Final Fantasy XIV: The Winter Calamity

"So? Is it doable?"

"Hrm."

I was currently negotiating with an armorsmith to essentially make a hole in the ground and bury a very large stone coffin inside. It was important that the coffin would be isolated from Aetheric radar, but I left the exact material up to the smith.

"I s'pose. 'Ough, I'm sayin' it 'gain, tis a waste of yer gil."

In the Astral Era, things were good and prices were cheap. Inflation would hit Eorzea hard in the future though, so it was important for me to have tangible assets that I could either, use myself, lease to a business partner, or sell off wholesale. 

In addition, I couldn't buy anything that would prove to be valuable and draw many eyes. I was busy busy busy. 

"As long as it meets the agreed upon standards and the Aetheryte is dormant, it's good enough for me."

"Sigh Tis yer coin."

Another ball set to roll. I took Thancred's words seriously. To help write the story I wanted to see, remaining as a passerby who could defend themselves may have let me make it through, but I would be leaving a lot to chance. Up until now, all of my actions were auxiliary. Small pings that didn't at all touch the story. That was until Minfilia. 

There was no way that everything would work out nicely just because I begged Hydaelyn. In truth, I had started taking action since I first left Gridania. 

"Mister Modi?"

"That's me."

I received a thick parcel from a member of the Horn and Hand. They had locations in every city-state. Assuming that I never saw them in 2.0, I could only assume the Calamity wiped them out somehow. 

"Thank you. Any word on correspondents from Ul'dah by chance?"

"No sir. The Moogle Mail has been quite slow this week."

A shiver ran up my spine and chilled my blood.

"I see. Thank you then."

I gave the man a small bag of gil and walked away. As I didn't yet have a permanent address, I needed deliveries given to me by third parties. Usually the Horn and Hand. I was expecting a very important letter that would help me create solid roads of coin in the future. My Alchemical gil hoard was getting low and I doubted that there would be a major demand for potions until the war re-ignited.

Under the Quicksand in Ul'dah, I had begun building out a vault to hold a massive stockpile of potions and war-time essentials. They all had to be sold before the Calamity and I hoped that the rich war profiteers would seek to buy out all my stock at once and act as middle-men. The windfall would be enormous and I continued to brew more and more. I was on the brink of establishing good supply lines for the Hi-Potion ingredients. That would be an even bigger return for my coffers.

'Let's see...'

I sat down on a bench just outside of Limsa Lominsa's central plaza. Unlike in 2.0, the Aetheryte wasn't here. It was just a big rock that looked like an Aetheryte. A funny, but somewhat annoying art piece. The brine of the sea hit my nose and filled my lungs with ambition. Couples milled around the plaza, flirting and having a good time. I expected the city-state to be swarming with pirates, but the Suns of Yda seemed to be absorbing a lot of the senior crews somehow. It was worth it, taking the time, and writing those bibles.

'Hmm.'

The report was a survey on Satasha. A small hole in a cliff face that served as the first dungeon of XIV. It used to be a hideout for a pirate named Mistbeard. 20 years or so before the Calamity, he vanished, leaving the cove to rot and decay.

After the Calamity, Satasha became the home of a new band of pirates that were enthralled by Leviathan. They kidnapped women to work as barmaids and rape slaves, and they kidnapped children to hold for ransom. Because of its location, it went unknown for years and drove the Yellow Jackets insane.

And I hired the Horn and Hand to find out three things. 

One, did the grotto even exist?

Two, where were the load bearing cavern walls?

Three, how many tons of dynamite would we need to close it for good?

I wasn't interested in the idea of walking in myself. Leviathan wasn't at all located near that dungeon and yet the Serpent Reavers were enthralled in there. Occupying the place was equally dumb for the same reason. Enthrallment was no joking matter. Adventurers love throwing their lives away, and the Horn and Hand were one of those goody-two-shoes organizations. 

I couldn't use them for anything important, but I could use them to destroy Satasha's port and collapse the whole cave system by waving the possibility of a Primal being involved in front of their noses.

How did I find out? Horrible pub stories of course.

'Another loose end tied.'

It was doable and they'd already laced the caves from entrance to exit with Kobold bombs. I doubted that I'd hear the explosion from Limsa, but I expected to hear good things outside of the report. 

Next up, I needed to contract an assassin who could infiltrate the Black Shroud and a weaponsmith with a crippling drinking problem. Then I had to research more on Nymian summons. If I could summon a fairy, Eos, then I'd be in a very good spot. In addition, I needed to find someone who could craft Materia and make a connection. 

I was not perfect though. I didn't remember every single NPC and what they did. For everything that's not the assassination, the Horn and Hand were fantastic. For the assassination, I just needed to trick the would be assassin into believing that the target was wicked. While, there was no proof, as the target wouldn't go crazy until after the Calamity, I needed them dead before then.

"Greetings, Winter~"

I turned to eye the sultry voice on my right. 

"Y'shtola! You're as smoldering as ever."

"Fufu~ You flatterer~"

So, how would one go about provoking people into action, in particular, extremist action, without tangible proof? Ideological alignment. 

In this age of heroes, adventurers, and self-important shounen protagonists, the best way to move the chess pieces was to make them think they were on the side of justice. Perhaps that was true of all ages. 

People wanted to do good, generally. Everyone was the hero of their own story. But they needed direction. Contextualized knowledge that they could spin into a narrative that fulfilled their heroic itch. With the right motive, you could make a sane man commit terrible evils.

Then where would one get that knowledge? Who would be the arbiter of truth from which stories could be spun?

Historians, Scholars, Doctors, Government, and Media. 

I couldn't touch the majority if these forces, however I could dip my hands and muddy the waters with one of them. Hell I probably could even buy them out and use them as a megaphone for my own propaganda.

The media.

Y'shtola sat down beside me with grace, I could feel the heat of her soft thighs through my thin slack pants. Kan-E's instincts said, or perhaps she was informed, that I came back a bit early and she directly barged into the room when I was busy gunking up Minfilia with thick loads of cum. My women drained my balls thoroughly and so I wasn't too affected by this Miqo'te basically begging for me to lift her leg over my shoulder and let the sounds of our non-academic study echo off Limsa's warm ghost-white cobbles.

Perhaps I was more affected than I thought.

They didn't seem to exist past the Calamity, but Eorzea's city-states each had a type of newspaper outfit. The Mythril Eye for Ul'dah, the Harbor Herald for Limsa Lominsa, and the Raven for Gridania. 

Each publication was independent and seeing how they died off after the Calamity, they weren't backed by any major power. Meaning they were perfect for spreading the truth, whatever that may be.

'It's important to let the audience come to their own conclusions. After all, the imagination was a powerful thing.'

I never forgot that. I couldn't tell anyone how to think. The news had to seem unbiased and centered. However, even the center could be warped. An article that presented a woeful lack of critical information, but flooded with factual, yet realistically useless information leaves the reader to fill in the holes.

You would instruct and contextualize a square block to fit the round hole by carving its shape with the blades of facts and knowledge. Those blades were wielded by Eorzea's newspapers.

People weren't stupid. As much as they may have collectively thought that they were. Even on Eorzea, man had grown to love patterns and symmetry. What could be more satisfying to the caveman brain than a convenient fact that explained all problems?

"You seem to be mulling on something troubling. Is there naught I could do to help?"

Besides jam yourself, womb deep, on my length? Besides letting me fill your warm honey oven with my children? Besides bending over and letting me roughly plow your insides while pulling your tail?

Of course she could, but my efforts couldn't be tied to me or the Scions. I needed a shell company. A shadow guild perhaps?

---

Y'shtola Rhul was staring at Winter's face that seemed to blush with panic when he heard her question. His fingers would nervously twitch and he'd avert his beautiful periwinkle eyes when their gazes met.

'He's begging for it isn't he?'

Y'shtola swore off romance as a child at the behest of her teacher. Knowledge demanded time. Time to draw knowledge from tomes. Time to experiment with new and revolutionary theories. Time to study and refine old theories. 

But Twelve be true, her vow was shaking like a boat balancing upon a stick. 

Winter wasn't just handsome. He was luxurious. His lips screamed hedonism. His eyes, half-closed and casual drove his victims into a state of excessive lust. The man was an incubus, a being of danger who was designed to bring women low and doom them to his spell. 

His attire, a jacket that he didn't wear properly, clearly showed the top of his shoulders and lots of his collar bone. A smooth neck that Yda couldn't stop herself from biting. Y'shtola understood precisely why.

If one were to look closely, they would see small marks that seemed to be from two different sets of lips. Investigation wasn't Y'shtola's strength, but concluding from evidence was. She guessed that Winter already belonged to two women at least. 

'I could make that three.'

Winter was obviously asking for it, was he not?! His mannerisms, his blush, his nervous looking eyes, he was basically begging for Y'shtola to push him down right away wasn't he?!

The excited and joyous face he showed when speaking on his experiments with Runes, the serious face he had on when he heard about Dalamud, she wanted to see more. She wanted to see what he looked like when he jolted from pleasure. She wanted to hear his moans and gasps. 

All those years in libraries and hovering over ancient knowledge had exposed Y'shtola to books that weren't exactly academic. In addition, her younger sister had the habit of instantly gracing her with horrible romance novella whenever she brought it up. Novella which, Y'shtola never read of course. 

Her instincts as a predator rang and alerted her that this man was prey to be hunted. He deserved to be held down and ravished appropriately. Yda could prance around and hug him casually, but Y'shtola had to uphold her decency and poise. A fact that annoyed her greatly. Right here in front if her, she had a man that clearly desired to be wrung dry and yet she couldn't do it?! It was absurd! 

She thought back to the novella, that she didn't read, for solutions to her imminent problem. Dates, flowers, subtle eye contact, holding hands, negging, plenty of things that she wanted to just skip and get to the good stuff.

"Not at this moment, Y'shtola. But I fear I shall need your guidance ere long."

Guidance to being thoroughly rutted and bred of course. Those marks on him demonstrated an assertive air.

This is our man.

She wanted to compete. She wanted to break her vows and leave her mark too. The scriptures, that she didn't read, clearly stated that the pleasure was ethereal in nature. Y'shtola wasn't entirely sure what that meant, but she wanted to drag Winter into a dark alleyway to find out. 

"Very well. Do tell if I can, Winter~"

She touched his leg while saying that and saw his face dye into a deeper shade of red. 

'No good. I might kidnap him right away.'

Where should she keep him? She wanted a comfortable bed to tie him down and taste him fully. She wanted to run tests on his manhood to see how it was compared to the academic papers she didn't read on the subject. 

Of course one of those tests had to be how it felt if it was inside of her. If her purity was the sacrifice that had to be made for knowledge of Winter's kind, then she would have to do it. It was simply unavoidable. Oh woe was her to be tainted so in the pursuit of education.

"Y-Yes. Thank you, Y'shtola."

'Gods grant me strength.'

She wanted to say, "Hey Winter, doesn't that alley look interesting? Should we take a look?" But kept herself in check. The man was dangerous to women. He was close to putting Y'shtola into a state of heat.