The Castle in the Heavens

Up in the sky, a floating castle soared, chained to the ground with moss covered shackles, the temple overlooked the Land of Clashing Stories and at the edge of the castle, Golbez levitated, his feet inches off the ground, and arms folded across his chest. "I see unto the land and must make the best of the situation." he says to himself. "Barbariccia and Cagnazzo is to come and greet our heroes' arrivals, but maybe I was to rash in not sending Scarmiglione instead." he pondered and unfloded his arms and held his right hand out to the land. He then closed his grip and put the closed hand up to his face as he lowered it. "Brother Cecil, has another war drug us together? Or is war not without resolve?" he asked himself and folded his arms across his chest again and watched over the land, forests occupied almost everything below, but out aways was an open praire, something like the Calm Lands of Final Fantasy X. Seeing out onto the land, the castle must've been at least miles high, something of a feet for ground untis to climb as the only course of travel is either the moss covered chains or the harsh, westerly winds that blow out bleow it and onto the forests Golbez sought on.

Golbez looks out on the land again and turns around to see the Warrior of Light. "Golbez, what bussiness have you here?" he asks and Golbez looks away from him and out towards the direction Barbariccia and Cagnazzo are.
"I've come to see this beautiful land. My life, torn into shambles because of Zemus. Forgive me, for I am not a prisoner of darkness. During the war of the Gods, I was truely helping the warrior of cosmos, believe me, but what tretcheries I've done to end up under Chaos." Golbez responded and WoL walked up to him and smiled.
"Don't tear over the past, Golbez. Amends can be made. Free yourself from that armor of darkness and show the people of light that light can overcome darkness." WoL responded and Golbez turn his back towards WoL.
"If I'm to do that, then allow me to use the way my brother taught me. Allow me to use darkness and light to defeat evil?" Golbez asked and WoL grinned in acceptance.
"Please, make it up to Cecil. He's not the only one that needs you, Theodore." WoL responded and Golbez turned around in shock, but the warrior was gone.
"Theodore... *hmph*" he grunted turning back to the land, "maybe it's time to return?" he asked himself and watched the wind take commond of the trees.

Yuna walks around and finds herself in a castle. She looks around with her dress spheres ready and her hands near her guns. Yuna walks up the stairs and opens the door she sees first. She takes her guns out and says, "Who are you and where am I?" Yuna aims at their heads and puts on a serious face.

(I had no idea where to start. I could edit this....)

Golbez turned around and saw the woman pointing a gun at his helmet and sighed. "Young woman. I'd not do such a thing in the state that this world is in. You've been summoned here for a reason." he said and looked up at the sky. It looked like the skies back at the Blue Planet. "What is your name young miss? You may call me Golbez." he said politely and bowed to her.

"Yuna? Very well." Golbez said and looked up at the sky yet again. You were summoned here... because of, yet, another's inconvenience... he thought and looked down at her. "I don't know exactly; I'm also wondering how I came to be here." he lied and pointed his hand at her and from behind appeared a crystal immitation of Yuna. "Behind you!" he shouted and jumped towards her at pushed his hand at the crystal Yuna and pulsed some kinetic air at it sending it flying back a little. "This is your fight, Lady Yuna." he said and floated back to his original position.

Balthier was a man of many talents, or so he liked to tell himself. As it happened, his general agility and comparative fleetness were serving him well in one sense and not so well in another. His own climbing speed was quick, and only the fact that he was occasionally compelled to examine the area with his Libra technik, just to make sure there were no traps anywhere, hindered his progress up the massive chain.

Unfortunately, the same lean form that made climbing easy also made the gusts of wind that ripped about them with increasing fervor as they ascended troublesome, and the cold was beginning to make his grip numb. Nevertheless, it wasn't quite as frigid here as Paramina Rift, and though his lightly-bronzed hands began to take on a red cast, he paid it as little heed as possible.

The air was thin, all the way up here, but it probably wouldn't have been all that bad if the four of them weren't in the middle of some rather grueling exercise. He checked below him frequently; the others were keeping good pace with varying degrees of difficulty, but nobody seemed on the verge of collapse, so he pressed onwards.

Fran, for her part, was keeping herself consciously a few steps behind the Hume child. While certainly holding out quite well, all things considered, he was the least-adept climber amongst them, and should he fall, she wished to be in a position to do something about it. Even now, the float spell was on the tip of her tongue; it would do none of them any good as a climbing aid, since it didn't work too far vertically, but should he begin to slip, it would slow his descent enough for her to catch him somehow.

The viera herself was not suited to excessively cold temperatures; her species had evolved for a near-tropical forest, and her ears let heat escape a good deal faster than a Hume's would. Adding to her discomfort, the plates of metal that protected various parts of her person were growing chilly, and the wind was slicing against the bare skin that remained, which, if one were to be realistic (as Fran was wont to do) was quite a lot to begin with. None of this made it to her carefully-neutral expression, however, and it would have been difficult to tell she was uncomfortable at all.

****

What must have been a mile of chain later, Balthier pulled himself up onto a solid surface at last. He had a feeling that Light was not the type to appreciate a hand up, but he squatted at the edge of the precipice anyway, there in case anyone should seem to need one. "Well," he offered to the general audience, "we appear to have reached our destination."

Once everyone was up, with or without the sky pirate's assistance, he turned to the massive castle gates and straightened his shirtsleeves whilst giving the place a surreptitious once-over, scanning for likely points of escape. Such things were long ingrained in his nature; even as an Imperial Judge Magister he'd been told that knowing the terrain was one of the best advantages a person could have. In the case of thievery, it wasn't so much knowing the terrain as knowing the way to escape it, but the principle was the same.

Glancing at the others, he cocked an eyebrow. "I don't suppose any of you have an objection to simply knocking?" There were a number of visible ways to infiltrate the place more clandestinely, but it seemed more prudent to know exactly what they were dealing with first.

"Hmm..." Balthier's lips pursed as he scanned the facade of the castle once more. There were a few ways it might work, but even so... he was uncertain whether or not an intrusion would be detectable somehow. he had no knowledge of the technology of this world, after all, nor its magicks. Nevertheless, what Light said made sense; he personally was not against covert methods of operation. On the contrary, they were a favorite of his.

"Very well then. I imagine our best shot will be one of those windows." He indicated the stained-glass affairs that seemed to line the building at a height of about fifteen feet or so. The walls beneath were relatively smooth and would be hard to climb on, but there were ways around that, if one was clever enough. Luckily, present company did not seem to be lacking in this quality by any means. "I suggest we toss Hope here at one of them. If he thinks he is able, he could grab the sill and climb up. There has to be a back door somewhere that he could unlock for us..." trailing off in thought, he began to circle the building and after a few minutes found what he was looking for.

"Ah. A servants' entrance. This will do nicely. It need not be Hope that we boost up, of course, but his size would make it a fair bit easier to fit." There was no insult in the comment about the boy's height, merely a practical observation. He turned to face the others and shrugged nonchalantly. If it came right down to it, it could easily be any of them; he himself would be quite suited for picking any locks he might encounter, but he knew not the skill sets of either of his companions, beyond that they were both skilled in a fight.

Fran simply remained impassive. Balthier was easily the leader of their duo, but only because she was content to follow. He was not a fool, and in Ivalice, his knowledge of many useful things exceeded her own. In this, she had no reservations allowing him to do as he saw fit. If they wanted to sneak in, she would assist. If they chose instead to enter through the front door, she would prepare for a possible confrontation. Matters were as simple as that.

"Right then, time to see about getting this done." Balthier turned to his partner and cocked an eyebrow. "Which of these windows would you recommend, my dear?"

Fran regarded him steadily for a moment. He was so flippant sometimes that she simply couldn't understand it. Being of a more serious disposition herself, she understood not what moved him to make light of grave situations. Had it been the sort of thing that ever caused him to be more reckless than was appropriate, she would probably have found another companion in the world of Humes. As it was, she knew that underlying it was a wit sharper than most of his kind could boast, and thus she largely ignored it.

Closing her crimson eyes, the woman felt about for any lingering mists, or sign of habitation. "There is at least one within," she said dully, "but if we enter from the east side, they will be unlikely to know of our approach." As thieves, she and Balthier were well-used to entering hostile spaces, and this sort of stealth advantage was actually rare. Usually, there were guards to contend with. The fact that there were not in this case did not put Fran at ease; rather, it made her a twinge uncomfortable for all its strangeness, a fact that Balthier would be quick to detect.

Rather than comment on this, though, the man simply selected an eastern window and knelt upon one knee, cupping his hands to form a foothold for Hope, the obvious intention being to throw him at the windowsill, where he might catch hold and enter the castle proper. Fran, for her part, turned her back on the whole operation and attuned her senses to the entrance, just in case something should come by with the intent to surprise or ambush them.

Fran's ears picked up the unsubtle sound of footsteps, and red eyes snapped immediately to the source, a young man walking towards the group, apparently without any regard for stealth. She would perhaps have alerted the others, but Balthier would likely not have failed to notice his approach.

Indeed, when the viera turned slightly to address her partner just in case he had gotten distracted by something, she observed that he had already risen to his feet and was coming to stand beside her. The sky pirate crossed his arms over his chest and raised an eyebrow. "A friend of yours, Fran?" he asked in a deceptively light tone.

At the roll of her eyes, he flashed her the quickest of wry smiles and turned to the new man, who had just spoken. "What are we up to? Well, now... I do suppose the answer to that question depends primarily on what you are up to. If you are a guard or sentinel of this place, then I suppose we were just leaving. If not, we are entering, yes?" The very fact that he said as much indicated that he had a fairly good idea which was true, and Fran personally wished he would have just said as much. As usual, however, he was being unnecessarily facetious. Really, he was lucky she was the most patient of souls.

"A sentinel? No, I don't even know where here is. One minute I'm in the Shinra Building's VR training room and now I'm in this place." Zack replied in a quieter tone. "If I had known an infiltration was underway, I would've used a more stealthful approach. I'm sorry." He added, scratching the back of his head. The one with the rabbit ears was almost glaring at him, while the man in the fancy dress clothes was giving him a once over with a contemplicative smirk. "Maybe I can be of assistance? Zack Fair, Soldier, First Class." He introduced himself with an extended hand and a happy-go-lucky grin.