Drowned In Blood

sea what we did thereThe Maelstrom had been tracking rumours of strange Sahagin activity for weeks, suggesting they were preparing to perform a summoning – but something was different.  Their efforts were not centralized, they were not bringing crystals to a single place.  It was feared they’d somehow managed to summon Leviathan already and were simply feeding him – but how could that have gone unnoticed?  Every time the Sahagin had summoned their primal before, they had quickly turned him against Limsa Lominsa, so why the sudden low profile?

The change in tactics was disturbing.  Eventually the Maelstrom narrowed their options down to a few possible lairs for the Lord of the Whorl, and sent out teams of adventurers and their own troops to investigate.  The Grim, having proven themselves during the long fight to banish Titan, were included among the teams sent to find Leviathan.

They only got halfway there before the Lord of the Whorl emerged from the ocean and attacked their boat; the craft was nearly destroyed, but in the end Leviathan failed in his assault and was banished.  The Grim returned to Limsa, flush with victory, only to later learn that three other teams had also been attacked by Leviathan – and one had defeated theirs as well.  Some teams had not returned at all.  Had they only defeated an illusion?  Does Leviathan still roam the seas?

Meanwhile, in Mor Dhona, the Crystal Tower looms over the remains of Silvertear Lake.  Several of the Grim’s finer minds would love to look inside, but the Sons of Saint Coinach and NOAH are loath to let anyone through the gates, especially a group like the Grim.  Trying to get official access was going nowhere – until Eleanor was approached by a rogue Son by the name of C’alen.  He offered “unfettered” access to the tower, in return for one thing: Mercurius, and the Allagan rot plaguing his body.  Eleanor and Elizabeth continue to investigate, learning more about C’alen, the keys to the tower, and this devil’s deal being offered.

Momohani continues his research into building bigger and better bombs, and the Grim search the world for a golem soulstone and a pair of coblyn shells big enough to build a living weapon worthy of the diminutive Lord of Fire.  What they plan to do with such a weapon remains unknown; perhaps simply having it is an end in itself.

Ash And Darkness

Ifrit DownAll throughout Thanalan, the omens burned strong: clouds of choking smoke high over Zahar’ak, fire sprites glowing balefully among the dunes in the Sagolii, and then the Amal’jaa themselves – no longer raiding and kidnapping, but instead standing proud, filled with the divine certainty of their god.  Ifrit walked Eorzea again, stronger than ever.

The Immortal Flames were quick to answer, rallying together free companies and adventurers for a strike deep into Zahar’ak.  The Grim were among the allied forces that fought their way into the Bowl of Embers – the point of the spear that plunged into Ifrit’s heart and banished him from the world again.

Thanalan rests more quietly now, but the Grim continue to march.  Eleanor seeks to raid Imperial facilities looking for parts for a secret project; Haru plucked the eye from the Garlean agent who harmed Remi; M’wanthala continued research into a new weapon she discovered; and Sindl sent a team of Grim under the ocean to investigate a sunken ruin.

The ruin proved to hold far more than expected – instead of a pile of melted slag, they discovered an intact facility, ripped from the depths of Dalamud.  The interior swarmed with voidsent, all feeding on the aether pulsing from some unknown force sealed at the centre of the ruin.  The facility had survived for uncountable aeons up in the sky, but down under the ocean it is collapsing, and if something isn’t done soon it will be destroyed – releasing the beast stirring fitfully at its core.  The Grim continue to search for a solution, travelling deeper into the facility, seeking clues – and finding little, save for one phrase repeated over and over in Allagan markings: “Valigarmanda”.

A Titanic Victory

titan vs kaiOver the last few weeks the seals the Maelstrom placed on Titan had held, but finally they were weakening – the Kobolds found a way around the bindings keeping the Lord of Crags imprisoned in the Navel, and were slowly undoing them.  A call was put out for any adventurers who could aid in a last-ditch assault on Mt O’Ghomoro, and the Grim answered.

They had fought Titan to a standstill before, but now it was all or nothing: either Titan was defeated here, or he would be free to bring destruction to Limsa Lominsa.  The Grim marched into O’Ghomoro along with Grand Company troops and other adventurers, and fought their way to the Navel; there they faced Titan for a final time, and emerged victorious.

The Lord of Crags has fallen, and the halls of O’Ghomoro are still and silent.  But in the Sagolii, the fires of Zahar’ak burn bright, and guttural voices beg the heavens for salvation.

The Phantom Train

xhavir uses steal heartVictory.  The assault on the Phantom Train didn’t exactly go as planned, but in the end the Grim managed to retrieve X’havir – plus a few bonuses in the bargain.

Remi’s contacts were able to provide an airship for a short time, and with M’wanthala at the helm it roared across the skies towards the Phantom Train.  As promised, Mireille’s agents managed to disable the train’s guns, so the Grim weren’t immediately blown out of the sky as they approached.  The first team, composed of Kai’ir, Momohani, Lizbet, Remi, and Aesyra, leapt off onto the engine car, and then the airship fell back to deliver the second team to the middle of the train.

The first team quickly ran into a stumbling block: the moment they set foot on the roof, metal blisters opened in the surface of the train and spat out refurbished Allagan ADS units, obviously recovered by the Empire and set to defending the train from exactly this sort of attack.  The Grim managed to disable the spheres (well, two were disabled, and one was spiked into the desert sands and left behind as the train sped onwards).

Inside the engine car, they found an Imperial engineer who was clearly far more interested in saving his own skin than anything else, and he quickly agreed to keep the train moving – especially after the Imperial troops who came running in got themselves slaughtered.

The Grim began moving through the train quickly after that – resistance seemed light, and in the dining car they discovered why: a pile of bodies, their mouths and noses oozing with green moss.  Mireille’s handiwork.  The car was set up for a party, with cakes and pastries laid out on the tables, and a garish banner that read “CONGRATULATIONS DAN”.  It is unknown if Dan was among the victims, or indeed, if there was ever truly a Dan in the first place.  They didn’t have much time to ponder this, though, as more Imperial troops – armed with heavy, rapid-firing gatling guns – came charging into the car.  In the distance, an explosion rocked the train, signalling that the second team had managed to secure their car and blow the connection to the rear cars, along with the Imperial reinforcements on them.

Advancing through the cars, fighting off Imperial troops in the cramped corridors, the Grim found a surprise: a miqo’te male prisoner, but not X’havir.  Instead, trussed up in a spare room, they found Roh’to Nahl, who’d gone missing several weeks beforehand.  They untied him, put a sword in his hand, and told him to come fight his way out.  Roh’to was quite happy to oblige.

A few cars later, they finally found their goal: X’havir, chained to a wall and drugged into unconsciousness.  Aesyra ripped him free of the wall and threw him over her shoulder, dragging him along.  Only two cars remained between them, and their allies holding their escape route in the final car.

However, as they stepped into the next car, massive spears tore through the walls and ceiling of the car, expanding into vicious grappling hooks.  With a screech of rending metal, the car’s walls were torn apart, exposing it to the air.  Two Imperial gunships were keeping pace with the car, armed with grappling guns – their tow cables detached, letting the wreckage of the car’s structure slam into the desert and fall behind the speeding train.  Then, an enormous Roegadyn in heavy imperial armour leapt from one gunship and landed among the Grim.

A brutal fight followed, with the Roegadyn commander fighting using an enormous shield and a heavy gatling cannon, while more Imperial troops continued to join the battle and the gunships shelled the group from the sky.  Aesyra and Roh’to kept the additional troops from interfering, while Lizbet kept the commander pinned down; Momohani and Remi hurled bolts of magic into the sky to ward off the gunships, preventing them from blowing everyone to bits.  Seeing the battle turning against him, the commander eventually signalled a retreat, grabbing onto a hook fired from one the gunships and escaping.  With a brief window while the Empire regrouped, the Grim retreated to the final car.

Blood and bodies filled the last car, but the Grim there – including Haru, M’sato, Qhora and Sindl – had kept the car secure.  Momohani deployed a bomb (a literal living Bomb creature, which he’d imbued with some Ice aether to help contain the explosion) and a thundering blast disconnected the final car.  They coasted to a stop, and the airship returned – they loaded the rescued prisoners aboard, as well as a few barrels of ceruleum the second team had managed to find on the nearby storage cars.  Before the Empire could return with reinforcements, they pushed the airship’s engine to the limit and escaped back to Ul’dah.

Several people were injured – Roh’to especially, who’d taken several hits from the troops’ guns in the final fight – and they gathered at the Grim manor to recover.  While there, X’havir finally awoke, and they quickly learned that his months of imprisonment with the Empire had not been kind to his mind.  There were too many people crowded around for his liking, and with a feral growl he leapt down the stairwell and escaped into the night.  A search team managed to find him and calm him enough to convince him to return home, but it’s obvious that X’havir barely remembered anyone and had been thoroughly reprogrammed into someone far more servile.

It remains to be seen whether X’havir will recover from his ordeal, and whether the Empire will move to retrieve him – or simply take revenge on the Grim for daring to attack the Phantom Train.  Twice now the Grim have cost the Empire, and they will not brook a third time.  Today the Grim are victorious, but that victory may come with a price, as the baleful eye of the Empire is now upon them.

Returns

817059-final_fantasy_vi_phantom_trainM’wanthala has returned.  Haru’s mission back into the ancient Allagan lab was a success – M’wanthala was found still alive, and M’sato was able to administer a cure for the metallic plague slowly destroying her body.  Unfortunately, they were forced to destroy the entrance during their escape, burying the upper levels of the lab in tons of debris – it would be the work of months to dig it out again.  Little was learned, although Haru did manage to seize some kind of data storage device during her escape, and M’wanthala was able to observe a lot of the machinery’s behaviour while she was imprisoned – both could yield important discoveries.

X’havir is next.  An agent of Mireille’s returned with the news that the Phantom Train will be including a prisoner car soon – a strange thing in a time when the Empire is in retreat and taking few prisoners. There is a chance, however slim, that X’havir will be among the prisoners – or if he isn’t, then someone there will have seen or heard of him.  The solution is obvious, of course: rob the train, and retrieve the prisoners during the mission.  The Grim have assembled a plan, and are gathering the resources they need to pull it off – in eight suns, they will assault the most heavily-guarded transport in all of Eorzea, and either return victorious or die in a glorious train heist.

Entombed

crossfireThe battle against the Primals continues.  The Kobolds have been working in secret to gather crystals and aether, and managed to summon Titan far earlier than the Maelstrom had expected.  The result was a hastily-assembled mission to invade O’Ghomoro and deal with the Primal – and, having proven themselves against Garuda, the Grim were called on to assist.  Their role was simple: penetrate the Kobold mines through a recently-reopened mine shaft, and distract Titan while the main body of the Maelstrom’s force tried to break through.  If Titan were to join the battle, the Maelstrom would almost certainly be defeated; without him, the Kobolds would be at a disadvantage.

The Grim proved able to delay Titan long enough, but could not destroy him completely – in the end, they were forced to withdraw.  The Maelstrom was able to seal Titan in the Navel, where he remains imprisoned for the moment – a temporary measure the Kobolds will doubtlessly overcome soon.

Meanwhile, Haru Qwey descended into an ancient Allagan ruin under the Sagolii with her team, and there discovered a still-active defense system.  The defenses seemed unable to recognize miqo’te, and sprayed M’wanthala with some kind of “purifying” agent that began painfully turning her skin into metal.  After that, the machines refused to allow M’wanthala to leave, and Haru’s team was beaten back, forced into leaving her behind.  Haru plans to return to rescue M’wanthala – or whatever is left of her – within seven suns, and to retrieve whatever strange agent was used against her.  The birth of a new weapon, a disaster in the making, or will Haru simply find M’wanthala’s corpse and no answers?

Idle Hands

staaaaringA week of relative rest for the Grim – at least in the sense that nobody ended up dead or broken.  I suppose that’s less “rest” than “disappointment”, but we’ll try to look on the bright side.  The patterns in the table are still being examined, as are the results of Haru’s dig in the Sagolii.  Thanalan hasn’t exploded into a flood of bloodthirsty Voidsent, so we can only assume Erik is still tracking down the lost relics there.

O’Ghomoro thunders, and word comes from the Maelstrom that Titan may soon walk Eorzea again.  The Grim are likely to be called to battle soon, to help drive back the Kobolds and prevent them from summoning their Primal.

On the coast of the Sea of Ash, Grim agents discovered that the Executor – the magitech warship that has been chasing Doman refugees as far as Eorzean shores – is berthed there in a makeshift Imperial camp.  It also seems they’re too late to save the refugees, who have been captured and are being held aboard the warship itself.  These are all challenges that can be overcome, however, and the Grim have chosen to overcome them the traditional Thanalan way: with sandworms.  They’ve captured a few sandworm larvae, and now rush across the badlands with a horde of furious sandworms at their heels, hoping to turn the worm swarm against the Imperial camp and then use the distraction to sneak aboard the Executor.  It’s not a terribly sane plan, but then, they’re not terribly sane people.

Wind And Steel

Garuda Ex

Garuda has risen – and fallen.  The Grim joined with Gridania’s Adders to interrupt an attempted summoning of the Primal, and marched on the Howling Eye.  Unfortunately, a flanking maneuver by the Ixal cut the Grim off from the main Gridanian force, and they were left to interrupt the ritual on their own – only to arrive just in time to watch the mighty Garuda descend from the skies.  Trapped between the goddess and the regrouping Ixal, the Grim had no choice but to face Garuda themselves.  The battle was brutal, but in the end Garuda was defeated, and the Ixal retreated.  It’s only a matter of time before the Ixal try again, however, and now O’Ghomoro echoes with the chanting and clapping of the Kobolds’ own summoning.

M’wanthala has returned with the results of her investigation into the strange data in the chart table.  The peculiar formulas seem to be a combination of alchemy and arcanistry – the purpose is hard to discern, but it may be related to transmuting things into metal.  Likewise, Haru’s archaeological dig at the Burning Wall revealed a disturbing project the Allagan Empire may have been pursuing: transforming living beings into metallic constructs.  What purpose lay behind this project, and whether the Allagan were ever successful, remains to be seen – so far all we know is that the results were grisly and short-lived combinations of flesh and steel.  It seems likely that both of these discoveries are related, and more lie ahead.

Meanwhile, the Grim agents investigating the Imperial weapon in the Sea of Ash were ambushed by two Imperial units and a Magitech walker.  The Grim slaughtered the Imperial troops, leaving the battlefield with only a few wounds, and the dead certainty that they are on the right track.  Although the soldiers seemed to have been given orders to capture one of them alive – why the sudden interest in taking prisoners?

Amdapor still awaits.  Erik began making preparations for a sealing ritual to be completed at the Lost City, but required ritual items from his library – Sindl went to retrieve them, but ran into trouble when he somehow angered the library’s guardians.  Wounded, he managed to stumble out of the library with the ritual components – only to have some of them stolen by bandits after he emerged.  The hunt now begins to find the stolen artifacts in time to perform the ritual – and before they fall into the wrong hands.

And finally, the Grim welcomed a new member: Harper Brand; mercenary, warrior, and engineer.

Blood On The Gates

succubusSomething dark is rising in the ruins of Amdapor.  Erik stumbled into the headquarters earlier this week, wounded after an encounter with a powerful Voidsent he could not overcome – one he met while exploring ruins in the Shroud.  Now the Grim must return in force, to defeat whatever lurks there and buy Erik enough time to complete the sealing ritual; Erik, Lizbet, Remi and Aesyra have been chosen to head into the ruins.  But before then, the requisite books have to be retrieved from Erik’s boobytrapped library, and of course Erik himself is in no condition to go get them.  So if anyone finds a smoking crater in the middle of Thanalan, you can count that mission as a failure.

Meanwhile, our ally M’wanthala has discovered that the junk information in the Allagan chart table isn’t junk after all – although exactly what it means is still a mystery.  She’s investigating, and in the meantime Sindl is trying to figure out where exactly the table came from, and whether there may be more of these strange schematics out there.

Fires On The Coast

coils-1bThis week we introduced our three newest Grim – M’sato, Qhora, and Taiyou – and welcomed them among us.  Through them, the Grim grow stronger, and it its their determination that will carry us through our next missions.

Of course, those missions might be our last ones too.  Mireille has received word of a new Imperial weapon – a ship, capable of burning villages to ash, if the rumours are to be believed – that may have followed a group of refugees to Eorzean shores.  Sindl, Aesyra, and Momohani are headed to the eastern coast and the Sea of Ash to investigate.

Meanwhile, the Grim continue to descend into the hollows of the world.  Aesyra’s plan to infiltrate the aetherocoustic observatory at Castrum Occidens revealed far more than any of the Grim were expecting, and what lies in wait for us at the bottom remains to be seen – a new weapon to turn against our enemies, or death?