T w e n t y S i d e d

Atop the Pharos, Ashe stands in awe of the Sun-Cryst, holding the Treaty-Blade in one hand and the Sword of Kings in the other.Very unsubtle visual storytelling, just like in the Stilshrine. Vaan passive-aggressively pushes her to destroy the crystal here and now, but she flatly tells him to shut his pansy ass up.

Closing her eyes and taking a deep breath, she raises the Treaty-Blade high into the air. The blade radiates light, the seas boil, and the sky shakes, the Sun-Cryst exuding incredible mist in concurrence as fiery, angelic apparitions fly about.

This would seem to be a pretty damn clear statement of intent on Ashe’s part, so I guess we know what Ivalice is in for… Until Rasler appears one more time before her, and she completely loses her shit at him. Nevermind the fact that she should have figured out by now that this is definitely not Rasler, but an illusion meant to twist her emotions. She accuses him of wanting her to use the nethicite and destroy the Empire, to which she emphatically cries, “I cannot!”

Continue reading ⟩⟩ “A Travelog of Ivalice, Part 15: Pokémon: Crystal Version -or- How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Cryst”

The Rocketeer —PLEASE—STAND—BY—

Once in the courtyard of the tower, the gate shuts behind us and the party is attacked by some sort of gray-brown smear on the floor. At least, that’s what it was after the battle; I didn’t get a very good look at it beforehand, and it’s existence had no bearing on anything. I do have to ask: are we not officially ‘in’ with the Occuria at this point? If Ashe and her cronies all get eaten by a giant tortoise on the way up the Pharos, what’s the Occuria’s backup plan? Do they have any other fallen heirs of the Dynast-King to half-manipulate into preventing their traitor from assuming absolute power over Ivalician affairs? Sure, they need some way to verify it’s us climbing the Pharos and not some very lucky shipwrecked Seeq, but the door to the Pharos’ interior doesn’t even open until the Dynast-King’s heir stands in front of it, so you’d think that would be a system they could rely upon.

Standing before the entrance, the party stops to examine a message carved into the wall. Fran says it looks very old before reading it, but it seems the last 1,100 years has done little indeed to change the written word of Ivalice, because the grammar, spelling and diction are all indistinguishable from the party’s own. That’s lucky; if I found a note written by King Arthur in 1100 AD’s Middle English, I’d be pretty well fucked.The message is actually written in English, merely with a stylized font. The words with double letters stand out easily, in particular the signature, “In Blood, Raithwall.” Check the double-L by Fran’s elbow in the image above. The Galteans make the Al Bhed look like expert cryptographers.

The note starts off, and I’m paraphrasing here, “This tower is tall.” Eureka. Then it sermonizes for a bit: “He without power, want it not; He with power, trust it not; He with sight, heed it not. Rend illusion; cut the true path.” Ashe is content to space out and pick her nose until Fran reads that it was signed by Raithwall himself. Wait, so Raithwall thought the whole, “Hey we’re the gods, we’ll give you nukes since you’re fucking aces in our book,” deal was sort of sketchy, too? And he still went on to found a four-hundred-year golden age followed by seven hundred more years of relative peace that we’re only now just shitting up? Let’s never take that into consideration, okay, Ashe? Awesome, you’re the best.

Continue reading ⟩⟩ “A Travelog of Ivalice, Part 14: To the Peak”

The Rocketeer —PLEASE—STAND—BY—

Back in Giruvegan, the party is back in the room where they fought Shemhazai; the gate to the floating platform is forever closed now. Too bad, since we, you know, STILL DON’T KNOW HOW TO USE NETHICITE. I’m serious, even if we’re content with just using it as a blunt-force nuke crystal, how do we even do that? Do we throw it like a grenade? I can see some issues with that regarding the blast radius. Are there magic words? A dance, perhaps? At this point our only method of deploying nethicite as a weapon is to load it into one of our own airships’ engine drives and fly it into the enemy’s lines as a kamikaze superbomb. I mean, that’s not bad, but it only works once, and if we can use it as more of a deathray I think that would be a bit more efficient. I’m not hard to please.Well, I mean… Oh, fine.

Another thing the Occuria neglected to mention is where to find the Sun-Cryst. I’m sure it slipped their minds. The party looks to Fran, to see if Gerun’s flowery description stirred anything in the ol’ travelogue,Why did I not spell this here as I spell it in title of the thing? There’s a very good reason: I’m still a hack. but she comes up empty. It’s fine, I’m sure Fran’s really good at plenty of other stuff we never see.

Continue reading ⟩⟩ “A Travelog of Ivalice, Part 13: Set the Controls for the Heart of the Sun”

The Rocketeer —PLEASE—STAND—BY—