Final Fantasy Altera III

**Final Fantasy Altera III** is a Story Arc of the the Exteria Multiverse. It takes place in Ultyma, in the subplane of Materra, and follows the perspective of young messiah Vallha.

## Main Arc

### A Divine Calling

Young peasant girl Vallha is one day contacted by the mystical Eldea, a Deity who presides over the **Windhurst** region's Eldean Church. Marked as a messiah, Vallha is asked to accomplish a pilgrimage and perform miracles by binding powerful Archangels, called Holy Scions, to her. She promptly accepts her role and embarks on her journey, guided by faith alone.

On the first day of her pilgrimage, she is captured and nearly raped by a group of thugs, led by the young Chac; however, Vallha performs magic for the first time, using a form of Divine Magic that feeds on blood, in order to eradicate them, only sparing a terrified Chac; she then offers him redemption, allowing him to join her as she embarks on her pilgrimage.

### Pilgrims of Light and Dark

While Vallha starts connecting with Divine Scions, powerful summonable beasts that fight by her side, she is attacked by an enigmatic masked figure, Eris; however, instead of striving to defeat and punish her, Vallha instead agrees to listen to Eris's point of view and even leaves the Church's supervision, choosing to heed Eris's warning and explanations. Eris unmasks, revealing herself to be a scarred mercenary.

Eris explains that the so-called miracles performed by Eldea are fueled by mortal blood, and Eris's own army was decimated as a blood sacrifice performed by a powerful Paladin of the church, Cidolfia Feledren. As a result, Eris has sworn vengeance against the Church; however, Vallha, quick to understand her, agrees to confront Cidolfia herself, and asks of Eris to come alongside her; intrigued, Eris agrees.

Vallha keeps binding herself to more Scions, encountering several allies in the process: Genji, a fallen mercenery turned into a guardian angel by Eldea's magic; Magdalen, a holy inquisitor who devoted herself to the Church of Eldea, partly due to her natural thirst for blood; and Ilion Lancastere, a high-ranked member of the **Lancastere** region, Windhurst's rivals, a more modern region in constant war with Windhurst.

### Somber Revelations

During her pilgrimage, Vallha discovers ancient, cursed black gemstones, **Godsbane stone**, dangerous weapons of times past able to wound scions; further investigation, and help from the mysterious Orcus, allows Vallha to piece back the church's past: once, a deity named Omne once ruled over the plane, but she was wounded by Godsbane stone and disappeared, leaving her chief angel Eldea alone.

Since then, Eldea has maintained a frail equilibrium in Omne's stead, using blood sacrifices to compensate for the world's lack of magic, blessing the world and attempting to grant mankind's wishes in a desperate fashion. Understanding Eldea's suffering, Vallha resolves to save her, and continues on her pilgrimage. During her travel, she encounters Cidolfia and confronts her, but Cidolfia refuses to acknowledge the suffering she causes.

Vallha and Cidolfia's rivality escalates to the point that Cidolfia starts using Godsbane stone, anathema to her own religion, in order to stand a chance against Vallha; this escalates as a major conflict in the middle of the Lancastere-Windhurst war, culminating in both Vallha and Cidolfia summoning Scions to face off one against the other. Vallha ultimately comes victorious, leaving Cidolfia to meditate and seek change.

### Clash of the Divine

During said pilgrmage, Vallha stumbles upon a chapel dedicated to Temperance Virtue, who offers to grant a wish to Vallha if she proves her worth. Vallha does so, showing her dedication and asking for Temperence to allow her to save Eldea without sacrificing the entire world to do so. Temperence agrees, and allows Vallha to proceed, after warning her about Orcus.

Ultimately, Vallha ends her pilgrimage by facing off against Eldea, swearing to cleanse and purify her. After her victory, Vallha uses her wish and ascends, granting magic back to the world and saving Eldea from her self-inflicted despair. As she becomes a fragment of Omne's powers, Vallha is interrupted by Orcus, who reveals himself to be Omne's thirteenth Divine Scion, Zodiark.

Zodiark taunts Vallha by claiming that he was the one who killed Omne - and that she foresaw it and chose to let Zodiark act, thus proving that Omne actually wanted to die. Vallha however refutes that claim, and faces off against Zodiark, defeating him even after he absorbs the full power of Godsbane he created. After his defeat, Vallha cleanses the world, ending the tradition of blood sacrifice and allowing Eldea and herself to watch over the world.

## Characters

* Vallha
* Chac
* Genji
* Eris
* Ilion Lancastere
* Magdalen Lancastere
* Cidolfia Feledren
* Orcus

## Trivia

* This storyline bears strong inspiration from Final Fantasy XII's Esper system.