Chapter One: The Grand Awakening
The hours dragged by, and my wallet became thinner and thinner. Eventually, I lacked enough Gil to buy another drink, and so I drained my last glass and got up to leave. My senses were a little off where I had been drinking for the past few hours, but since I had no plans to drive any time soon, I did not really see it as a problem. As I reached the door a man walked in and right into me. He seemed to reel from the collision for quite a while, but eventually he straightened himself up and managed a half-hearted "Sorry" before walking up to the bar, ordering a drink, and asking for it to be placed on his tab.
I stood in the doorway for a moment and looked at the man a little closer; he already stunk of alcohol suggesting that he had started his morning's drinking at home, and he looked really dishevelled. I had always prided myself in that I rarely chose to judge anyone on their appearance, but I took an instant dislike to the obvious waste of space that had passed me by. I thought on it for a moment longer before walking out into the cold street, and beginning to look around for places where the book might have been.
I spent the rest of the time up to lunchtime scanning the city for potential owners of the book and fed people with descriptions of it, offering money for information, but none came through for me. Which was probably a good thing in hindsight, as my wallet was empty at that stage and so the packs of money I was keeping concealed in my combat jacket were meant to be used to actually buy the Grimoire from its present owner. I got tired of walking around so I found a cash machine (the only one in town) and withdrew enough money from my personal account so that I could buy lunch and a few more drinks.
I chose not to go to the pub again, but rather to just stop off at the local convenience store and grab something to eat and drink. No matter how hard I try I cannot remember the name of the store I went to that afternoon, although that would probably be because it is a completely insignificant detail and so it has lost its pride of place in the forefront of my mind. I just picked up a cheese sandwich and a coke to keep me going; I reasoned with myself that I had had enough alcohol for the day and to make do with what I had found. I finished my food off on the road, and noticing the time decided to head back towards the school where I might see the child who had lost his bear.
I had to walk back past the pub to get back to the school, and passed the same man who had walked into me before. It lightened my spirits to see him walking away from the pub, and so I thought ill of myself for thinking so badly of him earlier. We ended up walking the same way, but we chose not to speak to each other; or rather, I chose not to speak to him. Once again contradicting myself, I must mention that he reeked so badly of drink at this stage that it actually pained me to walk beside him, and so I sped past him so as to spend as little time near the drunk as possible.
I never did realise that he turned off, but apparently he did not walk behind me all the way to the school for he had disappeared by the time I got to the end of my journey. I arrived just in time to see the end of a snowball fight, and once again looked on in disgust as I saw the same child being bullied. I then watched as a brave red-haired girl stepped forwards and challenged the bullies, at which point they said something to her that I could not quite make out which caused her to advance on him violently. Thankfully the teacher intervened, for I would have hated the brave girl to have done something foolish and caused herself trouble because of the fools that were bullying the other boy. The ringleaders of the group were taken inside with the teacher, while the rest of the class was dismissed for the day. I thought about simply walking over to the boy and handing him his bear, but I had no way of knowing if this would make things worse if the bullies were to notice the handover. Instead I waited until the group made their way off from the rest of their classmates, and then again moved to speak with them.
Once again, somebody interfered. But this time it was the drunk from before being yelled at by somebody who appeared to be his superior; I could not help but think that he had gotten what was coming to him when he was threatened with the loss of his job, but when I saw the bullied child cringe as the conversation moved on, I knew that they had something to do with each other and could not help but feel sorry for them both. Moments later, the discussion ended and the red haired girl made a comment about the drunk, at which he turned around and they all spoke for a while. Then the three moved off further down the street and I followed them, but in looking behind me I noticed that as soon as the drunk thought us to be out of sight, he walked off in a slump back towards the pub. I shook my head in disgust.
The three of them, the blond boy, the brown haired boy, and the red haired girl, spoke for a while longer and then took different routes towards their respective homes, and I took that moment to go and speak to the boy whose bear I still held under my jacket. I would not wait any longer for I knew that knowing my luck something would get in the and stop me, so I tapped the boy on the back at a run and skidded to a halt beside him. He looked up at me and was clearly unsure of what to make of me; and there was shock on his face as I began going through my jacket and at one point I truly think he was ready to make a run for his life. At that I smiled dutifully and shook me head, then passed him his bear from my jacket pocket. He smiled at me and thanked me profusely. I shook my head again.
"I picked it up when you ran into me this morning." I said with a hint of sarcasm.
"Oh, I'm really sorry about that."
"Never mind; what's done is done. Don't let those bullies get the better of you." He looked up at me strangely for a moment and then broke off his gaze. I realised then that I'd been too quick to speak my mind and had said too much. He simply thanked me again quietly and ran off. I think back now and realise that if I had have spent a few more minutes making conversation with him I may have gotten the information I had came to the town for and then I would never have needed to go through the ordeals I did. However, in trying to act older than I was, I frightened him off. I thought he was going home, but he was actually going to the library to check out the very book I was looking for from one of the few places I had not thought to look.
Magic in anyone's hands is dangerous, but to put the power of the Grand Grimoire into the hands of a boy as troubled as him was exceedingly so. Mewt Randell, as I came to know him had a powerful imagination and emotions to match. But the Grimoire feeds on that kind of energy, and Mewt was just a weak child; nothing he could have done could have prepared him for the power that it contained.
I was lying in bed that night at the local Inn when I felt a massive release of magic. Somebody had undone the seal on the Grimoire and was likely to be reading the ancient runes printed on its pages. There was no hesitation on my part, for I knew what had to be done in order to protect myself from the magical release that might ensue: I took the twelve-point amulet from my suitcase and placed it lightly around my neck before getting dressed and running out into the night. The amulet represented something very simple; the Zodiac. However, from that it also bore the writings of the twelve Espers, or the Lucavi, and it was one of the only known artefacts in existence that bore the strength to bestow immunity to at least some portion of the Grimoire's magic. Of course, the Lucavi were long gone, and therefore, the magic of the amulet was nothing compared to what it was in the time of old, but it should have sufficed for long enough for me to reach the book and close it before its new master unwittingly unleashed its great powers upon the unsuspecting world.
I bounded down the flight of stairs at the Inn and crashed out into the street without a backwards glance to the people I sent flying as I barged past. Somewhere in the small countryside town the Grimoire was being activated because someone appeared to be able to read the ancient inscriptions, or perhaps because somebody may have added to the book when it was last opened in such a language that the people of the town could understand. The amulet began to glow with a dull light as people around me began to fade away into the night and entire buildings began to vanish before my eyes, a graphic reminder of the fact that I was defended, but also that the people around me were not.
The world literally began to flash before my eyes; everything was being replaced with darkness and there was nothing I could do about it except to find the source before the damage became too great to be repaired. I could not help but wonder why it was on that day that the book was found again, and why I just happened to be there at just the right time, but I suppose that fate is what drew me there and what brought be through the days ahead. A Pillar of energy erupted from one of the houses at the far end of the street I was on and I knew that had to be where the Grimoire was being held.
I held nothing back and ran as fast as I could will myself to, and given the situation, I was pretty fast. I reached the door to see the entire house encompassed by a blinding light that was slowly moving outwards, supposedly it was the energy that would bend the world in the image that the book's master bid it to. I shrugged and ran into the barrier anyway, reaching for the door. My reasoning was very simple; if I was immune to the magic that was changing the world before my eyes, then I had nothing to fear from this mighty pillar of energy and would be safe. On the other hand, if I was not immune, I would rather have chosen to die, or to change, or whatever it would have done to me, that be forced into it when the tidal wave of energy burst into the Inn and took me by force.
Luckily, the amulet's power held and kept me quite safe, and so my hand tightened around the door handle and I continued to run towards the source of the book's magic. At this point I shut my eyes and followed my other senses (some of which I had just discovered I had) to get there, partly because if they had remained open any longer I would be blind in minutes, and partly because the sheer amount of power that was being released was like a beacon to me. I found what I sensed to be the door behind which the Grimoire was being used, and so I threw caution to the wind and kicked the door in. I confess I was not prepared to see the boy I had helped earlier, Mewt, sitting cross-legged on the floor reading the Grand Grimoire; and for a moment, just a moment, I hesitated.
The moment was all it took; the Grimoire simply assumed that I was another creature to feed off of, and began to probe into my thoughts before I could put up the mental barriers to stop it. Mewt looked up and me with complete indifference, as I was just another using the book's infinite supply of power to get what I wanted, and that, for the time being at least, made me a friend. I could see inside my head what the Grimoire was doing to the world, and I was powerless to stop it, but at the same time I was thinking that the Grimoire was the last of Ivalice's relics to collect and that I must be strong. The book used my thoughts of Ivalice to build on Mewt's wishes by making him powerful and his enemies weak in a world of my choosing. I knew it was wrong and that I needed to fight the magic, but the Grimoire would not allow me to put up any kind of barrier to stop its intrusion into my mind. Suddenly, as quickly as it had invaded, it retreated again; it had what it wanted, enough wishes to be getting on with, and was done with me.
The world was being rebuilt around me, and I noticed then that what was a young boy's bedroom had become some kind of an ancient shrine not unlike those that used to worship the Espers, but a key difference was the lack of doors and windows. We were as good as trapped until the book was done with its reconstruction of the world as we knew it. Despite the fact that I, and the world itself, was clearly in massive danger with only myself and Mewt for support, I could not help but wonder what the book's Ivalice would be like. I had no doubt in my mind that it would not be entirely true to history because Mewt's wishes had been made first and would take priority.
Mewt thought he understood the situation, but he clearly had no idea; he was talking to himself about power and friends, and then suddenly he began to fade away. That was not the worst of it, the book was also fading; unfortunately, something took its place. A creature that had appeared in legend at the time of the Grand Grimoire's creation, Li-Grim, stood… well… hovered… in front of me. I was amazingly calm in the face of such majesty; she, if she was in fact a she, was a blue crystalline entity that was rounded completely. She was like a diamond that had been filed and buffed until no sharp edges remained, and she was beautiful. No, she was not beautiful, she was as beautiful as a demon born of pure magic could be, and thus she was appealing to my young eyes. What she, or it, commanded it beauty, it held tenfold in power; Li-Grim spoke to me telepathically, seeing no reason to waste energy on words and chose instead to manipulate my own mind so as not to seem as my equal.
"This world was born from yours and the boy's wishes, and you are free to roam."
I thought of a sarcastic response but she was obviously reading my mind while "writing" on it, and glared at me in defiance.
"Yes, it is good of me to allow this. This is my world, not yours. That I let you live is a gift."
Power flowed from her like a tap, and so I suppressed any thoughts that might have been seen as contradictory to her statement and she smiled at my display of weakness.
"This is Ivalice as it was in the old days. But it is different because you wished second."
She "spoke" almost resentfully and by now I was genuinely scared of what she would do to me if I was at all defiant towards her, and so I simply thought an affirmative to her statement.
"Your world is gone now. Replaced. You are welcome at the palace as a courtier."
And with that she vanished, and looking around me, so was the room I was in. She left because I thought about her disposing of me, and I thought then that she may have changed the subject and left because she could not kill me. Perhaps, I thought, my mind, my wishes, are what keep the world whole.
However, I knew at once that this was not so; the Li-Grim was the thread that bound the world together, and it was her who now effectively "owned" my wish. If she wanted rid of me, she could have rid of me with no consequences. Obviously something more important came to her attention. My thoughts were cut short as I appeared in a vast ornate room with swords and shields decorating the walls; and if my memories of my research were accurate it was an Ivalice Palace Hall.
