Alma opened her eyes and nearly collapsed, but Ramza caught her.
“Are you alright?” he asked his sister intently.
“…no worse for wear.” She replied.
Speculating what to do next, Ramza came up with an idea, "We already have five Zodiac stones and their bearers...we have two more to look for, that makes seven, the numerical value of a cycle is seven...! If we find the two stones and their bearers…”
“We're going to jump through time, just like our old friend Cloud did!” Alma finished.
"Who's Cloud?" Delita asked, "And what do you mean time jump?"
"Cloud was an ally of ours who was summoned into the past by a strange time machine that Besrodio found. Unfortunately the machine broke after pulling Cloud through. He was trapped here until Altima sent him back to whatever era he came from. You may get a chance to meet him. I remember he was an excellent swordsman. As far as jumping through time is concerned, I'm not quite sure where we may be going and what for, but I do think it's for the rest of the stones and their bearers."
"Oh so that's it, I thought we were going for a joyride through time--while a bunch of lucavi are trying to hunt us down and kill us!!" Delita spoke with a sarcasm that chilled even him.
“No! I’ve changed, I can’t think like that anymore, I have to trust…” Delita realized he was speaking out of fear, “Sorry Ramza, I…”
“No need, Delita, you did have a point. We have to watch out for those demons.”
"Well, we won’t exactly be time-traveling right away," Alma finally was able to speak again, "we should first focus on finding the two stones....I think I know of a person who may hold both of them, in fact, for the past ten years, they were believed to be stolen heirlooms of her family's."
"Hers?" Beowulf said curiously.
Alma continued, "For numerous months while Ramza studied at Garland Officer Academy, I went to a type of nobility school for girls. I made friends with the girl who would be Garnet Til' Alexandros XIV, we went everywhere together in school.” Alma twittled her fingers and smiled when thinking of her friend.
“In fact right now she is the current Queen of Alexandria. She once showed me two stones that she had in her possession an aquamarine and a garnet, her favorite. I looked at them closely and they had the symbols of Pisces and Scorpio on them. I asked her what she thought they meant, but she was unsure...a few days later she said that someone had stolen her stones, she was really upset about it.”
“That seems to be how we ended up with the stones for a time, when they vanished after the battle I had wondered where they all went. The time I spent with Altima inside my body gave me a sixth sense as to how to identify the holy stones and where they were, even sometimes disguised as regular smooth rocks. I had only heard just recently that Garnet had found her two stones again and was celebrating with a play by the Tantalus Theatre Troupe in Alexandria.”
"So that's why Ramza told us to go to Alexandria! He knew the stones would be there!" Delita seemed to have a renewed excitement for travel in search of these stones, it was definitely better than worrying about a bunch of demons hunting them down.
After a long pause, Beowulf spoke up, "the sooner we get to Alexandria, the sooner we evade the lucavi. So I say we should leave Bervenia now, I'll round up the chocobos."
After the brief rest under a huge tree, Ramza, Delita, Reis, Beowulf, Alma, Agrias, and Gildenstern mounted their chocobos and left Bervenia heading southeast along the southern tip of the Finath River to where they knew the river would open out into the Great Black Sea. Little did they know that dark shadows were following them at incredibly high speeds. The shadows were moving at such a fast rate that they created a windy blur out of the corner of Delita's eye.
"Something tells me we're not alone, Ramza, lets branch out and lose these Creeps."
"Reis, Alma, Gildenstern, come with me! Beowulf, Agrias, you follow Delita! And split up!" Ramza barked.
The groups split up into two pathed underbrush sections each circling about, trying to reach an open area with no overhead brush for the shadows to hide in. Ramza's party thought they had found a clearing to fight the monsters in when suddenly a massive Creeps swelled like a wall surrounding them.
"Master Ramza, this doesn't look good," Gildenstern commented.
"We'll have to find a way to break through..." Ramza said as he slashed at the shadow, which when it was cut at seemed to repel his sword strikes like a rubber band. At this point, even the chocobos where nervous, bucking off their riders and running through the shadow since no chocobo could be harmed by darkness.
"I'll find a way out," Reis said as she took two bounds and tried to out-jump the shadow. But the giant Creeps created a large rubbery ceiling trapping the warriors.
"Alma! Try Holy! Maybe that will work!" Ramza encouraged.
"I'll back her up!" Gildenstern cast a quick calculation casting both Haste on the party to keep them going and Slow on the shadow, which worked.
"Light in Darkness, pierce this dome, Light of life, make your presence known! Holy!" A huge column of light erupted from Alma's hands as she said this but the light was caught like a baseball and bounced around the dark room.
"It casts Reflect?" Ramza was surprised but unmoving and about to attack again when he heard a muffled cry from outside the black Creeps wall.
"Pierce this darkness with your light--Legend!" A white gleaming slice appeared in the hide of the giant shadow and there was an immense cry of pain. A huge hole now appeared where the slice was made and outside was Delita in his white gleaming armor.
"Good to see you're still alive! Now hurry! This thing's about to collapse in on itself!"
The group quickly rushed out to what they thought was freedom but instead came to realize that a second Creeps shade was beginning to slither around them like a boa constrictor.
"No way out..." was all Ramza could manage to say as the shadow began to close in on the group. It was about that time when the party began to press up against themselves for support forcing their blades outward to try and pierce the dark thing. When out of nowhere a chain ladder dropped out of the sky above their heads. A loud shrill whistle directed their attention upwards when they saw floating just above the shadow--a giant airship!
"I-I thought airships didn't exist..?" Delita stammered.
"Well, you coming aboard or what?" boomed a loud voice.
Ramza didn't know what to make of it but it was the only option, "Come on guys! Let's get out of here!"
Delita set up a defensive stance, "You go first, I'll back you up.."
With that the party quickly climbed up into the floating vessel, Delita being the last one coming aboard was slashing away at the tendrils of the shadow.
"Eat holy sword, Creeps!" as he fired an energy wave at the creature with his sword. This made the creature run around in confusion.
