Click This

Final Fantasy: Lightseekers

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Éliane’s bitter mood persisted long after the fight, an angry fugue that wasn’t helped by her waterlogged and sand-coated state after washing up on the beaches of what she concluded was a terrible and barbaric foreign nation. The weather and the scenery might be nice, but it was all for nought if those that governed it were so utterly and infuriatingly malicious and incompetent.

She very dearly wished she could contact the Overseer and recommend that he send ships to glass Drana Asnaeu back into the dark ages for their warmongering activities. They were no better than the Valheimians—just weaker.

Unfortunately for them, they had more immediate problems to worry about, even if their itinerant moogle had somehow found them by studying the ocean currents. Éliane wondered if that was even a method that existed. Although most of her weapons had managed to stay on her body after the fight, her rotary cannon had briefly slipped away and in the chaos had partially disassembled, leaving her to comb the beach together with Esben to find the remaining parts for the gun. It was miserable work that left her cursing Isolde even more.

The two of them stopped in front of a metallic object half buried under the sand. “No, that looks like it,” she replied, taking the shaft and crank, frowning at its sand-covered state. “Not really. I would really like to talk to the Deputy Director again.” There was a slim chance she was still in Costa del Sol, but with Isolde having put out an alert for the guards… there was hardly a chance of returning to the city. “We should speak with Galahad. I want to see what we can coordinate with Edren…”

Final Fantasy: Lightseekers

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Perhaps Rudolf and some of the other Kirins might have extra words for Éliane’s style of diplomacy –authority imagined or not—but given the situation, the threat had been the best chance they had for talking themselves out of a situation that they did not have the answer for.

It hardly worked on a barbarian zealot that couldn’t grasp the concept of basic logic, though. Even with the full remaining salvo from her rotary cannon, the entire remainder of her ammunition, with the cascade of bullets slamming into the Grove Paladins, combined even with her team’s quick response and assault… it wasn’t working.

Isolde’s layered spells were too damn hard to break through. Éliane snarled as she saw man after man being dealt a killing by herself or her teammates, only to immediately heal and fight again due to the treacherous grovemaster’s magic.

Her gun powered down, out of ammunition; with a curse, the pink-haired woman immediately switched to her gunblade as she slammed explosive rounds into the weapon. Through the sounds of combat, she quickly caught onto the plan being formed by Izayoi and Galahad.

“Concentrate on one spot!” she yelled in agreement, rushing in. She even began charging the shells with her fire materia, bringing them dangerously close to instability as their explosive power was enhanced. It wasn’t exactly the simple stun that Esben might have wanted, but big explosions was what doctor Éliane was prescribing. With six consecutive cracks, she rushed in, firing from just above the minimum safe firing distance as each shell crashed against and exploded against the Grovemaster’s position, sending fire, flame, and shrapnel onto her position before Éliane herself rushed in to capitalize, slashing and hacking at the demented woman.

Final Fantasy: Lightseekers

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After everyone else had said their piece—after Grovemaster Isolde’s horrifying dispel, and treacherous words, even Éliane was left with her mouth wide agape. That creature’s actions were so far beyond the pale that Éliane was well and truly incensed, her features formed into a scowl at the audacity of this bitch to meddle in affairs like this with such self-satisfied, sanctimonious rambling, as if she knew better.

“Denied. You do understand,” Éliane replied softly, but with her voice raised loud enough for the grovemaster to hear. “That this is a literal act of war, correct? You are declaring war against Skael and Edren?”

The pink-haired woman tilted her head, her cannon now pointed directly at the grovemaster. She had thought Isolde had been the sole voice of reason among the twisted and misguided leadership of this country, but she had been gravely mistaken. This woman was the worst of them all.

“I was not joking when I said that Skael would invade your country to protect ourselves. Isn’t it nice of you to provide an extra cassus belli by declaring on us all on your own?”

Éliane decided to break the standoff. There was no way her party was going to agree to her demands, and she was so literally done with this country and this woman that she would just about do all in her power to have Skael actually come with her dreadnoughts and roll this country over and turn it into a parking lot for her country to take the fight to Valheim.

“Right then…” She clicked off the safety of her cannon, and pressing the trigger, began firing right at the bitch, protective warding be damned.

Final Fantasy: Lightseekers

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Given the urgency of the situation, sadly Éliane had not had the chance to cackle like a maniac as she poured in the high-volume fire, but she could settle for the barrier being broken through their combined firepower. She was also going to bemoan the loss of so much ammunition after just restocking the expensive and hard to find stuff, but that was a problem for future Elly, not present Elly.

Thankfully, the gambit by extreme firepower worked, as things should be… but that hardly calmed down the giant leviathan. Maybe they would have to put it down after all? Sad days when the water bitch was better served pointing her anger at Valheim…

Éliane finally paused her fire, conscious of her dwindling ammunition as she eyed up her still enraged foe and as her team began to make their own play. Seeing Miina’s surprisingly bold attempt, she was already on it when Esben called out.

Pulling out couple grenades, she eyed Leviathan’s head speculatively, frowning when she realized that the creature was out of throwing distance…

But not batting distance. Unsheathing her gunblade and dropping into a batting stance, one after another, she pulled the pins on the explosives and tossed them in the air… and smashed them with her weapon to explode against Leviathan’s face.

Robin was in the same geographic area, but no doubt she would be fine…

ArrowFell: The Wizard Queen's Court

Still feeling kind of miserable but I don't want to get left too far behind, so I'm hoping to catch up on reading tomorrow and then see where I can make another post.

Final Fantasy: Lightseekers

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Éliane was rather annoyed, but her emotions were… a little mixed.

She was annoyed, because if she had made good with her threats to the Grovemasters, they wouldn’t have to be dealing with this mess –and an extended mess was what it was, stupid barbarian politics—but on the other hand, they were in yet another grand fight. Éliane wasn’t so twisted that she would be happy about any random senseless battle, though, and even worse, it was the type of battle that was depriving her of the ability to actual do battle.

Barely into the entire thing, the nasty water whore had soaked her new rotary cannon and it had yet to fire— and for the moment, it was even her only weapon that could probably only do significant damage since she lent her rifle to Esben. She still had her gunblade, but it seemed anemic in comparison to waves…

Just about fed up with the water, she began to rely on something she usually didn’t—her materia. Within moments, she whipped up a hot, dry wind around her and her gun, quickly drying it out with the heated air—

And then she finally brought the cannon to bear on the Leviathan and her barrier. She depressed the trigger, and the gun whirled to life with the heavenly sound of high caliber bullets rapidly leaving the barrel. Within moments, a fresh hail of armor piercing bullets joined her teammates’ in striking against the Leviathan.

“Challenge this, asshole!”

ArrowFell: The Wizard Queen's Court

Oh ho, very sorry to hear it. Okay, I may move the scenes along then, and assume 'Asteria' and Mene are hiding in the Grand Bank for now. Hope you feel better soon.:<

@Estylwen

Sounds good. I had an escape plan cooked up for them, but it isn't terribly different from that idea so it works.

ArrowFell: The Wizard Queen's Court

I'll wait on our venerable @AWildSquirtle before posting in Hathforth. :>

Any good news from @Click This, @The Otter, and @Irradiant?

I think the collab of Hathforth's fires is waiting on @ERode currently? ^^

@Estylwen

News, but sadly not too good. I'm still feeling like absolute crap and it isn't doing any wonders for writing... since it's gone on for almost a month and trended worse I'm going to see my doctor soon lol.

ArrowFell: The Wizard Queen's Court

@Click This Ooh, we can still collab it, for sure! Would you be willing to send over a doc?

@Estylwen

Can do. Might take me another day or two though, been feeling under the weather since last year and I haven't gotten better lol.

ArrowFell: The Wizard Queen's Court

@Estylwen Did you want to do that collab we discussed, or should I just respond to the manor stuff as normal?