#fustuarium

Albrecht exhaled slowly, glancing around the training room one last time to make sure nobody was watching (who trained at 2:23 am anyways?) before taking to the floor. The small, quadrupedal drone he had worked so hard on skittered alongside him, optical lenses trained on its master. It stopped when he stopped, in the middle of the training floor, awaiting orders.

He had tested the function out plenty of times in the workshop, but never against live fire.

It was no good if it couldn’t hold up to live fire. It had to be perfect if he wanted to demonstrate it to lux Bellor.

Albrecht felt himself seizing up nervously. Breathe. Just breathe. He could trust his handiwork. The engineer adjusted his goggles, tugged at his gloves, and finally spoke. “Engage Attack Protocol Four.” Seven was the one he had seen sas Khaine use, right? Hopefully a lower number meant a simpler simulation.

The room whirred to life around him, a quartet of magitek bits buzzing free from chutes that opened up upon command. No backing out now. Albrecht took a reflexive half step back as the machines encircled them, but held his ground. “Sirius! Defend.” The shout came with a quick gesture, and upward sweep with his right hand. The robot responded accordingly, spreading out its four legs to brace itself as its backsplit open, revealing the barrier projector inside. An iridescent beam shot upwards, expanding into a domed barrier. The beams of the opposing bits railed harmlessly against it.

Albrecht breathed a heavy sigh of relief. It worked. It really worked. He hadn’t brashly sent himself to the infirmary with faulty machinery. Under the umbrella of protection, Albrecht crouched, scrutinizing his handiwork. A five fulm radius really wasn’t large enough to establish a safe zone during combat; he couldn’t even stand under this! Two of the cohort’s medicus could maybe squeeze together under the dome (they were all so short), but there was no way they could fit a wounded pyr Minekage or aan Draconis under the shell if they had to be dragged to the backlines for treatment. He clocked the generator up to ten fulms. Two of the magitek bits outside were knocked backwards as the shield expanded. Better, but now the shield was destabilizing. He watched with concern as it flickered at the edges after a couple minutes. Fifteen fulms was completely out of the question, ten fulms was ideal, but perhaps something in the 7 to 8 fulm range would be the most cost-effective…

Another two minutes passed and the barrier was plainly fraying. Which meant it was time to test the aetherotransformer. The engineer reached for the machine on his hip, flicking it on. Now came the hard part. Breathe, Albrecht. Just breathe. And focus. A soft blue glow flickered between the engineer’s hand and the machine as it hummed to life, transferring his aether on to the machine. The barrier began to stabilize once more. The highlander scrunched his eyes shut, straining to tune out the sounds of the attacking bits to concentrate fully on channeling...

KABOOM!

Albrecht yelped, startled by the earsplitting explosion. One of the bits shorted, imploding upon itself. But that deafening explosion snapped the engineer’s concentration. At once the barrier dissipated, exposing both the drone and the engineer. Even with the beams toned down for training, they still stung on impact.

“Ow! Shit! Ow! Disengage! Disengage!” Albrecht recoiled, covering his face with his arms until the bits returned to their roost, the simulation cut short. He sank wearily to the floor. They had failed… great. The engineer sighed in disappointment, patting his drone comfortingly on the head, as if it were a cat.

When the man arrived, still somewhat pale and weary from moons of having been poisoned to keep him bedridden and invalid, Marcia did not smile. Though it was typical of her to greet her husband with cheer, even when she unknowingly delivered him the poison, masquerading as medicine, even when she feared she would lose him to illness, even when the Frumentarium had divulged the nature of what had transpired thanks to one Neilas sas Seles... she did not smile.

Aeolus paused at this, leaning on a gilded magitek cane-rifle which was his constant companion, even, to Marcia’s amusement, about the manor, and gave the woman a look, asking cautiously, “What weighs on you, my dear?”

“Sit, Aeolus. Please,” she implored silently behind steepled fingers, her thin, rectangular glasses sitting low on her nose, “You will be better sitting for this discussion, I fear.”

Obliging, he sat in the cushy velvet chair facing the other side of the desk on which the Lady Bellor had, as usual, every last paper and pen in perfect organisational order. With a nod of his head for her to begin, he raised his natural left leg and set the ankle on the knee of his prosthetic right, the cane resting across his lap.

“Aeolus,” she said, again calling him by name, “Corelyn is here - in the Capitol.”

His complexion became a dangerous shade of pale, and he slowly inclined his head, peering down the bridge of his nose at his wide, who could not make eye contact with anything but her desk.

A hand ran down his moustache to smooth it and he asked, his voice soft and catching, “Why? How? I- we... she died, Marcia. Our girl was lost in the line of duty.”

Marcia shook her head, gaze dark as it rose to meet Aeolus through those white gold-trimmed spectacles, and she said, “She is in a medical facility nearby, being treated for nearly-fatal electrical burns that she sustained during a combat mission. She was treated in Eorzea before her transfer here... but is, reportedly, to receive,” she paused, swallowing hard, “...extensive surgical reconstruction.”

Aeolus’s head lowered, eye wide. He ran a hand through his hair, shifted in his seat, took a long inhalation through his nose... and he found himself speechless. He gripped his cane and closed his eyes, likely to hide the tears that had begun to form. Their precious daughter, their heir, their star, was dead for years, or so they thought. They had been informed that, following the Battle of Carteneau, her body could not be recovered, like those of countless others, and thus, was presumed dead. They had mourned for years. Their business had almost collapsed until the War of Succession had begun.

In that time, Corelyn’s ex-fiance, Neilas Seles, a boy with whom she’d attended the Magitek Academy, and the two respected intensely for his ambition and cleverness, as well as his technological aptitude, had made himself available to them. At the time, he was enlisted in the Xth Legion alongside Marcia as an engineer, taken on as one of her Architectii. She regarded him as she would have her own child, and was so proud of him when he rose to the rank of Tribunus.

Their shock when they had found that he was behind a string of detestable crimes, including the poisoning of Aeolus and delivery of continued applications of the same, disguised as medicine to keep the Academy professor alive through his mysterious illness, did not even come close to this. Their grief at the news of his treachery and death was nowhere near this.

Aeolus’s long, withdrawn silence was interrupted as Marcia said, her voice unsteady, “We should go to her.” The man could only nod absently.

She could barely move, and so many parts of her were still numb. Those that weren’t lanced with pain, made her want to scream, but she knew she would have no voice to do so, so extensive were her wounds.

The last thing the Animatus could remember was watching a comrade’s spell fail, its aether drawn in by the Paragon they had fought. her heart had swelled with pride when she engaged the woman head-on. Her weaponry had likely saved the cohort considerable losses, and she took solace in that... until her anima barrier was broken, the crimson shield that had been drawing in the opposing magic failing as intense bolts of purple-white electricity surged though her. She remembered pain, the smell of burnt hair and flesh, and then, before she had a chance to defend herself, it repeated, and she knew no more.

When she finally awoke, it wasn’t much better. She couldn’t move, couldn’t speak. She was paralysed, trapped in her own failing body. What words she could rasp out were painful, bringing stinging tears to her eyes. She couldn’t see herself, but she didn’t need to. Those patches of her that hurt so intensely were, she surmised, where she had taken the brunt of the electrical spells, one delivered at point blank that she felt through her very heart. How was she not dead?

Her bit was by her side the whole time, she knew, switching in and out of Crisis Mode and chirping its proposals and reports at those caring for her until she was stable. That, of course, is how she knew she had been transported to the Capitol. All her friends, her cohort, left behind in Eorzea. How long would she be gone? The thoughts haunted her as she drifted in and out of consciousness.

At some point, though she was only scarcely aware of how long it had been, or when it was, or even where, she awoke to crying - two people, crying. Words were shared between sobs, and when she tried to question it, her pained squeak brought a woman to her side, makeup barely clinging to her eyes from her weeping.

“Corelyn? Oh, my star, my precious, darling girl,” she sobbed, not daring to touch her despite it clear in her face that she wanted to.

She recalled a voice - Zheng’s voice - from when she was given the report on her ordeals with Neilas not long ago, “They have not been told. It is safer, until we are sure his people are fully dealt with.”

Her parents were at her side, weeping for her. All at once, her heart broke and her mind screamed. They were not safe yet. Who told them? How did they know? She tried so hard to raise her hand, but what parts of her arm she could feel shot with pain that made her eyes slam shut, wet with tears of her own.

“No, no please. Don’t move,” her mother pleaded, “Just rest. Rest. Mother’s... mother’s here. You’ll be okay, sweetheart. I promise.”

“Marcia,” her father said softly, his hand appearing on her shoulder, soft, yet rugged features appearing over her from Corelyn’s perspective, his eyes, too, red and teary.

“I’m,” Corelyn rasped, just barely audible, “...so... sorry.”

Her mother’s weeping only worsened, and, Corelyn barely registered, grasped her hand. She couldn’t feel it. Her heart sank and she sniffled around the breathing apparatus she realised was in her nose. Was she that near death?

“Hush, dear,” whispered her father, “Save it for when you are recovered. We will have much and more to discuss, and I... for one, cannot wait for you to regale your old father with your tales.”

She smiled. It hurt. It burned, and it hurt, and she could barely take it, but she smiled. She mouthed a silent, ‘Okay,’ and closed her eyes. Silence took her, but the pain remained. Deep in her heart and her mind, the pain remained.

Give me your fears... your last memories... It was a strange side effect of his augmentation and his family history working in tandem, the ability to perceive glimpses of another’s mind by coming in contact with their blood.  Fear being among the most potent of emotions as his targets breathed their last, he saw Mirelle, Seisa, and Miro in the light which faded from Carvandus’ eyes. He saw the man’s fear and love for them, and the regret which dawned from the realization he would never see them again. And this was hardly a first. Under his cover as a skilled taxidermist, Frost had accrued a certain amount of monetary fortune, which seldom went toward his own wants.  There were few things that he wanted for himself, and it usually went toward bringing treats home for his siblings, or toward some degree of recompense to the families of his victims.  Thus did he track down Mirelle and her children, to whom he identified himself as a friend of Carvandus, and provided what he could for medicine and other needs. It was his fault that they’d ended up where they did. There was a period of time where he couldn’t make his usual visits, and so Mirelle turned to other means of getting the medicine she needed.  She borrowed when she couldn’t pay, and when she couldn’t pay back what she borrowed, she found other ways to work off the debt, even for as ill as she was.  This, in turn, landed her in harm’s way of one of her less pleasant benefactors. Frost found out about him, a Hellsguard Brass Blade named Infernal Cyclone, and stole him away from attacking her.  Cyclone was slain by his hands, but in Frost’s revelry, he was too late to get back to Mirelle and save her. Fortunately, Seisa and Miro were unharmed, if traumatized by what they’d witnessed, and he vowed to make sure they never came to harm again.  Now orphaned, he brought them to Gridania to be cared for at one of the orphanages. It was his fault that they lost their mother.  The least he could do is make sure they had a safe place, a roof over their heads, and food in their bellies. He and Annowre visited them often, sponsored their needs, and took them on brief trips to Mist and the Goblet to visit friends. They wanted for nothing, other than a permanent home, which was something Frost couldn’t give them for many reasons: He didn’t have citizenship anywhere.  Garlemald didn’t recognize him, as the subject of an experimental program, and since his blood kin fled Ishgard, he had no records there, nor was his birth wanted or acknowledged by his sire.  As an outsider at the time, and one later believed dead after his capture by the Empire, he had no records in Gridania, nor anywhere else, and he couldn’t get citizenship without having some birth records somewhere. Add to all of that the fact that he moved around so much, between Castrum Occidens, the Goblet, and Castrum Aquilonis, and there was no settling in one place to give them the home they deserved.  And with Annowre assigned abroad by the Adders so frequently, none would be home to greet them.  The best he could do was sponsor them, and visit when he was able, and hope the gods would mercifully find them a loving family. Surely, the younglings prayed for a loving family, too, but there was only one that they wanted above all other attainable options. He tried so hard to keep them away from Garlemald’s eyes.  There was nothing the Empire could offer which he found acceptable for them, because he knew full well what it meant to fall into their hands.  And yet, somehow, during his time working with the Fustuarium, they were discovered by another faction and became targets.  The orphanage was set ablaze with Seisa, Miro, and thirty-five other children still inside. It was his fault.  The Miqo’te shadow of the White faction had been right.  If he hadn’t done his job so well, they never would have ended up in such a situation.  But he couldn’t have saved them alone... The Black faction of the Fustuarium had learned that their members’ comrades and family members were being targeted by the White, and that the orphanage was first on the list.  It was a bold rescue in the middle of the Shroud, so close to Bent Branch, but it was ultimately successful.  All of the children were brought out safely, and Frost swore never to let something like this happen again. It was his fault... and he had a duty to keep Seisa and Miro safe, rather than placing them somewhere convenient.  He owed that to them.  He had to find a way. A few suns after they were settled, albeit temporarily at the Order Hall, he put out a call for help with, of all things, paperwork.  More specifically, he needed someone skilled in forgery to create a convincing birth record and citizenship documents for him.  Luke answered the call and gladly provided, in exchange for an as yet to be determined favor.

Frost took a deep breath and left his room with the papers in hand.  Since the fire, the Conjurers’ guild had taken charge of tracking the records and whereabouts of the displaced orphans, which meant walking back into a place he never wanted to see the inside of ever again.  Fortunately, no one there recognized him, and none of the faces he looked upon were ones he knew.  So many years had passed... “Very well, Mister Caravelle,” said the Conjurer manning the front counter.  Luke had done as asked with the papers, completing them for the alias Frost used for his taxidermy business, Torzivir Caravelle.  “We just need three suns to confirm your documents, and we’ll be in contact.” He thanked them and left, returning directly back to his apartment to start packing.  He felt confident, for once, that this would all work out and that the younglings would soon be family, or at the very least his legal wards, which also meant moving.  He would have to find an apartment in Gridania so he could send them to school easier, but first, he had a letter to write.

Dear Annowre, Changes are coming which I think you’re going to really like.  Seira and Miro send their love, and we can’t wait to see you. Please come home soon. Glace