Archades - Tsenoble
-I pay my sandalwood chop and take the aircab to Tsenoble.
-Balthier’s shady friend, Jules, tells us about an airship that can reach Draklor Laboratories.
-Tsenoble is the swanky part of town. People here are dicks.
-I move a bit closer to the Labs and get a cutscene as if a ton of time passed. I’ll bet if I hadn’t gotten so many pinewood chops before, I’d have to now.
-Draklor Labs works independently from the Ministry of Justice nowadays. Even moreso now with autocrat Vayne, who is probably giving them all kinds of nethicite-related projects.
-Jules calls Balthier “Master Ffamran!” Balthier = Ffamran?
-We take a cab to Draklor Laboratory.
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Draklor Laboratories
-It’s quiet here. Too quiet. No guards here around.
-The guards are up ahead, wounded or dead. They’re suspicious of us.
“You’re…. with him??”
“Don’t think you’ll get away with this!”
-Why do they think our party is to blame? Who do they think we’re with?
-Cid’s office is wrecked and rifled through.
BALTHIER: “The Jagd Difohr, was it? Six years, and ever since you got back, this…. What m****** found you there?” So Cid found something horrible in Jagd Difohr.
-Sounds like Cid is on floor 70. I’ll work my way up there.
[Later edit: This whole place had floors 66-70. They could have picked any number and went with that range. Must be a light callback to FFVII’s Shinra Building.]
-The lab features a blue light/red light lock system similar to the mines.
-Went back to 66F but can’t seem to reach most of the areas. I need to find a way to unlock the red doors and get back to the elevator.
-68F has the answer and lets me explore 66F more fully.
-A researcher here wonders whether the “monster they were examining in the north lab” is the cause of this chaos. I’m gonna say probably.
-Found a couple of Blood Gigas’s in the a north room. They’re pretty weak, so maybe the researcher was wrong lol.
-There’s another elevator on 68F that goes to 70F. Skips past 69F. I wonder if that’s a secret level.
-As we get off the lift, some dude attacks us. His character design is fantastic.
He thought we were Cid’s lackies and stopped when he saw we weren’t with Cid. He runs off.
-Found the Gil Toss technick!
-We charge forward and find Cid. He and Balthier are clearly familiar with each other.
-Cid talks with someone we can’t see. He wants to use her as a test subject. Walkie-talkie? To who, Vayne? We’ve already seen that Cid acts as Vayne’s confidante.
-Cid seems more overtly villainous than he has before. In a cackling, mwa-ha-ha way.
Usually he starts working for the bad guy and only gradually becomes our ally; I don’t know if that’ll happen this time.
-Ah. He is suffused with manufacted nethicite, like Bergen. He was talking not to Vayne, but rather to the thing “possessing” him. Balthier calls it his Venat.
The only way I could see him becoming our ally is if the Venat is so corrupting that he becomes good-(ish) when we destroy the nethicite.
-Boss fight. He’s surrounded by mechanical nodes that I have to take out first, similar to the Prince Eald’narche fight in FFXI.
And after that, he breaks out a hilariously over-the-top gun.
Quickenings take him out from there.
-The dude who helps us goes for a killing blow. Cid has some shield that repels him. He’s escaping!
-He’s heading to Giruvegan and wants us to follow. Even suggests, like the devil on her shoulder, that Ashe might find more nethicite there.
-The pirate dude, Reddas, offers us his service.
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Interlude
-Another one of those interludes narrated by Marquis Ondore.
-Vayne’s purge is complete. The military is pretty happy with this outcome.
-The resistance prepared in the “Border-Skies.”
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The Garland
-Scene change to the resistance flagship. Hee! It’s the “Garland.” Mid-training exercises.
-They get news that “the sky pirate” has left Archades with Princess Ashe. So Reddas was working for the Resistance! For some reason, I had assumed he was an Imperial disgusted by Cid’s actions.
This makes sense though – I mean, he did call himself a sky pirate.
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Approaching Balfonheim
-Scene change to our party talking with Reddas. We’re on a ship.
ASHE: “They choose to supply the Resistance, yet raise not a sword in aid. What city could do this?”
REDDAS: “A city of men without countries. Pirates of the sea and sky.”
I assume he means Bhujerba? …ah, we’re in the Balfonheim port. Maybe Balfonheim is the city supplying all this. Idk. In any case, Ondore can’t operate from the shadows for much longer.
-We get a Reddas flashback, him talking with Marquis Ondore.
Ondore hopes to build up the resistance’s power enough to bring even someone like Vayne to the treaty table. Lol. Not likely. But Ondore wants the nethicite anyway.
-I’m having a tough time working out the connections and alliances in play here. Reddas is really hesitant to get the Midlight Shard for Ondore. Ondore counters that if he doesn’t do so, he may have to seek help from Rozarria.
-Back to the present. Our current plan is to find Cid, wrest the nethicite from his control, and smash it with the Sword of Kings. Destroy Vayne’s greatest weapon. We follow Cid to Giruvegan.
-Fran calls Giruvegan “the holy land.” It’s hidden amidst the Mist, through Golmore and the Feywood.
-Reddas will not join. He doesn’t want to get the nethicite for Ondore.
-Ashe is still on the fence about whether she actually wants the nethicite. Reddas warns her: “Do not forget Nabudis.”
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Next time: Balfonheim.
