Everything about today has been FANTASTIC.
Including the fact I just bought myself a screen-tablet as a late (it was on the 13th) birthday present. Because I’m FINALLY in a better mood (THANK YOU YOSHIDA) and decided to TREAT MYSELF.
“My name is Hali Naras. I write this in the the hope that, should I not survive what is about to happen to me, that there is at least some memoir to survive me instead. If you are reading this, then I have, indeed, been killed.”
“I have many unanswered questions. I suppose, at this point, few of them really matter. Tonight, I go to face a trio of men, Immortals of Thavnair, that wish me dead. I have no choice in this. I will either be endlessly hunted, or I will challenge them to a duel of honour. If I win, they leave me be and forget I ever crossed their path. If I lose... my life is forfeit.
I am the only daughter of Ceta and Edoh’a of the Naras clan, both Keepers of the Moon. I, myself, was once one such miqo’te. I departed my clan at the age of sixteen, not wanted or suited for life among my peers due to my unique and troublesome disposition, despite my talents.
I have spent much of my life wandering, searching for meaning. I have been a conjurer, an arcanist, a Blue Mage, and a shinobi. I write this now as the latter. I am survived by my parents, by my cousin, Dail’a, by my cat, Finn, and by my teacher and most cherished friend, Kaori, among many others.
To my parents, I am sorry. I tried my very best to be everything you saw in me. I wanted to be the perfect daughter. I failed you both. I know you love me all the same, and I am sorry to speak so poorly of myself before I go to my death. Know, though, that I love you both and wish that I were at least able to say goodbye.
To Dail’a, I wish I had gotten to spend more time with you. You have brought out both the best and the worst in me over the years, but most of all, you have helped me where few others would or could. Thank you. I wish I knew what that haunted silence was when we spoke of the Calamity. I suppose I will never know, now, but I hope that it is something from which you can move on in time.
To Finn, I know nothing I write will truly be understood, but I love you as I would my own child. I am sorry to leave you and wish I didn’t have to. I hope Dail’a takes good care of you. I know he loves you, too. You’re his little buddy. Be good for him.
To Kaori, I truly am not sure what to say. All the words that I could never actually speak are more or less worthless now. I know that what we meant to one another was beyond typical bonds, but this is my last and only chance to say it, so I will write it here: I love you. Maybe it isn’t "love” as it’s commonly understood, and I doubt it’s the kind one would expect when hearing this, but you’re the best friend I’ve ever had, and the only person for whom I’ve ever felt this strongly. You’ve done so much for me, and I there has been so much I wanted to do for you. Please take care of yourself. I am sorry I couldn’t get to see our village - our home - to its rebirth, but I know you can get it there. Please don’t give up. You know I wouldn’t, nor would I ever want you to. I want you to be happy, whatever it takes.
To everyone else, all I can really say is thank you. You’ve all tolerated me, befriended me, shown me patience and understanding, given me more chances than I could have deserved in a thousand lifetimes, and opened up so many doors for me. I’m sorry that I’ve let you all down. I wanted to be something great, even if it was just for myself. I’m sorry to have wasted the chances I was given. I hope you can all move on and forget me soon enough. I know it’ll be better that way. I’m sure no one will miss my constant stuttering, rambling, panicky nonsense or my penchant for losing my mind entirely when I get stressed. I am sorry to have tested the patience of those around and close to me time and time again with my problems. I tried to be better. I tried so hard.
I have a lot of questions yet, and some regrets, as well. Perhaps, one day, someone may find the answers I sought. I never quite figured out the nature of my extraordinary sense for aether. I regret not having learned to control it or keep it from controlling me. I never found out what had happened to me in the year or more after the Calamity, though I don’t know if I ever could have learned that. I never quite found out the name of the Raen girl with the single horn, and I regret never getting to meet her. I wish I’d have never let my nerves get the best of me those times we ran into one another, but if I am dead, then it’s probably for the best. I regret never getting to settle the score between myself and Maximillian Crawford. I hope he gets his just desserts for all the wrongs he’s done to people like me.
I owe a lot of my good material fortune to the Crawford brothers and having been in their employ. Though we didn’t always see eye-to-eye, Anthony was a very good employer. I will always, however, hate Maximillian for his constant torment, both physical and emotional. All the same, what I leave behind is, to my knowledge, not insignificant.
All of my money - gil or otherwise - is to go to Kaori. My notebooks are to be burned. Finn will go into Dail’a’s care. All other possessions can be discussed between my parents, Dail’a, and Kaori. Any insurance payments on behalf of the Crawfords can be made to Kaori.
I will miss you all. Please try to move on. Don’t avenge me. Don’t start a war over me. Please forget about me. I’m not worth your grief anymore. I proably never was in the first place.
~Hali”
With a ragged sniffle, a sleeve came up to wipe at her eyes. Daylight was breaking over the Rasen Kaikyo and peeking through the trees surrounding the village. She hadn’t slept all night. Instead, she had accumulated a wastebasket full of crumpled up goodbye letters which had begun overflowing onto the floor of her room. She would need to burn them all before she left.
Sniffling again as she read the letter over and cried softly to herself in anxiety, she tried to keep her breathing steady. Her mind wouldn’t allow it. Two teardrops impacted the letter, fortunately, in a margin, before she folded it and sealed it in an envelope with wax and a small length of twine, tied into a bow before leaving it on her desk in her room in plain view.
She sat back at her desk and, finally, just allowed herself to cry. The sun was up properly by the time she was done, having gone to her bed to curl up, alone. Eventually, she cried herself to sleep, the exhaustion from stress, fear, and impending doom eventually overtaxing her.
Her dreams were wracked with anxious nightmares of malm-high tsunamis everywhere she turned, arcing ominously over her head. Should she escape one, another would come, wiping out the islands beaches until she, peering out of the window in her room, gazed fearfully up at one last massive wave. As it descended with a deafening silence, she felt its weight crush every last bone, forcibly eject the air from her lungs, and send her spinning into the lightless oblivion under the sea.
She woke up and found herself screaming in terror. Her dreams, though they were no longer haunted by the Immortals’ “beast within” which fuelled her magic previously, were still twisted into terrors by her anxiety. Pulling herself from her bed’s comforts, she staggered, shaking, toward her teapot to begin heating it. Some minutes later, she poured herself another cup of lavender tea.
It was nearly a bell later by the time she realised she’d slept most of the day away; it was a mere three bells before the duel with Varajahl, Habraheem, and Ghayaraan. The Immortals would be waiting for her, she knew, and with them, an audience of people to, at best, support her, or at worst, watch her die.
After she had finally calmed herself, she set to sitting cross-legged before her window, staring out into the trees as she focused, lavender incense lit to either side of her to keep her calm and focused. After several long breaths, she made four hand signs, one quickly after the other: Hogo, Shonin, Fuwa, Tsuihou. Protection, Witness, Discord, Banish. These four mudra were not a typical for shinobi, meant more for onmyoji priests. However, she had needed to learn it quickly during a venture. A stroke of curiosity led her to discover that it could not only seal and purify evil, but the “beast” as well. Her morning routine had come to include this ritual, and she held the mudra that executed the jutsu, holding the power within her and directing it further inward.
When she first began doing it, out of curiosity and desperation more than anything, the “beast” had screamed. It tore at her mind and soul in retaliation and sent her into fits of existential agony. As time went on, however, she got better at the jutsu itself and the beast weakened. By that afternoon, some weeks later, she had suppressed it almost entirely, her soul mending where the awful presence was once absent. It would take some team before she could fully heal something so intangible and important, but it would be worth it.
As she held the jutsu, she felt her own aether shimmer and contort as it was scoured of evil presence. There was no screaming, no pain, no existential agony. The “beast” had been starved and subdued for so long, it was barely noticeable any longer. Even Varajahl had mentioned that at that rate, it would likely die out completely. Though it left an odd vacancy within her, she had begun to feel better and more herself day by day.
By the time she was dressed and ready to leave, it was just two bells before the duel. The sun was already setting, and she had little time for a potential last meal. She stopped in Kugane for a bite to eat, though it was light, and then moved on to the Ruby Sea for warm-up exercises. It was there, on that islet where she had spent so much time training to make herself better, that she remained until the last half-bell remained, and she left her training ground behind her.
All she could hope was that this night would not be her last.
Some rumors have been flying around from the edges of Eorzea about a new kind of Thavnairian magic, a caster who can wield the power of the enemies they fight called a ‘blue mage’, though its connection to the primary color seems inexplicable at best.
Noted scholar of Nymian magic, the tonberry Luccio Accuccio, seemed displeased with the evolution of magic since the fall of Nym in the War of the Magi. “In my day, magic was Black and White,” she commented, disparagingly. “Now you’re telling me the outside world has Red and Blue magic too? What’s next? Green Mages?”
Accuccio was also unimpressed with the methods these rumored Blue Mages employ, calling the idea of learning the aetheric construction of an ability by being exposed to it ‘masochist magic’ that was worse than Allagan arcanima requiring exposure to Primals.
“As a trained healer of Nym, I’m worried for the mental health of these Blue Mages,” the tiny green lizard told Crucible, in a in a bout of judgment and smug, scaly superiority borne of confidence in his own magical desires and spite for those of the degenerate others. “And as a tonberry I’m even gladder I never leave the Wanderer’s Palace.”
Actual mages of blue dispute Accuccio’s assessment of their art as masochistic.
“Eh? N-no no. You misunderstand, yes?” said aspiring Blue Mage and probably-not-masochist Jace Hunter. “I've heard of three methods! One, being hit in order to understand the ability fully. Two, simple observations, yes? And three, which is perhaps the most disliked method that hasn't fully been proven: imbibing the essence of a beast.”
But there’s absolutely nothing kinky about being hit by something and imbibing its essence.
While he hasn’t been able to actually practice the craft, Hunter hopes to give up his blue virginity soon, as he intends to learn the more intricate and specific details of the craft from someone more versed in the craft than he.
Hunter, who assures the Crucible that he is one of the greatest minds in the realm [EDITOR’S NOTE: SECOND-GREATEST MIND], wasn’t aware of why the art was called ‘blue magic’. He suggested that ‘beast magic’ was probably more apropos, but was also partial to the idea of calling it ‘gold magic’. That will certainly catch on.
The ‘gold mages’ – because it will catch on – have some strong support among the aetherological community, because they apply their magic to further the studying of magic. The kinky, kinky, studying of magic.
“It may take days, even years, for one to fully understand a spell's aetherial makeup, but a blue mage may hasten the process by taking upon a sample of this aether upon themselves,” said Equinox aetherologist Lycelle Astarinn.
“Such a style however requires one with excellent fortitude - what doesn't kill you may make you stronger, but that's no use if it does kill you, doesn't it?”
Astarinn admitted that absolutely sounded more than a little like masochism, but added; “all adventurers have their own battle scars - it's just that they get theirs very differently.”
As to why it is called blue magic - or gold magic, if you're so bold! - Astarinn has a few theories. Maybe, she guesses, it comes from drawing their spells from the deep blue sea and the limitless blue sky.
"Or perhaps they're just running out of colors to use."
Written by freelancer Maxe Sahashin, who thinks all your kinks are valid but will not sleep with you if you know the spell Bad Breath.
NOW FIGHTING: The Immortals, a trio of strange and powerful foreigners, newly introduced to the Pit for crimes against Ul’dah! Wielding scimitars and strange magic never-before-seen in Eorzea, these are matches not to be missed!
The silver-blonde miqo’te stared down at the poster in her black-gloved hands, icy eyes peering from behind rimless glasses with a thoughtful stare as she looked upon the picture ringed by the advertisement for the Colosseum. Three men garbed in blue and gold, posing with their scimitars, looking particularly frightening behind the veiled turbans they wore. It was doubtlessly a portrait of the Immortals from whom she’d fled not a week ago. Her heart caught in her throat.
Hali had just barely escaped death at the hands of the vengeful Immortals after she betrayed them and fled their initiation - or brainwashing, to be more succinct - ritual within the crypts of Tam-tara. She had no intention of ever returning to the Immortals for any reason. Anything else she needed, she’d figure out on her own. They’d given her the single best, most solid, lead into her magic - *blue magic* - that she’d ever received.
All the same, she laid in her bed at the Gold & Glory company house, peering up at the poster above her head, her cat, Finn, purring softly beside her, curled up against her side. She couldn’t help but sigh, feeling intrusive thoughts become compulsions. She wanted to go, to gloat over them, to turn the tables. But she also wanted to help. They may have had... questionable intent, but they did help her, and she betrayed them. Guilt was ever a heavy burden for the young woman.
“Hells,” was the only word she muttered before easing up and out of bed, Finn waking and sitting up to stare at her with a look imploring her to stay. She smiled, giving her beloved little companion a soft hug and whispering, “It’s okay, baby. I’ll be back in a little bit.”
With a kiss planted on the confused cat’s head, she got up and readied herself to go. Ul’dah was all stone with some limited metal, and so would be easy enough to sneak through with her Burrow spell. She had grown quite fond of it, honing it to the point where she was able to slip through the earth with ease, and it would serve her well, here.
Once in the city, she made her way to a secluded corner of a back alley, a moko cigarette lit and, unfortunately, creating a bit of a draw for shadier folk, one of whom approached her, only to be left in a state of panic and confusion when she smiled confidently over her shoulder and simply walked into the stone wall with a parting wave.
All she had to do was focus on the Beast within her to seek out the others... and felt the Beast within them roaring in anger and rebellion, even from the city’s streets. It caused her stomach to turn and her heart to race. When finally she found the three, she found them in ragged, tattered prisoner’s clothes, looking altogether ill, if not dying as they struggled against the raging tempest inside of them all.
Easing from the wall, she found a glare levelled at her from the one sitting on the floor, though he had no time to speak before she was noticed by the man she’d come to identify as, their all-too-likely leader, who spoke in a weak, raspy tone, “The Vessel returns to us.”
Hali, her nerves calmed by the moko, though perhaps a bit too much so, found herself a little overconfident in the presence of men who could still likely tear her limb from limb, and said with a smirk, “Well, I’d heard you encountered some problems, and I thought it might be appropriate if I made up for what I’d done before by getting you three out of here.”
“We do not need help from *Outsiders*,” the glaring man spat, his eyes never once leaving her.
Hali, in return, looked about the cell, then noted their state - likely rendering them incapable of utilising their magic after so long like this - before speaking again, “I have a feeling you do before... whatever it is, the “Beast,” I guess, eats you alive from within or... whatever it does. Besides, like I said, I’m offering help both to atone and as thanks. ”
“It will consume you, too. You will not thank us, then,” the leader rasped. The third among them lay near him, against the wall, his breathing heavy and laboured. He had barely the strength to speak, but watched the conversation.
Hali shrugged, shaking her head and saying confidently, “Well, as of right now, I’m still far better off than you three. The way I see it, you’ve a choice: accept my help or be consumed. Or die. That could happen too, I guess. Still... what *happened* to you?”
“You are a traitor,” the glaring man spat.
“Am I, though?” she asked, giving him a smile in response, “Your demands of loyalty came too late and too forced. My loyalty belongs to others already, and I would not betray those I already have in place.
The leader seemed to ruminate on that for a moment before speaking again, pushing himself from the single bed in the cell and speaking, “We are deprived of our armour. It contains the Beast and allows us to focus our magic.” He paused and frowned, “We will accept the Vessel’s aid. We cannot serve the Empress here. To remain is failure.”
Hali looked between the two others for their reaction to the statements of the first. The man sitting beside the bed, against the wall, she recognised, was the one who had had trouble containing the Beast twice already. He looked down and closed his eyes. She couldn’t tell if he was too weak to speak, at first, until he did, revealing his indecision.
“I...” On one side of him, he was met with the withering glare that had been directed at Hali, and on their other, the tired, but commanding expression of the other fixed upon him.
The leader spoke once more, “We will accept.” This earned a hiss of protestation from the third who directed his glare to the commanding man, though it was rebuffed as Hali was addressed again, “The Vessel shall aid us.”
The miqo’te shrugged and nodded. That was the plan, after all.
“I will strike a deal with whomever holds you here as slaves. A trial by combat against whatever he deems fitting for the four of us. Should we lose, he will gain me and a sizeable sum of gil from mine own pocket,” she explained, “But we shan’t lose. Do you... need me to get your armour, by the way?”
“We are *not slaves*,” protested the glaring man, “We are *Immortals*.”
This went ignored as the first spoke up once more, “No, we are returned it when we fight. Act quickly, however.” Hali nodded and, beginning to channel her *Burrow* spell again, sunk into the stone wall to the sound of the bickering in her absence about weakness and outsiders.
After a bit of poking about, she found the Immortals’ armour, kept in a chest in the backroom of what she could only assume was the office of the pit boss who held them. She emerged silently outside of the door and knocked before being gruffly admitted.
“The hells? I’m not exactly fond of unannounced-” he paused when Hali became visible in the doorway, closing the steel door behind her with a clank, then changed his tune dramatically, “Well, well. Who’s this? I don’t remember ordering a courtesan, but I’ll take you, even if you’re a little... fat for my tastes.”
The lecherous older Hellsguard man’s chortling caused Hali’s stomach to turn, but she spoke calmly nonetheless, “Sorry to disappoint, but I’ve come with an offer, instead, though it may work in your favour. I see you have three foreigners in your possession. They interest me. I would do battle alongside them to test myself in the Colosseum against the strongest combatant you have.”
The man wrinkled his nose and scowled, “And what makes this worthwhile for me?”
She smiled, saying simply, “Should I fall at all during the fight, I am yours and the foreigners, too, remain yours, as does the approximately thirty-three thousand gil in my possession.” She was met by a torrent of spittle as he began laughing raucously.
“You’re confident, wench, but you’ve got nothing to show for it! How’s about this: you get yourself a gladiator’s outfit from one of my boys, and I’ll give you a fair shot,” he sneered. Hali nodded and, without a word, strode out, accompanied by a smaller, younger Roegadyn who looked a bit nervous.
“Let’s get you suited up, I guess,” he said, “I hope you know what you’re doing.” Hali simply smiled in return as they walked.
Eventually, they entered a store room where she was outfitted with gladiator’s gear that most nearly-matched that of the Immortals’ own armour: a chain-underlaid blue tunic, steel facemask and iron gauntlets and greaves. Soon after, she was rushed to the arena, where an expedited match would soon begin.
Upon entering the fighters’ room where the Immortals were held, the man who had been glaring at her did so once more with a newfound ferocity, “You mock us?!”
Hali rolled her eyes and shook her head, voice muffled by the stifling facemask that constantly pushed her glasses up her nose uncomfortably, “No, they outfitted me with this so people know we’re on the same team.”
A harrumph was all that she was given in response before the leader turned and admonished him, “This is our way to freedom. We serve nothing by being here. Enough.”
The man’s anger was hardly quelled by the scolding and he shot back, “I will follow you, but know that I see you as weak for this.”
The leader turned and looked to Hali, “I hope you are ready, then.” She nodded just in time for the room to quake and rumble, a bit of stone dislodging from the ceiling and very nearly striking the miqo’te on the head.
The crowd cheered, and the roar of a beast from outside caught their attention as they were called out to face it. When they exited into the arena, the portcullis falling behind them, they were met with a massive ogre, its horns and hands blazing. However, the three looked unimpressed.
The leader asked quietly, “This is it?” After a moment, the beast began to charge, prompting the Immortals and Hali to retaliate.
Flames flew every which way, causing the amateur swordswoman a deal of grief. While the Immortals did battle the the raging beast, she focused on the sprites that it began to draw, cutting them down as they floated slowly through the air and began charging with flame to belch out upon the four.
The fight didn’t last long at all, much to the displeasure of the crowd, who began booing and jeering, some even throwing objects into the ring. The ogre fell as its skull was sundered by a scimitar, and landed with a sickly thud. They were escorted from the arena by the younger Roegadyn from before, who shielded his own head from the debris and the crowd’s ire.
“The boss isn’t happy about this,” he said nervously, “I-I don’t suppose any of you would uh, consider a career here, eh?” His question was met with a mix of glares and impassiveness.
“No thanks,” Hali said first, “I already have a contract elsewhere.”
“We will have our freedom,” said the leader. Though the Roegadyn attempted to persuade them further, he was shot down repeatedly, eventually, gesturing to them to show them that they were free to go.
Once outside, back on the streets of Ul’dah, Hali’s eyes stung as the harsh desert sunlight hit them. She squinted about as the leader of the three approached behind her.
“We have our freedom, and you will be rewarded. Follow,” he said, and the three began to walk, surrounding her in order to shepherd her along.
Doubts raced through her mind, and she wasn’t sure if she could escape this time if they proved to be trying to kidnap her, but she went along with it. Eventually, they came to the markets, and the man at the head of the party summoned a young retainer, who bore a package. Handing it over to her, he smiled beneath the veil for the first time she had ever seen.
“You have done well. Go forth and devour your enemies,” he said, offering the package out to her. She balked at first, but accepted it. The other two remained completely silent before the three Immortals and their retainer simply vanished.
Hali was left standing in the street for a moment with her package, staring down at it, but she ultimately resolved to return to her home at the company house first before indulging herself.
Once home, she closed and locked her door, setting the package on the desk. Finn was quick to hop up onto it to sniff curiously and persistently as Hali returned to her favoured state of dress: a large shirt and no pants. She sat down at the desk and began unwrapping it once the cat had been cleared of the desk, and when she pulled the contents free, she stared.
In her hands was the armour of an Immortal. The blue robe, turban and veil, and all the trappings otherwise. She could feel a power emanating from it, almost as if it called to her. Hastily, she donned the garments, putting her hair up and running to the mirror. As she did, she began to feel different.
The constant pain and anguish that had wracked her so, to which she’d sadly had to simply adapt, faded to nearly nothing. The protestations and angry roars of the Beast within her were as a distant echo. In their place, however, she felt power flow through her, something focusing from within her very soul, strengthening her body and mind both.
This was it. The power of a Blue Mage - of an Immortal - was truly hers.
The final trial lay before her. Standing in the middle of the Shroud, having walked some ways from Bentbranch along the familiar old paths to the south, she stood outside of the Tam-tara Deepcroft. She had been here many times before the calamity, both as a child venturing from her clan to explore a dangerous area on her own, and as a young woman with no where else to go, seeking solace and shelter within it depths.
She’d learned how to skirt the beasts and other less-natural dangers that lurked within, always making use of passages hidden the stone work between the crypts and long-robbed graves where the great stone caskets could be used for hiding. It was a strange feeling, returning here, like returning to an old home that was rotting and falling apart from the inside out, but was even worse years later.
The Immortals awaited her inside - all three of them - and as Hali approached, she had their full attention, causing her just a slight bit of discomfort, unlike the first time she had been surrounded and questioned. This time, the three stood at the crypt’s doors, before they spoke, each in turn.
“Sky.”
“Flame.”
“Gale.”
“Stone.”
“Spring.”
“We stand before you as those who hold the only key to unlocking your potential.”
“Naturally, this power comes at a price.”
“Something precious will be lost to you.”
“Though... you may not even notice it is missing.”
Hali’s heart began to beat faster in her chest as the three alternated these obviously-practised lines without pause. They continued.
“If you are willing to pay the price...”
“If you truly desire the power that a blue mage wields...”
They all spoke at once, extending their hands, though the man in the middle did so directly Hali, the other two directing her forward, “Take our hand.”
Swallowing hard, the young miqo’te thought for only a brief moment. Blue Mages. That was it: blue magic. She’d never heard the term, but she was so close she could feel it.
“Down the rabbit hole, then,” she said, walking up to take the man’s hand. It closed tightly around hers, and as if all at once, she found herself inside the crypts, standing with the three at her back, her hands freed and her mind screaming at the presence, the feeling, of creatures all through the crypts that were never here before, wretched things whose aether twisted and churned chaotically.
“You will make your way through the failed, the offal, and when you have consumed their essence, your trial will be complete, and you will take the final step,” the man instructed, before he vanished. The other two stepped up beside her.
“I shall assist you.”
“As shall I.”
They drew their weapons, and departed down the hall, Hali following after, checking the contents of her belt and pouches to make sure she was prepared for whatever might happen. She had two cigarettes, but didn’t need them yet. Ink, her quill, her grimoire and a notebook hanging in their sling at her hip, her engraved dagger beside the one Kel had given her during their training session, and two grenades: a flashbang grenade and a smoke grenade, both of which she kept in case of an emergency where she needed to make an escape. She prayed she wouldn’t have to here.
Drawing upon the power the Beast within herself to fight, she cut down what appeared to be the shambling, lifeless corpses of those who had died all within some scant few months, some even days. Many of them were ravenous, running at her and screaming, arms flailing. Some were deformed, faces grotesque, bearing hideous malformations, hands turned into claws, and some only partially. The further she went, the more she wondered if they were even truly dead.
The three proceeded farther and farther down, thunderous reports signalling another of the surprisingly weak, but ferocious former-spoken blasted into gory chunks by Ruinbolts. With each one she killed, she felt reinvigorated. It was nowhere near the exhilaration and unbridled ecstasy of taking in a new ability or creature, but it helped keep her moving at a pace which would have normally winded her after just a few minutes.
When they reached where the third Immortal awaited, he stood behind a stone altar, stained with fresh blood, gore caking the base, and several bottles of alchemical fluids of some unknown kind resting on the edge toward him. The two with Hali approached the altar and stood to either side, and the one behind it looked to her.
“The Vessel has one final question from each Immortal. Ask,” he commanded, and Hali nodded slowly, mulling over what would be best to pursue here, at the end.
“What are the Immortals?” she asked, frowning slightly. She didn’t yet understand this, and if they wanted to make one of her, it’d be best to know.
The one in the centre spoke, arrogantly as before, “Immortals are undying soldiers with unmatched power, created from empty Vessels. Like you.”
She frowned in consternation, the last words her spoke ringing with an ominous, almost wicked tone in her head. She turned to the right to face one of the others, and asked, “What is the difference between a blue mage and an Immortal?”
The man’s eyes crinkled around edges as if he smiled wryly, answering vaguely, “Immortals serve the Dynasty.” His tone and words seemed to imply that one needn’t be an Immortal to be a blue mage, and Hali’s heart raced for a moment, feeling like a puzzle piece she’d long sought had fallen into place, paving the way for the others to follow.
She nodded, taking a long breath and sighing it out to calm her nerves before she looked to the last, on the left, asking warily, “What happens now?”
The man gestured toward the altar, “You will become an Immortal. Your mind, body, and soul will belong to the Dynasty to serve alongside us, and to gain untold power.”
Think...
Her mind raced, and for a moment, all was chaos. All at once, the desire to keep going with her mission of becoming one of them disintegrated, her determination giving way to fear. For a moment, her mind was clear, and something began to make sense - far too much sense.
They weren’t practised lines. They weren’t naturally that in-tune with one another. Their cold, impassive personalities were not natural. Their loyalties were absolute, their power far greater than hers. However this happened, she would be made the same. She would lose herself. She would be nothing more than a mindless drone. She wouldn’t care anymore, not about finding her answers, or becoming better, or even about Finn, or Kel, or her friends, or anything that mattered to her. She wouldn’t notice because the ability to do so would be taken.
The thought galled and horrified her as it settled in her mind, and she heard one last question, asked by the man in the middle, “Do you feel any regrets in your decision?”
She willed her face into that steely look of determination again, even as her heart raced and the Beast inside screamed to flee, to kill, to die, to do anything else, and she said, “No.”
“Then approach,” was the response to her own, and the man gestured with both arms for her to lie on the altar.
She approached, one hand hooked in her belt, close to the pin of the flashbang grenade on it. She couldn’t outrun them. She couldn’t fight them. But she was surrounded by stone and earth, all in a place that had been familiar to her since childhood. She had that advantage, and with a head-start, she would press it as far as it would go. Her life was not worth answers if the answers would be meaningless once she got them.
Standing atop the altar, she acted quickly, pulling pin on the grenade and tossing it atop the altar before focusing inward and Burrowing down through the stone and earth at her feet amidst the surprised and angry yells of the Immortals around her.
She fled toward the deeper reaches of the crypts, seeking the passages she’d once called her home, far beyond the will of the Wood Wailers and those who might do her harm for taking up residence in such a place. Emerging into the old stone tunnels, she was relieved to see them still mostly intact, though somewhat muddy. With hastened steps, she began jogging down the corridor to keep from tiring herself out too quickly.
A shouting caught her attention some minutes later, causing her to duck into one of the rooms nearby. She knew this room - one of the four stone caskets here was emptied long ago, perfect for hiding away, its entirety atop the rotted wooden planks upon which it had been dragged in, leaving it unreachable by a Burrow spell. With some effort, she prised it open with a soft scraping of stone, and leapt in, closing herself in it, her breathing shallow and panicked, heart racing faster than it ever had before.
As the three exited their own Burrow spell, trailing hers, they yelled to one another in their native tongue, each of them running off in separate directions, but one came close, stumbling and collapsing outside of the room in which her grim hiding place was located.
Hear...
She frowned, gritting her teeth. The situation truly had gone from bad to worse. Though she didn’t recognise their tongue or what, exactly, they said, something gave her the feeling that she knew what it was they meant.
“She knows too much!”
“Don’t let her escape!”
“Kill her if you must!”
She gritted her teeth and suppressed the urge to whine in distress, controlling her breathing, even as she tried to catch her breath from running and moving the heavy casket lid. It was all she could do to stay still and silent, eyes slammed shut, fists balled and quivering in panic.
A grunt had the man nearest her hiding place collapse in a heap in the doorway, and she clenched her teeth as she waited to hear what would happen next, ears twitching and perking to try and pick out the sounds from outside her stone prison. The Immortal growled, then screamed, a voice she knew as the one who she had pulled from the edge at the Lighthouse. Following the scream, however, was something entirely different. A roar, not unlike some great monster, came from the same direction, and she froze, taking in a sharp breath.
Foreign words caught her attention next as another of the men showed up, questioning him. After a moment, the sound of his scimitar being drawn reverberated in the cavern, leaving Hali to deliberate her next course of action. She could help the man again, but not only was she outmatched just one-on-one, there was no guarantee she would only be faced with one adversary. Even a surprise attack could end in failure, and the man she wished to aid could easily turn on her anyway. Worse, that monstrous noise could have been him. If he was succumbing to that Beast of which they spoke, would he become something even worse? What if she saved him and gained his support, but he turned later?
Her choice was made for her in her anxiety, and she laid as still as the corpses and bones in the other caskets, just waiting for the worst to pass. Eventually, words were bounced back and forth between the two men, and with a grunt of exertion, she heard the other rise to his feet and the scimitar sheathed. Footsteps, heavy and rapid, heralded the departure of the two Immortals, the third nowhere to be found from what she could pick out.
There was no better chance. Two rooms down was a passage that she could use to span the gap between that level and one farther up in a tenth of the time it would take the Immortals to navigate the Deepcroft. She carefully and quietly slid the stone casket’s lid open, the sound of scraping stone just barely audible outside the room, and, climbing out, ran for the passage, ducking into it behind a standing casket and crawling her way up and along the narrow path, likely dug out by some animal long ago. It was dry and dusty, and, by the time she emerged, was covered in dirt, but she got up to the top level of the Deepcroft and ran for the exit.
“Kel? Kel...?! Please, anyone,” she practically cried in the company linkshell, remembering, finally, that she had it.
“Hali? What’s wrong? Where are you?” her Doman friend answered, sounding concerned.
“They... they’re Immortals. Blue Mages. Or something. And-and.... they’re brainwashing people! A-and they tried with me and I ran. But I... I um... I-I’m in the Shroud. Running. Um. Bentbranch, I’m... I’m going there,” she responded, her words failing her, and no time or breath to stop and smoke.
When she reached Bentbranch, however, she ducked down behind the aetheryte plaza’s wooden walls and whined in panic. Amidst the crowd, the third Immortal stood by the aetheryte, peering about, waiting for her. By some luck, she’d gone unnoticed.
She ducked away, running for Gridania and crying into her linkpearl, “There’;s one in Bentbranch...! I-I-”
“Head for Gridania. Keep to crowded areas. I will meet you on the path,” Kel instructed calmly. She kept running, breath running perilously short, and the Beast within her had begun to scream against her again, raging at her for her fear, her weakness, her very existence. Fight, run, kill, die, die, die.
She collapsed on the path, glasses stained with tears and the beginnings of a light rain, just in time to see Kel dashing down the path, faster than she thought the similarly-heavyset doctor was wont to be. The Beast raged again, and brought her to her hands and knees from her kneeling position and she rasped breathlessly.
“Shut up... shutup, just... no...”
Kel gave her a look as she approached, shaking her head, “Hali. It’s okay. I’m here. Are they following you?” It took everything in her to breathe, and shaking her head was a barely perceptible motion, but the Raen noticed and nodded, “Good. Catch your breath, and let’s be off once you are recovered.”
Hali nodded weakly in return and, gathering her wits and taking a deep breath, she pushed herself, looking right at Kel. This is what she would’ve given up: her best friend - the only friend with whom she’d grown so close and knew she could rely on. She wasn’t willing to lose that. Not if she could become better on her own.
No, not on her own. She had friends to fall back on, and if she had her way, always would.
