The first collision of swords caused amber sparks to fly in both directions as Alain's larger blade scraped across the side of Naji's short sword. He twisted his arms up and brought it down on top of the smaller weapon, but was deflected just enough so the weapon did not bear the brunt of the downward force. Naji rolled sideways and then their swords met as he got back to his feet. Sparks once again spread from their blades as they met and pushed against one another.
Finding the advantage, Alain pulled his hilt low then pushed it forwards tipping his blade down and then backwards. The bottom of his hilt met with Naji's chin and bashed into it, sending the musketeer stumbling backwards into the wall opposite the Auction House.
Alain swung his sword horizontally and it met harshly with the wall as Naji ducked to avoid it. The tip of his blade crashed into the rock wall with enough force to cause part of it to break away and for cracks to spread from the point of impact in all directions.
"Flat blade!" The Mythril Musketeer yelled.
The blade of his short sword was enveloped in a red light as he swiped it sideways towards his gut. His own weapon was too large to bring down to fully parry the attack, but Alain was able to tilt it enough to catch the blade. He skidded backwards as the red light burst, sending a shockwave of air into him. Through the upturned dust filling the side street, Naji charged forwards.
They met in the cloud of dust and sparks lit it up every few seconds as more exchanges were made between fighters. Naji was forced backwards towards the opening in the street again as he avoided heavy swings. He picked an opening and thrust forwards, but was parried at the last minute. Alain swung the side of his weapon into Naji's knocking him against the Auction House rear and then slammed his sword into it as the musketeer was able to avoid him again.
"Ha, ha…" Naji panted. "It's not as easy to beat me now, is it? Captain Volker trained me after I became a musketeer and… he is the greatest swordsman in all of Bastok!"
He tiled his sword up and then back down in a battle ready position. Alain's cumbersome great sword had enough power to knock Naji back, but was much slower compared to the short and quick thrusting attacks his friend seemed to now favour. Volker had taught him a swift fighting style to strike the enemy quickly and dodge any counterattack. However, whereas he was somewhat accustomed to swinging a cumbersome weapon around and thus not as fatigued, Naji was clearly the more tired of the two from ducking, diving, and rolling away from his attacks.
Another exchanged of attacks commenced. The thrusting attacks from Naji increased in accuracy and strength, and it seemed to Alain like this was his friend using up the last of his stamina to unleash a berserk flurry in an attempt to wound him to level the playing field. He met each foray, but the speed was far too much for him. He felt the sword blade catch the top of his left shoulder as he twisted in an attempt to parry another attack.
Dropping to one knee, he felt blood trickle down his arm. His simple clothing had been torn easily and now hung down his exposed arm. Naji attempted to knock his sword from his other hand, but he held it tightly and parried the attack. As he got back onto his feet he stumbled sideways as the short sword passed by his thigh and cut into his skin. He dropped back onto one knee as blood pattered off the ground by his leg. Naji leapt back a short distance and assumed his fighting stance with his bloodied blade pointing towards him horizontally.
"Please give up, Alain!" he cried. "You can't hold your weapon anymore…just, give in. I don't want to kill you!"
Green and blue thin slithers of light rose from around his figure in a circle shape as he opened an enclosed palm. Around Naji's feet a purple circle appeared that formed into a majestic shape with magic runes surrounding the inner edges. Purple beams of light shot up from the markings, ensnaring his legs and binding him to the spot. He immediately fought against them and Alain knew his magic would not hold the musketeer for any great length of time.
Leaping to his feet he pointed his wounded arm forwards and mouthed magical words silently. Two amber circles of light crossed over Naji's chest and pinned his hands to his sides. Though his sword was forced vertical, he did not let it go and instantly fought against the stun spell.
Charging forwards with his great sword scrapping alone the ground in one hand behind him, Alain focused his built up energy on his weapon. Yellow light surrounded the sparking blade with a red tint through the middle. As he reached Naji, the musketeer broke free of his bounds and grabbed the tip of the sword blade in his other hand and held it up as a defence.
"Sickle Moon!" Alain roared.
His blade let the flowing energy around it flow out as he bent backwards and forced his wounded arm to grab the bottom of his weapons hilt. He pulled the great sword through the ground as it cut into it like butter and swiped upwards straight into the air with his attack. Naji's blade was cut in two as Alain's weapon was pushed upwards through it. The shockwave of energy caught the musketeer in the right of his stomach and right up to his shoulder as he was blown through the air, eventually rolling to a halt further up the street with a trail of blood following him along the ground. The two sections of his broken blade were enveloped by the attack and utterly destroyed.
All the energy that was released was suddenly drawn back into the blade as it shook with power above Alain's head. Naji watched with wide eyes, clearly afraid and aware that Sickle Moon was a two stage attack. The musketeer knew he did not have the strength to avoid or block the attack.
Alain turned fully around and dropped the blade into the ground. A half moon shaped white energy beam tore across the ground, eventually colliding with the collection of crates that had been blocking his way, causing them to explode. Various assortments of goods now burnt to cinders rained down on everywhere nearby and smoke filled the passage. Resting his sword on his back, he shot out into the street through his new escape route, clutching his wounded arm as he went and suffering through the pain from his leg.
A crowd had formed and people starred in awe at him as he emerged from the explosion. They had not seen Naji or what had happened so he still had time. Other musketeers from the Auction House and South Gate were approaching though. They spotted him and the wounds he bore and ordered him to put his weapon on the floor.
It was becoming a familiar feeling to him as he shot off down the street with more people perusing and calling after him. He felt like a thief that was escaping with his loot.
Reaching inside his tunic, he searched for his pearl and brought it out. Holding it in his bloodied hand, he spoke hastily into it and asked if someone was there. A voice crackled back, but he was not sure who's because of all the noise around him. He knew someone was there and that was enough.
"Listen…I've been caught… don't come after me. The message said…find Hanaa in Selbina or Mhuara…then go to…Kazham. Find out how to get to Norg there… Zeid will be waiting there with…Gerdinus. Just…go…don't worry about me. I'm fine."
More sound echoed through the pearl. It was whoever it was on the other end trying to say something back, but he could not hear it. He crushed the pearl in his hand and let the broken crystalline remains fall to the floor as he ran.
As he turned the next corner he stumbled as pain shot up his thigh and caught his wounded shoulder on the wall and landed painfully on the floor. His great sword fell from his back and skidded across the ground over the edge of the platform and down to somewhere in Ore Street. He heard a distance clunk as it landed. He did not try to get up and lay starring up at the sky. Everything seemed a little bit blurry.
People surrounded him. He could not tell if it was just passers by, musketeers, or Galka. They were just lumps of shadow obscuring the sky. Soon he slipped into unconsciousness and lost all feeling in his body.
"Here you are, Cathy!" Nokum-Akkum squealed with glee and trotted up to where she sat.
He had found her in the upper room of the Highwind's top deck. It was where (on the normal communal airships) the upper tower would be that overlooked the rest of the upper deck. On the Highwind however it was a sort of study, littered with quite a few books and general supplies that did not have a place in the equipment storage room on the opposite end of the deck. Their original orders to investigate the northlands were in the room as well as witness reports on the kindred spreading through the snowy lands and any sightings of Hanaa and the other champions. There were also some tools for various crafts, including alchemy which was her speciality.
She sat behind a very elegant looking brown wooden desk on a chair made from the same material. Clearly a master woodsman had made them and much of the bookshelves and cupboards in the room. She could only guess why Cid would have such a room made for the airship, but to her it definitely seemed to be a private study and a place to hold information.
Nokum-Akkum wandered around the side of the desk (which obscured most of his form save for the jagged tips of his messy blond hair). He stopped and did not move for a second and then his small tiny arms appeared over the edge of the desk as he tried to pull himself up onto it. Catherine did not like the idea of Nokum-Akkum walking over such a finely crafted piece of furniture, but knew that the Tarutaru would not care about such things. She got up and helped him up onto it. He held her tightly as she did, much to her annoyance.
Still blushing, Nokum-Akkum took careful steps across the desk avoiding the scattered papers and alchemy equipment she had been using to find out what she had been doing since Alain's departure. He bent over and sniffed at a lot of the containers full of potions and the vials of potent elixirs.
"Cathy…" he said at last.
"Yes?"
"…The stuff in this vial here is smelly-welly! Whataru are you up to?"
Asking her short friend to sit down, she waited until he had reached the end of the desk and hung his legs out over the side. A small wooden rectangle on the desk with holes carved into it held six glass vials. Three of the vials were empty. The other three had varying amounts of a yellow liquid.
Holding up one of the vials containing the foul smelly liquid, she asked if he knew what it was. The Tarutaru kicked his feet back and forth off the expensive desk and shook his head over zealously; clearly more interested in the attention he was receiving from her.
"This is…well, I should say, was, the blood of one of those black cloaked people that was killed inside Dynamis," she explained. "I scooped up a torn piece of black fabric that had quite a bit of blood on it in the hopes it would help me discovery just exactly what they are."
The Tarutaru was silent for a moment before speaking and thought hard, "But…they had red blood, like normal peoples! That stuff is yellow… Why is thataru stinky stuff in there yellow!"
"It started off as red as any Hume's and stayed that way for a few days. In order to preserve a sample I kept it inside a vial of distilled water after we returned to the Highwind and that was when I noticed a very strange effect begin to take place. It seemed like the distilled water was causing the dried blood to coagulate and slowly but surely it became the yellow liquid you are looking at now."
Nokum-Akkum picked up a vial of the yellow liquid again and swirled it around. His other hand was firmly over his nose as he did. He noted (or, at least, she hoped he noted) that it was no longer as fluidic and seemed much more like a slime or oil of some kind. The amount of the liquid also increased beyond the tiny spatters of stained blood the samples had grown from.
"I tried applying some of the yellow liquid to a sample still in blood form and was shocked by what occurred. The two seemed to react badly to one another and form a gooey grey mass before eventually becoming the yellow slime. It seems that the yellow mixed with red creates a bipolar effect for a short duration before the yellow inevitably consumes the red."
"…So…whataru is this then?" he asked, and grinned at her annoyed expression.
"A liquid of alchemic origins most likely, but it is nothing like I have ever seen a synthesis produce. It is a fluid that mimics the appearance of blood when it is spilled, but reverts back to its true form if mixed with water or already converted blood for a period of time. Beyond those repercussions this much is clear; those cloaked figures do not live or breath. I'm not sure what they are, but…"
"Yes?" he asked, encouraging her to think out loud.
"If we ignore that this liquid can mimic blood in its initial form, this yellow liquid is not dissimilar to the slimy oils used to keep automatons joints from locking up. I remember reading that such oils are highly sought after by Puppetmasters of the Near East. However, I believe the puppets used by masters are for entertainment purposes only and not capable of the incredible fighting prowess we have seen this black cloaked ones use…but I do not know enough about such things to be sure."
Hand on his chin and in deep thought, Nokum-Akkum stood back up and wandered about the desk. He forget that the desk was littered with papers and containers of all sorts and did manage to knock into a few things and crumple a few parchments, but that did not stop him. He was to busy deducing things with his mighty Tarutaru logic.
"…So you think… these guys thataru were fighting the Orcs in Dynamis and trying to kill us are puppetarus?"
"I believe so," she replied. "However, a puppet cannot work without its master to pull its strings. If these automatons that we have fought against are indeed puppets of some sort, then they must be controlled by someone trained in the arts of puppetry."
They both became silent when there was the sound of commotion outside. Suddenly, Samual burst into the room shocking them both. Nokum-Akkum toppled backwards and fell off the table with fright.
"Come quickly!" he cried. "Alain is in trouble!"
"You there," someone said. "Are you awake, sir? Come now, you've stopped snoring so you simply must be awake."
Alain opened one eye and very slowly his other decided to join in. Everything was black and there was a stale smell in the air not dissimilar to the sewers underneath San d'Oria. He tried to move his arms apart so he could rub his eyes to stop them from blurring so much but found that he could not separate them. He did his best to sit up with his arms pinned together in front of him to find whoever was speaking to him.
Though he did not recognise the sights slowly taking shape before his eyes he knew where he had to be. The walls were all a stained grey colour and there was very little light at all. The numerous bars of a prison cell with a door built in were less than two meters in front of him and the bed he had been asleep on was nothing more than a bit of dry rotted wood with a sheet on.
He was in Bastok Dungeons.
"Will you tell me your name, sir?" a voice asked.
The source of the voice was from the next cell along from his on his right. The cell on his left was empty, as was the two after that. It became clear to him that, of all the cells in the row, the person in the cell next to him was the only other person in the entire block, which was very strange.
"…Yeah, I'm Alain," he replied at last. "Who…where… My head is pounding, did they knock me out?"
The bindings on his wrists keeping his hands together were surprisingly heavy, though that could have been because he felt so drained. He found himself unable to rub his head and could only suffer through the ache. He resorted instead to finding out who he was speaking with.
A dull lamp between the two cells on the wall opposite the row of cells was the only light and with his eyes refusing to focus all he could tell about the person in the cell next to him so far was that it was a well spoken male. It was very dark, but he believed the person seemed much taller than him and was dressed in a dirty looking blue shirt with matching trousers. To his surprised, he found that he had been changed into the same clothes. They were prison clothes.
"There was quite a commotion when they brought you down here. I was very surprised," the person in the next cell said. "Though I welcome the company, something tells me that you should not be down here. Pray tell; why were you brought to the Dark Dungeon?"
The name Dark Dungeon was something he had heard batted around in rumour and folk lore. A lower level dungeon somewhere underneath the metal works far removed from where the common riff raft taken in to custody by the musketeers were kept. It was where criminals, the worst of the worst, were supposedly sent to disappear. Naturally he had just assumed it was stupid stories, as the republic would never do such an unconstitutional thing.
"I…I guess I almost killed a Mythril Musketeer…" he said with a sigh.
"I see…" was the reply. "Then perhaps you truly are meant to be here. However, murder is not a noted offence, at least in the small sense, as enough of a crime to warrant coming down here I would say. Those gallant Mythril Musketeers are tough, are they not? You must be strong to have almost killed one. Maybe that is the reason."
"No I didn't mean to… well, I had no choice. I had to get away."
A subdued laugh was the reply at first this time. It sounded somewhat gruff as well, as if the person speaking to him was quite old. He asked what was so funny and the person immediately apologised for his rudeness.
The person seemed extremely well mannered and articulate, which made it all the more bizarre to Alain that such a person would be in the Dark Dungeon. Surely, if the place was real, it would only be the most horrible killers that were sent to it to be forgotten. It made him question whether it was all just some dream. He groaned as his head strained under the pain.
"Those bracers are having quite the ill effect on you," the person in the next cell muttered. "You must know magic of some form, correct? Those bracers lock out your ability to control spells. From what I understand; the first time a magic user is subjected to them it can be like being denied enough oxygen."
"…You don't know for sure?" was all he managed as a response.
"Unfortunately, I do not, my friend. I am not blessed with knowledge of any form of magic. I was ignorant of such things in youth and now they are beyond me."
The person in the next cell stood up and stretched. He was far taller than Alain which confirmed another thing to him; it was an Elvaan. He came close to the bars and he was able to put together a face. The Elvaan had a grey beard that had grown quite far down his front with hair also running up in front of both his pointed ears. His black eyes were strained and barely open.
"Who are you?" Alain asked the Elvaan.
He smiled, "I do not have a name. Well, I'm sure I did once, but I have sadly forgotten. I would tell you the names that the guards use when they deliver food, but I do not think those are appropriate."
"How long have you been down here?"
"Oh, not very long, let's see now… three months? Perhaps it is longer than that. If I made it sound like I had been here for a while then I do apologise. When ones only company is the occasional rat attempting to steal ones dinner, time does not pass briskly."
He could not help but laugh at the elderly Elvaan's anecdotes. Someone so amiable and passive did not seem like the sort of person that would be held prisoner for at least three months. That led Alain inevitably to the next obvious question; why was the nameless Elvaan imprisoned.
"My profession, if it can so be called, is…relieving those who can afford to part with certain items."
"You're a Thief…" Alain muttered.
"Come now, sir. A thief is such a broad term. A thief can be someone who steals money out of pure greed and at the same time be a homeless child who simply wishes to have something to eat. There is a distinction between the type of thief you now think I am and that what I actually am."
"Are you going to tell me that you are so poor that you had to steal food?"
The nameless Elvaan chuckled happily to himself and sat back down on the bed inside his cell.
"Wait a minute… a well spoken Elvaan who steals things… three months ago… I read about your arrest in the Vana'diel Tribune, I'm sure of it. That's who you are! You're the Gentlemen Thief."
There had been a number of thefts around the city a few months ago. The musketeers had been baffled by how they were so expertly carried out and at one stage almost put the city under martial law until the gang (as they believed it to be) was caught.
The things that had been stolen included a number of trinkets imported in from the Near East in a shipment to the Auction House as well as jewels from the Goldsmith guild in Bastok Market, and a few smaller break ins inside the same residential district as the Six Champion's mansion. Though they had never been broken into, a number of homes close by had.
In the end it turned out not to be a gang of thieves, but just a lone Elvaan. He remembered reading that he had been caught in the Bat's Lair inn and arrested, but after that nothing was said and he had forgotten. What was strangest of all was how well spoken the thief reported was.
"You stole gold jewels, foreign trinkets, and ornaments yet you don't think you are the type of thief I meant?" Alain said at last.
"I do not steal out of greed, dear fellow," the Gentlemen Thief replied.
"Why do it, then?"
"I do it for the thrill, for the adventure, for the feeling that one is still alive. Throughout my life I have found no greater thrill than that of planning and carrying out burglaries that make one infamous all across the land. I have never harmed anyone on any of my little adventures, nor have I endangered life. I usually make sure the appropriate authorities find what I have stolen eventually, but…well, this time was different."
Alain felt angry and somehow deceived. Behind his kind and well mannered exterior was just an aging thief that liked playing games with other people's belongings. Regardless of how frail he might now be that did not change the fact he was a criminal.
And yet, despite being angry at that, he could not understand why the Gentlemen Thief had been held so long without word of a trial or any belongings being returned. It was not the Bastok way to treat people, even those who broke the law, in that manner. The Elvaan's words implied that there was more to the story and so he implored him to carry on.
"Very well, Sir Alain," the Gentlemen Thief said and cleared his throat. "The theft that ultimately led to my arrest and subsequent imprisonment here in the Dark Dungeon was very small in comparison to the ones you no doubt read about. I found myself inside a large manor in the residential area of Port Bastok that, unbeknown to me, was the home to a certain government official."
He stayed silent.
"I had, perhaps somewhat foolishly, assumed that the manor would hold any number of great treasures for me to acquire. I did not think once that such a large building was so out of place in the port district."
That much was true. The port was home to a very small number of residential areas and even fewer stalls and shops. There was a large inn run by a friend of Chief Engineer's Cid, but that was about it. The airship terminal for the ships travelling to and from Jeuno took up most of the room along with some freshly built scaffolding for future development and some large warehouses. He had never been through the residential areas of the port so he was not aware of any large manor or that any of the officials lived there.
"I found some rather interesting things inside that extravagant manor. It seems that the certain official who stays there has…quite a few fingers in quite a few pies. Exposing corruption is not my forte, so I made my escape. Perhaps my luck finally ran out on me, or I was just foolish in my old age, but I was seen during my departure and captured while trying to flee."
He was shocked.
"The corrupt official…who was it? What pies did he have fingers in? Was he the one who had you hidden away in here away from the outside?"
"I am afraid that the Republic of Bastok is alien to me, I do not know the manor owners name. I do think that he had some part in my fate, but perhaps the great goddess Altana played a bigger role. I do sit and wonder sometimes if this is my punishment for my chosen path in life."
Alain did not know what to say.
"Ah, but do not worry about the musings of an old man. That is my story, Sir Alain. I know why I am here and accept that it must be so. However, why you are here still eludes me. Attacking a Mythril Musketeer? I do not see how that would warrant you being placed down here if the corrupt official had no involvement. This is his private prison, I believe."
He sighed long and hard. How could his fight with Naji be connected to some corrupt official he had never even heard of? He never dealt with anyone other than President Karst or one of the Mythril Musketeers directly. He doubted he was even known to be one of the Six Champions to any of the council that served Bastok.
"Sir Alain," the Gentlemen Thief said, breaking his concentration, "Would you be interested in departing this place?"
"…Didn't you just say you had accepted your fate to stay here?"
Though Alain could not see the Elvaan, he knew that he was smiling.
"Well, yes, I did…but the thrill of one last adventure beckons and this old man cannot turn it down."
