I’ve been running around so much lately that I hadn’t noticed I had gotten a letter over the weekend. It was a rougher one, and it’s heading into a month where it’s going to be just as busy if not more finalizing a lot of planning, so Aiki and I laid low and really only did what was needed to finish up the weekly tasks before taking a breather.

To my emotional surprise then when I opened the Mailbox at HQ to a letter and a wonderful bouquet of sunflowers.

The letter alone really hit me emotionally, and the flowers just added to said emotions. I decided to place them in my apartment with a pink ribbon as an additional memento to show that it was a very thoughtful gift from my wonderful pink cat to help lift my weary ears 💗

I’ve seen rainbows while adventuring across Etheirys and beyond, but have never been able to time one like this just right where I could no only enjoy it, but also get a shot of it as well! The last time I tried to it disappeared too quickly.

Always love seeing them appear after a rain shower, and there always such a beautiful sight to behold.

Everyone have a wonderful Monday ahead! We got this!

I usually tend to avoid discussing how I’m fairing in reality unless it’s either dire or directly related to health, and the reasoning is I know a lot of folks and friends are going through a lot right now. I wish the world would be far kinder to everyone so that everyone could be having a much less rougher time.

I haven’t been at my fullest lately since between still hurting mentally, and just being taxed so much elsewhere with projects and work-related issues, it’s really starting to show while I’ve been adventuring through Eorzea as well. So after a long, long day of attempting to alleviate my stress by taking care of a project that has been lingering far too long, I return to this after stepping away a moment.

This meant a lot, even if I wasn’t able to react or even realize it at the time. I know my cats are going through a lot right now and I wish they weren’t, but even with me not saying anything and just being half-away busy with other things, this little moment was appreciated.

I do realize things will get better not just for me but to everyone, even if there’s what feels like a insurmountable of trials in the way. We’ll get though this y’all; keep kicking tails and being the awesome folks y’all are and always have been. Never let anyone try to take that from you.

We recently got around to seeing the Final Fantasy XIV x Final Fantasy XVI event, which does have arguable the best award for completing it in the game thus so far. Spoilers relating to this event follows!

The quest starts out in Ul’Dah, and is a level 50 quest, which I haven’t seen one of these start this high since the Final Fantasy XIV x Final Fantasy XV event and XI prior. Seeing as it does involve a pretty neat fight at the end, it does make sense though.

One runs into this feller asking who one is, and thus begins the story with the Wandering Minstrel coming along for the ride based on one of his dreams. In his dream he mentions a scarlet star crossing paths with a bright white star and interprets it as someone or something is about to need us in some way.

This leads us to the Burning Wall in East Thanalan, and after a quick seek & find (that I took forever to do), we find our visitor from another star (but we don’t know that yet).

After a quick greeting between him, the Minstrel, and I, he introduces himself as Clive who has forgotten everything else about himself and how he got here. I realize they’ve used this as the basis for other crossover events in the past, but I don’t ever really mind it. I mean, if I or anyone else just magically appeared on another world, I’d probably feel this way in some way or another too.

Anyway, so we escort him back to Ul’Dah to make sure he’s alright, and we being to help him remember who he is. Not really ringing any bells with Ul’Dah’s surroundings, the two of us decide to embark to Gridania via airship since we found Clive kind of between the two city-states. The Minstrel decides to stay behind and ask the locales near the Burning wall to see if they know who Clive is. Before boarding the airship, it’s to Clive’s surprise that airships are a thing on Etheirys and are commonly used, and appears this will be his first time on one. I’ve not played Final Fantasy XVI, so I don’t know if they have airships there or not.

Upon arriving in Gridania, I take lead and show him around town hoping it’ll jostle something to help his memories. Aside from him liking Gridania, nothing really does until he hears ‘Garuda’ from the Adder’s Grand Company HQ. This ultimately leads us to a meeting with the Seedseer who talks about Garuda with both us and Clive, and ends with the Minstrel arriving to tell/confirm to us that Clive is in fact from another world since no one has recognized his description nor the tattoo on his face.

This ends up leading into how to get him back home, and it involves Ifrit and him having to come to terms with a ‘terrible truth’ that his memory keeps blocking. So the Minstrel meets us over at Apkallu falls, to then send us to the Bowl of Embers to meet with a copy of Ifrit that can still kick our tails.

Clive examines the Amalj’aa Ifrit, and acknowledges the similarities between the Ifrit he knows and ours, but are still rather different. This memory recollection transforms Eorzea’s Ifrit into the one Clive knows, and he gets big as seen as the header image.

The fight itself is neat, and I personally think a bit easier than the one from the Final Fantasy XV event, which is good. I never really liked that battle greatly since there was a couple of rough spots in it. The two abilities one gets to use during the battle are a lot of fun. The dodge/counter-attack skill is fun, but I had a hard time puling it off when it was not mandatory, but thankfully the dodge part always works when not on cool down and is not needed for the DPS check, but it would make that part a lot quicker.

At the end of the fight, he remembers he’s in fact Ifrit and then turns into Ifrit to finish off the Ifrit we’re fighting. Ifritception!

His memories come back, realizing he killed his younger brother as Ifrit, and goodest of boys Torgal appears.

Torgal appears and is there to help get Clive back home, which is conveniently the same place we found him at. So one more hop across the land back to Thanalan later, we’re ready to follow Torgal to their departure place. This section is neat because if one has done the Coils of Bahamut, it makes this whole part about Phoenix a lot more filled in. However, even with not, it’s still a neat way it explains how Clive got here.

Once everyone says their goodbyes, Clive and Torgal poof away back home.

The Minstrel makes an interesting 4th wall remark and heads on his way as well, but not before giving one a couple of Torgals: a minion and a mount. The mount version allows for indefinite petting of Torgal making it the best mount ever immediately.

Overall, I really did like this crossover event. It was just the right about of things along with a really great instance fight at the end. However, it really didn’t make me feel anything for Clive so I wish we were able to hang out with him a smidgen more even if it was just in dialog. Comparing that to meeting and hanging out with Noctis or even Iroha as those two gave me an emotional attachment.

That’s really the only thing I could say against it, else wise was a nice little with a fun fight. Afterwards, music scrolls from Final Fantasy XVI can be purchased from the Gold Saucer for MGP where the other music scrolls are bought from. I still haven’t gotten any yet, but due to a certain wonderful black cat, we have one of those gorgeous songs playing at HQ right now.

Y’all ever get that feeling of ‘something or somebody is watching me’ and feel an impending doom? N-no? Just me? A-alright then.

I-It’s probably my imagination then, there’s no way there’s something behind me that could possibly want to eat me. (Send help!)

There’s just something so tranquil and relaxing to hear a storm gently come through on a small island out in the sea. The winds swaying the trees in the surrounding area, the rains coming down on the roof above and hitting the stone ground just outside. The wonderful smell emitted from the storm itself being complimented by hearing the waves far off into the distance.

Such a lovely way to end a long day for certain!

Caught up with Aikirees after finalizing our last two Workshops to get them upgraded to level 3. It ended up being a rainy night on the island; so we just took a seat, had some tea & biscuits, and listened to the gentle raindrops hitting the roof of the cabin. It was a very wonderful way to end the night on.

Just have the one last landmark remaining to build (we’re being stubborn and are waiting on one material), which will fill all of the plots with something and that should unlock the first major quest on the island!

This past weekend, we achieved reaching Rank 10 on our Island Sanctuary! Overall it has been a really relaxing past time, especially since over the last two years all we’ve really been doing mainly is all the combat & story content. Don’t get me wrong, that’s the content I enjoy the most (this does not count extremes/savages/ultimates as I do not do those), but this been a very nice change of pace.

When we first got to the island, I wasn’t exactly sure what to do. The game does nudge one into a direction though to understand the basics of how to progress things on the island like the pasture, garden, making tools, building facilities to make/gather things, etc. So we really kind of just were led by the metaphorical string (carrot for me?) to get all the basics down. Upon doing all of that, one reaches about rank 4 and from there it becomes a free for all on what to work on and how to proceed.

We really mostly focused on the workshops, and making sure it had a full week of things to make and sell based on materials we either gathered personally, or had a granary assist with said gathering. Granary was unlocked a rank or so after 4, so at first it was just making sure the one Workshop was always busy.

The early ranks were a blur since they go kind of quick keeping the workshop(s) busy and building out landmarks as they become unlocked. As the ranks go by, one can make tools for the mammets to assist in making the Hideaway bigger with more plots to add additional workshops (up to 4 for these), landmarks, and granaries (up to 2 for these). Landmarks are just nice features to add to one’s island, but they also help speed workshop production up.

After a certain point, one can move around all of these things if one so wishes to. We took the ‘build it, and forget it’ approach, but might nudge around things eventually. It does cost a little bit and some time, but that’s really about it. The island itself has two currencies in seafarer or islander cowries. The seafarer cowries expand the hideway and are accrued from the workshops, meanwhile the islander cowries I believe are from exporting additional gathered goods and can be used to buy fun cosmetics. Seafarer ones can be used for buying goodies too, but we haven’t yet.

One thing is it doesn’t necessarily mention when workshops/granaries/hideaway can be upgraded unless one looks at the plot that it was placed at. It could probably be examined in the hideaway management menu, but never tried that. This is something I wished was mentioned or had a better way to let us know, but I guess it’s not really a big issue. The neat thing with the hideaway upgrades specifically, is that the entire hideaway’s looks changes as well! From the base level to level 2, torches, and dirt pathways appear with wooden staircases where dirt ramps once were.

It’s a super nice touch that I began to enjoy seeing when I leveled up the hideaway itself. Each upgrade, no matter what it is minus landmarks, just required certain gathered materials and time for the granaries & workshops only. The hideaway is immediate. Just have to make sure it doesn’t affect the workshop’s materials otherwise it warns of it causing a deficit in the current crafting schedule. Messing up and adding a deficit once really bit me, so I had to make sure to not let that happen again.

Workshops are ran on an agenda schedule. One selects from a list of items that take 4, 6, or 8 hours to make, and it will automate the rest assuming the materials are gathered. It does a great job saying what materials are needed and when, so this makes gathering the materials a lot more streamlined.

Gathering is kind of similar to how it works normally, except each node is 1-2 materials per node. The good is there’s a bajillion nodes out in the island wilderness to be gathered. As the Ranks go up, more tools can be crafted to get more than one material off the node at a time and the secondary material is something different. So, say one hits a copper ore with the hammer – they’ll get one copper and one island rock. Both can be used to make things or used in the workshop.

Also, leveling up the hideaway itself adds larger gardening and pasture land for more animals to be placed once captured. Kind of like a basic Pokemon game really. We only still have the tutorial’s sheep capture but eventually we’ll expand that out as well.

The pure gathering aspect is pretty relaxing and therapeutic as it is. After a couple of weeks of doing this, we reached Rank 10 which allows for flying across the island. Ground mounts run at flying speed, but flying does help getting around the terrain all the easier and makes inaccessible places available – like the top of the mountain for a bonkers set of nodes that make gathering those specific ones crazy fast. All gathering nodes give 10 experience per node in island experience, so it does help but would take an eternity to just rely on those for ranking up.

Building anything gives far more experience, and gathering from the garden gives 120 per item planted. Gathering things like wool off a sheep give experience as well, so far 50 per gathering attempt.

Granaries allow access to ‘rare’ materials that one cannot gather, and those are needed for upgrading workshops/granaries at certain levels. Even later landmarks need these items as well. Granaries cost seafarer cowries, but it’s really not that all expensive to max out a week per granary.

It may sound really overwhelming, but it’s really not and is meant to be taken at a more relaxed pace; just a nice little place to come relax between things, put on a favorite song in the hideaway’s orchestration, play with some minions, or just enjoy the simple island life when not trying to kick the tails out of yet another evil force threatening Etheirys.

I’m already excited to see what happens next and what the island will continue to evolve and look like over the next 10 ranks. Will be curious to experience certain quests that pop up once we’ve gotten certain criteria met in the near future as well!

We’ve been incredibly busy these past couple of weeks getting our ranks up for Island Sanctuary and recently hit Rank 10! I absolutely love these super comfy hanging basket seats that the Level 3 Hideway has with them! Spent a little time with Aikirees sharing one while just watching the starry night sky pass on by.