Cidolfus

Bervennia

It has been a while, my apologies. During our travels to see everyone with enough skills to face the upcoming foes we were likely to encounter, I had come down with a stomach infection. I shall spare you the details of my trials in the tavern’s inn rooms while the others were out training, but I had asked Luso to continue writing for me. Which he happily took on for me, the darling!

He did ask me not to read his entries into the memoirs, and had sealed them anon. It seemed important to him, so I suppose the first time someone else reads his contributions is when these memoirs are published for other apprentices to read.

I am feeling much better now. The others had ample training and the war was in full swing at fort Besselat. And we had to find ourselves a Thunder God!

Fort Besselat

Of course, no sooner had we left Bervennia or we were barred thoroughfare by a templar called Barich. While he boasted of the plans to scatter mossfungus poison to the wind to incapacitate the knights and squires fighting at the frontlines, Balthier had caught a glimpse of something else. The gleam in his eye said enough: he was going to plunder Barich.

Much and more can be said of Balthier’s gall, but would you know he got away with robbing the gun from under the templar’s nose while he looked him square in the eyes! For the remainder of the battle, Barich tried and failed to chase us down to subdue us with his bare fists while Agrias distracted the other templars with her newfound dancing skills.

Good thing Mustadio wasn’t here this time, he’d have given up hope completely…

Ahem… So, sporting his new treasured Glacial Gun, Balthier joined us in our assault on the Northern Walls of Fort Besselat. With all the chemists and orators and… Well, Balthier himself, whom I’ ve never seen without a gun come to think of it, we broke through that wall without as much as a scratch on our bodies – and a few abilities richer, drawn from the dead bodies of our enemies.

Throw wide the gates!

There wasn’t time to breathe yet. First of all, our experience with the mossfungus earlier was fresh in our memories and knowing it had been scattered on the frontlines of the battlefield made us all rather apprehensive, but we hadn’t even found count Orlandeau yet. And now we stood in the shadow of a sluice in the midst of the fort, with knights and archers and black mages all ready to strike us down.

That did not deter Ramza, however. Where we saw imminent danger, he somehow saw an opportunity. If we could flood the frontlines, the fighting would stop. All we had to do was open the sluice gates.

Again, Balthier’s new plaything and Agrias’s mesmerising gyrations had come to the rescue and a few enemy deaths and newly acquired abilities later, the battlefield was flooded. By the gods, he actually did it. Ramza stopped a battle. But where would count Orlandeau be?

Before we could even ask one another that selfsame question, we were swept away by Orran and a woman who introduced herself as Valmafra. The count had been put in the dungeons of the fort, on the suspicion of being a traitor. We were brought before him but there was little time for pleasantries and musings over a shared past. Cidolfus needed to escape.

I saw Balthier scowl when the count’s name was scarse mentioned, even more so when we learned that the Thunder God would be joining us. A grim reminder of something, that name must have been. But he cheerfully put away his Glacial Gun and decided to tag along to Limberry. More treasure would await him there, for sure.

I, for one, welcome Thunder God Cid to our ranks! We’ll be unstoppable now!

I am Bathsua, opener of sluice gates, and these are my memoirs.