Quest: Whence Blows the Wind (Limit Break #3)
-I’m level 59. Time to talk to Maat about another limit break.
-I have to get him an Orcish crest, a Quadav crest, and a Yagudo crest.
-First step is to go to Davoi, the Orc capital.
-Deep in here – and I mean DEEP, like amidst enemies that would kill me in a few hits if I didn’t use invisibility – I find a magic barrier barring passage to a cave that I have to touch. I touch it, but doing so drops my invisibility and I get obliterated by the nearby orcs.
I then head to a Tarutaru mage in Davoi. The barrier seals in an Orc Lord, and I have to get in there for the quest. She tells me that she’ll help me if I can dip a white orb in all the pools of Davoi. Four of them.
-As I move around Davoi, each pool I dip the white orb into makes it nastier. Pink orb. Then red orb. Then blood orb. One pool to go.
-Ah crap. When I dunked the blood orb into the last pool, it cursed me and became a cursed orb.
-I return it to the Tarutaru mage, Sedal-Godjal.
SEDAL-GODJAL: “Oh, I forgot ot tell you one thing: if an orb turns totally red, it gets cursed.”
…I figured it out. Thank you.
-She imbues this cursed orb with the ability to get past the barrier. It’s now a “crimson orb.”
-I head back to the barrier, and now pass through. So the Orcish Crest is in here, in this cavern.
-Got it. I can’t imagine how frustrating this quest must have been for someone to do without a guide. The Orcish Crest was an invisible item on the ground that I only got after doing a convoluted and vague quest, and the area I got the quest in and found the quest item was much higher level than level 60, nowhere you’d normally be fighting.
-Next up is the Quadav crest in Beadeaux. I navigate the maze-like confines of this place, weaving in and out of different above-ground and subterranean sections, finally coming to the section of the Qulun Dome where the crest lies.
-Christ. I hate this. There are three enemies that can see through invisible here – two Ruby Quadavs and an Adamantium Quadav. I have to avoid them. If they see me, I’m dead. I hate these stealth mini-games.
That invisible spot in front of me in this screenshot is where the crest is.
-GOT IT!!!! Whew. Got the Quadav crest. My heart is pounding.
-lolol on the way out I see one of the Quadavs casting “Shell” on itself. Get it? Quadavs are turtle enemies? Shell? Because, as turtles they have…
Anyway.
-Ding level 60!
-Last crest to get is the Yagudo Crest from Castle Oztroja.
-I remember from last time I was here that there were passwords to collect from around the entire castle to get past a certain point, and that the passwords change daily, but not much beyond that. I haven’t committed this massive castle’s layout to memory, and to be up front about this again, I’m using a guide for how to navigate this place. I spent my last visit here wandering aimlessly for hours, and am not interested in doing so again.
-First password is Gadu.
-By the way, I really like the ways the various Beastmen cultures differentiate themselves in their naming conventions. The Quadavs are defined by gem types, Copper and Brass at the lower end, Gold and Topaz and Sapphire at the upper end. The Yagudo are a theocracy, with Initiates and Acolytes at the lower and end Inquisitors and Abbots at the upper end. The Orcs are more militant, including Brawlers and Dreadnoughts.
-Frigging trap doors in here…
I’M WISE TO YOUR GAME, YOU ROGUE CASTLE. You got me last time with this pit trap. Not this time.
-Second password is Mong. Third password is Duzu.
-To give you a sense of this castle’s scope, it took me about 25 minutes to run to the various statues that had those passwords, without fighting, and even with a guide telling me where to go (and still getting lost along the way at times lol).
-Finally reached a statue where I had to recite the passwords I gathered. Recited them… and fell through a trap door, making my heart jump near through my chest YET AGAIN for this quest. Thankfully, it’s safe here, and no falling damage.
-One last challenge. There’s a Yagudo High Priest who can see through invis. If I go for the Yagudo crest while in his line of sight, I’m dead. I’ll have to do this whole thing over again.
-I GOT IT MOTHER OF GOD I GOT IT PHEWWWW
-And the High Priest and his buddies saw me JUST after I nabbed the Crest. Do I care that I died? HELL NO. I got it. Quest complete.
-I head back to Maat in Jeuno, turn in my quest, and can now level up to 65. Woot.
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Mission: Welcome t’Norg (Rise of the Zilart)
-There’s one last thing I want to do this session, and that’s check back in with Gilgamesh and Lion in Norg.
-Cutscene. [Later edit: I thought I was coming here for the Rhapsodies of Vana’diel questline, but no. This is the first questline in Rise of the Zilart.] Some piratey dude tries to get in my face as I arrive at Norg, but Lion pushes him aside because she knows me. She clearly has clout here.
-She then mentioned needing to touch base about Kam’lanut (the Archduke of Jeuno) and Castle Zvahl, but my character Detolilla doesn’t seem to remember. Huh? Amnesia?
Detolilla faints.
-Black screen. I get the text of the Vana’diel creation myth of the crystal that filled the world with light and brought forth gods. That poem about the Warriors of the Crystal rising up.
-A flashback to the moment the Shadow Lord fell, becoming his old self, Raogrimm. Like… I just saw this last session. Why am I getting a flashback?
-WAIT WHAT THE FUCK???
-Okay. In the version of the Shadow Lord encounter that I played, we beat him, he exploded, and we left the castle. But in the flashback I’m seeing now, we beat him, he turned into Raogrimm, and the Archduke of Jeuno and his little brother arrived.
-Archduke Kam’lanaut is literally doing an evil slow clap as he watches us with Raogrimm.
“Quite an interesting show you put on.”
-Kam’lanaut starts talking about how we ignorantly performed out duty, how he has to do a bit more cleaning up. Is he the person who transformed Raogrimm back into the Shadow Lord?
ARCHDUKE KAM’LANAUT: “Listen carefully, you sorry excuses for sentient beings. The Crystal Line will soon be revived and the Gate of the Gods will open.”
Well. I know who the next Big Bad is.
“That is when the true Vana’diel of legend will be reborn.”
EALDNARCHE (the Archduke’s kid brother): “Eternal paradise. The land of the gods. The dream we Zilart have held onto for ten thousand years is about to become a reality.”
WAIT HOLY SHIT THE ARCHDUKE AND HIS BROTHER ARE ZILART?
So here are some things I’ve learned about the Zilart:
1)They were an ancient and highly advanced race that people on Vana’diel don’t know much about.
2)The first expansion, that starts at level 60 (my level), is “Rise of the Zilart.”
-As Raogrimm gives a “You can’t be Zilart, they’re all long gone!” kinda thing, the poem restarts.
“The ancient seal will be broken, awakening nightmares of ages past.
The blood of innocents will soak the earth, and the world will fall into fear and disrepair.”
It seems that these Zilart are behind that.
EALD’NARCHE: “Hah! Galka, Humes, beastmen – no life on this planet has any purpose or meaning…. We will not be handing Vana’diel to anyone. This is our world.”
-Eald’narche extends his senses, searching for something.
He finds it gone. The “impurities that were blocking the power that lies deep beneath Vana’diel.”
So my main question at this point is: what is that power beneath Vana’diel? Some Zilart god? Maybe an army of cryostasis-frozen Zilart waiting to be awakened and rise up?
-So the Zilart were clearly behind the Shadow Lord, but not for his own sake. They needed him to help break open the earth or something to grant access to something bigger.
-They walk up to the Shadow Lord’s altar, the tomb where he was buried before awakening recently.
EALD’NARCHE: “Wait… I can hear them… I can hear the five lifeforces…”
Five lifeforces? I’m trying to think back to my past FF experience. What have I seen that has five lifeforces?
EALD’NARCHE: “I can hear them approaching… Minions of the Crystal.”
So the first thing that jumps to mind are the four fiends of elements from FFIV. Perhaps there are four gods of fire, earth, air, water, and some extra thing like spirit.
KAM’LANAUT: “This world is nothing but a grave, and you are the maggots that squirm through the rotting corpse.”
Holy shit that was intense.
Oh wait he’s not done.
KAM’LANAUT: “Come forth, Warriors of the Crystal, and cleanse the world of the filth that plagues it.”
OK THAT IS A FUCKING TWIST AND A HALF
I was SO SURE that the song, which was about warriors of the crystal coming to save the world in it’s darkest hour, was about me and the other players in Vana’diel. But no. The Zilart see the world as in its worst time BECAUSE of all the Galka and Elvaan and Humes and Beastmen. The Warriors of the Crystal are the ones that the Zilart are summoning to purge us.
-He summons five crystals.
-Something is emerging from them.
HFDJKLSFHDJKLSFHDSL
It’s five warriors. They look like Elvaan and Hume and Mithra and Galka and Tarutaru, but they’re all ghostly white.
-Zeid charges them, leaps, and is blocked by a magic shield of some sort.
KAM’LANAUT: “Farewell, lowly vermin. Your time is up. This is the beginning of the end.”
-Raogrimm goes to help the wounded Zeid. It’s so weird that Raogrimm didn’t just immediately revert back to his Shadow Lord former self. He stayed as Raogrimm for a while.
-The Tarutaru mage zaps me (Detolilla) and knocks me out in one shot.
-As the other Warriors of the Crystal advance, Lion shows up to save the day.
WOOOO HELL YES GO LION!!!
-One of the Warriors of the Crystal runs up to Zeid, charging to kill.
RAOGRIMM INTERVENES. THE MOTHERFUCKING SHADOW LORD NOW IN HIS GALKA FORM IMPOSES HIMSELF BETWEEN THE WARRIOR AND ZEID AND TAKES THE SWORD IN HIS OWN CHEST
-SORRY FOR THE CAPSLOCK BTU THIS IS BLOWING MY MIND??? I had assumed that Raogrimm turned back to the Shadow Lord at the end of the encounter because he was too corrupted. It turns out he turned back into the Shadow Lord because he wanted to do one last bit to slow down the Warriors of the Crystal and give us time to escape.
-We see him turn back into the Shadow Lord, get his ass BEATEN by the Warriors of the Crystal, and here I am. Rooting hard for the Shadow Lord in his noble fight against the Warriors of the Crystal.
This is basically the opposite of what I was expecting.
-We then see the Shadow Lord/Raogrimm’s death explosion once more. Redeemed, not corrupted. [Later edit: well, as redeemed as someone who has initiated a war that caused countless deaths can be, I suppose.] It’s what I saw at the end of the Shadow Lord fight, but the context is COMPLETELY different now.
-Detolilla wakes up back in Norg. Lion beckons me over to Gilgamesh’s room.
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Next time: I want to get the lay of the land for what comes next in Bastok missions, Rhapsodies of Vana’diel and Rise of the Zilart.
