Promises Kept
-Aymeric is having a fancy shindig and I’m invited.
-This is really sweet! I get to just enjoy a dinner with Aymeric, trading funny stories from the expansion such as my experience with the moogles.
-A few months have passed since Nidhogg’s defeat. Ishgard is solidly focused on building stronger ties within the Alliance.
-A knight from House Fortemps interrupts with a message: Thancred returned to Ishgard with an injured maiden. So it was Alisaie who spied on the Warriors of Darkness (“WoD”), not Alphinaud. I go.
-That omniscient narration from throughout Heavensward comes again, but it’s not Count Edmond de Fortemps this time. Someone younger. They say how just when you finish one battle, you get drawn to another. C’est la vie for video game protags.
-The WoD shot Alisaie with a poisoned arrow. She’s hurt bad.
-Alphinaud’s devastated. He reminisces. He and Alisaie first came to Eorzea together to help the realm. He worked from inside the systems, but petty politics frustrated Alisaie. She walked her own path.
-Alisaie wakes briefly. She tells us that the Warriors of Darkness are in league with the Ascians. Slaughtering the primals is the first step in their plans.
-She learned that they plan to resummons and kill Garudo. Our next step is to… help Garuda? [Later edit: *bonks self* No, it’s to stop Garuda from being summoned in the first place.]
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Shadows of the First
-So the WoD are out to kill primals like us, but for some other end. Let’s go stop the Garuda summoning.
-We head to Xelphatol, a bleak, craggy, and beautiful Ixali (bird beastman) base. My favorite part is where we get to head between crags via zipline.
Wheeeee!
-The final boss keeps trying to summon Garuda. We stop it.
-The WoD arrive a bit late. They’re annoyed that we got to Garuda before them.
-The similar version in FFXI was a party of silent near-automatons, but these folks have personality, humor. I really like them!
-The lead Warrior tells us his history. As best I can understand, when Hydaelyn and Zodiark split, the universe split into 12-13 separate worlds. We exist in one. The WoD come from another, where – like us – they were blessed with Hydaelyn’s light.
-The Light was super powerful in their world. They defeated their Ascians, but the Light flooded and either destroyed or nearly destroyed their world. They joined with the Ascians to help restore balance.
WARRIOR OF DARKNESS: “There is but one way to restore the balance and save our home: the Ardor. Calamitous destruction with the power to break down the barriers between planes and see our worlds rejoined.”
-I’ve already mentioned that the Warriors of Darkness are from FFIII, but this whole plot is like an adapted version from FFIII. The WoD in FFIII saved the World of Darkness from overwhelming Light before the events of the game. It looks like the XIV WoD are trying to save their world in the same way.
”And then came the Light – a flood of pure, blinding radiance, annihilating shadow and color and life itself. Ere long, it will consume our world, leaving naught in its wake but blank perfection.
-Their team gradually teleports away. One of them lingers and stares us down before teleporting away himself. I wonder if he’s perhaps doubting his team’s methods.
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Two Sides of a Coin
-We return to Ishgard to check on Alisaie. She’s regained consciousness.
-So why do the WoD hunt Primals? To prompt escalation from the beast tribes, and spur them to summon ever more powerful gods.
ALISAIE: “Once the powerless realize that the old gods have failed them, they will have little recourse but to look to a new one.” This is a roundabout way of bringing the beast tribes to Zodiark.
Alisaie (right) and Alphinaud.
-The Ascians have manipulated things so that the beast tribes have a constant supply of crystals. Thancred wants to cut off the supply. We’ll split up to investigate the Ixali, Gnath, and Kobold sources.
-Alisaie, Alphinaud and I will check in with Urianger to see if he has anything else to add. He doesn’t.
-…which Alisaie finds suspicious. She kind of stares him down. She may not know he’s somehow working with the Ascians since she hasn’t seen the cutscenes I have, but she knows SOMETHING’S up.
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Random Stuff Around Eorzea
I joined a dungeon that matched me with random players. Sometimes those players can be jerks. But sometimes, they dress up and roleplay as ghosts and everything is wonderful:
-I’ve been working on a side story helping the Vath, a friendly group of the insectile Gnath. They’re building an Adventurer’s Guild, where they’re trying to sell arrows to adventurers, food, weaponry, etc. I just had to share this reaction from one potential buyer who hadn’t met a Vath before:
”By the Fury, an enormous armed crab! I knew this day would come! ‘Tis my reckoning for the many knights I buttered and supped upon its kin. No matter – I have no regrets!”
A snuggly seal:
A beautiful purple and white gryphon:
ALL HAIL LORD SNUGGLES:
A Dark Souls fan:
Check out this rogue’s outfit!
A sinister look:
Goku!
From an NC-17 Star Wars adaptation:
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My Friend Nomm Nahm Has Awesome Gear Sets, Here Are Some:
Steam-punk Nomm:
Bloodborne Nomm:
Winter Nomm:
Her unusually ornate shield with birds on it:
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Next time: trying to stop more primal summonings.
