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bladeofconquestHello, everyone. I trust we're all enjoying our break? It was good to see so many of you at Dante's party! I think we all had a pretty good time...I know I did!
I know things are pretty restful at the moment, and that's good, but we can't afford to completely lose focus. Bahamut may be dead but there are other threats still out there. Since we have this period of peace, I thought we could take advantage of that to identify those threats and establish what we know about them, what we don't know, and how we might best deal with them if and when they resurface. I'll add the ones I know of, but if there are others, please feel free to add them.
Ramaa
The biggest one, obviously. With Bahamut dead, her plan is in ruins but given that she is the reincarnation of Kalki, we cannot count her out yet. Even though she escaped, I think we might have gotten through to her, just a little, at the end. It may not be necessary to fight her if and when she re-appears, and in fact, given the strength of her asterisks and (there's a bit of a pause here) what she's capable of doing to us, I would heavily advise against an armed confrontation. Words of peace and support may be able to finish what we started before she escaped. As she is no longer Empress of San Devdatta, her resources will be significantly more limited, but I wouldn't be surprised if she has some sort of bolthole prepared and hidden away somewhere. We might approach Meghamaal to see if he has any ideas? He tried to discourage Ramaa from carrying out her plans; if our goal is to bring her in peaceably, which I believe it should be as death will only delay her for a few decades and not stop her completely once she reincarnates, he may be more inclined to help us find her.
There are Heroes who have had more experience dealing with her personally, of course. If you have any ideas where she might have hidden a sanctuary in the event of a worst-case scenario, please, by all means share it. No lead will remain investigated.
Ah, there's one last bit of business regarding Ramaa that...confuses me. When we broke into her iMog during the investigation of her quarters during the loops, we discovered some custom maps she'd loaded onto it. The first was a map of Vaikuntha with all the locations removed, the second was a map of Crystallis, where all this trouble originally began, and then the third was the most puzzling; some of the companions who were with me at the time have informed me the planet was Earth, and in fact I believe some of our own number are from multiple versions of this particular planet in their own realities. Vaikuntha and Crystallis make sense, but I'm not clear why Earth of all planets is of interest to her. It's a point that stuck out at me.
Balahaka
I've never met the man personally, but he was the other accomplice in Ramaa's plans, and unlike Meghamaal, he was extremely enthusiastic about them. He disappeared after Bahamut was stopped, and given the violent tendencies he revealed in his private communications with Ramaa, I'm afraid it's only a matter of time until he surfaces, and it's going to be bad when he does. Apparently he's a reincarnation of someone from Crystallis, but doesn't remember his past life; but he talked about constant feelings of hatred and violence, even towards Ramaa. According to Ramaa he represented a negative aspect, but also mentioned someone else who represented positive aspects; two halves of the same being, perhaps? Can anyone shed some light on this?
He and Ramaa may no longer be working together, though that's entirely conjecture on my part based on their MogNet logs; Ramaa enjoyed antagonizing him and Balahaka openly admitted to having always hated her (again, due to his apparently representing negative emotions like hatred and violence; does that imply he is incapable of feeling anything else? Anything positive? That's...a disturbing thought if so). Having failed with Bahamut, Ramaa may be in as much danger from him as the rest of us, especially if we got through to her. I know this might be an unpopular opinion, but if so, we may need to defend her from him in the future. I think Ramaa can be reasoned with; I suspect Balahaka can't.
Elidibus and the Byblos(?)
Elidibus seems to be unconnected to Ramaa and her plot; his concern seems entirely with the power of the Great Eidolon Zodiark. We stopped him from getting it at the Temple in Cloud City, but he did escape after we bested his summons, and I have no doubt he will try again. He called himself "Zodiark's chosen" during the battle, and boasted that the Eidolon had been "whispering" to him his entire life. Given that he seemed know things about us, or at least he did about me-he referred to me by my royal title of "princess" quite unbidden, and it's not outside the realm of possibility he would have heard of my status somehow, I was still trying to downplay it at the time, so it'd be hard for me to see how-there may be something to that claim. I don't wish to pry, but do any of the rest of you know what I mean? He seemed to almost enjoy lording his knowledge of who I was over me. Like he knew he was telling me something he shouldn't know and didn't care that I knew that.
By his own admission he also claimed responsibility for hoarding whatever scant knowledge of Zodiark existed, which is apparently why we had so much trouble finding anything on him. He even admitted to stealing that information when he had to, and has apparently been doing this for decades. He too must have a base somewhere, I can't imagine he'd collect all that information just to destroy it. But we have even less to go on for that than we do with Ramaa's supposed sanctum (which isn't much at the moment).
We also know that he is opposed by a creature not unlike the ones we encountered unlocking the Temple, which Elidibus called "Byblos"; apparently they're long-time adversaries. This is where it gets tricky, since if Byblos is a demon of Zodiark, why would it be opposing someone who believes himself to be Zodiark's chosen and receives information directly from the Eidolon, assuming Elidibus was telling the truth? Is Byblos some sort of renegade? It was teeth-grindingly vague about its motives even though it was capable of some garbled speech and ran off after Elidibus fled. It did help us fight Elidibus' summoned Eidolons but it being his enemy doesn't necessarily make it our ally, just that our motives lined up for that particular battle. If we get caught between the two again we'll need to be cautious. There's still too much we don't know about Elidibus and the source of his conflict with Byblos and I don't like it. I think we should try to make finding his sanctuary a priority; if there's any information that would shed some light on this, I have to believe Elidibus would keep it close to hand.
Gilgamesh
Admittedly not as big of a threat as the others I've listed, but every time he's shown up he's caused trouble. He's a warrior obsessed with unique and powerful weapons; during the MogNet fiasco he tried to take Shadow Yato from me, and during the lead-up to Bahamut's arrival stole the entire Arito armoury, or at least he did until we stopped him.
Gilgamesh doesn't seem actively malicious per se, just single-mindedly selfish about collecting weapons that catch his fancy, and his presence can serve to hinder us if he decides to try doing that when there's a larger threat at play. If you have such a weapon, that makes you a target and he'll probably try to come back for it again, so be on your guard. It seems like he also has something that at least resembles a code of honour, or a warrior ethos, so that might make him a little more predictable than the others I've mentioned.
Those are the outstanding threats as I see them. Does anyone else have anything they wish to add? Someone else we should be on the lookout for or be wary of? Please, speak up if so.
[Locked to Mister Vimes]
Hello, Mister Vimes. Do you have a moment to chat? I won't keep you long.
[Locked to Tyzias]
Um...hi, Tyzias. It's me. We haven't really spoken since...you know, Bahamut. I was hoping we might be able to now, though. I mean, if you want to, I'd...I'd understand if you're not really in the mood to talk to me of all people right now.
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