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When It Rains
-A host of sin eaters appeared, advancing on the Crystarium. Must be a Eulmore attack.
-THERE ARE SO MANY! Dozens. Hundreds, for all I know. Team Scion heads to the field.
-What a fight. So many sin eaters, led by those angel types. We’re doing okay, but the Crystarium forces take heavy losses.
-Minfilia is a whirling dervish using Thancred’s rogue techniques.
-A few ripped apart the Viis guard, Lyna.
“They… they turned on me.”
The sin eaters have been turning Crystarium guards. She better live.
-Ardbert watches the massacre helplessly. He even sees two soldiers comforting each other about how much better things are with the Warrior of Darkness returned… even as a sin eater bears down to mangle them.
He tries protecting them. It doesn’t work. Still totally ethereal.
“Why did you spare me? Why?? What have I done to deserve this mercy?”
-And yet, we eke out a victory of some sort. Drove them back.
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Words from On High
-Time to tend to the wounded. Physically and mentally.
-The survivors know that many of the sin eaters they struck down were their friends and comrades. Some survivors may even transform themselves.
-Captain Lyna suffers from a leg injury and ginormous survivor’s guilt.
LYNA: “We’ve come so far – so godsdamned far! I could have sworn the end was in sight. And now… Now they will never see it.”
-Lord Vauthry’s voice blasts out to the Crystarium from his airship above. Calls the sin eater attack divine retribution. Only he can save us with a world where man and sin eater live in peace.
It’s no “I have a dream.”
VAUTHRY: “Why, already our winged brothers and sisters regard me and mine as kin!”
My dude, with these soldiers, after your attack? That’s not the winning argument you think it is.
-These last couple of quests have been just brutal, a gutpunch after all the victories over the Wardens.
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Small Favors
-Minfilia feels some of that guilt too. Thinks her actions during the fight led to Thancred getting hurt.
She didn’t do anything reckless. A sin eater hurt Thancred in the chaos, and he’s basically okay.
But this just feeds into all her existing guilt around not living up to what Thancred wants and expects.
-One wounded guard tells us his comrade’s dying words: “I never knew that our world was this beautiful. I’m so glad that I got to see the night sky.”
The Crystarium’s morale is wounded, but pretty much nobody wants to surrender to Vauthry.
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The Best Way Out
-We regroup with the Crystal Exarch. Emet-Selch too. He’s basically on the team now lol.
-We now know for sure that Vauthry controls the sin eaters, to some degree anyway.
-When the Exarch met Vauthry, Vauthry lobbed some energy blast at him. Apparently we were meant to interpret it not as a general damage attack but as a mind control attack.
I accept it, but I don’t understand how he came to that conclusion.
ALPHINAUD: “It would not surprise me if the vast majority [of Eulmore citizens] were in his thrall.”
I dislike this greatly. The horror of Eulmore was how its people were complicit in atrocities and oppression for the sake of security and pleasure. Mind control would undercut that sharply.
-Alisaie discovered a lead on the Lightwarden of Amh Araeng. An abandoned mine in the west, too vast to reasonably explore.
-Minfilia has an idea. The Wardens are beacons of light. The Oracle of Light within her could detect it, if only she could harness that power.
She’s offering to basically sacrifice herself, become one with the Oracle. Would they fuse, each conscious? Would one overwhelm the other?
EMET-SELCH: “One being must consume the other. Who shall be the lucky winner?”
More and more, he reminds me of Spike joining Team Angel. An untouchable heckler who tells more truth than is comfortable.
-Thancred is torn. He loves the Oracle but doesn’t want to throw this Minfilia under the bus.
His feelings ultimately doesn’t matter because this is still our best option.
-After, I talk to Emet-Selch. He readily that Zodiark tempered the Ascians.
It shocks me! I assumed tempering turned you into a berserk, mindless brute. Maybe it’s different when the primals are as strong as Hydaelyn and Zodiark. It makes me wonder if Hydaelyn tempered us.
-On to Amh Araeng. Eulmore’s guarding the main roads, so Y’shtola and the twins will distract them while Urianger, Thancred, Minfilia and I find a back route to the mine.
I’m sure Emet-Selch will go wherever he can do the most mocking.
-I like how Ardbert fills the “new zone narrator” role that Lyse filled in Stormblood.
”Press on, for joy and sorrow walk hand in hand.”
His perspective and situation gives him real wisdom.
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The Trolley Problem
-There’s a Mord trading post here, Garik. THE MORD ARE SO CUTE!
-It sounds like there’s an old trolley that might get us to the mines. The problem is that stone golems called Talos are required to operate it, and they’re dormant.
-Stumbled across a pair of dudes near these mines, protecting them. Lucky us - they’re engineers-in-training. They know someone who can help us with the trolley.
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Rust and Ruin
-They lead us back to an old mining town called the Twine.
-The leader is a drunk Ronso named Magnus. He doesn’t want to discuss the trolley. It’s a sore spot.
-Still, we start preparing the way in case he can help us. Fixing the tracks, that sort of thing.
-This part of Amh Araeng was the old home of the Nabaath Empire. They used the Talos for mining.
-The town’s name refers to the “twining”/cooperation between the native Ronso and the new Mystel. Nabaath must’ve been a Mystel empire.
-The trolley was the lifeblood of the town. Its last operators left 15 years ago and things fell into disrepair.
-Seven years ago, Magnus and his wife returned to Twine. He’s a real trolley engineer and left to raise his son away from the dangers of Amh Araeng.
JERYK (apprentice engineer): “It didn’t help, in the end. The sin eaters got the boy. Isn’t that always the way?” No wonder Magnus drinks.
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Random Stuff Around Eorzea
-Some great player names:
Hiply Rustic
Tabitha Kingsleigh (perhaps a reference to Tabitha King, author and wife of Stephen King)
My new hat:
An adorable smiley iguana in the First:
Gnomes in the First are… different:
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Next time: Trying to power up the Talos and reach Nabaath Araeng and the Lightwarden.
