#scaevan-thoughts

There was a saying Nero had heard around the island-the devil finds work for idle hands. And, as he continued to be bored and bored and even more bored, he began to understand the proper meaning of that phrase. He was struggling to find suitable work for the likes of him, and it was starting to drive him mad. 

In fact, he was getting so bored that, if he wasn’t actively on some sort of job, he was starting to gather together literally anything that he could use to build... something. Even he wasn’t sure what he was aiming to build at this point. His hands just itched to create something, literally anything! His mind was as restless as it ever had been, and he’d be damned if he didn’t do something. He didn’t want to go mad, like Livia, or dare he even think it... Nael van Darnus. 

No, he dared not dwell on the madness of that one. That was a whole other level of complete and utter absolute terror, and not just because of the fact she was likely, at some point, tempered by the Elder Primal within Dalamud. Between the two, he’d take his fellow Tribunus over the mad Legatus any day. 

But dwelling on his more insane allies was pointless, and was doing very little to alleviate his immense boredom. He needed something to do... but the question then became... what?

As he tinkered with one of his many small piles of metal scraps that he’d accumulated, he pondered the question over and over again... and then, the answer hit him like a ten-tonze magitek missile at terminal velocity. (No, he did not know what that felt like, but he could imagine what it would feel like, and that was more than enough in the pureblooded Garlean’s humble opinion, thank you very much!)

Why not open a shop of some kind? He could sell things he made, sell other things that he hadn’t made (if he felt like it), offer repairs (for a price, of course), and finally cure his wretched boredom! Not to mention finally having a consistent source of income... oh, he liked the idea the more he thought about it. Yes, he very much liked the idea as he continued to think about it. A demonic smirk came across his face. 

The children had taken to Nero’s schematics surprisingly well.... though the self-proclaimed genius did have to spent an absolutely asinine amount of time explaining the terminology. It didn’t surprise him, necessarily, but it did annoy him. Once the little brats understood what he was saying, things came together very, very, very quickly.

The stronger children were charged with moving and holding the pieces in place. The smaller ones were charged with fastening it all together. Nero supervised it all, and was grinning madly by the time it was finished. 

A crude, scrapped-together replica of a magitek anti-personnel cannon. Four in total. Snow shaped into suitable ammunition for the replica cannons, stacked in piles. A child standing at each cannon, ready to load and fire at the former Tribunus’s command. All that remained was to wait for an unsuspecting victim to walk within range. 

It took all of five minutes before a small swarm of other children entered within range. Maintaining his devious expression, Nero looked to the swarm, and then, to his little allies. He then pointed at the swarm, and snapped his fingers-the cue he’d taught them to mean fire. 

And fire they did. 

A proper snowball fight soon ensued, with the non-occupied children creating and throwing their own snowballs, and the “rebels” (as Nero was now playfully thinking of them as) were doing the same. Nero occasionally joined in with his own snowballs, but mostly observed and gave orders. It was honestly very, very, very fun. Even Livia might enjoy this... if she were here. 

Of course, Nero and the brats he commanded achieved victory relatively quickly. The other group of children ran away, and Nero felt rather proud of his accomplishment-

“Excuse me, but are you the one in charge of these children?”

Nero raised an eyebrow at the sound of a feminine voice. A middle-aged, Hyur-esque woman approached him, clearly rather angry. He could only assume it was directed at him. 

What else is new, he thought, someone’s frustrated with me. 

He shrugged.

“Not truly. I have helped and guided them in the construction and usage of these little cannons, but none of them are actually mine.” He answered.

“How dare you order such a brutal assault on my poor baby-”

He groaned, and leveled a deadpan look at her.

“You should know by now that the world is rife with danger. Your ‘poor baby’, as you put it, is bound to get hurt every so often. He just happened to be in the wrong place and the wrong time, and it’s simply frozen water. It’s not going to truly harm your brat, so don’t even bother trying to preach to me, whoever you are.” He interjected, before turning on his heel and beginning to walk away. He could vaguely hear her ranting and raving, but quickly tuned her out.

Some entitled savage did not get to tell him what to do, and he had no interest in listening to her pointless shrieking. So, he left the area, leaving her to howl, probably now at the children for listening to a stranger and attacking her child. Ugh, how pathetic. He was Nero tol Scaeva, magitek genius extraordinaire-above such mad ramblings. 

Nero was going on a casual walk when he felt the air begin to chill. Another day, another walk, and he noticed the snow beginning to fall. A childish yet demonic grin came across his face. As a son of Garlemald, he knew the cold very well. Some of his first creations had been things such as automatic snowball-firing guns and remote control drones that also spat out snow at whoever he decided was worthy of being pelted by the machinations of his genius. 

What would he build this time, he wondered. He had all the time in the world to do so, given the lack of threats to his life (as far as he knew of, at least), the lack of Cid nan bloody Garlond, and just overall peace. A magnificent replica of the snowball gun? Or a remote control turret to rain down frozen hell upon whoever he felt like targeting? There were plenty of materials, if one knew where to look-

Then, he saw a small group of young, Hyur-esque children all gathered around a small scrap heap. Some were arriving, pulling other scrap pieces with them. He knew exactly what he was going to do now. Oh, how proud Cid would be-helping innocent children achieve some cute little dream, he thought bitterly for a moment. He shoved the thought aside, and strode confidently over to the children. They all strained their necks to look up at him as he crossed his arms. 

“Well, what do we have here? A lot of untapped potential... what were you all hoping to make with these little bits and pieces?” He asked. It took a few seconds, but finally, a young girl worked up the courage to talk to him. 

“Umm... we were gonna... use this stuff to make a really big snow... thing. We... we honestly aren’t really sure what we want to do with it. Just something reeaaallllyyyy big!” She admitted. Nero chuckled, took off his helmet dramatically (followed by his sunglasses, because such was his nature), and knelt down to their level. 

“Well, fortunately for you all, you have the great fortune of having the genius of yours truly, Nero tol Scaeva, on your side! We will make something that will triumph over any other creation of snow and ice your little heads could even remotely begin to imagine!” He told them. The children all collectively gasped.

“You’re gonna help us out, mister?!” The girl who had previously spoken asked in disbelief.

“It would be mere child’s play! Now, let’s see what we have here...” He answered, before standing back up and walking closer to the pile. It was nothing too extraordinary-a small variety of assorted bits and pieces, likely raided from nearby garbage dumps. Some metal, some plastic, but all had potential in Nero’s eyes. 

He walked over, picked up a nearby stick, and motioned for the children to come over. They all swarmed around him, and he got down on his knees. 

“We will all need to work together for this to succeed. Watch what I do, and then, we will delegate tasks as needed. Then, we will relish in our success!” He encouraged.

“Um... what does delegate mean?” Another child asked.

Nero was often rather bored from day to day as of late. There wasn’t too much for him to do on this strange island, in this strange parallel dimension. It was the same boring monotony for him. He woke up, got ready for the day, took walks to survey the area, occasionally would tinker with something if the mood struck him (the mood often did strike him), return back to his shared apartment, change out of his armor, and head to bed. Oh, how he wanted something exciting to happen-

He could barely finish his thought before a strange, glitchy, pixelized wave passed over the city. Instinctively, he shielded his eyes, and was fully ready to fight his way back to his shared apartment-

Nothing happened. He waited several minutes. Still, nothing happened. He lowered his arms, and stared in abject horror at the sight before him. 

It was all ruined. The walls had turned from their normal appearances to twisted, smoldering, remnants of the dark, black metal walls he knew since he was young. Twisted, metallic plating was littered throughout the streets. Chunks of throughly scorched cerment were tossed about just as carelessly. Ruined remnants of magitek vanguards were partially fused to ruined remnants of magitek colossi. Charred remnants of low-ranking Imperial soldiers could be seen throughout, with what wasn’t destroyed being chewed and lapped at by strange creatures. 

Their sizes were as varied as could be. Some were massive, lumbering, bear-like creatures, while others were small, swift, and looked more like damselflies. But they were all a bit... pixelated. Too pixelated for Omega to let them continue to exist. Thus, Nero eliminated the idea that this was yet another one of Omega’s little experiments. But if it was not the ancient war machine’s doing, then who was to blame for this sudden anarchy? Nero did not know, and he did not like the fact he did not know the answer. 

Still, he did not want to take any chances. What if these creatures were hostile? Fearing that idea, Nero retreated swiftly to his apartment, and noticed another odd phenomena-the pixel creatures did not seem to go within one-thousand yalms of the apartments. 

In other words, he could hide until this passed, or until he could get a helping hand. Though he was loathe to admit it, even he knew that attempting to fight these mystery creatures with naught more than a toy and his wits was a bad idea. Cowardly as some might call it, the move was also quite intelligent. And Nero was a very intelligent man.

The decision was an easy one to make for the former Tribunus. He hastily retreated into his part of the shared apartment he was forced to reside in, and breathed a sigh of relief once the door to the whole apartment was closed and locked behind him. He then began scrounging around until he found a small array of pencils, pens, and any other writing implements he could get his pale fingers on, and brought them to his room. He then returned to the main area, and scrounged around again until he gathered up all the paper he could find that was suitable for drawing. He then returned to his part of the apartment, and placed the paper on the same desk as the pens, pencils, and whatever else he had managed to gather up.

He then sat down, turned on the desk lamp, and began sketching out rough ideas for improvised weapons. Specifically, weapons he could improvise from whatever he could find in the ruined city. He may not have his proper gunhammer, but he still had his intellect and overall genius, and that would be enough to make it through. Not to mention he had his innate Garlean strength and third eye to help him gather whatever materials he could. 

He groaned his way to consciousness. For the love of... whatever powers may or may not be, could he not escape having his body thrashed about like a child’s toy? At this rate, he swore the universe itself had it out for him. He was going to chalk that up to being a bloody genius and instead smile about it.

After a few moments, he gathered himself, and managed to stand up. He was eternally grateful he had decided to keep his armor on over his modified Ironworks uniform, as it had no doubt saved him a lot of unnecessary agony. (He’d learned his lesson from the Sigmascape, and he would never forget such a lesson.) He dusted himself off... only to see what looked like a creation of Omega before him, as if waiting for him. 

He was slightly unnerved, and reached for his prized gunhammer...

Only to find it had been somehow taken from him, and replaced with a wooden replica that... had bloody lightning bolt decals on it?! How insulting! He was Nero tol Scaeva, former Tribunus Laticlavius, magitek genius extraordinare-

An impatient growl got his attention. He looked at the small little device he had been given at some point, and skimmed through it. Some interdimensional island that he’d been pulled to against his will (lovely), and this thing was here to take him to his new living space. He sighed heavily. What harm was there in indulging the nameless ‘driver’, he supposed. With some reluctance, he crawled into the back seat, and allowed himself to be driven to his new home. 

Eventually, he was dropped off at a moderate-sized place. Nothing too remarkable-but at least it was in decent repair. Sighing again, he made his way inside, heading upstairs... quickly discovering that he had... roommates. Fantastic. He had to share his home with strangers he didn’t even bloody know. Well, at least, he assumed he didn’t know. He wasn’t sure if anyone from Hydaelyn at all was here as well.

Eventually, he found his way into an unoccupied bedroom. It wasn’t too much, but it would have to do, he supposed. He’d lived in much worse. Taking some paper and pen, he was quick to write (very neatly, but still quickly) a little note, and attach it with the clear adhesive strip to the outside of the door.

The note read:

This room belongs to Nero tol Scaeva, magitek genius extraordinare. Do not enter without permission-there will be things in here beyond your comprehension that could have devastating consequences for every resident of this building if they are misused. If you have any questions or wish to waste my time, do speak to me. I doubt there will be much else for me to do here anyways.

~Nero tol Scaeva.