Mission: Darkness Rising (Bastok)
-My goal is to reach the land of the Shadow Lord in the north. I was told to head through San d’Oria, so I think I know what that means.
-I go from San d’Oria to East Ronfaure, and see a tunnel in the northeast I hadn’t been to yet. Ranguemont Pass. No map, so I hop back to Jeuno, buy a map, and return.
-Moving through the second part of Ranguemont Pass is nervewracking. The first half of the zone is low level, but the part near the Glacier, where I need to go, has much higher level enemies than I can deal with. I have to basically pray that they ignore me.
-lol prayer didn’t work.
-I purchased the “Circumspection” (invisible) buff at a Grounds Tome near the entrance, but that doesn’t work. The problem is that between the high level area and the newbie area, there’s a giant guarded door. I have to talk to a San d’Oria guard to open the door and pass, but I can’t talk to her if I’m invisible.
So am I just screwed?
-YES!!! (I mean, no, I’m not screwed.) I found another Grounds Tome after the door. Now I just have to pray that Circumspection works.
-WHEW. My heart was in my throat for that, but I made it. The various level 90 goblins and floating eyes didn’t see me.
-Now in the Beaucedine Glacier. It’s wonderful.
I love snowy zones.
-There are towers scattered throughout the glacier. I can enter one of the towers… oooh, there’s a dungeon beneath! “Pso’Xja.”
-FDHJK FDHSFJKLDHSLDS HELLLLLLLL NO
PSO’XJA IS TONBERRY COUNTRY AND I’M NOPING RIGHT THE FUCK OUTTA HERE
-But I gotta say, the music inside Pso’Xja is some of the best in the game so far. It’s subtle and haunting.
-I see a named gigas, and a name I recognize from FFVI. Going to try killing it.
Humbaba.
-I got REKKKKT.
-By the way. At this point, when I die I lose experience, but it’s not much. Back in EverQuest, I remember grinding and grinding and dying and thinking “GODDAMMIT THAT’S AN HOUR OF GRINDING DOWN THE DRAIN.” Not so here. Death isn’t great, but experience is fast enough that it’s totally okay to die.
-This Glacier is much bigger than it seemed at first. It’s not a huge amount of land, but it’s terraced. It’s a canyon, with lots of different levels to it. To get from one point to another, I have to find the path that goes down or up to the proper level.
-Talk about blasts from the past. Calcabrina (the name of the terrifying doll from FFIV) just showed up on my tracker.
-Should I…?
-Guess who’s got two thumbs and doesn’t learn from past mistakes? THIS GUY.
*charges in*
GOT HER!!! Tough fight, but got her. Oh lord I haaated her in FFIV. Hated. And when they tried to turn her into a playable hero in FFIV: The After Years? Was not buying that shit.
(Though credit where credit is due: her music was incredible in FFIV.)
-I find Fei’Yin and enter.
-Cutscene! Lion and Zeid are here.
-Zeid tells the story we saw in the cutscenes. Thirty years ago, Raogrimm, Cornelia (??? I thought she was like in here 20s. She must be in her 50s though), Ulrich, Francmage, Iru-Kuiru, and Rabntah were part of the expedition.
An “accident” claimed two of them. Raogrimm and Cornelia. Lol by “accident” they clearly mean “fucking Ulrich stabbed them.”
WAIT. Cornelia is alive. Or this… yeah, this must be her daughter, named after her, that I see all around town. In any case, the others also died violent deaths afterwards.
ZEID: “Perhaps they had awakened the curse that was said to be buried in this land… They may have called for the ancient bane.”
-Lion connects this “ancient bane” to the Shadow of Darkness, the image we saw of the Shadow Lord.
“The great bane will devour the fair land of Vana’diel…
The ancient seal will be broken, awakening nightmares of ages past.
The blood of innocents will soak into the earth, and the world will fall into fear and disrepair.
But as one bright star shines through the clouds at night,
And as one song rings clear above the roar of beasts,
We hold to one hope in these darkest of times.
That they will come, with the wisdom of ages and the strength of thousands,
To deliver us from our plight.
We await the awakening of the Warriors of the Crystal.”
An old song. Who are the Warriors of the Crystal? Me and other playable characters, probably.
-In Fei’Yin, I start seeing a new and highly aggressive enemy called “Shadow.”
I love their design.
-NEW AREA! “Qu’Bia Arena.” There’s a “burning circle.” Battlefield time.
-The music is intense as hell. I summon my trust party, and am ready to go. I guess this is the Shadow Lord’s image. [Later edit: I forgot that this was only where the thing sealing the Shadow Lord was, not the big man himself.]
-Two ancient sorcerers and an archlich.
-Crap, ancient warriors keep spawning. I gotta kill the Archlich or I’m gonna lose a war of attrition. ALL IN YOLOOOO
-GOT HIM!!!!!
-Zeid comes in. Nice to you to join the fun, though I could’ve used you like ONE MINUTE AGO dude.
-He tells me that the seal has broken, but that the new seal I brought is useless.
-Zeid thinks the rumors of the Shadow Lord returning are nonsense. Uh. I kinda saw him?
-He mentions “Castle Zvahl, the Crossroads of Fate.” I guess that’s where I’m going next.
-Well, first I’ll head back to Bastok to turn this in.
-I return to Naji and the Bastok council.
-god President Karst is so WHINY.
KARST: “Where were the San d’Orians!? It was their duty to protect it!” I hate him I HATE HIM.
-Their next step is to talk to the Senate about a full-scale incursion into Castle Zvahl. (That must be the Shadow Lord’s former seat of power.)
-Outside the council, I tell Captain Volker about meeting Zeid. Zeid used to be a Mythril Musketeer named War Cloud.
VOLKER: “Ah… but he never liked being called by his Hume-given name.”
???? That’s shocking to me. I thought all the different Galka names – Iron Eater, etc. – were their actual names, not Hume-given. Or maybe I’m misunderstanding this, and Volker’s surprise is that he’s being called by Zeid, his Hume-given name, when he usually dislikes it.
-Zeid was a real hero, and the one who defeated the Shadow Lord. Captain Volker feels guilty – says that ZEID should have been captain of the Musketeers.
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Quest: Atop the Highest Mountains (Limit Break #2)
-I’m level 54, and know that level 55 is my next level cap, so I head back to Maat to see if I can pick up my next limit break quest yet.
-I can!
MAAT: “You think you had a hard time with that last quest? Well, when I was your age, I had to gather twice as many items in half the time! So, stop complainin!”
Lolol he’s an old grumpy “back in my day” MMO player XD
-I need to bring him three samples of “frigicite” from the north against monsters that see through invisible. Ok.
-The monsters I have to steal frigicite from are in an area called Xarcabard, west of Beaucedine Glacier.
-Arrived in Xarcabard. It’s a fairly small zone. Snowy, with lots of undead and mournful music.
-Eventually found the cave of the first enemy, a Boreal Coeurl.
It kicks my ass, but I get the frigiticite from the ground next to it before I die.
-The next enemy, the Boreal Coeurl, does the same. Kills me easily. I used my trusty squad of trust NPCs to hold aggro as I took the frigicite before dying myself.
-The treasure chests enemies drop are a fantastic way to build up gil. I can’t always open them, but when I can they often give me equipment that I can sell to vendors for good profit.
-Finding a new class of enemy here: demons.
Demon Pawns, Demon Knights, Demon Wizards.
-Okay, got to the last enemy. Boreal Tiger. Is there a way I wonder to get the frigicite without dying? Maat said to use my brain, so I imagine there is a way.
-YES!! Did it. I attacked it, let my trust NPCs grab aggro, grabbed the frigicite, and… well… I ran away.
I didn’t think it’d work! But it did. The tiger had a leash and eventually left us alone.
-I return to Maat to turn the quest in. My level limit is now bumped to 60.
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Some Cool Characters
-This doesn’t really fit into any specific story, but I wanted to post some screenshots of really cool character costumes I saw this session.
First, someone has the Moogle King Kupofried as a trust NPC!
A beautiful gold, red, and black armor set:
MOOGLE WITH A BUNNY (or something?) HAT!!
A Galka in armor with the seal of Bastok on his arm:
A Tarutaru in some sweet armor:
A Galka with a Behemoth mask:
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Next time: Continuing the Bastok mission against the Shadow Lord.
