Chapter Text
If you have read this journal so far, I presume your mind is made up and you have an inkling on how to proceed with what we gleaned.
Should that be the case, I doubt not that I will long since have joined my friends and comrades that went before. But please, I beg of you, if you have read thus far entertain this rambling fool’s request for but a moment. Whether you do so will, once again, be up to you.
As forwarded to what remained of the researchers under the late Scaeva, there is no doubt that the Crystal Tower will survive what has befallen us. Listen well—the explicit order to open its gates should you decide that the past must needs be changed at the cost explained was given. In the event that you do, you will doubtlessly rouse its guardian.
Please, and I beg this of you not as Cid Garlond whose theories and suggestions you doubtlessly have considered for a long time, perhaps even are part of the Ironworks should it survive so far into the future—the guardian.
You need not soften the truth for him. You need not talk around the subject of death and decay, of tragedy and despair.
But let him cry. Let him scream. For he comes from a time before the Calamity, before all broke beneath our feet. From a time where he but just parted with us and the Warrior of Light.
He will help you, I do not doubt that for a moment.
G’raha Tia but needs a moment to gather his bearings after his awakening.
Something stirred.
He had long expected his dreams to be interrupted gently, like someone pulling open a curtain and letting that bright, warm light flood in. Alas.
The Crystal Tower had neither windows nor curtains. He wasn’t even in a bed. There was no gradual shift between the faintest hint of a dream of a bygone era and the waking world. It was sharp. Abrupt. Where he had previously all but floated about without a thought, he suddenly found himself on the cold crystalline floor of the Ocular. He didn’t even scramble for purchase on the equally cold walls to pull himself up.
His head wasn’t full of cotton. Gods, he had expected to be as groggy as staying up past midnight made him back… back… back then. Whenever then was now.
And by the heavens, he was sharply aware of people slowly ascending the tower in search of… something. Someone. Rather than shaking off sleep he was awake and at the height of his mental capacities.
His body, of course, betrayed him. Stiff muscles. Unresponsive limbs. He spared nary a second thought to the fact that his own flesh seemed to have turned into crystal partially by this point. Expected side-effects. Nothing too debilitating in the grand picture. It merely meant that everything had worked the way it should have; he was alive and none the worse for wear when any Seeker worth their salt might have long since passed away into the cold night. Not him. He was the guardian of the Crystal Tower, its thought centre. The one who controlled it. It seemed only right that it had started to turn his body into an extension of it as he slept likely long beyond his mortal lifespan.
He could not dwell on this much longer, because he heard chatter. It rang in his ears—they flattened against his head, unused to the sudden noise. Why on earth was he able to hear these people who were several floors below him so… loudly? Their voices—and he hated that joke—were crystal clear. They all sounded awed despite him being the one who should be awed. They had managed to open the doors. Then he heard a name, and his traitorous heart skipped a beat. He’d heard that name before.
An unknown voice called someone Biggs.
Had they managed it? Wasn’t this in the distant future—had the Ironworks come here to rouse him from his slumber after all?
And though his body was in a state of dragging, he started moving forwards. Every step made his unresponsive limbs lighter, every breath he took while awake washed the godawful drowsiness that remained deep in his bones away. By the time his body caught up to his state of alertness, he found himself almost excited. If Biggs was here, the rest of NOAH would follow suit soon. Perhaps they were outside. Maybe there was a fair chance he’d see Rammbroes and Cid, Wedge and the Warrior. Even Nero. Perhaps the rest of the Scions, seeing as they had made their home in Mor Dhona not too long before he decided what the best course of action was.
When he finally met the group, still halfway up the stairs while they stood on a platform, he stopped dead. There wasn’t a known face among them. Biggs certainly wasn’t around; the five Roegadyn in that group did not look like anyone he knew at all. He stared at them with wide red eyes—but they did not seem surprised to find another Spoken in these halls.
“G’raha Tia, correct?” It was the Auri woman who spoke, however. She looked rather battle-hardened for someone who wore a researcher’s garb.
G’raha nodded slowly. Opened his mouth. But he couldn’t bring himself to ask for these strangers’ names and ask what they wanted here. It was obvious what they wanted—the Crystal Tower, judging from the familiar icon emblazoned on their uniforms. Of course the Garlond Ironworks would know the man who ruled these halls even in his slumber, there was no way that Cid would not make certain that the future generations knew who or what awaited them within the tower.
But asking for their names would see the coffin shut and nailed tight. If there was one familiar last name, one of them named after another, he would know that so much time had passed that the faces he once knew were gone and perhaps even faded in the pages of history. He’d so very proudly said that the Warrior of Light’s exploits would be the star that he would chart his course after—but for him their passing as the doors shut behind him had not been that long ago. It felt like a month. Admittedly the memories were faded and lacked clear distinction at times but he remembered it. He remembered.
His body, awake and traitorous still, moved on its own. Even if he could not speak to these people right now because his tongue lay useless and heavy in his mouth, he least he could do would be approaching these people. He took a step down. One foot after another. Gods, he did not remember these stairs being such an obstacle, especially since they were leading down.
The group talked amongst itself. He definitely heard the word ‘Calamity’ and a question of whether he knew or not.
He stopped dead. Ears flat against his head.
“Beg… beg your pardon?”
They all looked at him—and he understood.
His heart sank as they then exchanged a look amongst themselves; the Auri woman took a step backwards and shook her head. One of the Roegadyns also raised their hands. For a minute or so they urgently discussed who should tell him, and G’raha understood. He knew what was coming when eventually the Viera pushed her way past the others and nailed him with a look that was both pity and contempt.
“Founding Chief’s records say you’re from his era—right after the Seventh Calamity, right? The one with Dalamud falling?”
Finally his tongue untied. But his voice was a hoarse whisper. “So I am.”
The Viera shook her head, her uncommonly short hair for one of her race swaying with the motion. “Well then, Master G’raha. Welcome to the world after the Eighth.”
“The… The Eighth,” he repeated, voice breaking despite the fact it was so quiet. A few of these people looked at him with pity on their faces as he reeled over that revelation.
He wasn’t given a moment to collect his thoughts. The woman narrowed her eyes a little before she continued. “We did not come here to rouse you from your slumber lightly and on a whim based on old notes that Masters Garlond and Scaeva left for us, make no mistake. Had we any other option, we would have let you continue sleeping, unaware of the tragic fate that befell the world and those you knew while you slept. We would have let you sleep so you could wake up in a world that has forgotten this catastrophe. But we are out of time. Out of options. We cannot change the lot given to us right now, but the Ironworks’ hard labour will not go to waste. Please.” And then suddenly the harsh look on her face dropped as she got on her knees to bow before him. “We need your help to finalise what our predecessors started. We can change this fate that befell the world. But in order to save them we need what you know. What you can do. We need the Crystal Tower and its guardian on our side.”
Of course, he wanted to scream. They didn’t have to ask him—they had woken him after all! If anyone owed someone anything here, he owed these people who were… living… in a world after another Calamity. He could see it for a moment. Those comets that brushed past the treetops, saw entire cliffsides coming down because they were hit. Heard the waves crash and blubber as molten rock sunk beneath them, heard the crack and groan of a forest on fire.
Heard the people scream for help.
He swayed slightly, crystalline hand holding onto the railing like a lifeline.
The Lalafell in the group a few steps below him looked at him. Said something—but it fell upon deaf ears.
All he could think about was NOAH. He saw the Warrior of Light laugh slightly as they said that there wouldn’t be another Calamity on their watch. Heard everyone else laugh—even saw the unwelcome guest Nero tol Scaeva roll his eyes with an amused expression on his face. No Calamities as long as they lived. Heard all of then join in, agree that there would be no more world’s end scenarios as long as they lived.
He turned to look at the people who looked at him slightly concerned. “The Calamity,” he hissed, desperately clutching at straws. “When did it take place?”
If it happened after their lives were long over… against the odds… even though they had said that they had come here based on Cid’s research….
He almost wanted to beg the Twelve to grant him that much at least after he left NOAH claiming that this was what was necessary. After claiming that his destiny awaited him in the future. He wanted to beg the gods to tell him that his companions hadn’t been caught in that. That it had happened long after their time. That… that their ends had been peaceful—
And there it was again; that crushing look of pity.
This time no one said anything—because these strangers saw that he understood what this answer meant. This silence. He was fairly certain that his expression showed the blank shock that rocked through his body, but they did not budge. They did not say a thing. He knew they all just hoped that he would still help them, even if he hated them for being alive when his friends from back then were not.
Dead.
Dead in a Calamity no less.
Yet here he stood, crystalline hand on gilded rails in the remnants of a civilisation long since gone, all but amidst a group of strangers who needed an answer.
For a moment he considered screaming. Just letting his dangerously weak legs give in and plummet down the stairs, hopefully joining those long gone.
But no. No, he couldn’t. Thus, with the distinct crunch of the rail—or perhaps his hand, he did not know—echoing eerily through the quiet, he opened his eyes again. Bright, scarlet. Unfamiliar, perhaps not even human to these people. They already had not particularly been normal for a Seeker back then.
“Very well,” he said, his voice surprisingly steady and clear now that the shock had passed. “This tower will be at your disposal, assuming you permit me to join you. I would… learn as much as I can of this tragedy to help you unwrite it.”
Having work to do kept his mind from trailing off. Scavenging through the ruins of a world he once knew and now did no longer hurt, yes, but at the very least there was a clear disconnect between what he knew and what he saw. Thinking about the people who lived as the Vault in Ishgard came crumbling down upon streets filled with corpses was a whole other matter—because he heard the Warrior of Light’s voice, dulled by him nearly having forgotten it by now, three years after he woke, talk about how Ishgard had reached out for the first time in years and the Lord Commander seemed like a decent person. Perhaps, and they had said that with so much optimism that it had been contagious, they could mend the Eorzean Alliance if things continued this way.
It was the times when he wasn’t busy that were the worst. Hearing about the Ironworks’ exploits first-hand thanks to those who kept up Cid’s legacy. Though that was not first-hand. They only told what they knew from the records that survived to this day. How those that lived through Black Rose all rose up together to try piecing the world back together.
Because those that they normally would have fallen to had not lived through it.
The Scions—wiped out.
And those that had survived the initial Calamity were struck down. Those that hadn’t choked to death in agony died in just as much agony, bleeding out in the streets, in the collapsing civilisation around—
Times like these, he slammed his hands against his cheeks. Told himself to keep it together. Those people had expected an aloof or wise guardian, not a man still struggling to wrap his head around any of this.
He slipped exactly once when they ran into another group of travellers and sat around that campfire. The people talked—and too late he realised that he was listening to a retelling of the Warrior of Light’s story. A war hero. A trusted friend. The idiot who still ran around and got themselves into minor pest extermination jobs. It was all glorified; he had heard the recounting of the Praetorium straight from the Warrior’s mouth after all. They hadn’t seemed too happy about that, ears turned back and a scowl on their lips as they closed their eyes and said that so much of this could have been avoided. What the people here told was an epic.
That was all that survived. He was the only living being that had even seen the Warrior of Light. And most of their exploits happened after the doors slid shut.
Only when the people stopped talking to look at him did he realise that he sat there weeping.
“G’raha, right? Are you quite fine?”
Biggs, the third according to himself, moved slightly. The rest of the Ironworks did as well—the other group didn’t know about him, but they certainly knew what might have prompted this reaction.
He forced a smile. It probably looked just as fake as it felt.
“Yes, quite. My apologies. I hadn’t… heard that particular tale, and it… it,” he shook his head slightly. A lie they had made up about him and his condition. A unique sickness that came from having been born where Black Rose initially spread and then having grown up in Mor Dhona, all but at the Crystal Tower’s base—they had given him parents that were long dead and who had loved telling stories of old. Friends. “My best friend would have liked it, were they around to hear it.”
Maybe that much wasn’t a lie.
“Godspeed, G’raha Tia.”
What a way to see off a man who was going to fly right to his death. They all knew that, and most had refused to come see him because of that. They felt like they were making a sacrifice of him after all the hard work they put into making certain that this was even possible. He desperately wished that at least Biggs would have been here, but alas.
He gave the Viera a smile that was not sad for once. Her eyes even widened a little—G’raha Tia was not known for smiling much, and when he did it was always gloomy.
“Thank you. For everything. I’ll see that technology brings freedom after all.”