2019-09-19: Empty Seeker

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  • Cutscene: Empty Seeker
  • Cast: ???
  • Where: An obscure beach in Spira
  • Date: September 19, 2019
  • Summary: A visitor comes to Spira in search of something that should not be there.

Miles away from the war, on a beach beyond the fighting...

Shellfish clattered against the net as Taren dragged it up onto the beach. The seawater sloughed off her sunkissed limbs and shoulders, dripping from her hair as she lugged the day's catch from the small fishing boat. It had been a good day - she'd caught more than enough to take care of the village.

"Looks like a good one!" her brother Tolan called from up the beach with a broad laugh, approaching with a huge basket in hand. "Haven't had a catch like that in a few days, huh?"

Grinning widely, Taren held the net open to give Tolan a better look at the sea's bounty. "Uh huh! And calm seas, too! We're really blessed--"

She cut off with a sudden shiver. "--Sorry," she said without thinking, not entirely sure why things had seemed to grow cooler - perceptibly so. From the look of things, though, she needn't have; Tolan pulled his arms up around himself too with a hunch of shoulders.

It was the sound that drew them out of that moment of reflection. Something shuffling through the sand. The two turned to look as one towards the figure moving slowly up the beach, wrapped in a ragged seafarer's coat with white hair spilling in wild tangles over the shoulders. The lurching pace of the figure's approach wasn't fast or even especially hostile, but the urge to dive back into the water tugged at the back of Taren's thoughts nevertheless.

"Can we help you?" Taren could see Tolan's hand coming to rest at his waist, discreet enough that he could reach for his work knife if he needed to.

"...Help me," the figure repeated in a low, hollow voice. At close range, Taren could make out drawn features - masculine, but virtually skeletal, the upper half of the face in shadow, revealing only a thin-lipped mouth and sunken cheeks. The figure was tall but never seemed to look at either of them.

"Yeah, help," Taren repeated, taking a slow, wary step back. They'd heard rumours of odd strangers - the war, after all, was not unknown to folk even in this isolated part of Spira. "What do you need?"

"I don't like this," Tolan muttered.

The skeletal man opened his mouth slightly, holding a moment before emitting a low rumble from somewhere deep in his chest. The hairs on the back of Taren's neck rose almost instantly. The sound was more like bones rattling together than anything else.

"...The Relic," the man rasped, voice thin, yet laced with something disturbingly insistent. "Help me find... the Relic. The Relic of Althena."

"Get back, sis," Tolan barked suddenly, wrenching his knife from his belt. "He's one of those Althena people we heard about!" Stepping forward, he interjected himself between Taren and the stranger, weapon brandished and ready. "We don't know anything about your goddess! Just leave us alone!"

"We've never even heard of an Althena until a few months ago," Taren protested, reaching for the boathook she'd brought along with her. It wasn't much of a weapon, but there it is.

The skeletal figure didn't move. "...Here," he uttered, that unearthly rumble creeping into the quiet word. "It is... here."

With a squaring of his jaw, Tolan waved his knife one more time. "What're you on about? You're just making trouble! Leave, now!"

The ultimatum hung there a moment. A breath of wind stirred the visitor's hair and coat. Swallowing deeply, Taren tried to force down the lump of tension in her throat.

"...No," the visitor whispered - and as he looked up, Taren nearly jumped out of her skin.

The eyes she gazed into were black and empty save for pools of intensely purple energy - a miasma of malevolent power beyond their understanding that boiled out of the entity's body like a spreading pollution, distorting into coils of mist that streamed out to entangle them both.




They had known nothing. Felt nothing. Seen nothing.

Knew not of what he sought. The thing that had eluded him.

Eluded him for too long.

Eluded him until the ship. The ship of fools. Seekers of a question. Of the question he wanted answered. Seekers all too happy to do the impossible.

Cross the thing SHE crossed. Seek the thing SHE sought.

The way.

The RELIC.

He would find it.

Finally, he would find it.