Summary: Preparing for the change of the guard and a new chapter in Ishgard, despite fierce noble pushback.
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The Machinists’ Choice
-Rostnthal and I will share the task of instructing the city’s new watch in machinistry.
My favorite part is how thirsty this NPC is for Rostnthal as I tracked him down.
-More
class issues are in play here. We’re going to help train mostly lowborn
citizens as city. Ishgard’s nobility is not generally happy with this.
-I love the name of this new watch: “Hilda’s Hounds,” after Hilda (the fiery lead of the guards).
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The Hrunting Heist
-Our
first job is to guard a Temple Knight ceremony, one meant to celebrate
new harmony between highborn and lowborn. Nice idea and all.
-We
sit down to plan out some details with a snotty Knight representative
Muscadain, when news interrupts us. A thief has stolen the sacred blade
Hrunting. (Badass weapon name!)
This investigation sounds like a job for Hilda’s Hounds.
Hilda and friends are also pumped.
-One of the guards was shot in the helmet with a gun. Apparently, this is one of a series of gun-related crimes.
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Release the Hounds
-The Hounds track down the fence for the sword to Mor Dhona, intercepting a deal in progress.
-In the following skirmish, the bandit gets away. At least we recover the sword.
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Snouts Up, Tails Down
-The quest name here puts me in mind of a song I like by I Fight Dragons, “Heads Up, Hearts Down.”
-His
reasoning is a common Lominsan story. He was a pirate whose crew didn’t
adapt well to Admiral Merlwyb’s code. He got the job from the
noblewoman who first put us onto his scent.
…Why would she give us a hint like that? This whole thing smells of a set-up, though idk why they’re being set-up.
-AHA!!
Smart, Hilda. She thinks the sword was stolen, altered in some way, and
allowed to fall back into our hands. Made into a bomb or something to
disrupt the ceremony?
-I do like here that the asshole knight
(God, how many of those have there been in XIV? SO MANY.) puts aside any
class malice to work with us in what seems like good faith.
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The Mongrel and the Knight
-I was right. A bomb was planted into Hrunting’s hilt.
-But not a particularly strong bomb. More like a sparkler, it sounds like. Meant as a distraction for something else?
-Ohhhh…
if the sword were dropped during the ceremony due to that sort of minor
flash, it’d be taken as a sign that the whole class-harmony thing was a
cursed endeavor from the start.
-We’re able to trace the signal to that woman from the start of the quest line, Melisie.
(The writing is surprisingly comfortable with the b***h slur.)
-And YET ANOTHER ASSHOLE KNIGHT enters the fray. Some pro-noble Temple Knights are ready to arrest us just because.
-We
fight off these allies and Melisie runs off – and SHE IS FRIGGING
INFURIATING. She runs to a nearby knight, playing the role of an
innocent noblewoman beset by ragged ruffians.
-LOL GET REKKKKKKT. The “guard” she found was Muscadain, who already was onto her bullshit.
Not only that; he gives a surprisingly impassioned defense of how nonsense the idea of nobility is.
The final fight here against Baroness Melisie is challenging. I like how she transforms into a FRIGGING DRAGON midway through??
I
wonder if this is a metaphor for the monstrosity of inherited nobility
or if she literally drank dragon blood just for a power-up. Probably
both.
-Do I even smell the potential spark of romance between
Muscadain and Hilda at the end here? (At least, in a world where I
pretend FFXIV is a different game.)
-WAIT NO, ALERT ALERT ABANDON SHIP. They’re half-siblings. My bad.
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Machinists for the Morrow [Level 80 Machinist]
-Joye has been acting strange of late, so I’m sent to spy on her.
-And I find her meeting secretly… with Hilda?
-LOLOL, I love Hilda commenting directly on how Joye changes hair/persona in an instant.
-They’re training together!! Searching for targets, trying to improve on their own. This is great.
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A Delivery of Love [Valentione’s Day/Little Ladies’ Day]
-I love these two NPCs for the Valentine’s Day quests, Lisette and Astrid.
-A Mysterious Moogle – WITH A HEART POM! – is here to teach the ways of love. Kupka Kupp.
-An
Elezan kid named Elyne is feeling despondent. Not sure why, but she has
admiration for Ququshu’s adventures and travel. And a touch of envy.
-We
try cheering her up by painting a picture of the seaside she loves for
her and collecting some faraway flowers. But she doesn’t feel any hope.
She’s been training to be an adventurer but sucks.
But there
are so many ways to adventure in this game! If the sword and lance
aren’t working, she can try magic or botany or any number of things.
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Little Lady Adventurer [Valentione’s Day/Little Ladies’ Day]
-Kupka’s traveling to Ul’dah. Elyne will join.
KUPKA: “This could be your first step on the road to adventure!”
-The
journey is for Kupka to deliver Valentione’s Day messages around
Eorzea. We even get to see the Songbirds again, that XIV idol group.
A
sweet little quest, though my favorite of this group was still the one
from a few years back that had us helping a girl’s ghost find peace.
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Random Stuff Around Eorzea
The level 60 machinist set makes me look like the world’s deadliest pilgrim: 
A modern look: 
One player’s comment on entering the notoriously cutscene-heavy Praetorium dungeon: 
I’m a huge fan of the level 70 machinist gear. 
-Some great player names seen recently:
Photon Brightheart
Trust Issues
Healbilly Raympage
Snoopy Highwind
Skummy Mummy
Rainbow Brite
Metal Noodles
Genesis Rhapsodos
Cinna Bon
Twiddles Brightbutton
Your Naughtyboy
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Next time: The next job I’ll work on leveling is dark knight, but my next post will be probably be after 5.5 drops.
