---
New Bodhum – 003 AF
-Now that I know a bit more what to look for, I want to backtrack a little. See if I can fill in some missing blanks.
-Went back here to see if I can find the missing fragment… and I do! It was phased out.
-It’s a graviton core. Snow setting out on his journey to find Lightning.
---
Bresha Ruins – 005 AF
-Found another graviton core here! Just another note from Snow, nothing much.
-Still haven’t gotten 100% map completion. There’s that one blocked off area.
---
Bresha Ruins – 300 AF
-…so let’s try nailing that in 300 AF.
-No luck this time. Can’t seem to find the last fragment, or get to the shaded map section.
-I think y’all mentioned that I can come back to explore more after the story ends if the mood strikes me, so gonna leave for now.
---
Academia – 4XX AF
-One last sweep for Captain Cryptic, but after 15 minutes, no luck.
-Hope invented a time capsule, which is how they got here.
-OMG. Hope in the past reactivated the Oracle Drive. He saw Serah fighting the Proto fal’Cie in the future, yelling at him. THAT’S WHY YELLING AT HOPE WORKED! He decided at that moment to stop work on the AI.
ALYSSA: “Funny. You lose your temper and the whole future changes.”
-They can’t use the time capsule to go back. Hope and Alyssa really set themselves at sea to come here.
-The Academy has been investigating the 13th act. The Ark is powered by graviton cores – hey, that’s what Snow has been using to send us messages!
Working on the Ark.
-We’ll need to hunt around for those graviton cores to levitate the 13th ark, “the new Cocoon.” A human made answer to Cocoon crashing down eventually.
-I need to find five graviton cores.
-Oh wow, I already have a bunch of these!
-The Academy has been working on a Paradox Weapon. Sounds very Doctor Who. Specifically that thing with “The Sound of Drums.” Using a paradox’s energies against it.
And against Caius, specifically.
-But they’re missing a Chaos Crystal for this. It doesn’t exist in this time period.
-lolol I already had four of the five graviton cores just from past exploring. One more to go.
-The last one I need to find is in Academia 400 AF. And maybe one in the Yaschas Mountains, 100 AF.
Nm lol. There’s also one in the Sunleth Waterscape. Stlll! I got a nice head start. And now the game has given me images of where in the zones to go.
---
Sunleth Waterscape – 300 AF
-oh look, it’s my literal least favorite thing in the game. I’m searching for this graviton core, I think I have the general area, but every 10 seconds I get stopped for combat. So boring.
[Later edit: I actually really enjoy scavenger hunts! It’s fun for the game to give me a picture in a zone and have me try to track down that specific place, paying close attention to the environment.
What I DON’T like is mashing that exploratory scavenger hunt with tons of combat. It just pulls me out of the search constantly.]
-Oh, I’m supposed to go to Sunleth Waterscape 400 AF, not 300 AF. Huh. I haven’t unlocked that place yet. I REALLY hope I don’t need to find another Wild Artefact to progress the story.
---
Academia – 400 AF
-The picture doesn’t give me a lot of clues. It’s an escalator. Do you know how many escalators are in Academia?
*20 minutes later*
-GOOD GOD, IS THERE A WAY TO TURN OFF RANDOM ENCOUTNERS SO THIS PART DOESN’T SUCK? I CAN’T MOVE TWO FEET WITHOUT GETTING STUCK IN ANOTHER FIGHT
Swarmed by more Cie’th.
I really hate being negative. I don’t enjoy reading people dislike things I like, and I aim to give games the benefit of the doubt whenever possible.
But this is… bad. It’s not fun. I’m on the verge of Googling the answer to where I find this core so I don’t have to explore the city getting stopped every two seconds by that fucking alarm. I can’t even outrun the fights. Enemies are literally everywhere, z-axis included.
*a while later*
-Yeah, I can’t take this. Sorry. I’m cheating and Googling the answer of where in this maze of a city to find the core. This is basically the Captain Cryptic hunt with random encounters added on.
-At least the fights are mindless. I just afk ever few seconds at each fight and work on my crossword while the fight does its thing.
-Got it. Jesus.
-While I’m here and finishing the Sunday crossword, might as well make my way to the map person on the east half of the city.
*5 minutes later*
Nope, never mind. I don’t care enough to slog through this place.
---
Academia – 4XX AF
-The other two graviton cores are in places that require wild artefacts that I haven’t found. I’ll settle with just these five.
-Successful turn-in! It’ll be ready in 100 years.
-Alyssa now finds an artefact that leads ahead.
HOPE: “Let’s all fight together. We’ll travel to the future by a different path.” Is he gonna time capsule himself again?
-Oh, I misunderstood. Team Hope is almost ready to raise the new Cocoon.
-Noel’s memories are still fuzzy with this. He’s getting frustrated.
-Uh oh. Noel says this gate leads to a final reckoning, so we better be ready to fight. This feels like it’s approaching the end.
-Screw it. Let’s go. I hope I can go back post-game to explore missing fragments if I really want. If not, that’s okay too.
-Hope and Alyssa come to see us off. Hopefully we’re creating a better future. One where Vanille and Fang are free and Lightning is returned and we have a safe haven from Cocoon.
-When preparations are complete, Hope plans to meet us, traveling by time capsule. Lol like that xkcd.
---
Historia Crux
-Historia Crux is in chaos. It buffets us with metal shrapnel.
-Serah and Noel get separated in the turbulence. Serah gets sucked into some portal. Crap.
“I’m sorry, but in the new future that you wish to build, I no longer exist. Goodbye.”
Who said that? Lightning or Serah?
---
Next time: the Void Beyond.
