![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
xyzzysqrlSo I'm taking a break for a day or two from playing Final Fantasy 12: International Zodiac Job System edition. In part this is because I've given Sony some MMO money and I'll be playing DC Universe Online or Everquest 2 or Planetside 2 or Vanguard or whatever else looks inviting as a break. Let's face it, I gotta take a brief head-clearing break from TOTAL FINAL FANTASY IMMERSION or I'll suffer some kind of breakdown, paint the BF yellow, and ride him around the apartment while humming the chocobo theme.
Actually that sounds pretty fun. Hmm.
ANYWAY. There are also a bunch of sidequests piling up, according to the FAQ I'm using. When I come back, I may declare A Festival of Sidequests, or Sidequestival, and just screw around doing stuff that doesn't advance the actual story in any way. To that end, and as a reminder/refresher...
Let's recap the plot so far, as to be sure everyone's on the same page. With all the side-stuff I've been doing and intend to BE doing, actual plot content gets lost in the shuffle sometimes. It'll help to sort this out and we'll all have a better understanding of where things lie, because I may have got some stuff wrong on first pass. Like I said, I haven't really played this far before.
The scene opened in Dalmasca, at the royal wedding of Princess ASHE of Dalmasca and Lord RASLER of Nabradia. Their happiness doesn't last, however, as Rasler was called off to war to defend his homeland. The Archadian Empire was invading! Then he died and Nabradia was conquered by the Empire, who turned their sights on Dalmasca.
Skip ahead a bit.
Dalmasca was losing the war against the Empire, so the King agreed to sign a peace treaty. CAPTAIN BASCH FON RONSENBURG OF DALMASCA learned that the King was to be murdered after signing the treaty so the Empire could take over more easily, so he mobilized a small force including REKS, a young, honest, trustworthy knight. Unfortunately, the "plot to kill the thing" was a lure to get Basch to the throne room. In front of Reks, someone who looked a great deal like Basch killed the king and then stabbed Reks. Reks would later testify to Basch's actions, then die.
Princess Ashe is declared dead by suicide, Basch is taken into custody, thrown in prison, and declared executed... and the Empire wins.
Skip ahead two years.
War orphans roam the streets of Rabanastre, the capital city of Dalmasca, like wild animals. One of these orphans is VAAN, who dreams of being a Sky Pirate and who mostly spends his time stealing from Imperials. His young friend PENELO tolerates this but tries to keep him out of trouble, which is full-time employment all by itself. One day, VAYNE SOLIDOR, the Imperial Consul and current ruler of Dalmasca, pays a visit to the city. This reminder of imperial rule irritates Vaan, who decides that it's time he took a little something for himself. He breaks into the former royal palace with intent to steal.
Deep in the royal palace's treasury, he triggers a secret cache containing the DUSK SHARD, a piece of deifacted nethicite which reacts to those of royal blood. Naturally he steals it, to the consternation of two other thieves. FRAN and BALTHIER. The two have infiltrated the castle looking for something to steal as well, and Vaan got there first.
As they're hashing this out, the Resistance attacks the castle in an attempt to get at Vayne. The three thieves agree to an alliance to escape. Unfortunately the Dusk Shard drains the magic from Fran's hoverbike, causing the three to crash. They escape through the sewers instead, running across AMALIA, a dashing resistance leader. Pulling her out of being cornered by guards, the four escape deeper until they're cornered and captured.
Penelo is distraught to see Vaan going to prison, so Balthier makes a grand gesture of 'loaning' her his handkerchief until he and Vaan return to collect it. This gesture captures the eye of some bounty hunters looking for Balthier. Meanwhile, Amalia is seperated from the group and taken elsewhere, and Vaan, Fran, and Balthier are sent off to prison.
They promptly escape, taking with them Basch, who had been imprisoned in a cage suspended above a deep, dark pit for the last two years. Basch tells them that it was in fact his twin brother, an Imperial Judge, who killed the King. After escaping, they find Penelo kidnapped by bounty hunters as bait to lure in Balthier, and dash to her rescue at the Bhujerba Mines.
At the mines, they find a young man claiming to be named "Lamont", who wants to join them to explore. He is revealed to be LARSA SOLIDOR, Vayne's twelve-year-old brother and second-in-line for the throne. He's there to investigate claims of "manufactured nethicite", a term that catches Balthier's attention. There's no time to discuss it, however, as bounty hunters attack. The party escapes, and Penelo is taken into Larsa's protection.
The party then meets with Marquis Ondore, another high-ranking figure in the Resistance. He arranges to have the group captured and imprisoned on an Imperial airship, so they can escape. On the way they join up with Amalia, who is now revealed to be PRINCESS ASHE, as well as VOSSLER, Basch's old war buddy. Larsa also returns Penelo, revealing that he does not always agree with current Imperial policy.
(I'm pretty sure this is the last time Penelo will be relevant to the plot, ever.)
With the Dusk Shard now in the hands of the Empire, Ashe turns her attention to the DAWN SHARD, which can also prove that she is of royal blood. They travel to the tomb of the Dynast-King and recover that, as well as his personal Esper. Then the party gets captured again.
Holy SHIT this group is just IN AND OUT of jail ALL THE TIME. Seriously, what the HELL.
Ahem.
In this case, it's because Vossler was in Imperial employ and reporting back to them. Basch and Vossler duel to the death, and Fran goes berserk because some COMPLETE IDIOT stuck the Dawn Shard in an airship engine. The 8th Imperial Fleet explodes into a giant hailstorm of fire and death and doom. Lady Ashe sees this and decides it's an excellent weapon to use against her enemies, proving she may not be playing with a full deck. No one knows how it works, however, so they go to a small tribe called the Garif. They don't know how it works either, except that it stores up magical energy and then releases it in a huge explosion.
Then the group meets Larsa again, and he wants to go to Mt. Bur-Omisace to meet with someone about stopping the war. The group agrees to escort him.
AND THAT'S WHERE WE LEFT OFF.
OTHER THINGS I HAVE DONE THAT ARE NOT PLOTWORTHY:
Hunted a bunch of things.
Chain-comboed monsters around.
Ground for experience like crazy.
Gotten Larsa incredibly high.
Been beat up by a dessert food.
Failed at audience participation.
Actually that sounds pretty fun. Hmm.
ANYWAY. There are also a bunch of sidequests piling up, according to the FAQ I'm using. When I come back, I may declare A Festival of Sidequests, or Sidequestival, and just screw around doing stuff that doesn't advance the actual story in any way. To that end, and as a reminder/refresher...
Let's recap the plot so far, as to be sure everyone's on the same page. With all the side-stuff I've been doing and intend to BE doing, actual plot content gets lost in the shuffle sometimes. It'll help to sort this out and we'll all have a better understanding of where things lie, because I may have got some stuff wrong on first pass. Like I said, I haven't really played this far before.
The scene opened in Dalmasca, at the royal wedding of Princess ASHE of Dalmasca and Lord RASLER of Nabradia. Their happiness doesn't last, however, as Rasler was called off to war to defend his homeland. The Archadian Empire was invading! Then he died and Nabradia was conquered by the Empire, who turned their sights on Dalmasca.
Skip ahead a bit.
Dalmasca was losing the war against the Empire, so the King agreed to sign a peace treaty. CAPTAIN BASCH FON RONSENBURG OF DALMASCA learned that the King was to be murdered after signing the treaty so the Empire could take over more easily, so he mobilized a small force including REKS, a young, honest, trustworthy knight. Unfortunately, the "plot to kill the thing" was a lure to get Basch to the throne room. In front of Reks, someone who looked a great deal like Basch killed the king and then stabbed Reks. Reks would later testify to Basch's actions, then die.
Princess Ashe is declared dead by suicide, Basch is taken into custody, thrown in prison, and declared executed... and the Empire wins.
Skip ahead two years.
War orphans roam the streets of Rabanastre, the capital city of Dalmasca, like wild animals. One of these orphans is VAAN, who dreams of being a Sky Pirate and who mostly spends his time stealing from Imperials. His young friend PENELO tolerates this but tries to keep him out of trouble, which is full-time employment all by itself. One day, VAYNE SOLIDOR, the Imperial Consul and current ruler of Dalmasca, pays a visit to the city. This reminder of imperial rule irritates Vaan, who decides that it's time he took a little something for himself. He breaks into the former royal palace with intent to steal.
Deep in the royal palace's treasury, he triggers a secret cache containing the DUSK SHARD, a piece of deifacted nethicite which reacts to those of royal blood. Naturally he steals it, to the consternation of two other thieves. FRAN and BALTHIER. The two have infiltrated the castle looking for something to steal as well, and Vaan got there first.
As they're hashing this out, the Resistance attacks the castle in an attempt to get at Vayne. The three thieves agree to an alliance to escape. Unfortunately the Dusk Shard drains the magic from Fran's hoverbike, causing the three to crash. They escape through the sewers instead, running across AMALIA, a dashing resistance leader. Pulling her out of being cornered by guards, the four escape deeper until they're cornered and captured.
Penelo is distraught to see Vaan going to prison, so Balthier makes a grand gesture of 'loaning' her his handkerchief until he and Vaan return to collect it. This gesture captures the eye of some bounty hunters looking for Balthier. Meanwhile, Amalia is seperated from the group and taken elsewhere, and Vaan, Fran, and Balthier are sent off to prison.
They promptly escape, taking with them Basch, who had been imprisoned in a cage suspended above a deep, dark pit for the last two years. Basch tells them that it was in fact his twin brother, an Imperial Judge, who killed the King. After escaping, they find Penelo kidnapped by bounty hunters as bait to lure in Balthier, and dash to her rescue at the Bhujerba Mines.
At the mines, they find a young man claiming to be named "Lamont", who wants to join them to explore. He is revealed to be LARSA SOLIDOR, Vayne's twelve-year-old brother and second-in-line for the throne. He's there to investigate claims of "manufactured nethicite", a term that catches Balthier's attention. There's no time to discuss it, however, as bounty hunters attack. The party escapes, and Penelo is taken into Larsa's protection.
The party then meets with Marquis Ondore, another high-ranking figure in the Resistance. He arranges to have the group captured and imprisoned on an Imperial airship, so they can escape. On the way they join up with Amalia, who is now revealed to be PRINCESS ASHE, as well as VOSSLER, Basch's old war buddy. Larsa also returns Penelo, revealing that he does not always agree with current Imperial policy.
(I'm pretty sure this is the last time Penelo will be relevant to the plot, ever.)
With the Dusk Shard now in the hands of the Empire, Ashe turns her attention to the DAWN SHARD, which can also prove that she is of royal blood. They travel to the tomb of the Dynast-King and recover that, as well as his personal Esper. Then the party gets captured again.
Holy SHIT this group is just IN AND OUT of jail ALL THE TIME. Seriously, what the HELL.
Ahem.
In this case, it's because Vossler was in Imperial employ and reporting back to them. Basch and Vossler duel to the death, and Fran goes berserk because some COMPLETE IDIOT stuck the Dawn Shard in an airship engine. The 8th Imperial Fleet explodes into a giant hailstorm of fire and death and doom. Lady Ashe sees this and decides it's an excellent weapon to use against her enemies, proving she may not be playing with a full deck. No one knows how it works, however, so they go to a small tribe called the Garif. They don't know how it works either, except that it stores up magical energy and then releases it in a huge explosion.
Then the group meets Larsa again, and he wants to go to Mt. Bur-Omisace to meet with someone about stopping the war. The group agrees to escort him.
AND THAT'S WHERE WE LEFT OFF.
OTHER THINGS I HAVE DONE THAT ARE NOT PLOTWORTHY:
Hunted a bunch of things.
Chain-comboed monsters around.
Ground for experience like crazy.
Gotten Larsa incredibly high.
Been beat up by a dessert food.
Failed at audience participation.
no subject
Date: 2012-12-09 01:56 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-12-09 02:44 am (UTC)Accordingly I'm sort of juggling one-part "Responsible Documenter" with two parts "Wacky Funster" and a futher part "I Have No idea What I'm Doing, Let's Hope This Makes For An Interesting Entry".
I'm still fricking amazed ANYone reads these things, t'be honest!
no subject
Date: 2012-12-09 02:48 am (UTC)