Intro Log || This Keeps Happening

[melodiesmods]

Characters: All the "Heroes of Light" (only new characters can start threads).
Where: Aqures Ixen.
When: The 5th of January. The new Heroes of Light will awaken early in the morning.
Summary: The new Heroes of Light awaken in Aqures Ixen and are informed by their assigned Moogles of what the situation and what their destinies are. This a log for them to react to the situation, meet each other and be welcomed by the former batches of Heroes of Light.
Warning: Snow. Also some leftover decorations from Christmas.

Where you were or what you were doing— It does not really matter. Not any more. Within an instant, the world around you collapses. Reality twists and shatters... Or maybe you are the one who is collapsing and shattering away from reality as you knew it. No matter what the answer is, it will only take a few seconds for you to find yourself sinking into a void, your world vanishing into the distance. There is nothing but darkness as far as the eye can see. Even you feel different: all the powers you might once have had, are now gone. It is silent, cold and it feels as though life itself is slipping out of you.

At this moment, when it looks as though nothing but a never-ending void awaits you, a red Crystal forms before you. In this void, its warmth compels you to grab it. Upon doing so, you can hear a soft, soothing voice speaking:


"Wake up."

Soon, the void itself vanishes and is replaced by distant noises of engines. Had it all been nothing more than a dream? The soothing voice repeats its call one more time, but is soon replaced with a much less graceful "Wake up Kupo." Hand clutched on your Crystal, the call of the Moogle may finally wake you up. But you are no longer in your world, nor in the void. You are before the Crystal of Fire, in the third district of a city called Aqures Ixen. At this point, you may realize the engine noise actually originates from an Airship flying low over the city and headed to dock beneath the castle. As if it wasn't strange enough, your clothes have changed as well. They are now a reflection of the Jobs you are wielding. Last but not least, you are surrounded by Moogles, small and fluffy creatures who are more than happy to tell you about everything you want to know, about your 'destiny' as a Hero of Light, about what awaits you.

Or at least, they will tell you everything they do know, which isn't much in the end.

The only people around you are like you-- There are quite a few of them, all clothed in their Job garbs and most likely wondering what is happening. If somehow you do not realize it, the Moogle who woke you up will be more than happy to inform you there are others like you around. In fact, there are other Heroes who have arrived in the course of the past year and they will come soon! Like you, they have Jobs and a Crystal.

If asked, the Moogles will mention that the Heroes of Light - that is to say you - are fighting against time to save Crystallis from the Calamity that is about to awaken to devour the entire world. Sounds terrible? Welcome to Crystallis.


The Other Heroes
— Shortly Thereafter —
Thanks to the efficiency of Mognet, it does not take long for the other Heroes to come around: those who arrived in this world within the past year. You may have imagined heroic and charismatic figures when your Moogle told you that there were other Heroes of Light in this city. You may have imagined persons with fearsome powers when they told you about how they managed to push back the Empire and defeat gigantic beasts in the past. And more importantly, you may have imagined them as people who would have all the answers to your, doubtlessly, numerous questions.

If so, you may be up for a tragic disappointment. Still, for the most part they know more than you on the situation and may be more than happy to fill you in, especially if your Moogle didn't tell you much.


The City of Aqures Ixen
— Anytime —
With Christmas being barely over, there are still Christmas Decoration in the streets, and while the reconstruction are nearly over, there are still traces of the attack the Empire led against the city six months ago. A few buildings are being worked on.

And besides the decorations and reconstructions, there are a lot of things to do in the city for newcomers. A few groups of Triple Triad players are playing before Mognet Office in the ninth district, and a Blitzball Match is set to start at 20:00 in the stadium! Characters are also free to visit the city-- Mognet Office just behind the Triple Triad games is filled with Moogles, most of them discussing about the election for the future director of Mognet. They can also visit Airship Port in the twelfth district from where characters can board for free Airships from Shoopuf Airline.

Or maybe you could visit your new house in the 11th District, and get to know your new neighbors and housemate. Hopefully your neighbors are people you will get along with.


The Laboratory
— Anytime —
A location where a lot of Heroes of Light seem to be gathering is Palitutu's Laboratory. It is a place where employed characters can research into various topics. However, most importantly, characters can see a file with their name...

Should your character decide to go there and peek at their file, there are two possibilities. Either the file is corrupted and they cannot access it: too bad for them, but at least their life will remain a mystery. Or should you decide the file isn't corrupted, they will find a summary of their lives up to their canon point, as if written by a third-person omniscient narrator. On the column left to the text, to the top there is a portrait of them, and beneath it there is a 3D model of them. Said portrait and model can be switched to any year of their life. At the bottom there is a percentage, indicating 0%. On the right column, there are various links, most of which are grayed out. The clickable links lead to their Homeworld History and their future post-canon point history (corrupted file for unfinished canons).

At least, they can lock this file away if they don't want anyone to see it.

The Hospital
— Anytime —
Characters who have already been in Crystallis before do not wake up by the Crystal of Fire like everyone else. Instead, they will wake up in the Hospital of Aqures Ixen, in a room where there are over a hundred of other Heroes of Light like them-- Maybe even some familiar faces... Except they're all in Crystal Stasis.

A couple Moogles and a few nurses will be waiting by the room, and they will welcome all characters waking up. Upon exiting the room, they will also meet a lot of guards, and they all have for order to shoot anyone that comes out of this room without a Moogle. Hopefully you won't try running out without waiting for your Moogle. As for why the guards are so on edge, it might be a good idea to ask the other Heroes of Light about what happened a couple months ago.


Close Encounters of the Third(?) Kind
— 15:00 —
Characters venturing by between the city's outskirts and the Chocobo Farm at this specific time will be able to see a most peculiar sight: a flying saucer seemingly abducting a Chocobo before flying away and disappearing into the sky without leaving any traces of its presence. If your character do see it, hopefully there will be someone with them. Otherwise, nobody will believe their story.

Was it an UFO or just a hallucination? Previous sightings of such a thing have happened. It might be a good idea to investigate this sometimes...

Comments

[mindofathief]

Ah, so a Hero who was also trying to understand this strange new world. Duster felt more comfortable already. After the handshake, he withdrew his hand to his hip.

"Do you think it's coming back?"

[fearlessherosheart]

"It would depend on what its purpose is to seek a Chocobo," Tazendra said. "If it needs more than one, it will return."

[mindofathief]

"If they're going to experiment on it, they'll need more than one," Duster responded firmly. "The best we can to is to wait until they come back and stop them there."

[fearlessherosheart]

"Then they are like the Jenoine, then," Tazendra said. "Ah, well, then I at least have a duty to stop them."

[mindofathief]

"The Jenoine?" Duster asked. "Is that something from this world?"

[fearlessherosheart]

Tazendra shook her head. "No, from my own. Or, rather, I have yet to encounter any of the other worlds they may have visited. They are not native to mine, you see."

[mindofathief]

"Ah." Invaders. While the Pigmasks were from Duster's own world, but from another time, they were similar. "Were you able to drive them off?"

[fearlessherosheart]

"Our ancestors did, with the assistance of the Lords of Judgement. But I personally assisted in preventing their latest attempt to regain a foothold."

Tazendra is very smug about this. Sure, she'd been mortally wounded in the process, but she'd been able to disrupt a Jenoine's magic. Most sorcerers couldn't say that.

[mindofathief]

Duster can't help but be a little happy for her. Tazendra managed to keep her world safe, while he and his friends couldn't say the same. However, in this case, he could use a partner that knew how to properly save the world.

"It sounds like your world is doing real great." And she was very brave. "How did you manage to do that?"

[fearlessherosheart]

"Well, the way to the Jenoine's... world," it wasn't quite the right word for where the Jenoine resided, but it would do, "was open, but only their magic had come through. The sorceress that opened the portal and her companion believed their allies would banish the Jenoine once they had secured what they wanted." Tazendra's voice made it clear she thought of this plan a bit like playing around with nuclear weapons to solve an argument.

"I do not know precisely what happened, as I was gravely wounded by the sorceress in trying to take down her companion's protections. But a friend of mine arrived here and assured me that the portal was closed by reinforcements."

[mindofathief]

Duster smiled at Tazendra admirably. This was a true hero. "Just a question," he added gently. "You must be a princess, or some kind of royalty, to be that brave."

[fearlessherosheart]

Tazendra grinned; clearly taking this as flattery. "I am a baroness. That is quite enough for me. But you are kind to think so."

[mindofathief]

Just like Princess Kumatora, Tazendra was proud of her achievements. This was certainly a common trait among nobility.

"It's nothing. And this is my first time meeting a baroness. All we had on the Norwhere Islands was a princess."

[fearlessherosheart]

"I imagine the princess of an island does not need other nobility to assist her, if she is able to rule herself," Tazendra said.

[mindofathief]

"Well..." he rubbed the side of his head. "There were any other castles in the area, and to be honest, it turned out that there wasn't any royal family for hundreds of years. It's kind of complicated, but Kumatora wasn't an actual princess, but she was still raised to be one."

[fearlessherosheart]

Hundreds of years were a long time for most people, Tazendra remembered. Even for her own, that was a generation. "And what makes an actual princess where you are from?"

[mindofathief]

"I think princesses are supposed to be the children of the king and queen, but Kumatora was..." he formed small circles with his hand at waist level while he thought of a way to explain this. "...She was set up to be a princess when we first came to the Nowhere Islands. The first arrivals found Osohe Castle and thought that they needed a mythology of a royal family, so they had to come up with a 'lost princess'. Kumatora was picked because she was a baby and an orphan."

[fearlessherosheart]

Tazendra nodded. "Ah, it is different in my home. Each House chooses a prince to represent it, but the Empress's heir is not of her House, but the next one in the Cycle."

Well, usually.

[mindofathief]

He guessed it would be different in a world with an actual royal line. "A House? What does that mean?"

[fearlessherosheart]

"Before my people formed the Empire, we lived in tribes. The Houses date from those periods, as the descendants of each tribe. My own House is the House if the Dzur."

[mindofathief]

Duster nodded slowly. "...That makes sense. It'd be more fair to give everyone a chance to lead the whole country." After only hours in Crystallis, he learned a lot about worlds that encompassed more than an archipelago. Things were complicated for large worlds.

"I'm just asking about all of this because...I've never been to such a big world. I got the biggest shock in my life when someone showed me a map and pointed out how many continents there are," he swung his arms around, now relaxed after the encounter with the UFO. "If there's a chance my world is still there when I go back, I want to help come up with a way to keep a world full of thousands of people safe. It's going to be different than living in a village."

[fearlessherosheart]

Tazendra considered it. "I do not know if I can assist; I cannot say I have thought all that much of how governance works. I am no philosopher."

[mindofathief]

"Ah." While Tazendra's experience was helpful, she wouldn't be the best adviser if the Nowhere Islands still remained when Duster returned. "But thanks for everything. We're going to find those thieves."

[fearlessherosheart]

Yes, we certainly shall!