind playing the hero on occasion, but I have a feeling it would get old quickly."
"I will not," Colin promised, glaring down at the bar, tracing rings left behind by the base of many, many mugs of ale. He knew he'd screwed up in that encounter. He'd rushed off without proper preparation, with most of his gear ruined, and without proper intel. He'd acted unworthy of himself, of the standard he'd set since the first day he'd put on a costume. It felt galling to be faced with his own inadequacy, and it could not be allowed to happen again. He felt rusty, out of practice, even though he'd been fighting Scion mere days ago - the aftermath of all that had happened, certainly. Before he threw himself into any more fights he'd need to get himself back into shape. Not physically - mentally.
Thancred took a long drink from his glass and sighed. "You know, these last few days have been… hectic. Surprisingly, you're not the only person I've dropped in on like that - just the other day I had to face off with a voidsent of all things, and then there was this golem…" He smiled ruefully at the memory. "I thought things had calmed down a little after that, but then a bunch of thugs decided to try and murder a newcomer on his first day in town - you never know in this place, do you?" He raised an eyebrow. "I hope you have no trouble with my presence for another day? I've nowhere else to be just yet, and Momodi has asked to keep an eye out for any… reprisals, shall we say."
"...I have no particular complaints," Colin said after a moment. Two sets of eyes were better than one, after all.
"Good!" Thancred was about to say something else when he glanced towards the Quicksand's entrance and stiffened, though he made no particular motion to reach for his weapons. Whatever he'd noticed was not a threat, then. Colin followed his gaze and saw nothing particularly surprising - just a pair of Lalafell making their way towards the bar.
One was a man in a leather suit of armor. He was reasonably old, judging by his coif of white hair and handlebar mustache, and he took a sharp-eyed interest in everything around him, betraying experience and a certain confidence. He was accompanied by a woman in pink wearing a similarly colored turban, her expression dour and her head hung low. Between the presence of a bodyguard and her flawless complexion it wasn't hard to guess she was someone rich - a noble, possibly, though he wasn't sure if the concept was presence in this apparent Sultanate.
"I wish you a very good morning, my Lady Lilira," Thancred announced softly, though his gaze was hard and flickered between the door and the woman, betraying a certain paranoia. "It is pleasant to see you again, though I have to wonder if it is wise to… wander the streets. Given what happened just a few days ago, I thought you would take more care."
"I have not left the city again," Lilira said sharply. "Still, I refuse to be cowed by a single incident. If I were to fold every time someone acted against me, surely I'd have been begging alms in the streets long ago!" She crossed her arms, and took a moment to size up Colin, at the same time that her bodyguard glowered in his direction. "I see you have picked up yet more strays. Is this one going to drop in a faint, too?"
"Hah!" Thancred chuckled. "Ah, my lady, let us not be so unkind to the one who saved you at the Sultantree. Especially as he is not even here to defend himself!" He shook his head. "Truthfully, Colin here was targeted by some… unsavory elements yesterday. Opponents of the Sultana, I'm sure, who were offended at this man's defense of one of their unfortunate targets." He looked to the bodyguard. "I have a feeling there may be some connection between that and… everything else that's going on. If not… well, assassins are a problem no matter who sends them."
"I understand," Lilira said, her expression darkening. "Is Momodi present? I was hoping to speak with her about related matters." Her cheeks colored. "And I had hoped to sample more of her foreign teas with some crumpets. She did promise to import the latest blends..."
"My lady…" the bodyguard said in a pained tone.
She huffed, rolling her eyes. "Oh, I know you don't care for tea, Papashan. You are the one who insists on sampling everything to test for poison, so I don't see why you're complaining about your own hangups. One of these days I'll finally convince you that Momodi of all people can be trusted to make me food, and maybe you will get over it!" She grimaced. "I suppose the attack the other day did nothing to dissuade you from your fears, did it? Even though it was a voidsent, and not poison!"
"To be fair, it may have been a poisonous monster," Thancred pointed out helpfully. "You never know with a voidsent!"
"Thank you, Thancred," Lilira replied dryly. "That horrifying thought will make Papashan calm right down, I'm sure."
Colin wondered if he should point out the difference between 'venom' and 'poison', but decided to hold his tongue when Thancred narrowed his eyes at him as if sensing the oncoming pedantry.
"It was a pleasure to meet you," Lilira said to Colin. "Pardon me, but what was your name?"
"Colin - or Defiant," he answered shortly.
"Colin the Defiant, then." She nodded sharply, a smile curling around her lips and a sparkle in her eye. "I'm certain we shall meet again." She gestured to her guard, Papashan. "Come - we will find a table and wait for Momodi's return. We shan't bother these fine gentlemen any longer - lest Thancred begin his obnoxious flirting, as he is wont to do…"
"Now that's just… uncalled for," the blond complained, though he didn't deny the accusation. After Lilira moved away, he turned to Colin. "You remember that I mentioned I'd jumped in on someone else recently? There was a spot of bother with those two a few days back. I fought off a voidsent that had been sent after Lilira alongside another person, and there was another similar attack a few days later. I'm not sure your own assault was connected, but all of them seem linked to certain subversive elements that seek to bring down the Sultana's rule, so it seems plausible…"
"I wouldn't know," Colin said. "I'm not sure I even know what a 'voidsent' might be. Some sort of monster?"
Thancred nodded sharply. "Quite. They are… creatures of the void, as the name implies. Nobody is quite sure where they come from, but it's definitely not Eorzea, or maybe even Hydaelyn." He lowered his voice. "If you ask my opinion, they're… starved things. Born from aether, perhaps, but then deprived of its sustenance for aeons. I presume that is why they assault whatever they come across so voraciously, as an attempt to satiate their endless hunger…" He shuddered. "They are unnatural things."
"Born from aether?" Colin wondered. The idea that lifeforms might develop from pure energy rather than some material basis was strange - but between Case 53s and finding out about Dragon's nature, his definition of what 'life' might include had stretched a fair amount. And who knew what bizarre qualities an alien element like aether possessed? "You mean to imply that living things spring from the aether fully formed?"
"It has been known to happen," Thancred said with a dark look in his eyes. "Elementals are the most obvious example - in places with enough ambient aether, the very environment can come alive according to its aspect. Elsewhere, monsters absorb the aether and use it for their own defense, expelling fire or such through channeling aspected aether from their body. And beyond that, there's more… primal… manifestations." He looked away, and it wasn't hard to see the pain in his expression. Memories of the 'Calamity', presumably. "Suffice to say there is reason to worry in any place rich with aether. This world can be a dangerous place, especially when people get desperate."
Colin inclined his head in acknowledgement. "I admit, this is all… new to me, so I'm trying to get a better picture of what's going on. You mentioned the Thaumaturge's Guild as experts when it comes to aether. Do you believe it's worth the risk going there, after I just got attacked by one of their number?"
"I wouldn't say there's any particular risk - thaumaturges aren't exactly a rarity around here," Thancred said ruefully. "Their standards have gotten rather lax in order to get their numbers up. And you shouldn't assume that the man I took down was educated there - criminal organizations usually have their own ways of doing things outside the law, after all." He glanced at Colin with a concerned frown. 'Why exactly do you want to know about aether so much? I know my motives for investigating the field, but they are esoteric to most people. Do you just want to throw fireballs around...?"
"No, I'm not really interested in that," Colin said frankly. "I just want to understand. When I went to that aetheryte out on the Steps…" He could still feel the connection, that possible Master effect that lingered in the back of his mind. It didn't appear to be doing anything to him, but that was hardly going to ease his mind. Simurgh bombs could go years without acting on the whim of their Master but eventually, inevitably, they exploded. "I don't know what aether really is, or how it works. That's not satisfactory. I need to know how to tell when it's dangerous or safe, and if it's responsible for..." He trailed off, not sure if he even knew exactly what he was looking for. "I just need to know."
"Seems like more than idle curiosity," the blond observed, his expression serious. "Aether is dangerous stuff, especially when approached with such intense… focus. It's a reactive, changeable substance. If you interact with too much of it, you will become quite ill - it could destroy your mental state and shred memories to ribbons. Sometimes it warps even the body, mutating it into terrible forms. Notorious beasts and monsters are formed that way. You ought to take care."
Colin nodded slowly. "Aether is analogous to radioactive materials, then - risk of contamination, possibly a mutagen of sorts," he mused. "It's supposed to be some sort of 'life-force', correct? What does that mean, exactly?" He peered at Thancred. "Look, I know how the human body works in some detail, and grasp the general mechanics of life itself. Consumption of resources, processing, replication, waste disposal… At no point is a mystical force necessary to catalyze any of it, to my knowledge. What does aether do that makes it life-force? After all, the realization that there was no fundamental difference between living and non-living was a major scientific breakthrough."
"It was?" Thancred asked, nonplussed.
"Yes." He rubbed his forehead. "Well, it was where I came from. It's… fairly fundamental to how I understand the world works. I'm not sure how there could possibly be a place where that's not true, and yet people exist anyway." He couldn't even begin to calculate the odds of humans evolving into the same form in a world that carried significant differences in its natural laws. "Aether should stop pissing in Friedrich Wöhler's soup," he added glumly.
"I… I'm sorry?" Thancred asked, staring. "I must not have heard you correctly. I thought you said -"
Colin rubbed his forehead. "Honestly, I can barely imagine how physics work when there's some ubiquitous magical substance changing all the rules around. Chemistry too. Aether probably accounts for the weird crystals, but what else is different there? Biology…" He smiled. "Just from what I've already seen - people with animal features, humanoid reptiles - I'm fairly certain Darwin would be miffed. And apparently Voidsent are born from the aether, like you said, which is just all sorts of different and crazy..." A smile found its way to his face. "What a mess."
Thancred started. "Uh. You're complaining about the way the world works, and now you're smiling about it? Did you hit your head?"
"No. Do you happen to have any paper?" he responded, barely acknowledging the question. "I should write some of this down, keep a record of laws that I can no longer rely on as inviolate. What temperature does water boil at, here? I suppose that's related to air pressure, actually. Do you have the same atmospheric distribution of gases…? Do gases even work the same here?" He paused. "Do you happen to know what the speed of light is? Actually, I should probably know if you recognize 'feet' or 'meters' - get my units straight."
Thancred blinked rapidly at the onslaught of questions. "...Light has a speed?"
"It still ain't fast enough to catch me on a good day!" Momodi announced as she appeared as if by magic behind the counter - perhaps it really was magic. "Mornin', toasty!" she declared merrily as she waved at Colin. "You slept off those potshots you took, huh?" She peered at his chest as if she could see right through the fabric of his shirt. "You ain't breathin' funny, so them conjurers must've done a good job. Means I won't charge 'em for the night. They earned their keep, I reckon." She raised an eyebrow. "And don't you dare start beatin' yourself up about my overflowin' goodwill! I take care of new adventurers, remember!"
"I… wouldn't dare complain," Colin answered, taken aback. "Also, my real name -"
"Your name is Colin, yes, I heard 'bout that." she winked, rubbing her pointy ear demonstratively. "We Lalafell might not look like much to big broad fellas like you two, but underestimate us at your peril!" She thumped herself on the chest. "Wouldn't be the first fool to try and kick a Lalafell 'cause of their size, and get their whole leg chopped off for their trouble!"
"Alright. This conversation went from absurd to violent rather quickly," Thancred muttered into his drink. "Admittedly, I am somewhat more familiar with violence than whatever nonsense Colin was going on about, so I might actually be able to contribute now. What joy!"
"I wasn't being absurd," he complained sullenly. "It's this world that's absurd!"
"Hear, hear!" Momodi agreed immediately as she put a tall glass of juice in front of Colin. "This world's crazy. We just have to roll with the punches and deal with one problem at a time. That's how I make it through the day!"
Colin inclined his head, quietly admitting to himself that at that very moment, that was exactly what he was doing as well. He sipped from his drink, and couldn't quite tell whether it was orange juice, grape juice, or some bizarre intermediate. Perhaps it was derived from local fruit, since there was no reason to conclude any food here was Earth-standard, even if the meal he'd been served the evening before had tasted like any well-cooked steak he'd ever eaten. Or perhaps he was overthinking things, and it was just a mixed drink. He was sitting at a bar, after all.
That stray thought just reminded him that he didn't know anything about this world. His ignorance went well beyond local customs or beverages, and all the way to basic features of reality. He'd spent endless hours studying scientific disciplines in the hope that knowledge of thermodynamics and electrical engineering would help augment his tinkering skills - and they had, though more so towards the start of his career. By the end he'd gone so far beyond conventional knowledge that there were few theoretical underpinnings to rely on, save those few Dragon had derived from her insights. The thought that all that hard-earned knowledge was now suspect felt painfully wasteful. It felt like someone had carved a chunk out of his life and declared it null and void, rendering it pointless.
And yet… that wasn't the crux of the situation, was it? Because the reason he was forced to throw out the old was because he'd discovered new science. Not some obscure little corner exception to an existing model which would have to be minorly tweaked, nor even a paradigm shift on some specific narrow topic. Those would have been interesting developments, but ultimately mundane. What he'd found instead was something that broke the way he understood the world. In one fell swoop someone had taken a bulldozer through the entirety of science, and replanted that well-plucked field with fresh seeds. There was ample room for new hypotheses, theories, maybe even whole fields of study. A cornucopia of new avenues to wander down with a magnifying glass. Wasn't that… fantastic?
The very thoughts made him feel strange, and a little jittery. He felt younger, like that chunk of his life that had been carved away had taken his grey hairs along with it. Before he'd been a soldier in an army at the end of the world he'd been a cape, but before even that he'd been a loner college student with dreams of grandeur - just a kid studying disparate fields at a whim, throwing himself from one interesting major to another with the youthful conviction that somehow, somewhere, he'd find a way to make his mark on the world. He'd dreamed to find something everyone else had missed, and eventually he had worked even his own life down to a science, focusing on efficient usage of time and eliminating all excess, paring himself down to bare essentials. He prided himself on living a spartan existence dedicated to personal pursuits to the exclusion of everything else, including even human connections. In retrospect he might have gone too far, but at the time it had all felt… necessary.
Then, after he gained his powers, Colin had thought he'd finally fulfilled his youthful dream of discovering his own little slice of reality. He started building the sort of impossible devices that science fiction authors only dreamed about, and thought the stunned and impressed looks from those around him were a just reward for his great discoveries. In truth, like most Tinkers, he'd never truly understood the underlying methods behind his creations. He hadn't internalized that fact until Dragon dissected a design he thought he understood, and picked apart nearly every component in ways that contradicted his own perceptions. He'd been deluding himself, and it took until he was Defiant before he accepted that fact, decades into his career. In the end, the only thing becoming a Tinker had done was distract him.
What if… what if…?
Colin blinked in surprise when he realized he was holding a writing implement - he had asked for a pen and paper at some point, hadn't he? He barely spared a moment on the question, and simply started writing. "Thanks," he murmured belatedly to whoever was nearby, while sketching the outlines of Thancred's aetherometer onto the paper. Next he started jotting down several physical laws he'd be able to test with relatively simple means - it would be imperative to make sure that he could still use the relevant mathematics for the more obviously similar features of the different universes. In the margins he listed acronyms for a dozen physical constants he could test after verifying that the previous relationships between forces still applied.
After he was done with that, he started including hypotheticals about their possible interaction with the aether, working off the few experiences he had with the substance. He only had a single use of the aetherometer to build on, but he already had a few ideas on how to pare down the structural material of the device without compromising function. He snatched the device from Thancred's shoulder and noted the settings on the various dials, ignoring its owner's complaints when he started turning them this and that way to see what happened. He'd put them all back the way he found them, of course, after he was done.
Colin's knowledge of terrestrial facts might be quite useless outside Terra, but that was not all he'd learned in college. Any good scientist knew that data was not what made science useful. Data by itself was just a collection of random facts gathered together by observers. Science was the method one used to derive knowledge from those facts, the way through which you brought structure to chaos. Whatever else had changed from one universe to the other, that method was surely still applicable here, so he'd make good use of it.
'How is an aetheryte made?' Colin wanted to ask, but he distinctly remembered someone mentioning that Sharlayan technology was private, so he would get no answers there. That was an annoying inconvenience, to be sure, but he had certainly worked around annoyingly strict patents before. The usual method he used was to simply to go a level deeper and deconstruct the base elements - reinvent the wheel, in a sense. "What is the relationship between aether and crystals?" he asked, a much more palatable and generic question. Considering the aetheryte was almost entirely a chunk of crystal, it was still highly relevant.
"Actually, I know that one!" Momodi piped up. "Too much aether makes crystals! It's why everywhere is crawlin' with the things since the Calamity!"
Thancred groaned, running a hand through his hair. "Highly oversimplified as summations go, but not entirely incorrect," he allowed warily, his brow furrowed. "You've heard of the Lifestream, I presume? It is commonly thought that aether can only cross over to the other side, to the aetherial plane, at a fixed rate. Any excess spills freely into our world, and that has consequences. It manifests physically as eerie glows and weather changes, or spiritual echoes of one description or another - elementals and the like." His expression became rather morose. "As for big crystal deposits? If there are a high number of deaths close together, or if they happen with extreme brutality, the resulting shock of released life-aspected aether will coalesce into crystalline form."
"Life-aspected?" Colin murmured. "As opposed to?"
"Astral and Umbral aspects… of the six elements of -" Thancred stopped himself, staring at Colin's notes warily while they expanded before his very eyes. "Alright, yes, this is getting a bit much for breakfast conversation, don't you think? Gods. We should have this conversation when I can responsibly get sloshed! Besides, I'm no theoretician, so you shall surely exhaust my meager knowledge before long." He stuffed some bread in his mouth with a mulish expression, then got up. "...I'm going to take my Nutkin for a walk."
"...Okay." Colin watched the man leave, not what he'd said to set him off - and he dearly hoped that he's interpreted his last remarks correctly. Some sort of local slang for a lavatory break, probably?
Momodi gave him an apologetic look. "Ah, he can be like that - bit flighty, on occasion. He'll come around," she promised. "By the by - didn't peg you for a scholar." She looked over the quickly expanding array of notes Colin had scrawled on every available piece of paper. "The way you were carryin' that pike around, I took you for the 'stab 'em with the pointy end' kind of person, if you pardon me sayin' it. Gettin' into theoretical aetherology at eight' bell is a bit... different."
"I know my way around fighting," he said. "Still, I'm a Tinker by trade - an artificer, a smith. I'll have to look around and see if I can get the necessary resources and tools together to build a few things." He gestured at his notes. "I'm not used to working with aether, that's why I'm trying to figure out how it works. Both to understand Hydaelyn better, and to reequip myself. My armor is ruined, and my spear little more than a pointy stick…" Her blank look suggested she had no idea what else a spear would be. "I expect I'll have to start from scratch, which will be… work-intensive. I'll also have to figure out how to implement aether-resistance. It's never been a concern before."
"No magic users where you're from, huh?" Momodi mused. "You're from Garlemald?"
"No," Colin said, and then he hesitated about what to say next. Not only would talking about other universes be unbelievable, but he couldn't prove himself on that claim, and he was reluctant to drag Hydaelyn's people into the problems of the larger multiverse. He had no desire to lure in Cauldron or other less than savory people by prodding their Thinkers from afar, especially since this world had already had to deal with one apocalypse in recent memory. "I'm… from further away than that," he finally said. Vague, nonspecific. "I don't like to talk about it."
"Ah, come on!" she complained. "Now you're just gettin' me more curious! You're infuriating', you know that? How 'bout you give me the answer in exchange for that healin' I got for you?"
"That 'overflowing goodwill' of yours sure ran out quickly," Colin responded dryly.
She instantly wilted. "Ah crud, now you're makin' me feel bad. Never mind, never mind! Keep your secrets!"
Colin smiled, and packed up his notes. "I'll go see if I can find Thancred before he wanders off without me. I believe you have some guests to entertain." He gestured towards Lilira and Papashan, who were still busy bickering at a nearby table. "She's been waiting for fifteen minutes."
Momodi blanched. "Right. Time to bust out the crumpets! Let's go!"
Colin watched her leave, and rubbed his forehead tiredly. Eight in the morning, and he was already tired. It was probably a Monday.
...Did this world even have Mondays? How long was a week, here?
The tread of heavy iron boots echoed down the winding hallways spiraling through the imposing Castrum, a monstrosity of masonry and technological prowess which overlooked a rugged coastline, just one of many strongholds that guarded the ever-growing borders of the mighty empire of Garlemald. Inside its thick metal-clad walls the only signs of the nearby sea were the slight scent of salt water in the air and the distant cries of seabirds which echoed down vents which provided even the lowest and most secret chambers with purified air. No light could penetrate into those deep, dark corners, but Ceruleum-powered lights were a suitable substitute.
A man clad in crimson armor stopped in front of an unassuming door, one of many dozens of its like spread around the ornately decorated but identical hallways he'd passed on his long way down. A single individual stood on watch to greet him, one hand on his weapon while the other was awkwardly held out in front of him in an impromptu, incompetent attempt at a salute. The guard didn't say a word, but swallowed thickly.
"This is where you are keeping the… specimen?" the crimson-hued man asked.
The guard nodded quickly, his helmet slipping across his bald scalp as he did so. "Yes! M-my lord!" He flung his arm across his body in a more believable attempt at the imperial salute, then bowed his head in supplication. "Praefectus Aulus mentioned that you showed an interest in his work, my Lord!"
"Huh. Did he?" The armored officer cocked his head to the side, his mask displaying none of his features to the lower-ranking recruit, save for the permanent disapproving scowl etched into its faceplate. "Tell me, what is a mere Lictor like yourself doing here, guarding a significant prisoner like this? And where is your partner? Do the laws of our fair nation not explicitly state that two recruits must be paired up at all times to keep watch over each other? Speak."
The guard swallowed nervously. "You are completely right, my Lord. Unfortunately…" He glanced behind him. "My… partner… got a little too close to our charge, and…" He swallowed again. "I imagine he thought the wild stories to be mere exaggeration. He was new - just recently flown in from Castrum Occidens after a tour there." He shook his head. "I - this position has become, uh, prisoner duty, I'm afraid. My Lord." He shuddered. "I'm not sure the thing needs guards. Four people have ended up in the infirmary in the last week alone!"
"I see." The officer waited for a long moment. "I believe my purpose here is obvious, and yet it appears you have failed to grasp the meaning of my presence. Will you allow me to pass, or shall I have to move you?"
"Ah…! R-right!" The man jumped aside, wincing as his helmet shifted. "Just… be careful in there, alright? If that monster ends up beheading a Legatus next, it'll be on my head."
The officer paused at the door. "Perhaps, Lictor, you should have considered such things before you got yourself signed onto prisoner duty. Do not let anyone enter after me without warning - be they a slave or the very Emperor himself. Am I understood?"
"Y-yes, sir."
The cells were dinghy, but not because they were filled with filth and refuse - such squalor would not be permitted in even the worst of the Garlean prisons. The dusty chambers were dimly lit by rather primitive Ceruleum lamps that could not be rendered into crude explosives by an inventive engineer. Such had been tried with more modern ceruleum-based models by numerous prisoners, which led to the present conditions. Not that the subject he was dealing with today had much of a talent for engineering - or anything else.
The creature lay at the far side of its cell, an innocent bundle at first glance, shivering and cringing away from even the flickering lamps in its enclosure. It didn't look particularly dangerous, but such was the trap that had ensnared several unfortunate guards - appearances could be deceiving. This went double for the creature before him, for at first blush it appeared to be a woman. An exotic one, to be sure, features foreign and her skin a strange amalgam of flesh and steel, wired throughout with copper and other materials which sparked on rare occasions with flickers of lightning, or perhaps an excitation of Aether. The beast seemed eerily familiar in some respects, yet clearly inhuman in others. And its skin, beyond its substance, was a marvel - for every inch of it was decorated with wild patterns, a grand artwork of flowers and colors splashing across the beast's hide with wild abandon. An artist's masterwork placed atop the body of a monster.
"Are you awake?" the officer stated boldly, one hand on his weapon. "Do you understand my language, or shall I have to debase myself with lesser tongues?"
The feminine creature stirred, though her gaze failed to find him, wandering aimlessly. She seemed almost impossibly pale and listless, but that was comparing her acts to the expectations he had of a normal human - and she was certainly no human. She had no ears or hair to speak of, but instead bore a thick layer of slowly twitching tendrils atop her head, bound together until their ends disappeared beyond the edge of her strange body, betraying its nature as a product of artifice, as her creation, or that of another. The only sign which marred her pale features, the only imperfection, was a small half-moon carved into her cheek, a mark that was doubtless of some symbolic importance due to its prominent placement upon her visage.
"Hear me, beast," the officer stated. "You now face Nero tol Scaeva, Tribunus Laticlavius of Garlemald's XIVth Legion, sworn to Legatus Gaius van Balsar, the Black Wolf." He cocked his head to the side as the creature's eyes finally seemed to meet his, and they widened a fraction of an ilm. "...But please, call me Nero."
The creature's body moved slowly, jerking uneasily as she stared at him with uneasy eyes, her artifice body creaking and groaning as metal wore against metal in ways that seemed, to Nero's ears, a betrayal of gross malfunction. Finally the creature stilled, her mouth moving without expelling words. Perhaps she could not - perhaps she was merely shaped like the race of man, not capable of its higher faculties. Many beast tribes pretended to be intelligent, but in the end they were little more than their wild cousins, just infused with too much Aether.
"Aulus mal Asina tells me you may be voidsent - a creature from beyond the borders of the three continents, and perhaps the world. He thinks you a mere animal - but I do not agree with that claim. Voidsent are monsters who hunger where you do not, kill where you merely maim. Three times you have thrown people from your cell, four as of yesterday, and you could have killed them with contemptuous ease. You refrained. That, to me, speaks of some intellect - or at any rate, an understanding of your precarious situation. The rabid coeurl is shot, after all…"
The creature shifted once more, but did not respond.
"'Tis cruel to be a beast with the face of a fair maiden," Nero mused lyrically. "Ah, but so says a fair man with the face of a beast!" He reached up to his helmet and removed it with a single swift movement, revealing his handsome features as he smiled roguishly and pulled one hand through his blond, short-cropped hair. "Now, we are as equals… save for the cell in which you find yourself. Pity, that."
Nero paced back and forth in front of the cell as the woman-faced creature followed his every step. "Aulus has plans for you, I believe - he sees your dangerous nature as potentially useful, if you were allowed to… adjust… to your newfound situation." He shrugged. "He means to employ brainwashing of some description, I'm sure. It's beyond me what the more esoteric researchers get up to these days. He tells me that the process he has in mind would have other benefits as well - enhanced communication, increased understanding." He nodded. "I would much desire to speak to you, when the day comes you can look me in the eye without hatred or suspicion."
He met her eyes with as much sincerity as he could manage. "Then, perhaps, there are other matters we can discuss as well. The others here do not see what I do - they believe your body is a doll, an artifact bereft of aether or life, little more than an ornament. But I can see the truth, the sublime elegance of that which you hold - and which holds you. I wish to understand it. To know who threaded those lifeless sinews, those metal muscles which turned a monstrosity into a marvel. If I can understand you, I can use that to propel myself onward - perhaps it will be sufficient to surpass even Garlond, and leave him far behind me." He grinned broadly. "Indeed, I shall surpass whoever created you as well!"
His gaze lingered on the broken hinges of the gorgeously patterned body. "I know what hides within your broken shell. Tell me, if you possess a dozen limbs or more, why do you constrain yourself to using only four? What leads a creature to desire humanity, however crudely wrought? You carry not a spark of aether - merely dead metal and dreams - and yet you spark in me so many brilliant ideas. Why did I never consider the prospect of a full body prosthetic? To unite the form of man with the soul of a monster - would it be possible to do the reverse…?"
The guard outside knocked on the heavy door, then shoved it open and peered inside. "...Uh, sir?"
"What?" Nero snarled, glaring at the intruder. "Can you not tell that I am engaged in conversation, Lictor?"
"...You do know it doesn't talk, right?" the man asked. "It doesn't speak our language."
"I was aware of that," Nero replied with supreme patience. "Nevertheless, I thought she should be made aware of her fate - whether she understands the words is not my concern, merely propriety." He shook his head. "Besides," he murmured to himself. "If there is one thing I never tire of, it is hearing my own voice…"
AN: I've been writing for some of my old fics recently, and I still had most of a scene written, but never posted. I'm not sure how likely it is I'll be dropping more chapters soon (given that I'm not currently playing FF14) but I'm at least interested in picking it back up.
