---
Parley on the Front Lines
-We all head to Ala Mhigo, reporting to Lyse on the clones, the Ascians, the toxic gas, all of it.
LYSE: “Ordinarily, any one of those things would have left me in shock, but the way things have been lately, it’s all starting to seem pretty normal.”
LOLOL welcome to being a main story NPC in an MMO
-Lyse requested a parley with the Empire. Emperor Varis himself is coming to speak with us. EEEE!! ARE WE GETTING THE TEAM-UP ALREADY?
-Here we go. Parley time between all our leaders and Varis.
-Nanamo opens with a badass speech. The Empire’s subjugating its neighbors brings at best short-term victories. Eventually, they’ll lose. Why not join us in peace?
-Standard fascist counter. We’re all divided, and should accept Varis’ rule instead.
Lyse, Hien, and Raubahn are not having any of that bs. They’ve experienced life under the Empire.
-Aymeric chirps in, with something of a perspective from Varis’ side: “I fear I can personally attest to the dangers of pursuing one’s vision with such righteous fervor.”
That’s right! He saw a thousand years of war with the dragons on Ishgard’s behalf. If anyone can make Varis listen, it’s gotta be someone from Ishgard.
It doesn’t work.
VARIS: “Your father… understood that strength is all that matters in the end.” He sees Ishgard’s peace with the dragons as the result of victory through strength… and he’s not totally wrong? But we used strength not to subjugate them but to stop the attacks.
-Varis relates his people’s history, how they lacked a leader at first. They were weak, refugees from the cold north. That’s why Solus stepped in.
-Merlwyb came from a similar background though. Limsa Lominsa was made up of pirates on the run, and they thrived. “All without robbing our neighbors of their liberty.”
This is SO COOL! It’s bringing together the last three years worth of storylines.
-Varis’ counter leaves her without a great answer though. They stole from the kobolds. He’s incredibly well-informed and correct, though again, only partially.
-Things getting heated, so time for a brief recess. The alliance leaders all agree that Varis has some other motive in coming here. I think he secretly wants help with the Ascians, to regain control over an empire he clearly loves.
-We reconvene. Hien brings up one of the core contradictions in the Empire: they are against the Eikons, but summoning of those Eikons spread widely with the Empire’s rule.
VARIS: “…Finally, you ask the right question.”
-He talks of the origins of this star. “Of the Source, and its thirteen reflections.” When it was sundered, mankind was sundered into different races. He wants to bring things back to a single, perfect race.
Whelp. Not quite what I was hoping for.
“To bring about everlasting peace, our worlds must be rejoined.” The Exdeath plan.
-What would that even look like? If it happened, wouldn’t everything just crash together and cause titanic destruction? Is THAT the coming calamity?
AND NOW HE ADMITS ASCIANS BUILT THE GARLEAN EMPIRE, HOLY SHIT IT’S ALL OUT IN THE OPEN! Good. I like being on the same page as the characters, not ahead of them.
-I hoped Varis was really against the Ascians, eager to throw off their yoke. Seems not. He thinks he’s using them to reach his goals. It’s the other way around, my dude.
-He finally requests that we join him. Not as subjects, but as part of a new nation to throw off non-humanoid interference.
-Yeah, this is the end of the conversation. Varis is set on triggering an onslaught of calamities with the rejoining. No real middle ground there.
-Alisaie remembers the Warriors of Darkness.
This Rejoining might even work out for our star – but not for all the souls dwelling on the other shards.
-Nanamo makes a different argument. Yes, we all are different races with our own imperfections, but the way forward isn’t by blowing it all up. It’s through working together to better ourselves. Becoming unified without LITERALLY becoming unified as Varies wants.
-We can defeat the Ascians without Varis’ drastic measure.
VARIS: “I bid you make ready for our next meeting. It will not be at the negotiating table.”
---
The Face of War
-Final preparations before battle.
The allied banners. Left to right: Doma, Gridania, Limsa Lominsa, Ul’dah, Ishgard, Ala Mhigo.
Chances are not great, but we’ll do what we can. The battle itself is an instanced 4-player duty, “The Ghimlyt Dark.”
I knew this patch had a dungeon called the Ghimlyt Dark, but I did not expect it a battle with the Garleans. I thought it’d be, like, Varis telling us his problems but how he wants help against the Ascians, and we need to go to retrieve a special anti-Ascian weapon from a super secret magic cave thing.
Anyway, to prepare, I head to the glorious, pun-filled Mizzteq and her dungeon guide channel.
(I know I try to do these games blind, but when three other players I don’t know rely on me to know what’s up, that blind thing takes a backseat. Don’t want to ruin their time.)
The vibe of this dungeon is pretty awesome. And that’s saying a lot; I’m kind of done with all these imperial enemies, so the environment is crucial to keep me enjoying it. It’s a smoky, night time battlefield. Chaos everywhere.
Boss #1: Mark III-B Magitek Colossus
-Magitek Slash: Identify what direction the boss’s conal attack will go and prepare to stay behind it.
Boss #2: Prometheus
-It looks a lot like that tunneler boss Locke and Celes fought soon after meeting in FFVI.
-Don’t stand on the very outer part of ring
-Stay near boss, so when it’s about to damage most of the room you can get to a safe spot in front.
-When it burrows, watch for a glowing spot on the platform’s outer edge. It’ll blast out from there across the platform. Stay out of that path.
-Freezing Missiles: Stand in the room’s middle, farthest from proximity damage bombs.
Boss #3: Julia & Annia Quo Soranus
-Crossbones: Line AoE attached to you. It knocks back, so pre-position to avoid telegraphs.
-When bosses tag-team out, avoid their charge paths.
-Imperial Authority: Enrage timer at the end of the fight.
[Later edit: This is just a small sample of the mechanics, the ones I really needed to beware of.]
-After the final fight, the two sisters seem to disappear in a flash. Maybe still alive. Garlemald withdraws.
WAIT NO, THEY’RE PROBABLY GONNA DROP BLACK ROSE
That voice busts in again. “Throw wide… the gates.” The light will be the source of a calamity.
-Alisaie and I both hear it. She collapses into a coma. And then there was one: Ququshu.
-No Black Rose. I was overly worked up. They really did retreat for now, after just testing our defenses.
-Meanwhile, at the border of Ala Mhigo…
“Zenos” (read: Elidibus) arrives to inspect the troops.
-The expansion trailer features the Warrior of Light dueling “Zenos” on a dark, fiery battlefield. We’re barreling towards that moment.
-This is the last main story quest for the moment. There’s one more patch to come before “Shadowbringers” to wrap up “Stormblood.” This Garlemald plotline is interesting and I do like it, even if it doesn’t grab me emotionally the way the Yotsuyu story did.
That’s an unfair bar anyway. Yotsuyu’s story is one of my favorite things in all of FF.
---
Next time: Either completing the Four Lords trials or the final Ivalice raid.
