After nearly a month of traveling on foot, flying on the Rheairds was a little surreal. Everything about them was too good to be true: if you know where you were going, they could go on autopilot, they regulated things like temperature and air pressure automatically, and the comm system kept us in constant contact - all while traveling just below the speed of sound.
Well, I wasn't sure about the last one - I wasn't an aerospace engineer, or a physicist, or even someone who went on planes often. All I knew was that we were going very fast and expending very little effort.
We had six Rheairds total, Sheena and Colette doubled up on hers. Lloyd had, so far, done the lion's share of the effort in take off and landing, and so I was left cruising along at my ease. Zelos was even reading - although he might have been doing it just to annoy Sheena, I wasn't sure. It was a massive improvement over land travel, in terms of efficiency, but I was oddly lonely, even with the comms. It just wasn't the same; where was the back-and-forth, the ebb and flow of movement and conversation, the camaraderie?
How did motorcyclists do it?
I had an idea of what was missing, but no way to fix the problem: there wasn't a soundtrack.
You couldn't travel by vehicle and not have a soundtrack. You needed radio, or tapes, or at the very least a group singalong. Silence wasn't to be borne, and no amount of stimulating conversation gave rocketing over the distant landscape the correct kind of movie-montage je ne sais quoi. It was demoralizing; even boat travel had provided a calming nautical ambiance.
"Ambiance? We must be traveling at four hundred miles per hour! Why do you need ambiance?"
"It's the principle of the thing, Raine."
"Hey, sorry to interrupt," said Sheena, voice hollow over the comm, "But is that the mine?"
I drew my attention away from annoying Raine. Yes, we had come up on a mountain range running perpendicular to our path, jagged peaks wearing a veil of low cloud, but the glare off the water made it difficult to see much from high up. I came off of autopilot, coasting wide to follow Sheena. She hadn't brought it up just because we were nearing our destination - she had spotted something wrong, but I couldn't yet see the problem.
"What is it?" asked Lloyd.
"There's a big ship in the harbor," Sheena said, sounding worried. "It looks like-"
"That's a naval ship," Zelos agreed, "What's the army doing here?"
"They couldn't be tracking us," Raine said, "Even if they projected our destination by tracking you or Colette-"
"Nah, they'd have had to have left way before we did, even if they were traveling from the base on Altamira Island. Man, that's basically a warship," Zelos complained, "I didn't even know those were still around."
"Meltokio has a navy?" I asked, bewildered and a little upset.
"Of course they do," Zelos said, as if it was obvious. "They mostly protect merchant ships and cruise liners and stuff. I wonder if they're here with the Lezareno company. Damn, that could be bad."
"Lezareno?"
"They own the mine and pretty much all of Altamira," Zelos explained, "but I kind of thought they had their own muscle."
Everything I'd seen so far implied that Tethe'alla was united under the Meltokio royal family and the Church of Martel, apart from Mizuho. I had no idea if Altamira was part of the Empire, or if it was its own little banana republic - my time in Tethe'alla had, so far, been short on political science lessons. If there was a naval base on Altamira, then they probably weren't outright enemies.
"What do we do?" asked Lloyd. Now that we were closer, I could see the ship, and more of the harbor. It hadn't been abandoned that long, and there still remained the bones of a bustling mining operation and all that entailed, but the battleship was new and shiny and completely out-of-place beside the two abandoned freighters still moored there. "They'll see us if we go much lower."
"We may as well land," Raine said, sounding resigned. "Even if we head up the coast and travel on foot, there's a chance they've already spotted us. We don't have the fuel to make it back to the mainland."
"Maybe we can convince them to help," suggested Colette.
"I wouldn't count on it," Zelos sighed. "Well, at least we can check it out."
Toize Valley wasn't just a mine - you needed infrastructure, even in a place like this, and the ghost town down below was uncomfortably familiar.
My home state was full of places just like it - empty warehouses, shuttered shopfronts, twee attempts at cultivating some sort of downtown - places where everything stank of abandonment and low-intensity dread. Toize Valley was what it looked like when an industry happened to some boring stretch of nowhere. It was what happened when the money ran out, or the mines dried up, or someone a thousand miles away made the decision to close the plant, or the factory, or the mill.
We touched down on the outskirts of the little village, a boarded-up brick building obscuring us from the battleship and the path leading to the mine.
"Ugh," I said.
"This is creepy," agreed Lloyd. "Where is everybody?"
"No mine, no money," I replied. "No money, no jobs."
"But..." said Colette, "Isn't it good that they're not mining Exspheres?"
"'Course it is," I replied, "The people who worked here probably wouldn't agree, though."
"Well, they probably got other jobs, right?" Lloyd reasoned.
"You would hope," Raine said. "As much as I would like to debate the socio-economic ramifications of-"
"The what?" Lloyd asked.
"Never mind," Raine sighed. "With any luck they will have been watching for ships, not Rheairds."
"You guys hang out here," I said, "I'll scout ahead."
"Whoa," Zelos said, swiping a foot over the patch of earth where I had disappeared, and almost tripping me.
"Hey," I protested, giving him a light kick as I passed, "I'm invisible, not intangible."
"Don't do anything stupid," Raine warned me. There was a moment's pause. "I know you're still listening."
"Yes, yes," I agreed, although I had made some distance from them, "You neither."
The main thoroughfare was deserted. The docks were to the south of town, a series of concrete wharfs studded with crane rails, ramps, slipways and control towers. There were towers and piles of wooden pallets, huge half-used reels of cable and rope, clusters or rusted pallet jacks and a small forest of stripped-down forklifts. The towers had been boarded up or removed entirely, gone but for mountings on a patch of pale concrete.
There were two freighters still in the harbor, but they were pockmarked and pitted with rust and barnacles; one was listing dangerously sideways, and the other riding very low in the water. The battleship was longer and larger than the freighters, the aftcastle painted with goldenrod stripes and, in white, WAVEBREAKER. A section at the bow was painted with a motif of red and gold flowers interwoven with the symbol of Martel, in white.
Its beautifying effect was spoiled by the vast visible armament of cannons.
The men on board weren't in full armor, but they looked vaguely military, in a broad and unkind sort of way. It was strange: the ship wouldn't have looked out of place in a period piece about the first world war, but the soldiers were Napoleonic at best, and their weapons more archaic still. I didn't see any firearms, and the cannons looked straight out of a pirate movie.
I could only assume that it was Cruxis' doing - limiting the development of tools for mass warfare while permitting advancements in transportation and manufacturing. The Desians and Renegades used space-agey stuff with energy beams, and Sylvarant was still at crossbows and horses, and everything in-between was either regulated or produced so sparingly that it hardly existed.
Magic made everything so weird.
I left the docks and went uphill towards the mine. There were two knights standing guard at the entrance to a concrete staging area, but they looked bored and at their ease, which at least meant they hadn't spotted the Rheairds. There was a kind of administrative office with plexiglass windows built into the left side of the antechamber. It was unoccupied and the doors were locked. Peering through the window revealed it empty but for trash and broken furniture.
The concrete staging area opened onto a wide, downward sloping tunnel with four sets of tracks, two of which were occupied by funicular elevator platforms. Four posts abutted each rail-line, each set with indicator lights - the two absent platforms were blinking green, while the other two were dull orange - inactive, probably.
I approached the lip of the tunnel; it went down deep into the mountain, diminishing lanterns indicating only that it was a straight path, and a long one. There were steps leading down the far left side of the passageway, and a ramp down the right, probably for maintenance or for use in an emergency. I didn't see any other knights, which meant they were likely down in the mine.
I didn't bother climbing down to look - whoever was down there, they were probably well-armed and wouldn't be happy to see us.
I made my way back to the group.
"So," I said, reappearing near Zelos' elbow, "They haven't seen us, but there are at least half a dozen soldiers on the boat and two guarding the mine elevator thing. Two outta the four elevators are missing, so I'm guessing the rest of them are down there. Definitely Papal Knights, but some of the ones on the boat look like mercenaries."
"Did you have to do that?" Zelos asked, looking miffed.
"She thinks it's funny," Genis said, and the two shared a rare moment of kinship.
"Can we get to the mine without alerting the people on the ship?" asked Raine.
"Yeah, I think so," I agreed, "They weren't really watching the land. If we can get the two hanging out at the entrance, we can go the rest of the way on foot."
Raine considered this. "If there are working elevators, why not use those?"
"They'll hear us coming."
"Yes, but if we deal with the guards on top quietly," Raine said, "They have no reason to expect us."
"Do Papal Knights have radios or anything?" I asked Zelos.
"Radios?" he asked, blinking. "No, that's definitely a Renegade thing."
I nodded. "Okay. Then..."
I rummaged around in my pack, and, after some thought, gave Sheena two of my darts.
"We're probably quietest," I concluded, "and this stuff works pretty fast. It's... I don't think it's lethal?" I volunteered, uncertain.
"Wh - that's something you should know!" Sheena insisted, holding them like they might bite.
"Well," I said, frowning, "the venom is from that paralyzing octopus thing at Thoda, remember? I'm just not sure about the dosage. Look, it's that or we fight them properly, and somehow I think that's gonna be really loud."
"Y'know," she said, "In Mizuho, it's considered really bad manners to give someone a weapon if you don't know what it does."
It was a rote protest - Sheena and I went ahead of the others, who had weapons ready in case we missed or the poison didn't work how I expected, but it didn't end up being necessary. The guards went down easy, a couple of dull thumps cushioned by the intervention of Lloyd and Zelos, and the way was clear.
"Well," said Raine, looking down at the brightly feathered tail of one dart, "they'll certainly know we're here if they see this."
I scratched my nose. "They bleed a lot when you pull them out, though."
"Does it matter?" asked Sheena, exasperated. "Let's go before that happens!"
It took Raine only a few minutes to puzzle out the controls; there was a cacophonous thumping and whirring, and the middle-left platform came to life. The others filed on. I hit the appropriate big green button and ran to join them, which wasn't hard, because the platform took a good thirty seconds to actually start moving. Soon we were going down, down, down, and into the dark.
The air got colder, the lights more irregular, some dim, some out entirely - and soon we began to hear voices. At least two men were arguing, and there was the sound of something else heavy and mechanical in the background that I couldn't identify.
"-cut his eye out, then!"
"And then what? Even if we break this open we'll still need Lezareno on our side, and that old fool-"
"Then cut his eye out and kill him! I don't give a damn!"
"There's still the voice print. He still hasn't given in."
"What a load of horseshit - cut a finger off or something, he'll squawk. People always do."
"You might stoop to torture, but-"
"You stop at beating and starvation?"
"How dare you-"
"Hell with it! I'll do it if you won't!"
"Vharley, if you-"
"Stop me, why don't you, and spend the rest of your life staring at this door."
There was a muffled scream.
"Regal," I hissed, and then I was gone.
It took me two huge jumps to reach the end of the tunnel, and one more to follow my momentum sideways and knock the attacker off his feet. He was big, barrel-chested, head shaved except for a strip down the middle; there was a pencil mustache under his thin nose and a sparse goatee on his broad chin. He had dark eyes beneath a heavy brow, and he smelled of sweat and bad cologne. I gripped him by the hair, dragged my arm back, and slammed his head into the stone floor.
People were yelling - there were six Papal Knights and a skinny older man I didn't recognize, and there was Regal, curled in around his hands, nose pressed into the stone as blood began to ooze out from beneath his crumpled body. He was breathing, at least, but there wasn't time to assess the damage.
I rammed one of the paralyzing bolts into the side of Vharley's neck and charged the nearest Knight, dagger sliding into the seam between breastplate and helmet. He staggered and fell; there was an almost-comical eruption of blood, compressed through the narrow aperture, and I turned, barely avoided one halberd and clumsily parried the other. I was faster than they were, but if they struck me even once - well, it wouldn't be good.
"Guys, help!" I yelled, opting for evasion over direct attack. I disarmed one, stumbled under the weight of his weapon, and sent another dart pinging uselessly off a pauldron. Then the others showed up, and things went much better.
"Edie!" Raine was red-faced and out of breath, "What-"
"Blue-haired guy needs medical attention!" I gestured wildly and rushed to help Sheena, who had the same speed-versus-weight problem going on that I did, and then it was all over. The last Knight dropped, armor smoking slightly from a well-aimed fireball, and it was just us, Regal, and the old guy.
"What was that?" Zelos demanded, looking genuinely pissed off.
"What do you mean?" I asked, adrenaline turning the question hostile, "Guy in trouble, I save guy. That's how we do stuff!"
"You disappeared! You could've died!"
"Guys," Sheena interrupted, "It's fine, everyone made it out okay-"
"Uh, who is this guy anyway?" Lloyd asked, directing his question at the cowering old man.
"Who's that guy?" asked Zelos, sounding slightly hysterical, "Who's that guy?" He pointed at Regal, who had his back to the cavern wall and was being tended to by Raine. His face was grey, his eyes unfocused and his entire body damp with sweat. His hands were shackled, and one of them was missing the little finger. I looked away, feeling queasy.
"He was being tortured," I said, pretending to inspect the heavy doors that capped the tunnel.
"And this guy?" Lloyd repeated, pointing.
Zelos began to speak - and then paused. "Hey, I know him."
"You do?" asked Genis.
Sheena turned too. "...Wait. He's one of the Bishops in the gate district."
"Please don't kill me," the old man begged, falling to his knees and clasping his hands over his head. "Please, I didn't want to hurt anyone."
"Who is he?" I asked, genuinely curious.
"He-" Zelos paused, and scowled. "He's a priest, obviously. One of the Pope's stooges. What are you doing here?"
"I - nothing," the man pleaded.
"What nothing takes a battleship and a platoon of Papal Knights?" asked Zelos, ire redirected from me to the Bishop in a heartbeat.
"Please, Chosen," he begged, "Have mercy on me, I didn't..."
"Get talking, and I'll think about it," said Zelos.
"Zelos! You don't have to be mean," chastised Colette, a sentence that went strangely with the blood caking on her chakrams. After all, the Knights had been armed - the Bishop wasn't. Colette was kind - she wasn't soft.
"I..."
"They were... attempting to reopen the mines," croaked Regal.
Raine had him sitting up again. His wound had closed over, but Raine hadn't managed to regrow the finger.
Regal looked wrung out and tired - his face was bloodless, underneath the tan, and his hair was filthy, matted with blood and dirt and grease. His clothes weren't much better, especially now with the big bloodstain down his front, and he looked malnourished. He was still muscular, in a wiry sort of way, but he had the look of a big man diminished over time.
"Who?" asked Zelos, because Lloyd was still lightly menacing the Bishop.
"Vharley," Regal spat, jerking his chin at the prone man I'd bowled over, "An Exsphere broker. I believe he was working with the Pope."
"Is, maybe," I said, nudging Vharley's body with the toe of my boot. "He's still alive, I think."
"Good," said Raine, in the cold, detached way she got when she was being scary. "We might be able to use him."
"What about him?" Lloyd asked, gesturing at the Bishop.
"Can you knock him out?" Sheena asked me. "I mean, he was arguing against cutting this guy's eye out. I think."
"I never wished for violence," the Bishop pleaded. "Please..."
"He's harmless enough," said Regal, trying to stand up and wobbling a little. "A coward, perhaps, but..."
"And who are you?" asked Zelos, not sold on anything that was going on here.
"...My name is Regal," replied Regal. "I'm a criminal." He half-lifted his shackled hands to illustrate the point. It still wasn't really convincing.
"What kind of criminal?" asked Raine, her eyebrow raised.
"...I am a murderer," Regal said. He glanced down at the bodies of the Papal Knights. "Although perhaps I find myself in like company," he added, in a tone of thinly-veiled disdain. I was suddenly aware that I'd made a bit of a mess with the first Knight, and that there was, however Vharley had behaved, definitely room for criticism. As far as first impressions went, I thought, I could have planned that better. Oh, well.
"Hey, we saved your life," Zelos complained.
"You're... the Chosen?" Regal asked.
"You're lookin' at him."
"Why would the Chosen attack Papal Knights?"
"Haven't you heard?" Zelos replied, "I'm a traitor to the crown. Conspiring, they said."
Regal's eyes narrowed. "I had heard you were irreverent, but to speak so casually of treason-"
"Why were they gonna cut your eye out?" asked Genis, looking both disgusted and fascinated.
Regal looked down at him, as if trying to decide how to respond. "...The doors are keyed to my retina and voice scan."
Zelos frowned for a moment, and then pointed a finger. "You're Duke Bryant!"
"...Yes."
"Who's Duke Bryant?" asked Lloyd. "You said your name was Regal," he accused.
"Come on," Zelos gave him a look, "It's a title, bud. Duke Regal Bryant, disgraced head of the Lezareno company. Huh! I thought you were under house arrest or something!"
"...I am not, as you can see," Regal said.
"He murdered someone?" Genis asked, wide-eyed.
"Yeah, some servant girl," Zelos said, squinting.
Regal's face went hard.
"Yes," he agreed, after an uncomfortably long silence.
"Look," I said, barely overcoming the urge to shake someone, "We need to get in there to help a little girl and also save the world a little bit. You get us in and we can take you with us when we skedaddle."
"...I cannot."
"Yes you can," I said, hands on my hips.
"No, I cannot," he countered. "I cannot allow more people to become victims."
I took a deep breath. "Victims of what?"
"Of Vharley," Regal said, eyes downcast. "Of Exspheres."
"Well," I said, clapping him on the bicep and making him flinch, "Good news! The girl we're trying to help is a victim of Exsphere testing, and we need the Inhibitor Ore from inside to make her a Key Crest. So really," I went on, "You're doing more damage if you don't help us out."
Raine gave me a skeptical, exhausted kind of look. I ignored her.
"...I can open the path to the area where Inhibitor Ore is mined," Regal relented, "But I refuse to allow you access to the Exsphere mines."
I looked around at the others.
"Sounds good to me," shrugged Lloyd.
"We should tie this guy up or something, though," said Sheena, gesturing at the Bishop. "We don't want him running back up and telling everyone onboard."
"I'm afraid I didn't bring my fifty feet of rope with me today," Raine said drily.
"I won't - I won't run!" insisted the Bishop.
"I could knock him out," I volunteered.
"I have rope," Lloyd said, brightening. "I got it from the boat!"
Raine sighed.
We tied up Vharley and the Bishop, and Raine escorted Regal to the door. He leaned in close to a tiny black square behind which there had to be some kind of camera, and there was one affirmative beep, followed by a prompt for a verbal command. There was a brief pause, and the low murmur of active machinery.
"Alicia," Regal spoke into the console.
I looked away, suddenly embarrassed.
The doors opened.
"And what about him?" asked Zelos.
"I think," Raine said, giving me a frighteningly sharp look, "That he should come with us. He knows the mine, after all."
"You said his name," Raine accused in a whisper. "He's important, isn't he?"
"He's not a bad dude, he's just dramatic," I hissed back. "Trust me, we need him."
"You're impossible," she decided. "What else haven't you told me?"
I made a desperate face at her. "Nothing! Or at least nothing that's need-to-know. Can we talk about this later?"
"...Later," Raine said, and it was a threat.
The mine was huge.
It must have been a natural cavern before it was widened out for equipment. There were dark chasms of striated rock, dangling stalactites and amorphous formations glinting beneath a layer of milky calcite. I could hear running water - did this cave connect somehow to the ocean, or was it just rainwater? - and there was the steady drip-drip-drip of constant mineral growth. It had a distinctly chalky kind of smell.
Lights and reflective tape lined the path, and here and there we passed evidence of the people who had worked here - a forgotten glove, a toolbox, a smashed carton of cigarettes.
"How long has the mine been closed?" I asked, eyes catching on what looked like transformer affixed to a miniature water-wheel.
"...About seven years," Regal said. He was looking better after a bit of bread and water, although he didn't seem any more at ease.
"How come all these machines still work?" asked Lloyd. "Some of them are on, too!"
"The mine is fully automated," Regal explained, apparently more comfortable with technical questions than personal ones, "Most of the equipment you see predates the modern era. We believe it may have been in use since before the Kharlan War."
"That long?" asked Raine. "That sounds impossible."
"It's true that some parts have been replaced or repaired," Regal allowed, "but the core machinery is very old. We believe the mine was rediscovered in-" he cut himself off. "The machinery is very old."
"The rocks are very pretty," said Colette, with such genuine admiration that Sheena burst into giggles.
"They are," Sheena agreed, "They really are."
"Hey, uh," said Lloyd, "what is that?"
We followed his line of sight.
"I thought the mine was locked down?" said Genis, frowning.
"...It has been," Regal agreed, looking equally confused.
"Then what..."
The gnomelette - six inches high, with a squashed little face like an expensive cat and a conical little hat - looked up. It was standing in a shallow pit next to an upturned box; beside it was a discarded mallet, longer than it was tall. We moved towards it. We would have to pass by it, to get to the eastern area of the mine. The gnomelette watched our approach with apparent anticipation, black eyes wide and shining in the dim glow of a flickering work lamp.
There was something unnerving about it; it may just have been the size, but it gave the impression of something much larger scaled down. I had the strange feeling that it must be disproportionately heavy, like a little lead figurine.
"Hey, you!"
The voice was high and oddly crumpled, like it had been put through a synthesizer.
"Uh. Hi?" Lloyd, creeping up towards the edge and squinting down.
"Hi yourself!" It replied, "I'm on a journey to find and eat some potion. You got any?"
"Eat?" repeated Colette. "Are you sure you're talking about potion?"
"It's somethin' that's only for adults that makes them feel good!" The gnomelette clarified, eyes narrowed.
"I... guess he really does mean potion," Raine said.
"How'd you get in here, anyway?" asked Lloyd.
"I'll tell ya. Knock knock."
Lloyd looked back desperately at us. I shrugged.
"Who's there?" he asked.
"Nunya," replied the gnome.
Beside me, Zelos snorted.
"Nunya who?" asked Lloyd.
"Nunyabusiness," the gnomelette snapped. "You losers got any potion or what?"
"Uh..." Lloyd looked back at us again.
"Fresh out," said Zelos.
"Can't say I do," agreed Raine.
"Then get outta my face," decreed the gnomelette.
"...Uh... okay," Lloyd agreed. "You don't mind if we..." He gestured toward the continuing path.
"I ain't stoppin ya," said the gnomelette.
It was some time before anyone spoke.
"Is it just me," said Genis, "Or did he kinda sound like Edie?"
"Excuse me?"
"...He did, a little," admitted Sheena. "Sorry."
I crossed my arms. "I don't sound like that."
"You do, a little bit," Raine said, smiling thinly at me. "Such forceful personalities."
"I don't think he sounded like you," volunteered Colette. I smiled gratefully. "He had kind of an accent, didn't he?"
I pouted.
"I don't sound like him," I protested, but without much heat.
Regal, for his part, looked disturbed. In his reality, crazed murderers probably didn't walk around gently ribbing one another. In his reality, closed mines didn't spontaneously populate with horrible little goblin children who were 'on a journey to eat some potion'.
Well, he'd learn.
"This door leads to the area where inhibitor ore is mined," Regal said, when we'd reached another set of stone doors - or were they stone? I was almost certain they were the same material as the seal doors had been in Sylvarant, and those had been some kind of magitechnology. Raine had called them polycarbonate, but that couldn't be right. "I must warn you that the way is guarded by several traps as part of the original design."
"Like what?" asked Lloyd.
"There are several pressure plates which must be disabled from a second safe point," Regal replied, almost apologetic. "Historically the traps remained disabled, but upon closing the mine, I ordered..."
"Oh, that's fine," Lloyd waved a hand, "we can just send Edie."
Regal blinked around at me. "You would send a defenseless-" he paused, and reevaluated the recent past, "You would send a young woman alone?"
"Young?" prompted Zelos, because the setup was pretty obvious.
"Yeah, let's send Zelos," I agreed.
"Yeah, let's send Zelos," echoed Genis.
"Well hang on," Zelos began.
"It's a skill of Edie's," Raine said, sighing. "Just point out where to go and what to do."
Regal opened the security door. This one needed a fingerprint and a typed password, rather than a voice command or retina scan. I wondered: had Vharley had foreseen such exotic possibilities as there being more than one lock? Or was he was more of a cross-that-bridge-when-I-come-to-it kind of guy? Because if he had gone through with his plan, he'd have just been stuck here instead.
I found that reassuring; evil people were always easier to deal with if they were also stupid.
The door opened onto a platform. One end extended into a narrow stone path that followed a half-dozen hairpin turns towards the canyon below, and the other abutted the closed cage of a freight elevator. The stone path didn't have any kind of hand-holds and was barely wide enough for one person - but the elevator was powered down. There was also something on the landing below, gyrating slowly in the low light - something pale and flat.
"The hell is that?" I asked, peering down.
"Ah. That would be the Naploosa Bacura," Regal said. "I... should have known it would still be functional."
"A Bacura?" repeated Raine, in a tone of stunned admiration. "Professor Naploosa's defensive construct? Here?"
"Ah, yes," Regal said, as if it were an admission. "There were two others when the mine opened, but I'm afraid they were destroyed. The remaining one is... ah, very hostile."
"How were they destroyed?" I asked, glancing up at him.
"One was destroyed during the demolition of a shaft," Regal replied, "the second was destroyed purposefully because it was obstructing a vital pathway. Attempts were made to disable the third, but I'm afraid they were unsuccessful."
"You said we could avoid the traps," Genis accused.
"There was a corresponding tablet which allowed us to temporarily disable or command the Bacura," Regal said, and had the decency to sound embarrassed when he followed it up with, "but I had it destroyed."
"How do I get rid of the other traps?" I asked.
"You don't understand," Regal said, "as long as the Bacura is patrolling this area, it would be fatal to-"
"Come on, man, just answer her," said Zelos.
"The stone console by the far left wall," Regal said, pointing with his good hand - although, when you were wearing handcuffs, the other one tended to come along for the ride. "It isn't difficult to operate. But the Bacura-"
I squinted into the dark.
There weren't as many working lights this far in, but I could make out the console, and that was a start. It was a huge cavern, some two-hundred feet from floor to ceiling, and on the raised platform we were only twenty feet from the ground. If I could find something big and heavy and preferably not nailed down...
I pointed. "What's that?"
"...Ah, that would be a compact excavator."
I was getting better at this. It took me two jumps, one midair, to reach the console. There was a slab of darker stone inset against the smooth grey of the larger pedestal, but no other buttons, switches, or obviously interactive parts. The inset square was vaguely reminiscent of an Oracle stone, and so I placed my hand palm-down, fingers splayed. The surface was warm to the touch, and after a moment there was a deep, affirmative kind of tone and the low rumble of things locking into place.
The Naploosa Bacura, hovering at a midpoint in the stone antechamber, was beginning to slowly wheel in my direction.
I teleported to the body of the compact excavator, wrapped both arms around one steel support, and pulled.
I reappeared at the apex of the cavern, right arm suddenly screaming in protest, and dropped the excavator; there was a huge, splintering crash, the screech of metal, and then silence. A split-second glimpse revealed the scattered remains of the Bacura, now a thousand shards of white against the dusky red of its surroundings - and that, at least, was that.
I came back to ground-level at a clumsy, skidding roll, momentum driving me parallel to the stone but too fast for comfort. I braced myself on my good arm, tumbled, and landed on my back, wind knocked out of me.
"Ow," I groaned.
"Are you all right?" asked Raine, with only mild concern.
I turned my head to watch the others file down the narrow switchback ramps, Raine leading the charge. No one was suddenly gored by falling spikes or pitted with arrows, so presumably the traps had been successfully disengaged, and Regal didn't look as if he was expecting anything. I didn't bother getting up, and there was too much shrapnel around me to consider rolling over.
"I think I pulled a muscle," I complained, left hand clamped over the mass of pain that was my right shoulder, "Several muscles."
Raine moved towards me, kicking shards of stone out of her path, and knelt down.
"Hm. Yes," she said, staff hovering a few inches above my arm, "You tore your teres minor and teres major muscles, and severely strained the tendon. You're lucky it's not worse," she went on, green light gathering in pools and droplets as she spoke, "What were you thinking? That machine had to weigh at least a half tonne."
"I thought -" I started. I didn't want to say I got excited about being helpful, because I would never live it down. "I miscalculated," I admitted instead. "Oooow."
"You'll be fine," Raine sighed, "but try to be more careful. My mana reserves are limited, and you're still injured from yesterday."
I nodded meekly.
-and in the fires of Hell shall you sing praise for me-
"What?"
"What?" echoed Raine.
I sat up. "You didn't hear that?"
"No," said Raine, "Did you hit your head as well?"
"Nah," I continued, scrambling to my feet. "You seriously don't hear that? It's the same as in the Forest."
"Edie, here," Lloyd said, waving me over. "Look."
In the wreckage of the Bacura and excavator, partially obscured by dust and twisted metal, was a chakram.
I'd have called it a haunted pinwheel, if not for the fact that Colette was holding a second one and frowning down at it. If the Bacura had been baked, like a piece of pottery, then this thing had been in it - a spiral of vicious magenta crystal, webbed in some green membranous material, and at the center, wreathed in bone, a rolling red eye. It had a viscerally repulsive quality, a stench of sickness - and it was whispering.
Wield me, it was saying, and I will be as your own hand, a bone blade beneath which your enemies-
"A Devil's Arm," I said, recollection overtaking sense. "That's what the voices were in the forest! Another one of these - things!"
In the game, they were an entirely optional side-quest - a really, really annoying one, because if you went to the wrong place at the wrong time you locked yourself out of benefiting from it in any way. It was also practically post-game. I was no good at remembering names, but I remembered the adolescent rage of an eleven-year-old finally resorting to GameFAQs only to discover that hours in the Altamira Casino - and it really had been hours, because I had no luck and relied on save-scumming - were all for naught. I had never managed to finish it. The only aspect that had stuck was poor Presea, tormented by the voices of the weapons, alone in her torment. Well, she wasn't alone anymore, because I could hear them, too.
"You know what it is?" asked Lloyd, bemused.
I sighed. "It's like a cursed weapon," I said, not bothering to backtrack, "It's evil and gross. There must be one in the forest," I guessed, "because it has the same 'voice' as whatever Presea and I were hearing."
"I don't hear anything," volunteered Genis.
"Yeah, well," I said, and then couldn't think of anything to add.
"What is it saying?" asked Raine, curious.
"Evil stuff," I said, waving a hand. "Like, 'I will cut down your enemies and feast on blood' or whatever. It's not good stuff."
"Interesting," she replied, picking up the one at my feet.
"Don't hold it!"
"Did you know anything about this?" Raine asked Regal, ignoring me.
"...I cannot be certain," he said, "but we did have some employees installed in this area who complained of auditory hallucinations. Perhaps this was the source?"
"Yeah, but why Edie and Presea?" asked Genis.
"I'd rather not think about it," I said earnestly, "Can you guys please put those down? Chuck them into a corner or something?"
"But..." Raine's eyes were a little glassy as she stared down at the chakram. I pinched her hard on the elbow - and she snapped out of it. "What was that for?"
"You came over all weird," I said, unsure if it was actually some effect of the Devil's Arm or just Raine's natural curiosity, "Look, can we go get the inhibitor ore? These things are skeeving me out." I tried to say it as meaningfully as possible, in the hopes that Raine would actually listen. She did; I stood anxiously to one side as she took both chakrams and wedged them in a far corner behind a disused wheelbarrow. Once they were out of sight, I felt a little better. "Thank you."
"Well," said Sheena, after a moment, "that was exciting."
"The... node where inhibitor ore is mined and processed is very close now," Regal said. "There should still be some usable material remaining; there were several pending orders at time of..." he trailed off awkwardly. "There should be material remaining."
"Oh. Right!" Lloyd grinned. "Let's hurry up!"
The area in question was a fifteen-minute walk from the large antechamber, down a narrower passageway and into another huge cavern still in the apparent process of being excavated. A subterranean waterfall glittered on the easternmost wall, thundering down the sheer stone face and into a black chasm bordered by a flimsy rope barrier. The western side of the cavern was a mess of boxes and unfamiliar machinery.
I nudged aside an upturned hand cart; Regal sure had closed down the mine in a hurry.
"Any inhibitor ore would be in those crates," he informed us. He didn't seem comfortable down here - it probably didn't bring up happy memories.
"Let's look," Lloyd decided. "It shouldn't be really shiny, but it's really heavy. Come on."
We searched.
Some of the boxes were empty; some were full of scrap metal that I recognized as busted drillbits and toothless old saws, and some were full of unprocessed or unsorted stone. Yet more were stuffed with packing material, unused chisels, blades and bolts, and any number of odds and ends I didn't recognize. But with seven of us searching - Regal had just lost a finger - we found it soon enough.
"Ha," Genis said, waving the ingot at Lloyd, "I win."
"It's not a race," Raine sighed.
"Is that it?" asked Sheena, squinting. "It looks kind of like... I dunno, I thought it would look more like gold."
"It's not really that shiny unless you polish it a lot," Lloyd said, turning the ingot over. "We should take extra, to give to my dad. He'll have to have gone through a lot of his stock."
"Hold up," I said, "Not that I think it's a bad idea, but Exspheres can be removed once there's a Key Crest placed on it, right?" Lloyd nodded, clearly not following. "So anyone administering to them only really needs a few, because they could just remove them after the Exsphere is off, right?"
Lloyd frowned. "Oh. Yeah, that makes sense."
"Neil said he had written to your father," Raine recalled, "And I'm certain Dirk would have reached the same conclusion. I don't think that any of the refugees would benefit from keeping their Exspheres, at any rate. I had the sense they were still... unfinished," she concluded, more soberly. "When we return to Sylvarant, we should make sure that any remaining Exspheres are disposed of."
"It'd still be a good idea to take any spare ore with us," Sheena suggested, "That way we could be sure Altessa or Dirk have some."
"...Return to Sylvarant?" Regal echoed, a few steps behind.
"Oh, yeah," Zelos grinned, waving a hand towards the rest of us. "These guys are the Chosen's party from the declining world. Don't worry about it."
"You don't have to say it like that," Sheena scolded.
"We can explain later," I said, "It's not that complicated."
"What," Zelos said, turning to look at me, "You still wanna take this guy with us?"
I shrugged. "What'll they do with him if we leave him here? Anyway, he helped us out."
Zelos paused. "I was about to say, 'but he's a criminal', and then I remembered who I was talking to."
"I'm not a criminal," I whined, "I've never done a crime. You can't prove it."
"Are we taking the ore or not?" Genis asked, rolling his eyes.
"Do you mind?" Raine asked Regal, who was bizarrely calm, given the situation.
"...I do not."
"Great," Lloyd grinned, "Then let's go! Presea's waiting!"
"What about the guards and stuff?" Sheena asked, despairing.
"All we gotta do is get away from here, right?" Lloyd shrugged. "We could fly the Rheairds right up the tunnel!"
I hadn't even thought of that.
"It is wide enough," Raine allowed, looking thoughtful. "And we would be moving too quickly for any kind of response from the ship."
"What if they're waiting at the top?" I asked, eyebrows raised.
"The Rheairds produce some shielding," Raine pointed out, "I doubt they would be able to stop us."
"...Well, it's definitely exciting," said Sheena.
"Hang on," Zelos said, jerking a thumb towards Regal. "Who's Chuckles here flying with?"
Raine gave him a gimlet stare. "I'll give you one guess."
When we reemerged from the mine, neither Vharley nor the Bishop had moved.
"We can't just leave them down here," said Colette.
"I mean, we definitely can," said Zelos.
"We could put them on a platform and send it up?" suggested Sheena. "And we'll just fly past."
"Hang on, what about this dude?" I prodded Vharley with my foot. "He's not someone we want out and about running around."
There was an uncomfortable pause. A death in the heat of battle was one thing, but an execution in cold blood? That was a very, very different proposition. The others had no reason to think of Vharley as more than a common criminal, and it wasn't as if I could explain it to them. The others didn't kill people if they could help it, and it wouldn't look good if I was the only person pushing for it now. I scowled. There wasn't a clean solution.
"...You could leave him here, and send the Bishop up," Raine said, after a moment. "Leave it to him to decide."
I winced.
"That's pretty..." I trailed off.
"If I may speak?" I turned. Regal looked very, very grave. "Vharley has hurt a great deal of people. He is not a man who should be allowed to go free. But," he amended, "I also believe he should be brought to justice by the correct authorities."
I glanced around at the crowd of extremely wanted people.
"He's working with the authorities," Zelos pointed out. "C'mon, I have a better idea. You," he said, jostling the Bishop, who was awake but had opted for silence rather than draw attention to himself, "If we untie you, and send you up, you go ahead and tell those guys up there that this fella," he toed Vharley's prone body, "went nuts and attacked you and these knights." He smiled, genteel. "You can tell them you barely escaped with your life. You have no idea where your prisoner went," he added, as an afterthought.
"Y-yes, yes," agreed the Bishop, quaking with gratitude, "I never wished for this violence, and I have never liked Vharley-"
"All right, great," Zelos said, cheerful. "Make sure you don't forget it, yeah?"
The Bishop nodded.
"You're almost as bad as Raine," muttered Genis.
We had no way of ensuring that the Bishop would keep his word, but we kept ours. Zelos undid his bindings, and we piled him and Vharley - and the other Knights, some of whom were unconscious, rather than dead - onto the elevator platform. Regal made certain that the door to the was sealed behind us, and then Raine started the platform on its slow climb to the surface. Then it was just a matter of mounting up on our Rheairds and zooming off to freedom.
"I have suddenly realized I hate this idea," I said, watching Lloyd prep for takeoff.
"Why?" Zelos asked, then continued rhetorically, "Because it's an airborne vehicle moving at hundreds of miles per hour and this is still a tunnel with a stone ceiling? Can't imagine why that'd make you nervous."
"You'll be fine," Raine said, "Just follow close behind us, all right?"
We couldn't bring out all the Rheairds at once, but we didn't want our exits to be too far apart, so it was a process of mounting up and traveling a little up the passage until we formed a nice little queue. I was between Genis, Sheena and Colette, and had the Rheaird relied at all on my posture or fidgeting, I'd have been a smear on the ceiling. I still felt sick, and would likely continue to feel sick until we were out under blue sky.
"Ready?" Lloyd called back. Affirmatives rippled up the line, and up the tunnel I could see the flare of Lloyd's engines.
We tore out of the mine, narrowly passing the still-moving elevator platform and probably scaring the daylights out of the Bishop, and then we were exploding out into the open air. Lloyd careened around, diving skyward, and we followed him, clearing the mine and then the town and then the mountainside and falling into formation. It all happened in under a minute; one moment we were racing up the tunnel and the next we were gliding softly over the water.
I switched the Rheaird over into autopilot and dropped my head on my arms.
"I hated that," I announced.
"They spotted us as we left," Raine said, sounding unsurprised. "People will know where we are."
"I mean, don't they already?" asked Lloyd. "Because of the tracking thing?"
"Right," Raine sighed. "Let's find somewhere to land and recharge."
We set down on a grassy stretch of nowhere, north of the mountain range and far from anything that could be considered 'civilized'. Late afternoon was fading into twilight, and we would have to wait until morning to set out for Altessa's.
"So," said Zelos, once we'd all had a chance to put our stuff down and start assembling camp, "Anyone wanna tell me why we're dragging along this guy?"
Regal hovered awkwardly - it wasn't as if he knew our process for setting up, or as if anyone had given him orders. He was a big guy, even taller than Kratos had been, but he looked like he was trying to take up as little space as possible.
"I don't know, Edie," said Raine, giving me a look that suggested I would have to dig myself out of this one alone, "Why are we?"
I had a feeling that failing to mention Regal to her had been a very slight mistake.
Everyone looked at me - they'd had no reason before, but now Raine had reminded them that, yes, it had been me to insist taking Regal along.
I sighed.
"Because," I said, not quite believing my own ears, "he needs to meet Presea."
"What?" asked Genis, bewildered, "Why?"
I pinched the bridge of my nose.
"Lloyd, you remember what Kvar said about your mom?"
"...Huh?" Lloyd blinked at me. He looked confused and vaguely hurt.
"You remember Clara, at least?" I asked, pivoting away hurriedly, "She was turned into a monster because of her Exsphere? Regal's not a murderer, Vharley turned his girlfriend into one of the Exsphere creatures and sent her after him. He fought back in self-defense. Same as your dad," I gestured at Lloyd, looking in the general direction of the sky. "Same as you guys and Marble. Presea is that girl's sister. That's why."
"...How can you know that?" asked Zelos.
"So you guys know how that girl at Altessa's house looks like me?"
Everyone was paying rapt attention now.
"She's modeled after Martel. I think I might be, too. And sometimes," I said, as vaguely as possible, "I remember things that I can't possibly know. Like, for example," I continued, feeling nauseous, "That Mithos the Hero and Yggdrasill are the same person. Or," I fished around in the very depths of my recollection for some truth, something that wasn't achingly personal, "That the Devil's Arms are super evil."
"...You're joking," suggested Zelos.
"Mithos?" echoed Regal, who was slightly hampered by lack of context.
"...That's why you spoke to me back at Balacruf, isn't it," Sheena said, like someone coming out of a dream. "You already knew about the two worlds!"
I nodded miserably.
"What do you mean, 'modeled after Martel'?" asked Lloyd.
I shrugged. "I have no idea. Clone? Android? I don't remember anything before about a year ago. I woke up at the House of Salvation north of Triet and went looking for Colette."
There was a moment's pause.
"I knew you weren't really a researcher," blurted Genis.
"Hold on," said Zelos, waving both hands in a hopeless plea for sanity, "We're supposed to believe that you're, one, a clone of the Goddess Martel, or something, and two, you're - what, psychic? Clairvoyant? Help me out here."
I couldn't help it.
I burst into tears.
"Whoa," Zelos began, "Uh-"
"I'm sorry," I said, sinking into a crouch and hugging my knees. "I'm really, really sorry, I just couldn't leave Regal behind, because he's a good guy, and I couldn't think of an excuse and I just -" I inhaled, aware in a distant sort of way that I was beginning to hyperventilate, "I don't know what I was thinking, I just couldn't think of an excuse, I just wanted to tell the truth for once and-"
"Edie, breathe," Raine ordered, her hand warm on my back. "Breathe. In, out."
"S-sorry."
"I knew," Raine told the rest of the group, still rubbing my shoulder. "Edie told me after the Tower of Salvation. I've known since then."
"...Um," Colette's voice drifted into the ensuing silence, "I did, too."
I looked up.
"What?" asked Lloyd, bewildered. "How?"
"Edie talked to me a bit while I was..." she gestured to indicate 'creepy and empty', "And I kind of heard Professor Raine and Edie talking about it, too. And I think," she paused, as if for thought, "when I woke up in the Forest, I was in Edie's dream for a while, and I kind of understood that we were in a different place." She glanced at me, and blushed. "Sorry."
My panic dissolved into hysterical giggles.
"You don't," I hiccuped, "have to say sorry for that."
"That's how you knew what to say to the Renegades," Sheena guessed. "Actually, it's kind of obvious, now that I look back."
"Is that why you don't know anything?" Genis asked. "I mean, you were always asking really stupid questions."
I laughed - a laugh that turned into a cough. "Yes, that's why I didn't know anything."
"Okay, why do I feel like you're all taking this way too in stride?" demanded Zelos.
"I mean," Lloyd began, "we already found out about the two worlds, and the Journey of Regeneration, and Mithos, and stuff."
I stared at him in amazement.
"In the grand scheme of things," Raine said, amused, "Edie's situation is almost trivial."
Lloyd slapped a fist into his palm, startling nearly everyone. "You asked me to make that lightning charm for Corrine before we ever went to Tethe'alla! You knew we'd have to fight Volt!"
"And you kept asking all those questions about the Rheairds being safe," Genis recalled.
I covered my face with both hands.
"This is really not how I expected to tell you guys," I said, voice slightly muffled.
"I'm sorry," offered Raine, "I didn't expect..."
"So," Zelos said, trying to be reasonable, "You... don't remember anything before a year ago? How can you read and stuff?"
"I remember," I drummed my fingers on my knee, looking for the right words. "I remember a past life. It wasn't in this world, I don't think. Um. I know all of this is very slightly insane and I understand if you guys don't..." I swallowed. "If you guys don't feel comfortable with me around anymore. I realize that - it'd be unfair to ask you to keep me along after I lied to you. But - but Regal is supposed to be with you. So." I shrugged. "Yeah."
The moment stretched.
"Don't be an idiot," Sheena said. "I lied to everyone, too, and I tried to kill Colette. You never did anything but help. Even right now," she gestured, "you told us because you were trying to help a complete stranger!"
"Yeah," agreed Genis, "You've always been suspicious, but you've always looked out for us, too."
"You've saved my life a bunch of times," volunteered Lloyd. "And you can't help it if you're a clone or whatever."
"You must have been really scared," said Colette, "and you were all alone, too. I can't imagine what that must have been like."
Raine made a noise. "I should have known they'd be too soft-hearted to hold it against you."
"Am I the only one not kosher with all this?" asked Zelos, "I mean, apart from him," he added, gesturing at Regal. "I'm not saying you're lying, I just... What - where'd you come from? How do you know this stuff? I feel like everyone's being way too relaxed about the 'and sometimes I remember the future' thing."
"Um," Colette said, hand half-raised, "When we were in Sylvarant, visiting the seals, I would 'remember' things about them, even though I'd never been there. And sometimes I remember things that I think the other Chosens must have known, or that Martel did. Before I thought it was because of the Cruxis Crystal," she admitted, glancing down, "But maybe Edie's connected to Martel, too."
"Is that why you two look alike?" asked Sheena, thoughtful. "I said so, didn't I? I said!"
"I don't know where I came from," I said, addressing Zelos' original question, "I just kind of woke up, and had scratches everywhere and stuff. They said they found me in the desert," I admitted. "I had some of my stuff with me. I think I must have done something or been somewhere before that, but I have no idea. If I have something to do with Cruxis..." I trailed off. "I don't know. I really have no idea."
"All right, all right," Zelos relented, hands up in surrender, "I give in. Everyone here is weird!"
"While we're on the subject," Raine said, suddenly, "I think our guest deserves an explanation."
"Where do you even begin?" Sheena asked, face screwed up in exasperation. "Mithos?"
A noise rumbled sideways across the campsite.
"Maybe," Raine suggested, Lloyd bright red with embarrassment, "We could have the discussion over dinner. I was thinking-"
"I'll cook," Sheena volunteered hurriedly, "Why don't you guys settle in? This could take a while."
"...They were attempting to impersonate the Chosen?"
"Yeah, they got the Book of Regeneration from Dorr and everything!" Lloyd explained.
"But Edie retrieved it."
"Funny story," I said, "I ran into the fake-Chosen at the marketplace, right?"
"And then Sheena was like 'stop right there!'"
"I do not sound like that," Sheena protested.
"And it looked like we were gonna have to fight," Lloyd went on, "but Edie said they should talk."
"And then we were like, 'why can Sheena go but not Raine and Edie?' and then Sheena got all embarrassed for some reason, and-"
"You don't have to tell that part," Raine sighed.
"And then Lloyd and Genis were sick all night from faire food," Sheena said, smug.
"Ugh, don't remind me," begged Lloyd.
"Hey, do you remember the puppet show?" Genis asked, suddenly grinning.
"We don't need to talk about that," Raine said hurriedly.
"And Sheena got the pact and then we came here and then Edie-"
"I'm sure he gets the picture," interrupted Raine. "I was surprised when Edie insisted we bring you along," she admitted to Regal, "I confess I might have been too glib," she said to me, apologetic. "But it's nice to be able to speak about things in the open."
"I honestly thought we'd reached peak weirdness," complained Zelos, "but I guess I was wrong."
"You basically just met us," Genis accused, "You don't get to talk."
"I'm glad we were able to get to here," Colette said. "Looking back at everything, it really seems like we've done a lot!"
"We have done a lot," laughed Lloyd. "And we've still got loads to do, remember!"
"Ugh, don't remind me," said Sheena.
"And the girl you're trying to save," Regal said, speaking for the first time since the saga had wrapped up, "She's... She is Alicia's sister?"
I nodded. "It's complicated, but - yeah."
"Hm," Regal lapsed into silence again, troubled gaze resting on the roaring fire.
"Well," said Zelos, clapping his hands together. "Anyone for dessert?"
A/N: LAUGHS NERVOUSLY psyche actually zelos is my self-insert and he's like HEY what the fUck? *edit - added some exposition about the Devil's Arms!