Well, I couldn't wrap this up in a single chapter, so I decided to add a fifth chapter.
I just started a new job and wrote most of this in the evenings after work. If it feels a little scattered, that's why.
Thanks again to everyone who reviewed!
Morbid Urn Part 1
"Do you really need to talk to these petitioners today?" Ashe grumbled. "I don't want to go anywhere near Nalbina."
"I second Her Majesty." Basch agreed. "I spent two years under the Fortress; I'm not eager to see it again."
"But these Marks are sure to net us some great gil!" Vaan persisted. He was determined to be the hunter who took down these monsters. He was rising through Clan Centurio's ranks quickly and was very proud of it.
Penelo, Fran and Balthier exchanged irritated looks. The argument had been going on for almost half an hour. The three of them didn't have any strong feelings about which route to take to the Mosphoran Highwaste. Penelo had never been to Nalbina, but didn't think she was missing much. Fran and Balthier weren't bothered by their brief stay in Nalbina Dungeon, as they'd broken out of much nastier prisons than that in their years pirating.
"We'll just have to budget more carefully or sell some old equipment to fund our expedition for now." Ashe snapped. Balthier snorted. Hearing the princess suggest frugality was laughable knowing what a spendthrift she was. She really was determined to avoid the fortress if she was willing to forgo shopping to do it.
"I thought you needed that new helmet in the armor shop." Vaan wheedled.
"Some of these look too tough for us yet, Vaan." Penelo interrupted, examining the bills her friend had brought back from the Sandsea the night before. "You have a Rank VI one in here. Did you mean to grab that one?"
"'Course I did. I'm sure we can take it." Vaan replied, sounding overconfident. His success as a hunter and prolonged exposure to Balthier was making him cocky.
"But the bill says the Mark is in the Nabreus Deadlands. That place sounds too creepy for me." The pigtailed girl whined.
"Nabradia?" Ashe said. "I don't think I could bear to see it as it is now." She shuddered. "To see such a beautiful place destroyed and infested by undead things . . ." her voice trailed off and she shivered.
"You don't have to be in the hunting party for that one. I wouldn't ask you to do that." Vaan cajoled. "But we can totally handle anything that place can throw at us. I know we can. After the Trickster and the Gil Snapper it should be a cinch. C'mon guys, let's get going to Nalbina! Daylight's burning!"
"Does returning to the location of your only experience with imprisonment not distress you?" Fran asked. She was surprised at how eager he was to return to that place. She'd heard him whimpering about Daguza, the crazy Seeq warden of Nalbina Dungeon, in his sleep more than once in the past weeks.
"Nah, it's not like we're going back in the dungeon. That would bother me. The town isn't a problem." The boy replied.
Penelo sighed. Vaan was trying to look as tough and world-weary as Balthier to impress the others. She knew him too well to be fooled by his bravado. "Hey, this bill here says the petitioner is in the Estersand village by the Nebra River! We could all go there and then you could use the Gate Crystal to warp to Nalbina and see the other petitioners. Plus, I could make Semclam chowder for dinner if we go through the Estersand Village." She proposed in hopes of ending the argument.
"We could stay in the village overnight and not have to worry about keeping watch." Ashe piped up, sounding much less hungover than she did a few minutes earlier. She hadn't had a good Semclam chowder in years and was eager to see what Penelo could whip up with the meager ingredients available. Penelo suspected she'd agree to about any idea that could help her avoid going to Nalbina. A night camping on the banks of the river did sound nicer than roughing it in the rocky desert outside of Nalbina town. They still didn't have the gil to stay in inns, not that there were any in Nalbina now.
"Alright, I guess that'll work. " Vaan conceded. Nalbina wasn't his favorite place in Ivalice either. The fact that it was where Reks received his mortal injury upset him more than his brief stay in the dungeon. He'd probably wet himself if he encountered Daguza again, not that he'd never admit that to the other party members. He hoped that visiting Nalbina again as a free manwould help him lay some demons to rest. Perhaps going there would do Basch and Ashe some good if they'd try that.
"Then we're agreed?" Ashe asked the room at large. A chorus of ayes responded.
Before anyone could move, someone eagerly pounded on the door. "Vaan! Vaan! Old Dalan needs to see you before you go!" Kytes shouted from the other side of the door. Penelo opened the door and the excitable boy burst in.
"What's Old Dalan need?" Vaan asked.
"This had best be important. We can't afford to waste time." Basch said sternly. Penelo frowned at him. The knight had certainly wasted enough time earlier arguing about whether to go to Nalbina. She thought about calling him on it, but didn't want to start another argument so soon after resolving the last one.
"Old Dalan has a friend here who wants to buy that weird clay stuff and fire thing you let him borrow." Kytes explained. "You did say you were looking to sell, right? If the right person was interested?"
"Then we'd best all go see him. I want to be sure this buyer isn't just a front for Archadian researchers." Ashe decided. She really was concerned about the strange artifacts they'd found falling into the wrong hands. "We can take the Phobos Glaze too and see if he wants to buy that as well. We'll leave for the Estersand Village straight from there, so everyone gather your things!"
They divided into smaller groups to walk through Lowtown so as not to attract unwanted attention. Kytes and some of the other Lowtown kids joined them just to spend more time with Vaan and Penelo. They still didn't know who the other party members were. They'd kept their identities secret for safety reasons, though Kytes guessed that Balthier and Fran were sky pirates right away.
When they reached Dalan's place, they found him with several guests already. Dalan shooed away everyone but a bespectacled old man with a coarse-looking white beard.
"Thank you all for taking the time to see me." Dalan began. "This is my dear friend, Maechen, who has an interest in the curiosities you brought to me. He makes a hobby of cobbling oddities together to make new oddities."
"I've searched many a year for some Deimos Clay and I'd almost given up hope of ever seeing a true piece of Horakhty's Flame. I've seen some truly impressive imposters, but I've examined your piece and determined that is authentic. If only I had some Phobos Glaze, I could create a truly fascinating piece."
"What do you plan to do with these things if we agree to sell them to you?" Ashe queried, getting straight to the point as always.
"If I can find some Phobos Glaze, I plan to replicate an ancient Rozarrian artifact known as a Canopic Jar. Its like has not been seen in nearly a thousand years." The old man explained.
"How can I know you aren't just a researcher from Draklor in disguise, roving Ivalice for new research material?" The princess asked. The old man seemed harmless enough, but Ashe had heard of researchers disguising themselves and journeying to distant corners of the world to dredge up new research material. "And what is a Canopic Jar?"
"My accent alone should tell you that I'm Nabradian, and I have no reason to love the Empire because of that. I understand your concern, Your Majesty, as these objects could be quite dangerous should they fall into the wrong hands."
Ashe was taken aback that he knew who she was. Few recognized her in anything but an elegant gown. "Do I know you?"
"I don't think we've met officially, but I attended your wedding. I was once young Prince Rasler's instructor in Magicks." He replied. Ashe had thought there'd been something vaguely familiar about him. Now she seemed to remember seeing his face in the hallways when she'd visited Nabradia's Grand Palace so many years before.
"What would this Canopic Jar thing do?" Vaan asked. He figured that anything incorporated Horakhty's Flame had to do something interesting.
"It entraps the souls of creatures in the form of jewels known as arcana. Arcana can form in the presence in Monographs in some circumstances. You may have encountered it before."
Penelo let out a squeak of horror. "That's disgusting!" She ripped the ring she'd made from an arcana and a piece of bronze wire from her right ring finger and threw it on the ground. "You mean to tell me that I've been wearing that poor Lindbur Wolf's soul around as a pretty bauble?" Vaan had found the odd opalescent stone in the sand, along with the Gladius that Penelo often wielded, after slaying the creature. It hadn't been a Mark, but Vaan had heard it was hassling travelers in the Westersand and insisted on taking it down.
"Quit feeling sorry for the Lindbur Wolf. You know it killed the original owner of your Gladius, so it had it coming!" Vaan sniped.
"Is this Arcana stuff useful for anything?" Ashe asked to head off the argument she sensed coming between the war orphans.
"With proper handling, Arcana can be crafted into other rare materials, which can be forged into rare weaponry in turn." Maechen replied.
"So this Arcana stuff is worth having, huh?" Vaan asked. "Maybe we should buy this Canopic Jar thing when you're done with it."
"We haven't agreed to sell the stuff yet, Vaan." Penelo pointed out. "It always amazes me how you manage to spend our gil before we even have it."
Vaan snorted at her criticism. "You have to admit, it sounds cool!"
"It sounds creepy! Here, you can have this back; I'm not wearing it anymore." Penelo scooped her ring off the floor and handed it to her friend.
"I think you're being a little overly sensitive about the whole monster soul thing."
"Saying that a woman is being too sensitive is never a smart move, Vaan." Balthier muttered under his breath. Fran shook her head and rubbed her temples. The Viera did not want to endure another extended argument before noon.
Penelo seemed to swell with anger. "Overly sensitive! Are you kidding? How would you like it if your soul turned into a rock when you died instead of going to the afterlife?"
"Sounds kind of cool to me. There might not even be an afterlife, ya know. Besides, it's monster souls we're talking about, not people souls, so who cares?"
"A soul is a soul, and if the Kiltias religion is right, souls live many different lives, so we could all be monsters in our next lives. Or we could have been monsters in our last lives!" Penelo exclaimed, horrified at Vaan's callousness. That Lindbur Wolf could have been Vaan's brother or one of her parents reincarnated, for all they knew!
"It's much too early to debate religious philosophy, Penelo." Balthier chided in a long-suffering tone. The girl often functioned as the moral conscience of the group, but also triggered more than her fair share of arguments. Balthier was tired of arguments. Could they just get on to Nalbina or wherever already?
"So, Maechen, how much are you willing to give us for these items? We have a jar of Phobos Glaze as well." Ashe signaled Basch to get it out and show it to the old scholar.
"All I can afford is a thousand gil apiece."
"A thousand gil for each of these rare materials? That's absurd!" Ashe snapped. She trusted Maechen not to hand these things over to Draklor, but she wanted a better deal before she let him have them.
"I'm afraid, Your Majesty, that I've not had much in the way of income these past two years, as magical trinkets don't sell like they did before the war. Three thousand gil is absolutely the most I can offer. It is a pity." Maechen shook his head ruefully. "You might do better in Archades or one of the large Rozarrian cities, but no one around here will offer you more; I am sure of it."
Ashe weighed the pros and cons of selling to Maechen. She gestured to the other party members. "We're going to step out to discuss this for a minute." She told the scholar. The party trooped out of Dalan's house after her. They stood in a circle just outside the doorway.
"It's not much in the way of gil, but he seems like a trustworthy buyer. I doubt he'll turn around and sell this stuff to Archadians."
"The thing he's going to make with it sounds wicked cool." Vaan chimed in.
"It sounds creepy!" Penelo disagreed. "Who would buy something like that?"
"I would!" Vaan declared. "That Arcana stuff has to be good for something, plus it's pretty. We could probably sell it to a jewelry shop or something. If we got the Canopic Jar we'd have an unlimited supply of it!"
Penelo shook her head furiously. "I don't like the idea of selling monster souls in bulk." She looked around at the other party members for support and didn't like what she saw.
"We're not in a position to be picky about our sources of revenue." Ashe replied, mouth pressed into a grim line. She'd come a long way from the days just after the war when she'd refused to even consider Mark hunting as a source of revenue. If she had to peddle crystallized monster souls to restore the kingdom of Dalmasca, she was willing to do it. "I'm going to sell the stuff to him."
The rest of the party exchanged skeptical glances, but no one objected. Ashe took the Phobos Glaze and went back inside. She was back 3,000 gil richer a few minutes later. The party exited Lowtown via the old door by South Gate, walked up into the plaza and over to East Gate.
"I still think it's creepy." Penelo griped to Vaan as the left Rabanastre behind.
"Will you let it go? You've got to be the only person in the history of Ivalice to be concerned about monster souls!" the boy snapped back.
"I bet I'm not. Let's ask the Kiltias the next time we're at Mount Bur-Omisace! I bet they'll agree with me!"
"Children, we've had enough arguments for one day." Balthier interrupted before Vaan could reply. The constant bickering had him well on the way to a migraine. Personally, he thought the canopic jar thing was creepy, but couldn't muster the kind of moral outrage Penelo felt over it. After a morning of dealing with the hungover princess and listening to nonstop arguments, Balthier was happy to let off some steam by shooting a fat cockatrice with his trusty gun. The explosion of feathers was cathartic.
Penelo found a cockatrice nest full of rainbow eggs a few minutes later, which did much to restore her usual good cheer. The party had to defeat the enormous mother Cockatrice, a rare subspecies known as the Nekhbet, before gathering the precious food source. Naturally, another argument started over whether to eat the eggs or sell them at the Estersand village. Balthier sat down on a rock and massaged his temples as Ashe made her case for selling the eggs and Basch countered with his argument for eating them for dinner. Apparently Basch really liked the taste of Rainbow eggs and he hadn't eaten any in years, but Ashe still wanted that helmet and they needed to buy some antidotes and potions. That 3,000 gil from the oddities they'd sold that morning wouldn't go far with Ashe in a mood to spend.
Fran passed Balthier a hi potion from her satchel as the bickering continued. A headache wasn't technically an injury, but a potion could help alleviate it. He drank it quickly while no one was looking at him so that he wouldn't cause yet another dispute. He was going to start keeping count of how many arguments the party could have in a single day to entertain himself on the journey. He just wasn't sure whether Vaan and Penelo's continuing debates about the Canopic Jar and monster souls should be counted as a single argument or if he should count them separately.
That Madhu tasting had been a bad idea. Everyone was grumpy today, even Fran and Basch, who hadn't got drunk the day before. Vaan and Penelo were still put out about not being invited, but Balthier stood by that decision. The girl might have been okay, but Vaan could get tipsy off of the small amount of alcohol in a potion. He shouldn't ever be allowed within ten feet of a bottle of Bhujerban Madhu!
Fran picked off a pair of wolves that wandered too close to the party with her Yoichi bow to amuse herself. She went to collect the pelts as the argument about the eggs continued. Rendering wolves for loot was hardly pleasant work, but Balthier decided that assisting her was preferable to listening to the nonsense beside of him. He pocketed the wind stones they found in the beasts' stomachs after cleansing them with a quick water spell. Fran had been nagging at him recently about practicing magicks more often. He wondered why monsters ate elemental stones, magicite, and occasionally even crystals, or if the aforementioned objects naturally grew inside of them. His father had done a cursory study on the subject before becoming obsessed with nethecite, but he hadn't learned anything of substance in the short amount of time he'd devoted to the topic. It was a shame. Cidolfus Demen Bunansa could have contributed so much to mankind's understanding of Ivalice if he hadn't developed his mad obsession with nethecite.
After a long, sweaty trek through the desert, it was a relief to reach the Nebra river. It was in the middle of the afternoon, so the party had time to forage for foodstuffs before making camp. Vaan and Penelo taught Ashe how to dig for Semclams, and Vaan entertained everyone with the story of the time Reks brought him down here and taught him how to find the elusive mollusks. Penelo was a bit surprised that Ashe was willing to do the dirty work needed to get the clams, but she was quite insistent about procuring another source of protein for their supper and selling those eggs they found earlier. The princess flat out refused to eat the Nekhbet meat from earlier partially due to superstition, but primarily because she was sick of cockatrice meat.
Penelo gathered some herbs that grew along the shore for seasoning their food while Ashe bartered with the villagers to trade the Nekhbet meat they'd gathered for a few potions and some non-perishable foodstuffs. The party didn't need both the cockatrice and the clams for their meal tonight, and neither would keep long enough to save them for another day out in this heat, so selling one of them was necessary. The villagers were willing to ignore the superstition about Nekhbet meat bringing bad luck. They were thrilled that someone had felled the feathered menace that had been terrorizing anyone who passed by for weeks. They'd been close to petitioning for a hunt, but didn't have much they could give as a reward. Few hunters would take fish that would spoil by the day's end or a free ride across the Nebra as payment for the grueling work of hunting.
Outside the village, Basch had taken it upon himself to harvest cactus fruit while Balthier and Fran picked off wolves. Vaan found it amusing to watch the older man attempt to steal from the prickly foes. Basch wasn't much of a thief; he'd only recently learned how to pilfer foodstuffs from monsters. Penelo supposed he was too noble to lower himself to thievery in other circumstances, but as the party member who ate the most, he wanted to be able to contribute more to the cook pot. Ashe refused to dirty her hands by stealing things, even if it was just from monsters. When she claimed her aversion was due to theft "not being lady-like," Penelo had almost died laughing. Who would have thought that a woman who was willing to scamper around in the sewers and fight giant flans with a sword would be squeamish about filching food from fiends? At least she didn't mind the rest of the party doing it.
"Hey Basch, should we really be killing these cactoids?" Vaan piped up as Basch got fed up with trying to steal from his spiky opponent and whacked it with his sword. Vaan had had a change of heart about cacti after encountering the flowering cactoid's family a few weeks before.
"I wouldn't have hurt the little pest if it had just let me have the fruit instead of shooting needles at my face. These things are a menace."
"But they have families and look after each other." Vaan countered.
"Wolves and Dire Rats have families too, and you don't take issue with killing them." Basch snorted. "Here Penelo, it had a zodiac gemstone on it." He said, passing a little yellow gem to the girl.
"Ooh a Virgo gem!" Penelo chirped after examining the little symbol inside of the gem. "I don't have one of these yet." She was making a bracelet with the zodiac gems the party found. She hoped to find one of each sign. It was a shame the different signs weren't different colors. It was trendy among young Dalmascan women to make Zodiac bracelets out of gems given as gifts or purchased to commemorate special occasions. Penelo thought such a bracelet would be a great souvenir of her adventures and hoped to find at least one of each stone on their journey. If she was ever desperate for gil in the future, she could sell it. Wealthier women bought complete bracelets in the Bazaar instead of making their own one gem at a time.
"I don't think it's the same at all." Vaan persisted. Penelo suspected that her friend was very fond of Dran the Flowering Cactoid. "They can communicate with humes in ways rats and wolves can't. Heck, they're more civilized than the Urutan Yensa who just indiscriminately kill anyone who gets too close."
"The Urutan Yensa are a good comparison. Remember that your little cactoid friend terrorized the desert outpost so much that Dantro posted a bill for him. His mother isn't much better. She bullied the villagers on the far bank into roaming all over the region looking for her miscreant offspring."
"She was looking for her missing son, like any good mom would!" Vaan exclaimed. "And she gave us a prize for bringing him back across the river!"
"After you killed him and he somehow regenerated." Basch pointed out. Some natural philosopher should look into cactoid regeneration. He suspected the cactoid he'd just struck down for fruit might be up and about again the next morning.
"I wouldn't have done that if I'd known." Vaan insisted. "My cactoid hunting days are over!"
"These little guys pretty much have cactus gangs who shoot people full of needles for kicks!" Basch retorted.
Penelo was inclined to agree with Basch. She'd been terrified of cactoids as a little girl the way most little girls were afraid of spiders after a bad encounter with one during a family picnic in the Estersand. Helping Vaan hunt the Flowering Cactoid had helped her conquer that fear once and for all, but she was still unfond of the needle-covered menaces. She'd plucked enough needles out of Kytes, who sometimes went looking for them in an effort to assemble bundles of needles, to know what kind of damage they could cause if provoked.
Balthier and Fran joined the rest of the group at that moment with a fresh batch of wolf pelts. Balthier caught Fran's eye and held up six fingers. The viera just shook her head in annoyance. Penelo wondered what that was about.
"Shouldn't you be getting to Nalbina, Vaan? It'll be sunset before long." The pirate interrupted before Vaan could counter Basch's point. Ashe gave him a thankful look. She'd heard enough about cacti for one day.
"You're right! Come on Penelo! Anyone else want to come?" The entire group made their way back into the village. Ashe and Basch decided to stay behind to set up camp and start dinner.
"I need to fix dinner!" Penelo protested as Vaan pulled her toward the Gate Crystal.
"But you've never been to Nalbina! It won't take long! And you can buy the cream and butter you need for the chowder there!" He gave her his best puppy dog eyes.
"Oh fine." She huffed, wanting to avoid another argument about Nalbina, even though she didn't want to teleport right now. She was surprised Vaan had any knowledge of what went into Semclam chowder. "Basch, can you start the cockatrice stock and shuck the clams while we're gone?" The knight was the party's second best cook, after Penelo. They had several good cockatrice bones and some skin from the Nekhbet to make stock with.
Basch nodded his assent. He didn't mind helping fix dinner for the rest of the party, so long as he got his rainbow eggs. The argument about eggs had ended with a compromise: Basch could eat three of them and Ashe could sell the other three.
"You'd best go along to Nalbina to keep them out of trouble." Fran murmured to Balthier, who reluctantly agreed. He wasn't in the mood to go anywhere right now, but Penelo could probably use a hand in keeping Vaan from overspending.
The trio marched over to the crystal. Vaan took Penelo's left hand and Balthier grabbed her right elbow just before Vaan touched the teleport stone to the Gate Crystal and the three of them disappeared in a flash of light
"You just made things harder for Penelo." Ashe whispered to Fran. "Now she has to keep them both out of trouble."
The viera stretched laconically before collecting the materials to oil her bow. "But I made things much easier for us for a bit. You know how Balthier is when he's nothing to do." The man couldn't sit still and tended to get into trouble when he was bored, much like Vaan. "I thought the three of us could use a little rest and relaxation."
Basch laughed as he opened another Semclam and removed the meat. "They'll be alright, and Balthier and Vaan know how to escape the dungeon should the worst happen." He didn't think the other half of their party would encounter any trouble greater than Vaan going on a shopping spree in the Jajim Bazaar. He didn't have much gil with him, as Ashe had wisely chosen to keep the main money bag. She busied herself with counting their coins and sorting the day's loot. A merchant passing through bought the day's wolf pelts and some of the cockatrice feathers they'd collected.
"Uuuughhh." Penelo groaned after they reappeared just outside of the gate to Nalbina town. "I'm never going to get used to that." Using Gate Crystals felt like being squeezed through a tiny tube. They were very convenient, but she always felt ill after using them. A person could use them to travel to any Gate Crystal they'd visited before instantly. They could bring several people along with them, even if the others hadn't been to the location in question before. Penelo wished Balthier would just teleport them to Archades instead of insisting that they go on foot. She still didn't understand why they weren't doing that, but didn't want to start another dispute. He'd said something about how the guards at the crystal would be suspicious at so many strangely dressed people appearing in the upscale area of Archades all at once when she'd suggested that idea. Surely knocking out a handful of soldiers in the snooty part of Balthier's hometown would be easier than trekking halfway across Ivalice to sneak in some back way like sewer rats.
Penelo sat down on the ground for a full minute until her nausea passed. She gaped up at the fortress, which was truly impressive. The main part of it had been carved into an existing yardang and covered with a brick façade that was flanked with many outer towers. A waterfall tumbled from the top of the fortress down into a pool into the town below. Maybe the view was worth the trip. Nalbina Falls was one of the few natural sources of water in the Estersand. There had been a settlement here by the oasis since antiquity, long before King Raithwall built the fortress. It had been damaged and rebuilt a dozen times since then, of course, so the current façade was probably very different than how it looked in the Dynast King's day.
As the party approached the gate, airships acting as cranes for building supplies lowered their last loads of the day to the masons below who were busy at work repairing the fortress for their Archadian occupiers. Penelo scowled at the imperial soldiers guarding the gate as they passed. She couldn't see through their helmets, but she imagined that they were scowling right back at her. They had to be roasting in that armor. What was the Empire thinking making them wear something like that in the desert? She wondered how many imperial soldiers had suffered heat strokes during the occupation. Penelo couldn't bring herself to feel sorry for them, no matter how miserable they were.
The Jajim Bazaar wasn't as nice as the Muthru Bazaar back in Rabanastre, but there was plenty for Penelo to look at while Vaan and Balthier spoke with the hunt petitioners. She bought the cream and butter needed for the chowder right away and put them in a bag with some ice stones she'd found in the Paramina Rift to keep them cool. She picked up some other supplies for the chowder as well. It would have been pitiful chowder indeed if she hadn't come to Nalbina for the ingredients she couldn't find in the desert, she supposed. At least these ingredients were cheap.
The princess had decided at the last second to wait on buying that helmet she so wanted because there was a merchant outpost in the Mosphoran Highwaste that was said to carry different equipment than what could be found in Dalmasca and Ashe loved comparison shopping.
Speaking of someone who loved shopping, Vaan had just finished talking to his petitioners and was chatting with the proprietor of Morning Star Gambits. Penelo ambled over to supervise his transaction to make sure he wasn't spending too much gil.
"Look Penelo, they have a gambit for enemies with Oil status now! If we get you that one, you could automatically cast Fira on any enemy that gets oiled. I'm gonna get it!"
Penelo was very familiar with this particular tactic. Vaan always picked out something for her first before buying whatever had caught his eye to begin with so that she wouldn't yell at him as much about wasting gil. She wasn't at all surprised when he added a half dozen more gambits before paying.
"Hey, uh, where'd Balthier go?" Vaan asked as he packed away his new gambits. The two teens wandered around the Bazaar until they found the pirate at a jewelry stand, of all places. He was holding a new silk shirt, probably to replace the one that he ruined during one of their recent hunts. Penelo had tried every trick she knew to get the stains out, but to no avail.
"I'll take those." He said to the merchant, gesturing to a pair of gilded cufflinks shaped like bombs.
Penelo watched in horror as Balthier handed over a thousand gil for the unnecessary trinkets. "Just what are you buying those for?" she squeaked. Somehow it wasn't as easy for her to berate Balthier for impulsive purchases as it was to ream out Vaan for doing the same thing, probably because the former was a grown man. She doubted the princess and Fran would have any such qualms about yelling at him for this.
"The leading man has an image to uphold, my dear." Balthier replied in that debonair way that made other ladies swoon. Penelo had long since grown immune to its intended effect. It annoyed her when he started talking about himself in third person. When she narrowed her eyes at him, he continued, "When you live a life of danger and excitement like I do, you have to treat yourself to some frivolity once in a while. And I did need some new cufflinks to wear with this fine new shirt."
"I wouldn't classify cufflinks as a need. Besides, how do you have that much gil with you? I thought Vaan had all that we brought."
"You didn't think I surrendered all of my gil to the common bag, did you? What kind of pirate would I be if I did something like that?" He chuckled at the appalled look on her face. "I keep a small supply of my own for special occasions. Just be glad that these aren't solid gold. Not that any merchant worth his salt would sell solid gold in a place like this." He might have to stop in at his favorite jeweler in Archades while they were there and invest in a better quality pair. You just couldn't find anything of high quality in these smaller town markets.
Penelo bodily dragged Vaan away from the jewelry booth before he could squander the rest of his gil on an earring or something dumb like that. She grabbed Balthier with her free hand and pulled him along too. "Come on, we're leaving! The two of you have done enough damage to our purse for one day!"
"Yes, Mother." Balthier teased. Vaan burst out laughing. Penelo was the mother hen of the group. He shuddered to think of what kind of things they'd be eating if she hadn't tagged along. He didn't put up a fight about leaving Nalbina.
Balthier wasn't even sure whether to classify the minor dispute over his purchase as an argument for his tally. He'd bought what he wanted and Vaan hadn't got into trouble. He was ready to try this Semclam chowder he'd been hearing about all day. One quick trip through the Gate Crystal later and they were back at the Estersand village. Did this place have a name or were the villagers too lazy to give it one?
Basch had shucked all of the clams for Penelo and had the cockatrice stock ready. The girl put him to work chopping the other ingredients while she prepared the herbs and started combining the ingredients in the pot. She made some croutons to go in the chowder to make it extra filling. Basch cooked his rainbow eggs and ate them while they waited for the chowder. The party had agreed to let him eat more than his fair share because he was still malnourished from his long imprisonment. He was looking better already, but still had a long way to go.
It was dusk and there was barely enough light to see what she was doing, but Penelo managed to fix the chowder perfectly. She informed the rest of the party of Balthier's impulse purchase, which set off yet another argument. Ashe was decidedly unimpressed with the monster-shaped cufflinks. "Honestly Balthier, we could have made some out of those gems Penelo is always collecting!" He brought up some of the unnecessary things she'd purchased in the past to shut her up.
The party members devoured their dinners, knowing that this would probably be the last decent meal they got until they reached Archades. They all agreed that it was the best thing they'd had since Bhujerba. Vaan and Penelo had another spat about monster souls just before going to bed, which sent Balthier into a fit of laughter. If he couldn't stop the arguments, he might as well learn to enjoy them. No one else was amused.
They'll actually buy the Canopic Jar in Chapter 5. I thought selling the components deserved its own chapter before wrapping the story up. I hope I didn't ramble too long in this one.
I borrowed Maechen from Final Fantasy X.
04/19/2015 update - corrected a small error I made confusing the Wary Wolf with the Lindbur Wolf.
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