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A Good Samurai is Hard to Find
-We’ll split up to look for Yugiri and Gosetsu.
-Dang, Alphinaud drew a great sketch of them!
I show it around town.
-Alas, no luck. Some captains have seen Gosetsu. Nobody saw Yugiri.
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It’s Probably a Trap
-Lyse heard that a Namazu (new race?) fisherman named Gyodo might help.
-OK IS GYODO A SENTIENT CATFISH??
-He’s seen our friends! He helped secure them passage across the Ruby Sea, and offers to secure us similar passage. For a high price.
The quest name makes me mistrust this fish.
-I check back with the party, and Hancock is suspicious. Gyodo and his ilk are known as scheming moneylenders. And he WAS the only one who claimed to have seen both Yugiri and Gosetsu…
Hm. It’s probably a trap, but I’m Jewish and I know Jews historically get that same slur of a label hurled at them (“scheming moneylenders”). Will Gyodo subvert that?
LYSE: “If he betrays us, I vote we take him prisoner and punch him until he tells us the truth!” lolol
-Our plan is to spring the trap and see who’s after us. But if we fight, we’ll have to elude the samurai.
-Gyodo meets us that night on a bridge. We follow him, and… yeeeeah it’s a trap. He summons imperials.
LOL LYSE PUNCHES THE SHIT OUT OF HIM AND PICKS HIM UP
THERE ARE EVEN LITTLE CHOCOBOS AROUND GYODO’S HEAD TO SHOW HIS DIZZINESS
-We take out the imperial attackers. But the Sekiseigumi heard the commotion and we now have to evade them. Is this gonna be a stealth part?
-Yup. It’s… not a great stealth part. I elude some samurai and when I get caught I can escape with a smoke bomb, but it’s still tough to tell when something’s looking my way.
-A turtle beastman called a kojin finds us and seems helpful. I trust him a lot more than the fish.
-Some Sekiseigumi (the samurai) stop the kojin, asking if he’s seen us… and he misdirects them! Yay for trustworthy turtles!
-The kojin – Soroban – leads us back to Hancock HQ. Phew.
Soroban the kojin.
-Soroban didn’t help us out of the goodness of his heart, but it’s nothing nefarious. Nobody wants to trade with the kojin. He saw us talking to Hancock, and decided to seize this chance to get in good. He’s a trader.
-There are different kojin groups. Kojin of the Red serve the Empire, while Kojin of the Blue do not.
-Soroban will even help us get a ship across the Ruby Sea! Yay!
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Making the Catfish Sing
The unconscious Gyodo.
-Gyodo comes to, terrified (rightfully) of Lyse.
-Gosetsu had approached him about passage through the Ruby Sea. Gyodo said he’d help… but only introduced him to the Garleans.
-He claims he’s not a full Imperial spy, that the Empire was offering a bounty for any Domans found here in Kugane. This was just business to him. Y’know? I believe him.
-Gosetsu fought back like we did, but the Sekiseigumi caught him.
Still, where tf is Yugiri? Nobody has seen her. Maybe she made it to Doma on her own?
-Hancock leads us to samurai HQ. He thinks he can bribe his way to freeing Gosetsu.
-We wait outside… until we hear Gosetsu yell out from inside the building, and so we charge in.
-lol he was just sparring with his captors. Of course! It makes sense that the samurai here would love him, or at least respect him.
After his arrest, Gosetsu convinced the samurai to free him if he could beat ten in a row in one-on-one combat.
This is both a cool piece of world-building. It shows me that Kugane’s samurai are distinct from Doma’s, but that they harbor great respect for Doma’s. Maybe Doma is the origin of that art.
It also develops Gosetsu’s character. He has charisma, and honest jollity.
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Once More, to the Ruby Sea
-Back to the trading company HQ.
-Gosetsu and Yugiri parted a while ago to improve their chances of finding “Lord Hien,” heir to Doma’s throne and their master.
-Hien led their rebellion, and when it went belly-up, he and Gosetsu stayed behind to buy time for Yugiri to lead the Doman refugees to safety in Eorzea.
-Gosetsu and Hien got separated shortly after. All Gosetsu knows is that Hien is now somewhere beyond the Empire’s reach.
-Doma’s viceroy is “Yotsuyu, a black-hearted villainess.” She must be the “witch” we heard about back in Mor Dhona. Yotsuyu is searching hard for Hien too. I cannot WAIT to meet her.
-Anyway, we’re all aboard the Doman Liberation Express. When Soroban gets us to Othard (which I think is the larger country while Doma is the city?), Gosetsu will lead us to their HQ in Yanxia (must be a part of Doma, like Rhalgr’s Reach). Yugiri is there.
-Alphinaud will stay back here in Kugane to keep an eye on intrigue and Imperial actions within the city.
-And we’re off! Soroban leads us to his ship on the pier and it’s sayonara, Kugane.
-The ship sails west… interesting! It doesn’t take us direct to Othard, but to some middle region. The Ruby Sea is a full zone.
That makes sense. We knew the Confederacy held dominion over it, so it makes sense that getting across the Ruby Sea will not be so simple.
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Open Water
-So right now, we’re only at one of the easternmost islands of the Ruby Sea. We’ll have to pay the Ruby Tithe to cross safely.
-This zone has a lot of water, so time for some swimming!
Hopefully we won’t have to fight on water. Water combat is not something games tend to do well in most cases.
-The Confederacy is a pirate group. They look pretty awesome.
-The Confederate we’ll negotiate with here is Tansui.
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Boys with Boats
-Tansui doesn’t want our money so much as he wants our help.
Tansui (left) and a random Confederate. I like the bomb on the Confederate’s shirt.
-We watch as a ship with an imperial and two kojin (the turtles) pass by. They taunt the Confederates and flaunt the Ruby Tithe, even trying to pick a fight.
An imperial sailor.
Many Confederates are of Doman descent, and the viceroy scorns them.
-The Confederates are in a tough spot. They can’t push the issue, lest the Empire target them actively.
TANSUI: “We all know what the imperial army can do. Compared to them, we’re boys with boats.”
-Still, their livelihood as pirates is under threat. The Confederate leader/captain (who I don’t think I’ve met yet) has to decide soon. Do they fight, or do they just hope the Empire tosses them scraps every so often?
-The kojin who steered the imperial ship were red, unlike the blue Soroban. It sounds like a more complex relationship than with some prior beast tribes, which had a clearly good and clearly bad faction. The red kojin are at least more mercenary.
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Random Stuff Around Eorzea
-My friends and I were doing some small group stuff when a way opened to the “Aquapolis,” a secret bonus area very much like the Vault in Diablo 3 for any familiar.
You enter a room, kill a swarm of monsters, and then choose one of two doors to open. One door leads to treasure and another room. The other door kicks you out of the Aquapolis.
It’s pure chance whether you open the right or wrong door. Not my favorite mechanic.
-A wind-up Titan toy that looks like the ANGRIEST POTATO:
-Zidane’tribal Amnell of the free company “CW.”
I know Zidane from FFIX and Amnell from Green Arrow on the CW. Still trying to parse all the references here.
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Next time: Through the Ruby Sea.
