Tuesday, April 23, 2019

FFXIII-2 – Part 17: Sealing Time

Summary: Clearing fragments across time in Yaschas Massif. The choices of the seeress.

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Yaschas Massif – 110 AF

-Found the outdoor watch that someone dropped into a canyon 100 years ago! Returned it to Shannon back in 10 AF, who bought it from New Bodhum.

Huh. Apparently Lenora’s Garage is based there.

-Lenora built these indestructible watches for that bull-in-a-china shop, Snow.

-I head briefly back to New Bodhum 003 AF to see if this unlocks anything new…. Nothing I can find.

-I’ve settled on some favorite outfits.



Spacetime Guardian Noel, White Mage Serah, and the stuffed animal outfit for Mog.

-Anyway, back in 110 AF, I bring the message from that one disappeared sister to the orb of regret. It dissipates the orb, the regret satiated.

-Fragment lore: Eidolons live in Valhalla before their trials with l’Cie. Etro chooses them.

“The weak must obey the strong. This is the inviolable law of Valhalla. Like any other denizen of the Unseen Realm, Eidolons are bound to answer every call of their master.”

Prediction: Caius will beat Lightning, and we’ll have to fight her in Valhalla.

-The next sphere bears a message from a technician who regrets not passing on his skills to the new guy. That’s easy enough – I already have the manual and know who to give it to.



-OMG, I needed to ride one of these wild chocobos to reach the new mechanic, and just noticed the hard rock chocobo theme XD Lyrics too.

-Fragment lore: “The crimson orbs are born as a rite of penance, sealed in time. The stronger the remorse, the greater the price that must be paid before the burden can be lifted.”

Like a horrible version of a will. Paying off their emotional debt.

-The next sphere is from a security officer named Annaud. People think they were accidentally swept away by the paradox, but he theorizes that it was intentional. He wants me to find evidence.

AH! This must be the terrorist mark I found earlier. A symbol of pro-fal’Cie, anti-Academy extremists.

-Fragment lore: A fal’Cie sat in Paddra, sent by the god Pulse. It channeled visions of the Farseer seeress and recorded what she was on the Oracle Drive.

-Paddrans worshipped Pulse, and paid homage to the fal’Cie. “Fearfully, they kneel before Etro, the goddess of death whom the seeress serves.”

-A distortion hit the city of Paddra. The seeress sealed the parardox, despite normally leaving these alone. It threatened the whole city.

-I keep coming back to this head of a statue unearthed in these ruins. Is that Etro? The fal’Cie?



-A spacetime distortion appears in the south part of the zone, like a glowing fountain. This is the paradox that the old seeress sealed. The seal is broken.



-Ooh, puzzle time! This is a “Temporal Rift – The Hands of Time.”

And… I don’t get it. I get it vaguely, how I’m supposed to line up numbers and make them go away – and after completing it, I see a bit what I missed – but honestly, I just brute force trial-and-errored my way through.



A hollow victory, but whatever. Moving on.

-Here’s where I’m confused. Paddra was getting hit by a time distortion, and it sounds like the distortion was related to acts by pro-fal’Cie/anti-Academy extremists, which was in Paddra’s future.

[Non-rhetorical request: is this right, as far as we know at this point in the game? Or am I really misunderstanding what the game’s trying to tell me? Timey-wimey stuff always confuses me.]

-New fragment lore: Only those “blessed with chaos by the goddess” can time travel. Again, we seem protected by Etro. Noel and Serah, I mean.

-That’s all I can find here in this timeline for the moment. There are two missing fragments, and one clear loose end. A time-lost person who doesn’t know their name.

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Yaschas Massif – 10 AF

-Came back here to check on Hope, and saw a Pathos Jewel by the giant head statue.

-Fragment lore: a crystal used inside the ancient Oracle Drive resonates with the thoughts of nearby people and reconstructs them.

“Plus, if you inject energy into the crystal, you can freeze the structure into place. So if you think about something really hard, and then run a current of energy through the crystal lattice, you can trap the images that were inside your head.”

This Pathos Jewel is basically used as a Pensieve.

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Yaschas Massif – 01X AF

Oh hell YES! I went back out hunting for the third of those three crystals that fell to earth, using the image in the fragment menu as a guide.

Found it nestled in a canyon, hidden by brush. Only accessible with the moogle toss.

-The scientist, Lester, thinks the crystals are from an old legend. The Paddra seeress made three prayers to the sky, and predicted they’d come back to earth as falling stars.

LESTER: “This is her gift to you from the past.” What did she pray for?

Fragment lore, about The Thirteenth Ark. When heroes gather on mighty Pulse for the war, this Thirteenth Ark shall be the stronghold and the salvation of Pulse’s children.

[Non-rhetorical question: was that the Ark from back in XIII? I thought it was the fourth or fifth Ark, and assume this Thirteenth Ark is a different one, but I have a bad memory.]

-Tried that Cie’th, Gorgyra, again. ALMOST got her when Doom finished me off.



-The next couple of attempts don’t go any better. Her Wounds act as a soft enrage, and I have no way to deal with Pain/Fog. I’ll come back later.

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Next time: Turning my attention back to the main story. (…unless I get distracted again. Which is likely lol.)