Nearly one hundred years have passed since the War of Archadian Aggression. Dalmasca, along with Archadia, Rozarria, and Nabradia, have reformed the Galtean Alliance. With no war to draw people's attention, conflict comes about closer to home.
In a dark, damp cell in an unlit corner of the Garamsythe Waterway lay a terrified couple. The two humes, stolen from the town of Mt Bur-Omisace in the dead of night, were too exhausted to even continue weeping. Men in cloaks had abducted, drugged, and moved them to Rabanastre in the space of an evening. They had been kept for two days in a cramped cell, with only the company of the rats of the waterway.
The visibly pregnant woman stared out of her cell, looking at a spout of water pouring into the nearby reservoir. It was the only thing should could do to keep her mind off her capture. She was due any day now, and the thought of giving birth in a sewer made her sick to her stomach. Her husband sat with his back against the bars of the cage, head buried in his knees. He was trying to sleep, if only to pass the time until someone would finally come back for them. They were both weak from hunger, and neither could think of anything to say that would improve things, so they sat in silence, waiting.
A few minutes before midnight, ten men in robes approached the cage, torches and daggers in hand. One man extended a key from the sleeve of his robe and unlocked the latch.
"You will come with us."
The woman froze with fear. The man leapt wit the last of his strength, pushing one of the men down into the muck before being stabbed twice in the back by another. The hooded men grabbed the woman and dragged her away from the cage. She stumbled along without struggling, looking back to see her husband bleeding out on the ground.
The group reached a table surrounded by yet more hooded figures and forced the woman onto it. It was cold stone with elaborate engravings. She could only look on as the men tied down her limbs to the corner of the table. One man in a particularly elaborate set of robes emerged from the crowd.
The man, presumably the leader of this group, held out his arms above his head. In one hand, a blade of platinum. In the other, a crystal.
"Manufacted nethicite! Soul of the unborn! Spill forth your Mist upon this Ivalice! Let sea and sky be awash in it, that Bahamut may come and drink his fill! Return to us, Bahamut, and purge the world of weakness!"
The man brought the blade down into the woman's chest. Her last breaths gurgled in her throat, and she was dead. The crystal in the man's hand forced itself free from his grasp and levitated over the dead woman's body. Currents of Mist circulated between the crystal and unborn child, glowing brighter until the light in the room was blinding.
"Yes! Bahamut, we are here. Your children await your return!"
The Mist in the room grew thick and erupted in magickal flame. Those in the group who weren't thrown into the waters were immolated. When the raging mist died down, all that remained in the center of the room was a baby hume in a bed of ash, his skin burned brown by mist, and what little hair he had bleached white.
Of the two dozen or so men who entered the waterway the evening, only five returned to Lowtown. The one in the elaborate robes, Samuel, held the child in his arms. The others stayed close, still perplexed about what had just transpired.
"Sam, what happened? This was supposed to work. A hume soul should have been more than enough."
Sam turned toward the man to his left, a Banga named Nobul. "The Mist was enough. It was we who were lacking. That flame was unmistakably Bahamut's flare. He has refused us."
"How can an Esper refuse it's master?"
"Do not think to tell an Esper it's business, Nobul. A binding is a contract of mutual respect, one we have failed to earn. We, ourselves, will not be able to summon him. But this child..." Sam's gaze drifted down to the baby in his arms. "This child may have potential. His soul is receptive to Mist."
"So what is the plan, now?"
"We raise him as one of us, train him in the arts, and have him perform the ritual in our stead."
"But that will take years!"
"Bahamut has already punished us for our impudence. Should we try another ritual ourselves, it would be the end of us. Let the child risk his own life while we continue our work. Should it succeed, then our god shall walk amongst us at our will. Should he fail, we will have risked nothing."
"Surely consuming a soul would kill him before he could even bind."
"Perhaps if he were to use all of it, yes. But I doubt that will be necessary. I feel confident about our chances with this new conduit. At the very least, more confident than with the manufacted nethicite."
The men separated in the dark halls of Lowtown, leaving Sam to head toward the residences in upper Rabanastre.