Chapter X: What Passes for Negotiation

The stars above normally shone as points of light which would provide the dim aura which gave twilight its name. Now, with the world shrouded in the hazy pall which had formed in the sky the moments the demons swept into Vana’diel, they were naught but small points of gray shapes, blotching the night with their presence. The light was not an issue, however, as torchlight sharply stung at the eyes of the prisoners who stood at the foot of the platform they had been brought to. The structure Rykoshet and the others were placed in front of seemed more of an altar than anything else, built out in the open air, a large space for performing rituals left open at the top. Yagudo in outlandish ceremonial masks, their feathers dyed unnatural colors, stood poised at the top. The other beastmen, gathered about on the ground, looked up with reverence dancing in their eyes as from the shadows around them, drums beat in a frenzied rhythm.

Rykoshet chaffed under the chains they had put around his wrists. They were enchanted with the same magical energies the people of Tavnazia had used to safeguard their fallen city from the monsters which roamed in their blighted halls; not doing physical harm, but still sapping his strength to the point where he felt as weak as a chocobo hatchling. He struggled to see up to the top of the platform, but the height of the altar combined with the smoke hanging in the air from the torches made it impossible. Vile, beside him, had been gagged as well as shackled, the Yagudo taking no chances with any magic, regardless of how weakened it was. The Tarutaru only shot an acidic glare at Rykoshet when the Elvaan looked over at him, and somehow managed to convey the notion that if they survived long enough for Rykoshet to reach sleep, Vile was going to kill him while he was in it.

They had all been put under intense guard since being brought here. They had given up without a fight in the end, so outnumbered as they were, and Rykoshet had discerned almost immediately that fighting the Yagudo here would be wasted effort. He had allowed himself and the others to be taken so that they might reach this place, and speak with whomever it was that was really calling the shots. If they could make their case, he had thought, surely the beastmen would see reason. As the drumming intensified, the fire in the torches leaped, and the Yagudo at the top of the altar began tapping their staves on the ground in time. Rykoshet, for the second time today, began questioning his own judgment.

The drumming reached a fevered pitch, and the Yagudo seemed to be growing restless as the two garishly dressed priests at the top of the altar tapped their staves with increased intensity. In one enormous rush, it all came to a head, the Yagudo around them hooting and cawing, the drums beating in a headlong rush, and then finally, the priests brought their staves up and clashed them together, a shower of sparks breeding from their connection washing down on those below. The drums immediately fell silent, and the Yagudo fell into a hush. Rykoshet straightened his posture and looked straight up. One way or the other, this was it.

The Yagudo High Priests at the altar’s peak slowly drew their staves back down to the ground, and behind them, from the shadows, another Yagudo emerged. Wearing a mask unlike any worn by the other Yagudo, feathers alternating between green and blue as it walked like ocean tides, and standing a good foot taller than any of the other birdmen gathered there, came the Yagudo Rykoshet could easily guess was their leader. The Elvaan struggled against his chains. This was being put together like a ceremony, a show, and when religious fanatics like the Yagudo were involved, ceremony seldom ended well for those not sharing the same beliefs.

“Your Holiness,” a Yagudo from behind Rykoshet said in tones of awe, “I am Moo Ouzi the Swiftblade. I have brought you these outsiders, to receive judgment for their crimes.”

“Crimes?” Rykoshet said, startled, but the Yagudo who had been at the lead of those who captured them violently shoved him down to one knee.

“The prisoners shall not speak in the presence of our divine Priestess!” Moo Ouzi shouted with rage. Rykoshet grit his teeth, and the Yagudo seemed to restrain himself, drawing back his taloned hand. “I apologize, your Holiness, for my lack of restraint. It is not for this one to punish the outsiders.”

The Yagudo raised her hand in dismissal, and then lowered her gaze on the six assembled before her. She ran dismissively through Icon and Middlesky, then lingered for a moment on Hiraiko. Shifting her appraisal after a moment to Rykoshet, she seemingly ignored him and Betrayil as well, but then she saw the small form of Vile, glaring right back up at her with unrestrained fury. The Yagudo made a sign of revulsion at the sight of the Tarutaru, and took another step down to the group, hands clenching into fists. Rykoshet, for the first time since they arrived here, felt genuine apprehension. Too much had been left up to chance, and now it appeared his grand gamble was about to come up short.

The leader of the Yagudo gave them all one more cursory glance, and then, without a word, pointed one clawed finger in the air and made a decisive slashing motion across her own throat. The message was clear, and immediately the Yagudo began howling again.

“Sentence has been passed!” decreed Moo Ouzi, who then turned, snarling, down to Vile. “The intruders shall die for their crimes!”

The drums began beating again as the beastmen drew themselves around the others in a circle, taking out their weapons and advancing upon them. The Yagudo leader stood a silent spectator as her High Priests clapped their staffs together again, and the drums now were slow and measured. Rykoshet lowered his head in shame. He had let them all down.

Before a single blow could be struck, the Yagudo gasped collectively, and Rykoshet twirled about just in time to see the body of another Yagudo sailing through the air. It crashed on the ground before them with a tremendous thud, and then weakly rose. The Yagudo tried for a moment to reach his feet, and then his eyes rolled back into his head and he collapsed like a sack of dead leaves, unconscious on the ground. The Yagudo were silent for only a moment before the sacred doors protecting the open-air chamber burst open, and gave way to the distinct sound of metal armor on stone floors.

Baeladar appeared through the smoke, Durandal already drawn, his shield in one arm at his side. The raven-haired Paladin settled his gaze upon the Yagudo’s leader, and then raised the point of his sword in the air towards her.

“I object.” The Paladin said in no uncertain terms.

“You would dare?!” screamed Moo Ouzi, even as a group of Yagudo circled their Priestess in a protective stance. “This is a holy place; you profane it with your presence!”

“Don’t remember asking for an opinion on that one, friend,” Baeladar said with scarcely veiled threat as he entered the chamber. Behind him, Danienne, Celeres, and the three mages they had brought with them followed after. There were anywhere between fifty and seventy Yagudo gathered in the area, and they stared at the newcomers with the kind of hate only a fanatic can achieve. For outsiders to tread willingly onto their holy ground was the worst kind of sin. “Now, I’ve asked as nicely as I’m going to. Release my friends or things will get rather ugly.”

“The blood of Altana’s children shall drench our altar tonight.” Moo Ouzi said in a fearsome snarl. “Brothers! Take them – “

“Stop!” another voice shouted, raising above the Swiftblade’s commands. They turned, and behind Baeladar they saw another Yagudo emerging. This one was tall and lean, and held a great katana in one of his hands. He came forward into the chamber, unaccompanied, eyes staring straight ahead.

“Mee Deggi,” Moo Ouzi said, “you have dispatched of the others.” Rykoshet’s stomach twisted in a knot at the pronouncement. “You arrive just in time. Join us in tearing the meat from these infidels’ bones.”

Mee Deggi nodded once, took a single step forward, and then tumbled sideways into the narrow stream lining the pathway to the altar.

“Now!” Rykoshet heard a voice shout from behind the unconscious body, just like that, the forms of the final team he had sent off to explore the castle materialized, the Invisibility spell Odessa had cast on them wearing off. The Priestess on the altar gave a visible command, and with a furious noise the Yagudo hosts rushed forward. The battle was joined. Steel met steel as the outnumbered Those Guys struggled to hold their position, collapsing into a tight formation on the natural stone bridge they stood on and forcing the Yagudo to come through the water to meet them. Rykoshet struggled to stand, but the chains binding him were draining his energy more by the second. He turned and ducked just in time to see the slash of a Yagudo katana where his head had just been, and stumbled backwards, trying to overcome the power of the chains.

A moment later, however, and he felt a rush of wind behind him, and heard the sound of metal hitting metal. All at once, his strength came back to him, and he raised his arms in amazement to see the enchanted links binding his shackles broken in two. Turning, he saw Danienne picking her scythe up out of the ground, and the others similarly freeing everyone else. Within seconds, the group that had originally formed was back up to its full power.

“Stop them!” Moo Ouzi shrieked, and howled as he himself leaped through the air, drawing out the enormous great sword he carried with him.

“Oh, shut up.” Rykoshet said in disgust of the whole situation, easily side-stepping Moo Ouzi’s clumsy strike. The Swiftblade, however, earned his name, the great sword immediately coming back up and nearly striking Rykoshet in the side, but the Elvaan clapped it’s blade between two hands, and with a mighty yank, tore the weapon out of its owners’ hands. In the same motion, Rykoshet grabbed hold of the handle, and then smashed the hilt against Moo Ouzi’s face. The loud-mouthed Yagudo sank like a stone, and Rykoshet appraised his new instrument. “Not bad,” he stated, “if a little weakly made for my tastes.”

“Glad to see you up and about.” Baeladar commented, Yagudo talons scraping against his shield as he backed up against Rykoshet. “I was a bit worried when I saw you on the ground like that.”

“It was part of a plan,” Rykoshet replied sourly.

“Ah. Well, good to know it’s all going smoothly.”

“You – “ Rykoshet began, but stopped to repulse the attack of a Yagudo trying to slice him down the middle. They were being hard-pressed to stop the assault against them, so numerous were the forces they faced. Outnumbered by at least three to one, Those Guys were struggling to maintain their position; even a momentary pause could spell disaster. They were being swarmed over, and it was clear that this kind of battle could only go one way. Rykoshet grit his teeth and kept swinging the massive sword Moo Ouzi had brandished. There had to be some way out of this.

Betrayil flowed like water, his twin katana dancing off of weapons aimed at him and Hiraiko, who seemed disoriented by everything going on. Celeres and Atin took attacks head on, Middlesky behind them, using magic to protect the two as the Yagudo’s steel bounced harmlessly off of his own stoneskin enchantment. Darutaru and Konstantine shot fire from their hands, but the confusion of battle was far too great for them to concentrate on anything major. Still, they managed to keep their attackers at bay, even as Decay, his sword sending out blades of wind magic wherever he sliced it, backed up Danienne and Esane, whose skills as Dark Knights were being put to the test by this tide of enemies. Liyah stood with Eig, the latter strumming her harp with fingers too fast to be followed, the former chanting protective spells to safeguard her companions. In the thickest part of the fighting, Fated valiantly defended the rest of them, like a spearhead against the oncoming Yagudo, as Icon, ever silent, swung his twin axes with skillful precision in the defense of his allies.

In the middle of all this, Odessa, who had removed the shackles from Vile and torn the gag from his mouth, struggled to understand what he was saying over the din of the battle raging around them. Celeres leaped forward, delivering a crushing blow to a Yagudo warrior that had raised its blade against her, but not even the swift Monk could be everywhere at once. Vile, his expression plainly furious, was shouting at Odessa now, but still she couldn’t understand what the Tarutaru wanted her to do. The sound of the Yagudo howling, the weapons crashing together, the shouts from everyone around them, it was just too much noise . . .

And that’s when she realized what the problem was. Vile wasn’t making any noise.

“They really didn’t want you using magic.” She said in marveled tone as she lowered her own head in incantation. Vile had not just been physically silenced; they had bewitched his voice as well. As Odessa intoned the words of the chant to remove a curse of silence, Vile’s voice suddenly rose in his own throat, mid-sentence.

“-until it can’t bleed anymore, you stupid cow, now use your shriveled brain and . . . oh, there it is. Good work, moron, you figured it out before we all died.”

Odessa didn’t have time to argue. Vile’s eyes turned from their normal angry brown to an illuminated purple right in front of her, and she chose to shield herself rather than contradict the Tarutaru Black Mage.

Vile, managing somehow to sneak in a foul curse every few words, chanted loudly and angrily, and in the air above him, a burst of light suddenly bloomed into existence. The Yagudo reared back in fear, their mages beginning counter-spells, but it was too late. Vile completed his infuriated incantation and a blinding surge of lighting shot up from the ground at his feet into the sphere in the air, and just like that it was raining electricity on the Yagudo horde. Tendrils of energy shot forth from the air, guided by Vile’s will, striking down the Yagudo where they stood. His teeth bared, Vile flung his hand up, and in one blinding flash, the ball of energy exploded outwards, defying the gray skies above by creating his own star there on the ground. A shot of lightning filled the air, and a second later it faded away, leaving only Vile standing, nose wrinkled as he surveyed his handiwork.

The others stood on the narrow pass they had been defending themselves on, blinking spots out of their eyes and struggling to hear one another over the thunderous sound Vile’s spell had made. Around them, the Yagudo who remained alive and conscious had backed fearfully up against the walls. On the steps, the Yagudo Priestess whom had been their commander lay prostrate, a smoking burn on her chest. Those Guys had been unharmed, save for their sight and hearing which were still recovering, but the fight was over. Vile, without saying a word, strode over to Odessa and beckoned her to come closer.

“What is it, Vile?” Odessa said, leaning in. As soon as she was close enough, the Tarutaru slapped her across the face and walked away. Odessa shot up, a hand on her cheek, her emotions a mixture of anger and gratitude that Vile’s hands were not as strong as his spells.

“Okay,” Rykoshet said loudly, still blinking somewhat, “not the way I had wanted this to go down, but I think our point’s been made. We’re going to be staying here for awhile, and since there doesn’t seem to be anyone left to oppose us with your leader joining the ancient spirits over there, you won’t mind if – “

He was cut off by the sound of clapping. Rykoshet paused, searching for a source, and realized it was coming from the still-shadowed top of the altar. The High Priests, he suddenly saw, had not moved during the entire course of the battle which had just taken place. They all stopped what they were doing, turning their eyes upwards. The Priests had crossed their staffs together again, and once again they could see a figure emerging from the heights atop the platform above them.

“You have put on quite the show for me, for which I am grateful. You should know, however, that within the catacombs of this castle, the Yagudo numbers are still great. They would have overtaken your silly group the moment you attempted to leave this room.”

The voice was high and lilting, strangely musical in its own way, though still distinctly Yagudo. Rykoshet brought up the barbaric sword he held, and the High Priests unfolded their staffs, revealing the source of the voice.

She was dressed the same way the priestess had been, but her mask was even larger, more resplendent, and her feathers moved like a constantly oscillating mirage, difficult to even fully focus on. It was as if she was a blur, or a spirit somehow existing in this world and another simultaneously. What was not hard to see, however, was the staff she wielded, the sight of which gave Hiraiko cause to gasp. She suddenly realized why the entire area had made her feel strange upon entering it.

The true chief of the Yagudo stood before them, and in her hands she held the Astral Signa, the weapon which allowed the avatars of the celestial deities to manifest themselves on Vana’diel. For centuries, it had been in the Yagudo control, and it and it alone had been the reason why the Tarutaru had always hesitated to come against them in force. Should anything befall the Signa, no one knew what repercussions it might have for the link between this world and the next. Also, should the Yagudo bring the power of the Signa to bear against them . . .

“Tzee Xicu the Manifest,” Baeladar declared, looking up at the ruler of all Yagudo. “A pleasure. Your man Quu Domi speaks very highly of you. I believe he’s in that puddle over there, no doubt enjoying dreams of your Holiness.”

“If we could speak,” Rykoshet interjected as the frightening visage of Tzee Xicu made its way down the stairs, closer and closer to them. “We have both been victims of the same demon attack. We’ve come here seeking refuge. This quarrel was brought upon us, we did not wish to fight with you.”

Tzee Xicu stopped at the body of her fallen Priestess, her tongue clicking behind her regal mask. “I shall have to appoint a new Avatar for our ceremonies now. Most troubling.” Raising her head, she stepped over the body lightly, regarding Rykoshet and the others. “The horrors from the nightmare world have attacked the lands of man as well? I see.”

“Yes,” Rykoshet said, hoping that he was finally making progress, “which is why we came here. It was the only safe place we could think of.”

“Safe?” Tzee Xicu replied, her tone almost sad suddenly. “That is what we Yagudo believed. The demons dropped from the sky, and overtook us. Our numbers were greatly reduced, only the size of our great Oztroja kept us safe. We drove them back, but they will attack again.”

“Then let us help you,” Rykoshet offered, taking a step forward. “we have a mutual foe in the demons. It only makes sense to work together.”

Tzee Xicu halted in her path, staring through her mask at Rykoshet. “Work together?” she stated. “The Yagudo working with the children of Altana? Elvaan, I am afraid you have misjudged the situation. Desperate though you may think us to be, the Yagudo would never allow infidels to befoul our holy temple. You came here as conquerors, willing or no, and the only way you are going to leave this place alive is if you succeed in your goal.”

“That’s not what we’re after!” Rykoshet protested. “Just listen to us!”

“I have heard more than enough!” Tzee Xicu suddenly roared, the change in her voice forcing Rykoshet back a step in surprise. “You have attacked my people, defied the judgment of the Gods, and now seek to insult the Yagudo with claims of alliance? I will not tolerate such blasphemy on our holy grounds! Your fate was sealed the moment you entered our castle doors, and now you will leave this room as the masters of Oztroja, or not at all! Prepare yourself for battle most epic, children of Altana, for I am Tzee Xicu the Manifest, and all others pale before me!”

An aura flared to life around Tzee Xicu, a rainbow-like shine of eight different shades. Rykoshet shouted his defiance, bringing his new great sword up, and the two crashed together as the struggle was joined.