Poaching the Poachers (Archer)
-My archery basic training is done. The guild sends me to take out some poachers plaguing a nearby town.
-Silvairre and Leah join me. Their relationship is as combative as ever, with Silvairre as the primary instigator. He’s a major dick.
-When it comes to combat at least, to taking on the poachers, he’s all business and works well with Leih.
-The poacher is a Miqo’te woman named Pawah Mujuuk. Another wonderfully designed character.
-We take out Pawah’s crew. It’s a tough quest is especially tough, as archer has few heals and the enemy poachers keep coming. Pawah herself escapes in the end.
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Icebreaker
-My friends and I head to take on Shiva. Lady Iceheart is in the arena. She summons her patron saint, Saint Shiva, and the invocation is surprisingly peaceful. No “RAIN FIRE ON MY ENEMIES” language here.
-Another new element of this primal summoning is that Iceheart doesn’t exactly summon Shiva as an external entity. She summons Shiva to possess her!
And… it’s kind of beautiful. Iceheart gradually gets absorbed in a crystal of ice, and Shiva pops out. This implies a level of trust between Iceheart and Shiva that wasn’t there in prior primals.
-The fight itself is great as usual. All the ice and freezing effects are my aesthetic jam. The music is great too, and like many of these primal themes it divides into two sections, one for each phase of the fight.
-My favorite part of the fight is the phase change. Shiva lifts off the ground, freezes us in place, sprinkles dust on us as she flies in a spiral above, and the dust shatters.
-She converts on defeat back to Lady Iceheart. She’s so angry at us. More than that: frustrated.
“Do not squander Mother’s gift. Hear… feel… think.” She’s team Hydaelyn. Everything I’ve seen here suggests that Shiva was on our side. Iceheart escapes. I get the feeling that we fucked up somehow.
-An Ascian watches over this.
-We regroup in Coerthas with the Ishgarde representative, Ser Aymeric. He’s delighted that the Heretics have been routed. They assure us that our supplies from Ishgarde will continue by way of thanks.
-Better yet, the stopped threat of Shiva may have convinced the isolationist Ishgard to review its policy. Maybe.
-I head back to Scion HQ to report in about the Shiva incident. There’s widespread shock among the Scions both that Iceheart used herself as a vessel to summon a primal (which nobody thought could be done), and that a non-Beast tribe race summoned a primal.
-How did Iceheart learn to do this? I’m betting the Ascians. They’re invested in spreading chaos via primals.
-Minfilia is especially struck by Iceheart’s final words before fleeing. “Hear… feel… think…” These are Hydaelyn’s words. Hydaelyn speaks to Iceheart.
-Iceheart also said I should see the “Keeper of the Lake.” I didn’t know what that meant until now, but it’s clear: Midgardsormr. The skeleton of the dragon out on the lake near our HQ.
-Our meeting is interrupted with news that the imperial spy, Eline Roaille (a.k.a. “The Ivy”) has escaped from her Ul’dah prison.
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Retaking the Ivy
-We have to stop Roaille before she reaches the imperial outpost of Castrum Meridianum.
-What follows is one of the more challenging and frustrating quests I’ve had. It’s a large battle to recapture Roaille, against lots of her Imperial allies protecting her. I have to kill them ASAP, before my allies die. And I have to not kill Elaine since we need her alive.
It takes four failed attempts before I succeed. I finally got it on my dragoon. It worked better than black mage because my black enemies kept dying while my black mage was getting a cast off, wasting lots of my DPS.
-Alphinaud starts to shame Eline and she snaps back.
ELINE: “You know naught of our plight – the injustice that we lowborn Ishgardians must endure! To the noble lords and ladies, we are not people, but resources to be consumed!”
I believe you. Ishgard sounds like it sucks for the commoners. But… “Cool motive. Still murder.” Is hat sufficient reason to betray your colleagues for the sake of the Garlean Empire’s tyranny?
-The Crystal Braves are with me on this. Many of them were born into poverty as well. They didn’t join the empire.
And they didn’t betray the people who trusted them.
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Regroup
-Scene change, to Teledji Adeledji. He’s talking to another person about problems with his plans. He’s concerned about Flame General Raubahn’s interference.
-Wait. Is Teledji planning to assassinate the Sultana? He says he’ll “attend to her” himself.
-I return to Scion HQ. Moenbryda has found an item to trap the Ascians’ souls: auracite.
-It’s not a long-term solution. The energy would soon overload the auracite. But if we can find a way to destroy that spiritual essence of a trapped Ascian, a weapon of aether, we might be able to take them out.
-Urianger and Moenbryda will research the creation of an aetheric weapon against the Ascians.
-Meanwhile, Minfilia brings up yet another old plot point: the Isle of Val and the Students of Baldesion faction who called the isle home. That island had been wiped away, torn out of reality. Do we have a clue as to why yet?
-The Students were researching something called “the Rejoining,” a dimensional compression. Getting major FFVIII vibes, memories of Ultimecia’s obsession with time compression.
-Minfilia’s friend Krile will regain consciousness soon. (Eeeeee! I can’t wait to meet her.) She saw the Isle of Val’s final moments. Hopefully she can shed light on this.
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Political Sandstorm
-Scene change to Ul’dah. Raubahn is speaking with Alphinaud. They think that Eline wasn’t just a Garlean agent, but also someone who helped the Monetarists (the Ul’dahn oligarchs). AND someone who helped the heretics. Yeesh. This is a complicated web.
-Raubahn takes this news badly, and personally.
He trusted Eline, treated her as a friend and confidante, only to find out that she betrayed him to the worst plagues on Eorzea. Her serving the Monetarists offends him even more than the Empire.
-Scene change. We see the Sultana in her room. SHE HAS A STUFFED MOOGLE AND STUFFED CHOCOBO ON HER BED
-The Sultana is eating dinner with Kan-e-Senna, the Gridanian leader, as well as Admiral Merlwyb of Limsa Lominsa.
-The villain of the next segment of FFXIV is shaping up to be the Monetarists. The Sultana plans to dissolve their coalition, whatever chaos it brings.
HOLY SHIT, SHE ALSO PLANS TO GIVES UP HER ROLE AS MONARCH! I love her so much.
-That’s as far as I can go for the story currently. In order to progress, I have to complete the hard mode versions of Ifrit, Titan, and Garuda.
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Yo-kai Complete
-FINALLY! I’ve spend a long time grinding out the final rewards of this Yo-kai Watch crossover event.
-There are 13 separate Yo-kai minions. Whenever I complete a FATE (a public quest) with a Yo-kai minion out, I have about a 30% chance to get that minion’s Legendary Medal. Enough medals, and I get a special weapon.
As I get more weapons, the medal cost increased. few weapon took 7 medals, then 10, and so on. The last three weapons needed 30 medals each.
Total: 222 legendary medals. 700+ FATEs. I looked online and saw someone else who timed their grind say it took them over 40 hours.
I accomplished this with the help of talking to friends, watching movies, LPs, the New York Knicks, and starting “Person of Interest.”
Those FATEs got my dragoon from level 30-50 and my archer from 10-25.
-The reward for all the weapons: a glow-in-the-dark Whisper (ghost) mount with a cat perched on the side.
I like it! Was it worth the 40+ hours of grinding? Probably not, but it’s an MMO. This kind of stuff is oddly satisfying.
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Next time: Probably will level up some crafting stuff, do some hard mode Primals, and continue with the story.
