Chapter 14: Making A Murderer
xoxox
"It is with a heavy hand, Ser Orlandeau, that I must deny your request to claim my younger brother as your squire. While you and our Lord Father - may he rest in Ajora's embrace - were comrades of the Fifty Year War, I fear what might come should Duke Goltanna's black heart rear up in jealousy."
A letter from Lord Dycedarg Beoulve to Lord Cidolfus Orlandeau.
xoxox
Cid was getting old.
He could feel it in his legs, which had once been as strong as those of an ox - it showed in his hair, his wife had teased him for the gray in it long before her passing, and now it was entirely white. Even his face felt old, weathered with lines and a beard that he'd longed to grow in his youth had now come into full. And yet, none of it was as he had imagined in his youth.
Yes, Cid knew – he was old. Even the meeting room the Black Lion so dearly loved was old; one covered with tapestries of former victories won, and foes brought low. The stones were blackened by some sort of magic that he was unfamiliar with, and the carpet underneath his feet was far too fine for Cid's liking; a thick red velvet that one could sink their toes into, with golden trimming and some sort of depiction of what must have been one of Duke Goltanna's ancestors locked in combat. That detail was impossible to see as it was now, covered by an immense table and lined with chairs, but Cid had seen it when he was younger, before the current Duke had taken his father's chair.
The Black Lion was a strong man in his youth, but now age had claimed him, like it had Cid, and so many of the other heroes of the war. Once, Cid had seen him rally men to a cause like no other, with his barrel-like chest and massive shoulders hefting a greataxe, but that man was long gone. The Duke Druksmald Goltanna of today was fat, rolls of his stomach barely fitting into the throne he currently sat at, and his many-chinned face was constantly red, like a freshly-picked cherry. Cid let out a sigh, as he sank deeper into his chair. The Duke laughed uproariously at something one of the other lords had said, before turning to Cid.
"Ser Orlandeau," the man said, his wine almost spilling as he turned to Cid, "Have you heard the splendid news?"
"News?" Cid replied, leaning a bit forward in his chair as he shook his head, shaking stray thoughts away. "Of what, Duke?"
The duke leaned back in his chair, a wide smile on his face.
"The princess will not be returning to Riovanes. Instead, the Crown Prince shall be sent here to foster till his coming of age."
"Truly?" Cid asked, his brow furrowed as he stared at the wine glass before his chair, watching the crimson liquid. "But why? Was it not the princess who was supposed to come here after her stay at the monastery?"
"I care not for the reasons, nor the pretenses," the duke shrugged his shoulders and laughed, wine spilling onto his doublet. "Orinius is more valuable by far compared to Ovelia. What is it to me if that girl rots in the south?"
Cid's fist clenched under the table, and he took a deep breath. Goltanna's dislike of commoners was known to him, and the Duke remained his liege lord. Even if a voice in the back of his mind whispered hate, he had to ignore it. For his son, and his son's son after him.
"The princess is the eldest still," Cid said quietly, looking at the duke. "Were she to inherit-"
"-A bastard shall never inherit before one born true as long as I draw breath, Ser Orlandeau," Druksmald Goltanna said by way of answer, his eyes turning to slits. "It is Orinius' right by birth to sit in that chair, now that the King is dead. Ovelia shall renounce her claim to the throne to her brother, as the Queen herself has requested."
Cid's heart clenched. War was coming. He could taste it in the air.
"And what if she refuses?" Cid asked, staring at a man who had once fought at his side. "What if the princess stands by her claim as heir?"
"Then we shall claim her head."
Cid wanted to say something, but in his mind's eye flashed the face of his son. Could he sacrifice Orran —Orran's hopes, and dreams— to such a fleeting thought?
Goltanna leaned forward, a faraway look in his eyes as he spoke softly.
"It is good to see you are with me on this matter, Cid," he said, letting out a sigh of relief. "The rest of these scoundrels - I cannot trust them to tell me if my decisions are fair or foul. But Her Majesty, long may she live, has never liked the poor girl in the first place. We cannot sacrifice the kingdom for the whims of the south, you see?"
Cid's eyes closed shut, and a flash of a man with blonde hair and amber eyes shining like a storm appeared before them. The castle around them was aflame, and the man had his blade drawn and pointed at Cid as he stood in front of a girl with golden hair and empty silver eyes.
In his heart, Cid could not find it in himself this time around, either.
He could not trade his kingdom for a girl.
"...It is as you say," he said quietly, his eyes opening as he looked to the Duke. "While it is a sad state of affairs, Ivalice must stand. Orinius and his claim will be backed, by sword or otherwise."
Goltanna smiled as he stood, clapping a hand on Cid's shoulder.
"I knew I could count on you, Cid. It is unfortunate that Lord Beoulve has not replied yet to my missives, but communication is untrustworthy in this day and age, is it not? While the Brigade is gone, I cannot help but worry about the fact that they existed at all.."
He shook his head.
"The realm is divided and halfway split. I need a trustworthy messenger to send to Lord Beoulve with Her Majesty's demands. Riovanes' is like a fortress at the moment, there's little word at all regarding His Majesty's fate. This should be handled delicately."
Cid nodded, standing to meet his lord.
"My liege, my son's services are yours as well."
"Your son? The… astrologian, is he not?" Goltanna paused, placing a hand on his chin. "For the life of me, I cannot see how the son of the Sword Saint squirrels his head away in books all day, but he is quite competent. I'll pen my missive right away, and hand it off to him. Tell him what I have told you, would you Cid? The others in this hall…"
Druksmald looked at the other men sitting around the long table, all deeply drawn into their own conversations, with a look on his face Cid was unable to identify, much to his own consternation. The duke let out a sigh, his eyebrows furrowed.
"I trust them not with information of little importance, let alone with a matter of this magnitude. Go now, before you are forced into yet another meaningless conversation."
Cid inclined his head and left the feast. Some eyes followed him as he moved through the hall, perhaps curious as to where he was heading, but he paid little attention to them. He was accustomed to being watched in Goltanna's castle, it was the nature of politics.
He exited the room, standing in one of the many hallways of the castle. Cid paused for a moment to examine the hall - statues of eagles lined the room, and tapestries woven from fine colored silks portrayed the Goltanna family's many accomplishments in their tenure over the north. He looked at one of them –one that showed a battlefield from the war - and let out a sigh.
"Balbanes…" he murmured, staring at the sight of the young Druksmald holding a sword high, "what would you have done?"
"Balbanes Beoulve would have sworn a blood feud and called his banners the very moment that his liege lord mocked or derided his son," a feminine voice said in an emotionless tone behind Cid. "It is fair fortune that you are not him, Ser Orlandeau."
Cid jolted, turning quickly before his shoulders relaxed. The church was never far from the centers of power, and to see their scions mingling with nobility was more common than not. A mage with half closed eyes, wearing a blue cloak and leather clothing stood behind him. She wore her golden hair in a ponytail, and he could see the faint hint of green shining from beneath her eyelids. In all the years he'd known her, he had never seen her open them.
"Valmafra," he said, looking at the girl. He'd known the church devotee for a fair number of years now, and she had never aged a day. Such things were best kept to oneself, in the presence of those with such dangerous magickal inclinations. "You seem the same as always."
"Naturally," the girl replied, falling into step at Cid's side as he began to walk. "The Duke's plans are too important to be left ignored, ser. I could not in good conscience allow you to prevent them from… coming to fruition."
And yet you follow his every word, Cid thought to himself, but holding his tongue.
"He is my liege lord," Cid said in reply as they continued down the hall. "It is of little consequence to me what his desires are, let alone the desires of the Queen. I simply follow them."
"And what of the Church's desires, Ser Orlandeau?" Valmafra said with a wry smile on her face, stepping in front of the older man as she peered at him, leaning inwards . "Do you consider our desires to be… of little consequence?"
Cid privately thought them all to be villains drunk on power, but such words were not the type he could espouse freely. Orran's life, Orran's hopes, the dreams that he had once shared quietly with a woman on her deathbed…
Cid sighed.
"It seems that I must give up my principles to save my family," he said to Valmafra, and his eyes flickered back towards one of the statues, a young knight who held a sword towards the sky, "Or I must give up my family to save my principles."
Valmafra smiled, a shiny thing with white teeth that covered far too much of her thin face. Cid was reminded of the look a ratcatcher's cat gave a mouse that it was playing with; it was more like he was being allowed to reply, rather than doing it of his own free will.
"Could you remind me: what was the motto of your family, Ser Orlandeau?"
Cid scoffed, brushing past the girl, his greaves clanking against the stone as the red carpet that covered the cobble ended, the hallway turning into a staircase that he walked down.
"Anyone who cares for family mottos over their own thoughts is a man enslaved to them."
"Wise words," the girl said softly. "But that does not answer my question, Cidolfus Orlandeau."
Cid brushed past her on his walk down the steps, turning his head half back to glance at Valmafra with his hand clasped around his sword.
"If your precious Church, or Goltanna, or Larg, or even the queen herself touches a single hair on my son's head," he said with a kind smile on his face, as he drew the hood of his violet cloak over his head. His eyes shone in the torchlight of the corridor, and he turned away from the woman as he walked down the rest of the stairs, "I'll kill all of you myself."
Valmafra's smile grew even wider, if such a thing were at all possible. It was a garish thing at this point, bloodthirsty and manic in a way that Cid had not seen since the Fifty Years War, and it made his grip on the handle of the blade all the tighter. Valmafra was not someone to be idly trifled with; while she may appear young, Cid was one of the few that remembered the War. The witch burnings. The sieges and the cries of men desperate for the release of death. Valmafra put him on edge in a way no one else possibly could.
She curtsied before Cid, the blue cloak around her shoulder going so low it touched the ground. When she rose, she clapped politely, nodding to the man.
"Wise words indeed, Ser Orlandeau! I shall place my best foot forward, in hopes that your son lives a long and happy life!"
Cid snorted, removing his hand from his blade as he continued to walk.
"I'd be more pleased if he led a life free of politics," he muttered under his breath as he took another step downwards, "In pursuit of such happiness."
xoxox
I had decided, after much deliberation over the past six days on this ship, that I despised medieval 'sailing' –loathe as I am to claim such a thing even approaches the beauty of modern yachts and sailboats– with every fiber of my being.
The modern amenities that are afforded to sailors nowadays - fine foods, spirits, and other such creature comforts, are nigh non-existent when it is compared to the poor unfortunate souls who sailed in this bastardized 1600s setting. Fine foods? What a joke. I've had jerky five out of the six nights we've been here. The lull of the water sending you to sleep? Delusion. There is no 'lull' on a schooner made in the 1600s! Don't kid yourself! If anything, you're more likely to be rolled to the floor by the damn waves, instead of them softly rocking you to sleep!
"You look cheery today, Degurechaff," Ramza commented as I leaned my head over the side of the ship, watching the waves with a morose sense of impending doom, "is the weather not to your liking?"
I kicked him in the shin in response.
He nodded solemnly in response, as my toe pulsed with pain from slamming into Ramza's greaves. The waves below the ship crashed against the wood, and I felt my stomach churn.
"If you look up for a moment," he spoke, as if I wasn't vomiting over the side of the ship, "You would see that we're right on time."
I looked up from the ropes and planks beneath me, away from the window near the waves, and in the distance I saw a city.
Goug was truly a mechanical city, in every sense of the word. The port stretched higher than our ship; multiple cranes of an enormous size that picked up incoming ships and transported them into a massive cavern beneath the surface; where I could see the hints of the tops of sails inside. A massive tower rose from the center of the city, and mounted upon it was a gargantuan clock. I arched my brow as I looked at it, crossing my arms. Is this just a facsimile of Britain, Being X? Are you really so uncreative as to steal the work of proud humans and claim it as your own?
My stomach kicked and screamed in outrage at the injustices the ocean dealt to it, and I barely held back the churnings of it as the ship slowly came into the bay. A crane turned to face us, and as it lowered, I could see a man on the side. He stepped gently onto the ship, looking us up and down.
"Your names, and the purpose of your visit?" he asked, clicking a pen. He was smartly dressed, wearing a fine cut burgundy surcoat, with tiny gold buttons lining his chest. His pants were long and darkly colored, tucked into finely made boots that had shimmering buckles.
I desperately wanted a pair, as I looked down at my, frankly, devastated boots. A trainee's salary wasn't the paycheck I needed to replace them, and when I was in Dorter, realistically, why would I even wear boots?! Those are for traveling! I want to do as little of that as possible!
"Ramza Beoulve and company," Ramza said, and the swirling of my stomach slowly started to fade as the boat was lifted out of the water. "Are we not expected?"
"Aye, aye, expected you are," the man replied with a stiff bow, adjusting his glasses as he examined the ship and its crew. "Do you plan to bring all of these men to the Baert Company? The accommodations–"
"–The only people who need accommodation," Ramza said with a bright smile, "Will be myself and Miss Degurechaff. The rest of the crew will be far too busy with repairs and purchases to allow for pleasantries."
I nodded happily at Ramza's response. Negotiation is best executed swiftly and succinctly, in the end - especially if you are hoping to leave yourself free of the pesky entanglements of politicking. The longer we were here, the more likely it was that we would be woven into one of Dycedarg's many, many schemes.
"...I see." The inspector said, a small smile on his face. "It is good to know that you understand the value of time in this world of business."
"The world of business is not so different to the world of the nobility," I said, crossing my arms. "Is it not the nobles who buy the wheat to supply the peasantry? Is it not the nobles who sell their services to those around them, whether those services be their smiths, or their horses?"
The inspector's eyes glanced over me for a moment, before they jerked back to Ramza's face, a strange smile crossing his lips.
"Yes, yes, quite right, quite right!" the inspector said with a small chuckle, scribbling something down on a piece of paper. "Now, if you'll excuse me, please disembark once the ship has settled. I must go direct the crane. Have a wonderful visit to Goug."
He walked away from us quickly, tucking his pen and notebook into a breast pocket before grabbing onto a rung of the crane and pulling a lever. The rung jerked, and he slowly started rising up the arm of the crane, the sound of tiny gears turning reaching my ears over the sound of the waves. The crane rose a bit, before shifting us over into the cavern, and when I looked down I saw why.
Goug was building down. The docking bay must have stretched miles below the surface, and I could see several dozen ships lining it, each firmly clamped to the bay by some bizarre mixture of magic and technology - a sort of barrier spell, perhaps? The crane began to move us towards an empty bay, and a bubble-like shield enveloped us, as Ramza looked around wide-eyed.
"Nifty, isn't it?" Heiral's voice called out from behind us, and I turned to look at him. He had a lazy grin on his face, and he pointed upwards at the shimmering blue shield that surrounded us. "This is personalized shielding, by the way. Nobody has any idea how the devil Goug's managed to pull it off; but this shield is practically a part of this ship now. This whole damn cavern could collapse, and as long as you're inside of the shield, you're as safe as you could possibly be."
Woah, wait a second. Where do you get off saying ridiculous statements like 'this cavern could collapse'!? Don't you know that's just needless foreshadowing?! We don't want the cavern to collapse!
"...I don't like it," I said, clicking my tongue. "Far easier to escape if we're at a dock, then if we're trapped in some damnable cave two hundred feet under the ground. If anything, we're at their mercy, aren't we?"
Delita's grin slipped from his face, and we grew somber for a moment. A slight chuckle came from the other side of the ship, as Wiegraf raised a hand, motioning us over.
"To worry is to be human," he said to me with a wink, "But to craft fear where there is yet a need for it is to be wicked. Would you not agree, Miss Degurechaff?"
"A call to action when nothing is being done is merely a call for support in the face of unfathomable injustice, Ser Folles," I said with a roll of my eyes. "To call this fearmongering when we're already in a bad position is absurd. This is going to be dangerous."
In the first place, this 'ship' was functionally a cover. What it actually was an accompaniment of four ninjas, four chemists, and four mages of various colors to transcribe as much information about Goug's technology as possible before we headed back to the mainland. In this era of warfare, this sort of 'espionage' was likely non-existent. Magic was fairly standardized across the board, and the vast majority of discoveries were shared throughout most of the world. Being X had created a stagnant world. It advances at a leisurely, plodding place because it can afford to: the dangers posed by the wilderness are irrelevant in the face of magic and technology. But with war on the horizon, I had no desire to leave something to chance.
If I could have it, I wanted technological supremacy. War on the horizons? A perfect time to secure a dozen or more exclusive contracts with multiple manufacturers! Considering Ivalice's absolute lack of real infrastructure, having even one exclusive contract would be worth its weight in gold. I had made sure to impart this knowledge to Ramza, impatiently tapping my foot the entire time as we had waited for the ship to arrive. Really, shouldn't he have known this in advance? Isn't he the noble here?!
"Aye, danger is like to be round the nearest corner, Miss Degurechaff," the man said, as he turned away to stare over the rails of the ship. The blue glow of magitech reflected off the side of his face as our ship was placed into the dock. "And yet, are you not capable of tasting it in the air? That sensation that surrounds this place?"
He smiled, a vicious thing that carved its way across his face as his eyes danced.
"Do you know what Balbanes would call it, Ramza Beoulve?" Wiegraf said. "Adventure."
I hated Ivalicians.
Ramza chuckled as bolts flew out from the sides of the wall and attached themselves to our ship, slowly anchoring it downwards. We waited for several moments, as a shimmering strip of electric blue light attached our ship to the bay itself, solidifying into something that we could actually walk on. I turned around to the crew before disembarking.
"Heiral, Ser Folles, with us. Everyone else: about your tasks."
I walked off the ship first. I never wanted to set foot on one of those blasted things again.
Goug had already registered us into their immigration system, and we were free to move about the bay as we pleased. It was a momentary wait for an elevator, albeit one based on principles of magic, rather than those of electricity, and it was a quiet ride to the top. Ramza looked tense. I rolled my eyes.
"Relax, Beoulve," I hissed. "You think they won't notice if you're on edge?"
"Frankly, Degurechaff, I think your general demeanor will be more likely to put them on edge than anything I could do."
I glared at him, but he pretended not to notice, the bastard. I had little else to say, already annoyed by the entire debacle enough as it was, and seethed silently plotting my vengeance whilst the elevator came to a halt, and opened up to what could have been an ordinary city.
Honestly. I'm not joking, that was the terrifying part. Lampposts of iron lined the streets, lit by electricity –not by mana, or some bastardized rune sketching– but by proper human ingenuity. Obviously I respected magic as the alternative form of scientific research that it was in this world, but it was refreshing to see a familiar sight, like a landscape ripped right out of a film about the 1930s. I hummed with pleasure as I peered around at buildings made of concrete bricks, with normal roofs. A massive clocktower sat in the center, but even Being X's disgusting rip-off of London wasn't able to damper my good mood. Goug was the best city in this world, in my opinion.
"By the name of God," Delita muttered under his breath, "What a disturbing town."
I almost stabbed him on the spot.
"Aye," Wiegraf agreed, glancing around. "People are too happy."
"Are you so surprised by the wonders of civilized society, sers?" I asked with a brilliant smile, extending my arms. "Are you uncouth as to be disturbed by the wonders of truly modern life?"
"I never took you for a modernist, Degurechaff," Ramza commented, and I about faced to continue moving. I wasn't going to be stopped by Wiegraf and Delita, of all things. "You seem to favor more… esoteric forms of combat then most."
"The most important thing in combat is to not be the one who dies, Beoulve."
"And yet, at times… Are your reactions not a tad… overwrought, perhaps?"
I looked him squarely in the eyes, and he stared back at me. Interestingly, he seemed almost perplexed by something, but I hadn't the faintest idea what it could possibly be. It was like he was staring at an interesting puzzle, but hadn't quite figured out a solution.
Frankly, I didn't have time to mull over whatever it was he was thinking over. Beoulve, as always, hadn't a clue about the role of a person in society. As a member of the nobility, he simply was out of touch with what the average person experienced, in spite of his best attempts to pretend otherwise by slumming it in Dorter. If Dorter imploded?
Oh well! Back to Riovanes it is then! Meanwhile, us plebeians would be left to pick up the pieces left behind by our masters, were they disposed to remember we existed when they burned our livelihoods to the ground. It was about the principle of the thing, in the end: he lacked proper life experience that would ordinarily be expected in a proper society. Nepotism is a two-edged sword, in the end.
"Should someone threaten my life, it is my right to threaten theirs in return," I replied, glancing over at a nearby market. Dozens of people were wandering around the cobblestone center, bartering loudly over prices, and arguing with excited voices. "My life has more value than any of my enemies'."
We walked in silence through the market, and a man with a shining emblem of gold and brass, an insignia of a calligraphic BC engraved onto it in silver attached to his chest turned to us with wide eyes.
"Praise be to Him!" He said, with a bright smile, one that made him look far too used to entertaining customers, "Our most beloved guests have arrived!"
He walked forward. He was a slim man, with tightly cropped brown hair and a clean-shaven face. I suppose some might have considered him handsome, with eyes that were an almost glassy blue. His outfit was clearly finely tailored, and his voice was rather low for his slight frame. He bowed, a quick and shortly executed one that might have been practiced. I tilted my head in reply.
"It is fortunate that I had heard of your coming," he said as he raised his head. His smile never moved off his face. "My name is Cosimo, and I will be your guide to Goug. Baert Company wishes you a wonderful stay in the machine city!"
I was more suspicious than anything else, to be honest. A random person just so happens to be a guide to the exact place we were looking for? There aren't enough coincidences in the world to make me think that's likely at all! Beoulve, of course, thinks nothing's wrong at all, but I can tell that Delita and Weigraf are a bit suspicious, right?! I'm not imagining that look in Delita's eyes, am I!?
"Many thanks, Cosimo," Delita said, smiling as he shook his head and waved a hand. "But, to be frank, we've no need for a guide. Is the Baert headquarters not in the city center? We were already on our way."
"It is indeed, good sir, but it is my pleasure to guide you towards it! Baert wishes to spare no expense for such a lucrative… contract."
Ah. It was a play. I hated politics.
"Very well then," I waved a hand, "Lead the way, ser."
He led the way, as close to polite as usual with a lower-level employee. Blah blah blah, of course we're excited to work with you. Blah, blah blah, our future endeavors together will be prosperous. To be perfectly honest, I tuned out a third of it automatically. It was the sort of conversation I'd had a million times with the newly acquired hires during mergers. This sort of basic schmoozing was functionally second nature to any corporate slave, and the longer Cosimo's presence was inflicted on me, I could feel myself slipping into that familiar mindset like a second skin.
We walked, Beoulve's eyes on me with a sort of horrified, fascinated awe as I spoke with Cosimo, only to suddenly come to a halt as a man threw himself in front of us, grabbing Cosimo's arm. His eyes were wild, and his face was pale and sweaty as he lifted a shaky arm, pointing a gun to the man's head. I arched an eyebrow at the sight; guns were, by and large, not very popular weaponry in Ivalice. The maintenance was a pain, the mechanisms were clunky, and in general these firearms - loathe as I was to term them as such - were on the level of what my previous life had done in the 1800s.
The gun the man was holding was what looked like a bolt-action style revolver - steel inlays and made of wood, with a larger barrel then most, more befitting of a musket than the make of the pistol he was holding. But the disturbing thing, to be honest, was something else.
Cosimo's smile never left his face.
"I-I'm warning you! D-Don't follow me!"
He ran.
There was a momentary lull as I debated the ethics of killing two men in a single blow because both of them had annoyed me, but it passed relatively quickly as I sighed. I glanced to my left, but Ramza had already taken off after the man, cutting through the crowds to follow him through an alleyway. Delita was, naturally, at his side, and Wiegraf was more eyeing me with interest than paying attention.
"Should you not be following your liege lord, ser?" I asked, waving a hand vaguely in Ramza's direction. Wiegraf quietly laughed in response, his green eyes glinting.
"Aye, perhaps. And yet, is it not just as well that I stand at the side of his most trusted advisor?"
I barked out a laugh.
"Heiral's already next to him, ser. You'll have to try much harder to worm your way into Beoulve's good graces."
Wiegraf smiled, a small and quiet one as he drew his sword, the metal singing as it slipped from the sheathe.
"True. And yet, would that Delita Heiral disagreed with Ramza, and you agreed with him, would he not take your side?"
He vanished with a flicker, reappearing on a roof. My lips became a thin line as I glared at him, and chased after the rest, vanishing from the ground as I leaped into the air, my body flickering as I wove time with space and slammed myself through it like shattering glass, reappearing on the roof as I ran. Wiegraf sent me a small nod, and he vanished from my sight - likely taking another route to head off whatever this was.
And I knew exactly what was going on. It was obviously another corporation operating in Goug. Naturally, a city of machinists was a city filled with corporate politics. Naturally, when they heard that the Beoulves were seeking contracts, they would go out of their way to make sure that Baert did not secure it. It was hardly surprising that it happened, really, but something stunk.
Damn, damn, damn. I could smell the stench of Being X behind this, that sorry excuse of an executive! This place is so poorly mismanaged I'm shocked you even managed to set up a religion, you good-for-nothing!
I caught a glimpse of blonde hair in the distance and threw myself through space again, appearing next to Ramza with the sound of shattering glass.
"You're rather fast," he commented, not even breathing hard. "Our man's moving downwards, Degurechaff."
He hesitated for a moment, eying me.
"...How do you feel about sewers?"
"Dismal. Disgusting. Filled with vermin and disease."
He sighed.
"Then you are certainly going to be at odds with the direction that he fled," Ramza said, pointing to the grate below us. "Heiral's already below, have you seen Ser Folles?"
Wiegraf hopped down from a roof next to us with a lazy smile, the bastard. Was I the only one taking this seriously?
"The sewers?" He asked, and when we replied with a nod, he let out a sigh. "A pity. I was hoping that I would not have to launder my armor during this trip."
He reached down, and lifted up the grate, letting the pungent smell waft upwards and over us. It was a damp and hot thing that assaulted our noses, the scent of sweat and grime, of corpses and cities. I didn't even bother touching the ladder, I looked at it and teleported without a second thought.
Ramza, of course, simply jumped. Wiegraf followed.
The sewers were, naturally, repulsive. Black bricks coated with slime and grease lined the walls, and the river that ran through glowed a shimmering green. Magic? Or Magitek? This was why we'd come to Goug, after all.
"Which way did they go?" I asked Ramza, and he paused, listening intently. I followed his lead, and in the distance I could faintly hear the sound of armor clanking against the ground - coming from the right side.
We ran. I didn't want to risk teleportation in an area that was so closed in; what if I ended up in a damned wall? Time and space was fickle, especially for a mage as lacking as myself. So, it was a footrace, one where nobody spoke. Not surprising, really.
Everyone was preparing themselves for a fight.
We rounded a corner and came to a screeching halt; Heiral stood in front of us, his hands raised in the air.
"What the devil are you doing, Heiral?" I asked, my eyes narrowing, "Why aren't you–"
I paused in my tirade as I saw the scene before me.
A blond man with a ponytail held Cosimo hostage, his firearm pointed directly at the man's forehead. His overalls were covered in grime and dust, and looked ragged with wear. Cosimo's white teeth were still on full display as he smiled, and the green light of the river flickered eerily off them. His eyes were so pale in the light they looked almost white, and he was talking.
"Honored Mustadio, you should really let me go," he said, shaking his head with that damned smile of his still on his face, "You know that the Director will not be pleased with your actions… What of your father's will?"
"My father's will," the blond with the ponytail –Mustadio, apparently– said, with barely controlled anger in his voice, "Was ripped from his hands the moment your precious Director demanded the auracite."
"The Director knows best, honored Mustadio," Cosimo reprimanded the man, before turning to us and inclining his head with that weird look still attached to his face. It looked more and more fake the longer I saw it, and I was starting to suspect it was a little more than just 'corporate slavery' that enforced it on his face, "I apologize to you all, most honored guests. This is a… difficult time in Goug–"
"Because you're destroying the city!"
"–And many are having trouble adjusting with the transition–"
"From freedom to slavery?! Of course they are, you bastard!"
"–But Baert Company is a well-oiled machine. All transitory periods have hiccups–"
"If you think you can get away with this–!"
I was getting a headache.
"Enough of this," Ramza said, drawing his sword and pointing it at the man, "Ser, release Cosimo at once. There is no need to point an armament at an innocent."
Isn't that what you're doing right now, Ramza!? Do you think before you speak?!
"Innocent…?!" Mustadio muttered, with a shaky laugh, "do you truly believe such rot?"
"I cannot say whether or not I believe a thing I've heard in this city so far," Ramza said in reply, "but Cosimo has been polite and treated us true. Can you say the same?"
"Cosimo," the man spat out, "was a deviously clever machinist, who cheated at cards and laughed when he was thrown off the table. He lied as easily as he breathed, but he was devilishly good at intricate mechanisms. The gun I'm holding in my hand was mine and his invention, damn it!"
I had no idea at all what was happening, to be perfectly honest. And from the looks of it, nobody else did either. Ramza's eyes seemed unsure as he bit his lip, Delita looked completely confused, and Wiegraf smiled smugly, like he knew something everyone else didn't.
I hated Wiegraf.
"This isn't Cosimo! This is… this is…!"
"Honored Mustadio–"
Mustadio slammed his gun into the man's forehead, his eyes filled with rage, and Cosimo fell to the ground. I moved my hand down to my side, grabbing onto the handle of one of the katanas at my belt.
"Shut up!" He roared, as Cosimo's eyes fluttered, "don't you dare speak with his voice! With his tone! He would never have called me 'honored' in a thousand years! Whatever devil you've trapped inside of him, get rid of it!"
"Honored," Cosimo hissed, but his voice was loud. It rang through the sewers like nails on a chalkboard, a shriekingly high quality backing it that made my skin crawl to hear, "Mustadio, you must understand. It is not that I am Cosimo but that Cosimo is me."
He smiled, a garish and disgusting facsimile of one that looked like it genuinely hurt to hold. It reminded me more of Gargaroth than someone who was actually living. His eyes were wide and maniacal, and he moved upwards, going from prone to upright without using his arms. It was like he was a puppet on invisible strings as he stood completely still and upright, his face almost completely still as he spoke.
"Do not fear, honored Mustadio," he said, and his head slowly turned from facing us towards Mustadio, but it didn't do it smoothly. It was like a stop-motion animatic, one of those ridiculous flipbooks that I had seen as a child, "it is not as if Cosimo is dead. He is right before you. And He is with you always, is He not?"
Mustadio didn't respond, looking at the man with horrified eyes as Cosimo slowly nodded.
"Yes. Yes. I can see it. I can see you, Mustadio Bunansa! I can see where you sleep! Where you drink! What you do every day!"
He laughed, a mechanical sound like gears turning.
"Ha. Ha. Ha. You thought you could from His presence? That you could escape? Oh most Honored Mustadio…" Cosimo shook his head from side to side, a stiff, choppy motion like he wasn't doing it himself, "He sees all. He knows all. Give Us the Auracite, and your father will be returned to you. Give Us what we desire, and your dreams… we can make them all come true."
Auracite!? I knew it! Damn you Being X! You bastard! I can't even do a simple exclusive contract deal to acquire advanced military technology without you mucking about with your shitty 'holy' artifacts in it!
I watched Cosimo carefully, but he didn't speak. He was waiting for an answer, but Mustadio simply looked at him in horror before a slow grin began to crawl across his face.
"You don't know where it is, do you? You don't know where I've hidden it. All that power and you can't even find one stone!?" Mustadio laughed mockingly, pointing his gun at Cosimo's forehead, "sorry excuse for a god, aren't you?!"
"We are eternal, Honored Mustadio," Cosimo hissed in response, "If you slay this one, We will appear in another. You cannot run from Us. You cannot hide. You can only obey."
"Think I'll take my chances," the man replied, and then he slammed his fist into Cosimo's face, who crumpled with a cry, "Never learned to take a punch, did you Cos?"
Mustadio sighed wearily, leaning against the wall of the sewer and sinking to the ground before he looked at us.
"Hullo," he said, waving a hand weakly as he braved a smile, "The name's Mustadio Bunansa, and this city's been claimed by the devil."
I hated Being X more than I hated Wiegraf.
xoxox
For those of you who have just arrived, hello! And for those old faces I haven't seen for some time, welcome back! It's been a minute, hasn't it? Strap in, I actually know what I'm doing this time around.