The Otter

Final Fantasy: Lightseekers

Esben Mathiassen

---

"We're really dealing with this cretin again? And didn't he say we were better than vermin last time?" Esben muttered as he continued to run across the way, ushering the others up and taking to the roofs again with Rudolf. Eos hovered next to him, shoving the materia she'd caught when Rudolf tossed it back into the pocket he'd pulled it from. "Keep behind Elly, she'll know where any chapel is in this district. Let's not let him follow us to her home, ja?"

That still left them with precious few options to deal with Ferdiad chasing them, and without half of their team he didn't really feel like engaging in a pitched fight with the demonic jester. A quick hand to Cid's crystal confirmed that it was as inert as could be, too far from any holy grounds to try and call him in or even try to blind Ferdiad with its light. "Eos, Selene—You mentioned summoning in someone else you know, other than the eidolons. She an option right now?"

"No!"

"It would take too long to teach you for this, if she'd even listen yet..."

Focused as he was on roof-hopping, he didn't really have a chance to sigh. "Alright, then, another tactic." He raised his voice, calling out at the jester: "Is this just for fun, or did your patron put you up to this, Ferdiad? What's the chance that we could try and talk this out instead of playing these games?"

Audacious, more than a little ridiculous, but sometimes that worked. "I'd really prefer to enjoy a show than be part of it, if they're willing to talk to one of us!"

Final Fantasy: Lightseekers

Esben Mathiassen

---

"We really should invest in more elevated walkways," Esben mused, looking over the thoroughfare below. "I guess we just got too used to cars too quickly...Wish we'd landed on the other side of the city, there's a hospital there that straddles the road and we'd be able to just stroll across." A hospital, of course, would only be worse than a dedicated morgue or dropping into the city catacombs during a massive undead outbreak like this, but if they weren't going in...

Definitely a shame they crashed where they did. That left them with the conundrum of how to pass nearly a hundred of the zombies without getting torn to shreds. The few wounded soldiers they were able to salvage wouldn't be of much use, and most of them didn't really have crowd control so much as they were very good at taking out single targets. Aside from, of course, Rudolf's borrowed sword, and the fact that he had the training to use it. Not that zombies would be deterred from approach by a man swinging a big sword, unless they had some level of intelligence left.

Rudolf alone, though, was more of a risk than he was willing to take. If anything were to go wrong, they'd basically be sacrificing him to buy themselves some time. Selene could speed him up, maybe he could even loan out his new materia to give the man more to work with like when they'd first fought Leviathan...But he'd still prefer to even up the odds. "We shouldn't have to cross anything like this again, at least," he mumbled, half thinking out loud. "And we're not lacking for explosives, right? Éliane, Chisato, you two still have more than enough?"

There was a clear enough path where the automobile wreckage wouldn't get in their way, and he pointed at it for the rest to see. Of course, there were plenty of the undead milling about through there thanks to the same lack of wreckage, but with what he had in mind, that shouldn't be a problem. "We've all got good arms. Throw bombs through there to clear out the path, and the explosion should stun the rest of the undead long enough for us to make some good progress. Rudolf can go just ahead and clear out the rest of the way—Rudolf, if you think you need it, I'll let you borrow the materia that Halvor gave me too, just no breaking it—and I'll take the rear. Selene and Eos can help us all move a bit quicker and give us a bit more of a buffer. The rest of you pick off any of them that get too close to our sides. Everybody keeps tight in together aside from Rudolf. How's that sound?"

Final Fantasy: Lightseekers

Esben Mathiassen

---

"City can't have changed too much." Esben pulled off his cloak, shaking it to get some of the dust from the landing back off. "Damaged, maybe, but they can't have up and rearranged every district, every street, every building. Especially not with unintelligent undead. We can still find our way around. And about the fairies—they can't get that far away from me. Eos, Selene, if you would please..."

At the sound of their names, the fairies popped in as aether coalesced into their forms, Selene shaking her head with her hands on her hips while Eos shot Esben a withering glare after catching sight of just what had happened. "Stabilize whoever of them you can, anybody that's worse off than Zeke here can help."

"Zeke? Isn't that..." Eos peered at the red-headed Mystrel. Selene looked over as well, and finished her sister's sentence: "Miina? No, too tall, and that coat isn't right." Eos looked him over a little more closely, before nodding. "Yeah, and he's actually got something to sh—"

"Now."

At Esben's insistent command, they quickly got to work, Selene doing triage while Eos supplied the actual healing magic to those that could stand to take it. He sighed, looking back at the wreck of the airship. There was no real point to guessing whose fault it was that they'd crashed, of course. Annoying as it was, though, he couldn't deny some small satisfaction at having his misgivings from the moment they'd met the raiding party actually justified. "Well. Must have gone to our pilot when I wasn't looking and overruled me, eh? I was just on my way to go and tell them to turn back when the engines gave out."

Éliane, unsurprisingly, had landed on her feet. Without putting a hole through a roof this time, though if any of them were about to start hopping across Solitude's rooftops to get around quickly and keep an eye out on any undead nearing their party, that might change rapidly. Peering at the now-ruined manor they'd landed within, he was fairly certain they weren't terribly far from his old apartment anyways...

"Your house should be secure, ja? Given how long he served, I can't imagine Oliver would be unprepared for anything that might need him to bunker down."

Final Fantasy: Lightseekers

Esben Mathiassen

---

"He's not going on the ship alone," Esben replied almost before the raid captain had finished. "It's not as difficult as you might think to get them moving and break them. Just ask commander Laruelle, she and I have first hand experience." Mostly in the breaking them part, of course, though he wouldn't add that. At least they'd done alright flying the little skimmer they took first.

That still left the question of just what to do with Zeke, of course, though as quickly as he was talking to try and keep out of trouble, it was clear that he at least believed everything he was saying. Which took them all straight into the territory of myth and legend, beyond even what they'd already been dealing with. "Rudolf, Chisato, Éliane, keep him standing there. The rest of you, strip the bodies and bring me anything legible." He took a few steps away, bending down near the body of the commsman and pulling off the radio. Luckily, it was still in one piece.

The soldiers assigned to them started bringing back what they could find. Tags, mostly, identifying each of the slain patrol in turn. "Their corporal's, sir," one of the raiders said, bringing along another set of tags and some papers, pointing back at the body they'd been pulled from. The one that had been urging the others on and to make sure the higher-ups never heard about it.

Useful, he'd heard the voice clearly enough.

He accepted everything with a nod, flipping open the papers to look through. Some written orders to maintain the perimeter, make sure nothing got in or out. A log book, as well, detailing the unit's recent activities—nothing of note other than a recent entry mentioning when Skaeller scouts nearly broke through the perimeter and a hastily scrawled note about pursuing a Mystrel that did break the perimeter. Even more helpful was the unit breakdown and designation.

He cleared his throat once, pulled out the antenna of the backpack radio the commsman had, lifted the handset to his ear, only to be assaulted by the alarmed voice of the radio operator back at whichever of the perimeter bases had been trying to reach out to them. "Alfa-one-one, come in, Alfa-one-one, come in, now! Heard gunfire on your end. Contact made? Are you in need of assistance? Repeat, Alfa-one-one, come in—"

"Alfa-one-one, copy, Alfa-one-one here, I hear you." Especially for talk over the wind and the radio, Esben was doing what he figured was a passable imitation of the corporal's gruff voice. "Radio check, over." He heard an immediate sigh of relief on the other end, while he quietly reached down to read the commsman's tags.

"Reading you, two. Clear enough to make you out. Radio take a hit? Over."

"Affirmative. Runner got the drop on us and took out Jenkins. Repeat, Jenkins KIA. Over."

"...Copy, Alfa-one-one. The rest of you alright, Traviss?"

"Well as can be expected. Got the runner, we're packing up what we need and returning to base. Any change from the city? Over." Strictly business. Compartmentalization, play up the idea that Corporal J. Traviss clearly wasn't alright but wasn't going to break out in the field, make it more believable...

"No change. Locked up tighter'n a rusty baler. You got any idea why command has us out here? Some folks think it's more of that director Hojo's nonsense, like Siren and Hellfire, but word was all those projects got canceled weeks ago. Over."

"Not for us to worry about," Esben replied, a bit more gruff and forceful than before. "You want to get out of here in one piece, you keep your head down, follow orders, and don't think things like that, you understand? Repeat, we're packing up what we need and returning to base. Have something hot for us when we get there. Out."

"Copy. Out."

He collapsed the antenna back down, flicking the power off and hanging the handset back up. "Change of plans. Everybody back to the ship, we're leaving the Valheimer perimeter for now."

"Huuuuh?" The raid captain replied, shocked (and, if he had to guess, a bit indignant) at the sudden command. "We have orders to destroy—"

"You have new orders. You were placed under our command for this operation, and you know full well whose authority we're working under. Back to the ship, we're returning to the nest and calling out to the others while we do."

Final Fantasy: Lightseekers

Esben Mathiassen

---

The answer to his previous wonderings, as the red-haired Mystrel opened his mouth, was most definitely 'worse' this time. He raised a hand, signalling the team that had been assigned to them to keep back and make a wide circle around the few of them in the center. Harried and exhausted as the continent-traipsing rogue looked, Esben wasn't about to give him the chance to try and run off again.

He came up a step or two behind Rudolf, eyes fixed on Zeke, lowered pistol still in hand. Quarantine. One of the Valheimer patrol had said the same. City of the dead, that was new, and fanciful beyond all but the wildest tales that were often told. Necromancy was rare enough as it was to have slipped more or less into mythical status, at least in Skael. That Valheim had been able to make use of such magic as that when creating Siren was shocking enough, not to mention a massive affront against all that was right in the world.

But that was one person. One small part of a small project. Not an entire city. To convert such a population to undeath, whether or not they were suborned to any necromancer's will, was inconceivable. More likely would be some sort of plague, or a biological weapon gone wrong. Experimenting with the Blight, maybe, trying to weaponize it rather than it just being a side-effect of their conquest—Valheim would almost have to quarantine the area if something went wrong in that way, just to protect all their other interests. If that were the case, however...

"Nobody come closer than eight feet to him unless absolutely necessary," he commanded. Further still would be better, if he'd been exposed to some sort of pathogen, but they needed to be able to move fast enough to keep him from getting away as well. If need be, he trusted in his and Éliane's aim well enough to cripple one of his legs until Miina could put him back together. Assuming it was her brother, after all. That the man who was always skirting the edges of the law was so willing to go and speak to their superiors hinted at either trauma and extreme desperation, or some sort of ulterior motive.

He glanced past Zeke, over to where Éliane stood, and nodded in the direction opposite Rudolf, before stepping off to the right. Chisato would hopefully pick up on it and take position opposite him. Two nets, their Mystrel caught in the middle, with no choice but to play along. "Answer his questions quickly. On top of that, you will explain exactly the route you took in and out of the city, and through the quarantine. Now's not the time to hold anything back."

Sword and Dungeon: An Adventurer's Guild-based Fantasy RP

Calaphindë

---

"Queer. That's a bear skull, goblins usually won't go that large of game...scavenged, probably?" As Reeva went ahead to scout, and the rest milled about considering their plan of attack, Calaphindë was seemingly transfixed by the skulls. Multiple birds, as expected; a couple deer, one goat, even a jackal—and also, occupying a spot of clear visibility, a bear skull. A bear skull that was, even more curiously:

"Where are its teeth...oh, what?" Luckily, he hadn't been looking towards the goblins as Corinne's thunder was loosed, though he did look up immediately after. "They're out this early? Hmm...Can't have that." His eyes locked onto the disoriented archers to the back of the goblin 'formation,' dropping his spear in favor of his bow and drawing an arrow back as easily as he breathed.

One of the shrieks was silenced as one of the archers dropped to the ground, the shaft of an arrow sticking out of its neck. He nocked another, turning towards the next goblin—"Oh, hey, that one has a necklace with a bear tooth on it. Wonder what that's all about?" He drew and shot once again, chatting away as he thinned the goblins' numbers.

Final Fantasy: Lightseekers

Esben Mathiassen

---

He wasn't entirely certain if 'a hunting party trying to find Miina's brother' entirely fit with worse or not, but he was almost insulted that the thing making it all go wrong right at the start wasn't even related to their current mission. He had pulled Chisato along with him off to the side, able to easily observe what was going on without getting caught in any crossfire, purely on the hope that there might be some way to turn it around to their gain. Instead—

Shots rang out as the Skaeller force opened fire on the shocked Valheimer hunting party, one of the hounds dropping to the snow in a heap. As much as he would have preferred that everything stayed completely quiet, as with everything, the best-case scenario was an impossibility—and now they had to make sure the hunting party wouldn't be able to call back in to whichever of the forward bases they were operating from. Furthermore, if he had to guess, it would leave them on a yet-more truncated timetable; even without the assumption of foul play, if a single party like this was confident enough to range so apparently far away from their bases, then either they were absolute fools or the invaders were plenty comfortable with their current surroundings. Assuming the worst, then, it would stand to reason that if there was no contact at all a search party may go out to determine what happened, on higher guard than the first.

Which would, of course, give them plenty of opportunity to cross paths with a small force of Skaeller raiders.

"Chisato, let's help them mop this mess up quickly," he grumbled. "Take down anybody you see with a radio first, we don't want their handlers getting wind of this yet." Pistol drawn, he sprinted towards where Rudolf had just announced himself, before rising over the ridge and firing at whichever of the closest few invaders looked to be carrying the most gear.

Final Fantasy: Lightseekers

Esben Mathiassen

---

He was not physically capable of a deeper frown, and yet he found it lacking to express his displeasure. "So they have eyes we don't know about," he grumbled under his breath. "Or our communications aren't as secure as we were hoping. Or they've been comfortable in their positions long enough to start pushing further out, or worse. Wonderful." The soldiers that had been sent along with the greater part of the Kirins followed their captain's commands, starting to take positions hunkering down in the snow, no attention at all paid to Esben's complaints.

An airship coming through the sky was not exactly the epitome of stealth. Even in Skael's turbulent weather, one could be seen far enough out to take preparations to face. Radio communications weren't foolproof either, if the invaders could figure out which frequencies were being used, and with at least one traitor SEED working with them, it would be hard to have a code they couldn't break. All the same, given how she liked to pop in at the worst times, Esben had to wonder whether that traitor wasn't part of the reason the Valheimer patrol knew when and where to be to meet the raiding group, just as soon as they were all out and starting to move and their airships were in the middle of leaving.

Paranoia. Tiresome paranoia that wouldn't give him anything worthwhile to work on, just the remembrance that, tied up with other objectives and other people as he was, there was no way that he could manage to get ahead of his trickster former mentor. If he could devote himself only to trying to hunt her down and cut her off, then maybe, there might be a chance...But not when he had Solitude to try and free, a wider invasion to repel, an Etro-damned quest to try and get to some fancy crystals before the invaders could, and six others to try and keep in one piece as well!

"Sometimes it feels like Iðar can only help me with the small things anymore," he muttered. "And the rest of you just counteract it...Chisato! Come with me. Elly, Rudi, stick by each other, watch each other's backs, and don't let anybody get behind you that you haven't spent the last couple months travelling with. I don't want a repeat of that village up north. We'll keep an eye on things and step in if it's needed. Understood?"

Final Fantasy: Lightseekers

Esben Mathiassen

---

As the Kirins started to leave the planning table, Esben quickly walked ahead fell in beside Izayoi almost immediately, talking under his breath: "Are you sure about sending Rudi with us? I was going to have him on the dragons." She barely glanced his way, though compared to half their discussions there wasn't any clear and easy-to-read expression that let him know what she was thinking.

"Galahad and I alone would have been enough. And that comprises a significant bulk of our frontal combat strength. Should anything go wrong, I would be relieved to know the boy can hold the line."

"You're more confident against dragons than I would be—and assuming I can keep them in line, we shouldn't need any heroics from him."

"I have fought them before. And Caradoc is a dragoon."

"Used to working with other dragoons, yes, but I don't fancy an argument about this. If you think the three of you have it handled, then I'll trust you to handle it. Make sure you still have all your limbs when we reconvene." There was no time for anything else, as their paths diverged at the next turn in the halls while she hunted down Miina and he continued off to the hangars; he would just have to hope their diminutive healer didn't really have to show off how good she was getting on dragon wounds.

---

Other than his little interjection while Rudolf continued theorizing out loud on the flight, Esben spent most of the ride in silent contemplation of the problem put before them. Overseer Baramoux and some of the Seven still trapped within Solitude, with no word making it past the city walls, no sight from afar that could confirm any of their activities or if they yet lived. Alex, cavorting about and making a nuisance and worse of herself to the Kirins, who he expected had more than a small hand in Baramoux's lockdown and insurgent hunt turning on its head.

Yet all the same, despite nobody sent into the city making it back out, as far as what intelligence they had suggested, whatever long-range observations could see...much of life in Solitude seemed to continue as normal. Typical guard patrols, typical people with typical routines going about the day's business. No sign that Valheim had made it into the city proper.

No sign but their forward bases, which until he could get eyes on them himself, he had to assume were meant more to defend the city or stage an attack going north than they were to attack Solitude itself. And given that Valon had already begun to try and train up Valheimer replacements for Edren's dragoons, even if Alex wasn't in the city, he wouldn't be surprised everything looking normal and no agents making it back out was due to some effort to disseminate her own skills of disguise to the invaders. An excellent lure, drawing those in that still sought to serve Solitude rather than the monster stretching out to swallow them.

And no time to consider much of that before they'd have to start prodding at the beast itself.

"Walk and talk," he spoke up after Rudolf, already making his way towards the forest's edge. "Once we know how old our intelligence is we'll know how much scouting we need to do before we can start to hit them—and have your fastest soldiers run ahead and pick a good spot for a bivouac for us. No open flames, but I want everybody to have one last chance to check their things, divide ordnance, and get a hot drink and a snack before we spend the next few hours whipping these dogs."

Final Fantasy: Lightseekers

Esben Mathiassen

---

"Well, there's two reading my mind," Esben observed daily. It was an obvious conclusion that those two would be on the dragon team, but at least he didn't have to say it so quickly. "I'm on Solitude, obviously. Chisato, you're with me. Izayoi, I'd suggest you on the dragons after you and Rudolf can give your input on the outposts. Éliane—Solitude, ja? You're not planning to surprise me this late?"