Lady of Fortune
Chapter Six
A week or so passes
Rikku had decided there was only one safe place to store the books that Mep and she had discovered. In what she had decided to call the Temple of the Essences of All Things in the tower. There was no way anyone but another trained Alchemist would be able to figure out the lock. And a trained Alchemist would be an Al Bhed who wouldn't be as shocked by the statues as a Yevonite would.
She'd shown the books to Tromell and he'd confessed that he couldn't read them either. They weren't in the Guado language. A quick call to Mep had him smuggling another book that he'd found about the Farplane Viewer out of the library and into Macalania Forest for all three of them to look at. It was in the same language as the others and the pictures weren't explicit enough to be helpful.
So, Rikku knew that the books needed to go someplace safe.
But she didn't feel right leaving the books there on the bottom floor as an offering to Knowledge without making offerings to the other statues as well, including the one she didn't know. She was going to have to rely on instinct and luck for him.
The problem was Paine was following her.
Paine wasn't doing a very good job of it either.
So it was taking longer for Rikku to gather the things she wanted to offer the statues, plus the supplies she needed to make more weapon spheres and to study the books while keeping Paine in the dark about what she was doing.
She'd been there in the Calm Lands when the Al Bhed arrived with their desert caught chocobos to be presented to Clasko. He'd surprised her by greeting them in halting Al Bhed. (He was learning apparently.) And he'd increased in confidence as he'd talked about his favorite things in the world, chocobos.
Having once been a Chocobo Knight himself, Clasko was more than qualified to cover the basics of training with the Al Bhed candidates. And where chocobos were concerned he was the ultimate authority and it showed in his new found confidence.
She didn't know what Paine thought of it. Rikku didn't rightly care one way or the other.
Rikku had taken the time to introduce them to her chocobo friends. She still kept a good half a dozen of them in the stables to explore Spira and bring her treasures in exchange for greens, love and attention. Her chocobos were always happy to see her and considered her part of their flock. Giving treasures was the way chocobos showed how much they liked someone. Her many treasures said they loved her very much.
The nominal leader of the Al Bhed riders was a very caring sort and before Rikku had left she could tell that they were all going to get along and Calli might be getting some woman to woman advice about Clasko from the Al Bhed girls.
Rikku had left them to it. She wasn't getting involved.
Paine kept following her. But Paine was a warrior, not a thief who had trained her way through an assassin and ninja weapon sphere. Or an Al Bhed who had to sneak around on mainland for the first fifteen years of her life.
Rikku knew how to lose Paine when she needed to do so.
The assassin weapon sphere was similar in style to the uniforms of the Al Bhed Psyches. It had a black tank top and close fitting charcoal colored pants with patches of black on them to look like rock and knee high boots. Over it all was a charcoal cape that brushed the floor and under the cape was a sheer scarf that went over her mouth and nose and decorated with tiny beads and gunmetal feathers across the top. The hood of the cape was low enough it shaded her eyes, so very little of her tanned skin showed in the outfit. The cape was clasped together with matte gun metal feather decorations. They were echoed in the circlet and on the boots.
She carried a large bag strapped over her shoulder and a chest in her hands. Her boots made no noise against the stone floor. The fiends ignored her going about their business. She'd slipped a charm bangle onto one of her bracers in order to make time and to befuddle Paine. She wasn't sure Paine owned a charm bangle. The one that Rikku had belonged to the Gullwings and now was hers alone.
It wasn't like one could purchase a charm bangle in a store.
She approached the debris covered door and hefted the chest up onto the debris with a grunt. Wrapping a rope around it, she lowered it to the floor inside and then did the same with the bag. She jumped into the air, daggers out and ready.
Spikes hit them with loud clangs. These weren't things she wanted to try and catch. Rikku landed on the other side and then used the ropes to pull the bag and box over to the elevator.
It was a simple matter to calculate the angle of the sun and the items she needed to put in the wells. It needed more this time. That was the catch. There wasn't a real pattern if you didn't know the key. It could be one item or four items or even all eight items. She placed the items, let them go off and descended to the first floor.
She dragged the bag and box off the elevator and didn't sigh in relief until the ceiling closed above her. She lowered the hood of the cape and looked around.
Yes, this felt right.
It probably wouldn't give them any power coming from her, an Avatar of the Essentials. It probably wouldn't do anything but make her feel better.
But she was the Avatar of Luck and she'd learned to trust her feelings.
She opened the box and bag and set to work.
She filled the bases of the bowls of Fire, Ice, Water and Lightning with inactivated alchemy items. In the bowl of metal she added bits and bobs of machines like gears, nuts and bolts, mixed with gil and sphere break coins. In earth she put pebbles she'd gathered from all over Spira. In wood, she placed mosses and mushrooms. In air, she put representation of things that loved to float made out of the lightest materials she could find. Butterflies made of wire and sheer fabric. Paper folded birds. Tiny kites. Balloons of blown glass.
Then she added representations of the Totems. A carnelian Phoenix in the fire bowl, a blue turquoise wendigo in ice, water had a blue leviathan encrusted with sapphires and carved from lapis lazuli. Lightning was an amber thunderbird. A metal horse based on the Aeon Ixion went into the metal bowl. Rikku wondered what had happened to Spira's horses. In earth was a marble carved wolf in reds and browns. And in wood, a wooden carved couerl stained white and black. Lastly in air a glass dragon.
There was one last thing to put into each bowl. She stopped before fire and bowed. "Fires from all over Spira, a lover's candle, a village bonfire to a lonely warming fire. I give these to you." She placed a burning fire in the bowl that she'd taken bits of flames from different types of fires to create. It rested in an oil that would burn slowly. In the bowl of air she placed wax and cork sealed glass vials that looked empty. "The air of Spira from the Sanubia dessert to the Moonflow to the top of Mt. Gagazet." She said. "I give these to you." She turned to the water bowl and added another set of sealed vials. "The waters of Spira, the ocean, the inland estuaries, the rivers, the pools and lakes. I give these to you." In earth she placed more vials, "The earth of Spira, the sands, the loam, the clay, the sodden earth. I give these to you."
She turned to the bowl of wood. "The trees of Spira," She said and out of the box she brought things that were little more than twigs sprouting a few leaves in earthenware bowls. "The woods of Spira from Besaid, to Kilika, to the Moonflow, to Macalania and the frozen wastes of Gagazet. I give them to you." She whispered. She wasn't even sure the Macalania twig would survive. It had sprouted but she worried. She set them into the bowl. She turned to ice. "The ice of Spira, of Gagazet and Macalania. I give them to you." She said and put the blocks of ice and piles of snow in their own container on top of the items in the ice bowl.
She turned to the metal bowl. "The metals of Spira, iron, copper, silver and gold. I give them to you." She said solemnly as she placed ingots into the bowl.
She took a deep breath and turned to the last bowl. Lightning. It wasn't like she could catch lightning in a bottle. She turned to the box and pulled out a machine, sticking a lightning marble into it. "Um, Lightning. I wasn't sure what to give you. However, I made this machina." She held it up. It was a box with two long antenna. "And you see, you put a lightning marble in it and," as she talked, two strands of electricity started to work their way up the antenna and popped as they got to the top and disappeared. "It makes electricity. Not exactly lightning, but the best I can do." She set it quickly into the bowl.
She swallowed. "My friends, I hope these small tokens please you. I don't know where you are or if you can hear me. Spira needs our help now more than ever. Macalania needs us." She turned to wood. "It's dying and fading away. I hope wherever you are, you may give Spira some small aid. Please."
She pressed her lips together and went to her chest. She pulled out a book and spent time copying down every bit of writing she could find in the room. She made sketches of the windows and carvings. Then she dragged her box and bag back to the elevator and unlocked the floor to go below.
The room of the Ancient powers made her shiver and she was one of them.
She placed her items she'd gathered in the bowls. Mostly alchemy items again but things she knew the different beings favored. Time liked clocks and hourglasses and weirdly chocobos. Space loved star shapes, moonstone and sunstones. In her own bowl, she put gil, a sphere break core with sphere break coins, a deck of cards, sets of dice and credits from both gaming companies in the calm lands. In the bowl for Knowledge she placed books and spheres of recent learning, while in Primal's bowl she put pictures of works of art and music spheres.
But the man she didn't know stumped her.
She approached the bowl with trepidation. "I don't know you. I don't think we've ever formally met or been introduced. I know some of the others only by reputation as it is." She licked her lips. "I don't know what you'd like. So, um, I brought you candy." She said and placed it in the bowl. "Chocolates, flowers, I know flowers are more of a girl thing but I know some men appreciate them. This is a lovely wine from Bevelle and we won't talk about what I had to do to get it. Jewelry, everyone loves jewelry and it's not that sparkly since you're a guy and all but it's still nice looking." She bit her lip. "And a bottle of cologne. I know when Gippal wears this stuff I swoon." She added it to the bowl. "And lastly bubble bath. Who doesn't appreciate a nice fizzy bubble bath?" She added the last bottle to the bowl. "When I figure out who you are, I'll bring you nice things. I don't want you to feel left out and I mean, you might as well be comfortable while you're waiting."
She backed away from the bowl.
Nothing happened to indicate approval or disapproval.
She hadn't expected it to, but she had been on pins and needles all the same. Who knew? He could be a powerful Essential.
She turned around. "Spira is in trouble and needs our help. I know that you're far away and possibly can't hear me. I'm going to do what I can to fix the Farplane and restore Macalania. Any way you can help at all, or give me a direction, would be appreciated. Please. If Spira dies, so do we. Things don't need to end now. If I could bring you enough power to give you influence over this world and let you walk among the mortals again, I would."
She looked around. Nothing happened again.
"You know, the fate of the world really shouldn't be resting on the Fate of the World." She said dryly before picking up her book and paper again and going around to copy down all the writing she could.
The bas relief statue near the unknown man made her pause. He seemed to be surrounded by many people who all held onto him. Another man and he clasped arms on one side. A beautiful woman, not in the form of another Essential, clung to the other side of him and his eyes seemed to gaze at her with passion. At his feet were children, one sitting and another toddler clinging to his leg, and when she looked at them, his eyes seemed to look at them as well with pride and delight.
She turned to the statue. "I take it you're complicated." She said. "I will figure you out." She pointed at the statue with her pencil.
She got back to work.
In Djose, Gippal felt a shiver of power go through him. He paused in his sketching and looked at his arms and hands, they radiated a pale pink glow.
He set the pen down and looked at his hands. They trembled.
Where had that wave of power come from? Who had sent it and what did it mean?
It faded, absorbing into him, curling around his heart for him to use later.
If he could figure out what exactly he was to use it for.
