One thing of note we’re trying to accomplish before Dawntrail is a long forgotten project of building our very first airship for EOCA. Literal years ago now, when I acquired HQ, Aikirees and I started on this project and then long forgot about it until recently.
We’ve been working on it when we can, and then here comes Lizicus with Laureine burning the literal midnight oil to help get this project a bit close to being actual reality. Not long now, and we’ll be able to embark on voyages soon enough.
Day 16: Esprit Presents: The Flower Festival. The decor for this show was phenomenal, and the songs were all just so beautifully choreographed together. Was also really lovely seeing other old friends I hadn’t gotten the chance to see in a long while either.
If I recall, this was the one I was able to hang-back for a spell after the show and chat with a few of them too. All in all, it was a very memorable evening for certain.
Day 17’s – The day Eorzea Cartographers got the HQ house. We scoured the plots right after Empyreum was opened up to the public to pick out the perfect place for our Free Company’s new home. We finally found one, put in to the housing lottery and when it came up, we had our new place!
Was a really and truly exciting moment; from there, we spent a lot of time planning the entirety of it, gathering & crafting as much as we could do, and then placing all of that hard work. It took a few months of on and off working on it, but it paid off in spades at the end.
Highly doubt we’ll ever move HQ, as it’s just become such a part of EOCA as the name itself.
Episode XXXVIII! – Sometimes research and development comes with a cost. In this case, it came with a temporary loss of my ears and the added bonus of Aikirees’ amusement. Be careful what one drinks, it could have rather… unique results.
For Day 18, the last day of the original Cape Westwind Trial, Aikirees and I paid our respects to it one last time.
The reasoning as to why this was a memorable moment is before this patch, it was an 8-player trial and the first one everyone encounters during the Main Scenario Quest. It was such an easy trial that it got joked and meme’d to pieces. Was always such a hoot seeing a couple of sprouts with us and a few of us talking it up like it was some really difficult fight about to beheld and then it ending in literal minutes.
The best one I ever did was someone literally put placement markers on the ground, something one would mostly do during an extreme trial or a savage run. It was great, and a lot of fun silly memories taking this poor feller on as we all kept forging ahead.
Day 19, I chose the first Esprit performance I got the chance to see, MacroCosmos. Esprit and I had an interesting history, as a lot of people that were former Burgundy Troupe members splintered off to create Tech Step and then Esprit shortly thereafter Tech Step severely self-destructed. It wasn’t… pretty to say the least and I had to watch as a bunch of friends turned to enemies.
Anyway… – finally being able to see old friends perform again got me all excited as I hadn’t seen a lot of these folks since the fallout. The show was absolutely amazing and seeing what everyone came up with for their numbers all within the game’s parameters is always such a treat!
Thankfully, before Esprit’s ultimate ending, I did manage to see a couple more of their performances, and they kept getting better and better along the way.
I did this for the countdown to Endwalker way back when, and want to do it again for leading up to Dawntrail. I have picked out 20 of the most memorable moments from all of Endwalker and chronologically organized most of these. The last 5 or so are out of order, but are pretty important ones of the bunch. Some of these are retroactively posted, so I added the tag 20tillDawn to help with that.
With that, for Day 20, it was the first event I went to in Endwalker: Stellazzio Presents, The Henderson Horror Hall. Stellazzio Virtual Theater put on some of the most stellar shows, and this was no exception. The acting, the voiced dialog, the way the scenes changed and the great use of in-game practical effects along with the stage hands really brought this whole thing to life!
I was so blown away by this show that I had really wished I didn’t miss any of their previous ones as this was their absolute last one they ever did. There have been a few theaters that have appeared as spiritual successors, like the Firebird Theater, but never got a chance to see any of those yet. This was also prior to Datacenter travel, so another of the Kosmikros clan went in our steed.
A fair bit ago, during all of the major project planning and initializing, we achieved Rank 15 on our Island Sanctuaries! Comparatively there wasn’t really a whole lot different going on for how we went about attaining island experience, but what did help speed that up were the upgraded granaries and workshops as the ranks went up to 4 and slowly gaining access to those higher rank ones. Speaking of the workshops themselves, once we discovered that we could copy and paste entire agendas from one day to another was a huge game-changer for how we were able to quickly get the next week all scheduled out!
The Rank 4 Cozy Cabin.
The Rank 12 story quest was absolutely adorable and probably my favorite one thus so far with it having Sadu and Cirina pay a visit to the island along with Tataru. Aside from newly acquirable ranks for the workshops, granaries, and the cozy cabin itself, a new area was also accessible during this time named the Mountain Hollow. It really just allows for more gathering of resources to upgrade things, but it was just neat that there was a whole other new area to peak inside and explore along the way.
At around Rank 13, the final small area was able to be accessed for the final landmark spot and facility spot. By this point we already had maxed out the amount of granaries we could make (I recommend doing this sooner than later if one is starting Island Sanctuary), so we plopped down the last workshop we could make as well as the last landmark. Aiki and I picked a really neat looking clock tower for this last landmark plot. From here, it just becomes managing four workshops and two granaries weekly to keep the experience and cowries flowing to continue ranking up Island Sanctuary.
This isn’t really a daunting task for us, as we just keep the workshop agendas consistent week-to-week. This doesn’t give the best min/max results, but it’s positive progress nonetheless and this whole place is supposed to be relaxing anyway. Later on, we did start to tinker with island glamours, but before Rank 15, we just left everything alone as it was upgraded. In that regards, I think Cozy Cabin IV is by far my favorite looking cabin.
The Rank 15 quest rounded out the end of the journey thus so far. This was a fairly meaty story quest compared to the prior ones, having Emmanellain and Sicard pay a visit to the island this time around. I do rather enjoy their chemistry and taking them around the island to certain spots for chatting was a nice change. It ends with a really neat ‘old movie stylized’ cut scene encapsulating what we all did during that day on the island.
The outfit for this one I absolutely adore (you get an outfit per story quest except the last one), but sadly cannot wear the really awesome looking steampunk style top-hat.
Please…?
Perhaps one day, but for now, there’s only 5 ranks left till the end, and so far that has been going at a nice relaxing pace. We’re still really enjoying the relaxing feel of Island Sanctuary, and once we hit Rank 20, we’ll probably still return to our island getaway from time to time to just enjoy the scenery.
When you catch up with your younger sister, who offers you a lift on the back of her Shadow Pupper that may or may not want to eat your face. In these moments, it’s far better to maybe just consider walking or taking one’s own mount than potentially take this kind of gamble.
After what felt like forever, our major project came to a resoundingly satisfying solution over Memorial Day weekend. This past week has been doing a lot of tweaking, and with that all have been mostly addressed by last Friday, Aiki and I were able to catch up with Juli and Hun at the Gold saucer for the rest of the evening. We got there kind of on the tail end of the evening, so Aiki was able to do two GATEs where as I came along for the last one.
We all stayed there a bit longer thereafter chatting/dancing, and then gathered together to take some absolutely wonderful photos with the above one being taken by Juli herself. I’ve really missed these little moments, even if we we’re there for as long, it was just so nice to all be back together once again.
A year ago this day on May 20th, marked the first event I had ever put together. I took a group of folks, whom most of which were the first time we ever met in Eorzea before, through all of the Coils of Bahamut for their first time. That event was simply named ‘Bahamut Day.’
This was prior to the Frendedex even forming, or even my big social event that happened over Moonfire Faire. Before this point, aside from when Vysk and I had a very lovely Valentine’s evening, we all had only interacted through Mastodon. I forgot exactly how this idea to plan this day came about, it might have had something to do with assisting Aikirees through it, but that’s speculation. Regardless, the idea was there, and I put it to friends and folks to see if there was any interest.
Within about 3 days, I had already over half a full party wanting to give this a go(!) I made notes of who was interested and was wanting to come along so that I could make sure that the amount would not go higher than the max the party would be allowed to do. It ended up being 7 of 8 as the final tally, so at that point it was just planning the day, and getting everyone together.
Once the day was upon us, I sent out the message over Mastodon, and everything began to gather in Ul’Dah since that made it the simplest place to meet up as well as just in case anyone needed to take care of the quest right-quick. I remember being so gosh darn nervous too, but once folks started arriving and we started chatting, it was almost like we’d known each other for a very long time!
The Event itself was taking on all 13 coils unsync’d so that way we could enjoy them at our current levels and see the entirety of the story in one sitting. There is a lot of story locked behind these, and it also helps explain some connection between Legacy Final Fantasy XIV and A Realm Reborn. There’s no real benefit from doing then sync’d anyway except for bragging rights these days and I wanted this to be a fun relaxing event.
The entire event was an absolute wonderful time. There were only two turns that gave us a smidgen of trouble: Turn 8, with its multi-level bounce pads, and Turn 9, which is infamous for its difficulty. Turn 8 was fairly comical overall, and most of the group ended up being broken into just two groups. The one larger group powered to the boss room, while the other consisted of Lywynn, and I. Lywynn was fairly low level at this time, so I had to make sure she didn’t get walloped by all of the spawning adds as we made our way towards the boss room to catch up with everyone.
Before each encounter, I’d try to explain the mechanics to the best of my ability (since I only kind of understand them myself), but aside from a couple of bosses, we’d hilariously melt them within seconds of attacking. As for the story, I’d let them all enjoy it at their own pace, while enjoying how much they themselves were enjoying the story unfold as we went along. Every so often, and between Coils, we’d take a brief break, chat about things (this is where the Notorious Monster Gazebo joke came from), and shoot the breeze about how things were going. It was all so wholesome and wonderful.
Then after about 5 hours, there we all were, staring down the Primal himself: Bahamut Prime. The final battle was about to commence. We all took screenshots and chatted a smidgen, including any necessary strategies, and then within seconds, it was over. After the final battle cut scene and victory remarks, they all departed to see the finale unfold.
Afterwards, we all gathered where the story concluded, I congratulated everyone on completing the entirety of The Coils of Bahamut, watched some Fat Cats have a ‘srs bsns’ meeting, and then we all headed out for the evening. I’ll never forget this day, nor this event and what ended up coming about thereafter either. So many events, friends, and stories came from this day, and I’ll always cherish the memories from it.
While my feelings really haven’t shifted all that much since my first State of Things, I have been busy both in and out of Final Fantasy XIV. I’ve been very slowly working on a project in lieu of Dawntrail that I believe I mentioned during the benchmark about a couple of new PC’s to replace my aging ones. That project I started back in mid November with it coming into fruition in a couple of weeks.
However, what I didn’t wholly consider along with this is where and what I was going to with them or place them when this was all said and done. Where I miscalculated was deciding to completely rearrange a room I really didn’t utilize for all of this (I wanted to do this over a year ago, but tabled it), so deciding to start this part back in mid-April, wasn’t a wise decision.
This basically boils down to since by not allowing the proper amount of time has now caused a time-crunch of sorts. Sure, I could let this go into June and cut it close to Dawntrail, but that in itself would cause more stress and plan-shifting. Rather keep letting this linger out even farther than it has and continuously generate a knot in my stomach, I’m just placing the hard deadline for Memorial Day weekend.
In doing this, it just means that us here may or may not be posting regularly until the end of the month when this is all said and done as I’ll have to spend time on the weekdays playing catch-up sort to speak to make sure everything is set enough to get it all aligned and running properly. There might be another Star Bunny this week but I’ll probably hold off on posting the backlog of Fashion Reports so it doesn’t look like a bunch of them were put up at once.
Just bonkers for a bit longer and back to relaxing/adventuring around Eorzea like we all used to, and I’m very much looking forward to it.
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 💗
The two of them, in pure silence, gazing out at what was and what could have been should they have not succeeded. While one perpetually ponders the ‘what-if?’ the other only sees how far they have come and accomplished. They have done so much, the two of them together, and much more lies ahead before them.
Just for a moment though, time seems to freeze seeing what had happened and what could have passed, but it did not and the two of them are thankful they were able to help stop the second coming of the End of Days.
“Let’s go, Cuz, we’ve seen how this plays out, and gave it Hells. We got a lot of tails to kick on the road ahead.” Laureine snaps out of her thoughts and glances over at Lizicus showing her usual confident smirk back at her. She smiles with what confidence she can muster, and they both return to their world below, safe from what could have come to pass once again.
One late afternoon over at HQ, I managed to catch up with Miss Laureine who was working on some side-projects. This project in particular, seemed to be some combat field research, and so I decided to give her some assistance for a spell. Once that was all done for a moment, we sat down in our gazebo to chat at see how things were going.
Hearing what her and her cousin had been up to, it took me back just how far Miss Laureine has come every since that faithful day I met here just roaming around Gridania.
“Do you remember that day those summers ago?”
Laureine just stopped for a moment looking up at be bewildered. “W-what’s that, Missus?”
Miss Laureine has always been known to be prim, polite, and professional in everything she does to everyone she talks to, well everyone but her cousin. She tends to keep her in line as much as possible, which I have to admit I find amusing as it reminds me of the early years with Tess, Aikirees, and I.
I smile back at her and give a subtle chuckle. “The day I met you, back in Gridania.”
“O-oh, that day! I very much do, Missus, but why do you bring it up?”
“It just came to mind talking with you and hearing all of the adventures you’ve been up to with Miss Lizicus.” Miss Laureine smiles back. “It was quite a day; I do recall being very overwhelmed by Gridania seeing as I had just arrived there not too long ago. I-I wasn’t sure where to go or what to do.” I nod in return, and she continued. “But then you came along, Missus, gave me assistance, and helped me understand Gridania far better by coming along with me around the town answering all of my inquiries with no objections!”
“You were very excited to be there, and just so exploring every area of the city you could access!” Miss Laureine laughed. “I really did, Missus!” She recomposed herself and then continued. “But then, when the day came to an end, you asked me that one question that forever changed my life. You asked me to come with you!”
I smiled and nodded back at Miss Laureine. “I did, and you accepted. You learned about everything you could get your hands on and feel deeply in love with Allagan technology” Miss Laureine smiled and nodded warmly in return before I continued. “Here you are now, you’ve gone to the ends of the known existence and back, you’ve grown to protect those around you, including not just Aikirees and Aryiah, but our beloved Juli and Sirena as well. You’ve become so strong, and I am so proud of you for it.”
“M-Missus…” Miss Laureine’s voice began to waver with emotion; this might have been the first time I’ve ever seen her like this.
“You can craft like the best of them, brought Miss Lizz into the fold, and have helped me out tremendously even though I never asked you to. I’m very grateful we crossed paths on that faithful day; you such a wonderful Au Ra”
I could sense that Miss Laureine was on the brink of tears at this point. I got up, grabbed her hands, and lifted her gently to her feet, and then hugged her as tightly as I could. Miss Laureine began to weep, and I continued to comfort her.
“M-Missus…” I just kept embracing her.
“Thank you, Miss Laureine. Thank you for everything.”
After a little bit, Miss Laureine hugged me back gently, thanked me, and then we parted ways back to our adventures again. Seeing her back then to now feels almost like it was yesterday that faithful day happened. She’s grown so strong and so powerful with everything she’s learned over these summers. I look forward to where her adventures with her cousin take her, especially as we inch ever closer to our journey to Tural.
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.
