Chapter Twenty-Eight

Mustadio shook his head slowly. "If you think there's some back way out of the tunnels, then I'm sorry, but there isn't. My father and I were thorough, when we first explored the mine."

"No. It's not that," Alma said quietly.

"What are you thinking, then?" Mustadio asked.

Alma gnawed anxiously at her lower lip.

For most people, learning to teleport was a grueling process. Years spent learning basic black magic as a wizard, before having any hope of grasping the more advanced concepts involved with time magic, which might eventually allow one to teleport, if one turned out to be especially skilled.

However, there was another way; for those who were willing to pay the price. Those like Vormav and Rofel and Elmdor.

A pact with any of the myriad underworld demons (it didn't necessarily have to be one of the esteemed Lucavi), plus a small blood sacrifice each time, could buy a person the ability to teleport. No years of practice with time magic necessary, just the ever-so-insignificant price of one's devotion.

Alma had never expressly made any such pact, but she was certain she would be able to teleport, if she tried. Altima had always been greater than any of the demons; teleportation was nothing, in comparison to some of the other things she suspected she would be capable of, if she were someone else, with someone else's desires.

The only problem was, there was no way she would be able to convince Mustadio that she had secretly spent years learning time magic and conveniently mastering teleportation through the honest method. That talent was exceedingly rare, even among dedicated mages.

As Alma began to see it, she could either confess that she was capable of some of the darkest magic imaginable, thanks to her god-like brain parasite, or she could sit here in this cave and let them both slowly run out of air to breathe.

There was plenty of blood already spilled, on both of them, thanks to the cave-in, to fuel the spell.

Grimacing, Alma grabbed hard onto Mustadio's wrist, and she thought of the small pond that sat a half-mile away from their house.

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Mustadio immediately threw up, when he found himself knee-deep in water.

Alma was okay. She had instinctively known how to relax her muscles in just the right way, to avoid the stomach upset that often accompanied teleportation.

"What just happened?!" Mustadio gasped, between retches. "How are we? A-am I—what in hell?"

Alma looked around herself, elated to see the endless gray-blue sky above, in spite of everything else.

"I thought we could try to wash some of the blood out of our clothing. Before we have to talk to the others," Alma said.

Mustadio had finished vomiting and hyperventilating and hunching over in a shaking heap. He slowly and unsteadily waded out of the pond water, sitting down carelessly in the squishy mud of the bank.

"How did we get here, Alma?" he demanded. "I didn't just—tell me I didn't just imagine we were trapped in our mine a few moments ago."

Alma reluctantly sat down in the mud, beside him.

"You did not imagine it," she sighed, resignedly.

It almost felt good, unburdening. Alma confessed everything to Mustadio, as their backsides sank ever deeper into the cold mud, and they shivered in the chill breeze: she recounted her holding of the Virgo stone each night, for the gods only knew how many nights, all told. Her memories of Altima slowly surfacing, as Vormav had predicted. And then that final moment, when she had nearly been forced to share one body and one mind with Altima, but had narrowly escaped.

Or, at least, thought she had escaped. Considering that Altima's mind seemed to have hitchhiked along with her, after all.

She had expected that she wouldn't even be able to get through the whole story before Mustadio jumped up in terror, or disgust. Or maybe just shot her, knowing it was the only way to make sure they had finished off Altima for good.

She also suspected that if Mustadio didn't do it, then someone else would, once the others learned the truth.

Mustadio just sat with his arms wrapped around his knees, hunched against the cold. It was finally starting to really feel like autumn, here in southern Ordallia. Mustadio had interjected a couple times at the beginning of Alma's story, but toward the end he had gone entirely silent.

"So," Alma said, at last. "I did not want to tell any of you. I am sure you understand why."

"I can understand why you didn't tell Ramza," Mustadio said. "You could have told me, though. You should have told me."

He didn't look afraid or judgmental, Alma thought. He just looked sort of annoyed.

"Well… won't you tell Ramza, now?" Alma said slowly.

"Hell, no, I'm not going to tell him!" Mustadio said. "Look, Ramza's great and all, but he can be a little… overzealous… sometimes. I'm not going to tell him, and I don't think you should tell anyone else, either."

"Oh," Alma said. She wasn't sure what else to say, given his unexpected ease with her horrifying confession.

"I mean, it's not like you're rampaging around, destroying cities, are you? Maybe it's not that big a deal, if you just have some of Altima's memories," Mustadio said.

All, Alma thought, suddenly feeling a bit desperate, Maybe, all of Altima's memories. I just try not to think about them.

She didn't tell that extra detail to Mustadio.

"Um," Alma said. "Well, if we are not going to confess that I teleported us out of the mine, then… what do we say to the others? How will we explain being up here, instead of trapped down there?"

Mustadio shrugged. "I guess… we could say we took a break from work. Yes. We went for a walk to the pond, and we don't know why the mine collapsed. We weren't even there when it happened."

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Alma and Mustadio were quite shocked to find, when they reached their house, in sopping wet clothing, that no one else in the group had even yet realized that the mine had collapsed.

In fact, the whole group was gathered in front of the house, where, unexpectedly, Balthier and Wulfhilda were standing, with a bashful-looking Luso in tow.

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Author's Note: This chapter is only about half as long as my usual, but I think the next chapter will be much longer to make up for it. Recently, I've been thinking about how I had to read through the game script online quite a lot to try to get events in the right order while writing this fic… and it made me start reflecting about how, unfortunately, I did not do that at all when I wrote my previous fic beginning in 2019 (the Algus/Teta one). When I decided to write that Algus/Teta fic in the first place, I can actually remember thinking to myself:

"So. Okay, girl. You're going to write a fic that by necessity involves Delita, who is one of the most politically enmeshed people in the whole game? Even though your eyes have glazed over at every political conversation in the game and you've paid zero attention to those boring parts, every single time you've played? But you're going to write this anyway, huh? Even knowing how lazy you are, and that you're not even going to google to see if any of your random assumptions are correct? Even though your understanding of Delita is basically only that he stabbed and framed a bunch of people, he was Goltana's little buddy until he killed him, and didn't he maybe have something to do with the church? Okay. Well. This is gonna come out… interesting. Why am I doing this? Goddammit."

And after I read through the game script more in 2020, I found out things were even more terribly wrong than I suspected, in my Algus/Teta fic, lol. Like, why the fuck did I make Elmdor part of the Northern Sky during the WotL? That doesn't even make sense! I've stumped even myself. And I think I entirely forgot that Larg existed? I just gave Larg's whole role to Dycedarg in that fic. (I tried to go back in and fix the Elmdor statements, but I left things alone with Dycedarg stealing Larg's life. Who needs Larg, anyway?)

So, I guess what I'm saying is, if any Tactics fans who are super knowledgeable about the political crap in the game, like, suffered a rage-induced heart attack while reading my Algus/Teta fic, I wouldn't really be surprised. Thanks for putting up with me, to everyone who has read this, and for not leaving mean comments. I am trying a little harder here, with my Ramza fic, but I wouldn't be surprised if this is absolutely full of mistakes as well.

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