AN: This will be a four part story about the party acquiring the Canopic jar. The first three parts will be about the party acquiring Horakhty's Flame, Deimos Clay and Phobos Glaze. The party will get the Canopic Jar itself in the final chapter.
Disclaimer: Final Fantasy XII is the property of Square Enix. I'm not making any money from this and am just writing for fun.
Horakty's Flame
Penelo held back a sigh as Vaan conversed with the petitioner. She wasn't optimistic about this latest bill posting Montblanc had given Vaan. The Marks they learned about from the little moogle were usually well worth their time, but she had her doubts about this one. This Seeq thief irritated her both by overtly flirting with Vaan in front of her and with her incessant blubbering, which was likely the only thing keeping the other residents of Lowtown from having her carted off to Nalbina. Penelo couldn't blame her for trying to avoid prison, but watching her use her dubious feminine wiles to manipulate others into helping her out of her predicament grated. It was her own fault that she was in this position, after all. Would she even have anything worthwhile to give them as a bounty?
As they descended into the stench of the Garamsythe Waterway, Penelo voiced her doubts to Vaan. "Can't you ask to see the bounty before agreeing to hunt the Mark? I'm worried this won't be worth our time."
"That's not how it's done, Penelo. Clan Centurio would get a bad rep if we only helped people who could pay a certain price. Mark Hunters get a bad rep, but most of us want to make the world a better place by helping eradicate the worst of monsters. We aren't like Headhunters, who are just in it for the money."
Penelo cringed, remembering Ba'Gamnen and his posse. "I think our favorite Bangaa headhunter gang is in it for the violence too." She quipped, making light of a memory that she still had nightmares about, but Vaan didn't need to know that. "But it would make sense for Mark hunters to require proof of a bounty, however small. We have to eat too."
Vaan snickered at her reference to Ba'Gamnen. "I doubt Montblanc would vouch for her if she had nothing to give us in payment." Penelo wasn't so sure about that, as the moogle's goal in life seemed to be to rid the world of nasty monsters, not to make a fortune.
After a couple hours of running around in the sewers without seeing any giant purple flans, the party began to get discouraged.
"Didn't the Seeq suggest that the creature has certain lecherous tendencies?" Balthier asked when they stopped for a break early in the afternoon.
"The Viera tell tales of creatures deep in the Wood who attack only males who invade our Wood, so it is possible that the beast here could prefer females. The Seeq's words suggest as much." Fran confirmed.
Ashe sighed. "Loathe as I am to spend any more time gallivanting around the sewers, perhaps we ladies should try to seek the creature out on our own." It was Ashe's fault they had to hunt marks right now anyway. It was only fair that she help replenish their funds after that little shopping spree in the Bazaar the other day. Penelo had noticed that the princess still had difficulty with the concept of budgeting, even after two years of poverty. If there was any gil to spare, Ashe found ways to spend it, if Vaan didn't spend it first. Thanks to the two of them, the group now had to scrounge around in the sewers to earn the gil they'd need for provisions to get then to Jahara.
After changing up their accessories to distribute the things that would be most useful for combating an overgrown flan to the female party members, Penelo, Ashe and Fran headed back toward the Southern Sluiceway without the guys. While they were gone, Vaan, Balthier and Basch were supposed to train against the other sewer monsters to get the lucrative items they carried to sell later.
All three women let out cries of disgust as the giant purplish flan plopped down in front of them. Penelo despised Flans more than any other type of monster. She'd had a bad experience with the icky green ones in those weird caves in the Sandsea. They reminded her of giant, living boogers and she loathed the slime she was always covered with after battling them. She'd never seen a purple one before, but the different color didn't make it any less gross. Its huge size made her want to run in the other direction. It must have been watching them from the ceiling all day as they searched for it. That was one of the worst things about Flans – they could stick to the ceiling and drop down on you at any time.
Ashe had no such qualms, as she rushed it and began trying to hack at it with her sword. She only succeeded in getting herself covered in slime and making the creature angry. Their blobby foe retaliated by casting Bleed on her. Penelo flung a remedy to Ashe as Fran shouted out that the creature was weak against Fire. Penelo backed up against the wall and prepared a Sleep spell as Fran fired fiery arrows at the Flan and Ashe did her best to shield herself against the agitated creature's attempts to assault her with its gelatinous bulk.
The Sleep spell was successful, and all three women started using Fire elemental spells on it. Penelo tried casting an Oil spell on it to increase the damage that much more, but the giant Flan was immune to that particular status effect. At one point, Fran darted forward with an empty flask and harvested some of the rare Slime Oil from the creature. They were lucky it didn't wake up when she did so. It never ceased to amaze Penelo how monsters could snooze through extreme magical bombardment but woke at the slightest scratch of a sword. She had to cast Sleep thrice more during the battle, as Orthros kept waking from its impromptu nap.
"Good thinking, Fran!" Penelo shouted before downing an ether to refill her depleted magical stores. That Slime Oil would bring a good price in the Bazaar. After nearly an hour of flame broiling Orthros, it finally succumbed and melted away into a puddle of slime on the ancient stones of the Garamsythe, before draining down into the sluiceway below, revealing the bundle of stolen goods they'd come for. Fran picked them up and cleansed them as best she could with one of Balthier's handkerchiefs. He wouldn't be pleased about that. When she was done, the items were still slightly slimy, but the thief shouldn't be too picky.
"Ugh, disgusting." Ashe grumbled as she examined the viscous slime coating her shield.
"Want me to cast a water spell on that?" Penelo offered.
"No thanks, I'd prefer slime to rust. I'll polish it tonight. Thanks for the offer." Ashe returned.
"Suit yourself." Penelo replied, casting a weak water spell on herself to rinse off the worst of the gunk. Fran did the same, but Ashe refused to, citing the iron parts of her armor that she'd have to meticulously clean later. For someone raised in ball gowns, the princess sure didn't have qualms about getting dirty.
"We should hasten our return so that we might collect the bounty before sunset." Fran commented.
"I can't wait to take a bath." Penelo commented. Said bath would be cold, as the party couldn't afford to stay in fancy inns with hot water right now, but the idea of being fully clean again sounded heavenly. Those long, heavenly bubble baths at the Marquis's estate in Bhujerba were naught but a distant memory now.
They encountered the men slaying Malboros in the next area over. They were nearly as dirty as the girls, and smelled a good bit worse.
"Did you get it?" Vaan asked.
"You bet we did!" Penelo crowed. "Now let's get out of here!" They trudged back through the sewers, returned the stolen goods to the thief, who gave them back to the original owner, Samal, in return for not turning her in. As it turned out, she had a nice bounty to give them. She gave them nearly 4,000 gil, a vial of unpurified ether, and an odd-looking earthenware jar that was strangely warm to the touch. Samal gave them a strange piece of an old medallion that had been charred black to thank them for their assistance as well. It looked similar to the dull medallion piece Vaan had found while playing with the sluice gates in the sewers a few days before, and Balthier suspected they were two pieces of the same whole. The thief flirted with Vaan some more before parting ways with them, hopefully planning to adopt some kind of honest profession.
Penelo wondered who she'd stolen the bounty from and whether they should try to return that as well. When she brought that up, Balthier pointed out that there was no way of knowing who the thief might have robbed, but that it was very likely imperial soldiers she burgled to get that kind of gil, as few Rabanastrans had that kind of money, and if they did, they hid it. Penelo never felt bad about imperials being robbed. The Empire had stolen their homeland; why should she care if this thief stole a little back from the occupying forces. It was no worse than what Vaan used to do in the Bazaar, though it was a much larger sum than he'd ever managed. It made her realize that for all his pride in his pickpocketing abilities, Vaan was just an amateur thief, like Balthier always claimed. She put concern about the thief's other victims out of her mind.
The party treated themselves to a warm meal at the Sandsea with some of the gil they'd earned as a treat. Tomaj was kind enough to give them a discount, as he often did. He didn't comment on their rank smell or disheveled, and, in the ladies' cases, sticky appearances. Tomaj was used to Mark Hunters and turned a blind eye to their uncouthness and smell so long as they paid their tab. Penelo found that getting a warm meal in her belly after a hard day's work felt nearly as good as a warm bath. The Cockatrice stew and thin, watery ale they ordered were the cheapest items on Tomaj's menu, but they were satisfying fare after a long day of flan hunting.
"Hey Vaan, what's in that jar we got as part of the bounty?" Penelo asked when she was done with her stew.
"I dunno." He shrugged before pulling it out of his bag and popping the lid off . A vivid yellow-orange flame crackled merrily inside the vessel. It had no visible fuel source, but it burned brightly.
"That explains why it's warm. But why did she give us a jar of fire as a bounty?" Penelo wondered.
"Beats me. Think it's worth anything?" he asked as he showed the rest of the table.
Fran plucked the jar from his hand to take a closer look. "Could it be?" she mused after examining it for a long moment. She plucked a shiny blue pebble out of her bag and dropped it into the jar. The table watched in awe as the flame consumed the pebble completely without producing a single wisp of smoke or leaving even a speck of ash.
"I believe 'tis a portion of the Fire of Horakhty," Fran pronounced. "I'll know for sure at nightfall. If that's what it is, it will turn black and become icy."
"Fire of what?" Vaan replied with a confused look on his face.
"Horakhty is the name of the sun god in Viera lore." Fran answered. "In times long past, he travelled down to Ivalice and shared flames from the sun itself with the peoples of our world. It is said those flames could burn through anything so thoroughly that it wouldn't' leave any ash behind. It requires no fuel to burn. Over the millennia, the flame he shared was split into smaller and smaller pieces. It was thought that they all burned out ages ago, but it appears that at least one portion still exists."
"Is it valuable?" Ashe asked, voicing the question on everyone's mind. The party members took turns feeding pebbles to the flame, intrigued by the fire's ability to burn stone as though it were straw.
"We will be hard-pressed to find a buyer who understands what it is, and who would also pay good gil for it, unless we wish to travel to Archadia to sell it to Draklor." Balthier replied. "I wouldn't suggest that. If you have to sell it, I'd just sell it to some peddler of curiosities for an eccentric collector to buy. I'd hate to see what the mad scientists at Draklor could develop after studying something like this."
"It may end up there eventually no matter what we do." Ashe murmured. "Let's keep it for now. I'd feel better knowing where it is for now. " The Archadian scientists could probably make some fearsome weapons after studying this kind of thing.
"Did you say that the fire gets cold at night?" Basch asked Fran.
"Indeed. The sun just set and it's turned black." The Viera confirmed. They all took another look inside the jar and marveled how it now radiated cold the way a normal fire exudes heat."
"I wish we'd had this in the Sandsea. It could have helped us cool down at night." Vaan grumbled, reaching in to touch the black flames, which didn't burn at night, and sighing at the pleasant cool sensation of them brushing at his fingers.
"Umm, I wouldn't touch that." Penelo advised.
"It's not hurting me. It feels nice!" Vaan defended.
"You didn't know it wouldn't burn you before you stuck your hand in there." The girl persisted.
"Quit being such a worrywart." The young hunter grumbled. "I have good instincts, you know. I was pretty sure it wouldn't hurt me."
"If you'd been wrong, you'd be missing a few fingers now." Penelo sniffed at her friend's recklessness.
"Right, whatever. Wanna feel it for yourself?" he asked.
"No way. I'm not sticking my hand in any fire, not even a cold black one! I saw what it did to those pebbles earlier! I like my fingers just the way they are, thanks." The girl insisted.
Ashe chortled at their bickering before taking the jar to feel the flames for herself. It helped Penelo remember that the usually serious and stoic princess was only a couple years older than she was. Gray blue eyes peered into the little urn in fascination as the flames danced harmlessly against her fingers. It was strange how the black fire still gave off light. It was an eerie, unnatural light, but light all the same.
Each party member touched the odd flames in turn, with Penelo finally caving in to peer pressure and putting just the tip of her little finger in the flames' reach. It was the oddest feeling she'd ever experienced. The tendrils of dark fire felt like cold feathers tickling the end of her finger. "If it burns through anything, why doesn't it burn up the jar?" she asked.
"This urn must be treated with Phobos Glaze." Balthier replied. "Phobos Glaze makes anything it is applied to nigh indestructible. The great artisans of Archadia used to produce it, but the art of making it has been lost. Once in a while a vat of the old stuff will turn up in the market, but no one's successfully replicated it in the past two hundred years."
"Huh." Penelo would never tire of hearing the odd anecdotes the sky pirates knew about Ivalice. She was learning a lot during this quest. She hoped she could eke out a living as a mage or a healer when this was all over, if she didn't join Vaan in sky pirating, as her skill with Magicks improved daily and she'd learned a great deal about treating wounds during their journey.
When the party retreated to their rented quarters in Lowtown, the ladies briefly squabbled over who could bathe first. Ashe won, of course, but Penelo decided she could just use the tub at the flat she and Vaan used to live in. She was still paying the rent, so why not use it? She hated spending the gil on a place they weren't using right now, but she thought it would be wise to keep it for when their quest ended. It didn't have running water, but Penelo didn't mind drawing it from the community well. It would be chilly either way. She could do that faster than Ashe could take her bathe, seeing how the princess insisted on heating the water in metal buckets as best she could with fire spells. For someone who didn't mind getting dirty, Ashe sure was picky about bathing. Penelo didn't care if the water was cold; she just wanted to get the foul slime off her body. It wasn't possible to battle a flan without getting goo all over one's body. She'd need to wash her clothes too. She hoped she never saw another flan!
The following morning, Penelo and Fran went to sell the loot the men had collected the previous day as well as the slime oil the Viera had collected from Orthros while the rest of the party went on another hunt in the Estersand. They made more than enough gil to fund the trip to Jahara, though Penelo still wasn't entirely sure why they were going there.
So, what did you think? Make my day by leaving me a review, pretty please! :3 I'm hoping to write the second part of this about Deimos Clay sometime soon!