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"He wants us to investigate a stump?" Rivayn complained as they trudged through the dense foliage fo the Twelveswood. It was mid-day and the sun streamed in between the leaves of the tree canopy above, leaving a mottled pattern of light and shadow on the forest floor below. Rivayn found it distracting.
"Is there nothing you won't complain about?" his companion asked, rolling her eyes in annoyance.
"Nope, I pretty much complain about everything," Rivayn responded with a shrug as they approached the location marked on their map.
"Of all the useless louts to get stuck with..."
"Come on Aestyr, I'm not so bad," Rivayn assured her with as charming a smile as he could muster. She didn't look impressed. "Okay, well, at the very least you're bound to get used to me eventually."
"If the Twelve smile upon me, I won't have to suffer your presence that long."
Rivayn ignored her as they passed through a small opening in the rockface into an open meadow. In the center at a distance, he could barely make out the shape of what he assumed was Lifemend Stump. But something else was there.
"Is that... a sword?" Aestyr asked as they approached it.
"You know, I think there was an Ishgardian children's tale that went something like this," Rivayn mused as he jogged forward, grasping the hilt of the sword and giving it a gentle tug. It refused to budge.
"I assume that story was banned by the Holy See," Aestyr commented, hands on her hips.
"Banned stories are my favorite," Rivayn replied with a grin, giving the sword another tug. Nothing.
"Someone's already here," a voice said from behind them. Rivayn turned his head to see that Aestyr already had her bow drawn on the enemies - a hyur and a lalafell. The pair looked unconcerned by Aestyr's threat - something Rivayn was sure irked her to no end.
"Is that a moogle?" Rivayn said quietly, more to himself than to Aestyr. Indeed, the small furry creature floated just above the lalafell's head. Rivayn had never seen one in person before.
"Would you shut up?" Aestyr snarled, not taking her eyes off of the intruders.
"Is that a sword in a stump?" the woman mused, moving toward them. "Terrible idea, really. It takes a lot less than that to incite the Greenwrath, you know. In fact, the first time I came to the Twelveswood..."
The lalafell turned to the moogle and began to speak, seemingly unconcerned that his companion was already talking. With the three of them all talking at once, Rivayn couldn't make heads or tails of what any of them were saying.
"Is this our dark stranger or not?" the lalafell finally asked impatiently, turning to the moogle.
"Oh, definitely not," the moogle replied.
The lalafell reached up to move a pair of odd spectacles onto his face, looking around the area intently. "There is a disturbance here, to be sure, and a fresh one at that." He removed the spectacles before turning his attention to Rivayn and Aestyr. "Kuplo Kopp seems convinced of your innocence, but I confess myself less assured. If this is not your doing, then whose?"
Rivayn and Aestyr glanced at each other. "What exactly are you accusing us of?" Aestyr finally asked.
"Ever since the Calamity, the forest has been really sensitive," the woman explained. "Even the slightest disruption to the aetheric flow-"
The woman was cut off by a rumbling sound behind them. Rivayn turned around to see a massive branch shoot out of the ground. He jumped back, tumbling down off of the stump onto the forest floor below as a massive tree sprung up from the ground.
"What in the seven hells is that?" he yelped as he scrambled to his feet.
Aestyr sighed as she readied her bow. "You really aren't from around here, are you?"
"What, are you going to poke it to death with your arrows?" Rivayn asked as she reached for her quiver.
"Fear not," the lalafell said as he stepped past them. "We shall dispatch these foes."
"Watch our backs, would you?" the woman asked, clenching her fists as she walked by.
"She's going to just... punch a tree...?" Rivayn stared at them in awe, not quite believing what he was seeing.
Sure, he'd seem weird things in La Noscea, but he'd never seen a tree jump out of the ground and start walking around.
"Vesaldi, you're useless," Aestyr grumbled as she grabbed him by the shoulder and spun him around. She pointed behind them toward a group of angry looking... bulbs? Were there really animated plant bulbs rushing toward them?
Rivayn pulled his sword out of its sheath and held it in front of himself defensively as the line of angry plants approached. It was a simple matter to cut each one down as it approached. Fierce though they were, they were also small. After they cleared the last of them, Rivayn turned to see a group of the frenzied trees laying in a heap before the two intruders. One of the now lifeless wooden husks was most definitely on fire.
"You ought to put that out before you start a forest fire," Rivayn suggested as he approached, earning a frown from both women. "Does this sort of thing happen often in the Twelveswood?"
"You mean do trees attack?" the woman asked. "It's more common than you might think.
"I'm suddenly regretting coming here," Rivayn muttered, glancing toward the burned-out remains of one of the trees. A small blue crystal laid, barely noticeable in the grass. He stepped forward and reached down to pick it up, but as soon as his fingers touched it he felt a sharp pain wrack his body, and suddenly the world went dark.
"Are you alright?" a voice asked as Rivayn's eyes fluttered open. The woman and the moogle hovered above him staring down as he tried to focus his vision.
"I... have no idea," he admitted as he tried to sit up. A quick glance over his shoulder revealed that Aestyr, too, had fallen unconscious. She was just coming to, and her normally surly expression was even grumpier than usual.
"You fainted," the lalafell explained. "A surfeit of aether, no doubt."
The woman looked less convinced at her partner's conclusion, but her attention was momentarily drawn away from them. At a distance, Rivayn could see the lifeless body of what appeared to be-
"An ixal," the woman announced, jogging toward the body.
"And a chieftain, no less," the lalafell added as he moved to join her. "This bodes ill."
The lalafell reached up to his linkpearl, seemingly eager to share the news with... someone. The woman stood and moved back toward Rivayn and Aestyr.
"Are you feeling alright?" she asked.
"I'm fine," Rivayn assured her, "as long as you count dreaming about giant floating crystals as being fine."
The woman stared at him for a moment. Rivayn wasn't sure what she was thinking since she wore a visor that covered half of her face. "Are you sure you're feeling alright?"
"I'm sure it was just the aether your partner spoke of," Aestyr offered. "It can make you dream of strange things."
"You both think I've lost it," Rivayn complained.
The woman chuckled. "I'm Yda, by the way," she told them. "The grumpy one over there is my partner, Papalymo."
Rivayn glanced over his shoulder to see the lalafell still furiously speaking into his linkpearl. "Charming fellow."
"You can say that again," Yda laughed. She glanced at the sword, still jutting from the stump behind them. "You're here at Galfrid's request, right? You should take that sword back to him."
"How do you know-" Aestyr began.
"Come Yda, it is time for us to depart," Papalymo interrupted. He turned toward the Rivayn and Aestyr. "Until next we meet."
"Next...?" Rivayn said to himself as Yda, Papalymo, and Kuplo Kopp disappeared in the distance.
"No use thinking about it now," Aestyr told him, easily ripping the sword out of its resting place. "Let's head back to the Bannock before more of those trees show up."
"Good plan," Rivayn agreed, swallowing a lump in his throat as he considered just how uncomfortable it would be to be eaten by a tree.
"Still can't believe I'm stuck with you," Aestyr muttered as they headed back to Galfrid.
Rivayn grinned as he followed her. "I'm sure you'll get used to it."