Final Fantasy XI [2002 Special Art Box]

Mysterious structures referred to as the cavernous maws appear all around Vana'diel. As the adventurer approaches one, it springs to life, absorbing the adventurer and sending them to an unknown location. Once there, the adventurer sees an orifice of an enormous creature in the sky. A voice rings out, asking the adventurer for help and appearing in a blast of energy, revealing a regal feline who sends the adventurer flying over a cliff. The adventurer falls out of this realm, and lands back near the city of Jeuno. Two knights on their chocobos witness a cavernous maw much like the one that appeared before the adventurer but this one is alive and floating. They find the adventurer lying on the ground and bid them to make for safety as the open fields are rife with beastmen. The adventurer discovers they have been sent twenty years into the past directly into the Crystal War when the beastmen and the Allied Forces clashed and the Shadow Lord reigned. Once the adventurer arrives at Crawler's Nest, a fortified location for the Allied Forces, they tell the guard that they are an adventurer. The guard gives the adventurer a letter to be taken to any of the three outer nations. The adventurer becomes a member of their military effort and completes assignments for the nation they took the letter to. After several assignments, the adventurer ends up back at a cavernous maw which absorbs them once again and spits them back out into that strange darkened area from before. The adventurer hears the same voice belonging to the feline who reveals themselves. She tells the adventurer of a prophecy relating to a Harbinger and a champion. She alludes to the adventurer sharing a hidden power to bend time itself but lacks the ability to control it. She tells the adventurer that her mission is to stop the war that rages across the land and asks the adventurer for aid. Once the adventurer agrees, she introduces herself Cait Sith and sends the adventurer to find a way to stop this war.