Subj: [ffml] [HD] Under the Moon (1) Date: 01-02-26 12:47:22 EST From: larathia@mcs.net (Larathia) Reply-to: ffml@yahoogroups.com To: ffml@yahoogroups.com, hilliondynasty@egroups.com Aelis-Re leaned back from the campfire, exhausted. It wouldn't be a good idea to stay here, though. Too many monsters. Worse; too many *big* monsters. He reached behind him into the Bear's saddlebags. Checking carefully, he realized he had enough ammunition to *maybe* get him back to shore, where hopefully the runner's ship would still be waiting. Getting the runner to help him, that had been fun. Few people lived in this part of the world, for the very obvious reason that the monsters were big, man-eating, and ferocious. But the runners still came here, to collect the treasure of monster corpses. They didn't fight the monsters; they let the monsters fight themselves, and collected the bodies of the fallen to do their treasure hunting. Aelis-Re hadn't been able to persuade a runner to take him here for gems. He'd had to promise to deliver a set amount of monster pieces instead. And of course the monsters he had to go collect pieces from were the ones the *other* monsters couldn't easily kill, escalating the rarity value of the monster's treasure. He had no magic to draw on, no esper magicite, no guardian forces. Just him, his sword, and his guns. The guns had gotten a big workout; one look at the size of the local creeps and he'd decided he'd do his hunting from a high and above all *distant* vantage point. More than once he'd wished for Larathia to be with him; she was good at distracting airborne monsters, and since becoming a proxy she'd gained a small measure of healing skill. He couldn't afford to get trapped by poison gasses or venomous stings; he had nothing to heal himself with but time. But the job was done, now. He had what he'd come for, and he had the price of passage back to the lands of civilization, where at least the monsters were *smaller*. And - as he gnawed on an Elnoyle's wing - tastier. Half the monsters around here had poisonous meat. Tossing the bone into the fire, he got ready to head for shore. There was this to be said for the Bear; it got incredible mileage. He could probably go around the world a few times before having to refuel. The runner hadn't wanted to add the Bear's probable weight to his boat, and had demanded to know why Aelis-Re had it and wanted to take it along. He'd said it was his wife's idea of a romantic gift, and rolled it on board while the runner tried to make sense of it. He knew very well why he wanted it along; the thing was light and fast even if it didn't *look* like it was, and if there was one thing Aelis-Re was going to have going into monster country, it was a fast ticket back *out* of monster country. The cargo space, such as it was, and a functioning laptop were bonuses. And the growl of the Bear did wonders for scaring off monsters. And the ones it didn't scare, it could outrun. It was the safest place on the whole damn island. He got as comfortable as he could; that last Elnoyle had managed to take a decent swipe at his leg before he'd shot it. He wasn't crazy about going monster killing, but *these* things were so nasty he'd felt a lot less guilt than usual. He'd barely made a dent in the local population. Now...to find a forge. According to the archives on his laptop, the best place for metalwork was Nikeah. If he was lucky, he could get direct passage from the runner, as opposed to returning to Vector's continent. And from there...well, once the Zephyr was in his hands, this whole find-a-lone-avariel-girl-and-guard-her thing would be a *lot* easier. Bullets just didn't leave the impression they should, hereabouts. He set the Bear into motion, leaving the campfire to die down on its own. Larathia Subj: [ffml] [HD] Under the Moon (2) Date: 01-02-26 13:44:38 EST From: larathia@mcs.net (Larathia) Reply-to: ffml@yahoogroups.com To: ffml@yahoogroups.com, hilliondynasty@egroups.com The healers winced as another scream echoed through the house. They'd lost count of the screams some few hours ago, and had sent for a mage to ring the source in spells of silence. The youngest intern, Talia, had gotten progressively more agitated, wanting to know what was happening. But there weren't any answers to be had. The affliction appeared to be magical, not physical, and there wasn't anything the healers could do but make the unfortunate as comfortable as possible. Talia, as the youngest, had gotten the job of changing the sheets. Every hour. And every hour, the white sheets were stained with blood. It was amazing, so much blood in one small body. She peeked through the door's window at the girl. It had been a few weeks, and the gashes on her hand had been bandaged and were healing. Whatever had caused her screams had apparently stopped for the present, so Talia went in to check on the sheets. The girl (the healers had no name for her) was tied to the bedframe, wrists and ankles, to stop her from injuring herself further. Talia wondered what difference it was supposed to make; gashes, burns, welts, and assorted cuts would just appear on the girl's face and body at random intervals, usually accompanied by screams. And after a while they'd close up or heal as if they never were. No, this time the sheets were not bloodied. Talia checked over the patient to see what had caused this latest round of screams. She shuddered; the marks were on her face this time. Long, straight burns across the forehead, eyelids, and cheeks, one to each eye as if the girl were putting on a clown's greasepaint. And on her left cheek, deeply burned - possibly to the bone - was a small fleur-de-lis. Talia drew her hand back quickly, turned to hunt for healing salve. No wonder the girl had screamed. "She was probably a slave at some point," said a voice. "It looks like a slavemaster's branding. Human master, I think, since it's on her face." Talia jumped. Standing in the doorway was Elfland's Archmage, Lorellan. He walked over to the bedside and studied the girl on the bed. "You know what's happened to her, sir?" Talia asked. "All sorts of strange things have been happening with her." "I'd imagine so," commented Lorellan. "Did you save the vial she drank from?" "How did you - oh. Yes, sir, we have it. It was broken by her, but we put it back together." And she ran from the room, to go get it. The Archmage of Elfland, here! Alone, Lorellan examined the girl dispassionately, occasionally clucking over marks that he found. He pried open one eye, rinsing the blood from the burns away carefully with a trickle of water. Dark green cat-pupilled eyes were watching something the mage couldn't see. Talia returned, with a carefully pieced-together crystal vial. Lorellan took it from her gently, and cast a spell of detection, studying the results only he could see. "Do you know who she is?" he asked after a while. "No, sir. No one in the area recognizes her." "Did you ask the avariel?" "Why would we do that, sir?" "She's got avariel eyes and ears. See? Cat pupils, and those aren't halfelven ears." "So she's a half-avariel maybe?" Lorellan shook his head. "Maybe a fourth generation half-avariel, long enough to lose the wings..." He shook his head in frustration. "No. That doesn't feel right. Those marks...if there were slavers anywhere on this *continent* that would do something like that to one of elven blood, we'd have heard about it." "Huh?" Talia looked at the horrible branding again. "Then how did this happen? And the other things she's gone through?" Lorellan tapped the crystal vial. "This," he said. "It's a potion of rememberance, a lot of it. Enough to remember an entire lifetime in fine detail, or a much longer time in less detail. She doesn't look old to you, does she?" "Um...no?" "Good lass. And there's only eight people I know of who would need a potion this big - and they're all in NeuVariel. The heads of the avariel Houses, the worldwalkers that came at the end of the last Moogle War. She look like one of them to you?" "No. They don't have a black winged House, and their hair always matches their wings. If she's avariel, her wings are black." "But she hasn't got wings. What does that tell you?" "Um....that they were cut off?" "Possibly," the Archmage relented. "I've been watching her, with my detection spell. Whatever she really is, that isn't her proper shape. And if you take that into account, she could be a red dragon for all we know. I just don't think a red dragon would want to remember being branded." "I don't think *anyone* would want to remember being branded, sir. Looks painful." "She *must* be humanoid," the Archmage said, as if to himself. "The marks look like they were positioned on her face as it is now, but they'd work about as well on any humanoid." He turned to Talia. "I want you to get an artist in here, and when the marks clear, I want you to get him to paint her face. Circulate it around Elfland, and NeuVariel..." he looked back at her. "And the hospitals of the human cities. This girl's been through some serious punishment, I'd be amazed if she didn't end up hospitalized at least once. Humans have better medicine overall than we do; someone might have seen her." As he turned to leave, Talia dared to catch onto the sleeve of his robe. "Is there nothing we can do...now, sir?" she asked. Lorellan's expression softened as he noted her worry. "You'll make a good healer, with an attitude like that," he said kindly. "No, there really isn't anything you can do for her other than make her as comfortable as you can. She'll remember everything she wanted to remember, and then she'll wake up. Or she'll die. But there really isn't anything you can do to influence that. I'll get some of my 'prentices to put silence spells around her bed. No sense giving the rest of Elfland nightmares while she relives hers." Larathia Subj: [ffml] [HD] The Dark Geomancer Date: 01-02-27 21:15:54 EST From: dshumate@bbtel.com (Shumate) Reply-to: ffml@yahoogroups.com To: ffml@yahoogroups.com (Final Fantasy Mailing List), HillionDynasty@egroups.com (Hillion Dynasty Mailing List) Within the boundaries of the silence spell, the screams were delicious. The dark-garbed figure thought he could stand by the avariel's bedside forever, just to savor her screams. The healer who had been tended to was strewn around the room so that his remains covered every available surface of the small room. The hooded figure rose a hand above the avariel, reluctant to make the screaming stop. The female avariel gasped and her eyes fluttered, her back arching on the bed. She could not yet be pulled completely out of the effects of the potion she had taken, not without killing her. But enough for questioning. Yes. *Were is the Crystal of Vortex, Proxy?* the dark man intoned mentally. *Tell me.* The avariel gasped and sputtered, partially from the effect of the spell that held her from the magic of the remembrance potion, but mostly from the debilitating effect his presence had on all creatures. All but one... *Tell me were it is, mortal, or I may not be as merciful when I do kill you...* the dark man hissed mentally. The avariel struggled as the figure easily manipulated her lifeforce to send waves of excruciating pain through her body, and the man smiled with satisfaction as he felt the avariel's mental barriers fall away. He eagerly dove into the woman's thoughts, savoring the agony and pain that filled the outermost regions, before he reached her memories. So many... but he easily found the one he was searching for. It turned out that the avariel had come to the planet with the help of the Crystal... but the man uttered a curse and cast the avariel back onto the bed as he replayed the memory, seeing the the man who had come with her was the one who actually had the Crystal. And no clue of where he was... The dark man glanced back at the avariel, considering, before wrapping her in space, sending her to his lair. The man and the avariel seemed very close... the man would come for her, and then... he could hear both their screams. The dark man felt a twinge of pleasure, and look down to see a crossbow bolt protruding from his arm. He lifted his hand to his lips, tasting the warm blood that trickled down his arm, before he turned to face the squad of Elven rangers that had thrown open the door. They were an elite guard, heavily armed and expertly trained. The one with the crossbow was the first to scream. The dark cloaked man reached out into the enviornment around him, reaching into the very forces of the universe, transceding even the force of mana. Not that mana wasn't useful, but it was not nearly as versatile as using the universe that it held together. He could feel the wood of the house around him, the power of the earth beneath the house, and of the trees that surrounded it. He could every speck of dust floating through the air as if it were a part of himself, the air and all it containted were a part of him and thus, subject to his control. The elf with the crossbow screamed in pain as the crossbow bolt he held abruptly liquefied into molton metal, searing the flesh off of his hand to exposed the intricate lacework of bones beneath. The molton metal lifted itself through the air to splatter upon his face, burning away his eyes until the liquid metal reached the elf's brain, where it solidifyed itself into a spike before driving itself through. The elf was dead before he even began to fall. The others in the elite squad didn't fare much better. One was rooted to the floor, wailing as he was slowly and painfully petrified into stone from the feet up. Another was trying to crawl away from the room, his skin splitting open with every move. He eventually collapsed onto his stomach, the thick trail of blood left by his crawling merging the the growing pool around his body. Another elf cried as he clothing constricted around him, tighter and tighter, squeezing the life from him. The wood of the floor beneath another elf became liquidy, pulling the shrieking elf down into the floor so that, in seconds, there was no trace of him left. The dark man left three of the elves to stand in horror as his companions died around them, and they darted away, shrieking to whatever gods they worshipped to save them. They didn't stand a chance as the ground split swallowed up one, and the limbs of the trees around the house moved to lift the other two elves off the ground and rip them apart. As the last of the screaming died, the black-garbed man, Drasandin, cackled dryly within the concealing shadows of his cowl. Geomancy was a wonderful thing. ----------------------- -Arcanis Subj: [ffml] [HD] Under the Moon (3) Date: 01-02-26 14:35:15 EST From: larathia@mcs.net (Larathia) Reply-to: ffml@yahoogroups.com To: ffml@yahoogroups.com, hilliondynasty@egroups.com The cave was...disorienting. Lia had spent the last few days trying to keep as quiet and inconspicuous as possible. A god...a *god*....had spied on their camp, and Aerdrie had not come to defend her. She was just lucky that the god hadn't chosen to smear her all over the landscape. Master Arcanis looked like he'd taken a beating; Lia thought maybe he'd tried to fight the god. She didn't want to ask - anything that could take down Master Arcanis was too big for her meager skills to even consider. But the cave...they'd said this was where they wanted to go, and here they were, and life didn't seem *that* much different from yesterday. Except that the cave was doing strange things to her eyes. She didn't go in, of course. The final words of the Creator of the Universe could be written in there, and it wouldn't be reason enough to go in. Mere artifacts of mass destruction were definitely not worth the effort. Besides - SOMEBODY had put the things in there, way out in the middle of nowhere. She wasn't keen on saying to someone who'd collected all that "what, this magic book? Why I was just lookin' after it, yeronner, don't mind me..there, see, good as new! Want it back now?" Anything strong enough to have collected such items of might would probably not have anything like a decent sense of humor about people making off with bits of it. The sheer force of the magic contained in that cave was beating against her senses like a wave. It was making her giddy. And then there was what she was seeing. You couldn't *see* magic, could you? It was something you felt, along your skin. You didn't *see* magical auras. How would you see what the aura was surrounding, if you could see the aura itself? But there were waves of color, translucent color, emanating from the cave. Nobody was commenting on the rainbows, so she had to assume she was the only one seeing them. She wished she could claim bad food, but she'd had the same food and drink as everyone else. A lot of it was a sort of greenish purple. She supposed she should have been flattered, that the color of her House was the color of magic. But this was not a pretty shade of green, or greenish-purple. Maybe she could affect it. Direct it...elsewhere. Somewhere she wouldn't have to see it. In her giddy, euphoric state, a fireball sounded like a good thing to try. She summoned fire to her hand, surprised at how it didn't seem to burn, and how quickly it had come to her call. She'd never played with Fire before. It had the aura of greenish-purple, too. She held the fireball in her hand, fascinated with the bands of magical aura that flowed through the usual yellow-orange of the flame. She touched the flickers with her fingers, tracing the magic that flowed through it. A part of her wondered why it didn't burn. She'd been warned since childhood that fire was the most dangerous element, able to burn an avariel's wings to cinders in seconds. But her summoned flame wasn't hot. It didn't feel like anything at all, really.... A solid band of that greenish-purple wrapped around her flame, snuffing it. Looking up, she saw Master Arcanis, looking a bit teed-off. "What do you think you're doing?" he demanded. Lia cocked her head, puzzled. He was holding a staff; where had he gotten that? His question made no sense to her. She missed her fireball; she summoned another one to her hand, but she was watching Arcanis. He was wrapped in the greenish-purple aura, and the staff was taking it and magnifying it and feeding it back to him. Being near it, she felt like it was unlocking bits of herself she hadn't known she had, and her little fireball got a little bigger in response. Diverted, she looked at the flames and giggled. Arcanis decided to opt for a different approach; wherever Lia was, it wasn't within a long earshot of the real world. The fireball was a worry, especially with that dreamy look on her face, but what was worse was the way her green eyes were glowing fields of yellow.... He created a ball of mana; no fire, no air, just mana. She let her fireball disappear as she reached for it - but avariel couldn't see magic, could they? Yet Lia's glowing yellow eyes obviously could; she reached for the ball as if it were a shining bauble. This was worrying; this was Trouble. Larathia Subj: [ffml] [HD] Ethereal Intoxication Date: 01-02-27 05:06:56 EST From: dshumate@bbtel.com (Shumate) Reply-to: ffml@yahoogroups.com To: ffml@yahoogroups.com (Final Fantasy Mailing List) Arcanis walked slowly back to the entrance of the Arsenal of Gods, absorbed in examining the staff he had picked up while the rest of the party, save Lia, who opted to stay outside, examined the cave. The assortment of magical artifacts present in the cave was enticing, and Arcanis wondered why it wasn't evidently guarded in any way. The staff seemed much more complex than he had thought at first. The metal of the staff, carved with runes, beyond apparently enchanted to be indestructible, was not magical unto itself. But the crystal fastened permanently at the top of the staff, which Arcanis had originally assumed was a focus artifact, a item that could amplify the owner's abilities, turned out to be far more than it seemed. Arcanis stopped near the cave entrance to study the crystal. He could really identify the color... it appeared to be... all colors... and none. Clear, and opaque, somehow. To his eyes, mana swirled in a cyclonic vortex around the crystal, as if mana were constantly being absorbed into it and shot back out, as far as the eye could see. Arcanis had studied artificing extensively in the past, but he had never heard of any such item as this... hesitantly, he tapped into the crystal, and practically fainted from the shock. A flurry of unexpected power washed through Arcanis, flooding his senses and mind with a roaring, searing deluge of pure mana. This... crystal wasn't amplifying mana... it was *creating* it. Creating. No artifact could do that... only very powerful living things could. At least, supposedly. Arcanis gulped, panting heavily. It was as if the crystal contained an infinite amount he could fill himself with... even if that were suicidal, with the power he held already, he could level continents... challenge gods... *become* a god... Arcanis abruptly snapped back to reality, mentally berating himself for losing self-control as he regulated the amount of mana he was taking in before he drove himself insane, a very common side-effect of mana poisoning. Challenge gods? What was he thinking? Feeling the power of the strange artifact course through his veins, Arcanis knew it would be possible, but why would he? He certainly had no wish to become a god... he did not envy their jobs. But all that power... Arcanis calmly recollected his thoughts, newly confident that now, NOW he could defeat Kefka... surely he could. The power this artifact afforded would crush Kefka, from what Arcanis guessed of Kefka's abilities in their fight. Surely. Arcanis twirled the staff and walked outside briskly, before stopping abruptly. Lia stood at the foothills that lead to the bottom of the cave. She seemed... giddy, somehow, and she seemed to be playing with a ball of fire, created so that it would not burn the caster. That was slightly odd in itself... Arcanis thought Lia was terrified of fire, but there she stood, toying with it like a puzzle cube. But that wasn't what caught Arcanis up short. Lia was immolated in a powerful, swirling vortex of magic, not the kind that appeared around a mage when they drew directly upon mana. This was, Arcanis realized with shock, the same kind of aura the crystal atop his newfound staff was creating, the same type that swirled around he himself, or around any esper, or other powerful immortal, albeit Lia's was not nearly as strong... Arcanis' eyes widened as he examined the fireball again... that wasn't a normal fireball. It was an orb of manaflame, an obscure and powerful form of magical fire made of pure mana; known to very few, and safely useable by even less. Definitely not by a half-trained mage. "What are you doing?" Arcanis said, a bit more harshly than he intended, as he dispelled the flame. She invoked another one, giggling dreamily. She seemed as if she were intoxicated. Arcanis, wondering by these strange events, tried another experiment. Only very well trained magi could see mana... so Arcanis created a small, invisible, hovering orb, formed of pure mana. His suspicions were confirmed when Lia, her eyes glowing yellow, mentally reached for the spell she shouldn't be able to see. Arcanis prepared to drop the simple mana spell, but gasped in shock as control of the spell was ripped from his grasp. It was pulled quickly to Lia, who toyed with it, recklessly pouring dangerous amounts of mana into the spell. Arcanis recovered from the shock of his control being broken within a few seconds, but by that time, the previously small, invisible orb was now a huge, bulging ball of swirling blinding power that Lia was giddily balancing atop her hand. Arcanis' was stunned, his mind reeling with the impossibility of what Lia was doing, before everything abruptly clicked into place. Lia was a sorceress. Arcanis barely had time to realize that before he saw Lia begin to fall to the ground, her eyes closing as the orb of power, charged enough to level the mountain, thus making every artifact inside erupt with a surge of mana probably powerful enough to level the landscape and knock the planet off it's orbit. Arcanis hastily seized the dense orb of powerful, channeling numerous strands of anti-magic into it before it eventually dispelled itself. Arcanis' sigh of relief was cut off as he sighted Lia, collapsed upon the ground, and rushed to her, trying to recall the best spell to heal mana poisoning...