Traveler’s Tips
-Esper summoning esper costs a mist charge.
-It sounds a bit like FFX, with most of the party disappearing while the Esper and summoner remain.
-Espers use gambits and special technicks.
-Espers exist on a timer. If time runs out or they get KO’d, normal battle resumes.
“Esper technicks are especially effective at attracting the attention of foes.” Maybe this means Esper technicks build high enmity.
-The second job license tutorial is a bit confusing. I’m not sure if the licenses are additive, or if I have to swap between jobs boards. Probably the latter.
---
The Sinking of the Leviathan
-As we leave the tomb, Archadian air forces swoop down to capture us.
-Judge Ghis picks us up. (Something about his character design – his face, his hair – makes him really hard to take seriously.)
-He wants the Dawn Shard, which he claims is “deifacted nethicite.”
-VOSSLER BETRAYED US? Sort of. He told the Empire about the Dawn Shard in exchange for them re-establishing the Kingdom of Dalmasca for Princess Ashe.
I get his reasoning, but he serves Ashe. Let her make the call. She’ll (rightfully) never trust him again.
-She doesn’t have much choice. Hands over the Dawn Shard.
-Ghis mentions that this will make Cid happy, and this gets Balthier’s hackles up. History between them?
-We’re taken to the Shiva for holding.
-Ghis asks a subordinate to test the stone for its power, despite being told to immediately return to the Empire with it. He’s got his own game going on.
-They start to test it. Fran senses something. Ruh-oh.
Ghis’s test proves the Dawn Shard is the real deal. “The power of the Dynast-King in my hands. Blood alone does not an emperor make, Vayne.” He’s definitely making a power play.
-Then something goes wrong.
FRAN GROWS CLAWS – SHE GOES FERAL!
Going Vieral.
BREAKS HER CHAINS AND KNOCKS OUT HER GUARDS! I’m afraid for a second we’ll have to fight her, but no.
-Vossler tries to stop our escape. He’s afraid his deal with the Empire will go south for Dalmasca if we leave. Boss time.
-JESUS. I just did a quickening chain that did over 23k damage to Boss!Vossler (Bossler?). He goes down.
-The Dawn Shard is draining the ship’s power. The Leviathan’s gonna go down.
-Vossler repents, acknowledges his folly to Basch. Basch has to take up his charge.
-The Shiva explodes. A massive blast of power.
FRAN: “The Mist. It manifests now.”
A crystalline ball floats by amidst the explosions. The Dawn Shard. We swoop in and pick it up.
---
Interlude
-We get a brief narrative similar to the intro. I recognize this voice as Marquis Ondore’s.
-The 8th Imperial Fleet was destroyed, and Ondore left Bhujerba to rally anti-Imperial forces.
-Ashe returned to Rabanastre in secret, also concealing the Dawn Shard. After all, if she were publicly known to live, Marquis Ondore’s cred with the resistance forces he was trying to rally would be shot.
(I still don’t get why he can’t just tell them the truth, that he was forced to say she committed suicide by the Empire, but whatever. I’ll go with it.)
---
Archades
-A new city. Cosmopolitan, technologically advanced, skyscrapers everywhere, airships flitting about.
-This is Archades, the Imperial capital.
-We see the Imperial senate, presided by the Emperor. A senator reports on Rozarria’s military.
-The senate collectively blames Vayne’s deployment of the fleet for the loss of the Leviathan. I don’t trust Vayne, but this was all on Ghis!
-The senators push hard for Lord Larsa to be made next in line of succession. They want Vayne executed.
-The Emperor relents. He’ll bid Vayne return to Archades.
---
Regrouping in Rabanastre
-Scene change. Ashe’s dream perhaps? She sees the phantom prince, then sees Vaan behind him as the phantom disappears. Does she have a thing for Vaan? I kind of hope not.
-Scene change again to a room in Rabanastre with the party. Four days after the Leviathan sank.
-A similarly huge explosion happened before in the Nalbadian capital of Nabudis. Lord Rasler’s home. The Midlight Shard was present at the time.
-Ashe is determined to not let the Empire hold the Midlight and Dusk Shards any longer. She wants to go to war with them using the Dawn Shard.
She gives this powerful speech about how the Dawn Shard will be the sword of Dalmasca’s vengeance.
It’s stirring, encouraging, and…
VAAN: “Do you even know how to use it?” lololol
-Fran suggests that we go see the garif for advice, a people who live with Magicite lore in their culture.
-Balthier agrees to take her there, but he asks for her ring as collateral. Her wedding ring? What a dick.
-Vaan’s still hanging around, but he doesn’t exactly have a clear purpose. This is not his story.
---
Revisiting Rabanastre
-Time to explore Rabanastre and see what’s different.
-The Rains have now come, altering the make-up of Giza Plains.
PATIENT BANGAA: “My friend here is in the foulest of moods. ‘Moogle’ this and ‘sluice gate key’ that.” I’ll watch for a moogle.
-Picked up three new hunt marks: Wyvern Lord, Enkelados, and Croakadile.
-Rimzat is a philosopher from Archades. He’s studying the local storms and wants to reach “a part of the desert at the end of a long trail that winds through the north.”
-I need a windvane to get through the storms to reach the area that philosopher wants me to go to. A kid who owned the windvane split it into two pieces. He buried his half in the Westersand, by a dead end with giant dynast-cactuses.
---
Hunt: Wyvern Lord
-Before continuing this, I want to take out a mark and try out Belias. Gave him to Vaan.
-He WRECKS Wyvern Lord!! Belias is XII’s Ifrit. He has access to Fira, Painflare (single target fire), Hellfire (multi-target fire), and even Cura.
[Non-rhetorical question: is there a way for me to adjust Belias’s gambits?]
-Turned it in and got a nice bow as well as a Shell Shield. The Shell Shield has mediocre defense but auto-casts Shell. Doesn’t seem great.
---
Back to Rabanastre
-Rumor is that the garif put on a mask at birth and don’t take it off until they die.
1) That’s AWESOME if true.
2) So… is the mask just super big until they hit their late-teens?
-A Moogling moogle accidentally dropped “something” into the sewers. Oh, that must be the sluice gate key they mentioned earlier!
-Found that moogle! I can’t seem to get the quest from him now, but perhaps later – like, when I’m at a level to take on the Malboro Overkings in the sewers.
-The “demented merchants” here keep talking about having goods that aren’t fit for kids. Current theory: the game will time skip at some point. Vaan and Penelo will grow a few years, and then we’ll be able to buy what the merchants sell.
-Moogles live in the Salikawood.
-People around the city cautiously approve of Vayne. He’s tangibly improved conditions.
---
Gibbs and Deweg
-While exploring Nalbina Fortress, the barrier into the Wastelands is now blue, not red. Still guarded though, by two guards.
-I overhear them talking. The “ones” at Lord Vayne’s appointment were a gift of a guard’s family.
-LOLOL HI BIGGS AND WEDGE – though in this game, they’re Gibbs and Deweg. Still enemy soldiers.
-Deweg wants to leave this crap assignment. Gibbs is reluctant, urging Deweg to stay at his post.
-And something about chocobos. Deweg’s family loaned chocobos for Vayne’s appointment ceremony. There’s a chocobo renter nearby – maybe I can bring a chocobo over to him and bribe him to let me through.
-Deweg is AFRAID of chocobos! He grew up on a chocobo farm in Tchita Downs, but when he got to a city he smelled of chocobos for so long that he was shunned. Poor Deweg!
-He’s worried his wife will leave him if he smells again like chocobos. Lolol HE RUNS! See ya, Deweg.
-A woman named July has been watching this exchange. Deweg’s wife hired her to find out more about Deweg’s family. She leaves for Archades to report in.
-Two wolves at the Mosphoran Highwaste entrance are way too high level. I’ll come back later.
-Nice! I can explore on a rented chocobo without getting monster enmity.
---
River Village
-Returned to the Nebra River village. The ferry is finally here! I can cross.
-Across the river, the men of the village are surrounded by cactoids. Then, they flee?
-The cactoids return with a giant flowering cactoid. They don’t seem hostile. They’re looking for the big cactoid’s son, Dran.
-Dran ran off and joined a bad cactoid gang and now the mother cactoid wants to talk some sense into him and how are these sentences I’m writing.
-Dran and his gang are somewhere on the south bank of the river.
-Dantro’s Wife has a horrifying idea: what if the Flowering Cactoid I killed was Dran??
-She’d dumped his flower behind the house. Great. “Here, Cactoid mom, have your son’s flowery body.”
-WAIT HE’S ALIVEEEEE??? Maybe. At least, the flower budded into another cactoid.
-Okay, let’s bring “Dran” back.
-LOL IT’S SUCH A HAPPY REUNION!!
I’m not sure if this is Dran himself revived, or some alternate, but they accept him.
---
Next time: Exploring north of the Nebra River. Choosing second jobs. Down to the Giza Plains.
