"Haha...you're joking."
"..."
"You're joking, right?"
"Tis that sayin' ye have boy? Truth oft be more strange 'an fiction."
"Sir...this is more than strange. It's...uhm..."
"Evil? 'orrupt? 'cestuous?"
"All of those things!"
When it came to business relations, you make faster friends by engaging in banter. Friends can be more valuable than gold when it comes down to getting one's foot in the door.
"Aye. But tis all too true."
"Twelve above..."
"Drink to that, lad."
Johannes had dreams of being a merchant on the Sapphire Avenue Exchange and I just so happened to know a man that could get him a stall. The exchange is a contract for Baccus Wine in particular and the rights for the Daemon Company to stand as their priority bottling manufacturer. Johannes was already about to exit the winery business, deeming the freedom and independence of a merchant life to be more enticing, so it wasn't overly difficult to grease the wheels and use him as my voucher.
I also received a bonus of knowledge, mainly being about some strange relationship between a Captain and their sister. It seemed wise to keep my mouth shut. I wasn't the type to judge harshly after all, except when I did.
I gave Johannes a side-eye and sipped on some vineyard fruit juice. I didn't want to be drunk and lose control over my words before the Daemon Company's tendrils were writhing deep under the surface of the winery. Then, even if they wanted to cut us out, it would be as painful as losing their legs. Alliances were the deadliest foe one could bring into their operations.
Especially when that foe charmed their way in with jokes and drink.
---
'You have walked in the memories of others, have you not?'
Those were the opening words from a letter Minfilia had received. The shock was intense, rattling her to the core. If Winter hadn't been there while she was reading, Minfilia was certain that her reaction could have ended up more extreme. Only two people were aware of her power. And of those two, only one was likely to tell the sender of this particular letter. That bonehead wine-soaked wharf rat. Her face and heart twisted in disgust.
kiss
And then the knot released, like magic. Minfilia glanced to see her beloved, a calm smile on his face as he scanned the letter and then focused his attention on her. She couldn't articulate exactly why, but Winter being calm, made Minfilia calm. His soul had poured far too deeply into hers. Now rather than that feeling of hatred that started to build for Thancred, Minfilia felt somewhat embarrassed. Could this be called brave or courageous? Maybe he could still be trusted? Mayhaps he was worried?
kiss
Another smooth balm applied to her forehead, like a wand waved at her brain. The power of love was terrifying in that way. To dispel her fears and shames with but a kiss-
kiss
"AHH! I GET IT!"
smile
Her man held Minfilia close and snuggled into her deeply. She resigned herself to his spoiled behavior and reluctantly kept reading.
'It is foretold that on the cusp of an Umbral Calamity, individuals blessed with the power of the Echo will appear.'
Winter's body heat warmed her heart, which she did not notice had frozen. She had to be brave.
'During the Sixth Umbral Era, when the waters rose and threatened to swallow the land, the twelve Archons who stood against the tides each bore this blessing.'
This wasn't something that Minfilia could learn from any lecture or just any story. Even the version of the Sixth Umbral Calamity, as told by her man, was seemingly lacking in this detail. Twelve Archons, each holding this...blessing.
'The histories paint a fanciful picture of these gifted souls. Through countless re-tellings, the Archons' deeds have become myth, their powers more akin to gods than men. However, there are two things of which I am now certain.'
Minfilia braced herself, knowing that the words she'd read next would be enough to steal her breath away.
'First, their gift, the Echo, granted them the power to walk within the memories of others.'
Surely not.
'Second-'
Surely not!
'You have been blessed with the selfsame power.'
This wasn't just a reveal of her sudden and strange power. The ability to hear... "Her". It was more. It was...a prophecy. It resonated and aligned with her Father's warnings. The secret he was hiding, she knew it was worse than the Garleans, but what if it wasn't the Primals?
---
Twaaaaang-THACK
Another shot from her bow, another impression on her fingertips. Minfilia couldn't stop the frown from forming on her face. Once again the shot was perfect, but she couldn't get into the right rhythm.
'Nothing at all. I'll handle it. I promise.'
What did he see? What did her angel see? What would he handle?
TWAAAANG-THACK
How many arrows had she fired? It was difficult to keep track as she usually did.
Another Calamity? She tried to brush the warning off, but it kept creeping back into her mind.
Minfilia knew three Archons and not one had let something like this slip. She understood, as the stakes were incredibly high, but one person's behavior that she could not work out was her beloved's.
Over the years, Winter had been running around like the hells had frozen over, making connections and creating different bases of power. Construction projects, deals encoded into law, journeys to places unknown for further teachings. Could he tell? Did he have a feeling? He had never met Louisoix, but somehow Winter had come to a conclusion on his own.
He had to prepare for the world to end.
TWAAAANG-THACK-THACK-THACK
Her teeth grit strongly. This was the weight he carried? He wore that smile and pretended like-
'I'll handle it. I promise.'
That's what he said...
sigh
That was what he said indeed.
Winter had a plan. Not just that, he believed that he could make it out alive. Those protective eyes of his, Minfilia tried digging down into a deeper layer of her beloved's intent.
Winter was far more calculating than he gave himself credit for.
Minfila brought the bow down from her side and analyzed her Winter's actions over the years. Every contact and organization. Every story he told, the power he sought, it all was building to something. The newspaper ownership for example, why did he go seeking to own them? It had to be because without ownership, they wouldn't do what he wanted, right?
Minfilia continued to wrack her brain. What use could they be when the Calamity was coming? It wasn't as if they could slow or stop it.
"Ahh! I don't get it!"
What was he up to?!
It wasn't on the same wavelength as Louisoix. Minfilia could feel that deep in the back of her head. Her man's movements were independent.
'Why build a manor if the world was going to end? Why do anything at all?'
'I'll handle it. I promise.'
Did he...he must've found a way...
She took a deep breath, letting the cool Gridanian air circulate through her lungs and out of her mouth. She had to change the way she was interpreting this.
Calculated, careful, pessimistic, her man didn't act without a certain amount of assurance. If she was a calculating and impossibly attractive man who believed that he could survive the end of the world...
'I wouldn't just defend against it... I would seek to find advantage.'
It wasn't blatant... but wasn't it the case?
Minfilia tilted her head. The Suns of Yda, a new religion. The Daemon Company, a shell of a Free Company. That Rowena lady that he told her about, a contact with rare artifacts. That book on fairies...
'Damn it all!'
She couldn't grasp it! Whatever her Winter had planned, it was not small! Just how big and entangled was this web he had spun?! And how did he know?
'Father forgive me! I've fallen in love with a devil!'
Was there any man as deep as hers? Not on the star! Her silly thoughts brought a smile to Minfilia's face.
Minfilia looked up at her room's window from the yard. She left an unfinished reply to Louisoix on her desk. She struggled to find the words that could encapsulate her feelings and guide her scripture to the page.
Was this her calling? It didn't feel like it. Winter went about everything with such familiarity and finesse that Minfilia couldn't help feeling somewhat inadequate. He absorbed knowledge like a sponge and spat it back out. Minfilia, despite having this...Echo, could only mimic shadows of those greater than her.
Could she really bear this weight? Was this really the path she was to tread?
Minfilia looked down at her feet, her bright smile swept away by sobering clouds. Dark boots caked in dirt and wood shavings. They had stomped all over the Twelveswood and even a bit beyond. They had scaled trees and crossed many rivers.
She then looked at her fingers. Small indents marked her hands in multiple places. Indents in her index finger where she held a pen and stayed true to her studies.
Small lines across her middle finger that she used to pull back on the most sharp bowstrings.
Darker patches of skin on her palm that she used to leverage the weight of a pickaxe.
She didn't have the marks of an Archon, but surely these counted?
'Brave...'
Since when did she doubt? The answer was obvious was it not?
'The Bravest Soul on Eorzea couldn't be stopped over something so silly!'
Winter had not bothered to hide his actions from her. The trust he placed in Minfilia was obvious. She found the question of how he knew to be far less important than a different question that had lodged itself in her head like an arrow turned rogue.
'Then, shouldn't I help?'
Minfilia was not some defenseless and ornate princess sitting high in a tower. This power, to hear, feel, and think. She could use it, could she not?
'Twelve Archons.'
Ysayle...
There were more like her. Twelve knew how many more... What if... she were to bring them together, huddled under one tree, could they not hold up the sky while Winter stole the moon?
'It's important to let the audience come to their own conclusions. After all, the imagination is a powerful thing.'
Winter would say that often. She had to obtain their motives and weave them into a tapestry. A shield against the star.
To help Winter in whatever he was trying to accomplish, Minfilia needed to know more. She needed to gather more information and then... she would gather more Echo users.
Minfilia the Brave put down her bow and stretched lightly. There was much to be done.
---
Records on the Rune Knight were scarce. The class was a relic of Tactics, and though you could reach the lands in which Tactics took place, it was going to take a while for that story line to start.
In the meantime, I was pouring through the books that Queen Matoya put onto my desk. Not a single one of these books covered fundamentals. In her own way, Master Matoya was attentive and caring. She was careful not to shatter my Dynamis into pieces, and in fact, helped me reinforce it with further confidence.
I still could not summon a Primal slaying gun however.
I had experimented with the idea of splicing stones with more powerful and complex spells, but with every bend of a Rune, there's a risk of erosion as the Aether "splashes" against the bend. Like a river where the water cannot easily turn, eventually the burden became too great for the carved channel.
I came up with the idea of carving Runes into crystals to get past this limitation. Crystals, while fragile and prone to shattering, were more resistant than stone when it came to directing Aether. Sharp angled fractals redirected the flow like light shone on a mirror.
It was how I made the Warp Marker, one of my most valuable tools. If the spell wasn't basically a series of circles, like gears on a timepiece, then it just wasn't feasible on stone. But in crystal, I could do it.
With Master Matoya's teachings, I learned many things about how mages of the past typically attempted to create "portable spells". Usually in the form of alchemist bombs. The issue they ran into was that Aether was linked to your very being. You couldn't simply detach it and move it around remotely, though there was an experiment at some point with a Voidkin and a jar of peaches...
It was only by going back and forth with these books and Master Matoya, that I stumbled upon a method to melt crystals and preserve their integrity. I supposed that I could've re-framed the problem with this solution earlier, but my crystal literacy was lacking. I knew crystals could grow. I knew they could shatter. At no point did I think they could melt.
It was a face-palming moment. Sometimes the obvious things pass one by when they are deeply engrossed in their craft.
Melting crystal was something that even a novice Alchemist could do, let alone me. It didn't even seem to matter what kind of crystal I melted, they all transferred Aether at more or less the same speed, though I settled on Lightning crystals in the end as they proved to be the fastest to transmit and the most plentiful in my possession.
'I could create a wire mold, couldn't I?
If I ran melted crystals like wires, then they'd be able to handle larger loads of Aether and direct them, perhaps without a base like a stone.
The Daemon Glass that I had begun production on not too long ago flashed into my head. I still had time to adjust the design...
'Wait... Then wasn't all this work to obtain stronger glass worthless?'
My body froze, while my mind spun, looking for a way to cope with the devastation being brought down on my head.
Eventually, my mind shut down and trapped that thought into a trauma cage. I would never open it again.
I still hadn't written up my thoughts for Papalymo and Y'shtola yet, though the two seemed too engrossed in their work for me to bother them. If they heard of my new method to move Aether around, they might've both dropped their Archon work and became Alchemists instead.