Summary: Yaschas Massif 01X AF. Some side fragment missions. Thinking through monster paradigm packs. Destroyed by Gorgyra.
---
Yaschas Massif – 01X AF
-The Academy members have less urgency in this timeline. Director Hope sent them here because of the Oracle Drive, but there’s no eclipse.
-ARGH there are so many of these chests that are frustratingly just out of reach.
-Hope awaits us in the ruins. We re-do our ten year reunion. (I love that he immediately believes us about the alternate timeline.)
-He revs up the now-unscrambled Oracle Device. It clearly shows Lightning battling in Valhalla.
-All this research sparked in Hope a desire to change the past. Even to save his own mother. :(
That sounds like a supremely bad idea, but now that I think about it, I don’t know how different it is from all the timeline shenanigans we’re currently involved in. No “A Sound of Thunder,” this game.
-Suddenly, the Oracle Device activates again. We see Caius ripping open a portal in time and bringing Cocoon crashing down to Gran Pulse.
It shows the future, that someday Cocoon will fall. That’s the past by Noel’s time.
-So how do we stop that? Hope and Alyssa will work in the normal timestream to mitigate the damage while Noel and Serah travel through time to stop it at its root.
-This has gotta be a bit overwhelming for Serah. It’s not enough to just find her sister anymore.
-Hope has heard of Valhalla, knows it as “the Unseen World.”
-We start trying to unravel the mindfuckiness of all this. Like, is the eclipse world totally different from the non-eclipse world? Two different realities?
No. Hope says that the Paddra believed there’s only one true history. The goddess could only grant life to a limited number of people.
Y’know what? Okay. Whatever. I’m fine accepting that as a premise to simply keep things straight.
-Found an artefact in the ruins to move to the next area, and I reach the part of the game where I can freely walk around town and talk to folks.
Fragment mission, “Gorgyra Fragment”: In old times, a girl protected the seeress. The enemy fooled her into betraying her charge, and she was turned into a wandering Cie’th. I have to take her out.
-The datalog calls Valhalla the final resting place of the souls of the dead, “and the chaotic world where the goddess Etro makes her home.” It exists either beyond time or in some future where time stops.
-A spell to summon Eidolons was discovered in the ruins. Is that what drew Fenrir?
-Fragment mission, “Orb of Clotho.” A researcher named Marlow discovered a stone tablet that got smashed. I have to find it unbroken, likely in 10 AF (with the Eclipse).
-Alyssa is from Palumpolum, just like Hope.
-Okay, let’s try using the Wild Artefact… it opens the way to “Augusta Tower 300 AF,” whatever that is.
It said “Time Reversal Unlocked!” Again, dunno what that means.
---
Yaschas Massif – 01X AF
-The Academy members have less urgency in this timeline. Director Hope sent them here because of the Oracle Drive, but there’s no eclipse.
-ARGH there are so many of these chests that are frustratingly just out of reach.
-Hope awaits us in the ruins. We re-do our ten year reunion. (I love that he immediately believes us about the alternate timeline.)
-He revs up the now-unscrambled Oracle Device. It clearly shows Lightning battling in Valhalla.
-All this research sparked in Hope a desire to change the past. Even to save his own mother. :(
That sounds like a supremely bad idea, but now that I think about it, I don’t know how different it is from all the timeline shenanigans we’re currently involved in. No “A Sound of Thunder,” this game.
-Suddenly, the Oracle Device activates again. We see Caius ripping open a portal in time and bringing Cocoon crashing down to Gran Pulse.
It shows the future, that someday Cocoon will fall. That’s the past by Noel’s time.
-So how do we stop that? Hope and Alyssa will work in the normal timestream to mitigate the damage while Noel and Serah travel through time to stop it at its root.
-This has gotta be a bit overwhelming for Serah. It’s not enough to just find her sister anymore.
-Hope has heard of Valhalla, knows it as “the Unseen World.”
-We start trying to unravel the mindfuckiness of all this. Like, is the eclipse world totally different from the non-eclipse world? Two different realities?
No. Hope says that the Paddra believed there’s only one true history. The goddess could only grant life to a limited number of people.
Y’know what? Okay. Whatever. I’m fine accepting that as a premise to simply keep things straight.
-Found an artefact in the ruins to move to the next area, and I reach the part of the game where I can freely walk around town and talk to folks.
Fragment mission, “Gorgyra Fragment”: In old times, a girl protected the seeress. The enemy fooled her into betraying her charge, and she was turned into a wandering Cie’th. I have to take her out.
-The datalog calls Valhalla the final resting place of the souls of the dead, “and the chaotic world where the goddess Etro makes her home.” It exists either beyond time or in some future where time stops.
-A spell to summon Eidolons was discovered in the ruins. Is that what drew Fenrir?
-Fragment mission, “Orb of Clotho.” A researcher named Marlow discovered a stone tablet that got smashed. I have to find it unbroken, likely in 10 AF (with the Eclipse).
-Alyssa is from Palumpolum, just like Hope.
-Okay, let’s try using the Wild Artefact… it opens the way to “Augusta Tower 300 AF,” whatever that is.
It said “Time Reversal Unlocked!” Again, dunno what that means.
---
Bouncing Around Time
-At this point, I paused and took my friend aproustian’s advice. She let me know that chocobos have a glide function when you hold the jump button while riding. It gave me access to a couple of minor treasures that I’d been stuck on, like that just-out-of-reach rooftop in Oerba 200 AF.
(Either the game didn’t tell me about the glide or I flat-out missed it. Probably the latter.)
-The new fragment I got is VERY interesting: “The Hero’s Trail.”
I’m pretty sure it’s a message from Snow, though it’s disconcerting to see him without the bandana
He left behind graviton ore in his wake, confirming that he’s been time traveling.
-My next trip is to Yaschas Massif 010 AF. The Fragment Mission “Orb of Clotho,” to find an unbroken tablet, seems like it might be here.
-A chocobo glide here helps me find a “Fruit of Fenrir.” It’s a key item. No clue what it does.
-Jackpot. Got the Tablet of Paddra in Yaschas Massif 010 AF, back to turn it in in 01X AF.
-The tablet tells of an ancient myth, how the people of Cocoon and of Pulse share a common ancestry. I feel like I already knew that from XIII.
The resulting lore, the Book of Haerii, tells a prophecy of Clotho, messenger of the underworld. Fenrir wanders in search of “the great door lost at the equinox of existence.”
Prediction: I’ll bet Fenrir will be a key to opening the way to Valhalla.
-New Fragment Mission, “Mirror of Atropos.” Atropos, Clotho… two of the Fates. Three stars of different colors fell, and I have to find them.
-Found Gorgyra, that fragment mission Cie’th. She’s WAY too tough. Even in a fully defensive paradigm I can barely stay alive.
Gorgyra.
[Later edit: I wonder if her name is supposed to be a play on Godzilla or if they just sound similar.]
-Damn. Ran out of Gysahl Greens, and to my shock, Chocolina doesn’t sell more. I guess I have to be more careful with using them.
Which is pretty frustrating. I’m running around, trying to find the final crystal for this fragment mission, and there are just soooo many encounters.
GAH I CAN’T FIND THE THIRD FRIGGING CRYSTAL! I got the Onyx Crystal and Ivory Crystal, but can’t find the third. I’ve done a pretty thorough search – maybe it’s in another time? Idk.
---
Of Monsters and Paradigms
-Wait. I’ve been going a bit on autopilot with my monsters and paradigm packs, and I don’t like that.
-So my goal I think is to find a few solid Late Bloomers to focus on. But also, as gil allows, build up the Early Peaker and Well Grown monsters to see what their passives are, and feed them to the Late Bloomers.
[Non-rhetorical question: is there a way in-game to scan ahead on the monster crystarium chart to see what passives are on the horizon so I can decide whether to invest in unlocking them? Or is the only way to see what’s coming to level them up?]
And I can use the Early Peakers and Well Growns on the way too. They’re not immediate fodder for the Late Bloomers – only when they outgrow their usefulness.
My current favorites:
LATE BLOOMERS
1) Cait Sith (MED)
2) Spiceacillian (RAV, wind)
3) Nekton (RAV, blizzard/thunder)
4) Lucidon (COM)
ENJOY YOUR TIME WHILE IT LASTS
1) Pulse Knight (SEN), Early Peaker
2) Zwerg Scandroid (RAV, thunder-based), Well-Grown
I’m not worrying all that much about SYN and SAB monsters. Noel is a SYN, Serah a SAB.
---
Next time: Augusta Tower, 300 AF.
