Have you ever had the experience of waking up from a dream only to realize you were still sleeping? Now imagine waking up into a nightmare, but realizing it is no dream. Welcome to the world of Spira where I do my best to survive fiends, Sin, bandits, and where the MCs would not be here for decades to save the world.
An Unexpected Dream (FFX SI/Eventual Multicross)
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Chapter 1: Waking Up Into A Dream
- Location
- U.S.
I woke up with a start in one of my worst nightmares, underwater. I flailed as I accidentally tried to inhale in my panic and seawater rushed into my lungs before I quickly closed my mouth and tried to swim towards what I hoped was the surface. I was not the most buoyant of person at the best of time and now without air in my lungs I was even less so. I breached the surface just as the edges of my vision started blacking out and my lungs burned like it was fire.
I quickly gasped in a breath of fresh air as I tried to see where the hell I was through my stinging eyes. I hate swimming, can't see shit without goggles on, and too many things that could be under the water. I just managed to make out a beach in the distance and running off of pure adrenaline and old half remembered swimming lessons I did my best to swim my way over as fast as I could.
I had no idea how long it took me, but by the time I dragged myself onto shore my body was burning with exhaustion. I just laid there on the sand enjoying the hot burning heat from the sun and sand after the cold dip in the ocean or sea I found myself in. I absent mindedly realized I was completely buck naked as well with not a scrap of cloth on me. So I was tired, exposed, and sore. Wonderful.
Feeling a bit better I slowly pushed myself up and using whatever part of me was somewhat dry and not covered in can I carefully began wiping the waters from my eyes so I could finally see where the hell I was.
One moment I was sleeping in bed and the next I wake up underwater and my home was hours from the ocean! With my eyes finally cleared I get my first clear look at my surroundings and what I saw was not good. I was on a beach that looked like a storm just rolled on by. Bits of broken pieces of wood, trees, and rocks were flung everywhere, in fact some of those pieces look like they were processed so whatever was broken should be man made which meant there should be people nearby. Sure was going to be embarrassing showing up in nothing but my birthday suit but there was nothing I could do about it.
Slowly getting up I startled as a pile of rubble began to shift. I froze just staring at the pile as a growling noise started coming from it.
"Oh come on, a wild animal? A big one too?" I thought out loud to myself as I looked around for something to protect myself with, like a club or something. No luck as all the wood near me were splints, better watch my step, only thing of use was a rock the size of my head which I quickly picked up. If nothing else I could bash someone's head in like a cave man, ooh ooh ah ah unga bunga.
Looking back at the pile I see the head of the animal pushing its way out and I froze. That was no animal, no animal has such jagged teeth or elongated tongue or such unnatural white eyes on earth. It looked like a demonic wolf, there was no way something like that could exist on Earth and judging from the size of the rubble it was half my size, no way was I outrunning that thing if it got out.
Fight or flight and I sure as hell not going to be able to succeed in flight, especially since I had no idea where to run too. So with my heart pounding in my chest I quickly and carefully ran my way across the debris ridden beach to the shaking pile and with a large overhead swing, smashed my rock into the creature's head. The wolf howled in pain and doubled down on its effort to escape. With great fear pumping more adrenaline into my arms I repeatedly swung the rock down on the wolf's head over and over and over again ignoring the yelping and blood coating my hands and the skin tearing on my palms.
Finally with one last swing the wolf stopped moving, it's head reduced to a bloody pulp and the rock falling from my numbed fingers as I fell back on my butt staring at the thing I just killed.
'I am safe, it is dead, I am safe, it is dead' I repeated to myself like a mantra keeping myself calm. Suddenly I spotted something moving from the wolf and stiffened in fear before confusion took over. From the wolf came a small cloud of, rainbow colored fireflies? No wait those were not fireflies, there were no bugs in them and they were leaving this long rainbow ethereal trail behind them in the air.
The corpse of the wolf thing disappeared as well into more of the fireflies and the mass of rainbowness suddenly surged towards me. I closed my eyes and tossed my arms up in a desperate attempt to protect myself only to realize I felt nothing happening.
Opening one of my eyes I noticed that the fireflies were gone with only the collapsed pile of rubble being the only proof everything that just happened was real. Letting my arms down I realized that there was something in my hand. Opening my hand up I stared down at a small green marble sitting in the palm of my hand.
'Where did this thing come from? What was it? Was it from the fireflies? And why did all of this seem familiar?' I thought to myself as the niggling sensation in the back of my mind that you get when you subconsciously know you have forgotten something, but know you should know it. Thinking back to everything that just happened, the wolf, the rainbow colored ghost fireflies, the marble.....it hit me.
I recognize this, I recognize all of this. I looked rapidly left and right, taking another long look at the beach, except this time with a dock, some huts, and ship overlayed in certain locations. It was a near perfect match.
I was on Besaid. I was in Spira. I was in Final Fantasy X. I was holding a sphere. I just killed a Fiend. I was in a world filled with monsters and Sin.
I broke down laughing as I sat there on that beach as I finally realized that I was in a nightmare and there was no waking up.
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________
AN: Just something I decided to write for fun and update whenever I feel like it, so do not expect consistent updates.
I quickly gasped in a breath of fresh air as I tried to see where the hell I was through my stinging eyes. I hate swimming, can't see shit without goggles on, and too many things that could be under the water. I just managed to make out a beach in the distance and running off of pure adrenaline and old half remembered swimming lessons I did my best to swim my way over as fast as I could.
I had no idea how long it took me, but by the time I dragged myself onto shore my body was burning with exhaustion. I just laid there on the sand enjoying the hot burning heat from the sun and sand after the cold dip in the ocean or sea I found myself in. I absent mindedly realized I was completely buck naked as well with not a scrap of cloth on me. So I was tired, exposed, and sore. Wonderful.
Feeling a bit better I slowly pushed myself up and using whatever part of me was somewhat dry and not covered in can I carefully began wiping the waters from my eyes so I could finally see where the hell I was.
One moment I was sleeping in bed and the next I wake up underwater and my home was hours from the ocean! With my eyes finally cleared I get my first clear look at my surroundings and what I saw was not good. I was on a beach that looked like a storm just rolled on by. Bits of broken pieces of wood, trees, and rocks were flung everywhere, in fact some of those pieces look like they were processed so whatever was broken should be man made which meant there should be people nearby. Sure was going to be embarrassing showing up in nothing but my birthday suit but there was nothing I could do about it.
Slowly getting up I startled as a pile of rubble began to shift. I froze just staring at the pile as a growling noise started coming from it.
"Oh come on, a wild animal? A big one too?" I thought out loud to myself as I looked around for something to protect myself with, like a club or something. No luck as all the wood near me were splints, better watch my step, only thing of use was a rock the size of my head which I quickly picked up. If nothing else I could bash someone's head in like a cave man, ooh ooh ah ah unga bunga.
Looking back at the pile I see the head of the animal pushing its way out and I froze. That was no animal, no animal has such jagged teeth or elongated tongue or such unnatural white eyes on earth. It looked like a demonic wolf, there was no way something like that could exist on Earth and judging from the size of the rubble it was half my size, no way was I outrunning that thing if it got out.
Fight or flight and I sure as hell not going to be able to succeed in flight, especially since I had no idea where to run too. So with my heart pounding in my chest I quickly and carefully ran my way across the debris ridden beach to the shaking pile and with a large overhead swing, smashed my rock into the creature's head. The wolf howled in pain and doubled down on its effort to escape. With great fear pumping more adrenaline into my arms I repeatedly swung the rock down on the wolf's head over and over and over again ignoring the yelping and blood coating my hands and the skin tearing on my palms.
Finally with one last swing the wolf stopped moving, it's head reduced to a bloody pulp and the rock falling from my numbed fingers as I fell back on my butt staring at the thing I just killed.
'I am safe, it is dead, I am safe, it is dead' I repeated to myself like a mantra keeping myself calm. Suddenly I spotted something moving from the wolf and stiffened in fear before confusion took over. From the wolf came a small cloud of, rainbow colored fireflies? No wait those were not fireflies, there were no bugs in them and they were leaving this long rainbow ethereal trail behind them in the air.
The corpse of the wolf thing disappeared as well into more of the fireflies and the mass of rainbowness suddenly surged towards me. I closed my eyes and tossed my arms up in a desperate attempt to protect myself only to realize I felt nothing happening.
Opening one of my eyes I noticed that the fireflies were gone with only the collapsed pile of rubble being the only proof everything that just happened was real. Letting my arms down I realized that there was something in my hand. Opening my hand up I stared down at a small green marble sitting in the palm of my hand.
'Where did this thing come from? What was it? Was it from the fireflies? And why did all of this seem familiar?' I thought to myself as the niggling sensation in the back of my mind that you get when you subconsciously know you have forgotten something, but know you should know it. Thinking back to everything that just happened, the wolf, the rainbow colored ghost fireflies, the marble.....it hit me.
I recognize this, I recognize all of this. I looked rapidly left and right, taking another long look at the beach, except this time with a dock, some huts, and ship overlayed in certain locations. It was a near perfect match.
I was on Besaid. I was in Spira. I was in Final Fantasy X. I was holding a sphere. I just killed a Fiend. I was in a world filled with monsters and Sin.
I broke down laughing as I sat there on that beach as I finally realized that I was in a nightmare and there was no waking up.
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________
AN: Just something I decided to write for fun and update whenever I feel like it, so do not expect consistent updates.
Chapter 2: Waking Up To Reality
- Location
- U.S.
I do not know how long I just sat there after all the laughter subsided. I just stared down at my bloody hands and the sphere in the right shining brightly in the sunlight.
Eventually I was fine, not fine fine, but fine enough. I stood up and walked over to the ocean before proceeding to wash off the dried blood and sand stuck to me. I was not going to make a even worse impression then was already possible when I found the locals.
That brought me up short, the locals, would I be able to speak the language? Tidus was able to but that was because it was a game and in game he was still a native. Would I be able to even understand anyone? I definitely would not be able to read anything as Spira had its own writing system.
I looked down at the clear blue waters just barely making out a faint image of my own reflection as I took a good luck at myself. A tiny bit tanned as to not be completely pale from working in a office environment all day, no muscle definition and a beer belly despite not being a drinker. I should be able to pass by as a local, or at least not an Al Behd, not to diss them or anything but I really did not fancy dealing with fantasy racism on top of everything else right now. With that depressing thought I washed off the very last of the sand and blood.
Walking out towards the beach I decided not to worry about it. Not much I could do really and maybe I'll get lucky and everyone speaks English like in my version of the game. However, irrelevant thoughts aside I needed a weapon, while a rock was fine when dealing with trapped fiends I needed something with a bit more reach if I encountered another fiend on the way to Besaid village. I was reasonably sure I knew the way to the village or at least enough to reach the road leading to it.
So looking over the beach I unfortunately did not find anything to use as a weapon except some small rocks for throwing and the larger rock that I used to brain the wolf fiend. If I met a fiend all I could hope was that it was not a fast one and run for my life or hopefully distract it with a rock and sneak past it. From what little I could remember the place should be mostly populated by wolves, birds, some flans, and rarely some garudas. Obviously if I met the latter I was dead.
So with nothing but a big rock, a bunch of smaller rocks, and a hopefully big enough pair of balls. I, a city slicker guy with no survival or fighting experience, will traverse this tropical paradise full of monsters and find civilization......I was going to die a horrible painful death.
The sun was high in the sky so it was about noon, giving me only 5-6 hours before it got dark. It should not take that long as the island is not that big from what I recall. Oh god, I felt the shakes already, but what other choice did I have besides going or waiting on the beach and hope someone came?
With those thoughts in mind I slowly began walking towards the path that led deeper into the island. Very quickly I reached a fork in the road and took the left path, as I distinctly remember the right being the one Wakka shoved Tidus down into a grotto filled with fiends as a short cut. No way in hell was I going to be fighting demon fucking piranhas hahaha HELL NO!
I began walking up the steep pathway, keeping a wary eye and ear out for any sounds of movement of people or fiends and for hiding places. Fortunately nothing jumped out of the dense vegetations or trees and allowed me a bit of peace to marvel at the architecture of the ruined buildings being reclaimed by nature. Towering buildings rested at angles as if knocked over by something in various states of disrepair and rust littered the island. There should have been something about a functioning machina door here, but I do not remember the code or what was actually supposed to be inside.
Peacefully I reached the top of the steep path and saw something both heartening and troubling. A path. The same one used in the game but a lot less developed and rough looking. It was a lot more clotted dirt instead of flat pressed dirt and no signs of rope railings. This made me remember the beach's condition. Sin never attacked Besaid in the game and was killed before he could, so did that mean I was in the past. It looked likely, but just how far back was I? Was Braska on the way to kill Sin already? How long does it take too complete a pilgrimage?
Looking at the long stretch of road ahead of me I wished that I knew how sphere grids worked and if they were even an actual thing in lore? I mean if everyone could easily gain superhuman ability from hunting fiends to the point of one shot Sin then Sin would not have been a problem and Fiends would be hunted down to near extinction already. Opening my hand to inspect the green marble like sphere I wondered if maybe this is my superpower instead? I mean this is basically how all those isekai stories begin right? Oh god am I in a fanfiction? Oh shit this totally feels like something a fanfic writer would write about.
"Hey author if you can hear me can you make me into Superman or something instead? Maybe throw in aa green lantern ring too?" I asked the sky in the admittedly thin hope that it might actually work. I just stared and sighed as nothing happened, no super buff body or flying green piece of tech jewelry. Glancing back at the road then at the sphere in my hand I really wish I could run faster if a fiend found me.
At that moment the sphere glowed green then vanished into my hand causing me to drop the other small rocks that I was holding with a yelp. I gripped my hand with the other trying to feel for the sphere or wherever it might have gone. Suddenly I felt the small of my back burning as if someone placed a somewhat hot stone in the middle of it causing me to try to reach it but feeling nothing where the heat was. It didn't hurt but it was definitely noticeable. It lasted only a few seconds before the heat disappeared as if it was never there.
Standing still I waited to see if anything else was going to happen before looking down at myself. I didn't notice any changes, but was I actually faster now? Now was not the time to test it, after I get to the village is when I should be able to do so. With a lot more spheres and actual equipment on me. So after picking back up my rocks and taking a deep breath I continued my journey down Besaid's tropical path, past the palms trees, waterfalls, and ancient ruins.
It looked like luck was on my side as by the time I reached the end of the path and saw the monument at the top of the hill I had only encountered a single flan which I managed to distract with a well thrown rock before sneaking past. It seemed the sphere did have some effect as sneaking crouched like I was should not have been as quick as I did with that flan, so a noticeable increase if not a huge one. That gave me some hope of becoming stronger in the future.
As I reached said monument, a large single decorated stone pillar with two broken stone rings and a stone circle around, presumably prayed to for good luck according to Wakka. Moving around it I look down from the top of the summit down at where Besaid village should be. Should.
From what I remembered from the game there should have been half a dozen large tent like structures in front of the much larger stone temple containing the Fayth. Now? I only saw two tents in the plaza like area and a piece of the temple roof missing, yep looks like Sin did hit the place or a really bad Sin attack. Or maybe the village really was this small in the past? The island is pretty small after all even in canon.
Well whatever, safety was in reach and more importantly food, I was starving.
With the finish line in sight I kept to my slow and careful sneaking about making sure I was not ambushed by any fiends on the way down. Wouldn't be a good look to be running into town buck naked leading fiends into a mostly undefended village.
Finally after what felt like half an hour or so I could see the entrance to village. There was a small wooden wall constructed in front of the village and a young man with a spear guarding the entrance.
Well time to meet the locals.
Stepping out of the bushes and into the middle of the road I held the large rock in front of my privates and began to slowly walk over the man who immediately noticed me and raised his spear instantly only to slowly lower it with confusion and embarrassment coloring his face.
"Hey! Are you alright?" The man asked worriedly. Nice, he was a good guy and even better he spoke English or a language that sounded similar enough to English that it does not really matter.
"Yeah, just washed up on shore, my boat ran into Sin and got sunk, I think I might be the only one that made it." I explained with a believable lie.
"Damn it, that monster is still hanging around? It already wrecked the village a week ago why is it still here? Haven't we suffered enough. Thank Yevon that you managed to survive though, you are truly fortunate." The man said exhaustion clear in his voice.
"Praise Yevon indeed, thought it was finally my time to join my family in the Farplane when I saw the beast rise from the waters. Kinda glad I don't have any pants as the brown would have been quite embarrassing." I lied as naturally as I breathed bringing up a painful personal memory to shut down the conversation and gain pity points, while simultaneously pointing out my lack of attire that could be addressed to end the conversation.
"Oh, OH! Right clothes, please come in, I am sure we can find you something to wear. Thank Yevon you did not encounter any fiends on the way here from the beach. My name is Bucca of the Crimson Crusaders, what is yours?" The man asked.
"My name is...Trituu a pleasure to meet you Bucca. Now let's find me some pants please." I said with a low laugh at my own little inside joke as I followeed Bucca into Besaid village for some pants.
Eventually I was fine, not fine fine, but fine enough. I stood up and walked over to the ocean before proceeding to wash off the dried blood and sand stuck to me. I was not going to make a even worse impression then was already possible when I found the locals.
That brought me up short, the locals, would I be able to speak the language? Tidus was able to but that was because it was a game and in game he was still a native. Would I be able to even understand anyone? I definitely would not be able to read anything as Spira had its own writing system.
I looked down at the clear blue waters just barely making out a faint image of my own reflection as I took a good luck at myself. A tiny bit tanned as to not be completely pale from working in a office environment all day, no muscle definition and a beer belly despite not being a drinker. I should be able to pass by as a local, or at least not an Al Behd, not to diss them or anything but I really did not fancy dealing with fantasy racism on top of everything else right now. With that depressing thought I washed off the very last of the sand and blood.
Walking out towards the beach I decided not to worry about it. Not much I could do really and maybe I'll get lucky and everyone speaks English like in my version of the game. However, irrelevant thoughts aside I needed a weapon, while a rock was fine when dealing with trapped fiends I needed something with a bit more reach if I encountered another fiend on the way to Besaid village. I was reasonably sure I knew the way to the village or at least enough to reach the road leading to it.
So looking over the beach I unfortunately did not find anything to use as a weapon except some small rocks for throwing and the larger rock that I used to brain the wolf fiend. If I met a fiend all I could hope was that it was not a fast one and run for my life or hopefully distract it with a rock and sneak past it. From what little I could remember the place should be mostly populated by wolves, birds, some flans, and rarely some garudas. Obviously if I met the latter I was dead.
So with nothing but a big rock, a bunch of smaller rocks, and a hopefully big enough pair of balls. I, a city slicker guy with no survival or fighting experience, will traverse this tropical paradise full of monsters and find civilization......I was going to die a horrible painful death.
The sun was high in the sky so it was about noon, giving me only 5-6 hours before it got dark. It should not take that long as the island is not that big from what I recall. Oh god, I felt the shakes already, but what other choice did I have besides going or waiting on the beach and hope someone came?
With those thoughts in mind I slowly began walking towards the path that led deeper into the island. Very quickly I reached a fork in the road and took the left path, as I distinctly remember the right being the one Wakka shoved Tidus down into a grotto filled with fiends as a short cut. No way in hell was I going to be fighting demon fucking piranhas hahaha HELL NO!
I began walking up the steep pathway, keeping a wary eye and ear out for any sounds of movement of people or fiends and for hiding places. Fortunately nothing jumped out of the dense vegetations or trees and allowed me a bit of peace to marvel at the architecture of the ruined buildings being reclaimed by nature. Towering buildings rested at angles as if knocked over by something in various states of disrepair and rust littered the island. There should have been something about a functioning machina door here, but I do not remember the code or what was actually supposed to be inside.
Peacefully I reached the top of the steep path and saw something both heartening and troubling. A path. The same one used in the game but a lot less developed and rough looking. It was a lot more clotted dirt instead of flat pressed dirt and no signs of rope railings. This made me remember the beach's condition. Sin never attacked Besaid in the game and was killed before he could, so did that mean I was in the past. It looked likely, but just how far back was I? Was Braska on the way to kill Sin already? How long does it take too complete a pilgrimage?
Looking at the long stretch of road ahead of me I wished that I knew how sphere grids worked and if they were even an actual thing in lore? I mean if everyone could easily gain superhuman ability from hunting fiends to the point of one shot Sin then Sin would not have been a problem and Fiends would be hunted down to near extinction already. Opening my hand to inspect the green marble like sphere I wondered if maybe this is my superpower instead? I mean this is basically how all those isekai stories begin right? Oh god am I in a fanfiction? Oh shit this totally feels like something a fanfic writer would write about.
"Hey author if you can hear me can you make me into Superman or something instead? Maybe throw in aa green lantern ring too?" I asked the sky in the admittedly thin hope that it might actually work. I just stared and sighed as nothing happened, no super buff body or flying green piece of tech jewelry. Glancing back at the road then at the sphere in my hand I really wish I could run faster if a fiend found me.
At that moment the sphere glowed green then vanished into my hand causing me to drop the other small rocks that I was holding with a yelp. I gripped my hand with the other trying to feel for the sphere or wherever it might have gone. Suddenly I felt the small of my back burning as if someone placed a somewhat hot stone in the middle of it causing me to try to reach it but feeling nothing where the heat was. It didn't hurt but it was definitely noticeable. It lasted only a few seconds before the heat disappeared as if it was never there.
Standing still I waited to see if anything else was going to happen before looking down at myself. I didn't notice any changes, but was I actually faster now? Now was not the time to test it, after I get to the village is when I should be able to do so. With a lot more spheres and actual equipment on me. So after picking back up my rocks and taking a deep breath I continued my journey down Besaid's tropical path, past the palms trees, waterfalls, and ancient ruins.
It looked like luck was on my side as by the time I reached the end of the path and saw the monument at the top of the hill I had only encountered a single flan which I managed to distract with a well thrown rock before sneaking past. It seemed the sphere did have some effect as sneaking crouched like I was should not have been as quick as I did with that flan, so a noticeable increase if not a huge one. That gave me some hope of becoming stronger in the future.
As I reached said monument, a large single decorated stone pillar with two broken stone rings and a stone circle around, presumably prayed to for good luck according to Wakka. Moving around it I look down from the top of the summit down at where Besaid village should be. Should.
From what I remembered from the game there should have been half a dozen large tent like structures in front of the much larger stone temple containing the Fayth. Now? I only saw two tents in the plaza like area and a piece of the temple roof missing, yep looks like Sin did hit the place or a really bad Sin attack. Or maybe the village really was this small in the past? The island is pretty small after all even in canon.
Well whatever, safety was in reach and more importantly food, I was starving.
With the finish line in sight I kept to my slow and careful sneaking about making sure I was not ambushed by any fiends on the way down. Wouldn't be a good look to be running into town buck naked leading fiends into a mostly undefended village.
Finally after what felt like half an hour or so I could see the entrance to village. There was a small wooden wall constructed in front of the village and a young man with a spear guarding the entrance.
Well time to meet the locals.
Stepping out of the bushes and into the middle of the road I held the large rock in front of my privates and began to slowly walk over the man who immediately noticed me and raised his spear instantly only to slowly lower it with confusion and embarrassment coloring his face.
"Hey! Are you alright?" The man asked worriedly. Nice, he was a good guy and even better he spoke English or a language that sounded similar enough to English that it does not really matter.
"Yeah, just washed up on shore, my boat ran into Sin and got sunk, I think I might be the only one that made it." I explained with a believable lie.
"Damn it, that monster is still hanging around? It already wrecked the village a week ago why is it still here? Haven't we suffered enough. Thank Yevon that you managed to survive though, you are truly fortunate." The man said exhaustion clear in his voice.
"Praise Yevon indeed, thought it was finally my time to join my family in the Farplane when I saw the beast rise from the waters. Kinda glad I don't have any pants as the brown would have been quite embarrassing." I lied as naturally as I breathed bringing up a painful personal memory to shut down the conversation and gain pity points, while simultaneously pointing out my lack of attire that could be addressed to end the conversation.
"Oh, OH! Right clothes, please come in, I am sure we can find you something to wear. Thank Yevon you did not encounter any fiends on the way here from the beach. My name is Bucca of the Crimson Crusaders, what is yours?" The man asked.
"My name is...Trituu a pleasure to meet you Bucca. Now let's find me some pants please." I said with a low laugh at my own little inside joke as I followeed Bucca into Besaid village for some pants.
- Location
- United States
FFX not following the story. Very interesting.
Chapter 3: Waking Up To The Rules
- Location
- U.S.
It did not take long to find a pair of pants and a shirt for me as there were plenty of unclaimed clothing from those lost in the recent Sin attack, though I did get a lot of laughter from the children in the village and stink eyes from the adults at my lack of clothing.
Afterwards I was brought over to the one of the large tents which was the current headquarters of the Besaid Island Crusader branch. Inside there was a group of 4 men, all of them wearing pieces of leather armor. One had a head of long green hair with a scar across the bridge of his nose, one with short red hair, one with brown shoulder length hair and a tattoo on his cheek, and the last had spikey orange hair.
The red head got up walking over to us. "Thank you for your help Bucca please go back to guarding the gate please."
"Sir!" Bucca said giving a salute before leaving the tent leaving me alone with the 4 men.
"So, you were the one that washed up on shore with not even the clothes on your back huh?" The man asked amused with a smirk.
"Yeah, Sin attack, some of my memories are a bit foggy though, Sin toxin, didn't really believe the stories about what it could do to people but sure am a believer now." I replied lying again.
"Praise Yevon for your survival then. I am Tonda leader of the Crimson Crusaders on the island. Please tell me what you can about the attack, how far away from the island were you?" Tonda asked making the Yevon prayer symbol, his fellow crusaders listening with interest.
"Like I said Sin's toxin has made things hard to remember, I am not too sure how far we were from the island but I do not think we were actually that close for some reason. I remember that we were going to past Kilika without stopping for some reason so it never came into view. Next thing I remember is Sin smashing the boat into pieces from below before I got dragged under by the waves and blacked out."
"Hmmm, so somewhere between Besaid and Kilika, better than it circling the island at least. What about the fiends? Did you not run into any on the way here from the beach? I doubt you would have been able to fight or outrun them should they have found you." Tonda asked.
"There was one fiend on the beach but it was buried under some rubble so I just smashed its head in with a rock while on the way here I kept tossing rocks into the bushes to check for fiends and to distract them when I did find them. Basically I got lucky. Hey mind answering a quick question for me?"
"Hmm? Of course what is it?"
"Like I said Sin's toxin has my memories muddled but this seems a bit outlandish for some reason. When fiends die are they suppose to drop things? I thought they were supposed to be made of pyreflies, but for some reason one of my memories says they drop stuff?" I asked with genuine confusion in my voice.
"Ah, yes, that." Tonda coughed with awkwardness in his tone before he explained. "Yes, fiends are made of pyreflies so they actually do not 'carry' anything per se. It is more that the fiends have eaten a poor soul and their stuff sits inside of them as they do not actually need to eat or digest anything. So their bellies are full of stuff that drop when they die which includes things like Gil and sometimes equipment." The atmosphere dropped at the subject with the other people in the room gaining scowls on their faces.
"Huh, does that also include spheres?" I asked trying to figure out if sphere grids were actually an in world thing and not just a game mechanic.
"Spheres? Like recording spheres? Never heard of a fiend dropping one before why?" Tonda asked in confusion.
Oh shit so the spheres are unique to me, and based on the fact that I can absorb them that meant I had something like the game sphere grid! Keeping the excitement from my face I replied "Oh, I thought I recalled something about fiends in Macalania that dropped spheres and wanted to get my facts right."
"Understood, hopefully you recover from Sin's toxin soon. Do you have any idea what you plan to do next? The village cannot really afford to any lazy people."
"I plan to help around with reconstruction, gathering materials, then train so when I can afford a weapon I'll be able to go and hunt some fiends."
"You wish to join the Crusaders?" Tonda asked with a raised eyebrow looking down at my belly. The others just simply scoffed and got up and left the tent. "Don't mind them they are just in a bad mood."
"It's fine, but no I do not intend to join the Crusaders, I just want to be good enough to defend myself from fiends if I get trapped and to hopefully gain some funds so that I can go back to Luca. Plus it would make the island a bit safer no?"
"Hah that's fine, if you want you can join us for our daily morning training, but be warned we won't be slowing down for you and it will be up to yourself to keep up with us as much as you can, try not to hurt yourself though. In the meantime, I recommend going to visit the temple and speak with the priest there. He can help you figure out where to start helping around the village and where to stay for the night."
"Thank you Tonda, I will see you tomorrow then." I said giving my goodbye before leaving the tent and heading towards the temple next door.
Well that was certainly an informative discussion, though it did still leave me wondering, when was I in the timeline? I did not see Wakka or Lulu or any other canon characters around, but they could easily be helping around the village. Maybe the temple had some answers regarding that?
The temple was a large stone structure over two stories tall, towering over the rest of the village.
As I entered through the door I immediately began hearing the Hymn of the Fayth and felt a sense of calm imposed upon me. It reminded me of being inside one of those Buddhist temples, really solemn and calming. Looking around I froze as I saw something important.
Three statues of high summoners, only three, there was no Braska. I was in the time before Braska's pilgrimage and Jecht. From my gamer nerd memory that meant I was over 10 years in the past from the start of canon and Yuna's Eternal Calm.
Shit.
Afterwards I was brought over to the one of the large tents which was the current headquarters of the Besaid Island Crusader branch. Inside there was a group of 4 men, all of them wearing pieces of leather armor. One had a head of long green hair with a scar across the bridge of his nose, one with short red hair, one with brown shoulder length hair and a tattoo on his cheek, and the last had spikey orange hair.
The red head got up walking over to us. "Thank you for your help Bucca please go back to guarding the gate please."
"Sir!" Bucca said giving a salute before leaving the tent leaving me alone with the 4 men.
"So, you were the one that washed up on shore with not even the clothes on your back huh?" The man asked amused with a smirk.
"Yeah, Sin attack, some of my memories are a bit foggy though, Sin toxin, didn't really believe the stories about what it could do to people but sure am a believer now." I replied lying again.
"Praise Yevon for your survival then. I am Tonda leader of the Crimson Crusaders on the island. Please tell me what you can about the attack, how far away from the island were you?" Tonda asked making the Yevon prayer symbol, his fellow crusaders listening with interest.
"Like I said Sin's toxin has made things hard to remember, I am not too sure how far we were from the island but I do not think we were actually that close for some reason. I remember that we were going to past Kilika without stopping for some reason so it never came into view. Next thing I remember is Sin smashing the boat into pieces from below before I got dragged under by the waves and blacked out."
"Hmmm, so somewhere between Besaid and Kilika, better than it circling the island at least. What about the fiends? Did you not run into any on the way here from the beach? I doubt you would have been able to fight or outrun them should they have found you." Tonda asked.
"There was one fiend on the beach but it was buried under some rubble so I just smashed its head in with a rock while on the way here I kept tossing rocks into the bushes to check for fiends and to distract them when I did find them. Basically I got lucky. Hey mind answering a quick question for me?"
"Hmm? Of course what is it?"
"Like I said Sin's toxin has my memories muddled but this seems a bit outlandish for some reason. When fiends die are they suppose to drop things? I thought they were supposed to be made of pyreflies, but for some reason one of my memories says they drop stuff?" I asked with genuine confusion in my voice.
"Ah, yes, that." Tonda coughed with awkwardness in his tone before he explained. "Yes, fiends are made of pyreflies so they actually do not 'carry' anything per se. It is more that the fiends have eaten a poor soul and their stuff sits inside of them as they do not actually need to eat or digest anything. So their bellies are full of stuff that drop when they die which includes things like Gil and sometimes equipment." The atmosphere dropped at the subject with the other people in the room gaining scowls on their faces.
"Huh, does that also include spheres?" I asked trying to figure out if sphere grids were actually an in world thing and not just a game mechanic.
"Spheres? Like recording spheres? Never heard of a fiend dropping one before why?" Tonda asked in confusion.
Oh shit so the spheres are unique to me, and based on the fact that I can absorb them that meant I had something like the game sphere grid! Keeping the excitement from my face I replied "Oh, I thought I recalled something about fiends in Macalania that dropped spheres and wanted to get my facts right."
"Understood, hopefully you recover from Sin's toxin soon. Do you have any idea what you plan to do next? The village cannot really afford to any lazy people."
"I plan to help around with reconstruction, gathering materials, then train so when I can afford a weapon I'll be able to go and hunt some fiends."
"You wish to join the Crusaders?" Tonda asked with a raised eyebrow looking down at my belly. The others just simply scoffed and got up and left the tent. "Don't mind them they are just in a bad mood."
"It's fine, but no I do not intend to join the Crusaders, I just want to be good enough to defend myself from fiends if I get trapped and to hopefully gain some funds so that I can go back to Luca. Plus it would make the island a bit safer no?"
"Hah that's fine, if you want you can join us for our daily morning training, but be warned we won't be slowing down for you and it will be up to yourself to keep up with us as much as you can, try not to hurt yourself though. In the meantime, I recommend going to visit the temple and speak with the priest there. He can help you figure out where to start helping around the village and where to stay for the night."
"Thank you Tonda, I will see you tomorrow then." I said giving my goodbye before leaving the tent and heading towards the temple next door.
Well that was certainly an informative discussion, though it did still leave me wondering, when was I in the timeline? I did not see Wakka or Lulu or any other canon characters around, but they could easily be helping around the village. Maybe the temple had some answers regarding that?
The temple was a large stone structure over two stories tall, towering over the rest of the village.
As I entered through the door I immediately began hearing the Hymn of the Fayth and felt a sense of calm imposed upon me. It reminded me of being inside one of those Buddhist temples, really solemn and calming. Looking around I froze as I saw something important.
Three statues of high summoners, only three, there was no Braska. I was in the time before Braska's pilgrimage and Jecht. From my gamer nerd memory that meant I was over 10 years in the past from the start of canon and Yuna's Eternal Calm.
Shit.
Chapter 4: Waking Up To The Routine
- Location
- U.S.
With that shocking revelation in mind I decided to first meet the local priest before I focus on it. I gotta get myself a job, food, and a room before I do anything else.
I found the priest at the foot of one of the statues praying on his knees. Walking up behind him I respectfully waited for him to finish and notice me.
A few minutes later the priest got up and turned around looking surprised at my appearance.
"Hello, I am Corro the head priest of the temple how can I help you child?" The priest said in a soft voice one would expect from a kind grandfather, seemed the stereotypes rang true, or he was just that nice, 50/50. Shame his religion was basically a sham though. damn Yunalesca, damn Yevon, damn Bevelle.
"Hello priest Corro, I am Trituu a newly washed up arrival. I have nothing but the clothes on my back and would like to earn my keep. I was told you would be the man to see about finding some work that must be done first." I explained my new name easily flowing from my lips as if an old thing.
Corro's face saddened "Ah the one who survived Sin, Yevon be praised." Corro did the prayer before continuing "Yes, I am the one currently directing most of the reconstruction efforts. There is much to be done. There is the need for food to be gathered, tents to be built, and fiends to be killed. I do not think you are quite ready for fiend hunting, leave that to the brave Crusaders that guard the village. Do you happen to have any skill with weaving?"
I shook my head "I was more of a record keeper and runner. I lived in Luca. I am good with numbers and delivering messages so more of a merchant in training than craftsman. Guess that just leaves food gathering and I guess manual labor whenever it comes up?"
"Yes that does seem to be the case. Most of the rubble has already been cleared up in the village but we doo still need to gather stone for the temple, wood for supports, and plants for ropes and clothing. As for food there are plenty of fruits in the jungles along with small animals, but there a fiends in the underbrush farther from the village which makes it a dangerous proposition. Other than that there are the cliffs behind the temple where you can scale the cliff to collect the bird eggs or attempt to fish." Corro explained which made me wonder how the hell did they manage to get enough food at all to sustain their population from just fishing considering the fiends which I immediately asked.
"Well normally the fiends are not that much of an issue, usually the Crusaders are enough to keep this part of the island clear and scare off the rest of fiends from the village. However, the recent Sin attack has agitated the fiend population and killed many of our defenders leaving us far more vulnerable than before. We can still feed ourselves but only just barely, hopefully the fiend aggression will die down and we will be able to push back the fiends. and receive help from Kilika. I had thought you were part of the help being sent from Kilika but if you were from Luca then it is possible they have not yet been sent as they would have arrived before you." Corro explained shaking his head in relief and shame at thinking it was a good thing that the sunk ship I was on was not the help they were expecting.
"Hmph, looks like I should help out by clearing the undergrowth to make it harder for fiends to hide and help gather as much food as I can then. Shelter ain't that much of an issue with the temple here even if it might get crowded so food is more important right now. Do you happen to have any spare equipment for me to borrow?" I asked hoping it was not a faux pas to ask for the equipment of those who died.
The priest frowned before speaking "Yes, we do have some...unclaimed equipment stored in one of the rooms please follow. Are you sure you wish to gather food from the jungles instead of fishing or climbing the cliffs? The fiends are very active as I have said, no one will think any less of you if you decide to take a less dangerous job." Corro led me to a room to the side past the ascending stairs that led to the cloister of trials where within laid a few weapons and armor pieces.
"Sigh, while I would like to do that priest Corro, from the situation you have explained I cannot do that. It sounds like you guys are already struggling with feeding and defending yourselves. To add another mouth to feed to the village without getting more food is not possible and you need every weapon you can get out there to fight off the fiends long enough for them to calm down. Now this may not be my home but it sure does not make sense to stand around not really helping with the important tasks especially if it means the destruction of this village either from starvation or fiend attacks. You can think of it this way, I am being selfish and doing things that will help me survive. It just happens to benefit everyone in the village as well." I explained my reasoning picking up a spear and weighing it in my hands, it was a simple wooden spear with a metal tip, perfect for a novice like me.
"Plus, I do not intend to kill the fiends, merely keep alive long enough to retreat to the village for the Crusaders to save me or for them to find me and save me. If possible I will just stick to gathering as much fruit as I can, if I succeed that is good, if I fail well...your village will have one less mouth to feed and hopefully one less fiend to worry about." I further explained thrusting the spear a few times before deciding to looking over the armor pieces and pair of leather greaves and arm guards. Light enough to provide some protection but not heavy enough to slow or tire me down too much. Running and sneaking would be my main strategy.
Now Corro was really scowling "You should not really be thinking of that young man, every life is precious, even if we are in not the most opportune of straights you should not treat your life so callously. I am pleased that you would think of the good of the village so highly but please do not disregard your life and safety's importance."
"I am not, I will be attending the Crusader's training in the morning and will be mainly running and hiding away from fiends whenever possible. I will not recklessly throw my life away I can promise you that." I declared solemnly as I sat down and quickly figured out how to properly put on the armor pieces.
"Hmmm, it looks like you will not be dissuaded, then I thank you on behalf of the village and pray to Yevon that your gathering is safe and bountiful." Priest Corro said making the prayer symbol again. Before I left though I had one more question to ask.
"Priest Corro, how many people are in the village?"
"Hmmm, there is only 16 left, 4 Crusaders, 3 elderlies including myself, 2 children, and 5 adult men and 2 women. There used to be 40 of us, but the attack hit us hard and some left for other villages or towns for work. They will most likely come back after we send out messages but they will not be back anytime soon."
"So as long as we can hold on we will be fine then, things will get better, got it." I said hyping myself up with Corro nodding his head in agreement.
"Yes, we should be fine as long we hold out long enough for help to arrive which should be 1-2 weeks at the most provided Sin does not attack again or prevent travel from Kilika."
"Last thing then, do you mind if I sleep in the temple? I do not exactly have anywhere to stay currently."
"Of course not young man, please feel free to sleep wherever you like, dinner will be soon so feel free to take a nap before then, it has been a long day for you."
"I will take you up on that" I agreed as a sudden feeling of tiredness came over me and I let loose a loud yawn, seemed like the events of today were finally catching up to me. I sat upon one of the pillows in the room, back against the wall, then was instantly out like a light bulb.
I woke up had some dinner of mostly fish and scrambled eggs all of which were extremely bland from the lack of spices and the fact that I hated seafood, but I wasn't exactly in a position to be choosy. If nothing else I swore I would kill off all the fiends on the island if only so I could eat nothing else but fruit and small land animals. Screw seafood!
I went back to sleep as I knew I would need all my energy for training and food gathering. I was a couch potato and now had to unpotato myself, that was not going to be fun or easy or short. Sigh.
*Next morning*
I got up with a stretch as I was woken up by the villagers who had decided to room with me getting up to do work. The room was lit by a series of candle lanterns which made it hard to tell time inside. Following the people out of the temple I noticed that it was still dark, but it seemed that was what these people consider waking time as everyone got in line for a helping portion of food from the priest. After having the quick breakfast I found the Crusaders behind their tent going through physical training.
Tonda welcomed me and started tasking me to complete some basic exercises like push ups and sit ups and laps. I was ashamed to say I could barely do a dozen push ups, 2 dozen situps, and 2 laps across the small village which earned me no small amount of sneers from the other Crusaders who blew me out of the water figuratively even if Tonda was nothing but supportive. Gimme a break guys, I was a damn paper pusher even in my fake backstory as a merchant in training. Why the hell would I be in any form of combat shape? At least they took some pity on me and decided to give me some basic training on how to use a spear against the various types of fiends on the island and how to properly do a dodge roll.
That was an hour ago and here I was still sweating like a pig in the shade of a convenient tree as I tried rubbing the feelings back into my limbs and catch my breath.
"Oh man this is going to suck, what I wouldn't give to be back in my nice air conditioned cubicle, though the potential for superpowers are nice." I mused to myself as I set myself with a goal. I was going to gather 10 spheres of the same kind before using them if I can so I can properly test how much they increase my stats by in reality.
With that goal in mind I left the village as the local fruits were already picked clean by the villagers daily and headed off further afield. You would like to say you were some kind of damn uber competent isekai protagonist and got lucky and managed to kill a dozen fiends or something. Instead I hid like a coward behind trees and in bushes every chance I got whenever I heard movement. I didn't even manage to find all that many fruits either and realized later that I had no idea what kind of fruit grew on the island or what they looked like nor what animals there were either. This wasn't my world after all. A mistake in hindsight and basically left me searching blind the whole day with nothing but a bag of weirdly shaped fruits to show for it.
Upon returning to the village I was informed those fruits were all poisonous and inedible for anybody except fiends which gave me an idea for later. To make up for my failure I went to one of the other men of the village and asked about the local flora and fauna which he was glad to talk about if it meant getting another helping pair of hands. Luckily there was not too much to talk about besides their appearance/behaviors, and best way to hunt/find them.
With that I now knew what I was looking and hunting for in the jungles instead of just wasting my time out there.
Sitting in my room with dinner, a thin fish soup with fruit pieces, I began thinking, both about what I learned today and about my future plans. I now had an idea for a boulder trap I could make with the poison fruits. The fruits were not edible for people sure, but they seemed to be able to lure fiends when cracked open, in fact the fruits were used to make fiend lures by skilled craftsmen. So the plan was to set up a lure bait, then drop a very big rock on their heads when they came by for the fruit. I just had to find a tall enough tree and a lot of rocks to carry up there ahead of time. With this I should be able to gather enough spheres to improve myself significantly and not be so vulnerable. It would also have be near the places where the villager said the fruits grow often so I could go check after using the trap area.
As for the future...what was I going to do? Kill Sin? How did Sin die again?
1. Jecht was controlling Sin from within, helping Tidus and friends by holding back and weakening Sin, only losing complete control at the very end.
2. Tidus was there to remind Jecht of himself and help out in the final battle.
3. Tidus had a airship with giant lightning cannons that could wound Sin
4. A summoner had to summon a aeon for yu yevon to possess and reveal himself(?)
5. Jecht let Tidus and friends get inside Sin(?)
Basically? I was screwed, the only way canon team even won was because of Jecht, without him it was impossible to weaken Sin, to get him to drop his shields, to get him to let a team infiltrate his body, and to kill his core body to get to Yu Yevon. I thought back to the sequence of events to make sure I missed nothing.
1. Final Aeon break Sin armor/past final aeon
2. Yu Yevon possess final aeon
3. Final aeon/new sin kills summoner
4. Repeat
1. Shoot Sin cores
2. Enter Sin
3. Kill final aeon
4. Summon aeons to be killed
5. Killed Yu Yevon
The main difference between a temporary calm and Eternal Calm? No final aeon for Yu Yevon to possess and use to kill the enemy. The main problem wasn't destroying Sin, it was preventing Yevon from taking control of your strongest weapon and turning it on you. So basically the only way to 'win' is to somehow kill Sin without the final aeon or aeon in general which is pretty much impossible as it does not seem people do not have access to the sphere grid system to allow them to become superhuman gods of destruction, though they do have magic so that might be an avenue to explore or finding a machina weapon strong enough to breach Sin's shield....oh damn it, I forgot it's shields. Sin has a shield capable of defending and attacking simultaneously from something like the lightning cannon during Operation Mi Hen. Jecht probably took down the shield from the inside which was why it wasn't used again when the same lightning cannon hit it during the last fight to bring Sin down. So I needed something strong enough to both breach it shield, survive the shield blast that could atomize armies, fight off the army of fiends and sin spawn around it, and deal enough damage to break it.
Conclusion? I can't break canon on my knees like a Bane does to a crazy man in a bat suit, unless my sphere grid system is actually that OP and does not cap out at some peak physical human limit or some shit. I'll give it my best shot to reach that limit though.
So whether or not Braska, Jecht, and Auron have to die will depend entirely on my own efforts, sure would be nice to know just how much time I had until Braska went on his pilgrimage though. Was he already on his way here? Was he still in training? Was he even born? I had so many questions and so little clues to work off of.
Well main thing is everything on backburner. Instead I just gotta focus on getting stronger, getting money, getting better gear, and survive until I find or hear about Braska.
With that planning session done I got comfortable against the wall again and tried to fall asleep.
I had a schedule to keep now.
I found the priest at the foot of one of the statues praying on his knees. Walking up behind him I respectfully waited for him to finish and notice me.
A few minutes later the priest got up and turned around looking surprised at my appearance.
"Hello, I am Corro the head priest of the temple how can I help you child?" The priest said in a soft voice one would expect from a kind grandfather, seemed the stereotypes rang true, or he was just that nice, 50/50. Shame his religion was basically a sham though. damn Yunalesca, damn Yevon, damn Bevelle.
"Hello priest Corro, I am Trituu a newly washed up arrival. I have nothing but the clothes on my back and would like to earn my keep. I was told you would be the man to see about finding some work that must be done first." I explained my new name easily flowing from my lips as if an old thing.
Corro's face saddened "Ah the one who survived Sin, Yevon be praised." Corro did the prayer before continuing "Yes, I am the one currently directing most of the reconstruction efforts. There is much to be done. There is the need for food to be gathered, tents to be built, and fiends to be killed. I do not think you are quite ready for fiend hunting, leave that to the brave Crusaders that guard the village. Do you happen to have any skill with weaving?"
I shook my head "I was more of a record keeper and runner. I lived in Luca. I am good with numbers and delivering messages so more of a merchant in training than craftsman. Guess that just leaves food gathering and I guess manual labor whenever it comes up?"
"Yes that does seem to be the case. Most of the rubble has already been cleared up in the village but we doo still need to gather stone for the temple, wood for supports, and plants for ropes and clothing. As for food there are plenty of fruits in the jungles along with small animals, but there a fiends in the underbrush farther from the village which makes it a dangerous proposition. Other than that there are the cliffs behind the temple where you can scale the cliff to collect the bird eggs or attempt to fish." Corro explained which made me wonder how the hell did they manage to get enough food at all to sustain their population from just fishing considering the fiends which I immediately asked.
"Well normally the fiends are not that much of an issue, usually the Crusaders are enough to keep this part of the island clear and scare off the rest of fiends from the village. However, the recent Sin attack has agitated the fiend population and killed many of our defenders leaving us far more vulnerable than before. We can still feed ourselves but only just barely, hopefully the fiend aggression will die down and we will be able to push back the fiends. and receive help from Kilika. I had thought you were part of the help being sent from Kilika but if you were from Luca then it is possible they have not yet been sent as they would have arrived before you." Corro explained shaking his head in relief and shame at thinking it was a good thing that the sunk ship I was on was not the help they were expecting.
"Hmph, looks like I should help out by clearing the undergrowth to make it harder for fiends to hide and help gather as much food as I can then. Shelter ain't that much of an issue with the temple here even if it might get crowded so food is more important right now. Do you happen to have any spare equipment for me to borrow?" I asked hoping it was not a faux pas to ask for the equipment of those who died.
The priest frowned before speaking "Yes, we do have some...unclaimed equipment stored in one of the rooms please follow. Are you sure you wish to gather food from the jungles instead of fishing or climbing the cliffs? The fiends are very active as I have said, no one will think any less of you if you decide to take a less dangerous job." Corro led me to a room to the side past the ascending stairs that led to the cloister of trials where within laid a few weapons and armor pieces.
"Sigh, while I would like to do that priest Corro, from the situation you have explained I cannot do that. It sounds like you guys are already struggling with feeding and defending yourselves. To add another mouth to feed to the village without getting more food is not possible and you need every weapon you can get out there to fight off the fiends long enough for them to calm down. Now this may not be my home but it sure does not make sense to stand around not really helping with the important tasks especially if it means the destruction of this village either from starvation or fiend attacks. You can think of it this way, I am being selfish and doing things that will help me survive. It just happens to benefit everyone in the village as well." I explained my reasoning picking up a spear and weighing it in my hands, it was a simple wooden spear with a metal tip, perfect for a novice like me.
"Plus, I do not intend to kill the fiends, merely keep alive long enough to retreat to the village for the Crusaders to save me or for them to find me and save me. If possible I will just stick to gathering as much fruit as I can, if I succeed that is good, if I fail well...your village will have one less mouth to feed and hopefully one less fiend to worry about." I further explained thrusting the spear a few times before deciding to looking over the armor pieces and pair of leather greaves and arm guards. Light enough to provide some protection but not heavy enough to slow or tire me down too much. Running and sneaking would be my main strategy.
Now Corro was really scowling "You should not really be thinking of that young man, every life is precious, even if we are in not the most opportune of straights you should not treat your life so callously. I am pleased that you would think of the good of the village so highly but please do not disregard your life and safety's importance."
"I am not, I will be attending the Crusader's training in the morning and will be mainly running and hiding away from fiends whenever possible. I will not recklessly throw my life away I can promise you that." I declared solemnly as I sat down and quickly figured out how to properly put on the armor pieces.
"Hmmm, it looks like you will not be dissuaded, then I thank you on behalf of the village and pray to Yevon that your gathering is safe and bountiful." Priest Corro said making the prayer symbol again. Before I left though I had one more question to ask.
"Priest Corro, how many people are in the village?"
"Hmmm, there is only 16 left, 4 Crusaders, 3 elderlies including myself, 2 children, and 5 adult men and 2 women. There used to be 40 of us, but the attack hit us hard and some left for other villages or towns for work. They will most likely come back after we send out messages but they will not be back anytime soon."
"So as long as we can hold on we will be fine then, things will get better, got it." I said hyping myself up with Corro nodding his head in agreement.
"Yes, we should be fine as long we hold out long enough for help to arrive which should be 1-2 weeks at the most provided Sin does not attack again or prevent travel from Kilika."
"Last thing then, do you mind if I sleep in the temple? I do not exactly have anywhere to stay currently."
"Of course not young man, please feel free to sleep wherever you like, dinner will be soon so feel free to take a nap before then, it has been a long day for you."
"I will take you up on that" I agreed as a sudden feeling of tiredness came over me and I let loose a loud yawn, seemed like the events of today were finally catching up to me. I sat upon one of the pillows in the room, back against the wall, then was instantly out like a light bulb.
I woke up had some dinner of mostly fish and scrambled eggs all of which were extremely bland from the lack of spices and the fact that I hated seafood, but I wasn't exactly in a position to be choosy. If nothing else I swore I would kill off all the fiends on the island if only so I could eat nothing else but fruit and small land animals. Screw seafood!
I went back to sleep as I knew I would need all my energy for training and food gathering. I was a couch potato and now had to unpotato myself, that was not going to be fun or easy or short. Sigh.
*Next morning*
I got up with a stretch as I was woken up by the villagers who had decided to room with me getting up to do work. The room was lit by a series of candle lanterns which made it hard to tell time inside. Following the people out of the temple I noticed that it was still dark, but it seemed that was what these people consider waking time as everyone got in line for a helping portion of food from the priest. After having the quick breakfast I found the Crusaders behind their tent going through physical training.
Tonda welcomed me and started tasking me to complete some basic exercises like push ups and sit ups and laps. I was ashamed to say I could barely do a dozen push ups, 2 dozen situps, and 2 laps across the small village which earned me no small amount of sneers from the other Crusaders who blew me out of the water figuratively even if Tonda was nothing but supportive. Gimme a break guys, I was a damn paper pusher even in my fake backstory as a merchant in training. Why the hell would I be in any form of combat shape? At least they took some pity on me and decided to give me some basic training on how to use a spear against the various types of fiends on the island and how to properly do a dodge roll.
That was an hour ago and here I was still sweating like a pig in the shade of a convenient tree as I tried rubbing the feelings back into my limbs and catch my breath.
"Oh man this is going to suck, what I wouldn't give to be back in my nice air conditioned cubicle, though the potential for superpowers are nice." I mused to myself as I set myself with a goal. I was going to gather 10 spheres of the same kind before using them if I can so I can properly test how much they increase my stats by in reality.
With that goal in mind I left the village as the local fruits were already picked clean by the villagers daily and headed off further afield. You would like to say you were some kind of damn uber competent isekai protagonist and got lucky and managed to kill a dozen fiends or something. Instead I hid like a coward behind trees and in bushes every chance I got whenever I heard movement. I didn't even manage to find all that many fruits either and realized later that I had no idea what kind of fruit grew on the island or what they looked like nor what animals there were either. This wasn't my world after all. A mistake in hindsight and basically left me searching blind the whole day with nothing but a bag of weirdly shaped fruits to show for it.
Upon returning to the village I was informed those fruits were all poisonous and inedible for anybody except fiends which gave me an idea for later. To make up for my failure I went to one of the other men of the village and asked about the local flora and fauna which he was glad to talk about if it meant getting another helping pair of hands. Luckily there was not too much to talk about besides their appearance/behaviors, and best way to hunt/find them.
With that I now knew what I was looking and hunting for in the jungles instead of just wasting my time out there.
Sitting in my room with dinner, a thin fish soup with fruit pieces, I began thinking, both about what I learned today and about my future plans. I now had an idea for a boulder trap I could make with the poison fruits. The fruits were not edible for people sure, but they seemed to be able to lure fiends when cracked open, in fact the fruits were used to make fiend lures by skilled craftsmen. So the plan was to set up a lure bait, then drop a very big rock on their heads when they came by for the fruit. I just had to find a tall enough tree and a lot of rocks to carry up there ahead of time. With this I should be able to gather enough spheres to improve myself significantly and not be so vulnerable. It would also have be near the places where the villager said the fruits grow often so I could go check after using the trap area.
As for the future...what was I going to do? Kill Sin? How did Sin die again?
1. Jecht was controlling Sin from within, helping Tidus and friends by holding back and weakening Sin, only losing complete control at the very end.
2. Tidus was there to remind Jecht of himself and help out in the final battle.
3. Tidus had a airship with giant lightning cannons that could wound Sin
4. A summoner had to summon a aeon for yu yevon to possess and reveal himself(?)
5. Jecht let Tidus and friends get inside Sin(?)
Basically? I was screwed, the only way canon team even won was because of Jecht, without him it was impossible to weaken Sin, to get him to drop his shields, to get him to let a team infiltrate his body, and to kill his core body to get to Yu Yevon. I thought back to the sequence of events to make sure I missed nothing.
1. Final Aeon break Sin armor/past final aeon
2. Yu Yevon possess final aeon
3. Final aeon/new sin kills summoner
4. Repeat
1. Shoot Sin cores
2. Enter Sin
3. Kill final aeon
4. Summon aeons to be killed
5. Killed Yu Yevon
The main difference between a temporary calm and Eternal Calm? No final aeon for Yu Yevon to possess and use to kill the enemy. The main problem wasn't destroying Sin, it was preventing Yevon from taking control of your strongest weapon and turning it on you. So basically the only way to 'win' is to somehow kill Sin without the final aeon or aeon in general which is pretty much impossible as it does not seem people do not have access to the sphere grid system to allow them to become superhuman gods of destruction, though they do have magic so that might be an avenue to explore or finding a machina weapon strong enough to breach Sin's shield....oh damn it, I forgot it's shields. Sin has a shield capable of defending and attacking simultaneously from something like the lightning cannon during Operation Mi Hen. Jecht probably took down the shield from the inside which was why it wasn't used again when the same lightning cannon hit it during the last fight to bring Sin down. So I needed something strong enough to both breach it shield, survive the shield blast that could atomize armies, fight off the army of fiends and sin spawn around it, and deal enough damage to break it.
Conclusion? I can't break canon on my knees like a Bane does to a crazy man in a bat suit, unless my sphere grid system is actually that OP and does not cap out at some peak physical human limit or some shit. I'll give it my best shot to reach that limit though.
So whether or not Braska, Jecht, and Auron have to die will depend entirely on my own efforts, sure would be nice to know just how much time I had until Braska went on his pilgrimage though. Was he already on his way here? Was he still in training? Was he even born? I had so many questions and so little clues to work off of.
Well main thing is everything on backburner. Instead I just gotta focus on getting stronger, getting money, getting better gear, and survive until I find or hear about Braska.
With that planning session done I got comfortable against the wall again and tried to fall asleep.
I had a schedule to keep now.
Chapter 5: Waking Up To The Change
- Location
- U.S.
*3 Months Later*
I stood there in the branches of the tree silent, waiting for the prey to arrive. Down below me a pile of lure fruits sat cracked open, their juice and scent spread across the clearing lit by the evening sun, wafting into the surrounding jungle. Their scent there for hours and soon to disappear from the wait. Before it only took a single fruit before a fiend would arrive, but now after three months of hunting it took many many more to reach the still living fiends and even longer for them to arrive.
Three months of luring in fiends to my prepared killing field had drastically reduced the local population of fiends, at least the normal weaker varieties. The few times I got a flan or a multiple condors I noped out of there, went back to the village, and informed the Crusaders who later dealt with it. They both applauded and condemned me for making a fiend lure with only the fact that I made it deeper in the jungle and away from the village saving my bacon. Otherwise it worked pretty well as in the beginning a dropped rock was enough to disorient the dingo and condor fiends that arrived to eat the fruit, letting me to easily kill them by landing feet first on their back and stabbing them in the head. It was terrifying the first couple times I did it and my knees hurt like hell after but it was worth it. Each sphere I gained making me better, faster, stronger, which allowed me to hunt fiends better which in turn let me get even more sphere in a recursive loop of gains. Slowly I accumulated a lot of spheres which I managed to identify as power and speed spheres.
After testing out the sphere via various tests I managed to figure some things out. Like the game the spheres can improve the following, strength, defense, health, evasion, accuracy, and agility. However, I do not actually get to see the sphere grid, instead a tattoo of the grid is on my back and every time I absorb a sphere it adds a new sphere onto the design. I get to choose which stat is being improved for example if I used the strength sphere I can mentally decide whether or not to improve my strength, defense, or health, but I do not get any control on how much the gain is which seems to be completely random. The boost could be barely noticeable to a sizeable increase. For example, with strength, the gains could go from lifting 10 lbs to 11 lbs with no issue or suddenly lift 14 lbs with no issue instead.
I mainly focused on strength, agility, and accuracy to turn my self into basically a glass cannon since as long as I was on Besaid all I needed to do was hit the fiend first and they would go down easy. Of course that did not mean I completely disregarded the other stats as well making sure to bump them up every now an again at a 3:1 ratio. That and my daily morning exercise with the Crusaders had left me a changed man. From out of shape overweight fatty I was now a healthy slimmer and fitter man with actual muscle definition! Huzzah!
My thoughts were interrupted as the brush underneath began rustling. From the undergrowth came the growling forms of three dingos who came barreling towards the fruit and immediately began chowing down. With a grin on my face I threw the two small boulders I had prepared, instantly crushing the heads of two of the fiends leaving only one alive before leaping like a rocket at the last dingo who did not even have the time to react before my spear pierced through his head. The three fiends instantly burst into pyreflies that gathered in my hand leaving behind 3 more power spheres, meanwhile the where the bodies rested there was now some gil, and a bloodied steel sword.
Stretching out my body I looked up at the setting sun and decided it was time to get back to the village, the lures were about to fade anyway and stronger or not I did not want to be in the jungle at night. After collecting the drops I headed behind the tree I picked up the basket full of fruits I had gathered earlier and began walking towards the village spear resting on my shoulder.
Things were much better now. The help from Kilika had arrived in the form of manpower and building materials which allowed the village to swiftly recover and the fiends driven off. Their aggressive attacks had also swiftly died down afterwards with Sin not being reported any where nearby to everyone's relief. Food was no longer an issue and new enterprising merchants came in a month later and opened their own small shops in the village providing necessary and luxury goods. Damn near cried when I finally had some properly seasoned meat.
The opinions of the villagers and Crusaders in the village changed about me after I started getting the hang of fiend hunting with my lure trap. The proof of my kills being the gils and equipment I brought back being more than enough to convince them I was not lying out my ass. I was now a well respected fiend hunter and fruit gatherer as I was able and willing to go deeper into the jungle to harvest nature's bounty. It even made me a decent amount of gil on the side selling the fruits to the merchants. With the new found wealth at my disposal I got myself some upgrades. A full set of leather armor and a brand new steel spear to replace my wooden one and a sword.
I had to admit I was really enjoying my life here in Besaid and really really wish I could stay, but I couldn't. The amount of fiends on the island were dwindling to near non existent and with it my growth rate. I needed to move on to fresher hunting grounds, to amass even more power. I still had to find a way to kill Sin without the final aeon, without sacrificing Jecht so his son could do it. Vegnagun was possibly an option but it was beneath Bevelle and I was not strong enough to survive there.
So I had to leave.
Passing by the summit monument I spied a rare sight, a blue flan on the main road that somehow managed to miss the patrols. Spotting me it began to glow with the signs of a spell being ready and before it could even finish I was upon it crossing the meters between us in a flash. A single slash of my spear split the flan in half and shattered its core causing it to disappear into a cloud of pyreflies and leaving me another mana sphere.
Magic.
It was something I considered and tried to learn, but I was unable to actually unlock any spells with my spheres and my efforts to learn manually died before it even began. There was no one able to cast spells in the village. The ones who did were already dead cause of Sin and magic users would rarely decide to leave their home communities where they were in high regards to start somewhere else, especially in a small village like Besaid.
Corro said there would probably be a white mage sent to take over the temple after his passing as he could feel his time approaching and sent a message to Bevelle, but in regards to a black mage it would take a year at the very least to find and convince them to move. So that path to power was on the back burner with all my mana spheres going to increasing my magic defense. The first time a flan managed to strike me I was taken off guard by the spurt of water appearing right in front of my face smacking me like a punch. If it was a fire spell instead I would have died that day.
Walking towards the village I gave a nod to Bucca who saluted me with adoration in his eyes. The guy had gained a bit of a hero worship of me after witnessing me kill off a pack of dingos that tried to assault the village one day with most of the Crusaders out hunting.
Saying hello to the various villagers who saw me come back I entered my own personal tent and set down my equipment, the fruit already dropped with the merchant for store credit. Taking a bite of a piece of jerky I looked around my tent. It was a fairly large tent by the plaza where Wakka's was in the game and I had even decorated it similarly, though with less junk. I had lived here for 3 months now, time that felt like it flew by and also so long ago.
I felt a pang in my heart. I was going to miss this place...sigh. I miss home, I miss my family, yet I didn't not really. I was in a new world, with a new life, a new home, but I still missed my old one, and I was probably never gonna get back. Now I was rambling and getting depressed again.
Shaking my head I left the tent and headed towards the temple. I found Corro where he always was seemingly, praying at the feet of high summoner Gandof, the first high summoner.
Seemingly feeling my presence Corro got up and faced me with a smile.
"Greetings Trituu, how went your hunt?" He asked far more relaxed than he was all those months ago.
"It went well, 5 dingos and 2 condors and a flan. The island will be a lot more quieter now, took hours before the dingos actually arrived, am willing to be the number of fiends are at an all time low for the island."
"With the diligent way you have been hunting them I would assume so indeed. When you first started using those lure fruits I was worried, but you have truly proven those worries were unfounded my boy and the village thanks you for it even if the Crusaders do complain about you stealing their job." Corro laughed good naturedly as everyone knew the Crusaders were just complaining for the sake of it, no one would complain about LESS fiends after all.
"Yes well, chit chat is all well and good priest Corro I did come here for a reason." I said seriously which Corro picked up on and his smile faded.
"What is it?"
"I will be leaving soon." I bluntly said causing Corro to frown and sadness to overtake his body.
"I see, did not expect it to be this soon or this late I guess. You have truly helped us out immensely Trituu. The gathering of fruits, the clearing of the fiends, and even helping the village be rebuilt, you have so much more than anyone could expect from you. Please how can we help you prepare for your journey and where do you plan to go? To Luca? Your family?"
I paused thinking about what lie I should say before making a plausible one. "My family is gone, they were all on the boat when it sank, I remembered a month ago."
"Oh, I am so sorry young man, may Yevon watch over their spirit in the Farplane." Corro said apologetically making the Yevon prayer.
"It is fine, that's life, to answer your question I will be travelling, I will go all the way to Zanarkand. I wish to see every location in Spira and help cull the fiends along the way." I said looking Corro in the eye with determination in my voice.
"That is recklessly dangerous Trituu, especially if you are going to be travelling alone! Please I know you are quite accomplished in hunting fiends, but the fiends of Besaid are different from those of Zanarkand and the rest of Spira." He begged genuinely afraid for me. I felt bad lying to him, always did, he is a good man.
"Corro......I will be fine, I will be finding companions along the way I promise you that, or maybe I will travel along with some Crusaders. I promise I will not recklessly throw myself into danger alright?"
"I see I cannot convince you to sway from your path. Very well how can we help you?" Corro said resigned.
"Mainly potions for curing fiend effects. The rest I can obtain by myself."
"I see, I see, I will get you as much as I can before you leave. Do you know when?"
"The next ship out of here, so three days."
"That is not a lot of time, and the villagers will want to throw you a farewell party as well."
"I am not one for parties Corro, and better to save the food for an emergency instead." I said causing Corro to smile sadly at me.
"Always thinking of the village. If you ever feel like coming back Trituu, know that Besaid Village will always welcome you with open arms." Corro said causing my eyes to mist up.
"Thanks Corro. Now I better go and get my stuff packed and supplies bought. I'll see you later ok?"
"Yes you will, good night Trituu and may you have a good night."
I left the temple and went straight to my tent, tossed myself into bed, and went straight to sleep.
Soon it would be time to go.
I stood there in the branches of the tree silent, waiting for the prey to arrive. Down below me a pile of lure fruits sat cracked open, their juice and scent spread across the clearing lit by the evening sun, wafting into the surrounding jungle. Their scent there for hours and soon to disappear from the wait. Before it only took a single fruit before a fiend would arrive, but now after three months of hunting it took many many more to reach the still living fiends and even longer for them to arrive.
Three months of luring in fiends to my prepared killing field had drastically reduced the local population of fiends, at least the normal weaker varieties. The few times I got a flan or a multiple condors I noped out of there, went back to the village, and informed the Crusaders who later dealt with it. They both applauded and condemned me for making a fiend lure with only the fact that I made it deeper in the jungle and away from the village saving my bacon. Otherwise it worked pretty well as in the beginning a dropped rock was enough to disorient the dingo and condor fiends that arrived to eat the fruit, letting me to easily kill them by landing feet first on their back and stabbing them in the head. It was terrifying the first couple times I did it and my knees hurt like hell after but it was worth it. Each sphere I gained making me better, faster, stronger, which allowed me to hunt fiends better which in turn let me get even more sphere in a recursive loop of gains. Slowly I accumulated a lot of spheres which I managed to identify as power and speed spheres.
After testing out the sphere via various tests I managed to figure some things out. Like the game the spheres can improve the following, strength, defense, health, evasion, accuracy, and agility. However, I do not actually get to see the sphere grid, instead a tattoo of the grid is on my back and every time I absorb a sphere it adds a new sphere onto the design. I get to choose which stat is being improved for example if I used the strength sphere I can mentally decide whether or not to improve my strength, defense, or health, but I do not get any control on how much the gain is which seems to be completely random. The boost could be barely noticeable to a sizeable increase. For example, with strength, the gains could go from lifting 10 lbs to 11 lbs with no issue or suddenly lift 14 lbs with no issue instead.
I mainly focused on strength, agility, and accuracy to turn my self into basically a glass cannon since as long as I was on Besaid all I needed to do was hit the fiend first and they would go down easy. Of course that did not mean I completely disregarded the other stats as well making sure to bump them up every now an again at a 3:1 ratio. That and my daily morning exercise with the Crusaders had left me a changed man. From out of shape overweight fatty I was now a healthy slimmer and fitter man with actual muscle definition! Huzzah!
My thoughts were interrupted as the brush underneath began rustling. From the undergrowth came the growling forms of three dingos who came barreling towards the fruit and immediately began chowing down. With a grin on my face I threw the two small boulders I had prepared, instantly crushing the heads of two of the fiends leaving only one alive before leaping like a rocket at the last dingo who did not even have the time to react before my spear pierced through his head. The three fiends instantly burst into pyreflies that gathered in my hand leaving behind 3 more power spheres, meanwhile the where the bodies rested there was now some gil, and a bloodied steel sword.
Stretching out my body I looked up at the setting sun and decided it was time to get back to the village, the lures were about to fade anyway and stronger or not I did not want to be in the jungle at night. After collecting the drops I headed behind the tree I picked up the basket full of fruits I had gathered earlier and began walking towards the village spear resting on my shoulder.
Things were much better now. The help from Kilika had arrived in the form of manpower and building materials which allowed the village to swiftly recover and the fiends driven off. Their aggressive attacks had also swiftly died down afterwards with Sin not being reported any where nearby to everyone's relief. Food was no longer an issue and new enterprising merchants came in a month later and opened their own small shops in the village providing necessary and luxury goods. Damn near cried when I finally had some properly seasoned meat.
The opinions of the villagers and Crusaders in the village changed about me after I started getting the hang of fiend hunting with my lure trap. The proof of my kills being the gils and equipment I brought back being more than enough to convince them I was not lying out my ass. I was now a well respected fiend hunter and fruit gatherer as I was able and willing to go deeper into the jungle to harvest nature's bounty. It even made me a decent amount of gil on the side selling the fruits to the merchants. With the new found wealth at my disposal I got myself some upgrades. A full set of leather armor and a brand new steel spear to replace my wooden one and a sword.
I had to admit I was really enjoying my life here in Besaid and really really wish I could stay, but I couldn't. The amount of fiends on the island were dwindling to near non existent and with it my growth rate. I needed to move on to fresher hunting grounds, to amass even more power. I still had to find a way to kill Sin without the final aeon, without sacrificing Jecht so his son could do it. Vegnagun was possibly an option but it was beneath Bevelle and I was not strong enough to survive there.
So I had to leave.
Passing by the summit monument I spied a rare sight, a blue flan on the main road that somehow managed to miss the patrols. Spotting me it began to glow with the signs of a spell being ready and before it could even finish I was upon it crossing the meters between us in a flash. A single slash of my spear split the flan in half and shattered its core causing it to disappear into a cloud of pyreflies and leaving me another mana sphere.
Magic.
It was something I considered and tried to learn, but I was unable to actually unlock any spells with my spheres and my efforts to learn manually died before it even began. There was no one able to cast spells in the village. The ones who did were already dead cause of Sin and magic users would rarely decide to leave their home communities where they were in high regards to start somewhere else, especially in a small village like Besaid.
Corro said there would probably be a white mage sent to take over the temple after his passing as he could feel his time approaching and sent a message to Bevelle, but in regards to a black mage it would take a year at the very least to find and convince them to move. So that path to power was on the back burner with all my mana spheres going to increasing my magic defense. The first time a flan managed to strike me I was taken off guard by the spurt of water appearing right in front of my face smacking me like a punch. If it was a fire spell instead I would have died that day.
Walking towards the village I gave a nod to Bucca who saluted me with adoration in his eyes. The guy had gained a bit of a hero worship of me after witnessing me kill off a pack of dingos that tried to assault the village one day with most of the Crusaders out hunting.
Saying hello to the various villagers who saw me come back I entered my own personal tent and set down my equipment, the fruit already dropped with the merchant for store credit. Taking a bite of a piece of jerky I looked around my tent. It was a fairly large tent by the plaza where Wakka's was in the game and I had even decorated it similarly, though with less junk. I had lived here for 3 months now, time that felt like it flew by and also so long ago.
I felt a pang in my heart. I was going to miss this place...sigh. I miss home, I miss my family, yet I didn't not really. I was in a new world, with a new life, a new home, but I still missed my old one, and I was probably never gonna get back. Now I was rambling and getting depressed again.
Shaking my head I left the tent and headed towards the temple. I found Corro where he always was seemingly, praying at the feet of high summoner Gandof, the first high summoner.
Seemingly feeling my presence Corro got up and faced me with a smile.
"Greetings Trituu, how went your hunt?" He asked far more relaxed than he was all those months ago.
"It went well, 5 dingos and 2 condors and a flan. The island will be a lot more quieter now, took hours before the dingos actually arrived, am willing to be the number of fiends are at an all time low for the island."
"With the diligent way you have been hunting them I would assume so indeed. When you first started using those lure fruits I was worried, but you have truly proven those worries were unfounded my boy and the village thanks you for it even if the Crusaders do complain about you stealing their job." Corro laughed good naturedly as everyone knew the Crusaders were just complaining for the sake of it, no one would complain about LESS fiends after all.
"Yes well, chit chat is all well and good priest Corro I did come here for a reason." I said seriously which Corro picked up on and his smile faded.
"What is it?"
"I will be leaving soon." I bluntly said causing Corro to frown and sadness to overtake his body.
"I see, did not expect it to be this soon or this late I guess. You have truly helped us out immensely Trituu. The gathering of fruits, the clearing of the fiends, and even helping the village be rebuilt, you have so much more than anyone could expect from you. Please how can we help you prepare for your journey and where do you plan to go? To Luca? Your family?"
I paused thinking about what lie I should say before making a plausible one. "My family is gone, they were all on the boat when it sank, I remembered a month ago."
"Oh, I am so sorry young man, may Yevon watch over their spirit in the Farplane." Corro said apologetically making the Yevon prayer.
"It is fine, that's life, to answer your question I will be travelling, I will go all the way to Zanarkand. I wish to see every location in Spira and help cull the fiends along the way." I said looking Corro in the eye with determination in my voice.
"That is recklessly dangerous Trituu, especially if you are going to be travelling alone! Please I know you are quite accomplished in hunting fiends, but the fiends of Besaid are different from those of Zanarkand and the rest of Spira." He begged genuinely afraid for me. I felt bad lying to him, always did, he is a good man.
"Corro......I will be fine, I will be finding companions along the way I promise you that, or maybe I will travel along with some Crusaders. I promise I will not recklessly throw myself into danger alright?"
"I see I cannot convince you to sway from your path. Very well how can we help you?" Corro said resigned.
"Mainly potions for curing fiend effects. The rest I can obtain by myself."
"I see, I see, I will get you as much as I can before you leave. Do you know when?"
"The next ship out of here, so three days."
"That is not a lot of time, and the villagers will want to throw you a farewell party as well."
"I am not one for parties Corro, and better to save the food for an emergency instead." I said causing Corro to smile sadly at me.
"Always thinking of the village. If you ever feel like coming back Trituu, know that Besaid Village will always welcome you with open arms." Corro said causing my eyes to mist up.
"Thanks Corro. Now I better go and get my stuff packed and supplies bought. I'll see you later ok?"
"Yes you will, good night Trituu and may you have a good night."
I left the temple and went straight to my tent, tossed myself into bed, and went straight to sleep.
Soon it would be time to go.
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What? Isn't this a gaming term and not a real one?
Chapter 6: Waking Up To A Kilika
- Location
- U.S.
I stood on the newly built dock of Besaid watching the boat being loaded with supplies and passengers. I had two bags at my feet, one with clothes and other with supplies. My outfit had received an upgrade from the villagers of Besaid villager when word spread that I was going to be leaving. The villagers had given me a utility belt and bandolier of pouches full of healing items and status effect removers. The Crusaders had actually gotten me a full set of metal plate attachments for my armor giving me even better defense. While there was no 'party' there was a very large dinner group last night with some boar meat in the stew. Yum.
Waving goodbye to the villagers I had left the village with a heavy heart and went to the beach, clearing out any fiends along the way. Now I was boarding the SS Kilia and heading over to Kilika Island. The home island of High Summoner Ohalland, the temple of Ifrit, and a jungle full of fiends.
I couldn't wait.
The journey was smooth, no storms, no fiend attacks, no Sin. Just miles upon miles of open ocean. It was honestly quite boring. I spent most of the talking with the other passengers and playing games I remembered with them like Chinese Chopsticks or ninja tag. They were more than pleased to have something to entertain themselves with and warmed up to me quickly. Makes me wonder if maybe I could start up my own game company here, after all the only real form of entertainment in Spira is Blitzball, I think small portable games might be a big hit with people.
Great trip, good company, could have had better food, 9/10 would ride again. Thankfully the trip was quite short and we arrived just before sundown. The Kilika village was mostly built over the water creating what seemed to be a floating village. How wise that was was seen in the game when Sin attacked but for now they enjoyed their prosperity.
I immediately went to the nearest weapon vendor and saw what they had for sale. They had mostly the same gear that Besaid had due to the merchants originating from here, but I did find one nice piece of gear. It was a halberd made of gun grey steel that looked a like one of those wielded by Imperial Halberdiers in Warhammer Fantasy. It took a big chunk out of my funds even with trading in my old spear, but as I easily swung the heavy halberd meant to be wielded by Ronsos much to the shopkeeper's shock I found it to be a great deal.
After booking a room at the local in I made my way towards the jungle while taking in the local colors. There were a large amount of huts all made of wood seemingly built around a tree that grew from under the water. Guess the jungle was too dangerous to set up a village in like they did in Besaid. I wonder why given the threat of Sin wiping out a coastal village was far more higher. I should ask the temple priest about that for curiosity sake if nothing else.
I stopped at the tree line looking at the dense vegetation and trees. Damn that place looks dark and hiding a lot of things. Double checking my pouches for my antidotes I thought back to what I remembered about the local fiends. There should mostly be flying wasps, lizards, lightning elementals, and those weird flower seed shooting plant things. I should be fast enough and strong enough to deal with the wasps and lizards since I don't recall them having any special abilities. So I just needed to watch out for the elementals and plant shooters, don't really want to tank magic or a bullet like shot from hidden plant monsters.
'I think I'll just try to reach the temple first, if I can deal with the fiends on the main path then I'll start hunting deeper into the jungle.' I thought to myself before hefting my halberd at the ready and began walking into the jungle. The path looked a lot longer than what I remembered in the game but that was to be expected since the game maps were limited in scope and scale by hardware and size. It was an hour in and I was still trekking along the path with no bridge in sight. All of a sudden I heard a whistling sound from behind and immediately turned around swinging the halberd behind me.
With a sound of steel tearing flesh the lizard like monster split in half before exploding in pyreflies and condensing into a sphere and dropping some gil. Hah that was close it would have actually hit me if I was any slower in reacting. I immediately picked up the sphere, saw that it was a speed sphere, and used it to increase my evasion stat as I found that basically governed my reaction time. In fact I managed to break down most of the stats to real world equivalents.
HP was my overall health, fitness, endurance, and muscle definition.
MP was self explanatory my mana pool even if I could not actually feel or sense it at all.
Strength was muscle strength and growth.
Defense was overall toughening of my body...presumably, not sure how I could test if my organs were tougher, but my skin was definitely tougher. Maybe when high enough I could try to see if a knife could cut me?
Magic was unknown but presumably increased my ability to cast magic somehow, better magical talent maybe?
Magic Defense was what it said on the tin, though who knows how it really worked, maybe if I learned some magic I could figure it out.
Agility was my physical movement speed.
Evasion was my reaction speed.
Accuracy was my hand eye coordination.
With that knowledge I made sure to focus on using my spheres to increase my HP, Strength, Magic Defense, Agility, and Evasion the most which left me a very powerful and fast if fragile combatant. Which was a very good thing as if I focused only on my defense I probably would have been grounded down to death unable to hit faster enemies or even react to them.
Feeling emboldened with the first kill I advanced further into the jungle along the path. It took me an hour and 3 more ambushes but I had finally made it to the temple steps. Looking up at the temple above I quickened my pace up the stairs racing to see the full temple. Stopping at the top I admired the view.
The whole thing sat on top of the mountain and reminded me of a crab that was lit on fire.
Hearing the chanting of the Hymns I began to walk into the temple and find the head priest. Wonder if they know about Braska? Still have not found out where exactly in the timeline I was. There was no trace of Wakka, Lulu, or Yuna in the village and no one else from the game on the ship or Kilika. I really hope I was not in the far past before Braska or worse, in a AU of Final Fantasy X where the main cast never existed. Would certainly make a lot of my future knowledge useless and suspect. '
Hopefully that was not the case' I thought to myself as I entered the temple.
Waving goodbye to the villagers I had left the village with a heavy heart and went to the beach, clearing out any fiends along the way. Now I was boarding the SS Kilia and heading over to Kilika Island. The home island of High Summoner Ohalland, the temple of Ifrit, and a jungle full of fiends.
I couldn't wait.
The journey was smooth, no storms, no fiend attacks, no Sin. Just miles upon miles of open ocean. It was honestly quite boring. I spent most of the talking with the other passengers and playing games I remembered with them like Chinese Chopsticks or ninja tag. They were more than pleased to have something to entertain themselves with and warmed up to me quickly. Makes me wonder if maybe I could start up my own game company here, after all the only real form of entertainment in Spira is Blitzball, I think small portable games might be a big hit with people.
Great trip, good company, could have had better food, 9/10 would ride again. Thankfully the trip was quite short and we arrived just before sundown. The Kilika village was mostly built over the water creating what seemed to be a floating village. How wise that was was seen in the game when Sin attacked but for now they enjoyed their prosperity.
I immediately went to the nearest weapon vendor and saw what they had for sale. They had mostly the same gear that Besaid had due to the merchants originating from here, but I did find one nice piece of gear. It was a halberd made of gun grey steel that looked a like one of those wielded by Imperial Halberdiers in Warhammer Fantasy. It took a big chunk out of my funds even with trading in my old spear, but as I easily swung the heavy halberd meant to be wielded by Ronsos much to the shopkeeper's shock I found it to be a great deal.
After booking a room at the local in I made my way towards the jungle while taking in the local colors. There were a large amount of huts all made of wood seemingly built around a tree that grew from under the water. Guess the jungle was too dangerous to set up a village in like they did in Besaid. I wonder why given the threat of Sin wiping out a coastal village was far more higher. I should ask the temple priest about that for curiosity sake if nothing else.
I stopped at the tree line looking at the dense vegetation and trees. Damn that place looks dark and hiding a lot of things. Double checking my pouches for my antidotes I thought back to what I remembered about the local fiends. There should mostly be flying wasps, lizards, lightning elementals, and those weird flower seed shooting plant things. I should be fast enough and strong enough to deal with the wasps and lizards since I don't recall them having any special abilities. So I just needed to watch out for the elementals and plant shooters, don't really want to tank magic or a bullet like shot from hidden plant monsters.
'I think I'll just try to reach the temple first, if I can deal with the fiends on the main path then I'll start hunting deeper into the jungle.' I thought to myself before hefting my halberd at the ready and began walking into the jungle. The path looked a lot longer than what I remembered in the game but that was to be expected since the game maps were limited in scope and scale by hardware and size. It was an hour in and I was still trekking along the path with no bridge in sight. All of a sudden I heard a whistling sound from behind and immediately turned around swinging the halberd behind me.
With a sound of steel tearing flesh the lizard like monster split in half before exploding in pyreflies and condensing into a sphere and dropping some gil. Hah that was close it would have actually hit me if I was any slower in reacting. I immediately picked up the sphere, saw that it was a speed sphere, and used it to increase my evasion stat as I found that basically governed my reaction time. In fact I managed to break down most of the stats to real world equivalents.
HP was my overall health, fitness, endurance, and muscle definition.
MP was self explanatory my mana pool even if I could not actually feel or sense it at all.
Strength was muscle strength and growth.
Defense was overall toughening of my body...presumably, not sure how I could test if my organs were tougher, but my skin was definitely tougher. Maybe when high enough I could try to see if a knife could cut me?
Magic was unknown but presumably increased my ability to cast magic somehow, better magical talent maybe?
Magic Defense was what it said on the tin, though who knows how it really worked, maybe if I learned some magic I could figure it out.
Agility was my physical movement speed.
Evasion was my reaction speed.
Accuracy was my hand eye coordination.
With that knowledge I made sure to focus on using my spheres to increase my HP, Strength, Magic Defense, Agility, and Evasion the most which left me a very powerful and fast if fragile combatant. Which was a very good thing as if I focused only on my defense I probably would have been grounded down to death unable to hit faster enemies or even react to them.
Feeling emboldened with the first kill I advanced further into the jungle along the path. It took me an hour and 3 more ambushes but I had finally made it to the temple steps. Looking up at the temple above I quickened my pace up the stairs racing to see the full temple. Stopping at the top I admired the view.
The whole thing sat on top of the mountain and reminded me of a crab that was lit on fire.
Hearing the chanting of the Hymns I began to walk into the temple and find the head priest. Wonder if they know about Braska? Still have not found out where exactly in the timeline I was. There was no trace of Wakka, Lulu, or Yuna in the village and no one else from the game on the ship or Kilika. I really hope I was not in the far past before Braska or worse, in a AU of Final Fantasy X where the main cast never existed. Would certainly make a lot of my future knowledge useless and suspect. '
Hopefully that was not the case' I thought to myself as I entered the temple.
Chapter 7: Waking Up To Luca
- Location
- U.S.
Unfortunately that seemed to be where my luck ended as the number of fiends on the island was actually pretty low and well controlled on the account of higher number of people, Crusaders, and lack of Sin making trouble. So despite spending a week hunting through the tropical jungles I only managed to hunt a few dozen fiends in total despite the use of the last of my fiend lures. I had to both praise and curse the Crusaders for being too damn efficient at their jobs. Still I did gain a lot more speed spheres which significantly increased my overall speed sphere stats and the islanders were even actively commenting on the lower amount of fiends on the island which made me feel good.
The temple was a bit of a bust as there was no one there willing to teach me magic. The priest said he knew how to cast White Magic but refused unless I became a priest or a summoner in training despite how useful it would be for as many people to know how to cast Cure and Esuna. He did recommend I go to Luca as it being one of the largest cities in Spira besides Bevelle there would surely be someone there willing to teach me.
Still it was not a total waste of time, I did learn more about the history of the temple, how it was built, and other minor details. Also I managed to buy a somewhat detailed world map from them before adding in my own little details.
With nothing else to gain I had chartered the next ship to Luca, my personal funds replenished with fiend hunting, and was now sitting below deck with a notepad and a piece of charcoal that worked as my pencil.
Why was I doing that? Well while I waited in my inn room for the ship to arrive I suddenly had an epiphany. Games. Money. Fiends.
How were they all connected? People did hunt fiends for money and rewards since the monster arena was a thing or will be a thing? Not sure about it's current status. Anyways I could pay people to capture fiends for me to kill which is the final step. So previous step would be to get money so I can pay people. So there now comes to my first step, games~ Spira only had Blitzball as it's main source of entertainment as it could be played anywhere so long as you had water and a blitzball which were mass produced and the rules were easy to learn. So I just needed to make something that matched the same criterias. A game that was portable, can be played anywhere, and had easy to learn rules or had a rulebook.
Normally people would be spending months to come up with designs, mechanics, and other stuff for a single game. However, I came from a world where all the work was done for me. I just needed to remember the games and remake them here. Now mass production was not really a thing here due to Yevon's ban on most machina so I would need to only choose games which did not require artisans to reproduce the items for or require actual industries to mass produce.
So most card games would be fine as I could hire someone to draw on simple wooden cards that I could produce myself. My frankly near superhuman speed, strength, and hand eye coordination meant I could easily cut and make such cards with little effort. Makes me wonder if I would actually go past peak human at some point and become truly superhuman? I could also make some board games like chess or checkers or chinese checkers. Lastly I could make a book of Children's games like ninja or Squid Game.
'That reminds me I need to hire someone to write out the rule books for me since I could not for the life of me read or write Spira's language. Too much flowing lines and flourishes.' I thought to myself as I made a note down in my notebook.
I really try to learn the world's main language I really did, but I just could not understand how to read or write it despite my best efforts. It had to be something other than my poor learning skills as I could not even memorize basic words to recognize them despite spending several nights trying to do so. Something other than my brain was keeping me from learning, why?
Another question on the list of unanswered questions I have in my mental pile, right next to the ones like "How did I get here?" "Who brought me here?" "What are the rules on my power?" and "Will I ever get home?"
It had been 3 days already so we should be arriving at Luca in the morning. I got up closing my notebook and stretched out my back before heading up onto the deck. Walking onto the bow of the ship I looked up at the cloudless sky and just took in the gorgeous sight of the star filled sky. If there was one thing I was thankful for it was the fact that I could now clearly see the stars. Back home there was always too much light pollution, clouds, and smog to ever see the stars in all their beauty. I did have the opportunity to see them on top of a mountain once when I was little, but I never got a chance to again.
Looking up at the starry sky I could feel a sense of calm overtake me and just like the past 2 nights I let myself be lulled to sleep by the gentle rocking of the waves, the cool sea breeze, the sounds of flapping sails in the wind, all while being watched by the stars above.
And then I woke with a start to the ray of sunlight coming from the rising sun, the sight of Luca before us, and the blitzball arena passing by. We were here.
The temple was a bit of a bust as there was no one there willing to teach me magic. The priest said he knew how to cast White Magic but refused unless I became a priest or a summoner in training despite how useful it would be for as many people to know how to cast Cure and Esuna. He did recommend I go to Luca as it being one of the largest cities in Spira besides Bevelle there would surely be someone there willing to teach me.
Still it was not a total waste of time, I did learn more about the history of the temple, how it was built, and other minor details. Also I managed to buy a somewhat detailed world map from them before adding in my own little details.
With nothing else to gain I had chartered the next ship to Luca, my personal funds replenished with fiend hunting, and was now sitting below deck with a notepad and a piece of charcoal that worked as my pencil.
Why was I doing that? Well while I waited in my inn room for the ship to arrive I suddenly had an epiphany. Games. Money. Fiends.
How were they all connected? People did hunt fiends for money and rewards since the monster arena was a thing or will be a thing? Not sure about it's current status. Anyways I could pay people to capture fiends for me to kill which is the final step. So previous step would be to get money so I can pay people. So there now comes to my first step, games~ Spira only had Blitzball as it's main source of entertainment as it could be played anywhere so long as you had water and a blitzball which were mass produced and the rules were easy to learn. So I just needed to make something that matched the same criterias. A game that was portable, can be played anywhere, and had easy to learn rules or had a rulebook.
Normally people would be spending months to come up with designs, mechanics, and other stuff for a single game. However, I came from a world where all the work was done for me. I just needed to remember the games and remake them here. Now mass production was not really a thing here due to Yevon's ban on most machina so I would need to only choose games which did not require artisans to reproduce the items for or require actual industries to mass produce.
So most card games would be fine as I could hire someone to draw on simple wooden cards that I could produce myself. My frankly near superhuman speed, strength, and hand eye coordination meant I could easily cut and make such cards with little effort. Makes me wonder if I would actually go past peak human at some point and become truly superhuman? I could also make some board games like chess or checkers or chinese checkers. Lastly I could make a book of Children's games like ninja or Squid Game.
'That reminds me I need to hire someone to write out the rule books for me since I could not for the life of me read or write Spira's language. Too much flowing lines and flourishes.' I thought to myself as I made a note down in my notebook.
I really try to learn the world's main language I really did, but I just could not understand how to read or write it despite my best efforts. It had to be something other than my poor learning skills as I could not even memorize basic words to recognize them despite spending several nights trying to do so. Something other than my brain was keeping me from learning, why?
Another question on the list of unanswered questions I have in my mental pile, right next to the ones like "How did I get here?" "Who brought me here?" "What are the rules on my power?" and "Will I ever get home?"
It had been 3 days already so we should be arriving at Luca in the morning. I got up closing my notebook and stretched out my back before heading up onto the deck. Walking onto the bow of the ship I looked up at the cloudless sky and just took in the gorgeous sight of the star filled sky. If there was one thing I was thankful for it was the fact that I could now clearly see the stars. Back home there was always too much light pollution, clouds, and smog to ever see the stars in all their beauty. I did have the opportunity to see them on top of a mountain once when I was little, but I never got a chance to again.
Looking up at the starry sky I could feel a sense of calm overtake me and just like the past 2 nights I let myself be lulled to sleep by the gentle rocking of the waves, the cool sea breeze, the sounds of flapping sails in the wind, all while being watched by the stars above.
And then I woke with a start to the ray of sunlight coming from the rising sun, the sight of Luca before us, and the blitzball arena passing by. We were here.
Chapter 8: Waking Up To Business Tycoon
- Location
- U.S.
It has been a month since I have arrived in Luca and I have come to one conclusion. I seriously underestimated people's desire for a new form of easy entertainment. It was not actually hard to find willing employees to work as artists and writers for my games and I had just enough funds to hire them full time. I had already gotten the designs and rules written down so all I had to do was work with the writer to translate my words to Spiran and provide the artists with the wooden card cuts and painting materials.
A very unexpected benefit? The increase in hand eye coordination also improved my ability to draw from memory accurately which allowed me to assist with my speed in drawing the card designs. Took me three days, two all nighters, and an hour of shop searching to find a place willing to let us use the front of their shop as a stall but I did it. I had my own little store/stall, but boy was it worth it.
Initially, there was little to no interest in my games as no one recognized them, but all it took was a few interested people and a couple demo games to start attracting more customers. I had several boxes full of standard playing card decks, checkerboards with pieces that also worked for chess, child game pamphlets, adult game pamphlets, Uno, and other such world neutral card games.
They did pretty well the first day. Then absolutely sold out on the third with demands for more being shouted over the crowds. Luckily I had already anticipated the demand and had a lot of extras made. Even with the games being sold at a relatively low price it was alright since it was almost 100% pure profit as the only expense was the paint, brushes, and the employee wages. I had easily made enough to buy a space for myself and some customization for new products.
Now just selling new games would not have kept up the demand for business no matter how many new people arrived almost daily at Luca for the blitzball games, so I did what any good store does, diversify. Specifically? Cartoons and food.
Now I couldn't use cartoons that had machina or relied on earth history or references so I stuck with basic comedy comic strips like Garfield just with some of the dialogue changed. Those were easy enough to mass produce and I could sell a page with three strips at a time to make people think they were getting a deal and attract even more customers.
In terms of food though that gave me the greatest benefit and not monetarily. Ironically enough it was me branching off into food which allowed me to actually find a black mage to teach me. Sourcing local produce I managed to figure out enough substitutes to make a edible pizza and hamburger and placed them out at the front of the store seeing if anyone would bite.
That was when this old balding man in your stereotypical black mage robe hobbled over and tried the food. Man introduced himself as Tayto and was absolutely enamored with my food. Managed to negotiate black mage training in the evening in exchange for free meals and taste tester status for any future 'creations' of mine.
The aftermath of my first black mage lesson revealed another aspect of my power. Our first lesson was what magic was which was just pure mana manipulated into a certain pattern which created a effect. Spells were merely recorded patterns optimized for that effect with stronger variants merely being the exact same spell with a pattern optimized for greater magical input.
Tayto tried to teach me how to cast Fire the simplest fire based spell and help me feel the flow of magic, but nothing worked. Hours spent trying to figure out why I could not cast a simple spell despite Tayto telling me he could sense I had a large enough mana pool to cast the spell. I found out why when I was laying in bed. Tayto had brought me to the Mihen high road to show off his spell and along the way I killed a flan which dropped a magic sphere which I hid. As I was holding it deciding on which stat to improve I thought about how great it would be if the magic sphere could unlock the fire spell or just spells in general like how it unlocked stats. The sphere then glowed before getting absorbed and suddenly I had the knowledge on how to use my mana and cast the Fire spell. Up to that point I had not managed to unlock any skills or spells which made me think it was not possible.
Now? Now I knew different, I COULD learn them, I just needed to find someone to show it to me first. It made me want to facepalm at how much time I wasted on Besaid and Kilika trying to learn skills on my own without asking for help from the Crusaders.
That was a week ago and with the amount of fiends on the high road plus my speed, I managed to collect enough magic spheres to increase my MP to the point that I could learn every spell Tayto was willing to teach me. He was absolutely shocked at the rate I learned his entire arsenal which he was only willing to teach when I told him that I was going to become a guardian. To reiterate in a mere weak I had gone from a non magical to a arch black mage that people took a decade at least to become. Damn I loved my power.
So here I was standing in my own store handing out a customer's change as I sold them 4 comic panels, a board game, 2 pizzas, and a burger to go while having enough magical firepower to level the building at a whim and I loved every second of it.
The past month has been absolutely fantastic, I am getting rich, the fiend bounty has been posted so soon I will be rolling in spheres, I got fast food again even if I have to make it myself, I now had magic, and I now knew how to get even more magic and skills. Best of all? I wouldn't even need to leave Luca ever again if I did not need to, power was just going to flow right into me cause I had the other superpower, money.
Only thing I would need to work on is combat technique, equipment, and getting more actual combat experience. Compared to everything else though it was a surmountable task at least. It does leave me wondering though. Is Braska alive or even born yet and how strong was I going to be when he finally passes by?
The biggest question of all though? Would I even still need him to defeat Sin?
A very unexpected benefit? The increase in hand eye coordination also improved my ability to draw from memory accurately which allowed me to assist with my speed in drawing the card designs. Took me three days, two all nighters, and an hour of shop searching to find a place willing to let us use the front of their shop as a stall but I did it. I had my own little store/stall, but boy was it worth it.
Initially, there was little to no interest in my games as no one recognized them, but all it took was a few interested people and a couple demo games to start attracting more customers. I had several boxes full of standard playing card decks, checkerboards with pieces that also worked for chess, child game pamphlets, adult game pamphlets, Uno, and other such world neutral card games.
They did pretty well the first day. Then absolutely sold out on the third with demands for more being shouted over the crowds. Luckily I had already anticipated the demand and had a lot of extras made. Even with the games being sold at a relatively low price it was alright since it was almost 100% pure profit as the only expense was the paint, brushes, and the employee wages. I had easily made enough to buy a space for myself and some customization for new products.
Now just selling new games would not have kept up the demand for business no matter how many new people arrived almost daily at Luca for the blitzball games, so I did what any good store does, diversify. Specifically? Cartoons and food.
Now I couldn't use cartoons that had machina or relied on earth history or references so I stuck with basic comedy comic strips like Garfield just with some of the dialogue changed. Those were easy enough to mass produce and I could sell a page with three strips at a time to make people think they were getting a deal and attract even more customers.
In terms of food though that gave me the greatest benefit and not monetarily. Ironically enough it was me branching off into food which allowed me to actually find a black mage to teach me. Sourcing local produce I managed to figure out enough substitutes to make a edible pizza and hamburger and placed them out at the front of the store seeing if anyone would bite.
That was when this old balding man in your stereotypical black mage robe hobbled over and tried the food. Man introduced himself as Tayto and was absolutely enamored with my food. Managed to negotiate black mage training in the evening in exchange for free meals and taste tester status for any future 'creations' of mine.
The aftermath of my first black mage lesson revealed another aspect of my power. Our first lesson was what magic was which was just pure mana manipulated into a certain pattern which created a effect. Spells were merely recorded patterns optimized for that effect with stronger variants merely being the exact same spell with a pattern optimized for greater magical input.
Tayto tried to teach me how to cast Fire the simplest fire based spell and help me feel the flow of magic, but nothing worked. Hours spent trying to figure out why I could not cast a simple spell despite Tayto telling me he could sense I had a large enough mana pool to cast the spell. I found out why when I was laying in bed. Tayto had brought me to the Mihen high road to show off his spell and along the way I killed a flan which dropped a magic sphere which I hid. As I was holding it deciding on which stat to improve I thought about how great it would be if the magic sphere could unlock the fire spell or just spells in general like how it unlocked stats. The sphere then glowed before getting absorbed and suddenly I had the knowledge on how to use my mana and cast the Fire spell. Up to that point I had not managed to unlock any skills or spells which made me think it was not possible.
Now? Now I knew different, I COULD learn them, I just needed to find someone to show it to me first. It made me want to facepalm at how much time I wasted on Besaid and Kilika trying to learn skills on my own without asking for help from the Crusaders.
That was a week ago and with the amount of fiends on the high road plus my speed, I managed to collect enough magic spheres to increase my MP to the point that I could learn every spell Tayto was willing to teach me. He was absolutely shocked at the rate I learned his entire arsenal which he was only willing to teach when I told him that I was going to become a guardian. To reiterate in a mere weak I had gone from a non magical to a arch black mage that people took a decade at least to become. Damn I loved my power.
So here I was standing in my own store handing out a customer's change as I sold them 4 comic panels, a board game, 2 pizzas, and a burger to go while having enough magical firepower to level the building at a whim and I loved every second of it.
The past month has been absolutely fantastic, I am getting rich, the fiend bounty has been posted so soon I will be rolling in spheres, I got fast food again even if I have to make it myself, I now had magic, and I now knew how to get even more magic and skills. Best of all? I wouldn't even need to leave Luca ever again if I did not need to, power was just going to flow right into me cause I had the other superpower, money.
Only thing I would need to work on is combat technique, equipment, and getting more actual combat experience. Compared to everything else though it was a surmountable task at least. It does leave me wondering though. Is Braska alive or even born yet and how strong was I going to be when he finally passes by?
The biggest question of all though? Would I even still need him to defeat Sin?
Vaalintine
Wild Wondorous Wolfalope
The idea of him getting rich selling comics, food and board games is just hilarious.
Always the go to comic guy for me.
I wonder if he can do the same with white magic as he just did with black magic
- Location
- A Strange Aeon
Maybe before his steady diet of spheres, nowadays he's probably a Conan the Barbarian clone.
Flutters Is Shy
Light the fire, it's time to write!
- Location
- Land of Ze Governator; In Perpetuity
"Worst. Isekai. Ever."
Interlude: Waking Up To A Pilgrimage
- Location
- U.S.
"Hey Braska! Wake up already!" A surly voice shouted through his window causing Braska to awaken from his slumber with a groan. His new guardian was in high spirits today despite only being released from Bevelle's cell only last night. The mad man that claimed to be a famous blitzballer from Zanarkand, a city destroyed 1000 years ago. Lacking any real friends or people in general to call upon to guard him on his pilgrimage to defeat Sin due to his marriage to an Al Behd woman causing him to become a veritable pariah among the city he had to scrape the bottom of the barrel.
"Address Lord Braska with the respect that he deserves you mad drunk." Came the heated voice of his other guardian Auron, a warrior monk of Bevelle that had fallen from the grace of the temple and its maesters. That of course had no bearing on his skills of course and his trustworthiness, he could always trust Auron with his life.
He swiftly got ready to leave, all his supplies and equipment prepared ahead of time yesterday. Just a quick freshening up to remove the last of sleep's hold from his eyes and grabiing a fruit from his pantry. He stopped looking back at his home, it was much quieter now without his love, but at least he still had Yuna and he would keep her safe from Sin. He and Yuna had already said all their goodbyes and let out all their tears last night. He would leave her to her sleep, at least if Jecht's shouting did not wake her up already.
Stepping out onto the streets of Bevelle in his customary red robe he began walking with his guardians, it was finally time to begin his pilgrimage.
*2 months later*
"You better not have been lying to me about this place having a proper blitzball stadium here or else I am going too be mad at you Auron." Jecht threatened with excitement in his voice as the trio walked down the Mi'hen High Road. Auron did not even snark back at the man as he had earned some respect from the disgraced warrior priest on their journey. The man had proven himself a capable combatant with the large black greatsword he was gifted by a merchant they had saved on the path to Djose, much better at least than he was with a standard sword. Of course the fact that it was one of the newly famed Phantasm blades probably helped and had Auron near seething in jealousy. Blades of those line are some of the finest weapons in Spira and are not made in bulk. The man also might not have been as mad as they have thought, his constant stories were very consistent in their details with no obvious holes, plus the emotions he had when he spoke about his son could not be faked, he should know as a father himself. He was just glad that the man had calmed down massively after the first month after that incident with the shoopuf, a large aquatic creature that functioned as a living fairy between the moonflow banks. Before that he was constantly asking about celebrations and getting drunk, causing trouble which they had to address.
Jecht had stopped drinking after he drunkenly attacked the shoopuf and he had to give up all their money to repay the shoopuf owner. That made the fact that they had received a better blade for jecht for free a even greater boon. Sure it took them having to fight a large dangerous fiend, but he had to agree with Jecht in that it 'was the right thing to do' even if Auron had objected in seeking out additional dangers.
"Do not worry Jecht, Luca is the place for the annual Blitzball tournament and does indeed have the greatest blitzball stadium in all of Spira. The Crusaders protect the city with great effort to keep Sin from destroying the city and the stadium as it is the only source of distraction for the people of Spira." Auron explained only to be interrupted by Braska.
"Actually that is not true Auron, I am not sure how you managed to miss it, but over the last 14 years a wide variety of toys, stories, and games have been flowing out of Luca to every corner of Spira. Simple games, stories, and toys that anyone can play from elders to children that never fails to entertain. All of them never before seen, affordable, and the store apparently does not use any machina to mass produce. Because of that, blitzball has actually fallen in popularity for the first time in living memory though it does still remain the biggest form of entertainment."
"I was not aware of that, but how do you know?"
"Because I bought some of their items when they first arrived in Bevelle. My family and I had many a wonderful nights together filled with laughter when we played their games. Our favorite was always the one called Life where we let little Yuna plan out her future with the game. Those were good times. The store also sells things like food, weapons, armor to those willing to come to their store and even has an unusual policy of buying any captured fiends which the owner likes to kill himself supposedly. No one is sure why, but he doesn't keep the fiends and pays good money so Yevon does not mind it."
"A single store does all that?" Jecht asked with disbelief, Auron echoing the sentiment.
"No, a single man does all that, from what I have heard everything is made by the owner, but he has other employees to take care of his shop. He has supposedly refused to open more stores even when offered to by even the maesters. Also all of the items are supposedly of extremely high quality despite their affordable prices. People from all over Spira have entered a year long line just to be allowed into the store to place an order. In fact we made good time from Bevelle, my own appointment is next week, right after the latest Blitzball Tournament."
"What do you even want to buy and what is this place even called and can I play in the tournament?"
"Jecht! we should not delay Braska's pilgrimage for a blitzball game!" Auron exclaimed.
"It is fine Auron, Jecht you can join the game if you can find a team to let you join, we will not be leaving till I attend my appointment I have been waiting a year for. I am hoping we can come to an agreement with the owner to fully equip our party with his gear. In fact Jecht do you remember that symbol on your sword's hilt? That is his symbol on his creations."
"Wait do you mean to say that the new Phantasm line of equipment are the creations of a toymaker!?" Auron exclaimed in shock as while he was aware of the symbol on the weapons he was not aware that it was also on other items like toys.
"Yes, the owner does focus more on toys and games with equipment being a side benefit. Of course all of this is from second hand news so it might be not as accurate as I hope, but the rumors seem pretty consistent. As for the name of this store, well we are coming up on it now, you should be able to see it, it should be the two story store with a large sign on it in the plaza, we should be able to see it from the stairs." Braska said as indeed the stairs that led down to a platform overlooking the city of Luca as well as the path leading further down was now in front of them. Jecht ran down the stairs and stared down at the city, immediately noticing the huge blitzball stadium with a smile and then noticing the store. It wasn't hard to as it was obviously different compared to the rest of the city with it's own unique appearance.
Sticking out like a sore thumb was a bright red brick tower 4 stories tall with numerous balconies jutting out from it with what he could see were tables and umbrellas with people relaxing there.
On top of the stone tower was a large 4 colored flag with the shop's name on it.
"Microsoft huh? Let's see what's all hubbub is about....after a blitzball game of course."
*Next Week*
The trio found themselves standing in front of the noticeable red brick tower early in the morning. In front of them was a long line that stretched around the plaza with various vendors carrying trays hawking their wares of food and drinks to those in line.
"Damn that smells good, can see why there is such a line. Hey Braska we gonna get lunch here to go or what?"
"I thought you needed an appointment to get in Lord Braska so why is there a line? Surely not all of them are here by appointment right?"
"Actually you only need an appointment for the blacksmithing services, the ones in line are here for the toy store and restaurant."
"Sheesh they must be waiting here for hours, is it really that good to be worth the wait?"
"We can find out once we get in, we also get to bypass the line to the restaurant after our appointment, and we do not have to wait to get in to see the owner." Braska proceeded to walk past the line and entered the tower where he was then directed by a young lady up the stairs to the third floor. Along the way he saw the stores full of products with more constantly being ferried down by multiple tiny lifts coming down from above that were being cranked by young chocobos based on what he could hear through the back wall.
As the three reached the third floor they saw the only man on the floor working on many things. On one hand he was drawing on multiple books at the same time with the same designs, on the other he was cooking several dishes all the while giving directions through a series of brass pipes above his head, and his feet were constantly moving things around, pushing, pulling, and even kicking them into the air just to land in their proper place. The whole area was filled with activity all generated by a single man.
It was a simply mind bogglingly display of speed, control, strength, and awareness as the three witnessed a man doing the work of 3 different teams worth of people without error when suddenly he sent everything he was working on onto the passing lifts and everything went almost silent, only the chatter of the shops below echoing through the once busy and noisy room.
The man turned around with a smile on his face reveling himself in full to the trio who took in the man's appearance.
He was certainly a massive man given that he towered over Auron who was 6' by a full foot and had muscles to go with his height made him strike a very intimidating figure if not for his face. His smile was very welcoming and helped diffuse any tension in the room.
"Welcome! I am Trituu. How can I can help you today Lord Summoner? Perhaps I can interest you in some snacks and drinks while we discuss your visit today? I recommend my spinach puffs with tea. Please have a seat." Trituu gestured to a corner of the room which was by the window and had two couches and a small table in between.
"Thank you very much, I look forward to your food which I have heard so much about." Braska accepted with a smile as the three of them sat down on the very comfy couch.
"We came here today hoping you would be willing to equip us for my pilgrimage. We do not have too much money so we were hoping to get a discount." Braska explained sheepishly with Jecht looking down in shame and embarrassment due to him being the reason that Braska gave up most of his money due to his drunkenness'.
Trituu steeped his hand together his face in a frown even as a lady brought up a plate of piping hot puff pastries and a pot of tea before leaving silently. Auron poured out some tea for everyone, himself savoring the tea in pleasure while glaring at Jecht who just downed it in one go. Braska meanwhile just stared at the man across from him in silence.
After what seemed to be a long moment Trituu asked "How many temples have you gone to already Lord Braska?"
"I have been to the temple of Bevelle, Macalania, and Djose. I will be going to the Kilika and Besaid temples next before heading north to Zanarkand for the final aeon." Braska explained with conviction in his tone.
"So your journey is almost complete then." Trituu muttered to himself.
"Yes, it is."
Trituu went silent once more, the room silent except for the sounds of chewing as they enjoyed the admittedly delicious spinach puffs.
As soon as the last puff was finished Trituu spoke again.
"I will make you all the equipment you need as well as provide you as much supplies and funds as you require." Trituu said causing the three men to look at him in shock.
"However, there is one condition." Braska narrowed his eyes in determination.
"Name it."
"Allow me to join you as a guardian." Trituu asked seriously with no hint of humor in his voice causing the three of them to blink in sync.
"""What?"""
"Address Lord Braska with the respect that he deserves you mad drunk." Came the heated voice of his other guardian Auron, a warrior monk of Bevelle that had fallen from the grace of the temple and its maesters. That of course had no bearing on his skills of course and his trustworthiness, he could always trust Auron with his life.
He swiftly got ready to leave, all his supplies and equipment prepared ahead of time yesterday. Just a quick freshening up to remove the last of sleep's hold from his eyes and grabiing a fruit from his pantry. He stopped looking back at his home, it was much quieter now without his love, but at least he still had Yuna and he would keep her safe from Sin. He and Yuna had already said all their goodbyes and let out all their tears last night. He would leave her to her sleep, at least if Jecht's shouting did not wake her up already.
Stepping out onto the streets of Bevelle in his customary red robe he began walking with his guardians, it was finally time to begin his pilgrimage.
*2 months later*
"You better not have been lying to me about this place having a proper blitzball stadium here or else I am going too be mad at you Auron." Jecht threatened with excitement in his voice as the trio walked down the Mi'hen High Road. Auron did not even snark back at the man as he had earned some respect from the disgraced warrior priest on their journey. The man had proven himself a capable combatant with the large black greatsword he was gifted by a merchant they had saved on the path to Djose, much better at least than he was with a standard sword. Of course the fact that it was one of the newly famed Phantasm blades probably helped and had Auron near seething in jealousy. Blades of those line are some of the finest weapons in Spira and are not made in bulk. The man also might not have been as mad as they have thought, his constant stories were very consistent in their details with no obvious holes, plus the emotions he had when he spoke about his son could not be faked, he should know as a father himself. He was just glad that the man had calmed down massively after the first month after that incident with the shoopuf, a large aquatic creature that functioned as a living fairy between the moonflow banks. Before that he was constantly asking about celebrations and getting drunk, causing trouble which they had to address.
Jecht had stopped drinking after he drunkenly attacked the shoopuf and he had to give up all their money to repay the shoopuf owner. That made the fact that they had received a better blade for jecht for free a even greater boon. Sure it took them having to fight a large dangerous fiend, but he had to agree with Jecht in that it 'was the right thing to do' even if Auron had objected in seeking out additional dangers.
"Do not worry Jecht, Luca is the place for the annual Blitzball tournament and does indeed have the greatest blitzball stadium in all of Spira. The Crusaders protect the city with great effort to keep Sin from destroying the city and the stadium as it is the only source of distraction for the people of Spira." Auron explained only to be interrupted by Braska.
"Actually that is not true Auron, I am not sure how you managed to miss it, but over the last 14 years a wide variety of toys, stories, and games have been flowing out of Luca to every corner of Spira. Simple games, stories, and toys that anyone can play from elders to children that never fails to entertain. All of them never before seen, affordable, and the store apparently does not use any machina to mass produce. Because of that, blitzball has actually fallen in popularity for the first time in living memory though it does still remain the biggest form of entertainment."
"I was not aware of that, but how do you know?"
"Because I bought some of their items when they first arrived in Bevelle. My family and I had many a wonderful nights together filled with laughter when we played their games. Our favorite was always the one called Life where we let little Yuna plan out her future with the game. Those were good times. The store also sells things like food, weapons, armor to those willing to come to their store and even has an unusual policy of buying any captured fiends which the owner likes to kill himself supposedly. No one is sure why, but he doesn't keep the fiends and pays good money so Yevon does not mind it."
"A single store does all that?" Jecht asked with disbelief, Auron echoing the sentiment.
"No, a single man does all that, from what I have heard everything is made by the owner, but he has other employees to take care of his shop. He has supposedly refused to open more stores even when offered to by even the maesters. Also all of the items are supposedly of extremely high quality despite their affordable prices. People from all over Spira have entered a year long line just to be allowed into the store to place an order. In fact we made good time from Bevelle, my own appointment is next week, right after the latest Blitzball Tournament."
"What do you even want to buy and what is this place even called and can I play in the tournament?"
"Jecht! we should not delay Braska's pilgrimage for a blitzball game!" Auron exclaimed.
"It is fine Auron, Jecht you can join the game if you can find a team to let you join, we will not be leaving till I attend my appointment I have been waiting a year for. I am hoping we can come to an agreement with the owner to fully equip our party with his gear. In fact Jecht do you remember that symbol on your sword's hilt? That is his symbol on his creations."
"Wait do you mean to say that the new Phantasm line of equipment are the creations of a toymaker!?" Auron exclaimed in shock as while he was aware of the symbol on the weapons he was not aware that it was also on other items like toys.
"Yes, the owner does focus more on toys and games with equipment being a side benefit. Of course all of this is from second hand news so it might be not as accurate as I hope, but the rumors seem pretty consistent. As for the name of this store, well we are coming up on it now, you should be able to see it, it should be the two story store with a large sign on it in the plaza, we should be able to see it from the stairs." Braska said as indeed the stairs that led down to a platform overlooking the city of Luca as well as the path leading further down was now in front of them. Jecht ran down the stairs and stared down at the city, immediately noticing the huge blitzball stadium with a smile and then noticing the store. It wasn't hard to as it was obviously different compared to the rest of the city with it's own unique appearance.
Sticking out like a sore thumb was a bright red brick tower 4 stories tall with numerous balconies jutting out from it with what he could see were tables and umbrellas with people relaxing there.
On top of the stone tower was a large 4 colored flag with the shop's name on it.
"Microsoft huh? Let's see what's all hubbub is about....after a blitzball game of course."
*Next Week*
The trio found themselves standing in front of the noticeable red brick tower early in the morning. In front of them was a long line that stretched around the plaza with various vendors carrying trays hawking their wares of food and drinks to those in line.
"Damn that smells good, can see why there is such a line. Hey Braska we gonna get lunch here to go or what?"
"I thought you needed an appointment to get in Lord Braska so why is there a line? Surely not all of them are here by appointment right?"
"Actually you only need an appointment for the blacksmithing services, the ones in line are here for the toy store and restaurant."
"Sheesh they must be waiting here for hours, is it really that good to be worth the wait?"
"We can find out once we get in, we also get to bypass the line to the restaurant after our appointment, and we do not have to wait to get in to see the owner." Braska proceeded to walk past the line and entered the tower where he was then directed by a young lady up the stairs to the third floor. Along the way he saw the stores full of products with more constantly being ferried down by multiple tiny lifts coming down from above that were being cranked by young chocobos based on what he could hear through the back wall.
As the three reached the third floor they saw the only man on the floor working on many things. On one hand he was drawing on multiple books at the same time with the same designs, on the other he was cooking several dishes all the while giving directions through a series of brass pipes above his head, and his feet were constantly moving things around, pushing, pulling, and even kicking them into the air just to land in their proper place. The whole area was filled with activity all generated by a single man.
It was a simply mind bogglingly display of speed, control, strength, and awareness as the three witnessed a man doing the work of 3 different teams worth of people without error when suddenly he sent everything he was working on onto the passing lifts and everything went almost silent, only the chatter of the shops below echoing through the once busy and noisy room.
The man turned around with a smile on his face reveling himself in full to the trio who took in the man's appearance.
He was certainly a massive man given that he towered over Auron who was 6' by a full foot and had muscles to go with his height made him strike a very intimidating figure if not for his face. His smile was very welcoming and helped diffuse any tension in the room.
"Welcome! I am Trituu. How can I can help you today Lord Summoner? Perhaps I can interest you in some snacks and drinks while we discuss your visit today? I recommend my spinach puffs with tea. Please have a seat." Trituu gestured to a corner of the room which was by the window and had two couches and a small table in between.
"Thank you very much, I look forward to your food which I have heard so much about." Braska accepted with a smile as the three of them sat down on the very comfy couch.
"We came here today hoping you would be willing to equip us for my pilgrimage. We do not have too much money so we were hoping to get a discount." Braska explained sheepishly with Jecht looking down in shame and embarrassment due to him being the reason that Braska gave up most of his money due to his drunkenness'.
Trituu steeped his hand together his face in a frown even as a lady brought up a plate of piping hot puff pastries and a pot of tea before leaving silently. Auron poured out some tea for everyone, himself savoring the tea in pleasure while glaring at Jecht who just downed it in one go. Braska meanwhile just stared at the man across from him in silence.
After what seemed to be a long moment Trituu asked "How many temples have you gone to already Lord Braska?"
"I have been to the temple of Bevelle, Macalania, and Djose. I will be going to the Kilika and Besaid temples next before heading north to Zanarkand for the final aeon." Braska explained with conviction in his tone.
"So your journey is almost complete then." Trituu muttered to himself.
"Yes, it is."
Trituu went silent once more, the room silent except for the sounds of chewing as they enjoyed the admittedly delicious spinach puffs.
As soon as the last puff was finished Trituu spoke again.
"I will make you all the equipment you need as well as provide you as much supplies and funds as you require." Trituu said causing the three men to look at him in shock.
"However, there is one condition." Braska narrowed his eyes in determination.
"Name it."
"Allow me to join you as a guardian." Trituu asked seriously with no hint of humor in his voice causing the three of them to blink in sync.
"""What?"""
Vaalintine
Wild Wondorous Wolfalope
Is depicting Trituu as Kronk an intentional front persona? Like, not really him faking things but just putting forth an image of being simultaneously super competent at things but is really just a pretty simple (not in the mental sense) guy?
Also you should know there are several jokes which you are required to make now.
Also you should know there are several jokes which you are required to make now.
Flutters Is Shy
Light the fire, it's time to write!
- Location
- Land of Ze Governator; In Perpetuity
"Oh yeah. It's all coming together now."
- Location
- U.S.
not a front persona just looking for a big buff guy pic that was not too handsome. Basically me/MC bulking up from all the strength/HP stat boosts. but yes I will now have to make those jokes.
ThatOtherSatori
Lover of Spicy Food
- Location
- Indiana, USA
I mean, you already did the spinach puffs gag.
Speaking of, I really should see about trying spinach puffs sometime.
- Location
- U.S.
Like I said there is some jokes I have to makeI mean, you already did the spinach puffs gag.
Speaking of, I really should see about trying spinach puffs sometime.