Note: this overlapping RoV questline spoiled something major for me in ToAU and I get a bit... ragey.
Mission: Aphmau’s Light (Rhapsodies of Vana’diel)
-Last time in this questline, Volto Oscuro came to Aht Urhgan to seek the Astral Candescence. Gessho tried to stop him, but a Mithran within Salaheem’s Sentinels (Naja herself perhaps?) kidnapped Gessho. Tenzen asked me to infiltrate Salaheem’s Sentinels and follow Volto Oscuro’s path.
-An Imperial gate guard tells me that Volto Oscuro, “the masked man,” came here with a gang. A woman with the same mask as him slipped in a few days after Volto Oscuro.
-At this moment, Aphmau, royal puppetmaster, comes by and invites me in.
-Inside the palace, I tell her about our future, Iroha’s future - the world devoured by Emptiness.
-The masked woman came into the palace, opened up a void in to the nether realm, and used it to move around the palace.
-Aphmau says she believes me. Just like in the past when I got key players onto my side, the magatama-shaped stone from Iroha glows with new power.
-I’ll be honest – I’m a bit annoyed. Up until now in the ToAU storyline, Aphmau was an enigma. She seemed probably like she’d help me against the Empress, but she could have been on her own side, or betraying me in some long game on behalf of the Empress.
Now, because of the RoV questline butting in here, I know she’s a friend. Boo. And there was no way around this. The next place I had to go in both RoV and ToAU was the Imperial Palace, and when I got there I wasn’t allowed to ignore the RoV storyline and just do ToAU.
-She offers to show me the Astral Candescence in the Hall of Binding. I’ll meet her there and… wait. FUCK DAMMIT
Goddam it, game. Dammit. I’m super, super pissed now. This quest just spoiled what I assume is supposed to be a massive and shocking reveal later in ToAU expansion.
As soon as the cutscene ended with Aphmau, I got a “cipher.” In FFXI, ciphers used to get Trust NPCs, “alter-egos,” that fight alongside me. For instance, I got a Cipher of Prishe that lets me summon Prishe as a party member.
So why am I raging right now? Why am I so salty? Because Aphmau just gave me her cipher letting her fight alongside me throughout FFXI.
“But Coldrun, that’s not a big deal. You already said you knew she was a friend!”
Yeah. The problem is that… you know what? I’m going to put this into rot13, in case any of y’all don’t want to be spoiled for the ToAU storyline. SEE, FFXI? THAT’S CALLED FUCKING COURTESY FOR NEW PLAYERS.
Naljnl, gur ceboyrz vf gung gur pvcure vfa’g pnyyrq “Pvcure bs Ncuznh.” Vg’f pnyyrq “Pvcure bs Anfuzrven.” Nf va Rzcerff Anfuzrven bs Nug Heutna, jub gur tnzr unq orra pyrireyl uvqvat oruvaq n phegnva va phgfprarf fb sne. (V unq nffhzrq fur jnf na rivy fanxr zbafgre be fbzrguvat.)
Abj vafgrnq bs guvaxvat gur uvqqra Rzcerff Anfuzrven vf gur Ovt Onq bs gur rkcnafvba, gur tnzr unf onfvpnyyl gbyq zr Rzcerff Anfuzrven vf whfg Ncuznh hfvat ure chccrgznfgre fxvyyf gb guebj ure ibvpr.
V fgvyy qba'g xabj jul fur'f pubbfvat gb cbfr nf n chccrgznfgre - zl thrff vf gung fur guvaxf gur Tenaq Ivmvre vf cybggvat fbzrguvat naq fur ubcrf gb hapbire vg ol uvqvat va cynva fvtug - ohg jr'yy frr. Ubcrshyyl EbI jba'g fcbvy gung sbe zr gbb.
Tnu. Jung gur shpx, tnzr. Jung gur shpx.
Orfg pnfr fpranevb vf gung V'z gbgnyyl jebat naq nz zvfhaqrefgnaqvat gur eryngvbafuvc orgjrra Anfuzrven naq Ncuznh, ohg fgvyy.
V'z fnygl nf shpx evtug abj.
-FFXI had handled the overlapping storylines of the expansion stories and the overarching Rhapsodies of Vana’diel story deftly up until this giant turd bomb.
Moving on. I’ll continue with the Rhapsodies of Vana’diel questline and get it out of the way as much as possible. Whatever spoilers it’s gonna throw at me, just do it now and get it out of the way. I don’t want to be creeping around Aht Urhgan worried about a random RoV cutscene that’ll spoil the next big thing.
(Oh, and if I’m wrong in my rot13’d interpretation, don’t let me know! I’ll find out in due time and be both pleasantly surprised and apologetic for how badly I feel about this game in this moment.)
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Mission: Reunited (Rhapsodies of Vana’diel)
-I arrive at the Temple of Walahra’s Hall of Binding with Aphmau, but we’re too late. There’s a female Mithra wearing the same mask as Volto Oscuro, floating and doing some magic on the Astral Candescence.
VOLTO OSCURO [interesting! She has the same name as the dude]: “We lack… power. Preparations have not yet been made in this age? Then I must take matters into my own hands. With… this mask.”
OOH – so maybe Volto Oscuro isn’t two people, but is rather the mask itself, and whoever wears the mask is possessed by Volto Oscuro.
OOH DOUBLE OOH – What if this female Mithra in the Volto Oscuro mask is really Naja Salaheem underneath?
-Volto Oscuro starts to emit that void magic, but before she can do whatever she’s about to do, Kagero – Tenzen’s ninja partner – drops down. Tenzen does too, launching his Phoenix blade’s fire at her.
-Tenzen draws his Phoenix blade to the female Volto Oscuro’s throat. It glows with red light, and Volto Oscuro resonates with it somehow. Oh, right! She stole Iroha’s Phoenix force.
-Tenzen takes it back, drawing the purloined Phoenix force out of Volto Oscuro and back into his blade.
-The Phoenix force gone from her, Volto Oscuro vanishes in a a cloud of Emptiness magic. Kagero pursues.
-We leave with some of the blue mage Immortals wounded in her attack and head to the teahouse to regroup.
-After we leave, the camera lingers in the Halls of Binding. We see a figure floating near the Astral Candescence. It’s hard to make out who it is – it doesn’t even exactly look like the outline of a person? Idk.
???: “Ho ho – so this is the “ambassador of the void.”
-The camera pans to the front of this mystery person and I see why their outline from behind looked so odd. They’re floating upside down wearing a strange skull/horned helm.
???: “Another interesting character to make dance on my stage.”
So this person wasn’t summoned by Volto Oscuro, ambassador of the void. This is some new third party.
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Mission: Take Wing (Rhapsodies of Vana’diel)
-Tenzen meets me at the teahouse. One of the wounded blue mages overheard the next stage of Volto Oscuro’s plan.
-There’s a legend passed down in Aht Urhgan about a “prime avatar,” and Volto Oscuro is seeking it out to replace Phoenix’s power. Someone like Siren, who Volto Oscuro controlled earlier.
-Tenzen thinks that Volto Oscuro wants to convert the present into Emptiness too.
-This new prime avatar has a strong connection with the Alzadaal Undersea Ruins. I bet it’s Leviathan.
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Mission: Prime Number (Rhapsodies of Vana’diel)
-I arrive in the Alzadaal Undersea Ruins with Tenzen and Aphmau.
-lol my guess was wrong. The prime avatar here isn’t Leviathan. It’s Alexander, the iron giant.
-OKAY WHAT THE FUCK IS HAPPENING
-All of sudden, we’re no longer in the Undersea Ruins. We’re in some celestial zone thingy, and Tenzen’s Phoenix blade is floating and glowing, and Iroha’s magatama is too.
“Ah, Phoenix, Thy voice always grated on mine ears.”
-It’s the Prime Avatar, Alexander. Iron “giant” my ass. He’s a big teapot.
-Phoenix makes an unspoken request of Alexander, and… YAAAAAY!!! He revives Iroha! We leave that celestial dimension back to the ruins.
-Iroha is stuck in a cycle of renewal. Whenever she dies here, she returns to the future, her own time. In that future, Phoenix (still ashes and fragments in the present) is whole, and whenever Iroha returns there, Phoenix revives her.
TENZEN: “Yet just as flame can cauterize a grievous wound, so too are Phoenix’s blazing wings of life accompanied by indelible pain. Am I wrong?”
Poor Iroha.
-Alexander appears again. I really dislike his design. I’m used to him being this titanic iron giant of light, and here he looks more like an overgrown oven.
You vs. the holy iron giant she tells you not to worry about.
-Apparently, Iroha isn’t supposed to be in this time, which is why she keeps dying. “Final Destination” meets “Final Fantasy.”
-Tenzen presents his theory on Volto Oscuro’s goal: that the Emptiness ambassador’s underlings are here to steal Alexander’s light from the Astral Candescence.
ALEXANDER: “Thou art slightly mistaken. They were not after my light, but rather Odin’s darkness. Of course, it is only via my form that they would be able to summon Odin.”
Cool! Odin will be a thing.
-So they’re after Alexander as a means to an end. To summon Odin would apparently call forth “Ragnarok.” I know Ragnarok mostly as an Excalibur-level weapon in the FF series, but I do remember also that it was a summoned esper in FFVI.
-Iroha is less worried about killing the ambassador and more worried about preparing me for the time of reckoning. “And that is why [Detolilla] need to fill the orb with…” She then starts coughing, NO IROHA, DON’T COUGH, TELL ME WHAT I NEED TO FILL THE ORB WITH!
-Iroha’s not doing well. I can save her, but need to convince one of the world’s newest guardians. Cait Sith, to help.
-This is one of the few times I’m really upset that FFXI is not voiced. I really hoped they'd give Caith Sith a good voice. In my head, whenever I see Cait Sith, I’ll always hear that version of him from the FF compilation.
A fate worse than death.
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Mission: From the Ruins (Rhapsodies of Vana’diel)
-I return to the Imperial palace and talk to Aphmau. Iroha is resting, healing, and Tenzen went to Norg to update Gilgamesh.
-Tenzen has a lead on where to find Cait Sith: a cavernous maw (one of those Atomos-looking things) in Batallia Downs. I went through a cavernous maw once and it ported me to some war-torn alternate version of Vana’diel. Not sure where, but it’s associated with the next expansion, “Wings of the Goddess.”
-I leave, but the camera lingers in the palace on Aphmau. Iroha walks out to see her from her sick bed.
-Aphmau is about to go fetch me, but Iroha stops her from doing so.
IROHA: “Now that you and my companions are aware of Vana’diel’s… opinion of me, my being here would only serve as ahindrance. Many are the soldiers who have fallen to protect the weak. I have awoken to my own failings and thus will walk a different path.”
-It takes me a second to understand what Iroha means here. I think she’s saying that because she’s not supposed to be in this time, and this time in Vana’diel keeps trying to reject her, she’ll just be a burden, and so wants to stay in the background for now.
-Iroha walks away. “Master [me] needs me to be able to stand on my own. So that I can shelter her from the darkness.” I take this to mean that Iroha is going somewhere to recover, to build her power up and help me in some final battle.
-So that’s all for the RoV storyline for the moment. I’ll pick it back up in the next expansion.
Gur jbefg cneg bs guvf fcbvyre vf gung vg jbhyq unir orra ERNYYL, ERNYYL RNFL GB NIBVQ. Vs gurl unq whfg pnyyrq vg "Pvcure bs Ncuznh" vafgrnq bs "Pvcure bs Anfuzrven," gura gung erirny jbhyq fgvyy or jnvgvat sbe zr.
V whfg... htu.
Okay. That’s out of my system.
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Next time: returning to the Treasures of Aht Urhgan storyline.
