On being sidetracked

On your journey through Ivalice, you encounter a myriad of people – races even. Hume, Seeq, Bangaa, Viera, Moogle… you name it. As a Sky Pirate, you could figure helping others is not in your resume and you could choose not to listen to the plight of the Ivalicians of all walks of life.

Yet, we would strongly suggest you do. Help others, that is. Not continue to consider that it is not in your resume.

It is easy to ignore the plights of fellow Ivalicians, but helping others – though not entirely pirate-like – could often result in fine rewards. And what kind of Sky Pirate would you be if you were to ignore an opportunity to receive rewards?

Leave no stone unturned. This is an adage a Sky Pirate must adhere to closely during their quest to save Ivalice from destruction. It has been mentioned several times in our guide for the aspiring Sky Pirate, and in adhering to this adage there is little chance that you’ll have missed any of the abundance of plights that Ivalice has to offer. Some of the plights even need to be answered in order to continue on your primary journey. Those plights will not be covered here.

Instead, we will list below the plights of distraught Ivalicians in order of emergence, those that are easy to miss once you’re on your way to save Golden Ivalice once more.

Just remember: leave no stone unturned. Talk to people, look in every corner.

This is a quest most easily missed. Tomaj sets you up with your first hunt and an excuse to get out of Rabanastre whilst proceedings are in place for the banquet tonight. As one of the lucky few to have a permit to head out, you should flaunt it before those stuck inside. One of those is a merchant, and he will ask you – the lucky one – to deliver something to a merchant friend of his before you head out.

That merchant friend is near the Save Crystal outside the East Gate.

Once you return to Rabanastre, a Viera will be sitting halfway the stairs near the Muthru Bazaar. Since she’s hidden away in an alcove, she’s easily looked over. When you do spot her, she’ll ask you several questions. Your answer to each of them is reason for her to ponder and contemplate, and will decide where in Rabanastre she will end up.

It is your job as a Sky Pirate to be brutally honest with her. Unlike most people you will encounter, she will appreciate this the most, and she will reward you most handsomely for it.

That said, she takes her precious time pondering. When first you meet her, she’ll have her first question ready, but then you’ll have to wait until leaving Bhujerba to hear her second question, then you’ll have to have raided Raithwall’s Tomb and her final question is posed only after you’ve reached Mt. Bur Omisace.

If you haven’t spared Ktjn feelings, next time you’ll see her, she’ll be waiting for you inside the Clan Hall, and give you a most generous reward. Otherwise she’ll be either in front of the Clan Hall, anywhere on the streets of Rabanastre or outside or inside of Migelo’s shop. Each location, in turn, has her being less generous with her rewards for helping her out.

The East Ivalice Company, the only way to get around Ivalice… For a Sky Pirate without an Airship, that is. You can take your first voyage on one of the East Ivalice Company’s esteemed Skyferries as early as when you need to visit Bhujerba. When you do take the ferries, it is strongly suggested that you would take the Leisure cabin option – at least once. For every route.

When you do this the first time, and decide to retreat to your private cabins, your Chief Steward for the journey will be overshadowed by some Archadian slime ball. Rande – that’s the slime’s name – appears to be quite taken with Chief Steward Ann’s presence, so much that he is coercing her into taking his hand in marriage by proposing a competition.

Which you should, of course, agree to, because… you know, freedom? No one should be forced to marry someone they don’t love, just because they’re rich and think they can have whatever they want. So it’s up to you, aspiring Sky Pirate, to put a stop to this madness.

The competition: Ann has prepared a letter inviting all of her sisters to visit her mother. Should the Sky Pirate succeed in delivering the letter to all sisters, Rande will cease his advances… of course coercing is what he really meant – including Ann, there’s a total of seven sisters to match Rande and his six brothers, of whom he had already decided they should marry all of Ann’s sisters. Freedom of choice, am I right?

The sisters all conveniently work as Chief Stewards for the East Ivalice Company and all on different routes. All you need to do is take all different routes, deliver the letters and let justice prevail! … Oh, and of course accept your reward for saving these women from marrying Rande and his family of douchebags. See? A Sky Pirate can do good! You certainly weren’t in it just for the reward, right?¹

To make saving the seven sisters from gloom and doom easier, below is a table of all of the East Ivalice Company’s routes. Please remember that if you take a private cabin instead of a leisure cabin, you’ll be escorted directly to your quarters without being able to chat with the Chief Steward, so always take a leisure cabin at least once:

• Rabanastre – Bhujerba
• Bhujerba – Balfonheim
• Balfonheim – Archades
• Balfonheim – Nalbina
• Archades – Nalbina
• Archades – Rabanastre
• Nalbina – Rabanastre

Pilika is a Moogle with a big heart and a love for the oddest of animals. You will first meet her when she turns out to be the petitioner for a Hunt entailing a Rocktoise that appears to have been her pet. When you speak with her again, she will ask you to retrieve her diary from Clio’s Technicks but you should not read it!

Actually, read it if you want. Then just lie that you haven’t read it. Or not. She’ll give you a reward either way and her pet Rocktoise won’t pinch at your ankles, so you’re safe.

This quest is discussed in our guide to finding the esper Zalera, and thus will not be elaborated upon here. No witty remarks either, sorry! Just remember to visit Dantro every now and again!

Between the Ogir-Yensa Sandsea and the Nam-Yensa Sandsea are two passages. Should you be unable to decide which one to take, let us aid you in your efforts to clarify: take the northernmost passage.

You’ll come across a Moogle. Listen to his plight and follow up on it. It really is as simple as that. The Moogle may entice you with talk of “treasure” but be warned: there is none – not the kind a Sky Pirate would covet, that is.

But what you do get as a reward if you follow this sidequest through all the way until the – in this case accurately  – bitter end is rather helpful in your fight later on against a certain flying creature – and really all flying creatures from here on in. All you need to do is wait until the rewards are fully grown again.

If you’re stuck for gil, or are a completionist at heart, this is the quest for you! It entails quite a lot of running around Bhujerba, but in essence: Bhujerbans seem to have an alcohol problem and you are going to cater to their addictions for a bit of gil. 1000 gil per bottle, in fact.

There are two options here: either you collect all the bottles of Bhujerban Madhu scattered all over the city for 250 gil per bottle, or you can offer them to thirsty Bhujerbans for four times the amount! It is a pain finding them though – the bottles, that is. The thirsty Bhujerbans are usually found near the bottles themselves, which makes one wonder: why would they gladly pay you 1000 gil for something they could have grabbed for free if they just got off their lazy butts?

That said, here’s a list of where you can find the bottles, as they are the hardest to find. The drunkards are just going to be hanging around there. There’s a grand total of 13 bottles.

• Bhujerban Aerodrome
• Rithil’s Protectives (inside)
• Targe’s Arms (second floor)
• Khus Skygrounds (near Moogle)
• Travica Way (southeast end)
• Mait’s Magick (table)
• Staras Residence
• Cloudborne Row
• Lhusu square (fountain)
• Bashketi’s Gambits (upper floor)
• Miner’s End (near Gambit Shop)
• Kaff Terrace (next to Seeq)
• Clio’s Technicks (close to stairs)

You could, of course, keep them for yourself. But know that it doesn’t matter because you can’t drink them anyway.

Cockney Cockatrices

If you’ve gotten the hang of helping out humanoid denizens of Ivalice – and Moogles – then we’ve got a whole new challenge for you! Once you’ve obtained the feather of the flock, for some inexplicable reason you’re suddenly able to converse with Cockatrices and… They speak with a cockney accent! Of all the…

The gist of this tour is that you collect all the Cockatrices that ran off into the great beyond when the Cluckatrice and its Chickatrices ran amok in Giza early on in your journey. They’ve scattered all over Ivalice, and it’s your job – or not – to convince them to return to their flock, which is, in most cases, easier said than done. Because those little b****** have taken a shining to globetrotting and they do not want to return home.

Should you decide to take on this behemoth of an endeavour, below is a list of the Cockatrices currently at large and their estimated location:

• Sassan: Dalmasca Estersand Village (South Bank)
• Shurry: Jahara
• Chit: Eruyt Village
• Mumer: Balfonheim Port
• Agytha: Archades (must have Sandalwood Chop)
• Ren: Rabanastre (heavens help you with this one… just don’t run!)

Each Cockatrice has their own reward to give to you, but there’s also a reward waiting for you if you manage to catch and return all birds. The individual rewards are much more worth the effort than the final reward.

Why wouldn’t Viera be allowed a shot at love? If you have made a habit of talking to everyone you meet, you must have met a Lovestruck man musing about the Viera, lingering on the Plaza Fountain in Rabanastre early on in your journey. Well, now there is a Viera near the Chocobo Stables at the South Gate, looking a bit forlorn. She will tell you that she is looking for a soulmate and leaves.

Of course, you’re not the soulmate she’s looking for, but perhaps the Lovestruck man is, so go talk to him. He has seen her pass but being completely struck by her beauty (one can only assume) he sends you off the wrong direction: the Viera is in fact in one of the shops. Go find her, listen, give suggestions and hints until she finds this Lovestruck man.

Then go and locate the honeymooning couple at the Lovestruck man’s spot at the Fountain and reap your rewards!

Gibbs is very secretive about his past, which made his wife at home in Archades rather suspicious. She asked July, a streetear, to spy on her husband at Nalbina, where he is stationed along with the other half of the duo “Gibbs and Deweg” (also known as Biggs and Wedge).

If you run into the duo of Archadian guards barring the way from Nalbina to the Mosphoran Highwaste, they’ll stop you in your tracks. But there is a way to get past them: talk to everyone in the area, even the most shady figures. Then rent a Chocobo and just charge into the duo – Gibbs doesn’t want anything to do with Chocobos and runs off, leaving his partner no choice but to follow him. You’re now free to enter the Mosphoran Highwaste and out of the shadows comes July, who explains her presence there and offers a reward when you reach Archades.

No more heroes?

There once was a hero, a hero of Nalbina. Jovy was in awe of this hero, but then the hero disappeared. Died, possibly. Now, there were no more heroes left and Jovy became a hopeless Seeq.

But then the Hunts appeared. People from around Nalbina started petitioning for a hunter, and a certain Sky Pirate answered. With each hunt completed, Jovy started acting stranger and stranger… That is, until he was finally able to tell you his story…

In other words: accept all the Hunts petitioned from the Nalbina Town area, five in total. Listen to Jovy’s story and get ready to cry.

This quest is discussed in relative detail in our guide to finding the esper Chaos, and thus will not be elaborated upon here. Yet, save for the Hunts needed to be completed to be able to begin this quest to find Chaos, it is easily missed so this warrants another mention. A reminder is always handy!

Ruksel, you know, the man with the boat in the Village in Dalmasca Estersand, is a fishing enthusiast. He seems to want to have something to do with his spare time but there are no fishing rods nearby. Fast forward to visiting Balfonheim. Being a port, you can imagine there’s a few fishing enthusiasts around. Find one and talk to him until he gives you information on fishing rods – he’ll have left his post and left his rod behind when you come back from the Aerodrome entrance.

Do what Sky Pirates do best – steal the fishing rod, then visit the Dalmasca Estersand Village. Ruksel will now take you for some nice fishing trips on the Nebra, where you can fish for bottles which hold directions to interesting rewards! If you find all five bottles and the locations the riddles direct you to, you’ll be able to collect the legendary fishing rod the Balfonheim fishing enthusiast had spoken of.

But be quick, because there is a collector of legendary fishing rods – and swords – lurking about!

There’s not much to this. Talk to Rikken – outside Reddas’ Mansion – a few times, be persistent and he will challenge you to a little race of 100 stages. Good luck!

The earliest you should hear about this Hell Wyrm is in Nalbina, should you have spoken to everyone present. An Archadian guard will tell you about how much more frightening the monsters of legend are in Archadia and illustrates this with a description of a wyrm which resides in a cave near the capital.

That would be our Hell Wyrm. But he’s not that easy to find. First of all, you’ll need to have reached Balfonheim Port. There, you can accept a Hunt from a Viera Wayfarer who wants her rucksack back and wants you to slay the Vyraal she lost it to. After completing the Hunt, she will find a dragon scale that she doesn’t recognise and gives it to you.

A dragonscale, you did hear rumours of a Wyrm Philosopher living among windmills searching for a creature that possibly doesn’t even exist… Though this Philosopher’s name is not Don Quixote, you’d be right in assuming this Philosopher can find some use for the dragon scale. In thanks, he gives you an Ageworn Key. Hold on to that, then return to the Sochen Cave Palace – you know, the location that sounds an awful lot like the one described by that Archadian guard in Nalbina.

Go to Destiny’s March and find the Ascetic’s Door. Read the inscription and follow the guidelines to open it. Once it’s open, go through, fight your way to the end of the passageway to the Hall of the Ascetic and you can use the Ageworn Key.

Then: say hello to the Hell Wyrm!

Omega Mk.XII

Project Memorandum

Once you have felled enough Urutan-Yensa, some pages will unlock in your Bestiary, speaking of “devices for felling Beasts”. Shaped as coffers, these “devices” do sound familiar – in fact, they sound like the Mimics, and the unlocked pages also speak of something that resembles the Mimic Queen.

What is more, the pages also speak of one such device, created specifically for felling a certain “Dragon of some Power”, created to grow and learn. The device – according to its creator a living thing for all intents and purposes – was named Mark XII. Like the Mimics in the Barheim Passage feed on electricity to grow, this Mark XII was suspected to need a large source of energy to grow ever larger – a place rich in Mist, perhaps. A place like… the Great Crystal.

Omega is generally thought to be a weaponised device which would have the ability for self-sustenance as well as the ability to traverse dimensions – much like a certain sword collector. Yet, since the pages in the Bestiary on the Urutan-Yensa refer to the Mimic Queen², one can only surmise that the Mark XII – or the Omega Mk.XII – was produced in Ivalice in a not-so-distant past. Yet, when you do manage to visit Omega Mk.XII when it is still dormant, it is suggested that it is ancient technology.

But enough about that: knowing the confusing history of Omega Mk.XII is one thing, finding it is a completely different matter. To spare you the confusing directions, a map added in the source list of this chapter can direct you there in the swiftest of manners.

Left now is to explain how to bring it from its dormant state. Again referring to the pages in the Bestiary, it is said that the Omega Mk.XII was created to fell a dragon of considerable power. Thus, it stands to reason that it would awaken when said dragon awakes. Which is exactly what happens here: though separated by vast land, Omega Mk.XII only awakens after Yiazmat appears in the Colosseum in the Ridorana Cataract. Yiazmat in turn can only be fought after both having cleared pretty much all the other Hunts and having felled the Hell Wyrm, strongly suggesting that the Hell Wyrm kept Yiazmat at bay and whatever paling kept Yiazmat away, fell once the Hell Wyrm itself fell³.

The only thing left to discuss in this guide are the several dungeons scattered across Ivalice. In all, you will encounter six of them – three of which are really nothing more than an expansion on locations already visited and though not strictly dungeons, neither newly expanded area requires you to visit it to proceed with your task at hand. While Barheim Passage and the Henne Mines are simply a venture deeper within the area, the Garamsythe Waterway requires a bit of puzzling to get what you need from this area – none of which cannot be remedied with some old-fashioned trial and error.

The three areas which could be considered fully-fledged dungeons are the Necrohol of Nabudis, the Great Crystal and, of course, the Subterra of the Pharos at Ridorana. Whereas the two former have been explicitly discussed, we have not mentioned the Subterra of the Pharos before – in short, it bears a likeness to the Midlight’s Deep dungeon from Ramza’s timeline, in that it is pitch dark and you will need to kill monsters in order to create light (in this case by picking up dark orbs left behind by the dead creatures and filling pedestals with these orbs) and find your way around the levels leading down into the Unknown, where – you guessed it – a summoner lives who is pretty damn powerful!⁴

Except for some strong bosses, rare game and hunts that hide within the Subterra, nothing else of note is left to say about it that hasn’t already been mentioned – though it is certainly worth exploring!

⁵ No, there’s no certificate. You’re a Sky Pirate, you don’t need a certificate!