February 25th, 1800
...
There are many villages out there in the world, but none of them, I'd say, compares to the village of Dali.
To be fair, I don't know any of them, but I know Dali because I have lived here ever since I was born, and so did my father, and his father before him. They never left this place. I've seen quite a lot of people from my family and the neighbor's family members leave to go somewhere else. In search of adventure, in search of money, in search of love, they had their reasons and we understood very well.
A friend of mine, Jonathan, had a son who got ill. Pneumonia, he said. A very unfortunate disease for a boy at such a young age, and he had no potions or elixirs at home. Usually they're brought by outsiders, but Jonathan couldn't wait because his son's condition got worse, so he eventually left town with his family to seek treatment. One day he'll be back, as he wrote to me in a letter, and his son will feel the country air. I hope so.
I too wanted to leave once, but I decided to stay and work on the corn farm, like my father when he was alive and able to hold a pitchfork with his both hands.
Then, everything changed when Queen Brahne's fleet arrived and her men built an underground factory. At first, we did not know what they were making, but as soon as everyone was getting paid to do what they told us to do, nobody cared. It was a very profitable job, I got a lot more gil than I earned monthly by working on the harvest and taking the crops to airships who would fly to the faraway lands I never stepped into. I was well-paid and I have no regrets. Well, only a few.
Some of the villagers who were still working on the farms were concerned about this sudden change. Alexandria said they were not taking their jobs away, but rather offering new opportunities for us to try and that we could still work on the farm if we wanted.
It was a lie. There was no time for the farm anymore, given the pressure, the deadlines, the machines that had to be fixed very often, it wasn't pleasant, but we were getting paid, we couldn't refuse the offer. It was neither a choice nor an opportunity, but something in between. We wanted money but none of us could ever leave Dali because we had to work on their project everyday. We had lost control of our lives, we couldn't tell any outsiders about the secret below, that we... We made weapons. Weapons of mass destruction, or at least, that's how Alexandria treated those Black Mages as.
They had consciousness, a few of them, but they kept growing aware of their surroundings. Queen Brahne was pleased to know it was a rare occurrence and that the majority of "dolls" was at her command. They were given no choice, they refused to give one as they were put in barrels and the cargo ship took them to Alexandria, and as we know, Alexandria took advantage of them in combat.
With the Black Mage's magic and lack of understanding for what they were doing, Burmecia was conquered, Cleyra smoldered to ashes and Lindblum surrendered after most of its people, I still can't believe it, were sucked into the void of a monster. The Queen could just summon those eidolon things and unleash them at people anytime. At day, or night, when you're at work, at home... One person given too much power only to threaten others with said power, that's horrifying.
Days later, the factory was later dismantled by the very people who worked on it and we got back to the farms. The official Alexandrian reports say it was due the lack of Mist, who vanished all of sudden. It was something unexpected and out of their control, though I heard rumors of the factory's closure related to Queen Brahne's passing, and the power she had in hands being responsible for that. An eidolon turned against her and destroyed her fleet and... She's dead. The Queen is dead and I remember fondly the days she used to be a good person, even though most of us forgot it, and I don't blame them, it was ages ago, when the King of Alexandria was still alive.
Now, I look back at the war and I wonder whose fault is it, ours for creating the Black Mages? Is Queen Brahne solely to blame for abusing the power she had in hands? Or, is it the Burmecians for killing her husband in battle? Maybe I'll never know. Alexandria and Burmecia fought many wars in the past, each side earned a victory and a loss as well. They fought for generations until they forgot what they fought for. They just remembered yesterday's hostilities and fought back, again and again, as we stood in the middle, watching everything unfold before us.
That's all I know.