Ancient Castle bit, because it's totally my favorite dungeon in the game (and it's totally the last stand of the Baronian Dragoons). A little unfinished at the moment.
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Celes hadn't been sure what to expect at the bottom of the strange, twisted set of caverns, but it certainly wasn't this. The stone changed color beneath their feet, shifting suddenly from water-worn cave to cracked paving stones.
Celes was on point, Atma in her hand; of the four of them, she was the best equipped to deal with a head-on threat. There was an acrid scent in the air; she covered her nose in alarm and looked for the source of the smell. They had yet to encounter a creature in these caverns that breathed poison gas, but she wouldn't be surprised to find one.
"Something the matter, Miss Celes?" Setzer flicked his lighter shut and hid it in a pocket. "You look worried."
She glared at him. "The air in here is poisonous enough as it is, Setzer. Put it out."
"Sorry." He ground out the cigarette beneath the heel of his boot. "Keeps my hands steady. It's a bit...claustrophobic in here."
"Try biting your nails," she snapped.
"I'd have no fingers left if I did that." He took out a deck of cards from one of the many pockets of his coat and began shuffling them. "Try seeing it from my point of view, love. Would you prefer a slow, painless death by asphyxiation, where everything goes dark a bit at a time and then you fall asleep- or death by thirty thousand tons of rock falling on your head? That could go quick, too, but only if you're lucky. If you're not, you're stuck under a boulder, bleeding to death with all your bones broken, suffering unedurable pain for the last minutes- even hours, or days- of your life."
"Setzer, for the love of all you ever held holy, shut up." Locke glared at the gambler. "This place is creepy enough as it is."
"Says the man we found at the bottom of a cave filled with lava and zombies," Setzer shot back. "This place is a walk in the park!"
"It's not creepy...just sad." Terra had that distant glow in her eyes that usually prefaced some otherworldly insight.
"Creepy and sad," Celes amended. "How long do you think it's been buried here?"
The crumbling turrets of the castle pushed against the roof of the cavern, as though holding it up. The stones glowed faintly on their own, coated in some sort of bioluminescent moss. More moss and lichen covered the pathways, and filled in the places in the courtyard where grass had once grown. Locke held his lantern higher; they could see the outlines of banners and flags that had long since turned to dust on the walls.
"They haven't seen the sun since the end of the war," Terra whispered. "All of them, trapped here, since the war." She left glowing footprints in the moss. "These stones were old even before the Espers came to be."
"There was a battle here." Celes knelt by a fallen column. "Monsters didn't leave these marks- the castle was probably destroyed and abandoned before it was buried."
"We should see if there's anything left worth using, then. And keep an eye out for weird things in treasure chests. That last one was a doozy." The prospect of more treasure brightened the thief's demeanor; he slid the Gradeus out of its sheath and made his way up the steps.
The silence in the place was eerie; even in the deepest caverns, there were noises. Something about the quiet was even more unsettling than the hiss of the most terrifying monsters. They followed a decaying red carpet into the throne room, leaving behind footprints of dust and ash.
"Holy..."
Even in stone, Odin was a thing of nightmares. He had been caught in the middle of a scream of rage, sword upraised. Sleipnir's front hooves were raised as if to strike down some long dead foe, frozen with his mane lashing around his eyes.
Terra stepped past Locke and reached up to touch the statue. "You've been alone for so long," she murmured. "Humans destroyed this place; the citizens here were allied with the Espers. Odin swore to protect them at all costs..." She closed her eyes and leaned against the cold stone. "The enemy turned them all to stone and crushed them into dust, until only Odin was left."
Ghost light flared around her, engulfing the statue. When it faded, there was nothing left of the statue but a glowing green stone. Terra held the magicite shard in one hand and scrubbed at her eyes with the other. "So much cruelty. Have humans really changed since then?"
"Does it matter? We're doing the best we can with what we've got. You can't ask for more than that." Setzer took the magicite from her and tossed it to Celes. "Come on, we've got more exploring to do before we can get out of this place. It's depressing."
There was a sudden rumble, followed by a series of crashing noises. Terra, Celes, and Setzer immediately turned to Locke, who glared at them.
"What? There was a switch. You would've pressed it too!"
Celes pinched the bridge of her nose and took a slow, deep breath. "Right. The sound came from over there. Let's go see what you've done."
"Hey! Come on, Celes, that's not fair- if I'd told you about it, you'd have said, 'Okay, Locke, go ahead and press it, maybe it's something important.' Don't even pretend you wouldn't!"
The other three ignored him. He followed after them, muttering unflattering things under his breath.
As they passed through the small basement library into the second basement, Celes paused at the bookcase and ran her fingers over the spines. Her hand lingered on one slender volume, tracing the facets of a gemstone set in the spine.
"Celes come take a look at this!"
Locke's voice startled her out of her contemplation; she slipped the book into her pack and hurried down the stairs. The basement gallery was lined with broken statues, but a single, whole statue stood on a dais at the far end.
"Looks like Odin wasn't the only statue that survived." Setzer had put away his cards and was now flipping a coin across the backs of his fingers. "General Celes, could you perhaps explain why you look so very like so very many important people?"
She looked too young to be a queen, but the crown on her head bespoke her status. Her clothing reminded Celes of the Opera House; Maria's saga was grounded in history, albeit distantly.
"Celes is prettier, definitely." Locke circled the statue, grinning.
"Oh, certainly. The real question is whether or not this young lady could carry a tune." Setzer winked at Terra and flipped the coin at her; she caught it with a giggle.
Celes ignored them, and the strange, almost hysterical lightness that had fallen over them. This was no Esper, caught in eternal fury. This was a human woman, dead for over a thousand years- nameless queen of a nameless country. Her gaze was lowered in sad resignation.
The statue was weeping.
At first she thought it was just a trick of the light, just a flicker across the surface of the stone, but there were actual tears running down the frozen queen's face.
Beneath Setzer and Locke's banter, she could hear a dry rattle. Ice trickled down her spine. "Quiet," she hissed.
"Celes? What's wrong?" Locke had stopped grinning.
She turned around slowly. "Her majesty hasn't been alone all these years."
The dragon rose out of the gloom with a scream. Celes struck without thinking; Odin burned in her hand, slicing the very air to shreds.
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This started out as a Setzer peice so I could further explore his backstory, but then Celes claimed it- which is well within her rights, really.
Perhaps I'll continue this to its proper conclusion, but I doubt it. It's finished enough at this point, and I don't feel much need to narrate the battle, or explore the past of the Ancient Castle (totally Baron) and its (tenuous) connection to Celes.
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