Chapter XXV: Dialogue Between Red Mages

The Wajaom Woodlands were a dry, arid place despite the exotic greenery from which it derived its name, as the summer months in western Aradjiah were always when the high heat swept over the continent, leaving rivers depleted and the ground cracked and dry. The empire of Uhrguum, with its oppressively humid mires, its volcanically active mountains, and its lack of any substantial inland bodies of water, had always been a meteorological hotspot; and now, at the peak of those temperature ranges, there was almost no way to keep one self completely cool.

Thus it may have been the heat as much as anything that brought Jinxie out of her sleep in a sweat, her dampened hair clinging to her perspiring face as she gasped, shooting up into a sitting position within her bedroll. As she had so many times before since leaving for the Empire, she had dreamed of Hubby, and seen him in utter peril. She pulled her knees in close; her breath coming in short gasps as she struggled to control it, and wondered why she had to be tormented with such visions when she had already lost her husband. Dynamis, she recalled, was sometimes known as the World of Nightmares, and it seemed that part of it had stowed away in her mind when she had been taken from her love. She could not escape these terrifying dreams of Hubby fighting for his life against demons swarming in on him, and even as the memory of her dreams quickly fled from her mind upon waking, the impression of fear and despair stayed with her.

Collecting herself in an extended breath, she brought her head back up. She had no time for this sort of weakness now, not with a mission in front of her. Jinxie, Isset, Xaerus, and the meandering Speed had trekked through the underground caverns known as Aydeewa Subterrane for two days before emerging at the spot believed to be the Hydra’s nest. She would complete this task for that bossy shrew, Naja Salaheem, and earn herself another audience with the Empress. The fate of Mindartia might very well have been in her hands, but besides that, she still had Drake. His future was still worth fighting for.

Turning her head, she saw off near the bushes, away from the smoldering embers which remained of the fire they had cooked dinner over, Isset soundly slept curled up in her own bedroll, the form of Shoki sitting deactivated beside her. Against a tree not too far away, his great crescent-bladed axe propped up on the ground and resting over his shoulder, Speed snored loudly, deep in his plant-induced slumber. Every time he had been seen with one of his foul-smelling cigarettes rolled up and ready to light, Isset had promptly smacked it out of his hands, but Jinxie knew that he had volunteered to “scout up ahead” one too many times. He gave an unintelligible murmer in his sleep, and then settled back to snoring.

Then, there was Xaerus. The woman who had brought Jinxie to this sun-scorched land so far from home sat quietly atop a log half-buried in dried leaves, staring out into nothing. If she slept sitting up or simply did not sleep at all, Jinxie had no idea, but the white-haired Mithra was clearly awake now from her posture. She sat straight up, head inclined, her tail slowly swishing back and forth as she looked out into the night sky of the Wajaom Woodlands. Her blindfold was still wrapped tightly around her head beneath the three-cornered hat she wore, a slim white plume stuck in the side of it, but she stared out all the same with her sightless gaze. They had found Xaerus waiting for them near the Chocobo stables in Al Zahbi, fully aware of their mission despite not being present when Naja Salaheem had assigned it to her. The Mithra’s existence brought new questions to light every day, and had thus far never provided any answers.

Casting off the blanket of her bedroll, Jinxie retrieved her tabard from where it had been laid out and slipped it over her shoulders, fastening the clasps on it shut as she walked towards Xaerus, whose feline ears twitched at her approach. She did not turn as the blonde woman slowly crossed the distance between them, sitting down beside her and looking up to where Xaerus seemed to be peering. The clouds were few and far between this evening, the moon high and gibbous in the sky overhead. They sat in silence for a few moments, Xaerus not deigning to speak, before Jinxie finally opened her mouth, but before any words could come out, Xaerus’s left hand flew up, and the Hume found her voice cut off as her head was encompassed by a bubble of water.

It seemed that even before she could register the fact that her air had been cut off by Xaerus’s spell, the Mithra’s other hand came up, and just like that the water evaporated under the power of a blast of heat so strong it dried the humid air around it. Jinxie gasped, falling backwards as her hands instinctively shot back to catch her, taken completely off-guard by the attack. She rushed to gather up her magic and defend herself, but Xaerus sat calmly even as electricity began surging out of Jinxie’s palm. She lay there for a moment, back in the foliage, her hands glowing purple, and realized that the Mithra was not doing anything else; casting no spells, making no move to defend herself, merely looking back up at the moon above.

“I hate it when my hair gets sweaty like that,” Xaerus remarked, not looking back at Jinxie, “I thought I might take care of it for you.”

“Are you insane?!” Jinxie yelled, pulling herself back up to her feet, energy still coursing through her bones. “I thought you were attacking me, I could have killed you!”

Not for the first time, a slim smile crossed Xaerus’s lips as the Mithra carefully groomed her own head of snowy white hair. “Do you trust me so little, Jinxie?” she inquired.

Jinxie lowered her hands, the aura of lightning energy which had been surging through them dissipating in the air as, after a pause to regard the blind woman, she sat down beside her again, her expression quizzical in response to the question.

“Xaerus,” Jinxie replied, “I don’t trust you at all. How can I? I don’t know anything about you.”

“You know that I saved your life in Mhaura.” She replied, raising an eyebrow as if questioning why that shouldn’t be enough.

“I don’t know why you saved my life,” Jinxie shot back, “and you haven’t explained it at all. I’ve learned not to trust people without knowing why I should, Xaerus, and you’ve left me without any reason at all.”

The Mithra gave a sigh, her face unreadable, before replying. “So, what is it then? You want to know more about me?”

“That would be a good start,” Jinxie responded.

“What do you want to know?” Xaerus asked, finally turning her head towards the blonde woman.

Jinxie thought for a moment, regarding Xaerus’s cat-like features. Yet again, despite the blindfold wrapped tightly around her eyes, she seemed to be looking directly at Jinxie, and the Red Mage reflected on the fact that in their weeks together, Xaerus had never required help moving around. In fact, it often seemed she was more familiar with her surroundings than a sighted person would be. Jinxie’s eyes narrowed, and, turning herself to face Xaerus directly, she posed her question point-blank.

“How much can you actually see?” she queried, her tone clearly implying that she wanted no more riddles served as answers.

To her surprise, Xaerus gave a short laugh, a lilting thing that sounded amused for reasons all her own. Turning her head away again, she once more began regarding the stars. “I see what I need to see, Jinxie.”

“Not good enough,” the Hume snapped, prompting Xaerus to turn, apparently surprised at the response. “Why do you wear that blindfold, Xaerus? What happened to you?”

The Mithra sat in silence for a moment, her unseeing gaze leveled at Jinxie. She began to say something but paused, then cast her stare out into the woods, a short breath escaping her lips. “Much has happened.” She finally stated, “and I will tell you some of it, but time grows short.”

“What do you mean?” Jinxie probed cautiously.

“I have told myself since discovering what it is we must do that I should be amused by the idea of fighting a Hydra. Tell me, Jinxie, do you know the story of the Hydra Corps?”

Xaerus’s question seemed to come from nowhere, and it left Jinxie temporarily without a response. The Hydra Corps were an infamous unit from the Crystal War, supposedly an elite cadre bound together by the allied nations in order to infiltrate the very heart of enemy territory and pave the way for a full-scale invasion. However, the entire Corps, to the man, vanished without explanation shortly after their mission began. No evidence had ever been found as to their fate, and their entire existence was the most famous of the unsolved mysteries surrounding the Crystal War.

“I . . . I know what I’ve heard, what everyone knows about them,” Jinxie responded, unsure of what else to say.

“Then you know enough; as much as I did, anyway, when I set out looking for them.” Xaerus said coolly. “I put this blindfold on as a result of my search for the Hydra Corps, and what happened when my journey to discover their fate took me to Xarcabard. It was there, Jinxie, that I saw what became the last thing I have seen to this day.”

“Why would you search for the Hydra Corps? What were you doing in Xarcabard?” she asked, slightly aghast. Memories surfaced in Jinxie’s mind of when Those Guys had ventured into that blighted tundra to do battle with the animated corpse of a great dragon; the journey into that land of the demons and undead was not one she wished to revisit.

“Because that is where the Hydra Corps were going when they vanished. And among their number was my mother.”

Jinxie’s breath caught in a short gasp, but before she could make any kind of motion to respond, she was cut off by a tremendous rumbling of the earth, a shockwave which shook her off of the log which she sat upon, even as Xaerus leaped to her feet at the last moment, her knees bracing against the impact. Another came, a trembling of the ground, and behind Jinxie Isset awoke with a start, shooting up in bed as Shoki suddenly came to life, hopping to his mechanized feet in front of the Puppetmaster. A roar shook the night air, and Speed’s bloodshot eyes whipped open with a snort as he came back to consciousness, eyes growing wide as he looked into the shadows.

“As I was saying,” Xaerus said, holding out her hand as the black-jeweled staff she brought with her flew into her grasp, “our time is short.”

“It would appear,” Isset shouted from behind them even as she snatched her boots off of the ground and began stepping into them, “we were much closer to the Hydra’s den than we thought.”

Jinxie gave no verbal response, but her brow tightened and her fists clenched, the magical energy inside of her swelling up in response to her call. Regardless of the situation or whatever else was happening in the world, her time with Those Guys had taught her that no matter what, always be prepared to fight a giant monster. Her staff and sword lay prepared by her bedroll where she had left them, and her eyes darted back and forth between them and the creature that loomed in front of her now.

Its scale was unimaginable. The monster’s head crested as high as at least twenty feet, thousands upon thousands of rows of glittering scales gleaming in the moonlight. They could see it breathing as jets of air shot out from its nostrils like steam, and the massive paws which held up its tremendous girth left foot-deep imprints in the ground as it walked, claws like battle axes scraping up the ground. Behind it, a tail stretched out endlessly, the tip of it reaching back down over a hill and out of their immediate range of vision. The beast opened its mouth, producing another cry which came out with palbable force. Before the booming sound had even ended, it produced another, and then another, and then, fangs the size of Jinxie’s forearms dripping venom as its serpentine body slid forward, the beast turned its attention on the group spread out before it. It had six eyes perched on three heads, and all of them were focused on the tiny beings on the ground.

“Whoa . . . “ Speed whispered in disbelief, rubbing his eyes feverishly as he took hold of his great axe, mouth agape. “That dude is tripping!”

“Speed!” Isset shouted at him as the monster which was unmistakably the Hydra came charging forward, “Don’t just stand there, hit it with something!”

“Huh? Oh, right!” Speed’s confusion cleared up at the shouted instruction from the Puppetmaster, and without warning he plunged headlong into the beast, axe swinging. A shower of sparks flew from its’ thick hide as Speed’s giant bladed weapon scraped across it, and it gave a cry, snapping at him with one of its heads even as he fell back down to the ground after his initial leap. It’s bite was cut off, however, as a ball of fire struck it in the face, causing its right-most head to give a retaliatory roar, and its attention fell on Shoki, guided by Isset, manipulating magic through the puppet.

The Puppetmaster smiled, throwing one arm up and another back, and Shoki mimicked her movements with the addition of another blast of fire striking the Hydra as it moved. Speed, in the meantime, half-leaped half-stumbled back, avoiding a bone-crunching bite from another head, snatched to safety by the sudden interference of Xaerus, who flicked her hand out dismissively, a blast of ice forming in the air and colliding under the chin of the creature, provoking an angry hiss.

Jinxie, in the meantime, came up from her belongings where she had dove to, bearing in one hand the staff which amplified her magical powers, and in the other, the sword through which she would channel it. Without a second thought, while the beast flailed angrily against the attacks of the three already engaged with it, Jinxie threw herself into the fray. If this is what it took, then this is what she would do.