8 - The Burning Wall
“Aah, I can’t wait to get out of all of this stupid sand!” Yda complained from the head of the group, throwing her hands behind her head in a laid-back manner. “Honestly, the stuff gets everywhere! My boots, my mask, my gloves. Even my-”
“Yda, please,” Papalymo interrupted her with a hint of exasperation, walking along beside her. “We don’t need a detailed tour of every crevasse you have on your person.”
“Not that it wouldn’t be interesting to see how well Yda remembers what to call said crevasses,” Y’shtola noted with a wry smirk from the back. “And I would be happy to fact check for her.”
“Don’t encourage her!” Papalymo bit back, his cheeks puffing up.
Y’shtola’s smirk only grew. “And why not? Children need to be prodded to grow from time to time, do they not?”
“Wha-?! I am not a kid!” Yda exclaimed, spinning around to face Y’shtola with a look of utter offence on her face. “I am a fully grown adult! I just act like a kid! Sometimes!”
A silence fell over the group as they walked, and Twilight couldn’t help but wonder if the miqo’te had inadvertently stepped over some personal boundary. She looked between them all for a moment, her ears lowering.
Her fears were alleviated when all of them burst out into a series of amused chuckles. “Oh, good. Banter.”
Y’shtola shook her head. “Ah. Forgive me, Yda. ‘Twas all in jest, of course.”
“I know, I know,” Yda said, swinging her arms by her side as she turned to face the road ahead of them again. “Took me a second, but I got there.”
Papalymo could only sigh.
The group had departed from Vesper Bay several days ago, and if Papalymo’s statements were anything to go off of, they had made impressive time so far. At their current pace, assuming they were not waylaid or otherwise distracted, they would be in the Black Shroud in just another day or so.
All the while, the trio she was accompanying had routinely spent their time either bantering like an old married herd or discussing recent events amongst themselves. Twilight, for her part, had spent most of that time listening to their discussions. She might have taken part more often and asked more questions, but the ever-suspicious eyes of Y’shtola lingering on her at every turn was enough to bring old social anxieties back into the fray.
Though, now that she thought about it, perhaps there were a few things she should bring up before they reached their destination. She knew about as much about this ‘Gridania’ as any other place in this alien world—which amounted to virtually nothing—but a few pieces had slipped out over the course of her companions’ conversation.
Mentions of something known as ‘elementals’ had piqued her interest, not to mention who exactly the sylphs were that they were supposedly off to meet—at least, Yda and Papalymo. She wasn’t entirely sure she’d get the pleasure before Y’shtola dragged her off to what was probably an interrogation chamber.
All the more reason to pony up and say something productive…
“So… Gridania…” Twilight began with uncertainty. “What’s it like? I heard trees mentioned, so a forest? Is it big? What genera of flora are we likely to encounter? What about the distribution of the fauna in comparison to the-”
“So did Papalymo clone himself as a horse? Because I got lost several words ago,” Yda snarked. “I got the trees bit and then just… what?”
“She’s asking what kind of forest surrounds Gridania and what wildlife lives in it,” Papalymo explained rather helpfully to his less-scholarly companion.
“Oh! Well, you can expect anything from cute little furry ones to big toothy gits who I’ll take a lot of pleasure in smashing.”
Twilight tilted her head. “Riiight. What kind? Back home, in the Everfree Forest, we have timberwolves, cockatrices and other creatures; it's rather infamous for being a death trap for the unprepared. It’s not like that, is it?”
“I shouldn’t expect so, no,” Papalymo denied. “The Woodland Wailers spend night and day patrolling and keeping the roads clear. So long as we do not stray, we shouldn’t run into anything major. At worst, a lost ixali or a funguar.”
“Fun...guar?”
“Basically, a mushroom with a lot more bite than it has any right to,” Yda elaborated. “Like the cactuars that roam around in Thanalan! There’s usually a whole bunch of the prickly bastards hanging out right outside of Ul’Dah’s gates!”
So, they’d definitely be sticking to the road, then.
“But the forest is usually a calm place if you treat it right,” she continued. “The elementals are supposed to guard the place. So long as you don’t burn a tree down, you’re welcome to stay.
“What are they? These elementals?”
“Guardian spirits of the forest,” Y’shtola noted. “Beings comprised entirely of aether. The Black Shroud is their home, and the people of Gridania are only able to live there because the Elementals allow them to. So do try to behave, my scoldings are the least of your concern in such a situation requiring their attention.”
“Eh-heh… don’t annoy forest spirits… how hard could that be?” Every time Y’shtola spoke, Twilight could swear things looked all the bleaker for her. “So, a sometimes-dangerous-sometimes-not forest where the elezen live, right? And the sylphs?”
“Indeed. Though that is not our concern as of now, our friend will meet Yda and Papalymo there posthaste to deal with their problems.”
“Nothing to worry about,” Papalymo added. “The sylphs have long been friendly with Gridania, or at least cordial. But with times being as they are, we just want to make sure that their own patron primal isn’t getting…”
“Murder-y,” Yda concluded.
Papalymo sighed. “Yes, thank you, Yda.”
Well, if they were tackling another creature like Ifrit, Twilight couldn’t say she’d be sorry to miss it. Besides, the Scions said they were experts at such things, and she’d seen a certain plucky adventurer in action up close and personally. She certainly didn’t like the thought of a primal running amok and hurting people, but so long as her newfound friends were on it, that left her ample time to look into her own pressing issues.
The Element of Magic had to be her priority. Not only because she was likely stuck without it, but in the hands of that ascian…
The mare shook those thoughts from her head. Dwelling on it wasn’t really helping, and having one of her signature panic attacks wouldn’t exactly be a dignified position to be in with the others around.
“Okay, think about other things… Uh…”
“So! Um, where are all of you from?”
Y’shtola’s critical gaze turned to Twilight once more, the woman crossing her arms as she studied the mare intently as if trying to figure something out through sight alone. Whether she found something or not, Twilight dared not hazard a guess.
“While I can appreciate such a high level of scholarly curiosity, you remain an unknown quantity. And such personal questions can surely wait until-”
“What she means to say is she’s from Sharlayan,” Yda interrupted cheerfully. “So is Papalymo. I, meanwhile, proudly hail from Ala Mhigo!”
Slowly, and quite methodically, that scornful motherly gaze turned its petrifying stare to the hapless hyur, a humourless half-smile adorning the face of what was clearly a predator about to pounce.
“...Huh? What?” Yda whined in protest. “You’re doing that ‘disappointed parent’ thing! Stop it!”
The glare persisted.
“Ugh! You’re so… Ngh…”
“So, Sharlayan?” Twilight offered Yda a distraction from the psychological assault. “Where is that?”
Papalymo chose to speak up at this point. “Old Sharlayan is located far to the north and west of here, in an archipelago that’s considered part of the ‘Old World.’ It’s an isolationist city of scholars and researchers who have spent decades amassing a wealth of knowledge that no other nation today likely has access to.”
Twilight immediately perked up. “Wow. They sound like my kind of people!” she said, her wings giving an excited little flap. Before she had a chance to go into an ecstatic series of questions, though, she noticed the bitter look on the lalafell’s face. She folded her wings and tilted her head in curiosity. “Huh? What is it?”
Papalymo sighed. “Alas, I am afraid you would find Sharlayan disappointing for myriad reasons.”
Y’shtola, having given up on stopping this discussion, rolled her eyes and picked up from there. “Sharlayan is an isolationist state with a strict policy of non-intervention. The dominant political faction within the city, the Bibliothec, insists on hoarding knowledge and refusing to share it with the rest of the world. To do so without their seal of approval is tantamount to treason.”
“In other words, they aren’t nearly as clever as they like to tell us,” Papalymo furthered with a sage nod, his voice laced with utter disappointment. “They had a colony established in the northwest of Eorzea, bordering on Dravania, at the base of Abalathia’s Spine. But when it became clear that the Garleans were dead-set on conquest, they elected to abandon their colony and Eorzea entirely, rather than get involved in any kind of military conflict.”
“Precious few chose to remain behind and face the threat,” Y’shtola continued, crossing her arms over her chest. “And as Yda already pointed out, Papalymo and I were among those to do so.”
Twilight blinked, taken aback. “They hoard knowledge?” she asked, her eyes wide. “But… but that’s wrong! Nopony- er, nobody should be denied access to information unless it’s actively dangerous.”
“Tell me about it,” Yda droned, looking up at the sky with a groan. “We could have really used their help, too. Bunch of lazy cowards if you ask me.”
Y’shtola merely hummed in response but did not offer up any words. An uncomfortable silence fell over the group in the wake of that statement, affording Twilight a chance to process everything she had just been told. She had half a mind to go to Sharlayan herself, if time allowed, and give these ‘bibliothecs’ a piece of her mind. Nopony kept books away from Twilight.
Nopony.
But, she reminded herself again, there were more important things to be concerned with. She shook her head and allowed her eyes to wander as the group continued on their way. The temperature was dropping, along with the sun as it crawled its way steadily for the horizon. She could have sworn that the land around her felt somehow familiar, and not just because Thanalan was the only place she had been exposed to so far.
As they came around a bend in the road, she realized they were getting close to Drybone. Far off in the distance, to the north, she could see that coiling spire of glowing orange crystals rising from the earth and the various islands that had been impaled on its coiling spikes.
She remembered how, the last time she had seen it, she hadn’t been able to learn very much from her quiet friend. All she knew was that it was called ‘The Burning Wall.’
“Well, now’s my chance to learn more.”
“Ahem,” Twilight cleared her throat, drawing curious glances from her travelling companions. With a sheepish smile, she gestured towards the Burning Wall. “So, uh… what is that? I know it’s called the Burning Wall, but, well…”
All at once, the already solemn mood dropped into something borderline mournful. Even Yda’s typical ‘first to the punch’ style of remarks were nowhere to be found as all eyes turned to the odd blemish upon the desert's surface.
The group slowed to a stop, leaving Twilight to feel that she had just touched upon a very sensitive subject.
Y’shtola stepped forward, her ears lowering slightly themselves. “...Five years ago, the Burning Wall was little more than a steep cliff-side of stone, utterly unremarkable. It was occasionally mined, but there was precious little to be had.”
A dusty breeze blew by, sending Twilight’s mane and tail drifting. Her eyes widened. That thing had once been just a normal cliff? “But how is that possible?” she asked in a quiet whisper, stepping forward until she was next to Y’shtola. “What happened?”
There was a beat of quiet. Y’shtola looked down. “...The Seventh Umbral Calamity happened.”
“The what?”
Y’shtola was quiet again. She then turned and looked up into the sky. “...Once, Hydaelyn’s sky was blessed by two moons. One greater, one lesser. They had orbited the land for thousands of years. We called the lesser moon Dalamud, and it represented Menphina’s loyal hound. But it was not, as we believed for so long, a natural object.”
“Dalamud was a satellite launched into the planet’s sky by the ancient Allagan Empire,” Papalymo picked up, drawing Twilight’s attention. “To go into detail now would take far too long. All you need to know about the Allagans is that their technology far surpassed anything the world has today, as did their selfishness and hubris. Even the stars themselves seemed to be within their grasp before it all came crumbling down in their own Umbral Calamity.”
“The Empire snatched the moon out of the sky,” Yda added, her voice uncharacteristically solemn. “The Garlean one, that is. I’m not really sure how, but they used their magitek to just… pull it down.”
“For months, Dalamud drew closer and closer, its once white spark now burning crimson, as if it were made of the blood spilt in the name of its new masters,” Y’shtola went on, her eyes narrowing and her tail swishing from side to side. Twilight could see the miqo’te’s hands curling into fists. “It was the intent of Nael van Darnus, the legatus of the VIIth imperial legion, to crash Dalamud into Eorzea.”
Twilight’s jaw fell open. “What? He was going to throw an entire moon at you?!”
“To be fair, it wasn’t nearly as big as the other one,” Yda pointed out. “But yes.”
“B-but… why?!”
Papalymo stepped up to her other side, crossing his arms over his chest. “They had been trying to conquer Eorzea for a long time. They had already claimed Ala Mhigo many years ago, but the rest of Eorzea had, for one reason or another, managed to elude their grasp for a long time. It was Nael’s intent to squash any and all resistance with the lesser moon.”
“But… y-you stopped it, right?” Twilight asked, though she feared she knew the answer already. “Or someone did?”
The silence was more telling than any answer.
“We tried,” Y’shtola said after a moment, her voice quiet. “Gods know we tried. But Dalamud’s descent was absolute. And in the end, as it dipped beneath the clouds, the lesser moon’s true purpose was revealed.”
“It broke open,” Papalymo said. “And from its core emerged a monster mightier than any we have seen before or since: an Elder Primal named Bahamut. Dalamud was rent asunder, its countless colossal shards piercing the soil and destroying countless malms of land all across Eorzea.”
“And that was only the start of it,” Yda grimaced. “After that, Bahamut just went on a rampage. He kept summoning these big fireballs from his wings that homed in on anything he hadn’t hit yet… Gods… I can still smell the smoke. It was like the whole world had caught fire all at once.”
Papalymo looked over to Yda, his expression contorting with sympathy.
Y’shtola pointed to the Burning Wall. “The Burning Wall was one of the places hit by the falling shards of Dalamud. The Aether was warped and corrupted from Bahamut’s awakening, resulting in the crystals you see there. Many other such locations are scattered across Eorzea, where the aether is corrupted and twisted into something horrible and dangerous.”
Twilight just stood there for several long seconds, her mind racing. She looked down at the ground, trying to process everything she had just heard. How many people had died in that terrible event? How many had died in the other calamities for that matter? This was the seventh one!
“...What happened to Bahamut?” she eventually managed to muster the strength to ask.
“Alas, that is something we may never know,” Papalymo said remorsefully. “All we can say for certain is that at the apex of the devastation, Bahamut just vanished in a blinding flash of light. When the dust settled, all that was found at the scene were ashes, the remains of the dead, and Tupsimati, the staff of our founder, broken in two at the top of a jagged cliff.”
The sun was touching the horizon now, colouring the sky a deep, dark red, almost like blood itself. Twilight looked up into the cloudless sky, trying to imagine the spectacle of the red moon falling in her mind’s eye. It must have been a terror to behold…
She could scarcely imagine it. There had been much danger so far, sure, but if anyone from this world ended up in the Everfree Forest before anywhere else, they might think the same. But these calamities? The closest thing she could think of was the windigos that destroyed the Three Tribes before Equestria was formed. Perhaps the first emergence of Discord? Sure, there’d been other threats since then, a lot of them recent. But nothing quite so… successfully nation-shattering.
Throughout all its crises, Equestria had persevered. This world sounded like it hadn’t been so lucky throughout its history.
“There is one other thing we know…” Y’shtola suddenly spoke up, drawing everyone’s attention to her.
Twilight tilted her head. “What?”
Y’shtola turned to face her, her expression hardening. “That our mutual enemy, the Ascians, played a pivotal role in ushering in not only this calamity but all those that preceded it.”
“The ascians? You’re sure?”
“In truth, we operate on much speculation,” Papalymo admitted. “But primals are often the common thread between many a calamity throughout history. And ascians are most persistent in their efforts to teach the world the art of summoning.”
“Plus, have you seen those creepy masks? They scream ‘it was us all along’, right?” Yda added.
“I guess…” Twilight muttered, biting her lip.
That just raised her anxiety levels up to gigantic new heights. If these Ascians had, somehow, flattened multiple great civilizations throughout this world’s history, then they were a force to be feared. And now one had her Element…? What would that mean for her world? What did they intend to do?
Every little detail she uncovered made her realize all the more just how much trouble they were in. If she couldn’t get it back…
No, she had to get it back. If they were all the Scions claimed them to be, the Ascians were not allowed to keep that kind of power.
“Besides, they probably don’t know what to do with the Magic of Friendship anyway…”
That thought wasn’t as comforting as she’d intended it to be…
“Alas, I do believe we have indulged in idle curiosities enough for one day,” Y’shtola noted. “The sun is setting. We are near Drybone, so I suggest we stop there for the night. If all goes our way, we’ll be in the forest by tomorrow, and I would rather we be well-rested in case anyone wishes us harm on the way.”
Yda cracked her knuckles. “Let them try to get close to us, I’ll show them how much of a really bad idea it is!”
“Yes yes, I’m sure at least the ground squirrels will find you quite intimidating,” Papalymo teased.
“Well, for someone of your stature I’m sure a ground squirrel could find quite a nice snack!”
“Now listen here-”
Twilight drowned out their continued bickering. As amusing as it usually was, the alicorn found her thoughts thoroughly preoccupied cataloguing the mass of new information she had gained.
Calamities? Falling moons? She once might have thought them mad or liars, if she hadn’t since become an immortal mega-pony who had faced ancient moon princesses, lords of chaos, and demonic tyrants. Thinking about it in that context, it seemed distressingly par for the course.
And yet, the sheer scale of life that could be lost…
In previous instances, she supposed the possibility had always been there. But subdued, far in the back of her mind. Here? It seemed more… real, somehow. Like one misstep could visit another calamity not only to Eorzea but Equestria as well.
And here she was, unable to even use magic, and with none of her Ponyville friends to back her up…
She had a lot to think about.
But she would have time. The Black Shroud awaited, and hopefully, Twilight could figure out a way to prevent disaster before it could threaten to topple everything she’d ever known.
Stats
Page generated in 0.026 seconds
Total duration
960 users online
401,667 hits today, 2,004,447 yesterday
FIMFiction
My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic Fanfiction
Designed and coded by knighty & Xaquseg - © 2011-2024
Follow & Support Us
Support us
SubStar
Chat!
Discord
Follow us
Twitter
MLP: Friendship is Magic® - © 2024 Hasbro Inc.®
Fimfiction is in no way affiliated with or endorsed by Hasbro Inc.®
How fun. I find this updated while in the middle of a FFXIV session. Anyway, the Burning Wall. A location I kinda forgot about honestly. Neat little place, but I'm not in Thanalan much these days. Honestly if Twilight thinks this is bad, she should see what happened to Coerthas.
My only reason to visit the wall is the gold timed node...
I like Twiggles introspection on comparing Moonfall to her own calamities. Par for the course indeed.
"genera"
I wonder what it is like for those players that witnessed the calamity? I joined late, so all I have are stories. I never saw what the land looked like before it was shattered.
Those stories of the Calamity I've heard are quite good though. My favorite is the one of the Great Goobbue Wall of Ul'Dah. Apparently some creative players tried to halt the invasion of Ul'Dah by lining up side-by-side atop Goobbue mounts creating an impenetrable wall. The flowering Goobbue corpse outside Drybone is said to be one of those mounts. Wounded in the battle and lost its rider, it wandered the land until it could wander no more...
10882846
There are a few videos on YouTube with it.
Vanadiel was lucky by comparison. They just *almost* had Bahamut go off on us for a thought-needed cleansing, versus a peeved one raking holes in the planet.
On the other hand, parts of the shard literally being erased into Empty. Potato, po-tato...
10695255
Didn't that questline end with Hildebrand getting sent to a different world, as well? Maybe it was Equestria
Upon re-reading this from the beginning, I noticed something worth clarifying.
Considering they were just talking about the Allagan Empire, it would be prudent for Yda to specify for Twilight's benefit that it was actually the modern-day Garlean Empire responsible for bringing down Dalamud and kickstarting the Seventh Calamity, and not the aforementioned Allagans.