FFXIV – Part 248: Tiamat Unbound

Summary: Starting the 5.5. main story quest. Fordola returns. Winning over and freeing Tiamat.

This picks up from the 5.4 main story quest I last did in December 2020: http://coldrungaming.blogspot.com/2020/12/ffxiv-p...

---

Unto the Breach

-Thancred and Urianger have finished up their tour of Garlemald and are returning to Scion HQ. This is also in the aftermath of a potential cure for primal tempering.

-The capital is in rough shape. The Garleans are working to transform the imperial palace into… something? Sounds like a vague nightmare structure.

THANCRED: “[The builders] swarmed the place like so many insects, working with nary a word exchanged between them. No one overseeing construction, no one barking orders. It was as if they were possessed… or tempered.” Creeeeepy.

-We check in at Ala Mhigo for a full Alliance leadership meeting.

-Lyse shares that the party that went to investigate Fandaniel’s towers came back tempered and hostile. At least we now have a way to cure that.

-I’d almost forgotten the words of the tempered we saw at the end of 5.4: “Glory be to Garlemald.” Almost as if GARLEMALD ITSELF were the primal.

-Across the world, beast tribes have recently been enslaved and brought to those towers. A world-wide army of pro-Garlean tempered in the works.

-HI FORDOLA I MISSED YOU!!! I assumed she was dumped from the plot back in Stormblood altogether. Which was sad because I frigging loved her character and arc.



-The Ala Mhigan Arenvald will escort us along with Fordola. She’s still a prisoner, but not coming here unwillingly necessarily.

-Her motivation seems threefold:

1) She’s a prisoner and she has to do stuff, to some degree.
2) Arenvald saved her and she owes him.
3) She basically sacrificed her soul to Garlemald and wants to know more.

-While Fordola and Arenvald check out the towers, we also have to investigate Lunar Bahamut. Estinien is looking into that, so I’ll go catch up with him.

---

Here Be Dragons

-Found him in Ishgard. Still a bit weird to see him without the helmet, despite it having been a while.



-LOLOL ESTINIEN MISTAKES ALISAIE FOR A “MORE RUGGED” VERSION OF ALPHINAUD AND SHE FLIES INTO A RAGE.



I hope this urges her to embrace the dark arts of reaper in Endwalker.

-I also like how G’raha fanboys over Estinien. Another legend he gets to meet.

-Estinien is heading to Azys Lla. Oh right, Tiamat (Bahamut’s mate) is imprisoned there! Maybe she’ll be able to shed light on the whole Lunar Bahamut thing.

-Something about Alisaie’s annoyed rage at Estinien now makes me think she may have a little crush. Who could blame her?

-Tiamat sounds like a potential ally. We know she no longer hates mankind and feels dominated by her guilt for resurrecting Bahamut. 

 ---

Righteous Indignation

-Tiamat as no idea what’s been happening recently. Wasn’t her who summoned Lunar Bahamut, but she thinks it must have been another Meracydian dragon.

-Sounds like Fandaniel has managed to control the Meracydians who kept Bahamut’s form intact.



-God, Tiamat is SO MAJESTIC! Her echoing voice, her look, the works. I love seeing her here, wings outspread against Azys Lla’s green sky. Please let us free her.

ESTINIEN: “We came here to ask mighty Tiamat of the first brood, consort of Bahamut, mother of the dragons of Meracydia, what she intends to do about the crimes committed against her children!”

-ESTINIEN IS ON THE SAME PAGE AS ME LET’S FUCKING GOOOOOO

-Still, she’s afraid. Understandably so, since she’s specifically afraid that if she met another Bahamut (or whatever Lunar Bahamut is), he’d temper and use her for destruction.

-OH RIGHT, I FORGOT!!! We have a cure for tempering now. This really changes the game.

-She’s on board. Hell. Yes.


tfw your plan to win over an ancient dragon works

-But she’s still in prison. How do we break her out? And how do we know if the porxie cure will work on someone like Tiamat?

-Now to free her from her prison. This involves tinkering with the different Allagan security measures.

My favorite part here is when I get the chance to give my name to the security node and I get a few choices. I choice “Estinien Wyrmblood.”



As Ququshu says this, she strikes a broody and emo Estinien impression. XD 

---

For Vengeance

-While dealing with the security tech, Estinien notes the danger of the Ascians. Wants to know what I plan to do with him, whether I’ll try to come to some kind of accord with Fandaniel.

I frigging love this dialogue option the game gives me:
“I will try, yes. And if that fails, I’ll remember him.”

Emet-Selch is really one of the great FF characters of all time. RIP.

-Back to Tiamat, and the anti-temper treatment we give her seems to be working. She’s remembering her past, pre-tempering. How the Ascians fucked everyone over, manipulating the Allagans against the Meracydian dragons.

-omg we even get a flashback to Bahamut and Tiamat playing with their kiddos, adooorbs



-I actually feel pretty bad for Tiamat. So many of her kids are beyond any possible tempering cure, given how much the Allagans messed with them.

-…it works. The security measures are removed, her prison is released. Tiamat is free.

TIAMAT: “For vengeance and atonement… I rise.”



SHE’S SO BEAUTIFUL (even if Azys Lla is still the ugliest sky in the game imo)

-On the linkshell, we learn that Lunar Bahamut has been spotted heading to an Amal’jaa hub leading a host that includes dragons. Let’s roll.

-And in the coolest method of transportation ever conceived, Estinien dragoon jumps onto Tiamat’s back.

---

Random Stuff Around Eorzea

Riddle me this: how many lalafells can you fit in a box?


The most fantastical and imaginative food in Eorzea:


---

Next time: confronting Lunar Bahamut.