The Story of Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn

the story of final fantasy 14 episode 1 welcome to eorzea the final fantasy series is one filled with heroic adventures unique characters climactic confrontations fantastic environments and incredible music of all the games in the franchise final fantasy xiv embodies all of these concepts perhaps better than any of the rest or at least more extensively the story of final fantasy xiv is lengthy involving hundreds of characters and numerous factions encompassing hours upon hours of content it is somewhat unique in the series by being a massively multiplayer game but holds true to the franchise by containing a detailed and gripping narrative playing through this story on your own and absorbing all of its details could take upwards of 200 hours or more but merely watching a short summary of its events would rob you of most of the joy of the character development and small details this video series will attempt to create a middle ground between the two a lengthy summary that will take far less time than actually playing yourself while maintaining as much of the positive parts of the experience as possible i will be making choices throughout this summary in order to present it as a complete narrative but of course everyone's playthrough will be their own in some way i will note that knowledge of any other game in the franchise is not at all required as each final fantasy tells its own story the story of final fantasy 14 takes place primarily in the land of eorzea on the world heidelin there are other continents and nations on heidelin of course but we'll get to those as they come up eorzea is home to a myriad of intelligent species and unique flora and fauna as well as a variety of climates and geographical features the history of aorzia and by extension heidelin is recorded as a series of alternating periods of time periods of abundance known as astral eras and periods of scarcity known as umbral eras as the story begins eorzea is currently in the seventh umbral era which began only five years prior we'll learn more about what brought this umbral era about as we go but as a basic summary the garlian empire who make their home on the continent to the northeast of eorzea launched an invasion with conquest in mind the armies of some of eorzea's nations banded together to resist them leading to a final confrontation on the plains of cartino the garlians had initiated a process to draw one of heideln's moons dalamud down onto the surface of aorzia to purge it despite efforts to stop this the moon continued to fall towards cardinal until it suddenly burst open revealing that it was in fact not a moon but instead a giant prison for a powerful draconic entity named bahamut muhammad proceeded to lay waste to both armies as well as much of aorzia's landscape in an event known as the calamity in the aftermath the garlian empire abandoned their conquest of eorzea while the various city-states of aorzia began the process of rebuilding out of game this event was the culmination of the original release of final fantasy xiv a final ending before the eventual rebirth in final fantasy xiv 2.0 known as a realm reborn the developers tied together the actual relaunch of the game into the storyline which is rather clever eorzea was battered and bruised but fully willing to continue on knowing that the guardians would eventually return the three city-states that made up the ayorzian alliance to combat the empire are limp solominsa gridania and ulda limsa lominsa is a coastal city-state whose economy is based on shipbuilding fishing and the shipping industry lim salaminsa is located on the isle of wilbrand to the southwest of the larger continent of aldenard pirates run rampant in the waters near lim solominsa and the city-state's leader merle vib bloefsvin was once a pirate herself gridania is a woodland region based around forestry agriculture carpentry and leatherworking located in the north of aldenard gridania is led by the seed seer council at the head of which is the prophet khan asena finally ulda is a bustling commercial hub located in a desert region in the south of aldenard its wealth comes from the abundant mineral resources in the area as well as the city's cloth crafting industry with a great deal of coin passing through the city the city is run by a small council of elites known as the syndicate the head of which is a young girl named nanamo ulnamo it's here in ulda that our story begins where a woman named explora sirieza rides towards the city on a carriage along with a grizzled man and a pair of white-haired twins while sleeping she has a dream in which she's floating in space and a female voice tells her to hear feel and think here feel think she then sees a black robed man with a red mask appear from a vortex and in a flash of light she finds herself wearing an impressive set of armor as the man charges at her and she wakes up [Applause] so the carriage is accosted by the brass blades a band of mercenaries in the employ of ulda's syndicate that maintain peace and order in the region the brass blades are known to be rather corrupt and when they find some prohibited herbs in the carriage they tell the grizzled man that he'll rot in a dungeon unless he can afford the fine as they're conversing however a group of amalga attack the caravan a race of intelligent hulking beast men beast men is a classification for a number of different species throughout heidelin that differentiates them from the normal civilized races races of beast men possess their own cultures technology and civilizations and the only thing that has really earned them the beastmen title is their religious beliefs which we'll get to later the brass blades rush to deal with the amalga while the carriage speeds on towards ulda the grizzled man introduces himself to explora and remarks that she must be a new adventurer he tells her that she should report to the adventurer's guild in ulda to learn the ropes and mentions that the syndicate in ulda is split into two groups the royalists that support nanamo's rule and the monatorists who think of nanamo as little more than a figurehead the monetarists don't have enough pull to completely take over ulda but it's clear that nanamo herself at only 21 years old has very little power in the city the carriage finally arrives at the city and his wide-eyed explorer makes her way in to join up with the adventurer's guild and beginner training as a gladiator she gets pointed in the right direction by a friendly man at the gate she heads over to the quicksand the principal tavern of ulda and home to the adventurer's guild both of which are run by a woman named mamodi momodi is all too glad to welcome explora into the guild and fills her in on the local situation the amalga have been a thorn in ulda's side for quite some time the garlian empire is planning something in eorzea and people are still uneasy about the calamity five years ago no one can quite remember what exactly happened during the calamity even though they should and they can't even remember the names and faces of the brave adventurers that fought on the fields of carteno instead they simply refer to those adventurers as warriors of light momodi then gives explora three tasks to help her acclimate to the city first she visits the etherite plaza in order to attune to the etherite crystal there etherite crystals are essentially crystallized structures of magic affixed to machinery that allow for instantaneous trial deportation across the world no one is still quite sure how the crystals work but one must first attune to any given crystal before being able to teleport back to it growing your personal network of etherite access is an important part of being an adventurer secondly explorer goes to visit the gladiators guild where she hopes to train to become a master of sword and shield she is accepted into the guild immediately but progressing through the training will take some effort finally she heads over to the city's market where she meets with a man who tells her that she can purchase practically anything in a market like this provided she has enough gill the currency of heidelen armed with some new knowledge explorer decides to test her sword and begin her gladiatorial training by heading outside the city to slay a few creatures even for one as fresh as her they prove to be no match and she returns to memory at the quicksand bemoaning directs her to speak with a man named papashan in the dispatched yard outside of the city who likely has some work for her meeting with papashan he tells her that there's a lot of work still to be done to continue rebuilding ulda in the aftermath of the calamity his first task for her is simple hand out some pretzels to a number of the centuries that are patrolling the area the centuries are of course grateful for the food but papashan seems disappointed that they had nothing to report as the centuries are actually searching for a young noblewoman that has run away from her family papashan stresses the importance of her safe return and tells explora to search for her to the south mentioning that her name is lady lalira she heads off to the south and sure enough does find lady lalira praying underneath a massive tree known as the sultan tree she finds her at the same time as a white-haired man who's also concerned for her safety forgive my selfish desire to assure your welfare i don't recall requesting an escort simply pretend we never met and continue on your way [Music] we both know i can do no such thing it isn't safe for you here alone it isn't safe for anyone not with this etheric disturbance it's as though the dead are watching us as the group is preparing to return to papashan they are approached by a winged creature an explorer joins the man in combating it it proves to be a more forbiddable foe than she's encountered so far but in the end the two defeat it and explora finds a blue crystal on the ground afterwards picking it up she experiences another dream or vision in which she's standing in the midst of a six-pointed symbol and one of the points lights up she hears the voice again telling her to hear feel and think and it continues referring to her as a crystal bearer crystal bearer i am heidellen all made one a light there once was that shone throughout this realm yet it has since grown dim and as it hath faltered so hath darkness risen up in instead presaging in the end to life for the sake of all i beseech thee deliver us from this fate the power to banish the darkness dwelleth in the crystals of light journey forth and lay claim to them she then wakes up on the ground with the man and lalira standing over her the man says that the creature they fought was some sort of void scent summoned by some nefarious individuals who are likely not bandits explorer tells him of her dream which he seems to understand but doesn't provide any further details he tells her that they'll likely meet again and he heads off as laleera and explora return to papashan he's very pleased to see lelia safe saying that the sultana would be beside herself with grief if anything had happened to her the two seem to imply that something important has gone missing and that she was out here to search for it but she agrees to head back to the city explorer tells him of the white-haired man who papashan says is named thank rid who is a harmless scholar that spends his time investigating oddities in the ether papashan has no further tasks for her but another individual asks her to deliver a pumpkin to a roadside tavern known as the coffer and coffin she does as she's asked heading further away from the protection of the city and delivers the item to the proprietor of the tavern in turn seeing that she's searching for more work he directs her to the nearby black brush station to speak with a man named warren who is part of the stone torches a group of mercenaries employed by a mining company to protect their interests warren warns that this could be messy work and asks her to make sure her equipment is in order before he gives her a task after buying a new set of armor warren informs her that shipments of ore pass through this station every day coming and going from the dispatch yard to the south these shipments pass through a tunnel in the mountains nearby where an ore storehouse has caused a nest of goblins to appear koblins feast on ore so explora is sent in to clear out the nest which she promptly does upon returning a nearby lalafell tells her that a vast untapped vein of ore has been discovered underneath some ruins and a man named wiston is hoping to swoop in and dig it out before any of the large companies hopes to use the fortune from the vein to curry favor with the thaumaturges of ulda who draft the laws of the city unfortunately she's too late as wiston had already hired a group of brass blades to do the work instead she does an errand for him and he explains that he hopes to change the laws of the city to better accommodate the large amounts of refugees of the calamity that are currently forced to live outside of the city's gates their conversation is interrupted by some brass blades who announced that they've found the ore vein whiston invites explorer to join him in this momentous discovery upon arrival at the ruins though she finds a beaten whiston with the brass blades standing over him the blades firmly in the pocket of the syndicate have no interest in letting a newcomer take over such a vast wealth of ore they notice explore and prepare to kill the two of them but they are interrupted by a black robed man with a black mask who begins to chant what seems to be a ritual of some sort a mass of earth rises from the ground and forms into an animated shape forcing explorer to leap in and defend wiston as the blades run off it's a harrowing encounter but she emerges victorious the robed man promptly disappears before she can question him and thank rit arrives after the battle is done suddenly explora grips her head in pain and experiences a vision of thancred in the city walking and flirting with two women he pauses as he overhears a couple of men discussing some recent caravan attacks by the amalga and assumes that the caravan was likely holding crystals worried that they mean to summon something referred to as a primal later in the vision thankful remarks on the growing scarcity of grain and that their problems are attributed to a weakening of the etheric flow due to the calamity and to the primals he continues his survey of the city using an odd piece of facial technology that allows him to see the ether and the vision ends bankrupt jokes that explorer seems to be everywhere there are etheric disturbances and he may as well just follow her around but he has business elsewhere he speaks to someone using a device in his ear telling them that their person of interest had already fled the scene by the time he arrived bankrupt warns explorer to tread lightly around lord lolo rito an important merchant in ulda that sanctioned this trap explora follows whiston back to the inn where he thanks her for saving his life and expresses his outrage at lola rito for wanting him dead merely because he wanted to change the laws wiston plans to go into hiding telling her that he'll keep her involvement here a secret and suggests she go back to see modi at the quicksand explora swiftly returns to the city where mammodi assures her that no one is aware that she was involved at the ruins but wistin is now a pariah she hopes that this doesn't color explora's view of olda which is filled with mostly decent folks just trying to make a living she suggests that explorer take a break and rest for the night in the inn which she does after a good night's rest explorer goes back to mamodi who directs her to the settlement of horizon to the northwest of ulda there she should speak with a merchant named dottonin who needs a hand with some sort of task and might have some info on the royal family that interests her explorer prepares to start hoofing it over there but momodi suggests renting a chocobo to take her straight there chocobos are a ubiquitous creature throughout the final fantasy series bipedal birds that are often used as mounts or to pull carriages explorer decides to pay the small fee to travel in style and the chocobo swiftly carries her across western thanalan to horizon she meets with dotanin who welcomes her explaining that horizon takes in goods from the port of vesper bay to the west and trades them across the region it's a busy place thus why he asked momodi for help dottonin's current problem is that he sent a man to pick up some products at copperbell mines and he hasn't returned explora finds the man fairly quickly who explains that the mining company has shut down the mines due to an incident the man was sent to grab some precious gemstones but he was attacked by some goblins on the way out forcing him to leave the stones behind the ever dutiful explorer rushes in clears out the goblins and retrieves the stones or at least what's left of them after returning the man lets her know that swarms of sun midges have been harassing travelers in the area and the brass blades are paying people to clear them out it ain't much but it's honest work an explorer kills a number of swarms which considering she's wielding only a sword is pretty impressive the member of the brass blades she reports to fufulupa is also impressed and is glad to give her another task he's been exchanging letters for some time with a captain liafric at the small camp of lost hope but he hasn't heard back in a while suggesting that something happened to his courier explora finds the courier on the way there who's tending to her injured chocobo the injury isn't that serious but she suggests to explore that she simply take the message the rest of the way to lost hope for whatever reason explora senses a long future of performing menial tasks for people but she complies and continues on to lost hope liafarik is surprised at how much trouble fufalupa went just to get a letter here and reveals that he himself is no longer a captain of the brass blades having been demoted and stuck here in this small camp liafric tells her to get out of here before she's seen associating with the people of lost hope but explora is persistent so he gives her a task some bandits have been praying on the people have lost hope recently robbing them of what little they have and he'd like explora to take out their leader in their camp on top of a nearby hill this seems like quite the bold task for someone he just met but it's better than delivering messages so explorer rushes in it doesn't take much for her to encounter the bandit's leader a man calling himself baron von quivron iii esquire and she swiftly puts him the down is pleased with her success and tells her to return to fufulupa and deliver to him an antique dagger that he says belongs with the brass blades of the rose puffa lupa is shocked to receive it as only a captain of the brass blades can have it and says that he assumes liafric merely wants him to keep it safe until he comes to reclaim it he also of course has another task for her as thaumaturges from ulda are surveying the nearby footfalls region for ancient relics the brass blades have been tasked with protecting them from the monsters in the area but they are understaffed and spread thin so captain baldwin only has a few men on the job buffalopa wants her to head over and help out twitch explorer agrees the footfalls is a flooded area containing a number of waterfalls and she meets with a brass blade standing watch over some thaumaturges blade is not too pleased to see a random adventurer being sent to assist and says that they have the situation well under control instead they send explorer off on a minor errand to help prepare for some sort of feast for the thaumaturges after talking with a fisherman at the docks nearby she's approached by a woman who tells her that last night she overheard some bandits from the gang near lost hope talking about coming to the footfalls to collect some precious gemstones the same precious gemstones in fact that explore are rescued from the goblins near the copperbell mines hoofaloopa overhears the conversation and exclaims that the brass blades cannot abide illicit dealings such as this they'll have to act quickly to catch the criminals and he goes immediately to inform captain baldwin as he rushes off the woman tells explorer that she has to hurry because captain baldwin himself is the one conspiring with the criminals explorer runs back into the footfalls to find baldwin catching up with fufaloopa as they find baldwin meeting with one of the bandits buffalopa naive as he is is shocked to discover baldwin is working with the bandits and what's more he's doing so on lord lolo rito's authority sell swords doing underhanded deals with local criminal elements to make extra money isn't that shocking but being directed to do so by one of the most powerful men in the city is pretty surprising to foofalupa the bandit he's meeting with calls himself baron von quivron iv esquire and wants to kill explora for killing his brother her and fufalupa are then set upon by the group and a fierce battle ensues with the two of them emerging the victors in the aftermath liafric shows up and reveals that lola rito has no interest in such a small scale smuggling operation as this is entirely baldwin's doing he tells baldwin that lola rito knows he's been using his name as part of this operation and he'll likely be stripped of his rank liafric then says that baldwin is wrong about the brass blades being filled with greedy mercs that would sell their mothers into slavery if the price was right there are men with honor in the blades and that's why he gave foofaloofa that dagger [Music] afterwards with baldwin stripped of rank and arrested fufalupa is made acting captain of the horizon garrison a position he takes with a great deal of respect they've been looking over baldwin's personal letters to root out the corruption in the blades discovering that he's been speaking with a member of the sultan sworn elite named owen the sultan sworn are the personal guards of the sultana so it's quite shocking that one of them would be dealing with someone like baldwin in any capacity pufa lupa has explora take the letter mentioning owen to mamodi back in ulda upon arrival momodi thanks her for everything she's done so far for the city and takes the letter from her momoni says that owen is as loyal as sultan sworn as any she's known so she doubts he's really in league with the criminals she doesn't say what's in the letter but she has a bad feeling about it she reveals that the sultana's crown has been stolen which is the symbol of the royal dynasty the sultana has been losing control of the city as the syndicate gains power and if a word got out that her crown is missing her rule might collapse entirely owen was the sultan sworn assigned to guard the crown the night it was stolen mimodi believes that owen is not involved in the crown's disappearance but that this letter contains a message for him from the criminals nonetheless explorer delivers the letter to him finding him still ashamed for losing the crown on his watch the letter is a ransom note and owen feels that he must acquiesce to their demands due to the importance of recovering the crown he doesn't want to go alone and he doesn't want to risk scaring the thieves by bringing a whole group so he asks explorer to accompany him she's glad to help out so they head out to meet the thieves at a shallow pond in central thanalan known as the unholy heir the criminals take offense that owen didn't come alone as asked and suggest that owen might be hiding a whole group of archers just out of sight the lead criminal calls off the deal but owen tries to salvage it by tossing him the payment owen clearly didn't understand what he was giving them as the criminal reveals it to be a magical relic known as the traitor's sperm which will allow them to create an army of undyne soldiers having received what they came for the criminals moved to attack explorer and owen but they are supported by a number of other sultan sworn led by papashan the station master it's a brutal battle and at one point the lead criminal manages to summon a void scent identical to the one explorer and thank red fought previously the sultan sworn win the battle but they do not find the crown as a number of criminals flee explorer is left behind as they give chase and she finds the black robed man standing there the man says that the source of her strength has become clear but she won't survive this encounter the man casts another incantation and summons a much larger void sent to attack her despite the fearsome creatures towering over her the explorer stands her ground and manages to slay it partly thanks to thankful sudden arrival the two then rush in to attack the robed man eventually slain him as well the man mentions that the wisdom of the paragons has been brought low by mortals and thankful reveals that he and the group he works for have long suspected the involvement of these masked individuals known as aseans bankrupt again comments on how he continues to find explora in the midst of trouble and mentions that she's one of the gifted but doesn't elaborate he says that the death of this asean should give them at least some respite but then makes his leave as explora stands there in the drizzling rain next to the corpse of the asean she finds a purple crystal on the ground as she goes to touch it however it evaporates with the job done she returns to ulda to see if the sultan sworn recovered the crown speaking with papashan he reveals that he is a former sultan sworn but put down his sword 15 years ago to become station master despite not being a sultan sworn anymore he still guards the sultana whenever she leaves the city and he felt responsible for helping her retrieve the crown fortunately they did get the crown back and both the sultan sworn and the sultana are grateful to explora for her assistance guardian of thanalan seventeenth ascendant to the throne of uldah her royal majesty nanamo ulnamo presides long lived live glory to they regaled me with tales of a champion amongst champions ones whose tireless service to the crown merit to the highest honor we might bestow i manamo ulnamo sultana avaldar confer upon you this gift [Music] rauban your grace see to it that our champion is my personal guest at the banquet as you command your grace explora is then introduced to rauban aldine a former gladiator and current general of the immortal flames ulda's military force as well as a loyal ally to nanamo rauban also extends his gratitude to explorer for what she's done and the group departs hoping to see her at the banquet speaking with owen explorer learns just how rare of an honor it is to be invited to a banquet like this especially as a fresh adventurer to olda she'll have to follow some certain protocols that are expected at a banquet like this and she should speak with mamodi to make sure she learns them momodi congratulates her on the invitation and says that she usually only has to tell foreign dignitaries about what they should do for a banquet like this all guests to a banquet must wear a pair of ceremonial earrings made for the occasion and a person won't be let in without them fortunately the set has already been commissioned and made by the goldsmiths guild and explorer only has to go pick them up sure enough at the goldsmiths guild explorer is given a locked box containing the earrings with the key provided for her by momodi these are all security measures to ensure that no one unexpected enters the banquet hall explorer puts on the ceremonial earrings and makes her way to the banquet inside the hall nanamo makes a speech in which she again thanks explora calling her a hero to olda and a dear friend of the crown during the feast explorer is approached by rauban who tells her that while they gorge themselves here children are starving in the streets he doesn't blame nanamo of course but rather the monetarists on the syndicate anonymous is distraught and not being able to do more to help rauban wants explorers help in aiding the royalists but while they're speaking the crystal that explorer had picked up earlier begins to glow rauban seems to recognize it and asks if she's been troubled by strange dreams lately or visions of a crystal he says that some time ago there were a number of other individuals that experienced similar visions in connection with a crystal and they helped bring together the grand companies of eorzea to combat the garlean empire they fought alongside them on cartono during the calamity the ones known as the warriors of light rauban thinks that explora is one of these warriors of light and tells her to protect that crystal at all costs as it's a gift from heidelen the guiding spirit of this world as if on cue explorer experiences another vision this time of the battle at cartonneau the three military leaders rauban mural vib and conocena stand on a hill as the battle unfolds an asean with a red mask watches them from a distance and the battle is not going well bahamut ravages the landscape and conucena says that they must withdraw rauban doesn't want to abandon someone named louis sua a sage that is currently trying to cast a ritual to re-cage bahamut but ultimately they decide to retreat the leaders of the grand company stay behind to support louis sua as the asean seems quite glad to see bahamut unleashed we know from history that luis suarez failed to recontain bahamut and was only able to safely teleport the warriors of light away from the battle the vision ends as explorer wakes up in a bed in the inn where mimodi tells her that she fainted right in the middle of the banquet general rauban left a message for her from when she woke up telling her to meet him at the hall of flames she finds rauban who has an important task for her he gives her a couple of letters and tells her that he's still haunted by what happened at cartoneaux he wishes to hold a memorial service on the fifth anniversary of the battle to honor the fallen and wants explora to deliver these letters to the other leaders as his personal envoy if explorer really is connected with the warriors of light he can think of none more worthy of the role she gladly accepts and rauban tells her that she'll have to travel to gridania and lim solominsa it's a great distance by foot so he grants her permission to use the airship routes that connect the three city-states airship travel is heavily restricted right now to avoid drawing the attention of the guardians but special circumstances can call for it and rauban is not alone in scene explorer's potential he tells her to see the realm and if her path is barred by man or beast she should strike fast and true before heading off explorer returns to momodi who couldn't be more pleased to hear of her promotion to personal envoy she reiterates the rarity of airship travel and that most people will never see any of the other city-states momodi tells her to savor the experiences she's going to have and the people she'll meet but also to be careful as olda is hardly the only place with troubles she wishes her safe travels and she'll see explorer when she returns all set to leave ulda explorer makes her way to the airship landing and proceeds to board a small airship as the vessel takes off into the sky an explorer looks back over the expansive city of ulda a number of the people she has already met in her brief time in eorzea see her off it's revealed of course that the lady lelera that explorer encountered was actually nanamo herself in disguise looking for the crown nanamo says that she could sense something unusual about explorer when they first met and hopes the other leaders feel the same way explora leaves olda behind for now but it's a wide world out there and it seems her adventures are only beginning meanwhile at a garlian military base in eorzea a ship arrives bearing a group of individuals in distinctive armor one of them recounts that 15 years ago a fleet of guarlian airships sailed for the region of mordona in eorzea led by a massive dreadnought called the agrius while the aorzians put up a meager defense the guardians were instead attacked by a host of dragons led by a particularly great one called midgard sormir midgard swormer died during the attack but the dragon successfully stopped the invasion thus the guardians have failed twice at this point to conquer all of eorzea but they're not done yet the man says that the garlian empire will save eorzea from its chaos and deliver its people from their ignorance some sort of creature is airlifted above the camp as two soldiers are discussing the conquest of eorzea in wake of the empire's past failures a man approaches them named nero tolskeva and asks where they were born one of them says that they're from al amigo a region that was successfully conquered by the guardians and nero proceeds to slay him under suspicion of being a traitor explorer's time in eorzea has mostly been spent doing small tasks and favors but there clearly seems to be many things stirring in the background and she looks to be in the midst of it why exactly is she experiencing visions and why is heidelin seem to have chosen her to be a warrior of light who are these aseans that seem so interested in causing chaos and what exactly are the guardians planning for now she'll focus on performing her duty as personal envoy but her life is likely about to become a lot more interesting the story of final fantasy 14 episode 2 the primal threat in the last episode we were introduced to the vibrant but troubled land of eorzea as well as the young woman explora who has recently arrived there she started in the city of ulda joined the adventurers guild and the gladiators guild and quickly became involved in several plots she earned herself a heroic reputation by foiling a smuggling scheme helping to retrieve the sultana's crown and killing an asean a mysterious but clearly nefarious individual in doing so she has earned the respect of a number of individuals including general rauban of the immortal flames and a young man named thank rid a charismatic scholar that knows far more than he's letting on additionally explorer found a crystal that seems to have some connection with a spiritual entity named heidelen and it's possible that she is now some sort of chosen warrior of light gifted with visions of past events explorer was named as rauban's personal envoy to the other city-states and left ulda on an airship to deliver his message to the other leaders with all that in mind let's continue explore arrives by airship in the coastal city of limsa luminsa where she immediately meets with the city's leader merle vib bloefsfin a former pirate explorer delivers rauban's message stating that he wishes to hold a remembrance ceremony in honor of the five-year anniversary of the calamity that brought ayorzia to its knees with the garlian empire invading their lands the leaders of the various city-states reforged their alliances to combat them the leader of the garlian military force however decided to bring down one of the planet's moons to purge eorzea which ultimately shattered open and revealed bahamut who scorched the land murlbib has never seen a battle like that one in all her years she goes on to say that even though the calamity itself is five years past eorzea still has a great many problems notably the threat of the guardians and the threat of the primals last episode i mentioned that the various beast men tribes of aorzia earned that title due to their religious differences from the other peoples of the land this religious difference is in the form of primals who the different beastmen tribes worship as deities each race of beast men worships a unique primal and without bogging you down in details at this point these primals can manifest in the physical world under the right conditions these deities are fairly dangerous in their own right but the real threat is due to the effect that these primals have on the surrounding ether the ambient energy of the world responsible for everything from life to magic primals need enormous amounts of ether to manifest here so they absorb it from their surroundings which has a detrimental effect on the rest of the world things will become more clear as we go but the beast tribes have been more active recently in trying to summon their primals and this represents a big problem for the rest of eorzea murlbib agrees to the memorial service as the city states that bayorsia need to remain unified in these trying times and she hopes to recruit more people into the military force before departing she tells explorer to give the elder seeds here in gradania her regards and to tell her that the wolf has been sniffing around the stables explorer hops back on the airship flies to gridania and meets with the elder sidsir khan isenna tani senna greets her warmly and takes the message from rauban she then provides some more info about the garlian empire which hails from the northern continent of ilsafard garlamald as it's known was buried in obscurity for most of its history up until as recently as 50 years ago they experienced a revolution in magitek technology however a type of machinery that's fueled by a rare substance called cerulean most garlian citizens cannot wield magic the way that many aorzians can and so to compensate they developed magitek which allowed them to grow into a massive empire part of this success however is due to their emperor the man who first founded the empire and still reigns over it solis zos galvez there are rumors however that he is growing frail and the matter of succession is causing some turmoil in garland which would explain why they haven't continued their invasion of aorzia yet the garlian empire does maintain a presence in eorzea though with their 14th imperial legion led by a man named gaius van balzar the phrase the wolf has been sniffing around the stables means that merleviv believes the empire may soon resume its advance and connie senna agrees that it's time to unify once again while leaving explorer is stopped by an officer of the order of the twin adder gridania's grand company who tells her that the proprietor of the tavern in limcelominsa has a task for a capable adventurer and recommends she check it out no stranger to travel at this point explorer heads back to limcelominsa and meets with bataron at the drowning wench who warns her that the job he has could be a little dangerous nevertheless he informs her that some suspicious looking individuals have been sighted sneaking in and out of a grotto to the north of the settlement of alepport the sastasia sigrat the two are interrupted by a commodore of lim salamence's peacekeeping force the yellowjackets the commodore is the one that is leading the investigation into sastasha and stopped by to offer some more information recently there have been several sightings of an unfamiliar vessel off the coast of ayleport and although it hasn't been long since the yellow jackets checked out sastasha and found a little of note the commodore believes that it's worth another look as the yellow jackets are spread thin due to the local beastmen tribe it falls on the shoulders of a capable adventurer to continue the investigation in this case explora the easiest way to get to ailport is by ferry so she hitches a ride and is told to check out the hall of the novice before heading into sastasia the hall of the novice is run by the adventurers guild in order to teach proper techniques to adventurers that are going to be working alongside others although explora doesn't really think that she needs the advice she completes the training courses because the guild hands out a snazzy set of armor to those that do newly equipped she heads to the entrance to sastasia where a yellow jacket tells her that it's likely a group of pirates the serpent reavers have moved into sastasia the serpent reavers are a particularly bloodthirsty group that have allied themselves with the local beast tribe in the past the fish-like sahagan explorer recruits a few fellow adventurers and heads inside this is certainly the greatest challenge she's faced thus far and explorer is glad to have some allies alongside her she fights her way through the dank cave at first battling only local wildlife but after opening a secret passageway she discovers the serpent reavers hideout she soon encounters the captain of the reavers madison but the man continues to flee through the hideout eventually making it to the spawning grounds of the sahagan the sahagan leader den the orca toothed is greatly displeased by madison's intrusion and executes him before turning on explora in her group after a vicious battle they managed to slay the sahagan successfully eliminating the threat in sastasia explorer returns to bataron where she finds another group of adventurers who are lamenting that they were too slow on this mission but wish explorer a good fortune regardless bataron is pleased to see her return safely and is surprised to hear that the sahagan were involved since explorer handled the job so well he offers her another this time in gridania where she should speak with mother mion explorer could just utilize the etherite to teleport straight there but each use of the etherite necessitates paying a maintenance fee [Music] this trip is far cheaper by airship coincidentally and explorera has to be mindful of her purse regardless she arrives in gridania and makes for the carline canopy where meun runs the local adventurers guild she is pleased as punch to see explorer since there is some trouble that needs dealing with explorer is greeted by a man named lewin the leader of a group known as the gods quiver who function as scouts for gridania nearby beneath the area known as the central shroud there is an underground burial site called the tamtara deepcroft recently shadowy figures have been seen skulking around there and the gods quivers suspect that these individuals belong to a doomsday cult known as the lambs of dalamud dalamud is the name of the moon that the garlian empire brought down on ayorzia and the calamity beforehand the lambs of dalamud worshiped the moon believing that it would deliver them from devastation now since the moon exploded they have become even more zealous believing that all of us heretics interfered with the coming of their deity and they seek to avenge dalamud explorer is being sent in to ascertain what the lambs of dalamud are up to and to eliminate the threat he joins up with some more adventurers and heads in sure enough she does find plenty of crazed cultists as well as some local wildlife but more notably she finds that the cultists have taken to summoning void scent to help them achieve their goals i haven't really explained void send much at this point although that's partially because the game doesn't really explain them much at this point thinking of them as similar to demons will be fine for now explora and her group move through the deep craft bashing everything they come across and dismantling what seems to be some sort of dark magic ritual in the process despite their efforts in the end they face off against a powerful mind flayer void scent that the cult has summoned which is using the body of an ancient king as its host after a harrowing battle in which the mind flayer attempts to rip their minds asunder the group emerges victorious explorer returns to meun who commends her on a job well done and passes along lewin's thanks meun is glad that she made it back in one piece as many adventurers are not so lucky they look over and see another group of adventurers two of which are chastising the third for the loss of one of their group meown says that scenes like that are far too common nowadays and is glad that there are capable adventurers like explore around speaking of capability she has heard of another task up for grabs from the adventurous guild in olda round and round she goes heading back to mammothy at the quicksand but modi is glad to see her return to the city and they are approached by the petitioner of the guild for this task none other than papashan papashan is really just relaying a petition from the ahmagina and sons mineral concern in relation to an unfortunate development at copper bell mines previously explora helped out with a task near the mines that was due to the mines being closed because of an incident now she learns that the incident in question is the fact that giants have seized control of the place these giants were sealed inside of the deepest parts of the mines over 300 years ago the giants were originally used as slave labor during that time but they eventually revolted and the revolt was shut down by purposefully collapsing part of the mines due to the increasing need for building materials in the region the miners delved too greedily and too deep and have inadvertently opened up the giants prison rather than pondering the moral quandary of slaughtering a bunch of former slaves that have finally been released explorer takes the job she heads out to the entrance to the mines joins up with some others once again and marches in while the group does come across a few hostile giants which they put down most of the threats in the mine come in the form of other creatures such as coblins and spriggans in order to continue on their way the group utilizes some explosives in order to blow up some sections of the tunnel and also use some explosives to deal with a particularly durable slime finally explorer encounters a rather ferocious giant but he too falls ending the giant's revolt once again returning to the quicksand explorer is interrupted by a scream from the streets outside she rushes out to find a man yelling at a young woman accusing her of stealing the woman is one of the refugees of the calamity that live outside of ulda's walls and she denies the theft the man says that he should turn her over to the brass blades but he'll avoid that if the woman agrees to be his servant as ominous as that sounds the woman calls out to explore for aid seeing that she is clearly an adventurer and whether she believes the woman's story or she just doesn't like this merchant she steps in a brawl ensues between explorer and the man's hired bodyguards and she quickly mops the floor with them the woman emphatically thanks explorer for rescuing her but explora suddenly grips her head and experiences another vision the vision consists of two uldan citizens discussing the refugee situation as new refugees are continuing to arrive even five years after the calamity due to more and more communities failing they flock to ulda because it has the greatest reputation for being prosperous but the city isn't exactly booming the men are concerned that many of the desperate refugees will turn to crime and the city militia won't be able to handle it the vision then shows the woman that explorer rescued purchasing a product from the vendor not stealing it the vision ends and explorer informs the man that she saw the woman buying the item with the rest of the crowd now rallying against the merchant he runs off in anger and the woman thanks explorer again for her help before also walking off explorer is then approached by thankrid who says that he has been watching her ever since she left ulda although he assures her that his intentions are always honorable he compliments her on playing the part of a diplomatic envoy perfectly although truth be told the explorer didn't really do much he then says that she is quite a marvel and he confesses that he is quite taken with her most of all he was struck by her selflessness a rare trait in these days and says that she is the one he's been looking for he also harbors an interest in her visions as he knows a woman with the same talent and wants to introduce explorer to her the two of them are part of the same organization and they would like explore to join as well if she's interested she should speak with mamodi and ask her about the scions of the seventh dawn explorer is interested and goes to momodi who first congratulates her on handling the giant situation so well the woman who is being chastised in gridania approaches them and tells explorer that the adventurer they lost was her betrothed a man that had apparently heard of explora and had been inspired by her accomplishments the woman has given a lot of thought to giving up adventuring since his death but she is also inspired by explorer and plans to return to her home village and start her training anew when she leaves mamodi remarks that for a while she didn't know why anyone would bother with adventuring as it's such a cruel business now she feels privileged to be a part of the adventurers lives as a head of the guild they finally move on to the topic of the scions of the seventh dawn a group that mammody warns isn't ordinary and who don't do ordinary work explora insists and so momodi starts by saying that she can definitely trust the scions a group of people that have made it their mission to solve some of aorzia's most pressing problems they're not currently a large group but they're recruiting a task made more difficult due to the location of their headquarters being a secret memory tells her that the headquarters is in vesper bay west of horizon in a building named the waking sands arriving in vesper bay and entering the waking sands explorer is greeted by a young female tataru after introducing herself and explaining that she's here on the behest of thancred tatara welcomes her to the headquarters of the scions of the seventh dawn someone with the title of antecedent is waiting for explorer further inside explorer continues on and enters a small room filled with a number of people let me begin by telling you who we are and what we do we are the scions of the seventh dawn an order that transcends political boundaries our single objective is the preservation of the future of eosia after explaining who the scions are and what they do the woman named menphilia asks explora about her losses of consciousness and her visions tell me have you ever experienced a sudden inexplicable loss of consciousness have you ever had the sensation of being pulled away from reality felt as though you were hovering in space a mind without a body all these things are the manifestations of your talent yours is the power to transcend the boundaries of the soul a power known as the echo the echo doesn't let someone change events in the past but they can witness them as if they were there the echo also lets someone know what a person is thinking even if there is a language barrier menphilia also possesses the echo and laments that despite the ability's power they cannot use it whenever they wish moving on menphilia explains that the primary problem the scions are currently dealing with is the primal threat a problem that requires the aid of those possessing the echo menphilia believes that the echo is a gift from the gods given to those that will use it for a good purpose and so she implores explorer to aid the scions i know not what it is you desire for yourself nor what it was that first brought you to ayozia but i firmly believe that the power we possess was given to us for a purpose why else would the gods entrust man with the gift so extraordinary if not to have him use it and so i implore you lend us your power there are certain benefits to joining the scions and menphilia proceeds to sign some papers which allow explorer to hire a personal retainer to handle various business arrangements in return she asks explorer to aid them to the fullest extent of her talents she also provides the scion's secret passphrase wild rose which perhaps was a little hasty considering explorer hadn't agreed to join yet nevertheless explorer does agree to join and she proceeds to be introduced to the other members of the group menphilia first explains about the nation of charlene a nation of scholars to the north of eorzea that had set up a research colony in eorzea during the sixth astral era when it became apparent that the garlian empire was planning on invading most of the charlieians in the colony fled back home those few that remained behind to aid aorzia became known as archons the other individuals in the room are all archons an explorer is introduced to each of them the masked woman is eda and beside her is papalimo the two are charged with surveying the twelveswood hello there welcome okay my turn to introduce someone that there is bankrupt he is our man here in ulda jewel of the desert welcome to the team i never doubted that you come if i may the lovely maiden beside me is named yashtola limsa lominsa has the pleasure of being under her care greetings last but not least is orion jay who presides over all affairs within these halls pray seek him out whenever you have questions dawn may banish even the darkest night the words of a dear friend i'm glad of our meeting at the battle of cartaneau our leader was taken from us but we did not stray from our purpose we sought out menphilia and others with her talent and together established the scions of the seventh dawn along with the archons those blessed with the echo play a pivotal role in our endeavor to forge a brighter tomorrow for the realm oh i should also introduce you to tataru our clerk she ensures that everything runs smoothly please to make your acquaintance in time i hope you will come to think of us as family with the arkhans operating across eorzea minfilia running things in the waking sand and tataru working as their clerk they're certainly not overflowing with members currently explora is given her first task submitted by ulda's immortal flames some days ago a caravan carrying crystals registered to amigina and sons of mineral concern was attacked and ransacked shortly after this attack a number of people were reported missing from the refugee camps outside of ulda this could just be a coincidence but the scions believe that this is instead the work of the amalga who are intending to summon their primal the fire god efreet explora is appointed to head up the investigation to help her better understand the primal threat with the support of thankrid the mining company have already doubled their security on caravans since the attack so thank grid suggests they prioritize solving the abductions the majority of the people missing were last seen around camp drybone one of a number of refugee camps the de facto leader of camp drybone is a man named isambard so explorer goes to pay him a visit eisenbar doesn't really hold any leadership title but people look to him for support and he'll do all he can to help see the victims safely returned eisenbarge says that the amalga have been responsible for plenty of harm in these areas and although the immortal flames have been hard at work there's only so many of them to go around notably there have been a number of brutal murders of people wishing to pay their respects to the dead at the nearby church eisenbard wants to see the individuals properly buried but he doesn't know if the amalga are still lingering around explorer heads down the road leading out of camp drybone to where the bodies are finding a couple amalgas still hanging around after dealing with them and gathering up the victim's bodies she returns to eisenbard he thanks her for such a noble deed and says that the amalgas presence there pretty much confirms their involvement in the recent disappearances that being said he suspects there's more going on here than meets the eye as these small raiding parties would not account for the large number of disappearances at the camp he suspects that someone else is aiding the amalga possibly someone inside the camp and asks explorer to begin investigating the locals a merchant named ungust was born in this camp and eisenberg remarks that he's a rough character but knows the people here better than anyone else heading to the tavern to speak with him explorer discovers that unguest is none other than the merchant that accused the woman of being a thief ungus says that the people of dry bone were timid even before the disappearances and now more so speaking with some of the locals it's clear that ungus is right and they aren't interested in sharing anything with explora ungus doesn't really think anyone's been abducted more likely that they just left town for a better place returning to izambard empty-handed he says that he didn't really expect much from ungust but he had a thought that since the locals are typically rather religious the local clergy may have heard something useful eisenbarge sends explorer up the hill to the nearby church to deliver one of the victims bodies as well as to potentially find some info she speaks with a robed man there named marquez who tells her to place the body in an empty grave atop the ridge nearby she proceeds to rather unceremoniously dump the body on the ground but marquez tells her to make sure to bury it otherwise it might get taken away by mongrels she does as he asks and proceeds inside the church to speak with a sister orson about the missing individuals orson admits that the locals often confide in her but she doesn't know anything about the disappearances and she wishes that marquez was more helpful apparently he witnessed some terrible things during the calamity that have ruined his mind now preferring the company of the dead over the living orson says that a recent visitor named thankrid took offense at his conduct explorer once again returns to eisenbard empty-handed but this time thancred shows up to join her bankrupt has also been gathering information in the area and believes that unguest is right and that the locals know something and have only shared it with the clergy in fact thank red goes so far as to accuse sister orson of being complicit in the disappearances eisenbard is initially shocked by the suggestion but he at least tells explorer to speak with a young boy that she's fond of to try and discern the truth explorer heads north to another village called the golden bazaar to speak out the boy who tells her that sister orson has gone missing she had been reading to him when he told her about how he had lost his mother's ring and she went looking for it on her own explora finds orson just outside the village way laid by some undead and handily rescues her orson thanks her and heads back with explorer returning to inform eisenbard he takes this development as proof that sister orson is nothing less than devout and honorable and it seems that thancred has moved on to other developments she finds him near an amalga camp to the east where he tells her that these amalga caught his eye and he wants her to sneak into the camp and search for any clues sure enough she finds a suspicious leaflet on a crate in the camp which seems to describe some sort of assembly to provide work for the poor but the sloppy handwriting and odd theological terms lead thankful to suspect it wasn't written by anyone in the church explorer brings it to sister orson who is resting in the inn who immediately finds the writing in the leaflet to be blasphemous and completely against the church's teachings she admits that a few weeks ago some garments went missing from the church and she wonders if there is someone out there posing as a priest speaking again with eisenbard he hasn't seen anything unusual and doesn't have any cause to doubt anyone in the camp pancreas suggests the idea of himself an explorer posing as poor refugees in need of aid in order to lure out the false priest eisenbard thinks it's a dangerous but otherwise fine plan and donate some old clothes for the endeavor explorer puts on the ratty garments and wanders around the camp asking for work from the locals she doesn't find any as the locals simply brush her off but one of them mentions that she should join the other poor refugees at a remote commune north of sand gate sankrat and her head over there still in disguise and wait for the false priest to make an appearance they are eventually approached by a robed man who claims to be a priest of naldthal but thankfud immediately calls him out and reveals him to be ungussed ungust begins whimpering in fear and says he was only doing this to protect his people he explains that a while back the amalgam in the area began raiding plundering and pillaging at will and the locals were defenseless ungus did the only thing he knew how to as a merchant and went to the amalga to broker a deal in exchange for sparing the people of the golden bazaar the amalgam made a number of demands starting with the schedule for shipments of crystal from some nearby mines then they wanted people so ungus began posing as a priest to lure refugees in and hand them over just so they wouldn't hurt the natives of the golden bazaar bankrid isn't pleased with this excuse saying that ungus could have reached out to the immortal flames but since he didn't he must not be telling the full story finally ungus admits that the amalga have simply been paying him too well for him to stop this only serves to anger thancred even more but ungus doesn't care telling him that he can't be blamed for the mess the world's in despite his actions ungus insists that he wasn't involved in telling the amalga about the immortal flames patrol routes sankrat doesn't really believe him and plans to interrogate him further while explorer returns to menphilia to inform her of the development the amalga are certainly holding the missing individuals but finding out where exactly might be a little tricky in the meantime infilia sends explorer often a small learning exercise to better prepare her for the future she sends her to meet with a goblin acquaintance of hers named mutamix bubbly pots a scholar of no small repute as she puts it to summarize mutamix teaches explora how to combine materia essentially concentrated ether with a piece of equipment in order to enhance its properties the technique is certainly useful but as explorer is still in the process of rapidly changing equipment and acquiring better pieces it's not really necessary right now she returns to menphilia who has received word from thankrit about the investigation he successfully extracted some more info from ungust who revealed that he has a meeting planned with the amalga to discuss their dealings the immortal flames plan to ambush the meeting capture the amalgam responsible and hopefully recover the missing individuals they have requested the support of the scions and so explorer is sent along as the sole representative of the group with thank red hopefully joining her later explorer travels back to camp drybone to speak with the flame sergeant running the mission the sergeant thanks her for coming and explains the fairly simple mission when the amalgas show up for the meeting they'll jump out and capture some of them so that they can be interrogated for the location of the victims since an ambush only works with a small group they requested the aid of the highly talented scions to be a part of it the meeting is taking place in a section to the north of camp drybone called the invisible city as the amalga arrive and approach ungust the flames jump out from hiding alongside explorer and brandish their weapons unfortunately ungus reveals that he had a man inside the flames supplying him with info and the amalga came prepared for the ambush bringing in a large amount of troops the ambush quickly turns into a fight for survival as ungus runs off an explorer begins slaughtering the beastmen although the amalgam brought a great number of soldiers the immortal flames brought a warrior of light so the odds are fairly even ultimately one of the flames gets held hostage and the traitor orders the others to drop their weapons while distracted one of the amalga launches a sleep spell at explora knocking her out when she wakes she finds herself in a cave with the flames tied up and together they are brought to a ritual site where the amalgas succeed in summoning their primal the lord of cinders efreet the head amalga asks if free to scorch these heathen souls with his cleansing flame and mark them as his own the amalga bring in ungus and the traitor flame as well a freit then blasts the group with a blue flame which seems to have no effect whatsoever on explora but the others immediately become as if possessed praising efreet as their one true god the amalga are shocked to find explorer unchanged but the leader suspects that someone else already has claim to her soul a freit says that mortals can only serve as a vessel to the blessing of one deity at a time but he doesn't smell the taint of another primal on her so he suspects that she is of the godless blessed number warned of by the paragons it's clear that explorer's connection to heidelin and the crystals is protecting her leaving her no choice but to defend herself against a freit's fiery onslaught fortunately it seems that this protection is not completely limited to explore and a few of the other kidnapped victims are also protected from a freit's power they join explore in combat as a free to let's loose with a spectacular display of fury and fire through their combined efforts however they managed to defeat the primal dismissing him from this realm until he's summoned once again explorer finds a red crystal on the ground in the aftermath and experiences another vision of the six-pointed symbol two of the six slots now filled in bankrid unfortunately late once again arrives and apologizes to explorer for the veritable baptism of fire that she just went through the group leaves the area as the garlian nero tolskeva watches over the scene commenting on what a disappointment the battle was he had apparently been here to take some sort of readings of the summoning he's accompanied by a female guardian livia cess junius who tells him that they can't expect any form of support from back home with all of the trouble they're having currently olivia says that they've just wasted time here since nero is using an ancient meter to get a reading and nero ultimately agrees although he says at least they achieved their primary objective he is troubled by explorers unexpected show of strength and ponders if she could prove a hindrance to their plans but olivia simply tells him to focus on the task he's been given or he'll be punished back in camp drybone explorer speaks with thank rid who tells her that the amalgam will be lying low for a while now he apologizes again for being late both for being unable to help her as well as helping the victims the individuals that were affected by a freit's flames have undergone something referred to as tempering where their minds have been completely taken over and all they can think about is worshiping the primal responsible regardless he heartily congratulates her for slaying a freak and tells her to take a well-deserved rest before returning to the waking sands it indeed was a rather tremendous victory for someone as fresh as explora with no small thanks to heideln's blessing for protecting her from the tempering one primal has been temporarily defeated which hopefully will quell the amalgam for some time but since each city-state of eorzea is plagued by beast men in their attempts to summon their deities the primal threat is far from over the scions seem like a trustworthy and honorable enough group but they are far too few while eorzea's troubles are far too many explorer is quickly developing a reputation as one of the most capable allies that the people of aorzia have but she's only one woman and especially with the guardian empire plotting something in the shadows she may not be enough regardless she celebrates her victory today and takes her rest as there's no doubt the scions will have more work for her very soon the story of final fantasy 14 episode 3 the trouble with sylphs after waking from a well-deserved rest the woman named explore begins making her way back to vesper bay to the headquarters of the group she recently joined the scions of the seventh dawn as she does so she ponders some of the recent events she's been a part of after exploring some of the other regions of eorzea as a personal envoy of general rauban she agreed to help out some folks in need by clearing out a few troubled places she dealt with pirates working with some fish-like sahagan in the sastasha sigrat stopped some crazed cultists in the tamtara deep croft and put down a giant revolt in the copper bell mines then she joined the scions who tasked her with investigating some recent disappearances from a camp of refugees near ulda it turned out that the culprits were the beastmen tribe of amalga who had stolen large quantities of crystals in order to summon their deity efreet and they had abducted people to become his thralls explorer herself was abducted but found herself immune to a freit's influence thanks to her connection with heidelin and she proceeded to slay the manifestation of a freak other beastman tribes seem to also be acting up recently each one potentially interested in summoning their own deity and other threats plaguing aorzia include the looming garlian empire as well as the mysterious robed aseans explore arrives back at the waking sands with all this in mind as she finds thancred explaining what happened to menphilia thankful blames himself for failing to assist explorer and for failing to save the victims of efreet's influence bankrupt further explains things to explore telling her that sense primals require an abundance of ether in order to sustain themselves in the physical realm the beast men have taken to gathering crystals in order to summon them as crystals are basically just concentrated ether the scions therefore track any incidents involving missing crystals as lately had has almost always led back to a beastman tribe normally these primals don't manifest physically instead they are dispersed across all ether but when the world falls towards chaos beast men look to their deities for help drawing them in the more worshipers a primal has and the more fervent they are the stronger the primal is when it manifests this is why they spread their influence in a process called tempering which creates more and more followers thus making them even stronger a primal left unchecked is a highly dangerous entity because of this and thus the victims of a freit's influence are going to be executed as once someone is tempered there's no way to undo it bankrupt says that all of the recent incidents they've uncovered related to the primals show a high degree of meticulous planning which worries him greatly as he departs menphilia tells explorer that her recent exploits have earned her a good deal of fame and she introduces her to three individuals one a flame officer from ulda another a serpent officer from gradania and the third a storm officer from limsa lominsa each hopes to recruit explora into their respective grand company the organizations in charge of protecting each city-state from external threats before she decides explorer heads off to hear the remembrance addresses from each city-state's leaders in honor of the five-year anniversary of the calamity that shook eorzea before she departs menphilia gives her a link pearl allowing instantaneous communication across great distances explorer first heads to new gradania to hear the address from the elder sidsir khan isenna our forebears were once strangers in the twelves wood fearful of the green wrath they hid themselves in the dark recesses of the earth yet they dreamed of basking in the dappled sunlight of the forest through great effort they proved their worth to the elementals and were granted a place beneath the boughs so it was that gridania was born some five centuries ago working hand in hand the here and the ellison settlers sowed the seeds of our civilization and soon they were joined by folk of all races so nourished by the waters of unity and blessed by the light of the matron gridania flourished into the great nation it is today while listening to the speech explorer notices that the two white-haired twins from her trip into olda are present connie senna says that she's not surprised that eorzea's unity has faltered in recent years but they need it now more than ever with the garlian empire continuing to encroach on their lands our many troubles blind us to the woes of our fellow man thence is harmony lost yet harmony is the founding principle of gridania we are gathered here to honor the fallen let them be honored not only in word and thought but through concerted action i bid you join hands with me once more beneath the twin adder standard and together let us heal the forest's wounds that our progeny might live in harmony beneath these ancient boughs for serenity purity and sanctity we must think of the children woods will be done it's up to us to protect the fossils the speech is as much a remembrance of the calamity as it is a call to arms afterwards the twins introduced themselves to explora as alfino and alize calling themselves students of history alphano says that gradania is troubled by two beast men tribes the bird like ixel who worship the wind deity garuda and the mischievous sylphs who worship the thunder deity ramu the ixel are generally more troublesome being more interested in war but the sylphs have grown more distant of late a contrast to their somewhat friendly relationship with gridania the selfs had successfully summoned their primals sometime in the past which seems to have brought on the change gridania doesn't wish for relationships with the sylphs to go sour and the people hope that by restoring the forest of gridania to their former glory they can put an end to their woes but alphano thinks this would take centuries explorer then continues on to ulda to catch the second ceremony where she again finds the twins general rauban speaks of the bloody battle on the field of cartino and that they should pray for their brothers and sisters they lost that day in eorzea's darkest hour on the killing fields of cardinal none spent more in blood and gold than we thus was the seventh imperial legion laid low wow so that's how it happened how soon history forgets yet many left our gates never to return let us pray for our absent brothers and sisters that they might know happiness in the great beyond as thor's honored guests despite those sacrifices they did not claim victory and now their people are divided downtrodden and enthralled not living but experiencing a slow death our enemies surround us the savage hordes of the amalga wait beside our roads strangling the lifelines of trade meanwhile the guardians make mark of our borders and to spoil our land of its natural wealth we stand on a precipice yet we do not act whether trader or soldier monetarist or royalist all must recognize that a divided uldah stands to fall victory and fortune walk hand in hand ye who seek glory and wealth look not to what little you can snatch from your neighbor but to the boundless wealth of the world beyond now is the time to unite now is the time to ride forth the sultana nanamo ulnamo also speaks rallying the crowd to raise the torch of ulda so that her flames might serve as a beacon for all of eorzea afterwards alfino again speaks with explorer saying that old ons do not shy from conflict so they have continued to deal with the amalgam and efreet through force but the garlian empire is at their doorstep and they have no plans to deal with all the refugees coming here eventually they won't even be able to sustain their efforts to keep efrite in check finally in limsa lamensa admiral murlbib bids those present to remember the fallen from the battle of cartino and pray that their souls are returned to the sea seven hundred summers have come and gone since our forefathers first ran aground in this fertile bay in that time guided by the mother of oceans limsa lominsa has grown from humble fishing village to uncontested ruler of the five seas and beyond when the garlian empire marched upon ayozia we assembled beneath the maelstrom standard and our grand company was reborn all answered the call from the knights of the barracuda to hilfia's bloody executioners and together we met our would-be conquerors upon the field of cardinal that day the world bore witness to the united strength of limsa lominsa alfino comments that the people of limcelominsa cherish their freedom a trait shared by the beast tribes murlbib goes on to say that the sahagan the kobolds and the garlian empire all threatened lim solominsa and some of their people choose to fight amongst each other rather than unify how can we hope to repel our many enemies when mutiny breeds below deck there is but one course left to us one bearing that will bring us victory over the beast hordes and the empire both and see this ship safe to port we must mend the rift the calamity has reopened twixt pirate and maelstrom and stand fast with our adventurer brothers against the coming tempest marquee well a crew without unity is no crew at all tis but a mass of drowned men as with the other two speeches it's mostly a call for people to join the grand companies to defend the city-states alphano expands on what muralvib said stating that the sahagan worship the water deity leviathan while the kobolds worship the earth deity titan there will likely be full-blown war with both tribes before long with the remembrance services finished explorer returns to the waking sands to speak with minphilia and make her decision about which grand company to join elsewhere alfino and alize are sharing a drink in a tavern discussing the ceremonies and explora alize expresses her doubt about their course of action with her complaining that the speeches gave barely a mention of the calamity itself the so-called remembrance ceremonies were little more than standard waving rallies as though the calamity and seventh umbral era warranted scarcely a mention alphano though isn't surprised by this as remembering the pain from the calamity won't solve aorzia's current problems it's clear that the two siblings differ in their philosophies about how best to help eorzea and they go their separate ways our grandfather would never entrust the fate of the realm to desperates who rewrite history to their convenience there must be another way to cure what ails this world and i mean to find it you are most welcome to try our paths may differ but our destination is the same in time i dare say we will see eye to eye i should hope so explorer decides that she's developed a kinship with the old ons and so she joins up with the ulda grand company the immortal flames when she goes to speak with the personnel officer to be officially inducted they are interrupted by news of an airship being shot down by the garlian empire many of the immortal flames are busy with the amalga so explora is dispatched to assist arriving on the scene they find the ship surrounded by imperials who plan on taking it back to their nearby base to dismantle it one of the crew is still hiding inside however so the flames launch an assault wiping out the soldiers the two crewmen that built the ship biggs and wedge are safe and sound and they plan on fixing up the ship and flying it back home explorer returns back to uldah and is inducted into the immortal flames swearing an oath of loyalty marking her as a flame private third class she is called back to the waking sands by ben philia but first she's informed by the flames that her rank allows her access to her own chocobo they give her a flame chocobo issuance which she gives to the chocobo keeper who provides her with her own bird she decides to name the animal boko and she rides her new companion back to vesper bay there she meets up with biggs and wedge again who menphilia explains are going to be working alongside the scions for the time being due to the importance of keeping airship expertise in the hands of a neutral party moving on to the next mission however papalimo and eda explained that they had been tasked with surveying the behavior of the silth beast tribe in gridania our task was to survey the behavior of the sylphs a beast tribe indigenous to the twelves wood oh how to describe them they look like kiss or greens floating ones that worship the primal ramu him though technically a beast tribe selfs are blessed with a comparatively personable demeanor conducive to peaceful communication offering us an invaluable opportunity to learn what the bees tribes know of the primals while ramu's existence is well documented the sylphs do not or perhaps cannot summon the primal any longer insofar as can be ascertained until such time as we know it would be unwise to assume that the threat posed by the primal has passed which leaves gridania with the added worry of not knowing what they should be worrying about although the sylphs are classified as a beast tribe due to them worshiping a primal ramu they are generally peaceful this peacefulness has the potential of allowing scholars to learn more of the relationship between tribe and primal than they could from other tribes in order to best facilitate communications the scions think it best to send someone to the tribe that possesses the ability of the echo which in this case is of course explora she first heads back to new gredania accompanied by eda and papalimo to speak with the head of the yellow serpents who tells them that they mostly want the sylphs investigated to see if there's even a sliver of a chance of them summoning their primal in the future the group is sent to the silf community of little solace who have spoken with gridanians in the past near the community is a place called the hawthorne hut where the proprietor a man named rolf tells explorer exactly how to diplomatically approach the sylphs specifically the best way to greet a sylph is by dancing and it's best to show up with a gift with the recommended one being milk root the root of a dangerous plant creature called an ochu that causes curious visions when consumed explorera hunts down an ochu grabs the root and makes her way to little solace to speak with a self-named komuxio that has acted as an intermediary in the past she dances for the self as a greeting and then gives the root which is greatly appreciated when eda and papalimo show up however and state that they come as envoys of gradania komuxio tells them that they are not welcome as the sylphs have nothing to say to the gradanians this is a sudden change for the sylphs and ida and papalimo believe that something has the group unusually wary of outsiders at the moment explora is sent around the community to dance for some other sylphs to endear her to the group and then is asked by one of the gradanians that live in little solace to deal with some local beasts that are troubling the sylphs explora handily does so and also grabs some brownie bushes that the sylphs use for dying thread she returns to kamuxio who appreciates her deeds and says that maybe they were wrong to mistrust her since explora seems trustworthy and eager to help komuxio asks her to look into the presence of imperial soldiers in the area that are cutting down trees and burning bushes explora speaks with some sylphs as well as some people back at the hawthorne hut about the situation learning that imperial soldiers are gathering in the nearby forest moving some large crates explorer gets pointed in the right direction of where some of these soldiers are located and she proceeds to slaughter them inspecting the crates she finds that they contain food and special rocks from the area with komuxio believing that one of the sylphs is potentially selling information to the empire before she can properly investigate that however komuxio informs her that one of the sylphs named claxio has left the community by himself and they ask explorer to go rescue him it doesn't take long for her to find him upon which he explains that he's sick of living in little solace where they depend on the gradanians for so much help stating that they're no better than the sylphs that summoned ramu he flees deeper into the forest and when explorer finds him a second time they are approached by a group of differently colored sylphs whom klaxio refers to as touched ones papalimo explains that these selfs are ones that have been tempered by ramu altered to become his thralls there's nothing else that can be done but put them to the sword afterwards komuxio joins them and is glad to see claxio is safe as he admits that he left merely because he was afraid upon returning to little solace komuxio tells explorer that she is the kindest and strongest person they have known and thus she will be taken to see their village elder or at least she would be if the elder was here it seems that the elder has gone off alone into the forest as he tends to do but has never been gone for this long explora is of course obligated to assist first informing the yellow serpents to be on the lookout before going to speak with a man that lives in the area where the elder went missing named buscarone buscarone admits that there has been talk of a silf in the area but he couldn't be sure if it was the elder as they're hard to tell apart while waiting to hear word from those patrolling the area explora helps buscarone out with a couple tasks after breaking up a bar fight buscarone asks her to find an old friend of his and deliver an earring that used to belong to him explora grumbles as surely there's more important work to be done than this but she carries out the task first heading to limsa laminsa for information on his whereabouts and then traveling to a small trading post north of alepport she delivers the earring but as thanks to buscarone the friend wants to give him some fire water and proceeds to rope explorer into killing some animals to get some ingredients finally she returns to buscarone who tells her that more sylphs have been seen in the area likely looking for the elder although explora heads out to find them she instead finds only some garlian soldiers who she quickly deals with buscarone does not think at a coincidence that both silfs and garlians are in the area at the same time suggesting that perhaps the soldiers are tracking the sylphs the only way the soldiers could sneak past the gridanian patrols is if there's a traitor helping them out buscarone believes he has a suspect as well a man that used to dine at the tavern very frugally but lately has been ordering the best wines and finest cuts of meat since he's a soldier this is rather unusual and buscarone asks explora to confront the man laurentius explorer finds him on patrol catching him in the act of conspiring with the empire he calls for help to his imperial friends who explorer deals with before running off when she catches him again he admits to being a traitor although he says he meant no harm merely being disgruntled that the wood whalers don't pay enough he then says that explorer walked right into an ambush and tells her that no one can challenge the might of garlimalde explora is joined by some other friends of buscarone as they fight off the imperials capturing laurentius alive the realization of what he's done seems to hit him hard and he says that he will give up on the empire and go confess his crimes it seems a rather sudden change of heart but explorer considers the job done and returns to buscarone who tells her that laurentius did indeed go back and confess his crimes he says that laurentius had a hard life losing his mother at a young age and he's not shocked that he became disillusioned with the goal of protecting gridania from misfortune he hopes in time he'll turn around and become a better man in other news there's been word of the whereabouts of the silf elder frixio who apparently went into the nearby dungeon called the thousand maws of total rock he was being chased by imperials and had little other choice but it's a place filled with dangerous creatures so explora is enlisted to head in and mount a rescue operation the dungeon turns out to be quite a dank and dark place indeed as explorer and some fellow adventurers encounter a myriad of nasty creatures it was originally a jail built on top of a natural cave system until the grenadians built one closer to their capital city explorer and her group collect some magitek photocells in order to bypass some barriers on their way through the jail before entering the cave system which they find covered in a sickly green goop and crawling with arachnids fighting their way through to the end of the dungeon they are greeted by a red masked asean he greets explorer as the slayer of a freight and introduces himself as la jabrea servant to the one true god he proceeds to mock her accomplishments as nothing more than a bedtime story for children it is a tale to tell eorzea's children before bedtime and it will soon be dark bringer of light the dark minions all that stands between this world and darkness is an irksome anomaly in the ether the echo he then casts some sort of a spell on one of the arachnids causing it to grow immensely before he disappears the group engages the beast which begins spewing poison across the room and is accompanied by other scorpions eventually the creature falls an explorer finds the silf elder wrapped up in webbing but still alive he thanks her for the rescue and explorer experiences a vision of imperials in the forest searching for signs of ramu led by nero tolskeva it seems he wants the sylphs to summon ramu for some reason even going so far as to capture some sylphs to force them to do it this is likely related to him taking readings from the site of ifrit's summoning and he mentions that his accomplishments will surpass lord van balsar's ultimate weapon leaving the dungeon explorer returns to buscarone who thanks her for rescuing the elder and gives her some rose oil to take along to the sylphs to help nurture a relationship between them and gridania she delivers it to little solace where frixio explains that he had been observing the imperials for suspicious behavior but ended up being seen and was chased off he was chased into the dungeon where the asean tried to feed him to an arachnid papolimo gives frixio the message from connie senna explaining their worry about the self's potential summoning of ramu it seems that a certain section of the sylphs summoned ramu to deal with the encroaching imperials and all became tempered in the process the ones that objected fled here and founded little solace to avoid also becoming tempered brixio says that despite this the gradanians shouldn't fear ramu as he is not a cruel primal as long as no one trespasses in the self's ancestral homeland in turn the sylphs tempered by ramu have also become fiercely protective of their homeland and also are insistent on bringing back the other sylphs into the fold eda and papalimo consider the situation resolved as at least the sylphs of little solace are intending to uphold the friendship with gridania and the tempered sylphs won't bother anyone outside of their home they head back to new gredania to pass along the news to connie senna while frixio gives explora a crystal that the sylphs received upon summoning ramu upon taking it she experiences the vision of the six-pointed symbol three of them now filled in brixio says that a light came out of explora and enveloped the crystal and that it will be of use to her one day he's sure of it before departing explorer scouts out the area consisting of the sylph's homeland nearby finding the tempered selfs milling about peacefully she returns to new gridania to speak with the yellow serpent's officer who is glad of the news and thanks her for her service explorer then receives a call from menphilia also congratulating her and bidding her to return to the waking sands for another situation to deal with explorer managed to solve this one without combating a primal directly which is good but there's still plenty of other beast tribes that aren't so friendly what's worse is the increasing audacity of the garlian empire stomping around eorzia with their own agendas this nero individual seems far too interested in the summoning of primals and his mention of some sort of ultimate weapon possessed by the guardians is nothing less than worrisome additionally these mysterious aseans continue to pop up and explore his path with the nebulous but ominous goal of bringing darkness to this world they're clearly more capable than some sort of small doomsday cult but they're keeping their secrets close to their chest too many questions and not enough answers but for now explorer feels it's best to continue on as she has helping out where she can the story of final fantasy 14 episode 4 the masked man explorer and her chocobo boko are making the trek back to the waking sands once again to speak with menphilia after a job well done she had been sent into the twelves wood to speak with a tribe of sylphs in order to ascertain whether they presented a danger to gridania the sylphs of little solace had broken away from their brethren after the other sylphs had summoned their primal ramu in order to protect their homeland from the encroaching imperial soldiers explorer successfully rescued the silf elder from a dungeon the thousand maws of totorock where she also found an asean la jabrea la jabrea taunted explora before throwing a large creature at her but she emerged victorious and the silf elder assured her that the selfs pose no danger to gridania as long as they're left alone explorer proved to be a capable diplomat but la jabrea his goals and his capabilities are worrisome along with the garlians continuing to stir up trouble for both the beast men and non-beast men of aortia explorer and boko arrive back at the headquarters of the scions where she finds alphano speaking with menphilia scions operate rather independently so thankful is off on an investigation alphano's sister alize is charting her own course and alphano is leaving again for his own purposes explora is congratulated by the group for her work with the sylphs and they briefly discuss the sahagan who worship the water deity leviathan apparently the sahagin currently lack the number of crystals required to summon the primal but they're keeping an eye on the situation as for the kobolds and their primal titan the grand company of limp solominsa is keeping a constant watch on them to see if anything arises the group decides to take a brief break in light of no current emergencies but explora brings up her encounter with la jabrea to menphilia this greatly concerns her as aseans were around before the calamity but they took great pains to remain hidden from the world for them to so openly make their presence known bodes ill as they're conversing they're interrupted by the arrival of a silf noraxia who was sent to assist the scions menphilia is pleased by this news as it's a good sign that the scions are continuing to grow and forge bonds with the people of eorzea to the issue at hand though as there is nothing to do with the primals currently explora is tasked with investigating la jabrea and his motives the scions don't actually know much about the ones known as aseans other than destruction tends to follow behind them it's quite possible that much of the current problems facing eorzea are due in some part to the asean's machinations the immortal flames apparently have information on a sighting of a masked man so explora heads off to ulda there commander swift tells her that a brass blade stationed at high bridge in eastern thanalan spotted a shady looking masked man recently although he died two days ago from a marauding horde of kikern swift tells her that it's certainly possible he wasn't the only one to make a sighting there though as highbridge sees a lot of travelers she's directed to speak with a merchant there named hihibaru explora and boko travel northeast of camp drybone to arrive at a large bridge crossing a canyon hihibaru says that he's heard vague rumors about a masked man in the area but nothing more and suggests she asks the other merchants explora does so but doesn't find out much else except that a masked man has been seen elsewhere in thanoland as well returning to hihibaru he tells her that highbridge isn't doing so well these days due to the constant raids by the kikern beast tribe the merchants are beginning to suspect that someone is orchestrating these raids behind the scenes some time later hihibaru tells her that he actually saw the masked man with his own eyes while out on an evening stroll he saw some smoke nearby and took a closer look to find the masked man standing near a fire some key kern then arrived to speak with the masked man but he didn't hear their conversation tihibaru suggests that explorer could light a similar smoke signal to meet with the key kern explorer again throws herself headfirst into danger without a plan and lights the fire sure enough she's swiftly attacked by a bandit after slaying him she checks his body and finds a paper scroll containing a prayer she delivers it back to hihibaru who informs her that the scroll is a prayer to the destroyer god ralger as a side note despite the ominous title rolger is one of the twelve gods worshiped by the civilized people of eorzea it's said that the twelve ruled eorzea until the wandering tribes arrived the common people of eorzia that we're familiar with the deities ceded control of the land to them and in turn are worshiped by eorzeans with many different regions focused more on one deity than the rest in this case roger is the guardian deity of the region of al amigo which was overtaken by the guardians as most other people don't specifically revere roger hihibaru bets that the bandit was ala megan while the masked man could have just hired any random bandit to attack explora hihibaru suggests that there might be more to it than that and that she should check out little alamigo a small settlement founded by refugees from al amigo he does warn that the inhabitants are rather lawless finding no home in any of the major city-states explora isn't overly concerned about lawlessness and travels to little alamigo in southern thanalan where she speaks with hihibaru's daughter she doesn't have much to say about the masked man and suggests that explorers speak with the leader here gundabald gundabald turns out to be rather standoffish straight out telling her that she is not welcome here explorer then turns to the head of security for the settlement a man that works for the immortal flames who ends up being quite a bit more sociable he tells her to check with the immortal flames patrols nearby and fortunately one of them does say that they saw a man with a mask and a robe speaking with some alamegans in order to get more information though explorer is going to need to gain the allen beacon's trust explorer goes back to speak with minphilia to see if she has any connections something that she probably could have just done using the link pearl midfiliar reveals that there is an alamegan native within the scions who joined the group with the hopes of finding a way to liberate alamigo from the guardians explora speaks with him but he says that the people of little olamigo will want nothing to do with him believing that he abandoned them despite him possessing the same goal as them instead he suggests she speak with a woman in quarry mill located near gridania the woman in turn points explora to a man named mephrid in quarry mill a captain of the alamegan resistance explorer doesn't really even have a chance to explain things to mephrid before a situation arises with one of his men badly injured and on death's door mephrid needs the assistance of the gridanians living in quarry mill but they have all refused as the seer that lives there has proclaimed that the elementals have forbidden it the elementals are native entities of aorzia primarily focused in the twelves wood said to be capable of disintegrating anyone who defies their will gridanians greatly respect the elementals although their presence has diminished since the calamity which makes the twelveswood a much more dangerous place explorer goes to speak with the seer but she doesn't budge stating that the elementals do not grant the alamegan's permission to receive of the woods bounty she delivers the news or lack thereof to mephrid and he's certainly not pleased mephrid would absolutely like to leave corymill but a number of his men are not fit to travel he tells explorer that if she managed to bring him some long antelope horns used in a traditional remedy for poisons he'd be forever in her debt this is the inn that she needs so she heads out slaughters some antelopes and brings the horns back unfortunately they don't actually have the tools needed to make the medicine so he follows up by asking her to seek out a man named buscarone to get the horns ground into a powder explorer definitely knows buscarone and heads over to his tavern he's glad to see her and happily gives over some powder she brings it back to the injured man but when they went to administer it they discovered that he was missing mefford asks explorer to assist in the search and she soon finds a letter that he left behind explaining that he left cory mill in order to stop being a burden on his fellow alamegans explorer begins scouring the woods in search of the man eventually finding him in a cave about to be killed by a goblin she easily fends off the lone goblin as mephrid arrives who scolds the man and reminds him of their oath that they'll set foot on ala megan soil again together or not at all back in quarry mill he thanks explorer for her aid and provides her with a letter to give to gundabal the back in little alamigo vouching for her character she returns to gunabald who quickly warms to her stating that any friend of mephrid is a friend of his he knows of the masked individual that she seeks and it seems that some of the younger alamegans have been meeting with him in secret he suggests that she go around and tell them that he sent her to speak with them she does so but they remain cagey which pretty much confirms the suspicions that they've been meeting with this man gundabal knows that they are angry about the garlean empire and they are likely to do something foolish to try and reclaim it explorer receives a message from wilrid a leader among the local youths saying that he wants a private word with her in an empty area to the north of little alamigo as suspicious as that sounds explorer rides over and sure enough she's attacked by some of the youths angry as they are they're no match for the slayer of a freit and she swiftly takes them out willred says that she can beat them as bloody as she likes they'll never give up their fight clearly seeing her as some sort of meddling spy for the empire [Music] she returns to gundabald who is concerned that whatever plan they're cooking up will likely hurt others as well as themselves a young woman returns to little ol amigo after recently being abducted and beaten by a group of bandits made up of former alamegans the corpse brigade gundabald is worried that wilbred and the youths will do something quite foolhardy in response and asks explora to look into it the youths are certainly fired up and after speaking with some of them she ascertains that they plan on raiding an amalga camp in order to retrieve a large amount of crystals with the intention of summoning rolger like a primal well there's no record of one of the 12 being summoned in such a manner it is theoretically possible although these youths would never get even close to the crystals without being slaughtered explora and gundabald race after them although they arrive a bit too late and many of them have already fallen they fend off a group of amalga before moore can die but willred is still convinced that they can grab some of the crystals gundabald rebukes him stating that even if they did manage to summon a primal they would just become tempered thralls in the process willred says the masked man told them that if they summoned ralger they'd defeat the empire the masked man had explained exactly how to summon a primal and then disappeared willred loses his fire resigning himself to the idea that they'll never reclaim their homeland but gundabal tells him that al-amigans are more than just their homes he thanks explora for her help and tells her she'll always have a place in little al amigo and hopes that she'll stop the masked man [Music] with that she returns to the waking sands to inform in philly of the proceedings she's not surprised that an asean would purposefully inform impressionable youths about how to summon a primal although many of their current problems can be attributed to the calamity some are clearly due to the aseans an individual matching la jabrez description was recently cited in the north shroud in the twelveswood after a series of mysterious deaths in the area explorer speaks with the resident sylph naraxia who says that a minor at fall gourd float named medrod apparently had a terrifying encounter with the masked man explora and boko make the long trek across the twelves wood to fall gourd float located in a much more barren and rocky area she finds madrad in the tavern drowning in misery claiming that he looked death in the face and he'll be coming for him soon explorer calmed him down enough for him to recall his encounter he was on his way back to fall gourd float when he saw a suspicious character in the distance a masked man in a black robe along with the man was a winged creature mostly consisting of an eyeball and jagged teeth madrad crept closer out of curiosity and saw the corpse of a woman leading him to believe that the masked man was a minion of the god of the underworld come to claim the woman's soul another minor informs her that all of the victims found recently have had their faces torn to shreds leading many of the locals to suspect the creatures known as zees are responsible the woman doesn't think that the zs are responsible but she has explora go kill three of them just to see if there's a connection which seems needlessly cruel to explore still she does as she's told and finds nothing with the woman admitting that even if there was proof she wouldn't know what it would look like moving on to better leads she remarks that all of the victims have been attractive women with a rumor going around that when they all died their anger went into a large rock nearby causing it to flash and moan she gives explora a fire sand stick to blow off some chunks of the rock for investigation she uses the stick but finds that the rock actually is a large crystal imbued with lightning aspected ether which explains the flashing and moaning sounds having had enough with this girl explorer turns to another miner who claims that he has also seen the winged eyeball mentioned by madrad he claims that he saw it at the exact same time that madrad did when he was heading home from work he saw a giant eyeball screamed and ran without looking back explorer heads to where the sighting was but is instead attacked by a large scorpion returning to the man he says that that creature has been a scourge to the folk of fall gourd for a long time but it's possible that he didn't actually see the giant eyeball this investigation is going nowhere fast but after some time pondering the man says that he's quite certain he did actually see the floating eyeball the group deduces that there must be more than one of these creatures around which likely means that there's even more victims that haven't been found explorer heads back outside of the settlement to where the eyes have been seen and sure enough she does find a victim along with one of the eyeball creatures she quickly slays it and brings the young woman's corpse back to fall gourd where a yellow serpent officer tells her that the attacks by these eyeballs have been occurring elsewhere as well the creatures seem to be moving bodies for some purpose and all of the victims have been young women with mutilated faces the officer searches the body that explorer delivers finding a button engraved with a lily motif something that has been found on another victim he lets her keep the button hoping that it will help with the investigation she takes the button to gridania and shows it to mother mion to see if she might know what it means she doesn't but points explore in a direction of someone who might know the other woman says the button is reminiscent of something worn by families in older times in gridania the explorer is then directed over to the lancers guild where there's a woman who apparently knows many of gridania's citizens fortunately she does recall seeing the button elsewhere worn by a man named ursundell who's been hanging around nearby recently this seems rather disconnected from her hunt for la jabrea but at least it's some kind of a lead so she tracks down ursendell showing him the button he immediately recognizes it as the sigil of the darton coors family and also guesses that the victim it came from had her face mutilated he proceeds to explain the situation he was once employed as a manservant for one of the oldest and proudest families of gridania the darton course and he specifically served the lady of the family lady amandine while she was originally fair and radiant the calamity brought a change upon her mentally and physically her face was scarred during the event and when her bandages were removed and she saw her disfigured face she sequestered herself away within her chambers this continued for some time until she began receiving odd guests masked men lady amandine apparently believed that these men would help her regain her former glory and beauty to accomplish this she began performing various rituals which started out rather innocent but grew more and more grotesque eventually they reached a point where ahmedine mutilated the face of one of her handmaidens killing her ersendel performed the task of disposing of the body but afterwards he fled the manor he had resolved never to speak of the situation there until explorer showed up with that button and he knew that ahmedine's wickedness was spreading he begs explorer to go to hawkey manor and lay her tormented soul to rest since aseans are clearly involved explorer recruits a few other adventurers and makes her way inside of the haunted mansion the mansion is a sprawling place and the group quickly encounters blood-sucking bats and undead monsters they sweep through the manor opening various locked doors in search of ahmandine and head down into the cellar where they find copious numbers of animated skeletons in a large room in the cellar they find the undead steward of the manor who drops a piece of bloody parchment the group returns to the entrance where they use the parchment to undo a magical barrier blocking the way upstairs upstairs they battle with a floating eyeball who runs off and wakes up lady amandine they engaged the monstrous lady of the house who possesses a number of lamps in the room that emit painful void energy explora finally slays ahmadine putting an end to her madness and the murder of innocent young women afterwards she is approached by two aseans neither of which are la habrea instead both being servants of his they tell her that heidelin has chosen her champion well but since explorer's existence is irreconcilable with their own they cannot allow her to continue fortunately or perhaps unfortunately they did not come to fight explora but rather just to measure her strength for their master they depart and explore our returns to ersendell to tell him that it is finished he hopes that amundine finds peace in the beyond but since he kept his silence while innocent women were being murdered he is going to turn himself into the authorities and accept their punishment explorer then returns to menphilia at the waking sands telling her about her encounter with the aseans it's clear that the aseans are moving in earnest towards some nefarious goal and the scions will not be enough to combat them menphilia says that they will need to alert the nations of eorzea about this problem but there are also other problems to deal with meanwhile throughout all of these events explora has been continuing her gladiatorial training becoming involved in a number of heroic events notably busting up a large criminal organization in ulda explorer is informed that the sultan sworn elite honorable warriors known as paladins have announced that they will be willing to teach their secret arts to anyone that is worthy of them accomplished gladiators stand a good chance of being worthy so explora speaks with a man named jen lintz captain of the sultan sworn after completing a trial involving lighting a brazier in some ruins that draw in a number of undead explora is given a special crystal that allows her to perform the legendary skills of the paladins explorer is no longer a mere gladiator but is instead a paladin a defender of the weak and innocent and even though the paladins are traditionally a group sworn only to protect the sultanate explorer's unique position allows her to remain a free agent these new abilities of light and protection will certainly be useful in the battles to come explora solved some more problems but she's still no closer to figuring out what the aseans are really up to so far their only goal seems to be to just cause general chaos across eorzea inciting impressionable youths to summon a primal or drive individuals further into madness and bloodshed explora and the scions are dealing with a group that's as mysterious as it gets possessing unknown magical powers and carrying out unknown goals marked with the violence and chaos it's also quite likely that they'll have to deal with some more issues with primals very soon and unless the various peoples of aorzia can unite in a common goal the entire continent may be torn apart with the garlian empire happy to pick up the pieces explora's ascension to a paladin is promising though and hopefully she can continue to gather these crystals connected to heidelin for whatever good they might do the story of final fantasy 14 episode 5 the wrath of titan explorer's hunt for the masked man la jabrea proved to be slightly less than successful other than the aseans continuing to pop up and prove themselves to be a threat to aorzia's safety the scions are no closer to stopping them or figuring out their goals well on that quest however explorer managed to put a stop to some grisly murders happening in gridania which were linked to a haunted manor and the machinations of the aseans for now though explora is called back to the waking sands for some new developments menphilia informs the rest of the scions that the maelstrom the grand company of limsa lominsa is requesting their assistance with the beast tribe of kobolds that live in the area it seems that they have summoned their primal the earth deity titan and the scions have been asked to help slay it titan and another primal leviathan both attacked limsa lominsa a number of years back but the leader of limsa laminsa hired a band of mercenaries to fend them off the company of heroes they disbanded during the calamity however and don't have records of how they won the fight so explora and yashtola are tasked with seeking out the group and gathering information on their battle with titan explorer first heads to speak with the commander of the maelstrom grand company for a sit rep the commander informs her that the kobolds of ogomero began moving south a little over a moon ago in aggressive search of crystals the leader of the city-state admiral merlib arrives to elaborate this is hardly the first time that they've been plagued with the threat of a primal but without the company of heroes they'll need to look to the scions for support yashtola chimes in to note that lim solominsa and the beast tribes had signed a pact in which each group would keep to their own territories and it was actually the luminsens that first broke this pact merle wibb concedes the point but it's irrelevant at this point as they have to deal with the primal regardless explorer is sent to lower lanasia to speak with a former company of heroes member that now works as a miller the mercenary a man named truck tomb is not quite what explorer expected especially as he claims to have defeated a primal named titus not titan explorer isn't impressed by his boasts leading him to refuse to tell her about their battle tactics until she does him a favor and kills some rats nearby she'd certainly rather not but the scions are depending on an advantage for this fight so she does the job when she returns he goes on to say that the strategy they used is only for veterans and to prove herself she'll now have to slay a large creature nearby a goobooey she does so but truck tomb still doesn't seem to be satisfied until his boss shows up and asks if he killed that goo buoy he was supposed to the boss quickly figures out that explora likely did the job but to figure out for sure he has the two compete to see who can destroy a boulder the fastest which explorer finds to be a rather odd competition especially since her boulder is much larger still you don't get to be a warrior of light for nothing and she wins the contest afterwards truck tomb admits that he lied about being in the company of heroes as he just wanted to be hired he mentions that when he was in the settlement of costa del sol there was a grizzled marauder that everyone treated like royalty due to him being a captain in the company of heroes explora is glad to be finished here and so she hops onto boko and races off to costa del sol she meets up with yashtola to speak with the captain we skate informing him that they wish to slay titan wii skate isn't so impressed with explorer's exploits thus far and wishes to see for himself if she's capable what follows is a series of tasks revolving around gathering rare ingredients for an exotic feast to be held soon in costa del sol the tasks are both inane and dangerous but explora dutifully carries them out hoping that there's a point to all this in the end the first task is to travel to the south shroud in gridania to retrieve the egg of a giant adamantois from its nest next she travels to southern thanolan near ulda where a mercenary has her fight in a malja veteran before he'll even begin to tell her what the next ingredient is after doing so she lures out a large sand worm and kills it for some of its meat she then delivers some wine from the mercenary back to we skate at costa del sol who tells her that the final ingredient for the banquet is some exotic cheese that was supposed to be delivered by a goblin named brayflox it seems that something happened to bray flocks though so explorer is sent to eastern la nacia to the small goblin community to find out what happened she finds brayflox who tells her that a large flying creature has invaded the long stop where the goblins made their home and if explorer wants the cheese she'll have to help out explora enlists some fellow adventurers once again and heads into the tropical area despite its beautiful lush appearance the long stop is overrun with nasty creatures including hostile monkeys birds lizards a giant pelican a fire-breathing drake and a large amphibian finally after cutting their way through the group enters a large cave where they encounter a massive dragon iatar the dragon spits out noxious poison at the group but with deft movements and a strong offense they cut it down afterwards brayflox hands her the extremely foul smelling goblin cheese which she hastily delivers to wisegate with that the meal is complete and explorer is ready to hear the secrets of how they defeated titan except that we skate tells her that although the meal may be complete they still need a proper wine to go with it groaning she's sent off to the nearby settlement of wine port in order to speak with shimani lomani a mercenary turned vintner shimani quickly deduces that explora is an adventurer they're to find an exotic wine for a luxurious feast he admits that nothing he owns would be good enough an explorer should speak with the man nearby who owns the largest winery in the country the man completely ridicules explora for her request telling her that he'd rather serve her gubuy urine than sell her his worst vintage shimani isn't surprised by the response and tells explorer that years back the finest wines in all of ayorzia were made from braccos grapes beverages which shimani described as otherworldly experiences unfortunately the bronchus vineyards were completely destroyed in the calamity along with most of the stock of braccos wine obviously the remaining bottles are pretty darn rare explora asks around wineport to see if anyone has a bottle they'd be willing to part with but none of them even have a single bottle amongst them shimani again isn't surprised by this but says that they really need a bottle of broccolis wine for the feast although he admits it's partly due to his own connection to the wine he explains that the battle with titan left him blind and he fell into a deep depression until tasting brockus wine showed him that there was still so much he could experience in life even in his condition while he ponders on what to do he asks explorer to perform a favor for him one more for the pile then he explains that two years ago while wandering the area as a vagabond drunk he was taken in by a man named dressed who nursed him back to health and gave him his first taste of bracca's wine shimani asks explorer to check in on him and bring him a wine of shimani's own creation this certainly seems like something that shimane should do himself but a favor is a favor dressed is apparently living as a hermit in the nearby area called the severed string explorer tracks him down living in a wood hut but he seems to be in a daze and complains about the buzzing sounds of insects keeping him awake explorer heads outside and swats a few swarms with her sword which seems like more of a token effort than anything but dressed thanks her regardless it turns out that dressed is a former imperial soldier one that was conscripted from a land conquered by the guardians dressed was part of a reconnaissance mission into la nacio when the maelstrom caught them by surprise and he managed to flee into hiding it's clear that he's suffering from the trauma and just wants to go home but he thanks explorer for bringing him shimane's wine in return he placed some sap from nearby palm trees into some coconut shells to make a wine and asks her to bring it back to shimane she gathers the palm wine and delivers it back where shimani deduces that the leaves which dressed used to seal the coconuts are actually that of a brocus grapevine this means that somewhere nearby grow some brocus vines and explorer heads back to dress to find out where he got the leaves dressed just chose the leaves because they were pretty and says that he got them near a rusted imperial wreck nearby he also says that there were fresh gubui tracks nearby and suggests that possibly the vines are growing on one of their backs inspecting the area explorer finds such a good buoy and after slaying it to retrieve some of the vines from its back she brings it back to shimani who confirms that it is indeed a cutting of a bronchus vine the man who owns the winery approaches them and is shocked to learn of their discovery in a surprising turn of events shimani hands over the vine and tells the man that he's in the best position to reconstruct the legendary bronchus vineyards in return the man hands over his rarest bottle of wine a particularly good vintage of bronchus that was believed to be lost years before the calamity explora has bigger concerns than the state of eorzea's wine industry but she takes the bottle back to whiskey to complete the job even he is shocked to find such a rare wine and congratulates her on a job well done she then speaks with yashtola who is shocked and frustrated that not only did explora have to go through so much effort for a banquet held in her own honor she had to do it while titan threatens the entire region it's then revealed that the entire series of tasks was in fact a test to determine if explorer was worthy of facing titan the mercenaries didn't want to send someone in that would only be needlessly slaughtered [Music] yashtola isn't quite so impressed sarcastically referring to it as time well spent a sentiment that explora surely agrees with the five mercenaries she worked with all agree that she is ready to face the lord of craigs [Music] before that though explora enjoys the feast she worked hard to bring together she spakes with the mercenaries one more time who wish her good fortune in the battle and she speaks with yashtola who says that this banquet was as much for the mercenaries as it was for her despite what they may claim though the mercenaries already pronounce explore as the victor they have yet to begin the battle and it's time for whiskey to share what he knows whiskey tells explorer to head to upper la nacia to speak with a man named real who will show her how to find titan after performing a series of signals to alert him that she's with the mercenaries she meets with the man who explains that the kobolds are continuously digging new tunnels throughout the mountains to try and navigate the tunnels into their inner sanctum would almost certainly result in death as they often leave behind traps in tunnels they don't use anymore the mercenaries figured that their minds are laid out like a city and they likely utilize etherites to navigate the mines much like aorzians use them in their cities normally this wouldn't help the mercenaries much as they would need to attune to the crystals inside the mine before using them but real says that they had a charlie and scholar assist them managing to teleport them straight to the inner sanctum yashtola a charlene scholar herself figures that it is possible for her to replicate the feet and they head over to a nearby etherite to try yestola will have to maintain a connection with it in order for this to work sending in explora and some fellow adventurers without her explorer's group arrives in the inner sanctum finding a large group of kobolds the leader amongst them says that the overdwellers must answer for breaking their pact and titan will judge them accordingly they summon their primal titan the lord of craigs who says that the overdwellers covet the blessing of the land and murder his children by the score in service to greed titan is aware that explorer defeated efreet but he is not coward and he attacks the group titan is certainly a daunting figure leaping into the air and smashing down into the ground with tremendous force he unleashes great gouts of energy that threaten to send the group flying off of the perilous edges of the small platform but they continue to whittle him down eventually they crush titan's spirit and bring him down sending the kobolds fleeing explorer finds a small yellow crystal on the ground marking it as four out of six making her even closer to completing some sort of goal watching over the fight once again is the garlian nero tolskeva who is more pleased with the readings here than from the fight with a freit he claims that the weapon he's been working on would have bested titan in the blink of an eye and could soon be capable of subjugating all of aorzia lahabrea the asean is also here and is apparently working with the guardians to help in their goals explorer returns to limsa lamensa where the commander of the maelstrom congratulates and thanks her she then returns to the waking sands but instead of receiving a warm welcome from menphilia she instead finds the headquarters dark and silent she walks through the halls and discovers a number of corpses belonging to members of the scions she finds narraxia the sylph barely clinging to life and explorer experiences a vision from the echo of what happened the waking sands was attacked by a squad of imperial soldiers led by the guardian libya junius they came looking for explorer but they took menphilia captive instead most of the scions present were slaughtered with some being taken as prisoners such as tataru the other notable scions yashtola thankrid ida papalimo alfino and urianje were not present with his dying breath naraxia tells explora to seek sanctuary at the church near camp drybone she travels there and tells the priest what has happened he says that he has known menphilia since she was a child and he'll do whatever he can to support the scions he also tells explorer that if she needs anything she can ask marquez the survivor of the calamity working there that had suffered from mental trauma speaking with marquez he says that he found a broken clock in the pocket of a man brought here for burial and there's something familiar about it that he can't quite figure he asks explorer to get some tools for him from camp drybone so that he can tinker with it despite him supposed to be doing favors for her she does so and he proceeds to fix the device quickly despite this he still doesn't know why it seems familiar although he questions why the skill necessary to fix it came so easily she takes the clock to one of the sisters in charge of burials who remarks that she's never seen such a device and it must have come from garlamald she then worries that the owner might have been a garlean spy who was working in the area this beggars the question of how marquez managed to easily fix a device that most aorzians have never even seen in the meantime explorer travels back to the waking sands to help deal with the deceased she assists with carrying the bodies to the carriage that will deliver them to the graveyard near the church explorer works quickly but reverently as this is a grim reminder of the villainy the scions are up against after carrying all the bodies including narraxias explorer returns to the church the sister says that though they can perform burial rites for most of the scions the body of noraxia must be returned to the sylphs of little solace explorer personally handles this task of course handing over the body to the weeping sylphs they swear that they will assist the aorzians with their battle against the empire with that grim business finished explorer returns again to the church and speaks with marquez who says that he knows that someone is watching him and asks explorer to head outside and investigate sure enough in the graveyard nearby she finds an imperial spy quickly killing him perhaps it would have been better to interrogate him but what's done is done the combination of marquez being able to easily fix complicated devices and him being watched by the imperials is certainly odd alphano makes a sudden appearance and tells explorer that despite recent events he wants to revive the scions of the seventh dawn i fondly hoped that i might be the first to speak with you would that i had been so fortunate at ease adventurer i come not on behalf of the empire on the contrary i mean to revive the scions of the seventh dawn he has come here in search of marquez who he reveals to actually be the greatest engineer of their time master sid garland this triggers something within him and he slowly begins to remember things uh sid was it here these belong to you who are you alfie no levier at your service elfino says that the scion's goal is to help rid eorzea of the threat from the primals and even though the organization has practically been wiped out they cannot forsake this duty the bird like ixel have summoned their primal garuda who is now tormenting the people of kurthos to the north garuda is easily amongst the most hostile of primals and it's believed that she is more powerful than even titan alfano believes that if they defeat garuda it would serve as a warning to the other beast tribes unfortunately garuda is protected by a tremendous tempest of wind and they'll need an airship to get in specifically sid's airship sid doesn't really remember having an airship but alphano says that it was last seen flying over gridania so they need to find it sid joins up with alfino and explora to assist in their goal come let us put an end to the primals together we will show the world that the scions are still a force to be reckoned with before departing the priest mentions that there is a tale related to an airship called the final flight of the enterprise which states that the airship the enterprise flew northwest from gradania towards the icy region of kurthos the group heads to falgord float near kurthos to see if there are any records or witnesses to the event although the people there are familiar with the ship and the event they don't know what happened to it after it passed into kirthos it seems that explora is going to have to throw on some warm clothes and head into the snowy region a place controlled not by the three city-states but by the ish guardians a reclusive bunch involved with their own war the scions suffered a tremendous setback losing a number of precious members and having their leader captured it's unclear what yashtola and the others think of this development as explorer has now teamed up with alphano and sid to deal with a much more pressing situation the wind primal garuda finding the airship the enterprise and navigating a new political landscape in kurthos won't be easy but it's necessary so that the small remnants of the scions can deal with one problem and move on to the next rescuing menphilia and putting a stop to the guardians the story of final fantasy 14 episode 6 heresy in the icy north explorer recently joined the ranks of the paladins individuals sworn to protect the innocent and uphold justice despite this she was unable to protect the majority of the scions of the seventh dawn from being slaughtered by the garlian empire the garlians were partly looking for explora but were happy to kill or capture everyone else present including the scion's leader menphilia explora was off battling titan at the time returning only to the scene of the slaughter but she took care to make sure the slain were buried properly including the self naraxia while dealing with that she was approached by alfino who seeks to continue the scion's goals of protecting eorzea and revealed that marquez a traumatized victim of the calamity working at a church is actually a master engineer named sid garland sid is regaining his memories and joined up with alfino and explora to find his long-lost airship the enterprise supposedly located in the icy northern region of kerthos a place controlled by the kingdom of ishgard explorer and boko head north from falgore float in gridania entering a much colder region kerthos near the border they find a settlement centered around an astrological observatorium she was told that the astrologians here would likely have records of the enterprise and that she should offer her aid to the ish guardians who live here in order to earn their favor unfortunately the ish guardians are a reclusive lot and have no interest in offering aid of any sort to an outsider while milling about however the guard at the front of the observatorium mentions that a knight he sent on a patrol hasn't returned and he tells explora that if she really wants to help she can go look for him a very convenient opportunity if there ever was one and after finding the knight and rescuing him from some unknown assailants she returns to the observatorium the guard quickly changes his tune and says that he'll tell the astrologians to listen to her request although there's no guarantees the ish guardians are currently at war with a race of dragons the dravanians and they also have a problem with gervanian sympathizers whom they have dubbed as heretics due to religious differences the ones who assaulted the knight on patrol were some such heretics and explorer is told that access to the astrologian records is heavily restricted due to heretics potentially gaining valuable info about the war speaking with the chief astrologian he is vehement that she not be allowed access as he will not put their kingdom and its holy crusade at risk for a mere airship at that moment an ish guardian inquisitor guillaume approaches the two and not so subtly warns explorer to keep out of ish guardian affairs still left empty-handed but hoping to further endear herself to the ish guardians she heads off in search of a lost astrologian finding him trapped and surrounded by ixel the bird-like beast men that worship the wind primal garuda rather than being grateful however the astrologian is disgusted at being rescued by an outsider back at the observatorium she learns that despite her efforts she still won't be allowed to access the records but she could petition house during dare who she's helped out twice now to have her be introduced formally to the other ish guardian high houses ingratiating herself with all of the high houses will likely lead her to the airship's location without needing the actual records the lord of during dare she speaks with however says that she's aided them twice now but wants to be introduced to three other houses so it's only fair that she ate them one more time she can't fault his logic so she agrees to go to the scene of a robbery on the road and try and recover some stolen merchandise bound for kirthos at the scene of the crime she does recover some merchandise but is also attacked by a few more heretics she brings the crates back with one of them having been smashed open inside they find a draconian rosary a religious object held by the gervanians and the ish guardians who follow them since the crate was bound for a lord of house aelenart this causes quite a stir especially since there have been rumors in the past of alen art being infested with heretics this matter takes precedence over any sort of formal introductions and the inquisitors are informed explora is approached by a durham dare knight who tells her that lord francel the supposed recipient of the rosary is not a heretic and explorers should go to him and warn him of the situation explora doesn't really have much skin in the game so to speak but it's probably best for all if an innocent house isn't condemned on false accusations so she heads over to francel franzel of course vehemently denies the accusations but knows that it won't do much good to the as thanks for warning him though fransel gives a letter of introduction that she can give to lord orsafon of house fortong who may have some more information about the missing airship orchard runs the nearby fort of camp dragon head and proves to be quite friendly to explore even before she hands over the letter he says that it will be a little tricky to find eyewitnesses to the fall of the enterprise as ishgard was embroiled in their own conflict during that time that being said he sends out missives to various influential individuals within ishgard who may be of help and suggests that she continue to speak with others in kerthos about it stating that she is a friend of house forton unfortunately the others either don't have any information or don't have the time to help out with everyone currently focused on the issue of heretics within kurthos upon returning to orchard fall he tells explorer that fransel was seen heading north towards the steel vigil along with three knights the steel vigil was an ish guardian outpost taken over by the gervanian horde long ago so he's not sure what fransel is hoping to accomplish explorer rides north to investigate finding lord francel and his knights overwhelmed by a single gervanian which explorer promptly slays francel says that he hoped they might prove their devotion to ishgard by coming here to slay some of their enemies since it was house alien art that lost the steel vigil in the first place but obviously that didn't go too well orchard fall is glad that explorer was able to save them and even better he has found a witness to the final flight of the the bad news is that since explora has been seen consorting with lord fransel the witness doesn't want to be seen in the company of a woman who may later be declared a heretic the only way to solve the problem then is to clear france's name which would mean figuring out who planted the rosary in the locked chest bound for him explorer speaks with a man who works closely with the porters that ferry goods across kurthos who says that he has no reason to doubt the loyalty of the porters although he admits that since the only other culprits possible would be the ish guardian knights responsible for inspection the porters are the most likely to be responsible some more porters have just arrived in camp dragon head so explorer heads over and tells one of them that she suspects they've been planting rosaries in the shipments the porter is outraged by the accusation and tells her to search the packages to see what she finds sure enough she finds some rosaries to the utter confusion of the porter who claims that once the knight concluded her inspection he loaded the parcels onto the wagon himself and if he knew they were in there he never would have allowed explorer to look telling orshfont what she's found he remarks that the culprits have clearly overplayed their hand by filling every shipment with rosaries and even the inquisitors should be able to see that he begins working on a formal statement to be delivered to the church in ishgard and asks explorer to speak with one of the inquisitors in order to delay france's trial unfortunately explora is too late as the trial is already underway and it seems they plan on executing him explorer rushes off to the site of the trial where france continues to proclaim his innocence inquisitor guillaume however only tells him to walk off the nearby cliff in order to be judged by the gods explorer arrives with one of orshafon's knights who tells the inquisitor they've uncovered new evidence and the trial needs to be delayed diom however responds that orsofan has allowed his personal relationship with francel to cloud his judgment and interfering with an inquisitor's work is heresy the inquisitor's knights proceed to attack the two but they managed to hold them off until orshophon arrives with reinforcements during the battle a wyvern appears and attacks explora and afterwards they find a draconian rosary on one of the inquisitor's knights suspecting that he was responsible for summoning the wyvern diom finally admits that there might be more going on here than he first assumed and he withdraws his charges against francel for the time being back at camp dragon head orsha fallen thanks explorer for her help in saving france and says that now they can continue on to the issue of the enterprise she meets with the witness to its final flight who says that he was at the observatorium when he saw a small vessel coming from gritania that landed near the stone vigil to the northwest the stone vigil is another military fort that used to belong to house aelenart before being overtaken by the gervanians it's likely that the dravanians captured it and hold it within the fort's walls now house durander have been charged with reclaiming it so explorer will need their permission to enter it explorer would rather just gain the dravanian's permission to enter but protocol must be followed porsche fall plans on writing a letter on her behalf to lord drillmont of house durander and suggests that she asks francel to do the same francel agrees to write the letter although he doubts his will do much good and warns explorer to be cautious as the ones that tried to frame him have still not been identified she takes the two letters the drill mont's fort to the west and after getting the run around from a number of different soldiers she finally speaks with drill mont himself alongside alphano and sid they explained to him that they need the enterprise in order to slay the primal garuda and thus need access to the stone vigil well they're trying to convince him however guillaume shows up and tells him that the three of them are not to be trusted apparently house durander is marshaling its forces to retake the stone vigil so having a long-lost engineer and two members of an extinguished group suddenly show up and want access is a bit sketchy drillmont of course agrees with guillaume and says that the three of them won't step foot into the vigil until durham dare has reclaimed it since dralmont doesn't expel them from the premises though they decide that it still might be possible to earn his favor and a chef working at the fort tells explorer that if she wins over the soldiers she'll win over drill mont the best way to do that of course is to give them a good meal as they haven't had any meat in quite some time explore heads off to slay a large lizard for some of its tail meat and even though it doesn't turn out to be an especially good meal the knights are grateful all the same meanwhile sid has been helping out the local medical personnel by crafting them some new tools and has explorer help out by gathering some ice sprite cores completion sid shows off the device to the kyrogens who are quite astonished but guillaume shows up and tells them to be wary of kindly strangers it seems that he still does not trust the group and his words are more than enough to scare off the kyrogens efforts to earn draelmont's trust will be in vain as long as they don't earn guillaumes so explorer pokes around and asks others at the fort about the man in order to glean some useful info apparently everyone at the fort are rather big fans of guillaume and inquisitors in general believing them to be completely devoted to the ish guardian cause one night she speaks to in the infirmary tells her about the night that guillaume came to the fort when he was on patrol outside of the eastern gate and saw a silhouette in the distance the knight called out and gave chase but unfortunately fell down and went unconscious he woke up days later in the infirmary learning that the silhouette belonged to guillaume who carried him back to the fort retelling this story to alfano he points out some odd details in the tale noting that the main road in kurthos leads to the fort's southwestern gate not the eastern one since arriving here no travelers have come through the eastern gate and additionally since the knight said that the silhouette was illuminated by the light from the city of ishgard that would mean that guillaume came from the north of the eastern gate not the south the problem with that is that there's a massive chasm in that direction explorer retraces the supposed path of guillaume ending up down in the chasm where she finds the buried corpse of a man identical to guillaume on the body she finds a document from the church appointing him as an inquisitor meaning that coming here was his first official assignment whoever the imposter is decided to murder him and assume his identity with no one in kirthos any wiser rather than take the evidence they have straight to drillmont they decide to try and convince the knight who was saved by the fake guillaume to see if he can remember any other details from that night the knight of course is not too interested in besmirching the name of the man who saved his life but he does tell explorer to go speak with another knight who was present during the incident after some convincing the other night tells the full story of what happened the wounded knight did not fall into a chasm but was rather attacked by a dravanian when she rushed in to help she instead heard a voice that knew intimate details about her life and told her that if she kept this secret her and the other knight would be spared she agreed and the voice was revealed to be the fake inquisitor she's kept his secret all this time knowing that he was responsible for planting rosaries on a number of innocent people in order to condemn them to death when he accused lord francel however she was the one who stole a bunch of rosaries and planted them in the shipments making the conspiracy incredibly obvious explorer finds the hidden chest where guillaume has been keeping all of the rosaries and she takes it to drillmont along with the document and the story she's been told faced with all of this drillmont has no choice but to agree that the inquisitor is an imposter and apologizes to explora he grants them access to the stone vigil but first asks that they assist in dealing with the dravanian imposter the group rushes off to face the false guillaume who is in the midst of another trial condemning an innocent upon arrival lord drilmont officially marks him as a traitor and heretic but guillaume says that he cannot be a traitor as he cannot betray that which he owes no allegiance to instead the ish guardian's hands are black with the blood of those whose only sin was to question the kingdom's crazed crusade nevertheless he does not come quietly so a fight breaks out during the battle guillaume summons some gervanian allies and uses magic to appear as a dragon but in the end the ish guardians are the victors knowing that his end is near the fake guillaume says that the families of the dead that he condemned will never forget him and since blood has been repaid with blood he is content drilmant leaves his body where it lies and tells explorer to meet him back at the fort to discuss the stone vigil he's happy to have been proven wrong about sid in the scions but doesn't think that they'll fare well in reclaiming the airship from the stone vigil or if it's even in there although house durandere plans on continuing to assault the fort in the hopes of wiping out the gervanians present alfino says that they cannot wait for that and plan on heading in on their own that's rather bold talk considering that explora is going to be doing most of the hard work but drillmont grants them permission explorer recruits a few other adventurers and they march into the fort the stone vigil turns out to be in shambles and crawling with gervanians of a number of different forms the group is blasted with fire and ice as they sweep through killing everything in their way some especially large draconic creatures attempt to stop them but they too fall until eventually they progress to the back of the fort where they spot the damaged airship unfortunately just in front of it is a massive sleeping dragon sid and alfino sneak around it to try and fire up the airship but none other than lahabrea shows up to throw a wrench in the engine lahabrea taunts explorer with his knowledge that she plans to fight garuda and even though he doesn't think that she'll win he does admit that if any mortal could do it it would be her of course he can't resist making things a little bit more interesting and he proceeds to wake the dragon forcing explorer to engage it in order to protect sid and elphino the massive creature fights with fangs claws and great blasts of ice threatening to freeze the group to their cores fortunately this is just a stepping stone on the path to garuda and despite the size difference explora slays the great beast with the dragon dead explorer surprisingly finds yet another crystal of light adding to her collection totaling five now sid inspects the enterprise and is able to make it fly at least to get back to gridania his memories have still not yet completely returned but his engineering knowledge is intact at least now that they finally have an airship they can begin to tackle the problem of taking on garuda who continues to get stronger as time goes by sid believes that he can fully repair the enterprise back to fighting shape but it may not be enough to actually breach garuda's wind barrier however he comes to the idea of utilizing a corrupted crystal in order to modify the nature of the barrier itself nullifying its potency corrupted crystals are those found around aorzia that are overfilled with elemental energy and although they are normally a big problem as they can warp nearby energy including that belonging to living creatures sid and alfino believed they could use some to convert the wind barrier into an element that garuda can't control during his time at the church sid met an etheric scholar in camp drybone that would speak at length about ether specifically in the form of corrupted crystals explora is tasked with seeking out the scholar while sid and alfano work on repairing the enterprise after a brief change of clothes into something more suitable for warmer climates explora heads to camp dry bone and finds the man lambertaint she tells him that they're looking to harvest a corrupted crystal and after warning her of the dangers involved in the task gives her a special warded pot designed to hold the crystal safely she's then directed to one of lambertain's students who eagerly tells explorer to head down into the area known as the burning wall a location covered in large crystalline structures to get the perfect sample they need she has to head down to the deepest part of it after being given a mallet she dodges past the copious amounts of hostile creatures in the area and finds the sample she's looking for she brings the sample back to lambertaint to inspect it who informs her that it's a perfect corrupted crystal overflowing with wind ether since they're trying to use a crystal to bypass a wind barrier this won't help much only serving to strengthen the barrier instead perhaps a little bit of communication would have saved some time and effort in the midst of a crisis nevertheless explorer is then directed to another of lambertain's students one that has apparently found another site of corrupted crystals in western la nacia explorer whisks off across the ocean to the town of ayleport and meets with the student there kiana kiana believes that the area around the lighthouse on the nearby isle of umbra is filled with corrupted crystals but so far she has been denied access to the isle by everyone she's asked after poking around though explorer learns that the issue more has to do with no one wanting to go to the isle believing it to be fully haunted by undead kiana overhears in the pub about a man that was detained after recently returning from the isle who seems to be in a daze wishing to return there he mentions a man named mimi dola who kiana says groped her the other day in the pub mimi doa turns out to be a rather gruff supervisor placed in charge of rebuilding the lighthouse after it was damaged during the calamity the men aren't really working with half of them running off and half of them disappearing he enlists explorer to head to the island and scope out the situation on the isle a man guarding the area tells her that she's not allowed past the port due to the rumors about undead covering the island actually being true covering the ship graveyard nearby and he decides that if explora helps figure out why the undead have propped up he'll find her some of the corrupted crystals it turns out that the isle is plagued by a siren a creature that lulls people with a seductive song into the ocean where they die and become her undead thralls with the help of mimi doa and some earplugs she defeats a handful of undead and sends the siren packing earning herself some nice fire aspected corrupted crystals obviously turning garuda's wind barrier into a fire barrier isn't going to work too well and this goose chase is starting to get a little ridiculous explorer gets sent off to gridania to speak with one of keana's associates who has found some ice aspected crystals the crystals have all been eaten by a gluttonous spriggan so explorer runs off slaughters the spriggan digs through his entrails and finally obtains the crystals they need she brings them back to sid and alphano who have finished the repairs on the enterprise they attach the device utilizing the crystals to the ship and sail off towards garuda on the way sid reveals that he is actually a native of garlamald the prodigal son of the most famous engineer in the garlian empire his father became obsessed with the meteor project which ended up causing the calamity and sid eventually fled garlamald to come to eorzea joining their fight against his homeland father when did we stop seeing eye to eye when did meteor become your everything and your loved ones ceased to matter and so i ran left the empire behind and came to eorzea where i built the ironworks ayorzia opened my eyes it was home to so many manner of people each with their own hopes and dreams people weren't saving and so i fought beside them i wanted to prove that my knowledge could serve a nobler purpose i wanted to prove that there was another way sid finally regains all of his memories as they approach garuda and break through her barrier along with some other adventurers that they recruited standing in front of the wind primal they discover that the ixl that summoned her also brought some kobold and amalga captives garuda is hardly frightened of explora and an epic battle takes place in the eye of a great hurricane garuda's tremendous winds buffet the group and threaten to send them flying but they hold their ground garuda's force is strong enough to even blast apart rocks but even that is not quite enough to topple a warrior of light eventually garuda is killed or so it seems instead she appears to be unfazed and only taunts the group of scions she is kept alive by the intense faith of the ixl and things are starting to look quite grim although when garuda attempts to enthrall explora the echo protects her heidelin's protection causes a crystal of light to emerge from garuda completing explorer's set of six although nothing seems to be immediately different because of it the faith of the ixl is shaken by this turnaround but suddenly gaius van balsar of the guardian empire shows up and taunts garuda oh lady of the vortex oh mighty garuta [Music] of all primals the most terrible i say again is that all a group of ixel charged at him but he easily dispatches them with a magitek weapon instead of attacking the scions or gaius garuda attacks the captive kobolds and amalga who cry out to their primals titan and a freit [Music] soul the pain the pain [Music] their prayers are answered as they die causing the two primals to be summoned that's quite a bit more than explora can handle so the scions flee garuda plans on feasting on the other primals ether in order to make herself stronger but gaius instead finally reveals his ultimate weapon a massive biomechanical machine [Music] bear witness to the glory of the empire the machine easily dispatches titan and efreet in a matter of seconds and absorbs their energy into itself gaius says that this machine was created by an ancient civilization known as the alligan empire for the specific purpose of slain primals h and alleg had ways of dealing with your kind now look on their ultimate weapon icon and despair no no no magnificent it exceeds all expectation gaius tells the scions to return to the leaders of eorzea's city-states and tell them to surrender as not even explorer can deal with such a weapon out of the frying pan alfino says that on the bright side no beast tribe will dare summon a primal while such a primal killing machine exists in eorzea that means the remaining scions can focus on rebuilding the organization and taking down the garlian empire starting with rescuing the individuals they kidnapped explora has proven herself to be quite capable so far taking down multiple primals and contending with other particularly ferocious creatures but the speed at which this ultimate weapon slew the three primals is certainly frightening she's gathered all six crystals of light for whatever purpose it serves but she'll definitely need some help from the rest of the scions if she hopes to fend off the garlean empire and the aseans and ideally a bit more help from heidelen the story of final fantasy 14 episode 7 operation arkhan explorer has come a long way since arriving in eorzea she joined the adventurous guild made a name for herself and ulda and became a diplomatic envoy saved a large number of people from various threats including a couple primals and became a prominent member of the scions of the seventh dawn her story hasn't been entirely pleasant though as the workings of the garlian empire and the mysterious aseans have continued to produce obstacles notably the decimation of the scions and the kidnapping of multiple members thanks to the help of alfino and the master engineer sid she finally managed to confront the wind primal garuda but it ended up being one of the guardians that defeated it utilizing a terrifying construct known as the ultima weapon this weapon was created by a long-lost civilization for the specific purpose of devouring primals and absorbing their energy and even though it could function as a useful deterrent the guardians plan to use it to subjugate all of aorzia the time has come to rescue the captured scions and formulate a plan to put a stop to this once and for all [Music] explora sid and elfino return to the science headquarters the waking sands finding eda inside she is glad to see them and says that ishtola was here before but went to ulda to speak with a man who might know where the others are located alfino surmises that menphilia was taken on gaius of van balzar's orders as he hopes to learn more about the echo the power granted by heidelen that provides protection from the primals the group decides to wait for ishtola and while waiting explora experiences another vision of heidelin during which she tells her to be wary of the asean lahabrea and that the crystals will be her salvation hearken unto me now for the darkness that begin of the crimson brand for he is the avatar of shadow whom death attendeth always the crystals shall be thy salvation thy blade and shield both [Music] steal thyself for at the appointed hour thou shalt stare into the heart of darkness go with caution my child but fear not for i am ever with it's not much to go on but at least heidelin is on their side ichitola arrives informing them that menphilia and the other scions have been taken to an imperial stronghold in the mordona region known as castrum century obviously rescuing some prisoners from an imperial fort wouldn't be easy on the best day let alone such high-value prisoners as these mordona was the site of a massive battle a number of years ago when garland attempted to invade eorzea and were beaten back by a host of dragons the battle left the region as quite the wasteland only to be later made even worse from the calamity before heading into the region explorer and the group traveled back to kurthos to speak with lord portalaine of house durhandare whom explora had helped out previously borderlane can fortunately confirm that his scouts observed four prisoners being led into castrum century a huron woman an elizane man and two lalafells thus being menphilia urianje papalimo and tataru he also informs them that an imperial airship recently made an emergency landing in kerthos and two prisoners were seen fleeing the craft a roguedin and a lalafell sid firmly believes these individuals to be bigs and wedge two engineers that work for him the group decides that they can afford a bit more time to rescue the other scions as they're not likely to be executed just yet well biggs and wedge might not be so lucky explore is pointed in the direction of where the airship landed eventually coming across some footprints in the snow one large and one small she follows the footprints across the icy region which lead underneath the stone bridge where she finds wedge shivering in the cold it seems that biggs had ran off in a different direction to lead the imperial troops away from wedge is especially glad to hear that sid is alive and well and the group reconvenes at a nearby ish guardian tower with wedge safe and sound explorer continues her search for biggs eventually finding him surrounded by imperial soldiers she rushes in to help joined by ishtola and ida and after dealing with the imperial contingent they take him back to the tower to reunite with wedge and sid biggs and wedge explained that they were captured along with the others during the imperial raid on the scions headquarters they were all taken to cast from century but the two of them were held separately from the others they were held in isolation for weeks before being suddenly sent aboard a ship bound for garlimold while in the air they sabotaged the ship's altitude control forcing an emergency landing and a chance to escape with all of them reunited they can begin formulating a plan to rescue the others so they head over to revenant's toll a settlement in mordona once there they learned from a local named slothborn that castrum century has been on high alert as of late and it would be especially difficult to sneak in sid comes up with the idea of impersonating imperial soldiers in order to walk in the front gate a bold plan which will require some imperial uniforms and a suit of magitek armor explorer speaks with another individual who has a grudge against the empire and he tells her of a pipe that is connected to the command tower where she could eavesdrop on some of the comings and goings of the fort in order to determine if the others are even still there after wading through a swamp and sitting next to a sewage pipe for a while she can confirm that they're still there back at revenant's toll sid says that to move forward with the plan they'll need to capture one of the empire's magitek armor but in order to prevent them discovering its disappearance he's working on a communications jamming device imperial forces communicate over distances by using electromagnetic waves and since there's a cluster of corrupted crystals nearby that amplifies the same energy that they use they can use the crystals to drown out the imperial's communications explorer is tasked with heading over to the crystals and using a device to take some readings which is simple enough that being done her next task is a bit more bizarre as she apparently needs to learn the imperial salute that all of the soldiers use that makes sense but rather than the locals just showing her she's told to head near the castrum in order to observe it being done directly after trekking across mordona she does just that and returns back with her new knowledge now she needs to gather the imperial uniforms that they'll be wearing in order to walk into the fort she's told that there are people who sell these uniforms but it's probably not the best idea to trust them with any sort of secretive knowledge instead she's tasked with killing some imperial patrols and simply taking the uniforms off their corpses she heads back near the cast room and slaughters a handful of them gathering up three sets of uniforms one for herself biggs and wedge unfortunately the problem with this method is that the uniforms have all been damaged in the process making them a little suspicious she takes them to a blacksmith who can be trusted however and he promptly repairs them at least superficially the time has come then to steal a magitek armor from a patrol with the plan being fairly simple approach a patrol while wearing the uniforms and lead them away into an isolated area the plan is bolstered by the use of an imperial smoke signal adding a convincing touch to the ruse the plan goes off without a hitch as the imperials rush in to investigate the smoke signal and explore promptly ambushes them aided by sid unfortunately just as with their uniforms the battle did a bit of damage to the magitek armor and it seems that it has a faulty servo mechanism biggs and wedge take it back for repairs discovering that the fragile magitek core which drives the servo mechanism has been completely worn down to replace it rather than smashing some more patrols wedge has explora fetch a mammoth heart a component that can apparently grant sentience to an automaton explorer rushes over to the goldsmith's guild in ulda to grab one learning that she won't have to pay the exorbitant price for it since alfino notified them that his servant will be picking it up alfino has apparently been a benefactor of the guild for a number of years so they wouldn't dream of charging him back in revenant's toll they slot in the heart and sure enough the armor fires up just fine except the servo mechanism doesn't seem to be responding as well as it should wedge deduces that since now they've given the mechanism sentience it doesn't feel comfortable enough to operate properly this changes after another imperial patrol arrives to reclaim the armor and the group fends them off with all of that out of the way they're finally ready to break into the castrum and rescue the other scions strapping on their imperial uniforms explora biggs and wedge approach the fort pretending to be returning from a patrol while sid and alfino set off a distraction nearby the first player to the plan goes off just fine and the three make it inside they quickly learn that the others are being held in a storage tower and they managed to talk their way into getting the key to get in inside they find their captured friends and proceed to put down the imperial guards before freeing them all glad to be rescued papalimo points out that no one knows where thancred is as he hasn't been seen since the attack on the headquarters meanwhile eda and ishtola who snuck into the fort aboard a supply train encounter livia junius the perpetrator of the scion massacre despite their wishes to deal with her here and now the goal of rescuing their friends is a bit more important the group ends up battling their way out of the fort past a number of imperial soldiers and magitek armors they end up being surrounded at a cliff's edge where they're joined by ida and ishtola although things still look dire they're finally rescued by sid and the enterprise and they begin to fly away from the castrum although gaius and his ultima weapon are present alongside la jabrea while looking down at him lahabrea lowers his hood revealing a shocking identity thank red he was laha brea no no this cannot be we have to go now hang on left with only questions and haunting thoughts of betrayal the scions decide to gather the leaders of eorzea's city-states and urge them to join up with the scions against the guardians and the aseans the leaders are of course not ignorant to the threat in front of them although the ish guardians have remained silent on any hails for assistance essentially gaius has offered aorzia an ultimatum either let the guardians take control of aorzia and they'll rid them of their problem with the primals or resist and be utterly wiped out unfortunately the alliance isn't completely sure which option to go for with connie senna remarking that they might not even be able to defeat the guardians and their ultimate weapon the people of eorzea have continued to struggle in the wake of the calamity five years ago and throwing them back into a large-scale conflict against the same enemy could have dire consequences the alliance seems to be leaning towards accepting garlian rule until the scions arrive to convince them otherwise as we approached i would swear i heard talk of surrender but i know that cannot be it is not the aorzian way hear me my friends accepting the guardian's offer to vanquish the primals would be folly menphilia explains that the beast tribes summon their primals in times of desperation and nothing would make them more desperate than facing annihilation the only way to really quell the problem is to initiate peace but that can't be done as long as the zealous guardians are around the scions urged the alliance leaders to reconsider surrendering i remember five years ago when you wagered all for the sake of the realm remember what you fought for what you were willing to die for let the memories rekindle the fire in your heart for aorzia has need of it again come what may we scions will never give up the fight and so i bid you stand with us and together we shall safeguard the future of the realm their words stir them to action and they each resolve to fight the empire and banish them from eorzea they begin formulating an attack plan while the scions return to the waking sands menphilia reveals that aseans are immortal creatures with no physical form instead they possess mortals by utilizing artifacts known as crystals of darkness pancread had been assigned to investigate the aseans on his own and he had apparently been over taxing himself in the process which left him vulnerable if they can destroy the crystal that's somewhere on his person lahabrea would be forced to relinquish control menphilia believes explorer to be another warrior of light sent by heidelen to protect eorzea and she'll be integral in the coming conflict eventually the scions received the details of the planned operation the largest single counter-offensive in eorzea's history the plan operation arkhan involves a unified attack on every imperial installation in eorzea there are two cast rooms near lim solominsa two near olda one near gridania and finally the one in mordona that the scions recently infiltrated the ultima weapon is currently being housed in castro meridianum near olda and since it's the most secure that will be their final target the operation will start with explorer leading a team of adventurers to cape westwind to take out one of the empire's lieutenants rita teen with a leader out of the way the cast room he'll be at will fall easily the maelstrom of lim solominsa will then move to attack one castrum nearby and blockade another cutting off supplies and assistance to meridianum the order of the twin adder in gridania will surround the castrum near them aided by the sylphs and then the immortal flames of ulda will move to take down the protective field surrounding the praetorium an inner fortress inside of meridianum where the ultima weapon is housed the order of the twin adder will also blockade the railway between meridianum and the castrum in mordona completely isolating the main fort the final phase of the plan will involve explora and her team passing into the praetorium in order to destroy the ultima weapon it's a sound if not complex plan in theory but a whole lot can go wrong along the way fortunately most of aorzia seems to be united in the cause with no less than 12 major factions involved in the operation the plan also weighs heavily on explorer being able to take out a lieutenant infiltrate a castrum and destroy something literally called the ultima weapon that can eat primals to help prepare explorer returns to the paladins in ulda who bestow upon her a suit of resplendent armor which is coincidentally or perhaps not so coincidentally the same armor she saw herself wearing in her vision when she first arrived in eorzea taking that as a good sign she rides off to the immortal flames encampment north of vesper bay where she prepares to assault the castrum and take out rita teen who was recently cited as arriving via airship the entire operation archon kicks off here as explorer and a team of seven other adventurers infiltrate the fort while the flames nearby provide a distraction the team encounters rita teen who dismisses his guards and tells explorer that he fully believes in gaius's quest to save this realm from their problems despite his imposing presence and confidence ridditine ends up being no match for the team of elite adventurers and he swiftly cut down with the first stage of the operation a success the plan continues with the maelstrom successfully shutting down two of the other cast rooms explorer makes her way to camp blue fog near castro meridianum where the immortal flames are planning their part the soldiers are a little wary of the coming battle so explorers spend some time rallying their spirits with that done the time has come for explora and her team to sneak into the fort and take down the shield protecting the praetorium bolstered by the immortal flames causing mayhem on the outside of the castrum the interior of the castrum is crawling with imperial patrols and the team takes out a fair number of them as they sweep through in search of the shield generator sid joins up with them informing explorer that the shield is actually generated by three towers and she'll need to disable all of them the team heads through a waste disposal chute to get to a cerulean facility supplying fuel to one of the towers thanks to some explosives they pick up along the way they disable the cerulean supply cutting off one of the towers they continue through aided by sid utilizing one of the magitek armors to blow open some gates and make their way towards the second tower which sid destroys using the armor this unfortunately blows the magitek core inside the armor forcing them to continue on without it they reach the third tower but are attacked by an imperial assault craft necessitating the usage of some nearby mortar cannons to take down after shooting it out of the sky it crashes into the third tower completely disabling the shield surrounding the praetorium their mission is complete but one last obstacle stands in their way livia sas junius riding her own special magitek armor the armor proves to be completely impregnable but utilizing more mortar cannons they managed to disable it leaving livia to face a team of eight adventurers it doesn't take long for her to be slain as well with that it's time for the final phase of operation arkhan infiltrate the praetorium find the ultima weapon and destroy it sid takes the team up to the praetorium in the enterprise and they begin moving through encountering many more imperial soldiers and armors the group eventually encounters gaius van balzar who attempts to convince both sid and explorer to join the guardians ensuring them that they have aorzia's best interests in mind obviously sid and explorer aren't biting so gaius leaves them to fight a large magitek colossus before heading deeper into the fortress the group handily defeats it and continues onward with sid deciding to remain here in the monitoring room in order to help guide them the group soon encounters an extremely well-defended door requiring the usage of magitek armor in order to blow open after obtaining some and destroying it they sweep through a large number of enemy armors before encountering nero tolskava an engineering rival of sids nero entirely resents sid's fame as sid is apparently still thought of fondly and garlamald as a prodigy of magitek even though nero believes himself to be sid superior the people of garlimold proclaim that he merely walks in sid's footsteps nero plans on stopping explorer in order to finally impress gaius but she didn't come all this way just to be beat up by an engineer so the team manages to trounce him as well he flees before being killed however and it seems that he provided enough of a distraction for the ultima weapon to actually be powered up rather than destroying an inactive machine now they'll have to actually fight the weapon on the way down however they encounter gaius again who disparages aorzians for believing in false gods who are no different than primals in aorzia the beast tribes often summon gods to fight in their stead though your comrades only rarely respond in kind which is strange is it not are the twelve otherwise engaged i was given to understand they were your protectors if you truly believe them your guardians why do you not repeat the trick that served you so well at cartino and call them down he says that for the world of man to mean anything man must own the world and only a man of power can do such a thing to this end he hath fought ever to raise himself through conflict to grow rich through conquest and when the dust of battle settles it is ever the strong who dictate the fate of the weak he plans on his defeat of explorer to prove that he is ready to become emperor of garlimold that's a fine thought except that he definitely does not defeat explora and he takes the climbing inside of the active ultima weapon in order to take direct control of it the team begins engaging the weapon but they find that it's completely invincible to even their strongest attacks the situation looks hopeless until explorer hears heidelen's voice telling her that if she would triumph she'll have to look to the light the power of the echo manages to penetrate the weapons defenses and the team begins to do some damage to the machine eventually causing the essences of the various primals it consumed to be released the situation begins to look more dire for gaius as he fails to kill explora at which point lahabrea shows up informing him that explora is protected by heidelen he then tells guys that inside of the ultima weapon is a dormant core that not even the scholars of oleg understood and it contains a spell without parallel known as ultima unleashing this was lahabraya's true goal all along and he proceeds to activate the core against guys's wishes the hour is at hand behold but a sliver of my god's power and from the deepest pit of the seven hells to the very pinnacle of the heavens the world shall tremble unleash ultimate [Laughter] such devastation this was not my intention the devastation is indeed incredible practically obliterating the entire praetorium although heidelin manages to protect the team although it clearly drains her gaius engages the team again with heidelin urging them to destroy the machine before it can fire off another ultima fortunately the team succeeds in finally destroying the ultima weapon knocking out gaius in the process heed me the subjects of a weak ruler must needs look to a higher power for providence and their dependence comes at a cost to the realm the misguided elevate the frail and the frail lead the people astray unless a man of power rests control the cycle will never be broken you you of all people must see the truth in this you who have the strength to rule la habrea shows up again and scoffs at gaius's failure before telling explorer that heidelne is responsible for a growing imbalance in this world and that she needs to be removed from existence if it is permitted to worsen the very laws of existence both etheric and physical will be warped beyond all recognition the only way to accomplish this is to bring back the one true god the asean's master this is done by bringing about a chaotic confluence of untold proportions thus the asean's machinations of spreading chaos la habrea attempts to take on the group himself but fares no better and in a moment of vulnerability explorer receives another vision from heidelin she's told that in order to pierce the shadows she'll need a blade of light the six crystals that she gathered during her time across ayorzia form together into a sword of pure light which she proceeds to use to break the crystal that lahabrea is using to possess thankful's body heidelin praises explorer for her success in stopping la jabrea but warns that the aseans are not gone entirely and until they're cast out completely the world will never know a lasting peace thanks to the sentient magitek armor explorer manages to flee the destruction of the praetorium with thancred in tow in the aftermath the people of eorzea celebrate their victory and their freedom from garlian oppression the three city-state leaders praised the scions for their work in saving eorzea while warning that their problems are not over with but together they can prosper in peace old rifts threaten to divide us within our walls while hordes of beastmen claw at our gates and though the black wolf be slain the rest of the pack remains yet no faux need we fear so long as we stand as one so long as the scion stand for peace so long as our champion stands fast for there exists no adversity over which we may not jointly prevail they officially proclaim that the seventh umbral era which began with the calamity is now over and they're now moving forward into the seventh astral era a time of peace and abundance with this the leaders state that their realm has been reborn unfortunately it's not all sunshine and roses as explorer receives a sudden vision of a massive crystal similar to heidelin but one of darkness instead of light the celebration is then interrupted by cries that another primal has emerged forcing a quick end to the party elsewhere a number of aseans including la habrea congregate to discuss their plans for the world mentioning that they are drawing closer to something known as the reckoning it would seem that the primal that has emerged is none other than the same one that caused the calamity five years ago bahamut explorer may have won a pivotal victory for eorzea but her work is far from over she's confident however that with both heidelin and the rest of the scions at her side she can protect aorzia from any of the threats that it might face you

Channel: The Exploring Series

Views: 570,990

Keywords: final fantasy xiv, a realm reborn, ffxiv story recap, final fantasy 14, square enix, final fantasy xiv: a realm reborn, final fantasy, ffxiv story, final fantasy xiv (video game), final fantasy xiv story, ffxiv recap, video game, final fantasy xiv online, ff14 story, ffxiv lore, ffxiv story summary, ffxiv story so far, final fantasy mmorpg, story recap, final fantasy mmo, ffxiv arr recap, ffxiv arr summary, ffxiv arr story, the exploring series, story of ffxiv

Id: 8Z6Srs4wpzI

Length: 228min 33sec (13713 seconds)

Published: Fri Apr 30 2021

Reddit Comments

[u/ExcelIsSuck]

hey thats the scp guy

[u/mvdunecats]

4 hours, eh? That's like 5 and a half runs of Praetorium. Guess it can help me pass time while doing main story roulette.

[u/AlexiosBlake]

Now that’s lot of work.

[u/tuskiji]

Thank you so much for this!

[u/Kenny078]

It’s hard work and a good recap, oh it’s long though. I am looking for quick recap before each expansion because I always forget the plot after a long break. Anyone know of any creator that does a quick last episode recap like when we watch a new season of walking dead.