Mission: Fate in Haze (Wings of the Goddess)
-Back to San d’Oria’s tavern, where Troupe Mayakov prepares to send the knights off to the front lines in Xarcabard with a performance.
-Mayakov’s language discussing the coming performance is language we’ve heard before. Atomos is devouring time and putting it back together almost haphazardly.
-Lilisette won’t join the performance. Mayakov remembers her, but the other dancers don’t. All that rehearsal time lost.
-The dance begins. Without Lilisette.
Ragelise likes it, but says “the stage feels eerily empty, bereft of her presence.” Huh? I thought he didn’t remember Lilisette. He still retains some echoes of his daughter’s memory.
-Ragelise asks Mayakov for the dancers’ help as messengers. Mayakov volunteers Lilisette and me. Ragelise “meeting” Lilisette here hurts.
-Later. Recent events have convinced Mayakov that we’re from the future. I really like him. If things “pirouette out of control,” we can always find refuge here.
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Mission: The Scent of Battle (Wings of the Goddess)
-Lilisette and I leave for Jeuno to sit in on the pre-battle strategy meeting.
-The enemy is expected to have about 50,000+ in the Northlands. Sir Ragelise will command.
-The plan, Operation Snowstorm, has two parts:
First: the Allied Forces will spread across Xarcabard, outside Castle Zvahl. Scholar Adelheid will use custom explosives to cave in the Beastman Confederate’s subterranean routes.
Second: a frontal assault on Castle Zvahl, as a diversion while a small strike force storms the keep.
-Some worry we don’t have enough soldiers. Ragelise addresses this with “Hydra Corps,” a group of mercenaries (the players) from the Allied cities. Plus Lilisette and I, “Future Fabulous.”
-After the meeting. Lilisette knows the Allies won the Battle of Xarcabard in our timeline, but wants more first-hand info. Time to go back to the future!
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Mission: Another World (Wings of the Goddess)
-Lilisette and I head to present-day San d’Oria. As we enter, Atomos’s maw appears briefly. The city flashes dark and twinkles. A huge comet appears overhead. We’re the only ones who see all these changes.
LILISETTE: “Our future is… fading away?”
-We rush to see Monarlais Halver. He remembers the first battle. Nobody in Ragelise’s Ironcrest Hawks survived.
-However, he heard that someone visited Sir Ragelise’s grave in Batallia Downs regularly. Perhaps one of his companions. A lead!
-Halver holds us back a second. Lilisette reminds him of someone from that fight.
“And endearing young lady she was, with such strength of spirit as would make one believe naught was beyond hope.”
This makes Lilisette SO HAPPY! She absolutely beams.
She struggles with feeling alone, unmemorable, but to hear someone so many years later remember her as such a strong light? Powerful stuff.
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Mission: A Hawk in Repose (Wings of the Goddess)
-We head to a burial mound dedicated to the Crystal War outside Jeuno. Lili’s parents are here.
-Lilisette feels sentimental here, and has me get a lilac from Jeuno to lay on the grave.
-We lay the lilac. Someone joins us, flowers in his hand. A Galka. He recognizes Lilisette from Ragelise’s stories about his daughter.
HOLY SHIT!!!JFD:LSFJKLDS THIS GALKA IS LARZOS!! One of Lilith’s key Spitewardens is Captain Lurzos. Just as Lilith is probably an alternate Lilisette, Lurzos is an alternate Larzos.
-Larzos fought beside Ragelise at the Battle of Xarcabard. He recounts a strange occurrence during Operation Snowstorm. Flashback time.
-The Allied Forces pushed towards the Throne Room in Castle Zvahl when suddenly there was a flash of light and deafening sound. A massive cloud appeared above.
Larzos went into a trance and doesn’t remember what happened next. When he came too, the enemies were dead all around them.
Ragelise remembered, but wouldn’t say. “His face was deathly pale… his jaws clenched tight.”
Theory: that’s when we pop in somehow, and Ragelise gets sworn to secrecy for fear of altering the timeline or something.
-Larzos remembers speaking with Ragelise later, after the war. “He mentioned feelin’ a quiet pride at spurnin’ an alliance with darkness, even if it’d mean his death.”
Perhaps Lilith appeared during that interval, tempted him to join her to avoid dying only to be denied. But then why would all the demons be dead after the interval? Hm.
-Armed with a few more pieces of the puzzle, it’s time to return to the past. To Xarcabard.
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Mission: The Battle of Xarcabard (Wings of the Goddess)
-I head to past Xarcabard. Pre-battle.
-Cait Sith hops in briefly, but can’t stay. She has a “prior engagement.”
-Scene change. Cait Sith teleports into the Cavernous Maws, to stop Atomos from devouring our version of Vana’diel.
-Lili and I head to the San d’Orian camp, outside Castle Zvahl. Mayakov is here too.
-Mayakov reminds Ragelise about poor Portia. Ragelise hasn’t forgotten about her, but he is trying not to think about her, lest he be distracted from commanding his unit. Fair.
-Scene change. Lilith is inside Castle Zvahl. She is revealing herself to their side for the first time.
-HAHA YES!!! THE SHADOW LORD HIMSELF MARCHES OUT TO MEET HER! The Big Bad from the base game meeting the Big Bad from this expansion. I LOVE IT.
-I love how the Shadow Lord looks. The first time we saw him, he was basically naked, risen from the grave. This is him in his prime. Fully armored and ready for battle.
-HAHAHAHAH HOLY SHIT!! Flit is here, that asshole servant of Odin from “Treasures of Aht Urhgan.” He’s helping the Shadow Lord.
-Haudrale lays it all out. He says Team Lilith is from the future, where the Crystal War is ongoing. True for his future, though not for mine.
-The Shadow Lord accepts Lilith’s offer of aid.
Flit bumps on something: Lilith has demons in her retinue. How? I’ll bet she usurps the Shadow Lord.
FLIT: “Whatever happens from this point onwards, I can’t imagine Master being displeased. Hee hee, hee hee…” He refers to the Shadow Lord as “Boss,” so I’ll bet “Master” is Odin.
-Scene change. Team Lilith together.
“We must be poised to go on the offensive as soon as the cat is removed, and their accursed future, devoured clean.”
Flit was right. The Shadow Lord is her next target.
-Lilith assigned Aquila to kill a certain Tarutaru in Windurst. He did not. She chokes him briefly but does not kill him.
-Scene change back to the San d’Oria camp. Operation Snowstorm begins. Our job is to spread the news.
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Mission: Prelude to a Storm (Wings of the Goddess)
-We move to the Windurst camp to announce the start of the operation.
-The Mithra will clear the caverns below Xarcabard, after which Bastok will plant explosive charges.
I love the Mithra. “Enterrr the cave, make minced meat of the enemy, walk out, and wipe the blood off our weapons. What’s this supposed to be, kindergarrrrten?”
-Lilisette and I head to the caverns to join in. SWARMS OF BEASTMEN.
I clear the caverns of like 80+ enemies. Thankfully, they all die in like one hit.
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Mission: Storm’s Crescendo (Wings of the Goddess)
-I move to the Bastok camp. They ask for my help planting the explosives.
-WHEW. My hands are sweating. The mission was a timed stealth race. It took me three tries.
I have a temporary speed boost. 24 Bastok engineers are stationed around the cave. I race between them, signaling them to trigger an explosive. Each time I talk to an engineer, my speed boost is refreshed. If I am too slow to find the next engineer, I fail the mission.
Oh, and there are tigers throughout the caves. If one sees me then I fail the mission.
It’s not as bad as it sounds because it’s quick/easy to retry it. Still tense as hell.
-Spitewardens watch as I report back to Bastok. They teleport back to Lilith.
LILITH: “We employ our next playing piece. The game’s crowning moment is yet to come.”
-Portia’s here. She has the same purple chest smoke as Ragelise. Lilith calls it “the seed of a future.” I think this is the seed that grows into Lilith herself instead of Lilisette.
“Two worthy individuals possessed of one heart shall be drawn together. Then the Master shall descend.”
Is this the same Master that Flit referred to? Odin? Or someone else? I’m Getting major “Rosemary’s Baby” vibes here.
LILITH: “Soon it begins. Soon ‘he’ comes to Castle Zvahl.”
So perhaps Lilith is NOT the leader of her faction. She may just be the second in command to whoever this Master is. Could it be Promathia? I doubt it.
-Scene change to Lilith back inside Atomos. She takes an orb of some sort and sends it out into the world. Not sure what that is, but it’s up to no good.
-Scene change, to Larzos (the Galka we met at the grave) running along the glacier, when he sees that thing from Lilith drop into the snow.
OH GOD DON’T TOUCH IT – I’m terrified that the thing he sees will corrupt him and turn him into Lurzos the Spitewarden.
-Lili and I return to the San d’Orian camp. Now that the escape tunnels from Castle Zvahl has collapsed, he’s ready to start the siege in earnest.
-One of his friends asks if he’s sure about leaving Portia, and I’m sick of this question. WHAT ELSE IS HE GONNA DO? He loves Portia, but he’s the frigging commander of the key battle against the Beastman Confederate. If he sees a practical chance to rescue her I’m sure he’ll take it, but that doesn’t even exist right now.
I just hope the game doesn’t try to portray him as heartless for NOT running off for her out right now.
This came up in FFVIII. Squall was tasked with commanding the defense of Balamb Garden while Rinoa dangled near death. Everyone kept yelling at him to save her when he was trying to command the defense, and I was just like “LEAVE HIM ALONE, he doesn’t have time for Rinoa and it’s super unfair to try to make him shirk this duty for personal goals!”
-Larzos charges into the San d’Orian camp in a panic. He thinks the object he picked up in the snow is a Beastman communication. It’s a linkpearl – like an FFXI version of a walkie-talkie.
-OH SHIT OH SHIT OH SHIT
PORTIA SPEAKS INTO THE LINKPEARL AND LILITH IS BAITING RAGELISE SO HARD
PORTIA: “You… musn’t… come… Wanted… save… you…”
-So Portia is still sensible. She hasn’t gone full dark side. But this very act of communication, telling Ragelise that she’s in a cell in Castle Zvahl but that Ragelise shouldn’t try to get to her, is counterproductive. Now Ragelise has a tangible lead to follow-up on.
-Communication cuts out. Ragelise is enraged and confused.
-He opts for a half measure. He’ll leave his lieutenant in charge of the diversion siege, while Ragelise will join the force in Castle Zvahl to save Portia. A serious breach of military protocol, but he’s risking it.
-Lilisette and I will join him.
-Scene change. Lilith and the Spitewardens saw this. She sends a squadron of demons to the battlefield, presumably to take us out.
LILITH: “Checkmate. This game is won. It rends the heart to see a young life come to a premature end, but such is the harshness of reality. Goodbye, my pitiful Lilisette.”
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Next time: Into Castle Zvahl.
