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Pride and Duty (Will Take You From the Mountain)
-Wyrnzoen sends me to help out in Costa del Sol against some angry turtle.
-I find a Roegadyn warrior on the beach with glowing red eyes named Fell Demon. New trainer or antagonist?
-He lets out a mighty roar, and… he summons the turtles from the sea to attack. (Big turtles.)
So he’s probably the antagonist. Unless he’s summoning them as a test.
-A different warrior with a unique axe joins us. Now THIS guy smacks of trainer.
-omg his name is Curious Gorge.
“One remark about the name and I’ll rip yer ugly heads from your shoulders and suck the marrow out of your twitching spines.”
-He’s impressed. He’ll train me as a warrior. They’re not super common here, but they are in his tribe.
-Wyrnzoen’s sister, Solkwyb, has been with me. She remembers hearing of a young marauder in the long-disbanded Company of Heroes who disappeared. That might be Curious Gorge.
Curious Gorge with the Lalafel in the Silver Hat.
-He hands me the Soul of the Warrior, my job crystal. “A crystal within which the deeds of a thousand thousand warriors from history are recorded.”
The whole job crystal system in XIV reminds me loosely of the Matrix, where you can download kung fu.
-Curious Gorge isn’t a full teacher. He doesn’t have all the knowledge he needs. That belongs to his brother, who can read one of his tribe’s ancient tomes.
-Warriors (like all jobs I think) have their own unique gauge mechanic. The Beast Gauge.
-The Beast Gauge shows my “wrath.” Sometimes I’ll need to use wrath as a spender.
-The symbol indicates that my defensive stance, Defiance, is in effect. It increases max HP and reduces damage dealt. So probably not something I use when soloing.
-Increased wrath during Defiance stance increases my parry rate.
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Embracing the Beast
-Curious Gorge has been slowly working to decipher his village’s ancient texts. One passage tells of “an ancient set of armor forged by my ancestors in the flames of the seven hells,” covered in my soul crystal’s runes. Warriors are so freaking metal.
-The armor was passed down from between warriors until one threw away in anger. Lost since then.
-My trainer sends me to the Sagolii Desert, to take out a giant sandworm messing with the locals.
-Victory! With each success, the warrior spirit of the beast grows within me.
-Defeating the worm gives me the message that warriors of old bore witness to my deeds. HWAET!
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Curious Gorge Goes to Wineport
-OH MY GOD I LOVE that they give this quest the same nomenclature as in the “Curious George” books.
-His study of the chronicles showed him how his tribe’s warriors came to be shunned by the world at large.
Cities that saw the warriors’ prowess with an axe began training in the same way as I’ve been training: harnessing their inner beast. They became strong but uncontrollable. His tribe’s warriors were blamed for the ensuing carnage.
-This confuses him. He’s never seen anyone in his tribe succumb to that rage.
(Fell Demon surely succumbed to it with his glowing red eyes, but I don’t think Curious Gorge saw Fell Demon.)
-Anyway, one of Curious Gorge’s old comrades from the Company of Heroes wants our help felling a woolly beast rampaging near Wineport. Let’s go begin restoring the tribe’s good name.
-Birds and raptors swarm the town. Curious Gorge CLEARLY goes into beast mode, his eyes glowing red. Is this new?
-We see from his perspective briefly. He’s growling, roaring, even literally seeing red, through a red filter.
“You monster! Get away! Get away!”
-He’s confused. What happened? He slowly walks away.
-AH! He was actually in control of his inner beast, but even seeing that beast scared others.
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Looking the Part
-Curious Gorge learned more about the missing armor. The students of the warrior who threw the armor away sought the individual pieces out. They even found it… but it started to corrupt them too.
-“Their master’s fatal pride was born of the artifacts’ combined influence.” And so they resolved to keep the armor pieces separated, each taking one.
-Later, the pupils buried their artifact pieces at the site of their greatest victories. That’s my destination.
-But what’s to stop me from being corrupted in the same way the students’ master was corrupted? Sounds like the students keeping the armor separated worked out.
CURIOUS GORGE: “What we need only do is trace the runes we find on the armor onto every piece of warrior gear!”
He wants to flood the world with fakes so that no warriors will fight over the “true” armor. Or maybe he’s saying that etching the runes will make every armor as strong as the relics?
“That way, there would be no need to worry about a single proud fool becoming drunk on his all-surpassing power, as every warrior in the realm would be possessed of the selfsame might!”
-I’m either confused or this is a terrible plan. Sure, it’d remove people fighting over the armor, but there’s still the whole IT CORRUPTS YOU issue that he’d be making far worse.
-I wander the world and find three of the relics. Pretty straightforward.
-Curious Gorge found one relic himself… but when he tried it on, he felt nothing. No magical boost.
Personal theory: this is like Dumbo, where the “magic” of these relics is all in the heads of the warriors.
-He sends me out to find the next piece, a badass horned helm, and I return.
The warrior relic helm, visor down.
-Aha! The armor’s magic resonates with the warrior’s soul. Curious Gorge’s own soul crystal has gone dark “since the events at Wineport.” Whatever those were.
-Uh-oh. He learned that the armor’s power corrupts those with weak souls. He’s lucky trying on a single piece didn’t turn him into a rampaging beast.
-The last piece to find is the breastplate. Most powerful of all, and thus most risky if I’m not ready.
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Proof is the Pudding
-I find the breastplate in Coerthas. Curious Gorge is excited for what this could mean for clearing his tribes’ name.
-Theory I’m Fairly Confident In: His brother is “Fell Demon.”
-After I defeat the breastplate’s guardian, Curious Gorge “joins” me.
CURIOUS GORGE: “Hand over the breastplate, Ququshu. After much wrestling with the thought, I simply cannot entrust such a relic to an outsider who may be overwhelmed by its power.”
So it’s gonna be like that… wait, is it possible that Curious Gorge unknowingly BECAME Fell Demon? Through timeline shenanigans or whatever?
-I hand over the breastplate. No way this ends well.
-We meet back up at his home base, and it’s not as bad as I feared. He won’t attempt to wear the plate – he just wants to protect it until he’s certain we can “withstand the beast’s siren call.”
We’ll see.
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How to Quit You
-A monster “more man than beast” has been spotted near Wineport. I’m betting it’s Fell Demon.
-Curious Gorge is excited. This is his chance to prove that his tribe’s warriors have been misjudged. A chance at personal redemption.
-Yup, Fell Demon. Curious Gorge’s brother.
-Curious Gorge tries to calm and counsel him to no avail.
CG: “Our ancestors have chosen me to lead our people to glory… and no one shall stop me!”
-His brother may be full-on beast, but Curious Gorge is barely holding it back.
-The two clash… and Curious Gorge wins. My boss fight isn’t against Fell Demon.
CG: “It was I who unlocked the secrets of the chronicles; I who trained you in their ways; I who uncovered the locations of the legendary artifacts. I who defeated my tribe’s greatest warrior! I am the master now! I am the master!”
-He demands the armor from me, lest he tear it from my bloody corpse. The inner beast is taking over.
-It’s a cool fight! At two separate intervals, all the sprites spawn in the surrounding area, manifestations of my own inner best. “Inner Rage” and “Inner Fury.”
There are a lot of them. They all die in one hit, but if I ignore them I imagine I’d get overwhelmed.
-Victory! Please don’t die. I don’t want this to become “Curious Gorge Goes to the Afterlife.”
-He seems defeated. Thinks he failed his ancestors, himself, his people, me.
-CG has just been in denial about his brother this whole time. He knew what happened.
“I thought that if only I could prove myself stronger than he, the people would see his madness as the product of a weak mind. That they would believe the problem lay in him, not in our tribe.”
This very denial weakened Curious Gorge’s soul further, making him susceptible to the same inner beast that destroyed his brother.
“Like a bonfire, anger burns hot and bright, but when the fuel that feeds it is spent, all that remains is ash. By accepting anger as our guide, we left our wills at the mercy of the inner beast.”
Warriors must steel their wills with resolve, not anger and scorn.
-At least he’s okay. He plans to start over again. An apt tale as we approach the new year.
“And this time, I mustn’t do it alone.” I got your back, buddy.
-There’s a nice stinger to this the bleakness of this questline for Curious Gorge. As he came to these realizations, his soul crystal began to sparkle anew.
Ququshu in full warrior gear.
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Random Stuff Around Eorzea
Full-on moogle:
A pink fluffy reindeer man:
A pink knight:
A magician:
WorldStar Hip Hop:
I don’t know if this is a reference to anything, but I kind of hope the person just likes the sound of “Chunky Dunker”:
The most regal of fat chocobos:
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Next time: There are three things up next in my FFXIV world, depending on timing:
1) Continuing the warrior storyline from 50-60 and then 60-70.
2) The new main story stuff dropping in the final Stormblood patch, 4.5. Patch comes out January 8.
3) NEW JOB HYYYYPE! 4.5 also releases the blue mage. Getting on that ASAP.
