Chapter 9: Thoughts Forgotten – Keep of Forgotten Time
Winged Warriors – Gates of Shattered Time (9-1)
-The Keep of Forgotten Time is a small, beautiful map. The Keep floats in space, orbited by rocks.
-Aegyl guard the gate. Oh, not aegyl – memories/anima given form.
-RW’s AI pathing is pretty awful. The tight corridors here exacerbate the problem.
-We defeat the enemies and things get weird. The color turns sepia. The ground shakes.
PENELO: “I feel time… slipping.”
-lol the battle resets. I’m back where I started. The aegyl guards revived.
-It happens AGAIN when we win! Feolthanos is basically using save states.
-Thematically it’s great and horrifying. He’s using the aegyl anima as infinite cannon fodder. It’s torture.
-Another go-round and aegyl are done, exhausted. Feolthanos resets the fight again.
TIME’S MAN-AT-ARMS: “Feolthanos has brought our history to a standstill.” They started fighting out of hatred for Ivalice. That was so long ago they’ve all but forgotten.
-The music has changed into something mournful, and it persists through one last version of the battle.
-It’s the last time. Mission complete. What a creative mission!
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Creator of Darkness – Throne of Feolthanos (9-2)
-We enter the keep. Feolthanos appears in a throne. He’s an aegyl.
FEOLTHANOS: “The darkness that haunts us began when we were driven from Ivalice. We have fought amongst ourselves ever since. Now, trapped here for so long, we forget even why we fight. All that is left us is pain. And so we fight on.”
-His words flash over the screen, telling me he’s communicating telepathically.
-He walks forward. Armor appears on him. It’s the same armor Mydia wore as Judge of Wings.
-He leads us into another room. We see him standing amidst aegyl corpses (or corpses of their anima at least). He’s slaughtering them. I don’t understand.
FEOLTHANOS: “In the skies we found freedom. But the skies soon became another prison.”
So they escaped from the Occuria to the free skies… and got trapped. Imprisoned. It was agony. He wanted to end their suffering.them, end their suffering.”
-Feolthanos draws in the energy of the fallen anima into himself and converts it into hostile espers.
LLYUD: “We worshiped you as a god. You betrayed us.” What a huge moment for Llyud.
-I see now! He stole their anima because they were suffering up here. He thought stealing their anima would take away their pain. And… I mean, if I were trapped in a prison locked in eternal conflict and someone took my pain away, then it’s not the worst thing? But then he did this without anyone’s consent, so… Yeah.
I still don’t quite understand the conflict Feolthanos mentioned. Was there a civil war that he stopped by taking anima?
-Objective: “Defeat Feolthanos.”
-This mission is brutal. There’s a boss rush element to it, since he starts off with Belias. I take him out and Feolthanos then summons Mateus. Then Chaos. That’s thankfully the last.
-I BAAAARELY beat Feolthanos. He used a big area effect to wipe out a lot of my espers early, so the fight was a scrambled panic as I spam out new espers. Penelo is my only leader left standing. Whew.
LLYUD: “Feolthanos, do you feel my anger? Do you feel my sorrow? If you are our god, then we have no more need of gods.”
LLYUD DROPPING THE MICCCCC
-Feolthanos turns to us hungrily. He wants our anima.
-He casts some draining spell at Vaan… when Llyud jumps in the way and falls unconscious. Feolthanos took his anima, however little there was.
-Feolthanos begins to walk away when something inside him stops him. It enrages him.
“Traitor to our blood! The dead do not speak!” One of the souls he stole is trying to stop him?
-We flash into Feolthanos’ memory. *buckles up*
-He’s placing the stones into what are now the Ruins of Glabados.
-His portrait resembles a white Jesus. (I doubt that’s intentional. Mostly.)
!!!!! THE STONE IS HIS ANIMA! I’m pretty sure the Cache of Glabados is his soul?? (I’m still a bit confused on the plot mechanics and auraliths and auracite and the Cache of Glabados, so I’m probably mixing some of this up.)
-He’s talking with an attendant.
ATTENDANT: “Then you leave it as a gift for [your family]?”
FEOLTHANOS: “Not exactly. This stone is…”
Flash out. The memory ends. Grrrr cliffhanger.
-Back in the present, he turns back to us and rages at Llyud. Wants him to feel grateful for everything he endured on the aegyl’s behalf.
-He disappears. Those were his real thoughts/actions, but Fran confirms the form was just an illusion.
-Llyud awakens to Kytes and Filo weeping over him. He’s confused. Loss of anima made him revert to his prior self.
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Fallacy – Throne of Feolthanos (9-3)
-The room changes. We see Feolthanos’ true form. He’s a giant aegyl with jagged crystal wings.
-Wait, HE’S the last auralith! His body crystallized.
-This mission requires me to take out waves and waves of espers protecting the throne.
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The Unconscionable – Feolthanos, the Last Auralith (9-4)
-We approach Feolthanos. He took the aegyl anima to seek revenge against the gods of Ivalice.
PENELO: “What the Occuria did to the aegyl was terrible. But it can’t excuse this.”
FILO: “And taking it out on us? That makes even less sense!”
Well said. The Occuria suck! They’re awful! But what you did was awful too, to your own people and to those on Ivalice who never hurt you.
-Penelo still tries to convince him that we can work with the aegyl to rebuild the world if only Feolthanos will free them. Even Mydia, his own child, wanted to help.
-Feolthanos hears this and summons Mydia’s anima. First as a viera, then garbing her as Judge of Wings.
-I have to defeat Mydia again. Ruh roh.
-She’s as nasty as before. Durable and fast, with hard-hitting area damage. It takes a couple of tries.
-After, we plead with Feolthanos to find his anima.
He’s unreceptive. “If this is the end, then let my anima be consumed as well!”
He starts what looks like a self-destruct thing. We flee. Chapter 9 complete.
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Next time: Trying my hand at a couple of more notice board missions, but if they ramp up in difficulty as I expect, going to push towards the final chapter.
