Chapter 7, Part 2: The Oath – Hearthside
-The party awakens back on the Galbana.
-Hi, Nono! The Strahl is grounded so the moogle mechanic joins us.
-Tomaj is unaware that we’ve been in the World of Illusions. Time must’ve passed quickly.
-Balthier and Fran are here. And Vaan PUNCHES BALTHIER. GOOD.
His whole “I know everything and I WON’T TELL YOU” thing pisses me off.
-Woohoo, Balthier and Fran join the party! I hope they’re here long-term rather than as guests. We’ll see if I can craft weapon and armor for them.
-Penelo proposes we air out everything. No more secrets. Sounds good until we hear attackers near the Galbana..
-Fran explains how we woke on the Galbana: “The Mist will always lead one home, if one wishes to find it.” There’s something kind of great in how this ship has become a sort of home.
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Aegyl Uprising – The Skies of Lemures (7-4)
-The AEGYL are attacking?
-Fran notes that their anima have returned. They’re overwhelmed with emotions.
-All the enemies fly, so I go with a fully ranged party (the flying counter).
-A woman named Ansei leads the aegyl. She chastises Llyud for fighting alongside us.
-Llyud is curious. He wants to learn the nature of this world, and of Feolthanos.
-Ansei hears this as blasphemy. I can’t blame her.
-The combat is an intense defend-the-ship challenge.
FRAN: “The aegyl, this land – all only pawns to the Occuria.”
The gods. Does that mean Feolthanos is an Occuria?
-I didn’t need to check. Two seconds later, a scroll of lore appears. Exposition time!
-Thousands of years ago, in the age of the gods, the aegyl arose. The Occuria sought to guide and control the aegyl as they had the other races of Ivalice.
The aegyl would not be ruled though. They fled to the skies, and used auraliths to erected barriers against the gods they escaped. But they still wanted revenge against the Occuria.
-Btw, the art on this scroll is INCREDIBLE.
-So maybe Feolthanos isn’t an Occuria himself. He could be a superpowered aegyl. That’s the image this exposition scroll ends with.
-There are also a few aegyl surrounding him who look to have fiery wings. Yikes.
This also would explain why he cares about dominating Ivalice. As vengeance for having been exiled.
-Hm. I don’t know. How did Feolthanos become known as “the Eternal” if he was an aegyl to start? Something about siphoning power via the auraliths?
FRAN: “Eternity is an illusion, but there’s one person that believes in that illusion: the Judge of Wings.”
-So I still don’t fully understand who Feolthanos is but I can guess at his motivation. The Judge of Wings is the opposite. I get who she is, but I don’t understand her desire to destroy.
-In any case, we have a mission: free the aegyl from Feolthanos and stop the Judge of Wings simultaneously by finding the final auralith and destroying it.
FRAN: “Why did Mydia first come to Lemures?”
PENELO: “She couldn’t have known about the Cache of Glabados.”
-Nono and Tomaj interrupt this line of thought by alerting us to ships arriving from Ivalice. Crap.
-WAIT NO, THE OPPOSITE OF CRAP! QUEEN ASHE!
End of Chapter 7, part 2. That was… a short part 2. Seems bizarre that they split the chapter up this way now.
[Later edit: though maybe it wasn’t about making a long chapter digestible, but rather about making a thematic split between the world of illusion and world of reality. The “hearthside” world (what a great term).]
-I can now travel to the Leviathan, hovering amidst Lemures
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Ship Time!
But first, some ship time to craft weapons, clear some inventory space, talk to party members.
-Filo thinks Llyud has changed since returning from the World of Illusions. For the better.
-Fran and Balthier met the Judge of Wings before we met the Judge. “She sought… to use the power of the Eternal to restore life to the unliving.” Velis.
-Kytes corrects me on a major misconception. The aegyl didn’t erect the barrier - the OCCURIA erected the barrier to trap the aegyl on Lemures. No wonder the aegyl are pissed.
-Figuring out who Feolthanos is might tell us why the Judge of Wings follows him.
-Hee! Nono is a legendary mechanic. He’s got a sky pirate fanboy.
-Emotions confuse Llyud still. Like, why did Vaan hit Balthier even though they’re friends?
VAAN: “It was a conversation I didn’t want to have with him. So I kept it short.” lololol
-Cu Sith finally tells me how she came to meet Tomaj. She got caught on a ship’s wing and Tomaj rescued her. Good Guy Tomaj.
-WOOHOO! Cu Sithcan craft guns and bows, indicating that Balthier and Fran joined permanently.
-This crafting process. XD
[Non-rhetorical question: do Cu Sith’s three questions impact the quality of the weapon each time?]
-Llyud asks a great question: what was the auracite doing down on Ivalice, beyond Lemures’ borders? Maybe someone put it there to hide it from Feolthanos, or so nobody could use it.
-The ship logs tell me our time in the World of Illusions was not instantaneous or unmissed.
Tomaj was in a panic.
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Notice Board Missions
-The cooking quests continue with “Comfort Food” as we search for ingredients on Lemures.
-Next up, “Ordered Chaos.” Aegyl fighting alongside sky pirates?? Llyud’s always been an outcast exception to that.
-Ah, the aegyl HIRED the sky pirates, paying them in auracite. The aegyl see it as similar to summoning Yarhi with auracite.
-There’s something creepy here: as the aegyl have begun to regain their anima, the sky pirates are losing theirs.
VAAN: “We’ve got to save everybody from themselves.”
-Next is “Echo of Thunder.” A new rank 3 esper to fight in Shemhazai.
Hm. I’m level 33-35. The enemies are in the high 40s.
-But we manage it. Whew. I used my rank 3 Titan, heavily here. Sent him in first to tank Shemhazai’s big hits and followed-up in his wake.
[Non-rhetorical question: Do I get less experience if I don’t clear all the enemies on a level, or is the experience level pre-set for clearing a mission regardless of how many enemies I defeat?]
-Defeating Shemhazai grants Balthier his quickening, Element of Treachery. Deals huge damage to a single enemy. Very useful. I mostly use Vaan’s quickening for huge area effect damage, but Balthier’s can be great against bosses.
[Later edit: I assumed I can only use one quickening for each time the bar fills, but that may be wrong. I’ll test that soon.]
-The next mission also appears to be a scion mission. “Destiny in the Stars.”
-The music in this game is quite beautiful. I especially like this mission’s piano melody.
-We head to this deserted island to see shooting stars, and of course, that’s no star. It’s Exodus.
”That’s no moon!”
-Another tough mission, but I feel like I’m getting better at using the tools the game gives me. Equipping more appropriate elemental gear to exploit resistances and enemy weaknesses, shifting my esper and party selection depending on enemies, using my quickenings, sending the counter to tank damage (e.g. sending my melee units to take the first hits from a pack of ranged units).
-Afterwards, Fran expresses sadness. I’m not surprised she feels sadness, but I’m surprised she expressed it to this group.
She likes watching the stars, and wished this wasn’t Exodus but an actual shooting star.
-Got Fran’s quickening: Gaze of the Void. Fires a barrage of arrows that removes all enemy buffs.
-That’s all the notice board missions available.
-I check back in with Penelo on board. Her cooking has improved a lot.
-I’m missing a few side missions in my log, but that’s okay.
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Next time: aboard the Leviathan.
