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Archylte Steppe - ??? AF
-My first step is to take out some goblins on the nomad camp’s behalf.
-I get to tame the goblins’ chocobo minion! It’s a late blooming commander. Hell yes.
-Fragment lore: climate change affected the goblins’ hunting, forcing them closer to the humans.
-Next, shear wild sheep for wool. The sheep in XIII are so CUTE!
I love their rhomboid faces.
-Oh. My. God. The fragment reward is greater than I could have dreamed. A poem from the sheeps’ perspective.
“The Melancholy of the Lambs”
We’re the sheep of Gran Pulse
And our wool is the best,
We grow it this thick
So it keeps off the pests.
But the men chase us down
With scissors and shears,
And cut it all off
Before it covers our ears.
Our Rough Wool is strong
And makes saddles and carpets,
Our Thick Wool makes hats
And booties and blankets.
But it’s our fine Fluffy Wool
That holds them in thrall,
When plucked at the roots,
It’s the best wool of all.
It’s hard to be a sheep
Out here on the plain,
Avoiding the hunters
Is such a terrible strain.
Oh, I wish that just once
I could munch on some grass,
Without a man coming to pull
A tuft from my… side.
LOLOLLL I’m SO HAPPY. What a glorious day for the writer who got to craft that.
-The strange device changes the weather, and different weather brings different monsters. Where in XIII was this mechanic used? Sunleth?
-The weather changes depending on the device’s lever configuration to be sunny, windy, rainy, or stormy. Let’s experiment:
Left forward + right back = rainy
Left forward + right forward = windy
Left back + right forward = stormy
Left back + right back = sunny
-And as the weather changes, I see giant beasts appear in different spots.
-Tipur learned a giant beast is the cause of the storm, a beast that can swallow dozens of flan in one go. Maybe we can use it to eat the flan at Sunleth Waterscape?
-Wait, no, I like Serah’s idea better. This beast may be somehow eating flans here and spitting them out in 300 AF.
-WOOHOO I TAMED A CACTUAR!
-Oh God. The sun brought out an adamantoise. It’s blocking my path. It’s a Long Gui, which I remember as the toughest form of adamantoise. How do I get it out of the way?
WHOOPS, got too close. Tried to sneak by. How do I get it to move? Change the weather maybe?
-Changed the weather back to wind. The long gui left… but so did the flan-eater.
-Hm. Weather-wise, the long gui and flan-eater seem paired up. They come and go together.
-Next, I try chucking Mog repeatedly at the Long Gui.
I’m hoping it’ll distract him, or lure him away to chase it like a dog after a ball. (Sorry, Mog.) No luck.
-I’m wandering around the Steppe, seeing if one of these treasure spheres has a Long Gui toy or bait. Nothing.
-Found an old, decaying cactuar statue, with a fragment (another smaller red cactuar waystone) nearby.
-Fragment, “Tablet of Memory”: Etro’s temple sits within the heart of Valhalla. Her throne inside is empty.
“Some speculate that the goddess built the temple with her own hands, as a prison for some long-forgotten enemy.” Bits and pieces of a larger story, very slowly building.
-Found another gate nearby. It won’t open with a regular artefact. We have to break a seal somehow.
-Exploring westward ran me into some nasty Red CHocobos. At least they don’t meteor my face.
-Not finding anything. Grrr. Back to camp.
-A hunter in the nomad camp says Long Guis are afraid of lightning. That’s gotta be it! I turned the weather stormy before and thought it didn’t do anything, but I wasn’t looking closely enough. Turning it to stormy weather leaves the flan-eater and removes the Long Gui.
-Boss time, here we go. It’s a big fire-breathing dragon type thing.
-WHEW! It frontloaded some brutal attacks. I stabilized by going defensive, healing and buffing with synergist, then went COM COM RAV once I staggered her.
-It dropped a crystal, a Black Hole Gem. The crystal was responsible for summoning the storm, sucking up monsters and sending them elsewhere in spacetime. The beast swallowed the gem by accident.
-Noel takes a moment to be amazed at how Snow and Serah can do the long distance thing. I’m guessing he left someone and they died, or something like that.
-Someone in the village says I’ll come across stone tablets in the plains, but I should leave them alone. Veeery interesting.
-Years ago, someone tried to touch a tablet to prove his strength. He was never heard from again.
-Ooh, are these green chocobo statues the tablets?
OH GOD IT SUMMONED A GIGANTUAR! I’m not ready. I’ll come back later.
-One hunter back at camp is confused why the faeryl we defeated was eating flan. That’s not its normal prey. This makes me think whatever mastermind is behind the paradoxes (maybe Caius but I’m not 100% convinced) orchestrated this.
[Non-rhetorical question: is there any benefit to raising my role levels when there are no new abilities to gain, aside from the incremental stat boosts? Like, if does being a level 80 ravager give me any bonuses in a battle over being a level 60 ravager aside from the increased points in hp and magic?]
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Next time: returning to Sunleth Waterscape, where hopefully the flanpocalypse is abating.
