The main two things I've been doing aside from wasting time with A Crystalline Prophecy are:
1. New past city missions/quests.
2. Exploring Allied Notes Notorious Monsters.
I have to say, the quests for the cities were already good, but SE upped themselves this time by leaving us at cliffhangers for each of the respective cities. At this point we're starting to get tied into the opening movie all of us watched years and years ago when this game made it's debut as well as the other major events that shaped the original rank quest story lines.
In this post, I'll detail Bastok's story. I'll follow up with San d'Oria and Windurst in the coming days.
Most of Bastok's missions up to this point have been of the "Whodunnit?" variety. Up until now, it's been a pretty cut and dry mystery story with a couple minor surprises. The latest quests involve the Mythril Musketeers directly. Having observed that the random killings of four civilians/nobody politicians follow the patterns of the notorious killer Darksteel Hurricane, the Mythril Musketeers are called into action to find him. After a series of questionings (and a very humorous scene with the Goblins), we're led to a waterfall in Vunkerl Inlet where Darksteel Hurricane is believed to be hiding.
Devising a plan to flush him out, the Mythril Musketeers have Darksteel Hurricane trapped on the bridge where they want him. A stand-off ensues and the Mythril Musketeer captain (Klara) decides to put her rusty negotiation skills to work. After working her magic, it gets spoiled by impatient members of her backup and ends with Darksteel Hurricane being dealt a deadly blow by Klara and tumbling over the bridge to the waters below.
Body nowhere in sight, Klara's own team begins to doubt the legitimacy of Darksteel Hurricane being the real deal and thus...doubting their own leader's story along with trying to figure out what type of conversation took place between the notorious killer and their leader. Nicolaus, Five Moons and Volker return to the scene of Darksteel Hurricane's demise only to find his armor strewn about and an Ahriman flying off to a cave in the distance. Following the Ahriman to it's hidey-hole and throwing a flare grenade in to flush them out, the trio (and Qtipus) are surprised by the fact that there are multiple Ahriman in the hole.
The fight that ensues was actually a very well thought out BC. Arch Ahriman has the ability to shape-shift into one of your NPC companions. Nicolaus, Volker or Five Moons. The first time I attempted this was a trio attempt with Geddoe and Oniken. Our set up was PLD/NIN, SCH/RDM and DRG/WHM. Beating it with this set up required some luck, which didn't befall us. We timed out with Arch Ahriman at 1%. Damage dealt to his "clones" does not translate directly to Arch Ahriman itself. So you're basically fighting a bit of a random sequence of enemies. We got a lot of Nicolaus in our first attempt. I died twice to freak happenings (bad luck I mentioned before). Nicolaus apparently can Hexa-strike with the best of them and knocked me out with a dose of 1300+ damage. The other time I died was from lack of stun and eating a Thunder IV from Nicolaus.
Let's just say I'm not a Nicolaus fan at the moment.
After losing, we sat around and strategized a bit more, then came up with a great solution to fix our strategy.
Enter: The Cuban.
BLU does a lot of wonders for this BC and we were in and out within 15 minutes. We got a lot of Volker this time along with a higher dose of Five Moons (hatechu guillotine). Five Moons, Nicolaus and Volker are starting to believe that Klara may not be herself if, in fact, this Ahriman had the ability to shape shift along with perhaps another presence manipulating events to show only certain things to individuals. A wave of Kindred start to rush the Musketeers as they're discussing possibilities. Nicolaus and Five Moons insist Volker and I return to Bastok to ensure the president is safe as the Musketeers had just been re-promoted to the president's personal guard.
Back in Bastok, We find that Klara makes Zeid swear that he will stand by her side unwavering no matter what happens and then proceeds to nearly murder the president. A fight ensues between the president and Klara (albeit a very one-sided fight) and is interrupted by the appearance of Volker and myself. Volker is taken down like a little pansy and Zeid has had enough. He stops the assassination of the president and holds off Klara long enough for Five Moons and Nicolaus to arrive only to find himself holding Klara and Five Moons off each other shortly afterwards. Klara decides it's best to leave and says to everyone on her way out "Next time we meet, it will not be me." seemingly confirming the original suspicions of all the musketeers.
My thoughts on this story are that it's starting to point more and more directly to the Shadow Lord being directly involved in the happenings of Bastok. He's obviously involved in all of the cities, but it seems like Bastok has the most blatant clues about it. I feel like this is leading us up to the point where Zeid and Volker have their infamous show-down with the Shadow Lord that ended the war. As for Klara, she's obviously possessed by something. What manner of creature it is, I'm not sure, but I'm reasonably certain it's not an Ahriman. It's setting up nicely for a Qtipus vs. Klara/Klara's manipulator BC in the coming updates. I get the feeling this fight will be where we see Klara's ultimate demise and the ascension of Volker to captain of the Mythril Musketeers.
And...my reward for finishing these missions?
San d'Oria tomorrow!
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