Chapter 21 --- Not So Calm Lands

Yuna stepped out of the trees and smiled widely. Taking a deep breath, she spread her arms dramatically and said, “The Calm Lands. So amazingly calm the summoners just up and quit their pilgrimage right here and now.” She attempted another grand step and tripped over a Mog. “Lulu! Stop leaving your toys everywhere!”

"They are strategic mage aids, and I previously sent that one ahead to scout. I was wondering where it had got to." Lulu put her hands on her hips, causing more dolls to fall out from under her mass of belts.

"Oh shut up. I saw you throw that through the trees ten minutes ago!"

Still more dolls fell as Lulu twiddled her thumbs innocently. Yuna gave an angry sigh. Taking another step she found herself initiating a random encounter with what looked like something that would make monster babies cry.

"Unholy crap!" Tydus exclaimed, "That's disgusting!"

The giant Malboro to which he was referring, festooned with just about anything that could be described as "hideous" and colored in a manner that suggested "swamp monster from the Hell of a dimension lacking rainbows and little kitties," was bigger than any aeon Yuna currently possessed and also smelled ten times worse than the worst smell anyone in the group had hitherto had the misfortune to get a whiff of (several years ago Rikku's dad had encouraged her to try experimental cooking).

The monster then expelled a smell ten times worse than the group's new worst smell, an attack aptly named Bad Breath. Whoever had not flat-out fainted was now utterly dazed and confused. Annoyingly enough this counted as a Game Over and the group disappeared. We can assume that, in the absence of our heroes, Seymour and/or Sin would eventually obliterate the world. However, a few seconds later the they reappeared at their last save point, all in perfect health, causing much angst in the science world as well as several circles of evil.

"Good thing I'm so obsessed with saving," said Tydus happily. With that said he set his face in what he hoped resembled a look of steady resolve and took a running leap into the enormous, and enormously boring, Calm Lands once again.

When he reached ground level on the plains he was immediately run over by some sort of crude mechanical hovercraft which proceeded in its random acts of violence by smashing into the rock wall that surrounded the area.

"Hey, Tydus, are you okay?" Yuna called from above, having yet to run to Tydus's aid.

"No," Tydus said weakly from inside his shallow grave.

"You're supposed to say 'Yes.' 'No' means you need assistance."

"I need assistance!"

<I can be of assistance!> said the owner of the hovercraft in a manner that suggested that he might have a different definition of the word. He was crawling out of the burning wreckage wearing an overly pleasant smile and a garish suit now mostly in taters. <As a matter of fact, I have just the thing for this situation!>

"Will it stop my severe internal bleeding?" Tydus mumbled without any hope. The man had an amazing way of seeming to say the exact opposite of the truth, while still trying to sound sincere.

"Possibly," the Al Bhed said thoughtfully, switching to what we will call English. Tydus groaned. "But wait! I have many unbelievably useful items at ridiculously low prices!" Tydus groaned louder. It felt like ages since he had last had the misfortune of getting talked at by a salesman. Leave it to the Al Bhed to bring up the nastier parts of advanced civilization. "I don't even have a door anymore!" Tydus thought.

"Oh, let's listen to him, Tydus," said Yuna, "he could have items that are vitally important to our pilgrimage!"

"Indeed!" said the salesman, bobbing his head vigorously as he reached back into the latest addition to Spira's rubble and pulled out a strange silver contraption with a flourish.

Tydus blinked. "It's a box of floss," he said flatly.

"But not only a box, and not just any floss. This is the Mint Floss X-treme! All the power of a jackhammer packed into a thin string scientifically engineered to leave the space between your teeth feeling minty-clean!"

"And the box? What about it?" Yuna asked eagerly, still expecting the little chunk of metal to suddenly lay golden eggs or possibly warp into a weapon that could conquer Sin.

"What not about it! It is made of the highest quality stainless steel* and each one has an original design hand crafted by the finest jewelers in Spira!*"

"What's with the astir—"

"And there are extra features in this fine product that you won't find with any other of the kind! Look close! On one end is a refillable Super Eraser guaranteed to erase some pencil marks! On the other end it has airport-safe* nail clippers!"

"'Airport-safe?'" said Tydus, "Does that mean there's an airport somewhere?"

"Well, no, not as such, but—"

"Is there even any security at this imaginary airport?"

"Er... what?"

"I could strangle you right now with the floss!"

The salesman whimpered.

"I've seen better sales pitches for subscriptions to Socks Monthly!" Tydus flipped his hair menacingly. The Al Bhed finally broke and ran away babbling across the peaceful fields.

Tydus shrugged. "I suppose I shouldn't have expected much of a fight. He's probably not used to anyone getting the better of him, as no one here knows what a salesman is." He flashed a significant look at the rest of the group, who glared at him for being condescending.

"What is a salesman?" Yuna asked.

"It's a job class that has no offensive, defensive, or moral value, save throwing them at enemies, using them as shields, or lighting them on fire, respectively. And even then, pieces of wood would do the job better and wouldn't complain as much."

The group stared at him.

"What?" he asked innocently.

Elsewhere, on a shoopuf...

"Turn this shoopuf upriver or I'll clip off your nose with these nail clippers!"
"Oh my!"

Back in the Calm Lands the merry pilgrims finally reached the save sphere at the trading post in the middle of the plains. Around it was what looked like a chunk of market with another Al Bhed sleeping behind the counter.

"Huzzah!" said Tydus, "A McDonalds in the middle of the Sahara!" He paused while the others stared at him. "A McDonalds is—"

"We know what a McDonalds is!" Yuna snapped at him. "What's a Sahara?"

Tydus sighed. "Oh, look over there! Some guy is coming!"

"Father Zuke!" the man called back.

"'Father'?"

"Yes," Father Zuke said with finality. "I have hunted you down with the sole purpose of asking for your side of the story, though I imagine it will make you feel better that someone who isn't a fellow protagonist, nay, not even a character worth mentioning would think about your feelings. So, did you guys really kill Maester Kinoc?"

"What?!" said Yuna.

"Typical," said Lulu.

"Kinoc was killed?" said Tydus.

"Yes! Seymour was dragging his dead body around like a hunting trophy!" Yuna waved her hands around expressively.

"When was this?"

"Before we fought Seymour the second time!"

"Oh, I must have forgotten, what with all the fighting and such involved. Wait, who was Kinoc again?"

"A maester! Short fat guy whom Auron is superior to!"

"Oh, yeah... Wait, no..."

Yuna sighed heavily.

"I can see that I will not be remembered long," Zuke said sadly.

Tydus turned and squinted at him. "Who're you?"

Yuna hit him on the head with her staff, then turn to Zuke and said flatly, "We didn’t kill Kinoc. That was probably just dissention in the ranks. There's a big conspiracy that we uncovered, so naturally they are calling us traitors, and, since they happen to be the ones in authority, they are absolutely right."

"We probably would have killed Kinoc eventually if no one else was going bother," said Auron. He bent closer to Zuke and said quietly, "Does this make you feel any better?"

"Er..." Zuke shank under the outcasts' stares.

"Errr..." he repeated. He began shuffling from their sight it what he thought to be a very stealthy way. "Well, I see you are all rather busy with this overthrow-the-foundation-of-our-civilization thing," he said hurriedly, still edging away while they continued to watch him passively, "I won't impede you anymore."

Father Zuke turned and ran. In this way the group lost what might have been their only supporter, not that they cared anymore.

"Hum..." Tydus sighed. "Waffles..."

"Maybe we should get going," Auron said, "It's not like we need to sleep or eat or bathe."

"Wait, you don't bathe?" Lulu asked, stepping back a little. "I thought something smelled a little off last ni—"

"Of course I bathe, we just don't really need to, to survive, you know... Did you know that cavemen didn't have soap?"

"Speaking of cavemen..." Tydus muttered.

"What was that?" said half the group sharply in unison. Tydus staggered slightly.

And so the conversation digressed into several loud exchanges of insults that, if graphically represented by color-coded arrows, would resemble the kind of web made by a spider on crack and a very unusual diet. They were so busy with verbal abuse (Kimahri was managing a vicious growl), that the Al Bhed who had been patiently standing next to the small shop finally walked over and coughed politely.

The group stopped short and turned to stare at him. With all six pairs of eyes (Tydus was looking at clouds) on him he became rather nervous. <Um, hello... uh, Cid sent me to tell you all that the airship is, well, busted, so you can't go anywhere your little black heart desires yet... sorry. My name is Jaga, by the way.>

"Awww," said everyone who understood Al Bhed.

<Unbelievable!> said Tydus, his attention snagged from a cloud formation that looked suspiciously like someone's father, or maybe God. <Lazy and irresponsible!>

<Um,> said Jaga, because Al Bhed even mumble in their own language, <The airship got trashed while helping you on your insane crusade in Bevelle, and, uh, Cid is currently in intensive care, otherwise he would have come and told you himself, and, uh, said hello to his niece and daughter.>

"..." said everyone, including those who didn't understand Al Bhed.

"Zing!" said Lulu.

"Oh dear," said Rikku.

"What'd he say?" said Yuna.

Auron sighed.

"Hey!" said Wakka, trying desperately to ignore Jaga, "There's something shiny over there!" He was pointing toward one of the jutting rocks of the Calm Lands nearby which was, infuriatingly, outside of the safe zone of the trading post. But Wakka preferred Malboros to Al Bhed.

"Over where?" Tydus, instead of paying attention, was intently watching the head-shaped cloud apparently eating several waffle-shaped clouds with a fork shaped cloud as a Ms. Butterworth cloud floated past serenely.

"That place that's not here." He started to lead them to it. "C'mon! It's shockingly obvious, brightly so. Rare bits, I shouldn't doubt."

Tydus lost stride. "What are rarebits?"

"Don't know."

They approached the source of Wakka's salvation, Jaga completely forgotten, its reflected light standing out from the shadow of the gigantic curved spike. "Mutated raptor foot!" Tydus noted happily.

"There's a note by it," said Yuna. She bent down to pick it up, then read aloud, "'I have better things to do than standing here waiting for you heroes to show up. I may be dead but that doesn't mean I don't have a life. Here's your prize for beating me. –Belgime'"

"Er..." said the group.

"Hey, it's an Aeon's Soul!" said Tydus, "Now we can customize our aeons as well as weapons."

"An aeon's soul?!" Yuna exclaimed.

"Metaphorically speaking, I suppose. I don't think it's gooey enough to be an actual soul." Tydus paused thoughtfully. "You know, it'd probably be better if we didn't make the aeons stronger, what with them being lying backstabbers and such."

"What?" said everyone.

"Look, a chocobo!"

"Oh dear." Yuna sighed as she searched for the chocobo-shaped bit of reality Tydus was claiming existed.

------------------

"Indeed, it is a P2C2E," Tydus replied, "With too much of an Iffing and a Butting, these chocobos."

"How irksome, this Iffing and Butting," Yuna exclaimed, with an exaggerated air of mania.

"Perhaps we should cancel our subscription," Wakka suggested, taking up the steps to the Mexican Hat dance. "I don't think I can handle more of this Sha of Blah madness."

"Ahoy citizens," called a voice from behind. "May, I present the talking chocobo."

------------------

Sure enough, there was a chocobo complete with eskimo rider jogging around expectantly. Of course, the only thing an NPC ever expects is a PC, so seeing Tydus running toward her with a mad look in his eyes actually gave the eskimo a sense of fulfillment and happiness, whereas most normal people would run quickly in the other direction. The chocobo, at least, chittered nervously.

"Chocoboooo!" Tydus cried, rushing forward and grasping the gigantic bird around its feathery yellow neck in a suffocating hug. "Ever since I rescued most of them from the evil clutches of the Crusaders I've missed–them–so–much!" he continued with the air of a little boy finding his lost puppy, accenting the last few words with an attempt to swing the chocobo every which way.

"Grack!" said the chocobo.

"Um," said the eskimo, "What are you doing?"

"Hugging the chocobo!" replied Tydus enthusiastically. "And what are you doing?"

"Training chocobos." The rider gestured at the empty field behind her.

"I see..."

"No you don't. No one ever does," the eskimo muttered.

"What was that?"

"Nothing!"

"Hey, Tydus!" Yuna called, running up beside him. She gave him a stern look and said, "Will there be and riots today?"

"I don't know," Tydus said. He was still looking at the field, as if hoping the chocobos were just hiding in the grass. This was wholly impossible, but, as Tydus knew well, there were also many fiends in there somewhere. He looked back at the eskimo expectantly, then squinted at her. "Do I know you?"

"Erm..." said the eskimo.

"Hey! You're one of those blitzball players-for-hire! And one of the better ones, too."

"Tydus," said Yuna, "this is no time for blitzball."

"I know, just let me hire her so we don't have to come back to this annoyingly huge place later." Tydus search through his guide for the blitzball section and after reading through the whole thing twice he discovered how to hire Svania. He pressed the square button.

Nothing happened.

Tydus pressed the button again, and bore through the chocobo trainer's head with a confused stare. She just sat on her chocobo, looking around at the grass. Tydus tried again, standing in several different spots around the chocobo, with the same results.

"Oh, come on!" he exclaimed, and began mashing buttons randomly.

Auron hurried over. "Tydus, what're you—"

Everything went black.

"Who turned out the lights?" said Rikku from where the rest of the group was standing.

"It's the wrath of Yevon, come to smite us!" Wakka wailed.

"It's probably just Sin's fat ass blocking the sun."

"..."

"What?" said Tydus innocently.

"What did you do, Tydus?" Auron demanded, his voice level and hinting at violence.

"Er, I think I did something to the brightness. Hang on..."

"Gah!" said Lulu, "I'm pink!"

"Whoops, that must be the tone."

"Look at that blindingly light sky!" moaned Wakka, "We shall surely be smited!"

"And that must be the contrast, so..."

"Holy Hell!" cried everyone.

"Hmm. That was a bit much." Tydus mashed some more invisible buttons.

"For the love of Yevon, STOP!" said Yuna, who was in shades of pumpkin pie and rapidly oozing into electric green.

"I certainly don't love Yevon," said Tydus. Yuna glared at him. "Oh, fine, I'll put it on default, but let me degauss it first."

"Degauss--?"

The whole world suddenly went willy nilly. Shapes warped, colors blended, reality coughed up its lunch, and everything in general was stood on its head. Everyone was screaming bloody murder. Tydus could be seen clearly at the center of a multidimensional tornado, laughing manically. When it all finally settled down it was back to "normal". Everyone was the correct color and in the proper alignment, but looking very harassed. And Tydus still hadn't managed to hire Svania.

"Forget it!" Tydus burst out angrily, "You don't want to be on my team, then fine! Be a loser!" The eskimo continued to ignore him, worried that if she said anything now she might get degaussed again.

Yuna decided to change the subject. "So, where to next?"

Tydus glumly opened his book. "We should probably go here." He pointed at the invisible map. "The monster rancher guy. But it's all the way over there and he's just going to assign another impossible side quest."

"You mean, the one that gets me my legendary weapon upgrade?" Auron asked.

"Arg. Those legendary weapons can take a running jump."

"As long as I get mine."

"Oh, you'll get yours," Tydus muttered.

By the time they made it halfway across the expanse of fields the sun was going down. The sky became orange and the long grass turned golden. The spikes of rock left long shadows, making the land appear more scarred than it already was. The group could hear the occasional wark in the distance as the chocobos were rounded up for the night.

"Did you hear that?" Rikku looked around nervously.

"That wolf howling?" said Tydus.

"You mean that skoll howling," said Wakka.

"You mean that warg howling," said Frodo from inside a nearby mole hole.

"Hey! The moon is out! It's actually night!"

"But," said Tydus, "It's only ever night in Zanarkand... and when me and Yuna made out in Macalania Woods."

"Tydus!" Yuna yelled angrily.

"Yuna!" said Wakka, stunned.

"Wakka!" Lulu scolded.

"Zombies!" screamed Tydus.

"What?!"

They looked around and noticed that they were surrounded by several dozen animated skeletons. If they had ever been alive they might have been miniature cavemen, but now they had rotted to nothing but bones and glowing eyes. Some were wearing funny headdresses, too.

"They must have come out of the ground," said Auron. Some of the skeletons hadn't been able to get all of their limbs out of the dirt and were hopping on one leg or swinging a detached arm around. As they shuffled closer it became apparent that they barely made it to three feet tall. "This is laughable, hardly worth concern. I don’t know what you Zanarkandians see in zombies."

Several hundred more undead skeletons clawed their way out of the ground.

"I can see how this would be a problem," Auron said conversationally.

"Who else saw this coming?" said Tydus.

"This is cursed ground," said Auron. "Kinda sorta."

"But this would not have happened if you hadn't said 'hardly worth concern'. Yet another thing that's entirely your fault. I should make a list so I don't forget anything."

"You can't possibly believe that things like this can happen as a result of tempting fate with a casual remark!"

"Says the guy who got everything eaten by Sin without so much as a 'sorry'! And that's exactly the kind of thinking that got us into this situation!"

"Guys?" said Yuna, "The longer we stand here, the more monsters there are."

Tydus looked around. The first skeletons were almost within reach, slicing at the air with their claws. There were now many thousands of them, moving to surround the group. "Oh right. Run for it!"

They used their diverse weapons to beat a path through the absurd horrors (mysteriously, any skeleton that got close enough for Auron to hit immediately dropped back into the earth), and once past them they made a mad dash to get to the Monster Arena set inside the cliffs at the edge of the Calm Lands. On either side more skeletons popped up, murder in their eyes. The giant horde that had formed earlier was left staggering in the dust. The great thing about zombies, thought Tydus as he ran for his life, is that they are hopelessly incompetent.

When they reached the door to the arena they slammed against it, pounding and yelling for the owner to let them in. The old man finally opened the door. "What's up?"

"Zombies!"

"Oh, yeah. Don't... worry, this is a safe zone."

"Um..."

"Can I interest you young folk... in a quest?"

"No," Tydus mumbled.

Auron pushed Tydus aside. "What would you have us do, kind sir?" he asked brightly.

"Well, I run this here... Monster... Arena, but to run it I need monsters. Without monsters, it's just... an arena, you see, and that's no way to attract customers. How would you all like to be monster wranglers?"

"Wait," said Tydus, "This sounds terribly familiar. I don't think I like where it's going."

The man gave Tydus an odd look. "I just need y'all to go catch a bunch of monsters. Honestly, it's a perfectly simple... and... harmless... ...job. Yes."

"..."

"Not for all the Sigils in Spira," said Tydus. "There is no way we're gonna catch hundreds and hundreds of creatures from every place we've just come from."

"You could always slay those... thousands... of zombies out there. They're a pain in the... arse... whenever I... want to take a nighttime stroll."

Tydus sighed.

"So how are we supposed to capture them?" asked Yuna. "Do we need some crates?"

"Ha... But no. You simply... engage a monster in battle. Fight it until it is... on the brink of death, then throw one of these... patented... MonsterBalls at them." The old man held up a small object resembling a Rubix cube. It was very square. The man hummed a tune while staring into space. Yuna finally nudged him when she noticed drool. "Oh... Um, the ball will then capture the monster... in this convenient portable pocket dimension. If you want, you can later throw a full MonsterBall... at... another... monster, and have some gladiator-style fun. You... get to keep the winner. The more your... monster fights, the stronger... it gets, and the more likely... it is to eat you."

"What. The. Crap," said Tydus.

"Wait..." said the old man, "Wrong game. Let me start over... You can capture monsters by choosing... from my vast inventory of weapons, each with the Capture... ability. Coincidentally... I have one for each of your... weapon... types, and they all have clever names. You have to use Capture weapons to kill, that is, capture... the monster, you only have one slot to add... abilities... to these otherwise useless weapons, and I'm the only one who sells them. That'll be 20,000gil each, please."

Tydus, the one with the money bag, was about to storm off, but Auron dragged him back by his hood and wouldn't let go until he bought everyone a weapon. "I am completely broke!" Tydus grumble. "How are we supposed to get Yojimbo now?"

"Hey," Rikku said to the old man, "How'd you get monsters before we came?"

"Oh, you know, I had... other workers." The man scratched behind his head distractedly.

"What happened to them?"

The man mumbled in a sheepish voice.

"What was that?"

"They got eaten."

"Figures," said Tydus, "Let's just go."

Five hours later...

"I am sick of killing things!"

"Capturing."

"Capturing things!" Tydus slumped onto the hilt of his Taming Sword.

"Yeah," said Rikku, "I'm all for going back to killing things as they come and getting on with Yuna's quest for death."

"Here, here!" said Yuna. "No, wait..."

"I miss obliterating things," Lulu added. There were no Capture spells, so Lulu had been doing absolutely muffin, I mean nothing.

"See? The girls are with me." Tydus stood up and pointed his sword at Mt. Gagazet. "Let's get the hell out of here!"

"Well of course the girls don't like capturing," said Auron as they made their way to the exit. "Their capture weapons are dolls and wands and claws."

"Oh, yeah, yeah. You're just jealous because Yuna's legendary weapon quest is the only feasible one of the bunch. Really, we only need one and it doesn't need to be yours."

"I disagree."

"I'll bet."

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In case you didn't know, the bunny hood makes you immune to Skull kids, at least in ocarina of time, because, of course, in majora's mask, the Captain's hat makes you immune to Skull kids, whereas the bunny hood.... makes you run faster! woot!

That's all.