Main Story – Tam-Tara Deepcroft
Two starting notes:
1) I accidentally deleted most of my screenshots for this session, hence it being unusually text-heavy.
2) I got a bit behind on my main-quest, so I’m going to focus on the main story until I catch up.
-I’m tasked with stopping a doomsday cult, the Lambs of Dalamud, in the Tam-Tara Deepcroft dungeon.
-Lots of mummy-types in here. Spriggans too, an odd dustbunny enemy.
-The dungeon’s premise: the cultists are summoning some evil force. We have to interrupt this summoning and take out the monster.
-The boss is a mindflayer, Galvanth the Dominator. Those have been a pain in my ass since I met them in the Marsh Cave back in FFI.
-This is HEARTBREAKING. As I turn in the dungeon quest, I see an NPC party arguing. The archer and thaumaturge are guilt-tripping the healer for letting the tank die, not healing them fast enough.
-The healer feels awful. She has to watch her DPS abandon her for a new party. See, this is EXACTLY why I’m nervous about healing in an MMO lol.
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Main Story – Copperbell Mines
-The last two quests on the main story introduced me to dungeons near Gridania and Limsa Lominsa. The last dungeon for this section is near Ul’dah.
-Momodi tells me about the Copperbell Mines. 300 years ago, the Thorne Dynasty enslaved giants and set them to work in the mines. They eventually trapped them there.
Now, the giants who were trapped have started breaking out and attacking the miners. We have to stop them.
WHAT THE FUCK KIND OF HEROIC ACTION IS THAT?? The first dungeon had me taking out evil Sahagin-driven pirates. The second had me stopping an apocalyptic cult. All good.
Now I’m taking out abused slaves whose righteous anger interferes with Ul’dah’s economy? Like, I see Ququshu as evil and power-hungry, and even SHE would have issues with this.
I love Ququshu’s “hurray!” emote.
-The dungeon is a good chance to practice when to use area effect spells versus single-target. I try to use area effect when it’ll hit 3+ targets and single-target otherwise.
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Main Story – Refugee Crisis
-I go to turn the quest in and hear a scream outside the Ul’dah tavern. An “Obnoxious Merchant” is yelling at a refugee for stealing.
She clearly wasn’t stealing – he’s just trying to extort her with the threat of deportation. It’s a PLEASURE to kick his ass.
-Ah CRAP - I fall unconscious again. More visions.
-In the vision, two Ul’dahnites are watching refugees. Many hamlets survived the Calamity, but couldn’t support their communities in the long-term. A delayed refugee crisis.
-The two men see the woman we just saved buying food. I FUCKING KNEW HE WAS LYING.
-I wake up, telling the Obnoxious Merchant I know he’s a liar.
-Thancred meets me here. He’s proud that I was a fine envoy and that I helped the refugee.
-He’s also noticed my visions, and wants to introduce me to his group: the Scions of the Seventh Dawn.
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Main Story – Scions of the Seventh Dawn
-I meet a woman in the Quicksand Tavern. It’s Edda, the guilty healer whose party left her! She was thinking about giving up as an adventurer, but I inspired her. She’s returning home for training.
-Interesting! I thought the guilt-ridden healer would be a one-off joke, but nope.
-Anyroad, Momodi vouches for the Scions of the Seventh Dawn. Off to their headquarters in Vesper Bay.
-An adorable Lalafell, Tataru, welcomes me to their HQ. The Waking Sands.
-Other adventurers were drawn by their visions, and by their desire to fight the Empire and the primals.
-Minfilia leads the Scion. Thancred is here too. Their main foes are the primals.
-My visions are called the “Echo.” It lets me pass through someone’s soul, see their past.
-Why do they care? It makes me an awesome lie-detector, but how does it help fight the Primals?
-As an incentive to join, she offers me a retainer.
-The password to join the group is “Wild Rose.” LOLOLOL - that was the key rebel password in FFII. I LOVE these little callbacks.
-Sharlayan was an old city-state, magically-inclined. The Archons are survivors of Sharlayan.
-I meet the Archons within the Scions. Each watches a region of Eorzea. Yda and Papalymo watch the Twelveswood, Thancred watches Ul’dah, Y’shtola watches Limsa Lominsa. Urianger is a generalist.
-Their leader died at the Battle of Carteneau. Louisioux no doubt.
-My first Scion task is to aid the Immortal Flames. Robbers have been stealing crystal caravans, and locals have been kidnapped.
-Minfilia believes the Amal’jaa, Ifrit’s worshippers, committed these crimes in Ifrit’s name.
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Main Story – The False Priest
-Thancred and I start with disappearances in Eastern Thanalan.
-It’s hard to get information out of anyone. People are scared.
-Thancred Sister Ourcen (local priestess) and Marques (local gravedigger) are suspicious.
-I follow-up on Sister Ourcen. She helped a kid find his lost ring in her spare time – seems pretty pure.
-Investigation among the beastmen uncovers an advertising leaflet on behalf of the Order of Nald’thal. Sister Ourcen’s order. And yet, the writing looks sloppy, unofficial.
-Sister Ourcen mentions that garments have been missing of late. Someone is posing as a priest to kidnap the destitute! Let’s lure this false priest out, disguising ourselves as vagrants.
-It works. A “priest” from the order of Nald’thal approaches.
-IT’S UNGUST, THAT REFUGEE-HATING ASSHOLE MERCHANT! The Amal’jaa attack his hometown, and he tried to broker a deal. They’d leave him alone if he helped bring them people and crystals.
Oh, and they paid him off too. UNGUST IS THE WOOOOORST.
The Immortal Flames have Ungust attend his next meeting with the Amal’jaa. We’ll ambush them.
-The meeting starts, we spring the ambush… but then Amal’jaa reinforcements show up. Shit. One of the Flame Soldiers betrayed us.
-We take out a lot of them. It’s not enough. We’re caught.
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Main Story – Lord of the Inferno
-The captured Flame Soldiers, abductees, and I are in an Amal’jaa prison camp. We’re to be fed to Ifrit as an offering.
-The Amal’jaa summon him. He looks metal af.
-Ifrit blows blue fire on us all, including Ungust. It converts everyone into a worshipful Ifrit fanatic, brainwashing them. Except me. It doesn’t work on me for some reason.
-The fight against Ifrit is great! It’s a group fight that I do with my friends. Dodging AoEs, killing an add before he can explode it and wipe us… it’s just what I want from an intro raid boss.
-Thancred and Ul’dahn support swoop in to help clean up and evacuate the survivors.
-The Imperial leader, Nero tol Scaeva, watched the whole thing. A woman in white armor is here too.
???: “Nor can we expect any form of support from the motherland, given the troubles at court. We have only ourselves to rely upon.”
She’s Livia sas Junius, and her armor – especially her mask - is AMAAAAZING. She’s higher ranked than Nero.
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Main Story – Tempered
-I touch base with Thancred. The survivors are physically healthy, but Ifrit’s brainwashing fire stuck.
-Back to Scion HQ. We won, but Thancred feels guilty that he arrived too late to save the soldiers and abductees from Ifrit’s tempering.
-So we stopped the abductions, took out the kidnapping ring, uncovered the Amal’jaa corruption within the Immortal Flames, and defeated a god of fire. Not bad for my first task.
-The primals consume aether to maintain their presence in the physical realm, and crystals are concentrated aether. Hence the Amal’jaa hijacking the crystals.
-The primals possess no physical form. Their essences are usually dispersed. However, when the world is chaotic, primal worshippers cry out to the gods for aid. These cries solidify the primal’s essence.
This feels very “American Gods.” Belief shapes the primals.
-Ifrit’s brainwashing fire is called “tempering.” It gains him more worshippers and more power. My Echo makes me immune – does this mean the Echo is a different god’s tempering?
-Now it makes sense. This is why the Echo is crucial against the primals.
-HOLY SHIT. All the tempered abductees were executed. They were totally, irreversibly corrupted by Ifrit, and would have lived their lives as mindless Ifrit worshippers. Now I get why Thancred feels so guilty for arriving late.
THANCRED: “I must be better, stronger.”
I’m nervous. This talk is as likely to lead to a corruption-for-power arc as a Rocky-training-montage arc.
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Next time: Continuing to progress the main storyline. I also likely will hit level 30 on thaumaturge and continue that story. Also checking out my retainer.
