Mission: Xarcabard, Land of Truths (Bastok)
-The Bastok guard gives me my next mission. To infiltrate the Kindred’s main stronghold of Zvahl. I’m not quite sure what “the Kindred” is, but I suppose it’s the name for the Shadow Lord’s beastmen alliance.
-Iron Eater, the Galka Mythril Musketeer outside the president’s office, keeps mentioning the Trust Initiative when I talk to him. I imagine that when I hit a certain rank within Bastok (currently 5), he’ll join me as a trust NPC, but not there yet.
-I head into the president’s office for more on the mission, but first I explore behind it the office. Cornelia’s room is here, and she’s with a woman named Franziska who seems to be Cornelia’s guard perhaps. Now that I’ve played Phoenix Wright, I already have a certain picture of Franziska in my head.
-Cornelia runs off, despite Franziska’s protestations.
FRANZISKA: “If the First Lady were still alive, she would never have tolerated this kind of behavior!” Not sure what happened to Cornelia’s mother, but since President Karst is the worst, I immediately suspect him of foul play.
-I speak to President Karst. He tells me this will be a top secret mission, one he doesn’t want even Naji or Iron Eater to know about. Volker will join us though, the captain of the Mythril Musketeers.
-The Senate doesn’t want to get involved in this whole “Shadow Lord” business, so the Mythril Musketeers won’t be allowed to join in the assault.
KARST: “Bastok’s success is a result of aggression and initiative. But with the Senate dawdling so, we may pay dearly for our lack of action.
“Go on this mission for your own gain. That is the Bastokan way. Do not concern yourself with responsibility – let a certain president and a Musketeer captain worry about that.”
-As much as I dislike Karst, I do find the Bastok philosophy and ethic interesting. Industrialist in nature, through-and-through.
-Captain Volker arrives. Tells me that Castle Zvahl is in Zarcabard to the north. Where they defeated the Shadow Lord before, and now where some are trying to bring the Shadow Lord back.
-I port over to Zarcabard, head west, and enter Castle Zvahl.
The castle looks extremely EEEVIL. Exdeath-levels of evil. Skulls and fire and stone and the like.
-The castle is also beastman central. Demons, Yagudo, Orcs, and presumably Quadav.
-The layout of this place is majorly confusing. After much stumbling around and bumping on dead ends, I check out if there’s a particular path I’m supposed to take. There is.
What a maze.
-True, all the time I spend stumbling gets me some level ups (currently halfway through 57 as I write this), but still.
-I arrive at a room deep in Castle Zvahl Keep with teleports set up throughout. However, I can’t seem to set them off.
Do I have to kill everything on my floor…? Ah, nope! Just had to wait. They go off at set intervals.
-I’m super super nervous right now. I haven’t seen a home point (basically, FFXI’s save points) in a loooong time. Really since entering the castle. I do NOT want to have to do all this over again if I die.
-I SEE ONE UP AHEAD OH MANA FROM HEAVEN I SEE ONE
YESSSS SAFELY REACHED IT
-Boss time. At least, I assume so. This next part of the castle is called “Throne Room” after all.
-Here we go. Entering the Throne Room.
-Zeid is here.
-This is the tomb of the Shadow Lord.
-The magicite starts to react, opening the tomb. He emerges.
SHADOW LORD: “Ah, the dark knight… It’s been twenty years since we last met, Zeid.”
Oh shit. The Shadow Lord wasn’t always a monster. He used to be a Galka.
SHADOW LORD: “Thirty years ago, I was in a group that came to this cursed land, seeking to uncover the secrets of a lost civilization.”
Wait. Wait wait wait. Is the Shadow Lord… is he Raogrimm?
“And it is here that I fell, betrayed by one I trusted with my life.”
HOLY SHIT HE’S RAOGRIMM
“My friend Ulrich could not abide the fact that I was the best swordsman of the Mythril Musketeers. That I was advocating peace with the beastmen at the time was not to his liking, either.”
THIS IS RAOGRIMMMMM, THE KIND GALKA WHO FELT BAD ABOUT JUST RANDOMLY HACKING DOWN QUADAV PROTECTING THEIR YOUNG!! So what happened to him?
He also says that Cornelia died protecting him, which I don’t quite get. Since. You know. She’s alive and kicking, and still seems young.
“A power hidden deep beneath the earth gave me a new form and granted me control over the nether beasts.”
I wonder what that power beneath the earth is. As a World of Warcraft player, it sounds very Old Godsy.
“I realized it was not revenge that drove me, but the old, undying anger of our race: the wrath of the Galka!”
His design reminds of the Beast from “Angel.”
-Not unwarranted anger either. We’ve seen time and again how the Humes of Bastok have shit all over the Galka.
-He rants some more, then binds Zeid. He can’t help me.
“Stand there and watch, Zeid…”
“Come, it is the hour of reckoning! Death itself failed to stay my wrath. Let us see if you can do any better!”
GO TEAM BASTOK
-THIS MUSIC IS FUCKIGN INTENSE
-got him low but he stopped taking physical damage, crap crap crap
-Dead. Hm. I wonder how I can get him out of that immune-to-physical-damage phase.
-Same thing my second attempt. I don’t know how to break him out of that phase. Maybe I just have to save my mana and nuke him with crappy red magic.
-Four deaths. I’m stuck and frustrated. I don’t know what to do. I’m praying the answer isn’t “level my black mage job from 1-60.”
-Trying once more. If I can’t get it, I’ll swap to Red Mage as primary job, level it up, and then try again.
-Yeah. I give up. I don’t think I can do it with this job combo.
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Training Montage False Start
-I don’t want to bring a black mage all the way up from nothing, so I’m going to try building my red mage up to around 60 and seeing if that helps.
-I’m not sure if this will be a full on job change from Dragoon, or temporary, or what. I’ll see how I feel.
-Another thing that jumps to mind: blue mage! I now can reach Aht Urhgan, so perhaps I’ll give that a try.
-Nah. Screw that. I don’t want to “reroll.” I want to persist. Dragoon main, red mage support.
-So going to keep building my dragoon for now and come back to this quest.
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Mission: Xarcabard, Land of Truths (Bastok) (continued)
*Time passed. I started working on the third limit break quest, but then someone in my linkshell (guild) came online, and I wasn’t alone against the Shadow Lord anymore!*
[Later edit: Three huzzahs for the wonderful and helpful Clinks. Thank you again! ]
-Down!
-WAIT NO A SECOND PHASE, HE’S GOING HAM WITH AREA EFFECT DAMAGE
-COME ON ALMOOOOSST
-VICTORYRYRYYYYY
-The Shadow Lord is having a “Gollum” moment, trying to remember whether he’s the Shadow Lord or Raogrimm.
-He’s beset by memories of the fallen Cornelia.
-And just like that – he’s Raogrimm, the Galka, again.
-Raogrimm was the… OH SHIT, HE WAS THE “TALEKEEPER!!” We’d been hearing about the missing Galka Talekeeper for a while. The Shadow Lord nee Raogrimm was that Talekeeper.
“I was the Talekeeper of the Galka – the keeper of our race’s memories. But there was so much pain, so much anger…”
He was overwhelmed by the pain in the past of the Galka, and fell to it. Forgot there was anything else but the pain.
“There is no salvation for me. The Raogrimm whom you once knew is gone, forever. I expect no forgiveness for what I have done, but…”
-We flash over to Lion, leading the party on a run out of the castle.
“My true self died thirty years ago… All that remains is an empty shell.”
-He falls, crashing to the ground in an explosion of light.
Perhaps some peace for Raogrimm in the end.
The camera pans outside of Castle Zvahl.
“From the darkest depths of the earth,
The Warriors of Crystal rose.”
-Whelp. That’s the end of that chapte.r Lion is heading to Norg, back to see her father, Gilgamesh.
-Zeid walks away with Lion. I walk away too, heading back to Bastok.
-In the President’s office at Bastok. Cid, Volker, and Lucius are all here, cheering me on. “The Age of the Adventurers has come!”
-President Karst tries to shit on the moment a bit as usual, but only a little. He’s happy that we kept the Kindred from gaining power. Reward time – rank 6!
-I walk out from the office with Cid, telling him who the Shadow Lord was. This explains Zeid’s absence. Was hard for him to have defeated the Shadow Lord knowing that Raogrimm was a hero of the Galka.
-Cid starts talking about Karst, why he backed Karst in the elections, and I start to see why. It’s because Karst had legitimate political skill.
He’s a conniver, but he does what he can to accumulate power and strength for Bastok.
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Cutscene: Transition (Rhapsodies of Vana’diel)
-Whoa. I went from the Metalworks to the Bastok Markets District, a quick hop within the city, and got a vision.
-I see Iroha and I at the mothercrystal.
-The orb that she brought me from the future is now glowing! A good sign.
-This orb is one of Reisenjima Sanctorium’s most mystical treasures, containing the energy of thousands of lives.
-AHA! It’s a PIECE of the mothercrystal!
-She urges me to continue pressing on. The Shadow Lord was but the first step in stopping the ultimate Emptiness that is at the heart of the Rhapsodies of Vana’diel mission chain.
-The next step is to check in with Gilgamesh in the pirate city of Norg.
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Next time: Seeing what’s next in the Bastok storyline.
