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Return to Eulmore
-I wake up from that weird ass vision and meet up with the others. Only the Kholusia Warden remains.
-We’re SO CLOSE to freeing Norvrandt from the Light and undoing the seeds of the Eighth Umbral Calamity. Close enough that there’s no way this will be that simple.
-Emet-Selch is unimpressed. “You only delay the inevitable, lengthening your fleeting lives by the smallest of margins… You think only of the problem in front of your nose.”
What longer-term problem is he worried about?
-Emet recounts the earlier “paradise” before Hydaelyn smacked Zodiark into 13 pieces. She apparently has the power to “enervate.”
“That singular ability strikes not at such banal things as flesh, but everything that defines the target, diluting its existence.”
An example: if Hydaelyn hit Ryne, Ryne would divide into two identical people with half the strength, intelligence, etc. That’s what she did to the star itself, splitting Zodiark.
EMET: “Only three were fortunate enough to escape the sundering – me being one of them.”
Huh. There are more than three Ascians, so some Ascians must have been split.
-Everything else was frail, shattered, and ignorant of the power they used to have when whole.
“Malformed creatures thrashing blindly about. Pitiful. Disturbing. Depressing.” Again, I believe him that these are his honest thoughts.
-The Ascians then took it upon themselves to rejoin the worlds, but were overzealous. They accidentally made a useless void of the Thirteenth. That mistake taught them the value of balance.
The mistake is around 7:00 on this image of the shards.
-Y’shtola’s all, “cool motive, still murder.” Each rejoining murders millions, and that’s kind of the end of it for her.
LOLOL, Emet doesn’t even deny this. “Yes, moral relativism and all that. Case in point – I do not consider you to be truly alive. Ergo, I will not be guilty of murder if I kill you.”
-He really wants me doing my thing. Calls me “seven times Rejoined,” I guess because I’m a product of all those different calamities. But isn’t EVERYONE in the source “seven times Rejoined?”
I still think he wants to use me after I’m bursting with Warden light. Emet leaves.
-Captain Lyna bursts into the room. Eulmore’s forces are entrenching themselves in the city. Are they afraid of US attacking? I doubt it.
OOH, what if the sin eaters are turning on them?... nah, nm. He’s hunkering down to protect the Warden in the city.
I’m now almost certain that Lord Vauthry himself is the final Lightwarden. That would explain his control of the sin eaters.
But if that’s true, how did he get that power? Again, theory time: I think Vauthry started out as a soldier who fought the sin eaters (since we know Eulmore once opposed the wardens).
I think he then defeated a Warden – either full of hubris that he could withstand its light or just ignorant of the conversion – and became corrupted when he received its dying light.
-We head to Kholusia.
-Alphinaud feels some measure of empathy for Lord Vauthry. Vauthry is so convinced that his way is the right way, and Alphinaud remembers his own past sins in this same vein.
-The residents near Eulmore are delirious. “Hail Lord Vauthry… Hail Lord Vauthry…”
He’s ramping up his mind control thing to max.
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A Feast of Lies
-All of Gatetown (the poor community outside Eulmore) seems afflicted.
-Ryne senses a powerful sin eater with “impure light” high in the city.
-Hey, it’s Kai-Shirr! That cat dude we saved earlier. He’s been feeding info to the Crystarium.
-When Vauthry caught news of the Warden’s death, he raged out again. “Then this hot, sticky wind comes blowing through. That’s when everything went funny.” Magic rage.
-Y’shtola has an idea. She grabs some meol, Eulmore’s charity food for Gatetown.
RYNE FREAKS OUT. “It’s sin eater. Meol is made out of sin eater.” FDHSFJKLDHSJKLFDHSL
-Lord Vauthry controls sin eaters. Feeding sin eaters to people may make them susceptible to his power.
-Even worse, “many enter [Eulmore], none leave.” That’s where they’re getting the sin eaters in town.
-All Alphinaud’s sympathy for Vauthry? Gone. Time for us to invade this city.
-Vauthry’s voice booms out. He senses us as villains trying to wreck his paradise… and, again, I believe this to be his honest feelings. He lets pit a pulsing blast that turns his citizens into mindless shields.
-We fight through all the citizens and soldiers, even taking out the two jongleurs. Good. I’m pretty sure those jesters were not mind-controlled at all.
-Ran’jit awaits me at the top.
-He’s not a mindless puppet either. He finds men to be worthless, and thus gives his loyalty to Vauthry because he seems to transcend mortality.
But… dude, he’s using that transcendence to kill and maim the poor to feed the rich.
-A tough fight that builds on the mechanics of the previous Ran’jit fights.
Ququshu standing on the one square foot of safe ground.
His dying words: “There you are, my girls…” Flashbacks to daughters he lost?
-We rush past the dead Ran’jit to Vauthry up above. I’m legit shocked that Ran’jit is dead. I had assumed he’d have a redemption arc… but XIV is so bad at killing characters that I give it maybe a 40% chance that this is not the end of his story.
-He’s eating something. I don’t know what, but I’m afraid it’s sin eaters. The sounds are GROSSSSS.
RYNE: “The Warden… it’s not just a sin eater. It’s a man!” I was right!
-He goes full Regan on us, twisting his head around 360 degrees. It’s grotesque. [Later edit: I still hate how the game is using his fatness to add to the grotesque.]
-Yeah, he’s feasting on meol. RIP that cute lion sin eater.
VAUTHRY: “I am a great and wise king. Greatest and wisest. I reign from on high!”
-One more bite, and he transforms. That baby face in the crook of his arm activates, eyes glowing. Vauthry sprouts wings. He looses a scream that dizzies us.
Meol gives you wiiiiings!
Off he flies.
-We head out to the balcony, and now see a floating mountain ringed in a halo of light.
He’s atop Mt. Gulg. (HEY, LIKE IN FFI AND FFIX! It was a volcano in each.) We can’t reach it just now. I’m pretty sure that he also just ripped the top half of it off, but not quite sure. It may have been a floating peak to begin with.
And anyway, there are people still to aid here in Eulmore.
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Paradise Fallen
-Ryne is busy purging the light-based mind control from the citizens. Does this absolve them? I don’t know. I guess it depends on how much their actions were driven by mind control.
[later edit: This reminds of a personal beef with the Buffy/Angel lore. People should NOT be held responsible for their actions as vampires! Like, Angel and Spike shouldn’t have been responsible for their vampire murders.
Vampires lack any sense of morality. It’s physically stripped from them. Outside of people who intentionally became vampires, it never made sense to me that someone like Angel was punished for what his soulless self did. Like being mad at a human transformed into a dog for not being better at calculus in his dog state.]
-They’re pretty confused. Alphinaud approaches them, breaks the news that Vauthry was a sin eater.
ALPHINAUD: “Your conduct prior to [your attack against us] was your own. Vauthry’s unnatural charisma does not absolve you of all responsibility. Of your own free will, you came to this city and gave yourselves over to its pleasures.
“And in the course of this, if you mistreated those less fortunate than you… then that too was of your own free will.”
FUCKING YES. I was terrified the story would just say “it’s all mind control,” when the horror of Eulmore was the compliance of those who benefited. But they stuck the landing. *applauds*
Vauthry was charismatic, but he didn’t exercise direct mind control until recently.
-Their first step towards redemption is helping us reach Vauthry on Mt. Gulg. There’s a great Ladder that can reach it, if only we could activate a Talos.
-The husband of Dulia-Chai (the somewhat nicer Eulmoran who helped Alphinaud before) may be able to help with that.
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Some Great Eorzean Player Names
Bob Grey – I think this is a reference to Pennywise’s alter ego in “It,” Bob Grey.
Beav Misfit
Kitten Blur (like most kittens)
Ultima Weed
And my favorite: Generic Adventurer
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Next time: Pushing to Mt. Gulg.
