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No Greater Sport
-An archer named Lue-Reeq starts this off. He hunts the Cardinal Virtues, like the other role quest givers.
-A quick test of skill and we’re hunting buds. He’s upbeat, very “eat, drink, and be merry!” Maybe he lost someone close to him and this is his response.
-Our Cardinal Virtue target is Andreia, formerly the elven archer known as Renda-Rae.
-She’s elusive, but has regularly slain dangerous beasts. …Really? Maybe we just leave her alone and let her do her thing.
-Never mind lol. The beasts she slays rise anew as powerful sin eaters. Pursuing her old hunting strategies seem to inadvertently be causing harm.
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Vengeance in Defeat
-Lue has a bunch of hired hands reporting to him on Andreia’s movements. Weird.
-He’s also shocked I actually came back to help him. Lots of others leaving her?
-His cheeriness strikes me as shady. I don’t trust it.
-I track her down and find the ghostly Cardinal Sin. Echo flashback time.
-The flashback shows her pre-sin eater. She’s hunting a titanic coeurl called Balam-Quitz, Devourer of Souls. The coeurl’s design is so cool! It has horns like a moose or one of the First’s cactuars.
She’s leading a pair of two other hunters. The other two jump out at the coeurl as a decoy. Renda-Rae takes aim… and is gripped by a crushing head pain.
[Later edit: I didn’t understand at the time where this came from. I see now that it was the beast’s stunning roar.]
-THIS IS SO FRUSTRATING She has to watch as the coeurl zaps her companions and moves on its way.
-What was that about? Did she know it might happen? Some pre-existing condition? [Later edit: lol no]
-Later, she buries her comrades. Vows to take down Balam-Quitz in the end.
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Freedom from Privilege
-Lue is so extra in forcing our friendship that it’s uncomfortable. All “THE BRAVE AND VALIANT DUO SHALL GO DOWN IN HISTORY.” Chill. We just met.
-We head to another hunt target in hopes of catching Andreia mid-hunt. A different group of hunters took that target down though, and they see me with pity.
“You’ve cast your lot in with the boy? You poor, daft sod…”
-This alternate group confirms that Lue has relied on hired help most of his life. A privileged dude, and perhaps a bit whiny.
-We stop by Eulmore to see his parents, and… yeah. Super privileged, and his dad kind of dismisses him as “oh, you’re back? I guess you want more money.”
But NOT THIS TIME, DADDO. Lue angrily rejects this, and… yeah. We’re on our own, the two of us. Nothing new to Ququshu, but a new situation for Lue. No more money to hire researchers and help.
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The Hunter’s Legacy
-Our next step is to check with his old nanny. She used to tell Lue tales of that hunter, and perhaps a clue to tracking her lies there.
-She tells the tale of Renda Rae. A legendary hunter. Apparently, it was Balam-Quitz’s roar that stunned her with the head pain.
After that, she met up with Team Ardbert. Eventually, she plotted a way to defend herself against the roar.
-She eventually sought the beast on her own. She feared dragging her new team into the mess, and I hear that. It’d be brutal to lose even more. And she succeeded! Killed the thing solo. What a badass.
-We continue our hunt, finding Andreia back in the swamp where Renda-Rae was rumored to have taken down the beast. Echo flashback once more, seeing her draw a bow against the monster.
-I LOVE THIS! The flashback lets me play as Renda in the fight against the beast. It has her on the ropes, when TEAM ARDBERT SWOOPS IN FOR THE RESCUE! They’re so great.
-Only after does she share her trauma, the reason why she went off to solo this beast.
-Seeing me go full Echo Flashback freaks out Lue. He gets… weird? Says I’m not trustworthy and that’s the end of our friendship. Huh.
Ahhhh! I see. His old nanny tells me this is just him not knowing how to deal with friends. He saw that many friends joined him just for his money, so maybe he’s afraid I’ll break off from him too.
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Fellowship Restored
-I follow Lue back to the swamp, where he went to pursue Andreia on his own. It didn’t go well.
I mean, it could’ve been much worse! He confronted her, and she summoned a bunch of others whom she turned into sin eaters. Including some from that rival hunter group.
OH SHIT, SHE’S RE-FORMING TEAM ARDBERT! Or at least the same party composition. Going through the motions of finding friends in her zombified form. That is legit heartbreaking.
-I recount to Lue-Reeq what I saw in the echo flashback. It hits him hard – he grew up on this story of a solo badass, when it was her team and bonds that saved her.
God, I feel this SO MUCH. My personal version of this was when I became obsessed with Ayn Rand for my mid-late teens. If only Steven Universe had caught my eye instead (if it had existed at the time), how differently would I have turned out? How much less toxic of a person would I be now?
-And so our fellowship is rejoined.
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Courage Born of Fear
-Renda-Rae’s greatest strength – and weakness – is her hearing. It made her a great hunter. It also caused her downfall against the beast.
Lue-Reeq will then try to help me by getting some loud noise ready to distract her.
-Suddenly, a messenger appears from his asshole father. He demands that Lue stop his mission, since his crappy bounty hunting has apparently brought shame to the family.
-Talk about character growth! This rejection seems to have transformed Lue. On his own – no helpers or hired aides, not even me – he assembles the flashbangs for our mission, and we head off to Rak’tika.
-Andreia is here, with her new Not!TeamArdbert squad. Here we go.
-The fight is in a few waves. First, it’s against their team’s mage, healer, and warrior. Then the knight and Andreia together, and then Andreia alone.
I die my first couple of attempts. It gets progressively better, but it’s really unforgiving.
-OH RIGHT! I haven’t upgraded my gear in the last 10 levels. To the market board, Batman!
-Still tough, but victory! I have to be precise with dodging all the AoEs and targeting the right enemies.
[Non-rhetorical question: do these scenarios synch my item level, or does having good gear help?]
-I like how the mechanics sync up with the messages, like how when there’s a stack marker (where multiple players have to get close together to split the attack’s damage), Lue takes that as an opportunity to show that he’s willing to be part of a team now.
-Renda-Rae’s cleansed shade appears: “I should’ve never betrayed your trust. Never again, I swore. Never again.”
She’s not talking to us. She’s thinking of Team Ardbert, whom she’d never again leave out of the loop.
“That’s what it means to let someone into your heart, knowing full well that nothing lasts forever. To welcome the fear, and the pain. The sorrow. When I lost my parents. When we laid the keeper low. You felt it too, didn’t you?”
Or maybe she is lucid enough to see us here. I’m not sure, but I doubt it.
-We return to the Crystarium. Maybe the first honestly earned celebration in Lue-Reeq’s life, though it’s bittersweet. I’m very curious where he goes from here.
Big fan of this quest line. Big fan. I admit personal bias as someone who grew up privileged myself, if not nearly to this same degree.
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Rising to the Occasion [Dancer, lv. 80]
-Nashmeira’s Troupe Falsiam has continued bringing joy to Eorzea.
-The Troupe has been invited to perform at the renowned Mujikoza festival in Kugane. And Nashmeira is trusting Ranaa to lead the troupe there while she herself stays behind in Eorzea, training the next generation.
Aw! She’s grown so much.
-But she’s nervous. To help calm her nervous. I dance with her. And this is just frigging LOVELY.
It’s a cutscene. No combat, no audience. Just Ququshu and Ranaa dancing privately by the sunset, on the cliffs of La Noscea. Enough to give her confidence and comfort for her new role.
-Look. I get that in future expansions we’ll likely go back to big combat-centric job story arcs, and I’ll enjoy it. I like the main job quests!
The new level 80 dancer gear.
But slice of life animes are my favorite. I feel the same way about these little “how are your old friends doing?” vignettes we get at the level 80 job quests.
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Random Stuff Around Eorzea
Riding my new Ixion mount:
Under the moonlight in NieR garb:
An awesome player design:
BLAZE IT:
lol this FATE name:
Sesame Street has taken a dark turn:
Vivi has grown:
Dancing with my friend Rhaq in Kugane:
-Some great player names I’ve seen recently:
Nancy Raccoon – I especially love this. A ship name from a Beatles song, basically.
Meteo Fusoya
P’stachio Milk
Offensive Namebanned
Daddy’s Boytoy
Frankie Forearms
Lolly Pops
Adjective Noun
Raphael Ironshield (I know I mostly note the goofy names, but I honestly love super standard fantasy names like this.)
Anime Protagonist
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Next time: I’ve been gradually working on scholar. It’s at 60, and so that’s the next one I’m going to work up. But I’m pretty slow, so it’s possible the next main story content drops before I finish this storyline.
