Chapter BI2-3
Our adventursome ladies are finally outside of the city, through some method that is still not entirely clear they have cleared the sewers, cleared the city and are now about four or five miles upriver from the city. They are safe, at leat for now and they have gotten the diary out of Emberstrand but Ultimecia or her servants are still hunting it and they still are no closer to reading it.
For her part, Jenna is remaining just as alert as she can be. The burmecian is looking around in all directions, keeping her revolver drawn with the hammer pulled back, even if she can't immediately see anything aside from the open desert. "Right. Well." She finally gets around to pushing the hammer back into a safer position, and holstering the weapon. "Want me to carry the pack for a while? Best not to tire yourself out. ...If I'd known we were going on a trip, I would've brought one, too." She scratches the back of her head. "Any clue where we ought to be going?"
"It's quite all right," Silmeria says, hefting her pack. "I've traveled miles upon miles with this pack on my back, I'll not be put out by a few days' walking." Casting her gaze over the Giza Plains, the blond shrugs. "'Ought' isn't a word that really applies, to be honest... Perhaps you can se about getting the diary open, while we walk?"
The giza plains lie before them and behind them, past the rocks they seem to have emerged from is the river as it winds its way along. The sun is up, it is starting to get hot and dust blows and dances along the plains alla round them
Jenna shrugs lightly. "As you like," she replies. "I've opened it before, and not had too much problem. It's reading it that seems to be a bitch." She steps behind Silmeria, so she can open her pack and carefully withdraw the book, wrapping and all. She stuffs the latter in one of her pockets, after closing Silmeria's pack up once again, and falls into step beside her once more, to keep pace as they walk. She holds the diary carefully, as she opens teh front cover, to have another look at the first page.
Silmeria looks down from the trail to check her pistol again, popping open the breech, peering down the barrel, then snapping it shut again, her pleated skirts swishing quietly over her ankles as she walks, following the riverside for the moment. "Well, if you've problems, I'd be happy to help if you'd like." With that, she takes up the unofficial watch, scanning horizon and skies to see is trouble is on its way.
As the book opens it glows and flickers with odd blue and green liught, to Jenna's eyes thwe words dance and move and slide over the pages. Re-arranging themselves and then several of them seem to leap out of the text, letter rising up into the air, forming a word that then races off toward the river.....
"Well, if you can figure out how to make the words sit still and behave themselves, that would be a start," Jenna mutters, as she squints at the page in front of her. As she's looking at it, she watches helplessly as one word just... leaps out of hte book entirely, and takes off down the river. "Bugger," she spits, snapping the cover shut and hurriedly stuffing the book into one of her jacket's inner pockets. She draws her pistol once more, and moves a couple of steps away from Silmeria, as she resumes scanning the horizon. "That's never happened before."
"Oh bother," Simeria mutters as the word speeds toward the river. Unlimbering her Gunblade, she waves her pistol after the escaping text. "We can't let it get away, Jenna! If it came from the book, who knows *what* it's out to do! Hurry!" And with that, she starts jogging after the word, backpack clanking quite audibly.
The text is flickering and shifting, weaving and jumping, moving and sliding, coiling and re-arranging itself constalty. It stops suddenly and begins to curl and whirl and spin all around itself!
Jenna draws her sword as well, and runs alongside Silmeria, keeping both her weapons firmly in hand. "How do you stop a... word?" she asks as she runs, doing her best to keep her pistol trained on the thing but not actually firing just yet. As the thing stops and starts whirling about itself, the Burmecian grinds to a halt herself, planting her feet on the sandy ground and assuming a shooter's stance, as she keeps her revolver pointed level at the... whatever it is.
"...Oh, for..." SIlmeria sounds a good deal more exasperated than truly worried, as she picks out a word being repeated in the skirling tangle of lines and curves, and raises her pistol. "I think it's trying to call an Adamantoise into being, Jenna," she says, Gunblade coming up to rest on her shoulder. "Be ready for a difficult fight..."
Water whips around the words, the river bubbles and froths and then the individual letters line up in a row speklling out the name of the giagantic turtle that then thumbs down onto the river bank. It raises its head, looking at the girls and RAWRS! Grey and Vibrantly coloured fields of energy seeming to blow out of its mouth and wrap around its body....
"Aww hell." Jenna switches her grip on her sword, holding it like an ice-pick, while hse keeps her revolver levelled on the swirling mass of words and energy. "Nothing like a little exercise, though, right?" She quirks the corner of her mouth upwards, waiting while things coalesce. Some people might wait for the other party to make the first hostile move; Jenna is not one of those people. The moment she reckons she has a decent shot she opens fire with a loud report, looking to blast some chunk of something off the beast before it has even quite finished forming.
BOOM! Jenna's gun goes off with a loud retort, the bullet scoring into the adamantoise's shell, right near its neck. Grey light seems to flash around the impact point however, it's hurt it, there is a nick in its neck but not as much damage as there should be. "We could do without the delay," Silmeria notes, drawing in a deep breath and charging the beast as Jenna's gun goes off. Her first move, while closing, is to snap off a shot of her own toward the great roaring head; if she's lucky, it might give the monster a moment's pause.
The shot from Silmeria's gun-blade hits it in the head and again doesn't do as much damage as it should. The beast flinches, roars and shoulders forward much faster then something that size should be able to. Jenna is able to leap up and onto the shell of th ebeast, her boots crackling as the energy of its Guard spell reacts to her presence but she is able to get over the shell out down the other side! Silmeria however gets slammed sideways and tossed backwards a good few feet as the beast rams her.
Jenna lands on the ground, rolls, and comes up on one knee facing towards the Adamontoise's... posterior. "Are you alright?" she shouts, as she rises back to her feet. Her tail flicks as she backs off a step, and she sights down her revolver. She aims for its leg, where the heavy shell doesn't protect it, and squeezes the trigger, hoping to be able to penetrate the guard spell. As the loud report goes off, she charges forwards, seeking to leap up onto the thing's back once more; this doesn't quite work out however, as she's thrown off to the side to land in a heap.
BOOM! The shot rips through the leg and the adamantoise bellows and lumbers around toward where Jenna went flying, long neck strewtchihg out, back leg dragging! That hurt it seems Silmeria hits the ground rolling, Illuren's blued-steel blade catching the light and winking briefly with every rotation. She scrambles to her feet in short order, however, and shakes her head. "Fine!" she calls, narrowing her eyes at the monster and leveling her pistol again. As she draws in her breath, small motes of pearlescent energy collect in front of the barrel of her gun, suffusing the metal with a silvery sheen. As she pulls the trigger, the energy explodes in a cross-shaped flare of energy, sending a brilliant white pellet streaking toward the Adamantoise. [Ruin Bullet]
The Adamantoise shrieks and stymbles again as Silmeria's bullet slams into its shell and a huge crater appears, shards flying away and blood oozing out as the thing lashes out with his muzzle though and chomps down on Jenna's thigh with an angry growl!
Jenna scrabbles backwards, and manages not to be present when the enormous beast snaps its jaws shut right where her leg used to be. Along the way she slams her sword back into the scabbard, and clutches her revolver with both hands. As Silmeria's assault slams into it, Jenna snaps her weapon up, and takes aim at the beast's mouth; she snaps off her shot quickly, hoping to get it in while the adamantoise's mouth is still open.
BOOM! Squish... bamf! The bullet rips through the Adamantoise's mouth, it's skull exlodes and then the entire thing dissolves into whirling text that drops to the floor and starts to melt away....
"Well done, Jenna," Silmeria says as she hurries toward the dissolving textmonster. It's a long shot, perhaps, but it may just be worth it to see if there's anything to decipher, before the letters fade away entirely.
Jenna stands up slowly, and takes a moment to chamber some new bullets into her weapon, to replace the ones she just fired. "Well, that wasn't so bad," she observes, as she moves back to where Silmeria is standing. "Nice shooting yourself." She spins her revolver around her finger by the trigger-guard, before shoving it back down into the holster. "I vote we don't try that again, right this minute," she adds.
"Probably best," Silmeria murmurs, eyes flicking back and forth as she puts together the scraps she could glean. "River... Emberstrand... South..." Furring her brow, she lifts her head to look downstream, head tilting. "Gale... Sage's Point? The question is, is it guiding us into a trap, or telling its master where it thinks we're going? Either way... It looks like Sage's Point is our destination, for now."
Sage's Point, it's not a location Silmeria's heard of but Jenna, it's a place that she's heard spoken of before. A location down on the coast, an old abanadoned settlement that hasn't had anyone living in it since the Folly.
Jenna hunhs softly. "Sage's Point," she muses, as her fingers brush through her hair, and she dusts off her jacket. "...Ibbinsith mentinoed that place, actually, he said he's been there. Apparently there hasn't been anyone living there since the Folly, so I'm willing to bet you it isn't going to be a very nice place." She glances up at the sun, and shrugs her shoulders lightly. "We've got a long walk ahead of us, then. Unless you know how to catch wild chocobos."
"Pay the man at the stable," Silmeria replies, lips twitching upward. "But, a long walk is one best tackled in motion, yes?" As she sets foot back on their road, a though occurs to her, and she looks over her shoulder. "If there's nobody living there still, then probably it'll be an *excellent* place to meet the minions of the Forgotten, don't you think?"
Go on to Stelazzio Quest Chapter BI2-2
Go on to Stelazzio Quest Chapter BI2-4
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