[Pravoka, Open] Walking the streets of Pirate's Pravoka

It was done. A strike from Knight's blade went cleanly through the archdemon's throat even as Ninja came up behind the creature to stab his blade through Chaos' back, catching him in one kidney and then in the other. Red Wizard lay on one hip, her back on fire from the gashes the beast left across her skin, the curaga failing on her lips as she realized that the battle was over.

Master leaned over her, concern in his gentle eyes that looked at her with such sympathy for the sacrifice demanded of them. The building began to shake around them and he wrapped his arms around her.

Ninja and Knight resheathed their weapons as the archdemon Chaos dissolved and both ran over to kneel by their friends. Ninja was blunt. "The circle is closed."

Master nodded. "Time is restoring itself. What was not intended will no longer be. Our world, and the Crystals, are safe again."

Red Wizard felt tears filling her eyes as she looked at the faces of her friends. The building was crumbling around them, great blocks falling down as the four heroes, still teenagers themselves, huddled closer together to savor what could be their last moments of existence.

Knight held out one armored hand and the other three all clasped hands in the center. "It…" his voice choked slightly with emotion, "it has been an honor to be your friend, to fight at your side."

All nodded in agreement, even as Red Wizard felt her heart breaking with sorrow that it was over too soon. Why couldn't they have had just one more day? She didn't want her life to be over, not yet… A great chunk of the roof came falling down towards the four friends as Time rewrote itself, causing them to vanish into specks of light before it crashed down on where they were.

It was done.

Telira woke with a sudden gasp, her face wet with tears and her back on fire where she lay on her bed. Another nightmare. That was the third time this week. She groaned softly as she rolled over in bed and sat up. There were old scars on her back, yes, but she knew exactly where she'd gotten them. A too-adventurous child she'd climbed a tree that had a rotten core and when it had broken beneath her weight she'd gotten gouged by the branches.

She'd never been in any battles with any demons.

She'd lived in Pravoka all her life, and the Crystals had never failed, had never had need to call mysterious heroes out of nowhere to defend them.

She sighed and picked up the crystal on its pendant chain from the table beside her bed and slid the chain over her head, letting the shining shard settle into place. It was a family heirloom, nothing more and nothing less.

Yeah, nothing extraordinary had ever happened to Telira.

Eventually she emerged to wander the streets she knew so well, her sword on one hip because Pravoka was home to seafarers and so wasn't always safe. She'd taken it upon herself, once she'd demonstrated that she knew one end of a sword from the other, to patrol every now and then, making sure that things stayed relatively peaceful.

Her brothers still teased her about being a one-girl town watch, but she knew that they, and her parents, were proud of her ability.

Still, she'd look out to sea and wonder, some days, what else was out there. She knew that someday she'd answer that siren's call of freedom and find her own ship to carry her off to whatever fate she set her sights on, but she wasn't sure that this was going to be that day.

She had streets to patrol, drunks to chastise, and a lingering ache in old scars on her back to work loose.

Standing in the Interdimensional Rift... so cold. I lost my damned blanket again. How many times would I have to skin the monsters around here to keep track of a blanket in the Rift's harsh winter. Well, it was summer outside of the Rift. I supposed it was time to exit the rift, and warm up... maybe get a blanket from a shop. I wondered where I would end up, I wondered how the events of today would end up. Oh well it was time for me to go warm up. Snapping my fingers, the rift opened up before me, and I stepped through. For a moment I was sucked through a vacuum but then I popped out on a building, the roof. It was a small building in a rural-looking, yet somewhat medieval-esque town. It was bound to have had a shop. Looking around, I felt as though I had been here before. It was hard to remember, I've been almost everywhere. I hopped down from the building and landed with a loud thud shaking the nearby buildings a very slight bit. I was a huge man, not fat-- my my tallness and muscularity was fiend-like from my constant struggles in the Interdimensional Rift.

I glanced around some more, and checked which weapons I pulled from my collection this fine day. "God dammit! Not again!" I cursed out loud. I accidentally took the Excalipoor again. At least I managed to bring along the Zodiac Spear as well. I placed them into their respective sheathing, and began exploring for a while. Lumbering in the way I walked, it was only natural due to my brutish heaviness, and fiend-like proportions and body. I was well clad, wearing red and yellow armor with my classic white shorts with red polka dots with that awesome cape. Left foot, right foot, left again... I thought to myself as I walked along, remembering not to run around like I normally did. In my exploration, I happened upon a weapon store, and an item store, but nothing cloth related. In my mind I was cursing like a sailor. "How long must I walk to find a damn clothing store? Weapon shops are clearly labelled, item shops and pharmacies sure, but a place to buy clothing is completely out of the town plans!" I muttered loudly. I eventually gave up on this venture, because it was causing me more headache than it was worth.

Getting out of my angered state of mind. I had a whole day minus an hour or so to kill, so what was there to do around this place? He then saw someone vaguely familiar. The red outfit with that silver hair. I remembered it was someone who once kicked my ass when I found this world's Excalibur, which they then took for themselves. I sighed and figured it was best to forget and forgive. I figured they must have something to do for a while, they looked moderately serious, one part casual though. I walked over to the woman clad in red and said, "Hello." My voice would sound calm, but gravelly and almost dumb sounding, with the baritone of it.

Telira heard a loud voice rumbling complaints about the quality of shopping in her native Pravoka and followed it out of habit. She couldn't believe that it was anything more than a grumpy sailor who got drunk last night and passed out somewhere and was looking to replace whatever his fellows took from him as fair spoils since he'd been, legitimately, without defense. Some of the things these sailors and pirates that came wandering through Pravoka did left her shaking her head in disbelief.

And wondering what it would be like to captain her own ship. She'd have rules, and insist on some level of honor. Though, granted, thieves like that tended to only target those who had left themselves open for it, which she supposed was something akin to honor… maybe... if a person tilted her head right and squinted her eyes by more than a little.

Still, it wouldn't do to leave someone stranded, and so Telira followed the sound of the voice until she turned a corner and found herself looking right at the largest man she'd ever seen. He… he must have been nine… almost ten feet tall!! With… she counted them quickly… eight arms!!

A monster? Inside town? Were the guards at the gates asleep on the job or something? She started to reach for her sword when the creature actually spoke to her. It didn't say much, just a simple word of greeting, but it was more than enough to stop her still in her tracks.

Now, it should be stated that Telira had been having dreams for quite a few years, and she didn't know what to make of them but she certainly never thought that any of them were anything other than just that, dreams. So she didn't immediately connect this monstrous man with the same one who had appeared in a few dreams of exploring caverns deep within the world prior to that final cataclysmic meeting with Chaos.

She was rather proud, though, of the way she managed to keep her jaw from falling all the way to the ground. "Hello." She couldn't think of anything else to say, couldn't get any other words to make their way into her mouth for the blockage between voice and brain.

She swallowed. "I couldn't help but overhear your complaints about our shopping district. Perhaps if you let me help you? What is it you are seeking?" He wasn't rampaging through the streets; he wasn't attacking innocent bystanders for no reason other than they were there. He was behaving himself in an almost respectable manner, which was more than she could say about some of the pirates and their crews that sailed into the harbor at Pravoka every week it seemed.

So long as he was polite, then she would be polite, though she couldn't help but have this nagging feeling that she'd seen him before, or someone very much like him. But that was plainly impossible. She'd never been away from Pravoka, other than the one afternoon one of her brothers had taken her sailing. But they'd stayed within sight of the town the whole time, so she supposed that didn't count.

Upon me appearing before her, the Red Mage was already reaching for her sword. I felt a little hurt by that, I wasn't a bad guy, sure greedy and childish, but bad? Never! However, my words appeared to have made her stop her weapon drawing, and I was a little relieved. I then remembered that I was a freak with 8-arms, standing a foot or higher over most men. I figured she was mostly afraid, though me just saying something like any other civilized human being was enough to calm her down a bit. Of course in the occasion she would attack, I would show her my real strength, and it would have been easy to take her on one versus one. But with the relaxation now taking over... more like an awkward silence maybe, she greeted me back. After another moment of what I would consider 'awkward silence' she managed to choke up a few more words. She appeared to have heard my loud mutterings over the shops in this town and her words sparked new interest in that blanket I came here for. "Actually..." I began.

With that beginning I tried to make it sound a little bit more of a mature journey on my part. But to no avail in my mind I simply said, "I was looking for a shop where I might be able to buy a blanket. A nice quilted one maybe." With that, I almost childishly daydreamed about a blanket. A blanket, and keeping warm in the Interdimensional Rift's harsh winter with it. Nice, comfortable and fluffy and warm, not like those fiend pelt blankets I made many times before. However, I realized the childishness of the daydream and blinked myself back into reality, where I held no blanket to curl up into for warmth near the fire. I sighed and asked with a curious look in my eyes, "Umm, do you know where I might find one?" I scratched the back of my head through the cloth of my hooded cape. To tell the truth, my appearance was pretty hilarious to see. Very vibrant and over clad. What was worse about this appearance was that it provided little protection from the cold I had to deal with, despite all of the layers of clothing and armor I had on. Very odd things to wear though I suppose where I got them from really never had much of a 'winter' so to speak.

I felt a bit like a loser, to tell the truth, having to ask for directions from a person from my past. I wouldn't mind this so much, except I also had this horrible embarrassing feeling of having to ask where I could buy a damn blanket. I mean, how hard should a town really make that? "I was exploring and hoping I would be able to find some place, but I couldn't find anything. I suppose even with my greater senses I'm still blind as a bat when looking for something in particular," I added on. I was telling the truth, I always manage to find things when I am not looking for them, but when I and looking for something, even when in plain sight, I could never even hope to find it.

Telira was caught speechless for a moment as the monstrous man admitted that he was looking for something as simple as a blanket. But something in his expression as he was lost in daydreams about a quilted blanket touched her. He was almost like a lost child. She couldn't help but smile at him.

"A blanket? I'm sure we can find you a blanket somewhere. I know that the Item Shop sells bedrolls and tents. Maybe they've got a good blanket for you to buy there." She still couldn't shake the feeling that she'd seen him somewhere before, but she couldn't figure out just where, so she did her best to be as friendly as she could as she started walking through the streets, leading him to the Item Shop.

Not knowing what else to do, she started talking as they walked. "Have you traveled very far from home? We don't usually get people like you wandering through Pravoka, though some of the Pirates come from very long distances away. We had a peddler visit when I was younger who was all the way from Melmond. We get rumors, sometimes, of far off places. It's hard not to when Pravoka's a shipping town, but the Inner Sea just doesn't get as much in the way of exotic travelers as the towns of the Outer Seas." Her voice faded as they approached the shop. She sighed. "Sometimes I wonder what it would be like to travel the world and see places other than Pravoka."

They arrived at the shop and she led him inside, though the door was rather short for him. She waved for the shopkeeper. "Aurian? We have a visitor to our town who wishes to know if he can purchase a blanket." She approached the counter and motioned for the huge swordsman to follow her.

The old shopkeeper, a man with graying hair and an age-creased face, smiled at them. Well, smiled at Telira and since the huge man was with her, he smiled at him, too. "Good to see you, Telira. We've got several blankets new in today, just made by Widow Cara." He walked over and pulled a few down from the wall behind him and set them on the counter to show him. "Does your friend have a preference in color or design?" Each blanket was stitched of patchwork pieces in bright colors and quilted with fluffy stuffing between them.

Telira looked up at the huge man. "Widow Cara makes the blankets for the shop. She even made my welcoming blanket when I was born." She had to chuckle softly. "Sorry, just… I grew up hearing the stories about my brothers getting the news that they had a new sister… sometimes I wish I could have seen them dealing with me."

Aurian chuckled. "It was certainly a sight to see, Miss Telira." He looked at the great warrior. "What do you think of the blankets? Are any of them catching your attention?" He motioned to the blankets, the colors and designs bright and inviting to the eyes.

The Red Mage told me that she knew where a good place to purchase blankets. I grew a smile from ear to ear underneath that cloth that guarded my mouth. This person quickly became my best friend, and I began following her as she started walking to show me the way. I was already daydreaming again. A warm quilted blanket, keeping me warm as I trudged through the horrible snow of the Interdimensional Rift. Soon though, my childish imagination took over that daydream, and I found myself playing matador with some of the fiends while laughing, the blanket magically becoming a sword and slaying an Interdimensional Dragon on its own, then me riding the blanket through the sky like it was a magic carpet. Suddenly my childish daydream ended once more, this time by my more of the Red Mage talking. I looked at with something of curiosity, as she asked me something about if I had traveled away from home or something. I looked at her a little bit blankly now and said, "Not really, it took me like three seconds to get to this town. Though if you want to get into technicalities I am pretty far away."

This was nothing but truth. Though it took me but a few seconds to make it here, it was totally by randomness, and I was really far away from my 'home' of the Interdimensional Rift, though it technically was never far away. Soon though, we made it to the shop, and the Red Mage entered. I had to duck down and awkwardly position my arms to manage to slip in the door frame. Looking inside, I was instantly introduced to an old man, by the name of Aurian. This man instantly proved to be my best friend as well, because he smiled and began displaying many different blankets for my choosing. I looked at the variety and colors in wonder. I looked at them all with wonder, and smiled trying to pick from the many intricate designs. Looking between them all, one managed to catch my eye among them. A large, fluffy-looking blanket of blood red and black checkerboard pattern between the little squares. I almost jumped when I saw that one, but I knew I would hit my head on the ceiling if I did something dumb like that, not even I was that distracted. I pointed to that on and said, "Oooh! That one matches my color scheme!"

I was very excited about that blanket, I walked up to the counter and asked, "How much!? You take gil too right?" The way I said that sounded quite seriously curious about that, as if I couldn't be too sure about it. This implied that I wasn't from here, or at least wasn't familiar with this area. However, I still kept my giddy disposition which would probably make one immediately dismiss the implication, thinking I may have been facetious about it. I *was* genuinely curious, but without further question I already had pulled out a sack, filled to the point where it almost looked like it was going to overflow, with gil. I gathered a lot from my constant slaying of fiends, because apparently, even in the Interdimensional Rift, gil was important.

Aurian chuckled at the warrior's childlike delight in the red and black checkerboard blanket. "Yes, we take gil. Everyone does, actually. Don't know of any other form of money around. Seems like you come from a good distance away. Now, gil minted by Elfheim is stamped differently than gil stamped by Cornelia, but I've seen coins from as far away as Crescent Lake."

Telira nodded as well. She was rather curious about where this warrior came from, and why she could swear that she knew him, but those were questions she really didn't know how to ask. However, there was one question she certainly knew how to answer very well indeed.

Aurian pushed the other blankets to the side and pulled the black and red one forward so that it was central on the counter. "Well I tend to charge 'bout 10 gil for a blanket."

Telira chuckled and slid a small pile of coins across the counter to him. "I got this one. Thanks, Aurian." Then she took the blanket and set it into the warrior's hands. "Here, a gift from me to you." She smiled up at him. "I know how much it means to me to get a gift from a friend."

To be honest, she hadn't really had many friends. She'd had her brothers, growing up, and everyone in town seemed pleasant to her, but none of them were really friends. Not like the ones she saw in her dreams and nightmares.

That thought caused her eyes to widen slightly as it crossed her mind. Her dreams… a flash of an image crossed through, a cavern and something about a sword… But how was that even possible? Those were dreams! Just dreams! She trembled slightly and Aurian frowned slightly.

"Are you alright, Telira?" He didn't know what had her upset, but she was obviously disturbed by something. Her face had turned paler than normal and there was a slight shine to her eyes. "Do you need me to call your brothers?"

She shook her head quickly. "No, I'm alright." She didn't want to talk to her family right then. They wouldn't understand. They'd thought, like her, that dreams were only dreams. There'd never been a Seer in her family line. The only thing in her line was the crystal she carried and that had never done anything other than shine like a night light at the oddest times.

She looked up at the warrior. "Is there anything else you were looking for? I could help you find it." In truth, she wanted the chance to talk to this warrior about her dreams, but she didn't know what to say or how to say it or even if she should. Dreams were dreams. That was the way it had always been. The Crystals had never dimmed; she'd never seen any other Crystal-bearers than herself.

But suddenly all her assumptions were being questioned and she didn't know what to do. All she knew was that she had to have answers, and soon… or she was going to break loose of the city on the first ship that she could get her hands on and go looking for answers herself.

I heard the man as he spoke about how "distant" he'd seen gil from. But Crescent Lake didn't sound very far to me. But then again, I don't travel via the normal method, so far to me is usually when I come from a place that has its soldiers wielding bronze swords and wooden shields, to a place where people are firing guns. God damn I hate guns. They are a complete waste of perfectly good metal. I pretty much thought though, 'Geez, people in this world don't get around much do they?' I then saw Telira already pay for the blanket and then placed the big fluffy quilt in my hand. It was so~ warm and soft and fluffy. I took it and hugged it. "Yes! Finally!" I exclaimed, without real consideration for my words. I kneeled down a bit and was about to give her one of my patented Gilgahugs (now with eight times the love, gratitude, and friendship. Or 'bro' in the case of men). However I noticed her seeming to flash or something, as she was trembling with her eyes widened. As the old man asked if he should call her brothers, and she quickly declined almost as if trying to avoid them, I was a little curious about her family life. Not too curious though...

After that, she seemed to pull herself together and then ask if I wanted to find anything else. I thought for a minute and tried to make something up. But really there were no other things that I wanted to obtain out of this journey. Come to think of it, I really should have thought this through a little better. I mean, now I was stuck here for an hour and a half of my day gone, for a whole day otherwise. If that doesn't make sense to anyone, that means I have all day to kill again! I sighed and said, "Thanks but I'm afraid that I've only come to this town to purchase a blanket." I shrugged slightly and said, "Thank you for the blanket, though..." I gave Telira a quick thank you hug, using only two arms as to not accidentally crush her, and then I turned and said, "Well I have a day to pass before I head home." I then squeezed through the doorframe, two of my hands still groping the blanket and its soft fluffy being. I *loved* this blanket, I tell you.

With that I walked along towards the bench across the street and sat on it carefully, as to not crush it. 'Goddamn I am huge,' I thought to myself. It is something I live with very often that I have to hold back in everyday things, as to not smash everything I touch. I love swords, because they are strong, and sturdy. They don't buckle under the pressure of my strength. I was thinking now, about what to do for the rest of this day. I had until tomorrow now....

Telira was more than a little stunned by the strength of his gratitude. Okay, the strength of his arms certainly did make an impression, too. He wasn't just overwhelmingly huge; he was like an overwhelmingly huge little kid/ teddy bear who, if her dreams were an indication of the real thing, could actually be impressive with those weapons he tended to collect.

She nodded her thanks to Aurian and followed the warrior outside, wondering how would be best to ask the questions that she needed to ask, for the sake of her own sanity. She had to know the truth or she'd be worrying over it until it drove her mad. The dreams were happening much more frequently in the past several months and while she didn't talk about it much, she did think about it… a lot.

She tapped the warrior on one arm to get his attention, sincerely hoping that she wasn't about to convince him that she was a madwoman who needed to be locked up before she became a threat to herself and others, but she had to know. She really had to know. "I'd like to talk to you for a bit, if you don't mind." There was a nervous waver in her voice but she barreled on through because she really didn't have a choice.

"This is going to sound more than a little crazy. I know that and I know that you have every right to simply tell me to go see a Healer and get myself fixed or something… but I was wondering whether you think that dreams…" she paused, exceptionally nervous, "if you think that dreams can ever become real?"

She really didn't know how else to phrase the question. She'd grown up knowing that there were some who were given to magical foresight, that some were given prophetic dreams and visions. They were the Seers. There were stories about them coming from Elfheim and from Crescent Lake both, but no tales had reached Pravoka of any Seer predicting anything like what was in her dreams and she knew full well that the Seergift did not flow through her family line.

She was a Red Mage, gifted with both White Magic and Black Magic and swordsmanship as well. She was a daughter of Pravoka with the wind and the waves in her blood and she had simple dreams of sailing away to make a name for herself as the captain of her own vessel. But she was not a Seer… was she?

"Please, I think I met you in a dream, once, and I don't want to sound like an utter fool but I really don't see any way around it because I need to know. I'm no Seer, but I saw you in a dream and here you are and I don't… I don't know what to think anymore." Well, it was a little bit more dramatic than that. She wondered if she were actually going insane. She wondered if maybe someone in her far distant family had been untrue and that there truly was hidden Seergift that had gone unnoticed.

And she wondered if this warrior could step out from her dreams… what else could suddenly become real from them? Could she one day meet Warrior? Or Thief? Or even Monk?

She followed me out of the shop and appeared like she was nervous. She said she wanted to talk to me, and so I responded, "I'm all ears." I smiled and listened to her, though her words were shaky, as if I thought anything was crazy. I've been places and seen things. What then got me was that she started talking about dreams. Can the ever become real? That was quite a question, and to the point, I didn't really know. I had to answer her though, because I felt it was needed, "I've had quite a few journey's venturing way beyond this town, my home, even beyond this world. If that is like a dream, then it can become real." As I finished answering, it appeared that she had more to say. Now I tell you something, it wasn't a dream of mine to travel forever to places unknown, however, it was quite a dream of mine to have obtained the ultimate sword. The Excalibur, the blade said to slice through anything, I knew this to be the truth. However, despite how close I've come, I never managed to obtain such a treasure of a weapon. Such was my dream, and such was crushed many times.

But I'd never falter. Soon she had her words put together into her next sentence. She said that she had seen me in a dream once before, and that she wasn't a seer but it had been true. I looked at her a bit more frustrated now. "Only a dream?" I asked, "But you are Telira the Red Mage of Light, aren't you? You and your friends put the smack down on me like... not even a year ago in this world's time!" I seemed really upset by her only remembering me as a dream. I was too. I felt hurt that after the beatdown that she and her friends gave me... I was only a dream to her? Was that how she thought? That was cold even for a person who crushed my dream before. I was willing to forgive her crushing my dream but damn, she just gave me a critical hit to the heart. "I see how it is..." I murmured as I turned and looked away from her. Now I have to admit, after they completely wrecked me I retreated back to the Interdimensional Rift, so whatever happened didn't affect me. Of course, I didn't think that less than a year would do this to a person either.

I gazed off to the gates of town, sniffing the air slightly. There was something in the distance... something not pleasant. I remembered something from many worlds that I have met before... I tried to ignore it though, because whatever that was, wasn't my business. All four of my right arms cuddled and played with my new blanket. This thing was awesome alright? It was so fluffy I could die, and it was matching of my own colors that I wore.

Telira blinked in utter shock. How could he know that title? It was… it was the way she thought of herself in the dreams… like she was more a title and less a person… except when she'd been around Black Mage… and Black Mage sometimes was in the dreams and sometimes wasn't. Sometimes there was a Monk of Light in Black Mage's place, sometimes there was a White Mage…

The faces changed, the details changed, but the one constant was that they were friends, bound to the single purpose of… she choked slightly at the reason so many of the dreams were nightmares… of giving their lives to save the world from What Must Not Be…

She grabbed hold of the warrior's arm, frantic enough that she didn't pay mind to the fact that she must truly sound like a madwoman, but if he remembered those events as something other than mere slumbering imagination, then it was of vital importance that she find out what he knew. And whether or not he'd seen any of the others.

To truly have friends again… it was already something of an insanity that she was considering this, but it mattered to her more than this huge warrior could imagine. Though maybe he could. She wasn't sure. All she knew was that she took the leap that faith demanded of her and chose to hope in the impossible. "Please, tell me how you know that name! I've never held that title! There has never been a need." She pulled the blue crystal hanging from its mythril-silver chain and held it on her palm to show him what it looked like, shining on her hand with the light of the Crystals themselves. "This has never fallen dim, but I saw it happen in a dream, a nightmare where I walked to my own annihilation to try to save the world by destroying a demon before he could twist Time itself to his evil plans."

She trembled. "Please, this is important. You… you actually remember fighting me? In a cavern? With three friends beside me?" There were tears in her eyes. "The dreams are jumbled sometimes… I can't remember their faces, but I know that they were my friends… please, have you seen any of them anywhere?"

She trembled, the hope rising in her heart causing it to squeeze painfully. "Please, if they… if what you remember and what I dream was real and happened… then Time itself was rewritten and we were supposed to be erased along with Chaos. I'm not supposed to even exist anymore." She choked. "That was the cost of saving the world. Our lives would end along with that of the villain we defeated."

She didn't know how to make him understand how terrifying that knowledge was, how painful they'd found it, but each time she dreamed she relived that journey and knew that aching doom hanging over her head, even though she'd thought, with waking blindness, that it had simply been a dream.

"Please, help me find the truth. Help me find my friends, if they exist at all. If you do…" she paused, scouring her memories for some key to his mind, "I'll help you, somehow. Just tell me what to do."

I looked at her as she somehow now appeared to me to be begging me. She was being a little unreasonable if you ask me. She explained that all that she remembered was a dream at first, and that, to me rubbed salt in the wound. I know that I was more than a dream. The crystal never dimmed, she never held such a title. Now I'm a crazy guy. I'll admit that I can be completely irrational about just about anything I want to be irrational about. And then she continued, saying that she dreamed that she fought me alongside her three friends, whom I remembered to be the white mage, the warrior, and the monk of light at the time. She wasn't really helping, but the fact that she could recall vague details was better than nothing. And then she proceeded with her going on about what happened after our fight. She was saying something about the space time continuum rewriting itself so that it would get rid of that Chaos guy from a while back. She was asking about her friends, saying that since she shouldn't exist and they shouldn't but she did, then they must have... or something along those lines.

Then... she said something else... something interesting. Now if time and space rewrote itself in this dimension so that their journey never happened... there was a chance that I could find the Excalibur once again. My eyes lit up ever so slightly. I looked at Telira and said, "Alright, alright. I understand your situation." This was a truth, I did listen to her words and stuff. I comprehended how badly she needed my help. "I have seen your friends at one point in my past, actually not that long ago," I said. "I met the Warrior of Light about 3 months ago and we engaged in friendly combat. After he proved to be a little more than I could handle I had to retreat, that was the last I really saw of him," I finished up on that. I sighed and sat my back against the bench once more, "Sorry, but I don't know if you'll see him ever again, but he's in a different dimension, their rules of combat are way more complex than other dimensions," I threw out. Soon I remembered someone's face. It was saddening to remember especially when talking to Telira.

I decided I would keep it to myself. However, I decided that since she offered, I could at least ask, "Do you remember any details of locations... near that cave in which we fought in your dream?" I knew that that cave was the cave where the Excalibur was held. Sadly, it was also out of my memory. I was human for the conscious mind part of me, so I forgot little details like that. I felt pretty sad though, because I hardly had a clue where it was. I looked at her, "If you can't recall it's fine, but if what you say is the truth, which it must be... then I can find one of the swords of my dream collection."

He'd met Warrior? For true and certain? Telira felt simultaneously ecstatic and depressed. She wasn't alone; the dreams were more than just dreams, they were fragments of memories from a time which had been erased and rewritten… but that she was still the product of no matter that neither of them should even exist.

But it was only Warrior. And he was in a separate dimension from her, a place where she couldn't go. A place further than any place they'd gone on their journey, further than the reaches of Time itself. For all that suddenly she wasn't alone, she was even more alone than she'd been before because of the sheer gap of time and space that stood between them. And that distance was an ache inside her chest, because she wondered how many of her dreams were memory fragments and how many of them were wishful thinking.

She'd never know if she didn't find a way to locate Warrior. But there wasn't a way to reach him. This warrior had said as much. There was no reaching the dimension where Warrior had fought against him, testing their strength to see who was stronger. From what she remembered, Warrior had been very strong, even before he had become Knight. They'd all been strong.

She wasn't nearly as strong now, though. One of the side effects of the time revision. She was very nearly as weak as she'd been… just after they defeated Garland to free the princess. They'd thought themselves so very strong after that battle; so innocently unaware of just how much further their journey would take them.

She sighed and looked at the warrior standing in front of her. "I cannot remember which of the Caverns was the one where we met you in battle. I know that one of them… one of the Caverns we journeyed into prior to that final journey is near the city of Cornelia, but I do not know which of the caverns that was. If… if you wish, we can recreate the journey which I and my friends took, seeking out each of the caverns in turn until we find the right one, but to do so we will need access…" She paused, the memory seeming impossible even in light of what she was accepting as truth, "we will need a ship that flies."

It sounded crazy, even more crazy than anything she'd said up to this point. A flying ship? How could such a thing even exist. But she knew that it had to. She knew that they'd had one, required it to reach some of the places that the Canoe, or the Ship could not take them. She had no idea how to go about building or even finding such a thing.

There were ships out in the harbor, though… and there had to be a way to make it possible. There just had to be. She thought for a moment. "You spoke of other dimensions… is that like other worlds? You can travel to them? Would one of those worlds have some means of enabling a ship to fly through the air and then settle on land in grassy plains?" There was never any doubt in her mind, though, of who would captain this vessel. She was a daughter of Pravoka, the greatest harbor city in the world, descended from generations of sailors and captains. It was what she was, as much as the Red Mage of Light.

She seemed near baffled by my announcement. Driven into some kind of blue screen for a little while. Perhaps she was then contemplating the meaning of her life. Although I wasn't too sure what was going on, I now found myself even more confused by her look, which showed some kind of emotional turmoil between happiness and sadness. I wasn't sure whether she appreciated my info, or hated me for breaking news to her that she may never meet her friends again. I didn't know how to take it, so I spoke nothing for a while. The silence of her voice was a little scary, I have to admit. Heaven only knows what was going through her head at this very moment. However she then spoke up, about my question for info. She said that the place where we fought must have been somewhere near Cornelia, and that it wasn't implausible for us to search each an every cave near that area. I bit my lower lip a little under that cloth of mine, as it would be difficult to actually walk there. But then she brought up a little Deus Ex Machina, which was my ability to transport through dimensions.

Now I was a little uncomfortable with this idea. It was a brilliant one, but she didn't know my limitations. Because I had limits for my ability to transport between dimensional boundaries with the Interdimensional Rift. I looked uneasily at her but then calmed down a little. "Well, just about every Dimension and world I've been to have had airships. Used for everything from war to transportation to trade and everything in between," I added. "I've seen the strongest of creatures be destroyed by a single blast from an Airship." I looked slightly away in a moderate shame now. Very calm, but very sorry. "I can travel between dimensions by using the Interdimensional Rift, some place between every dimension I've ever been to. However I've got some pretty bad limitations on that," I began. I sounded apologetic there, saying sorry ahead of time with my tone. "I can only step in or out of the Interdimensional Rift, once per day... I've already exited for my day, and stepping back in would trap us in the Rift for a day with no company except countless fiends that make shelter hard to find," I described further, sounding as sorry and like this plan would work if I was better as possible.

Since I was on the topic of being pathetic, in my one mind of course I decided to bring up something else. "Another downfall of my ability... I will only be able to open a hole in the boundary, and wherever I end up when exiting is completely random. I have no pre-sight or anything. So ending up here was completely by chance," I explained. I then looked up a bit thoughtfully, now calculating how long it would take for that plan to go through. "If my mathematations are correctastic, it would take us about a week to come back here with an Airship... if all went smoothly and luck was on our side, and I could open a gate to the rift large enough to fit an airship inside," I deducted. Looking at her, I awaited her opinion.

Telira listened carefully as the warrior carefully outlined the failings of his, admittedly, reality-bending ability. She'd gone through Time itself in a one-way gambit to save the world from a demon that was changing history; she could deal with the convoluted rules surrounding the crossing of dimensional boundaries.

Or so she hoped.

The bit about only being able to cross through once a day was a bit disconcerting. She knew very well, though, that once a day was better than nothing at all. And the lack of control on destination was more disconcerting than that. She sighed deeply. "Let me see if I can get what you're trying to tell me." She crossed her arms and absently rubbed the ridge between her eyebrows with the fingers of one hand for a moment, trying to gather her thoughts. "You can travel through dimensions, but it's one way, once a day, and you have no destination control on this side of the boundary… right?"

After a moment's pause she continued. "But other worlds do, in fact, have this flying ship ability and it is common in some of those places? What do we do if it takes longer than this week to make the trip? What sort of resources are we going to need to procure one of these vessels in the other worlds? What if you cannot create a doorway big enough to allow the vessel to pass through?"

She sighed again. "So many questions, so many preparations to be made before we can even…" She growled. "I wish I could remember clearly how I and my friends managed to find and restore the one flying vessel we had in that other time. I don't suppose you are familiar with the magical engines or whatever methods were used in those other worlds to make a ship fly in the first place? I am not as strong as I was when we met in the other time so dealing with endless masses of monsters might be more than I could handle right at this moment."

The more she was around this strange warrior who had walked that time that was undone, the clearer she could remember it, and those who had walked the path to salvation and destruction with her. But the more she remembered, the more painful those memories became, both for what was… and what no longer was.

She sat down on a bench in the shadow of a building, letting her head sink into her hands, elbows on her knees. "I'll help you find what you're looking for. I promise and I keep my promises to the best of my ability. If luck is not on our side, though, how long a journey could we be looking at? It is no great journey to travel overland to Cornelia, though. We… we are lucky in that in this time the bridge was never lost to catastrophe and so stands firm as ever. I… I believe the one between the city and the old temple is the…" she paused, "the Earthgift shrine. But I'm not certain."

I sat and listened as Telira pretty much summed up what I said with a few words. I could have done that, but I tend to go into too much detail when I talk... kinda like now actually. I heard her out, as she began her bombardment of questions which I managed to quickly answer one at a time, starting with her summary, "Yes that is correct." She then asked about what is luck was not on our side, "Well it will take much longer, I don't know what to say about that..." She then brought up the resources that we would need. I thought on this a moment a the rest of the questions were piled on. I had to think for a bit and I shook my head. "All I can say..." I began as I thought up the most powerful sounding words I could, "If I can't make one big enough, I'll just have to make it bigger, right? And to procure one, we'll simply have to take one... though I know a world where I can get rid of the issue of a big enough portal, but I have only been there once..." With this thought I shook my head... "Maybe if I just focus when I open the Rift..."

I looked at Telira then, she asked if I would know where to find another crumby old airship like the one they had... and I said, "Well..." It was a slightly uneasy truth, "No not really, however the world I just spoke of has Airships everywhere..." I tilted my head though, "If we can make it there... the trip should take us 2 days less." I sat back and said, "And you shouldn't worry too much about the monsters, if I can handle them, it should be no problem for you." I sighed, "But if you are truly worried about them, I keep my collection of weaponry in the most secure place in all the Interdimensional Rift, we can camp there for a day I suppose. If luck isn't on our side, the procurement could take up to a month. As is current, there are 13 dimensions I can enter. I never end up in the same place twice in a row, so there is a 1 in 12 shot we get to that new dimension I found, and of the rest... there is a 4 in 11 chance of the rest of the worlds that we would have a hard time procuring an airship."

I stood up, "So I say that the odds are in our favor, that means that we would have a 2 in three chance of finding a world where airships are almost universal." I smiled and then said, "So what do ya say? Care to go on an adventure to distant lands facing different monsters of many kinds? At least until we procure a ship?" I laughed a little and scratched my head, "I know, it sounds ludicrous, but I'm heading off tomorrow anyways, and gaining an airship will do a lot to help you find your friends and me finally find the Excalibur of this world!"

Telira nodded as he met each of her questions with optimism and possibilities. She had rather quickly noticed that he liked to say in a great many words what others could manage in a few… but she really wasn't certain that it was a bad thing. Sometimes people simply didn't listen if a person didn't bombard them with words after words after words in an endless sea of noise.

Of course, sometimes a person was so used to filtering out noise that a short answer could get their attention much more quickly. It was all a matter of knowing one's audience and what point one wanted to get across. Thief had liked to ramble incessantly… particularly when he knew that it was annoying. And especially when it was annoying Warrior.

Warrior tended towards the short answers, himself. That and he was such a paragon of virtue that Thief couldn't help himself but needle him over and over and over again. Black Mage had been almost a voice of reason between the two. And when Monk had joined them, taking Black Mage's place… well, things had gotten more complicated still.

All of them had done their best to talk her out of taking that final journey. "Pass the Crystal on," they'd pleaded with her. But she hadn't been able to do it. Giving her life for the sake of the world and for the sake of all the timelines affected by Chaos and his Fiends was just something she had to do. But she'd never expected to miraculously return like this…

… or hope that another miracle could put her back with the ones she'd left behind.

She forced her spinning mind to focus on the cause at hand. She needed to find an Airship, and that meant trusting the unpredictable powers of the dimension-crossing warrior she'd once stood against. She nodded to him. "Yes, I'll follow this adventure wherever it takes us." She smiled at his joyful hope for finding the sword he sought. She couldn't imagine that anything less than the most dire of need had set her and her friends against him. It must be a truly remarkable weapon to be so dear to him… and so invaluable to them in their quest to destroy Chaos and his Fiends.

She offered her hand to him. "Well, friend, you lead the way. An airship is our goal, but I'll follow your lead along the path to finding it, since the larger goal is finding this Excalibur." She was almost certain that she remembered what it looked like. It wasn't a weapon that she had been able to wield. Only Warrior… who had been Knight by that point, was able to wield the sword.

Which had been alright by her. She'd had weapons aplenty by that point of her own and she wasn't a Warrior, she was a Red Mage. She couldn't use the biggest swords or the strongest armors, or the biggest spells… but she could hold her own in all three areas. And soon, maybe, she'd be able to add her name to the list of her ancestors who had captained their own ships. Pirates and tradesmen all.

She would sail the skies in their honor.

It would seem that, for the young Red Mage, her day would simply get more and more out of the ordinary.

The weather around Pravoka was the kind that slowed business; a dead man's sea. The ocean was almost so calm as to look like a sea of glass. No wind blew at all, which only served to worsen the heat and humidity the city seemed perpetually saddled with.

However, as if from nowhere, a sudden gale, of great force, rocked the port town. However, one could immediately tell it was no natural wind. First, the wind smelled of something caustic, and of something that is Not of This World. The wind smelled of Ether. The second, and far more obvious sign is that the wind wasn't blowing FROM a direction, as much as it was blowing AWAY from an object.

What the two would see next would remind the young spellweaver of her dreams. An orb settled, partially within the cobbled stones of the city street, that much resembled the Gravity magic of this world. Stone immediately touching the orb became as dust in moments. What would disturb the two most is the hail of voices that followed.


"You think that means we're supposed to be friends?" Asked the voice of a young boy.

"You worthless Cur! To the Void with you!" Boomed a heavy, ominous voice, full of rage.

"Telira, don't do this!! Please! Give the Crystal to someone else! Let someone else walk to certain death. ...I need you." Spoke the voice of a woman, thick with desperation and sorrow.

"Hey! Don't run off!" Came an admonishment, spoken by a youthful voice.

They'd know the last two quotes for sure. Considering they were their own.

"Enough expository banter! It's time we fight like men! And ladies! And ladies who dress like men! It's Gilgamesh Morphing Time!" Spoke the voice of Gilgamesh, though he may well have not said this right now.

"This isn't just about me. Someone has to stand up, when nobody will. If the people I love can keep on living, I'd pay any price." Came Telira's own voice from the sphere.


If either of them were aware enough to feel the energy pouring off the sphere, they would realize the voices were mere phantoms. This odd orb emanated the energy associated with both Time Magic, and Space Magic. They were witnessing a dimensional anomaly.

Finally, the orb vanished, in a burst of light.

There knelt a young, coaldust-haired man. As he stood, pushing off the ground, a slight hiss came from his right arm. A simple white shirt on black pants, with a brown vest made for an unassuming appearance. His hazel eyes, though, betrayed a wisdom an experience that someone with his youth simply should not have.

Those same hazel eyes scanned the area around him, and he seemed to quickly grow confused. The things around him simply seemed to be foreign, as if he was seeing this world for the very first time. His gaze fell upon the giant, octa-armed man, and he flinched, falling for just a moment into a combat stance. After another moment, the stance he'd fallen into relaxed, though he still seemed wary. He, then, turned his attention to the young woman.

"You," He began, with a voice that was smooth and measured. "Tell me. Where am I? And how do I reach Balamb Garden from here?"

(Alright, so as to keep things flowing smooth, I'm not going to insist on a posting order. If we start to have problems, then I'll consider it.)

For a stunned moment Telira thought that maybe she really had gone irreversibly mad from one of the nightmares and that her whole life was nothing more than some vain imagining of a madwoman locked in a tower cell somewhere… and she wondered if maybe she was actually hoping that was the case. It was certainly an easier fate to consider than the possibility that all these impossible things were actually happening.

But they were actually happening. An impossible break in reality occurred and a person appeared from it… and for a blinding moment when she looked into his face, Telira's mind raced in panic. The last time someone had done something so fundamentally altering was when the Fiends sent Chaos into the Past so that Chaos could send them into the Future… and that had caused her and her friends to have to walk a path to utter destruction in order to set things right.

She clutched the crystal she carried, looking at it briefly to reassure herself that the light of it had not faded, that the great Crystals were not threatened and summoning her to their defense as they had summoned the Crystal bearers before.

It took her a few moments to get her bearings enough to realize that the young man was addressing her. Oh, she'd noticed his immediate stance change when he'd seen the warrior at her side, her new, unfamiliar friend, but she wasn't certain what to make of it, yet. She'd have to find out if maybe the two had history much like she had history with the warrior.

She was doing her level best not to think about the voices she'd heard coming from whatever it was that dropped the stranger off in her world. She hadn't heard that voice since… No, she couldn't let herself be lost in those memories, not now, not under these circumstances. She didn't even know where, or when, the bearer of that voice had found herself once Time had reshaped itself around her. It was entirely possible that she, like the rest of the world, had no memory of the time which had been dissolved.

A life lived freely and on her own terms was all that Telira could hope for her.

She took a deep breath and looked at the black-haired young man. "I am not certain what land you are referring to. This is the port city of Pravoka. I have seen maps of this world and, to my knowledge, 'Balamb Garden' is not on them." She paused, "This is not to say that it cannot be on this world… I have not personally been beyond the bay outside the city, but it is a name which has not been heard in these waters."

She offered a hand to him, in peaceable intent. "We are currently seeking means to find lands which cannot be reached by… by conventional means. If you would like to journey with us, we may encounter this land of yours on that journey. I seek a ship that can fly through the air, and my companion here seeks a certain cavern and a treasure hidden within it. Would you be interested in the challenge?"

Suddenly all hell went loose as voices, from everywhere went off around us. I could tell that Telira was hearing this because she was shocked too. I looked around a little bit hurriedly as it was a little trying to discover the source. The wind was just whipping around. I made sure I held on to my blanket as I looked, because it was a gift and gifts were important. There was an otherworldly feeling about this wind, and another thing, there was a demi spell being cast over there somewhere over in the corner. I was fine with the unnatural weather, because it was something a little more common to the Interdimensional Rift. However, what was getting me, was the voices. I recognized two of them... wait... now three. I looked towards the demi spell as it began compressing down and then collapsed or something and then revealed a man. Now I tell you, I didn't enjoy that experience. Those voices I recalled, were those of people long passed in my... past. Exdeath the man who was completely insane and banished me to the Interdimensional Rift in the first place. Then, there was the other voice. Bartz, that one guy who'm I'd promised one last fight one day. I shook my head slightly.

Looking at who the man was, I noted that he didn't appear to be from the Rift or anything, the Rift alters the usually human form of people who inhabit it for too long, I think... It would explain how Exdeath banished so many people there, and all that were there were fiends, and not a skeleton in sight. I looked at this man with questions in my eyes, and was about to fight him if he drew his weapon, especially because of that combat stance he took, but he calmed down, and I did as well. He saw that I was like a fiend and therefore he thought I had nothing to say to humans, was my assumption when he just turned his head from me and talked to Telira. That was very hurtful to me. I tilted my head, and bit my tongue a little, I knew the answer but he asked Telira. When Telira didn't appear to know anything about the Balamb Garden, I decided to speak up. "You have the wrong world, sir," I said, with a bored look in my eyes.

I then listened to Telira talking about our quest to this man and asking if he wanted to join in. I was a little bit shocked at this point, "There's the carefree sense of adventure I remember!" I laughed a bit and then said, "So yeah, she's looking for her friends, and I'm looking for a rare sword, to do that, we collectively need an Airship, for ease of travel." I stood up, releasing a lot of tension from the legs of the bench, creating a loud squeak as I did so, and I stretched, and said, "If you care to join us, we are starting tomorrow." Suddenly there was a loud squeak again, curiously I looked at the bench again, was it panting or something. Then it hit me, like a rock. A skull rat, one of the most annoying creatures in the first five worlds, tackled me. I looked at it with a bit of rage in my eyes. I suppose it was a good thing I had the Excalipoor then, the slightest cut on its skin would kill it, but it has horribly strong skin, and it is evasive to boot. The Excalipoor never failed me. For the sake of epicness I looked to see if anyone wanted to give this one a shot, until then I stared almost like a pacifist at it, as it continued attempts to bash and batter me, obviously not happy another fiend was around.

The young traveler twitched, slightly. His hands clenched into tight fists; an obvious sign of anger. What this red-clad woman had said to him... ...He wasn't sure HOW, but, he knew it was true. He wasn't even in the right DIMENSION! Even if he had been, the level of technology in this town was obviously so low that there'd've been a catastrophic error in the temporal settings.

As the obvious signs of rage passed through him, signs of something else made themselves known. Another hiss, and, now, a high-pitched whine, emanated from his right arm. Realizing what he was doing, he forced himself to relax, not wanting to risk damage when he had no means to repair it. At the forced relaxing, his arm hissed loudly again. ...SOMETHING about his arm was, obviously, not natural.

When he heard the hulking man speak, his opinion was set. Now, as odd as he looked, he'd known the man wasn't a fiend. No, if he'd been a fiend, he'd be fighting for his life right now. He just hadn't been sure what he WAS. ...There was a sense of familiarity. He'd never met this man. He was sure, if he had, he would remember him. ...But, something about him struck the young man as familiar.

However, it seemed as though they had a means to go between worlds. Or, if not, they soon would. Not wanting to let the chance pass him by, he took the young woman's hand.

"If the two of you will help me reach the Garden, then I will help you to leave this world."

It was a mutually beneficial relationship. The woman gets to travel, and the giant gets his sword.

...Wait...

...A hulking, gray-skinned warrior. A being that travels between dimensions, seeking weapons of legend...

...It couldn't be!

He'd done research into the Pseudo Guardian Forces. Odin, Phoenix, and the like. But, even among them, this man was mere myth! He simply shouldn't exist, and, yet, here he stood, in the presence of-

"...Gilgamesh..."

The young man now fixed his gaze on the Ancient Man of Mystery. This... ...This was really amazing...

"I don't believe it. You're Gilgamesh! I... ...I thought you were just a myth!"

Of course, his amazement was cut short by the intrusion of a rather annoying fiend.

NO. He'd finally found something that could put right the wrongs of the world he'd come from. A Guardian Force of power to rival the like of Eden. And he'd be DAMNED if he was going to allow some inane Skull Rat to keep him from his destiny!

Stepping forward, between the Swordsman and the vermin, the man reared back, and delivered a devastating Screw Punch. Of course, being an agile rat, it dodged the blow, causing the man's fist to impact the stone beneath. The impact, though, caused the stone to shatter, as though smashed by an Iron Giant. The rat then decided to attack back, and dove at the man, sinking its teeth into his arm.

...It realized its mistake, though, when the sound of bone scraping against steel filled the air, and it found its massive teeth wedged in the man's arm. Audibly groaning in frustration, he stood, bringing the now-flailing Skull Rat with him.

"Would you mind?" He asked, holding out his arm, with the offending fiend still wedged firmly in place.

Telira looked from one man to the other, her eyes wide and slightly confused. At least she finally had a name for the hulking warrior since he'd neglected to introduce himself when they'd first met and she hadn't quite been able to recall if he'd introduced himself in the previous time. Sometimes having to dig through memories of dreams was a pain in the hind end when it turned out that the dreams… weren't actually dreams at all, but lost memories.

But then it became blindingly apparent that this strange man knew Gilgamesh, and knew him from a source other than direct contact. This actually struck her as odd because she wasn't aware that he'd done anything to be known as a legend for… but that, in itself, was odd because who wouldn't remember a 10 foot tall giant with grey skin and eight arms emerging from his shoulders? The man was a monstrosity, and so strangely childlike on top of it.

But then the Skull Rat attacked out of nowhere and Telira found herself completely distracted from the complicated matter at hand by the fiend. She was already pulling her Mythril Sword from the sheath at her waist, gauging how quickly she could strike before the beast caught some passer by in its teeth when the stranger lunged forward, smashing the stone bench into crumbled dust and ended up with the Skull Rat stuck to his… arm…

Okay, that was just weird. She'd been hearing the strange noises coming from his arm, and had known that something was distinctly out of place with it, but she didn't know exactly what. But now he had a Skull Rat biting down on him and it looked like he wasn't even feeling the attack… and the sound that had rent the air…

There was metal in that arm… and lots of it. But how in the name of the Crystals had this man gotten METAL in his ARM?? And how was it still functioning as an arm?

She pulled her sword the rest of the way from the sheath and nodded to the stranger man, who had yet to introduce himself. "Hello. Since you obviously are already familiar with our other traveling companion, I might as well introduce myself." She carefully took aim at the flailing rat still stuck to his arm and then sliced downwards, attempting to biscect the rat and leave his arm intact… though the jaws of the thing would still be stuck in place. "I'm Telira LeNaen. Good to meet you."

Her eyes widened as the cut did no damage to the beast, her blade simply sliding over the back of the creature without finding purchase. "What in the Crystals??" But then memory fell into place again and she remembered these annoying things from some of the caverns she'd explored in the other time. Bloody difficult monstrosities to defeat… She couldn't remember if magic was effective against them or not, but her spells weren't as strong as they'd have been in the other time. She was nowhere near as experienced as she had been.

She growled low in frustration. "Freaking Skull Rats…"

I looked at the entire situation as the strange man appeared to have ended up as one of my fanboys or something, and got in the way of the rat. Surprisingly he managed to get the light creature stuck on his arm. Usually it would have used Incisor on that attack and KO him instantly, but while it was stuck, Telira, tried to cut it, to no avail. I looked at the good work the guy had on his arm, and then looked at Telira's sword. Mithril, pretty cool sword she had. I nodded though, as she wasn't strong enough to slay this rat. I sighed and said, "Oh right, I forgot. You guys are way below my skill level, and your sword isn't meant to handle such a defense." I looked at them both almost impatiently as I half expected one of them to impress me, but I suppose I wasn't in that kind of situation. I looked at the flailing skull rat that was stuck, and almost pitied it, it hardly had any hope left. "I wonder how this thing managed to find its way here in the first place..." I yawned a little bit as I reached for one of my weapons on hand. The one in the sheath on my left hip.

Grasping the hilt firmly I looked at the two of them and nodded. "Get ready to see the Legendary Swordsman at work," I said with a worried look, almost nervous. It was almost like performing for a crowd. Not something I had planned on feeling today. Funny how that kind of this works out. I unsheathed the blade that the leather casing contained and held it close to my face, doubled edge both towards and away from my face. I took the blade and held it out dramatically, and after taking a god-like pose holding the weapon nobody here knew of, for the most part. A silhouette, and with that, I stopped showing off and walked up to the poor kid who had the skull rat on his arm and tapped the rat with my sword's blade, then sheathed the sword. The rat instantly stopped moving and it drooped. I then grasped it, and by its lower jaw, I opened its mouth, and managed to pry the rat off this guy's arm with as little damage as possible. It was then that I held a dead skull rat, yep, nothing more legendary than holding a dead magical rodent.

I walked aside and dropped the dead rat into the trashcan. I smiled under the cloth and said, "The deed is done." With that I said, "Well, with that minor distraction out of the way, I believe it is time for a proper introduction myself." I took a dramatic pose using the lighting to my appearance advantage. "I am, The Legendary Swordsman, Gilgamesh!" With that, a random Japanese drum roll went off (like that one that sounds like its played on wood). After that, I got out of that awesome pose and said, "Now then, new guy, who might you be?"

The young man had to marvel at that. He'd been across the world, and fought many strange beasts. He even had the distinct honor of being able to lay claim to a score of Tonberry corpses. He was tough beyond measure; war will do that to you.

But, in his travels, he'd never come across ANYTHING with skin so thick as to completely resist a sword strike, save for the few instances where the creature's skin was not truly flesh. This beast, though, looked to be a common rat, if, perhaps, larger than any rat has business being. ...Also, he found himself surprised by the fact that it got stuck at all. He'd expected to be fishing shards of teeth, riddled with disease, out of the mechanics for at least a good few hours.

As it stood, though, it proved not to be an issue. The young man watched as Gilgamesh drew one of his legendary weapons; the...

...EXCALIPUR!?!

What on earth did he expect to do with that!? Yes, it ignores defense, but, attacking with such a blade would require a solid hour to simply defeat a Goblin! He, again, though, found himself surprised, as but a single strike felled the creature.

...Such strange biology in this world...

Rubbing slightly at his damaged arm, the man looked to Gilgamesh.

"They call me Simon."

As if slightly concerned, Simon sat at the outer table of a nearby tavern. Knowing he'd probably have to order something, he sat a handful of high value Gil tokens on the table, as one of the tavern wenches approached.

"A bottle of something that isn't beer or water." he said, flatly, to the woman.

As she hurried off with the Gil he'd laid down, Simon pulled slightly on his right sleeve, causing it to come apart at seams which seemed to have been designed to do so.

What was under that sleeve was nothing short of astounding. His arm was not an arm at all, but a construct! Shaped as an arm, yes, but, Telira would liken it to the lost technology of the Lufaine (, the author has no doubt). Simon groaned loudly, seeing that one of the metal plates had been rather severely bent. Pulling a small case from a vest pocket, he set to work removing the offending panel.

"I'm sure that the both of you probably have questions for me, considering how I simply dropped out of the sky. Ask away."

Finally prying the plate off his arm, the interior proved that much more fascinating. Cables and tubes ran the length of the interior, affixed to a bifurcated core rod. The structure of it all was not unlike that of a human arm. Within, there appeared to be several iron cubes. The assembly didn't look to be damaged, other than a black length of hose, which appeared to hiss rather steadily.

"Hm... Ruptured a pneumatic line. ...Looks small. Oughtn't be too great an issue."

From the case, with his flesh-hand, Simon pulled a small tube, which he promptly smashed against the table. Pulling off the end, he ejected the contents onto the offending pneumatic line. The amber-colored slime seemed to crawl across the line, and, especially, into the hole, as though it were alive, though it was simply a thermodynamic response to the line's texture. The amber fluid then began to set, until there was no distinguishing it from the material of the line. It almost looked as though there'd never been any damage.

"Apologies for the momentary distraction. Ask away." He said, though his attention was solely fixed on the damaged metal plate.

...That would be harder to fix.

Telira wasn't certain what to think about the man who was calling himself, simply, Simon. The level of technology he had… it was very nearly magical to her fantasy-accustomed eyes… but she knew that it couldn't have been actual magic. She was familiar with magic and what it could, and more importantly couldn't, do. Magic couldn't build an arm that looked exactly like that. Not on her world at least.

Two people within the space of hours and both of them arrived in Pravoka from other worlds. It was too much to believe that it was simply a coincidence. Not that Telira believed much in coincidence anymore, especially since she had come to realize that her dreams were more than simply dreams after all.

For a moment panic rose in her heart, fear that this was a sign that the Crystals were under attack, or soon would be. She pulled her own Crystal shard out and held it in her hand, looking at the way it shone in the light. It was still shining. Nothing had drained the Crystal's power as it stood guard over her world. That, at least, was a comfort.

And the way that Gilgamesh had slain the Skull Rat with a single blow… she remembered those annoying things. They died quick if you could get a good hit on them, but it was a matter of getting that hit in. They were beyond impossible to strike, much less strike well enough to get them to actually die. Whatever the blade he was using was, it did the job.

Of course, Telira'd heard about other creatures similarly impossible to kill. She'd learned a move from a kid at one point that had been developed just to hit a dodging metallic nuisance… but she'd been afraid to use it because she wasn't sure that she wouldn't end up hitting Simon instead. As it turned out, her fear was legitimate. His metallic arm would have drawn her strike more than the rat.

She took a moment to request a lemonade from the serving girl and then focused her attention back on Simon and his strange arrival. "Yes, actually, I find that I am very curious about you and how you came to this world." She thought for a moment. "I would like very much to know why you came here, or what your purpose is. I hope that you will not find me too invasive, but I have my reasons…" She paused and then pulled the chain from her neck that held the crystal and set it on the table for a moment for them to see.

"You see, I, and several companions, traveled to certain destruction in another time to set things right in the world when all that is and all that should have been fell under attack by a demon and his fiends. The fact that I, somehow, still exist is a miracle I'm not sure I want to question too closely. I do not think I should have to explain why I am worried about the possibility of something similar happening again."

She sighed. "Because I don't believe that I would change my choice, or my actions, as much as it would pain me to make that sacrifice again."