3

Linkshell:

Enter the Yakuza

Sogre spent many months in Jeuno but he longed to return to his beloved Windurst. Not too long after being in Jeuno he had encountered a Hume man talking to one of his associates. Sogre recognized this man as Alarec a friend he had known in Windurst. They talked for a short time about Windurst, Alarec was curious why Sogre was in Jeuno, last everyone heard of him he was in Mhaura with Gehe. Sogre evaded that question and in return asked why he was in Jeuno. Alarec explained to the young Tarutaru that he was recruiting members for his faction. To make a long boring story short Alarec gave Sogre a pearl to his linkshell faction. A linkshell is a tool used to communicate between the leader and their faction members, if a person talks into the shell everyone with an active pearl turned on will be able to hear and vice versa, if someone talks into the pearl the same effect will occur. Alarec's faction was called The Yakuza and from the weeks he spent with them Sogre met many new friends but the point of this chapter is to highlight one in particular; another Tarutaru with silver hair and almond eyes called Koud.

One afternoon Sogre was in forest region of Ronfaure, it was a nice, warm sunny day, outside birds were chirping in the trees as Sogre walked past them. Sogre loved carefree days like this one, the warm spring wind was blowing slightly ruffling his naturallyunkept hair. He sat down to enjoy a patch of warm grass that the sun was shining upon through a break in the trees. Sogre looked at the blue sky and the white puffy clouds through the small opening. He almost fell asleep when he heard someone from his linkshell asking for help. He recognized the voice and the accent, it was Koud; one of the linkshell's officers and more advanced clerics. "Anyone free today?" Koud asked over the linkshell, no one responded. Sogre felt bad so he responded back "Hey Koud, I'm free whatcha need?" It took Koud a few moments to respond back "Hi Sogre, wanna help me try to get a rare herb?" Koud asked, Sogre silently chuckling to himself because of Koud's accent. "Sure, where at?" Sogre replied. "In the Pashow Marshlands." Koud said. "Ok I'm on my way from San d' Oria, see you soon" Sogre said as he put his pearl back into his pack. Sogre did not really want to leave his nice and warm patch of grass but he decided that it would be a good deed for the day to go help a linkshell mate. Sogre trudged back up the path back to the Kingdom of San d' Oria.

Sogre entered the town,tall stone walls encased the kingdom served as protection forthe citizens from the orcs that made camp in the Ronfaure and Fort Gheslba. The Temple Knights were the guards of the proud Elvaan capital. Sogre walked down to the local chocobo stables, passing through the main square and the auction house which as usual, was swamped with willing adventurers eager to buy items straight off the auction house with their hard earned gil and then there were those adventurers who set up their own shop to sell some of their useless junk hoping to make a slight profit. Sogre entered the wooden stables and spoke with the female Elvaan attendant, he showed her his chocobo license and gave her a two hundred gil piece and set off on one of the smaller chocobos, there was no sense of him getting a very large one since he was a very small Tarutaru maybe not even standing three feet tall.

Getting a chocobo license as an adventurer was no easy task for Sogre. When he reached Jeuno roughly a month ago possibly longer Sogre walked down to the stables to apply for a license but the attendant was less than helpful. The tattooed Hume man told Sogre to get lost and that they were not accepting new applications until the illness that plagued their chocobos went away. This dashed Sogre's hopes of riding a chocobo. He left the stable master's office enraged and saddened, Sogre then sat down on the steps outside the stables looking at the poor chocobo with pity. A normal color for a chocobo's feathers is gold but the color in this bird's feathers resembled a very dull and faded piece of construction paper. Then he heard it again, the same voice he heard when he was at the crag in La Theine Plateau.

"Try feeding it a little bit of gausebit grass."

The voice told Sogre. He was sitting outside the auction house and it did not seem like that bad of an idea. Sogre got up and bought a few pieces of gausebit grass and fed it to the chocobo, immediately it seemed to affect the chocobo, Sogre fed the chocobo in secret for an entire week until the stable master caught him with the now well chocobo. Sogre explained that he thought gausebit grass would help the chocobo get well. The stable master instead of yelling at Sogre he thanked him for saving his chocobo, the master then presented Sogre with his license free of charge.

The Tarutaru rode through the forest of Ronfaure swiftly on his chocobo, the air rushing against his face and through his hair. Sogre passed many adventurers and fiends on the ride out of the Ronfaure and into the La Theine Plateau. Today it was raining in the plateau; the rain was frigid and chilled Sogre to the bone. He did not linger in the Plateau for very long for fear he would turn into a taru-sickle Sogre navigated through the cracks and various crevices of the plateau and eventually found himself no longer on grass but on sand.

Sogre realized that he had reached the Valkurm Dunes once more. His tunic began to dry almost instantly, the heat of the desert was too much for the Tarutaru so he drew back the hood allowing more air to circulate through his clothing. He rode through the sand and the fiends that had inhabited the dunes. "Its all the same, nothing has changed." Sogre commented to himself remembering his first venture into the dunes well over a month ago. Sogre rode valiantly through the dunes as fast as his chocobo could take him, even though he was no longer susceptible to the heat exhaustion the dunes had been known to cause Sogre just did not like heat at all. After riding for half an hour Sogre began to notice grass appearing on the ground; he had left the dunes and entered the highlands. "Wow these birds are fast." Sogre thought, amazed at how fast a half day hike was cut down to a mere half hour on chocobo.

The Konschat Highlands, a meadow and grassy region similar to the Sarutabaruta that surrounded the Federation of Windurst. Bastok used the highlands as a source of power, most of the time a strong breeze passed through the republic decided to harness that untainted power supply and built several windmills throughout the highlands to harness the power of wind. No one really knew what the power went to but it was most likely used to power a contraption or several contraptions created by the republic's chief engineer; Cid.

Sogre wished he could sit back and relax in the meadows of the highlands but he promised Koud that he would help him find an herb in the marshlands, perhaps one day he could come back and just sit in the meadows and look up at the clear blue sky and just watch the clouds move. Sogre noticed a crag in the distance as he headed north east towards the marshlands; he never visited this crag before so he rode over to it. The grand stone altar was the same as the other two he had seen. Sogre dismounted his chocobo and tied it to a break in the stone. Sogre cautiously approached the cerulean crystal wondering if he would hear that voice call out to him once more. Sogre reached out and touched the warm glowing crystal, once more his body flowed with energy and he was aware of everything.

"Sogre it is time…venture to the Maze of Shakrahmi and retrieve the stone with the help of Koud, call Ban if needed but please for the sake of all life in Vana 'diel you must release me from my prison."

Sogre immediately pulled his hand away from the crystal. The voice was no longer a slight whisper in his ear he was positive that the voice grew louder and louder each time he came in contact with one of these crag crystals. "Sogre where the hell are you?" Koud's voice boomed from Sogre's linkpearl, it startled Sogre and he fell down the altar steps onto the ground. "Ouch.." Sogre muttered. He took the linkpearl out of his pocket "Yeah what is it? " he groaned as he rubbed his sore head and back. "Where are you?" Koud asked. "In the highlands, I'm almost there just gimme a few more minutes." Sogre said as he put away his linkpearl. He got up and mounted his chocobo mumbling something about using Koud's head as a soccer ball.

The Pashow Marshlandsis pretty much as it sounds; a marsh. Quadav roam this area scouting for fresh meat that may wander by. Today it was raining much like every other day except on this day there a small Tarutaru stood on the outskirts of the marshes waiting for another person. His breastplate was covered in acombination of water, mud and muck from the marsh.

"Where is this guy?" The Tarutaru wondered removing his shield and setting it down beside him since his arm was tired from supporting it. "Hey Koud!" A voice called in the distance, Koud looked around and saw a chocobo with a small Tarutaru approaching with surprising speed. "Took you long enough!" Koud grumbled. Sogre dismounted his chocobo who then took off at an even greater speed than Sogre rode on it, probably heading to the nearest stables. "What exactly are we looking for?" Sogre asked as they trudged through the muck and water. "Well," Koud began "we are looking for a monster with grass covering its back, I need the seeds from its back for gardening." Once Koud mentioned gardening Sogre burst into laughter. His first impression of Koud was that he was a serious and macho Tarutaru since he served for a short while as a War Warlock in the federation's army. "What's so funny?" Koud asked. "Nothing." Sogre said as he tried to contain himself." Sogre tried to take another step but the combination of muck and mud caused him to fall face first into the filthy mud, Koud found this extremely funny and burst into laugher as Sogre got up covered in marsh muck. Koud helped him walk taunting him not to fall again and come back out as swamp thing's best friend. After a while of walking the rain washed away some of the muck covering Sogre's face, you could at least see his facial features now, such as his orange skin and his black chipmunk-like nose.

They wandered the marsh for a few hours and they could not find this monster with grass on its back. Sogre at this point was very tired and very dirty; he had fallen two more times. "Koud I don't think we'll find it here." Just as Sogre said these words Koud had shouted that he found it. "Of course." Sogre said looking up to the sky talking to the unknown on looker. Sogre drew his sword and rushed over to the battle, Koud had his shield up and hammer drawn; he was ready for combat. Sogre chanted a magical spell granting his blade the temporary power of wind with each blow he dealt. Koud called upon the light to surround himself and Sogre with a barrier that would soften the enemie's blows. Sogre slashed at the monster, it was easily taller than three of him stacked. The monster stood at least ten feet tall. "Sogre distract him while I get the seeds!" Koud shouted as he snuck behind the monster. "Alright!" Sogre said in return. To give Koud some cover and to hinder the monster's eye sight Sogre conjured up a magic fog that allowed him and Koud to move around the enemy while making it much harder for the monster to see. The tall giant-like monster wailed about blindly missing Sogre by a mile each blow, to further enrage the beast and for partial fun Sogre lit a fire under the monster's feet causing the moss monster to dance about wildly. Sogre laughed at this while Koud cluctched onto the grass on the monster's back so he would not fly off and cursedSogre because it was rather difficult to extract seeds when the monster was flailing about like a mad man. The monster moaned in agony at the fire, "Ok all done!" Koud shouted as he joyfully hopped off the poor beasts' back. Sogre nodded and extinguished the fire and then said a few more words of magic and the giant blue monster with moss on its back was lulled off to sleep. "Koud can we go to Tahrongi?" Sogre asked. "Sure." Koud responded. He began chanting a teleportation spell, Sogre could not understand the words Koud spoke but understood it as the mystical language of magic. Then a white flash occurred, the Pashow Marshlands slowly melted away as Sogre was jerked back then pushed forward again, instead of seeing the wet marshlands he opened his eyes to see the dry and arid region of Tahrongi. Sogre and Koud stepped down from the altar and waiting for them was a tall Elvaan with blonde hair spiked up. "Ban you made it!" Sogre said happily. This was the first time he had seen Ban since their long walk to Jeuno. "Yeah I couldn't resist this adventure." Ban said politely bowing to Koud. "What's going on?" Koud asked as the three of them trudged off to the eastern tip of the canyon. "Well I got you your seeds and I need help finding this rock thing." Sogre explained as they walked along the edge of a mountain looking for something. "Is this what we're looking for?" Koud asked as he walked in a crack in the mountainside. "Yeah! Koud you're a genius." Sogre exclaimed happily as he entered the crack too followed shortly by Ban.

The Maze of Shakrahmi; a series of tunnels buried deep within the mountainside of Tahrongi. Hardly any adventurers ventured into its labyrinth like tunnels but, there was a rumor of great treasure deep within the tunnels to those who braved them.

"It's a bit dark in here don't you think?" Ban said and all at once the three of them cast their magical light allowing them to see. "Ban I thought you were a traveling Bard?" Sogre inquired wondering why his friend had a sword at his side and able to use magic. "Yeah well that was just a side thing. Fencing and minor spells is where my true passion lies." Ban explained. Koud walked in and found an injured adventurer laying on the ground. He immediately began to chant a aura that would alleviate the pain from the deep slash the poor Mithra had in her side. "Thank…you." She said, still weak from the cut which was rapidly closing due to Koud's magic. While wandering the caves and tunnels Koud provided assistance to other injured treasure seekers and adventurers alike, in one case he was able to bring someone back from the brink of death. Sogre was amazed at the power Koud wielded, not only was he a powerful cleric but he was able to hold his own in a battle as well with his trusty hammer he kept at his side. They had walked around the cave for a long period of time, they encountered fierce goblins and bats alike and even a couple of worms that flung boulders at who so ever came close to them. "Sogre we aren't going to get a single thing here." Koud complained after walking around for hours. Sogre did not want to believe this so he ignored Koud's complaints. After a few more minutes of walking the three decided they needed to rest. No sooner had they sat down Ban exclaimed in pain. Sogre and Koud looked concerned; Ban reached under him and pulled out a bright red ruby from his behind. Sogre stared at it mystified and entranced by the gem. Sogre took it from Ban's hand and as soon as he touched it he heard a mystical voice calling out to him.

"Well done Sogre but your task has just begun! I need you to take me to my master's home in Windurst all will be explained there."

Sogre came to and was face to face with Ban and Koud who were obviously worried. "Dude what happened to you?" Koud asked. "Yeah you just kind of stared blankly into space." Ban added sounding concerned. Sogre sat up and placed the newly acquired ruby into his pack, Koud and Ban were still looking at him cautiously like he was about to slip into a coma. "Hey Koud." Sogre began. "Yeah?" Koud said as he and Ban stood up "Can you cast your teleportation spell once more? I need to go to Windurst." Koud nodded and cast his spell, once again Sogre was jerked back then forward as the tunnels slowly melted away and the dry and arid canyon re formed. Sogre thanked Koud and Ban as they cast their own spells that warped them away, Sogre then ran down the stone steps of the crag with the mysterious ruby clenched tightly in his little hand.

Final Fantasy XI: Sogre's Story 2003-2006

--Argos of Bahamut