Roosting Grounds

Impossible! We're less than a kilometer from the District... Wait, the government buildings are getting smaller... we're moving away from the capital?

Looks like events are moving faster than your plans can catch up, aren't they?

......

You never intended to stop the explosion... you were just stalling for time for the plate to turn?

Did you think we had the means to go toe-to-toe with well-trained units?

Events moving faster than the plans can catch up...

Change of plans.

Lower level, evacuate by the planned routes. Upper level, protect the civilians around you and prepare to parachute.

Point Zero, detonate.

What's going on? The broadcast has gone dark... are the screens outside getting a signal?

You're still thinking about the broadcast?! Didn't you hear the Emergency Management Council's evacuation warning?

A serious accident has occurred in the levitation layer. All floating facilities will fall from the sky in less than ten minutes! Hurry up and get yourself to the emergency shelters!

Fall from the sky...?

Look out.

*cough*... that was a close call. Thanks.

You're a tester? Which company? I don't remember you...

......

Now is not the time for introductions, Oakley.

The streets are exposed. You risk getting hit by falling debris. You should go into an emergency shelter quickly.

A-Alright...

Pull the parachute, Ferne!

Oops, almost forgot.

Did we do it?

The people on the ground don't know what's happening. It must be a shock for them to see their investments and products turn to ash...

They're safe, at least. The pieces of the levitation layer would have fallen on top of their heads if the plate didn't turn around.

Besides, they'll never find out that there were scheming and plotting to stop them from dreaming.

......

Where do we go next?

You could certainly go back to Northville to see your wife.

Sure. What about after that?

After that?

Let's talk about that when we get back to standing on Terra Firma and looking up at the sky.

The Roosting Tree... that was the name I gave it. I built huts beneath it, and made it the abode of every Banshee.

But all I felt was fear when Laqeramaline brought me to its roots.

It was like a great void that could not be illuminated by the moons, by candles, or by fireflies. It was still and silent, sucking away my memory a little bit at a time...

I could smell decay in the darkness. A decay that we could not reverse. Not even the Children of Soil and Stone could.

It was a constant reminder of how pathetic the Convallis was.

At the end, Lady Theresa and Lord Theresis found a future for the Sarkaz through war and death. Meanwhile, Aefanyl continues to seek a new future for the Banshees.

But me and my valley... it is nothing more than a failed sanctuary that quietly awaits death.

And there's nothing more I can do for it.

So you ran away from the Roosting Tree, ran away from death.

Why here, though?

Everywhere outside the Convallis was the same. Grey and chaotic, impossible to navigate.

There was only one path that I remembered. Those unfamiliar names that you said... Leithanien, Laterano, Columbia...

I followed the names, followed your scent, not knowing to what end the path lead, and what I would do there... I just didn't want the tree to turn me into an empty husk.

But you chose to go into another tree.

I was filled with sorrow when I saw that you planted another Roosting Tree here.

When I felt the spread of decay... I thought you were going to repeat our mistakes.

Even if we couldn't save the Convallis's Roosting Tree... I wanted to do something for this one.

Even if all I could do was stay its decay and save you from sorrow for a while...

But when I saw it with my own eyes, I realized... there was nothing I could do for it... but it could save me.

The Roosting Tree only takes memories, but this one shares.

It shares the story of the Convallis, and of your journey... it makes me feel that I'm alive.

I'm sorry, Nasti. I had fused with the tree before I stopped the path from collapsing. Once again... I deceived you.

...That's why you're so lucid.

That's why the tree rejects my incantations. You rewrote its grammar and changed its operating logic.

It keeps you alive, and you keep it running, even though neither of you are what you used to be.

You're like a program that relies on a bug to keep running...

Bug...? Program...?

Like a withered tree that relies on a parasitic vine to remain standing.

It's not so bad, is it?

If this can keep it from withering, then I've finally done something useful, for you, for the Banshees, for Sarkaz.

I can bring it back to the Convallis... bring you back.

That would be pointless.

—!

Why... why is the tree not responding to me?

That means it's working.

I said I must understand, before I can put an end to this error.

Now, I do.

(Speaks in Sarkaz) Reconstruct.

No... the memories that the tree shared with me... they're disappearing...

Nasti... Nasti! What are you doing?!

Wiping the preloaded data in the tree. All that it shared with you was only temporary data for experimentation.

I know that you don't want to forget. But what you truly want to remember and retain are not these hotchpotch data put together for experiments.

Even if it's so...

Please, don't make the last thing I see be the sight of you destroying your life's work...

You've walked such a long road and suffered so much for it...

To you, the Convallis was your life's work. But I've never had one.

I have a goal. This tree is the means to it.

My judgment of it is not based on how much I committed to it, only whether it can achieve my goal.

You hoped that fusing with it would keep it from withering. But not withering won't make it any more useful.

Just like the Roosting Tree of the Convallis.

I don't want to be cruel, but the Roosting Tree never truly consoled the dying. It is no more than a simple phoebe tree, bent under the weight of incantations.

It's native to the genus Phoebopsis in the family of Targangils-Simaroubaceae, and its wood is commonly used for buildings in southeast Terra. I had an Elf colleague verify its nature after I joined Rhine Lab.

It became the Roosting Tree of the Convallis because you saw it as a symbol and mourned its change.

It has withered because it has reached the end of its natural lifespan.

That is... all...?

Even the colors that run through its branches is merely the result of exposure to incantations over the years.

I don't remember how it used to look anymore...

But... Nasti... if it's truly so...

Why does your tree look so much like the Roosting Tree?

Because it reminds me of you.

Just as you think of me.

......

Do you know why I planted this 'tree'?

I remember the day we parted.

You were calling to me, but I didn't turn back, because some words can no longer be said once you see the other person's face. But I couldn't help but look at your face reflected in the water—

I wanted to remember how you looked.

New tears flow across the lines made by old ones, as though it was a fixture on your face.

I spent more than a decade with you in the Convallis. I never saw you without tear marks on your face.

Life in the valley was good. I would have chosen the Convallis over Kazdel every time, a hundred times over. But Væla...

Was there a single moment that you weren't in pain, over the course of your two hundred years in the Convallis?

At first, I thought I could wipe away your tears and make you smile with simple methods.

You spent a whole day wiping my face with mistapple pulp.

It was only later that I learned why you were in pain.

The source of your pain was the decision, the lie.

The kin who suffered because they defied their nature; the kindred who could not return to the myriad souls because there was no one to deliver them. They were the source of your pain.

To solve your problem, I must solve the problems of the Banshees, the problems of the Sarkaz.

The answer lies outside the Convallis, outside Kazdel, in a place that I don't know.

As I indulged in such fantasies...

I saw you and I sail in the sky.

The reflected sky...

It was a calm, windless day, but suddenly the water rippled without warning, wiping away the eternal tear marks on your face. You almost looked like you were smiling.

And so, I began to think about the sky whenever I thought about how to make you smile.

Perhaps...

The sky is where we can find our sanctuary, and abode for our souls.

(Speaks in Sarkaz) The Sarkaz's promised land could also be in the sky.

All the things you did, this tree in the sky...

That's where it all began.

Access security camera image.

Falling... like a broken kite...

Looks like Maylander successfully carried out their plan. The entire capital will bear witness to the fall of Propeller Paradise.

But the tremors came from the ground plate. Did Gordon...?

Will we fall too?

Not sure. I've undone the fusion and reset the tree, restoring it to an operable state.

But the tree itself is not yet complete.

At least... save yourself, Nasti...

Three years ago, Aefanyl added a condition to my hypothesis when he delivered the myriad souls. Two years ago, a friend split the sky and showed me the path to the future.

But I'm still one step away from the answer. What is to come will depend on whether we find it.

We're in the sky, but... I don't see the answer.

Everything has fallen... they sky is empty.

......

Yes, the sky has always been empty.

It is we who must fill it.

For you, Væla, I don't think the answer is in the sky.

It's in you.

I can hear the roars, the hatred, the cries that surround you.

The kin I delivered, or failed to deliver... Vampires, Nachzehrers, Djaj... and Banshees.

I've wiped all the preloaded temporary experiment data from the tree.

It's your own frustration, rage and sorrow that binds you now, like every Banshee that you sent away the last two hundred years, like every Sarkaz that returned to the myriad souls since the beginning of time.

That is why our people are made empty by painful oblivion. That is why the myriad souls are always roaring, always angry, always wailing.

But if we leave behind residues of information in death, and the myriad souls are merely the collective of such residues...

Why shouldn't it be joy and song that remains?

Does our nature prevent it?

No.

To process residues of information, build a server. If coverage on the ground isn't enough, raise it into the sky.

Not just a sanctuary for the living; the 'tree' will become an abode for the departed as well. This time, however, we decide what we leave behind.

Perhaps it wasn't function that the 'tree' was missing. It was a command, a decision, a sincere wish.

Tell me the answer, Væla. What is it that you truly want to leave behind?

The tree... I will preserve that memory for you.

Oblivion will never claim what you want to leave behind.

......

I don't know.

You don't know...

At first, I just wanted to save our kin from pain, from anger, from sorrow.

But I no longer know how that can be achieved. If neither the Convallis nor the Roosting Tree could accomplish it... is there any meaning in leaving anything behind?

Væla...

......

No...

You were never one to stop walking, Nasti. Once you've decided on a path, you'll see it through to the end.

Don't stop now. Don't let me take away the meaning of what you've accomplished. My life may have had no meaning, but there must be some meaning to all that you've done...

If this tree is the new abode for the souls of the Sarkaz, then let me be its first denizen.

I gave you a home twenty years ago. Now, you've given me one.

When the children stand around the tree to listen to its voice... I want it to be your laughter that they hear, not your weeping.

And I want to remember your smile when I think of you...

Nasti, my child...

I've had good memories... memories that made me smile...

I remember... it was...

I'll catch you, and remember you...

Mother.

...One does not need a bone whistle to accompany a smile.

Be at peace.

I'd like to make a bet with you, Miss Wilson.

How many sky stocks do you think young Pavard, that honest and serious secretary of mine, will go and buy once he delivers the balloons?

Zero. The end of the line at the stock exchange was two blocks away when I came.

The last time I saw this level of excitement in the District was when the Department of Defense decided to send troops to Bolívar. I still have one of those cactus hats in my office.

People went into the streets wearing those hats, shouting slogans and turning the veins of the D.C. green.

I haven't seen those hats in a long time.

No one wants their taxes turn into guns, not since Robert McKesson and his feat of 'saving Bolívar from the Bolívarians' became the butt of evening radio's jokes.

Everybody wears a propeller on their heads now.

A blue propeller hat that spins. It's awfully noisy, to tell the truth.

I hear there's a new version that automatically plays that rock song every Columbian knows when the propeller spins.

......

I grew up listening to 'Terra Bless Us' and 'Cityway 66'. I once thought that the song of our time would be 'Goodnight, Arc-01.'

Turns out it would be 'Good Night, Kristen Wright.'

The obsession that Columbians have with the future will never change, but the one they're following seems to have changed while we weren't looking.

Kristen never intended to become an idol.

The Department of Defense never intended to become a joke.

It never occurred to any of us, when we raised a glass to the failure of the DOD, that it wouldn't be just the DOD who loses credibility.

The people listening to late-night radio over a pot of mac & cheese don't differentiate between the DOD, Congress, or the cabinet, after all.

......

As you said yourself, these days, the masses seem more willing to take inspiration from a legend or miracle.

Sometimes, however, we need to turn their gazes back to the soil that nurtures miracle.

Back to Columbia.

Finally, we lay our eyes on Propeller Paradise. Not a day has passed that we don't think about it, ever since that fateful night two years ago...

The synchronized aerial turn that we just witnessed is a testament to the skill of our test pilots, even in times of peace.

Now, Propeller Paradise reveals its miracles to use, this wonderful spectacle of the Columbian Dream—

Demonstrating that—

Declaring that—

...'turn their gazes back to the soil that nurtures miracle.'

Back to Columbia.

A terrorist attack?

...A premeditated act of terror.

Investigators confirm that the explosion was caused by a batch of Arts weapons smuggled in disguised as general parts.

The weapons can be traced to numerous centrum nations, including...

Kazimierz, which has long since abandoned the ways of chivalry, and Leithanien, the ancient nation of casters, have used their despicable tricks against us.

The voice of progress falls silent today. It is the darkest day in Columbia's eighty years of history...

The nation is waiting for me to speak.

I should tell them: 'They have destroyed more than just an exhibition; they have destroyed the hopes and dreams that every Columbian entrusted to it.'

I should tell them: 'This shameless, heinous act was committed by those who envy our splendor, trying to make our people timid and afraid.

I should tell them: 'But they're doomed to fail. Columbia will never be defeated. No conspiracy can stop the Lamp and Star from shining bright in the west.'

And then, Columbians will eagerly turn their taxes into guns again?

Everything that they fervently devoted to Propeller Paradise, all those sky stocks, and the spinning propeller hats, will turn into shields and swords.

When the smoke clears, the empty sky will be more inflammatory than any speech.

Is the soot playing tricks on my eyes?

I see it as well as you do, Mr. Vice President.

As do millions of people here in D.C.

......

......

Message from Maylander, sir.

Propeller Paradise has stopped moving toward the capital. It is now headed for the southeastern border, accelerating.

Maylander believes they are trying to escape Columbia, which would be an act of treason.

Mechanized units on the border are moving to cut off Propeller Paradise's potential routes.

More importantly, the unknown object in the sky has already been locked on by our defensive artillery deployed along the District's route.

With your speech about to begin, they want to hear how you define it.

The Department of Defense recommends opening fire immediately, and sticking with the current narrative. Maylander has raised the possibility of conveying a different message through the survival of this facility.

But they have also noted the risks of doing so. The facility was created by Rhine Lab, after all.

Before they do anything, I would like to get a good look at this thing myself.

A tree?

A tree.

Rhine certainly has style, doesn't it? A tree-shaped facility. Do you know what it is?

I have no idea. I suppose I'm just here to lighten the mood while you vent about Rhine.

Heh. Well, it doesn't matter.

What it is will soon stop mattering to the people, just like that balloon that couldn't fly.

In the DOD's game, it will become an infant slaughtered by knights, an envoy killed by the Witch King. Its fall will drive the rise of the people's wrath.

In Maylander's proposal, it will become the next symbol of the Columbian spirit, its silhouette printed on every hat that leaves the factories for the next decade.

Is that so? All I see is a tree.

You see those fowlbeasts, brushing their feathers and honing their beaks?

They've accepted that it's a tree. A tree that they can roost on.

A tree rising from the wounds of Columbia? How should people understand it?

They don't have to.

Just as you didn't need to understand the mobile mining platform on the wilderness that you skipped classes to watch when you were young.

Did you know if it was carrying a group of ambitious pioneers, or desperate debtors? Did it return with a full load of riches, or was it simply drifting aimlessly?

...Hah.

All I know is that I really didn't want to take a test that day, and the mining platform happened to be chasing the setting sun.

A mining platform chasing the setting sun, and a flying tree.

They're not so different, are they?

What is your position, Mr. Vice President?

I'm the vice president of the Columbian Union. With this position, comes responsibility.

I can't skip classes to watch a mining platform chase the setting sun, like I used to.

Still...

That was, indeed, what made me feel something about the soil of Columbia for the first time.

If the sky is the soil that nurtures the future of Columbia...

I'm sure there's enough room in it for a flying tree.