Dollet – 3.00 p.m. (Dollet Time)
Dollet's time zone is half an hour ahead of Timber's. The journey from Timber to Dollet by train is about four hours.
Jack and King got off the train after it halted at Dollet's main station. They stepped out of the station and entered the cobblestone sidewalks and old-world buildings of Dollet, a charming seaside town with an ancient and nostalgic charm to Erected atop the Dollet Plateau was Dollet's main communication tower, Dollet's unmistakable landmark, founded during the era of the Sorceress War.
Jack and King admired at the goldenness of the ancient alleys, buildings and statues as they rode a taxi heading to the city center, where the magnificent Nautilus Fountain was located. The Nautilus was sculpted by Stiletto, one of the greatest architects of the thousand-year old Dukedom of Dollet. Once there, the both of them admired the beauty of the statue; the daughter of the sea god, Nautilus, with her arms wrapped around a pitcher stolen from her father, containing the magic of creating life, pouring it into the shallow well below.
King opened the clue box in front of the fountain and took out the envelope. He then ripped it open and read it to Jack.
"Your next destination is where the 'Lost King' is pointing at."
Jack then asked the people around the square about the 'Lost King'.
"I think it's a statue at the Dollet Museum," a food stall peddler said.
The team called for a taxi and headed right away to the museum.
Upon arrival, Jack and King entered the museum to look for the statue. Then they found a figure that resembled an aging king with a scepter in one hand. The statue, however, was not pointing at anything.
"Why aren't you pointing?" King scolded at the statue, whose eyes looked at him sternly. This caught the attention of a female curator.
"Sir, can you please pay some respect to our 'father'?" she said approaching the team.
"I'm sorry but maybe you can help us?" Jack said showing the route-info to the curator, who then giggled after reading it.
"The 'lost king' is another name of the big satellite dish at the communication tower," she explained briefly. "And if I'm not mistaken, you can clearly see Belle Lighthouse on Rhondia Island if you look from the top of the satellite."
"Thanks," Jack said and ran to the exit.
"No running!" the curator shouted.
Squall looked thoughtfully from his window at the sky, turning from bright blue to golden as the hours go by. He then felt someone tugging his sleeve and turned to see Rinoa smiling, sitting opposite him on the dinner table.
"What are you thinking of, honey?" she asked meekly.
"Whatever," he said in his breath and continued staring at the sky. Quistis set her eyes on Squall who was just sitting at the table opposite her, waving her fork back and forth above her plate of spaghetti.
"Quistis, are you alright?" Xu tapped on Quistis' shoulder. "Snap out of it."
"Sorry Xu. Got distracted," Quistis turned to Xu and said. "What'd you do if your ideal boyfriend has had already someone beside him?"
"I'd say, forget him," Xu munched on her salad. "But if you're serious, then when the perfect opportunity strikes, yank it in and tie it up."
"The perfect opportunity huh?" Quistis thought deeply. Her thoughts burst suddenly when the Trepies surprised her from behind. She turned around to see Daniel and Rachel and glared at them. "You almost choked me. Have you no manners?" she chided.
"Sorry Instructor Trepe," Rachel apologized. "We thought of asking you to come to our table. We have the most beautiful view of Dollet!"
"Yeah, and there are lots of castles," Daniel added.
"Sure, we'll go to your table." Xu rose from her seat but Rachel shook her head, pressing Xu's shoulder.
"Sorry, Instructor Xu. We're only inviting Instructor Trepe."
"And sorry I'm not in the mood. Anyway I've been to Dollet and seen most of the sites," Quistis answered coldly, causing the Trepies to nod in disappointment.
"Then shall I replace her?" Xu asked. The Trepies nodded gladly and the three left Quistis alone with that fondest fantasy in her mind.
Xu turned to the window beside her after she took a seat on the Trepies' table. The view of the sunset giving the cluster of ruins and ancient castles around the lush Dolletian greenery twinkled in her eyes.
Fujin slid the doors open and found Seifer lying on the sofa in his cabin. She glared at Seifer, causing Seifer to awaken abruptly from his nap.
"RAGE!" Fujin could not contain her anger as she lunged for Seifer's neck.
"Fujin, what the heck happened to you?" Seifer said, shielding his neck as Fujin wanted to strangle him.
"I thought we were allies." Fujin balled her fist and her eyes started to water. "We almost got eaten alive by mating piranas when our ship got sunk in Lake Obel, and you did not come to help us!"
"Sorry, I didn't see 'cause Selphie and I wanted to leave the place after we got the clue," Seifer tried to explain but Fujin resented.
"SELPHIE, SELPHIE, SELPHIE!" Fujin screeched. "Just what'd she done do you when you two were trapped in that gondola ride?"
"Trapped?" Seifer tried to sound confused. "Oh yeah, the gondola system got jammed when we were going down. It had been scary hanging above those sharp rocks below."
"TRUE? MEAN IT?" Fujin returned to her booming voice. Seifer nodded and returned to his resting position. Fujin exited the cabin and ran into Selphie, who had just finished chatting with Zell, Irvine, Kadowaki and Edea. Fujin and Selphie exchanged looks first. Fujin then left the cabin in frustration while Selphie happily entered the cabin.
"Seifer, wanna continue where we'd stop at the gondola?" Selphie said cheerfully. Seifer answered a matter-of-fact yes.
Selphie silently locked the door behind her and strutted towards the sofa, unbuttoning her yellow blouse.
Rachel and Daniel got to the next clue first upon reaching the Nautilus Fountain. A taxi then appeared from behind the Trepies. Squall and Rinoa stepped out of the cab.
"...where the 'Lost King' is pointing at." Rachel began to ask the crowd present at the square. "Does anyone know where the 'Lost King' is?"
"It's the satellite dish at the communications tower," a woman dressed in fur answered in her Dolletian slang.
"Thanks!" Rachel signaled Daniel to return to their taxis. They climbed in. "Dollet Communications Tower sir!"
"The 'Lost King'!" Quistis turned to the giant satellite dish on the communications tower, perched at the edge of the Dollet Plateau. Quistis and Xu returned to their taxi and followed Squall and Rinoa from behind.
The taxi stopped in front of the steps leading to the Dollet Plateau. Rachel, with a map in her hand, climbed the steps arduously with Daniel behind her until the full view of the communication tower surfaced. The Trepies gazed at the 'Lost King' higher above the tower in awe.
"Let's go inside quickly," Daniel said. Rachel and Daniel entered the tower through the automatic gates and found engineers examining the circuit boards. They both rode the elevator up to the rooftop, where the 'Lost King' was located, perched on top of a steel turret. Rachel then climbed the ladder leading to the dish at the apex of the turret. Her ponytail and T-shirt billowed to the light breeze as she was halfway up.
"Rachel, what do you see?" Daniel shouted at Rachel reaching the 'Lost King' roughly fifty feet above him.
Rachel aligned her sight with the direction pointed by the antenna on the dish, her hand shielding her eyes from the rays of the setting sun sinking into the ocean from afar.
"I see a lighthouse! And there's a blue and yellow flag sticking out of the balcony!" Rachel climbed back down and spread out the map of Dollet. She moved her finger to the Dolletian shoreline and then to an island offshore. "Belle Lighthouse on Rhondia Island. Let's go!"
The Trepies rode the elevator back to the ground floor and met Rinoa and Squall. They said nothing to them. Upon reaching the main entrance, they bumped into Quistis and Xu.
"Instructor Trepe, we know where the next route marker is. Follow us!" Rachel and Daniel chirped excitedly.
Squall and Rinoa stared at the towering steel turret, the throne of the 'Lost King'.
"Squall, be careful," Rinoa said to Squall who began gripping the first two rungs of the steel ladder. Rinoa bit her nails as the ladder trembled due to Squall's weight. After five minutes that seemed like an eternity to Rinoa, she sighed in relief as Squall was seen climbing back down the ladder.
"Squall I'm so glad!" Rinoa hugged Squall. "What did you see up there?"
"A lighthouse," he muttered. Squall and Rinoa ran all the way back to the taxi, waiting for them below the plateau.
"To the lighthouse!" Rinoa ordered as she got into the taxi.
"Which lighthouse? There are six of them in Dollet," the driver said.
"Oh crap." Squall pulled himself out of the taxi, leaving Rinoa behind.
"Squall, where are you going? Are you going back to the tower? You can't!" Rinoa shouted at Squall, climbing up the stone stairs back to the top of the plateau. Rinoa waited impatiently for about twenty minutes until Squall was seen again running down the steps. She frowned as Squall sat next to her.
"It's a lighthouse on an island," Squall told driver. The driver nodded and started the engine.
"Squall please don't try it again. You could be squashed like a bug if the ladder falls down on you," Rinoa muttered, turning away from Squall, placing his head on the headrest. "And make sure that when you do things do it PROPERLY cuz we have long a good deal of time!" she turned back to her over-relaxed Squall and screamed.
"Oh shut up," Squall mumbled.
Quistis and Xu, and Daniel and Rachel stepped off the boat, docking on a beach near Belle Lighthouse at Rhondia Island.
"Thanks," Xu said as the oarsman helped her to get off the boat. They then dashed to the gates of the lighthouse.
"Operation hours 8.00 a.m. - 3.00 p.m.," Rachel read the sign on the gate. She turned to look at her watch. "We're late by 4 hours!"
Daniel walked away from the gate and spotted two recognizable figures behind the bushes.
"Hey, look who I've found guys," he hollered in a high-pitched voice. "It's the jackass and Lord Farquaad!"
After hearing the boisterous laughter from the familiar voices in the distance, Jack shoved away the T-shirt that blanketed his face grumpily and got up from his nap.
"I'm not a jackass! You disturbed our sleep!" Jack, half-naked, scolded the two teams who were seen walking towards him.
King squirmed and then woke up to find the Trepies squatting beside their bonfire.
"How long have you guys been here?" Quistis asked. The three teams then huddled around the fire. Jack put on his T-shirt.
"We reached here at about 3.30. We didn't bother to return to the city cuz we've bought food with us anyway. It's breezy and comfortable here and there are no monsters or wild animals and all," King explained. Jack then pulled out two extra-large bags of potato chips from his backpack beside him.
"Chips anyone?"
Squall and Rinoa realized that the lighthouse was closed when they arrived at the gates. The couple eventually found Quistis, Xu, Daniel, Rachel, Jack and King huddling around a bonfire by the beach, playing some sort of game in which a player would have to tell a made-up story of another person.
"My name is Quistis Trepe and during my childhood years I lived with Matron or Edea Kramer in an orphanage with Squall, Seifer, Selphie and Irvine. There I studied magic from Matron. Then in my teenage years I moved to Garden and serviced as a kick-ass instructor! I have a crush on Squall Leonheart since childhood but Squall didn't notice me because... ah! I have small tits!" King mimicked Quistis' voice, adding fuel to the laughter among the teams.
"Hey guys!" Rinoa said, waving at the group.
"Squall, Rinoa, you're here!" Daniel said stretching his arms to shake Rinoa's hand.
"We're playing 'Tell about Yourself' and we're going to spend the night here," Jack said. "Oh yeah we left some chips for you just in case if you found us."
"No thanks, we've brought our food anyway," Rinoa said sitting on an empty space between Xu and Daniel. Squall then sat between Rinoa and Xu. He glanced at Quistis, staring at the dancing flames of the bonfire, sitting on the sand beside Xu with her arms hugging her folded legs.
Night fell as the sun finally sunk into the ocean.
"I'm Squall and I'm gay. My gay lover is Seifer who not only sits with me in the cafeteria and feed each other for every meal but we also sleep together, stripping off each other's clothes. Don't forget that..." Rachel cocked her lips together to imitate a kiss. "Mm… smooch, smooch."
Everyone laughed at Rachel's silly joke, except Squall who remained silent. A strong breeze blew past the bonfire, distinguishing the fire.
"Oh dear, the fire's out. Who wants to volunteer to get more firewood?" Jack said, but nobody raised his or her hand. Rinoa and Xu looked at Jack and King, sitting side by side closely, while Rachel and Daniel exchanged blank glances. Squall eventually got up from his seat and walked towards Jack.
"I'll get them," Squall said and then walked to the cluster of backpacks inside the tent to retrieve his torchlight.
"Squall I'll help!" Quistis got up and followed Squall.
The two then disappeared in the befalling darkness, searching for firewood.