Disappearances Linked Back to Statues

[Andromeda]

North Gustaberg – Terin Oric – The troubles in Vana’diel did not wait during the investigation of the Behemoth’s Dominion. I was a little rough for wear in my crossings with a Behemoth, but I survived the encounter and returned to Jeuno only to learn of the reports of mysterious statues appearing on the continents. I was contacted by Qeromna Erumik, who had already done preliminary research into the statues. Horwen- Morwen and I left Jeuno on the first airship bound for Bastok to meet with her.
When we arrived we were quickly in earshot of several rumors passing through the airship port of Bastok. The statues were the talk of the town. Qeromna was waiting for us near the North Gustaberg gate already prepared with packs for our trek. Horwen looked eager for an adventure and Qeromna had a strange glowing smile on her face whispering something about “them getting bigger.” I shrugged it off and took the lead.
The reports and descriptions that Qeromna had gathered placed the statue surprisingly near to Bastok. It was only a short hour walk north of the gate. On our walk we were eyed by several bees and a goblin, but they knew better and ignored us.
At 2:25pm local Bastok time we arrived at the narrow valley that the statue was hidden behind. It was so far off the trade roads that it would be easy for the average traveler to miss. However, when we approached we were not the only ones interested in the statue. There were several other adventures staring at the statue with a vacant look in their eyes. When we approached them none of them responded to our calls and then they suddenly disappeared in a bright light.
We all looked around at each other dumbfounded and confused by what we had just seen. I steadied my hand on the hilt of my sword at my side to ease my nerves as Horwen bravely approached the statue. Qeromna was immediately set on guard drawing back her long bow ready to strike if anything suspicious happened. As Horwen slowly inched closer to the statue I pulled myself back together and remembered my Protect spell to aid Horwen.
Horwen’s tiny Taru-Taru hands were nearly in arms reach of the statue when he stopped. He quickly summoned shadow clones of himself not taking any chance. The moments passed so utterly slow for all of us making me feel my own heart pounding in my chest as Horwen reached out to the status. I prayed that we would all not disappear like the adventures before us to be lost to the void away from Altana’s sight.
Horwen touched the statue and then jumped back readying his katanas looking like he was feeling provoked. Qerumna and I both took a step back trying to keep our anxiety at bay. In the silence Qerumna’s bow string was singing from her shaking hand. “I think its-“ Horwen was unable to finish his sentence as Qerumna yelped out loud and released her arrow with her eyes closed. Dead silence filled us again as I stared at the arrow sticking through Horwen with a surprised and shock expression on his face. Qerumna screamed and fell over when she opened her eyes seeing that she had shot her comrade.
“Safe…” Horwen said stepping around his shadow clone corpse looking very pale. “Watch-aru where you aiming-waiming!”
Once I was able to breath again I rushed over to Qerumna trying to focus my mind on a cure, but found that I was still too panicked to concentrate. “Qerumna! Wake up! You didn’t kill Horwen.” Unfortunately, the Mithra was passed out soundly holding her tail and making noises.
Since she was unharmed I walked over to the statue with Horwen to get a closer look at it. There seemed to be no reaction to our presence, but all the while I could feel a strange aura coming from it. Horwen said that he felt the same thing, but could not understand it. The disappearance of the adventurers continued to puzzle us as we poked the statue and performed various tests on it.
We were about to give up on it and drag Qerumna back to Bastok when suddenly three adventurers appeared out of the air landing on us flattening Horwen and me to the hard grass of Gustaberg. After apologies were exchanged by everyone involved I noticed that these were different adventurers from the ones we saw disappear a few hours before. I asked them where they had come from and their answer still baffles me.
“We came from another one of these statues about twenty years in the past during the Crystal War.” I spoke with all of the adventurers individually and each gave me same unbelievable story. I dug deeper asking them how they were able to use the statue when it did not react to us. “There are three statues near Jeuno that you must visit first. The others seem to be locked initially until you use them from the past. After you travel through them you can use them for two way travel.”
I stood before them stunned by the amount of information that I got from them. They seemed to have business in Bastok and were making use of the statues for faster travel than airship. Horwen and I looked back at each other as they left still confused and in awe that the adventurers had already figured out the purpose of the statues when the governments had not even been able to. This leads me to two conclusions: one the governments already knew and are withholding the information or they have been unable to make progress while adventurers have.
Nonetheless, we could both agree that there was not going to be any further information gained from the statue behind us. We decided that it was best to call it a day and picked up Qerumna, still asleep in the grass. We arrived back in Bastok as the sun was going down making the decision to rest at the inn before heading for Jeuno the next day.
There were still plenty of mysteries to be solved about these statues and the answers seemed to be in Jeuno. This was far from over.

Editor’s Note: We apologize once again for the unprofessional writing of our reporter and their pay has been withheld-aru as penalty.