balance_logs | Field Mission 5: Il Prigioniero, Part 3

Field Mission 5: Il Prigioniero, Part 3

	They had discovered one could grow as hungry for light as for food.
	NAVIGATION

1. THE FATE OF WONDERLAND

A. CRESCENDO; FINALE

The beauty of the sentient mind is that hope is hard to kill. Even living in illusion for so long, the Bureau of Balance as a whole believed to the end that a happy ending was possible in Wonderland. That's a good thing, even if an unrealistic dream. Without that vision, that hope, there's no way to succeed. You all know that, don't you?

You knew it when you went back into the tree to save absolutely anyone that you could. Strangers some of them. Strangers most of them. It didn't matter. There's a happy ending to this story; everyone believed in it as surely as they carried out the innocent, as surely as they carried out each other.

You knew it when you got crafty with needle and thread, trying to reassemble the cruel joke Wonderland made with those who lost their way and fell into debt. Nine bodies are saved — including Henrik's, Henrik whose soul is reattached to his body, Henrik whose shaking arms can finally reach out to hold his son.

You knew it when you spoke to a dying Yggdrasil, Maya taking in the suffering and sickness of its years, listening with an open heart until, suddenly, as the tree's consciousness began to collapse, she was taken Somewhere Else. To speak with a man in a sharp suit with places to be. Things to do. Planar systems to devour. You know how it is. A poisoned arrow to Yggdrasil's open wound brought it down for good, leaving Shuichi to hurriedly plant the new Golden Leaf for a new World Tree; leaving Sayori and Angus McDonald to pick up the pieces of their dazed comrades.

You knew it when you tricked the Mirror Maze into glitching apart, giving it quite simply too much to keep track of. The fact that you found a helper along the way certainly didn't hurt, but let's face it: this was genius. The reward is Niel, crystallized, encasing the Compact. Suffering, as he has been for a very long time.

You knew it when three warlocks and a very angry wizard embarked on an ultimately suicidal mission, which just goes to show that the best-laid plans of mice and men sometimes lead to a 50% vore rate. A desperate attempt to keep Adrian distracted for long enough that the Compact could be retrieved was only able to delay him in the end. Just because success is possible doesn't make it guaranteed. Sometimes a fight with the villain ends in stalemate.

Sometimes a fight with the villain isn't a fight at all. Sometimes it's an outstretched hand (or two, or four), and sacrifices from each member of the party, and pain, and . . . self-awareness. Sometimes the villain just wants to let go. Sometimes there are happy endings, but this time Niel — fused into the Tree itself, his life tied up in the dying Yggdrasil, extended by the Compact — just wants it to stop. He doesn't want to hurt anyone anymore.

His friends are holding his hands as they take the Compact and make it stop.

This isn't a happy ending. But that isn't your fault. Hope for a happy ending has, quite literally, saved the world.

The nightmare is over. Wonderland slips away.

2. ON THE EDGE OF THE HORIZON

B. THE PEOPLE

And as suddenly as the myriad indulgences of Wonderland went to ... well, complete shit, there's something of a metaphorical blink of light. Those who were meant to be dead are - both your fellow Reclaimers and the Rolands who could not be fixed in time - but there is still many that are saved. Injuries knot back together at the slightest curative magic. Smog and negativity vanish like they never were, taking the last shambling monsters away with it. The souls of Shadowdale that you have returned to their respective bodies have a new life to forge. Things can be fixed.

If only it were that easy.

Shadowdale, for all intents and purposes, is uninhabitable. For the first time since the Bureau's mission began, an entire city population has lost its home, and must move on. No matter how much blame you may place on yourself for the way things turned out, whether it's guilt or hope that drives you forward, time, and the cycle of life itself, spins onward. And the people who live march on.

To New New Aspen.

Matthew has promised to bring the survivors of Shadowdale to his home, to give them a new chance. You have a couple of options here, if you would like to help them. You may serve as guard, helping escort the people of Shadowdale to New New Aspen. Super convenient for you, since it's right by the Moon Base! You may help them build and settle.

The people of New New Aspen, only months away from Candlenights, are hard at work carving their annual ornaments. You may help the new residents acclimate - whether it's helping them work the fields, start a business, or take part in their new home's most coveted tradition. And you'll have a new ornament to bring home with you, too.

C. THE FOREST

The deadened woods you traveled through to reach Shadowdale at the beginning of this mission seem somehow even more silent, cloaked in demise, than when you first stepped in it. The madness is gone, replaced with double the silence, a stillness like nothing you've ever experienced before. It's almost as if your senses, save for however you perceive the light of the sun, are gone.

At least, until someone speaks to you. A wood elf - he doesn't give you his name, but he does identify himself as someone who was trapped. Someone who, through your efforts to restore the Rolands, you gave life to again.

And he does have a request for you.

"This place has little hope for revival," he says, sniffing slightly, taking in the silence around you both. "At least, it has little hope in your lifetime.

But I do have something to ask of you. Give this place life, the way you did for the people here. Even if you, or even I, for that matter, will never likely live long enough to see it."

That's sort of an existential way of asking you to do some hardcore landscaping. But you will be provided with seeds of all sorts, and you will have the opportunity to plant them as you see fit. If you would like to build a shrine, or remember those who lost their lives here in some other way, you are free to do that as well.

There's something else curious, though: literally anything you plant, regardless of what it is, will eventually produce a viable bud sprouting from the gray, dry soil.

What does that even mean? If you plant a book of poems, are you going to get a poetree?

Are you even going to live long enough to see it in full bloom?

D. THE EXHAUSTION

You might not be on Lucretia levels of exhausted (she is, remember, zonked, and will remain so all the way back to the Moon Base and beyond for a while), but this has not been an easy mission for anyone who dared to test this Grand Relic's powers.

Whether you return from New New Aspen, or whether you finally catch a ride back to the Moon Base from the forest, you are now free to return home. This is your welcome home wildcard, a chance for you to try to recuperate, address anything at all before the next Lunar Interlude begins.

You will find that the Moon Base has an awfully somber feel to it, from the inner members of the Bureau to the people serving the Reclaimers in the town. Word is starting to trickle in on what you all went through.

blurb code by photosynthesis

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After what happened with Yggdrasil, replanting the forest seems only natural to Shuichi. It's just a continuation of his assignment really. And his newest skill, Mold Earth, seems only to reaffirm that belief. He doesn't need a spade to make holes, he just moves the earth itself a little bit.

But the sound of sobbing distracts him from his planting mission entirely. Abandoning the hole he just made, Shuichi dashes in the direction of the sound, only to find a familiar face.

"Christine-san?" His voice is soft and his expression concerned as takes a few tentative steps towards her, trying not to startle her.

"Oh!" she says, somewhat startled despite his best efforts, but only because she tries so hard to not show weakness like this. She wipes at her face again as her tears fall into the dirt before her. "Shuichi, I'm— I'm all right. I mean, not hurt. The mission was, was a lot, you know?"

As she speaks, the seeds she planted and watered with her tears slowly begin to germinate and push up through the soil. The flowers are irregular and imperfect looking, but with hardy stems that stand straight.

"How are you doing?" Best to try and push the attention off herself and her own grief.

He comes to a stop next to her, looking down and giving her an understanding, melancholy sort of smile. 'A lot' is one way to describe what they've all been through this past month. Though he feels as though he got off pretty easy, comparatively.

"Mmm," he nods, "It was...a lot. But I'm doing all right."

He glances down at the plants pushing up through the earth. It's amazing, really...how quickly they grow, given how dead this place was when they got here. And he can't help but fleetingly wonder if her tears might have helped in this particular case. Like something out of a fairy tale or a shoujo manga. Out of one of the various pouches on the belts around his waist, he pulls a plain white handkerchief and holds it out to Christine.

"Here."

Better for wiping your eyes than your hand or your sleeve, at least Shuichi thinks so.

"Look at you: always prepared. I wish I could say the same." But she gratefully takes the handkerchief and wipes at her eyes and dabs under her nose. It's easy to fall into the memory of home, where Southern hospitality is still strong and plenty of people carry handkerchiefs to offer at a moment's notice.

As she focuses on cleaning her face, her attention then drifts to the flowers.

"I'd heard people say they grew immediately, but I didn't think they'd grow looking like this." She touches the petals on one, noting how they're all various sizes as if one side grew faster than the other.

Shuichi chuckles feebly, "Well carrying tissues with me is kind of a habit, so for this particular instance...yes, I was prepared. I can't say the same for the rest of the mission though."

Live and learn. Now he knows he needs to work more on potions OTHER than healing ones. His gaze moves back to the flowers as well and he leans forward, hands on his knees for a closer look.

"Mmm...it is a little strange. But, then again, so are flowers that grow almost immediately after being planted. But they look healthy! Even if they are a little...uneven."

"I think I still need to get used to the unusual being normal for the Bureau, huh?" Her tears are drying up now since she can focus on the conversation and not the thoughts in her head.

"How did things go for you? Did being a Chemist help out?" Because boy, being a Dancer sure did not.

"Things went...well enough, I suppose. I wasn't able to do a whole lot as a Chemist, since healing magic...stopped working at the point when we actually needed it. And I focused too much on making healing potions and poisons before we left the Moonbase..."

So he was kind of useless until the very end, when they needed to put down Yggdrasil. There were no monsters to fight a majority of the time, and Adrian outlawed healing because he was an asshole. Shoulda made some stat buff potions.

"But I was able to concoct something that helped us kill the Tree of Life, in the end. So it wasn't all for nothing." If not for that, they'd be having a very different conversation right now. Or perhaps no conversation at all, because he'd be too depressed over being completely useless. "What about you? You said they gave you spells as a Dancer...did any of them help?"

"You couldn't have known what would happen. In your place, I would have made a load of healing potions too."

Christine lowers her head and gives it a shake. "No, not at all. I only succeeded in embarrassing myself. The only skill that came in handy was being a nurse and able to stitch things fast, but even that ended up being a failure." Why is why she's all cryface now. She feels she failed those souls trapped inside Roland parts. Where were they now? Did they just stop existing? Or is there an afterlife after all?

Shuichi hums softly and nods. Yeah, he couldn't have known, and he knows that. It's one of those things that's disappointing in retrospect but ultimately acceptable. A live-and-learn situation. Now he knows better for the next mission and he doesn't have to beat himself up TOO badly over it.

But his expression becomes more somber as she continues.

"Oh..." That's. Hm. Well it at least sheds some light on why she was crying. He may not know the details of the failure, but...if he had failed at something important, he'd most certainly shed a few tears over it. "You...did you try and put the Rolands back together? The ones that had people stuck inside them?"

Had he not been part of the group that originally found the Roland bits, he wouldn't have had a clue what she did that involved stitching. But he was, so he can slide a few more pieces of the puzzle of what's bothering Christine into place.

Her head lowers once more as she feels the weight of it all again. The task defeated her, and Christine Delacroix does not take failure easily.

"Yes. There were four of us. But I think the stress and the dice— The guys rolled theirs and it did something with their minds. It was so confusing and every voice sounded like one. Every piece felt like it took ages to reattach." She sighs and runs the back of her hand across her forehead.

"We got a few back together. We got Matthew's father back. But it wasn't many and—" Trailing off, Christine shakes her head. "I know realistically that saving some is better than none, but I heard all those voices and I could help so few of them. And then Wonderland's magic stopped and they were all gone."

Shuichi is silent as he listens, and remains silent for a few moments after she finishes talking. All the pieces fall into place and he finds that he's not sure what to say. Making people feel better, inspiring them...that's the sort of thing better left to Kaede or Kaito. he's never been particularly good at it. But neither of them are here right now, so...

"I think...the fact that you managed to put any of them back together at all is amazing. I was in the group that found them and...none of us knew what to do with them. They were all talking to us too, asking for help...but the most we could do for them was pull them out of the wall they were stuck in. I can only imagine how much harder it was on the four of you, with everything else that was going on at the same time and the effects of those awful dice..."

"I just hope they're in a better place now. That they've found peace and rest." Christine doesn't want to wallow any longer, but it's impossible to just turn off her emotions now that she's allowed them through her shell.

"At least it's all over and done with now. It felt like we spent years there."

"I think anywhere would be better than stuck inside fragmented Roland bits. So I'm sure they are," he offers Christine a very small smile as he says this. Though that smile becomes a little tired as she mentions everything being over and done with.

"Yeah, it did...it's really hard to believe we were only here for a month..."

"A month." Christine shakes her head. "What an introduction to the Bureau for us, huh?" She looks back at her irregular little flowers and touches a strong stem.

"At least I can leave these behind. It looks like they won't get trampled easily."

There's a little chuff of laughter. "Yeah, between this and that train..." He trails off for a moment, then shakes his head a little. "At least we've learned from it, right? I know I have."

He looks down at the flowers and nods with a little hum.

"I think they'll be okay. They look strong, even if they're growing a little unevenly."

Once Christine gets that confirmation, she stands from her planting spot and tries to rub the dirt from her hands without getting it everywhere.

"Guess that's all I can do, then. I'm looking forward to getting back to base."

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Field Mission 5: Il Prigioniero, Part 3

the forest

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