Sixteenth Spell

[courageous_wit]

[Hermione has taken her radio down to the music room. Hard Harry suggested they use it to broadcast music. So she is going to do just that. She taps the radio until she gets a good frequency, then begins to play the piano.

It's a simple piece but she still sounds a bit out of practice. Not much chance for music when you're on the run]

This has been the musical stylings of Hermione Granger. Thank you for listening.

Comments

[heal_theworld]

The elves do worship them, so you could say that they are gods. And no, no real gods. [She doesn't mention that she was informed that she was made into a Goddess.]

[courageous_wit]

Interesting. Religion is prevelent in so many other worlds...

Can anyone meet these elemental monsters?

[heal_theworld]

You need to be a summoner. They can be summoned to fight once a summoner has made a pact with the summon spirit. To make a pact, you need to fight and beat the summon spirit to prove yourself worthy, then swear on something. If you break the pact, then you cannot summon the spirit anymore. The summon spirit can only have a pact with one summoner at a time.

Some spirits, like Maxwell, require items before they will appear. Maxwell, since he is lord of all elements, requires the pact rings obtained from from Undine, Efreet, The Sylph and Gnome before he will make a pact with you. Luna refuses to make a pact without Aska, who is a large bird and often wanders the world. Hence my calling of him with my panpipes so a pact could be made.

[courageous_wit]

[this is all so fascinating! Hermione listens to all of it with interest]

Then you're a summoner?

[heal_theworld]

Ah...no. [This where her memory goes blank, which only means one thing.] I think...my brother was the summoner. Since I can't remember. The Castle took my memories of him.

[courageous_wit]

Oh. I'm sorry. The castle took memories away from me too, I think.

[heal_theworld]

It's all right. At least I know he exists now, because I was told of him. [She tries not to dwell on it.] But we were making pacts with the summon spirits in an attempt to save the Kharlan Tree.

[courageous_wit]

Save it..? Was something wrong with it?

[heal_theworld]

There was a war. See, there are two countries in my world. Sylvarant and Tethe'alla. Nobody is quite sure how it started, but they started to fight in the Great Kharlan War. When I was born, the war had been raging for 1,000 years. The tree survives on the collective feelings of the people in the world, and when they are bad feelings...

Both sides also have been using magitechnology in the war. Magitechnology are machines that use an amazing amount of mana. The tree could not handle the stress of all the mana being used to power these machines, combined with the stress of the war. So it started to wither and die.

[courageous_wit]

[the war in her world is terrible, but she can't imagine it lasting for that long]

So the summon spirits were brought together in hopes they could heal the tree and save your world. That was a very brave thing to do.

[heal_theworld]

We just wanted to save our world and stop the war. Near the end... they had created a weapon, called the Mana Cannon. It took mana from the surroundings and fired a concentrated blast at something. It was just...so much. Too much for the tree to handle after a blast or two. And the tree died.

[courageous_wit]

That's terrible. What happened to your world after the tree died?

[heal_theworld]

Thankfully, the tree made a seed. The seed produces enough mana to support the world, but not forever. We managed to get Sylvarant and Tethe'alla to sign a peace treaty. However... [This is where she pauses.]

I don't...exactly remember what happened. I...I'm not sure if he aimed at me, but I was run through. Right at the bottom of the dead tree. I remember I told them, that I wanted to see a world without discrimination. Then...it all went dark. And I woke up here.

[courageous_wit]

[goes quiet for a while as she thinks this over]

I'm glad you woke up here, Martel.

[heal_theworld]

So am I, actually. My fiance, Yuan, told me what happens...after my death. [You can tell from the look on her face that it isn't nice things that happen.]

[courageous_wit]

[she reaches out to touch Martel's hand comfortingly]

And you were in Paradisa before, right? What's it feel like to be back?

[heal_theworld]

[She doesn't move her hand, smiling a bit.] ...Different. The Castle is much larger now. The towers weren't here and there wasn't as many people. And we didn't know anything about beyond the Castle. You got the edge, and got sent back.

[courageous_wit]

I read about that. I wonder what changed to make it open up to us?

[heal_theworld]

I don't know. To be honest, before the Castle took me to Paris, I was only here for about two months.

[courageous_wit]

Really? Did anything special happen in those two months?

[heal_theworld]

Not really... I mean, I got stuck on a ceiling for a few hours. And right before I left, the Castle started giving people bad nightmares.

[courageous_wit]

Bad nightmares, hmmm? [she'll have to go back through the old journal and check this out for herself]

I've been in the castle several different times, but I've never returned with memories.

[heal_theworld]

I don't know why I'm so special to come back with my memories. But I still have my memories from Paris too.

[courageous_wit]

How strange. The castle is becoming more puzzling than ever.

[heal_theworld]

I get that feeling too. But...there's not much we can do about it except try to figure out it's secrets.