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The Calamity, five years before Ginger Pepper came to Eorzea and made a name for herself as an adventurer, the lesser moon Dalamud was pulled from the heavens by Imperial machinations. Unknown to almost everyone, Dalamud was actually a prison for the elder primal Bahamut, upon being freed the primal would cause untold death and destruction, reshaping the realm forever.
These events are well documented, the days and weeks leading up to them however have been mostly lost to history. Let’s take a look back to the final days of the Sixth Astral Era and try to piece together what we can.
Movie link: Video version of the first part of this update.
*You should watch this, 1.0 had some pretty cool cutscenes. The current game still struggles to match the quality of the animation some 1.0 scenes had.*
We join an adventure in progress, a pair of Miqo’te. The hero Gladiator and her friend the Fisher are assisting the Ala Mhigan Resistance, a rendezvous has been arranged in Mor Dhona, where they plan to steal an Imperial airship.
As our hero and her companion enter the scene, tragically they find a massacre. Bodys of the Resistance strewn across the meeting spot.
No…
It cannot be…
Perhaps not all is lost, a survivor approachs.
But wait! That’s not a survivor! That’s Gaus van Baelsar, the Legatus of the XIVth Legion and Imperial Viceroy of Ala Mhigo! He’s doing the old “puppet your friend’s corpse to take you by surprise!” gag, what a card!
Oh, uh. I guess the Gladiator isn’t our hero? It’s the Fisher? Really?
You were unwise to come here.
The Fisher would have been killed too, had it not been for the intervention of the Archons of The Circle of Knowing. A group of researchers and scholars who have abandoned the creed of non-intervention of their homeland, Sharlian, and work to unite Eorzea against the threat of the Garlean Empire.
Impressive.
As you wish.
Thancred Waters, the Rouge, leaps over van Baelsar and showers daggers down upon him.
Gaius deflects them easily and opens fire with his gunblade.
Y'shtola Rhul, the Conjurer, intercepts and defects the bullets, defending Waters.
Yda Hext, the Pugilist, rushes in with an uppercut sending the Garlean flying.
Gaius recovers quickly and retaliates from mid-air, although Hext is able to block his blasts with her punches.
Papalymo Totolymo, the Thaumaturge, draws the rest of Gaius’ shots into a magical vortex.
The cloying stench of shadow lingers still.
Gaius shoots a flare into the sky. Signalling the airship to fire upon the group.
The Archons used the confusion of the explosion to make their escape with the Fisher.
With Gaius van Baelsar having made his entrance, it was clear that the Empire was preparing to make another push to conquer Eorzea. In response, the city states of Ul’dah, Gridania and Limsa Lominsa reestablished the Grand Companies and started recruiting adventurers to repel the coming invasion.
Ishgard however decided that the Empire wasn’t their problem and ignored their neighbour’s calls for aid. They had their forever-war with the dragons to worry about.
The Fisher had decided to answer the call and honour her fallen friend by becoming an adventurer and help the Grand Companies. One of her first assignments was to trackdown Charledore, a missing engineer of the Garlond Ironworks. Charledor was serving as a spy for the Companies, keeping an eye on the Ironworks. However, during her investigations the Fisher discovered that Charledor was a double agent! He was supplying information to the Garleans as well!
The Fisher has tracked Charledor and cornered him at the top of a cliff.
*cough* You know nothing, fool. Nothing!
Your pathetic realm worships Cid Garlond - the genius, the creator. Hah! *cough *cough* But did you know he was once an engineer of Garlemald? An artisan in the employ of His Radiance? No, of course you bloody didn’t.
He is driven by a great passion - yet blinded by it as well. His research and experiments made our Empire what it is, spilling the blood of hundreds, thousands in the process. A small price to pay for his art.
For years he enjoyed His Radience’s favor, being given all he ever asked, until one day he tired of his duties, turned his cloak, and forsook us for this doomed realm. All for his own ends, lest you doubt it. That monster never gave a damn about anything else!
And the dogs at the Ironworks name me a traitor!? Hah! They serve the greatest traitor of all!
Isn’t that right...Cid?
Charledor… so you were the spy among us.
You were ordered to steal our findings - to learn what we knew of Dalamud. For Meteor-
Do not fear Smooth Cid. Smooth Cid cannot hurt you.
Stay your bloody tongue!
The stench of the eikons permeates this pathetic realm. Even now I feel saturated by it. I can taste their stink, and every time I do, I fear that I’ve somehow been infected by it. Destruction alone can deliver this Eorzea from its taint - and destruction it will know!
No man can stop Ifrit. Nor Leviathan and Titan, not the eikons yet to come. Only Eorzea’s end will bring about their death!
Long live Nael van Darnus!!! Long live Garlemald!!!
Charledor turns and flings himself from the cliff.
Hmph… Spoken like a true Garlean.
There is much I would ask - but not here. I will expect you at the airship landing in Ul’dah.
Cid turns and walks away, leaving the Fisher with many questions. What is Meteor? Who is Nael van Darnus? And what does this have to do with Dalamud? The Fisher would have no way of knowing what she had stumbled into, how it would reshape the realm and the role she would play in it.