An Extraordinary Staff

Not so long ago, a caravan from Radz-at-Han had arrived at the port of Limsa Lominsa. The caravan belonged to a Hannish man named Bashir..

A Lominsan custom agent, a Sea Wolf named Greinblyss, was looking at the caravan’s manifest and inspecting said goods.

“You got perfumes, spices, chemical reagents and here it says you got one staff? Show it to me.” asked Greinblyss.

Bashir fetched from the goods being loaded on transport carts a long metal box with a big padlock on it.

He put it on the ground, unlocked the padlock and revealed a pretty big staff.

It was about 9 fulms long, about 6 ilms thick, it appeared to be made of iron and both ends had what looked like a thick gold band close to the tip.

It was too big to be used as a weapon by anyone smaller than a Roegadyn and even then, most would probably find it too thick and too long. Maybe an Amalj’aa would find it suitable.

“Master Gegeruju would rather you not touch it and he gave me clear instructions to express his gratitude in a rather material manner. I pray you will not disappoint him.” said Bashir.

“Must be pretty important and valuable then.” observed Greinblyss, “show me this gratitude you’re talking about.”

Bashir handed the big man a significant purse of coin which the Sea Wolf opened, took a look inside and closed. This was a good day for him and it would get even better.

“Alright, off you go.” the Lominsan said. Bashir closed and locked the box and loaded it in a cart with other goods.

Bashir would certainly remain a couple of days in Limsa to sell as much as possible before setting off for Costa Del Sol, coins being more easy to transport.

Greinblyss, for his part, was quite eager for his shift to be over. When it was, he walked to The Drowning Wench and in a quiet and remote spot outside, away from prying ears, he met a hyuran woman named Christine Warfury.

“Yeah, a Hannish caravan bound for Costa Del Sol and it’s carrying a pretty big and important staff, keeping it locked in a huge metal box. Surely powerful and, more importantly, valuable.”

Christine nodded and replied, “sounds interesting. If anything good comes from that information, we’ll make sure you get a cut of the profit.”

They both walked away, each in their own direction. Christine had not gone all that far before she was hailed by a lalafellin woman. This would not be good.

“Mimiti, to what do I owe the honor?” she asked sarcastically.

“You had disappeared to The Drowning Wench again. I bet you learned something valuable.” asserted the diminutive woman.

“It’s none of your business.” replied Christine curtly.

“If you don’t tell me, I’m telling your husband you’re having an affair.” threatened the lalafell.

“But I’m not having an affair,” objected the hyur.

“You keep disappearing to some secret meetings, who is your husband going to believe,” smiled Mimiti.

Christine gave it a thought and suspected her husband would indeed believe that lie if someone insisted. She considered lying, but she’d rather not risk it and Mimiti really was not asking for much.

She’d stretch the truth a bit to make sure Mimiti was satisfied.

“I learned that a very valuable and powerful weapon, a staff, just arrived in Limsa and is going to be transported to Costa Del Sol,” she said.

“Thank you.” chimed Mimiti before sauntering off.

She ran to Hawker’s Alley, looking for one specific person.

“Alfort, I got some interesting information, want to know about it?” she asked a handsome Wildwood who was out shopping.

The elezen had a chuckle. “Sure, what is it?”

Mimiti declared, “If you want to know, you got to invite me to your place tonight,”

The smile on Alfort’s face disappeared for a brief moment when he realized what was requested of him. Well, it wasn’t really that much of a price to pay and curiosity was getting the best of him.

“Come and meet after sunset at my place. I trust you know where that is.”

Mimiti very much knew. And she’d tell him she had learned of an awesomely powerful staff being transported from Limsa to Costa Del Sol by a Hannish caravan.

On the morning after that, Alfort penned a short message on a parchment; “Most powerful and valuable staff I’ve ever heard of. Transported by Hannish caravan from Limsa to Costa Del Sol real soon.”

He rolled the message, sealed it and gave it to a Hellsguard named Bad Magma.

Bad Magma was supposed to bring the message to the Skylift near the Nym River in Middle La Noscea, but he opted for a quick stop at The Drowning Wench.

A quick stop that became a little longer as one beer became two beers, three beers, four beers and who knows how many.

The fact that he was the only person drinking at The Drowning Wench this early in the morning was not going to stop him.

Still, he had a message to deliver and now he was eager to leave The Drowning Wench, the swaying there had gotten unbearable.

On his way to the Skylift, he accidentally dropped the message on the shore of the Nym River.

He did not become aware of this until he had almost reached his destination. 

Not wanting to confess to having lost the message, he decided to go back to Limsa and pretend everything was alright, maybe no one would ever notice his failure.

A huge man the size of an Amalj’aa, clad in red and white approached the river to drink and fill his flask and noticed the rolled parchment partially wet.

He picked up the parchment and saw the seal had been damaged and broken. The man looked all around him and could not see anyone on the horizon.

He decided to read the message, maybe he could figure out who it was meant for and deliver it to its recipient, but water had smudged quite a bit of it.

“Most powerful… staff… ever… Hannish caravan… Limsa to Costa Del Sol… soon.”

He had no clue who this could be addressed to, but he suddenly had a different idea.

***

Meanwhile, Bashir was busy at the Hawker’s Alley and business was good and quite busy.

He wanted to start the trek to Costa Del Sol, but he also wanted to stay in Limsa to oversee the business. Throughout the day, he made plans with his loyal retainer Rafah.

Rafah would handle the business at Limsa while Bashir would take a handful of guards with him and start traveling to Costa Del Sol tomorrow.

Mere hours after Bashir had left, he and the guards accompanying him came back running to Rafah, “it’s a catastrophe, some big burly dude knew about the box, gave us a thrashing and robbed us of its content.

Gather all the armed people and all the chobobos you can, I’ll go see what manners of adventurers I can recruit, we have to get it back.”

***

Soon enough, Bashir was leading a group of 20 armed people in a mad dash from Limsa Lominsa to the North.

Not long after they spotted a warrior as big as an Amalj’aa, clad in red and white whose head sported hair as red as his clothes and two black horns.

He was walking at a somewhat slow pace toward the North and he was also carrying the big staff in his left hand. The oversized staff looked like it had been made for him.

When they finally caught up with him, Bashir yelled, “Stop brigand, you stole what belongs to me.”

The red and white clad warrior turned and shot back, “Brigand, me? I have won this staff in a fair fight against a half dozen of yours.”

“I never agreed to this,” Bashir replied, “hand it back or we’ll take it back by force.”

“Interesting, I accept your challenge. Let’s see how you handle the mighty me. I will put this fine weapon to the test on all of you. Have at thee, vile beasts.”

And with that, the big warrior, gold banded cudgel in hands, jumped high in the air and then slammed the staff to the ground upon landing, not far from the group, sending a shockwave all around him.

And yet, no one around him seemed to feel any ill effect.

“This is far from the strongest of staves, I feel so betrayed.” sighed the disappointed warrior.

Bashir yelled, “be careful with that, you dolt, you’re going to break it. It’s not really a weap…”

But at that very moment, the big warrior spun upon himself, waving the staff that would have hit everyone around him had it not snapped in two.

A large amount of powdery substance contained in the hollowed out staff fell and spread all over the place.

“What’s that?” said the big warrior, turning vertically the half of the staff that was still in his hands so as to spill whatever remained in it.

“NOOOOO, you idiot, look at what you’ve done. You’ve ruined it all. You’ll pay for this with your life.” shouted Bashir angrily.

“Oh, I see, you scoundrels are nothing but lowlife smugglers then.” retorted the big warrior. “I’m done with my warm-up, for Gilgamesh, it’s morphin’ time.”

And sure enough, a dark pit to the void opened just under the red and white clad warrior who gradually slid down until he had completely disappeared and then resurfaced transformed.

He now had six arms and each of them was holding a different weapon.

The fight was a short-lived affair and soon enough all of the 20 men and women Bashir had brought with him were laying on the ground, all hurt, some pretty badly and all the chocobos had fled.

Gilgamesh offered some parting words before leaving: “It’s days like this that get you high on life! But you, sirs and ma’ams, are harshing my buzz!”

Gilgamesh walked away talking to himself and the last of his words Bashir could hear were, “this was a monumental waste of time, there were neither worthy opponents to be fought nor extraordinary weapons to be acquired.”

No one knows anymore what was the powder contained in the staff but since it was being smuggled all the way from Radz-at-Han, it certainly was nothing any law-abiding person would approve of.

Thanks to Gilgamesh, it never made it to its destination.