Author's Note: I had a feeling you might get it Phabrizoe, but thought I had better be clear! Funny you should mention the scarf, originally it was in there as a line that 'he was extremely weird for wearing an unusually long scarf in the Kazham heat', or something to that effect, but I removed it so that people could treat him as an ordinary doctor, and not some funny kind of Easter egg. I didn't want people getting annoyed I did a ridiculous crossover, so as it stands, you can read it and take him as an ordinary normal doctor. Or you find him as a nod to a show I like. If you have no idea what I'm talking about, you're probably lucky. These kind of things would probably just annoy people.

Oh, and as for the spider story, I concede to Phabrizoe. Not only because he's probably right, but because I quite often go deaf in one year for reasons I'm not really sure of, and after finding two spiders scuttling around in my bathroom yesterday…well, I'm not too keen on following that line of thought!

Right. Here's the chapter. It contains a few more inaccuracies to Kazham lore, or Kazham in general, but that's because it's still 580 years odd before FFXI. I'll explain in more detail at the end.

CHAPTER 47

HELP

Olose wondered into the tent the crew had pitched on the beach. They had made it their makeshift home until they could rescue Trevia and return to the Destiny II.

"Coming here was a bad idea." Olose sighed as he entered.

"I like the beach!" Beamed Suse happily.
"Yeah, but Trevia is in trouble. And possibly all of us." Olose explained.

"Us, Captain?" Phabrizoe asked curiously.

"Yeah." Olose tried not to look down at Phabrizoe, he always felt like he was treating him as a child when he did so. It actuality Phabrizoe was possibly the most mature of all of them. "Something has changed Trevia's scent. The only reason they would do that is because a werewolf can find her easily by smell. That means whoever did this to her knows what I am, and is trying to deal with me directly."

"Cap'n!" Suse put up her hand to get attention.
"Yes, Suse?" Sighed Olose.

"That's not trrrrrrrue!" She purred. "We can smell scents too!"

"She's right, Captain." Phabrizoe nodded. "Mithra can track scents too. It helps their hunting instinct."

"But then, surely they would notice that it's changed." Olose said to himself.

"Olose can track people, anybody, by scent across an entire city." Arcadia pointed out. "I doubt mithra can."

"Nope!" Suse cried.

"Exactly." She said with a slight smile. "If the change is subtle enough, it would only throw Olose off."

"So you really think this has more to do with us than the marriage?" Phabrizoe asked Arcadia.

"It would be logical to assume so, yes." Arcadia replied.

"But who would want to get vengeance against us?" Olose thought aloud.
"How long have you got?" Nadia laughed. "We've annoyed more than enough people in our time. Hell, could be somebody from San d'Oria who supported the Cardinal. We annoyed enough people there."

"Look, it doesn't matter who is behind this. All that matters is we get Trevia's memory back." Olose decided. "Tomorrow is the hunt, and Trevia won't stand a chance. Yet tradition dictates that any mithra woman who is an adult has to hunt. Since she's lost her memories, she won't have a clue how to fight." Olose paused. "We don't have long to find a way to save her." Olose suddenly spun around as he heard a rustling outside. The tent door slowly opened, and they spotted a figure.

Trevia stood, looking (and feeling) particularly awkward, in the entrance to the tent.

"Urm, hello." She said nervously.

"Trevia?" Olose sprang to his feet. "What are you doing here?"

"Um, I thought you could help me." She answered. "You clearrrrly know who I am. Urm, who I was. I wanted some answerrrrs." Olose smiled slightly.

"Jeren is waiting for you outside, right?" He laughed.

"What? Yes, he is. How could you tell?" She asked quickly, startled.

"I'm a werewolf. I can track scents of-"

"You're a what?" Trevia screamed, falling over backwards. Jeren rushed in to her side.

"What did you do?" He yelled quickly.

"Nothing." Olose casually replied.

"H-h-he's a werrrrrewolf!" Trevia cried in fear.

"What?" Jeren shouted in surprise. Olose just waved, but Jeren was already running, taking Trevia's hand and dragging her away. Olose cursed.

"That went well." He groaned.

Nadia stood up, frustrated.

"I'll say!" She snapped. "That was our one chance to explain things and you blew it!"

"I didn't know she'd freak out!" Olose protested.

"You could have avoided that little fact until later." Nadia groaned.

"Well, I thought maybe it would jolt her memory or something." Olose explained.

"That's just an excuse and you know it." Nadia told him.
"Well, yeah." Olose shrugged. "But it's a good one!"

"No it's not!" Suse input.

"That's not the point here." Olose sighed.

"Yes it is." She stuck out her tongue in victory.

"Okay." Olose said calmly. "This isn't the biggest problem we've had. She'll still talk to all of you." He paused. "Suse, perhaps you should talk to her. She's more like you than ever right now."

"No!" Suse cried. "They pick on me! They make fun of me!" She was clearly quite frightened.

"Well, Nadia can go with you. Anybody picks on her and they're in trouble." Nadia grinned as she heard Olose saying this.

"A one armed elvaan and a tailless mithra? Nice combination." Phabrizoe smirked.

"Hey, keep that up and I'll show you what I can do with one arm!" Nadia threatened, still smiling. Phabrizoe laughed.

"Right. This is the plan." Olose decided.

"You have a plan?" Arcadia said disbelievingly.

"Hey! Of course I have a plan!" Olose protested innocently. Arcadia just smiled. "Suse, you go with Nadia and see what you can find. Loopholes, ways we can delay the hunt. See if you can get Trevia out of it. I'm going to visit this doctor they have and see what he's found out."

"And me?" Phabrizoe asked.

"You stay here and make sure Arcadia doesn't get kidnapped or anything." Olose told him.

"Once! Once that has happened!" Arcadia protested. Olose laughed.

"I think it was a few more times than that." He said, almost patronising her. She stared at him, before smiling warmly.

"Fine. I will stay." She decided. "But only because I do not trust any of you to take care of the tent." Olose laughed.

"Right. We'll be right back!" Olose decided, turning and exiting.

Jacob stepped out of the shadows behind Jeren, who was pacing frantically.

"Jeren?" He asked. "You wanted to see me. You sounded quite frantic over the linkshell."

"Y-yes." Jeren stammered. "I've found out shocking news." He explained.

"Shocking?" Jacob inquired. "Please, explain."

"That friend of Trevia's. That Olose Sampson. He's-" He paused to take a deep breath. "-He's a werewolf."

"A werewolf?" Jacob repeated in surprise. "I thought they were all extinct."

"N-no. Apparently not." Jeren began to pace again. "This is dangerous. If he gets violent to reclaim Trevia, then what are we going to do? And what was he doing with Trevia in the first place?"

"Okay. Okay. Calm down." Jacob told him. "Now, that potion you used on Trevia destroyed her memories. They cannot return, thus she cannot remember who he is."

"Meaning?" Jeren asked, puzzled.

"Take this." Jacob drew the silver sword his mentor had given him.

"W-what is that?" Jeren stumbled.
"A sword." Jacob answered. "An old family heirloom of mine." He added in a lie, so that Jeren did not expect any other interference. "Its blade is pure silver. More than enough to kill Sampson."

"Kill him?" Jeren exclaimed. "I don't want to kill him! Besides, I'm a male. We're not supposed to wield swords!"

"This it the exact kind of thing we are striking against!" Jacob cried passionately. "Besides, he is a cursed monster of darkness, not an ordinary mortal like us. Killing him would be a favour to the land." He added with a slightly sinister smile.

"I do not want to hurt anybody." Jeren stated. "I have Trevia by my side, that's all I want."

"If Olose interferes, he may stop your marriage. He may even kill her." Jacob warned. "If he interferes again, then you have the power to kill him. If he does not, then there is no reason to be concerned, and you need not cause any harm. Sound fair?"

"That does." Sighed Jeren. "Thank you."

"No, thank you." Smiled Jacob. "Soon I will be in a position to finally free us from our oppression, and me and you my friend will no longer have to worry about the shackles of our oppressors."
"Of course." Jeren smiled. "I hope you're not planning to hurt anybody."

"Of course not!" Laughed Jacob. "I'm just hoping your marriage will place us males enough into the public eye for my point to be received. Entirely innocent, I assure you."

"Oh. Good." Jeren said. He didn't sound entirely convinced, resulting in a narrow stare from Jacob. "Well, I had better go and check on Trevia, she was fairly scared." Jeren decided, to end the conversation, and turned and left. Jacob paused.

"I hope you shall not become a problem, Jeren." He whispered in a low growl that nobody could hear, before turning to leave.

There came a knock on the door of the doctor's surgery. There was no reply. Olose paused and swung open the door, wondering in. Chairs were scattered around a table, and there was a door at the back, presuming leading to the actual surgery room. Olose approached it when he heard footsteps from behind.
"Oh, hello." Came a voice.

"Where did you come from?" Olose cried, caught off guard. He had been too absorbed in investigating the room.

"From outside." The man stood in the doorway answered as though it was obvious. "I'm the Doctor."

"Ah, convenient." Olose muttered.

"Looking for me, were you?" He guessed, walking past the table and shuffled some of the reading material on it. Old issues of the Vana'diel Tribune he had clearly picked up from somewhere, there were none in Kazham. There were a few mithran books as well, a collection of fairy tales, a few myths, and the odd romance novel. Olose smirked at the thought of the warrior mithras enjoying a good romance. "So, what did you want?" The Doctor asked, casually wondering into his surgery. Olose followed.

"Urm, to know how you were getting on with a patient. Trevia Heart, to be precise." Olose looked around the surgery, impressed by the mighty operating table, and the range of precise tools. He assumed the Doctor had brought them with him from the mainland, before he had ended up in Kazham, however he had got there.

"Trevia?" The Doctor paused. "Ah yes, the mithran girl with amnesia. Nasty stuff. Poison."

"Poison?" Olose exclaimed.

"Why, yes." The Doctor replied. "Specific stuff. Magically engineered certainly. It targets the part of the brain that deals with long term memories, and destroys it. Uses the magical essence to target, meaning you can essentially erase any number of years from your memory."

"Why didn't you mention this to somebody?" Olose cried.

"Simple. It was obvious that the state of affairs benefited Trevia's mother, and her husband to be. Who was I to tell?" He smiled. "I've been waiting for an opportunity, and lo and behold, you walk into my surgery."

"So, what can we do? Do you have a cure?" Olose asked tensely.

"A cure shouldn't be possible. The long term memory is destroyed." He paused. "But science makes life boring, eh?" The Doctor smiled widely. "I believe, if your time with Trevia made a large enough impression, then you can trigger her memories via an emotional situation."

"Emotional situation? What do you suggest?" Olose asked, taking a step closer to the Doctor.

"This wedding. Trevia will doubtlessly accept in her situation." The Doctor paused. "Perhaps interference at the right moment will trigger the right sense of emotions and restore her memories."

"Sounds a little ambitious. And cutting it a little tight." Olose told him.

"Cutting it tight?" Smirked the Doctor. "Isn't that the best way to do these things?"

"I guess you may be right." Laughed Olose. "Thanks for the help, Doctor."

"Don't say that yet. I don't think this situation will quite be resolved so easily." The Doctor answered. "I know that neither Jeren nor Trevia's mother could have made such a potion, and it seems to have other side effects. Strange ones that make no sense." He explained. "Somebody else is behind this."

"I know." Olose replied.

"Then be careful." The Doctor warned. "There is more to this scheme than just a forced marriage, I am sure."

"But what?" Olose shrugged. "I don't understand what they could possibly achieve."

"I'm just a doctor." The Doctor smiled. "I can only tell you what you know, and wish you luck. I'll be here to help in anyway I can. I know these mithra pretty well. If you need any information, feel free to come to me."

"Will do, Doc!" Olose delivered a two fingered salute.

"And please don't call me that." The Doctor grumbled as Olose exited.

Suse threw her hands in the air in frustration.

"We're never going to find anybody who can help us." Grumbled Nadia.

"But Olose told us too!" Suse moaned.

"Yes, but we need to meet the mithran authorities. Whoever that might be. Your not exactly from around here, so what can you do?" Nadia pointed out. Suse shrugged, before a force hit her from behind. She spun around and a mithra sprang to her feet.

"I'm terrrrrrribly sorrrrrry." She purred, rubbing herself off.
"It's okay!" Suse beamed, smiling.

"I need to pay morrrre attention. My mother's always telling me that." The mithra grumbled.

"Actually, excuse me, but could you help us?" Nadia asked. The mithra nodded, still uncomfortably rubbing dirt from her scantily clad body. "We're looking for somebody who might be the authority on the hunt. There's somebody participating, but she's dangerously vulnerable at the moment. She's suffering from amnesia. We have to make sure she doesn't or she will be killed." The mithra paused, fiddling with her long orange hair. She blinked her blue eyes a few times and then finally decided to speak.
"Well, I can stop herrrrr." She answered.

"You?" Nadia asked quite sceptically. The mithra before her was even shorter than Suse, and looked scrawny. Not the type of person you would expect to be in charge of the hunt. She was young too. She couldn't be in her twenties yet.
"Yeah me!" The mithra protested, sounding a little offended. "My mother deals with the hunt. So I can talk to herrrr."

"I thought it was the Kazham royalty that handled the hunt." Nadia said to Suse thoughtfully.

"It is!" The mithra smiled. "I'm Princess Viliv." She curtseyed (which wasn't as easy as it looked, since she wasn't in a dress).

"Princess?" Nadia and Suse exclaimed, surprised.
"Yeah!" Viliv sounded slightly offended, again. "Is this that Trrrrrevia girl I heard about? The one for the marriage? I'm surrrrre I can talk them out of sending her on the hunt."

"If you could." Nadia smiled warmly.

"Thank you!" Suse beamed. Viliv smiled.

"I'll talk to herrrr." She told them. "You'rrrrre one of the morrrre interesting people I've bumped into." She laughed.

"You bump into people often?" Nadia joked.

"I'm a little clumsy, occasionally." Viliv said, blushing. "I'll see what I can do about your frrrrriend." Viliv seemed to enjoy her position of power. It was obvious she loved helping people, using her position for good. "Hope I see you again!" She waved, and wondered off, leaving a slightly perplexed Suse and Nadia looked at each other, confused over what had just happened.

"Now that was a stroke of luck." Nadia managed to say.

Author's Notes: Right. Mithran royalty. Mithra have royalty, I hear you say? Well, no. No they don't. In the FFXI Chronicles series, the mithran royalty was revealed to have been disbanded hundreds of years ago, but kept running in secret to protect a certain artefact. Anyway, long story short, this is still a prequel of sorts, so I had to match up to that, meaning the royalty was in charge at this point in time. I never encountered contrary evidence in the game to the fact that Kazham had royalty at one point, so hopefully it isn't a problem for anyone. If it is, sorry!

Oh, and Viliv is an anagram of a certain wimpy mithra (urm, and wimpy fan fiction author), you may have noticed. This time it makes no sense for one of her ancestors (oops, just spoiled a bit of the FFXI Chronicles 2, think most people reading this one have read it though!) to be an anagram, unlike Sotobu who's an early incarnation. But I guess that family line have just always had something for names with 'l's, 'v's, and 'i's in them!

Final note, slightly more important, despite having successfully finished formatting my computer, it's still not working right. Keeps freezing during running games or DVDs, but it can handle text! I thought it was overheating, but turning up the fans and running it without the case revealed that wasn't the case. Rather than trouble you with my computer problems, I'm just saying this to inform you that if I miss an update (or loads), my computer probably got sent off for repairs or something. Sorry about that, but it needs to be fixed before I go university.

Speaking of university, tomorrow is my results day. These are the results that determine if I go and where I go. I'm nervous to say the least. If I fail to update tomorrow, I'm probably crying/celebrating. Let's hope it's the second one, eh?