hashtag_chocobro | Around Lestallum, Duscae (Eos); Friday [05/27 FT].

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Around Lestallum, Duscae (Eos); Friday [05/27 FT].

Prompto wished he could say that he'd slept easier last night, having finally contacted Liz, but he was kept awake by his own racing thoughts, his newfound desire to make this all right again, to get Insomnia back, to get Fandom back, and his worries that, even if they did, what then? Everything had changed so suddenly, so completely, and all he knew was he just wanted to go back in time and fix everything….

The tremors didn't help. Eos rumbling beneath their feet, which they said was because of the Disc of Cauthess, nothing unusual about it except the frequency and the intensity of it. They were used to the earthquakes, but they usually didn't happen so often, or so strong. And every single time the ground tremored, Noctis found himself hunching over with a searing pain stabbing into his skull. Sometimes, there wasn't even a tremor for him to wince with a headache out of nowhere, and it was starting to cause a good deal of concern.

So they let him sleep in, while they conferred with the other refugees to get a hold on what was going on, and, in a little venture that did his heart good, went exploring the city with Talcott, the young grandson of the chamberlain to House Amicitia. Honestly, the boy's spirit and energy and optimism in the face of the tragedy he was going through was encouraging, and his eager tales and clear admiration for Noctis and desire to one day follow in his grandfather's footsteps even managed to lighten Prompto's mood and put a little bounce in his steps. He even got a laugh out, and, for a moment, it was all just kind of nice, while they sat by the lookout over the Disc of Cauthess eating Cup Noodle^™ while the kid babbled on.

It wasn't all just tall tales, though, as Talcott had shared with them a legend he'd heard about the area, of a sword that was supposed to be hidden behind a waterfall nearby. Ignis, while trying to distract himself from the choice of food that he was greatly outvoted on, couldn't help but wonder….Could the sword in the waterfall be yet another weapon of a bygone king?

Certainly wouldn't hurt to check it out, even if their little excursion did lead them into another dangerous cave, this one covered in ice, making Prompto feel like he had frostbite on his trigger finger and more than a few bruises on his butt from slipping and falling. Not to mention everything else that came with slogging your way through an ice cavern filled with daemons trying to kill you, but at least their excursion was not in vain, because there was, indeed, another tomb hidden deep within that cave, and Noctis added yet another weapon to his ancestral arsenal.

The feeling of victory, however, was short lived, as they'd barely made it back to Lestallum before another tremor, this one easily the largest so far, sent Noctis staggering forward, crying out in pain as he clutched his head and sunk to his knees.

"The Meteor," he managed to choke out as everyone gathered around him in concern. "I keep…seeing the Meteor, and some kind of…monster…and…and…Luna…."

"The Archaean," Ignis realized, lifting his head toward the Disc. "The god Titan. It's said he caught the Meteor when it fell to Eos, and that he sleeps while holding it there in the Disc of Cauthess…"

"Sounds like maybe," Gladio murmured, helping Noctis back to his feet as the headache started to fade, "he's starting to wake up."

"They do say that the tremors around the area are the Archaean stirring in his slumber," Ignis agreed. "That would certainly track with the increased activity and intensity of them."

Prompto's eyes followed theirs. "Maybe….we should go takes closer look?" he suggested.

"Capital idea," Ignis agreed. "We'll head for the lookout, maybe we can see something even from this distance."

As they approached the lookout spot, however, they found a familiar figure already standing there, one they'd nearly forgotten about in between their first encounter and everything else that had happened since.

"What a coincidence!" the mysterious stranger from Galdin Quay turned toward the quartet with a broad, beaming smile and open arms, clearly much more pleased to see them than they were to see him.

"I'm not so sure it is" Gladio muttered, but the man just seemed to ignore the comment.

"Aren't nursery rhymes," he ventured, conversationally, as if this was a normal and natural thing to just bring up, "curious things?"

With tension tight in his shoulders and the lingering effects of the migraine still ringing in his head, Noctis' glaze hardened on the man. They didn't have time for this bullshit, and he hoped that, whatever it was, it would be over as quickly as the last meeting they'd had.

"Like this one," the mysterious stranger offered, a sing-song tone to his taunting voice, " 'from the deep, the Archaean calls….yet on deaf ears, the gods' tongue falls. The King..."

He paused a moment, smiling over at Noctis, gesturing with his hand, and Gladio leaned in, on the ready, in case this turned out to be some sort of elaborate threat, " made ot kneel…in pain…" The grin seemed to sharpen, just slightly, "he crawls."

A collective shiver seemed to run up all four of their spines, and, seeing as no one else seemed to have anything to say, Prompto ventured, Soooo, how do we keep him on his feet?"

There was almost a brightness in that grin now as it turned toward Prompto, delighted by his question, and Prompto pulled back, instinctively, as if trying to shy away from the direct attention and appreciation.

"You need only heed the call," the man all but purred, and another shiver ran through Prompto. "Visit the Archaeon and hear his plea."

Again, just as he had in Galdin Quay, the man walked forward, seemingly moving to brush past Prompto's shoulder, but just barely missing it, even as he shifted away. A few steps more, and they thought that was going to be the end of it, but this time, he stopped, and turned back toward them with a grin.

"I can take you."

"I don't know about that," Noctis said.

"We take a ride…." Prompto ventured cautiously,

"But we watch our backs," Gladio concluded.

"Fair enough," said Ignis. "If these headaches you've been receiving are indeed tied to the Archaean, Noctis, then there might be more to this than meets the eye."

It was clear that none of them felt good about this, but at the same time, everything seemed to fit, awkward as the fit may be. "Let's do it," Noctis decided, with a firm nod.

"I'm not one to stand on ceremony," the man said, looking pleased that they'd now reached an agreement, "but such an occasion calls for an introduction. Please, call me Ardyn. Come with me to the car park. That's where I left my automobile. She's a dear old thing. Pales next to your Regalia, but she's never let me down. So, we take two vehicles. A convoy of sorts. Shall we? Just to be clear, this isn't a race, it is a chase. You're not to pass me. Lose sight of me, and you'll lose your way. And no tailgating. An accident would spoil the trip."

"Alright, alright!" Noctis rolled his eyes dismissively, already regretting having anything more to do with this Ardyn fellow. "Let's hit the road already."

Once loaded into their respective cars, with Ardyn's vehicle pulling out in front of them and starting their convey to the Disc, they had a few moments to share their thoughts and strategize a little.

"First Galdin," Prompto snorted, still unable to get the creeping feeling of the way that guy looked at him off of his skin, "and now Lestallum, huh? Quite a coincidence."

Gladio gruned his agreement. "Way ttoo convenient to be a coincidence. My guess is he's been following us around."

"Which just begs the question," Ignis mused, "to what end? His origin troubles me deeply. We don't know where he came from, but there's something vaguely familiar about him, I must admit."

"You think he's a Nif?" asked Prompto. "It's hard to picture that guy in the Empire."

"But it's even harder," Gladio pointed out, "to imagine him as a Lucin."

"I'd sooner not rely on him any more than we have to," Ignis murmured darkly.

"But….," Prompto hedged, "he may be our only way in to the Disc of Cauthess. Especially if it's related to Noct's headaches."

Speaking of Noctis, Gladio turned his attention to the king at the wheel. "And what's his Highness' opinion of this…Ardyn?"

"Don't really have one," Noctis shrugged. "He's nothing more than a creepy old dude to me."

"You hit the nail on the head right there," said Prompto, trying to chuckle past another oily shiver passing through him.

"Well, we'll just have to watch our backs," Gladio said.

"The whole way," Noctis agreed and, seeing the headlights in front of him go bright, turned to follow as Arydn pulled into a rest stop. Considering the darkening sky, it wasn't really that much of a surprise.

"The Archaean isn't going anywhere," Ardyn pointed out smoothly, once they all exited their respective vehicles to see what the pit stop was all about. "I suggest we bunk down for the night. I'll be happy to foot the bill for our accommodations, and we'll proceed bright and early in the morning."

Not a single one of them was happy about this particular suggestion, but neither of them could deny that there was truth in the fact that a trip to the Disc at night was a fool's errand. So there it was. Staying the night in a reststop caravan with a creepy old potential stalker.

Things just kept getting better and better.

[[ NFB for distance, of course, and cribbed mostly from Chapter 3 of Final Fantasy XV, "The Open World," with a LOT of adjustments because the dialogue in this one is rough, good GOD ]]

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Later that evening after a day of coordinating tasks and trying to get as many resources as possible, Liz ended up agreeing to meet Goose at his apartment so that they could try and see if they could use the communicator again to let the others know their updates.

"Ignis?" Goose tried on the communicator, "can you hear me? It's Go...Shane," he had to remember that was his actual name when he spoke.

When the communicator went off, they'd all been outside the caravan, gathered around the table with a game of cards after their meal had been cleared away, and Prompto immediately looked up from his hand. It was all he could do to not just launch himself across the table for Ignis' wrist. He did, however, push back his chair so hard it fell over in a clatter behind him as he hurried over.

"Goos--" He stopped much like Goose himself had. "Er, Shane? We're here! Er, we can hear you! It's Prompto. And Ignis. All of us, actually."

He shook his head, made himself focus on getting to the point.

"Is Liz with you?"

"She is, we've been working on getting resources together to be able to help you," Goose explained as he handed the communicator over to Liz.

Liz was definitely relieved to hear Prompto's voice on the other end as she took the communicator, "Prompto?" she said, "it's me, I'm here,"

"Ohmygod," Prompto gushed out with a relieved sigh. "It is so good to hear your voice right now."

Yeah, yeah, yeah, they'd talked yesterday, but...a lot had happened since then! And the fact that it was two nights consistently was more of it than anything else. It lacked some of intimacy that their texting could have, but it was a lot better than nothing. "So what's up? Any news?"

"Ah--," Ignis cut in quickly there, sending a glance over the table toward Ardyn, who sat there rearranging his cards almost idly before giving Ignis a magnanimous sort of smile, a casually intrigued tilt of his head, very definitely not the picture of innocence he was trying to convey. "I don't think now is the best time to discuss strategy. But if you'd like to take the communicator, Prompto, somewhere private so you and Liz can catch up before we turn in for the night, that might be...ideal."

Prompto blinked a little, sending an awkward glance over toward Ardyn as well, then Noct and Gladio, before settling back on Ignis with a nod and taking the communicator from him. "R-right," he agreed, and, for a moment, looked around to see where to drift where they might be out of earshot, cutting across the parking lot to the other side of the service station.

"Don't stray too far away, Prompto, dear!" Arydn's sickly sweet voice sing-songed out after him. "We wouldn't want you to stumble across any daemons out there!"

"Ugh." With a good deal of distance between them now, Prompto made no effort to hold back his disgusted shudder, as he carefully tried to find a spot still well within the floodlights of the station, glanced back as if to verify that they were pretty alone now, and then turned his attention back to the communicator.

"Liz, I have got so much to tell you. It has been a crazy day."

They'd all been crazy, really, since he left, but it seemed to really be amping up now.

“Oh what’s been going on, did you make any new developments ?” Liz asked, extremely relieved to be able to talk to Prompto again, she was definitely interested to hear what had been happening.

"Tomorrow morning," Liz couldn't see Prompto's eyes, but the awe in them was carried over in his voice, "we might go talk to a god. Titan. The Archaean. He's said to be sleeping under the Meteor in the Disc of Cauthess, but he may be waking up. There's been all these earthquakes, and ever since we hit Duscae, Noct's been having these headaches and visions of him. Lady Lunafreya's in them, too, so Gladio thinks she may be going around to the gods and asking their favor of Noct's behalf...."

It all came out in a babble, and ended in a wistful sigh, turning toward that oscillating glow of the Disc nearby.

"I wish I could send you a picture, Liz. It's so beautiful...Better yet if you could be here with me to see it first hand..."

“Oh wow that’s a good development right, if you’re able to talk to a god?” Liz asked.

“I wish I could be there, I miss you, I’m still working on getting over there , Summer and I tried Portalocity but they weren’t able to get a portal, Summer’s trying to get coordinates so we can get there on our own. I wish I had better news there,” she told him.

"I mean, I sure hope it's a good thing," Prompto said. "If it's not, we're probably going to be in lot more trouble than we already are."

Yes, he realized how that sounded after he said it.

"Err, I mean, yeah, of course it'll be a good thing. Especially if Gladio's right, about Lady Lunafreya being involved, you know? And that's good, too, that Summer's working on the portal stiff, she's usually really good sith that kind of thing."

“I’m hoping we can get some kind of way to portal over and help, I wish I could do more from here but that does sound like good news if Lady Lunafreya is involved,” Liz said, pausing for a bit, “but Summer’s been great, helping me with trying to organise a portal and Goose has been using his connections to get support, I think Summer also knows some people here who are willing to help as well,”

"That's....awesome," Prompto breathed out, with a smile, and the sense of relief that hearing all of that gave him. "I mean....you know, everything seemed...honestly kind of impossible before, but now it's almost like...we could actually do this, Liz. We could make this work!"

So many pieces felt like they were just falling into place...kind of miraculously, but they were going to go talk to a god tomorrow. That placed them squarely into miracle territory already.

“I’m going to try and get that portal up and running,” Liz promised, “there’s got to be a way to be able to reach you safely,” she said, “especially with Goose’s resources and if Summer can get the coordinates, maybe in the next few days we could finally be together, I can help you in person?” Liz was hardly daring to believe that was a possibility.

"Maybe more of a distraction than a help," Prompto admitted with a bit of a chuckle. "They'll probably have to pry me away from you when you get here."

When. He took particular gratification for using when right there.

"Or just drag you with me. We probably could have used your help with that last tomb, the whole thing was in this giant cavern of ice."

Liz couldn’t help but laugh at that , relieved to be able to hear that “I know I definitely don’t want to be apart from you again,” she told him and then listened to him talk about the ice tomb.

“well I did complete successful training session the other day, it actually went really well, Steven’s suit was incredible!” she told him, ‘I did a controlled release of my powers and it felt really good,” she told him, “It felt like I could really push my powers without worrying about causing an explosion,”

"Really?" Prompto asked, the uplift in his voice of curiosity and relief making it almost bouyant, lighter than it'd been for days. "That's great! I...I'm not sure I know what you mean, but I'd love to see it in action. I mean, if you think you'd be able to do it without the suit. How's that work, anyway, the suit? Can it just handle a lot of firepower, or...?" He trailed off to open it up for her to fill in the details.

“It’s like he summons it and then it protects him,” Liz explained, “and he was able to withstand my flames, he felt the heat and the pressure but he wasn’t hurt by it, the suit wasn’t damaged,” she said, “I think I could maybe do it without the suit, if I focused on that same level of control,”

"That sounds incredible," said Prompto, grin gone crooked as he tried to picture what Liz was describing and honestly could only be in awe. He'd seen Noct and Ignis use their fire magic plenty, sure, but he was pretty sure theirs couldn't reach the sheer magnitude of what he knew Liz was capable of. "And that suit sounds like a pretty useful thing to have! You think you might be able to squeeze in another training session? Before....before we get everything figured out?

"Maybe," he added, his excitement and newfound optimism easily sparking his imagination, "all we needed this whole time was for you to just come in and blast the Empire to smithereens and save us all. Pretty sweet way to make your entrance, come into Insomnia a hero!"

“I think I might be able to get another session in Steven’s been really understanding about everything, I’m supposed to be meeting him for lunch tomorrow I can ask him then and see what he says?” Liz said hopefully.

“It was a pretty intense training session but it would be worth it if my powers can do some good, especially if I can use them to help fight for you and help you retake Insomnia,”

"I mean," said Prompto, "whatever helps, helps, right? Especially if it's really helping. I know Gladio would definitely approve; he's always on our asses," well, his and Noct's, "about stepping it up. That if you're not going hard, what's the point of going at all?"

There was a...slight pause of uncertainty, an uncomfortable bit of doubt managing to push through all the excitement as he added, "It's really cool that this Steven guy's been so willing to help you out, too. You, uh....tell him thanks for me. I'd, you know, do it myself, but...well.."

Obviously, that wasn't going to happen.

“I’m going try and see if I can maybe reduce the temperature of my flames, so I can get them under better control, I may need a few more sessions to do that which I know we don’t have the time for, especially once we get that portal going but I may be able to do something with them,” Liz said and paused, “you know all of these preparations reminds me of being a field agent, I’d forgotten what that felt like that,” she very rarely mentioned her BPRD days but this time she wasn’t scared of a mission.

There was another pause, “I’ll definitely do that,” Liz promised, “I hope you can meet Steven one day, I think you’d really like him and Marc as well, he helped a bit with training the other day,” she explained.

"Honestly," Prompto laughed lightly, "it's easy to forget that you were a field agent. I keep having to remind myself of that, when I start....when I start to worry that it might be too dangerous, you know? But you got this. And Ignis is definitely thrilled that you're experience means you'll take orders better than we can."

Well, better than him and Noct, anyway.

"And I'm sure," he added, "once Summer gets the portals straightened out, it shouldn't be too long. I'm looking forward to meeting hi--er, them."

“You’re telling me and I was the one who did the training,” Liz said with a laugh, “but if I can use those skills for something good like this I’m happy to do that,” she said “and I can definitely follow orders that was something I was good at,” she said, pausing, “well working with Hellboy meant one of us had to be good at that,” she added.

She paused, “I hope she can get the portal up and running soon, she seems pretty confident that she can get it done and then we can finally be together and I’m looking forward to you meeting them,” she told him.

Prompto couldn't help grinning at the mention of Hellboy, snorting a laugh. "God," he said, "can you even imagine HB and Gladio in a room together? Especially if one of them had to give orders?"

“Part of me is terrified at what would happen and the other half is quite curious to see how that would unfold,” Liz admitted, “especially as HB doesn’t do orders, half the time he likes to do things on his own, he does get results though even if his methods are unorthodox,”

"It's honestly kind of a shame it'd be tricky to have him visit some day," Prompto mused. "I mean, Sidon's visited, but we had to pretend he was some character in a suit, you know, like Kenny Crow or a moogle. Not sure everyone would be too open to the idea of a daemon just walking around, even if he is a nice one."

And now that Prompto had encountered Eos' daemons first hand? Hellboy was like a fucking kitten by comparison.

"Although," his grin went so wide it could probably be heard, "easier getting away with it we're heroes saving the entire world, right?"

“HB would definitely help out if asked,” Liz said, “I did think it might be harder to explain about his appearance though, he might not be as welcome,”

She paused, “but I suppose we can always keep it as an option, we can always come up with a cover story later if we need to,”

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Around Lestallum, Duscae (Eos); Friday [05/27 FT].

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