Chapter XLVIII: The Woman with the Wyvern

When Zealot, Greyheart, and Menphis had all gathered in the designated spot, Ayn was surprised to find Argentina waiting for them as well.

Her lustrous red locks were now pulled tightly over one shoulder, the crimson cascade spilling down over the ornate harness she wore. The coral inlaying of the garment gave a luminous shine in the torchlight, a match to the sparkling fanfare of jewelry adorning her slim fingers. Red-painted nails clicked against the plated sides of that harness as Ayn approached her, and her oceanic green eyes beckoned him near. He stopped when she drew the curved blade from her side, but as she held it out towards him, the thief realized her intent.

“What’s this about?” He queried, suspiciously taking hold of the weapon. It was surprisingly light, and the golden hilt easy to grasp. Most of the sword’s steel was a dull black, but the blade itself was blue, and Ayn knew from his time with President’s first mate that there was little her adaman-forged sword could not cut through.

“You’ll need it out there more than I will here,” she answered. “Use it in good health, Ayn.”

He eyed the woman curiously, but accepted the gracious gift nonetheless. “I’ll give it back when we return,” he told her as she also handed him the clasp she used to fasten it to her belt. The weapon fit snugly into place, dangling just below his knees when firmly secured to his belt.

“Sir Ayn,” Greyheart piped up from beside them, where Tikinas was forcing him to examine the chocobos instead of Argentina, “there are only enough water rations here for two.”

“You’re pretty observant,” the thief said with mock appreciation. “You should take point.”

The Red Mage considered the assignment, wrapping his brain around a suitable response. “I think if that’s the case, Zealot should ride out in front.” The warrior to his side, already mounted on his chocobo, turned to regard Greyheart when he heard himself mentioned. “He’s strong enough that if something attacks, the rest of us have a reasonable chance of escaping safely before it kills him.”

“Everybody wins!” Zealot voiced in agreement.

Ayn ran a hand down his face, fingernails biting into his skin with the pressure. “Just get out of here,” he ordered, taking the reins of his own golden bird. “Are we all set to go, Tiki?”

The ninja nodded, swinging her legs around her own mount. “It’s a hard ride through the jungle, but we’re as ready as we can get.”

“Alright,” Ayn resigned himself, “let’s do this.”

They set out into the jungle, through the hidden riding paths leading up through the twisting caverns, Zealot riding out ahead with Greyheart trailing. A somber Menphis followed, his hawk-sharp eyes constantly darting about as they headed towards natural light once again. Ayn and Tikinas became shrinking shapes fading in the distance as they quickly escaped the reach of the torchlight.

Argentina watched them go, very much aware of the presence now by her side.

“You’ll go after them?” she asked in what was not really a question.

“Of course,” replied a voice that seemed disembodied, though from the corner of her eye the pirate saw a shadow skirt the entrance into the hidden trail.

The crimson-locked marauder watched the cave mouth for quite awhile before departing. The din of Norg’s activity hid the clicking of her heels upon the stony ground as she disappeared back into the pirate’s den.


Ayn lifted an arm to his brow, wiping beads of sweat which matted down his thick, dark hair to his forehead, and inwardly cursed the heat. As if the constant swarm of insects wasn’t enough of an irritant, the southern isle of Elshimo seemed to be the sun’s favorite spot to beat down unmercifully. One would think the thick canopy of tree covering the Yuhtunga jungle provided would shade people from the rays, but all it did was trap the heat along with the moisture from the underbrush, and make the entire island one giant steam bath. He could no longer tell if the vest he wore over his bare chest was sticking to him from the humidity or his own perspiration, and the stifling mugginess of the air made it difficult to even think. It didn’t help that their path was taking them closer and closer to an active volcano.

Ahead of him, Menphis had lowered the hood of his cloak, the garment matching the color of the foliage surrounding him to the point that sometimes the Thief had to look twice before he realized the chocobo in front of him still had a rider on it. Though he remained as fearsomely silent as ever, the teenaged Ranger was now concentrating his thoughts on feeling out his surroundings in the way only a Ranger knew how, not focusing on the seething anger he had boiling up towards those around him. Ayn thought back to their initial struggle and wondered just how dangerous the young man really was.

As they drew closer to the volcano, the landscape began to change noticeably. The thick layer of underbrush gradually thinned, the carpet of moss coating the ground began showing black, craggy ground forming underneath. The temperature also became hotter, but drier as the heat from Ifrit’s Cauldron burned the moisture out of the air. The clouds of insects wavered, avoiding the forbidding heat, a reaction which led Ayn to question why he was undertaking a task even bugs were smart enough not to. He wiped his forehead off again, taking an audible breath as he struggled to keep cool. In his massive black armor, Zealot looked to be cooking alive, and even Tikinas was showing signs of feeling the heat. Greyheart, however, rode straight and tall, not even a hint of the heat affecting him.

“What the hell’s the matter with you?” Ayn asked, more out of frustration than anything. “Aren’t you hot?”

“The weather around Greyheart Hiralda is always a balmy 78 degrees,” the Elvaan answered with a smile. His breath misted as he spoke, a reaction to the thin veil of ice magic looming in the air around him. “The heat must be awful under all those black clothes, Lady Tikinas, perhaps you’d like to ride with me instead?”

“I’d rather the sun blast me to dust before I got any closer to you than I absolutely have to,” Tikinas growled back in a voice audibly affected by the heat.

“I’ll ride with you,” Zealot piped up from ahead of them. “This jungle is really hot.”

They all stared at him. Greyheart coughed uncomfortably, searching for a response.

“I think it’s the volcano,” he clarified, indicating the imposing black mountain before them. “Volcanoes are usually hot. Unless it was some kind of ice volcano . . .”

“Shut up,” Menphis suddenly snapped, the foreign sound of the teenager’s voice alone giving them reason to pause. All eyes fell on the Ranger as he cast his eyes, acute vision searching the landscape, towards the depths of the jungle around them. He halted his chocobo with a sharp tug of the reins, scanning their surroundings. The group stood stock-still, the idea that something could pierce Menphis’s veil of silence as unnerving as the grim concentration on the young man’s face. His fingers began slowly drifting down towards the gun holstered at his side, eyes still darting about. Ahead of them, the volcano let loose a burst of soot, black smoke pouring into the atmosphere. Nobody said a word.

A hundred possibilities ran through Ayn’s mind in the course of a second. Roving bands of Goblins were known to inhabit the Yuhtunga jungle, and there was supposedly an entire Goblin village actually inside the confines of Ifrit’s Cauldron. It could be something as harmless as a nest of wasps or some roving Opo-opos, or it could be one of the giant Morbols that feasted upon unwary travelers. Sahagins weren’t usually known for their aggression, or to wander so close to the volcano, but beastmen had worked with the demons during the Crystal War, who was to say they would not do so again? They might have been followed all the way from Norg. Would Menphis have been able to sense them amongst all the teeming life filling the jungle? Maybe the demons were already here. Unconsciously he found himself grasping Argentina’s curved sword, any number of nightmares tugging at his imagination.

“There!” Menphis shouted suddenly, nearly startling the Thief out of his saddle, and with a thunderous burst that sent birds bursting from the canopy, he fired a shot from the gun Ayn had never even seen him draw. The distinct sound of rock breaking echoed back at them, and just as suddenly, a form burst through the underbrush, vanishing from sight just as quickly as it had come.

Menphis leveled his gun for another shot, but the stranger was already out of view. Cursing, he reared his chocobo forward again, Greyheart following his lead as the Ranger’s senses guided him towards his target. Zealot loosed the massive great axe from his back, letting it drop into his gauntleted hand as he searched about for some sign of movement. Menphis spun his head sharply, his arm following the motion, and fired another bullet into the brush. This time, all eyes went up as Menphis’s mysterious target, so fast as to be little more than a blur, shot straight up into the air, becoming an indistinct blot of darkness against the powerful sun above before vanishing completely.

“What was that?” Zealot asked, sounding a little shaken.

“Someone following us,” Menphis snarled. “They went in the volcano. I can still sense him.” Just like that, the Ranger dismounted, sliding down to let his boots touch the soft, loamy jungle floor, his raptor’s gaze appraising every inch of the rock wall rising in front of him. After only a brief inspection, he found what he was looking for, and took off towards Ifrit’s Cauldron on foot.

“Get back here!” Ayn shouted, then spat out a curse as Menphis’s green cloak disappeared into the foliage. “Dammit,” he growled, stepping off of his chocobo as well, “he’s going to get himself killed.” And if Menphis died, Ayn knew, no one would be around to give warning about things that might kill him.

“Ayn,” Tikinas said behind him, her ears twitching, “I think he found a path in. I think he went inside Ifrit’s Cauldron.”

Ayn drew in a breath, letting it escape him slowly. He had to keep steady. “Alright,” he decided quickly, “Zealot, did you see which way he went?”

“I was watching, yeah,” The silver-haired warrior answered.

“Then lead the way. We’re going in.”

Dismounting, the quartet followed after their missing member, each unaware that they themselves were followed as well.


Unbelievably, it was actually cooler inside the volcano than it was outside. Not that it was pleasant by any means, but the interior of Ifrit’s Cauldron had a constant breeze running through it as steam and lava vented pressure, keeping the air moving and making it easier to breathe than it had been in the stifling heat outside. The moisture was gone from the air, making the heat dry and significantly less oppressive. The endless deposits of life in the form of insects, flowers, plants, and greenery which blanketed the outside were gone within the black basalt confines of Ifrit’s Cauldron, and as far as the eye could see there was only rock, interrupted with veins of pulsing red-and-orange lava flows slowly meandering down into bubbling pools.

What caught Ayn’s attention the most, however, was the sight of Menphis crowded behind a boulder, gun at his side, breathing hard but as silently as he could. He paid the others no heed as they entered, his attention focused on something just beyond the path before them.

“I found him!” Zealot declared. Ayn wrung his hands with frustration. Menphis closed his eyes and bared his teeth.

“Yes,” the Ranger said out loud, “that was exactly what needed to happen. You guys are the best.”

Before anyone could give a response, the blur came back, this time coming from the opposite direction. There was a thunderous blast as a spray of rock shot up, the projectile barrage heading straight for them. Greyheart, however, threw up a hand, and the hammering pellets of debris slowed in the air, as if they were suddenly trying to trudge through thick mud. The Red Mage smirked as they fell harmlessly to the ground, the force of gravity around them suddenly tenfold.

“Child’s play,” he remarked.

“Thanks Greyheart,” Ayn remarked, “you managed to save us from tiny pebbles. We may have been bruised, or, heaven forbid, scratched.”

“All in a day’s work.” He said proudly, accepting the compliment. Ayn drew out a dagger with the intent of stabbing it through the Elvaan’s back right then and there, but the sound of steel being brought to bear halted hm in his tracks. He turned and found Tikinas, a katana in each hand, staring into the smoke cloud which had burst up from the explosion.

It cleared away in the constantly shifting winds of Ifrit’s Cauldron, and Greyheart gasped at what they saw.

A flowing cascade of blonde hair tumbled down the shoulders of the light purple armor the Hume woman wore, crafted so elegantly that if not for the thick steel plates surmounting the shoulders and chest, it may have well been a second skin. Gauntlets expertly designed to fit smoothly around slim fingers grasped the shaft of a long polearm with a curved, wicked blade at the end of it. Holding her mass of golden locks in place was a winged helmet, and her long legs were firmly guarded by steel-plated leggings, the impact of which had left cracks in the stone firmament of Ifrit’s Cauldron when she had come down from her impossible jump. She spun the spear in her hands around, and then back behind her head, before settling it into a guarded position in front of her, icy blue eyes firmly settled on the group in front of her. Behind her, bearing its tiny fangs at Menphis, a blue-scaled baby wyvern flapped its wings, liquid eyes focused on the Ranger leveling his gun at it. The warrior-woman’s eyes narrowed as Zealot, Ayn, Greyheart, and Tikinas stared.

“I’m switching teams,” Greyheart notified the others.

“You can’t be here right now,” she said in a husky voice, raising her spear to emphasize her point. “Get out. Now!”

“That decided that,” Ayn muttered, drawing the curved blade along with his other dagger. “We’ve got a job to do lady,” he said, “and it’s five-to-one if you haven’t noticed.”

“It is five-to-two, sir,” she replied, her ruby lips curling into a grimace. “Muffin, do not let them pass, in the name of the Dragoon Order!”

“The Dragoon Order?” Zealot asked. “Uh, aren’t there like . . . three Dragoons in the whole world?”

She shifted uncomfortably. “Two,” she clarified, “but we can still be an order!”

“I’m pretty sure there’s more to being an order than just saying you are.” He said uncertainly, scratching his head and looking at the others. “Right? You can’t just say you’re an order and – hey, where’d Tikinas go?”

The Dragoon in front of them widened her eyes at Zealot’s question, and a ripple in the air above her announced the answer. The ninja materialized, weapons drawn, in the air above the woman as her invisibility jutsu was broken, and only the armored Hume’s startling reflexes saved her. Menphis’s gun sounded, but only chipped the already cracked rock at her feet as she was in the air once again, her feet colliding with the volcanic black rock around them. Menphis shouted as fire burst from the maw of the wyvern, scorching the face of the rock he had been standing in front of. The Dragoon burst off of the wall, spiraling towards Tikinas, but the ninja arched completely backwards, righting herself just as the other woman passed overhead.

Zealot rushed forward, his axe in hand, swinging the massive weapon with a whistle as it sliced through the air. The Dragoon blocked the first swing, then caught the second in a swinging riposte, nearly making Zealot crash the weapon into the ground. The Warrior quickly compensated for the motion however, spinning around and dropping low on his knees, his great axe aiming for the knees, but she leaped over it with a flash of her legs and landed atop the blade itself. As it screeched to a halt, she flew off of it, spinning her spear towards Tikinas. The ninja flashed a sign with her hand as a powder came into her grasp, and it suddenly ignited in flame. The Dragoon cried out as the fire swirled around her, throwing her off-balance. Even as she crashed to the floor, the wyvern at her side swooped down with a screech, avoiding a shuriken Tikinas threw at it and crashing bodily into her.

Ayn immediately dove forward as if he was going to catch Tikinas, but instead only extended his arm behind her. As soon as she felt it’s brace, she flipped backwards over it, another barrage of shurikens loosing from her grasp. The wyvern darted higher, but then was cut off as Menphis shot at it, forcing it back down. Tikinas crouched down, and with practiced timing, Ayn swung one leg into the air and bounded up off of her back. The wyvern turned its head to face the Thief a moment too late as he wrapped its hand around its neck and dragged it down out of the air. He held out one gloved hand, and Tikinas tossed out a bundle of twine. As the little monster writhed and snarled, Ayn quickly bound its mouth and limbs, rendering it helpless.

“Muffin!” The Dragoon cried out, back on her feet and already moving. Tikinas spun, taken by surprise by her recovery, and instinctively threw down a vial of powder which burst into smoke as it hit the ground. The Hume woman’s spear sliced through Tikinas’s midsection like paper, but even as it did so, the Ninja vanished into smoke. The Dragoon paused in open-mouthed confusion as she saw now three other identical women to the one she had just disemboweled, all with weapons drawn.

So flabbergasted by the development was she that she was taken completely off-guard when Zealot plowed into her, the flat of his great axe sending her tumbling head over feet into the ground. She sat up, dazed, as the group gathered around her.

“Why were you following us?” Menphis demanded, leveling his gun at her face.

“Why don’t you want us going in to see what’s happening? Are you working with the demons?” Tikinas growled, her two shadow doppelgangers mimicking her dangerous stance.

“And what the hell were you doing this whole time?” Ayn demanded of Greyheart.

“Why, conserving my magic in case someone was injured,” he put forth confidently. “Such as our fine lady Dragoon here. I apologize for our brusque handling, my dear, but we simply must investigate this volcano. I can heal your bruises with some simple hands-on therapy . . . “

He never got to finish his offer. The gray-maned Elvaan was tossed aside like a leaf in the wind, colliding with the volcano wall and crumpling over in shock. Zealot was similarly blasted aside as a wave of wind lifted him, armor, axe and all, completely off the ground and cast him aside, while the same blast tore through Tikinas’s shadows and buffeted the real one about like a doll. Ayn and Menphis both jumped to the side, coming down rolling to a crouched position on opposite sides of each other, both with weapons drawn.

The woman who had attacked them this time was decidedly no Dragoon.

The form of Garuda, Avatar of Wind, floated in the air, the heat from the volcanic fissures making the air shimmer and pulsate around her. Her mighty wings beat rhythmically, causing stirs of rock particles at the ground beneath her as she hovered over it. Her eyes were large and white, and focused wholly upon the two still unharmed in front of her. The green tint of her flesh seemed serpentine in the undulating air currents, and her clawed hands flexed and relaxed as the wind gathered up around her. She waited in the air, neither Ayn nor Menphis knowing what to do next.

“Tomiko,” someone said from behind the Avatar, “are you alright?”

“Muffin!” the Dragoon responded, “make sure Muffin is okay!”

Garuda’s head turned, and with a raised finger she shot out miniscule spikes of air, moving so quickly they sliced through the twine holding the wyvern in place. It immediately took to the air upon being freed, swooping down with a few flaps of its leathery wings to assume a guarding position in front of Tomiko.

A man stepped into view from behind the Avatar, energy crackling in the air around him. He held a staff surmounted with a gleaming green gem, and blonde hair was neatly tied behind his head, revealing the signature pointed ears of an Elvaan. His garment was a plain white doublet with black sleeves, and his head was surmounted by a hat that looked so worn that it could barely hold its own shape. His sleeves and leggings were long and baggy, but his doublet was tied tightly at the waist. It was clear that this was the Summoner controlling Garuda. Ayn’s mood darkened. It was just him and Menphis against a Dragoon and a Summoner. Two on two. He refused to count a flying lizard named Muffin as an actual opponent.

“What are you here for?” the Summoner asked, and Ayn was surprised to hear concern in his tone. “Don’t you know how dangerous this place is?”

“They wouldn’t listen to me, Klistel,” Tomiko said as she rose, “I tried to stop them.”

“You’ve got to get out of here,” Klistel told them, “for your own safety. You can’t possibly understand what’s going on.”

Menphis began to raise his gun, but Ayn put up a halting hand, looking at the Summoner with uncertainty. “Understanding what’s happening here is exactly why we came,” Ayn explained. “We’re on a mission from Norg to find out if there’s a threat here and put a stop to it.”

“A threat?” Klistel said, his eyes widening in disbelief. “They want to know if there’s a threat?” He put up his hand in dismissal, and suddenly the wavering form of Garuda vanished into the winds, her form being incorporeal so rapidly it seemed she was nothing more than air itself. “You can tell the people in Norg that Ifrit’s Cauldron has been taken over by the Kindred Lord Duke Berith, and that he intends to bury all of Elshimo under a never-ending sea of fire and ash. Ask them if they think that qualifies a threat.”