A Brave Resolution
-Alphinaud has decided to disband the Crystal Braves. He feels he failed in his command.
-We return to Rising Stones in Mor Dhona. Most Braves abandoned the outpost after we beat Captain Ilberd and rescued Raubahn from prison. Few remain.
-But they won’t have it! Even if the Crystal Braves formally disband, this small group led by Riol feels so close that they want to stay and help us.
-The Brave remainders will help search for Minfilia and the other Scions lost at the end of ARR.
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Ready to Fly
-The Ul’dah plotline returns to the backburner. Back to Ishgard to prepare for the Aery.
-Cid’s manacutter is almost ready to go.
-Estinien, Alphinaud and I go check in with Ser Aymeric. Estinien reports on our attempts at peace with the dragons, and sounds unusually graceful. He appreciated the time with Iceheart/Ysayle.
-And yet, Nidhogg’s dragon assault is likely to be relentless. Our best chance is a direct assault on Nidhogg.
-Estinien is nervous about taking Alphinaud, thinking him too much of a novice. I’m not so sure – I’ve seen him fight – but Alphinaud agrees to stay back for now.
-This feels like an end-of-expansion encounter coming up. Nidhogg seems to be the driving force behind the dragon/Ishgard conflict. But no way. I’m only level 56, not the expansion max of 60. The Ascians’ plans haven’t been revealed. The Ishgard not!pope’s plans have yet to unfold. This is more likely a midpoint approaching.
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Into the Aery
-We fly on our manacutters towards the dungeon… and Nidhogg rises behind us. He’s a magnificent sight.
”Wicked mortals! I shall melt your flesh and turns your bones to ash!”
-He blasts my manacutter with fire sending me into a spiral. Estinien and I are separated. In hindsight, maybe flying into Nidhogg’s lair on these lil boats wasn’t the smartest thing.
-Like so many in FFXIV, it’s a richly-colored beauty of a dungeon. All sorts of shades of purple speckle the place – the sky, the debris, the crystals, the ground, everything.
-The Aery is full of a wide variety of dragons. I have two favorite types. The first is a dragon that strafes our group and fires rainbow-colored electric breath our way.
The second is a big sleepy dragon that we have to tiptoe past to avoid waking it up.
-Nidhogg awaits at the end. Estinien is holding him back with Nidhogg’s own eye. That’s cold.
-It’s a fun fight with adds and massive blasts of fire from Nidhogg himself.
We fight him to a stalemate. Estinien protects using Nidhogg’s own eye to protect us. This pisses him off royally.
NIDHOGG: “Thou wouldst use mine own eye against me? Time hath done naught to dilute thy kind’s depravity!”
-Nidhogg and Estinien prepare for a final face-off. Estinien has the upper-hand, leaping above Nidhogg and crashing into his skull.
-Nidhogg takes off to escape, but Estinien clings to his back. Delivers a final thrust through his skull. Nidhogg’s blood soaks Estinien, turning his pure black armor into all red.
This is like watching a heavy metal album cover play out. It’s epic af.
-Nidhogg falls to the earth below and disappears. He’s dead as dead gets. This is legit shocking. He’s been built up so much that I was SURE he’d be an end-of-expansion boss.
-Estinien lands near me. That armor change looks red.
And now he’s holding Nidhogg’s other eye.
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Houses of Ishgard
-I clutch my chest and fall into a trance state. That crystal realm again. WTF IS THIS PLACE?
-Another crystal lights up.
The only common thread I’m seeing is that I come back to this crystal realm and light one up when An Important Thing happens. It may also have something to do with the pact that Midgsardsormr keeps alluding to.
-Scene change. An arena of some kind. Sepia tones, so this is the past.
-Someone enters the arena holding two dragon eyes.
SYLVETREL DE DZEMAEL: “They are ours, Lord Haldrath… the eyes of Nidhogg!” We’re seeing the first Azure Dragoon having come from defeating Nidhogg.
-Wait. Two questions: how did Nidhogg have any eyes at all for Estinien to steal? And why was the first one he had red and the one he just grabbed yellow?
-Haldrath is mournful. He’s glad he finally killed Nidhogg, but acknowledges how wrong their actions were. His dad was the one who started the conflict I think. He just finished it to stop it.
-His knights rally around him, urging him to take the throne. Haldrath says no. He feels unworthy of it, and is determined to spend the rest of his time hunting down Nidhogg’s brood that might threaten Ishgard.
-He leaves his fellow knights – the beginners of Ishgard’s four noble houses – to rule Ishgard.
-One of this group abandons the life. He decides to serve ale instead of continuing to fight… AHA! The Forgotten Knight tavern! So while his four compatriots founded noble houses, he founded a bar lolol.
-They’ll divide power between their noble houses. They’ll leave the throne empty until a king rises, and assume the role of stewards until then.
-They vow to dedicate themselves to improving Ishgard, and hide the truth of what they did against the dragons.
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Eye Love a Mystery!
-Back to the present. I snap out of my trance and tell Estinien what I saw.
-Estinien grew up with such a different story. He heard that King Thordan (Haldrath’s dad) led his people to this land. Nidhogg attacked them, killed Thordan, and Haldrath took revenge as the first Azure Dragoon.
Lol nooooope.
ESTINIEN: “A rousing tale, is it not? Would that I could still believe it. But your vision, which we must accept as immutable truth, leaves no room for doubt – save on one point. If Haldrath took both of Nidhogg’s eyes, then how came this eye to be lodged in the wyrm’s skull?”
Red eye in his left hand, yellow in his right.
RIGHT? WTF IS NIDHOGG DOING WITH AN EXTRA EYE, A YELLOW EYE?
-Estinien wants to go see Hraesvelgr next. He thinks Hraesvelgr hasn’t told him the full story.
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Random Stuff Around Eorzea
-FFXIV’s pun game continues to be gloriously groan-worthy. I got a certain number of minions (non-combat cosmetic companions) and got the achievement “Despicable You.”
-A player in a chocobo costume with a pet Bartz-n-Boko wind-up:
-An Emperor Gestahl wind-up, but for some reason he’s a dog:
-The GLORIOUS, RADIANT SHANTOTTO from FFXI:
-A wind-up FFV boss, Calofisteri:
-look at this because it is important:
-My friend Raq’s awesome character model, amidst the Aery’s purple sky.
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Next time: Checking in with Hraesvelgr. I have literally no idea how he's going to react to our having killed Nidhogg.
