Searching for Friends: Eastern Lost Continent

[mindofathief]

Characters: Duster, Tazendra, Lust, Minato, NPCs
Where: Village of Santa Claus, Mythril Mines
When: Starting March 5th
Summary: The four wake up in the World of Ruins. They catch up on what happened and explore the area they've ended up in

The last thing Duster saw was the ground falling away from his feet - no, he was pulled away. The battlefield blurred, and only the large imposing figure of Chaos remained distinct from the rest of the room. He heard Rialynn and Sparks screaming. Then darkness.

There was nothing.

He was dead, he had to be. This void wasn't caused by being transported to another world. His friends remained behind, finishing what he could not. In time, he could lose consciousness...

"Gather your strength...you must be strong to face Kalki...!"

That voice...he heard it before...

"I'm sorry...I couldn't find a better way to save you...."

Duster closed his eyes. It was cold. Duster opened his eyes. It was white.

No, that was snow. He layed on his back in a snowdrift. The wind howled around his ears, which did not help considering he was only wearing a light coat when he stepped into Pandaemonium. There were three other people in the snow nearby, which was better than waking up alone. Only...

"What happened?"

Comments

[gorgeous_sin]

There was a dark figure moving through the sheets and swirls of snow. Moving fast by the looks of it, too. Whatever it was, it was at least humanoid in shape, and it wasn't making any savage grunting or snarling sounds.

On the plus side, they'd gained another Hero of Light for their party! On the negative side, it was Lust.

Her usually perfect ivory skin was flushed from the cold, her breath rolling from her dark lips in small puffs of mist. She'd seen their vague figures in the distance and had hastened toward them in hopes of finding a certain familiar face. The expression of hope, shortly followed by disappointment, was a foreign expression the homunculus did not usually wear. The cool disdain that came next was perfectly normal, however, for while she at least knew Duster and Tazendra, it was probably obvious that she held not real affection for anyone standing there.

"So there are others," she remarked, not yet sheathing the black blade she held in her hand. Her gaze fell to their feet, then to the craters they'd left behind in the snow with their slogging steps, tracking the direction they'd come and following it ahead to the same place she'd been eyeing since her awakening as well.

Lust's shoulders hitched with a small sigh.

"I don't suppose you've seen anyone else," she remarked, more a statement than a question. "We may as well travel together, then, since we seem to have the same destination in mind." Turning in place, she moved ahead at a more casual pace, the white snow crunching beneath her heeled boots. It was fortunate that she'd kept her Black Mage job equipped, since it would take little effort on her part to start a fire.

[doudemoxxii]

"Getting hypothermia is a good bonding activity. Particularly when you get frostbite hand in hand."

...

"Was that too much? Sorry."

Minato probably should stop now. But with a more serious shake of his head at Lust's statement, he went back to the task at hand without another word. It wasn't really so much any embarrassment over the jokes, and more conservation of energy. Trying to stop the chattering of his teeth was proving a difficult quest.

[fearlessherosheart]

"I was not aware ice whales were a possibility." Tazendra clearly sounded more cheerful at this idea. It would be new, exciting and was less frustrating than Kalki's possession of Ramza, escape and whatever had dumped them into the snow. "Let us move onward, then."

[mindofathief]

Duster's face fell. "I can't fight a whale with frostbite." He folded his arms over his shoulders an shivered. "We have to go. Maybe we can find something in there."

He took one step out of the deep snow back and slowly hovered his foot over the snow, unsure whether he'd fall in the instant he put it down.