Author's Note: Yay, the first chapter! In case you couldn't tell, this is the sequel to my fic "Reliance" - I'd suggest reading that first, but you don't have to if you don't want to. This story takes place about 30 years after "Reliance", which puts it at about 420 years before the game. As always, reviews are greatly appreciated - they help me out and encourage me to post faster. Enjoy!
It was, as most tended to be, a quiet day in Exire. The place that was home to most non-Desian half-elves continued to float serenely above Tethe'alla as it always had, constantly moving in a holding pattern that never left it visible to one area of the surface world for more than a few minutes at a time. It was a very uneventful place to live, but most of its inhabitants preferred that to the constant discrimination they felt in human cities – and, up here where you had to have magic or technology to get, they were safe from the violent mobs that would occasionally form against half-elves as well. Yes, for all that it was boring, Exire was a safe haven for the exiles of the world.
It wasn't, however, a good place to plot rebellion against Cruxis.
The Renegades had chosen Exire as a temporary place to hold their headquarters because many of them already lived there, but their leaders had decided long ago that a larger, more secretive base was necessary. They had to be very careful when discussing their plans and goals in Exire, since many of the other inhabitants had friends or relatives working for the Grand Cardinals. Leaking their plans would mean their deaths, Lord Yuan had lectured, or at the very least some intense brainwashing. To avoid this unpleasant fate, he had sent several teams to survey the two worlds for the best location for a base and now, after twenty-five years, the survey was complete.
Botta closed his eyes as he wrapped his hands around the warm mug of tea he'd been given. The magic flows of the two worlds had shifting patterns, but he and the full-spectrum mage Lucien had finally been able to finish their diagram of Sylvarant. It had actually been easier to map the mana-poor Tethe'alla because the flows had only strengthened with time, but in Sylvarant the mana lines were weakening and it was more difficult to tell a dimensional weakness from the action of a mana link. Still, with the help of the instruction he'd received from Gnome, Botta was eventually able to pinpoint several locations that would be ideal for the Sylvarant side of the pair of bases the Renegades hoped to construct. All that remained was to have a general meeting with everyone and choose a location, and they could begin construction.
"Lord Yuan should be arriving soon, Lord Botta," said Julius as he joined Botta at the small table next to the window. He idly tucked a strand of red hair behind his ear and stared out, scanning the sky. "Should I begin gathering everyone?"
"Please," Botta said and nodded. "I will head down to the conference room and begin setting out the figures. Let me know when Lord Yuan arrives." He drained his mug and stood up, stretching muscles that were still sore from the morning's weapons practice. A brief stint in the Triet Guard before they'd outlawed half-elves had given him a much better base in combat techniques than most of the other Renegades, so Botta was much in demand as an instructor. He grinned as he began to gather the materials for the meeting, remembering the ease with which Yuan had casually flattened everyone in the last mock-battle only to be caught off guard with an Aqua Edge spell from Lucien, who enjoyed seeing their commander soaking wet.
Because of his duties to Cruxis, Yuan was never able to be around very often, though he did make the best of his free time by training and guiding the Renegades whenever he was able. It wasn't nearly often enough, Botta thought, but he was beginning to gain confidence in his own role as a leader that he was able to deal with it fairly well. It wasn't easy, of course, but so far he hadn't encountered any serious obstacles.
Botta wondered how long that was going to last.
As he finished setting up the chamber they'd dubbed the conference room (one of the only common rooms in the entire city), the Renegades began to filter in. There weren't yet very many who had decided to join Yuan in his quest to awaken the Seed of the Great Tree, but already Exire was feeling the strain of having a population larger than usual.
"Botta!" called a familiar voice from the doorway. "Are you ready to tell me about the survey results?"
Smiling, Botta met the eyes of his commander and friend. "Welcome back, Lord Yuan. We are indeed ready to present our findings." He nodded to Lucien, who jumped up and began to cast a spell that would let him draw figures on the air for a visual reference.
Scanning over the crowd to ascertain that everyone was present, Botta began his speech. "As you all know, we are growing in number and will soon need to find a new place to make our home. The best place would be an isolated area where the experimental dimensional transfer system developed by Lord Yuan and our other mages will work to optimum capacity, and we have spent the last few years trying to find such a place. We have narrowed it down to three potential sites.
"First, the northernmost location." He pointed at a spot on Lucien's map of Tethe'alla. "This place has a very weak dimensional barrier. However, it is right on top of the location of the old Archipelago Ranch. Building there might cause a panic in the general population which would negate our attempts at secrecy. It is isolated, but as technology grows more commonplace it will be visible to anyone sailing in larger ships. It is also possible that the Grand Cardinal who ran the Archipelago Ranch will continue to have interest in this area." He looked at Yuan, who nodded.
"Cardinal Jomark's unlikely to maintain an interest in the area, but it can't hurt to be careful," said the Seraph.
"Next, we have the eastern location. This one is in a very isolated area." He pointed at a spot on the map almost directly south of Flanoir in the fjords. "The dimensional transfer system would likely need a little more power, but building a base in one of the islands in this area would be exceedingly well concealed from outsiders. We may have difficulty shipping in some of the raw materials, but a modified Rheiard should be able to airlift most of the supplies in. Also, it is close enough to the ruins of Cardinal Safera's Flanoir Ranch that we should be able to easily scavenge supplies from there. On the Sylvarant side, it comes out over a mountain range in the Triet Desert that could be used either to build a concealed base in the mountains or an open one in the desert itself.
"Last, the southern location." Botta indicated a spot on the Altamira continent north of the mountain range. "Here we have a place in the mountain range that had a deposit of Exspheres, probably from an ancient version of a human ranch. They could easily be used to power our machines and the dimensional transfer system as well as for our own personal use. This side of the world rarely gets visitors, so it would offer excellent concealment. Unfortunately, the Sylvarant side comes out over the ocean."
Botta paced back and forth in front of the glowing display. "My own personal choice would be the eastern location, but I am open to other suggestions. Would anyone like to add anything?"
A woman named Selma raised her hand. "Sir, could we just extract the Exspheres from the southern location and use them without building a base there?"
Botta nodded. "Yes, but there are so many buried in that place that magic in the area is generally amplified and we would not gain as great a benefit as if we constructed directly on the site." He fielded a few more questions before Yuan gave him the signal to stop.
Yuan joined Botta at the front of the room. "First of all, I would like to offer my sincere thanks to everyone who participated in this project." He beamed a smile at everyone in the room. "All three are good choices, but I would like to go with Botta's suggestion and begin construction at the eastern site. We'll keep the other two in mind as alternatives, but the difficulty we'll have constructing it will be negated by the benefit we'll have from the concealment.
"Of course, since we want this to be a high-tech facility, it won't be as easy as contracting out some carpenter from Ozette to build it. I like the idea of scavenging materials from the destroyed ranches, but we're also going to have to get some of the building supplies directly from the stores in the Tower of Salvation. That means I'm going to need some of you to come along with me and infiltrate Cruxis, disguising yourselves as Desians. Lucien, I know you'd rather be caught dead than enter the Tower and risk discovery, so I'm putting you in charge of the salvage squad. The rest of you will have to decide which group you'll belong to by tomorrow morning. Please let either Botta or myself know which group you'd prefer to be in and I will announce the final groupings tomorrow."
With that, the meeting was dismissed.