Summary: Approaching Vidofnir for peace talks. Enter Krile. The Warriors of Darkness.
An Uncertain Future
-Tataru is enlisting a Sharlayan scholar to help find the missing Scions. IS IT KRILE? The game introduced her as a thing looong ago but hasn’t yet followed-up.
-Before that, Ser Aymeric wishes to meet with me and Alphinaud.
-Aymeric has temporarily assumed his father’s seat until the clergy name a new archbishop. That selection process is unlikely to happen given recent events, and how transparent Aymeric has been with the citizens of Ishgard.
AYMERIC: “After a thousand years of lies and secrecy, I could not well abuse their trust and hope to be believed. The time for deception has passed.”
-Tensions are still high. Regular people are harassing clergy out of anger at recent revelations. We have to end this “Dragonsong War” to improve things long-term.
-Lucia wants to meet with Vidofnir directly for peace with the dragons. He started out on Team Nidhogg, and still empathizes with him, but is likely open to peace.
-Brief scene change. We see Nidhogg-stinien curled up, both eyes blazing.
---
Breaking the Cycle
-I meet Lucia before we go meet Vidofnir. This is especially weird for her. She’s been at war with the dragons her whole life and is now on a diplomatic mission.
-I LOOOOVE that she draws inspiration from Ysayle/Lady Iceheart. Ysayle also fought her whole life only to turn later to peace. Even in her dying actions.
LUCIA: “I hope that one day she will be remembered not merely as a heretic, but as a misguided soul who dreamt of peace.”
-We go meet Vidofnir and I introduce Lucia. She makes an eloquent case.
-Vidofnir is open to peace, but can’t decide yet for two reasons: he has to consult his sire, and he has to deal with the Gnath who have been attacking his dragons.
---
Another Time, Another Place
-While that Dragonsong War plot stews, we’ll search for the Scions and meet with the Sharlayan scholar.
-YAY IT’S KRILE! Interesting – back in FFV she was a human kid, but here in FFXIV, they made her an adult Lalafel. [Later edit: her costume here even reminds me strongly of her FFV white mage sprite.]
-lol she arrives and immediately trolls the shit out of Alphinaud by gleefully telling stories about when he was a young and impetuous student
-Krile has some expertise in teleportation magic and thinks she can follow the path of Minfilia and the other missing Scions.
-To help, she needs Matoya’s “Crystal Eye.” This is wild. An FFI/FFV crossover. We head to meet her.
Unrelated to anything, but saw someone on this awesome golden bird mount.
An Uncertain Future
-Tataru is enlisting a Sharlayan scholar to help find the missing Scions. IS IT KRILE? The game introduced her as a thing looong ago but hasn’t yet followed-up.
-Before that, Ser Aymeric wishes to meet with me and Alphinaud.
-Aymeric has temporarily assumed his father’s seat until the clergy name a new archbishop. That selection process is unlikely to happen given recent events, and how transparent Aymeric has been with the citizens of Ishgard.
AYMERIC: “After a thousand years of lies and secrecy, I could not well abuse their trust and hope to be believed. The time for deception has passed.”
-Tensions are still high. Regular people are harassing clergy out of anger at recent revelations. We have to end this “Dragonsong War” to improve things long-term.
-Lucia wants to meet with Vidofnir directly for peace with the dragons. He started out on Team Nidhogg, and still empathizes with him, but is likely open to peace.
-Brief scene change. We see Nidhogg-stinien curled up, both eyes blazing.
---
Breaking the Cycle
-I meet Lucia before we go meet Vidofnir. This is especially weird for her. She’s been at war with the dragons her whole life and is now on a diplomatic mission.
-I LOOOOVE that she draws inspiration from Ysayle/Lady Iceheart. Ysayle also fought her whole life only to turn later to peace. Even in her dying actions.
LUCIA: “I hope that one day she will be remembered not merely as a heretic, but as a misguided soul who dreamt of peace.”
-We go meet Vidofnir and I introduce Lucia. She makes an eloquent case.
-Vidofnir is open to peace, but can’t decide yet for two reasons: he has to consult his sire, and he has to deal with the Gnath who have been attacking his dragons.
---
Another Time, Another Place
-While that Dragonsong War plot stews, we’ll search for the Scions and meet with the Sharlayan scholar.
-YAY IT’S KRILE! Interesting – back in FFV she was a human kid, but here in FFXIV, they made her an adult Lalafel. [Later edit: her costume here even reminds me strongly of her FFV white mage sprite.]
-lol she arrives and immediately trolls the shit out of Alphinaud by gleefully telling stories about when he was a young and impetuous student
-Krile has some expertise in teleportation magic and thinks she can follow the path of Minfilia and the other missing Scions.
-To help, she needs Matoya’s “Crystal Eye.” This is wild. An FFI/FFV crossover. We head to meet her.
Unrelated to anything, but saw someone on this awesome golden bird mount.
---
In the Eye of the Beholder
-Krile introduces herself as a Student of Baldesion. Their HQ was on the Isle of Val, which was obliterated in a mysterious magic attack.
-She also has the Echo. The Students of Baldesion are all devoted to uncovering the mysteries of Hydaelyn, interpreting Her will, studying Her gifts. The Scions and the Students sound like two facets of the same organization.
-As an Umbral Calamity (?) approaches, Hydaelyn’s power wanes as it gets distributed to different warriors in the world to help fight the good fight. Matoya’s Crystal Eye carries concentrated power of Hydaelyn’s from an earlier era.
-The Echo always manifests differently. Krile’s Echo gives her the power to converse with beings of every shape and size, beasts aside.
What a cool twist! She had this power in FFV too, the ability to communicate with moogles, and giving her this Echo power is a nice way to incorporate her prior version into the FFXIV world.
-She’s sensitive to “whispers of the soul.” This power will help her find our missing friends.
-Krile channels into the Crystal Eye.
Thancred’s Lifestream trail took her to Dravania.
-We ask around the hunter’s encampment nearby. There have definitely been sightings. Thancred is… not inconspicuous.
---
A Little Slow, A Little Late
-A friendly Gnath group (the ant-type beast tribe) traded with one of the Scions. (Thancred, I think.)
-Hostile Gnath captured him as a sacrifice to their primal Ravana, who I guess they summoned again. Rescue time.
-…never mind, I was wrong. I expected to have to fight Ravana again on a higher difficulty. In reality, we just rush into a Gnath stronghold and find a Ravana fight already underway.
But it’s not Thancred or Papalymo or one of the other Scions fighting. It’s a dude with an axe. He’s got a party with him. A black mage, white mage, bard, and paladin.
Is this guy the Warrior of Darkness that the Ascian summoned last time?
-We’re too late. Their party finishes Ravana off.
-We run up to that other party. Both the opposing warrior and I grab our heads in one of those Echo-forced flashbacks.
-In the flashback/vision, I see this axe-wielding warrior and his party fighting an Ascian.
-The Ascian is wounded, and the warrior launches a light blast his way.
-Interesting! The warrior’s whole party had that kind of Echo flashback too, not just the axe-wielder.
In the Eye of the Beholder
-Krile introduces herself as a Student of Baldesion. Their HQ was on the Isle of Val, which was obliterated in a mysterious magic attack.
-She also has the Echo. The Students of Baldesion are all devoted to uncovering the mysteries of Hydaelyn, interpreting Her will, studying Her gifts. The Scions and the Students sound like two facets of the same organization.
-As an Umbral Calamity (?) approaches, Hydaelyn’s power wanes as it gets distributed to different warriors in the world to help fight the good fight. Matoya’s Crystal Eye carries concentrated power of Hydaelyn’s from an earlier era.
-The Echo always manifests differently. Krile’s Echo gives her the power to converse with beings of every shape and size, beasts aside.
What a cool twist! She had this power in FFV too, the ability to communicate with moogles, and giving her this Echo power is a nice way to incorporate her prior version into the FFXIV world.
-She’s sensitive to “whispers of the soul.” This power will help her find our missing friends.
-Krile channels into the Crystal Eye.
Thancred’s Lifestream trail took her to Dravania.
-We ask around the hunter’s encampment nearby. There have definitely been sightings. Thancred is… not inconspicuous.
---
A Little Slow, A Little Late
-A friendly Gnath group (the ant-type beast tribe) traded with one of the Scions. (Thancred, I think.)
-Hostile Gnath captured him as a sacrifice to their primal Ravana, who I guess they summoned again. Rescue time.
-…never mind, I was wrong. I expected to have to fight Ravana again on a higher difficulty. In reality, we just rush into a Gnath stronghold and find a Ravana fight already underway.
But it’s not Thancred or Papalymo or one of the other Scions fighting. It’s a dude with an axe. He’s got a party with him. A black mage, white mage, bard, and paladin.
Is this guy the Warrior of Darkness that the Ascian summoned last time?
-We’re too late. Their party finishes Ravana off.
-We run up to that other party. Both the opposing warrior and I grab our heads in one of those Echo-forced flashbacks.
-In the flashback/vision, I see this axe-wielding warrior and his party fighting an Ascian.
-The Ascian is wounded, and the warrior launches a light blast his way.
-Interesting! The warrior’s whole party had that kind of Echo flashback too, not just the axe-wielder.
-The
warrior teases us. WE’RE supposed to be the saviors of this world? We,
who got to this Ravana fight too late, after this guy’s party already
took care of business?
-Alphinaud starts to make introductions when the opposing party attacks. They kick our asses HARD, using regular party actions. Their black mage casts fire area effect spells, their archer rains arrows on us, etc.
THANCRED SAVES US! He swoops in from above and fends them off for now.
WARRIOR OF DARKNESS: “Mark well our faces, Warrior of Light, for we are the Warriors of Darkness. Walkers of a different path. And we shall meet again.”
The Warriors of Darkness remind me strongly of the Crystal Warriors in FFXI. They were five bosses modeled on a player party, antagonists in “Rise of the Zilart.”
A huge potential difference is that the Crystal Warriors were a bit like automatons created to oppose us by the villains. The Warriors of Darkness appear to have a past, an arc.
-Thancred looks ragged btw.
He’s got an eyepatch, a goatee, and is just generally shabbier than usual.
-After the fight, we get to regroup. When Y’shtola used that forbidden teleportation magic to escape from the Monetarists at the end of A Realm Reborn, she also teleported Thancred to safety.
Lololol they show an image of Thancred emerging from the Lifestream in this strange land. Naked, his PG status saved only by a conveniently-placed squirrel critter.
-Thancred set out to pursue Ravana in order to find the Scions again, since where there’s a primal, there’s a Scion to fight it. That’s when he ran into the Warriors of Darkness.
ALPHINAUD: “If these warriors are capable of doing battle with Ascians and primals both, they must be possessed of powerful protection – protection not unlike the Echo…”
Theory: these Warriors of Darkness draw power from Zodiark rather than Hydaelyn. If so, why did they leave Hydaelyn in the first place, since we saw them fighting the Ascians in the flashback? Did she abandon them?
And if they are with Zodiark, why are they still fighting the primals? The Ascians have done everything in their power to stir the primals, so why would the Warriors of Darkness fight them?
---
Next time: continuing the search for missing Scions.
-Alphinaud starts to make introductions when the opposing party attacks. They kick our asses HARD, using regular party actions. Their black mage casts fire area effect spells, their archer rains arrows on us, etc.
THANCRED SAVES US! He swoops in from above and fends them off for now.
WARRIOR OF DARKNESS: “Mark well our faces, Warrior of Light, for we are the Warriors of Darkness. Walkers of a different path. And we shall meet again.”
The Warriors of Darkness remind me strongly of the Crystal Warriors in FFXI. They were five bosses modeled on a player party, antagonists in “Rise of the Zilart.”
A huge potential difference is that the Crystal Warriors were a bit like automatons created to oppose us by the villains. The Warriors of Darkness appear to have a past, an arc.
-Thancred looks ragged btw.
He’s got an eyepatch, a goatee, and is just generally shabbier than usual.
-After the fight, we get to regroup. When Y’shtola used that forbidden teleportation magic to escape from the Monetarists at the end of A Realm Reborn, she also teleported Thancred to safety.
Lololol they show an image of Thancred emerging from the Lifestream in this strange land. Naked, his PG status saved only by a conveniently-placed squirrel critter.
-Thancred set out to pursue Ravana in order to find the Scions again, since where there’s a primal, there’s a Scion to fight it. That’s when he ran into the Warriors of Darkness.
ALPHINAUD: “If these warriors are capable of doing battle with Ascians and primals both, they must be possessed of powerful protection – protection not unlike the Echo…”
Theory: these Warriors of Darkness draw power from Zodiark rather than Hydaelyn. If so, why did they leave Hydaelyn in the first place, since we saw them fighting the Ascians in the flashback? Did she abandon them?
And if they are with Zodiark, why are they still fighting the primals? The Ascians have done everything in their power to stir the primals, so why would the Warriors of Darkness fight them?
---
Next time: continuing the search for missing Scions.
