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Jessaria Withrough had just emerged from Gridania's Aetheryte when fell beasts assaulted her.
It was quadrupedal, covered in thick black fur, but its legs were crusty like a bird and had the face of an ape, its jaw unhinged.
The midlander collapsed as one tackled her, intent on trampling her to death.
But a blur rushed forward, tackling the beast in turn.
"Heal!"
Immediately Jessaria felt the aches and cuts faded as she stood, looking for the familiar voice;
"Rielle!" Jessaria beamed at her niece, "and that'd mean-"
Wielding Caladbolg, hacking away at the Fell Beast, was Sidurgu.
"Look alive," the xaela yelled as the beast finally disintegrated, "the legged ones are the least of our problems."
True to his word, more seemed to emerge from the land itself, their legs growing into the earth.
"Don't let them touch you!" Rielle added. "Understood," Jessaria replied as she joined the fray with a dark volley, charging forward and carving Shadowbringer. These ones were stationary, so why were they the bigger de-
"Argh!" Jessaria cried out in pain as the negative akasha bursted from the fell beast's wounds, burning away at her.
The beast was dead, but still the Dark Knight collapsed, writhing in pain as her defenses fought the corruption. It felt like she was being ravenously consumed, one skin layer at a time.
White Magic errupted around her, healing her as she looked up for the source.
Kan-E-Senna.
Jessaria immediately switched to Paladin.
With the two healers and two frontliners, it didn't take long to whitle the terminai ranks to calm things down.
"Of the fight," Jessaria heaved, leaning against a fence to support, "I only spotted maybe three mobile ones, and their deaths didn't hurt me. What-... What was that!?"
"The legged ones were people like us," Sidurgu replied. "I'm afraid the stationary ones are former elementals," Kan-E-Senna answered. Jessaria's eyes widened.
"That can happen!?"
"During my training," Rielle approached, Jessaria only now noticing the familiar outfit and cane, "E-Sumi-Yan granted me the honor of soothing the Great One."
Didn't Lamitt..?
"The Conjurer's path has been treating you well then?" Jessaria asked, "I was worried about you when we last spoke in Ishgard." The child shook her head with a bashful expression, "White Mage, actually."
The midlander balked with a grin and looked to the Elder Seedseer.
"It is true," Kan-E-Senna confirmed, "she has inherited the legacy of A-Towa-Cant himself."
"That name rings familiar," Jessaria considered, "didn't the twins in the South Shroud call me that too?"
"I knew it," she heard Rielle whisper to herself. "When we first met, I said you rang familiar, didn't I?" the padjali offered, "but to the topic at hand. With the ritual completed, it should have been over for the foreseeable future, but recently..."
Jessaria yelped as a vision hit her.
La Noscea, inside the kobold caves, a padjali man collapsed to his legs, bleeding profusely. He wore an outfit not unlike Rielle's, though his cane appeared to be incomplete.
"Why must it always end like this, old friend?" one kobold approached, speaking entirely unlike their usual dialect.
"Why?" A-Towa-Cant pressed, "you're called paragons, are you not?" "Because I have faced too many 'heroes' to count," the kobold explained, "and the ones like you were the most troublesome, and I won't have you getting in my again."
The padjali collapsed, his vision darkening as he bled out.
"What do you mean, 'old friend'? were his last words.
"You'll remember, eventually, and you'll thank me for it, I assure you," Emet-Selch answered.
The vision shifted.
A gigantic tree, its roots sinking into a... Pond? Kan-E-Senna, A-Sumi-Yan, Sidurgu and Rielle all present, dreading the flaking grey energies surrounding them.
"I don't understand," Rielle panicked, "I did the ritual!"
"All wounds can reopen prematurely," the dark knight stood in front of her defensively. "The elementals are screaming," Kan-E-Senna struggled to her feet, her clothes and flesh badly corroded, similar energies biting at her.
It took the efforts of both White Mages to cure her of the corruption.
The visions faded. Jessaria shook her head and looked to the Elder Seedseer, "those wounds... How are you still standing?"
"I'm not doing so unaided," Kan-E-Senna admitted, the midlander eying her gloved hand, the same hand that...
"Rielle succeeded in quelling the Great One's rage," she explained, "but somewhere along the way the lingering embers turned inward to self-loathing."
"I know the feeling," Jessaria crossed her arms, "that must've been what caused its transformation... This great tree, where is it?"
"You had a vision of the plague, correct?" Sidurgu looked at her, "you've seen and experienced first hand, the infection they cause, eroding the cloth and flesh not unlike the old stories of the Elementals' wrath, and in the days since the air itself around the great tree has been corrupted."
"Then," Jessaria considered, remembering that pain from the... 'rot beast,' she decided to call it. If that could happen again, her body eaten away at like an exterior Light Corruption...
"It," she resolved, "it still has to be done. At least we know the Great One's still stationary, even if its influence isn't."
"The Great One was the heart of the Shroud," Kan-E-Senna said, "even if you were to fell it..."
"Can a new heart be forged?" Rielle asked. The padjali considered, "the elementals won't answer me."
"If the Isle of Val's flora could survive the Eureka Incident, so can the Shroud," Jessaria speculated, "I... Here's hoping I can kill it before the corruption kills me."
"Jessaria-," Sigurdu moved. "I endured Light Corruption in Norvrandt," the midlander resolved, "I... I can endure the like again. Where is the great tree?"
"We're not going to let you go alone," Rielle refused. "I'm not alone," Jessaria tried to reassure her, "I've learned a few tricks since you last saw me fight."
It was like every bodily ache Jessaria had ever felt had all returned simultaneously. With every step the Dark Knight couldn't stop herself from flinching. A few yards away was the Blasphemy, a grotesque wooden blue forming it with leaves of metal.
The whole thing reminded her of the man in blue armor she fought in the riftspace created by Omega.
The static-like akasha was omnipresent, darkening the air itself.
Steeling her nerves, Jessaria readied Shadowbringer.
"Esteem," she whispered, drawing upon the darkness in her heart. Akasha too began seeping from her body, but the darkness seemed to make up the difference.
Her eyes, glowing red, snapped open.
"To me," they said together, Shadowbringer transforming with Esteem's influence.
The two of them thought back to the horrors in Rhaz-ad-Hahn. People turning for the oh so familiar crime of spiralling in chaotic despair.
"This misery ends now!" they declared, swinging Chaosbringer as they rushed into battle.
Location: a bed in the Conjurer's Guild?
"Wha..?" Jessaria mumbled as she stirred to consciousness. "Auntie!" Rielle rushed to her side, "how are you feeling?"
"Awful," the midlander replied honestly, "everything hurts. What happened? I remember Exdeath, the Blasphemy, disintegrating, but then..."
She shook her head.
"You were within the infection's influence too long," A-Sumi-Yan approached, "you had already won by the time we arrived, but..."
"You nearly looked skinned alive," Sigurdu said bluntly, "exposure to A-Towa-Cant's Soul Crystal, Rielle's idea, hastened your recovery, so don't worry about your vanity."
"Since when was I vain?"
"You're the one who suffered body dysphoria, you tell me."
Jessaria blinked, "I thought it was my being exhausted, but my sight, its..."
"Yes," E-Sumi-Yan confirmed, "your vision marks will need to be reapplied, though worry not, the Elder Seedseer has seen to its hasteful preparation to repay your services to the Shroud."
"There's no time," Jessaria slouched back into the bed, "G'raha Tia's got a plan for moving forward, and the scions are waiting for me."
"We've already contacted them as such," Rielle smiled.