center Culture Shock: Class Meets Crass
i b TLOZ's note/b Wow, it's been a while since I've updated, but I'm gonna get right back into the thick of things. So sorry about the delays, if anyone happens to remain loyal to me. But without further ado, here goes.
You'll note how I'll make passing references to tall buildings in Jidoor and other cities as this anthology progresses. With Jidoor, I've imagined it for some time as a very idealistic city of skyscrapers, like New York or Chicago in the earlier half of the 20th century. There's just something very romantic and awesome about architecture in that era, when tall buildings were generally constructed to impress and not to profit. That analogy definitely fits Jidoor, which is definitely the kind of city that flaunts its prosperity. Also, the world of FF6 is definitely representative of our own well into the Industrial Revolution, which began around the 1820s. The technology for elevators existed prior to the American Civil War (Elisha Otis's safety cable demonstration at New York's World's Fair in the 1850s), and the technology for steel-frame skyscrapers not long after the end of conflict (Louis Sullivan's early work in Chicago following the Great Fire of 1871). Remember that Zozo had tall buildings -- but strangely enough, no elevators. Oh well.
Relm retains much of her sass in this story, but you might notice that her language is quite mature -- but not in that sense, per se. I consider Relm to be very precocious when she needs to be, and Jidoor provides such a setting. Though I've preserved her brassy disposition, considering where she is, she has enough sense to go by the rules -- even though she'll skirt the edge of protocol at times, she won't attempt to breach it in Jidoor.
Background: Globally synonymous with the high life, fashion, and excessive sophistication, Jidoor is one of the largest cities, and the leading center of commerce and culture, in the known world. Home to 800,000 people, it is universally renowned for its art institutions, glamorous nightlife, lovely parks, top-rate educational system, and low crime rate. Law enforcement is also quite strict in Jidoor — fashion criminals are occasionally prosecuted for committing such atrocious violations as mismatching one's socks or wearing a plaid garment along with a polka-dotted one.
Class-conscious Jidoor is divided into a district of middle-class neighborhoods to the south home to three-quarters of the city's population; an upper-class region to the north, comprising a fifth; and the central business district in between, which also is home to great cultural institutions, the Jidoor Stock Exchange and the famed Auction House, and the remainder of the citizenry. Trolley lines criss-cross the city, and railroads serve outlying towns and the western provinces of the Kingdom of Figaro.
Not a poor or homeless person can be seen in the streets, because there are no poor or homeless people here. The reason for this is because they were all forced to leave. The controversial, albeit successful, plan to expel Jidoor's "unsavory characters" involved the levying of unbearably high property taxes which the lower class could not pay and the setting of mortgage rates extremely favorable to the middle and upper classes. Upon eviction by landlords or displacement by gentrification, the city's poor were offered the incentive to live tax-free in the planned city of Zozo to the north, where the Jidoorian government funded large housing projects to accommodate the displaced residents. Zozo and its inhabitants, of course, are another, entirely different story.
Almost every building in Jidoor, whether civic or private, skyscraper or rail terminal, is a masterpiece of architecture, yet the most famous building in the province is well outside the city limits: the world-famous Opera House, Il Scalo, dominating the skyline of an affluent suburb south of the city. Accessible by express railroad from Jidoor and beautifully floodlit on performance nights, it is a massive, richly ornate structure of what we would call the "Second Empire" style, with a heavily protruding cornice below a sweeping, graceful copper dome that covers the main auditorium's vaulted ceiling.
After Kefka Palazzo's rise to power, Jidoor survived the "unzipping" of the world largely intact and with few noticeable scars. The high cost of living prevents an influx of refugees, plus the city fathers funded the construction of several refugee camps nearby, with as decent living conditions as would be possible. However, many citizens have still fled to the safety of the countryside, reducing the city's population from its peak of nearly a million. The surrounding farmlands more or less escaped the blight and decay observed elsewhere, and as such the city's residents still have plenty of food, though now relatively liberal rations are the order of the day. The most reassuring sign of normalcy is that opera performances continue in the south, though thanks to the reshaping of the world's face Il Scalo now stands on an isthmus instead of a peninsula. Stock trading remains normal, auctions still draw crowds, and things have, overall, remained the same. At least, that's the way they seem to the untrained eye.
Owzer Barbati, seated comfortably in his private carriage as it pulled away from the Auction House, eagerly turned the ancient bronze pendant over in his hands, admiring every vestige of his prize as the bustle of nighttime Jidoor rolled by his window. A long-ago relic of an ancient cult that worshipped a goddess the artifact was named after, it had fetched little at the auction and he was happy to have it when no one else wanted it. Starlet...that was her name, right? Owzer loved nice things — and the glassy green stone set into it was rare and attractive; the participants in tonight's auction obviously had no taste — but that didn't mean he was an expert in every field. He sighed. All that mattered was that he had gotten what he had come downtown to get, and now he was headed home with his winnings.
Owzer's home was a large, six-gabled villa in the priciest region of Jidoor's uptown district. The masonry snowcap of the large hill it crowned, its large windows and isolated, elevated setting offered beautiful views of the city skyline to the south, and of the Zozo Mountains to the north. The well furnished-warren of rooms in Owzer's residence on the upper floors was linked by a grand staircase in the foyer to his expansive ground-floor gallery, arguably the largest private art collection in the known world. It was well known that a larger collection was kept in storage in the mansion's basement, and Owzer's displays were rotated regularly. After the carriage had rolled into its port and the two Chocobos pulling it unhitched, the master was free to disembark. Impeccably dressed and middle-aged, his slightly thinning blonde hair tied into a dignified ponytail with a silk ribbon, he went into the foyer and placed the newest addition to his collection in between two other, similar pieces of jewelry in a case on the table to the left of the door.
These were relics of the mythological creatures Golem and Zone Seek, whose titular stones were set into matching bracelets. They were, of course, his other winnings from the Auction House. Owzer stepped back a moment to admire his small collection, when he was suddenly captivated by the latest arrival. From what he had had the opportunity to read of this goddess, she was the benefactor of the art of healing in an ancient myth, and she was renowned for her astounding beauty and benign nature; some speculated that she was even an Esper, a being of pure magic from ancient days of song and legend.
Such a shame that few know of this astounding figure in mythology, the great patron of the arts mused silently. If only, some way, somehow, the public could be a bit educated about who she was, what she was, what she looked like. Her story must be told.
His fingers idly brushing the glossy surface, it was that exact moment when Owzer had a brilliant idea.
Two months later...
"You call this a goddess? You painted her like a Zozo Slam Dancer! What a waste of my time!"
"Please, Master Barbati, it's a great likeness of what you wished rendered! I followed your recommendations exactly; perhaps you're just being a bit too hasty in — "
"I beg your pardon! Do you dare contradict me, the patron who generously sponsored your obvious lack of talent? That's the last straw! You're fired! Out of my sight now!
"Master Barbati, no, please! Give me a second chance, I'm sure I can do better next time — OOF!" Crunch. "OW!" Punt. "ARGH!" Thud.
So went the exchange within Owzer's art gallery, preceding the moment when Phlegmwad the Fanciful, a renowned artist from Kohlingen, was unceremoniously dumped on the front stoop of the great patron's villa by a strapping manservant, his head having been forced through the framed canvas which his rejected work had been painted on. This statement in neckwear was a major couture don't in stylish Jidoor, and the fashion police were on him in a heartbeat to slap him with a 500 GP fine and month-long exile from the city for his offense.
Back inside, slumped in a large armchair, bathed in the cheerful light of a lamp he had recently bought downtown, Owzer wrote of the day's events in his journal, as was his custom, as he mused about the talentless artists he had sponsored for a painting of Starlet. He had put out a classified ad in Jidoor's most reputed newspaper and had gotten many responses from the most avant garde painters in the region. All, despite their prominence in local arts scenes and perhaps because of their patron's impossibly high standards, turned out to be in no way worth his time — "As talented as a bucket," as he described one of his more disappointing prospects. His shining dream of having his own, original painting of Starlet was waning fast. The pendant that sat upon the bureau across from him seemed to pulse with a light of its own, as if the very deity it represented longed to be brought to life on canvas. He sighed in exasperation, just about to accept that there was no one in the world who could recognize his vision, when he heard a knock on the front door.
Several knocks, in fact, drumming out a beat to accompany a constant ringing of his doorbell. Flinching at the base behavior at whoever was on the other side of that door, Owzer nonetheless got up and walked over to open it.
He found himself face-to-face — or more like sternum-to-face — with a small girl of about eleven years of age, wearing a red beret over her blonde curls, a black sweater, and pink harem pants that flared out considerably along the length of her short legs. She stared up at him with a very sour expression, which he returned incredulously, for about five seconds before she barked "Well? You gonna let me in, or have you decided you don't want a painting?"
Owzer blinked confusedly before registering that this vulgar little girl was at his door regarding the portrait he desired. His first thought was to laugh and shut the door, but then he decided, in his sulky state, he needed more amusement than what righteous indignation could provide. Grudgingly — though he couldn't help but let himself be impressed by her behavior in a region as cultured as Jidoor's — he responded, "Um, of course. Come in," though the little girl had already pushed past him into the cavernous foyer.
"All righty, gov'nah," she quipped as she turned to face the man of the house, "I'm Relm Arrowny of Thamasa at your service, responding to your classified ad for a portrait of the goddess Starlet. I walked, rode, sailed and overall traveled my cute little behind off to get here, so I'd like to know the details. What am I working with here? What am I supposed to model this portrait after?"
"Well, uh, namely the same goddess, the one whom I've taken an interest in," Owzer responded, still vexed by the crassness of the child but preferring to ignore it for the sake of being polite in turn. Unsure why and silently considering it a pointless gesture, he nonetheless handed her the pendant from the Auction House for emphasis. "I know it's a bit of an odd request, but I'd heard about the auctioning of this pendant and how it was being considered a sacred relic of Starlet. Few contemporary portraits or works of art depicting her exist, and I want to fix that. I have a good idea of how I want it done, and mind you I don't want her to look tarted-up or unnatural, because I've had artists who have done that before, and the results were — "
"Wow," the girl murmured under her breath. There was some question as to whether she was even listening to a word that her potential employer had been saying. "Owzer, buddy, that ain't any old stone you've got in that pendant. That's a shard of Magicite."
"A what?" Ignoring Relm's blatant interruption, Owzer became intrigued by what she had called the shining rock imbued into the artifact. Signaling for a butler who'd just entered the room to bring drinks, he motioned for the two of them to sit upon two chairs facing a mahogany coffee table a few feet away, making note to carry the Zone Seek and Golem bracelets with him to show them to Relm.
"Magicite," Relm repeated, after they had settled down. The butler returned to serve beverages, a Marandan white wine — a rare vintage indeed, particularly in those dark times — for Owzer and ginger ale for Relm, each with a coaster. "It's the remains of a dead Esper, a magical creature," she continued, in quite a precocious manner, after taking a sip of her refreshment. "Its spirit will bestow its powers if you can commune with it long and hard. There are many Magicite shards throughout the world containing the essences of long-dead Espers; they each have unique powers that their owners can learn for themselves. Here," she said, picking up the Zone Seek bracelet and turning it so that the smooth, glassy surface of the stone faced Owzer. "If you touch the stone and focus really hard, you can see what I mean. You'll experience...something. It's hard to talk about how it feels, but..."
Owzer shrugged and laid a fingertip on the glassy surface, focusing hard on the magic within as Relm instructed. After a moment nothing happened, and he thought himself quite silly and was about to remove his finger. Looking down at the stone, however, he could see images dancing along the surface, strange runes materializing out of the depths of the stone and orbiting his finger, accelerating faster and faster before spiraling in closer, coming in direct contact with his fingertip.
What transpired after that can only be described as otherworldly. In the blink of an eye, at that moment a powerful jolt of unbridled energy pulsed along Owzer's arm. In a moment of both agony and ecstasy, the jolt created a vibrating sensation — much like that one feels after a hard impact upon one's funny bone — as it raced along his electrified synapses to his brain, where the sudden onslaught of a logic long dormant and incomprehensible to mankind broke down the mysteries of the runes; suddenly they made sense, this raw power of magic available for his harnessing, burning its way into his mind. For a brief moment, he knew the secrets of the Esper whose life force lay latent, in an immaterial state of existence somewhere below the temporal surface of the cold stone he had touched. Unable to maintain his composure he jerked his finger back, and though the surge of energy ceased, a bit of the knowledge remained. Perplexed, he turned back to Relm and saw her smiling.
"You see?" she said in response to his bewildered expression. "If you concentrate hard enough, soon you can cast magic on your own. Watch." She set her drink on the table — Owzer winced slightly when he noticed she didn't bother to use the coaster — closed her eyes and muttered a few unintelligible words under her breath, before stretching her hand out, pointing at Owzer's glass of wine, and shouted, "Ice!" Immediately several large cubes of that frozen substance materialized out of thin air and plummeted about eight inches into the crystal goblet, splashing half of the drink out of the glass and onto the table and its owner's face.
"Sorry," Relm shrugged sheepishly as a butler rushed over to Signor Barbati to mop his face and the table. "But that's just some of the things you can do with magic. You can use it to defend yourself, heal wounds, cure sicknesses, and lots of other stuff. But there's more that I can do. Here's why I'm sure I'll do a good job painting Starlet for you."
She whipped out a large paintbrush and walked over to a vase holding an exquisite bouquet of roses. She traced them in the air, and immediately afterward a whole bunch of roses, identical to the ones in the vase, materialized from the outline right next to the vase before disappearing a moment later. "Of course," she said sheepishly, "If I had done it on canvas it woulda stayed there, but you get the idea."
"Oh, my," Owzer whispered. He stood up and walked over to where Relm Arrowny stood with her giant brush, and extended his hand to welcome her into his sponsorship. "You're hired. Feel free to stay in the guest room if you wish. I'll pay you generously when you're done. Oh, and," he added, "I'd like you to teach me how to use magic. Like I said, I have two other pieces of Magicite we can use along with Starlet. I'll pay for that also."
"No need to pay me for the magic lessons," she said with a grin, sweeping the beret from her head with a flourish and bowing low. "Consider it on the house."
"Fabulous! Start whenever you want on either!"
Over the next few weeks, much progress was made in both fields. The artistic prodigy Relm was making great progress on the portrait of Starlet as per the instructions and close eye of her patron. Slowly, the voluptuous figure of the brunette, blue-clad goddess took shape on canvas, depicted at the moment that she lovingly passed the knowledge of the healing arts, represented as a luminous orb of golden light in her left hand, down to the lucky penitents whom she had appointed as her first acolytes. In Relm's spare time she devoted herself to teaching Owzer the spells Zone Seek, Golem and Starlet could offer. As it turned out, they were only good for white and gray magic — that is, for healing and passive defense — but Owzer's prowess with them was growing quickly, as was evident from a short test of his skills as prepared by Relm.
"OUCH!" he yelped as she jabbed him in the arm with a palette knife. The resulting wound wasn't serious, but still deep enough to break the skin. Relm fixed a berating gaze on him and leaned back to admire her handiwork.
"Trust me, one day when you fall down the stairs and break your hip, this will all come in handy," she retorted gruffly as she stepped back ten feet to give him a wide berth to practice. "Now remember what I told you about casting the spell. Focus on drawing the pain out of your body, and spreading it out among the living things around us. That's how a Cure spell works; it's not just making pain go away like...well...magic. You know what I mean."
"I can honestly say that I don't. But all right, here goes," Owzer sighed; holding his palm above the wound and concentrating hard on the spell he had learned. The arcane words he chanted under his breath had become second nature now, as he envisioned patching the wound, taking the pain he felt out of his person, and breaking it into indiscernible bits for all to endure. As he muttered, he felt the energy rise within him, mounting with each syllable, culminating in one last surge in power upon which he yelled, "Cure!" Sparks of soothing green light issued from his hand, dispersing in different directions as they came in contact with the knife wound, which instantly closed and ceased to be. Not even a trace of blood remained.
"Good," Relm quipped, wincing slightly as a small portion of Owzer's pain found her briefly. "I think we can step up a little bit. Let's work on your defensive magic." Brandishing the knife once more, she made a threatening motion toward Owzer, holding the sharp instrument aloft in her hand.
"Ack! Safe!" Owzer yelled in response; just before the tip of the knife came in contact with the flesh of his arm, it bent, the rest of the blade crumpling under the barrier Owzer had cast for himself. Not even a scratch was discernible. Owzer and Relm both stared for a moment at the point of contact before the former looked up with an expression of triumph on his face.
"Fira!" Bellowed Relm before a large streak of flame burst from her palm. Owzer responded by casting Shell, surrounding himself with a barrier that completely obstructed the powerful Fire spell, which dissipated in a burst of green light.
"And I've been practicing this spell for the longest time, Relm," he smirked at her. "I'm not sure you even knew I'd taught myself how to cast it. Osmose!" At his command spiraling orbs of purple light coalesced around a surprised Relm, draining her magic power before rebounding backward into Owzer's still-outstretched hand. His body pulsed slightly with light of the same color from the power he'd regained, for the energy he had exhausted from casting his first three spells had been restored at the expense of Relm's energy.
"Cool," Relm said once she got her wind back. "You're obviously getting better. But from what I've felt from the Espers we're working with, I don't think you'll be able to learn black magic, like fire and lightning spells and whatnot. You can still damage the undead — ghosts and stuff — with healing spells."
"That's fine by me," Owzer replied with a sigh as he walked over to the table near the end of the room and sat down to a covered dish of gnocchi his butler had left out for him. "I have no interest in fighting people with these powers."
"Oh come now, boss," Relm quipped slyly as she slid into a seat across the table, where a platter with some fried chicken had been waiting. "Don't tell me that you've never fantasized about using spells of destruction, particularly on people you don't like. I'm sure the thought's crossed your mind often."
"What a vulgar thing to say! I'm a civilized person, Relm; it's beneath me to derive pleasure from causing people harm."
"Even when they deserve it? Think about it, Owzer..." This last sentence was drawn out in an oily, gleeful singsong tone. "Casting a fire spell under the feet of a rival art collector. Freezing shut the mouth of some nagging lawyer or accountant. Beaning a street harasser in the head with a lightning bolt. Or," she giggled, her mirth rising with each thought of vengeful fantasy, "Turning your childhood bully into an imp."
"Never did the thought occur to me until now, when you entertained these wild and perverse scenarios." His assertive tone still could not conceal a twinge of doubt and amusement in his voice.
"You're lying," she grinned coyly around a mouthful of chicken. "I can just tell. Like it or not, you always seem to let people know exactly how you feel even when you tell them differently."
"If anything, I ought to turn you into an imp. At the very least you'll grow a bit taller."
"Hey, I thought we'd agreed not to make personal attacks!" Mock righteous indignation from the artistic prodigy.
"Sorry," though his tone betrayed enjoyment at the jab, "but you're still a shorty with a big mouth. You could stand to add a good meter or so. That way, you can grow into your sassy attitude."
"Don't make me come over there, Barbati!" Now she was getting slightly peeved, though thankfully Relm had learned, though such correspondences with Owzer, to take some of what she could dish out.
"What a threat, my dear! The thought of the things you could do to me just makes me cringe. I'm shaking in my boots as we speak!"
"Sarcasm noted, hotshot. But you forget that I'm the only one here who knows the Imp spell. Plus," she grinned mischievously, "I could paint your portrait."
"Ack! Point taken! The threat alone has convinced me to recant my earlier statements and apologize profusely for my trespasses! Oh, Relm Arrowny, I surrender completely to your supreme whim!" It does not need to be noted that Owzer was exaggerating in the heat of the moment as he playfully groveled, though naturally the threat of one being assaulted by a likeness of him hits home under any circumstance.
"Your offenses are forgiven. Arise, penitent, and sin no more," she chuckled, and the two laughed, resuming their meal in silence save for occasional, light small talk — or when Relm feigned retching after trying some of Owzer's gnocchi.
Meanwhile, as artist and patron bonded upstairs, sinister forces were at work in Relm's basement studio. Free from a long imprisonment in the bowels of the earth after Kefka drove the world to chaos, a shadowy entity with no real temporal presence now needed a new home from which to sow its seeds of discord and despair. Drawn by the incredible skill of the young artist's work in progress, it found a suitable abode in the unfinished painting of Starlet, settling in quickly. Taking form on canvas as a dark, shrouded phantom about to engulf the comely goddess in its hideous aura, Chadarnook, the demon of illusion and nightmares, set to work taking the mansion as his own. The demon by nature could occupy only the intangible, that which did not exist temporally, so an unfinished painting would be a medium from which he could also control the tangible.
And so, unbeknownst to the man of the house, his staff, or his guest, Chadarnook extended his vile influence throughout the basement of the house like a poltergeist, seizing control of the lights, the furniture, the doors, and even the paintings. The subjects of Owzer's collection quickly became Chadarnook's puppets: animated, possessed physical beings whose existence was only to serve him. Soldiers, plants, birds, cats, dancers, even old women and treasure chests -- all were able to move, walk, interact — and attack.
"It's still going to take some time," Relm remarked as she wiped the sweat off her brow. She had been at work for five hours, trying still to complete the portrait possessed by Chadarnook. Since he still lacked the power to move and act on his own, the theory was that finishing the painting of Starlet would force the demon out in favor of some other unoccupied canvas; thankfully they had already destroyed the spare rolls that were among Relm's art supplies. They now had barricaded themselves in Relm's studio, in the guest room, where the portrait of Starlet, now the abode of Chadarnook, loomed over them both.
"That's not a luxury that we have," a very haggard and exhausted Owzer responded glumly. "That demon's been in there for three days now. He's still dormant after possessing the painting, but that can change any time now. He's cut off the electricity in the basement, his monsters are running amok around my house, and the food in the icebox is running low." Call him shallow if you must, but he also shuddered as he imagined how his beautiful mansion might have been warped to the twisted demon's designs. He and Relm were sometimes attacked by animated portraits — Chadarnook's impromptu gang of thugs — and Owzer himself had dispatched a few of them with an epee he had the sense to take with him from upstairs before he fled to Relm's room. Forced to expand his powers rapidly in the hostile environment, his prowess with magic was growing steadily, particularly his healing spells, which had helped turn the tide of battle several times.
Relm's patron further cringed as he tried to think about remaining in this condition for any longer. Another day, another week...another month? No one could last that long. And why weren't his servants going to get help? "For the gods' sake, Relm!" he finally blurted out. "Our food's almost gone, I haven't gotten a good night's sleep in four days, not to mention a bath, and we can't go out of this room because those damn monsters will jump us the second we cross the threshold! How can you be calm at a time like this, because I can't understand for the life of me!"
"Owzer, bitching about it doesn't help our situation," Relm shot back. "We can't draw Chadarnook out of the painting, so he needs to be forced out." She mixed together some colors on her palette and bodily thrust her brush up to the canvas; though he was still immobile, Chadarnook's aura often pulsed with enough force to repel Relm's efforts to paint over him. "I'm doing the best I can," she grunted through gritted teeth. "With any luck we can have this — "
Loud noises coming from outside the studio startled Relm so much that she lost her balance, and her battle of wills with the demon in the painting. Stumbling backwards, she nearly collided into Owzer before steadying herself, the two listening intently from behind the door. "Someone's fighting some of Chadarnook's goons," Owzer surmised, discerning unintelligible human voices among the sounds of scuffles and spells being cast; just as the art they were derived from had no voice, Chadarnook's abominations were mute. Relm frowned slightly in concentration.
"Those voices sound familiar," she muttered to no one in particular. As if on cue, the voices behind the door became understandable as their owners approached the entrance to Owzer and Relm's room.
"I am almost certain that we haven't looked here yet," the owner of an aristocratic, albeit aged-sounding, masculine voice said first.
"Difficult to say, really," remarked a soft-spoken, almost meditative younger male voice. "This mansion's huge, and we've been searching for hours."
"I've just about had enough with this hellish place," quipped a man who sounded similar to the last, only with more assertiveness and conviction, despite a very noticeable tone of exasperation. "Ill-tempered paintings attacking us, dead-end corridors, false doors...not to mention that it's completely DARK in here! Owzer's architect must have been a deconstructionist."
"Methinks that no human would be so nefarious as to plan such a dungeon," the aristocratic voice rejoined floridly. "Think back to the gossip downtown. By the long period that this mansion has stood silent, and the unexplained absence of the master of the house, many believe this abode to be haunted — nay, possessed — by some ghastly fiend."
"Cyan has a point," a neutral, feminine voice mused, a short while before the sounds of the strangers' feet stopped in front of Relm's studio. "The Jidoorians are known for being knowledgeable and rational, and considering what the last year's been like, they wouldn't have — "
Hearing the name "Cyan" was enough for Relm; she knew who the people in the hall were. Before Owzer could react she had dashed to the door, unlocked and jerked it open. Four familiar pairs of eyes — one blue, two green, one brown — stared down in surprise as she stepped out into the dark corridor. An awkward moment passed — it had been a year, after all — before Relm grinned sheepishly at her former. "Hey, guys," was all that she could muster.
Celes Chere, Cyan Garamonde, Sabin Rene Figaro and Edgar Roni Figaro were all speechless.
A noise, a constant, droning whine of unnatural origins, sounded from within Relm's room before the five Returners could utter a word, followed by the emasculated shriek of the dandy inside. "RELM!" cried Owzer, as the addressee uttered a word too vulgar to be repeated here and ran back inside, motioning for her comrades to follow her. "I'll explain later," she snapped, reiterating that statement to Owzer as she rushed into the room with four utter strangers. It was then that she noticed the reason for his noteworthy impression of a damsel in distress.
Chadarnook protruded from the surface of the painting entirely in the third dimension, looking more twisted and horrid than he could ever have been represented in just the second. An ethereal, pitch-black mass, his corporal form swelled and billowed like a cloud in tempestuous winds, a pair of "arms" extending from his main "body" and ending in clawlike appendages that reached and grasped.
When he spoke, no mouth was visible. His booming, disembodied voice seemed to echo more within the minds of the six humans before him than it did in the chamber they were inside.
"I do hope you're not expecting to oust me from this exquisite painting," the demon chuckled condescendingly at his challengers, who each quickly brandished a weapon.
"Stand back for this one, Owzer," Relm ordered through gritted teeth as she wielded her enchanted brush. "We'll take care of everything."
"I refuse to!" retorted the patron of the arts as he drew his epee. "I commissioned that portrait, and I'll be damned if I'm not the one who destroys it, if it must be." He pointed his slender blade at the hovering visage of Chadarnook. "Your arrival here, demon, has since resulted in vandalism of my property, many assaults on my trusted guest and myself, and an affront to the very culture of my city and of my home. Be forewarned that if you do not leave us be now, you'll deserve what you receive next."
The demon's rage was less heard than it was felt. Its psychic and corporal link to the mansion caused the very room itself to ripple. Lightning flashed and thunder rolled in the basement studio as Chadarnook's deafening voice resounded in the party's heads.
"THE GODDESS IN THIS PAINTING IS MINE! YOU CAN'T HAVE HER!"
"You have no right to lay claim to her," Sabin responded calmly, cracking his mithril-bound knuckles as he brandished his metal claws. "Or anything in this house."
"Not so long as you fools stand in my way…which you won't for much longer. PHANTASM!"
The ethereal storm clouds above their heads flashed blindingly, as bolts of lightning lanced down and struck each of Chadarnook's challengers. Owzer winced as the energy dissipated, though the spell did not inflict as much damage as he expected. Then, to his horror, he sensed himself getting slightly weaker with each passing second, as if his very life were slowly draining away…looking around at Relm and her friends, he noticed that they were in the exact same predicament. And then Chadarnook laughed in triumph.
"Your life force will continue to ebb away until either I fall or you all die! And I highly doubt that the former will be the end result," the demon gloated at the sign of his impending victory as Celes, regaining her repose, stepped forward defiantly.
"Many of those we've faced have had similar lapses in judgment. You won't be the last," she answered as she cast a spell that shot across the room and hit the demon square in the "chest." His figure dimmed slightly, if only for a moment, while Sabin finished a mantra he had been chanting. A brilliant blue healing aura emanated from the powerfully built martial artist as his comrades, once engulfed, felt much of their life force restored to them. Spurred by both these actions, Owzer used his own magic to heal Sabin as best as he could, as the aura had not restored his own energy to him. But the dismaying effects of the dread Phantasm spell were soon felt, and they all felt their vitality diminishing once again.
Cyan, the Doman samurai, then rushed forward with supernatural speed, katana flashing as he attempted to strike the demon; with each slash, however, the blade traveled right through the enemy figure without cutting anything. Physical attacks, apparently, would not harm this ethereal creature. Embarrassed by his lack of usefulness, the brave soldier bade a hasty retreat to the rear of the room.
"Perhaps this will be interesting, then," mused Chadarnook as he recovered from the impact of Celes's attack. The ghastly demon extended his ethereal palm to Owzer, who froze as he desperately wracked his brain to recall the words for the Shell incantation. As Chadarnook mustered his own energy to strike, Owzer finally remembered and began his own chanting. He hoped that since it was obviously a simpler spell, he would be able to finish before Chadarnook and therefore protect himself.
But he was too late. Chadarnook was well ahead of him, particularly because the Phantasm spell once again left Owzer in a much more weakened state. The demon bellowed "THUNDAGA!" as a giant bolt of lightning, one of immense proportions and voltage, streaked out of its caster's hand and toward its target. Owzer cowered reflexively and shut his eyes just before impact, anticipating the end. Then he felt himself being pushed to the side and rolling as he hit the floor. As he regained his balance and composure, he opened his eyes to find out what had happened — and saw Edgar, his right hand balled into a fist and raised to chest level as the Thundaga spell broke over it like an ocean wave against a jetty. A ring on the young king's finger pulsed with blue light as his violently shaking hand seemed to absorb the impact of the spell, its inertia forcefully pushing Edgar back; Owzer could just make out a bejeweled ornament on the band that resembled a rook from a chess set. A Wall Ring, a relic that could reflect the magic of enemy spellcasters against them.
Unable to hold it much longer, Edgar then opened his fist and turned his hand around, his open palm facing Chadarnook…and the demon's own spell lanced out from it and struck him violently in the "face." The shock and power of the reflected spell threw Chadarnook in a fit of pain and rage that was enough of a window of opportunity for Relm to finally strike. Having been preparing to cast a spell from the beginning of the battle, she now summoned as much energy as she had left, stretching both her hands out in front of her as she bellowed "FIRAGA!" at the top of her voice. Twin streaks of enchanted fire issued forth from her and found their way to Chadarnook, striking with incredible intensity and heat that was too much for the demon to bear. Eliciting one last shriek of rage that issued in their heads long after the sound itself had faded, Chadarnook was unmade: much like mist evaporates as it meets a flame, or as darkness disappears with the gradual introduction of light, the demon of illusions and despair seemed to dissolve as he faded away, and then simply ceased to be.
At that same moment, the lights went back on, and the effects of Phantasm spell were lifted, those effected no longer feeling themselves losing their strength slowly but surely. Still feeling quite weak, but also very proud of herself for having saved the day, Relm looked up into the relieved faces of her fellow Returners and asked the only thing that could really come to mind.
"So what've I you /I been up to lately?"
"So that demon possessed that portrait there, which you had commissioned Relm to paint," Celes summarized after Relm and Owzer had finished telling the whole story behind the preceding events. Owzer, collapsed on a couch, looked up at her and nodded.
"Yes, essentially. I had been inspired to have a painting done of Starlet after I bought this pendant at the Auction House," he answered, holding aloft the object in question. "Magicite, I know," he said knowingly, noticing the shocked expressions of Celes, Cyan, and the Figaro twins. "And your friend Relm here has been painting for me for several weeks now. She's taught me much, and by that I mean both Relm and Starlet." Relm, standing with the other Returners, beamed at this. "I have two more pieces where that came from," Owzer added, holding aloft the bracelets containing the stones of ZoneSeek and Golem. "Since I don't intend on going off on any adventures just yet, I see no harm in giving them to you. I hope they'll be useful." He handed all three pieces of jewelry over to Sabin, who had been standing nearest to him and accepted the gifts with a gesture of gratitude.
"So I guess that's it, then," Owzer concluded. "I just wish that there was more that I could do for you to help in your quest to overthrow that Palazzo character. At the very least, feel free to look through my collections and library and see if you can find any relics that would aid you, or knowledge to light your way. And here," he added, producing a checkbook that he had brought with him to Relm's studio redoubt when Chadarnook took over the mansion and taking out two checks. He signed both and filled out an amount for one, giving that to Relm and the blank to Celes. "If you ever need money for whatever reason, go to any bank, fill out the amount that you need, and cash that. It's the least I can do." Edgar shook his head dismissively.
"This is more than enough, Signor Barbati. Thank you." Owzer nodded in acknowledgement.
"Well, I don't want to keep you from your noble adventure," he said only half-jokingly. "Go on, get. And good luck! If you ever come to Jidoor again, even after you've restored balance to the world, you and your friends can stay for as long as you like." Cyan bowed.
"Many thanks for your kindness, benevolent patron. Fare thee well," he said graciously as they turned to leave. Relm lingered behind for a bit, and was about to open her mouth before Owzer stood up and gestured her to be silent.
"I know, I know," he chuckled. "You're going with them. That's fine by me. The portrait isn't as important as saving the world."
"Don't worry, Owzer. I'll come back to finish it once we've finished with Kefka." Owzer crossed over and ruffled her hair in a paternal manner, in that special, loving way that a father does to his daughter.
"I'll be waiting," he said kindly. Relm hugged him once and then ran off to join the others; with Chadarnook destroyed, there was no longer a fear of his minions prowling the halls outside.
Owzer crossed back over to the couch and sat there, admiring the only half-finished painting that Relm had left. The spot where that vile demon once was was now simply a blank Chadarnook-shaped spot of unpainted canvas. The room was still in transition back to its normal shape and size after Chadarnook's presence had warped it. It might have been a trick of the light, or a factor of the room still changing back to normal, but he could have sworn that the figure of Starlet in the painting looked down on him, if only for a brief second, and smiled before turning back and becoming immobile once again.
FIN
I TLOZ's post-FIN notes/I Okay, so after a long absence, I am finally done with the second (and not the last) installment of this anthology. If there's anyone else still reading this, then I guess I might as well explain certain things you might take issue with about the fic.
First off: If there are any opera lovers reading this, I'm certain that you might have recognized that I named the Opera House "Il Scalo." For those of you not in the know, this is a masculine take on La Scala, the great opera house in Milan that is arguably the most famous and beloved in the world. Many great careers have been made or broken at La Scala, and many of the most famous operas in the world have debuted there. When it was destroyed in an Allied air raid during World War II, it was the first great public building in the city that the Milanese rebuilt, exactly as it had been before the war. So the FF6 Opera House is envisioned as one of many such venues, but it is the most important in the world and is named in homage to one of our own in my fic.
Owzer using magic: I can't see why this isn't plausible. If he bought Starlet at the Auction House, then I see no reason why he couldn't have won ZoneSeek and Golem as well and tried to harness their powers. To me it stands to reason. And obviously blabbermouth Relm, a magic-user by means of Magicite, might have let slip one thing or another about casting spells while she was working for Owzer. Why wouldn't he have gotten curious?
The final battle: I wanted to keep this as short and sweet as possible, so as not to interfere with the flow of the story. Thus, every party member (which includes Relm and Owzer, who certainly wouldn't have just stood there and done nothing as they did in the game) got to attack only once, and Chadarnook barely did at all. To compensate for this, I deliberately increased the significance and power of his Phantasm spell, to signify that he more likely just needed to wait for his enemies to weaken instead of just expending all his energy trying to knock them down forcefully. As a master of illusion and terror, this nefarious fighting style seemed more to be in his character.
Due to the aforementioned time constraints, Chadarnook also did not transform into his invincible "lady" form, as he could in the game. I also thought this went against logic: if Chadarnook was invincible when he changed his form, why didn't he just stay that way all the time? That whole battle in the game seemed to me to just be an example of employing strategy and patience to win, which goes against the logic of the real world, and would have made the story impossibly long as a result. There shouldn't be any video game-type puzzles to solve while you're fighting to the death in real life. So Lady Chadarnook was out.
If you disagree, then feel free to say so in your review. I welcome criticism, but not flames. Keep in mind the difference.
And that's it for now. See you next time!
