Disclaimer: Final Fantasy was created by Hironobu Sakaguchi and is owned and published by Square Enix.



FINAL FANTASY



Call of the Summoner

Written by Gune



Chapter one



THE WANDERER



Twelve days ago the rain had started falling and for twelve days the rain had not stopped. Whispers of a black omen swept through the last small town in which the lone wanderer, Davin Greyburn slept. Tales of dark prophecies born of days long past when magic and monsters ravaged a more fruitful and prosperous land. Many stories had passed through Davin's ears for the twenty years of life he had lived. The very road he now traveled, soaked and muddy from the endless droplets of water the heavens saw fit to douse his path with was once a bright green spectacle to behold during the day and a soothing melody of wind-chimed grass during the night.

When Davin's black boot sank into the dark brown muddy reality of the real world, his mind perished the pointless fantasy of any past life his world may have had. The present had traded the greenery for miles of beige dusty plains, tall lifeless mountains, and dark gray forests. Although almost all of the magic had gone, the fierce creatures of the night were allowed to stay. However, this brought little worry to Davin's mind. The road to, Paustil; a small assortment of wood shacks and log cabins, was usually quiet and less traveled by any fearsome beasts. The scavengers mostly kept to themselves, rarely risking their dwindling numbers against large living meals.

The cotton straps on Davin's boots tugged at his ankle as another puddle of mud threatened to steal the black footwear. Davin's black pants ruffled their way out of the boots from the force of the last tug from the mud. This current annoyance elicited a small sigh from Davin's chest; the wisp of air briefly materializing in front of the lone wanderer before joining the brisk breeze that carried the rain in a diagonal path towards the muddy road. Davin could no longer feel the water hitting any part of his body below his face besides his bare fingers sticking out through the holes cut into the black gloves he wore. His black vest and the black shirt beneath it were completely soaked. Beneath the bright star and moonlit sky his caramel complexion glistened under the rain.

Light from Paustil flickered into Davin's range of vision, which made the loud howling that managed to sail into his ears a bit confusing. Lupine rarely traveled this close to populated areas. The hairless beasts are usually hesitant to even risk dwindling their numbers against just one traveling human. Something seemed odd about the animal cry, although Davin couldn't place a mental finger on it. The howl almost sounded as if it were cut short, however, not from pain or death. No, the abrupt silence from the beast seemed almost muffled.

Davin decided to ignore it. Beasts or no beasts he was only about half a mile away from a warm room and a soft bed. More importantly, he was only about half a mile away from finally being able to remove the large black supply pack from his back and the long black overcoat he wore that was protecting his bare arms from the rain until it too became so soaked that it was heavier than its actual weight. The cursed thing must have been slowing him down by at least two steps as it dragged through the mud as if a ball and chain were attached to its bottom. Most annoying of all his garments was the black hat fashioned with a wide circular bill that kept the rain out of his face. That is until the wind picked up, causing the water to fall at a diagonal angle. The stupid thing made him look like some cheap magician eager to pull a card out of his ass for a quick buck.

The only thing Davin was glad to carry that weighed down on his body was the three and a half foot broadsword tucked neatly into the black sheath strapped to his back. The black cylinder hilt of the sword clanged against a pot stored away inside Davin's pack. After a long tiresome exhale after another half hour of trudging through the mud, Davin's head lifted and his eyes took in the small town of Paustil, which was only a handful of minutes away. No walls surrounded the town. The outskirts, a name that those who were fortunate enough to live in cities and towns that were surrounded by walls gave to the wastelands that made up most of the world, were populated mostly by people of low ambition and even lower self esteem. Materials for homes, farming equipment, defenses, and weapons were scarce. The people of Paustil felt that shelter was more important than walls for more reasons than the obvious. The scavenging beasts wouldn't bother a group of humans with basic weapons and a flimsy wall made from rotting timber would do little to keep out raiders and absolutely nothing to stop the larger monsters that roamed the land. Paustilians felt that if the world wanted them dead, why even bother?

This indifferent attitude towards life that swelled within most of the residents of Paustil was what kept most of their attention fixated on their own affairs as Davin Greyburn walked into their town. Just another traveling nobody there to rest his weary body from the harsh world that surrounded the town. Few living in Paustil took notice to the stranger's arrival and fewer still would care if he ever left. As long as he built his own damn house and stayed out of their business.

Even the small group of wood cabins and shacks that was Paustil harbored a place where travelers could rest. Unfortunately, for the few strangers that wandered into town, the only place offering them a roof over their heads also happened to be the place where anyone, resident or stranger could go to drown their troubles in alcohol. The few who stayed at the establishment found it more than difficult to actually sleep with loud intoxicated men and women shouting and laughing all throughout the night. The merchants of the land, some adventurous, others desperate, ventured out into the outskirts hoping to turn a profit. The more successful merchants of the inner cities dominated the markets so the outskirts held the last hopes for many struggling tradesmen. In their travels, they found that liquor was the most lucrative venture outside of their more civilized hometowns. Almost more lucrative than decent steel weapons and armor.

The wooden door to the Dusty Place Inn creaked open and Davin's dark drenched form appeared in the entryway. His presence pulled a few brief stares from the small crowd of drifters and drunkards; his dripping form holding their attention from the mead filled cups on their tables for only a handful of moments. Two or three of the intoxicated customers sized the new guest up from his mud covered black boots to his drooping black hat. The lone wanderer stepped into the Inn, happy to finally have escaped the cold rain and wind of mother nature. As the door creaked shut behind him, Davin's nose was hit with the familiar musty aroma that only the Dusty Place could generate. The stench seemed to had thickened since he last stayed. A brief glance at the floor, which was covered with thin unconnected sheets of wood, brought several small insects into Davin's line of sight. The tiny bugs crawled through the cracks of the loose pieces of plywood and scattered with each step a patron took. As Davin made his way over to the bar and the innkeeper that doubled as a bartender, the plywood creaked and cracked beneath his weight. The ends of the wooden planks sank and lifted with each step causing the still dirt beneath them to kick up into the air in a dusty mist; a visual display for anyone that ever wondered how the establishment received its name. Davin slid his arms out of the straps on his pack and let it hit the floor with a loud water soaked thud. His hat and overcoat sprinkled more water onto the floor after hitting the top of the pack with a squishy ruffled splat. His black hair was shaved low so fortunately no water had nestled atop his head, waiting for the removal of his hat in order to drip down into his eyes.

The barkeep, an old gray haired man of small stature covered in a long-sleeved golden shirt and gray pants gave the new arrival an unfriendly glare. "How many?" He snapped.

"Just one this time, Bastil." Davin replied, showing more indifference to the barkeep's bad attitude than the townspeople showed upon his own arrival.

Bastil Hermil didn't dislike Davin for any personal reasons. It was just the fact that the wanderer represented something Bastil held a great deal of resentment for; wasted talent. He supposed that what he really felt towards the wanderer was jealousy but the reasoning behind his contempt for the man was of little importance. How anyone gifted with the ability, be it natural or otherwise, to travel freely across the outskirts for years without even a large scar or at least a limp to show for it and chose only to wander from town to town with no particular goals or accomplishments save getting drunk and serviced by whores was in Bastil's opinion an utter waste of talent on an ungrateful human being. The fact that Davin had just entered his twenties only served to strengthen Bastil's dislike for the man. If more men with the wanderer's ability that weren't useless hunks of flesh with no ambition existed in the outskirts maybe they could unite enough people to work towards making the outskirts a safer place to live. Wishful thinking, Bastil thought.

"I already know you want alcohol, you punk kid." Bastil spat. "I meant how many nights are you staying?"

"Four, you mean old bastard." Davin said with a sly smirk. "And if you already knew I wanted a drink then why don't I see a mug in front of me?"

"Because I don't see any gil on the counter." Bastil sneered.

After a few seconds of squishy ruffling through his pocket, Davin opened his hand above the counter and fifteen silver-colored pieces of metal clinked onto the wooden surface. Bastil glared briefly at the metallic coins before swiping the gil from sight with a grunt. The old man turned and grabbed an iron mug from one of the shelves behind the counter and filled it with the foamy dehydrating substance known as mead that aged slowly inside four large barrel-kegs set against the wall. The foam oozed down the side of the mug after the barkeep slammed the metal container onto the wooden counter. With any and all interactions with the young traveler no longer necessary unless he overstayed the welcome his money allowed, Bastil let out one last grunt before removing his distasteful glare from the wanderer.

Davin took a seat on one of the bar-stools and leaned forward on the counter, taking small sips of his alcoholic beverage. The atmosphere of the inn was livelier than he remembered. Setting aside the fact that more than twenty people occupied the half of the Dusty Place that served as the bar, there were at least four, maybe five different conversations going on at once, which brought a calm ambiance of civilization to the stinky enclosed space. Four years ago, Davin would find himself in or near Paustil at least twice a year. However, it had been over three years since he set food in the town. Two years had passed since he traveled this far south across Wynvale, which was, the last time Davin bothered to pay attention, the second most powerful country on a continent harboring five powerful countries. The small change to the inn made Davin realize that time surely did fly when you never paid the world much attention.

"That's a nice lookin' sword you got there." A brutish male voice echoed over the ambiance of the bar.

Apparently, not paying attention can change several things other than time, Davin thought as he let out a sigh of annoyance. His first instinct was to ignore whomever it was standing behind him. Hopefully the asshole would realize something he should already know; friendliness and polite conversation were not common virtues in the outskirts. However, three more pestering vocal attempts from the stranger at grabbing Davin's attention were enough to make the young man realize that talking to the asshole was the only way of ridding himself of the asshole.

"I'm amazed you can tell how the sword looks while it's buried in its sheath." Davin said, letting the dry sarcasm in his voice be a strong indicator of how much he didn't want to converse with anyone.

"Well maybe you should hand it over so I can get a better look at it." The thug demanded with a hint of anger in his voice.

Just who did this little shit think he was? For over two years, Bruxis had made sure everyone in Paustil knew that getting on his bad side wouldn't be good for their health. Now some wandering brat barely out of his teens thought he could waltz in on Bruxis's turf and disrespect him with his smart ass mouth?

"Let me ask you a question." Davin said coolly while taking another sip of mead from his mug. "How long do you think I have been traveling?"

"What the fuck does that have to do with anything?" Bruxis growled.

"Well it's a dangerous place out there." Davin explained, after gulping down a mouthful of mead. "You have Lupine running around everywhere, goblins, ferocious trolls as big as trees..."

Bruxis took a step closer to the stranger as his anger intensified. "You think I'm afraid of some wild animals and freaks o' nature? Even if I was, you ain't dem." He pulled a small dagger from the brown belt holding up the green dirt stained pants he wore beneath an equally dirty green shirt. "Now hand over the sword you stupid fuck! Before I slit your throat!"

"No." Davin's voice grew darker as he set the mug down onto the counter with enough force that the clank of metal on wood echoed over the room that was silenced by the thug's screams. "No I'm not one of those wild animals or freaks of nature. But try to use that small organ between your ears to process my words carefully. It just might save your life."

Davin continued, interrupting the thug's next threat. He was intent on not being forced to fight after his long exhausting journey from Traville, a town nearly twice the size of the unimpressive assortment of shacks that was Paustil, which wasn't saying much. This guy was nothing more than the town bully. A person who would fit in perfectly with the rich, pompous assholes of the inner cities if he hadn't drew a bad hand and been born in the outskirts. The people out here, including Davin, were ranked as beneath the lower class of the inner cities, which was pretty bad considering the inner city lower class were thought of as subhuman by some of the more "elite" citizens. Lowborn was an understatement for outskirt dwellers.

"You see I was walking for six days before I got here, after traveling through Blakule forest for three days." Davin's finger-glove covered hand tightened around the beer-mug handle as he spoke. "So while I'm not one of the monsters that dwell within the forest that virtually no one dares travel through. Nor am I any of the beasts that roam the outskirts, which only crazy merchants or heavily armored criminals and mercenaries dare travel. I am something that should get that small organ between your ears churning with an interesting realization." Davin let his words hang in the air for dramatic effect. "I'm still alive."

Bruxis had decided that if the kid in front of him uttered one more word instead of handing over the sword he would bury his dagger in the back of the little punk's head and then slit his throat. "You..." However, even though he wasn't the smartest man in the word, even Bruxis's brain, such as it was, could contemplate where the wanderer was going with his story.

"Not only am I still alive." Davin continued. "But I have no armor to speak of and I've been carrying around this pack with over forty pounds of supplies in it for the entire time I've been walking through Blakule forest and the outskirts." He finished the last of the mead in the mug then slammed it down on to the counter. "Fill this mug back up, old man, and I don't want to hear another fucking word about how much gil you see."

Bastil had been considering the entire situation in his mind from the moment he noticed Bruxis eying the punk kid's sword when he arrived. While he knew the boy most likely had some skill with the weapon he didn't know how much skill. Bruxis on the other hand was in no way a pushover or a coward with more bark than his bite. The barkeep knew Davin was attempting to resolve the situation without violence and knew that he had just been recruited into the punk's plan. Bastil knew that if he were to do what almost every fiber of his being was telling him to do, which was to tell the little turd just where he could stick that mug until some gil found its way onto the counter, Bruxis would be less inclined to continue listening to all of the talk and more inclined to use the dagger in his hand. Either way, whomever won the fight, Bastil would end up being the one that had to repair any damages. The correct decision seemed obvious enough. But oh how he wanted to tell that little shit off.

"Little bastard..." Bastil muttered under his breath while grabbing the mug and turning to the barrel-kegs.

"Now there's one more detail you should take into account." Davin said, a bit surprised that Bastil decided to comply with his demand.

Well, the hard part was over, Davin thought.

"This detail just happens to be the most important detail of my entire journey." Davin slowly turned in his seat and glared into the eyes of the thug, Bruxis, with a murderous intent flashing behind his own eyes. "It's been raining for twelve days. When it rains, I have to put on that stupid fucking hat you see sitting on top of my pack. I hate wearing that hat and I had to wear it for twelve, fucking, days."

Bruxis tried to speak. The words were there in his mind, they just couldn't make it out of his mouth. He wanted to interrupt the kid; make the punk realize that in Paustil, Bruxis was the one who did the intimidating. But the words never came. He wanted to step forward and ram the dagger down the brat's throat. But his legs never moved. Bruxis couldn't understand it but for the first time in his life his brain was overriding his temper.

"The only thing I wanted to do." Davin's voice began to raise with each pause he took in his sentences as Bastil slammed a full mug of mead down onto the counter behind him and walked off a few feet away from the two miscreants. "Was sit down at the bar, have a mug of mead, dry off by the fire..." The young wanderer's voice boomed outside of the Dusty Place as he began screaming at the top of his lungs. "And get some fucking sleep on a bed with a mattress instead of the fucking muddy, insect infested ground you fat, fuck!" Davin rose to his feet stepping up to Bruxis, ignoring the dagger and getting in the thug's face with an infuriated glare that could slit a throat, if glares could be used for such things. "Now..." Davin lowered his voice to a more menacing tone. "If you're not out of my face within the next two seconds...I'll give you my sword...I'll shove it down your throat and out the end of your dick." Davin moved closer, bringing his face to within an inch of Bruxis's face. "And before you start wondering if that's physically possible, believe me...I'll make it possible."

For some odd reason that Bruxis had yet to grasp, he could feel the dagger shaking in his hand. He couldn't understand why or how the dagger could be shaking. It wasn't until he felt his right leg take an instinctive, involuntary step back that he realized it wasn't the dagger that was shaking at all.

Bruxis was trembling.

The thug quickly stepped back. Too preoccupied with moving, Bruxis's trembling hand lost its grip on the dagger and it clanged on the wooden floorboards. The plank Bruxis stepped across sank beneath his weight into the dirt below and the back of his heel hit the adjacent plank, causing him to fall backwards. His rear end hit the floor with a loud thud. The thug's eyes scanned the bar as many suppressed snickers bounced off of his ear drums. His left hand rose and violently brushed the dust from below the planks out of his tall spiky red hair while his right hand shot forward, retrieving the dagger from the floor. As he stood, Bruxis returned the dagger to his belt and quickly stormed out of the Dusty Place Inn with his face red from fury and embarrassment.

As the thug exited the Inn, a new patron entered. She was the normal height for women born to the continent, no taller than five and a half feet. Rainwater dripped from the end strands of her long brunette hair that extended down just above the small of her back. A brown cloak covered most of her clothes except for the bottom half of the brown leather pants covering her legs. Her green eyes immediately locked onto the caramel eyes of the young man seated at the bar. Her face remained expressionless as the wanderer turned to the fresh mug of mead behind him after holding her stare for only a few seconds. The door creaked loudly behind the woman as it closed and she stepped over to the bar, taking a seat at the counter to the left of the wanderer, with one stool separating the two.

"What'll it be, Tanya?" Bastil asked.

"The only thing you have in here besides water, Bastil." The cloaked woman, Tanya Furdell replied.

Davin noticed that while Bastil's voice still carried its usual unpleasantness, and the frown that Davin imagined never left the barkeep's face, even when he slept, was still there, there was something less hostile in the old man's demeanor and movements towards the new arrival. The wanderer decided to add dirty to his mean old bastard description of the barkeep. He had seen the woman, what was it the mean dirty old bastard had called her, Tanya? He had seen her before, he was sure of it as he never forgot a face. It had been four years since he set foot in Paustil and he could still remember every face he had seen there. Well, when he saw those faces anyway. However, hers seemed a bit different than he remembered. In the short glance he'd given her, he noticed a small vertical scar just below her left eye. She still had the same tan complexion common among her race and the blemish did little to detract from her attractiveness but his brain couldn't help analyzing small changes in familiar environments. He had to pass the time somehow.

"You're pretty loud." Tanya said, keeping her gaze fixated on one of Bastil's bar-shelves.

"What?" Davin asked, confused as to why so many people felt so compelled to bother him that night.

"I could hear you all the way outside, over the rain." Tanya explained. "And I'm not even talking about the part where you started screaming. I'm sure the whole damn town could hear you then."

Davin, staying true to his nature, employed the same tactic he used against Bruxis.

"It's just that I'm planning on traveling west towards Rageun City and the only way to get there from here without an airship is to travel through Blakule forest." Tanya gulped down a mouthful of mead before continuing. "Having not been there in quite some time I was wondering if you could fill me in on any significant changes to the area." She decided to continue trying to break through Davin's silent treatment. "You know, things like new monsters, changes in the areas they frequent, any blocked paths?"

"Do you have a point you want to make or did you just come in here with the specific intention of annoying the shit out of me?" Davin grumbled.

"Well, actually..." Tanya took another swig of mead. "The most widely accepted travel time, you know, amongst people who have actually traveled through Blakule forest, is five days." Tanya stared intently at Davin after her last sentence. "And the hike from Blakule to here takes at least eight days. Of course that's when it's not raining and the dirt roads haven't been turned into pools of mud." Her lips formed a sly smirk. "So you can imagine how amazed I am that you arrived here so quickly when it's been raining for twelve, fucking, days, as you so eloquently put it."

"You know." Davin gently set his mug down. "This bar isn't covered in human blood because I told my little tale so eloquently." His eyes rose and his glare met Tanya's stern gaze. "You lookin' to cheapen my accomplishment?"

Tanya held Davin's glaring gaze for a handful of seconds before shrugging and turning back to her drink. "No. I was just curious how you managed to get rid of the biggest pain in the ass this town has to offer without covering this place in blood. Don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to flatter you. I'm just...studying."

"Right." Davin finished off the last of his mead then pulled five more gil from his pocket and left them on the bar counter. "I swear to Bahamut this night better not get any more annoying."

Davin grabbed his pack and carried it to his room with his hat and coat still sitting on top of it. He slammed the door behind him and dropped the pack next to the bed. The vibrations from his footsteps and dropped supplies caused several of the small insects that infested the inn to scurry out onto the floor and wooden legs of the bed. The wanderer frowned at the bugs and then shook his head.

"Nope." He said while reaching into a small pocket stitched into the side of his pack. "No bugs crawling over me while I sleep tonight. Not this time."

From the black pocket, Davin pulled out a small white sack with a round palm sized object inside of it. A quick pull at the slipknot on the top of the sack opened the fabric revealing a green sphere shaped plant with six peel away leaves with small tips that joined at the top. Davin pulled a small dish from his pack next and placed it on the dresser next to his bed. He set the plant down on top of the dish and then grabbed a lit candle from atop the dresser. Davin held the orange flame over the tip of the plant until smoke began to generate from the green sphere. Mere seconds after Davin set the candle down, the plant was almost completely consumed by the flames. A thick gray smoke erupted from the plant and the flames disappeared beneath the cloud. After twenty seconds the plant had been reduced to ash and Davin's room was filled with the gray odorless smoke. Ten more seconds passed before several multicolored bugs began falling from the wooden ceiling of the room. Within one minute since Davin lit the now destroyed plant ablaze, all of the insects in his room were dead.

"I am not going to be denied. I'm sleeping comfortably and dry for at least one damn night." Davin declared to the world.

The wanderer unstrapped his sheath and leaned his sword against the dresser. Next, he quickly removed all of his clothes and hung them up in front of the fireplace with a rope from his pack. Finally, he removed a fresh pair of underwear and a t-shirt wrapped in graywood tree leaves he acquired from Blakule forest six years ago. The leaves never withered, even when separated from their wooden homes and were perfect for wrapping items meant to stay dry. Davin often thought about returning to the forest and acquiring more leaves for the purpose of fashioning some sort of coat that would keep him dry during the rainy days of his travels. However, several factors kept him from pursuing that course of action. One of the main factors being his lack of sewing skills. Any coat he made would turn out to be a garbled pile of fat leaves that made him look more like one of the creatures roaming the outskirts than a human being in a stupid outfit. The other factor being there was almost nothing that could possibly make him consider going back to the dreaded forest that nearly took his life when he was barely a teenager. The rain wasn't so bad anyway, Davin figured.

As he lay back on the comfortable mattress, Davin let out a triumphant sigh of satisfaction. Before he shut his eyes he pulled the covers over his body. Even though the night held several unnecessary annoyances that nearly pushed him over the edge towards murder, as Davin felt his muscles finally receiving their deserved chance to relax, he knew it was all worth it. At least for tonight, nothing else could possibly bother him.

Wynvale: Half a mile east outside of Paustil

"Did he see us? Did he see the lights?" A gruff male voice called out over the falling rain and howling wind.

"He didn't see us. If he did he would have warned them by now." A hardened female voice replied.

"He did hear us though. I told you to keep those fucking things quiet." The male voice barked.

"Quiet isn't something Lupine do well." The female voice shot back.

"Keep the muzzles on em."

"With all this rain they just slide off."

"Will you two shut up? We're about to start the raid." A second male voice interjected. "And, Vansh."

"Yeah, boss?" The female voice replied.

"You can take the muzzles off now."

Six metal teeth amongst two rows of yellowish pearly teeth sparkled beneath the moonlight as Vansh began removing the muzzles from her attack Lupine with a maniacal grin. "It's about time."