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

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"Would that our reunion be indeed a cause for celebration-" Aerich's eyes softened a little around the edges as his usual stern countenance threatened to sag for all it was worth in the face of Tazendra's endearing friendship. The very corners of his mouth turned up in could well be a smile if not for the grim circumstances.

"-yet, as you can see around you, things are far from well."

Sadness passed behind Aerich's eyes and he disconnected the contact with Tazrendra's before looking over Minfilia briefly and then around the marketplace. There was the distinct impression, that he had known this place when it had been so much more bustling and full of life, and Aqures' state of being now left behind only a chilling sense of despair.

"Yes, what has happened here?" Tazendra said. "By my recollection, I -- and my companions," she gestured to Milfinia, "Have only been gone a few days."

And things cannot change so drastically within a day or two. Minfilia simply nods in agreement and waits to hear an explanation before jumping the staff. She wants to know everything and why it happened.

"I'm afraid there is a lot more to it than that, though I yearn for it to be that simple."

Aerich didn't look back to the two ladies before him and seemed for all good intentions and purposes to be lost in near enough glaring down the main street which the Heroes had come. Towards the rest of the remainder of the City; ghost town now, as it was. In the silence that followed, a breeze howled it's way close to the ground and through the stalls, the carpet of mist didn't ever seem to stir, though.

Eventually, the nobleman took a long breath in and cleared his throat as he looked back, resting his long sweep of a gaze on Tazendra again.

"You're much too late to do anything, about this reality. You see, we're much further into the future that just a couple of days."

"Bah, that hasn't stopped me from at least considering it." Tazendra knew her friend was more serious-minded and less inclined towards optimism than the rest of them. So she wanted to reassure him.

But, again, she thought of Dragaera City, where none of them had been able to do much. Even Prince Adron e'Kieron had only been able to teleport the four of them clear. Even Sethra Lavode had only made provisions to save herself and the Orb, and Tazendra generally believed that if it was possible to do something with sorcery, Sethra was capable of it.

But those had been something. A chance to re-create the Empire, even if it couldn't prevent its destruction.

"...how much further?"

That was certainly the first thing to come out of Minfilia's mouth because that seemed to be the question on her mind. If this wasn't a couple days ago, how long this time? Was there another event to trigger this like the strange loop from a few months back?

"Your optimism, that hunger for life to be lived to its fullest, has always been something I've admired about you, Tazendra."

Honest-to-gods, Aerich meant that as well. Maybe it might have been different for him, for all of them, if these Heroes before him had been part of the story earlier on. But they weren't. He and a handful of others in the 15th were the only ones left in the whole world that might have been able to-

"That would depend, miss, on how you measure time, exactly." Aerich looked to Minfilia at her question and couldn't help but to frown thinking about it. As another Hero, he might also have been tired of the various time-warps that had been involved in his own journey.

"Or...by how developed this particular District is when compared to the Aqures Ixen you recall."

"It was still being constructed," Tazendra confirmed. "If we were abducted, then there is no reason we should believe that we haven't been in stasis. Only, how were we freed?"

It was possible the four of them had fallen into Crystal Stasis, but it didn't explain why they'd all woken up a day's travel from the city and not in the Hospital, or their homes. Or confronting some gloating villain.

"Or...mayhap it was not their intent."

Because if their experiences mean anything, they've would've faced some villain by now but even the best plans may hit a snag or two.

"I do not know the circumstances under which you have arrived here."

Aerich speaks to both women as plainly as he can, yet it's not without great difficulty given as some small measure of sadness lingers just behind his otherwise carefully controlled facade. He pulled in a few of the telltale creases to his face that might have given his feelings away.

"The Calamity, how far had it progressed?"

It's a short question, which only communicates how important their answer might be to Aerich.

"It threatens Flence and Nabila City, but has not yet consumed them."

A short question demands a short, prompt answer.

"Oh." For a quick moment there was a flash of something just behind Aerich's eyes; hope, perhaps. But no sooner had it lit up his expression the noble warrior looked away from them both again, a second later his eyebrows have furrowed in thought.

"Then-" A careful breath was taken-

"-there is still time for you...to avoid this outcome."

She saw that look. It's familiar to her, given how many times they have escaped by the skin of their teeth.

"How must we?" Besides the obvious 'Stop the Calamity'.

"Look around-"

Aerich quickly looked over Minfilia before casting his eyes back to Tazendra once more. There is a light that hums gently behind his expression as those dark eyes meet her again and, despite the depression circumstances, he seems to rest on a thought that pulls the sides of his mouth up at the corners some.

"-is there not something missing, that you would expect based on the expansion rate of the Calamity from your time?"

Tazendra had to think. Normally, she was prone to letting the others make the leaps in reasoning. But Aerich was trying to make a point. "If we had slept for some time, the Calamity should have overrun us all. If we had slept for only a short time, the city would remain as we left it."

Aerich raised an eyebrow in Tazrendra's direction. He knew well enough she wasn't so much a thinker than a fighter, but at the same time there is a growing need to have them understand the exact circumstances of how things are here in that particular time, in the 15th District.

The district that all progress had been halted on, after the Battle of Aqures Ixen, in their own time.

"The Calamity has already been through here. But the crystallization has not."

Tazendra glanced at Milfinia, to see if the woman had any comment. "But... how is that possible? We were told that the crystalization is a reaction of this world to the Calamity."

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