melodiesoflife | Event || The Answer

Event || The Answer

Characters: All characters who signed-up for the event.
Where: South Continent of Balance (Imperial Territories)
When: April 20th to April 30th.
Summary: The Heroes of Light have lost consciousness and now find themselves in the middle of nowhere, without their Moogles and away from everything they know. They will have to get back home, but what awaits them on the path? For more information, please check the First OOC Post and Second OOC Post.
Warning: Bad things.

Group 01: Team Hijinks House
Group 02: Team Brigands
Group 03: Team Discovery Channel
Group 04: Sephiroth's (In)Sanity Squad
Group 05: Team (Bad) Shipping Advice
Group 06: Team Blue-Haired Lords on Fire
Group 07: Team Mom and Late Sleepers
Group 08: Nothing Bad Will Happen
Group 09: The Hellhounds
Group 10: Loftwings, A Working Title
Group 11: Team Oni
Group 12: Team F.N.T.I²
Group 13: Team Name-In-Progress
Group 14: Team The-Mods-Couldn’t-Brain-A-Name
Group 15: Seraphim Shenanigans

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[ It was quite strange as Aqures Ixen simultaneously looked identical and totally different from the city they remembered. There was no doubt about it, it was the city they had come to know and live in, the buildings were all present and the architecture was the same. Yet it was empty, devoid of life and covered by a thick mist. No noise, no people, not even a single monster or animal. Even stranger was the lack of any damaged building: it was as if everything had already been repaired after last year’s attack.

Stranger even was the fifteenth district. This district had been in the process of being built for ages now, and yet it was fully finished: buildings stood, as if straight out from a futuristic world. This couldn’t be right, could it? ]

[The mist was spooky, but Tazendra didn't much care: she actually found cloudy weather preferable, though she was growing used to having a clear sky and had even started remembering to use the loanword 'Sun' (learned from other Heroes) rather than the Dragaeran word 'Furnace'.]

[Sure, something was wrong with the lack of people and the strange architecture, but she figured soon enough she'd find the answer. Or one of her companions would figure it out.]

Jack has been growing ever more grim as they approach the city. He doesn't want to mention out loud what this reminds him of. He's only ever seen one place this- empty. It's not just the people gone, it's all the life, as if he's looking down on the Abandoned Conglomeration of the Malmooth again. End of the Universe. One explanation for why there's no year, if there's no time left.

"Last one out gets the lights." Jack breathes a long sigh out, hands on his hips. "And the check."

"Okay. Thoughts, theories? Anybody spot something familiar before we just go charging in there?" Jack swings his head around to look at all his companions.

"Is there anyone around to pay, though?" The comment was meant to be lighthearted, tossed offhandedly as K'pandolu glanced around, listening hard.

"Beyond that I'd not lead a charge into strange territory like this?" K'pandolu tilted her head for a moment, and shook her head. "Have any of us explored the fifteenth district much before this?"

Minfilia didn't want to admit that she was already feeling more spooked than when they stepped into the city, now so abandoned. Nothing seemed familiar as the group took their looks around.

"...nay, I have not seen this district." she spoke quietly. The area may not be anything familiar to her but she couldn't help but have some kind of strange sinking feeling forming in the pit of her stomach. "I have thought they had this closed off...?"

"I have not," Tazendra said. While she was clearly alert and a bit confused by this, she didn't seem to have the creeped out feeling that the rest of the party had. "But, perhaps it will provide some explanations."

[Specific features of the architecture of Aqures Ixen would tell the Heroes that this was indeed that 'main' City that they had all become so accustomed to during their stay in Crystallis. If anything, possibly due to the lingering mist and abandoned streets, it seemed in some way older; in fact the 15th District which had barely begun construction before the Heroes time now stood not only completed but seemed futuristic when compared to the more archaic style of the rest of the city.

Wide streets, metallics over masonry, though not completely devoid of the same, the 15th District seemed like someone has taken the inspiration from a few 'modern' civilizations from across a few particular worlds.]

"Haven't been here before. But leading the charge into strange territory... That's my specialty."

Jack cranes his neck to look up and around at the buildings, and sighs deeply. "And now we're once again back onto Bruce's theory." He spins on a heel to look at his companions, but keeps walking backwards to keep going in the same direction. "We haven't seen this before, but you've seen stuff that's technologically out of place on Crystallis before? The inside of that Tower, the video tape, things like that?"

K'pandolu made a small sound that wasn't quite amusement. "Well, as long as we're all aware that's the case. I fear I've not done more exploring here, either, as it turns."

She glanced at the buildings, and folded her arms with a hum. "I saw that, yes- you were familiar with the video, weren't you? And… certainly the magitek units and… the Weapon seem too close to those of Eorzea for comfort." She looked to the other two to see what they made of it.

Tazendra nodded. "It is to be expected if one has contact between the worlds. My own does not have such technology, but I have seen it on others." Penrose had all sorts of technology that Tazendra had learned to use (to mixed effects).

"This must have taken some time."

Oh she certainly needed a reminder of what the Ultima Weapon was. She wasn't at the battle for it but she's heard the stories. But it was odd: if the 15th District was in the middle of construction before they slept and now complete but in ruins, what caused it? Not unless there was something involving time...and if Minfilia didn't realize about that time loop over and over months ago, the idea wouldn't have gotten into her head.

"K'pandolu and I hail from the same star so I can verify. And I haven't seen much of these styles while some of us were traveling months ago..."

Was it time related? Or did someone create an illusion? Nay, too strong to be one. Maybe.

For a moment, Jack isn't sure what K'pandolu is talking about, then his eyes go wide and he almost trips at the realization that it's capital-W 'WEAPON' a.k.a. that thing that could come out of the sky and kill them all at any time.

"What are the Weapons, as you understand them, then? They look like they should be living creatures, but people keep talking about piloting them. Not that those things are mutually exclusive," Jack frowns sharply for a second. "But you're talking about them like they're tech?"

Pause. "Okay, also not mutually exclusive." Damn Jack has seen some weird shit in his life. But he looks between K'pandolu and Minfilia curiously for an explanation.

[As the Heroes proceed into the 15th District, a sense of uniformity within the architecture develops. There is the impression that it was some great industrial center of sorts, the height of development in its time, yet seemed as barren as the rest of the shadow of the City they had already wandered through. Not a soul lingered even at the edges of the wide streets and the perpetual mist seemed to sit like a layer of dust over everything.

Minfilia in particular, as identical street led to identical street, would notice increasingly that certain features of the architecture began to creep eerily along her nerves; almost as if the style were begging her to be noticed. Perhaps not unsurprisingly, given that the setting seems not quite so dissimilar to Castrum Centri, that stronghold of the Garlean Empire in Eorzea where she'd spent time before-]

Edited 2016-04-25 19:35 (UTC)

[The features were not new to her, if anything, that emotion of dread began to seep in more she she can't help but notice how familiar it seemed to be. How could she forget the stronghold prison where she and several other Scions were held? How did something like it get designed here of all places? She certainly hasn't mentioned much of it.]

Why...how did this place become this way?

[And to their group, she addresses them with a rather paled expression on her face.]

Has anyone come to this star claiming they were from the Garlean Empire by chance?

K'pandolu mulled over an answer to Jack's question as they went on, humming to show she hadn't simply dropped out of the conversation. "I… never saw much of the interior of the Weapon. But I know there was a space inside from which it could be controlled. I… it was described to me as steel- steel clad in darkness, in truth- and I believe the Garleans were able to make some adjustments with magitek, which leads me to believe that it was largely some sort of technology." She paused, tail flicking, and grimaced. "That said, it was a creation of the Allagans, and they had an understand of other matters as well." There had been living creatures hidden within the coils left behind from Dalamud, after all, and the clones in the Crystal Tower.

The talk helped to distract her from the way the streets didn't seem to change- or at least until they became distinctly familiar. Her tail betrayed agitation as she moved to cover Minfilia's left hand side, scanning the area more closely. "There was," she said, slowly, watching for a reaction out of the corner of her eye. "But- the Wolf has lain in crystal for nearly a year now. So why this…?"

"Do you recognize it?" Tazendra was a bit slow on the uptake sometimes, but it was clear to her that her companions expected something worse to happen now than when they'd found the city.

So it's the possibility that the Weapons are a little of both: living but maybe created solely to be controlled. Jack listens carefully to both of the women from the world that these things come from. Garlean, he's never heard of, but this might be the exact thing Bruce was talking about.

Jack's voice falls to a quiet mutter, "This place keeps adapting tech from our worlds. The things that we build or change stay from cycle to cycle. The Weapon could have come here in a previous cycle. Stayed hidden for so long, no one knows how long it's been here? They consider it Ancient Tech."

He tries to discreetly fall in next to K'pandolu, protective of the person without her weapons. Whatever they're reacting to, Jack will join them on the alert, but doesn't know what he's looking for. "What are you seeing?"

"… With the details of each cycle lost, it's easy enough to see that happening," K'pandolu murmured. She folded her arms, stewing in her thoughts for a few moments. From all she'd seen- all she'd learned- Crystallis seemed only to thrive on the backbones of what had been taken from other worlds.

She glanced at Jack for a moment, eyebrows rising, but focused forward after a moment, though she started patting her hip, frowning. If she was carrying at least one of the magitek unit keys- "If we had some uniforms," she mused, but it was a half-formed thought she let drop as she raised her gaze again. "I mentioned the Garleans- these buildings look like their work." She glanced at Minfilia, eyebrows drawing together. "They are… not friends to Eorzea, and we have… bad memories of them." And Minfilia more than herself, though she hoped time might have dulled the worst of them.

More than bad memories. Minfilia can remember clearly when Livia tried to get information about the Echo out of her and she refused to budge on the matter. The results before the rescue weren't very pleasant. While time has dulled the impact, it still frightened her not only because of that but also what happened to one of their own.

"What I worry about is that it looks familiar to Castrum Centri. Why there of all places to have a design?"

It's never a good thing. Not with their luck.

"Could there be more people from there?" Tazendra asked. "I would never have thought to ask the locals to build something form my homeworld..."

She wasn't planning on staying here forever, and Tazendra wasn't that sentimental about architecture. At best, she'd settle for buildings designed to be comfortable at her height.

Jack is following K'Pandolu and Minfilia's lead on this, if they know what's going on here. "Do you want to stay? Or should we find another way out of here? Just because this place looks like it's leading us here doesn't mean we have to follow."

Normally, when faced with the dilemma of safety versus finding out more information, Jack will charge in the direction of more information. But he's not only responsible for himself here.

[Not too far ahead, there is a darker silhouette that starts to form out of the light mist as the group carry on down the main street. It appears to be sitting on the edge of the sidewalk, judging from how close it is to the ground.

They might have walked passed it entirely if not for the small shape of a head that pops up out of the rounded figure as the Heroes draw closer and what appears to be a small girl, its hair all dragged into a side pony-tail, unfolds from the gloom. The small, if a little chunky, frame of a girl who couldn't be no more than 10 pushes herself up to her feet as if startled and just realizing she had company.

She doesn't speak though, only looks between the four of them as if she might bolt any moment. Yet there is a sense of something 'off', perhaps as if she's not really seeing them? Her closer-to-grey-than-silver hair looks dirty and is very much tightly scraped over one side of her head and tied up in a down-position towards her collar on the right side. To Minfilia and K'pandlou the child seems more highlander-hyur child but to anyone else that's just big-boned-]

Minfilia can't put her finger on the child's appearance but the fact that this is the first soul they have come across, there is no way that she was going to dismiss it.

She gives the girl a small wave and puts on her best comforting smile. "Hello there."

Now she didn't ask what was going on because the poor dear looks like she may run at anytime. The best thing to do is try to establish good communication.

K'pandolu made a disgruntled sound in response to Tazendra's question. "No one we'd like to meet, I suspect," she muttered, and shook her head.

"We should- move on," she said, but she hesitated when she saw the girl. A Highlander child, here? Born here, or… Eorzean? She stopped, tail waving, eyes narrowed. "Minfilia…?" She cared about children, but still- was this wise?

[The image of the small girl only becomes more distorted as the Heroes get closer. Distorted as if it might be a old projection of an aging film, the surface edges of her frame flicker dramatically as she makes wide-eye contact with Minfilia. A hologram; but hadn't seemed that way until they'd gotten much closer. Like the hologram had substance, of a sort.

There is no mistaking the definitive mark that stains the side of the childs neck. Hardly a tattoo though, it seemed to be a dull birthmark in color rather than the proud purple that those of the Circle of Knowing would wear.

Though as soon as that particular mark is recognized, the hologram of the girl stutters and only comes back into being again a few paces away, as she's running in a direction not quite off the main street, but certainly not the path that the main route in the 15th District would have taken them.]

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