Busi Goes Blue (or How to be a Blue Mage in Eorzea) – Spell 1: Blood Drain [FFXIV Fanfic]

Summary: What can the magic of blue do for you? Well, for Cocobusi it offered a chance to become a mage like he’d always wanted. Even if it wasn’t the same magic that his brothers could use, it was still worth a shot… right?

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Blood Drain

Two of the more commonly found creatures lurking the lands are the beastkin classified as Bats and vilekin known as Chigoe. They subsist on the lifeblood of others, taking in both nutrients and aether at once to fuel themselves. And as a Blue Mage, you can do the same with the spell: Blood Drain.

Contrary to its name, the caster doesn’t actually drain blood in the same manner as these species would do to those they prey upon. Instead, the spell simply rips the very aether from their bodies, contracting the aetheric channels to strangle the life from them in the process of depositing it right into your own inner reserves. No superstitious, vampiric urge to drink blood while frothing at the mouth involved.

Best of all, because it doesn’t rely on blood itself, it works on anything that possesses aether—making this rendition superior to the original.

The Whalaqee themselves ensure that all who use blue magic are capable of using this spell as both a means of weakening their quarry and keeping themselves able to cast their magic. Therefore, it should be a priority for you to do the same. As such I’ve catalogued the different species that one can learn this spell from in Eorzea and their locations as follows…

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The Blind Iron Mines were surprisingly well-lit as Cocobusi ventured into the cavern past the checkpoint leading from Middle La Noscea.

Getting past the checkpoint had presented a minor setback as the guards were a little wary of some of the items he had, as typically they were only in possession of adventurers. But he managed to get through by presenting his Alchemist’s Guild membership. All the same, he made a note to register with the Adventurer’s Guild before he went back home if his efforts today proved successful—if only to move about easier in the future.

Even so, reservation riddled the readied yet reserved blue mage as he finished going over the pages for the Blood Drain spell for a fifth time. The concept of the spell was simple enough to understand. It was meant to take aether from the foe and use it to fill the wellspring that was your own.

In a way it was similar to the Drain spell that his brothers taught to promising thaumaturges, stealing the very life of the foe and using it to mend physical wounds. He had also heard of an even more refined version used by Arcanists that combined both the aspects of taking the life and aether of the enemy. But, while Blood Drain was less refined than either of them, it was more or less the perfect spell for Cocobusi to acquire first…

At least if not for the unpleasantness associated with it when he remembered his brothers’ tale of what transpired with Mormo. He couldn’t recall what had happened after he opened the lid to the vessel that kept her bound, but he knew that the voidsent had committed many a mage to death. So great was her hunger for aether that she ripped it from their bodies in an effort to reconstitute her own until her physical form was obliterated entirely.

It was an unpleasant thought to know that he’d be willingly using a similar technique to fuel his ambitions once more. But he had no intention of becoming a monster like she had been. He only sought to wield blue magic for the sake of fixing the cruel quirk of fate that had befallen him and standing alongside his brothers—nothing more.

Of course, before he could ponder the potentially perilous path presented by the spell, he had to actually wrest it from the corpse of a Cave Bat.

It was a mostly passive beast from what he could gather. But that didn’t mean that he was confident that he could still best it alone, given his inexperience with this sort of thing. That was why he was in the middle of preparing a trap to tip the scales in his favor.

He poured the remaining contents of a still-warm bottle of Beastkin Blood he had bought with him onto a slab of Mutton Loin before he took shelter out of sight, clutching his cane with clammy hands and waiting for one to be drawn in by the scent. A Cave Bat eventually swooped in and lapped at the blood that had been spilled over it, sampling it and feeling the warmth of the meat that still lingered. He waited until the moment it bit down into the meat, fangs pressing deep until fluids came bubbling out and down its maw.

Then Cocobusi rushed in with a shout to psyche himself up. The Cave Bat broke from its meal at the sudden startle, glowing white eyes catching the motion of the cane as it was swung. Its wings carried it out of the reach of the initial, clumsy attempt. Then they abruptly started spasming and twitching, throwing its flight off before it could do anything else.

Just the results he expected when he laced the blood with a bottle of Weak Paralyzing Potion.

The Jellyfish Humors and Cnida all came from this region and were easy enough to procure, while he had the Quicksilver and the shards himself to use in crafting it. The blood didn’t congeal, masking the potion well enough to fool it into taking a bite. Cocobusi was sure the effects had been diluted, but it should be effective enough to hamper the Cave Bat’s fine motor control and stop it flying away for at least a few moments.

He took a second swing, using the cane like a bludgeon to thwack it with a meaty thump. But the Cave Bat was surprisingly resilient, given that after it whirled in the air for a moment it managed to correct its flight. Then it turned aggressive, chittering and fluttering around his subsequent attempts at hitting it again before swooping in and biting down on his arm.

The sting of the fangs piercing his new outfit and flesh, ripping into the arteries and capillaries beneath it, was something he could tolerate. What he couldn’t was the sensation that followed afterwards. There was a tug, an irresistible pull as it drew from both his circulatory and aetheric channels at once— it was using Blood Drain on him.

“Get off! Get off! Get off!” He slammed the cane into the Cave Bat over and over until he managed to knock it loose, widening the wound that stained the white and blue garments with a spot of crimson.

The Cave Bat screeched menacingly as its fangs that had been dyed with blood were revealed. The taste of sweet nourishment to be found within his flesh was too great a lure for it to flee now. It dove straight for his neck this time and ended up just short when Cocobusi brought his wounded arm up to protect his neck, catching him between his neck and shoulder to sup on his blood once more.

Whacking it with the cane did nothing to deter it as the Cave Bat threatened to suck his aetheric and cardiovascular channels dry, stirred into a frenzy of pain and hunger. If left alone, the Lalafell would soon be a withered husk stumbled upon by some adventurer or miner. Desperate, he dropped his stick reached into his pouch until his fingers found a wide-bodied bottle. He brought the cork to his mouth, popped it off, and then dumped the contents over the bat and the wound alike.

The moment the deep, inky fluid splashed down he felt the stinging sensation of the cnidas that were woven into the Weak Poison Potion piercing down as it took root in them both. The bloodthirsty beastkin’s devouring of his aether was stopped short as its muscles locked into place from the remnants of the paralysis. It gave him a chance to pull it free even as he felt his own arm suffering from the sensation of internal bleeding from the viper’s venom.

Cocobusi then hastily reached for an antidote, a slimmer-bodied bottle that he knew to be somewhere in there. Any good alchemist carried a bottle meant to counteract the potations they made on principle, a safety measure to avoid any unfortunate accidents in the workplace. In this case, he had just the one bottle and hastily guzzled it down before he chugged a Potion as well to quell the burning pain from the wound and staunch the flow of blood.

Afterwards, he scrabbled over the ground for his cane and used it to prop himself up before looking over to the Cave Bat. It was twitching on the ground, spitting out a mix of both its own blood and that it stole. The poison was working for now but, given enough time, its body would fight off the afflictions and become resistant to them. So, to be safe, Cocobusi doused it with another set of maleficent potions.

Then he watched as the two sets of baleful fluids ravaged its tiny form inside and out until the light of its eyes went out as it succumbed.

The alchemist breathed out a sigh of relief that he managed to kill it on his own. Sure, it wasn’t a glamourous way to end a battle. But it was no different than the teachings his brothers preached as Thaumaturges—strike when they couldn’t fight back and from a distance—so he’d like to believe they would be proud of him for that.

The fact that his soul crystal quivered and pulsed only served to reinforce that thought.

The violent, painful death that his cruel concoctions wrought had released the aether from its body when it was at an apex due to the nature of the battle. That aether resonated with his own as it flowed into him, an almost tangible sensation that left him feeling tingly, and the crystal had caught that… hopefully.

He still needed to test it on a living subject, but he had already used up two of the three bane potations that he made with the materials he had on hand. They were so unstable that he didn’t trust them to help him last long enough against another Cave Bat, and he couldn’t use Teleport due to his low levels of anima, which was why he took a ferry to get to Limsa in the first place—meaning he couldn’t get back if he got too hurt to walk.

So, he decided to retreat from the mines while he was still able to with the tainted mutton and made it back to Zephyr Drift around evening, as the sun was starting to set over the water. There were only largely passive beasts within the region, as the more aggressive or dangerous ones were often culled before they got closer to large cities. The perfect kind to practice casting his first spell on.

In this case, a Wharf Rat that had decided to try to eat the mutton that he’d left out as bait. The rodent was large, with a pair of teeth that tore into the meat eagerly to taste whether it was edible or not. Satisfied, it prepared to abscond with the morsel only for its muscles to begin to twitch violently as the last of the paralysis potion that he’d doused it with took hold.

It bought him time to try and cast the spell as he came out of hiding and focused on the rat.

The book said he needed to attune himself to the mind of the beasts to use their spells. That he had to resonate with it. Grasping at the soul crystal, he closed his eyes and tried to envision what would resonate with the aetherial traces within him. What drove the Cave Bat to use Blood Drain on a primitive level?

HUNGER.

That thought bubbled up from the recesses of his mind with suspicious ease, almost enticingly so. He could just envision that it was STARVING, wracked by a desire for nourishment that could only be found in the warm, flowing life blood. Yes, an INSATIABLE need that hollowed out its stomach and gnawed at it from the inside out.  It had to…

The crystal pulsated within his grasp as he concentrated on that feeling. That primal YEARNING, to gorge itself until it was full on the abundance of aether from whatever source it could. The CRAVING could only be quelled by supping on the essence of another and quench the gnawing void within. A FERVENT desire that only grew as pain and hostility left it with a desperate need for succor, to mend the wound and numb the pain.

He lacked the yearning for nourishment that it may have possessed, but there was a fervent desire that he could tie into it akin to an insatiable hunger. That instinctive, desperate urgency to fill in the void and match his brother’s arcane might. The only way to satisfy that desire was for him to… for him to…

TAKE IT!

His eyes shot open as he felt the aetheric reserves within him stir. A pinch of the little anima he possessed gave form to the azure crystals that spun around him, drawing in the ambient aether that had settled in the surrounding plants. The traces were formulated and gave rise to a spell to take its aether for his own.

The Wharf Rat’s twitching body abruptly jerked as motes of warmth-less light bundled together into orbs that burst from its body. The raw and distilled aetheric energy flew towards into Cocobusi’s compact frame, slipping past his clothes and flesh to take root in deeper inside. The concentration was so potent that he could feel as it ran through his own aetheric channels once the prisms faded and the spell came to an end.

“I… I did it.” Looking down at his own hands that trembled, he found himself overcome with excitement and ended up jumping for joy. “I’m a mage now!”

Even if it wasn’t the arcane flames, crackling thunder, or frigid ice that his brothers could bring to bear, it was still a form of aetheric manipulation. It was still magic. He had surpassed the limitation that fate had put upon him and defied it to cast magic where he hadn’t been able to before.

His excitement was only cut short by the menacing squeaking of the Wharf Rat as it rose back up to its feet. Turning aggressive at the attack, it charged towards him with jagged teeth bared and ready to gnaw away at him, only to be knocked away as the fledgling mage hastily swung his cane around to before it could take a bite. It hit the ground with a thump and then stalled as paralyzing potion had yet to be purged entirely from its system.

Cocobusi reached out for that hunger and desire again while he had the chance to cast. He had to prove that it wasn’t just a fluke, a desire that only served to formulate the spell as the blue prisms circled him and drew in aether from the surroundings once more. It only took two seconds before the aether was properly shaped and the spell was cast.

The Wharf Rat’s death throe was audible as the pull of the spell violently collapsed the rodent’s aetheric channels. The magic ripped every last drop from its corpse, death offering up even that which had accumulated within it. The surge was so great that he felt as though his own channels were being pressed from the inside out and threatened to expand.

“I can’t wait to show my brothers…” He said giddily before trailing off after considering his progress to theirs. Even if he could use one spell, it still might not be enough to convince them otherwise that he should be like them. And they might have some reservations about using the same kind of magic as the lying voidsent that had possessed him for a time. “On second thought, maybe II should wait until I get a few more spells?”

Now that he knew for a fact that it worked, he could go out and seek the monsters he could learn spells from to build his repertoire. But, considering everything that happened, he would maybe start small and plan things out a little. He’d pay a visit to the Adventurer’s Guild come morning to see if he could gain any advice.