Hydaelyn Role-Players

A damn need to be a hero.

That thought sunk into his head when he watched her pass him with a glare that seemed to Ryanti like a light that was fizzling out. He remembered one other time that he was lectured in this manner. It was from his mother, years back at the time of the Calamity. She had chastised him for trying to abandon his home to join the city in defending itself against the horde that had unleashed itself upon Dalamund's wake. But Sounsyy was a good fifteen or so years younger than his mother.

She seemed so convinced of herself. So sure that she understood what the banter between Ryanti and his commanding officer meant. So set in how their unit functioned. Ryanti had offered respect to her as far back as challenging her for the first time. Hell, even before then when she was fighting in Ul'Dah.

And she treated him like garbage in return. Like a child. Like he was still that little kid cheering her on from the Bloodsands when he was now a man in his twenties. Yet she didn't want him to leave her now. He figured she could do all of this by herself from the way she was talking. Ol' experienced iron eyes.

"What were yer first clue."

It was a statement that broke Ryanti out of his negative trance. He eyed her afterwords as her gaze adverted his own. He had a hint of legitimate surprise on his face, immediately picking up the rhetorical content of the statement. Wait... was she really? Truthfully, this ship was imperiously taxing on both of their psyche. The darkness in this place had been so long abandoned that the very walls seemed to close in on you and suffocate you. Ryanti had yet to determine whether or not this was actually the ship itself doing it.

But... was she really?

My first clue was your dream. Your dream I invaded.

Ryanti was scared of this hallway too. Scared of this entire ship. That realization brought his thoughts to perspective. All of these angry thoughts, this urge to lash out... was just stupid. It was all just stupid. He wasn't sure who was right, or who was wrong, or if it even mattered.

With her admittance, he also chimed in. "I'm scared. Yes. Very." He stated in a bit of a tight voice, approaching her with his rifle pointed more towards the room in question. His fair skin was very bright against Sounsyy's light, reflecting a big part of it back at the very peculiar patterns along the walls. He stepped up parallel to her, glancing into the room, but seeing nothing but darkness where he was, although he could pick out some odd shapes close to the wall.

"Look... I'm sorry, alright?" He finally murmured, though he did not glance at the woman completely, still minorly focused on his own task. "I'm sorry I made you go through that, for leaving you behind, and... for whatever else I did."

With that, he lifted one leg at a time over the bit of debris that had piled up against the open part of the door, kicking the half-open panel open a little bit further, causing it to squeak in a quiet noise but nothing further. The ship remained silent.

There were a bunch more glass pieces on the floor of this room. Tables were still erect and hugged against the side walls, about 5 fulms in length and 2 in width per table, totaling four tables. It was a small-ish room, and many delicate instruments were absolutely coated in dust and far beyond their usefulness or even being safe to wield. These instruments were sprawled along the top of the tables, and a decent amount had fallen to the floor and broken. There were some larger machines further back, bent and twisted in misuse and what could only be attributed as pressure changes in the air from the past centuries.

A lone glass window was at the farthest edge of the room. Bubbles from the deep ocean traced themselves along the glass, visible by Ryanti's light. The fact that this glass stayed intact for so long spoke volumes, especially at this pressure. But it was meant for space, so it held steady. "Must have been some kind of processing room. There are beakers here... maybe they were testing liquids. Looks like these machines were used to mix them."

Just then, two sparks shot off in the room. They were minor electrical charges that short-circuited exposed wired in an open ventilation shaft near the top corner of the room. Ryanti immediately pointed his light at it with breakneck speed, seeing nothing but observing a definite place where something could sit down and... watch.

"I don't like that vent..."

"I'm sorry I made you go through that, for leaving you behind, and... for whatever else I did."

Sounsyy made a small 'hmph'ing noise as Ryanti moved past her and climbed into the darkened cell. Her light shimmered down the abandoned corridor but fell on nothing sinister in the shadows. After another quick pass she climbed into the cell after Ryanti.

Sounsyy found herself in a tiny room with several tables and instruments she did not understand. Shattered glass, test tubes, syringes - or rather what may have at one time been syringes. She moved to one of the tables and tenderly lifted one of the aged instruments between her thumb and forefinger to examine it. After five-and-a-half-thousand years even the gentle pressure disintegrated the artifact into crumbs in her cupped palm.

Sounsyy breathed out a slow, "Shite," as she brushed the dust off her hands. She looked about the room, catching the sight of the window to the outside world shimmering under Ryanti's torchlight. She looked quickly away, fearful to gaze overlong into that abyss.

"Ain't entirely yer fault," she said in answer to his apology at long last. Her eyes were averted and she began visiting each of the tables to see what implements they might have once held. "The circumstances we met under. I ain't the most trustin' person at meh bes-"

TZZZT! PZTT!

Both Sounsyy and Ryanti whipped around to face the crackle of energy snapping through broken powerlines. It was as if this ship was trying to revive itself, but was too weak. Too far gone, though it kept limping on in the attempt after all these years. Ryanti's light fell upon the source, two exposed wires poking out of an air vent whose grate had long since warped.

"I don't like that vent..."
"I'll check it," Sounsyy said emotionless. She shuffled over to the underside of the vent with rifle raised and shone her light upwards. Seeing nothing, she lowered her rifle and slung it over her back. She selected the nearest table and began dragging it so that it sat directly beneath the air vent. It made a screeching noise as it slid by its hind legs that seemed unbearably loud within the small room.

She placed a hesitant heel upon one corner of the table, testing its sturdiness before climbing on top of it completely. The table wobbled some, but held despite its protesting creeks and groans. The captain gave a quick sigh of relief before erecting slowly from her knees to a standing position. On top of the table she could just reach the bottom of the grate. Her nine fingers eased carefully in between the empty spaces, careful not to touch the wires. With a few sharp tugs downwards, the grate broke free, sending fragments of broken screws skittering and tinkering across the room. Sounsyy knelt down and gently set the grate to one side of her table, picking up her rifle and shining the light up into the air duct. All that moved in the light was the shimmering of dust that had been unsettled.

"Looks like enough space to crawl up into," she reported, almost to herself more so than Ryanti. She looked blankly at Ryanti, unsure if the fear bubbling beneath the surface of her expression was visible. "I'll let an ankle dangle."

She slipped her rifle's strap off of her shoulders and laid the weapon on top of the table next to the grate. She didn't want to risk it getting caught or lodged in the narrow passageway if she needed to make a hasty retreat.

With a delicate sweep of her hand Sounsyy brushed away the once-live wires to one corner of the vent. With a path cleared, she reached her arms up over her head and took hold of one side of the opening and pulled herself up and into the vent with some effort, her legs kicking out a little after she was halfway up into the vent to give her momentum to get her knee up over the side.

She knelt inside the air duct on one foot, her right leg dangling down into the cell below from about the knee down. The thin metal groaned under her weight as she shifted a bit to keep her balance on one leg. In front of her lay an empty stretch of ducting, coated with dust, with little rivulets of disturbance over the years leaving variations in the thickness of the dusty coat. She tried not to cough and buried her mouth and nose into the inside of her elbow. A musty stench emanated from somewhere in the airway as if something had lived in it and died in it. She gave a soft cough of disgust into her arm and turned away from the smell to the other side of the shaft.

This side was coated much the same as the first, but the torchlight flashed against several white striations that were not present on the other side. She withdrew her arm from her face and reached out to wipe away the dust. In the metal were long, white scratch marks that disappeared down the long shaft. The cleaned area beneath Sounsyy's outstretched hand sported five semi-parallel marks running side by side into the darkness. Sounsyy splayed her fingers apart to find that the claw marks were similar distance apart. Someone had been dragged through this vent...

Sounsyy lifted her torchlight so that its light shimmered further down the hallway. She found more furious scratches several fulms down the tube, as if something had thrashed wildly against its course. There was a narrow, dark streak in the midst of the scratching. Black and stained into the metal. Was that blood or... rust?

"Seventy-seven...?" Sounsyy whispered nervously, unsure of what to make of the stain. Below her she heard the sound of her partner carefully mounting the tabletop. Her eyes were fixed ahead of her, scanning the far end of the shaft for signs of movement.

"Here, trade places with meh, there's somethin' at the end of tha-"

But then another loud clamor deep within the ship that echoed down the air vent, reverberating within Sounsyy's eardrums. She shut her eyes as if it would dull out the volume but she missed the subtle hiss of the wires coming to life or the flickering of lightning aspect leaping across the wires.

Sounsyy felt a pair of strong hands grab her by her ankle and calf and yank her out of the vent. She screamed and toppled off balance and crashed into Ryanti below. The ancient table gave way under their weight and the pair crashed into the ground, splaying across the dust and cloudy glass. Sounsyy had tried to curl into a ball, but the jarring force of the fall flailed her outwards as she rolled out of Ryanti's embrace. She had landed atop the Miqo'te and crushed the wind out of him when they crumpled to the floor.

When Sounsyy had pushed the wires to one side before her climb, their frayed ends had come close enough to connect and in a brilliant surge of ultraviolet light, the cell was lit before flickering. The hot wires sparked and sizzled angrily from sudden use, burning off all of the dust that had collected upon them over the centuries.

In the brief flashes of light, Ryanti found himself laying amidst a cell full of ancient Allagan writing and archaic formulaes. They coated the walls of the lab, angry scribbling of bygone equations that did or did not work to improve human life. The symbols burning and sizzling for Ryanti to remember what had been forgotten. But when darkness fell upon the room, the symbols were too pale and aged to be seen beneath the dust and shroud of darkness. Only in the pale blue light of the Allagans did the writing shine true.

Sounsyy, who had pulled herself away from Ryanti, did not see the symbols for her eyes were fixed upon the ruined remains of that table and that open segment of air duct. A soft river of dust floated lazily out of the vent upon the remains. When the lights flickered on, she witnessed another dark stain upon the floor beneath that vent that they had failed to notice upon entering. They had been too busy shining their lights upon the tables or at the walls to notice the stain that had collected in the very corner of the flooring. Something unmistakable as blood.

With a start Sounsyy bolted upright onto her hands and knees. Something had been in that vent! Something had pulled some hapless victim up from the ground and dragged him down that vent to his death - or so the wild ravings playing inside the captain's mind thought. Sounsyy was hissing with increasing conviction, "Get out, get out, get out, get out," as she tripped over her own feet as she moved towards her rifle.

"Come on!" She pleaded as she pulled at Ryanti's suit, but kept moving towards the doorway. She toppled out of it and into the hallway. The lights flickered once more, blinding her some as the hallway shimmered to life, and then the power gave out completely, sending everything back into complete blackness. Sounsyy had pushed her back tightly against the wall just to the left of the opening, panting heavily in the darkness. She no longer felt entirely alone. The very darkness seemed to seep into her suit.

"A-are you okay?!" she called out fearfully into the dark.

“I’ll check it.”

The young man shifted his eyes to her with an immediate look of concern upon his face as his gaze grew still and his posture shifted in a more tense fashion than before. The air was so still in that room. Ryanti could trace his breath in the midst of the dust particles among his torchlight, which now momentarily shined on Sounsyy’s form.

He continued to hold his rifle up pointed towards the door. The cold steel of the gun’s make was beginning to feel more moist and damp because of the sweat coming from Ryanti’s palms. “Are you sure?” He murmured to her, but already knew the answer to that question. It was best that they leave no stone unturned in this ship, and Ryanti knew that his fear was playing with him by trying to make it okay for his conscious to prefer ignorance to anything that could be in there.

Ryanti’s tail and ears tensed up and he clenched his teeth and shut his eyes tightly when he heard the loud screeches of the table moving. The sound permeated throughout the room in the all too silent ship, bouncing off of the walls in the hallway and echoing down the corridor. At least out of the most mysterious noises they have heard so far, this noise had an explanation to it, but Ryanti couldn’t help but think that now that they were making their own noise, the rest of the entire ship knew they had… intruders.

With a few steps, he aligned himself with Sounsyy’s position, briefly looking up at her dark form on top of the eons-old piece of furniture. He flinched retroactively at all of the loose screws that broke free from the grating, tiny Allagan pieces of work sprinkling over his form and causing him to wipe his shoulder and a few other spots to clear himself of the rubble and dust.

“Looks like it’s enough space to crawl up into.” She said.

Ryanti’s grip on his rifle tightened. Checking out the inside of paneling like that with the enormous chance of electric shock was a terrifying risk to take. But it would but one of many crazy risks they would have to take on this trial by fire inside of the derelict ship. He returned her glance with one of his own, with concern forefronting to the surface, whether it be because of him sensing her fear or projecting his own.

“I’ll let an ankle dangle.”

“Please be careful.”

Ryanti had a little taste of Sounsyy’s prior loneliness after she had grabbed onto the grating and kicked away to pull herself up. There was a primal fear deep inside of him that she would suddenly be whisked away from him, never to return and leaving him by himself in this place. A heated feeling of guilt coursed through the young man’s body. He would not leave her again. Even for a moment. The young man timidly placed his rifle down on its side next to hers, letting out a few breaths of exertion as he slowly climbed himself upon the ancient table, the legs wobbling a little bit when he tried to stand. Ryanti weighed more than Sounsyy, so he was afraid the slightest movement could send the table crumbling to dust.

“Seventy-seven…?”

“Yeah?.. What is it?” Ryanti said back to her. Despite him being below her and not in the duct with her, his voice sounded just as loud as if he was right next to her. He had already placed both of his hands right outside of her dangling right leg, as if he was ready at any moment to grab onto her leg and pull with all of his might if one of the thousands of ways this could go wrong came true.

He remembered she said something about trading places, about something literally being there with her in the vent. But that was all that he could recall. His eyes were wandering around outside of Sounsyy’s vision in places he could afford to see from the vantage point of where he was. When the clamor happened deep within the ship’s bowels, Ryanti was not exposed to the true nature of the sound like she was. It allowed him to pick up on a subtle noise. It sounded like a tiny buzz, almost like the sound of white noise that quickly increased in volume. It was actually the sound of electrical current bouncing off of two ends of exposed wire that threatened to get too close.

It was then that it all clicked together in Ryanti’s mind. The very deep bowels of this ship… even after all this time… still retained power. The power was coming to life, and within moments Sounsyy would be exposed to the voltage! Oh no! He had to get her out of there NOW!

“SHITE!”

The young man snapped into action with amazing speed that could only come out of anyone in a life or death situation. He snatched one hand upon her ankle and warped his other arm around the woman’s thigh. Immediately after, he pulled as hard as he could, ignoring her cries as her life was more valuable to him than her nerves and always would be. The force of his pull caused the metallic surface underneath Sounsyy to break off, the rectangular metallic piece crumbling down along with her body. Ryanti looked up just in time to be overtaken with the weight of her, knocking his face to the side.

He groaned out in pain after taking her weight, the table immediately collapsing into a bunch of pieces. Ryanti was able to catch her, warping his arms tightly around her collarbone area as they fell to keep her from flailing out of his grip and injuring herself further until they hit the floor. His back smashed into the ground of broken glass with all of her weight on top of him. “AHK-!” He cried out with the last of his breath as he hit the floor, his lips parted in pain but unable to breath.

It was a horrid amount of pain, and if it were not for his suit protecting him, Ryanti would probably have mean gashes all across his back now for falling upon the broken glass. He coughed and wheezed, his arms limp when Sounsyy flailed out of his grip not a moment after the accident. An acute puncture wound had formed near his left temple. Bright crimson blood began to bubble to the surface, crawling down the side of his face after bubbling up too much.

Immense sparks of electricity shot between all space of the air duct right afterwords. If Sounsyy had still been there, her heart would have easily ruptured and her brain fried from the immense electric shock. Ryanti took a deep, painful breath with a bit of a hoarse voice, opening his eyes in a daze on the floor and squirming a bit, the tiny pieces of broken glass crackling under him.

Something was flickering, something in the distance… a buzzing sound rang in his ears. It was a familiar sound from far away from here… an echo of Ryanti’s recent past.

For but a moment, the cell they were in came to life under a five thousand year old florescent light. His pupils dilated and he gasped with marvel at what he saw before him. There were… pieces of writing. Writing all over the walls. The Allagan writing was so sophisticated and the various shapes and puzzling formulas written on the wall were far beyond the comprehension of anyone in the Seventh Era. These incredibly complex mathematical formulas were everywhere on the walls of this room.

This was when Ryanti felt that connection again. That pull. Those numbers… those equations… those diagrams that were buried in dust… the incomprehensible nonsense formed themselves into shapes in Ryanti’s head. It was as if he was being forced to remember, forced to understand, and forced to recall only what he had just seen moments prior as if he had studied those shapes for weeks. The writing on the wall was burning into his mind, much like the Allagan alphabet had during Ryanti’s initiations. But this was not promoted or provoked by tomestones or other advanced methods of acquiring knowledge. No, this was burned into him because of something else. Because both him and Sounsyy were connected to the fate of this ship. Ryanti had allowed the back door of his mind to be open to the Allagan influences, and this was why.

“Ahhhh! Hnnnn!” Ryanti groaned out, sinking his forehead onto the floor with only his knees supporting him, his arms sprawled out among him as he suffered with this information. It hurt. It hurt so bad. It was like he was being forced to think so hard that his brain felt like exploding. Murmurs, whispers, words… hands writing the formulas upon the wall… florescent lights, beakers, hope, heart, struggle, desperation… all invading his mind.

When Sounsyy tugged at his suit, Ryanti looked over at her with an expression of immense pain. In his eyes were mirrored the writing of the Allagans upon the wall, which had burned into his aquamarine irises and gave out a soft white glow as if those memories were being stamped upon his very eyes. He was out of it. He wasn’t completely there. He remained crumpled for a moment longer after Sounsyy left, his weak eyes being exposed to the writing again with one last flicker… ancient memories that were not his own fogging his mind.

So… why did you decide to become a scientist?

To help people…

It seems so strange, that… the more that we seem to understand about this world, the… more that we realize how much we truly don’t know…

So close! ... I’m so close! No one will have to die like they do anymore if I just… if I just…

When the lights flickered that one last time, the hallway that Sounsyy was in very briefly exposed the entirety of itself with that light. The brilliant white light that had functioned as such five thousand years prior had grown into a pale tan color with age and covered with dust, therefore much weaker than it used to be. The light flickered upon the hallway… once… twice… three times.

On the third flicker, out of the corner of Sounsyy’s eye, there was a figure. A figure that was standing in the hallway. It was impossible to make her out completely because she was only around for one flicker. What could be seen was that she had a coat of white. A pair of glasses. An ethereal silver earring that dangled from her ear lobe and sparkled beautifully, even in the rusted light. Long blonde hair of some sort… of some length.

And skin that was deathly blue. Unmistakably deathly.

The Allagan specter appeared in a blink of an eye, and was gone in the blink of an eye. The lights flickered two more times, exposing the hallway for it truly was: empty and silent, before one of the light bulbs shattered into old and rotten pieces. The wiring in the vent shorted out and fried with age and wear, sending the ship back into utter darkness once more as the ship died again.

The ship had died again, but had never felt more alive.

“A-are you okay?!?”

Sounsyy could hear little sounds and quiet groans from the room that she had left. It was similar noises one would make if they were sick to their stomach or just completed a sprint and needed air. The stale air of this ship did Ryanti no favors in recovering. His brain felt like it was dancing on ice after receiving a burn.

Those memories of what the Allagans were doing in this ship during its heyday finally quieted down in his mind, and Sounsyy could see the light of his suit’s torch emerge from the doorway, along with a right hand holding onto the side of the broken door. Ryanti emerged from the entranceway with his head wound still fresh.

He looked to his right slowly, then to his left, eyeing Sounsyy who had slammed her back against the wall. Ryanti still had a little bit of a glazed look in eye, and when he swallowed there was nothing but air, but he was able to get some words out. “I… think I am, yeah. Heh… that… that kind of hurt…”

Humor. He felt like he had to. To try to calm both of their fears. “I just… I just need a second.” He sounded winded, as if he was tired. He rested himself against her side of the wall, shoulder to shoulder with her. Both of their torchlights illuminated their section of the hallway, at least. He placed a hand upon his head rubbing it gently to try to box out the cobwebs.

“There was… there was writing on the wall. Writing that burned into my mind. They… they were so complex, so delicate and sophisticated but… unfinished. The Allagans, I… saw one working on the formulas in that room. I remember it like it’s my own memory. They were… they were trying to solve something. To end a certain kind of suffering. Testing, re-writing, testing re-writing… it was as if they were studying the very core of what made those liquids… down to the tiniest level of detail.”

A sudden little realization coursed through Ryanti’s mind, and he turned to her with a bit of a dizzy look that was slowly, yet surely, wearing off. A bit more energy was in his next words. “Are you okay too?”

Sounsyy closed her eyes and the sound of her panting filled her ears in the absence of all other sounds. Had there been something there? Or was she losing her mind? There had been something - she was sure of it. By the time Ryanti had shaken off the Allagan lab's influence and exited through the broken porthole, Sounsyy was sucking air through her teeth. She looked very small in the large hallway, alone in the dark. Her knees were tucked into her chest and the Sharlayan rifle rested limply atop her feet in front of her. Her nose was buried in her fingers as if hiding or trying to slow her breathing.

She didn't seem to notice when the other Miqo'te sat beside her and spoke. His words, "Are you okay too?" seemed abrupt to her. She looked at him, eyes wide, and shook her head slowly.

"There was... there was... blood. In the vent, I think, and on the floor," she said, sniffing back the panic, "In there. Beneath the table. And when I came out here... I thought I saw something. Someone. Gods, there's no one here, why am I being so stupid?"

She sniffed sharply again and wiped her nose on the back of her forearm, smearing her nose and cheek with a thin layer of dust that had started to accumulate on her suit. She sighed and reclined her head so that it rested upon the wall behind her, trying hard to hold back tears that she knew would come. Her breathing was finally starting to slow, though she was still anxious over what she had witnessed.

She sat there in silence for a while, collecting her thoughts while she listened to Ryanti's recovering breathing. The fall had hurt him, she knew. But he had saved her life, again. It was becoming a recurring event that Sounsyy was not comfortable with. But what choice did she have? For an agent, he was one sentimental bastard.

It was only after she became calm that her eyes began to water. If Ryanti noticed in the dark, she would simply blame it on the dust. But she twisted her torso so that she faced away from him so he would not see. She reached into her backpack and withdrew a small packet of rations from it. Truthfully, she was not hungry, her stomach was in terrible knots, but she needed something mindlessly basic and repetitive to take her mind off of her emotional state. So she withdrew a square of leavened bread - Lominsan fishtack - and nibbled the edges as quietly as one could chew fishtack in an otherwise soundless environment.

This silence, it was unbearable. Which surprised Sounsyy, as she had long suspected she would do well living in solitude without another soul she could speak or relate to. This venture was making her reconsider her opinion. But she wasn't alone, not truly, though she would not say the young Miqo'te's company was preferable. Still... She passed him a sidelong glance, her eyes still a little red. She realized he'd been watching her. His gaze caused her to become self aware of the square of fishtack held in her mouth like some covetous marmot. She held the cracker steady between her teeth as she dug around for another piece, which she offered him with a questioning, "Mm?"

Her injured hand removed the snack from between her dry lips so that she could form words. They came hesitantly at first and she realized this was perhaps the first time she had addressed him in a capacity that would suggest she thought of him as her equal, rather than her subordinate.

"Before yeh were Seventy-seven, what did yeh do?" Sounsyy asked. It was a rather sudden and personal question, she knew, but she needed something to escape the reality of their current mission. Her eyes flickered about in the darkness, ensuring they were in fact still alone, before resting back on Ryanti, watching the blood trickle down the side of his face as he spoke.

"There was... there was... blood. In the vent, I think, and on the floor. In there. Beneath the table. And when I came out here... I thought I saw something. Someone. Gods, there's no one here, why am I being so stupid?"

The air in the room was so stale. As it should be, considering that the components of the ship designed to recycle the air amongst the bowels of the vessel probably met its critical system failure hundreds or even thousands of years ago. His mouth was scant and dry, and his tongue would stick to his teeth often as he made those harsh recovery breaths.

Blood? Did she see blood? Ryanti saw no such thing, but the thought of such a thing upon the floor and even in the vent… how did he not notice this? Was he too distracted with his own senses to realize it? The idea, the possibility that the blood wasn’t the black incarnations of millennia-old injury very deeply troubled him. As much as he hated to admit it, he couldn’t rule out that either marine life had gotten inside the ship somehow… or the ship had become an ecosystem to whatever ecosystem the Allagans made to study. Hell, it would even be plausible for marine life to have gotten in and evolved because of how much time had passed. Especially if the Allagans were masters of magic – aether could have been dense in this air long ago.

Regardless of all that, Ryanti was taught in training for this job to always worry about the right now, not about potential outcomes. Right now, they were safe. Right now, all was quiet. Right now, everything was okay. “It’s okay, Sounsyy. It’s alright. You’re not stupid.”

No, she wasn’t. Ryanti’s experience in that room proved his assumption correct. There was something in this building besides both of them, and it wasn’t anything physical. He himself wasn’t sure if it truly had anything to do with his dreams, but he remembered when he came into the ship for the first time what had happened to the artifact. He remember how the bright light from the tool spread amongst the ship before the artifact went dead. He glanced back at his backpack. It was still dead.

Ryanti’s face flinched up. The jolting feeling of pain in his spine, neck, and buttocks made it difficult to think. He would have stopped breathing as hard as he was if he wasn’t trying to shake off the pain. Sounsyy’s assumptions were right, Ryanti was hurt. All of that weight crashing down on him followed by the mental pain of what he experienced right after… it left his back in a scraped up mess, and the wind knocked out of him. Then there was the pounding on his head from the fresh wound on his temple, blood dripping from it visible for her to see.

He didn’t say anything about it. This was his burden to bare. Especially for her. It was his fault she was here… yet even as Sounsyy believed Ryanti sentimental, it was not something his superiors appreciated from time to time. It was why he could never afford to blunder, why he always had to give results to justify his methods. He had to leave this ship with something. Or he wouldn’t leave at all. He’d send Sounsyy back up at the cost of his life if he had to… if they were to find nothing. That was something he wasn’t going to tell her though.

He glanced over to her eventually as the silence progressed. It was deathly quiet in this ship. His eyes focused a little bit on her braid, all fancied up. It had gotten thicker since they had boarded. The little burst of hair from the last cross of the braid was no longer wet and tiny, but dry and bushy again. He remembered her comment from before: Have yeh ever tried to keep a braid underwater?

Her pretty braid was something pleasant to focus on. But Ryanti knew from her subtle movements that she wasn’t feeling okay. It dawned on him that she never answered that question with a yes. It had been a no, a shake of the head. She had curled up, nibbling on a ration that she had obtained from her backpack. Was she hungry? Probably not. She looked afraid. Lonely. But she wasn’t alone, not truly. He wished… that his presence could do more for her. He wished he was someone else… someone more dear to her. If he was, then well… he could have helped her right now. It ate at him. Again, again he had wished he was someone else.

His features lightened up a little bit when she glanced at him, for some reason knowing the instant she did. Then she began moving a little bit… ah, yes… she was offering him a piece. Ryanti looked down upon the square cracker ration with an uneasy “Sure… thank you.” And accepted it, softly taking it away from her. Ryanti never held it for a moment in his mouth. He simply bit it, and chewed it quietly… idly.

He never expected that next question that came for him.

"Before yeh were Seventy-seven, what did yeh do?"

His chewing stopped for a moment. He blinked a few times, making sure that what he heard was what Sounsyy actually said. His eyes warmed up a little bit and closed as he got to thinking about that question, swallowing what was left of the silly ration he had chewed up. He wasn’t hungry either.

“Before I was Seventy-seven, huh?” She could hear the little clangs of metal upon metal as he set his Sharlayan rifle to the side away from her. A little ‘hmm’ emerged from him as he tried to find out the best way to answer that question. He could still feel that warm crimson blood creep down the side of his face... but he had nothing to wipe it with. He spoke.

“Well… I was born as the mixed-blood child of a very old and quite influential family in Ul’Dah. My last name, Veanysus, has a bit of reknown to it in the world of big business. My family has been Dinnerware merchants for centuries. We have our hands extremely deep in the restaurant business. We’ve been supplying decent establishments with wine glasses and glass plates and such for a very long time. We’ve also had a fair amount of our family serve the nation in the military – the Flames.”

He bit upon his fishtack, and grimaced a little as he chewed it down. He obviously didn’t like the taste. “When I was a child, I felt like I had to try that much harder to impress anyone. Because… I felt like the world didn’t get that perfect Hyuran boy and got me instead.”

He slipped the rest of the snack into his mouth, trying not to remember the taste as he swallowed it. But the damn ration’s aftertaste clinged to the back of his throat. Oh well. “Before my father retired, he was a Bloodsworn in the military. My mother took control of the family business and immersed herself in work. I never wanted to… spend my entire life selling plates and silverware. I always wanted to be like my father – proud, powerful, and possessing the ability to change the world for the better. I looked up to him. So when I came of age, I decided to join the military too. Now back then I was really green. A big softie. A wimpy loser rich boy with his stockings to his knees.” He laughed a little bit at the memory of his past teenaged self. “I was pathetic. I thought it would be easy. I learned really quickly that it wasn’t. I still remember the smell of piss and lukewarm rubbing alcohol. That’s what the Barracks smelled like – one of the worst months of my life.”

He leaned a little back towards the cerment wall, coughing a bit. He was still trying to ride out the pain. “I went to Officer’s School, basically. So… we were given big projects before we were to graduate. They gave me a notebook the size of my hand, and told me to travel the world and document my good deeds endorsed by the people I helped. They told me not to come back until I had done one hundred endorsed good deeds. That was the first time I truly set out to travel the world. I ended up meeting someone. A woman… older than me of course. She was a former Paladin of the sultanate. I remember how she did her hair… it was cut short like a Bob, but she had a long ponytail in the center… black hair.”

He rubbed the back of his neck as he mentioned her. “She took me in. She taught me… a lot about growing up. Back then she was the head of a band of individuals determined to morally shape Eorzea into a better world than it was. Things were more uncertain during those times. I traveled with them and … those good deeds started piling up. I resolved to never go on a journey without a notebook after that. After I finished my assignment and reluctantly informed everyone that I would have to go back, she proceeded to give me a great test, a test that I passed with no shortages of bruises and scabbed kneecaps.”

He laughed a little bit, recalling a positive memory. “I remember one of the sponsors of our freelancing group was a rather wealthy man who had little faith in our group’s leadership. So I spoke up and told him not to ask anything of us that he wouldn’t do himself and we would listen to him. We ended up running across the frozen wastes of Coerthas with nothing but skimpy briefs on! My feet were totally numb and I nearly shivered my teeth into pieces! But we did it...” He realized that it was perhaps the first time a laugh had permeated these walls in five thousand years. Those were some of his happier times.

His hand slowly reached over to his rifle again, and Ryanti glanced towards it and away from Sounsyy. “I never saw her again after I left to graduate. I never saw any of them again…”

The young man spread his legs, and suddenly picked up the rifle and placed the rear stock in between his legs with a thud, holding the rifle upwards with one hand and inspecting it, whipping out a cleaning rag from one of his pockets to clean it from the dust. It would be bad if it got into the contraption. He couldn’t use that rag to wipe his blood off, which was beginning to dry.

“At first I started just simply supervising weapon shipments and such to pay my dues. I was going to go into quartermastering. That was my plan. I always enjoyed tinkering with weapons, and I knew that technology almost always innovates with weapons first. That had become an obsession of mine, both technology and history. I adored such subjects when I was a child, but I never really had the faith in me to chase my dreams. It was that woman and her ragtag group that gave me the faith to start believing that I could make a living doing what I wanted.”

His rag continued to swipe the dust off of his rifle as he spoke. “At this point, I was a young man that never had an identity due to my mixed blood, and never figured I deserve a reason to live in the first place. Believing my existence a fluke, I just… immersed myself in knowledge. I despised the world I was living in so I… wanted to know about other eras in this world, other times. I pulled strings because my family name allowed me too. I figured out that in the end… what I truly wanted was knowledge. I wanted to know about the world in its entirety as it occurred in the past so that I could build a better future – so that nobody born in any situation would ever grow to loathe the world. That gave me a purpose… a reason to live. So I started asking questions and rubbing elbows. They were actions that were dangerous and very risky now that I look back at it. But I wanted to know, and I had no qualms about the consequences because I didn’t care if I died because of it.”

He paused for a moment, his voice turning grim. “I didn’t find ‘them’ … they found me. I was taken right out of where I was sleeping. I thought I was being kidnapped… -again-, like I was when I was little once… but no. It wasn’t a kidnapping… in the literal definition. I was taken somewhere. All I could remember was that it smelled like dust and metal and gas, the place where they took me.”

“They asked me if I really wanted to know.”

Ryanti smiled a little. “I told them that if I could be afforded to see the past, present, and future and live only half a life... then I would have already seen many times more than if I would have said no and lived a full one. That’s when they took me in. They gave me a warm blanket and some hot chocolate. That was the first day – their only love they ever gave to me in that place was a blanket and hot chocolate.”


“They worked us to the bone. Trained us in obscene conditions, yet never crossing the line to the point of permanent injury. None of us left that place with a single scar on our bodies and yet… yet there was so much pain. I never knew who I was training with. It was twenty-four seven. Never ending, for one entire month of hell. My parents were told I had simply shipped out to do an escorting job for a friggin’ caravan.”

He began to unattach his flashlight from his rifle, and stuck it into a little slot on his belt. Three stripes of light glew in the darkness, an indicator that it was charging. He began shuffling through his backpack to find his other flashlight. “We were given all sorts of physical tests. Psychological ones too. They wanted to make sure we were as sane as could be despite the insane training. But… but I think the worst was when we began to realize the true scope of what they were preparing us for. What they called their real training. The final week they… subjected us to… things.”

He lightly pinched his fingers against his closed eyes for a moment. The little smile was still on his face.


“That’s how I could read some of those pieces of writing back there.” He mentioned, tilting his head in the direction of where he came. “They had us learn those kinds of things the quick and painful way. The Keepers only, of course. We were subject to the most rigorous training. Though I have to admit... I closed my eyes for some of it..”


“So then I became agent Eighty-two. That was my first number. Five people have either left the business or died since then, so I became agent Seventy-seven. Since it’s damn near impossible to leave the business once you’re in it, well… they probably all died.” He attached the fully-charged flashlight onto his barrel, and took the magazine out to make sure it was clean too.

“The thing is though… you asked me about who I was before I was Seventy-seven. There is no before. Seventy-seven is a number. It’s a body. It’s a label that tells you what rank I am and nothing more besides hiding my true name during classified missions. One privilege we do receive is that we still get to keep our prior lives. The innkeeper you book a room for – the merchant you buy a tunic from – the janitor of a friggin’ fishing vessel – anyone could be one of us. Our deeds go un-thanked, and perhaps will for years… decades… centuries. But yes… I only go on missions like these maybe once a month or less. I didn’t transform into Seventy-seven, Sounsyy… Seventy-seven is simply my alias when I’m on my special little shift. My workplace persona. It’s no different than Captain Mirke or... Mirke the Maimer. When it comes to you though, I’d just… I’d just rather be called Ryanti. That is… if I have earned it.”

Satisfied with his weapon, he set it down before him again, this time on his lap and resting his hands upon it. He wouldn’t make the mistake of putting it on the floor again, not with all the dust. He offered the rag to Sounsyy. Maybe cleaning her rifle could be something to take her mind off of things?

“What about you, huh? What’s your story? And no I don’t mean the Captain Mirke you are now or… the striking young woman on the posters during my youth that I know deep down was nothing more than clever marketing and the persona of someone trying to survive. No... what’s -Sounsyy’s- story? Before you were Captain Mirke of the Roehmerl or Mirke the Maimer… what did you do?”

Sounsyy stared into the darkness while he spoke, only glancing over at the Miqo'te occasionally when he paused or shifted his weight. Her eyes scanned back and forth into the swirling dust, rising and settling beneath the torchlights in time with their calming breaths. Sounsyy continued to nibble on her cracker until he addressed her directly, "I'd rather just be called Ryanti. That is... if I earned it."

She looked at him blankly, deciding whether or not to call him anything other than Seventy-seven. She looked down, noting the rag in his hand. She looked then at her rifle still resting across her feet. She said nothing but reached over to take the rag from him, but paused when Ryanti spoke.

"Before you were Captain Mirke of the Roehmerl or Mirke the Maimer… what did you do?”

Sounsyy met his gaze and took the rag firmly in her hands. She didn't even have to think about the answer, "I killed people Ryanti. That's what I did."

She looked away and lifted the rifle off of her feet, pulling it into her lap so that it rested with its stock against her pelvis and the barrel leaning against her thigh. She bent over so her nose was mere ilms for the weapon and began cleansing the gun with the rag wrapped about her forefinger. She was quiet while she did this, giving her response ample time to soak in and for Ryanti to ruminate on it. She considered this one of many differences between them. Ryanti was not his job. He was detached from it, or tried to be. He had a normal life. She...

"Yer foolin' yerself if yeh think I'm not those people - the Maimer, the Captain - and I think it's more wishful thinkin' to think everything yeh went through to get to this mission 'asn't changed who you are. In meh experience, what yeh do when no one's looking is who yeh are, not who yeh pretend to be where others can see yeh," she said quietly. It was of course directed at Ryanti's own double life, but she put it matter-of-factly without bitterness in her voice. She sighed and turned the gun over in her lap to scrub the other side.

"I'm still hard-ass Cap'n Mirke and that scared little girl both when no one's looking. I guess that's the difference between yeh n' me. We've got similarities, don't get meh wrong. Meh parents lived modestly I guess - strong, respected, not wealthy really. I wanted to be like meh father growing up. I don't think I'm much like him anymore. He were killed during Ala Mhigo's fall so I'll never really know. I became one of hundreds of blooded Ala Mhigan youths left with nothing. Nowadays, most Ala Mhigans have given up. Either Ul'dah's kicked the fight out of 'em or they're just too young to know any different then rollin' about in squalor and dirt. But back then..."

Sounsyy sighed almost wistfully. Her weapon polished, she deposited the rag over one of her drawn up knees and reclined the rifle across one shoulder. She realized she had not yet finished her fishtack, so she retrieved the piece resting in her lap and took a large nibble out of it.

"Let's just say I've been fightin' a long time. That girl from the Bloodsands yeh admire, the Maimier? She'd already been fighting the Garleans fer three cycles. Killed a dozen or more of the bastards on her own. But back then, the city-states didn't want anything to do with the Empire or helping those what lost to it. We Ala Mhigans had to fight fer our homeland on our own. That's where the resentment started. I didn't realize how much I hated them - Ul'dah - until I fought in the Coliseum."

She took another bite of her cracker, "Yer covered in sweat and blood and sand and yeh look up at this crowd dressed in silks, jeering down at yeh, throwing gold and jewels at one another like just one of them couldn't feed the whole Silver Bazaar fer moons. That's about the time yeh stop feeling guilty fer doing horrible things to horrible people and that was a hard lesson to learn fer a fifteen year old girl," she said finishing off her fishtack.

She brushed her hands against her thighs to clean them before leaning over to replace the remaining supplies back inside her backpack. She returned her gaze to the dark hallway, finding it impossible how just a few moments ago she was in the throws of panic at some shapeless specter. There was nothing in this hallway. Nothing but history, even the words she spoke - history.

"I got disenchanted with fake fights," she said easily, as if she hadn't killed her opponent in the first match, "Fake fights fer fake infamy from a crowd what didn't really care whether I lived or died unless they staked their money upon the outcome. So I got out, first chance I could, and returned to the Ala Mhigan front where my people were still fighting real wars against a real threat for a real cause. But, as I'm sure yeh know, it were all fer naught. By the time we realized nothing more could be done fer our home, our losses were immeasurable. That's how I came to live in Limsa. Moved there with a friend after she were hurt. We'd known each other since we were babes. Thought we could just live out the rest of our days enjoying some measure of peace together. Well, we got a few years in afore word from the Ala Mhigan spies we'd died tryin' to sneak into the city told of coming Garlean invasion."

Sounsyy shifted her rifle a bit before continuing, "So like good little soldiers we joined the Barracuda. At least one of the city-states had decided to take the fight to Garlemald, pirating and burning their ships. I became a quartermaster under a bitch of a captain. Took control of that ship when my captain ate a Sahagin spear near a year later. So I ran meh Levy through the Seventh Hell, into the kobold wars, Iron Lake, Carteneau... Meh Levy didn't make the journey, most of them. That's why I'm here y'know? Because they don't think I care how many lives it takes to get the job done. Think I'm desensitized to it by now. Best kept secret is I'm not, not really..."

Sounsyy leaned forwards and brought her knees up under her, pushing off into a shaking standing position. She had sat still for too long. She stretched, then doubled forwards sweeping her good hand down to retrieve the rag that had fallen from its resting place on her knee. She picked it up and shook it free from the dust before tossing it back to Ryanti. She was quiet for a bit, not really looking at Ryanti for her gaze was held upon the pathway before them. Her sudden, quiet laugh was almost jarring from her normally placid demeanor.

"Captain... Maimer... they're big parts of who I am. Don't ever doubt that, but they ain't the only parts. Bad people can 'ave good sides too, even if they ain't willing to show them."

She motioned down the hallway and started to unsling her rifle into a ready position, "Let's walk and talk, yeh? Knowin' yeh, yeh've got loads more questions. Should make clearin' this hallway a bit less tense. If yer ready that is?"

He let go of the rag and watched as the woman next to him took to doing what he had done. It was his turn to stare into the darkness, his turn to listen. His aquamarine eyes had a powerful color, but it was all for naught if there was no light to illuminate them. He had the stock of his weapon resting against the floor of the place and leaned back fully against the wall.

The pain in his back was beginning to fade away, but the remnants were still there. He closed his eyes and rested the side of his cheek away from Sounsyy upon his rifle, using it a kind of a tool to try to obtain some kind of calm, relaxing rest that his body absolutely needed right now while his mind ruminated upon her words. His eyes very subtly opened just a tad after she had explained her first bit about fooling one’s own self and… who you were when no one was looking. Those words hit him more than she knew. Not in a bad way, but in a penetrating way. He knew. She knew too.

Your braid is very pretty.

The expression on his face carried an element of drowsiness, but Ryanti’s ears kept upright. He wanted to hear what she had to say, and he listened intently. In his mind he was painting a picture using her words. It was a portrait of her life that was beginning to build in his memories to try to add some depth to the woman he had met back at the Grindstone that faithful day; the same woman he had admired as a boy. Ryanti knew about Ala Mhigo and the events that happened prior to his homecoming. His father had even participated in some events relating to just that. He picked up on her wistful sigh, and he wished he could have been there.

“That girl from the Bloodsands yeh admire, the Maimier?”

Ryanti turned his head to her when she said that in a slight glance. She didn’t look too different from his memories, honestly. Especially when she had emerged in the war paint she had donned upon her. The closest glance he could afford of her was when he had knocked her down and saved her life from an old rival decades before. She was beautiful then – as she had been in the Coliseum, all primed with makeup and other aspects of showmanship for those fake fights – yet how ugly she was when she got her hands on Cynthia. Ryanti had seen most of it.

He continued to listen. So she had been fighting for years before? But she was so young then. The time she was talking about before all that… she was even younger. So young. Ryanti’s heart felt heavy under irrational guilt, as if it was his fault.

That's about the time yeh stop feeling guilty fer doing horrible things to horrible people.”

Another phrase that penetrated him. This one deeper than the first.

He could understand her perspective from her time in the Bloodsands. He did not like Ul’Dah much either. Every day he found himself back there, he would always see someone do something that would make him feel a little sick to his stomach. Ul’Dah was a never city of morals, it was more like a crippling drain of idealism distorted into an evil, selfish desire to shape the world in one’s own image. In other words, it was the city he grew up in, and his job was really no different from that, and neither was he. But yet…

You weren’t fake to me, Sounsyy. I cared.

Yeah. Right. Like having some damn boy caring would change anything.

He noticed that she spoke of moving to Limsa with another, and yet did not mention her again after moving on to talking about her time in the Barracuda. He thought it best not to ask – if she was speaking from the heart right now, there were always crevasses in people’s souls that one just shouldn’t shine a light in. Ryanti decided not to probe.

He was feeling rather despondent when she mentioned her best kept secret. He cleared his throat a bit. A few fingertips tapped the barrel of his rifle. Neither was he, Ryanti thought. Neither was he.

He glanced up at her as she stood, catching the rag. Even though there was minimal light, he could see well enough to make out her feminine form in the darkness, captured rather ideally by the Sharlayan suit that clung to her in all manners of physical protection. It was a pleasant sight.

But a Sharlayan suit could do nothing to protect someone from their own mind. No, he didn’t mean what it did to his mind when he saw Sounsyy in it. That made him laugh a little bit on the inside. Ryanti was in the middle of placing his rag away when he heard her laugh, pausing a bit, honestly surprised at that. Ryanti had laughed in his mind… she had laughed out loud.

Your braid is very pretty. So is your laugh.

She looked a little bit more like herself again. Confident. She could hear Ryanti slowly getting to his feet as indeed he was. With one long exhale, his taller form stepped alongside hers, glancing to the side to observe her. “I am.”

He shifted his glance back to the hallway ahead, and raised his rifle up. “Your best kept secret is safe with me.” He also said that so matter-of-factly. The delivery may had been neutral, but there was much more to it than that.

Perhaps Ryanti would have better imagined conversation like this to occur at a nice dinner, or overlooking a field of flowers while enjoying a lovely picnic on days the sky was bluest. Instead, they were an unpresented distance under the ocean in an ancient, derelict relic of a bygone age in which they both could barely comprehend. The little intricate marks of the cerment’s masterful work was apparent everywhere on the ship from the floor to the walls to even the ceiling. Everywhere his light touched revealed another brilliantly made part of the vessel in which could even be seen past all of the eons old dust that had accumulated along with the still air.

But it was a good decision to have conversation here. It made it so much easier to do. Ryanti’s movement wasted no energy, and covered every open space in front of him with light and left no louder sound than a whisper. His rifle light did not cross over his torchlight on his torso. He was so very professional, yet his words were so very personal.

“Your right, y’know?” He said to her, checking another long-abandoned and long-forgotten doorway. The cerment door which perhaps had openly brilliantly for Allagan peoples of ages past had collapsed within itself, making entry impossible. It would have been a sombering sight to see for anyone that lived during that time.

“Your right about me fooling myself. About my wishful thinking.” A little smile brushed off of his face as he glanced at her once more. A smile that was sad in nature. He slung his rifle upon his back and tried to manually remove the large pillars of cerment that covered the entryway. His body lurched and twitched as he exerted himself to try as he continued to speak.

“I don’t really know what Seventy-Seven is. I like to see it as separate because… when you’ve not had solid food for three days and water for two, and you’re glancing at the man in the chair, or what’s left of him because you blew his head off with a powerful rifle such as this one or the pistol in my pocket, and you’re having your way with his food and his water, and you.. look at him and go ‘I didn’t do that, Seventy-Seven did that.’ He didn’t know Ryanti, he never met him. He met Agent Seventy-Seven and Agent Seventy-Seven killed him. Because Ryanti could never… could never do something like that. Not the nice man that loves to have a cup of warm tea before lunch time and loves people and art, culture and history.”

He could remember how he was on the battlefield with the Garleans. How neutral his face was, how efficient of a killing machine he was. He knew Sounsyy had seen him too.

“But maybe I can. Maybe I always could. Maybe that’s a part of me too. Maybe I know it is. Seventy-Seven will always be a part of me. That man that has little problem using the end to justify the means. The man that became the same way, that stopped learning how to feel guilty for doing horrible things to horrible people.”

He perhaps tried one too many times to move the debris. It was an outlet for him. The last thing he wanted to do was to have his eyes water, turn beat red, and tears to fall in front of her. He managed to only allow them to water. The rest was dealt with his little outlet – his little attempt at trying to move the debris. His voice was somber, melancholy, and heavy. “Maybe it’s easier to separate that part of me into a number. Into a nickname, or… something separate from my real name to try to distance what I hate about myself. But that’s not the right way to think, isn’t it? To do that would mean that the name ‘Ryanti’ would be nothing but a label to the persona I show to others. It says little about what kind of person I am when no one is looking – the real me. I can’t help but feel that I am a bad man, and a terrible influence. But I don’t know who Ryanti is when no one is looking. I’m too confused with it all to try to answer the question myself, and no one has ever told me who Ryanti is when no one is looking.”

Your braid is very pretty. So is your laugh. I’m sorry for bringing you down here, please forgive me. I’m a terrible person.

He tugged on his strap and his rifle slung back right around, stepping away from a room that was obviously impossible to get into. Its secrets would be buried forever now. They had to move on. Ryanti tried the adjacent door. It was sealed tight, with no hint of receiving power for decades, centuries, more. He banged on it once or twice, glancing around at the form of it but shaking his head. Another no-go. He spoke again, but this time his voice had a measure of conviction it did not have earlier. “But there’s a difference between bad people and evil people.”

Ryanti did not believe her to be evil. It was a very poor word to describe her to him. He could have turned around, and perhaps said something more about that, but he could not manage to gather the courage to glance at her now. He had felt like he had revealed an ugly side to himself to her, too ugly… he was afraid of that ugliness, insecure of that part of his soul just as Sounsyy was insecure about the burns on her shoulder.

“Not only do bad people have good sides to them, but they also have the ability to do good things – great things. Part of who I am is being able to experience the wonders of this world on a first-hand basis and to be able to make a positive difference for the future. That’s the part of Seventy-Seven I love to accept. Sometimes I think all people – all civilizations from all eras – have those parts they love to accept, and other parts to themselves that they find a lot harder to accept. I think.”

Ryanti wasn’t really sure about that philosophical comparison but… it was he believed, anyway. It was obvious that despite the ugly parts of this job, Ryanti had no shortage of passion for it. He had shown it time and time again. It was then that his light shined upon what appeared to be a much larger door than any of the others, with broken glass above it the only remnants of what used to be a lit up elevator sign.

There was a window adjacent to it that had been laminated with glass, but the glass had long since shattered. There were plenty of sharp edges on the broken glass, and so Ryanti immediately figured to try the straightforward approach first. “That’s interesting. Looks like we’ve reached the end of the hallway. Shine a light in the window. Make sure there’s nothing there.”

The ship was remarkably quiet now. There were no sounds, no feeling of a presence, nothing. It was almost as if the ship was letting them talk, as if the ship was trying to say that there was nothing left for them to discover in this first hallway here. But was the ship lying?

“So… you said you had a bitch of a Captain, huh?” Ryanti stated. His voice had gone back to normal. It was an attempt to change the subject, yes. It was perhaps a part of him that wanted something more lighthearted, something that would illicit a smile or maybe even laughter in this hell of a place.

He placed the palm of his hand upon the door, glancing up at the broken light, closing his eyes and trying to feel with his fingertips if there was any kind of manual action required to let the door loose somehow so that they could proceed, trying not to think about the alternative of traveling in the less desirable route of the open window next to them.

“Do you have any funny stories from that time?”

Sounsyy moved when Ryanti did and set about searching the remaining doors on her side of the corridor. Several were derelict or impassible from debris, but she was able to duck beneath a fallen beam into a third door and found herself in a room much like the first they had explored. She flashed the torchlight across the floors, walls, and ceiling but found it devoid of all life. Her breath seemed to be the first disturbance the stale air had felt in epochs. She noted there was no window to the outside on the far wall like there had been in the first room. So this way was towards the inner ship?

She ducked back out in time to catch Ryanti's explanation on the division of bad and evil. Sounsyy's ears flicked back for a split second and turned her back, investigating the next door in sequence. “But there’s a difference between bad people and evil people,” Ryanti had said. Sounsyy's brow furrowed as she trailed her light down the crease in the once-sliding door. It did not open for her.

Not that great a difference, she thought to herself. They pressed on.

After a while they reached what seemed to be the end of the empty hallway. Sounsyy turned and swept her light around the area behind them, but it was still just as empty as it had been since seeing her specter. She turned back and moved closer to the broken window beside the large doorway. She hesitated before slowly shuffling her feet over to the empty window and peered out into the darkness.

"Not sure funny is 'ow I'd describe that time," she said, her back pressed up against the wall adjacent to the empty window, "Sterransa Syntkhrawyn were more savage than any pirate, Sahagin, or Reaver she ever killed. She would've made one hells of a pirate queen if she didn't hate them as much as she did. She hated most things though, 'cept coin and steel."

Sounsyy peeked around to get a better view of the open window. She slipped her rifle past the threshold and cast her torchlight up and down over the steep walls until the light faded into the impenetrable expanse of black below and above.

"Looks like a lift shaft?" she said, turning back to Ryanti, "Looks empty though, didn't see cable or anythin'. Think this door is the lift?"

She made her way over to the large door adjacent to it and tried to pry it open with her fingers unsuccessfully. So she drew her shortsword from its scabbard across her rear and slid one edge vertically up into the gap between the slots with some effort and grunting. She didn't want to plunge the sword straight in and pull, as that would've likely broken the sword. She hoped that using the sword's whole length and thickest side would provide better leverage, but she was unsuccessful still. She withdrew the blade and held it against the light, shaking free the dust that clung to its used edge.

"Hmph, she used to make me clean every blade and ring of chainmail thrice over until she were satisfied. Her cutlass could never be sharp enough. Every piece of pillaged loot taken from the purses of dead pirates couldn't be clean enough. It had to sparkle. Won't do to hand the Admiral unclean spoils, she'd say. I hated her, obviously. Think it were mutual. She were a strong captain though. Commanded loyalty, fear, presence - right up until the day she died. Anyway - thoughts on this door?"

Sounsyy motioned to the doorway behind her. She had turned to look Ryanti in the eye for much of the story, but now she seemed hesitant to continue, as if she really had nothing more to say casually on the subject of the person whom she so greatly loathed and seemingly had so much in common with. How could so fierce a woman just die? Sounsyy's eyes almost seemed to dare Ryanti to keep asking about her.

The hallway was very quiet now. Almost as quiet as it had been eons prior. Their presence at this time seemed so insignificant to Ryanti, so tiny compared to the size of the rest of the ship. The silence was welcoming in a way. At least in the company of another. The young man wondered if Sounsyy realized now why he could not do this alone. It stood for certain that if she didn’t now, she will eventually. Company… company prevented insanity. Right now, he was thoroughly enjoying this tiny escape from the very grim reality they were in right now.

His slender hands began to unfasten a strap from one of his larger pouches on his waistline as Sounsyy began her recalling of her former master. His body seemed to respond automatically to the situation, knowing what tools to apply to any given uncertainty. It was a trick of his trade – they almost always had to improvise.

He had a second eye upon the woman as she examined the adjacent room, only accessible through a broken window. It was a relief and at the same time, concerning to be informed that it was empty. If they could not open this door, they would have to take that path and do whatever it took to get deeper inside the maul of this giant mechanical beast of an incomprehensible era.

The gadget Ryanti pulled out of his pouch looked like a little black scanner about the size of his hand and shaped like a cylinder. It was designed by Sharlayan to detect electricity and aether flow. With a quiet click, he turned the device on, and a tiny red light from the gadget began to blink in a slow, continuous rhythm as he hovered the device over the door while listening to Sounsyy’s story. This figure of hers, this Sterransa… she seemed so colorful, and so bitter a person. He admitted that part of him was deeply amused about the idea of imagining Sounsyy paying her dues, albeit unreasonably of course. He almost wanted to make a jab at her about how she never would tie her hair neat anymore or make everything spotless because of her former master, but he made no such comment outloud.

As for her comment about the lift, Ryanti had a look about him that confirmed her suspicions that he was thinking the same thing.

He said nothing when she tried to break the latches open with her sword. He wanted her to experience for herself the immense strength and resilience of Allagan steel. Even after five thousand years, the metal was as strong and abstained from neither rust nor decomposition. Even the modern steel of the Sharlayan blades were pitiful compared to this unknown molecular composition. It was alien. Foreboding.

Ryanti had looked back at her while she told the tale. He could tell by the little sparkle in her eye that she hated her – dearly. Yet, at the same time, he could sense that she respected her. Perhaps Ryanti’s own eyes betrayed interest.

His attention was briefly diverted by the notification of the device. It made a little beeping noise, and the blinking red light slowly began to morph into an unblinking green light. The look that Ryanti gave the device told her that it was important, and once again concern emerged from the surface of his expression. But it did not seem like it was all too much a bad thing, just… suspenseful.

His eyes turned to the blade Sounsyy held up in their torchlight’s embrace. The steel glinted off of the light which bounced off of the dead Allagan walls. A little smile graced him as he whipped out his cleaning rag from his back pocket again. Clean every blade thrice over… funny it was then when Ryanti decided to wipe the dust off of Sounsyy’s blade right then as she held it aloft. Perhaps their Sharlayan tools and skills could never be sharp enough. Not for a job like this.

But this was a sign of respect from Ryanti. He figured it was a better way to show it than most.

“This door is incredibly thick. It would take Garlean machinations hours, maybe even days to carve through it, and that is if they can even do it in the first place.” He sidestepped her towards the door after cleaning off her blade, his initial sigh wisping some of the dust into the close air around him. “Perhaps these doors opened to some kind of repulsor lift, but something of this magnitude would have not been for passengers.” Perhaps one of the inaccessible doors held the former passenger elevator but… they had no other options but to try to take this one.

“My device indicates that there is a power source beyond this point.” Ryanti mentioned, his voice dead serious. He truly didn’t know what power source could be there. “It’s still functioning. After all this time. We need to access it. If the room behind this door happens to be a lift of some sort, and if we can still use it, it would beat climbing. Regardless, we need to press on, we need to go deeper inside… we are not even in the bowels yet.”

He gently tapped the device against his chin in thought as he switched it off, eyeing the windowsill again. Gears in his mind began to click together, and he pulled out his utility knife from his thigh and walked over to the broken glass. He stabbed a point of glass sticking out from the bottom, and it shattered a bit. Satisfied with his ability to break it, he placed the blade in a bottom corner of the windowsill. “Let’s go through here, but first help me out with clearing the glass. If our suits get caught in it, gone will be our modesty for sure. There’s a time and a place for that, but definitely not here.”

With that, Ryanti began to jab his blade against the bottom of the frame, tiny bits of ancient glass crumbling under its age and his knife. Sounsyy’s eyes had seemed to dare Ryanti from before, and he was not about to decline the invitation.

“So... were you there? When she died?”

Sounsyy reversed the shortsword in her hand so that the pommel was held out. She joined Ryanti by the window and began knocking out the remaining glass remnants with that pommel. When she was done, she sheathed her blade behind her and looked at her partner. It was a small window, so they were standing almost shoulder to shoulder, even though Sounsyy's shoulders were much shorter than his.

"Yeh, I were there. I drove the Sahagin spear through her chest," she said flatly. She cast her eyes in his direction to catch his reaction. There was the barest glimmer of amusement in the sparkle of her eyes. Was she amused by Sterransa's death or was it that Ryanti had probed like predicted?

"That secret safe with yeh too?" she asked with an idle smirk as she turned away and did another sweep of the hall behind them. Again, the light showed nothing so she returned to stand beside Ryanti. She wondered if the proximity of their bodies made him uncomfortable. Had he made the connection yet that she had killed her way into her position as Captain?

Without warning she had a firm grip on Ryanti's shoulder, but she only used it to hoist herself up into the open window. Her other hand held tightly to the wall as she perched on the edge and craned her neck out into the darkness of the shaft. Below her, a small walkway barely wide enough for her foot circled about the outer rim of the shaft. She pulled her head back and craned her neck from side to side to see what she could differentiate or use in the dark. There wasn't much. Above them, darkness. Below them, darkness. To her right, she could make out the outline of the massive lift doors that they had been unable to open. There was a gap in the walkway, allowing space for the circular lift platform to meet almost directly to the door.

Seeing little other recourse, she pulled her legs gingerly through the window and tested her weight on the platform that ringed around the shaft. It creaked some, but seemed sturdy enough. Once inside, she could better direct her torchlight, scanning the walls in a wide arc. Soon, her light fell upon a control console nearly opposite from them. There may have once been faint lights that illuminated it, but it was now so coated in dust it was nearly indistinguishable from the rest of the wall.

"Yeh got more rope? I think that's yer power source. If we can get to it," she added bitterly as she tested the more narrow balcony with her toes. "Whoever crosses this should 'ave a safety rope."

She regarded him for a moment before turning back to the empty space before her. Her shoulders seemed relaxed for the first time since their descent into the brine. While Ryanti prepared his solution, the words began whistled from her parted lips, escaping between every breath, "Sterransa had lost her way. The killing had stopped affecting her. Sterransa believed that the only way to deal with the great pirate factions was to give 'em a taste of their own medicine, fight fire wit fire as the sayin' goes. Well, when the blaze takes hold yeh can't tell whose flames burned what. So it was with Sterransa."

Sounsyy's voice reverberated down the length of the deep shaft, resounding her secret across the Allagan starship. It was as if Sounsyy was burying these secrets beneath the waves, casting them like rocks down a well of inescapable darkness.

"Between the agonized wails of one of our captive brigands we discovered several pirate factions were forging dangerous alliances with the Sahagin. Safe passage across the seas, routes of our trade ships, all in exchange fer crystals and tellin' the Coral Tridents which ships would have the most devastating blow against the Barracuda. Sterransa wanted to hit the Coral Tridents hard before they could use the traitor's intelligence, but the whoresons were not caught unawares. We near lost three battle galleys and our ship were broaching and takin' on water. Sterransa were overtaken with bloodlust and ordered one last pass through the frenzy. We took another blow and our masts began to crack. Sterransa was thrown to the gunwale, the waters rising about her. I was close and I had the spear. I took her outstretched hand and I saw that confident smile spread across her lips, just before I drove the spear down through her chest. I held her fast until I felt the life drain from her fingers, then I let the Deep claim her. With the remaining frigates we adjusted our attack. With nets and cannons we did enough damage to their number after Sterransa's violent plunge to force the Sahagin into retreat. With Sterransa dead, I were the highest ranking officer alive by the end, so the credit of that clutch victory fell to me. That's how I became a Captain."

Sounsyy faced Ryanti through the broken window, her face brightly lit by Ryanti's torchlight. She looked almost specter-esque in the steep contrast of light and shadows. Ryanti's face was shrouded and near unreadable. "I think yeh should go to the panel," she said suddenly, "Yer the only one what can read it. I can hold yer safety rope in case yeh fall. That is- if yeh trust meh with yer life still."

She paused and started climbing back through the window, perching on the empty frame, her knees nearly up to her chest. She looked at Ryanti and a terse, soft laugh sounded from her throat. "So'z I got to ask. This who yeh expected me to be?"

"Yeh, I were there. I drove the Sahagin spear through her chest,"

It was difficult to surprise Ryanti in this line of work. She had bared witness to his stunning reaction to where they were at, giving away the reality that he had never been in anywhere remotely like a place such as this before. Yet, he was the more composed individual. He was the most prepared. Likewise, his training had also ingrained into his head the reality of betrayal, deception, and most importantly the unexpected.

But Sounsyy did in fact manage to surprise Ryanti sometimes.

His knife slid ever so slightly amongst the bottom of the window’s frame as he glanced over to her. The reflection of his torchlight upon the pieces of glass provided only the slightest light upon his feature, but it was enough for her to notice. There was a hint of surprise in his eyes - yes perhaps it was just what she was looking for. But there was also an element of interest and a layer of perplexity about that glance as well. Ryanti’s eyes trapped light easily, and so they seemed to glow under the very dim shadows of his torchlight being reflected back at him.

"That secret safe with yeh too?"

Her wit. It reminded him of the little spark he saw in her eyes just moments before. Before all of this, he remembered how dead those eyes were. Now there was some life to them, as well as some life that had crept into her lips and gave her some fun things to say. As her light left his own and checked behind her again for a spectre long gone, Ryanti’s lips pursed into a smile. Sounsyy could not see this, but she could probably hear a feint chuckle emanating from his own pair of lips.

The chuckle was the sign of him putting two and two together. It was an easy connection to make. The Captain had just told him about the personality and demeanor of her former Master, and the little sideshow Ryanti was picturing in his head… yes, if he were her, he would have hated her. Hated her so much. So indeed it was an easy connection to make… and an easy action to imagine taking. She had gone the less moral path to obtain her position. She had murdered her.

Sounsyy’s proximity was enough to break Ryanti out of his thoughts and into reality once more. The lack of distance between their shoulders caused his senses to become hypersensitive. He could almost feel every tiny little movement of Sounsyy’s shoulders, even though he only occasionally felt contact. So softly did his hands rest upon what remained of the broken glass upon the frame of the window; the fragments were small enough now to be harmless to him. He was wondering the same thing as her, if the closeness made her feel uncomfortable. He had a brief memory of seeing her in the infirmary.

Then, he felt a sudden harsh pressure on his shoulder. Ryanti’s side hunched over for a tiny moment, as he didn’t expect such a maneuver, but his shoulder then stood firm enough for the woman to leap up into the window. When he returned his glance back to where it was, all he could see was a form hunched up in the window. He turned his head to the side, placing his fingertips upon the torchlight on his chest, telling himself for future reference that he had only seen the illumination of her brunette tail.

He was silent for now – studying with his eyes relentlessly as they followed Sounsyy’s torch. She could hear the crackling of the glass bits as he rested the barrel of his rifle upon the frame of the window when she gingerly climbed through. The size of the chamber was immense, and rings circled around the ovalesque chamber with each ideal ‘floor’. He concluded to himself that those rings were there to stabilize the elevator upon each floor of the rear of this vessel, and that Sounsyy was standing upon one of them.

"Yeh got more rope? I think that's yer power source. If we can get to it. Whoever crosses this should 'ave a safety rope."

When she regarded him, he looked serious. Almost concerned. His face was too stiff to be casual, and he was too quiet for the moment in question to be completely happy with the situation. However, his eyes darted towards her when she regarded him, and when she returned her glance to the empty space, she could hear an “Absolutely.” From him. Ryanti kept his eyes on her for a moment, observing her shape illuminated by his torchlight. Her braid, and her story, was in his mind as he prepared the rope in question.

This was a different kind of group than last time. It was tighter, thinner, and stronger. It felt almost like it was made out of Garlean fibers, and it could be easily assumed that perhaps it was even stolen from Garleans physically or.. technologically.

Ryanti had actually reached his hands back behind him and started fiffled with two metal clamps on each side of his chest.

While he was doing this, he listened to her story. All too often did he hear about tales in which lesser men and women would meet a harsh fate whether or not they expected it so. He could hear the sound of the masts crack. He could feel the spear through her former master’s chest. He could almost picture that look in her eye, and it made him remember Cynthia. She had taken her hand, and killed her. If Ryanti would ever be in the same situation, taking her hand to save his life… would she?

Or would she do the same to him?

No one would ever know the look Ryanti gave her just then as he bared witness to her in a glistening spectre form to what might have been an ironic appearance given what she saw in that hallway. He didn’t know how to looked, or what glance he gave, and Sounsyy couldn’t see anything on his face. He was to her, in that moment, as his job would portray him: a dark shadow, a silent face with tools in his hand, in a location no one would ever be privy enough to know of, doing his job because no one else could. A number.

It was what most saw before they encountered death at the hands of that man.



Ryanti got closer to the window. The shadow was looking out to the enormous, dark, claustrophobic room out ahead of him. A sigh escaped his lips. She was right. It was him that had to go. He had to gather his wits about him and gather them now. It wasn’t the first time, and he was still alive.

When she began to climb back through the window, his face was once again illuminated, and she could see for herself the grim look on Ryanti’s face. There was a slight tension about him. He was still stiff from before. There was something else he didn’t like – not just the idea of trying to tiptoe across the shaft’s stabilizer rings. Something was off.

But her laughter, that allowed his shoulders to relax and for him to finally brief. What Sounsyy received when Ryanti stared back at her was not a stiff expression nor a concerned one. It was a little weak smile, and aquamarine eyes full of life, as they were before. The porclain-haired man leapt up into the small window frame with a measure of finesse and grace, impressive enough considering that he was taller than her.

Now he was close alongside her in the tangled mess that was the window frame, and that is when he answered. “No.” He first said, a chuckle or two emitting from the back of his throat. How did he ever feel like mentioning this stuff? “Though, I must admit that I didn’t really know what to expect at first.”

With that, he pushed himself over the side, two feet lightly hitting the balcony. He did not give himself the time nor the moment to stare out at the space in front of him just yet. He only glanced upwards. “Not when I first met you out in Thanalan’s sun, and certainly not when I found out you were our Captain for this mission.” He said to her, his back turned to her and his white hair sparkling in her light as he started sliding the rope through the clamps. His back to her was brief as he found himself turning towards her as he started fastening himself, which included wrapping the rope around his waist. “But, quite honestly I’m too old now to find cardboard cutouts on fliers and posters more interesting than the reality behind it all. Sounsyy the woman… the real woman… I was not entirely wrong about what I expected. I knew you probably wouldn’t trust me, especially how we met the second time. I knew those dead eyes were still able to sparkle, despite what a colorful past could do to a pair of living eyes over time…”

When he was all done, Ryanti had all of his front clamps covered in safety rope, and the clamp at the center of his chest extended the cable outwards in front of him. Ryanti picked up the rope, which had been gathered in a circle, and tossed it to the ground next to the window frame, bending down briefly to find the other end of it. “I think that the real Sounsyy is more interesting than the one I saw in my youth. The period to move on from such black and white views of the world is long behind me. It was about time my perception of you updated.”

The Halfling emerged from below the window frame, with the other end of the rope in hand. He motioned for Sounsyy to come to the border of the window, adjusting his light to shine dimmer so that she could see him with clarity and he could see her as well. This was a much more dangerous stunt than that time in the hangar. It had to be done with maximum amount of safety in mind. And so Ryanti inserted the rope past the clamps on the front of her, the rope dancing around each of the three on her chest in a very elaborate and specific pattern, as if it was ingrained in him, as if he did it all the time. The task itself was sewn into his unconscious memory. Ryanti was thinking of someone else, of her story about how she became a Captain. He spoke, almost suddenly. “About Sterransa… about how you became a Captain…”

The end of the rope went through her top right clamp a second time. She could feel the nooks of the rope tighten upon her chest. “The manner in which everything happened, it was probably wrong. It’s wrong to commit murder. It’s wrong to kill. I know.”

A light sigh escaped him. Ryanti kept his eyes on his fingers doing their work. “When I was being trained in this very field, my recruiter treated me like an animal. Like absolute garbage, like less than a sentient being. I hated him. There were times when I envisioned my hands wrapped around his throat and squeezing...” A light scrunching noise emerged from the rope as Ryanti squeezed it tightly with both of his hands in front of her. “Like that. Until he stopped breathing. I even had dreams about it.”

There was a solemn look on his face as he lowered the rope, shaking his head but a little in the memory of it, a quiet breath escaping his lips. He slowly lurched the end of the rope towards one side of her waist. “I guess what I am trying to say is… if the manner in which you made Captain is supposed to change my perception of you, it doesn’t. Not by much. I live in a world in which many have done much worse. I myself have murdered in the name of others and even for myself… I have done away with individuals that probably did not deserve to die nearly as much as Sterransa. You should bring up how I got my seventy-seven sometime. Heh, I don’t know… I don’t know what’s right or wrong anymore.”

Now his right hand maneuvered around her back, and grabbed onto the rope dangling from her waist. It was in that moment that he himself wondered once more if the proximity made her feel uncomfortable. If it were to make her feel uncomfortable if Sounsyy knew what things Ryanti had done. He asked himself that as he glided the shape of the rope across the back of her waist, then around to the other side. As he did so, he spoke. “But… I don’t think any less of you as a person or a Captain… so to answer your question from before, yes. That secret’s also safe with me. Think of it like this safety rope.”

And with that, and a smile, Ryanti looped the rope over her center clamp, and closed the clamp, binding them two together. He took a few steps back, and the rope stayed upon him. He adjusted his light as he turned his back to her from short and wide to long and narrow. It was only then that he truly understood the vast scope of this room. A loose gust of wind blew his locks around and the Halfling realized he was but a tiny ant in this massive, long abandoned dead Allagan elevator shaft. He would have to circle around the razor thin stabilizer rings to get to the other side. His light shined all about, reviving the appearance of the dead cerment chamber coated in eons of dust and casted out to be forgotten with piles of stories left untold about what came up and down through here. Would they find out?

“I trust you, Sounsyy!” Ryanti said outloud, his breath increasing in intensity as he slowly began to shuffle himself to the corner of the tiny balcony. He bent down to pick up his rifle, placing the strap over his shoulders and the curls of his fingers gripped the side of the window frame. “I’m a little scared!” He admitted, eyeing the difference in thickness between the balcony and the ring. He needed something… one extra bit of courage to begin what he was about to do…

Sounsyy smirked ruefully when Ryanti told her he trusted her. She took extra lengths of the rope in her hands to give some slack between the window frame and her body while she waited for the man to start his perilous journey around the ring.

"Yer a bit of a fool then," Sounsyy said with a half-laugh, "But I won't drop yeh."

She touched her toes to the base of the wall beneath the windowsill and sat back onto her bottom, bringing her knees up into her chest so that she sat almost in fetal at the foot of the window so that any sudden weight upon the rope would jerk her forwards into the wall instead of catapulting her through the open window after her partner. Though Sounsyy had no fear of heights, falling to her death was not on her approved list of ways to die.

That, and truthfully the sight of Ryanti disappearing into the dark shaft made her nervous. Being alone in the dark was certainly one of her fears, and though much of her physical discomfort from the previous encounter had subsided, she still felt ill at ease being alone in the corridor with some bloody, Allagan specter - real or no.

"So," she said quietly so as not to startle him off the edge, "When yer not 'seventy-seven', er, before or after this is over, yeh have a normal life that yeh go back to? Do yeh work or have someone waitin' at home fer yeh?"

It seemed like an oddly personal question, even to Sounsyy as she uttered it, but she was curious and Ryanti seemed like the type to not take offense to it. Sounsyy had often wondered how so many others she knew could revert and assimilate back into a seemingly normal life and routine, be at peace, be happy. She had only rarely felt such assurances, the memories weighing back in the night or thinking she heard the clip of Garlean jackboots during the day. Often she'd find her hair on end where she'd duck into an alley to evade the ghost of something that wasn't there, like what she had seen in the hallway, only that was more tangible and real.

She waited while he mulled over his reply, only lifting her head up slightly over the window's base to see mostly darkness on the other side, penetrated only by Ryanti's small torchlight. It was hard to see from her angle but he didn't appear to have gone too far.

"Yeh there yet or...?"

Ryanti had returned her rueful smirk, though his expression was a little softer. Perhaps it was not a smirk but rather a smile. One of the requirements for receiving a number in this line of work was to be a fool. He already had that part covered.

“That’s all I ask.” Ryanti responded to the notion that she wouldn’t drop him. He needed that re-enforcement. There was a lot on his plate already. The fact that his teammates weren’t there was such a massive weight on his shoulders; a weight that he tried not to let the Captain of the Roehmerl see as she dove into the ultimate unknown with him. There was no way he was going to try to convince her to come with him on this stunt, let alone be the one to walk out upon the ledge though her height might have made it easier.

He felt a great need to tackle the ‘hard’ parts when he could. Still though, in time he was sure that would change.

The ledge he was standing on that he had to navigate through in order to reach the other side of the massive shaft thinned out to a space that was shorter in length than even his feet. He could not even use the balls of his feet to balance himself upon the little ring designed to cushion and hoist the elevator that neither of them could see at the moment. There was a moderately firm wind that blew from deep within the gallows of the darkness, flicking his hair about and emphasizing the great distance he would meet with his death if he were to slip and fall – if Sounsyy were to go back on her word and drop him.

"So, when yer not 'seventy-seven', er, before or after this is over, yeh have a normal life that yeh go back to? Do yeh work or have someone waitin' at home fer yeh?"

Those were the kind of questions that took a little bit of time to fully sink in. But when they did, it always had a bit of an impact on him, especially coming from her. It was a little bit more than an oddly personal question, kind of penetrating as well, but it was something to focus on besides the fear of the immense space in front of him and the uncertainty that lied ahead. He didn’t mind. There was honestly a part of him that felt more at peace over it than he expected.

A stronger gust of damp, stale wind brushed across his face, pushing the beads of sweat from his concentration up into the air and flicking a bit of his dampened locks aside.

"Yeh there yet or...?"

Ryanti looked towards her for a moment, finally getting his second foot upon the razor-thin ledge. The palms of his hands were glued to the cerment wall of the enormous Allagan construct. He could see nothing except for the immense space visible by his torchlight, and the slight silhouette of the woman’s face that had joined him in this hell – this beautiful darkness.

One foot slid to the side. Another joined it. Ryanti was making progress, but it was slow and almost painful to watch due to how focused he was on the matter at hand. A moment later, Sounsyy could hear a light little buzz in her ear. The man had placed a hand upon his own ear and activated the local communication signal. It was an easier way to talk now, an easier way to not lose his mind from the other end.

“I’m getting there.” He replied softly in the linkpearl. It sounded as if Ryanti was right next to her, but of course he wasn’t. With every inch of space he covered, he drifted further and further away from the ledge – from Sounsyy. She was becoming more and more alone in the dark, but Ryanti’s voice was in her ear.

In fact, she could hear every single hiccup in his breath as he found himself more and more alone on the shaft’s ring. She could see the flicker of light as he occasionally moved his body, hesitated and inched his way along. She could hear the concentration, the nervousness, and the focus. That was when Ryanti finally answered.

“I’m a Lieutenant Quartermaster… for the Flames.” He answered after mulling for long enough. “I am usually in charge of weapon stockpiles, and I follow where they go. I make sure the right things go out to the right people, and that nothing is stolen or lost. I keep inventory and supervise. A lot of the time I travel. Sometimes I can be at home for a little bit. I deal a lot with other governments besides the Sultanate’s, including yours. It’s… its normal on paper, y’know? Like the ideal job for someone who graduated ‘Officer’s Camp’ … a perfect little life, right? Heck, sometimes I even help my family business out.”

He was talking as if everything was normal right now. Where they were, what he was doing… but the tone of his voice was strained and serious. It was that tone which betrayed the situation that they could not escape from. However, Ryanti could escape from that perfect picture of his life outside of this job, and he had no issue doing just that.

“Y’know what, Sounsyy? It’s fake. It’s very fake. There’s no such thing as normal in my reality. Ever since I was brought into this world via Halfling blood, it has not been normal for me. My life hasn’t been normal at all. My identity is as abnormal as my blood. Take my career away from me and what do you have? What else besides a number? Who am I –really-? I ask myself that often. My hobbies, and my passions… they define me I think. There’s much more to be besides this suit. But I was never happy trying to be normal… I was never happy with my public face I’m forced to live because of my family. I’m happier here – knowing I can make a difference by doing –something- meaningful beyond words and actions of normal men.”

It was then that his left foot made a little slip on the smooth surface of the stabilizer ring. Ryanti was almost two-thirds of the way there. His little slip echoed the noise to Sounsyy’s ear and Ryanti’s light flickered. His body seemed to light on fire inside as he immediately gripped a metal pipe or some such behind him as hard as he could to keep himself from slipping entirely.

He glanced to the left. His eyes had adjusted enough to the darkness that he could make out the grey rectangular presence of the control box on the other side. There was a large lever on the side of it, sticking out. It had perhaps not been disturbed in five millennia. It looked like a manual override. Curiously though, it seemed to have been tampered with. He was hesitant to believe that the manual lever would have been designed to stick out like that. From what he knew of Allagan life, terminals like that were operated by fingertips, not my muscle power. Something must have happened.

Even something like a control box had a story to tell in this behemoth of a ship.

Knowing that any false move at all could lead to a swift death, Ryanti’s inhibitions were a bit lower than normal for the time being. His mind had been mulling over her second question for a little longer now than the first. It was no doubt a more difficult challenge to answer the right way. Part of him wondering why she had asked, but… it was interesting that she did. It brought some feelings up to the surface that were very separate from his mission mindset.

His voice crackled once again in her ear. “As for my home, it’s as quiet as a mouse. The only thing waiting for me there is a bed and my belongings…. And maybe some incense and good book if I’m lucky.”

He eyed the gap between the ring and the control panel. He would have to jump to the other ledge. Then it would be easy to go to the panel and try to re-activate it or… yank down the manual override. Maybe even kick the damn thing – if that could possibly work. One thing was for sure, he wouldn’t be able to go back until he got it working.

Unknown to them both, back within the room in which Sounsyy had crawled up the vent and Allagan equations laid decorated on the walls, the wires that had joined together and provided the entire floor with a brief surge of power were not done with making their presence known. Indeed one of the wire tips had been lifted up into the air with the power of electrical surge. However since then, gravity was slowing edging it back down towards it again… and this time their interference would affect them far more than psychologically….

Yet right before everything went to hell, Ryanti managed to ask Sounsyy a rather intimate question in return. A question that made his cheek glow a flushed red in the hostile darkness.

“So what about where you lay your head down? Is it quiet too?”

That’s when everything went to hell.



---




An enormous RUMBLE echoed from one end of the shaft to the other. Sounsyy could hear the snap of the enormous spark caused by the two wired rejoining once more in the room far down the hallway. Bright blue lines shaped like computer circuitry flushed up the shape of the entire shaft in one enormous surge. Ryanti’s voice cried out from her linkpearl, fading out with a little sizzle of words from above the water, very faint but very clear.

“If you can h-… ething’s-- ..—ange… ac- …str-.. ge.. someth-- ….live… the sh-… “ And then it ceased.

Power had returned to the shaft as well. Crippled, malfunctioning power. The electricity had surged onto the stabilizing ring, and ultimately through Ryanti’s feet. It traveled along his rope and ended up providing Sounsyy with enough of a shock to race her heart, but Ryanti took the brunt of it. Sound disappeared from Sounsyy’s ear as her linkpearl shorted out and became non-functional and dead. Ryanti’s linkpearl did the same, and nearly shattered into pieces.

Ryanti’s body snapped in one huge spaz, a spark flying off from his torchlight and sapping the battery power from it. It was strong enough to stop his heart.

In a brilliant display, a tiny taste of what it would have been like to witness five thousand years ago, rings of red lights activated along the stabilizer rings and flickered on and off as it struggled to function. Blue light soon joined the circles of red lights, except these lights went vertical up and down the shaft, shaking off some of the ancient dust. Even under layers and layers of it, it was gorgeous. It would have been immensely beautiful back in the day to witness.

But there was nothing beautiful about this. There was only the horrifying image of Ryanti’s limp body losing balance, and falling forward... sparks flying out of his linkpearl and torchlight.



It had almost felt like slow motion. As if time kept stopping and going, stopping and going…

The left side of his body felt warm... yet very cold. He had his eyes closed, and it was almost as if he was sleeping. Just a brief little nap. Just some time to rest. He did not even notice nor feel the aetherial lines ingrained on the side of his face revealing themselves. They traveled all the way down it and further down his left arm. They were life stiff veins of a soft blue glow on his body.

Memories that weren’t his. Feelings not of his own. It was what he was experiencing in that split second as he fell without a pulse. It was the symptoms described by Jonathan and the others. The after-effects of seeing and experiencing. His left eye opened and glanced at the manual lever. His left arm that was not his anymore reached out and grabbed the lever, squeezing upon it. His weight fell upon it. The lever creaked and gave into his full weight. He was hanging from the lever as it tugged itself downward and activated.

The spectre of the woman stood over the exposed wires with tired eyes in the room they used to be in. She vanished. Power was cut once more, except for the auxiliary, manual mode of power Ryanti had activated with the elevator’s override.

The glow in Ryanti’s body left him. The beating of his heart returned.

Ryanti let go. His limp body sailed across the open space and swung from the rope.

All of this happened in a matter of moments.

His back slammed into the wall, dangling for a moment before another great rumbling occurred. Then, life returned to it. Warm, encompassing life. The man opened his aquamarine eyes in a bit of a dizzy state. His ears were ringing and his hands were shaking. Every occasional dim red light was not activated, blinking very lightly. Some glass from the lightbulb’s shells shattered and a few of the dim red lights shorted out immediately. The shaft was rumbling constantly now, and a feint grinding sound could now be heard from above them.

Above them… above them! That was when Ryanti knew where he was! His form immediately glanced up to witness the auxiliary Allagan gears wrenching and turning, managing to barely work and lower a huge circular platform. It was heading downward… coming down… it was coming towards them! Towards him! If it were to pass Sounsyy Ryanti would surely be killed by it. Ryanti had never grabbed rope so hard in his life.

“Sounsyy! Sounsyy!” Ryanti called out as loud as he could, struggling to try to climb up the rope as fast as he could, slamming the heels of his feet against the wall as he glanced up to witness what could very well be his impending doom. “Sounsyy, pull me up!” He cried out in desperation, trying to beat the elevator with his own merit but he needed her help now! Facing an event so close to death, Ryanti began to panic, realizing now how badly he actually wanted to live.

Of course, if he were to die there… Sounsyy would be trapped in this massive place… with no sense of direction… in the darkness… alone.

“PULL ME UP!”

Sounsyy hummed to herself, alone in the dark, as the minutes passed alone. She could feel the tautness of the rope between her fingers bounce and tug against the dark like she was fishing at night. Ryanti was bobbing somewhere in the dark waters ahead. The humming took her mind off the dark. She found that it made little difference whether her eyes were closed or open now, and that bothered her. With a soft hiss that made Sounsyy's hair suddenly stand on end, the linkpearl in her ears sizzled to life and Ryanti's voice flowed into her ear as if he were speaking in her head.

<I’m a Lieutenant Quartermaster… for the Flames,> she heard him say in the dark. Ryanti could probably hear her groan in disappointment. "Ehh yer a Flame," she said before quickly adding, "Not that... I mean, I've fought beside Flames." As if that hid the almost teasing way she groaned at his affiliation. "So you followed in yer father's footsteps," she added almost as an after thought.

Though Ryanti was far out of sight and far too busy trying not to topple to his death, Sounsyy smirked at him. It wasn't that she hated the Flames, she hated Ul'dah, and more often than not she believed maintaining the facade of allies between the Grand Companies was an extraordinary waste of time when each nation, especially Ul'dah, coveted its own interests first and foremost. But she said none of this. It likely would've irked Ryanti, she thought. Though he already seemed quite perturbed, even if it seemed to be vented more at himself than at her quip. His rant seemed invasively personal to her, sudden, childish. She wondered how scared he must be feeling alone in the dark to make him talk this way.

"Ryanti, are ye- gods!"

She muffled her exclamation when she heard the loud slip and slap of his foot from the other room. Her knuckles were white as they clenched the rope, but she felt no weight. He had not fallen. Sounsyy sighed in relief.

"Keep yer focus, okay, yeh must almost be there."

She could almost feel him breathing in her ear. She could feel his fear and it pervaded her own senses like a bad odor, seeping in slowly and again all at once. Then his breathing abated and she heard his voice crackle across the cold cermet.

<As for my home...> He said almost naturally. <...it’s as quiet as a mouse.>

It made Sounsyy laugh softly into the darkness. Maybe it sounded as muted as a mouse scampering through the massive Allagan ship. She wondered if Ryanti could've heard her if not for the linkpearl connecting them.

"Yeh've seen where I sleep, Ryanti." Her voice sounded soft, almost amused. "I 'ave meh chair and meh keepsakes. Privacy where I want it. I had a small home before the Calamity. In Vylbrand, small little island called Tiger Helm. Ain't there no more. Waters washed it away. But before, I lived there with a close friend and her husband. We had soirees, if yeh can imagine that, friends would come and we'd build a bonfire by the shore and lay out 'til morning."

Sounsyy almost seemed to glow through the pearl, her voice tinted with nostalgia for times long gone. "We even..." She began but a great rumble from all about her drowned out her voice like some great Allagan beast coming to life and then the hum of lifeblood beating through its aged veins. Then her hair stood on end as electricity tingled across her fingertips and into her suit. There was a bright flash and she gave a loud cry as she jerked her hands away from the cord.

That is when she felt the tug. Ryanti slip beneath the dark surface of her fishing pond. It happened before her body could react and Sounsyy was thrust forward into the wall she had crouched behind, driving her knees hard into the cermet wall and her chest hard into her knees, knocking the wind from her and laying her flat on her back. She could not remember her left hand taking hold of the rope, only that it was there, hugging the cord drunkenly when she felt her hips slowly rise off the ground towards the open window. Her body was splayed out across the floor in a bewildered fashion, her hair was falling out from her loose braid and slithering behind her as her shoulder blades and head lolled against the floor.

She pulled against the upward tug of the rope and eased her hips back down to the ground, before using the rope to pull herself back up into a seated position. Through the opened window she could see an eerie, glowing light of the Allagan elevator, come to life. It was almost beautiful, even if it was a little haunting. It was light, Sounsyy thought. Honest to gods light in what had been nothing but darkness.

It took her a moment to come fully back into the sudden awarenss of her situation. "Ryanti?" she said into the linkpearl, but did not even hear the static noise of an unanswered line or his steady breathing in her ear. She was alone.

"Sounsyy!" she suddenly heard Ryanti's voice call from the distance, echoing up the shaft. Again he shouted, but this time the sound was muffled by renewed humming as the elevator drew nearer. She pieced together what had happened only moments before Ryanti's paniked cry bellowed from somewhere below her. Her eyes going wide, bathed in the Allagan glow, she took up the rope in both hands and began pulling it towards her end over end as fast as she could lift the Miqo'te. He was so heavy, she knew she couldn't do it fast enough, so she kicked off away from the wall with her feet and slid on her rear across the floor away from the window, pushing backwards one bent leg at a time in near perfect sync with each length of rope she pulled arm over arm.

"Get up!" she screamed through clenched teeth, nearly drowned beneath the crushing hum of the elevator's descent. She had backed up several yalms into the hallway by now, pushing herself back now with both legs as her muscles protested every ilm gained. She felt her rope suddenly jolt and with a panicked yelp she grabbed the rope with both hands and yanked it as violently as she could just as the elevator descended into view, ringed with the faint red lights of the Allagan.

Sounsyy sat there alone in the reddened hallway, surrounded by rope. She thought she should be breathing heavier, but she couldn't hear anything escape her parted lips. So she sat there staring speechless at the window, unaware of the specter which hovered overhead.

He could feel his heart jumping out of his chest. His entire torso felt like it was melting. Down it came, the elevator chamber, and with a long whining sound originating from the long neglected gears did it paint a scenario of doom for the young agent. For a moment, it did not look like he was going to make it. He did not have time to think about whether or not it was the end for him. In a bit, the elevator would push him downward until the rope met their end, crushing his body in-between the two tidal forces while probably tossing Sounsyy over the edge to fall to her death. That was the reality of his job. Often he was that close to the end. But no matter how many times he stared death in the face, that primal fear always existed. The fear of dying.

No one would come for their corpses. This place unknown to the present peoples would be their grave. But it was not meant to be.

He felt a yank, a huge one. Somehow, between the yelps and the cries, he must have made it. He felt a huge tug on his chest right before the chamber came down, his voice cried out in trauma as he nearly flew from the chamberway right when the platform touched down. He could even feel white hot soreness from the top of his head that had grazed the circular platform; it was that close of a call. He slammed against the ground with a near-similar amount of force that hearkened back to when he broke the table in the room prior. There was a bit of pain involved in rolling on the floor for a few, but it was easily ignored when he realized that he wasn’t dead.

Yet.

“I’m.. I’m okay, I’m okay… “ he said between huffed breathes.

Ryanti decided to go silent for now, to give Sounsyy a bit of space and rest. He could hear a big noise as he tried to recollect where he was. It still could be heard through his beating heart and heavy breathes. It was the sound of the platform stopping on the floor they were on, followed by the primary power source shutting down once more, simultaneously breaking more lightbulbs hovering overhead, glass bits falling upon the eons old floor.

In reality, when he pulled the lever he told the elevator to stop on this floor, not go further down. He did not know this to be the case. In fact, he did not even remember pulling that lever…

Blinking red lights, weakened by their age but still prominent enough to provide the hallway with ambience through the silent window, penetrated the hallway. Through the tangles of the ropes Ryanti began to untie everything, starting with the bits of rope attached to his body. While doing this, he eyed the body of Sounsyy, silent with her back against the floor.

It was then that he saw her.

The spectre from before. Or was it? He only saw the figure for a split second, about as long as it took for the red lights in the next room to blink once. The red light… it had graced nothing but shadow except for the lower half of her face. He could see her lips, her chin. The skin was pale, sickly. The lips were a light blue, as if suffocated, or perhaps it was some kind of… lipstick?

He could only pick out that she was wearing some sort of coat, but such things were so vague and difficult to predict when he was questioning his own judgement over whether or not he actually saw her. There was a stillness in her face. That was all he could remember of her. That, and… the fact that he couldn’t get it out of his head that she was staring at Sounsyy, whom was right in front of the anomaly with her back turned to it.

When Ryanti pulled out an emergency light, no bigger than the side of a pencil, he first pointed it at an area behind Sounsyy with very studious eyes despite his recent tumble and brush with death. There was a hint of concern on his face, but also of strict discipline. Despite how witnessing such a phenomenon in this ship could mean –many- different things and how impactful it was on Ryanti’s emotions, there was a stiff wall of discipline that kept him calm and focused for now. But he was not sure how long that was going to last. Despite all of his effort, however, one could easily see that he had seen something.

The hairs stood up on the back of his neck, and Ryanti procured goosebumps.

Communications were gone. He was not sure if it was permanent, but the linkpearls in their ears had shorted out. Ryanti’s breathing was hitching. There was a renewed sense of suspense about him... of a frightening demeanor. He decided against mentioning the communications. He did not need to. It was obvious, and he knew that they simply could not re-enforce a lack of hope and protection in their minds if they were going to make it through this.

“Hey… are you alright?” Ryanti murmured weakly to Sounsyy, circling the rope around his arm and crawling on all fours to where she was collapsed upon the ground, looking back towards the window as she did when he saw her after she saved him. Another hitched breathe. Goosebumps. He felt like he was being watched.

He proceeded to strip her of the rope attached to the hooks on her suit, stuffing it in his bag that was now beside him in earnest. “This place is becoming … unsafe. We need to move, we need to keep going…”