Author's notes

Salutations! At long last, I have returned!

Not for lack of trying, mind you, I rewrote this particular chapter several times (had the first handwritten draft ready in March) and even the 6th chapter a few times, although I finally decided that that was unnecessary.

Also gave up, for the moment, about finding a beta reader, since after throwing several PM's around, it seemed that it would have only served to postpone this chapter even further. And then I realized that a year had passed without me updating. Sure, I had a legitimate excuse for about half of that time, but that only means that I lacked one for the other half.

Also, I'm afraid that the quality of my writing may have suffered during this year, but I can't really tell myself. If the style is too different from the old one, I just might have to rewrite the whole thing with a Beta keeping the quality in check. Might at least write this one again (just one more time) later, because the chapter is quite short, I feel I could have stretched the end a bit longer, but I wanted to get on with it already.

But I'm back now, so let's focus on the reviews and the chapter itself!

Thanks for all the support from the reviewers! Special thanks to 1000people who went as far as throwing me with a PM! Came very close to update a week after that, but stuff happened and my plans were ruined. My apologies for getting your hopes up, back then.

To Fenrir034: Yes, I've considered all those points. I might use them, I might not. Haven't really planned that far ahead.

To Guest: Yes he's had Return Magic, but he hasn't used it yet. I'll try to explain it later in detail, but for now, I'll just say that he had different reaction ability equipped.

End notes.

Disclaimer: I own nothing.

Thinking

"Speaking"

Spells, or setting

Chapter 7

Sidequest

Jagd Ahli

The window broke loudly as Marche crashed through it into the dark dining hall. As he hit the ground he made somersault that brought him to the relative safety of the long and sturdy dining table. He was soon joined by a tall man in a dark green cape.

"Heh, way to make a stealthy entrance, leader", Liam Morales grinned as a flash of light from the outside lit up the room momentarily. The tall man had been a member of the Alodia even before Marche joined and was an experienced thief, with a fondness for fighter techniques, especially Backdraft.

"Shut it Liam. There is a time for subtlety and it ends when alchemists start to barrage Flares and Meteors", Marche said and headed for the door "we'll continue indoors. Eldena and Littlevili can take care of the alchemists." Marche heard Liam snort at his words.

"Yeah, let the vieras have all the fun. Liam is only good for spying and distracting. He can't fight in a Jagd 'cause he's so suicidal", he muttered but still followed Marche to the door.

"I'm not saying that", Marche told him and slowly opened the door, peering into the dark hallway behind.

"But you're thinking it", Liam countered, while keeping his eyes on the shadows.

"Nope, I'm merely sticking to the plan", Marche reminded the tall man, "remember? We, as the most mobile members present, will go for the duke, with Littlevili and Eldena backing us up, while Lini and Pallanza lead the distraction. Although knowing those two, they'll just order Quin to blow up the gate and then fight their way here."

"Why couldn't I go with them then? I'm sure they would need someone to wreak havoc to the enemy archers. Cheney is good and all, but… he lacks punch. Sure, he can jam an arrow the size of a spear through enemy's eyes from a hundred meters, but it's so slow. I mean, come on! Sonic Boom is like the trademark technique of hunters, but he never uses it. Battles aren't one-on-ones. He'll be overrun!" Liam whined, but Marche paid it no mind. Liam had a tendency to rant when he was excited.

"Oh, and also -Air Render!" Liam suddenly cried, blasting an invisible shockwave to the shadows, loudly cracking the wall and causing one small shadow to jump spinning into the air. Before it hit the ground, Marche had already brought his hands forward and called the spell Bad Breath creating a small noxious gas cloud. The small figure –a moogle juggler- landed into the cloud and almost instantly started to sway as the detrimental gasses assaulted him (or her, Marche really couldn't tell) inflicting several conditions of varying levels. Luckily for Marche and Liam, one of them was sleep and they quickly tied him and hid the body, as Marche even as desensitized to killing as he had become in the presence of the Judges, wasn't too keen on the idea of killing a sleeping foe –at least in a Jagd. After that, they continued forward in silence so they wouldn't get distracted and miss any more guards.

Soon Marche and Liam entered a hallway that was supposed to lead to the bedroom of their target, although at this point it would probably be impossible for the two to get their foe in his sleep. Might as well check the door for traps, Marche thought and the moment the ornamental doors that could only lead to a bedroom belonging to a rich bastard, he blasted them off their hinges with a Thunder. The moment the doors gave way before the yellow bolt, a wave of arctic air burst out of the doorway, almost making Marche loose his balance, but he managed to steady himself in a second. At the same time, a storm of snow and ice had devoured the hallway and the hailstorm was making it almost impossible for Marche to see even Liam, let alone the door he had just hit.

"A Phantasm skill!" Marche shouted and took a painful breath of air that was far too cold to be breathed, causing him to stumble into rapidly piling snow, coughing painfully until the blizzard disappeared as quickly as it had emerged.

"Indeed, peasant. And it is only a taste of what you will suffer for daring to break into my estate" a haughty voice commented as a silhouette appeared on the blown open doorway, "but touching a low-born lout like yourself would be below a man of my stature." The shadowed form raised its hand and snapped his fingers. Almost instantly a clash of metal was heard and Marche spared a glance to his side, to find Liam locking blades with a dark garbed viera. In hindsight Marche would find the image humorous, what with the burly thief brandishing a small Swordbreaker dagger with two hands while the delicate viera gripped a huge two-handed katana with one hand, but at the moment Marche was too psyched about one of Ivalices most wanted men staring him down. He was wearing a crimson mantle with white fur linings –a Lordly robe, Marche had seen only Babus Swain, the Runeseeker in Mewt's service, wear those before.

"Two got this far? It looks like I will have to hire new guards. The old ones are clearly incompetent. Hopefully they will make better entertainment in the coliseum", the dark duke Lodion, for the arrogant man could be no one else, said and slammed the point of a Heretic rod onto the ground, his hand gripping its top as if it were a walking stick. The other hand was now alight with red glow and pointing at Marche.

"Fira" he declared and a great fireball flew towards Marche.

"Shell!" Marche blocked the spell with a magical barrier and prepared to unleash all his magical might at the enemy before him.

Tristain countryside

"Wake up, you lazy bum!" a voice shook Marche awake from the dream.

"It's time for you to earn your pay. Hurry up!" the voice nagged at Marche and soon he could hear someone pull open the canvas that covered the wagon he was sleeping in.

"I'm up, I'm up! Give me a minute, will you?" Marche answered with a yawn. He hadn't actually slept that long last night or actually any night after La Rochelle, for he had inadvertently screwed up his sleep cycle by taking a long nap through the first day after La Rochelle. Being nocturnal had its perks at times, but it had also gained Marche a reputation as a slacker.

"You had your minute when I first yelled for you! Do you know how long I had to search for you?" Marche's tormentor for the last few days, woman called Lotta yelled.

"As long as it took for you to catch the wagon? It's not like I'm trying to keep my napping a secret. On the contrary, I advertise it so I can be found in emergencies!" Marche rebutted and jumped down from his 'nap wagon' while grumbling under his breath, "not that you care about it. Treating me like a walking first aid kit and all."

Marche's fickle luck had once again turned when he had tried to leave La Rochelle. A merchant caravan had decided to leave the town at the same time and Marche had managed to get himself hired as a healer –or 'water mage'- for the trip. It was actually a very advantageous deal for Marche. He didn't have to pay for a horse or food for the trip. He also didn't have to try and find the capital on his own by just following the roads. Of course, there was the added danger that somebody might recognize him as 'Fouquet of the Crumbling Dirt', but Marche had faith in his disguise (and maybe even more in his skills at escaping).

"Shut up freeloader! Go do your job!" Lotta yelled and pointed towards the first wagons where few guards had gathered to laugh. Marche sighed and jogged over.

"Okay, what is it this time? If the idiot bit his tongue again I'll personally make sure that he will walk the rest of the way to Tristain!" Marche fumed as two hired guards moved out of his way to show him that it was indeed the young boy that had caused three fourths of his work for this trip. Few discreet questions by the campfire had revealed that the boy had run away from his home because he wanted to give his younger brothers a good role model, because apparently his mere farmer father wasn't good enough.

"It's Nathan all right. Except that this time the greenhorn managed to drop from a wagon. Hah, what a klutz", one of the older hired soldiers explained as Marche kneeled beside the knocked out teenager. That sounded actually plausible. Usually Marche had to treat Nathans maimed tongue, because few of the older veterans let him 'borrow' their horses to practice riding. And of course the brat couldn't keep his mouth shut while trying to get the horse to gallop. You'd think that the kid would learn after the first time, but no.

"Okay then let's see…" Marche pulled the Terre rod and the grimoire out of its harness by his thigh and leafed through its crude pages. The book had originally been a Visitor's book in one of the high end inns back in La Rochelle, but Marche had decided that his disguise needed a grimoire and there was no way in h*** that he would randomly scribe stuff in the empty one that had appeared with him in that forest cabin few weeks ago. Even if the thing had behaved for now, so had the one Mewt had found all those years ago, until a curious quartet of kids had read its pages out aloud.

Yeah, the empty grimoire would stay at the bottom of Marche's bag until he could get a reliable expert of arcane and enigmatic to look at it, and quite possibly not even then.

Marche left the false grimoire open on a random page and pretended to study the chant on the page. It actually described in simple mirror writing Marche's for the moment unsuccessful research on the Shadowflare spell, mainly on what it actually targeted. In Final Fantasy games Marche had played, the spell had been a straightforward attack spell, with rare elemental affinity. In Ivalice, it had been that still, except that it appeared to strike randomly across the battlefield. Starting with the caster. Oh sure it was useful if Marche was wearing the Bone plate that used the dark energy to heal the user, but Marche no longer had that armor.

"…Cure" Marche finished the fake chant shamelessly plagiarized from mineral water advertisement back home and a bright sphere of water like magic energy floated to Nathan, sinking into his head. Marche had passed the White Magic spell as a simple all-purpose healing spell that it was, except that it really used holy energy to heal instead of water magic's… whatever it used. It wasn't like Marche had had time or resources to study the local magic system in depth.

The first few times Marche had used the spell it had drawn curious gazes, but now his crowd was mainly disappointed he didn't show more exotic spells. Marche could already hear the disappointed whispers and derogatory allusions to 'one-trick pony'. Not that he cared.

"Again with the Cure? Don't you have any other spells?" Lotta asked with a slight irritation as Marche walked away from the unconscious boy.

"Why should I use something else? It works for just about anything with the right chant", Marche shrugged and put his 'wand' and 'grimoire' away. Of course the spell didn't need the chant, but it was there to make it appear more local style.

"Pfft, I bet that's the only one you know. Maybe that's how you were disgraced? Dropped out of the academy because you could cast only a single spell?" Lotta tried to rouse Marche, but he just answered in dull monotone:

"Yeah, they were so strict at the academy that they kicked me out because I could use only one spell that could be used for first aid, if not outright cure to just about every common injury."

Lotta smacked him upside the head for that.

"…So! I vaguely remember that we are going to spend the night at some village this eve. Anything I should know?" Marche changed the topic fluidly.

"Hmph, nothing much. It's a small out of the way farming/hunting community, like really out of the way one. Barely has any trade to anywhere."

"Then why are we stopping there if it's out of the way?"

"Old man Ackerson was hired to deliver a message to a lord who has a summer retreat there. Isn't worth it in my opinion, but I'm just an assistant, so I do what he says", Lotta shrugs.

"Fair enough. Not like I'm in a hurry myself", Marche said and looked around, spotting the sun high in the sky, "say, what time is it? I think I'm about to miss an earned meal."

"Earned, huh… How very noble of you to think that a reading a page from a book and waving a wand gets food on the table…" Lotta mumbled under her breath. She might have issues with nobles, Marche noted mentally and shrugged apologetically:

"Well it's what you pay me." She was right after all, Cure was criminally easy spell. In Ivalice. But again, that place wasn't exactly real, no matter how much it seemed contrary at times. Jagds were brutal windows of hell, especially Jagd Ahli with the creepy disgraced duke. Actually, Marche wasn't sure if he really was what he claimed or if it was just a title. It certainly sounded cheesy in Marche's ear at least.

"Go to the supply wagon. I believe there's something put aside for you", Lotta eventually declares and storms off. Definetly issues, Marche thought as he looked after her, before taking off towards the supply wagon.

The caravan Marche had been hired on belonged to a lesser noble merchant called Jeremy Ackerson. It consisted of five wagons, two for supplies and three of which were full of merchandise from a country called Romalia. Mainly spices and artwork commissioned by some nobles at Tristania, but there had been whispers around the campfire that there was a special crate ordered by princess herself somewhere, hence the old merchant personally joining the caravan with some extra guards, one of which was always subtly keeping an eye on Marche, especially when he was near consumables, as a real water mage could easily prepare a harmful potion or plain poison and then dump it in the food. Evidently Ackerson had come to a conclusion that if Marche was working with some bandit group to rob his caravan, it would be better to have him where they could keep an eye on him.

But that suited Marche fine, for now.

The supply wagon was located to the back of the caravan and it was pulled by two sturdy horses (and in case of steep uphill road, a foul mouthed handler or three).

"Yo! Lunchtime?" Marche yelled to the handler as he neared the wagon.

"Was ages ago. You are lucky I put something aside for you", the handler, a graying man with bushy beard answered and pulled a small bag from somewhere in the wagon, "here you go. Some hard bread and cheese for now. The cook says that we might have stew tonight, depending on how there is meat on sale in the village."

"Well that would be nice change. The cheese and the bread have only gotten harder since we left La Rochelle. Occasional meat from hunting is too occasional if you ask me", Marche made small talk as he climbed next to the handler and pulled out a small waterskin he kept on his person , "but hey, at least I don't have to pay for it."

"Yeah, that's what it means to be a woodsman. Food might get a bit occasional thing, but it's free. Used to be one myself, you know?" the handler grinned, clearly enjoying the topic, "Was a damn good shot with a bow, but never really mastered the art of being quiet. Scared off all the game before even saw them." Marche had a distinct feeling that while he really couldn't pair the man's face with any name in his poor memory, this wasn't the first time he heard this story. Maybe I should've eaten somewhere else, Marche thought and took a swig of water.

"Of course, when it became apparent that I would never stalk through the forest unheard -or at least unseen, I decided to try my hand with traps. You know the standard ones like the one that suspends the prey in air with a rope around their ankles or just in a net?" The man kept rambling and Marche seriously felt like hitting the man with Stare to shut him up. But that would only get the whole caravan up in arms against me, Marche reminded himself and massaged his temples with the hand that wasn't holding his meal.

"…then decided to try a pitfall! Seriously, nothing should have gone wrong with it…"

Or maybe they would thank me?

"…after I pulled the injured guy out of the hole he told me to take the message to lord Meadowcroft in the capital…"

Plan A: wolf the food down and escape.

"…of course I checked the thing when I was alone. Didn't really know how to read, but I knew a guy who knew a guy…"

Marche managed to stop paying attention to the old man's ramblings by stuffing so much hard bread in his mouth that his jaws hurt, until certain word stole his attention, and nearly caused him to choke.

"…body of some sort of giant bug! Supposedly had some sort of crystal embedded on it…."

"Wh- what? What kind of crystal?" Marche coughed up, almost dropping his waterskin.

"Ehh, didn't really ever see it myself. Said it was about the size of a small dog. Like the ones some noble ladies like to carry with them. But it was embedded on its head, just in front of its horns. No one dared to try and remove it, for they feared they might break the body. You see, that lordling was a bug collector. Wanted the thing into his collection and heard he got it in the end! Well, for the price he had offered in the message, I would've given my right arm!"

"A bug?" Marche asked in confusion. Could that be the totema? The crystals are more durable than the totemas, like Ultima and Exodus. But shouldn't there have been some sort of guardians there, appointed by the totema before its demise? And the crystal sounded a lot smaller than the ones in Ivalice. Maybe there are more of them, so they are smaller? Or the world is larger? Marche almost missed the handlers reply as he started to theorize.

"Yeah, a HUGE one. Like a small horse, with armor plates. I think they named it the King Beetle."

"King Beetle?" Marche asked with a thoughtful expression.

"That's right. Could be nothing else! I mean, biggest bug ever existed, with armor that could stop blades? Bet the guys who found the damn thing were glad it was dead! Would've probably eaten them otherwise."

"You don't say? In my experience, humongous bug are always carnivorous", images of antlions and their subreeds flickered in Marche's mind, "but where did you say this bug ended up in?"

"It was that lord Meadowcroft who bought it. Can't really remember where his main manor is, but he owns a sizeable forest near the Ragdorian Lake."

"Well… I'll keep that in mind if I'm around there in the future. Though, it's probably a safe bet that he wouldn't show it to a random mercenary", Marche gave a fake sigh and eyed the remains of his meal.

"But that's life, I guess. It was nice to talk to you", Marche said his goodbyes and jumped off the wagon. First to the capital, then bug hunting, Marche planned ahead and eyed the sky with renewed vigor, Still several hours of daylight left… Should I take a nap or go bother the guards?