#holy shit I can't believe the first trial of the expansion is freaking Zodiark

[brineffxiv]

I arrive on the Moon.

Emet-Selch's voice informs me that this is where Zodiark is imprisoned (and reminds me that both of our star's moons were prisons for gods. WTF, did the Allagans know He was here?) and where the souls of those sacrificed to give Him life still slumber.

Uh... speaking of??? That's an Ancient.

There's a disembodied voice calling to me. Is it that person?

They spawn anguish monsters when I interact with them, and disappear when I go to touch them. The disembodied voice tells me not to do that, a little bit late...

Somehow I failed to notice this palace(?) immediately.

Hey look, that aetheryte is in the style of the ones from Amaurot! I wonder...

Oh. Oh my. Hello.

Are you like the shades from Emet-Selch's Amaurot? A memory? Or are you a completely different kind of arcane construct that just happens to resemble them?

Wait, I missed that first part.

Hydaelyn created the moon?!

Holy shit.

So our star has no natural satellites. This moon was created to imprison Zodiark.

On the topic of Zodiark, I am having difficulty parsing what I'm looking at exactly. I'm seeing... Man, I don't know. Wings, horns, big beefy arms? He's got a superficial resemblance to the trial boss Sephirot from the Warring Triad.

That's only a projection of the real thing, ensconced in the core of the moon.

There are six brands that bind Zodiark in his prison; five were broken in Fandaniel's attempted jailbreak. The Watcher has managed to repair one of them, and is working on the other four. But his attempts are being stymied...

By the souls of those sacrificed to summon Zodiark.

These... These are the people Emet-Selch wanted to save. To free. These are the people I condemned to a purgatory eternal by slaying him. These are the people who willingly gave their lives in the hope that their brethren could save their future.

The Watcher wants me to "expel" them. What does expelling them mean?

I... No. Please don't ask me to do that. I've already taken their hope. I cannot take any more from them.

Okay. That. That I can do.

The spirits are so fragile, so little left of them, that simply taking to them causes them to dissipate.

I am crying again.

Oh! Oh it's a dog! A sparkly dog! Hello puppy.

The dog leads me across the surface of Mare Lamentorum, from one brand to another, and on to more spirits. They all dissipate after saying their piece. Giving voice to their laments.

Until, quite suddenly, they don't. And there are more and more of them.

But someone...?

Saves me?

Hythlodaus?! Hythlodaeus!!

The real Hythlodaeus!

If you weren't a ghost I would hug you!

Ah! It's like meeting an old friend! It is meeting an old friend. Just like that, you confirm I am Azem's reincarnation. A question I'd had since your shade first handed me the constellation crystal.

But how?! The others, they're not... they're not "themselves"! How are you you?!

You. You... N. No. Why are you here...

You were sacrificed to Zodiark.

...And just like that, I understand Emet-Selch's pain, his drive, anew. To know that Hythlodaeus is... was? One of the souls trapped with Zodiark. Suddenly I can understand it, on a personal level. And he, Emet, he knew all of them. He knew them well enough to build an entire city populated with their souls. Knew Hythlodaeus well enough that meeting the real man is nearly indistinguishable from the shade.

On that topic...

Hythlodaus is adorable. He seems... happy. To find that the Emet-Selch he once knew had not changed, fundamentally, in all this time.

I must contrast that with the shade Emet-Selch had created, who seemed to think that while they were once close, they were no longer? I wonder if that was a projection of Emet's own subconscious dread that Hythlodaeus would dislike the person he had become?

That's fanfic fodder is what that is. God dammit why are you both dead?? I'm sad now.

Hythlodaeus tells me about what his time was like as a shade. How they know and remember all that had happened between their sacrifice and Zodiark's ultimate imprisonment. They know of the sundering and-

OMG.

You're not sundered, are you, Hythlodaus? No, you can't be. You wouldn't be you if you had been. Did being sacrificed to Zodiark ultimately save you from the sundering?! That's incredible.

Oh. Oh, Hythlodaeus, you don't know what that means to me.

Our lovely little chat is interrupted by the shattering of one of the two remaining brands. Hythlodaus identifies the two souls as Fandaniel and one he does not know, but who is "an unfamiliar but fearsome being." He promises to ensure that the shades will no longer hinder me by way of apology for keeping me from my duty, and urges me to protect the final brand.

The lustrous dog returns, and I ride it to the last brand...

But I am too late.

Fandaniel waxes poetic about Zodiark's power and potential; pointing out that without Elidibus, Zodiark has neither heart or will to guide Him. Which I hadn't considered. Elidibus was Zodiark. What's left down there... is a mindless being of pure power.

(Whoa, hey, wait. Does this mean... Because, Elidibus was already out of Zodiark when the sundering happened... Hydaelyn didn't actually have to fight a thinking being, She took advantage of Elidibus' absence! She didn't win a fair fight... That makes so much sense. I wondered how the most powerful primal, fueled by half-a-city's worth of lives, could lose to a primal fueled by a dozen or so. But the lights were on with no one home...)

Zenos is more to the point and challenges me to battle. We're about to beat the stuffing out of each other when Fandaniel third-wheel's his way in with an interruption: he's got something to say.

And then he lets himself fall backwards, into the gaping hole in the ground that leads to Zodiark.

Oh. Fuck.

Haha... he just sniped Zodiark out from under Zenos... And now we're in big trouble.

I am alone in the darkness with the collective will of the ancients. They are speaking their purpose to me.

And Fandaniel is suppressing and overruling them.

He is subverting their purpose.

He is hurting them!

I know what I must do.

Who? An ancient, I would guess, but I don't recognize that voice...

I don't think I know him? But...

He's talking to Hades! He's talking to Emet-Selch!

...Hythlodaeus?

Maybe?

Whoever he is, he dissolves into sparkly blue particles and floats away. A mystery for another time.

Oh wow. Hi Zodiark.