Krr-aaack! The antlion's shell shattered into pieces, pelting the shooter's face with bits of goo and chips. Straightening his hat and flicking his wings to dislodge any of the matter, he stood to survey the field. Littering the ground for yards around him lay half a dozen antlions, their shells all split asunder, a few singed from fireshots. With a satisfied smirk he holstered his Aiot Gun and gathered what loot there was to be had.
"Hmm... not bad. Maybe we should recruit him." Jeris said with a grin and glance to Erté. The bangaa only shrugged before leaving to hunt up some new info for their mission. Jeris stood and watched as the wee gunner mog cleaned and reassembled its gun, obviously quite proud of itself. Erté had rejoined her after she'd returned from Cyril and parted ways with Fran. The viera promised to check up on Balthier before heading out to do a search of her own, but whether they'd actually talk was uncertain. Since then, Erté had been doing his streetear bit trying to gather any clues on how to safely be rid of the crystal shards while Jeris waited and tried to puzzle it out on her own. Surrounding their base outside of Nalbina was a luxurious oasis, not to mention an expansive plain ideal for clanners to do battle on. Though the base was well hidden from sight, it had quite a view of the field allowing them to keep an eye on anyone in the area.
On the way back from Cyril Jeris had obtained a small fragment of crystal by searching around Ulei River for the remains the Totema Famfrit once guarded. It was a totally insignificant piece, but all attempts to destroy it had failed. So far Jeris had only succeeded in chipping a tiny piece off and losing it a few times on the floor of the base. Unfortunately it seemed that while the powerful gems could be smashed, thus stopping whatever binding or radiation they'd been naturally creating, the physical remains could not be completely eliminated, as harmless as they seemed. The one the device in Rabanastre harnessed was being amplified exponentially by the machine it rested in, making its normally unnoticeable traces of magick into horrifying amounts of radiation. From what the Prince had said, somehow smashing the device itself wound not end this amplification, only make it permanent. That in itself was another issue Jeris had yet to deal with.
The moogle had finally finished admiring its handiwork and was heading out to where ever its next destination could be. Jeris had yet to recruit any new members since her original clan, now strong enough that they engaged in missions on their own and only sending the occasional reports to her. So solid was her clan's family that they'd become totally self sufficient, not even returning to the base for weeks on end as they adventured about, leading Jeris to hunt out her newest partner, Erté, for company. Perhaps it was time to add a new branch to her family... But that could wait. She made a mental note to keep an eye on this moogle so full of potential and refocused on the mission at hand.