Ryanti

At first I was bummed out at the lack of depth at this event. But the Costa Del Sol decor that comes with this year's event is a real treat and allowed for everyone to concentrate themselves at one spot and hang out and have fun, which I believe is just as good as getting items. 8-) I am very happy about the male shorts. We've needed casual -SHORTS- for a very long time.

Go ahead and add me on the waiting list as well!

Will you come with me? It had taken more strength to ask that question that it did for him to murder those Garlean soldiers. It had more taken more guts to ask that question than to face the Clutchfather himself and to witness him lift Ryanti up like he was nothing and place the young man’s life in those hands of his. It was a silly thing to confront that reality and accept it as truth. There were some things about life in this world that Ryanti scoffed at or gazed upon with amusion in his brow. This was one of those moments. Why had it been so hard to ask… When she had called him being out of his Twelve-damned mind, there was a look in his eye that he gave back to her when she burrowed her gaze into his own. What she saw beyond Ryanti’s warm, aquamarine eyes that would remind any seagoers of Costa Del Sol’s ocean waves in the gleaming summer mornings, was an element of acceptance. He knew this was all just crazy… it was not even remotely sane. Both of them had already gotten much more out of what they bargained for. He had gotten used to that hard look. For some reason, that gaze had never pierced into his chest and stung or hurt the young man. What he saw in her eyes was the color of the Dravanian pines that he was fortunate enough to bare witness to in his last mission up North, where the rivers were crystal clear and the sun was always bright. Those trees were evergreen. They did not waiver in weakness to the coming fall, and retained their color throughout the long, lonely winter. Her answer gave him the same kind of feeling that he experienced back then: a feeling of peace. Of relief. He witnessed her running her hand through her hair – undoing what was left of Leura’s handiwork back during a time where she was well, which already seemed like such a long time ago when it barely was. When he felt something warm and moving upon the palm of his hand, Ryanti was reminded that he still had it out, and looked down to see a hair tie and a bobby pin or two. He glanced down upon the tools as the sea’s wind picked up once more. The cold breeze was welcoming to him. It seeped below the surface of his undershirt and made him feel a little bit more alive. The items in his palm began to vibrate, as if at any moment they were to be kidnapped, and swept away by the wind. Ryanti couldn’t help but smile when she asked him if he had ever kept a braid underwater. It was the first time he had smiled all day. “Can’t say I have… It must be a real pain.” He told her with a soft and calm voice. Right when the objects were about to be stolen from him by the wind, the young man closed his fist before it could happen and lifted his gaze from his hand to Sounsyy with a single blink. He had never seen her with her hair down. The brunette strands danced all along the wind with much more grace than Ryanti’s shorter hair ever could. Her image before him caused time to slow down just a little bit, and for but a moment Ryanti found time frozen. After that moment had passed, he maneuvered his closed fist over one of the loose pockets in his trousers, and allowed the objects to fall inside of it. Just in case. “The first thing…” Ryanti murmured, trying to jumpstart his memory back again after so much information caused it to overload. Oh how he wanted to just continue to get lost in this sunset though. “The first thing I need you to do is to rest.” It was apparently obvious that Ryanti had not gotten enough sleep when he passed out in Eighty-five’s cot. He didn’t seem like he was fully energetic and ready for anything like he usually was. He tried to get the codwebs out of his mind by running a hand through his whitewashed locks. “Welro and I can handle things up here right now.” It was curious to see that Ryanti had mentioned himself and not Jonathan. “Drink some of that juice we confiscated from the Garleans. Take a nap. Rest.” He rested his shoulder against the Mast, biting his lip a little bit before continuing. “Rest in that place where you can lay down fully. Not in your chair. And… try not to do it with wine. That’s the last thing your body needs right now after… all of that blood you gave.” He solemnly turned his back to her, placing his hands on his hips and sighing, looking left and right but no longer able to see the sun. Despite the evening still retaining its light, the sun had already fell below the horizon. “Rest until everyone else is, when it is darkest. Then come out again… I’ll be here. I’ll light up a part of the deck… then I can get you ready. Just be prepared to learn.” He gave a few cricks to his neck, then glanced back at her with a warm smile. “I’m glad you’re coming.” Just when he was about to walk away, after the first step he stopped in his tracks. “Oh, and… “he said to her, trailing for a moment as he gathered his breath. “I know a good amount of people contributed to saving Eighty-five’s… Leura’s… life. But so did you.” And with that, the determined Sharlayan agent walked away again. Even though he really, really didn’t want to. --- As the dusk slowly began to turn to night, it had become very difficult for what remained of the healthy crew to keep up with their tasks. They were beginning to complete most of their initial duties in order to keep the ship afloat and livable in. But it would become apparent they would have to spend a while on repairing the ship enough to be able to sail again reliably. Their postures were drenched with fatigue and they were drudging on. The looks on their faces told the entire story. But no one had it as hard as Ryanti. Since he had put the Captain to rest, his face wore a look as if he had just been rescued from a war zone. It was contorted and stressed enough to make him look like he been right along besides Sounsyy in Carteneau. He wasn’t beside her then, but he had been beside her and all the others in this naval battle, and it was horrid enough to live through. Jonathan and Forty-three were busy discussing with themselves the best way Ryanti should approach this task now that he was alone in his duties. It was a constant see-saw of cleaning, stopping to read more and talk more, cleaning, stopping, cleaning, stopping… until Forty-three had backed off with a sad, pity look in his eye. But Jonathan knew so such thing as slowing down. Ryanti placed the mop down upon the wine spill in the Captain’s quarters. He must have looked like a machine from the outside. But inside, swiping all of the wine off of the floor and squeezing it out into a pale was the only kind of outlet that kept him sane right now. He gripped the mop pedals as if they were the throat of his worst enemy. P’welro had taken the young man with her to clean the Captain’s place out. Being by the person he could confide into the most was something he needed right now and she knew it. Ryanti had seen Cynthia’s slug that the Captain had pulled out of the chair. It was sitting on her next right next to the Kobold’s helm. Was it to be a future memento for her? Something else to remind her of what she had survived? What she had survived… that had to have been the same very slug that had grazed Ryanti’s shoulder when he had tackled her to the floor on the eve of the battle. That was the first time he acknowledged the red bruise that was healing on his left shoulder. He graced two fingertips slowly across the wound to P’welro’s witness. “I took a bullet for her. Am I lost cause?” He had asked her then. She had laughed a little bit. It was funny. He laughed a little bit too. He needed that. But as he wringed out the mop again and saw the crimson liquid that could be mistaken for blood drip into the pot, a thought raced his mind. I don’t want her to feel like she deserves a bullet. He glanced over at the woman four years his senior, then got back to cleaning. All the while, he knew he was going to eventually have to tell the acting Captain what was going to happen. He knew that it probably wasn’t for the best if the news was just broken out in front of an entire crowd. It had to be broken out first to the highest acting role on the ship right now. “She’s going with me, Welro. Sounsyy is going to dive down with me.” He mentioned out of the blue, but the tone in his voice told the first mate that he had always been meaning to tell her all day. “I have to take her. She has to go. I’ll keep her safe.” He glanced at the young woman once more, and his resolve was written all over his face. It was a strength beyond strength – a faith that he had to grasp onto in order to survive the storm. Just then, a crippled Jonathan had called for his name. Ryanti shifted his attention to the open door with a bit of a startled look on his face. His breathing was still as the air he was exhaling froze in his lungs. Jonathan nudged his head to beckon to talk to him, with papers still in his hand. He did not look happy. Perhaps from Sounsyy’s cot, she might have heard the argument. Shouting and yelling near the entrance to her cot between the leader of the Sharlayan unit and its keeper. “She had no business in this, Seventy-seven! You are not going to defy the will of our superiors by exposing non-sanctioned Eorzeans to this kind of exposure!” Jonathan had boomed with the voice of his old drill instructor roots. “We have no choice! There’s no one left! I can’t do this on my own or else I’ll just be sent down there to die! You –know- this and yet you –STILL- lecture me about doing what is paramount to suicide!” Ryanti had yelled back, the frustration of this entire evening catching up with him. “I’m lecturing about doing what is –PROPER- of you as a Keeper!” Jonathan had shouted back, hopping about on his one foot as his voice continued to boom. Forty-three was rubbing his eyes underneath his spectacles, shaking his head at what this had gotten to. “What is –PROPER- of –US- is to –HELP- people! To give them a better –LIFE-! Something has to give! Something has to give eventually, Jonathan! I’m tired of this bureaucracy all of the time! We’re out here in the middle of Twelves-damn nowhere and no one has –ZERO- idea of what I am getting into and I need her!” “That gods-damned artifact has twisted your mind!” Jonathan shouted at Ryanti and the young man had enough after that. With a fire in his heart as well as in his eyes, he stood up to his commanding officer, catching the attention of everyone around him that had wondered what the commotion was all about. “You think so? You don’t have any faith in me, Sixteen?” He questioned him with a tight, angry voice. “You don’t have any faith in what we do? How we are supposed to bring about change? To end suffering? You don’t have any faith in what we carry with us on this ship? We –NEED- faith! We –NEED- faith, Sixteen! Without faith… without faith we might as well be dragging our corpses under the bow of this ship because –WE HAVE ALREADY LOST-!” He grabbed the commanding officer’s crutch firmly in his hands, which caused Jonathan to grab at it with anger in his expression but helpless at ripping it away from the young man’s grasp. Ryanti had the ability to embarrass him, to knock him over right where he stood. “I believe the red tape and the immortality associated with this line of work has twisted your mind, Jonathan. Because of this, I deem you currently unfit to continue your service as commanding officer of this unit.” A knife went through the gaze of Jonathan’s. “You wouldn’t d-“ “-I- -just- -did-.” He let go of the crutch and Jonathan hopped backwards once or twice before resting his shoulder upon the side of the railing, his normally impenetrable expression showing a slight hint of surprise and bewilderment. “I don’t need to make a formal statement about taking over.” Ryanti murmured, glancing over at Forty-three, who was just looking on with a grizzled look about him. “I already have.” He swallowed his dry mouth and took calm, slow steps away from the man and looked two and fro at everyone around him with dizzy eyes, not even sure what he had just done. “I need to see my equipment.” He had told P’welro eventually. “I need to get myself ready for tomorrow. Just… tell the crew one at a time what is going on with the Captain. So that once morning comes, well... it wouldn’t be so hard.” --- Ryanti had gotten some sleep. A little bit. Maybe an hour or two. Hell, the entire crew almost was. Sent back down to rest, all of them were. Everyone was just too exhausted. After he had the argument with Jonathan, he had quickly ended up in the same little storage room that they had been in prior to the battle, that they had slept in together. Eighty-five’s blanket was still partially open when she had slid out of bed that morning when she thought she was going to dive with the rest of the crew. Just to think, they could have already been on the mission right now… all four of them. Now that wasn’t meant to be. But was it always never meant to be? He wondered that to himself as he laid out the Sharlayan equipment across the center of the ship’s deck, in which he had decided would be the best place to do this. They still had the intact mast, which was an easy place to hang torches. As he lit the fires and the warm yellow light simmered off of his skin, he thought of a man and a woman on a starship to save the world. He gave the flames a soft blow of his breath, catching the shadow of the Captain within the aura of the torch’s light. He had turned his head to her and said “Ready to get started?” Under the gaze of Menphina’s moon, I began to teach Sounsyy all about the equipment that would be taking down there. It was a very surreal thing to teach the basics about equipment that was claimed to be more valuable than our lives to her. The first thing I did was lay out all of our gadgets. I taught her how the grappling hook that she saw that we had in our naval battle worked. I showed her the cable. It was a kind of imitation Garlean fiber that the Ironworks had made. I showed her to pick it off of the belt we had and how to shoot it. She shot it up around the mast’s arms and climbed a bit of it while I watched. I showed her how our explosives worked, which was something else we used in the fight. I didn’t pull any pins, but I explained to her what would happen. You pulled it, threw it and it would explode in a flash of powder and shrapnel. We both knew that it was easier to explain everything if you just… left the science out. So that’s what I did. It’s not like I knew any better about how it was designed either. I let her see the wound on my suit. I let her see how it had patched itself up over time so that the only way you can tell it had ever been pierced was its discoloration compared to the rest of the outfit. I explained to her when it’s teared open, it will release a medical gel that’ll seep over your wound and sterilize it while working on healing it. Then the threading would re-sauterize itself. Some kind of magical charm, I told her. Honestly, I didn’t know how it worked. I explained to her how our canteens could scoop up dirty water and filter it. I told her about the little square patch on the side of it and how it would change from red to green once you shook it enough and the filter did its work. By this point, I couldn’t hide my liking to these kinds of things. It was amazing technology and… there was a part of me that was having fun showing her all of this in the dead of night at an ungodly hour with barely any sleep and the warmth of the torch’s fire over us. I joked about how you could probably drink your own piss in one of these. Am I sailor now? Probably not. But dirtier, yeah... probably. Then I let her see how the rations worked. I showed her what amounted to a bag. That same kind of bag one would get from packaged treats in Garlemald. I didn’t want to waste any of them, but I explained to her how you could pour water into one of the pockets, and the alchemical powder inside would react to the water and boil up, ‘cooking’ the nutritional meals inside so that maybe we wouldn’t have to vomit our meals out while… while diving down there. Then we tried putting on the suit. I told her how to buckle the straps in. I explained to her how not to worry about clipping the water-tight seals together, that it would come later. I taught her how to latch on the boots, what gauges to check on her suit to make sure she was doing alright, and I even explained to her a little bit of the science behind how aether was embedded into the weaving, and how air was vented through micro-tubing in-between the threading to give us breathable air for a while with the help of a mouthpiece that would hang from her collarbone when attached. It looked like it was made for her… her form was as black as the night sky in front of me. This was actually happening, I thought. The most fun I had was showing her how the goggles worked. It had three different modes, I had explained to her. Night vision, thermals vision, and aetherial vision. She just looked at me, confused. Heh, well, I guess there was no other choice but to just put them on her and let her see for herself. I remember the first time I hit the switch. Suddenly, the pitch darkness of the ocean blue and the reality around her became a slight shade of green, but she could see. See any better than a torch would provide her. Seeing her reaction to that was priceless. Even better when I switched it to thermal and stepped in front of her, moving an arm up and down like a fool. We had to turn it off after that, though. It only had a limited time of running. I guess that’s why we had flashlights. The weapons were the worst though. She held that pistol as if she was allergic to it. It was the first moment that I realized how strange it was that I was the teacher and… her the student. I had tossed a pierce of a broke barrel out to sea, and turned on one of my torch-less flashlights so that she could see it floating in the water. I spent a long time showing her how to grip it right. How to spread her legs out right. How to look down the sights. We couldn’t really use live rounds with the pistol. There was just too little of them left. So we decided to move onto the rifle because, well with two other of my unit injured… we had a ton of ammunition to spare now. “Come on, Sounsyy. I know you can do it.” A gun shot fired out. A single round from the Sharlayan rifle. A fountain of water plopped up next to the piece of the broken barrel. “Loosen your shoulders up. Don’t let the recoil take you back. Imagine like it’s someone ramming your shield and stand your ground against it. Try again.” A few slower, hesitant shots rang out. A few more fountains of water. They were slightly closer, but they were not hitting the target. The shots slowly began to ring out more rapidly, but they kept on missing. When the Captain had lowered the rifle a bit in seething frustration, she suddenly felt a hand grip onto the stock of the rifle. Ryanti was there, with his head a bit down and glancing over her shoulders, his height looming over her back, as if to shield her embarrassment from the ship she owned. “Hold on… take a few deep breaths. No one’s watching you but me.” He advised her. Normally he would be a little timid and hesitant to be this hands-on with her training, but had found it… necessarily, and probably the best way to teach her. He adjusted the stock of the rifle to rest in the perfect spot on her shoulder. “Just like that.” He voice came from behind her ears, and he softly gripped the forearm of her trigger arm, adjusting it to properly circumvent along the stock and keep a fine place to rest the rifle on. His palms were very warm, and ever so slightly having a shake to them when he rose her arm. There was a deep, deep fear behind every single he made. A fear that was only apparent to Sounsyy now, when he was this close to her, this hands-on with her position to make sure everything was right. He was scared. Just as scared as what was going to happen as Sounsyy was. How could someone even possibly have a rational mind about themselves on the eve of… diving into the unknown? But Ryanti’s voice was calm, collected, and soothing. He was trying as hard as he can to not scare her any further by his own fear. “Don’t use your fingers.” He murmured to her, his fingertips finding themselves on the Captain’s hand that held the end of the rifle aloft. “Rest your palm upon the barrel…” He murmured, shifting her hand to where the weight rested upon her palm. He glanced over to look at her legs, which were a little too close to one another. “Spread your legs out a little more.” He told her, after a moment nodding his head. “That’s good enough.” A moment passed, and Sounsyy’s tunnel vision of the barrel, and the rifle she held in her hands, was interrupted by Ryanti’s arms. They slowly extended outwards, shadowing where her limbs were. He parted his legs a little bit, and stood behind her, shadowing her posture and looking slightly over her head at the target. “You need to grip it hard.” He had said, once again allowing his hand to envelop Sounsyy’s own that held the barrel, squeezing it a bit to emulate the kind of firmness for her. “Like this. Now look down the sights and adjust for distance…” Her trigger finger felt Ryanti’s finger slide in below it. “Ready… ?” He had whispered to her, and pulled the trigger back, a shot ringing out. It might have been amusing if anyone was out to watch this. But of course, the Roehmerl was anchored, and there was no need for someone to steer the course during those ungodly hours. But maybe one or two of the crew had peaked from the stairs? The Allagan relic, which had been resting in the compartment box where the equipment was stored upon the deck they were on began to glow again, in a warm, encompassing blue light. The barrel floated in the water, with a gaping hole in the middle of it. “Again. Ready… ?” He squeezed the trigger again, letting her deal with the ricochet, knocking Ryanti back a tiny bit before he took another step forward, just to do it all over again. The piece of wood flipped about the ocean’s waves as their shots began to pick it apart. With every hit, Ryanti’s smile got a little wider. “Alright…” He murmured to her, finally letting go of her barrel hand and sliding his finger off of the trigger. He backed up a few spaces, yet for some reason… he felt the same feeling he felt earlier that dusk when he had walked away from before. “This time do it without me.” He said to her, his arms still a little outstretched, but now he was a few ilms away. “And remember: have faith. That is how we operate. Now… go.”

You are not the first to who has failed to wake the dreamer’s dream. The shorewalker’s grief cannot be broken. Seven disasters have done their worst, yet the cycle persists. It hit Ryanti hard as he thought about this. The culmination of memories from the past flooded his mind when he took those steps back away from the Sahagin Clutchfather. Mere moments before, his legs have struggled and his skull felt like it was going to implode due to the force that the Clutchfather had placed on the sides of his head, lifting him up like he was nothing, capturing him within his grasp like a helpless lamb and delivered him a lecture that ultimately proved him the ignorant one. Ever since Ryanti was a child, he had borne witness to the suffering of others. In his youth days, he would watch outside of his window, lucky to be spared of any real hardship. Yet it was all he was ever able to witness within the city it seemed. It were those memories of witnessing refugees coughing up blood from some terminal disease they didn’t even know they had, or a grieving young lady burying an infant within the desert sun. Those memories were the hardest to forget. Ryanti was touched by these moments in life, and had grown up with a fire in his heart to try to fix this world. As naïve and ignorant as that seemed. But he didn’t know there were seven. Seven. He didn’t know that the people he had painted within his mind to be nearly omnipotent in knowledge and wisdom, the once great people of the mighty Allagan Empire, had never realized their dream as a whole. As a people. That even they could not do what Ryanti had strived out to do. That even they fell victim to this seemingly inevitable cycle of chaos and destruction that mankind were just seemingly so inclined to do to themselves. His heavy eyes glanced over at the Allagan key, still alive in a sense. Still operational and still coated with the presence of that residual aether that had clung to the device for countless millennia. He had wanted to tell their story to P’welro, because he felt like he owed not just her an explanation, but the entire crew. Yet… yet P’welro didn’t want to know, and despite Ryanti’s wishes, what she said was true. The world was not ready to know and accept that part of history, a forever that happened forever ago. They were not ready to, as the Clutchfather said, do good with it. And it killed Ryanti on the inside. It killed him that he couldn’t tell her. It killed him that he could not explain to the rest of the crew just why they were doing what they were doing. Why it mattered so much. Why it could change the course of history for not just the nation of Eorzea, but the entire planet. He wanted to tell them why he had passion, and why they should have passion for it too. He wanted to be understood, and he wanted everyone to just understand. Just understand… Ryanti placed the palm of his hand over his mouth, his eyes lowering to a half lidded position of grief, pain, and self-doubt. What the Clutchfather had said to him was a powerful message that would haunt him for a time coming. When P’welro had addressed him about the things the Captain would say, his mind briefly returned to Leura, and the idea of witnessing her corpse on a deathbed horrified him further. He took a little sniff through his nose as he tried to keep his composure. “Yeah… she would, wouldn’t she? I guess she would find my sight right now rather pathetic. Maybe she was right.” It was meant as a joke, but maybe it wasn’t conveyed like that. But Ryanti didn’t want that to keep him from supporting P’welro’s current state of mind. So despite his emotions, he placed a hand upon the woman’s shoulder, rubbed it back and forth a little, and held her briefly in a half embrace, speaking quietly to her. “I’m sorry, Welro. I’m sorry that I can’t tell you, can’t tell everyone, when I want to –so badly-.” He let go of her, taking a heavy breath and turning his attention to the key. “Clean yourself up. I want you to look lovely again.” With that, he slowly made his way over to the key, picking it up with the palm of his hand. It was still warm to the touch, and facing that feeling caused the train of thought in his head combined with his physical mood to go over the edge. P’welro could faintly hear Ryanti’s pained exhales. The young Hyqo’te clutched the key to his chest, shaking his head once or twice in a violent manner, feeling his soul was being ripped to shreds due to the realization the Clutchfather had given. “I don’t understand…” He murmured with a tearful, painful voice. “If the men of all eras… if even the mighty Allagans... could not even do it... w-what can I do? .., What can I ever do…” He had leaned himself against the guardrail of the Ganesha, clenching his teeth and losing his composure, hiccupping and closing his eyes in tears, the sunlight from the day not being able to reach him in his heart now as the young Veanysus gave into despair, clutching onto what had become the physical embodiment of his dreams for all people… Now the burden of thousands was all on him, and he couldn’t even confide in others about it. --- What quality of life is there for a young girl… The Lalafell in question frowned a little bit. He had bared witness to her makeshift surgery. Vivid memories of his experiences as a battlefield were coming back to him. Despite having regained his healthy glow with his body and despite him being full of energy, the middle-aged man’s face was so contorted with a frown that one could easily spot every single wrinkle on his face, and his eyes looked as they were to break. The blood was still on his spectacles, along with the salt of the seawater stanching his complexion. He could hear the sounds of Jada vomiting bile, and blood was… everywhere. This was one of the many reasons why he had taken up blood magic. He was tired, exhausted of seeing what would happen to the quality of young people’s lives after the trials and tribulations of war. He was sick and tired of witnessing men and women of all ages scream out at him in the middle of his work, screaming out that they had wanted to live, which ended up becoming their last dying breath, their last dying wish. He was sick and tired of witnessing mothers and husbands become widows, or to outlive their children. He had come to hate his own life. To hate the fact that he was chosen to stay behind the front lines and be spared from the carnage and these people weren’t. He had wanted to make more of a difference than any natural man could. So in secret, he practiced blood magic. In secret, he numbed his brain from draining the life out of his enemies in horrific ways to empower his ability to save the men on his own side. All while sacrificing years of his life due to the toll it took on his body: his soul. He would certainly not live as long now if he hadn’t practiced it. Of course, one could not forget either that it killed his dreams to become a Doctor. A graduate of Sharlayan’s elite schools. It was ironic then, that the last remaining thing he could do to keep Leura alive with a chance to recover, did not involve blood magic. “My staff.” He replied to Cwaenlona’s message about using aether to join the vessels together. “My staff. I need my staff. Anyone in here that can get me my staff – please do so. It is at the corner of the door.” The Lalafell looked on as several figured raced for the door. Leura looked deathly. Her breaths were weak, and her body was already preparing the final stages of death. She was ready to drown in that water she was tossed into. “After I do this, this will make me practically useless.” Forty-three mentioned. “As I have to use the source of the power I have utilized as a Magi in order to save her. Please leave the incision open.” Upon taking the staff, the Lalafell marveled at its construction very briefly, a look of sadness and despondency upon his staff. “Oh, my dear friend. However many years have we traveled together and shared experiences with one another? Alas, we are both old, and unfortunately your life expectancy is shorter than mine. Alas, with you dies one of my only companions that could bare witness to telling my life’s tale, but perhaps that is for the best, as the things I have seen I do not wish on my worst enemy. So please, your life for hers. Give one that hasn’t a chance to truly live yet an opportunity to do so.” With that, he plucked the aetheric crystal out of the staff. Within moments, the staff began to dematerialize. From the bottom up little white lights emerged from the cane, as if a thousand phaeries were beginning their exodus towards the heavens, rendering the staff nonexistent as the tool faded away, leaving only the shining crystal of aether, imbued with the life force of making miracles, the kind that one would whisper to be the deeds of the great white healers of the long-passed Fifth Astral Era. “I need total silence please.” The lalafell requested. He closed his eyes, and managed the palms of his small hands around the crystal. He began to rub his hands back and forth, as it figuratively crushing the pieces of crystal in his hands. A great light shone within, and the crystal began to simmer and boil down into bits of diamond dust that glowed with a powerful blue hue. The failed Doctor then sprinkled the powder of life into the wound of Leura’s. The area itself began to glow a bright blue hue, illuminating the faces that were looking down upon it, including Forty-three’s own. His twitching hand removed his spectacles softly, lowering them to his side before dropping them onto the floor, preferring to glance at this work with his own eyes. The dust had sprinkled over her wound and melted inside of the very fabric of it, joining the end tips of the two veins and securing a bridge. Afterwords, Forty-three disengaged the clamps, and witnessed the blood from her head flow down that piece of vein and downward towards the rest of her body. Following on that, he also pulled Sounsyy’s donation tube out of her system as well. He held Leura’s cheeks with both hands softly. She was unmoving, but still breathing. “Stitch her up. That is all we can do for now… if she survives the first hour it’ll… look better for her. Let’s… move her over to a better place. And I do –not- mean the lifestream. I just mean one of those cots.” --- When the Captain’s curtain was pulled, Jonathan and Forty-three were together in a corner of the room. Jonathan’s legs was all bandaged up, and two pieces of plank wood were tied to each side of his leg. His leg was broken, so it was apparent that he would be crippled for at least a few months. But to a man like Jonathan, his wounds were considered minor in his eye. He was already standing up, albeit with a crutch huddled underneath his armpit. He was engaging in a rapid conversation with Forty-three, and the Lalafell had a punch of papers on him, fiddling through them with expertise and writing things down rapidly as Jonathan was speaking. The Captain could pick out a few bits of conversation. “He is going to have to go through with this alone, so it is important that we make sure that h-“ Jonathan was mumbling to Forty-threes yes’s and yes sir’s. It was apparent that they were talking about Seventy-seven: Ryanti. Forty-three’s power had left him with his staff, and he was only useful now as a helpful aide to Cwaenlona. Jonathan had been shot in the leg, and could barely walk without a crutch. Eighty-five was… --- He too, was floating. But he was in no ocean. He could see the brilliant ceiling, and the familiar deep blue diamond-shaped lights that decorated it, along with the majestic and divine paintings of the sky itself littered with all of the glowing stars that were sometimes difficult to see at night… especially in the enormous towering cities... He could see the water droplets sparkle in the light as he turned around. The perspective around him was unintelligible to him besides the ceiling. The rest of it was… blurry, and the doorway leading out of the room he was in shined with a blinding white light. A white light so blinding that is silhouetted the figure standing near the pool he was in, a figure that was sitting on the edge of the pool with feet in the water but nothing else. “I can’t…” He heard the figure say. It was a woman’s voice. A thought ran past his head, a thought that Ryanti believed wasn’t his, couldn’t be his. Could it? It felt so wonderful here. So soothing. He raised up a hand to the dark figure… a beckoning, inviting hand that was palm up. Droplets of water slowly fell from his arm. He extended his fingers towards the dark figure. The voice that came out of his mouth were a combination of his voice and… someone else’s. “Come in. The water is fine… and if you were to fall underneath the water… I will pull you right back up. I promise.” I promise. The aquamarine eyes of Ryanti Veanysus slowly but surely opened. His vision was a blur at first, and he didn’t remember when he had fallen asleep. He was seated on a small stool, having rested his upper body upon an infirmary cot. His hair was sprawled about his scalp in a fluffy, clean sheen, having taken a bath as soon as he was allowed do during the process of sterilizing the deck. He was wearing nothing now but a pair of tan trousers that were tied to his waist by a leather strand and ran down to his knees. He had his Sharlayan undershirt on him as well. The sleeves stopped at his shoulders and covered the center of his chest in a thin see-through fabric. Papers of scribbled down information were cluttered all around the bedside that he fell asleep on, and the pen he was using had escaped his hand in his slumber. He had been trying to be by Leura’s side as much as he could, all the while juggling all of the information the other two were feeding him and trying to comprehend everything. It all just shut down on him. His body shut down. He still felt very tired as he eyed the two individuals that had walked into the room. His eyes focused on Sounsyy shortly afterwords, realizing that the arm that he had extended in the dream was extended upon the bed, lightly gripping the sheets. For a moment, he believed that Sounsyy was also part of the dream. With the manner of her dress and... “Captain!” He quietly exclaimed, sitting himself up. His locks, which had been greased down before, were once again their pearly white selves. “Oh… “ He murmured to himself, a little taken aback by being caught in the middle of a paper clutter and… everything else. He turned his face away from her and stroked a bit of his locks back, feeling his cheeks were a bit hot. Eighty-five was laying down back first in the infirmary cot. The side of her neck that contained the injury was heavily bandaged, and the disinfectant was liberally applied underneath her bandage, where her wound had been stitched up. She still looked very pale, and there were bags under her eyes of a slight crimson. A wet rag was resting upon her forehead. She looked very still, and for a moment it could have been believed that what Sounsyy was looking at was a corpse. Until it took a breath. One very rough, tad unstable breath that had a bit of a wheezing sound to it. Her diaphragm slowly settled down, and forced itself to breathe once more. “She’s… she’s alive. Messed up and hasn’t woken up yet but … she’s alive.” Ryanti said with happiness and relief, turning to look at the Captain again. Ryanti himself had reddened cheeks, and it was impossible to tell if it was a blush from earlier, a result of his crying, or both as the afternoon wore on and forced him to shut down and sleep some. He quietly stood himself up, noticeably allowing the papers around him to scatter, completely and utterly losing the willpower to keep track of them. He started to walk out of the room, but stopped when he was shoulder to shoulder with the Captain. “Hey... umm... when you’re done, I’ll be out on the deck.” He murmured, eyeing the bandage on the Miqo’te elbow as he glanced downward at her. A gentle warm feeling passed through his stomach. She had donated blood. “Please see me when you can.” And with that, the Sharlayan agent passed through the curtain. --- The deck outside was tainted with the orange sky of dusk. The Roehmerl had pulled away from the Ganesha and the wreckage of the two Easterner ships, enough to give themselves a fair distance to be safe from the impending blast. They were to destroy whatever remained to make sure that the Garleans would never find out what became of the little scouting vessel they had sent to investigate the unknown. Ryanti had his back against the Mast that was still standing. He witnessed the gunshot fired at the cereleaum tanks that had been lined up on the deck of the ship. With an explosion of its own resources, the ship bent in half in a brilliant, fiery light to the cheers and claps of an exhausted crew. It was the glosest they got to a happy victory – seeing the enemy go up in smoke. But still, they were but one small ship far in the midst of the ocean blue, and the cleaning… the cleaning was to never end it seemed. Everyone was contributing to the cleaning. To try to break through the smell of war. There was much repairing for the Roehmerl to be done. Everyone was so tired though. It was difficult. They may have to push the dive back even further. No one expected a fight of this caliber out here, and it was just hard. But at least they were not fighting anymore. At least they were not killing anymore. Leura had managed to live. Everyone moving around had managed to live. Ryanti had lived, but his thoughts were claimed by the inevitable encounter he was to have underneath the deep blue sea. He heard the steps of the Captain approach him after long enough. Now she was in a bit more clothing, as if she was… ready to step outside. Ready to hear whatever Ryanti had to say. He was silent for a moment as the ambient noises of some of the crew around him allowed him a temporary peace of mind. For the thousandth time, he had wished that he was sailing with her for other reasons than business. Other reasons than war. “I like the dust out at sea. It’s without the glare of the sun, and you still have enough light to see the horizon. The sky is also so beautiful, so orange.” He murmured to her, smiling a little bit through his soft expression as he allowed a salty breeze to wisp his locks around as they danced to it. He glanced to the side of him, taking a deep breath. “We were supposed to dive today. It was supposed to be the four of us. Jonathan was supposed to lead the unit, and Forty-three was to support us with his magic. I was supposed to bring the knowledge of handling what we find, and Eighty-five was supposed to help everyone out with their duties.” He crossed his arms slowly, a melancholy sigh escaping his lips. “But that didn’t happen. We ran into an open war. Jonathan’s leg is broken. He can’t walk. Forty-three’s magic is gone because he destroyed his crystal. Eighty-five is clinging to life right now…” He took a few more breaths before finally glancing at her, his hair bending to the wind once more, blocking the features of his face at times. But Ryanti’s aquamarine eyes always shined through, locking onto the Captain’s after a long enough while. “I was briefed by my commanding officer this afternoon after everything settled down. We had agreed prior to boarding your ship that, with all intents and purposes, shall one of us still be standing right now then we would still green light the mission. So that means I will have to dive down to what lies underneath and… do it on my own. All by myself.” He seemed melancholy. There was a lot on his mind. The burden was very heavy. It was as if at any moment he could collapse under the weight that everything from today had placed on his heart. “The Clutchfather of the Sahagin told me that we are not the first to dream those dreams. That we are not the first who has tried to do this. Men and women from ages past, from all eras of time that we know about tried, and failed. Even they failed. I know I don’t have to explain. You can feel it. Feel it like I feel it. Feel what they dreamed and… what this mission means.” He solemnly placed his hand over a section of his trousers. It was the one suggestion he did not follow from P’welro. “I know I don’t have to explain what else the Clutchfather said to me.” His folded arms shifted a bit. His palms were on his elbows. He looked longing, as if he was trying to glance at the sea beyond its horizon. Beyond time. To try to see where his place was in this world, and what his purpose was. “I don’t want to do this alone. I don’t want to dive down into the belly of uncertainty… not knowing what I am going to face. I don’t want to find myself all alone. All alone in a deep, dark place all the way down there where no one can reach me. I don’t want to have to survive in the most forgotten corner of the realm in a place that I try so hard to understand all by myself.” “Sounsyy…” Ryanti said softly, his words filled with the emotion that had grown up along with him from the time he had met her on the bloodsands. That he tried so hard to keep bottled. “I want you to come with me.” He allowed it a moment to sink but he had a feeling that he was always supposed to have asked her to go. “I want you to come. You’re the only one besides my unit that has shared these dreams with me. I know they’re calling you along with me. I don’t know why it has to be us, and I never thought this would happen, but… if there is anyone on this planet that I would like to be there with me down there, it’s you. I know how strong you are, and how strong you make me when I’m around you. Not only that, but… I feel like you would be the only one that would understand right now.” He swallowed a welt in his throat. It was hard for him to ask her to do something like that. But it was what he wanted, what he needed. How it was meant to be. Another salty gust of wind lifted the young man’s hair as he extended a hand out to her, the sun setting underneath the horizon right behind him, the rays passing through his locks and bouncing off of his extended hand, palm up. “So will you come with me? … Can we do this together?”

One of us, one of us...

Hey guys! The static I was leading in XIV shut itself down, so it pretty much gave me the importunity to shift my main priority when it comes to this game to RP. While I was discussing RP with people a while back, the Dauntless was brought up as a place I think I would like. I looked over your website as well as snippets here and there, and I'm pretty impressed. While I can't necessarily commit myself to joining a new FC (Because of my obligations to my current one right now), I would love to set things up IC to join your LS and get my foot in the door, and work on the IC stuff for it happening. So if you guys are still recruiting for it, I'm expressing my interest.

If there's a waiting list, put me on it! I'm definitely looking to make new friends and get to know some people and get the RP wheels rolling again. I'm usually on afternoons/weekends.

I would also be interested in an invite! I'm looking to really get back into RP now that I've left raiding. I'm usually online in the afternoon/evening.

The last thing she remembered was trying to tell Jada that she didn’t want to die. She could not recall off the top of her head how many times she had relayed those words. Maybe it was once or twice. Maybe it was many more times than that. She was unsure when her pleas to Jada began to deviate from coherent into a rambling mess brought on by the nasty side effects of being in shock, of being forced to live the same five second memory over and over again, constantly trying to communicate how she felt to anyone around her that would listen: I don’t want to die. She felt a light come onto her eventually, long after her awareness of being dragged into the infirmary ceased to exist. She felt weightless, like there was no ground underneath her to stand on or sun to squint her eyes against. There was no light and there was no sensation other than a warm, tingling feeling deep within her chest, past her breasts and skin and beyond her rib cage. It was as if she had been here forever. Suddenly, there was light. Not the kind of light that was obvious, but the kind of light one would sense behind their eyelids of they had them shut tight when the light made itself known. It was when she realized that her eyes were indeed closed. With a little bit of moment, and a timid bit of effort, she opened them. Her hair, long and free of the usual stylish binds she would place it in, sprawled out amongst the blades of grass that she was resting upon. The rays of sunlight from up above danced along the autumn leaves of the trees that gave her shade before glancing off of the sides of her cheeks and neck, basking her in a comfortable warmth. The skies were seldom filled with cumulus clouds that ever so gently galloped across the lush blue sky. She was in her Sharlayan suit that felt fully cleaned and pressed and ready for duty as it hugged her skin. It was a far cry from the blood-soaked state of her outfit that she recalled from her most recent memories. It was so beautiful, where she was now. She had not laid her back down upon such pristine nature and underneath such generous shade complemented by the sound of a quiet waterfall in at least ten years. It reminded her of home… in the most sweet and sour way. Leura was not a tough girl. She didn’t think she was, anyhow. She used humor and sarcasm to hide her demons. If she was the raunchiest bitch in the room, no one would ever remember her from those small-lived moments of insecurity and self-doubtfulness that leeched onto her in methods similar to a parasite. In reality, she yearned for a mother she never knew. She missed her father and missed him hard. That was the only thing that felt off about all this. She was a big girl now. Her father wasn’t here either. Was she dead, then? It didn’t seem like it. Her father would be here if she was dead, right? He would have ran up to her and embraced her and told her how much he loved her and how sorry he was about leaving her alone… how sorry he was about mom… She slowly sat herself up. For a dream, the sun’s rays sure felt so very real. So did the pain in her stomach and the pain in her neck. It hurt enough for her to cringe and for the features in her eyebrows and lips to curl in dissatisfaction. That had to be the pull of death, she thought. The temptation to give into the warmth and paradise of an afterlife that Hydaelyn apparently promised for those that willed to weave their souls back into the life stream and be forever at peace. But she didn’t want it though… That was when she saw them. They were very far away, but… she could see them at the peak’s end of the horizon. They were like needles of the most perfect shape that extended to reach out and touch the sky. The glint of the sun’s rays off of their towers created a reflective beauty of light and polished metal that acted as a beacon of mankind as far as the eye could see. It was a type of landscape completely and utterly unfamiliar to her time along with legions of generations before her, a type of landscape that existed in a time before time. It was a blend of her memory’s and another’s. The other presence within this dream had kept her from reaching death’s door. It was at her realization of the towers in the distance that it made itself known. She saw within the corner of her eye, a hand extend. It was palm up, and the skin was as pale as the rays that reflected off of the creek to the side. Ornamenting it were extremely refined pieces of jewelry that sent a rush of heat through her body as her brain tried to rationalize how ornaments so beautiful could possibly exist outside of divinity. Her tired eyes glanced upon the figure the hand belonged to. It was a Hyuran male for certain. His medium blonde hair was thick and wavy and decorated his scalp like a sculptor could only dream to place upon a work of art. He appeared to be dressed in some sort of … elaborate coat made out such finely woven material that stilled in his motions yet danced in the wind. He carried on his forehead a circlet of silver that dangled crimson jewels that complemented his form. He moved with such grace and precision that signified an aura of total control. Yet she almost feel his humanity concentrated on the tips of his fingers. She felt her rough fingertips rest upon his palm, before closing it into his hand. His skin was as smooth as silk and she felt like she was dirtying his hand just by coming near it. The mysterious young man helped her up upon Leura taking his hand. Her feet awkwardly found their ways to standing up all normal-like again. A tiny smile graced the young man’s lips, and he lifted her hand to nose level, skipping twice on the balls of his feet and keeping his stare upon her as he turned his shoulder to face her, holding her hand out parallel to his face, as if he was opening a bit of a dance. But he stopped, and the young woman kept her stare upon him, unable to truly understand what she was seeing, being in this place with this person… as suddenly as she had those thoughts, the man spoke. His voice was a like a drop of liquid silver in a fresh river’s water. “What are you going to do?” What was she going to do? What did he mean? He made another movement, returning his torso to face her once more, bringing her hand outwards in a sweeping motion. His movements were pharie-like, and very overtaking for someone like Leura. “We have not yet talked to you. Unlike the others. So what are you going to do?” Her eyes shot up in hearing those words. They sunk in and burned, bringing out her sour moments from the brief past in which she had experienced what he had described. The others had dreams, the others had signs, the others felt what they needed to feel… but she, the greenest of them all, never did… was this the kind of vision that the others would have seen? Was this the ‘Allag’ they speak of? “Faith is a tool, but it is not a necessity. When faith refuses to serve you, create your own. That is the majesty that separates man. So what will you do?” “I…” Leura was beginning to mention, before the man in question suddenly let go of her hand, curled his lips in, and gently blew air from them. The wind suddenly picked her up, and her body went limp, falling into the water and sinking underneath the surface as the image of his form from the water’s bottom faded, along with the reality around her. ----- Ryanti had some height on him for his features. He did in fact have Hyuran blood from his father in him after all. He, like Juhh, also had a toned body that one might identify with a swimmer heavy on endurance, as per his job required him to have. Still, it was absolutely nothing compared to the massive Sagahin Clutchfather that stood before him on his powerful and fear-inducing Elbst that seemed to eat other Elbsts for breakfast. Ryanti’s aquamarine eyes were weary and etched with fatigue along with the sights he had seen that day. The blood that had solemnly dripped out of his nostrils had long since dried. His pearly white hair, brilliant in the sun when clean, was a bit darkened due to perspiration which clumped tiny bits of his hair together to form an oily chain of locks that easily gave into the gusts of wind that tossed them all about. His Sharlayan suit, while undamaged, was laden with dried blood and grime that would need to be cleaned and cleaned soon. It was a far cry from the Clutchfather. Ryanti’s eyes lit up at the sight of his armor, as if life had been brought back into them, even after all of that fighting and all of that violence. In that moment, it clicked. He was right. The Sagahin must have inhabited this area of the ocean a near-impossible amount of moons ago. This was their land now, and this battle had been taking place right in the middle of it. A wave of calm washed over Ryanti. His chapped lips pursed slightly at the image of the Clutchfather shaking violently in his mannerisms, the sight of the gallant beastman dismounting from his Elbst and making a statement with his sheer height and steps alone. Yet, he was calm. Ryanti was calm. There was something about his armor and about that gold that kept him calm. Perhaps it was because this was Ryanti’s element. Hearing the Clutchfather speak of his party and addressing him directly allowed his inner strength to show. Perhaps it was because of his passion for his line of work, or perhaps it was out of an instinct to protect the others which had now become dear to him. In any case, when the Clutchfather finished his statements for the time being, the aquamarine eyes that glanced back to Juhh’s were no longer tired or fatigued, but the eyes of a noble mixblood with a family lineage that traced back nigh nine centuries. The artifact rested firmly within his right hand, and felt warm to the touch, but the aetheric signs of life within the device were at a minimal level for now. “It’s okay.” Were the first words he said to P’welro. Words of reassurance, of care, of empathy in such a tone that begged to convey a spear that would pierce through old grudges and open up the uncongenial. It was not too long after that a warm hand rested upon P’welro’s own, the same hand that had been inching ever closer to the musket holstered upon her hip. Ryanti was next to her now, with a warm smile, gently squeezing her hand and filing it away, back to the Miqote’s side. “It’s going to be okay, Welro. I’ll explain all of this later.” It was the first time he had dropped her prefix. “Just trust me.” With a little nod, Ryanti’s focus was back on Juhh. A solemn gust of wind blew his white hair in several directions as the young man stepped out of P’welro’s shadow, taking slow and careful steps, not removing his gaze off of the Clutchfather’s yet for a moment. His steps were heavier than normal, and carried more of a presence with him, especially with the artifact in hand. He stopped after a few steps, when he was face to face with the Sagahin leader. For a moment he stared idly at the armor the Sagahin wore, recognizing it as Allagan and feeling a pull within his gut – within his very soul – a connection that Ryanti realized might never go away. Yet he somehow felt like … the connection was there even before he began this line of work. A connection of passion, perhaps. Upon glancing at Juhh’s eyes one more time, Ryanti brought the artifact up horizontally across both of his palms. Slowly he began to bow, not rushing the gesture and closing his eyes for the duration of it. When he had fully bent himself over he addressed him. “Honorable Clutchfather Juhh.” He solemnly completed the bow, yet still kept the artifact on display in his hands for the Clutchfather to see, admitting his name for the first time in the presence of the crew. “My name is Ryanti Veanysus. Fate has decreed that I am to be the bearer of The High Key of the Forebearers that ruled in a time before time in the eyes of my people. Of course the age of our culture dwarves the age of your own – and if this is where you call home, then please accept my most sincere apologies for spilling blood upon your land, and simultaneously understand that we did not have a choice.” He allowed the display of the artifact to end, with him once again returning the artifact to his side. He took a few steps towards Juhh, an act that made everyone around him, Sagahin and Limsan, croak in nervousness for sure, but he made no movement of hostility. Instead, his features softened, and an element of sadness decorated his expression – though it was not a showing of weakness as an ignorant mind would think – but rather a showing of humility. “I must afford to drop certain aspects of formality, for it grants me a greater ability of honesty.” He turned his head to briefly glance at the beast men and crew that were around him, his hair frolicking about itself in the wind, at times hiding one of his eyes. He found some solace in briefly eyeing the afternoon sky, taking in a breather from his lips instead of his nose to try to drown out the smell of death and give his mind some clarity as he returned his focus to the Clutchfather. “I was born into a world of suffering and war. Not a day goes by in my life where I do not see the after effects of men fighting men. Where I do not feel the pain of helplessness as I see the look on children’s faces when they’ve lost their parents, or men and women whom have lost their homes because of war, prejudice, or some other injustice. Everyone around me always seems to be suffering, and while I cannot comprehend the depths your people have suffered, I know that I want to stop it. Mankind stumble upon power or create their own, and then dive into the madness of their childish wars with nothing but petty, temporary gains that others pay with their blood, including the beast men, who then endlessly summon primals that threaten to devour the world, nevertheless devour the very people that summoned them. It is an endless cycle that leads to no way out for anyone.” He lifted his hand to watch the artifact humbly rest in the grasp of his fingers. “You are right. I might not have seen it yet with my own eyes. But I have seen it through my visions. I know that there was once a time in this world where the planet had reached a pinnacle. Where mankind rose to its full potential. Where their deeds and accomplishments outweighed the element of suffering. The divine ones, in whose armor you wear, existed long ago. While they are no longer with us, that does not mean that it can’t happen again.” He paused for a moment, narrowing his eyes a little at the object, though not in an irritated manner, more like a reflective one. “I... know that there are individuals out there that would do everything in their power to obtain that hyper ancient knowledge for power’s sake. Like the ones that ride in black steel. But that is not my will. My will is to learn from those whom this world has long forgotten in order to better the lives of the ones who live upon this world in our own time. To raise the world up again. To share this knowledge for the betterment of –everyone-. To return –both- of our kin to a better, brighter reality that we once had. That the work of these long forgotten people shant go in vain. That is what I want to do, and I refuse to believe that I cannot accomplish this goal within a single generation.” He slid his thumb across the top part of the artifact. “And, of course… to return these souls to the lifestream, after eternity upon eternity of unrest… the ones that belong to the structure down below, the structure that you have so solemnly watched over all of these years.” His artifact seemed to respond to his words right there, the lights on the artifact glowing in a brief, dim display. “But… our crew is ever suffering. We have traveled long and hard to arrive here.” He glanced up at the Clutchfather with a sincere expression. “We are running low on food and water. We have injured. I am the only walking one out of my entire brethren right now. If you have been seeking this key for so many suns and moons, then please choose to help its bearer do what is right. Granted, you have the power to finish us off and claim the key yourself if you wish, as I have the power to utilize the key to destroy you. But… this is not about Limsans and Sagahin. This is not about factions and war. This is about us. About the planet. About something bigger than that. Please…” He placed the artifact and all of its glory in front of him upon the deck of the Ganesha, and crouched upon his knees, bending his head forward with clenched eyes and clenched teeth. “If our mission fails… thousands of years of dreams to better the world we live in will die with us.” ----- He felt his heart rip at him in protest, as if what he was doing was against nature. If only he could lie to himself and tell himself that it was completely natural to do what he was doing. But it wasn’t. He wasn’t young anymore. He couldn’t convince himself of those things now. Yet there was still a tiny mentality behind all of the fluff one eventually picks up when they’re nearing their middle ages. A mentality that told him the same thing he used to tell himself when he was a youth: that this sort of thing could do good just as well as it could do evil, and that it all depended on who was using it, and for what purpose. So when Razia had feinted, and the infirmary was in chaos, Forty-three flung the door to the place wide open with a swipe of his hand, the wind spell whooshing the barricade open and flinging the damn thing almost off of its hinges if it was possible to do so. It was Forty-three alright, but it was not his usual self. His skin was ashen grey, even more grey than Eighty-five’s critical complexion. His eyes were a serious shade of bloodshot, and his irises were a sickly purple. It was as if he had drowned in the seawater, rose himself back to life, then walked into the room right after. That did not even explain the gaping wound he had in his stomach cavity – where the round had penetrated into his gut and sliced up his insides, the barrier only preventing him from being killed instantly. He looked like a living nightmare incarnate. Just to make things even worse, he was dragging with him the corpse of a Miqo’te Garlean, freshly slain. It was a sick sight. Completely unlike the gentle, caring man. But he still had with him his spectacles, and they were coated with skinny stripes of blood that rendered a horrific image in the lenses. Though as he began to walk, something strange started to happen. He began emitted rugged moaning sounds from deep inside of his gut, as if he was growling at his own body. His entire posture tightened and loosened, and he was jagged as he walked, as if his own body was getting shocked by electricity and setting off random reflexes. “Do not look at me. You do not want to do that.” He said with a very, very baritone voice. “Focus on your patient at hand.” He finished, his voice sounding almost demonic in nature, but carried with it the words and phrases that belonged to his personality. In reality, those that looked were in for a dark treat. The magi was using blood magic to rejuvenate himself. Through the consequence of shortening his overall lifespan, he was calling upon his own cursed body to rejuvenate itself through the dark magic. New veins sprouted to replace old ones. The round was forced out of his stomach cavity and the trail of blood was nearly sealed up immediately, covered by a new patch of skin that grew within moments. His chest fidgeted as his drowned lungs shook itself dry and his skin swiftly began morphing from a deathly grey to a healthy peach again. Even if they did not look, they could hear the sounds. “It seems that what you require is a stinting operation, Misses Cwaenlona, am I correct in that assumption? It had crossed my mind as I was pondering over the possible injuries that might have occurred to the young lady when I was in the middle of, bleeding out and drowning, ah… wasn’t the first time though.” He asked her, his voice turning to normal as he did so. Still, it was an unnatural strength for a Lalafell to be able to drag such a body. Forty-three’s potency as a mage was being showcased here; he was still using his abilities even as he made small talk and deviled in thoughts about surgery. “I have been fully schooled and certified in performing such delicate operations, at least unofficially nowadays. But, unfortunately it appears that I will be needed to sustain Eighty-five’s stability. Rest easy Razia, you did very well.” He flatly dropped the corpse in the center of the room. One eye was still open and the mouth was slightly agape. Those with dark senses of humor might have gotten a kick out of it. “I have… found an organ donor willing to lend a part of his vein. Now then. I require a stool. A STOOL NOW!” He immediately ascended one that was provided for him, muttering a few words to himself before taking Razia’s place in insuring her stability. It was quite apparent after not too long of a time that the Lalafell had absorbed the life force of … multiple individuals that were still drowning in the water at the time he got knocked off of the Ganesha. He was going to expend them first before focusing on his own. “Now, I understand that this is a complex procedure, as we are talking about a bit of a transplant, but I am here with you Misses Cwaenlona! Just consider this as a course and me your professor!” He glared towards everyone in the room besides the Captain, Jada, and Fruhsuun. “And the rest of you will be our assistants! Now organize this mess and hand us tools! Prop up the body so Misses Cwaenlona can make an incision and extract what she needs!” He glanced over at her and nodded with healthy eyes. “I know you can do it, girl.”

She felt… so cold. It was an empty feeling. Like her chest was caving in and all of the air, muscle, bone and matter inside of her body was being crushed underneath what felt like gravity. Like a black invisible hand crushing her heart to try to stop it from beating. That’s what it felt like. Her ears were ringing, and her vision became immensely blurry as she lost all sense of awareness of what was going on around her. Everything except for Jada’s face. She was breathing incredibly fast. In, out. In, out. “Hu-hh-h-h-hu-h-h-rr—r-e-e-“ She tried to speak, but words left her. She hiccuped, and vomited out a sloppy puddle of thick, warm internal blood from her throat, the moist liquid dripping from her lips. She was trying to think, but she couldn’t. What was she hearing? The sound of more gunfire... a woman shouting... and Jada was talking to her. “Ja….da..” She croaked out, her eyes scrunching up as a well of tears poured from her eyes and salted her cheeks, turning them red with irritation. Her voice sounded like a plea. A beg. Her breathing sped up even further. She was in shock. “NO!” Ryanti shouted out, adding two of his hands to Jada’s one, and pushing it down hard, trying as hard as he could to keep more blood from leaking. It already looked bad. Her skin was pale as ever. She was trying as hard as she could to just keep looking at Jada’s eyes. To not close them. “You said to live, remember! You said it was as easy as that! To not let people believe that you are just going to leave this world in an instant! You told me that!” Ryanti yelled out in protest as he felt a violent arm try to tug him away. He didn’t care at that point if that was a Garlean. He was willing to gamble. So what if it was a Garlean? He was so tired of playing this game; he wanted it to end now that the tables had turned. But such was the game of war. Ryanti hated the rules. But then the shoulder tugged at him a second time, and Ryanti finally turned around, his broken expression further saddening at the sight he saw. Fruhsuun was screaming at him. Trying to speak to him. When Ryanti saw that his tongue had been cut out of his mouth, he finally understood why the man couldn't. That understanding snapped him out of his panic, and he rapidly looked back towards Jada, and then back towards Fruhsuun. "Fruhsuun... I understand." Leura felt herself being pulled. For a moment, she thought it was her body ascending to the lifestream. It was an almost welcoming possibility, for she was in unimaginable pain and the idea of forever being lifted up into the lifestream and flowing into her dreams to become part of Hydealyn again was… a lovely one. But… it was at too much of a cost for the young woman. It wasn’t her style. Death was something she feared horribly. Especially a young death. “I-I – I – I dun-udu-duunt—“ She swallowed a mouthful of blood as she tried to force her words and will to be heard by Jada. “Wan-a-an nen-nen- anna die, I du-u-d-nt wanna die!!” She was full on crying by that point, her tears like twin waterfall that joined her blood trails on the way down. “She needs help!” Ryanti screamed at Fruhsuun, pointing at her desperately before being shoved aside and towards the familiar vessel he had spent eight days traveling on. “SHE NEEDS HELP! MAKE WAY! MAKE WAY!” Ryanti shouted out as he stumbled back from the frontline, crying out in panic as he heard the sound of Fruhsuun collapsing. “We need help! She’s dying! He’s hurt!” Ryanti called out, trying as hard as he damn well could to let anyone that didn’t know already grasp the entire situation. He kept gesturing rapidly towards the stairs as he found his way aboard the Roehmerl again. “INFIRMERY INFIRMERY!” It was the Sharlayan’s duty to value their mission over their lives and the lives of whoever they worked with. Nothing mattered but the objective. But these people, people like Ryanti, were sentient beings. With feelings. People who broke that code. Leura tried as hard as she could to walk, but her strength was rapidly fading, and she became nothing better than dead weight. Her feet pathetically kept trying to balance themselves only to bend forward and stumble over and over again. She kept repeating her statement from earlier in a horse and almost insane manner. Her heart rate was beating ever quicker because of her shock, and she looked as pale at the moonlight. “I d-ud-udn wannadieIdunwannadie I du—d” She continued to ramble and cry mercilessly, coughing and vomiting up blood and mucus upon the floor of the ship. She needed a serious intervention right now. It was unsure still whether or not the bullet had severed one of her arteries, or other less important veins. She was still bleeding. Not spurting blood, but bleeding badly. She needed something surgical. She needed to be clamped. Or else she was going to die. Ryanti saw Bereseam and Pamido, along with Jada, drag Leura and Fruhsuun’s bodies below deck. He looked like an absolute mess. The blood from his nose had dried up against his now chapped lips, bloodied as well from a very nervous bite he had given to it during a stressful moment on the battlefield. The shot he took in his stomach has formed a nastly blue bruise on his skin that made every movement of his torso painful. He turned his gaze weakly towards the battlefield, watching Terminus approach. What was he going to do now? He turned his head a little more… and saw the Captain. He witnessed the sight of her actions, kneeled down. Straddled over what remained of the woman named Cynthia. He saw what had become of her. Another jolt hit his stomach. A jolt that attempt to send his morning’s breakfast right back up out of his mouth. He placed a hand over his lips and tried to swallow his dry mouth. But the look in his eyes didn’t die down like they probably would if he had seen something horrific. it instead felt strangely… rectifying. It was rectifying to see who had won that fight. It was rectifying to see Sounsyy do something like that after he had worried so much about her being in Cynthia’s place. There was a warped fascination in his eyes. His gut that had jolted him a moment ago now felt like it was burning. But it was a different burn than one which caused pain. It was a good burn. He let that heat escape with a breath through a slightly gaping smirk. But then the sea stopped. ----- Jonathan scooted a few ilms away from Terminus, clenching his teeth in anger. His left leg was useless now, and his femur was broken. His left leg hung limp in such an odd unnatural shape that he could immediately tell it was messed up. Though he could feel no pain. He grabbed one side of his wound that was bleeding the most: a fair amount but nothing too serious. Yet he couldn’t walk, and he was stranded where he was. Yet he didn’t fear what was going to happen. He had heard the rumble, felt the pressure. When Terminus knew something was off, and glanced the way of Jonathan, the leader of the squad flipped him the twin birds and buried his head to the floor. Terminus narrowed his eyes, and took a glance to the right of him. Something was wrong, but what occurred happened so fast that there was no way even a man like him could react to it. The Sagahin had signaled him out, and he was the first victim. An elbst, one of the largest in the dozen that came over the ship like a rocket out of the water, slammed its jaws shut upon the face of the Garlean commander, shrieking in pain as blood and electricity shattered its teeth while at the same time, crushing the life support of the breathalyzer as well as giving him nasty wounds to his scalp. The half-man, half-machine shouted in a muffled pain, firing a round through the beast that split its stomach open and left it dead on the deck, the man stumbling and suffocating as he could no longer breath, dropping his gunblade and bringing his hands up to his throat as he choked. Another elbst leapt from the ocean’s depths and scored their teeth right into his abdomen, knocking both itself and Terminus overboard to the sound of him screaming in pain. They splashed into the water, and moments later an underwater bang was heard as his Cereleum deposited exploded. He was gone. Just like that. Both leaders were gone, the ranks were scattered, and the entry of a third faction begged for chaos. From then on, the remaining Garleans fought for the sake of their own lives. As the cries and howls of the beastmen decimated what Garlean forced remained, it was noticeable to see that the Garleans were their top priority. Ryanti stumbled to the railing of the Roehmerl, his legs giving out at the last moment. He saved himself from falling by grabbing onto the rail, powering his head over it to witness the carnage as everyone on the crew ducked and covered before the onslaught. He solemnly lowered his head as the audio as the massacring, the death, and the suffering filled his ears. He pressed his back against the support of the railing and sat there with eyes closed, breathing heavily, covered in perspiration. He saw Sounsyy, down next to Cynthia’s fractured remains. So this was it, was it? This was how they were going to die. Not by Garleans, but by beast men. Ryanti found it ironic… he was the one that supported Ul’Dah exiling the beast men when he was younger. When he thought of them as lesser races compared to civilized man. He was very tired. Tired of the fighting. He knew that eventually the beast men would turn on them, and he was running out of ideas. Soon people would be dropping left and right: P’welro, Susuroon, Marjanie… all of them. Think Ryanti… think. Wait a minute. They were targeting the Garleans, and came from the ocean. They did not make a move until now… when all of the commotion began. The Sagahin were known to viciously protect certain parts of the oceans around here… that means they weren’t attacking. They were defending. That was it! That had to be it! With all of his remaining strength, Ryanti got himself back up and broke into a sloppy jog, covering his head just in case he was attacked by one of the Sagahin. He was the only one up from the crew, trying to make his way below deck. Sounsyy heard the sound of his boots sprint past her as he made his way down. He could hear the sounds of his breathing as he made his way down the halls. He could make out the shouting voices from the infirmary… the sounds of panic from the soldiers outside. Suddenly, the dark and abandoned section of the ship he was making his way to suddenly went quiet. As if the sounds from outside were being blocked. All Ryanti could hear was a very tiny, very distinct whistling sound that was consistent without end and changed tone every so often as if shining light was being transcribed into sound. Ryanti didn’t have to think. He already knew. He opened the wooden plank and heard no noise. The artifact was there. In its perfect T-shaped form. The key to a civilization very long gone. He promised himself that he wouldn’t have to use it. He remembered that promise to himself as his hands grabbed a hold of the object. He immediately felt the familiar warmth of the foreign residual aether scream through his bloodstream. His facial features became soft, and he lifted his head upwards a bit with a sigh, feeling something connect. Feeling the bands tie together in his mind. His irises formed soft blue lines across them as if their shape and form was akin to computer ships. He shut his eyes and felt the immense potency and millenniums of raw willpower enshroud him. It would be a moment longer that memories, dialogue and moods would invade his mind. Personalities that were hyper ancient, and not his own. “No.” Ryanti calmly told the object in a harsh whisper. “All I need from you is to allow them to know.” He took in a strong breath through his nose, and the patterns on his irises left him, along with the mild blue glow in the veins of his neck. “Take your power back. I only need your light.” The young man’s white hair blew back and forth on his scalp and danced to the artificial wind that the artifact was creating. The blue LED stripes and the sensationally bright circular light at the crossroads of the artifact’s shape glowed in a very bright and encompassing aura. The artificial wind twirled about him and around him as he made his way back up to the main deck of the Roehmerl. His pace was a slow, casual walk, with strong steps. He had a look in his eye, a look that told him that he was safe within the borders of this artificial wind; a barrier of aether that appeared to be visible gusts of air swirled around his form. His facial expression was calm and easy, a look of strength about him as a motivational boost from the residual aether inside of the Allagan Empire’s lost key. As he manuveared closer to where the Roehmerl met the Ganesha, he placed the sides of his fists against the railing, and pulled himself on top of the railing where he could observe everything that was going on. But no beast man could touch him. He was safe. The light from the artifact began to glow brighter and brighter, shining with an immensely powerful blue light that bright and magnificently gorgeous, almost holy in essence that lit up the tired battlefield with blistering rays. “Stand firm! Allow these beast kin to witness our righteous purpose!” Ryanti yelled out in a voice that sounded… louder than any natural voice a man could shout. It also came from Ryanti’s lips and had Ryanti’s pattern, vocal range, even his normal accent but… a part of that statement, his demeanor… felt a little different. Upon saying that, he raised the artifact up into the air, gripping it with both hands. With a short, but loud and furious buzzing noise, the artifact shot a beam of Allagan light up into the sky, the blue stripes on the artifact straining with energy. “As you vanquish these pretenders, know that we walk alongside you!” Ryanti shouted out once more. But this booming voice was all Ryanti this time.

[align=center]Second Disclaimer: This post contains very graphic scenes of the hells of war. Viewer discretion is advised.[/align] Recover quickly, and remember your drills. Such were the words that P’welro said to the group of Sharlayan warriors that now fell behind the Captain’s fighting force adjacent from the Garlean menace. They knew they didn’t have much time. It would not be long before the true action would begin, and the two opposing sides would meet in open conflict upon both of their sailing vessels. This was not an ideal scenario for the Sharlayans. Their primary methods of engagement involved smaller skirmishes and quieter confrontations that were either off the record or too insignificant to matter. Yet here they were, facing close to an additional one hundred men in total. Two out of the four members of the team had never been in open war combat before, and one of those people included the Keeper of the Artifact. He glanced over at the other member of the team that hadn’t before – Eighty-five – before their gaze followed upon the leader of the group. Jonathan had kept his gaze fixed on the towering, imposing man that appeared to be the head of this Garlean division. A distant place within his gut told him that his presence here was… unnatural. There was something heavy about him – something horrific and artificial – and the expression that was on his face was of great concern despite his complete calm and lack of uncertainly in both his posture, and his gestures. “We cannot spare any more ammunition for our rifles besides what we have just utilized.” Jonathan told P’welro. “The rest of these men must be disposed of by other means. Just concentrate on what your units do best – we will do our own thing and make sure to thin out the men you will eventually encounter – Seventy-seven, Eighty-five, dispose of your rifles and retrieve your grenadic armaments. Forty-three on me, keep those gunblades from doing too much damage.” While the Captain was commencing her return speech, Ryanti and Eighty-five were very rapidly disposing of their rifles by ejecting the magazines from the weapons and slinging the guns upon their backs. They moved at a heightened pace, sprinting with a calm collecting precision that barely made any noise upon the ship. For the first time on this trip, they had fully abandoned their disguise as sailors. It was already useless to do so after they had to break their cover to eliminate half of that army. They sprinted down into the place where they equipment laid, and swiftly placed the rifles back into their special crate. Their movements were smooth and calculated, but in reality their hearts were beating fast and hard. The tips of Ryanti’s fingers and toes were tingling in adrenaline, and Eighty-five felt tight and hot in her all-encompassing suit. They eyed each other for a brief moment and for that moment they believed they could have just a little bit of relief by relying on one another’s presence before having to step out onto the battlefield. That moment never came, for it was the cannons of the Roehmerl that ignited the beginning of the battle. Eighty-five grabbed two smaller versions of the Sharlayan longsword Ryanti had on his belt. Unlike Ryanti’s three fulm blade, these shorter weapons made excellent daggers in the hands of a mischief maker’s daughter. She managed to get a hold of them just in time to juggle the objects Ryanti was tossing at her. They were dark cylinder shaped objects that were about the size of her hand. There was what looked like a circular pulling pin resting on the top. Another secret weapon of theirs. “Let’s leave our souls here. Then go back for them when this is over.” Eighty-five mentioned to Ryanti as the young man was furiously equipping himself. “Yeah.” Was all that Ryanti could mention. He didn’t know what else to say. The sound of the Garlean charge came right after, and both of them knew that it was time to go. “Let’s.” Meanwhile, Forty-three stood completely still in the center of the deck of the Roehmerl, blocking out the immediate sounds of war to prefer chanting within his own small world. The aura within his staff was a shining beacon, having spread a powerful white light where all eyes could see and fester on. However, it was a pitiful hope to try to take him out. When the gun blades started firing, and bullets whizzed past the squad aboard the Roehmerl, Forty-three was responsible for blocking a fair amount of them hitting their intended targets. His over-arching shell spell prevented the Garleans from preferring a long range assault, forcing them to get close to engage their targets with anything less than a high powered rifle. It was near impossible for them to try to get to the mage to deal such a killing blow as to render the spell null and void, for the Lalafell had boxed himself in with layer upon layer of defensive spells. One Garlean found this out the hard way by combusting into flames due to a fire trap. Jonathan preferred to join the Marauders as they cleaved their way into the Garlean’s line. The man was a natural at fighting to the point of it being scary even to his allies. The emotions on his face were shut off, and he was an absolute killing machine. The difference between him and the others, though, was that Jonathan was fighting rather cleanly. His kills were very precise. A stab into the aorta, a slash of the throat, and a slashing of the calf arteries were his main methods of killing Garleans. His ability to counter outweighed even his offensive onslaught. Any Garlean that found themselves attacking him were choking for air that would not come through broken throats or bleeding out helplessly on the ground within moments of confronting him. He was very specific in his directional movements. He was trying to get closer. The imposing man that he witnessed earlier had not yet joined the battle, and he had to be the one to eliminate him. There was something about him that told Jonathan that if he were to reach the ship, it would be an absolute maddening bloodbath. He didn’t know why, but his occupation had taught him not to question his instincts. “I can’t hold this shield!” Forty-three exclaimed out loud. His voice was heard by both the Roehmerl’s squad on the ship, as well as the linkpearl stuffed in the ears of the Sharlayans. “Too much aether!” He growled again, his voice rather low and primal for such a sophisticated man as he. But there were many secrets about the older Lalafell and unfortunately some of the darker ones would probably have to surface today. The ungraduated mage did not allow the shield to disperse, however. When it was wearing thin, he decided instead to suck the shield further inward, absorbing the power that he had casted out back into his staff as the Garlean charge came. It would become ironic that perhaps the one mage on the battlefield would cause the most gore. For the moment all of that power focused on the tip of his staff, the mage slammed it down in front of a group of Garleans that had focused on taking him out by charging with their swords and swears. The power coned out in an arc of flashing light. The concentrated light was so powerful that a spurting red mist sprayed from the Garlean men, melted muscle and exposed skeletal bone all that remained of their faces as they collapsed, dead long before they hit the ground. The mage had a still, dark look as the boat shifted its weight and he stayed right where he was because he did indeed remember his drills, watching the dead mutilated bodies slide away from him. The mage looked to his right, observing the two young soldiers sprinting back onto the deck with their weapons ready. “Forty-three!” Eighty-five called out from the mist of the chaos. “Join our charge!” Forty-three eyed Jonathan and they both nodded. Within moments, the Sharlayans made themselves known with a dramatic shift of tactics and plans that would have them create their own mini-front aside from the main front that the Roehmerl’s crew was head deep in. “FOR THE FREE WORLD!” Was the statement that Ryanti, Eighty-five, and Forty-three heard in their linkpearls as Jonathan led this charge. Within moments, the four members of the team screamed out a war cry as they seemingly ran straight for the Garlean line. But upon the side of the Roehmerl the three non-magic users raised their right arms and a booming sound was heard as grappling hooks were launched out of those wrists from their Sharlayan suits. These hooks penetrated various Garlean structures upon their own vessel, and once they did the wire immediately lifted the three Sharlayans into the air, their forms blotted out by the sun as they covered immense distance in the air in little time. Forty-three did not grapple, but instead chose to smack the ground behind him with a wind spell, launching him to immense heights to match the pace of the other three. Of the two grenades latched onto Eighty-five’s belt, she clicked the safety off of one of them, and the blue idle light on the device shifted to red. During this majestic flight, she ripped it off of her belt and pulled the pin off with her teeth, letting it fall from her. Several Garleans in the rear lines glanced up in moderate confusion, and this caused a lack of pacing in the back of the line when it came to the charge. They were already sabotaging their efforts before they even touched the ground. While the Roehmerl’s crew were dealing with the Ala Mhigan soldiers, the Sharlayans landed in between the other Garlean men about halfway through the line. As soon as they touched the ground, the grenade exploded. A ravaging bang was heard as the consuming fire of the explosion blew limbs off and severed heads from their bodies. Severed ears, eyes and intestines littered the spot in which before was healthy men. A brief rain of blood littered the ground zero of the explosion, and gave the Sharlayans enough space in which to create their own defensive perimeter in which their backs all faced one another. Half of the rows that were charging against the row of lancers along with Jada and P’welro paused in their assaulting advance to look back at the carnage that had invaded their ranks. Startled at the sudden presence of the Sharlayans, these rows turned around to face them. A silent form of understanding between those Garlean rows and the Garlean rows that stood in front of the Sharlayans occurred and both lines rushed them at the same time, pointing their spears and raising their swords in their rapid advance. “Men.” Jonathan addressed as he flanked his back to both Ryanti and Eighty-five, facing in the opposite direction of the Roehmerl. “I would like you guys to cut your way back to the crew. When that happens, then all of you must charge the rest.” “What are you going to be doing?” Eighty-five mentioned, looking over her shoulder as the Garlean line ran ever closer. “I must face him. Alone.” Jonathan muttered, half to himself and half to Eighty-five. There was something about Jonathan that he knew and understood – only he had a chance to take him. “Forty-three?” He addressed. “Yes sir?” The proper Lalafell responded, the only one besides Jonathan to possess a calm demeanor. “Use it.” “John.” Ryanti murmured with an emotion tone, sighing vividly as he turned his head halfway in a half-glance towards his commanding officer in an emotional appeal. “Don’t worry about me. Go! And do not look back at me.” Ryanti heard Jonathan say, followed by a little wisp of wind – the effect of the older man rushing ahead to charge the second Garlean line all by himself. The younger man felt a cold chill creep up to his spine. “Ah.. o-oh dear.” The lalafell mentioned to himself in a rather somber tone, pointing the tip of his staff towards the ground where the corpses from the grenade laid. “Oh deary dear..” “What’s the matter, Forty-three?” Eighty-five said hushly. “This is what kept me from graduating…” The lalafell murmured, closing his eyes and quietly whispering to himself. Curiously, the blood from the fallen soldiers began to reverse in their drying process and quietly creeped back into a liquefied form, and slithering into the pure crystal that the lalafell had embellished in his staff, tainting it and turning it into a deep red color. Eighty-five glanced away rather sickly, and stood shoulder to shoulder with Ryanti as the mob grew ever closer. This was a hell of a scene in Ryanti’s eyes as time seemed to slow down for a moment or two. It was his first time out in open war like this. He had never seen so many men rushing him with the intent to kill him. Is this what his father felt through all of the battles he raged through… especially Cartenaeu. Was this what his great grandfather felt on the eve of the Autumn War? When Ala Mhigo itself charged the lines in the Black Shroud? Was this what every soldier felt as they confronted the aspect of death itself? He unsheathed his standard issue sword, a sword made out of many layers of forged mithral steel. A sword that he was familiar with nowadays. A sword carved out to be the same length as the family sword Ryanti carried with him outside of this occupation. He could see the men and women fighting on the Roehmerl. Fighting on the other side of the line. He could hear the screams and shouts of soldiers falling by the truckload behind him. He could feel the nervousness get to him; an insane urge to suddenly curl up and rock back and forth as the sight of blood and the smell of death. “Ready?” Eighty-five could hear him say, as he brought his sword up next to him with two hands. She cleverly spun her daggers forward, and waited for the Garleans to reach them. “Yeah.” Was all she could mention. She didn’t know what else to say. Eighty-five made the first move as the lines met. She immediately strafed, and turned her shoulder to the side to dodge a thrusting spear. She was a screamer when she fought. Her shout penetrated the air as her dagger penetrated the throat of the soldier that had attacked her. The blade popped out of the back of the now dead Garlean’s throat as she pivoted her foot and shoved her blade into another spearman’s throat. The two corpses stood tall because of Eighty-five’s blades for a moment before she swiped the blades out of their necks. It was the first two corpses of her killing spree. She ducked a horizontal overhand swing and stabbed one of her blades so hard into a Garlean’s knee that the bone popped out of his leg, and silenced him with a beheading, creating a giant X wound in another soldier’s neck right after. A quick spin gutted two more soldiers of their intestines, and she left them to die slowly as her short blades parried two shoulder strikes, countering with two strikes of her own: one cutting off the man’s hands, the other piercing right through his temple, brain matter leaking out of the other side of his head by the time she pulled her blades out. She kicked another man in the groin that had come behind her, whom dropped his axe and gripped his sensitive spot once he got on his knees, his face frozen in his scream when a blade pierced his skull from straight above and finding a temporary new home in his brain, after slicing it in half of course. The blood decorated her features as she pulled it out. She immediately pivoted again and swiped blindly at another man’s face, and it paid off by slicing his eyes and making him blind, when then was an easy kill by sliding the blade right through his mouth and pushing the tip of the blade right between another man’s eyes – two heads in one stone if you will. Ryanti’s style was slightly less speedy than Eighty-five’s, but a much more vicious and aggressive style that he had demonstrated with Sounsyy, though relying on the same principles. When the line reached him, he ducked low, and swiped out two different legs from two different men at once, causing them to keel over and grab at their legs as they slowly died by blood loss. He glanced straight, the crew far, far away from him. But he would do what he would have to and call upon his noble blood to protect him. He would carve through all of these men to reach them again. To see them alive and safe. P’welro. Fruhsuun. Marj. Susu. Sounsyy. He called upon his father’s blood and leapt up into the air, thrusting his sword into the skull of a charging Garlean. Using his chest as a springboard, he kept off of him and swung his longsword diagonally, carving a deep red line into the chest of another that had maneuvered behind him, crushing his diaphragm. He immediately swung in a wide horizontal arc back at the frontline, beheading two Garleans at the same time, their limb bodies tumbling over in fountains of blood as he bent his knees in a defensive stance, his sword pointed outstretch where the tip of the blade faced the throat of his enemies. His halfblooded ears sensed a strike incoming from his rear left, and he shifted his blade behind him as the blades locked. Ryanti shifted his eyes at the soldier and held the block, shifting his stance to stone him to the ground and keep him from moving. He blinked and looked in front of him, eyeing another blade coming straight for him with the intention of beheading. The young man bent his head backwards to dodge it, briefly seeing the reflection of himself in the glistening steel that could have been the reflection of his father. He saw the blade pass him and smash into the Garlean soldier that he had parried. He brought his sword back up front with a horizontal swing, slicing the belly of the other man and dropping him in an instant. He spun to his side just as a Garlean with a shield tried to use a technique Sounsyy might have used on Ryanti in the past. But during that fight, Ryanti had not desired to go lethal. This time he did. Ryanti gripped the blade end of his sword with his other hand and crashed it against the shield hard. His two handed shunt had superior strength to the Garlean’s one handed shunt, which caused the shield to bend back. Immediately after, Ryanti stabbed the tip of his sword straight down the Garlean’s leg, severing arteries and shattering bone before piercing the deck of the ship itself. It was enough to kill him right there. He used it at a balancing pole, the Garlean screaming in agony as he fought off another one briefly with a jump kick to his face while using his sword and the Garlean’s leg as leverage. He ripped the sword out of the Garlean’s leg, and the screams of death followed him with another huge swing, cutting down three men that had surrounded him. His style was focusing on giving himself space with his long blade, and anyone that violated that space would be cut down. He looked up as a Garlean spearman made a wild decision to try to leap over this line of space and cut him down with his superior reach. But Ryanti moved himself forward, and before the Garlean had a chance to adjust, he was cut down in mid-air, a slice of blood spurting from his massive chest wound. A move like that would have done wonders to cut morale, and Ryanti figured so as he utilized his current adrenaline rush to immediately charge after the men. But these men were hardened Garleans, loyal to their cause. So immediately after charging, Ryanti was on the defense, holding his long sword in a reverse grip and sifting it from side to side as he parried each blade and spearpoint that came close to him. He gritted his teeth and cried out as a Garlean in front tried to break his defense with a massive overhead strike, but the blade of his chipped from the defense of Ryanti’s sword, which had superior steel. Fueled by adrenaline, Ryanti cried out in an almost feral roar as he lifted his sword from a defensive stance into an offensive one, the notched Garlean blade stuck on Ryanti’s sword as he lifted it up and cut into the Garlean’s neck, shattering the sword completely and severing the Garlean’s spinal cord, his head fruitfully falling off balance of his shoulders as he crumpled down to his knees, dying with the blade notched into his flesh. Ryanti kicked him and ripped the blade out of him, holding it back in front with dark, embedding eyes of a long lost innocence that betrayed the polar-layer of ice that rested on top of his warm, mountainous heart. But perhaps the one that truly betrayed what his image to others were was Forty-three. Indeed, he had to reveal the secret of why he did not exactly graduate from his magical studies at the first offensive maneuver he pulled. As Eighty-five and Seventy-seven took out the enemies that stood before them in the row that they were in, it was no question that they would be immediately overwhelmed if not for Forty-three. Out of all of the Sharlayan’s group, he would end up being the one that caused the most bloodshed. And the reason was because of his blood magic. “Twelve forgive me.” He muttered in a moment of weakness. That was before his pupils glowed a dim, dark red. “For unleashing the sins of Amdapor.” Immediately when the line was upon him, the Lalafell beat the crystal upon the floor in a forward concussive blast that turned the brains of the Garleans charging him into complete mush, blood spilling out of every orifice as their bodies fell in heaps. The immense blood from the shocking sight flew into his staff’s crystal, for every death made it more powerful. He swung his staff to flank his right side with an unnaturally powerful gust of wind so harsh that it ripped the limbs off of the bodies as they flung helplessly into the air and far out to sea. He spun his staff around his body to gather momentum, shoving the tip of his staff into the skull of another, gusting wind into his head until his head exploded. The Lalafell exhaled harshly, staying in control of his senses somehow as his bloodlust increased. He extended a hand to a few men that had charged him and forced them to the floor, extending another hand with his staff in his grip to a few others who had retreated at the abomination sight of his magic, also being pulled down to the ground. The lalafell lifted both arms up into the air and slammed them down over and over again, the bodies helplessly crushing themselves against the floor until nothing was left but mangled, broken, dead bodies that he then propelled telepathically towards other troops. He reached out his staff and yanked it back, pulling another group of soldiers towards him belly-first and kept them telepathically bound to the floor. He held up his staff as individual blood-red beams from the crystal struck the bodies of the Garleans. Nothing could match the horror and pain in the screams of the young men as the beams began to leech from their life force, further empowering his staff. The unnatural and downright evil spell mangled their cries of pain and terror as they began to age rapidly, their bones, muscles, minds and souls being absorbed into pure, raw, unadulterated power. He continued to walk towards the line of men, and the line retreated out of pure fear, deciding their best course of action was to charge Jada and P’welro’s side of the battle. But then again, perhaps it was the Lalafell’s goal all along to feed the Roehmerl’s crew soldiers. Scared, demoralized, and shaking soldiers. When he was done with those Garleans his staff had absorbed… there was nothing left but their clothing. Eighty-five and Ryanti touched shoulders after their initial sprees, watching as the men began to retreat from their lines. He heard Eighty-five sighed in almost euphoric manner, sliding her bloody daggers horizontally across the cheeks of her rear, decorating the shape of them with the blood of her enemies. Her success on the battlefield made her feel a little sexy, and upon witnessing this Ryanti raised his eyebrows, not really knowing how to respond to that. Perhaps the look of a greatly pained Forty-three was enough to distract him from strange thoughts. But his actions were ever strange as well. His face appeared to be in great pain and remorse, and as he walked up to the group, he held his staff out. Blood was leaking from it in droves as the deeply red crystal began to shed its tainted color and the power of his aura grew weaker and weaker, gradually returning to its normal state, which was powerful in its own right. “My… tainted curiosity led to the demise of my academic career, as well as my dreams.” He said, though it seemed like he had a very hard time breathing, like it took a lot out of him just to stay sane, and purge himself. To let go of that power that dared to corrupt him. “And of course, the demise of Amdapor herself.” Ryanti felt that it was kind of strange that nobody was coming from the rear anymore. Upon finally glancing back, he noticed that the last division of the Garlean force was stationed around the main door that led to the inside of the ship. “I did not expect the two fronts to become one – why are they not attacking us?” Eighty-five momentarily turned to look at what Ryanti was looking at, uncertainly showing on her expression. “I don’t see the big guy either. Is that bad?” The lalafell grimly lifted his staff back upright. The crystal had been removed of the taint, and the glowing red irises of his had faded as he spoke for the first time in his normal voice since his sinister trance took hold. “They are dueling in private.” ----- There he stood. A man of imposing height. Of unnatural means of staying alive. The sound of his rebreather penetrated the still air in front of him in the dimly lit, quiet hallway. He was eerily still, and his magnificent gunblade rested in the palm of his hand, the blade pointed down. His half-cape rested and cloaked half of his figure, disguising him as a shadow, a half ghost of a man already half dead. There he walked. A man with a dead expression on his face, but a spark of determination and grit in his eyes. A man that had grown a beard since beginning his mission. A man with messy medium hair and a swimmer’s body, but with literally thousands of tiny scars decorating his body. Scars that held deeply imbedded secrets. A man that held his own blade to the side and brought it up slowly in front of him once the man had confronted the other. “I know who you are.” Terminus boomed in a dark, quiet voice. Neither man moved. Jonathan’s eyes only squinted but a little, but he kept quiet, not spilling a single word to the imposing man before him. “Your petty little Sharlayan games will not last forever in the ears of learned men.” Jonathan lowered his sword but a moment after he said that. “Neither will your efforts to stay alive. With what state your body is in now. With what abuse you have sacrificed to it in your childish pursuit of knowledge you are not worthy of.” The tall man began walking. His footsteps were solid and his atmosphere was heavy. Jonathan, for all of his talk, could not deny that this man reeked of power. He found himself back up half a step every time Terminus took a full one. The dim light passed him over, shading all of his face but his lips and his beard. “You are unwise to insult me.” Terminus responded, his eyes growing serious as he raised his sword up into the air, his half-cape whirling in the wind as he went to strike Jonathan’s shoulder. It was a basic hit, a basic strike. But Terminus’s augmented body made it extremely powerful, and half the time it was all Terminus needed to defeat someone. But not Jonathan. Jonathan swiped at the strike with his own swing, parrying it in a very loud clang, and taking two steps back. Terminus’s cheek bent a little, simulating a calculating smile and following him. Jonathan parried another swing to his legs. A loud clang. He went to block overhead, and dodged to the side a little to shrug the enormous blow off. His strength was incredible, as was his precision. He knew he couldn’t back up forever. “Enough playing.” He heard the imposing man say. So when Terminus lined him up for another basic overhead strike, Jonathan yelled out and swung with his own blow that rammed horizontally into the armor of the man. Which did nothing but back him up a little. Terminus let out a little grunt of annoyance as Jonathan attempted to quicken the pace, and quicken the pace he did. Left shoulder, left leg, overhand to the right shoulder, chest, left leg, chest. In that instant, Jonathan was all over him. This was the same strategy that he had used against Sounsyy: Complete mastery of the basics of swordplay. Striking at all locations with breakneck speed and precision. Not allowing them a chance to attack, forcing them to defend until they eventually made a mistake and got ran over by the onslaught. The majestic Captain of the Roehmerl was one of many that fell victim to this technique, but Terminus was a whole different kind of ball game. He was a man augmented. He had no problem matching the speed and precision in his defense. He had no issue doing it over and over again. But Jonathan just kept going. The Garlean doors opened side by side as they broke through the hallway and into a boiler room. Terminus’s sword waved back and forth as he matched the offense with defense, though his heavy feet had to keep backing up. A moment was interrupted when Terminus kicked out one of Jonathan’s legs, causing him to trip and stumble his back against the guardrail of the catwalk, moving his head just in time before Terminus’s blade damn well cleaved the guardrail completely in half. Jonathan immediately got up to his feet and dodged a thrust by the Garlean lord, jamming the back of his hilt into the side of his face, breaking one of the tiny liquefied painkiller capsules on his face, the liquid splashing out as his face twitched back before he retaliated with a haymaker that knocked Jonathan off the catwalk and onto the stairs below, causing him to drop his sword. He managed to pick it up and get back on his feet as the powerful legs of Terminus clanged onto the stairwell. Jonathan managed to block his blow, but it was powerful enough to send him tumbling down the stairs. He winced in pain and glanced up at the man approaching him, calmly and collectively down the stairs. He reached his hand up and tugged on a steam wheel, causing the steam pouring out of a canister to erupt in front of Terminus. “Gah!” The man gasped as he raised his hands up and reacted to the sudden burst of boiling hot steam. It was enough for Jonathan to regain his composure as he witnessed the man leap over the steam in an effort to cut in Jonathan in half, which he dodged and tried to parry with a swipe of the legs, but was forced into a blade lock by Terminus, who then maneuvered the blade upwards into an X lock. “I told you to stop playing games.” Terminus mentioned to Jonathan, who responded by spitting blood into the man’s face and reacting with yet another swing… ----- “Come on, let’s go let’s go!” Ryanti shouted as the three Sharlayans charged the retreating Garlean line. They were becoming easier to cut down, disorganized and confused since their leader on the battlefield, Cynthia, had entuffled herself in a cat fight with the Captain. Ryanti could see that from where he was. He whispered a silent prayer for Nyemia, and the Allagans even, to watch over her. Until… just until he could get there. Ryanti swung his sword up and down, side to side like a madman, but it was an organized madness. He was swiping at every direction of space, cutting down immediately those who had their backs turned to him and swiftly knocking the ones threatening him off their feet and finishing them off. Eighty-five took care of the leftovers while Forty-three made sure they weren’t flanked. With a slash to the left, right and front, Ryanti continued. When he reached a frontal wall of opposition, Ryanti’s advanced was so determined that he placed a brilliant kick to the vertical line, putting all of his weight on it, which caused all of the soldiers behind him to fall on their backs. Ryanti had took form, and there was no denying that anyone that was watching could make the claim that after year upon year of growing into the man he was now, Ryanti was finally beginning to live up to his name and his father. One could mistake him for his father as he carved his own line in the opposing force, and fear seemed to leave him as his confidence grew and his immersion intensified. It seemed that he would find his way after all. Until one enemy that he leapt at was carrying something that he was not expecting – a gun. A shot rang out that knocked the bird out of the sky, connecting right with his stomach and knocking him flat on his back. He screamed in pain – the bullet had smashed against his abdomen but not penetrated because of his armor. But it had knocked the wind out of him entirely and robbed him of his weapon. He could hear the faint cries of his name being called out from a woman’s voice far behind him, but it went in through on ear and out the other. His dim, watery eyes beheld the shadow of the Garlean gunman shove the rifle he was carrying horizontally across his neck with such veracity that he could not breathe. He felt his body squirm and suffocate, and a great pain in his stomach and heart. He was dying. His fists struggled wildly to move. To swing at anything. He hit his ribcage rather softly, just to see if he could hit something. He felt his larynx tighten, and his eyes began to black out, his hands wildly still reaching for something. He was growing desperate; he had extended himself ahead of the group, and it might have been the mistake to lead to his death. He tried in vain to take a breath, his hands finally gripping something soft... a part of the body he was familiar with as a man. War was not a time for shame. With all of his remaining might, Ryanti gripped the man’s groin, putting all of the strength on his nails. The Garlean above him screamed in unimaginable pain as Ryanti’s nails pierced blood vessels and crushed his testes, soaking his trousers in the blood among other fluids of his own de-genderizing at the hands of a desperate, dying man. That pain caused him to ease up just a little bit, enough for Ryanti to move his head enough to bite the man’s hand. In that moment, he was thankful for his mother’s blood. His slightly sharpened canines dug into the man’s veins, filling Ryanti’s senses with the taste of mangled dead skin and blood. He pressed further. He felt bones crack. Now was not the time to show mercy. It was either him or Ryanti. Further. He had to get to them. Further. He felt the bone separate, and ripped his teeth away, coughing up the enemy’s blood, along with a finger. The agonizing Garlean grabbed the rifle with his other hand, trying to smash Ryanti’s face with the butt stock while crying relentlessly in pain. He managed one direct hit, knocking Ryanti for a loop and busting his nose, but the half Hyur, half Miqo’te leapt upon him like an animal, knocking him onto his back and swinging at him through a blood-fury rage. The normally civilized and rationalized young man who took pride in a Hyur heritage was now viciously clawing at the man, slashing his cheeks and forehead up before grabbing his neck and slamming his head against the back of the deck until blood had pooled in the wood behind him. But he was still not dead. The crazed young man slid out the loader from the Garlean’s gun and aimed straight for the neck, but was stopped by the Garlean’s good hand, pinned in-between the rifle and the skin of his neck. Ryanti dropped the loader for a moment and ripped the rifle away from the man’s hands, swinging the top-heavy object upon his face with no technique or rhythm whatsoever, screaming out with every blow until the rifle broke into pieces and Ryanti was holding nothing but a stick; a part of the gun itself. He tossed the stick aside and picked up the loader again, the tears of his eyes mixing with the blood of his nose as he edged the tip of the loader towards the neck of the dying man. He was whispering something, something Ryanti could not understand at the moment. Perhaps it was a message of forgiveness, or a begging to Ryanti’s ears that he didn’t truly want to die. Maybe they had many things in common. Maybe outside of this war, outside of these governments and outside of points of view, they could have been great friends. But Ryanti kept pushing, his teeth shivering and chattering against each other as the loader pierced the man’s skin, and lodged into his throat, finally ending his life. Ryanti collapsed alongside the man, taking a few breaths as he felt a cold, numbing feeling in his chest. He wiped the blood and the tears off of his face with a few wipes. He couldn’t think about it. He had to get… there. He saw a few more heading towards him, distracting by him laying down. With shaky hands, he slowly removed his Sharlayan pistol from his holster. He fired twice at the two approaching him, two spurts of blood from each as they fell. With blurry eyes, he looked back and forth, and saw a Garlean struggling to pick his target. He shot him and watched his head cave in. His eyes saw another – a Garlean trying to carry another injured man that he seemed to care about deeply. He took aim… and shot the well one dead, leaving the injured man to die as he… could not waste a round on that. How many… rounds was that now? He found another target… and aimed straight down the barrel, and pulled down the trigger. But no bullet came. He still heard a shot though. He looked at his gun, and no smoke was emitting from the barrel. It wasn’t him who shot this time. He squeezed the trigger again. Again. Click. Click. Click. In anxiety and panic, the young man stumbled up, looking frantically for the source of that shot… But he had to turn the pistol around for a pistol whip to another Garlean that had approached him, clocking him in the face and dislocating his jaw as he fell to the ground, Ryanti following him and beating the life out of him with his gun until there was nothing left of his face. “P’welro!” He cried out with a powerful voice. Wanting to know if she was near. Wanting her to … help him. To hug him right now… he felt so cold right now… His adrenaline was wearing off, and he was so exhausted… “P’WELRO!” He solemnly grabbed his sword after gaining his senses, glancing over at Eighty-five, who was still making her way to the crew. Ryanti frantically tried to reload his pistol, but got the gun knocked out of his hands by a Garlean spearman who thrusted downward. Ryanti quickly rolled out of the way, grabbing his sword and swinging for a leg, connecting and bringing the man down, swinging vertically upon his torso. “Jada! JADA!” Eighty-five screamed for her, unlike Ryanti who was floored she was able to make them out from where she was. This was bad. The third wave had not even joined the fight yet. “WHERE IS SHE!” Ryanti called out, and Eighty-five pointed a finger and murmured about her being over there or wherever her hand was. He swallowed his dry mouth as Forty-three utilized a water spell, causing a mini-rogue wave to wash and drown the remaining Garleans that stood in-between them. It was a moment of elation for them. Eighty-five and Ryanti practically shouted in glee as Eighty-five embraced Jada and Ryanti did the same to P’welro as the remaining lancers ran to form a line of their own behind them. They smelt of corpses, gunpowder and blood but they didn’t care right now. “YAHOO!” Eighty-five yelled out, giving Jada a surprise kiss on the cheek. Ryanti was inspired by that, and did the same to the first mate of the Roehmerl. But the battle was not done, and the three immediately focused their attention on the remaining Garlean line during this tiny lull in the battle, though the Roehmerl itself was still very much alive… ----- There he stood. Silent against the storm, hiding in the shadows of the captain’s quarters in which they have dueled their way into and where Jonathan ran to hide. There he stood, the fresh smell of blood in his nose, his eyebrows weeping from cuts and slashes, his body covered in bruises. There he stood, trying to slow his heart down, his hair drenched in sweat. There he was, debating whether or not to engage with all of his potential. With his hidden power. There the other man was. Walking with his signature heavy steps amongst his dark personal room. The massive windows with a full view of the battle provided the only natural light in the room, but his opponent had learned the methods of blending in with the shadow that contrasted the line. The shiny steel from his blade glinted in the sunlight as he proceeded to patrol and look for his prey. “You cannot hide forever.” He murmured, his voice echoing the room and reaching Jonathan’s ears. After a momentary pause, he spoke again. “The Allagans understood that only the strongest survive. Only the strongest live to inherit their gifts. That does include you. Neither does it include your friends.” The man continue to pace, slowly glancing around for him. “You believe the Empire does not know of men like you that seek to undermine our eternal quest for knowledge lost to the ages? We are not so different after all... we strive for the same end goal. To produce the same results. As different as you believe your cause is, you are the same as us.” Jonathan kept a quiet breath as Terminus continued. “I know about your scars…” When he said that, Jonathan’s eyes widened in the darkness. “I know they were not inflicted because of torturous mutilation. You cannot deceive me by losing on purpose so easily. Not when you have that power. Yes…. That power. The power the Allagans gave you indirectly through the hands of our Empire... those scars were a small price to pay for being one of the survivors… wasn’t it? Yes… you will use those powers to try to defeat me now. It is the only reason why you cannot afford me to join this pointless fray on the deck of my ship…” “Enough talk.” Jonathan’s voice was heard from a certain corner of the room. Terminus glanced over there with his dead eyes but saw nothing in the shadows. He curiously aimed himself and his blade towards that corner of the room. “You cannot deny what you are. Just like I cannot deny who I am. So show me. Show me the only ace in your hole that you believe will defeat me… show me your little secret, Jonathan Briggims.” A gasp was heard… and then the space of darkness in which Jonathan receded in suddenly lit up! Every single one of the man’s scars shined with blue aether through his suit and through the features of his face, causing his eyes to turn blue as well. He let out an eternal cry and rushed Terminus. However, this time his speed and power were much, much more powerful and quick than any natural man of his stature could afford to throw. Terminus’s eyes widened with the ability of this man under his ‘full potential’, and the swords began deflecting each other in a fray so fast that the blade turned slightly red from the heat of the friction. “Such power! Unbelievable!” Terminus shouted, the whining noises of his augmentations squeaking to keep up with him. But in his defense, Terminus realized that Jonathan’s form was not as refined in this enhanced state. So he was able to find an opening. He punched the man’s sword out of his hand and grabbed him by the collar of his Sharlayan suit. “But not enough, prototype!” He exclaimed, and threw him with amazing force out of the window. “Jonathan!” Eighty-five exclaimed as she saw the body of her squad leader crack through the glass of the upper deck with an insane amount of velocity, his body crumpling and tumbling onto the deck’s surface with a full force that would kill a normal person, but not him. Though it made him worse for wear, and the man was moaning in pain on the ground, trying to get himself up. Right behind him was the Garlean Tribunal, and he seemingly flew for a brief moment out of the window but in reality it was just his insane augmented leg strength that provided him a fantastic jump. His feet clanged onto the surface of the deck, denting the wood in with the soles of his feet. He calmly lifted up his gunblade and changed the mode on the device to activate the gun attachment. Musketeers fired a few rounds at him, but they did absolutely nothing to his armor. It even caused his cheeks to tighten up again – the hint of a smile. With one swift motion, he maneuvered the gun blade to Jonathan’s left thigh. “I need you alive.” He said, and then fired. The round went into his leg, through his bone, out of the other side and into the deck. Jonathan screamed out in pain as a hot mix of blood and lead crept up into both sides of his wound, and he squirmed around on the floor like an injured animal. “JONATHAN!” Forty-three shouted out. Only to get the attention of Terminus. With another swift motion, he pointed the barrel at the Lalafell’s chest, and ruthlessly fired. He only had a brief moment to defend himself. The fraction of the shield he had put up shattered with the power of this armor-piercing tank of a bullet, and took him off of his feet, knocking him off of the ship’s deck and into the water. “YOU PIECE OF SHITE!” Eighty-five cried out, now at this point consumed by anger and grief at what she was seeing. He… how could have won the duel?!? How was their moment of happiness suddenly just interrupted by the sudden … the… just that quickly... in a moment of rage, she ripped the pin off of one of her grenades and threw the device at the Garlean Tribunal, which tapped its way towards him and exploded with concussion and hellfire consuming his position. Sharlayan technology at work. Eighty-five’s face was firmly stuck in a signature smirk. That oughta show the idiot. But her smirk slowly turned into absolute child-like horror as the man walked through the ghostly flames, his half-cape burned off and the paint on his armor melted and greyed out by the blast. But the one thing that got her was those eyes. Those deadly-focused, horrible, horrible eyes. The eyes that she had dreamed of… while everyone else dreamed of ships that sailed the sky. With one swift motion, the Garlean commander lifted his gun blade right at her face, and fired. The round fired. The sound of it hitting flesh rang through. It had penetrated the side of her neck, an open spot where her armor could not protect her. Her entire body twitched in reaction as blood spurted from the side of her neck. The round that hit her had missed Jada by an ilm, and lodged itself into one of the spires on the Garlean vessel. Her pupils narrowed. Her feet grew weak. She dropped her daggers, and stumbled into the quartermaster behind her causing them both to fall against the spire, beginning to seize from the initial shock of the trauma, her breath growing erratic and her body twitching uncontrollably. “K’LEURA!” Ryanti shouted, immediately dropping his weapon and running over to her, glancing back at the Garlean Commander with fear and anger. Terminus’s gut began to reveal in a hungry perpetuating laugher that rang through the Garlean vessel. “I apologize for joining the party late. But I made sure to make a good impression! Revel in the deaths of your men, for this pointless incursion is about to come to an end!” He waved the tip of the gun around to the landers, and the crew. “You’re making quite a mess on your own ship there, but while your only backup is playing around on that wooden bath toy, why don’t we play a game of ‘Who is going to die next?’ BAHAHAHA!”

Make a path. Three simple words. When spoken, the Sharlayan crew had no idea what kind of consequences and implementations those three words would be the beginning to. Yes, it was finally time. After eight days at sea waiting and anticipating, the worst fears of theirs were confirmed. It was written on their faces: Ryanti with a blank look and open eyes, Eighty-five with twisted glare and lips contorted in an image of mild fright, Forty-three with his stomach in his throat and Jonathan without a moment’s notice confirming their fears with a nod. “So it’s time.” Ryanti murmured to him. “Yes.” Jonathan responded back. “The black ones. They came here first.” All of them immediately sprang up in action as soon as Jada started making her way downstairs like a madwoman. The Sharlayans, secretive as their equipment were, decided to claim the sides and the walls of the room they were in as their own little armory. Immediately they began stripping down. It was still something that Eighty-five wasn’t nearly used to, but she didn’t let it show as her fair skin became exposed to the sunlight beaming down from the windowsill. The sunlight was perhaps the only thing that never changed, even as the day brought tides of war. “Put on your suits.” They had heard Jonathan say. Similar to how the crew of the Roehmerl suited up by calling names, Jonathan did the same. Except Jonathan called out numbers. “Forty-three!” He had shouted, tossing the shortest suit of them all to the Lalafell. “Eighty-five! Seventy-seven!” One by one they had caught their suits and stripped to their undergarments, slinking themselves inside of the highly technological outfits. Many moderate clicks and stretching noises were heard as they blackened their form and transformed out of their sailor’s clothing to something entirely else, their true faces beginning to emerge. It was then that the Sharlayans began to reach for their weapons. “No, no!” Jonathan shouted out, causing them to glance up to him as Forty-three grabbed his staff. “Nothing but his staff for now! Those weapons are last resort ONLY! You know the rules if we use them! Besides we are needed to feed the others ammo! Take your lenses with you but hide them unless you absolutely need them! Leave the rifles here and only take your pistols!” Right after his statement, they heard the pirate lord’s cry for war, and immediately after the echo from the crew that boomed the audio past their ears and bounced off of the walls. Even hearing it from a distance riled them up. “Yes sir!” They shouted to Jonathan during the ordeal. When Jada had issued her order for Ryanti to stay sealed up in the mess hall, the young man’s aquamarine eyes could have lit up the day with boiling fire despite their cool and calm color. This was not what he wanted to hear. Despite his very normal initial fears and hesitations about emerging onto the deck and engaging the Garleans in battle, it was what he was destined to do. His father’s legacy bled him on for decades, serving as a Bloodsworn of the Sultan before he retired. He had took dangerous risks all of his life, and emerged from every countless battle he was in alive. That same blood boiled in fury to the idea of staying put. Even though part of him understood because he was the Keeper of the Artifact. That part of him kept his mouth shut, but it was a defiant silence. He did not speak up, nor question her. But he also did not confirm her orders with a yes ma’am either. When Jada had left him there in the mess hall and gave him the key, Ryanti’s eyes followed her until she threw down the latch behind her. Grudgingly, Ryanti used the key to seal himself shut. With a sigh, he tossed the keys upon the bartop and slowly sat himself upon one of the stools, resting his elbows on the table. “Are you kidding me… “ The other three Sharlayans began running up the decks with the utmost haste. Their pace and footing was almost completely matched up with one another, already displaying their intense training that despite being only ajoined for a mere week they have already learned to work as a unit. “Do you think we will need our fourth?” Eighty-five questioned the leader as she followed alongside him. “We’ll see. For now just follow the orders of the Levy.” He shot back. Forty-three was silent, a bit unlike him. But it was only because he was saying a prayer to Nyemia, as he had done a total of three times in the past where he had found himself in similar circumstances. He was also preparing for what he about to see, for he knew that extreme violence and the hells of war were ahead. Eighty-five was damn nearly the star of the show when it came to the crew by the time they had reached topside. She raised her voice to a level no one had heard from her before, even during the times in which she was rowdy. But her voice was deadbeat serious as she crash-coursed the other two members of the Sharlayan crew. She could perhaps even double as an Artillerist herself, and it was no question that she had studied the way the cannons loaded and prepped immensely when she was alone, and it was all showing here. She had become the leader. That was how the unit worked at times. Whatever skill or trade or knowledge that someone possessed the most on would take the lead without a word of command being said. It was a testament to their natural ability to improvise. Eighty-five was constantly communicating with both Jonathan and Forty-three, whom the former Ala Mhigan drill instructor found ironic that he was the one being drilled. But the hardened soldier was no stranger to loading munitions. The rugged man found no problem in learning quickly. The hands of Eighty-five and Jonathan were all over the place, whether it be firesanding the barrels or loading the rounds inside. Forty-three quickly found out that using his ability in conjury to lift the rounds and sand all by themselves for the other two to easily grab proved invaluable. The Limsan crew did not have to worry about a single cannon not being loaded fast enough. They kept idle chatter out of their dialogue, their words only solely focused on communicating their tasks. “Starboard chase-canon! Reload reload!” Jonathan found his way to the forward chases and gave an order of his own. “Split up! Split up! Grab onto th-” His order was interrupted by the sound of them ramming the point of the vessel straight into the Easterner ship. They all lurched onto the cannons as the force nearly made Eighty-five hurl. While the Sharlayan group were putting up a hell of an effort, they were not used to such open combat. They had been trained for withstanding small skirmished in covert locations while trying to emphasize stealth and quiet. The exact opposite of their training was engaging in open warfare like this. Their main skillsets on the physical end were sharply learned upon this vessel during the eight days of travel, but the mental challenge of the loud noises of artillery, shrapnel flying everywhere, everyone knowing where you were on open ocean… this was not what they were used to. So as the Captain found herself sucking wind and being effected by her emotion, so was the Sharlayan crew. The shrapnel that flew overhead had them buckling to the floor. Eighty-five, bleeding from the lip, was the first one up, her eyes a bit empty and her trajectory dizzy. Without a word she had grabbed the ball and chain, and Forty-three literally shot the ball and chain from out of Eighty-five’s grasp and shoved it into the barrel using his own awesome demonstration of the wind element, having also recovered from the incident. The ball and chain were shot out nearly the moment it had been shoved in. They were lucky the cannon didn’t explode. When Eighty-five’s moral began to weaken, Jonathan took over. “Come on girl!” He shouted in his rugged voice over to her. “Just don’t look! Don’t look at the ship!” He shouted out to her as Eighty-five winced at the sound of dying screams and body parts being ripped away from one another. She gritted her teeth, remembering what she told Ryanti. Then the shot came. ----- “Sir, the Easterners have taken the brunt of their ability to stay afloat!” The Garlean Artillerist informed Terminus through a comm unit. The intimating man had been at work carefully conveying the layout of the skirmish with the Eorzean ship. He had immediately become suspicious when an entire Lominsian fleet did not bother to show up, and instead it was merely one meager vessel. If somehow the Lominsans figured out the location of this derelict star ship, then why did they not send more? If the Empire was not so spread thin, they would have an entire fleet themselves. But perhaps he had underestimated the resolve of these fighters. Perhaps it was not the case that they sent a fleet, but perhaps instead they had sent the best. This was interesting, he surmised. He could care less for the Easterling vessels. They were relatively cheap to acquire and the crews could be replaced rather easily. It was the Garlean vessel that did not skimp, however. The munitions department had paid a pretty penny for the largest weapon in their arsenal, and now that Terminus had tested the crew and realized just exactly what he was dealing with, it was no longer time to play around. “Prepare the Magitek cannon.” He had told the Artillerist. “The Easterling vessels are not our concern. Aim to blow the Eorzean ship into fragments of dust as soon as they clear the rubble.” He smiled a little underneath his mask. They had used an ambitious and ruthless tactic of clearing through the second Easterling vessel. It was clear, judging by their actions, that they valued their mission over lives. It was a shame, he admitted. They would have made fantastic Garleans. Oh well. There would always be more. ---- Why was he sitting here twiddling his thumbs, why? Why was he standing here in this silent room where friendly conversation and rowdy moments of livelihood were once lived? Now the room seemed so much darker, so much emptier. The echoes of the voices crying out from above deck rang past his ears. The young was pacing back and forth in the mess hall, occasionally holding onto the bar top when he could, getting tossed about the room when he couldn’t. The stools up against the bar were knocked over, and Ryanti glanced at them. In his mind, they could easily be interpreted for comrades of his, dropping onto their sides in defeat because he wasn’t there. Why? Why did he have to stay here? It wasn’t right… he didn’t want to be the helpless lamb locked up in his cage while the wolves protected it from slaughter. Was his father, and his father’s father, and his great grandmother ever that way? No. “Damn it… “He cursed silently. It stung. It hurt. To be here. It reminded him of his youth, before he had matured into the man he was now. He was a soft child, a nurtured one and a sheltered one at home. He was never one to back down and always threw his own punches, but ended up with a bloody nose in defeat most of the time. He had been taken advantage of; bullied, estranged, and provoked into feeling absolutely worthless as the half-blooded child of a noble family. No one ever had faith in him that he would amount to anything. ”Your blood is too dirty to carry that name.” They would tell him. ”You will never become the man you could have been had your father been the wiser.” He saw the brief bright light that accompanied the incredibly powerful magitek cannon round that had fired from the Garlean vessel. It lit the whole entire lower deck up, despite how many places were latched and sealed up. He felt it hit the water even harder than those above deck. It knocked him right off of his feet, his body tangled in the fallen bar stools as the waves shook, roared and splashed up. If that round would have hit, then from eight hundred and fifty yalms away the Roehmerl would have been completely obliterated. Just like that. His mind wrapped around the potency of such a weapon as he untangled his aching body from the stools, among other things in the mess that had fell. This was bad. Very very bad. Once again, the Garleans completely and utterly outmatched them in technology. It was a fable to believe that Eorzeans could ever match that kind of power. A power that deep down, he wanted. The power to change the world. The power Allag. Allag… he mused in his mind what would have happened if this Garlean vessel had faced an Allagan one. Even imagination was a limit when it came to them. So much of their technology was still so mind boggling, so out of reach of the perceptions of what was possible in the present that was once possible five thousand years prior. They would not have even stood a chance. The Garlean ship would be effortlessly destroyed, its remnants scattered into the wind. There was a comfort in that. An urge to identify with something strong to forget about your dirty blood and the sorry opinions of others. That was when the artifact spoke to him. Come to me, it said, and I will guide you. Words that were in his thoughts, but not of them. He unlocked and opened the door to the mess hall, closing it and locking it behind him as he walked through the halls of the lower deck, keeping his balance by placing a hand up to the wall, trying to find the cargo bay… Jonathan knew what Sounsyy’s order was going to be before she had even said it. Not wanting to risk being blown to pieces by the prized armory of the Garlean vessel, she had decided to charge the thing head on and engage in a battle of boarding. He carried a grave look on his face as he peered over the rail to glance at the Garlean vessel that outsized the Roehmerl by almost five counts. Needless to say that without the Sharlayans being on board with their weapons, this would be paramount to suicide. Even WITH their weapons, this was a hell of an order. The men that Jonathan could count upon the deck of that Garlean ship… was in the hundreds. There had to be some two hundred men on board there, compared to their... twenty something? A heavy, tense sigh escaped him. “Captain, need I warn you.” He said to Sounsyy before she came to stand upon the poop deck. “That if we are to pull our weapons out, we cannot allow a single Garlean to live. Not their soldiers, not any civilians if aboard, not anyone young or old. They all must die. No one can afford to divulge.” He was silient for a moment. Of course the Sharlayans would not have chosen a crew to do this with that didn’t… that didn’t have the mind to survive, no matter what they had to do. But Jonathan knew it was their only choice. It was them, or the Garleans. “Very well, Captain. But if we are to use our weapons, then –I- will lead the hold.” He immediately rushed to Eighty-five, giving her the salute of not Sounsyy’s unit, but his. “Get him out. We will need him. Code four.” Eighty-five looked at him a bit startled before eyeing the group of sailors and realizing that they were actually going to try to engage the ship in a battle of boards. She knew what code four meant. Code four was used in their unit as a manner of informing them during desperate that they were allowed to use their classified technology in open warfare. It had rarely been used before. It also meant they had to kill… everyone. “Y-yes sir.” She said with a quiet, solemn voice. “Bring the rifles. All three of us, move.” He said to the girl before she took off. He waved Forty-three over to his side. “I need you to create a diversion. Blind them.” Forty-three nodded darkly, and then placed his hood over his head that was woven into his gear per custom by him. Immediately the Lalafell ran to the fellow Lalafell pirate lord, shouting instructions. “Distract them with your cries! I need to cast a spell!” He immediately turned around and addressed P’welro. “Hold off all firing until we are ready! Play defensively!” Cynthia was on the front deck of the Garlean vessel, eyeing the approaching Lominsan foe with her own pair of binoculars. Her face remained still and cold, but she was particularly in an emotional storm. Half of her was disturbingly angry at what she was seeing. The other half of her was… renewed with a bit of childish, diabolical excitement. This was rich. This was just too rich. It was her. That little girl from her old life during the war. The Resistance, yeah… she remembered. Before she had seen the light and joined the winning side. It was that clumsy bitch, she recalled. The one that she liked to poke fun of and mess with by demonstrating her obviously superior skill in just about everything. What a delight it would be for her to kill that now brooding Captain personally. She scoffed at that thought. She had thought her dead long ago. It was not a good thing for people that knew her before her betrayal staying alive. “Look at you… think you can just prod yourself all in here and wave your hands in the air… “ Cynthia said in a hushed voice. "Such passion you still have from waving off the arms of the Empire…” She murmured, eyeing the tool next to her. It was a magitek rifle that was outfitted and modded with a long barrel, and an equally efficient scope that hugged the top of the gun. She did not bother having to load it with a round, for she always kept the sniper rifle loaded on the front railing of the Commander’s porch. She giggled a little bit to herself as she picked up the long rifle, and placed it atop of the railing that she was standing in front of where it angled around. Taking off her glasses, her concentrated eyes focused into the scope, adjusting the crosshairs until they were clear to her imperfect vision. She zoomed in on the Captain of the ship, the girl-now-turned-woman with the pretty little face paint who had exposed herself in a brave gesture with her pistol in the air. Yes… that was the little worm… her attempt to embolden her crew would be her downfall… Her finger lightly rested on the trigger… and began to pull it. ----- The door quietly opened to the cargo hold, and the silhouette of Ryanti’s body was in the doorway. Even now he was wondering. Wondering if it was wise to do it again. He could feel the pull now. The nerves on the tips of his hair felt warm, and the hair stood upon the back of his neck. He had been in this situation before. A desperate hour which had required him to take the residual aether that hovered around an artifact and allowed it to use his body as a vessel to dispose its wrath and power upon his foes. It was a kind of unity that he only used once in the past. He remembered it, the orb that he held that destroys the minds of men that were out to kill him. He remembered the power, the unbelievable power that had saved his life that day and injected his body with aether that wasn’t his and memories that were not his own. It was the very act that caused him to take a month’s hiatus from the job. Despite the impact it had on his body by infecting him with memories and overloading himself with aether, it felt… good when he was using it. It was a danger, but he had faith that what he was doing was right. He removed the boxes lying about, along with the panel that covered their most valuable piece of cargo. There it was… the object about the size of a sword’s hilt and the shape of it as well. The object made out of an unknown near-perfect composite of metal and synthetic carbon fiber. The object that pulsated with glowing blue lines that coursed the objects like veins in a body. The center was especially blue from illumination. It was not glowing like this the last time he saw it. It was active. The Allagans… they were here. He felt his mood change a little bit. He had an idea in his head to use it. His imagination pictured the Garlean vessel contorting violently under an insanely-powerful aetherial force. The ship would bend and break like a simple twig that was rotting from the inside. Then bent again, and again, until the ship was completely warped into a ball of tangled flesh and metal, before drowning into the sea. Yes… that was what those people deserved. Those… those pretenders. They knew not the fury. They were but bumbling children with tinker toys compared to them. But then he remembered. He recalled other memories. Memories of him kicking that orb as hard as he could off of a mountain top in the Dravanian Forelands. Memories of it falling into an impossible. The device was meant for no man to wield, ever, he had told himself that day. He shut his eyes tightly for a moment, softly opening them in the warm glow of the artifact that laid before him. “That is not how I will choose to use you…” He murmured to the object. “I will not destroy myself to rush for results. The quick and easy path has a price too steep to pay.” With that, the tempting thoughts and feelings of harnessing a power beyond what the world could now comprehend faded away, replaced by the sensation of feeling safe, a wide protective arc that the benevolent energy inside of the artifact promoted. In choosing to reject the sinister residual energy inside, it allowed the benevolent energy to dominate the Allagan presence aboard the ship. At the moment Ryanti had looked away from the artifact, Eighty-five had shot open the door, immediately eyeing him with a certain kind of look. “Ryanti, you can’t use it. You’ve just been cleared!” Ryanti shook his softly. “I’m not going to use it.” He skipped his feet up to her quickly. “What do you need?” “Your keys.” She barked. “We need to grab our weapons and grab them now! Code four!” “Let’s go then, let’s go!” Ryanti shouted back, and the two young adults sprinted towards the area in which they had rested their crate for the time being. Ryanti franticly unlocked the door, but as he was doing so, he felt something hit him. It wasn’t anything physical, but a memory. A memory that played out in his head as Eighty-five ran past him to shove the top off of the crate and grab the rifles. He gasped lightly, and grasped the side of the door with a hand of his, closing his eyes violently. He felt… blood. The warmth of blood and the scarring of his eyes. He felt a body in his arms, his voice shouting out into the air as he’s pulled off of her to continue the fight. Pulled off… a body… what was he seeing with his eyes? Who was it? It was horrifying... so horrifying that for a mere moment was all that he could take before his body reacted by rejecting the memory, causing it to fade away instantly. Which told him the memory did not come from him. It was being injected to him. All he could recall else from what he saw and felt, was the sound of a hat falling to the floor. He had remembered the sound of that hat falling to the floor before. It was made out of a certain material. The Captain’s… the Captain’s hat… and then it clicked. In rejecting the dark path, Ryanti was gifted with a memory that had not happened yet. A memory he could change. “Seventy-seven! I need help!” Eighty-five called out, holding two of the rifles behind her back by using the straps. “Seventy-seven! Seventy-seven what’s wrong!” “They’re gonna kill her!” He suddenly shouted back. “They’re gonna kill her!” He screamed out again before bolting. His. Ass. Off. To the deck. “RYANTI!” He heard Eighty-five scream back awkwardly. She swore awkwardly and somehow found a way to carry all three rifles with her. We value the concept of fate. Not only because we wish to believe that it is our fate to bring about a positive change to the world, our fate to live, or our fate to prosper, but also because we have the power to change fate if it isn’t to our liking. Ryanti remembered this phrase from the man that had brought him into the force in the first place. The thought was omnipresent in his mind as he suddenly emerged himself out onto the battlefield at a sprint that could only be matched by someone running for his life. Or for someone else’s. No one could stop him at the pace he was setting. “Captain! Sounsyy!” He tried to cry out, but the last veined attempt at the Garlean vessel to hit the Roehmerl before their ships side-wined together drowned out his voice with the sound of a cannonball hitting the water. Close, but no cigar. There she was, and the memory came back. This was where she fell. This was where she would die instantly. Only she didn’t. Perhaps ironically because of Ryanti’s dirty blood, it gave him the leg strength he needed to make it just in time. The only sound that made it to her ears was a deep, primal cry from Ryanti’s mouth that made his muscles stress to the limit. At an impossibly short moment later, he tackled her from the side, knocking both of them over at such a rough pace that it knocked the wind out of each. In the moment that he had knocked her over, a booming shot was heard whizzing from the top of the Garlean deck. The round aimed for her head instead grazed past Ryanti’s shoulder, straight through one of the masts, leaving a hole but not crippling the mast enough for it to fall, through the Captain’s door, through one of, if not the, last wine bottle on her shelf, causing it to shatter and the liquid to spill, ricocheting off the wall, and settling into a depression right on top of the Captain’s chair. Cynthia glanced away from her scope with a face that betrayed her immense, hellfiring rage. “WHAT?!?” In one single action, he changed fate, and the light from the artifact faded. “Sounsyy. I’m sorry. I couldn’t stay.” Ryanti said to her in a painful whisper. “Holy crap!” Eighty-five cried out from the stairs as she made her way up with the ingenius weapons Jada craved to disassemble so much. “Seventy-seven!” Jonathan called out to Ryanti, holding a hand up to anyone that would protest. “He is my responsibility now!” He said while eyeing the Hyqo’te, whom was rocking a little back and forth, groaning deeply in pain. “Seventy-seven, are you alright?” “Yeah-hhmnn!” Ryanti managed to growl out, his right shoulder grimacing a little. The round had cut open the threading to his armor, leaving a decent red gash across it. Green chemicals woven in the suit, designed to instantly medicate and clean the wound, was leaking all over again. “It’s! It got my skin but nothing else. Just burns a little!” He said before letting out an agitated scream, sitting straight and pulling out his Sharlayan pistol, aiming it at the deck and letting off a few rounds. The loud noise and recoil betrayed the high caliber of the refined weapon, which was much more accurate and powerful than any musket. The small figure that had not been noticed by anyone prior retreated back into the ship once fired upon. “You can get up, yeah?” Eighty-five notioned Ryanti as she offered him a hand. “Yeah, I can.” He murmured and circled his moderately injured arm before taking her hand with it. “I don’t need a bandage.” He found himself saying, and Eighty-five nodded a little with her signature smile. “Those suits kind of work, yeah?” Ryanti replied with a nod, swallowing his dry mouth and taking a rifle from her. “Code four?” He asked Jonathan, and the older man nodded. “Code four. Line up. Due side!” “Forty-four!” He shouted to the Lalafell, who had hidden himself behind the mast pole the entire time, even as the shot rang through the pole above his head. Even that did not distract him from chanting his spell. “Thirty seconds!” Jonathan heard back from him in-between his chanting, his staff’s aether crystal becoming bright, seemingly absorbing the solar light from around him, and creating a darker aura in retrospect. “You heard him! Thirty seconds!” Jonathan motioned as the boat finally bunched itself up against the Garlean vessel. There were immediately one hundred men, half of the Manipuli, waiting for them. Their shields had formed a phalanx manner of defense from the front, intending to charge and overwhelm with the massive difference of numbers. “Twenty seconds!” Jonathan shouted out. “Prepare for open fire!” He ordered his men. All three of them reached into their side belt, and pulled out a magazine, bashing it against the rifle before loading it into the input slot on the side, and closing the magazines with a click, cocking back the firing hammer with swift motions. “Ten seconds!” Jonathan shouted out, and the three individuals held up the rifle stocks against their shoulders, aiming straight for what had become a charging Garlean mob. “From the tendrils of the sun’s might, may the holy rays of Azeyma’s warmth bake the eyes of my foes! FLASH!” Forty-three commanded, and the peak of the solar energy gathered in the crystal turned into a ball of light. “Close your eyes! Close them now!” Jonathan ordered everyone, as the three members of the Sharlayan crew placed the lenses upon their eyes and activated them to block out what was to come. Just then, the Lalafell smacked the ball of light with his staff, and it was thrown over to the Garlean side of the bridge, which exploded in a blinding fury of light. “OPEN FIRE!” the sound of Jonathan’s voice was heard. Then the three Sharlayans operated pulled their triggers. It sounded as if hundreds of musketmen had descended upon the Garlean line. Three weapons firing four rounds per second ripped into the line. The sound of mangled flesh and the flashes of the muzzle barrels illuminated the less bright area around the Sharlayan crew as the blinding light began to slowly, but surely, weaken. The rounds tore through the Garlean’s shields, armor, and flesh as if they were paper. The sound of rounds mangling the soldiers, and their screams of pain and anguish, were heard at a fever pitch. Blood splattered from one soldier’s body upon another’s face whom was already dead before the liquid even graced it. Hands were blown off. Shields were decimated. It had ceased to be a fight between two forces almost instantly, and had turned into a massacre. The light faded, but the shooting didn’t. Those that survived the bullet hell found their eyes bleeding from being exposed to the blinding light, screaming in pain before inevitably getting one of the Sharlayan rounds ripped through their body. Some tried to run back in retreat. Some ran in random directions. Some stumbled off the ship and were shot in the water. Everyone in that initial group was shot. It was a massacre. When the blinding light cleared, one hundred men laid dead at the hands of the three Sharlayans. The entire front portion of the Garlean ship was covered in bodies, and the coppery smell of blood mixed with the salty air of the sea. One would imagine that such a clear triumphant message would provoke a cry of war with a victorious accent, but… not for something like that. “Out.” Ryanti managed to croak, his brows bending in the act that he had done. “Out.” Eighty-five also stated, as her arms began to shake her rifle in her hands uncontrollably. Jonathan looked to her briefly and wrapped an arm around her shoulders as she tried to steel herself. “I got you. It’s alright.” “We share the burdens together, Eighty-five.” Ryanti also said to her, but his eyes were red and teared up. It was a cold, cold act. Necessary sometimes in their line of work. But none of them enjoyed it. Not in the least. When Ryanti had placed an arm around Eighty-five as well, all three of them ducked. “Muskets!” They called out all in unison, and the last volley of rounds was shot out, which killed another nine Garleans in the second line that stood near the back of the ship. But as it were, the second line did not retreat, instead beginning to march forward to replace the first. Jonathan pulled out his longsword from his holder, its silver hilt gleaming in the sun’s rays as the Garlean line split down the middle to expose the aether-bidden, staunching Tribunus and Sounsyy’s… old… ‘friend’. “Sounsyy Mirke!” She heard her voice cry over the little microphone near her lips, wired to the loudspeakers on the Garlean vessel. She could make out the woman from the other side of the deck rather easily now, though she had never seen her in Garlean uniform before, nor did Cynthia believe she could imagine it. Or could she? “Ahhh Sounsyy, the incompetent little pipsqueak from the Resistance. How are you doing, darling? I see you’re still allowing others to clean up your own messes and take bullets for you. Or cannons. Or something. What was it, again? Ah it doesn’t matter.” The light from the sun’s rays illuminated her glasses as she flicked her hair aside. “Maybe even allowing others to do your hair for you too? I do my own just fine. But I was always able to do everything just fine and you… weren’t. I admit, you managed to get this far by relying on unconventional tactics and your little friends, which by the way have just exposed themselves as well as your mission. But unlike you, I have always decided to walk the high road, which has always lied with this Empire. Silly girl… it has been so long since Ala Mhigo has become part of the Empire that the citizens who now grace the very roads you hold so dear know nothing of their meager, shameful past. How can you ‘save’ a populace whom simply don’t wish to be saved? Once a savage, always a savage I suppose.” She glanced over and shut her microphone off, and issued a few order by word of mouth while Terminus crossed his arms and appeared to laugh a little. Even Jonathan was shocked at the appearance of that man. “I’ll tell you what, Captain. I propose that we settle this like civilized individuals and whoever comes out on top claims the prize. I’ll let you fight me one on one IF you can get past these special men here. Yes, very special men...” Within moments, the unit of one hundred men broke off, and around thirty two of those men formed their own small square-like formation, pounding their shields into the floor and extended their swords forward. “I have just ordered every single Ala Mhigan soldier to confront you upon our battlefield and slay you and implore you a question of morality, Sounsyy dear. Would you cut down your own people in order to ‘save’ them and have a crack at lil’ old me? Make your decision now.” With a wave of her hand, the unit composed of entirely Ala Mhigans began to march forward. "We used our equipment." Jonathan managed to say to the Captain. "Everyone has to die."

[align=center]The Roehmerl 0800 Hours...[/align] Eighty-five had idly glanced back and forth, humming to herself as the Sharlayan crew were being escorted once again. She was in slightly better spirits it seemed. Both her glance and her humming betrayed her being in thought, though it seemed like she was playing more with those thoughts than thinking extremely deep about it. Who really knew when that woman could turn on her serious switch? It was a very back and forth thing with her. Though her calming down a tad was often the first symptom of that switch occurring. Ryanti had not expected Sounsyy to smirk at him. Or did she? Was that little movement of her lips imaginary in his head, or did it actually happen? The young man was not necessarily keeping count but… he had always remembered the way the Captain would look at him and she had never done that before. Or did she do that? If she did, he felt kind of silly for not making a face back. So he watched her for a moment longer making her way up, his chance of finding out whether that smirk was real or fake long gone. It was then that Eighty-five had slowed her pace down a bit to walk parallel to Ryanti. He brushed a white lock of his aside, her little motion not going unnoticed but he said nothing for now. Jonathan bent his gaze towards the key, not at all being effected by Jada’s little smile. While Eighty-five had a smirk on her face and Forty-three was trying to understand the gestures of shady individuals younger than him would make, Jonathan had the look on him like a scornful older brother protecting his sheep, and the flock included this ship. “It is incredibly wise that they do not be touched or tampered with. They are very dangerous and have extreme potential to be mis-used, Quartermaster. They are not familiar to most who graze this realm, and ignorance is an extreme danger.” Eighty-five let out a little bit of air from her swollen cheeks in the way one would take an awkward breath watching someone else say something a bit prickly. But Jonathan wasn’t really all that phased. Forty-three had quite the serious look on his face however, his spectacles reflecting the light bouncing off from the windowsill. The makeshift leader of the unit took himself to the crate, and the Sharlayan crew took all of the space that they had to work with their equipment. Upon peeling open the crate, they got to work. The first thing that the group did was very carefully pull out the weapons. They were guns, that was for sure, but they were far from muskets, designed in a way that neither resembled Garlean gunblades or even revolving rifles. They were foreign in make as they were with their components. They possessed parts inside of their mechanical systems that moved. These moving parts adjusted themselves based on what the Sharlayan crew did. Both Ryanti and Eighty-five took the rifles and walked over to their own side of the room while Jonathan and Forty-three settled to the other. Jonathan tasked himself with the responsibility of making sure that the Sharlayan operative suits were working. Some sounds of air compression were heard as he tested the gear upon the suit responsible for being able to dive underwater. It was a sophisticated set up of micro-fiber air tubes that covered the suit like skinny veins all over. As the suits were very form-fitting and designed for supreme athletic use, nothing could get in the way of comfort and durability. Which was why the scuba gear on the suits were highly advanced, as was the resin in the armor meant to block blades as well as bullets and even partially explosive-proof. Only to an extent, of course. He tested a few diagnostics, and a couple of small lights turned on in several parts of the suit before he turned it off again. He did this for all four of the suits. Meanwhile, Forty-three was examining his staff, which seemed to be made of either pure silver or some kind of alloy similar to it. Attached in the lunar crescent-shaped tip of it was a crystal of aether, which laid dormant and unlit. It was rather plain from an outsider’s point of view, but in fact the staff was extremely efficient. “These gadgets are not necessarily sensitive to being left alone. They are durable for a reason after all.” Jonathan murmured to Forty-three in private. “But I do not like the fact that we have not even tested this batch of equipment yet. It is something that I expected to do on this vessel. But the element of trust did not initially exist on this vessel and still doesn’t to a point.” “Mmm.” Forty-three murmured in thought while listening to his conversation, then deciding to chime in his own input with a mild sigh. “Any group of individuals that appear strange and abnormal and simply not what anyone is used to are bound to be difficult to earn trust for. It is the nature of our line of work – we do what we do because it has to be done, but it is something that the common man would perhaps call… a little suspicious.” Jonathan shrugged a little, handling the suits with the expertise of even a seamstress, checking for anything wrong with the threading. “When I was a lad the term normal was vastly different than what the simple Vlyibrand bumhead would call normal. My definition of normal was watching men in black march down the neighboring road of my community and drag away secrets. Nay, these people aboard this vessel are as abnormal as we are, just in a different way. Ain’t a damn one of us cosigning to simple lives any time soon. But the point that has to be driven home is that we cannot live divided if we ever hope to defend ourselves, and our homes. For all of us. ” Ryanti overheard a few words from their conversation, but they didn’t exactly register. He was too deep within his own thoughts. Those thoughts were like a whirling torrent, and he kept himself busy by tending to the weapons in order to not be swept away by the current. Despite the incredibly complicated make of the rifle that he held with both of his hands, it was rather simple to take apart. Squeeze a pin here. Unlatch there. Snapping sounds were heard as the weapon opened up to him. Mechanical pieces bending to his will. Ryanti was a natural at adopting. It was one of the many reasons why he was brought into the covert program. There were other reasons, of course. He had dreamed of a better world, a world without croaky old wooden houses, tarnished ale in an unclean glass and chocobo stables stinking up yet another povery-rotten neighborhood. But at the heart of all that lied a simple calling. A desire to better society. To better people. To live to his full potential… and to be the hand to save lost souls from the storm. It was at this time that Eighty-five had sat next to him, casually taking apart as small revolver as Ryanti took apart the larger weapon. At first, she hummed quietly, like a mother would while sewing or washing the clothes. But then the humming stopped, and Ryanti flicked his eyes towards her once or twice while doing his own thing. Suddenly, she spoke, and the words seem to come out of nowhere yet… Ryanti was expecting them. “The stuff you said back there. About the Bloodsands, and the fool. That’s all true, isn’t it?” She finally said, the little smile on her face hiding from the fact that it was a difficult question for her to ask, as she was not sure how Seventy-seven would react to such a probe. But Ryanti didn’t really seem all that affected by her asking. Maybe he knew that it was inevitable that someone asked. He had always noticed that despite being the class clown, Eighty-five was always extremely observant of everything going on around her to an insane degree. It was part of the reason why she had made the cut too. Ryanti answered her with a slight smile back, the kind of smile that was impossible to hide. “Maybe.” “Ahhhh..” The young lady said back, her voice trailing off near the end of her response as she tinkered a bit with the revolving component of the piece, spinning it back into place. She then wiped the gun with a microfiber cloth that also was from the crate before setting it back down inside of it. In its place, she picked up the second rifle as Ryanti placed the first rifle down and got himself a revolver to clean. As Eighty-five was scraping the sea salt off of the inner barrel of that rifle, she spoke again. “It makes so much sense now. Heheh. Everything.” She mentioned. Less was more in the case of her statement. Ryanti slowed down a little bit after hearing that, seemingly staring at nothing. “It’s kind of simpler than you would think, actually. Y’know?” Eighty-five chimed in to wake the young man up, who found it hard to look at the woman now so he kept his focus on the weapon he held in his hands. He tilted the gun a few times in his soft grip, watching as the rays of sunlight danced off of his fingernails, his knuckles, and the metallic glean of the pistol. These were not hands of a sailor. At all. “I mean… “ Eighty-five continued on, with a little happy sigh as she inspected the firing pin, running a cloth about the stock of the rifle. “All you really have to do, is just… stay alive. Stay alive long enough.” Ryanti lifted up the weapon and looked down the iron sights, pointing the end of the barrel outside of the window, and closing one eye to test how it felt in his hands. The last time he made a pose like that with the weapon, he had killed someone. But having committed that act did not make him lose his soul. Not in the least. He glanced back at Eighty-five rather timidly. He knew what she was talking about, and there was enough gesture in his posture to suggest to her that he was listening, which made her smirk a little. “Stay alive long enough to show her that you won’t ever end up being just… like… taken away from this world in a blink of an eye, and if you were ever to be taken away from this world prematurely that.. you wouldn’t go down so easy. That you would always live. Y’know?” Ryanti eyed her for a brief moment longer, setting the revolver down into the crate and slowly pulling out his own pair of Sharlayan goggles. He paced his thumbs along the metal of the device, glancing at his reflection in the lenses of the very special piece of equipment. He heard the sound of Eighty-five placing the weapon back into the crate. “And stop trying to figure out what she bloody likes, yeah? I mean, you come up with P’welro’s little thing in like, what, an hour? Then you get on hers and it’s like you spend friggin’ days on it. ‘Cause you’re not trying to be yourself with it. I mean, that’s your best bet. To be yourself. So start over on the thing and just be you, yeah?” Ryanti let out what sounded to be a mix of a sigh and a little chuckle. He was slightly embarrassed. But he had nothing to say to it. His eyes were a little heavy at this point though. His cleaning had become very slow with the lenses. Even now he glanced at those lenses and wondered how weird these damn things seemed. How weird he first looked in those sailor clothes. The thought came back to him, a thought he had on the first day: What the hell am I doing here? But then he recalled how much he felt like he belonged back in the mess hall. Maybe it wasn’t so weird… maybe he wasn’t. “After all, you don’t want her to think of herself every time she looks at it after you give it to her, right?” Eighty-five had said just then. Ryanti paused. His lips tightened, and he closed his eyes. His index finger and thumb pinched on both sides of his nose, where his eyes were. His ears moved, and Ryanti very rarely moved his ears. They had sunk down a little bit, but then sprung up softly, like a dandelion would in the early morning breeze. To bend to the torrent, and then to rise again. He eyed the reflection of himself in the right lense, slightly turning the goggles to capture Eighty-five’s image of herself in the left lense. It was the only way he could look at her at the moment. “Thank you, Eighty-five.” He murmured, with a renewed sparkle in his eye. She obliged him by staring into the lenses as well, leaning a little over and mused at the gadget. “Nah. It’s nothing. But hey, during –these- kinds of conversation, call me K’leura, okay?” She said in the quietest voice. “Sshh. Only Jada knows!” Ryanti blinked his eyes a few times in momentary shock. It was absolutely against the rules to betray your name to your partner or to anyone that you work with on duty. It was a golden rule. THE rule. But… one thing the Sharlayan Government did not understand was the capacity for the operatives to be people. With feelings and emotions like everyone else. “And you can call me Ryanti, then.” He said back to her. “And only Sounsyy knows.” _______ [align=center]Garlean Exploratory Naval Vessel: The Ganesha Exploratory Coordinate 44-7C 0830 Hours[/align] They had set a blistering pace and matched it with awe. Their Ceruleum engine had soared them through the defiant waters of the Indigo Deep, and despite the remarkable distance, they arrived to the target sight before the Lominsan Levy ever would have dreamed to sail in the amount of time they had been on the water. The main deck of the vessel was bustling and alive. All men were on hand, standing in unison of two large rows that spanned the entire walkway from the fore to the aft. Their weapons were positioned in a parade rest, their gaze ever forward. A red quilted carpet had been laid down in a celebratory manner. This was done with the utmost behest, due in part to the moral of the Garleans. It was time to claim what was rightfully theirs. The doors from the bridge parted open, revealing the Insidious Tribunus Terminus Sas Garvus, and his equally diabolical second-in-command Primus Cynthia Silverstien. The eyes of the Tribunus crawled their way from his left to his right, and then back again, thoroughly inspecting his awaiting Manipulus as they stood to honor his presence. Cynthia adjusted her glassed to the sun, carrying with her the all too subtle devilish smirk of a woman in power, and addicted to power as if it were her lover. The additional power she craved would come to her if this mission was a success, but her hunger would never be sated. An optimal associate in the mind of Terminus, as they were all seeking a greater power that day. A power that would not only provide the Garlean Emperor with the means to rule the world with an iron fist, but also an opportunity to return to the world to the glorious, prosperous years it had once before, in a time so long ago that the populace had been completely and utterly daft of such an outcome for several millennia. No longer. The duo slowly made their way out onto the deck, the Manipulus holding their posture until the Tribunal passed, where they would then hold their weapons up to safe port. Each of them were competing to see who could make the perfect posture, and position their weapon with such a snap that the man would notice. He took no head in turning his head to any of the men, however. The men as a result did not show any case of emotion in disappointment, for there was no reason to be with their results they were making so far. They were making their way towards the foreside of the vessel where an Imperial probing machine had been sitting idle only for a few moments. A mere twenty minutes beforehand, it had emerged from the waters of the indigo after having completed a routine scan of the ocean floor. No anomaly was to hide from its ability to detect in the deep blue seas. The Garleans did not need a sixth sense to discover such things; they could do everything they set out for completely on their own. The aether-dependant Tribunal paced towards the probe with heavy steps, completely disguising the sly ones made by the woman beside him. He narrowed his eyes at the machine that hovered above him, still dripping from it water of the ocean that sparkled in the early morning sunlight. The men on deck watched him as he issued a few input commands into the droid, which resulted in the machine booting an image on its screen that described a large portion of the ocean floor to the imposing man. As he dug through the information, he found what he was looking for. There was a massive unnatural shape near the bottom of the waters of where they were. Excellent. It must have been it. This must be it. The man slowly spun around to address his people. His cape flowed like a dying curtain of the final act, his right arm raising in front of him in a method of addressing. A tiny blue light ignited upon his rebreather, a microphone function. His voice boomed across the deck as he spoke in the tone of a rough and commanding fashion. “The scouting venture has proven a success! Right at this moment we lie directly above our objective! Henceforth, starting today we will be committing all of our resources to mining those lost treasures that rest deep at the bottom of this ocean until we have explored and attained everything of interest! May the arms of man embrace its long lost treasure!” The voices of the men on deck drowned out his last few syllables. His piercing eyes smiled for him as two staffers immediately began to roll the red carpet back, while the departing rows advanced back to their duties in single file one by one. Lights flickered. Machines booted. It was beginning of their conquest. *His* conquest. Within the midst of his thoughts, he had pulled out his holographic piece once more. Upon activating it, the blurry image hovered above the contraption, and he looked down upon it with ambitious eyes. It was a holographic image of the Starship as it had been over five thousand years ago. It was a small vessel comparing it to other space-faring Allagan models, but it was still many times more massive than an average military naval vessel. The miniature blueprint spun around in a slow idle as the equally ambitious woman beside him glanced upon the contraption with an image of wonder in her eyes. “That is it, then?” She said to him, briefly taking off her glasses to examine them with a more authentic perspective. “It’s wondrous... unbelievable.” “Yes. This is what we will find underneath. Though it may have decomposed over thousands of years in a dark pit of salt water and grime, time and erosion was nothing to ancient Allag. Foes long vanquished.” He eyed the woman with what could be confused by others as an angry glare, but it was only the image of the Tribunal being… excited. “After our gambit, perhaps time will no longer be an enemy of Garlemald’s either.” “Of course, your Excellency.” Miss Silverstein said in reply, bowing her head down to the man. “Sir!” One of the watchers upon the ship suddenly cried out. The Tribunal did not flinch, a bit of aetherical dust emerging from his outfit as he took a large breath from his oxigenified mask. The young man of brunette hair and blue eyes ran up to the Commander, greeting him with a swift Garlean salute. “Foreign vessel spotted to the Southeast of us! Over the Horizon, coming into view now sir! Colors suggest an Eorzean vessel, Limsan Lominsian specifically sir!” The Commander made a scoffing sound, which muffled underneath his rebreather as he tried to comprehend what he had just heard. A foreign vessel here? In the midst of territorial waters? Eorzea? With an annoying hmph, his words pierced through his mask. “Hand me your tool, watcher.” With that being an order, the watcher complied, allowing the Commander access to the augmented spying glass which was trapezoid in shape. Terminus paced himself over to the side of the ship, equipping the goggles up to his face and activating them. With a light hum he was able to zoom in on the area in particular. He made a few horizontal swipes across the horizon, at first seeing nothing. But the man was patient and would not be so quickly to dismiss a threat. With a few more sweeps, he spotted it. It looked like a smaller vessel... a quick one. However, it had no banister, and possessed no flag. There was no obvious way of identifying the ship. “Tell me watcher. How did you surmise that this was an Eorzean vessel?” “O-oh. Of course. I merely recognize the intricacies. The pattern of the wood work, sir. I was born in Vlyibrand, and I recognize the wood-make as a vessel from that area sir.” The watcher mentioned, with another salute. “… Why is it by itself?” He asked out loud, moreso to himself than anyone. Cynthia could not see what he was seeing, but already her face had contorted into a suspicious pose. She was sick and tired of Eorzea, and the fact that there was a possibility of dealing with yet another bloody damn savage skirmish annoyed her deeply. Terminus himself was equally suspicious of it being alone. “Regardless of its origin, it has sailed way beyond their petty little coastal waters. It has no business being out here. No excuse. Any behavior they exhibit is sure to be hostile to our cause.” He handed the goggles back to the watcher, pointing his finger at him sharply. “Notify the Artillerist to fire a warning shot in their direction!” The watcher gave his yes sirs as he turned to the woman that accompanied him. “Round up the Easterling ships, instruct the Easterlings to circle about our flanks and make it clear to them that I do not want a foreign pair of eyes to even glimpse on our operations here!” The woman scrunched her brow a bit in the man’s order, raising one eyebrow right after. “Do you... plan on engaging regardless of their response to our warning shot?” Terminus stood still for a moment, and then turned his back to her. “Precisely. Their pity little fleet will not save them out here in these waters, neither will their nations have a right to plead a case of a lost vessel. No amount of foreign subterfuge will be allowed in this operation.” He murmured, before a waiting a tad as Cynthia organized her thoughts and wrapped her head around it. “Why are you still standing here!?!?” “Yes sir. Right away sir!” Cynthia chimed in a firm response, letting out a little breath of stress in a moment of weakness before stealing her gaze, off to give orders to the Easterlings. Men two and fro began to yell across the deck, arming the ship and placing it into battle mode. Soon, the Easterling ships would be aggressively sailing as well. “I need more aether…” The Commander rumbled to himself, finding his way back inside.

It was perhaps one of the most lighthearted and best moments on the ship for the Sharlayan crew in the midst of their eight day voyage. There was not a second in the entire ordeal where they could afford to keep their eyes off of the Captain and her crew leering at her experience. Forty-three had resorted to burping out the same kinds of statements over and over again. The phrases of oh dear and goodness gracious were liberally used, as well as adjusting his glasses due to the contorts of his face as a result of the surprise he felt in witnessing the act. Jonathan was the only crew member that continued to eat, but it could not stop him from smirking from one corner of his lips to another. Even a snort escaped him once or twice. He seemed to stare at his food about as much as he stared at the Captain, his mind winding back in time when he had a wife. He remembered the smell of roasted garlic and onions on a simple cooking pot laced with butter. He remembered her bickering about her looking good for the public’s eye. These women issues reminded him of her. His eyes simmered in a reflection of both happiness and sadness. Ryanti had been silently rubbing his index finger and his thumb together as he witnessed the aftermath of what had happened. The feeling of witnessing the entire crew come down; to see them cheer and laugh and even sing implanted his gut with a warm feeling. There was a little bit of pain in that feeling, but it was only because he was not used to it. He had never felt like he belonged anywhere, shifting from place to place and bouncing back and forth in-between one situation after another. There had never been a sense that he was supposed to be part of the moment. He never felt that he fit in anywhere. Yet even though he was not the best at fitting in with sailors, he felt like he belonged in the moment, and to witness this happen made him feel like smiling. So he did. Eighty-five had held her firm composure through it all. She was hell-bent on teaching the Captain a little lesson about looking her part. She did not give a marmot’s ass what rank the woman was. In her mind, issues about feminine upkeep transcended all races and creeds, and for Thal’s sake SOMEONE had to say SOMETHING about it eventually. Though she upheld this composure even with the pirate lord’s little tune, she finally lost it when Sounsyy decided to get up and take action. She covered her lips with a giggle and stomped her foot a few times upon the deck to shake off her fits. “Looks good Eighty-five.” Jonathan mused, stuffing his mouth with a bit more bite before speaking through his chewing. His words were short, but honest and rather serious to die down the teasing a little bit. “Turned the ma’am into a madam, you did. Well at least one step of the way.” “Well, she won’t be throwing a boot Susuroon’s way, that’s for sure. If she even makes an attempt to I’ll protect the poor creature.” Eighty-five mused, shifting her weight so that she leaned more towards and in front of the Qiqirin. She had her arms crossed, and her lips in a curled grin. “And don’t underestimate me, they called me the Champion Bootlegger in my last job, and that title involves the word ‘boot’ so don’t try it!” Ryanti had been sitting there the whole time, playing with his food more so than taking any kind of bites. He had glanced a few times at her hair after Eighty-five had styled it up. He had never seen her hair like that before since he had introduced himself to her. Even when he had ran into her outside of Ul’Dah’s city limits she was sporting that same ponytail that he saw on her this morning. He had grown rather timid and quiet since all of the commotion. It was a trait unlike him when he was in his normal spirits. Being there for the crew’s warm little moment was not the only emotion he was wrestling with. He felt that he couldn’t look at her while feeling them. Not for too long. Or else she would have the chance to look back. He was afraid of what she would see in him if she did look back during that moment. Afraid of whether or not she would see the expression a boy or a man. He remembered times when she had hair like that… it was long ago, when she was in the Bloodsands. He didn’t know whether or not the times she did have her hair styled up in every which way were done by Sounsyy herself, or by someone else, but he could recall those images of her. Back then though, he was glancing from afar as part of a mob of individuals that he was sure she would have never picked him out from. Even if he would have screamed at the top of his lungs. Not now, though. Not anymore. He wanted to complement her on the hair, but he had a feeling that Sounsyy disliked complements about her body or... anything about it, really. A trait that he felt he might share with her. He wanted to bring up his memories of the times where she did have her hair like that, but he did not know whether or not it was a matter of his past that she intended to keep private. So what would be the right thing to say, then? What would be right? “You know what she looks like, actually? With her hair like that?” Ryanti finally murmured, which temporarily distracted the Sharlayan crew from the Captain’s attention to him. He paused for a moment, shifting his posture a little bit so that he could glance at her from afar after those emotions subsided, in part because he found a solution of what to say. Eighty-five reacted with a little “Hm? What?” before Ryanti spoke again. “She reminds me of one of those… warriors from the Bloodsands. The kind that you would put on flyers around town where I’m from. The type that would be as strong as a brown bear and tough as nails yet graceful besides. One that despite all that would never let anyone forget that she was a woman. Especially in the minds of star struck fools. I think she looks like one of those.” So far, Ryanti and his unit displayed their ability to tie their dreams together with reality. Well now, Ryanti was tying reality into a dream. Telling her how he felt without making anyone else the wiser. A hidden smile was left on his lips after his judgement. “A rather suiting description of her presence with that look.” Forty-three agreed. “A presence that a Captain would favor to have, I do say.” “Ooo, you mean like a femme fatal?” Eighty-five suggested, placing a finger or two upon her chin as she pondered in thought. “Yeeeaahhh, Captain’s definitely that! One of those badass anti-heroes that you read in books and stuff. Shite yeah! Though she’s obviously more into water than sand y’loser!” She mentioned, making a sour face in jest at Ryanti, who just gave her a little shrug. “Alright you two.” Jonathan worded like an older brother would. He cleared his throat to emphasize the point and stood up with a cleaned plate and a clean glass that had been drunk in full unlike the other two. “We will need some time to clean our equipment this morning. It’s very important that the salt from the air in these parts don’t contaminate the usefulness of our gadgets. They’re very prone to going back from a lack of maintenance. I trust you can let us have access to it. I do not wish the other eyes of this crew to look upon it.”

Ryanti would probably be a prep that associates himself with every kind of sport, but doesn't participate in any. He'd be the guy that does theater and band. But in band he'd be playing the violin or something. He'd be a rich kid from a well-to-do neighborhood that impresses the ladies with his showmanship but has the men questioning whether or not he's gay. Then he'll have the inevitable falling out phase where no one accepts him anymore, so he joins the nerds/metalheads in the back of the class and talks about Pokemon despite still being in plays and playing the fucking violin. He's known as 'that guy' from that point forward. Bounces from group to group instead of belonging to one. Becomes his own unique force in the classroom that influences the groups he meddles with on any random day, therefore becoming known everywhere in his grade but not in the grades above or below him. Makes high B's and low A's on everything except for Math. Highest grade is English because he's teacher's pet with the English teacher. In this picture of stereotypical high schoolers, the dude with the scarf. tl;dr: Anyone in Ouran High School Host Club.

To me, I think most of the questing you do in that realm (and the roleplaying community in general) involves the educated community, or literate community. It may seem like a crap ton of people, but I mean... in the general scale of things, you're talking about an entire continent. Even two percent of those people = hundreds of thousands. So if you take that and add to it in the sense of... roleplayers like to feel like their universe is 'lived-in', then what you end up getting is people that RP that they can read, and perhaps write. Now, I've RP'd with a healthy number of people that can read, but not write. As well as not being able to do both or being crappy at reading/writing or both. I think it is more of what you choose to RP as. This is just my conjecture and how I see it: For example, if you RP as a simple farmer on the La Noscean coast, you probably won't be able to read or write. If you RP as a pirate, or a thief, or a mercenary or a drifter or refugee or whatnot, you probably will be able to read or write but not as well as someone who is proficient. (Sign papers with X's and whatever). These people might be poor, and they very well might be the majority of people in Eorzea. If you RP as a Merchant, you certainly will need to know both (writing ledgers, reading ledgers, doing math when it comes to peddling and keeping inventory, etc.) If you RP as a Magi, a Scholar, a wealthy person, or an Officer or higher in the military, you probably will need to be able to read and write as well. Adding to that, anyone that owns a business, works in politics or is middle class and above I'm sure would have to learn how to read and write. What we might be looking at here is not a situation of them getting things confused, but a situation where the lower class contains the majority, but the majority of society's 'happenings' occur above the lower class. Which would include those quests. Because all those other people are trying to do is basically not starve that day. Or I could be completely wrong and people got confused about what came in one ear and out the other, lol.

The dark side is a pathway to many abilities, some considered to be unnatural.... And Hydaelyn seems to be loving it.

Simulated incest roleplay between a crossdressing man and .. that guy. In HD. 1080P. 60 FPS. I wonder who's gonna get the job to render the cutscene for that one on some random Tuesday morning.. "Welp, that's one for the intern!"

"WHERE'S ITS FUCKING HEAD?!" I'm hoping to hear the near-Shakespearean delivery of "GET YO' SPIKY ASS OVER HERE!" - Barret And of course: "This guy are sick." When they make Cloud sit down and drink his god damn tea, I really need the proper emotional conveying to be apparent here. 1997 Technology is not going to work. I need layers upon layers of emotional depth in Cloud's face as he solemnly obeys the order to drink his tea. I need to see it in his eyes. His lips. His heart. I need to see it all over his face. I need his knees to shake and his feet to be wet with his piss. I need to see how it was meant to be seen. In full HD, 1080P 60 FPS.

I'm going to say it is being made by the Orient. Also known as the Far East. I really hope the Orient (Also known as the Far East) does a good job on this game.

So two impossible dreams came true at Sony's E3 this year. FFVII remake, and Shenmue. Fucking. Three. Here is the link to the Kickstarter page: Lemme run by some facts for you. Raised $100,000 dollars in ten minutes. Raised $50,000 in two minutes. In 45 minutes, raised $600,000 dollars. Goal is $2,000,000. Between the time I started this thread and the time I posted it up, went from $680k to $742k.

Trying not to! But with XV coming out, and now a VII Remake, I don't know if they would have the assets necessary for a XII HD release. If not because of financing or manpower, because of marketing. I can't help but think that VII pushed a XII HD release back. But we'll see. Square has yet to have their conference. Now I won't be able to sleep. :frustrated:

God. Seriously. That's the primary reason why I was happy about X's HD remaster. Because if it sold well then it meant XII had a chance. Doesn't look like it now, though. Maybe more in the future.

Played it way back in the day, never finished it. I sincerely hope that this is a faithful remake, and not just a rushed rehashing by a second rate dev team. I'm sincerely weary of that story after twenty years of watching it overshadow every other entry in the series but I'm glad at all the money Square is going to make from it. It'll probably overshadow XV too, but what can you do. It was inevitable. I'll grab it, play it. If it's done right than the story will be presented much better with the graphics it'll have. I want to see gameplay though.

I just graduated. Marketing Major. I had an internship set up to work for a Financial Advising firm, but that fell apart because the owner of the company had a massive heart attack and that shook everything up. So now I'm just unemployed and looking for a plan B. Which is challenging where I live with my studies and that's why I want to move. I could easily pursue a sales job but a good amount of them are full commission, which doesn't pay the bills. What I really want is to work at an advertising agency. I'm going to a career fair soon to see if I can get anything. I just hope to find work soon. I feel terrible knowing that I'm not working yet.