Final Fantasy XIV: The Winter Calamity

I, Winter Modi, declared myself to be a genius.

'Natron.'

One could say that a man who changed his mind often, was a man that lacked commitment. However I'd call that summary foolish. A nimble mind is quick to find solutions to impossible problems. And my mind was nimble as hell.

I needed that wine. There were not many ways to easily make money in XIV in the first place, yet I stumbled upon a solution to my long term woes. Another route of supplemental income that could work along-side my earnings from Rowena. But I ran into hurdle after hurdle trying to make this plan work. It wasn't until I returned to my office, deep within the holy bowels of the Arcanists' "guild", that I could organize my thoughts and sketch out the solution. A set of divine writings that would rob this star of its coin.

'Silex... 3 parts.'

I could steal the barrels, but unless I was interested in spending months on months, slowly filling bottles with wine, the precious contents would go bad. Hiring help wasn't an option, just like I couldn't use help to steal directly rather than Transposing. 

I could apply runic paper to the bottles somehow, but that came with its own problems. Before I tried carving stones, naturally I tried making paper and leather scrolls. 

Long story short, it didn't work. It was the act of carving that created channels for Aether to flow. Paper was too thin to carve. And while leather could be carved, the channels would erode with no time at all. It was impossible for the leather scroll to hold Aether for even a second.

And even if I did succeed find a way to apply my runes to paper, most likely through the use of a special ink that I hadn't discovered yet, I'd have to apply those paper slips to the bottles. Each and every one. 

'Carbon Fiber. Shit. That's definitely a Garlean material. I have to smuggle it somehow.'

Not an impossible problem to solve. The Garlean Empire was corrupt just like every other empire was. Plenty of citizens would gladly trade away scrap or raw bulk materials for enough gil without asking questions. Life was harder under their thumb. They'd be willing to make certain risks.

I wrote a note under Carbon Fiber to establish a strong supply line, or perhaps even just stock a warehouse of the stuff so full that I'd never need more until A Realm Reborn was over. Then I continued with my notes.

Don't make the mistake of assuming I could take away an entire palette of wine by attaching Transpose to the container wine rack. Even moving a barrel of the stuff would've been an issue requiring precise binding runes, else I'd get the barrel and no wine. Or perhaps just one plank from the barrel. Let alone a god damned wine rack, with individual bottles in each pocket. 

All of this happening under the watchful eyes of Wineport's guards? I may as well just kill them all and steal whatever they had in stock like an idiot. I'd lose my golden goose, become wanted, and likely earn the scorn of everyone who found out. 

'7 Water Crystals.'

I likewise couldn't carve the glass, that I was hesitant to even call glass. It felt more like crystal. Truly the pinnacle of luxury. Such a fine and expensive glass was naturally fragile and obnoxiously thin.

It could barely survive a normal trip on a merchant vessel. Let alone a trip through Aetheric space. And then the landing. Even on the softest pile of leaves, I'd have issues. 

So, what was a genius Rune Knight to do? Tweak the conditions a bit of course! I just needed to move the wine into a different glass. One that could be Transposed. And I would make the winery themselves do the bottling! 

Did I go mad? Did I pull an illusion technique out of my ass? Suddenly, I developed Sharingan? Unfortunately, my methods were the tools of mortals. Market forces and luxury demands. 

My buyers were the very same ones that would purchase relics from Rowena. Nobility and Scions. Old money that hoarded their wealth in luxurious assets that normal people could not have. They didn't think or purchase wisely. That was the habit of a man with no gil. Like me. 

No, they threw their cash around at expensive things because they were expensive. When you were that rich, you could spend all day throwing money off the side of your mansion by the bucket load, and still not make a dent in your wealth. In fact, the money came in faster than you could spend it.

'7 Lightning Crystals.'

That was the kind of person who dared to waste precious coin on bullshit like wine that they wouldn't drink. Art that they didn't look at. Fabrics that they didn't wear. Furniture that they never sat on. Even their so-called philanthropy was just an instinctual guise to help them feed other rich people money. 

They'd keep their circles small and local, surprisingly enough, that meant just other rich people. They'd fuck each others sisters. Buy each other's products. And use each other's services.

Those people weren't just my clients. At some point they had infiltrated the winery supply line and injected their bullshit glass bottles. Wine was not picky. In ancient times they put wine in clay jars and did just fine. Light was the enemy, but the solution was a cellar. Who gave a damn what container wine was in? These crazy fucks did.

They're drinking their own supply. So who the hell was I to step in and, say, replace their glass bottles with Daemon bottles? Hahaha! 

Who made glass on Eorzea? Alchemists. 

And which Rune Knight just so happened to also be an Alchemist? A damned good one at that? 

I had my solution. A special dark glass, rather than etched with runes in secret, it was cast-molded around runes as its design. A feature, not a bug. It would be novel to anyone who didn't know what runes were. A luxury design that those assholes could swallow up. I'd make it out of tempered glass. Easy to Transpose. 

I could even add an Astral Transpose to the inside. Allowing me to directly steal away the wine into a massive glass tank to store on tap! With a second Astral Transpose lining, I could replace the wine with water! They could keep the bottles on the shelf and no one would know that the contents were different! 

They weren't drinking the wine anyways! Who was to say that I couldn't pull it off! 

That wasn't the end of my dastardly trick either! My Suns of Yda required funds for recruitment, gear, and operation costs for them to fulfill the purpose that I had set them up for. I also wanted to provide them a full salary and turn this church into a profitable business venture, backed by the Daemon Company.

For this, I would use the tactic we commonly fed into back home. Bottled water. In particular, bottled, luxury, holy water.

Sun Tap, a tap water, infused with a splash of potion and maybe a bit of salt to help replenish electrolyte levels, that we'd bottle up into these luxurious glasses, and sell to collectors. We'd sell vials of the stuff to normal adventurers to help spread the word of its effectiveness. Nothing was better at marketing than a person who fought on the edge of life and death as a day job.

Going on a long journey and feel yourself getting dizzy with fatigue? Sun Tap!

Delving into the deepest of caves and take a minor wound to your finger? Sun Tap!

Hours on hours of training with heavy equipment on, got you down and out? Sun Tap!

Feeling restless, scared of the quality of your normal city water in these trying times? Sun Tap!

Be blessed! Come one, come all! This wasn't your average everyday snake oil! It was blessed snake oil!

The plan I had written looked like the ravings of a lunatic on the paper, but I knew it made sense. With Sun Tap, I could pique the interest of Wineport's luxury makers and market our special bottles to their Vineyards for use. We could work out a cheapened contract as long as they buy in bulk, and we could organize an even more favorable contract as long as they exclusively used us to bottle their works.

After the Calamity, perhaps I could buy up that very same set of makers and lease out the seeds to continue my scheme after I had emptied my wine stores and only had the seeds left. Then I wouldn't even need to steal the wine. I could just be a luxury wine seller.

Sun Tap glass bottles could begin being manufactured in bulk. The symbols on the inside could be crafted by any skilled Artisan, but without the receiving rune, they couldn't do anything at all. I'd need to add such a thing into the design. With a team of these fuckers working around the clock to earn a fraction of the Sun Tap income I'd be pulling in, my plan could start rolling further downhill. If someone stole the design? Made no difference to me, as they'd all get Transposed into my gargantuan cellar one way or another.

Even if, among the fleet, someone inscribed the bottles incorrectly, in the best case, the Transpose just wouldn't work. In the worst case, the bottle would break in the hands of a drinker and slightly damage our reputation.

It was unlikely, as these bottles were tempered. Tempered glass could be even harder than stone. And in addition, our clientele wouldn't be drinking that often anyways. We could always just blame them, or sell insurance for their bottles. Old money feared losing it all just as much as they feared helping people that weren't rich.

Who's to say that I couldn't also make special Daemon gil pouches? Hahaha! A luxury and stylish bag for the new money, a gaggle of kids and quickly made millionaires were always looking for ways to display and show off their new found riches. Anything to hide that deep insecurity that they all shared.

Yet another product line that I could do in collaboration with Rose, sharing our profits and making us both richer. Sun Tap could expand into an alternative brand called Noveau Rich, an on the nose and obnoxiously loud bottled water that would be spun into aggressive marketing. Just like Sun Tap, it was made to be drank, but instead of salt, we'd sprinkle in one of the most addictive, yet legal substances that humanity had wrestled with for thousands of years.

Sugar.

Hell, it wouldn't be difficult to run such an operation in lockstep with the Botanists of Gridania. We could flavor Noveau Rich with different berry flavors and bring income that the city-state, and by proxy, my Kan-E, would need to fend off the insane amount of poachers that would invade those woods after the Calamity.

Transpose, an early Thaumaturge spell that was quickly overlooked in favor of just raw dogging your casts for reduced downtime, turned out to be so powerful?! It couldn't move much all at the same time, but with those 8 small runes, anyone could be a super star! Any bottle could be a Daemon bottle! Any gil pouch could swap their cash with rocks!

Ah dammit! You got pick-pocketed by terrible thieves once more?! What an annoyance! Well, we here at the Daemon Company also sell Daemonic Security Pouches as well! If these get picked, then you have a serious target on your back! You might also need our Daemonic Jackets, 100 times the price of a pouch, to help you protect yourself!

It's not as if they'd be missing the money they lost! They were rich! Fill that void! Suppress the isolation and existential dread! Buy, buy, buy!

I would feed them poison and sell them the "cure", while suppressing their medicine!

Who's the Genius?! This guy! Who?! THIS GUY! THIS GUY IS A GENIUS! ME-ME-ME!

Only one problem with that however. 

'Glass Fiber. Fuck.'

That wasn't an easy thing to get. Or rather it was cheap, but out of reach for most people. Glass fibers could be bought from a Moogle. A Moogle located in Moghome. A town of them, that sat within the Churning Mists. 

What and where were the Churning Mists? They were the ancestral home of Moogles and Dragons. Located high above Ishgard. Deep in the Dravanian Hinterlands.

Normally I'd ditch the idea. I had a nimble mind after all. I could find another way to steal that wine. But guess which spoiled old woman made those Hinterlands her home? 

Matoya.

Perhaps fate did exist? Why the hell did such an objective pop up like that? This was basically written in the god damned stars. Fate had brought this opportunity to me and said "Your future hangs in the balance!"

I had to march through Ishgard without being snatched up for sudden heresy, secure a special breed of Chocobo that Ishgard raised, one capable of flight, then take that Chocobo to the Dravanian Hinterlands, and then fly even higher Heavensward to make contact with the Moogles of Moghome.

Me, a bastard that couldn't even take down the first primal, was obviously below level 10, had to evade dangers within three post-50 zones? I had to intrude on the domain of Hraesvelgr, of the First Brood, and make a deal under his nose? All the while, his obsessively dangerous brother, Nidhogg, would be raging god knows where? 

I could get on my knees and beg to be teleported directly to Matoya, but I already knew how she'd reply to Louisoix's letter. How could I not know the thoughts of my favorite character? 

'Sure. I'll teach him. But he must walk.'

"Hahahaha."

Oh my god.