No matter where he went, there was a word spoken on many lips. It rustled through the Shroud like the whisper of wind through the leaves, creating little eddies and flurries as it went.
Othard.
The Far East seemed to be the most common topic of conversation between adventurers. There were murmurs about an uprising in Ala Mhigo as well, but those were spoken in even more hushed tones. Undoubtedly the nearness of the Ala Mhigan border had something to do with the heightened alert in that regard.
Basteaux regarded it all with the same vague detachment that he did word of situations in other city-states. It wasn’t that he felt nothing toward different peoples and their plight - it was that he had his hands already full just with trying to bring some measure of peace to the Shroud. He understood the pull and the drive to continue going where one felt useful, but the adventuring spirit and the concept of chasing the next big battle in order to be on the edge of history was difficult to fathom. His focus was on the forest and the debt he still owed.
The South Shroud, however, finally seemed to be showing promise. Between his efforts, the new postings at Camp Tranquil, and the flurry of adventurers still streaming in and out of Quarrymill, even the Redbelly problem was mostly under control. Here in the East, bordered by the Wall on one side and the Sylphlands on another, things still felt wild and challenging.
It also had incredible storms. Whether that was due to the area or the fact that the sylphs patron was Ramuh himself, Bast had no idea. He simply tipped his chin up to see the bright flash through closed eyelids and hear the accompanying rumble that rattled all the way through his bones. It called to him in a way that nothing else did.
Ishgard, Othard, Ala Mhigo… let the adventurers do their thing. Basteaux had some reconnaissance of his own to do instead. The East Shroud had caves - and chances were good not all of them were claimed. Perhaps it was finally time for him to pick out a new base camp.
Ok THIS may be my favorite in terms of sound. The mystical echoes of the moogles, the raw rumbling of thunder, the flashes of lightning illuminating the clouds as the wind howls. Good stuff.
Someone should make an Eorzean Ambiance sound track. One hour of sound for each track. Thunderstorms of Shroud, winds of Ul'dah, tavern sounds, calm-day sounds, the waves of Limsa, etc., and add things like subtle moogles in the distance, wind chimes, distant Chocobo warks echoing in the distance of the Chocobo Forest, the distant clopping of Odin’s horse patrolling the Shroud, Wesps buzzing at the cliffs of the sea, the humming of crystals in Mor Dhona etc.. I would totally listen to that shit.
It was only through the grace of the Twelve that Basteaux was still alive. He knew full well that what had happened the day prior could have, even perhaps should have killed him where he’d stood. Yet he lived. His entire body ached and he would be forever marked, but he lived.
There were bandages wrapped around Basteaux’s torso. The swathes of linen protected him, keeping the angry red trails of what would eventually be new scars from rubbing against the bedclothes. The wound was huge, spreading along his left side like tentacles that wrapped around to his lower back and tried to creep up his chest. It bled not at all: instead it was completely cauterized like a massive brand.
The Master had said little since Basteaux awoke. When he did speak, there was a little curl of a sneer that touched the hard line of his mouth. The attempted spell had been a disaster due to Basteaux’s failing. He had cost his Master not only the gil necessary to have his wounds treated, but the physical labor and aether expenditure that had been required to get him back home as well as protect him from additional backlash. How his Master would exact repayment was yet to be seen, and Basteaux already dreaded finding out.
Just climbing out of bed left Basteaux shaky and panting like he’d run several malms. His knees threatened to buckle with every step as he carefully made his way to the Master’s study. He already hurt; it would be better to accept whatever punishment was coming now than to wait until he’d healed once only to have to recover again.
It was only through the grace of the Twelve that Basteaux was still alive. He knew full well that what had happened the day prior could have, even perhaps should have killed him where he’d stood. Yet he lived. His entire body ached and he would be forever marked, but he lived.
There were bandages wrapped around Basteaux’s torso. The swathes of linen protected him, keeping the angry red trails of what would eventually be new scars from rubbing against the bedclothes. The wound was huge, spreading along his left side like tentacles that wrapped around to his lower back and tried to creep up his chest. It bled not at all: instead it was completely cauterized like a massive brand.
The Master had said little since Basteaux awoke. When he did speak, there was a little curl of a sneer that touched the hard line of his mouth. The attempted spell had been a disaster due to Basteaux’s failing. He had cost his Master not only the gil necessary to have his wounds treated, but the physical labor and aether expenditure that had been required to get him back home as well as protect him from additional backlash. How his Master would exact repayment was yet to be seen, and Basteaux already dreaded finding out.
Just climbing out of bed left Basteaux shaky and panting like he’d run several malms. His knees threatened to buckle with every step as he carefully made his way to the Master’s study. He already hurt; it would be better to accept whatever punishment was coming now than to wait until he’d healed once only to have to recover again.
The Master was standing over his heavy, dark wood desk when Basteaux let himself into the room with a cursory knock. He didn’t acknowledge Basteaux’s presence, instead making the apprentice stand on unsteady legs until he’d begun to sweat from the pain and effort.
“You aren’t trying,” the Master finally said. He turned the page of the open book in front of him but didn’t look up. “I give you everything you could possibly need - books, reagents, instruction - and yet you fail me again and again. Tell me, Basteaux, is it willful failure in an attempt to spite me after all I’ve done for you? Or is it that you are simply too stupid and lazy to follow a simple task?”
“Master, I didn’t–” Basteaux was waved into silence before he could truly begin to explain.
“Spare me your excuses, you worthless child.” The Master looked up and sneered. “Perhaps I made the wrong choice when I took you in. Undoubtedly that sister of yours would have had the determination to do what you could not.” His expression turned thoughtful and he picked up a quill pen, spinning it between two long fingers. “I’ll write her to extend the invitation.”
Basteaux couldn’t help the sudden stab of fear that froze his otherwise feverish core. “Leave Elle alone,” he said firmly. “She has nothing to do with this.”
“She may have everything to do with this,” the Master countered. “You have the talent, but you lack the drive or the passion to use that talent to its full potential. Tell me, Basteaux. Do you want to be truly great? Or simply mediocre?”
“I want…” Basteaux swayed and caught himself on the armrest of a rigid, high-backed chair.
“You want magic to be a fluffy, soft thing?” The Master interrupted. “You want it to require none of the dedication or sacrifice necessary to master the art? That is what your actions have told me. You do not take your studies seriously, and you waste both of our time. What long-forgotten section of backwoods did I retrieve you from, again? We owe your family a visit.”
“Leave my family alone!” Basteaux was usually good at keeping his temper relatively in check, but today it rose within him like a wild thing. It sparked and sizzled and made the hair on the back of his neck stand on end.
One of the Master’s eyebrows raised and he exhaled the smallest scoff of a laugh. “Well, well. Perhaps your failure wasn’t as utter as I believed it to be. You seem to have retained a bit of the power you called.” He closed the book and walked around the desk, regarding Basteaux as one might inspect an unfamiliar chocobo. “Good. Good, yes; we may just be able to work with this. A pity about the rest of it, but if perhaps something could yet be salvaged…”
“What happened to the rest of it?” Basteaux asked. He fought to suppress the electricity that skittered over his hands to dissipate up near his elbows, with minimal success.
The Master scoffed once more. “Unchained, it ran rampant to find a suitable vessel. From what I’ve been told, it laid waste to a useless beastclan village and a small settlement before it discharged enough to dissipate back into the aether. A waste of power.”
“It…” Basteaux reeled. He’d known failure would have consequences, and potentially dire ones, but he hadn’t realized how catastrophic. “People died because of me?”
“Nothing of concern,” the Master replied with a wave of his hand. “Settlements are often beset by bandits or wild creatures when so far away from the influence of a city. There will be no questions.”
“People died,” Basteaux repeated, his knuckles white on the arm of the chair he still used for balance. “People died because of me.”
“Yes, you stupid child, people died. That happens in the practice of the art. If you’re going to become great, you must understand that a few lives here or there is not a concern. Just as a few weeds must be pulled and discarded in order for a desired plant to grow, so must sacrifices be made for an apprentice to properly grow and learn.” The look the Master gave Basteaux was one of barely-veiled contempt. “It’s either them or you, Basteaux, and you are the one who can wield that power if you put in the effort.”
Basteaux licked dry lips and let go of the chair. He took an unsteady step backward, his bright eyes never leaving his Master’s face. “I don’t want to be great,” he said. “I want to live. I want them to live. The power you speak of, the sacrifices… it isn’t worth it. No power is worth lives.”
The Master crossed the distance between them in two long strides. In a rush of breath, Basteaux found himself pinned facedown on the stone floor with the Master’s knee in the small of his back. His entire body screamed with pain, though all that came from his mouth was a strangled, choking yelp. The Master grabbed Basteaux roughly by the hair and hauled his head up at an awkward angle.
“You forget, boy, that I own you.” Something cold touched Basteaux’s cheek. A flick of his eyes and he could make out the subtle shimmer of a black stone knife just barely touching his skin. “What you want doesn’t matter.”
Fear, pain, anger. Fear, pain, anger. Panic bloomed in Basteaux’s chest. He knew that knife. He had tried to turn away whenever he’d seen it used before - dispatching birds, lambs, or other small creatures used in the Master’s workings. That it had been unsheathed for him meant only one thing.
It was a simple matter to reach for the power that sat inside Basteaux like a glowing ball. He reached and it reached back, rising to his summons with the bound of an excited hunting hound. Barely a conscious thought was needed and it reacted, engulfing the Master in a pulsating, crackling sphere of lightning. Basteaux heard the sizzle and pop, felt the spasm of shock. The blade held to his face jumped and shook, and though its razor edge glistened with a red coat Basteaux felt no pain.
With the help of adrenaline, Basteaux shoved himself to his hands and knees. The weight on his back fell away, allowing him to scramble to his feet. There was blood beneath him, puddled like a sickly mirror where his head had just been. Raising a shaking hand to his face, it startled Basteaux to find his palm slicked with blood when he pulled it back.
The power that had risen so quickly was faltering. It sputtered and fizzed, the bright lances of violet energy dying to release the Master’s unmoving form. Basteaux backed hurriedly away from him. The shallow rise and fall of his chest showed that he yet lived, a fact that Basteaux wasn’t sure if he was glad for or not. What was done, however, was done. And Basteaux needed to leave immediately.
Basteaux paused only long enough to throw a few items in a bag before fleeing into the welcoming darkness of the surrounding forest. He was away. He was free. There would be much more once he was capable of thinking clearly, but for now his only focus was on putting as much distance as himself and the Master as possible.
He couldn’t go home; the man would undoubtedly search for him, and going home would put his family at risk. No. He couldn’t put anyone else in harm’s way to protect himself ever again. The debt he already needed to repay was too great without adding more. Anyone he showed care for could become a target. He would be on his own.
The very air around them seemed to tingle, sending sparks racing up and down Basteaux’s spine and resonating deep within him. Even his breath felt charged. It was almost disappointing when he crossed his eyes to look and there was nothing unusual about the slow exhalations from his mouth.
Even such a minor divergence from the task set before him earned Basteaux a reproving grunt. The seventeen-year-old Duskwight straightened immediately and squared his shoulders beneath the black cloak he wore. This was a test unlike any he had encountered before. Any slip in attention or diligence would end in disaster for more than only him.
The very air around them seemed to tingle, sending sparks racing up and down Basteaux’s spine and resonating deep within him. Even his breath felt charged. It was almost disappointing when he crossed his eyes to look and there was nothing unusual about the slow exhalations from his mouth.
Even such a minor divergence from the task set before him earned Basteaux a reproving grunt. The seventeen-year-old Duskwight straightened immediately and squared his shoulders beneath the black cloak he wore. This was a test unlike any he had encountered before. Any slip in attention or diligence would end in disaster for more than only him.
The storm was moving in quickly. It coiled around the forest like a massive serpent, inky clouds blotting out the late afternoon sun so that it felt like twilight even without the thick blanket of the leafy canopy overhead. Basteaux and his Master stood where the ritual would take place - in the center of a clearing surrounded on all sides by very old, very tall trees. Beneath Basteaux’s feet was a magic circle created of ash and salt. Everything had been prepared. All that was left was to go through with it.
Basteaux felt the first strike before he saw it. The lightning crackled through him as it crackled in the sky, wild and raw and unrestrained. It charged his blood and made every one of his nerves sing in anticipation. Beside him, he could hear his Master’s sharp intake of breath.
“Clear your mind. Focus.” The Master’s voice cut through the quiet before the thunder rolled. Basteaux’s breathing shifted immediately in response, falling into the familiar patterns of deep concentration. He turned his attention to the storm within rather than the one without and reached for the glowing aether that gathered at his very core. Raw and wild, it rose to meet him as soon as he began to reach.
The spell was unfamiliar, the words tasting sharp and hard on his tongue as he began to speak them. He knew this feeling of power, knew intimately each spark and flicker of his aether and how it would react when he bent his will to shape it.
At least, he had always known before.
The razor words that fell from Basteaux’s lips were vicious hounds that began herding the storm. It felt, to his extended senses, like the very storm was coiling in on itself: condensing, collapsing, coalescing into a glass marble filled with the lightning that raced through the sky like the blood through Basteaux’s veins.
He was doing it. This would work! Excited and proud, Basteaux opened one eye to look up at his Master. The man was focused on the sky, his eyes bright with excitement of his own. Basteaux grinned. There would be a reward after this, for excelling with his first major working. Honey cakes that dripped with sticky sweetness, or new strings to replace the ones he’d snapped on his violin, or perhaps even the chance to write home.
The lance of longing tore through Basteaux’s heart as surely as any steel. Homesickness was a constant battle, and one he lost on a regular basis. Basteaux faltered in both his smile and his speech as his heart flipped and his breath caught.
“Focus!” The Master shouted, turning a twisted snarl to Basteaux.
Basteaux squeezed his eyes shut and tugged on the barriers that would close off his emotional response. As he struggled to regain control, feeling the words of the spell cut him as they left from his mouth, a surge of power crashed through his body. He wasn’t ready for this phase yet. The words came faster, falling with drops of blood to soak the circle at Basteaux’s feet.
Overconfident, unfocused, not ready - too late. The last phrase made Basteaux flinch, the last word sitting choked and aching in a throat already raw. He felt the storm’s impatience and how it paced, prowling, just waiting for his last move.
“Finish it! Finish it, you worthless child!” The Master yelled, his voice distant over the thunder that reverberated continously in Basteaux’s sensitive ears.
Basteaux gasped and began to cough. He covered his mouth with both hands which came away wet and sticky. Blue-green eyes raised toward the heavens to see the storm spiraled above them, sending out tendrils of lightning like some strange, unholy sea creature. It was beautiful and savage, but by the same coin the most terrifying thing he had ever seen.
Everything teetered on the thin wire of Basteaux’s spell, pulled tighter and tighter and thinner and thinner as the last word remained unspoken. His mouth worked but no sound came forth, leaving the young Duskwight only gasping with panic.
The spell snapped like a violin string.
The storm exploded, free of its bonds and lashing out at those who would dare attempt to see it caged. His gaze still upturned, Basteaux had a split second to see the lightning arc toward him before he became a living conduit and the whole world sizzled and sparked. For one fleeting moment all he felt was elation. He was the lightning; the lightning was him. But there was nothing there to keep them in harmony.
Basteaux tasted ozone and blood, smelled the charring of the grass at his feet and the burnt wool of his cloak. The pure white blaze roared with power and the high, keening wail that Basteaux distantly recognized as his own voice. His muscles were pulled as taut as the spell that had held the storm, bone and sinew threatening to give way. Electricity coursed through every bit of him from the tips of his ears to his smallest toes, ripping and shredding and flaying him open to the mercy of the Lord of Levin.
For a second time, the storm shattered. The uncontrolled force leapt from Basteaux to the next nearest source of power, but ricocheted off the Master’s hasty shield and tore through the forest, searching, hungering, though for what Basteaux was in no condition to surmise.
Basteaux fell into the circle of ash beneath him, his body still charged and giving off little arcs of electricity. Everything hurt. But a muttered, angry word from the Master nearby, and Basteaux sank into merciful magic-induced sleep.
There were letters, and then there were letters. Minh'to had delivered hundreds of thousands of them over the years, from missives scrawled on scraps of paper to heavy packets of the finest vellum. He’d learned in that time how to tell with reasonable accuracy what letters were something important and which were slightly less so - and it didn’t always show in their trappings.
Rain danced and scattered off the waxed fabric of his cloak, his mail bag tucked safely at his side beneath it as he hurried through the soaking downpour. This one, he could feel somewhere deep in his gut, was important. Too important to sit idly in a city and wait for the rains to lighten. That was why his boots splashed in puddles three ilms deep along the path, coating his footwear in water and mud. At least beneath the cloak he was warm and dry and his precious cargo was protected.
Minh'to was starting to doubt if he’d find anyone out here in the middle of the Twelveswood in such a squall, but his compass was unerring. As he stepped up to the mouth of a cave, partially hidden by vines and moss, he was greeted by the sharp point of an arrow nocked and pulled in his direction.
Minh'to cleared his throat and tipped his cap, moving the hood of his rain cape out of the way so that the postman’s symbol showed clearly in the gloomy afternoon. “Are you, ah…” He glanced down to the addressee on the letter at the top of his bag, still shielding it from the wet. “Are you Basteaux Renaulier? I have a letter for you.”
The arrow stayed primed for a moment longer before it withdrew, and a gloved hand pushed aside the curtain that covered the cave’s entrance and its owner stepped out into the elements. “I am,” he said, sounding uncertain. “A letter for me?”
“Yes,” Minh'to replied, moving closer in order to pass the letter carefully into the Elezen’s unresisting hand. “Thank you for choosing the moogle post, ser. Should you need anything else, please place your addressed mail in a letterbox and we’ll be certain to get it to its proper recipient.” He stepped back and bowed, the rain bouncing off of him again. “Lovely day to you, ser.”
Minh'to smiled, paused to make sure the reclusive Duskwight had nothing more to say, then hurried back into the forest the way he’d come. Rain or shine or snow or sleet, there was nothing he would rather be doing with his life than this.
