Summary: Making friends with Dravanian moogles. Meeting Hraesvelgr.
Mountaintop Diplomacy
-The music in the Churning Mists is a bagpipe theme.
-A moogle darts past us in this new area.
-OMG YSAYLE IS SEEING A MOOGLE FOR THE FIRST TIME! This is like Vivi getting to see a chocobo for the first time. We see one living in a nearby cave, all the way out here in the Churning Mists.
-The moogle flits away. We can’t find him. Alphinaud thinks the moogles living here may be the key to finding Hraesvelgr.
-We head back to Gridania, home of the moogles. Their rep only knows of legends, legends of moogles who dwelled beyond the clouds.
-According to legend, Good King Moggle Mog XII lived among clouds. Maybe it referred to this place.
-The Gridanian moogle rep, Kuplo Kopp, will join our search. Kan-E-Senna too, as the voice of Gridania.
-We all meet back up in the Churning Mists.
-Kuplo Kopp senses a vast number of moogles hiding nearby, afraid of our intrusion. Kan-E-Senna draws them out with a magical light show, emphasizing how non-hostile we are.
-The moogles emerge, led by their chieftan, Moglin. Moglin has an adorable leaf and branch crown.
I don’t know that I’ve ever seen a moogle with earrings before.
-Moglin mistrusts the smell of dragon blood on us. He fears it’ll bring war here. Hraesvelgr wants peace, but Nidhogg and his dragons do not.
-They’re not kicking us out just yet. These moogles extend their hospitality here in “Moghome” while testing us.
-The test-givers are Moghan, Mogmug, and Mogwin. I’m pretty sure those were moogles back in the initial parties of FFVI, when we first met the moogles beneath Narshe.
Chieftan Moglin in his fluffy dandelion throne.
---
The Trials of Trustworthiness
-The moogles’ trials are super chill and goofy. Like, “I’m too adorable and the dinosaurs are mean to me! Bop them on the snout to gain my trust!”
A moogle apothecary.
-The moogles also tested Estinien. What jumps out to me here (no pun intended) is that the moogles saw him doing his dragoon thing, and compared him to an old friend from FFVI:
ESTINIEN: “Our hosts seemed entranced by the height of my leap. They compared me to ‘Mog,’ a lance-wielding moogle warrior of eld who also favored such attacks.”
-Trials complete. The moogles trust me and give me a horn to blow to meet Hraesvelgr.
-Kan-E-Senna and Kuplo Kopps’ task is complete. They successfully helped us earn the moogles’ trust. Before Kan-E-Senna departs for Gridania, she warns me of the danger lurking within Estinien.
”Pray attend closely to your companion, Ser Estinien – beneath that stoical façade, a storm of anguish setthes unseen.”
A warning well-taken.
-We head west to Zenith, where Hraesvelgr may answer our horn call.
Mountaintop Diplomacy
-The music in the Churning Mists is a bagpipe theme.
-A moogle darts past us in this new area.
-OMG YSAYLE IS SEEING A MOOGLE FOR THE FIRST TIME! This is like Vivi getting to see a chocobo for the first time. We see one living in a nearby cave, all the way out here in the Churning Mists.
-The moogle flits away. We can’t find him. Alphinaud thinks the moogles living here may be the key to finding Hraesvelgr.
-We head back to Gridania, home of the moogles. Their rep only knows of legends, legends of moogles who dwelled beyond the clouds.
-According to legend, Good King Moggle Mog XII lived among clouds. Maybe it referred to this place.
-The Gridanian moogle rep, Kuplo Kopp, will join our search. Kan-E-Senna too, as the voice of Gridania.
-We all meet back up in the Churning Mists.
-Kuplo Kopp senses a vast number of moogles hiding nearby, afraid of our intrusion. Kan-E-Senna draws them out with a magical light show, emphasizing how non-hostile we are.
-The moogles emerge, led by their chieftan, Moglin. Moglin has an adorable leaf and branch crown.
I don’t know that I’ve ever seen a moogle with earrings before.
-Moglin mistrusts the smell of dragon blood on us. He fears it’ll bring war here. Hraesvelgr wants peace, but Nidhogg and his dragons do not.
-They’re not kicking us out just yet. These moogles extend their hospitality here in “Moghome” while testing us.
-The test-givers are Moghan, Mogmug, and Mogwin. I’m pretty sure those were moogles back in the initial parties of FFVI, when we first met the moogles beneath Narshe.
Chieftan Moglin in his fluffy dandelion throne.
---
The Trials of Trustworthiness
-The moogles’ trials are super chill and goofy. Like, “I’m too adorable and the dinosaurs are mean to me! Bop them on the snout to gain my trust!”
A moogle apothecary.
-The moogles also tested Estinien. What jumps out to me here (no pun intended) is that the moogles saw him doing his dragoon thing, and compared him to an old friend from FFVI:
ESTINIEN: “Our hosts seemed entranced by the height of my leap. They compared me to ‘Mog,’ a lance-wielding moogle warrior of eld who also favored such attacks.”
-Trials complete. The moogles trust me and give me a horn to blow to meet Hraesvelgr.
-Kan-E-Senna and Kuplo Kopps’ task is complete. They successfully helped us earn the moogles’ trust. Before Kan-E-Senna departs for Gridania, she warns me of the danger lurking within Estinien.
”Pray attend closely to your companion, Ser Estinien – beneath that stoical façade, a storm of anguish setthes unseen.”
A warning well-taken.
-We head west to Zenith, where Hraesvelgr may answer our horn call.
---
Waiting for the Wind to Change
-We have some time when we arrive before Hraesvelgr returns from his regular hunting. We make camp.
-Alphinaud backstory! He grew up pampered, son of a Sharlayan dignitary and youngest student accepted into the Studium.
-He feels that guilt, that hubris from such an upbringing, helped cause the downfall of the Scions.
-Ysayle was going down a road of ignorance until that chance meeting with Hraesvelgr opened her eyes.
ESTINIEN: “Sitting here amongst these grand ruins, how can I deny that man and dragon once lived in peace?”
YAY! GROWTH!
STILL ESTINIEN: “But for all that such an age existed, we are now in a time of war. Nidhogg killed my family, and no quirk of history will exonerate him.”
Never mind lol. Still, he holds though to his promise to leave Hraesvelgr alone as long as Ysayle can convince the dragon to make peace.
---
Heart of Ice
-We arrive at Hraevelgr’s home, Zenith. I’m not sure what I’m looking at. It looks almost like a crashed airship. A leathery domed structure.
-I blow the horn. The dragon answers.
-He has a glorious deep, booming voice speaking in a unique language. Hraesvelgr descends.
-The music emphasizes that this is a moment of grace and awe, not terror.
-Ysayle steps up to the plate. After all, she holds the soul of Hraesvelgr’s lost love, Shiva.
YSAYLE: “Do you not see, my love? I am Shiva reborn!”
-Hraesvelgr claims that this so-called spirit of Shiva is just a trick, a “phantom spun from the threads of misplaced faith.” Lol, that’d be a trip if he’s right.
-….wait, he’s serious? Ysayle didn’t really call forth Shiva’s soul?
-Hraesvelgr recounts the past. As it starts I expect a flashback scene, but the game instead uses these wonderfully evocative medieval-style drawings to tell the story.
How during their age of harmony, the Elezen learned that dragon eyes are the wellspring of their strength. King Thordan of the Elezen lured the dragon Ratatoskr into an ambush, taking her eye.
That’s fucked up.
-The Elezen ate the eyes, gained great power. Nidhogg learned of the betrayal. He attacked Thordan and the rest, but they turned him back.
#TeamNidhogg.
-This was the start of the Dragonsong War.
-I just notice now that Hraesvelgr has no left eye. He likely has his own vengeance to enact.
-Estinien is skeptical of this story. This history differs from what he was taught, and “conveniently” absolves the dragons of responsibility.
-For Hraesvelgr, this isn’t a war of elimination; it’s a war of exhaustion. That’s how they’re getting those who tire of the war to join the dragons. The Dravanian heretics.
-Drinking dragon blood, even a little bit, can cause Elezen to become dragons themselves. So… most of the dragons we’ve slain have probably been former Elezen.
That, too, is fucked up.
-This explains why Nidhogg hasn’t razed Ishgard. He doesn’t see it as a war to win, but rather as an eternal vengeance for his murdered sister.
-Ysayle tries once more to find a peaceful way out of this. Can we apologize? Return Nidhogg’s eye?
But not. We’d be apologizing for something that happened long before we existed. Nidhogg’s perception of time makes his sister’s death freshly painful for him. The joining with Shiva’s soul is the only thing that prevented Hraesvelgr from flying into the same kind of rage.
-Hraesvelgr flies away. So peace is out of the question, and Shiva has some kind of phantom inside her.
---
The Wyrm’s Lair
-Estinien wants to journey east, to Nidhogg’s lair. He wants to take Nidhogg out directly.
-Ysayle isn’t down with that. She still feels sympathy for Nidhogg, rightly so. But Estinien makes a good point. If he kills Nidhogg, is that the war’s end?
-He plans to use the Eye of Nidhogg to help take him down.
-Ysayle is still reeling.
”That I should be blinded by my own lies… Everything I believed… Everything I thought I was… Gone… All gone…”
Her sense of self and purpose is obliterated.
---
Next time: finding Nidhogg.
