Levi (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
thewingsoffreedom) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
spira_rp2020-04-28 05:35 pm
thewingsoffreedom) wrote in spira_rp2020-04-28 05:35 pm
The lines are blurred, you keep rubbing your eyes.
Duscae was one of the more pleasant regions that the Kingdom of Lucis controlled. Or, at least, "controlled".
Politically, Lucis was a reasonably large Kingdom. Its territory stretched from the east coast of the northern portion of Eos all the way to the desert in the West and was divided from the neighbouring country of Niflheim, now a self-styled 'Empire', by only a skysea inlet and a small land bridge in the sand. It was comprised of different biomes, with dry eastern scrub transitioning into plains, wet fenland and reasonably temperate forests in the valleys of Duscae and Cleigne. Cleigne also included, nominally, the lands that used to be the independent Kingdom of Glenys, but that one, with its self-governing exception and distant capital, was definitely a political inclusion more than a territorial one.
Realistically, Lucis was just the City of Insomnia. Outside the Walls of the Crown City, there was a general feeling of alienation and Othering from the people within, a separatist mindset that meant that those from inside the walls considered those from outside of it to be Foreign, in spite of the Kingdom's borders and the nationality of all from the north to the Skysea being, ostensibly, 'Lucian'. This wasn't helped by the fact that the majority of the Kingdom outside the walls was empty. There were a few settlements, the main ones being Lestallum, Balterossa and Galdin Quay, but for the most part, outposts and service stations aside, it was uninhabited except by farmers and ranchers.
Governing it was considered unimportant to the short-sighted ruling Class who never passed through the city walls and they all operated independently, either officially as with Balterossa, or effectively, like the others.
It was no surprise, though. A periodic, unpleasant phenomenon that caused an uptick in the number of Daemons had plagued the Kingdom for centuries, and the uninhabited land that came to be the Kingdom for centuries before that. It seemed to be a focal point and that made living outside the protective, probably magically enhanced walls dangerous. Attempts had been mounted, mistakes had been made and now the countryside, fen or forest or plain or scrub, was littered with the bones of towns and villages, all abandoned, all empty and most ruined or well on their way to it.
Levi didn't mind it. He liked the empty country. The Daemons were an issue, but they tended against coming out in the sunlight. As such, days were a risk only by dint of the local wildlife, larger and more aggressive than that of countries with similar emptiness due entirely to its empty period between the Solheim days and those of Lucis.
The nights... they were different.
All over Spira, both Ivalice and the floating continents, Daemons roamed the night, preying on people too weak to fend them off, or each other in the absence of their preferred food. They weren't too common in civilised lands, with only small fry appearing near population centers on account of the measures put in place to keep even the small numbers down. In the more remote spots, where people had died away from others, unable to be Sent and with regrets or anger tethering them to the Seen world, or the Daemons had moved to escape those who hunted them, they grew bigger and more ferocious, able to take more punishment in a fight and deal more accordingly. Unless they strayed across people and caused a problem, they were largely ignored.
In Lucis, they retreated to the old ruins, those that opened only at night, and infested them. Then they emerged when the sun dipped below the horizon to hunt. Elsewhere they could be rooted out in the daytime, when they were at their weakest, by organisations dedicated to the killing of them, but Lucis's interesting local history kept them safely sequestered during the day and their anti-Daemon force had nothing on those of other countries. It made for a strange situation and took away the single advantage hunters had during the day. The Daemons had no such disadvantage during the night, they could roam freely and had, at various points, ruined the chances of colonisation.
These days, there were wards that could keep Daemons away from ranches and service stations, bright lights that could be affixed to poles near the edges of the grounds to keep them away and keep those in the houses safe, but that didn't help Hunters. Hunters and, by extension, the Kingsglaive, only had their wits to keep them alive.
Well, their wits and Havens.
Havens were their single lifeline. Not quite the fortresses the Daemons had in the Solheim ruins, they nonetheless provided small bubbles of protection on rocky outcrops marked with symbols, the meanings of which had been long forgotten, the composition of the paint unknown.
Levi supposed that books existed somewhere, in some library or repository of tedious information, that gave names to them and their meanings, but he didn't give enough of a shit to go looking. As far as he was concerned, they gave the Glaives and Hunters somewhere to bed down if they needed to, allowed them to keep watch and take a break from putting their lives on the line to protect the pricks who were already safe behind the walls of Insomnia.
He could see why the Pulse party had been given the wider Kingdom of Lucis for their training. The land had been abandoned for centuries before the Lucians landed there and had then been ignored for centuries more. Other places, though wild, had been visited or inhabited at some point, or left as real areas of wilderness, unplagued by Mist except after the relatively brief Saturation that had covered the world after some war or other.
The only other landmass apart from Lucis that had been treated in a similar way was, undoubtedly, Pulse. Unless Levi just didn't know about another one that was the sort of monster-filled, Daemon-ravaged spiritual shitshow that Lucis was, at least.
It was the only logical location for their training to take place, the only approximation of their destination, not that they could know for sure. Somebody had mentioned the Wildlands, but somebody else had poo-pooed that comparison with superior experience, or so it seemed. Levi hadn't paid that much attention to the bickering of his charges. It helped, of course, that Lucis owned the land the training was taking place on, were funding the mission they were training for and had expendable Daemon killers with criminal records to try and keep the similarly expendable foreigners alive.
Levi didn't like some of them, but the majority were all right. Most had come with skills that helped and were just expanding their skillsets, others ... were a liability.
Still, a good number, liabilities or not, were equipped with Zanpakuto. They were apparently the best weapons against Daemons, equal to Innocence, and outstripped Levi's own weapons considerably. They were, from what he understood, magical bullshit soul-blades, uniquely specialised in cutting through the ridiculously hard Daemon skin.
He, conversely, had a sword that had been forged with magic. It was an old technique, and some families had ancient exampled each imbued with a different element, but these were relatively mass-produced, included small amounts of Holy magic and, while they cut through the Daemons and allowed them to do their job, weren't a patch on the historical blades or, of course, Zanpakuto.
They could do some of the heavy lifting.
They were camped in Duscae, in the camp that would be their home for the next week or so, and were in a reasonably comfortable Haven thirty or so miles away from the Wiz Chocobo Ranch. The air wasn't too humid, the temperature was neither too hot nor freezing cold and the levels of Mist were good enough to bring the risk of Daemons, but not the certainty of them. That the local wildlife was big and edible helped.
"So, today... some of you are going to go hunting," Levi said. "Who's shit at it?"
Politically, Lucis was a reasonably large Kingdom. Its territory stretched from the east coast of the northern portion of Eos all the way to the desert in the West and was divided from the neighbouring country of Niflheim, now a self-styled 'Empire', by only a skysea inlet and a small land bridge in the sand. It was comprised of different biomes, with dry eastern scrub transitioning into plains, wet fenland and reasonably temperate forests in the valleys of Duscae and Cleigne. Cleigne also included, nominally, the lands that used to be the independent Kingdom of Glenys, but that one, with its self-governing exception and distant capital, was definitely a political inclusion more than a territorial one.
Realistically, Lucis was just the City of Insomnia. Outside the Walls of the Crown City, there was a general feeling of alienation and Othering from the people within, a separatist mindset that meant that those from inside the walls considered those from outside of it to be Foreign, in spite of the Kingdom's borders and the nationality of all from the north to the Skysea being, ostensibly, 'Lucian'. This wasn't helped by the fact that the majority of the Kingdom outside the walls was empty. There were a few settlements, the main ones being Lestallum, Balterossa and Galdin Quay, but for the most part, outposts and service stations aside, it was uninhabited except by farmers and ranchers.
Governing it was considered unimportant to the short-sighted ruling Class who never passed through the city walls and they all operated independently, either officially as with Balterossa, or effectively, like the others.
It was no surprise, though. A periodic, unpleasant phenomenon that caused an uptick in the number of Daemons had plagued the Kingdom for centuries, and the uninhabited land that came to be the Kingdom for centuries before that. It seemed to be a focal point and that made living outside the protective, probably magically enhanced walls dangerous. Attempts had been mounted, mistakes had been made and now the countryside, fen or forest or plain or scrub, was littered with the bones of towns and villages, all abandoned, all empty and most ruined or well on their way to it.
Levi didn't mind it. He liked the empty country. The Daemons were an issue, but they tended against coming out in the sunlight. As such, days were a risk only by dint of the local wildlife, larger and more aggressive than that of countries with similar emptiness due entirely to its empty period between the Solheim days and those of Lucis.
The nights... they were different.
All over Spira, both Ivalice and the floating continents, Daemons roamed the night, preying on people too weak to fend them off, or each other in the absence of their preferred food. They weren't too common in civilised lands, with only small fry appearing near population centers on account of the measures put in place to keep even the small numbers down. In the more remote spots, where people had died away from others, unable to be Sent and with regrets or anger tethering them to the Seen world, or the Daemons had moved to escape those who hunted them, they grew bigger and more ferocious, able to take more punishment in a fight and deal more accordingly. Unless they strayed across people and caused a problem, they were largely ignored.
In Lucis, they retreated to the old ruins, those that opened only at night, and infested them. Then they emerged when the sun dipped below the horizon to hunt. Elsewhere they could be rooted out in the daytime, when they were at their weakest, by organisations dedicated to the killing of them, but Lucis's interesting local history kept them safely sequestered during the day and their anti-Daemon force had nothing on those of other countries. It made for a strange situation and took away the single advantage hunters had during the day. The Daemons had no such disadvantage during the night, they could roam freely and had, at various points, ruined the chances of colonisation.
These days, there were wards that could keep Daemons away from ranches and service stations, bright lights that could be affixed to poles near the edges of the grounds to keep them away and keep those in the houses safe, but that didn't help Hunters. Hunters and, by extension, the Kingsglaive, only had their wits to keep them alive.
Well, their wits and Havens.
Havens were their single lifeline. Not quite the fortresses the Daemons had in the Solheim ruins, they nonetheless provided small bubbles of protection on rocky outcrops marked with symbols, the meanings of which had been long forgotten, the composition of the paint unknown.
Levi supposed that books existed somewhere, in some library or repository of tedious information, that gave names to them and their meanings, but he didn't give enough of a shit to go looking. As far as he was concerned, they gave the Glaives and Hunters somewhere to bed down if they needed to, allowed them to keep watch and take a break from putting their lives on the line to protect the pricks who were already safe behind the walls of Insomnia.
He could see why the Pulse party had been given the wider Kingdom of Lucis for their training. The land had been abandoned for centuries before the Lucians landed there and had then been ignored for centuries more. Other places, though wild, had been visited or inhabited at some point, or left as real areas of wilderness, unplagued by Mist except after the relatively brief Saturation that had covered the world after some war or other.
The only other landmass apart from Lucis that had been treated in a similar way was, undoubtedly, Pulse. Unless Levi just didn't know about another one that was the sort of monster-filled, Daemon-ravaged spiritual shitshow that Lucis was, at least.
It was the only logical location for their training to take place, the only approximation of their destination, not that they could know for sure. Somebody had mentioned the Wildlands, but somebody else had poo-pooed that comparison with superior experience, or so it seemed. Levi hadn't paid that much attention to the bickering of his charges. It helped, of course, that Lucis owned the land the training was taking place on, were funding the mission they were training for and had expendable Daemon killers with criminal records to try and keep the similarly expendable foreigners alive.
Levi didn't like some of them, but the majority were all right. Most had come with skills that helped and were just expanding their skillsets, others ... were a liability.
Still, a good number, liabilities or not, were equipped with Zanpakuto. They were apparently the best weapons against Daemons, equal to Innocence, and outstripped Levi's own weapons considerably. They were, from what he understood, magical bullshit soul-blades, uniquely specialised in cutting through the ridiculously hard Daemon skin.
He, conversely, had a sword that had been forged with magic. It was an old technique, and some families had ancient exampled each imbued with a different element, but these were relatively mass-produced, included small amounts of Holy magic and, while they cut through the Daemons and allowed them to do their job, weren't a patch on the historical blades or, of course, Zanpakuto.
They could do some of the heavy lifting.
They were camped in Duscae, in the camp that would be their home for the next week or so, and were in a reasonably comfortable Haven thirty or so miles away from the Wiz Chocobo Ranch. The air wasn't too humid, the temperature was neither too hot nor freezing cold and the levels of Mist were good enough to bring the risk of Daemons, but not the certainty of them. That the local wildlife was big and edible helped.
"So, today... some of you are going to go hunting," Levi said. "Who's shit at it?"
no subject
He didn't like Levi. Going back to him to have their performance assessed brought him no joy.
no subject
Szayel obviously had the same irritating tendency as Hojo for needing to get the last word in. He kind of hoped he wouldn't drop that habit, because with any lucky, he would be returning to the Palace after the trip with no teeth.
no subject
Well, they had hardly kept it to themselves. It had been harrowing, to say the least, but it was interesting information, especially to a resident of the world. From what he'd figured out, most of them didn't even know what the thing was, so far out of the collective consciousness the mythology around that area of Spiran history had fallen.
"Ulquiorra and I were exploring ... and we got attacked by," he splayed his fingers. "The book we found it in called it a Weapon. With a capital letter. It practically ignored Ulquiorra, despite everything, and seemed to take personal issue with me, the Ryoka."
no subject
When they'd come through she'd felt the shock, the shiver that ran through the lifestream. For a split second the gate had opened, just long enough to let a little Chaos in, in the form of a handful of Ryoka. The planet must have woken the Weapons in response.
Or was it something else? She'd been too close when Midgar had happened to know if it had been felt worldwide, but she didn't doubt the planet knew what had happened. A million lives didn't just disappear like that, cut off from the lifestream, erased from existence. Perhaps that was what had prompted them to stir?
She clasped her hands, tightly. "It must have thought you were a threat." In which case, he was lucky to be alive. Aerith looked Ienzo in the eyes, her head tilting as she asked, "What book?"
no subject
He gave a short sigh. If there were any Weapons on Pulse, he didn't want to think about it. There were plenty of warriors, but he had been told it had taken Gin to take that one down and, even then, takedowns of Weapons were temporary at best.
"I assume it went for me because I'm a Ryoka," he said, keeping his voice low. "But it could just as easily have been because I used Alchemy without a circle. It didn't exactly give a reason."
But it was terrifying and horribly powerful. He had, of course, quietly ranked the people in the group according to their abilities and raw power, with Lumi at the top and, potentially, Aerith, Apache or Tayuya at the bottom, but he wasn't sure where a Weapon would come. Could Lumi kill a Weapon? Would it take some sort of special ability? Fortunately, despite the years they'd all been there, and the extensive exploration they'd undertaken, only one had shown up and that one had come for him. It might well be the Alchemy.
no subject
She picked herself up again and gave Ienzo a nod. "It might be," she agreed. "When you came here," she began, and hesitated, biting her lip. She'd told Lea that they'd scared the planet, but maybe that wasn't the best way to put it. "The gate had to open for long enough to let you through," she continued. "Weapons are only supposed to awaken if the planet is threatened. They're one of its lines of defense. Maybe the opening of the gate is what woke them," she inhaled before finishing, "and maybe it could sense that you're from beyond the gate."
Could one be on Pulse? Aerith had always thought of them as things born from the earth, that slumbered in it until the planet needed them. Pulse was a purvama, so it was separate, further from the lifestream even if it was just as firmly entwined with the cycle of life and death. But that didn't necessarily mean that one couldn't be there. The planet needed to protect itself from threats on purvamae too, after all.
She put her fingers to her chin as she thought. "I've not heard of them reacting to someone seeing the gate, but it's not like that happens every day, and I suppose it would pose the same threat. But that would mean Weapon hunted you down after the danger was gone." She bit her lip, adding, quietly and more to herself, "Unless something else woke it up. Then it might go for an alchemist like you."
no subject
It was impossible to say, though the two possible guesses were fair ones. He looked over at the others, wanting to be away from the swamp and animals as soon as possible. Szayel, it appeared, was wasting no time in irritating all and sundry with his supposed superiority. He half hoped Ulquiorra wouldn't be too angry if Lumi killed him on Pulse.
"I think they're done," he said, indicating the three around the field-dressed thing.
no subject
She glanced back to Ienzo. "Now we get to listen to Szayel complaining all the way back."
no subject
"A float spell, if you could?" he called. That would make the transporting of something so bulky into a veritable breeze. A rope around the legs and it would be an easy task to tow it back to camp so long as they kept the float spell active.
no subject
Szayel complaining. His favourite.
He stayed back, not seeing the point in getting closer to the pile of unpleasantness when the cleaned carcass would be floating this way with Aerith's help before long. He broke away from Aerith so he could grab the birds, they hadn't liked the smell of the blood and had shied away, if not fled entirely.
no subject
He even resisted doing the same to Szayel. That could wait until Pulse. He was sure nobody would mind too much.
no subject
She gave a twirl of her staff and directed the float spell at the butchered animal. It took, lifting the carcass half a foot off the plinth it rested on, where a slight breeze caused it to drift ever so gently sideways.
no subject
Cute but dim, he believed the phrase was. Nice to look at, but you couldn't have a conversation with him.
Most of the prospective Pulse party were like that. "You fit in well."
no subject
He smirked at the sound of one arrogant, intolerably smug Arrancar landing on his backside in the mud with a splat.
"Oh, sorry," he said insincerely, wiping the smirk from his face. "Wrong bit of rock."
And with that he brought it back down to floor level, along with the barrier he had erected and the little table.
no subject
"If you weren't sucking Ulquiorra's cock," he growled, getting back to his feet, "you'd be on my sample table in pieces already."
no subject
"Now, now," he said, as Szayel seethed. "It was an accident."
no subject
no subject
"Oh, do get up," he said, shortly. "We don't want to be here all day, especially if that," he pointed to the pile of unpleasant viscera, "starts to attract scavengers."