DUNGEON LOG: KEYSTONE SHORE

[phantasmods]

The morning of the 9th, everyone will get a message sent to their communication devices -

Okay, guys! I think we have enough stabilizers to try and get the shoreline stable. If you want to help out, grab your supplies and come on up to the roof!

When characters arrive at the roof, they'll find Top - with a wheeling table full of many copies of the same odd-looking device - the two exploratory drones, and a ramp down off the roof to the ground. (The latter looks a little hastily constructed.)

"Okay," Top says, picking up one of the devices. "Here's the stabilizers. Stick them to walls and stuff - mostly out of the way places where they're not going to get knocked off - and then press the buttons along the side."

They demonstrate, unfolding the set of legs at one end of the device before showing the buttons to anyone who's close enough. "Go ahead and take a couple, especially if you've got one of those space-saving inventories going on, I know there's like four of you with those? Strange got some first aid kits together, too, if you want."

Sure enough, another table nearby has the med kits... As well as traditional paper bag lunches, courtesy of Bottom. Don't question it too much.

"We'll be staying back here to keep track of the stabilization progress and work the drones," Top says, "but don't hesitate to call if you get in trouble! We'll send one of these guys down to get you an evac if you need it."

And with that, you're free to go down the ramp... Or to make for the beach however else you might choose to go.

Comments

[photoshooter]

[The resemblance is enough to make Prompto shudder for a second, but being able to talk one on one like this, not held at anyone's mercy, has allayed some of Prompto's immediate terror over the last few weeks.

Still, it's a while before he says anything.]

I see.

[In a way, Ardyn did the same to them: helped when it pleased him and played them all like penny flutes.]

I'm sorry.

[founderinglight]

The Bladekeeper can burn for what he has done to me and my family. If I ever have any say in it, he will.

[He can't stop. He shouldn't unload this on Prompto of all people, but he just... can't stop. The rage blossoms like flames, crackles like lightning - ]

He made the Oracles a line of healers and though it burns their lives out quickly, it does them no harm, to remove the Scourge with that light. Not like it did Ardyn. Not like my brother, who healed by taking the Scourge into himself -

There was no reason to make my brother a monster. He only ever wanted to help people.

[ - and chills like ice, the Glacian's frigid touch, smoothing over like a frozen pond, until only sorrow remains.]

No reason to make my brother a monster, no reason to bind my children and grandchildren and all the rest to the ring, and no reason to make Noctis die to end it all.

[photoshooter]

Stop--stop.

[Prompto's on his feet, pacing the gravel beach in the dark until the waves wash over his boots, blanket an abandoned heap next to Izunia. He stands there, gulping down the sea air, then turns around, colorless without a light in the night, just a dark shape with fair hair.]

It doesn't have to be that way.

[He presses lips together stubbornly.]

Noct's not dead yet.

[founderinglight]

[Izunia isn't even looking at him, the light instead reflecting off the waves.]

...Sorry.

[photoshooter]

If I get back in time, I--I can save him.

[He stares down at the chocolate in the mug he's still holding until he can't make out the shape of it anymore, eyes stinging with salt. Time to squeeze them tightly shut.]

I know what's supposed to happen, so it doesn't have to happen that way.

[founderinglight]

I hope so.

[Even knowing what he knows... What's the worst that could happen, from trying?]

I didn't mean to turn things I that direction. I'm sorry. I just...

[Fuck Bahamut.]

[photoshooter]

[Prompto turns his face away then, fighting to get a hold of himself, to stop freaking out every time this comes up. The water splashes against the backs of his calves.]

You have no idea. How the rest of us have suffered.

[Izunia only sees what the Ring sees. What the chosen see when they put on the Ring. The line of Lucis. The people sworn to them. Prompto's lungs shiver as he breathes in.]

Lady Lunafreya and her family. The people of Lucis and Accordo. And... and Niflheim. I don't know if anyone's left alive in that whole country.

[Did Lunafreya ever want to do anything but help people? Did she ever have a chance? What about the millions, millions of infants Izunia just told him all had souls, sent to their deaths against gods, against kings, against him?]

Don't say it didn't do anyone else any harm.

[founderinglight]

I never would.

[Perhaps he didn't see everything. But he saw enough - the fall of Insomnia, the ruins of Altissia, the empty hallways of Zegnatus. The ruined world after ten years of night. Insomnia, Insomnia, the corruption of the Wall...

And yet.]

I don't know if anyone can understand that amount of suffering.

[photoshooter]

...Probably not.

[He finally wanders back out of the waves at a diagonal to Izunia to crouch in the sand once more, away from him and his light, clinging to the chocolate for warmth and feeling alone.]

I think Noct tries, though. To understand. Or to take it all, somehow. Stupid.

[Stupid like Ardyn was stupid, taking the Scourge into himself.]

None of this is fair, but we can still save him.

[founderinglight]

[They do resemble each other very much, Prompto, and not just in the literal, physical way. It is one of the things that Izunia finds most heart-rending about him.]

He does at that. Better suited for the crown than I, if you ask me.

[The smile isn't quite a smile, but it's trying to be.]

[photoshooter]

...One of the last things I told him before I got here was that he sounded like a real king.

[Well, maybe Izunia knows that. Noct was finally wearing the ring. Was carrying his father's sword.

Prompto holds the mug of hot chocolate against his heart, voice dwindling down to nothing.]

I wish I could take it back.

[founderinglight]

...Don't regret words spoken from the heart.

[If Prompto looks, he'll see that Izunia's hands have found their way to his scarf again, clutching at the fabric. A tell, and an obvious one, for when he's thinking about Ardyn.]

It is those words that give us the confidence to push forward.

[photoshooter]

But I don't really want him to.

[He doesn't care about destiny.]

I just want him to come back.

[founderinglight]

...I know. If only the world worked that way.

[They're not so different in that regard at all, after all.]

[photoshooter]

[It's just them, the stars, and the lights in the sea.]

...Aw man, I-I let the chocolate get cold.

[He drinks it down as if to drown out the loneliness inside him, to cover up the last five minutes like black lines on skin.]

[founderinglight]

[And possibly a scale tick or two but let's not go there.]

...I have more, if you want it. And some tea and coffee. And soup.

[What's the point of being overprepared if you aren't seriously overprepared.]

[photoshooter]

I'm a little hungry.

[It's kind of a peace offering. Kind of a Band-Aid for both of them.]

[founderinglight]

Soup, sandwich, any preference at all?

[Weird grandpas come prepared.]

[photoshooter]

Haha, are you a one-man restaurant? Soup's good, though.

[He goes back to inspect his blanket.]

Oh. Careful where you sleep, by the way. They've got ticks on this beach.

[founderinglight]

I can do a decent impression of a diner, at the very least.

[And he's got a bowl of soup for you when you're ready, Prompto, complete with a spoon sticking out.]

Fortunately, I'd been planning to sleep in my chair anyway. Unless they can crawl through my boots, I don't think I have to worry.

[photoshooter]

They can probably crawl up your boots. Aha! Gotcha.

[Prompto removes a tick from his blanket and wraps it back around himself, trotting back over for warm food.]

Don't say I didn't tell you so when you wake up covered in alien bloodsuckers.

[founderinglight]

I'll still take a handful of ticks over daemons.

[Here's your soup! And Izunia pulls a hot chocolate for himself out afterwards, just holding the steaming mug for now.]

[photoshooter]

Daemon ticks. Uugghh.

[There's a shudder-worthy thought if Prompto's ever had one.]

The daemon spiders were bad enough. And the daemon snakes, and...

[He trails off, thinking of all the daemon people they've killed since leaving Insomnia. Not just MTs, but people they'd known. Ravus. Besithia. Emperor Iedolas himself.]

...Anyway, yeah, they're the worst.

[founderinglight]

I always found the bloody sword-wielding skeltons the worst, personally. The more human they look, the less I like them.

[photoshooter]

Well, I don't like creepy crawly things to start with. But the people-looking ones are. Pretty bad, yeah.

There was a naga who talked one time. She thought I was her baby or something.