week 1

[airlockedmods]

Week 1

[After the reveal of their handsome and well-dressed but stern-looking Overseer on Sunday, the Champions were left to their own devices in investigating the mall to their hearts' content. At around 10 pm every night the lights in all the shops will go down and the sturdy metal grates over the doors of the restaurants will go down. The stores will remain unlocked, though.

On Monday morning, a buzzing alarm chirps at them again from their PIPs at 7 am on the dot. There's also a pop-up message waiting for them: a notice announcing Xander will be holding office hours

Enjoy your week, Champions.]

Sunday Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday Saturday

Comments

[burninglight]

You would be amazed what kind of horrible things can incapacitate someone while still leaving them conscious.

[nightcure]

I'd really rather not know.

[ #yikes ]

Anyway, isn't it suspicious that we can't connect to anything on these things?

[ the tablets, naturally. ]

[burninglight]

Not the word I would use. 'Expected', actually. Why even grant access to anything of the sort if we could simply reach out to whatever's beyond this place? [He gestured vaguely with the screwdriver, focusing back on reassembling the tablet with the attention of an expert.] Isolation is a breeding ground for desperation, and the desperate are far more prone to do stupid and reckless things.

[nightcure]

Got a point there. Wouldn't be as interesting if we could shout out for help.

[ He watches Ardyn a little more. ]

I had no idea you were so good at this kinda thing.

[ .... then again, there's so much he doesn't know about Ardyn. ]

[burninglight]

I didn't get my position with Starscourge and my good looks, you know.

[the former helped. a lot.]

...Aldercapt wished to build another Solheim. A civilization built upon the metal foundations of magitek, with power surpassing that of the Astrals. So it was a stunning streak of fortune for him that I was around.

[nightcure]

[ ah. ]

... Another Solheim, huh.

Bet he thought you were pretty much a gift sent to him from above. Or something like that.

[burninglight]

Kind of an idiot, to be perfectly straightforward. A complete stranger walks in with a falsified background wearing full Lucian colors and with a blatantly Lucian given name, and no one asks questions?

[A small circuit board clicked into place with the offhanded remark.]

...Then again, I don't think 'Ardyn' is a common a name as it used to be.

[nightcure]

... Nah, not particularly.

Aldercapt sounds not that smart, though.

[burninglight]

How the Niflheim empire lasted as long as it did under his leadership is well beyond me. I've no idea what he intended to do with the ring and Crystal if he got both of them, save for 'burst into flames'.

[i mean, honestly.]

[Ardyn paused then, scarred and calloused hands hesitating for a second or two in the process of threading a screw back into place. He frowned and narrowed gold eyes for a second or two, like staring at the half-assembled tablet would remind him of something he was struggling to think of.]

...I really can't say I know what his end goal was. Gralea was nothing compared to the kind of cities that used to stand upon the planet, and even were he to build a new Solheim it would only have been wiped out once more. He didn't even realize we couldn't kill Shiva forever, I'd love to see what he was planning to do if the Draconian saw fit to condescend to make an appearance.

[nightcure]

Maybe he just likes stealing people's stuff.

[ But honestly... he doesn't know. Noctis sighs, and decides to finally take a seat on the floor. ]

Probably would've tried to tame him. Pet dragons are all the rage. It'd just be another shiny new toy to flaunt and possibly get killed by.

[burninglight]

[That got a bitter laugh out of Ardyn, short as it was.]

'Possibly'. Bahamut would have leveled Gralea and left me the only one standing, if he could even be convinced to care in the slightest. Which I seriously doubt to be possible.

He's not even a dragon.

[nightcure]

[ He snorts lightly. ]

You think he would've noticed something was wrong and regretted it?

[burninglight]

The Bladekeeper is about as capable of 'regret' as fire is of being cold. Particularly when it comes to me.

[bitter? nah.]

[nightcure]

[ Ah. ]

I meant Aldercapt, actually. You know, when Bahamut started raining hell on Gralea.

[burninglight]

...Oh. Right.

[projecting like an IMAX]

It's unlikely. He was a bit beyond logical thought long before I ever showed up in Niflheim, honestly.

[nightcure]

Too obsessed with the crystal to worry about stuff like sanity, I'm guessing.

[burninglight]

Essentially, yes. Most of the empire rather descended into utter madness before too long, and the fact that I'm the one saying that should tell you a thing or two about how insane everyone ended up.