FFXIV – Part 255: Closure [Dark Knight 60-80]

Summary: A young Elezen illusionist seeks to spread peace. The dark knight circle completes.

This picks up from the 50-60 quests: http://coldrungaming.blogspot.com/2021/04/ffxiv-p...

 

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In Memories We Walked

-Sidurgu and his ward Rielle are looking well.

-The quest starts quite reflectively, walking through Ishgard and remembering my past quests. The dark knight quests have always been good at that feeling.

-My soul crystal and it seems to be broken! A Elezen boy – Myste – takes responsibility.

MYSTE: “I have a power. A power which I can use to help those in need.” Ooh, am I gonna get a Sith apprentice? [Later edit: I like that this is a slightly different direction.]



-He needed some of my aether for his “power.”

-The first person we go to help is the cousin of Ser Ignasse of the now-shunned (and dead) Heavens’ Ward.

-Myste’s help is… unusual. He asks this woman to imagine her cousin, go to a peaceful place that she shared with him. This feels like some séance shit about to go down.

-YUPPP. We go to some garden they spent time together and MYSTE BRINGS IGNASSE WITH HIM.



-Was that the real ghost? Or was it just a comforting illusion? He seems real. The Heavens’ Ward at known as traitors at this point iirc, so we even take whoever this “Ignasse” is away from the city.

-…where he has devolved into a swirling abyss.

MYSTE: “I can give the memories form. I can breathe them full of life and return them to their loved ones. But as the memory fades, so too does the magick… It is not death itself we fear, but the unfinished story.”

Holy shit. That’s poignant as hell. Even in my own life, I tend to agree.

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The Widow and Her Love

-We next head to the village of Tailfeather, where a woman has been sentenced to hard labor and servitude her for her crimes. She seems to be badly mistreated.

-OH WAIT! She’s Lowdy, the woman who disrupted the Heavensward peace conference. What a deep cut. I last met her in part 57 of this series, over three years ago:
http://coldrungaming.blogspot.com/2018/05/ffxiv-p...

MYSTE: “Her crimes were born of desperation and despair for the husband she lost. Perhaps if the two of them were to meet again…”

Maybe. But Myste has to be REALLY CLEAR about setting expectations with his power, letting them know it’s just an illusion.

-Lowdy takes the illusion in stride. I don’t know if she thinks this is a ghost or what, but she still does not find it comforting. She knows it’s not real. Forgives Myste his trickery, knowing he had the right spirit.



LOWDY: “You too, Ququshu. I blamed you for a lot of things. Hated you so much, because… because… I don’t know. Because you came back, and State [my husband] didn’t. Because you weren’t him.” 

 

-Myste says he’s on the clock here btw. Only allowed to make three more illusions before his power is spent.

What if MYSTE HIMSELF is an illusion??? Ffxiv by M. Night. Shyamalan. [Later edit: I wasn’t totally wrong.]

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The Orphans and the Broken Blade

-We head over to the isolation and peace of Moghome, where Myste talks about the need to atone. What does he have to atone for?

-Myste learns about Sidurgu’s master, Ompagne. And OVER SID’S OBJECTIONS, he summons Ompagne’s shade. *swats Myste with a rolled-up newspaper*

-The shade reveals his path towards dark knighthood. He used to be a temple knight. Won lots of praise for leading troops into victory against Dravanians, no matter how many of those troops died.

OMPAGNE: “Green boys with red blood, spilled on white snow. Again and again and again…” He eventually couldn’t take it and left the temple knights.



-One sparring match/trial later, and he shares that he took in Fray and Sidurgu as a type of atonement.

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We Can Never Go Home

-The next stop in Myste’s journey is Castrum Oriens, a battlefield. Gotta be some folks to help there.

-We find a blast from the WAY past. A guy named Gallien is here. I don’t remember him, but it sounds like I gave him some medicine in a quest back in Quarrymill, probably around level 20-30?

-He’s been on a journey. Even worked for the Griffin on Baelsar’s Wall for a while. And now he’s dying, since he gave some of his medicine to a friend.



-Myste conjures that friend. Gallien simply asks him to pray for their friends.

-We head towards the prayer spot. We ALMOST make it. But Gallien passes away and the friend’s shade dissipates.

It hits Myste hard. He’s on the verge of some major despair, a sense that the world is just pain and torment and death and nothingness.

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Our Compromise

-Myste has fled. The search for him in Rhalgr’s Reach doesn’t bode well. One guy saw him saying “Forgive me, forgive me!” surrounded by some dead birds.

-Seems like he was draining animals of aether. And now that we’ve caught up with him, this MAJOR ASSHOLE has summoned the shade of Ystride. This is the monstrous mother of Rielle that kept trying to kill her.

-It sounds like Myste is here for vengeance against me.



“Upon the surface of the crystal are carved the sins of dark knights past… and yours are beyond counting. Beyond fathoming. Without end. Justice is an excuse. Nobility is a lie. Murder is murder!”

I hope not. Ququshu has killed tens of thousands of beings. Probably more.

-Myste’s new goal is to alleviate pain by draining aether from wherever he can find it and reviving everyone the dark knights have killed. That sounds like… a bad idea, to say the least.  

-After Ystride, he summons shades of Ilberd, and also Livia sas Junius and the Cape Westwind dude whose name escapes me [Later edit: Rhitatyn].

They all get wiped away by some new character.

??? “Serve… save… slave… slay… I’ve sins aplenty, aye, but regrets? Not so much. And if she wouldn’t listen to me, the embodiment of good sense and pragmatism, then what hope could you possibly have?”

IT’S FRAYYYYY

“A house divided cannot stand, you know. This childish rebellion ends now.”

That’s right – the darker side of me that took Fray’s shape wasn’t killed, just absorbed into me. They now emerge to help protect me from Myste – and btw, it’s AWESOME that the kid’s title is now “Myste the Delusionist.”

-The shades in the coming fight are weak, but a swarm. Warriors of Darkness, Heaven’s Ward, more.



-At the end, Myste is spend. Shedding tears and begging for forgiveness.

MYSTE: “Again they go to join the multitude in the black oblivion of the abyss…”

Is Myste just a conglomeration of the Dark Knights’ collective sin, yearning for atonement?

Fray provides a nice counterbalance: “Do not seek forgiveness, for it will not ease the burden. It weighs as it should.”

The dead are gone. They can live within their memories of us (hence some of the horror of Type-0), but that’s about it.

FRAY: “Listen to my voice. Listen to our heartbeat. Listen… I forgive you. I forgive you. I forgive you…”



It’s all Myste ever wanted. Both of them fade away.

-It took me a while to understand even a little bit what was happening. It seems like Myste was a part of me just as much as “Fray” was. One focused on a yearning for redemption over rage.

This wasn’t as revolutionary as the twist in the 30-50 quest, but it didn’t have to be. It built on and deepened the theme of the same story.


New dark knight gear!

 

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Our Closure [Dark Knight 80]

-I share my Shadowbringers story with Rielle. As expected, Sidurgu takes it as a sign of blood and sacrifice while Rielle sees it more positively.



-Anyway. While I was away, I got a letter thanking me for past service. Its sender is a bit of a mystery, leading me on a merry chase across Eorzea.

-Until I find that it’s Godeheard.

Now, lots of the time, these old quest NPCs are a total blank to me. Not Godeheard. He was one of the straws that broke the camel’s/Fray’s back. We recovered some of his merchandise from Qiqirin bandits. Instead of thanking us, he was an utter dickwad, asking us to reimburse him for the blood-soaked goods.



-Apparently, that was the start of a series of bad turns. He ended up broke and alone.

-Even in that despondent state, though, he found grace. Gratefulness. He found the bloodstained merchandise I saved – seeds – and planted them. That was the start of his turnaround. He’s now got a thriving garden!

I’m really happy to see this. People who can turn things around and find a change in attitude even at their lowest.

-In thanks, he gives me a flower from his garden.

-I take it to someone who may need it – meditating as he taught me to summon my darker side once more.

-Godeheard’s thanks is appreciated, but we’re in a better place than we were. More secure. No longer relying on the praise or broken by the asks of others.



“Closure” indeed. This is such a brilliant questline. Through and through.


Dark knight in the land of pixies.

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Next time: a mixed bag. The 80 bard quest, Moonfire Faire, and Rising quests.