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The Angel of Valhalla (3-1)
-The angel is a wild beast, who seeks out the Chocobo Eaters deliberately.
-Dr. Gysahl came here to seek the angel with his daughter. She died about a century ago on a hunt.
-A Chocobo Eater is in a nearby ruins to the east. This angel apparently has some chutzpah because it sought out something literally called a chocobo eater.
-Found it! It’s like the Dead Dunes’ Earth Eater, but weaker.
It was standing over the angel’s body.
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Healing an Angel (3-2)
-OH NOOOO, WOUNDED CHOCOBO! Hope thinks it was fighting rather than running to protect someone.
-The white chocobo collapses. It’s dying. A chocobo-rider I met before runs for help.
-Dr. Gysahl comes running. He brings the white chocobo back to the farm.
-Some parts of the ruins are too high to reach. I’ll leave for now; the game has hinted that I might use the chocobo as a mount, and if it’s like XIII-2, that could mean hang time.
-Lightning feels a connection to the white chocobo, a familiarity. “As if we’d fought together.” Timey-wimey shenanigans maybe, where our future together is really the past (or something)?
-Dr. Gysahl’s surgery is successful. I like that he’s not magic; he’s literally just a vet.
-The recovering Angel is still in rough shape. Needs nutrients. Too proud to accept food from humans.
-OH I BET I KNOW THE FAMILIARITY! This is the “Angel of Valhalla.” He probably fought alongside Lightning during XIII-2. But even then, wouldn’t Lightning remember? Hm.
-The angel (I’ll just call it that to from here on out to differentiate it from other chocobos) feels the connection with Lightning too. He accepts food from her, accepts her as his master.
DR. GYSAHL: “You’re destined to ride him to the Fountainhead of the Chaos! But before that, this bird needs to be fed.” Even the longest of journeys begins with a single snack.
-To help the angel heal, I have to find it three things: food, medicine, and sheep milk.
-Serala, a farmer, can help me with the food if only I find her father, Cole, who wandered off.
-Ooh! Found a “(Rare)” outfitter named Forge. He has a few interesting garbs. My favorite may be Danse Macabre. Its Sweet Spot passive increases damage dealt when hitting a weakness.
-Off to the Jagd Woods to search for the father.
-Found a Moogle Village, a trippy configuration of mushroom houses with pom adornments.
Nobody’s home. I’ll wait until 7am. (There are timed doors in the woods that change at 7am, so my theory is that they come out in the day time when scary monsters leave.)
-A bell rings at 7am, and a voice: “Get out of your cots, you lazy layabouts! Sun’s rising. So should you.”
-It’s a human voice. Is that Cole?
-Alas, no moogles emerge. Maybe I need the angel to induce them to return.
-I’ve found some choco-snacks along the way, but not enough yet. I need Serala’s dad.
-Ran into a delightful side quest with a new hunter. He’s undergoing a trial to collect some flan parts, but he sucks at killing. I trade him mine for some spare chocobo food.
Lightning (and I) worried: isn’t this cheating? BUT NO! He’s allowed to get the parts by any means possible, even wile. Killing is just one survival skill of many.
I love it because it feels the hunters are giving a (sort of) accessibility option to their recruit. The important part is that he gets the results needed. His trial allows for that, whatever his skill set.
-Found Serala’s father! Cole is a dude wearing bright pink glasses, like novelty glasses for New Year’s.
-He’s acting weird. Pretends he’s not Cole, that Cole is really dead, but he’s clearly lying. Like, he passes on “Cole’s” dying message to his daughter in really specific detail.
-I get the sense he’s trying to run away, thinking it’s for his own good.
-I bring this message back to Sarala from “Not!Cole.” It’s a kind message, encouraging her to keep up the farm and keep being awesome.
-She picks up on it immediately. Knows he’s wanted to leave the farm to search for his missing wife for a long time, and now he’s doing it.
As the proportional age gap shrinks, I’d imagine they’d act more like peers than parent/child, and that there’s be a ton of existential dread around kids stuck as eternal kids, the elderly stuck eternally as the elderly, etc.
An example of what I was expecting/hoping for is from “Interview with the Vampire,” how the book and movie represented Claudia.
TW: blood, a body.
She was turned into an immortal vampire when she was a kid, and it shows what an existential nightmare it becomes for this person – old in mind – to be stuck in that body. Forever.
Even without horror, there should be more things like this quest where someone just needs to get away and change their life. (I personally think the game should have had the undying thing be like 100 years instead of 500.)]
-Hee, nice cameo from a plant biologist named Cornelia on Sarala’s farm. A little Final Fantasy I easter egg, where Sara was the princess of Cornelia.
-Found the medicine with a side quest, so the last thing I need to cure the angel is sheep’s milk.
-There’s a village and farm to the south with some sheep. This looks promising.
-OMG I FOUND IT. I FOUND THE ONE GARB THAT WOULD MAKE LIGHTNING JUMP THROUGH THE SCREEN AND KILL ME IN REAL LIFE IF I EVER USED IT.
”Rhapsody in Rose.”
It’s like she’s cosplaying as Leblanc from FFX-2. I don’t care how good the stats are. This could be the ultimate flare/holy/meteor garb (it’s not thank god) and I’m still not using it.
-While exploring, I found a Beloved’s Gift: “It appears to be a chip from a casino, but to Chocolina, it represents a precious memory with her beloved.” Must be referring to the XIII-2 Sazh thing.
-I brought the gift back to Chocolina, but no reaction. Maybe it’s used after I find Sazh.
-Got the milk through a sheep-herding side quest.
Back to the Angel.
-WOOHOO I CAN RIDE HIM! AND IT FIGHTS ALONGSIDE ME, ARE YOU KIDDING ME??
-He’s still not fully recovered. As he improves, he’ll get stronger; more healing and more damage.
Smart damage too, which I like! The angel will use magic against elemental weaknesses.
-My first stop with my new angelic buddy is to go back to two things I missed:
1) Yeul’s Flowers, a white medicinal flower.
2) Treasures that were too high to reach.
Btw, bless this game for giving me the ability to mark things on my map. Makes this part much easier.
-Yeul’s Flowers help heal/level up the chocobo. A few flowers later and the chocobo can glide, like in XIII-2. This lets me access some new cliffs and chests.
I imagine if I get enough food and medicine, the angel will legit high jump/fly.
-Hope tells me my gliding Angel makes me ready now for the Rocky Crags, a section of the Wildlands that has… well, a lot of rocky crags. Many opportunities for gliding.
-There’s a village to check out there called Poltae, home to some Etro worshippers. Not fanatics, like the ones back in Luxerion. They may be able to help me understand the Great Chaos beneath her temple.
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Next time: The Rocky Crags and the village of Etro worshippers.
