Foreword: One year of hiatus later, and the story returns. However, there is a missing chapter, one of my 'scenes.' The infamous 17th Scene... the nightmare behemoth of literary roadblock and quandary that it is... has been lost. Ramza and Agrias' farewells, the formation of his new mission, and Agrias' perspective on her own tasks with Ovelia... has been destroyed.
It may have been for the best... as from the ashes has come this new phase of the story. The writing style is the same, but without the dynamic of Agrias and Ramza working in conjunction, I know that the mood, the pacing, and something else I struggle to define has changed. Against posting rules or otherwise... I'm going to begin posting more of my notes and reference material online. I'd rather not have to split the same space of text with both story and in-depth equipment/character detail. And... for the more hardcore players... yes, that means the actual builds.
Getting past that morbid tone... here's to hoping it won't take me twenty chapters to take the story to the eventual reunion beyond Warjilis Trade City.
Chapter 02-18 "Resurrection" (Chapter Two: The Manipulator and the Subservient, Scene 18)
January 15, Year 2 En Route to Zigolis Swamp
Zigolis Swamp; Ramza thought back on its infamy. On the northern coast of the Lenalian Peninsula, it was the forsaken and polluted grave of Romanda's Second Division, along with nearly the entire Lionel Corps. Ramza remembered a banner of a topaz chocobo against a sapphire aegis, the edges trimmed in black; a fallen battalion of the Hokuten, its colors retired, and only that aegis standing testament to all the fallen men who carried that badge to their deaths. Hokuten's cavalry perished in that battle, the dragoons and archers composing the ranks of the Hokuten disappearing from the roster long ago to where the regiment Ramza would have one day inherited consolidated itself to knights and their supporting underlings. The sword was the preferred weapon, with holy techniques being hoarded by the Hokuten as relations with other holy knights and the church itself detiorated post-war.
He wore that fallen emblem now upon his revised kite shield -crudely painted from descriptions of faded memory to an armorer who was more heart than skill at heraldry- the mithril notched on its right side to accomodate the shortened mithril spear he carried now as a dragoon. He mused, that his past was no longer that most important thing he was running away from now, and it brought him both welcome -and yet unrequited- distraction.
I am Hokuten... Ramza pondered, thinking back to a discussion he always conducted with himself. As much as Beoulve was my name, I cannot deny who I am, or what my duty is. The lightning battalion of the Hokuten was reborn. His father's former unit, one of a handful of survivors from that unit.
Ramza scanned the party of other riders that accompanied him and Mustadio. Another dragoon asides himself, Vittorio, was the leader of the Lionel soldiers sent to quell Bart Trading Company. Two other mounted knights served as officers, along with a full quartet of archers, whose chocobos had saddlebags on either side weighed down by quivers.
Estevez, the groups lone geomancer had been picked up immediately outside of Lionel Castle in a detour. Few used the sunken route of the northern coastal road, most detouring along the central ridges, or by the ferries along the southern coast. In the haunted swamp, only a fool would be without a geomancer who knew the land.
When asked, Mustadio confirmed that he had taken a ship to Warjilis, which was how Bart had been able to find his trail.
Two chemists rode along on overweight chocobos. The group was also assigned an opposing pair of mages, one white, the other black -Ramza was amused by the conflict between the chaste female and the malevolent male. Lastly were six squires reequipped with longswords at the last minute. Ramza snorted at that arrangement. Asides from the chemists being unable to fight on horseback, the squires themselves were limited by their weapons. A spear, a bow, and even magic were the only weapons suitable when riding chocobo. The image of decapitated mounts was something even Ramza had seen whilst he participated alongside seasoned Hokuten in the extermination of the Death Corps. Chocobos had a nasty habit of moving their heads around during combat, as both mount and rider fought.
In all, twenty, a platoon-sized force that Ramza knew was capable to clearing out at least a block even in criminal infested slum. He shook his head. I had less men when I swept Dorter, even fewer at their cellar. And the Death Corps had been veteran light infantry, adept in urban and remote environments.
Against thieves and criminal sorcerers, Ramza analyzed their only failing was lack of mage support. Then again, chocobos easily closed that gap Ramza rationalized.
His mind wandered on this ride as signs of a battlefield, second only to one other in notierity during the Fifty Years' War, increased. Abandoned siege machines... dismantled catapults still with piles of boulders alongside them, ballista with barrels of rusted bolts, and on more than one machine that Ramza saw, the helmed skull of a Romandan soldier speared to the ballista he must have manned, and peering over the tall grass, Ramza could see the rest of his armored bones splayed across the ground.
He remembered that Romanda's mechanical siege corps was the first line the Lionel Corps had shattered, even as other Ivalician units were coming through the peninsula from. Zeltennia's famed light cavalry did this, Ramza thought; over half of Ivalice's dragoons belonged to the forces of that province. When flanked, the Romandan frontline was surprised that Zeltennia's Argent Lancers did not try to strike their rear, but instead rode straight through to slaughter the crews of the siege machines which had begun to dig in for preparation of the Ivalician counter-strike.
He knew it was morning, but just as the vegetation continued to become a corruption of green, the sky itself dimmed as they closed on the swamp.
At the edge of the swamp, Ramza and Vittorio consulted with Estevez, who long ago had taken point with his crimson chocobo. "We have two choices... less than half an hour from this edge is a place where we can camp for the night-"
"Unacceptible," Vittorio interrupted. If we are to intercept those criminals, we cannot afford the loss of half a day; already their informants are en route to sail into Goug from Warjilis. We don't need to rest."
Estevez' beard was an extension of his tawny hair, making the man a lion beyond his stature and deep voice. Grizzled features, leather and fur, along with a scarred battle-axe contributed to his subdued feral aura. "Ah, but the dead do, till the sun wrests the day from the moon."
"Feh," the wizard chimed in from his black chocobo, his face hidden by the brim of his straw hat. "Living... dead... living dead... they all burn." The group proceeded to tune out his cackling.
"I do not jest," Estevez intoned deadpan. "In Zigolis, it is the dead that have not seen the end of war."
The raven-featured Vittorio shrugged it off in his charcoal armor. "Nevertheless, we will keep to our timetable..."
"As the fallen will to theirs," Estevez said finally before nudging his red chocobo into the rocky outcroppings that was the only landscape not absorbed by the swamp.
Less than an hour into the swamp, trouble was spotted. Weapons could be heard, the crackle of energy as mana coalesced and detonated mid-air, even the splashing of combatants... but lacking a very human aspect.
The screams... were nonexistent. No voices, no commands, no frenetic shouts, rallies, curses, exclamations, or pleas. Just the dull thunder of steel and plasma upon the soil, water, and air.
"Estevez, do you believe they are ours?" Vittorio queried, waving his left hand to rally a squad of soldiers. "Blue team," he ordered, "Prepare to engage. Ruglia," he addressed Ramza, "I can take care of the engineer, but we need a dragoon accompanying them." Evenly split, a knight formed a line of chocobo along the raised embankment of three squires, two archers, and a chemist who slung forward a bag filled with magic-infused orbs to be used as grenades. The archers were each flanked by an attendant squire whilst the remaining chemist and squire formed upon the middle-aged knight. "Sir Medici? We'll anchor here and hold this position... do not lose contact with us..."
"Blue leader, prepared, the knight replied, nonchalant.
The tawny geomancer only chuckled. "You really do not know anything of this swamp, yes?" Cutting off Vittorio's reply, he continued. "This poisoned land has a strange quality. It brings death to life, and conveys the opposite to that which has long ceased to be.
"Speak reason," Vittorio remarked, confused. Looking at Ramza he only received a shrug of the mercenary's spear. "The dead... do not... walk."
Haunted was the eyes of the geomancer, Ramza observed. "Young one," he intoned grimly, "you give those that came before far too little credit."
"Peace here exists not for the dead, keep that in mind," was all Estevez said, once again continuing on his own. Even as Medici's squad looked at Vittorio for orders, Ramza wheeled Boco to follow the crimson chocobo into the olive mists, the chocobo clucking at the poisonous muck it had to traverse in between the rocky outcroppings.
"Think... for a moment," he called back. "None travel these routes save soldiers and whomever else foolish enough to venture into no man's land. What bandit, pray tell, would prey this cursed swamp?"
Behind Ramza, Mustadio rode up alongside. "I don't think Estevez is wrong. Eccentric, but not deceptive."
"So here, ghosts are real," Ramza said softly.
"Blasphemy," replied the priestess who had caught up. "Evil spirits, yes... a haven of devils... not fallen soldiers." She sniffed. "Its not fair to them... to die continuously? I refuse to believe such heresy against God's ways."
"Sister Anja," Ramza addressed her coolly. "I truly hope that our guide is simply quixotic, for the sounds of that conflict come not only from one side, but all around... listen."
"What?" the priestess said back. "Its coming from-"
"Our left, our right, our rear..." Mustadio said out loud, his voice increasing in proportion to his understanding. "We're surrounded!"
"By what army..." Ramza replied, shrugging again. He followed with a shiver that only Boco observed. A chill passed through him more than the twilight breeze as the light of the sun began to be eclipsed by the moon.
Ramza knew better than to expect corpses on the ground still in full regalia; the skewered Romandan ballisteer he knew was left as an example, yet the morbid background of a battlefield was evident. The Zigolis lowlands, before it had ever become a swamp, was known to flood periodically, anchored by the highlands as the northern ocean swept in over the depression. The swampy terrain Ramza now traversed was once a thicket seperating a farm, he noticed, spotting, and traveling upon fallen trees that could only have been cover from hedgerows that separated crops.
Now a bog, even the water itself was a nauseating shade of green... rotting material, plant or otherwise. "I forgot what it was that Romanda left behind that would poison the land..." Mustadio remarked to Ramza. "Sure as hell, a swamp wouldn't kill you with just a moment's exposure."
"Is that why we're all leapfrogging the dry areas?" Ramza said in turn. "I remember that the 2nd Romandan Division relied on total war tactics..."
"Scorched earth, more like," cackled the wizard, who earned a reproving glance from the priestess. "Their engineers sabotaged the dikes along the coast once we forced them from the field... they killed their own rearguard in the ensuing flood"
"It isn't simply manmade," the priestess said, red locks hidden by her white robes, "but the malice itself prevalent among us during that time. Romanda came not to conquer in turn, but to reduce to ash for the evils we wreaked upon their land."
"Not enough," the wizard quipped, irking Anja, "If we did things right the first time, those bastards wouldn't have survived to adulthood and wreaked revenge."
"Its scum like yourself that are responsible for this travesty," riposted the crimson-trimmed Anja.
"Lady? If I was there, not a single child would have been spared. Can't exactly dish out payback if you never make it past puberty to grow the balls you need for it." he remarked so that one could have imagined the sadistic grin on his obscured visage.
It had begun to rain. Ramza looked up into the dark sky to feel water run from the visor of his stylized helm onto his face and down his neck. His armor kept him well insulated, with the interior and lower leather shell. Lightning flashed, an amethyst bolt from the heavens smiting something upon the earth.
It cleared the fog even as its thunder was heard. Ramza only grunted at the sights before him even as the Lionel soldiers recoiled at what had been revealed. Scanning Estevez' uncovered head, Ramza saw it shaking in bemusement.
Even as another forked arc struck the horizon, Ramza analyzed the shapes revealed. Besides the armored hulks of what once were men, floating apparitions drifted... disappeared, phased back into the mortal plane in a lazy path towards their formation. In lieu of birds were the Ahriman, appropriate sentinels in this wasteland.
"Holy..." The wizard muttered, before looking back at his counterpart. "No offense."
In a small voice, Anja could only shake her softly. "None... taken, Edward."
"I trained against people, not the undead... who knows how..." Vittorio said, even as he against sweapt the lance in his left hand above his head. "Form a line, contact imminent!"
"I have," Ramza remarked, before revealing some of his past. "We had to take forbidden routes like these before. Simply because they fall does not mean they are out." A groan from one of the squires interrupted him. "Protect the mages and the chemists; allow them to close. Steel alone will not kill these foes."
"So be it," Vittorio replied. "Medici, takes the mages, Enrique, you have the chemists." He turned to Ramza. "And how now?"
"Fighting the dead with those who preserve life..." Estevez said as he doubled back from where an Ahriman was approaching him. "Boy... you
Ramza would have replied had not a sapphire sphere emerge from the reforming fog to strike a squire.
"McCall!" A middle-aged archer screamed, distinct from the other four females by graying hair and a green beret.
"I'm all right..." he gasped as his chocobo spun while he reeled in the saddle. He continued to shudder.
"Deal out the holy water!" Vittorio screamed at the chemists. "Douse your weapons." He shook his head as the battle took shape.
An urge to laugh struck Ramza. These beings aren't necessarily evil... he had discovered that while resurrection and healing damaged these beings... holy attacks did not. "Mages," Ramza supplanted. "Down ether as much as you are able..." Already he charged ahead to take command of a group of soldiers as he once had before. "Our objective is Goug... fight through this thickness..."
"We're not too far from a safe path," Estevez murmured. "Two hours hard ride should place us in an isolated band of this swamp."
"Then do not lose sight of him," commanded Vittorio. "Advance!"
A the wizard eagerly produced his own flask as a chemist was handing Anja a supply, he raised it in toast. "You don't have to tell me twice."
Given orders, the panic from the undead began to shake off the Lionel troops. Even as the thrown bottles of blessed eau shattered against the chain mail and plate of the squires and the knights, remainder were poured down longswords and even shields.
Meanwhile, the archers had taken matters into their own hands. Half the Ahriman were subdued with the second and third following volleys of wood and steel. However, they themselves were being struck by the same blue balls of life-stealing energy that followed the trajectory of their missiles.
Already, the two Lionel squads, each flanking the center, had advanced. Hastily, the wounded were downing potions in preparation for the onslaught as their chocobos waded and charged through the polluted mire, saffron, purple, and crimson feathers all become blackened with filth.
The center was spearheaded by Ramza and Estevez, with Vittorio in close proximity. Mustadio hung back as he began to fire shots.
It was then that the ghosts phased back into the mortal plane.
Ramza twisted upon Boco's back to see Medici fall from his saddle unconscious and into the swamp's pools. Immediately, a squire rushed to his aid while the remaining two squires, archers and the chemists continued on their straight path towards the emerging forms of ghouls in the fog.
Ramza tilted forwards as he lined up an armored ghoul with his spear. Bracing himself into the chocobo, counting the portions of moments it took him to grip the chocobo only with his legs below the knees, the imagined sight of contact bobbed as he struggled to weave his spear into alignment.
It was a rewarding surge of pain as he lanced through the rusted breastplate of his foe. It was only in the flash of the moment during impact that Ramza saw in detail his foe. Blackened flesh were cloth had long ago since decayed, straps of leather and metal plates, links, and bars were all that remained of what was once armoring and clothes. Romanda... he recognized the crest that he had pierced. Like the undead he had led his squad to fight when they had become lost returning from the desert, it was a hellish sight that shook him to his core.
Awareness of the others disappeared, and for a moment, it was only Ramza... Boco... and suddenly, he could see the thousands of living dead around him. All of them bathed in a pale, argent, and diffused glow. He felt no mercy as he destroyed the body of his opponent however, even as his light extinguished and flickered into the stormy heavens. Something triggered in Ramza, and just as in the battles he waged when he was still Hokuten -those two years resembling eternal purgatory- as the spear exited the mangled corpse, reality returned, and Ramza Beoulve was born again.
To be Continued
Author's Notes
Erratice workschedules in the Army require me to post what I can, when I can, and as such, don't be surprised to see the same amount of posted chaptes, but constant modifications and additions being done on the latest segment.
Oh, and on another note... its good to back.
Author's Notes