- Moghan is gazing meaningfully at the path to Zenith...
- A well-rested Moghan declares that the winds have turned in your favor. After once more instructing you on how to use the horn to summon Hraesvelgr, the moogle bids you a hurried farewell, apparently keen to return to Moghome. You cannot imagine why. Follow the path to Zenith, and blow the horn on the top floor of the palace.
- Hraesvelgr answers the call of the horn, but is displeased to find that his sanctuary has been invaded by the children of man. After scornfully dismissing Ysayle's claims to be Shiva reborn, he rebuffs your calls for peace, and recounts the tale of his brood-sister Ratatoskr's murder and the treachery of King Thordan. Man, he concludes, has brought nothing but misery to dragonkind. With that, the immense creature flies away, leaving you to ponder the cost of Nidhogg's eternal quest for vengeance. Trouble Alphinaud for his thoughts on this ill-starred encounter.
- Though Hraesvelgr revealed much that was hidden about Ishgard's bloody history, Alphinaud is crushed by the failure of your mission. With your hopes for peace shattered, it is time to consider more desperate measures...
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I trust you are well rested, Forename? Good. If we are to parley with Hraesvelgr, we shall each have need of the full complement of our wits.
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Whenever you are ready, Warrior of Light. Full eager am I to gaze upon this great wyrm.
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We must succeed in winning Hraesvelgr to our cause. Lend me your resolve, Saint Shiva...
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The campfire was so cozy... I must have fallen asleep, kupo.
But do you feel how the winds have shifted!? They will have borne Hraesvelgr back to the skies above Zenith─I'm sure of it!
This is your chance to climb to the highest floor of the palace, and summon him with a toot on that shiny horn! So, uh...I-I'll be heading back now, if it's all the same to you. Good luck, kupo! It was nice knowing you!
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Forename! Y-You're alive! I was worried Hraesvelgr might─ Waaait a moment, kupo. I don't remember hearing any tooting. You haven't summoned him yet...have you? If you haven't, climb to the top of his palace and blow the horn. Oh, and forget what I said. I was rambling. Good luck, kupo!
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It is time, Warrior of Light.
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Lend me your resolve, Saint Shiva...
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 Voiced cutscene start.
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Mortals... Why do you disturb my solitude?
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Thou speakest the name of a creature that but awaiteth the release of oblivion. Leave me...
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By the Twelve... Mine ears hear the tongue of dragons, yet the meaning rings clear within my mind... How can that be...?
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Hraesvelgr...do you not remember me? 'Twas I whom you found in Dravania─I who glimpsed the truth.
The truth about your past, about Shiva─
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Do not speak her name, mortal!
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But speak it I must! I have summoned Shiva's soul from the beyond, and offered myself as her vessel! She has made her heart known to me!
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Foolish girl. Thinkest thou my beloved's spirit hath descended from the heavens!?
That the secrets of her heart are thine to know!?
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I have surrendered mine to her! Do you not see, my love? I am Shiva reborn!
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Gullible fool... The Light but illuminated the past for thee, it did not grant thee omniscience.
The spirit thou hast summoned belongeth not to Shiva─'tis but a shade conjured by thine own fancy.
In an age long past, mine own kin were guilty of like folly. Beguiled by the dark ones' lies, they attempted to resurrect a king amongst wyrms─yet the divinity they called forth merely borrowed the semblance of my fallen brood-brother.
Such gods are not summoned, but created. Phantoms spun from the threads of misplaced faith. |
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Then the spirit that answered me...
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...Was but thy dream of Shiva. Thy soul hath been corrupted by a deity of thine own making, child.
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Be that as it may, Lord Hraesvelgr, Ysayle's desire to heal the rift between man and dragon is real, and it has borne us this far.
We would spare both our kind and yours the ravages of this senseless war! Pray join your voice to ours in a call for peace and forgiveness!
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The tale of thy kind is one of avarice, treachery and death─and thou wouldst speak to me of peace?
Hark thee, mortal, to the naked truth...then tell me thou deservest forgiveness!
Twelve hundred years ago, my beloved Shiva's sacrifice served to bring an end to the war 'twixt man and dragon, paving the way for an age of peace and cooperation.
Two centuries of harmony were to follow, during which time the Elezen learned much about us, not least that the eyes of a great wyrm are the wellspring of his strength.
'Twas out of the selfish desire to possess this strength that King Thordan then conspired to undo all that our peoples had achieved together.
With the aid of his leal knights, that most noble of Elezen lured my brood-sister Ratatoskr into an ambush, and took from her that which he craved.
Fain would I strike the image from my mind, yet still the scene doth linger─of my brood-sister's tattered corpse, defiled by her Elezen allies. They had torn out her eyes, and feasted upon them in the manner of wild beasts.
Yet that was not all, for from their bloody banquet, the fiends had gained strength beyond that of mortal men... Even now, I labor to comprehend the enormity of their betrayal.
Nidhogg was the first to learn of the atrocity, and he took to the skies, hungry for vengeance.
But though he slew Thordan and some few of his knights, their fellow butchers knew only too well where to aim their spears, and with now-practiced savagery, they set about my brood-brother, sending him flailing from the field...
Such is the truth the Holy See would keep hidden. Such was the beginning of the Dragonsong War.
'Tis a song my kind shall ne'er forget, e'en should ten thousand years pass and Ishgard crumble into dust. |
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Your tale bears scant resemblance to the one I was taught. How convenient that it should absolve your kind of all responsibility. But tell me, dragon: why should I believe your version of events?
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What thou choosest to believe is immaterial. The betrayal that yet haunts mine every waking moment is no less than the truth to my kind.
And Nidhogg meaneth for Thordan's people to suffer for this sin till the end of days.
That which thou imaginest a war of extinction is but a punishment─a siege of the spirit. Hast thou not seen those who tire of the torment? Those who abandon their own and side with dragonkind? |
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Ishgard's so-called heretics...
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Know that all the traitors' progeny bear a trace of Ratatoskr's essence. But a single sip of our blood is enough to awaken it...
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Then...the seed lies within us...?
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'Tis for this reason that those who abandon their loyalties are rewarded with a drink. And thus are they transformed, to join the ranks of Nidhogg's ever-growing army as newborn dragons. One by one, through death or defection, my brood-brother shall account for all of the betrayers' children...
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Ye gods... I have borne witness to such a transformation! Looked on as a heretic assumed the shape of a dragon... I imagined it some manner of Dravanian enchantment!
But if any Ishgardian, regardless of allegiance, has such potential within them... Twelve forgive us. To think of all the dragons we've slain...!
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There will always be some, of course, who choose to fight until the bitter end─like thee, dragoon...
But struggle as thou might, thy youthful vigor will be spent ere thou reachest two score and ten. And Nidhogg shall remain to torment thine offspring.
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Oft have I wondered why Nidhogg did not simply raze Ishgard to the ground.
Now I have my answer. He has no intention of winning the Dragonsong War, for it is no war at all, but vengeance─an eternal requiem sung for his murdered sister.
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Thou hast the right of it, dragonslayer. Comprehendest thou now the futility of thy quest?
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I have not come this far only to admit defeat. We can still return the Eye to Nidhogg, and beg forgiveness for our ancestors' crimes. Mayhap our words will sway him!
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Stubborn child... Thou thinkest in mortal terms. Our perception of time is too broad for thee to grasp.
'Tis a simple matter for thee to offer thine apologies─thou didst not perpetrate the crime. Despite thy visions, the deeds of history seem distant to thee.
For a wyrm such as Nidhogg, however, that history is yet part of his present, as fresh as the blood that did gush from Ratatoskr's wounds. How could he not be driven mad?
'Tis only by the calming embrace of Shiva's soul that mine own fury hath not consumed me.
But let us speak no more of what is done. My faith in your kind is spent, and I would be alone. |
| Voiced cutscene end.
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As predicted, Iceheart's faith in the wyrm was misplaced. Which leaves us with but one recourse. You know I have the right of it, Warrior of Light.
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What false god is this Shiva? What manner of phantom have I welcomed into my heart...?
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Hraesvelgr was every bit as awe-inspiring as I imagined. His voice fairly dripped with power─the will behind his words so undeniable that it transcended my ignorance of the dragons' tongue. 'Tis but a pity that I misliked what he said.
<sigh> So far did we travel─even unto the very heavens themselves─only to be dismissed like unruly children. And far from mitigating this...humiliation, the hidden truths we have learned serve only to prove that our grand mission of peace was destined to fail from the first.
Nothing will deter Nidhogg from his course.
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Acquisition
Closest Aetheryte: Moghome
Requirements
Rewards
Description
Objectives
Unlocks Quests
