The Hazards of Love: Nightmare’s Beginning
[Later edit: I finally completed a storyline that I’ve been working through since the very early levels, so some of this may seem familiar. It also means I probably forgot a bunch of details. Apologies.]
-I’ve had a quest in my log for a while that I’m only now getting to do: “The Corpse Groom.”
Waaaay back when, I met an NPC party modeled on a player party. They were adventurers. Doing tasks, dungeons, etc. The healer and tanks (Edda and Avere) were lovers.
But one day, the tank died. The healer wasn’t up to the challenge.
Edda did not take this well.
-The group broke up. One of their group, Paiyo Reiyo, later got an invitation to a wedding from Edda. “Great!” he thought. “She found someone new!” lolol nope. The groom-to-be was Avere.
-The wedding is to take place in the dungeon where Avere died, Tam-Tara Deepcroft. This time, it’s the hard mode.
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The Hazards of Love: The Corpse Groom
-The dungeon itself is incredible. Another personal favorite. It’s super spooky, even moreso because of this feeling of corrupted joy. It’s a necromantic wedding, complete with zombie best men and bridesmaids, demonic ushers, pink candles giving off eerie light.
-As we go, we see pages from Edda’s journal. Some of them are from early on, when things were going well. Other pages are clearly from later, after Avere died and she became overwhelmed and changed by her despair.
-It sounds like she kept his rotting head. CREEPY BUSINESS.
-I don’t quite understand what her ultimate plan is, but she definitely wants to revive Avere, and definitely wants to make him something like me. I think she intends to use the souls of the “guests” (us included) to do this.
-When we reach the end, Edda is in a white conjurer’s robe and hat. The platform is surrounded by runes and candles for the resurrection/wedding.
Avere is a giant floating head with wings. He’s our main target in the fight as Edda casts at us from the center of the platform, summoning zombies as fodder for her magic.
-We defeat Avere. The shocked Edda falls into the abyss below the platform.
-We find her party member who set us on this journey, Paiyo Reiyo, outside the dungeon. He’s glad to be done with this, hopes Edda can finally find some peace.
And then comes probably the scariest moment in FFXIV. Not “spoopy” or cute scary, but something that legit freaks me out.
He sees Edda’s ghost watching him.
His face stretches grotesquely wide in terror and he flees. Ququshu turns to see what scared him. There’s nothing there.
The sound, the lighting, everything is perfect. I recommend checking it out the video itself. It’s worth it.
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The Hazards of Love: Palace of the Dead
[NOTE: This section contains spoilers through and past floor 50 of “Palace of the Dead.” Read at your own risk.]
-So this part I did before “The Corpse Groom,” wrapping up in Part 41, but I’ll add it back here.
http://coldrungaming.blogspot.com/2018/02/ffxiv-p...
Edda is the level 50 boss in the roguelike FFXIV dungeon, “Palace of the Dead.” I’m not quite sure what the place really is, but I get the sense it’s some sort of waypoint towards the afterlife.
-She stalks the player party in the first 49 levels, every so often appearing behind us, watching us. All black dress instead of her white conjurer’s robe. And with a badass-scythe.
-I was supposed to do “The Corpse Groom” first. Now I have new context for that fight.
-She has a tiny Ahriman floating about here that she refers to as “my love.” I now know that it’s the shrunken spirit of the titanic head of Avere we saw before.
Plus, her boss room in Palace of the Dead mirrors what was saw in Tam-Tara Deepcroft.
-When we defeated here down there, she “woke,” became her old conjurer self (if a bit confused).
She said a “robed figure” led her here. I thought at the time it was an Ascian, but now I think it might be Paiyo Reiyo.
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The Hazards of Love: Nightmare’s End
-There’s one final quest, also from Edda and Avere’s companion, Paiyo Reiyo.
-Avere and Edda have haunted him of late. They appear in his dreams, saying “We wish to return home.”
-He wants to grant this request, and put them to rest in the sea by Limsa Lominsa. We take both their rings and head to the water by Limsa Lominsa.
-We toss them in. Paiyo Reiyo says a brief prayer, a remembrance of his friends.
-Paiyo walks away. As I look at the city and the water, a “Disembodied Voice” speaks.
“…Thank you…”
THE END.
They could’ve chosen to do a final jumpscare, showing the ghost of Edda still out there. Or they could’ve done a final battle of some kind against a fusion of Avere and Edda’s spirits.
This is much better. A quiet coda. A peaceful farewell to these characters who have gone through such a traumatic arc.
GOD THIS WAS SUCH A GOOD QUESTLINE!
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Sky Pirates
-There’s a new quest about sky pirates. A bit of XII in XIV.
-A supply ship got hijacked. I find the ship and approach the sky pirates when another approaches them, a sky pirate named Redbill Leofard.
-The other three sky pirates who see him back down quickly.
“You take on the mantle of sky pirate, you agree to a certain code of conduct. And codes ain’t worth much if folk go around breakin’ em.”
-holy shit he shoots all three dead immediately.
Principled but deadly.
-Redbill Leofard asks for my help with some kind of adventure. I also meet an awesome-looking pirate in his crew named Stacia.
Stacia.
Aboard his airship, he meets a rival pirate named Radlia. Again, AWESOME character design on these pirates.
Radlia.
Radlia is the captain of a rival crew, the Talons. Both are after a mysterious ghost ship in the Sea of Clouds, likely rife with booty. (Well, a ghost ship or more likely an Allagan relic of some kind.)
-Aha! I just unlocked a Heavensward raid called the “Void Ark.”
This is another challenging 8-person raid. I’m not on a raid team, so it’ll probably be a while before I explore this.
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Next time: This is part of a break from the main storyline as I clean up some of my backlog. Next up is the red mage 50-60 storyline, then the dark knight 30-50 storyline. Then back to the end of Heavensward!
