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I. The Warrior of Light
The realm of Eorzea has been a land of both prosperity and conflict since time immemorial. It is a place the gods embrace like no other, evidenced by its unique abundance of the world's magical energy, aether, and the powerful Aether Crystals which form in its presence. Thanks to this bounty of magic civilizations throughout Eorzea's history have risen to unparalleled peaks of wealth and happiness during times known as Astral Eras. Yet each of these periods has ended in a Calamity which wreaked havoc and began a corresponding Umbral Era. Five years have passed since the most recent of these disasters, which began the Seventh Umbral Era.
The prelude to this Calamity was a war. Three of Eorzea's six city-states, united as the Eorzean Alliance, had been locked for years in a deadly struggle against a power from across the sea known as the Garlean Empire. The Garleans had come out of fear, for in Eorzea the gods walk the mortal world in physical form. When they do, they bleed the land of its life-givig aether, and all who bask in their presence become slaves to their will through a magic called Tempering. Upon hearing these stories it was their Emperor's wish that these "eikons," which the natives know as Primals, be eliminated for all time.
The Garleans first attempted conquest, but this failed when their airship fleet was struck down by an army of dragons inhabiting Eorzea's northern mountains. Their alternative plan was Project Meteor, the dropping of the planet's lesser moon, Dalamud, on the continent's heart. However, it would not be the moon's collision which brought about the Calamity, but the being imprisoned within: The Elder Primal, Bahamut.
Bahamut's rampage brought ruin to the realm. An attempt to seal him within a new prison failed. It was only the sacrifice of the Archon Louisoix Leveilleur which saved Eorzea from complete destruction, though none knew how for he teleported everyone else away from the battlefield before he struck his final blow.
Five years later, the world was healing, though that healing seemed to slow every day. Into this aftermath stepped Kheris Kilrau, novice adventurer, and our protagonist.
A "Keeper of the Moon," Miqo'te, Kheris was a glory-seeker. She traveled to the desert city of Ul'dah, home of the Gladiator's Guild, to leave her mark on the world. Little did she know a grander destiny awaited.
As Kheris adventured, she would often become overwhelmed by visions. Sometimes they were the memories of others. Sometimes she saw a great crystal, commanding her to Hear, Feel, and Think. As she earned renown and favor in the Ul'dahn court, these visions also attracted the attention of a mysterious organization known as the Scions of the Seventh Dawn, who sought to recruit her. She was told this power was a mark of the Echo, a divine blessing of the Mother Crystal Hydaelyn.
This Echo made her an invaluable ally to the Scion's cause: safeguarding Eorzea from both the surviving Garleans and the dreaded Primals they had come to destroy. After all, only the Echo could protect one from the magic of Tempering. Moreover, Kheris was unique because she could hear Hydaelyn's voice. This distinction was shared only by the Scion's leader Minfillia.
The Scions told her all this meant she was destined to serve as the goddess' champion. She would inherit the mantle of the heroes who disappeared after fighting by Loiusoix's side. She would be the next Warrior of Light.
II. Bringers of Chaos
Kheris' role as Warrior of Light was not a simple one. The Primals she was enlisted to fight were summoned by civilizations known collectively as The Beast Tribes, and through these battles she came to realize that the Alliance she was defending had done much to wrong them. Unchecked greed, bigotry and blatant imperialist expansion on the part of Mankind had driven the Beast Tribes to desperation, and in their desperation they turned to their gods to smite their enemies.
While neither side had clean hands in these wars, it seemed wrong to Kheris to side so completely with the Alliance, to enable them to continue harming the Beasts and thus perpetuating the violence. To her chagrin her hand was forced in this conflict regardless of these reservations. Tempering made negotiating with the summoners nearly impossible, and the Primal's hunger for aether risked permanent damage to the already-fragile environment.
Even knowing this, each victory only served to gnaw at her conscience. As she feared, as her battles wore on the Beast Tribes grew more desperate, the Alliance grew bolder, and the conflict intensified.
Each city-state also brimmed with internal problems which Kheris desired to solve. Sadly, she often achieved only frustration in these efforts. She tried to help refugees displaced by climate change, economic difficulties and the Garlean conquest of the lost city-state of Ala Mhigo, and was stymied at every turn. She tried to influence political conflicts and stem the rising tides of nationalism and intolerance, but constantly failed.
Worst of all, in the face of this cauldron of conflict, the surviving Garleans had begun to regroup under the leadership of Legatus Gaius van Baelsar. Despite anything else Kheris accomplished, his plans for a renewed conquest of Eorzea were growing ever closer to fruition.
It was soon revealed to Kheris that not all of these challenges were arising naturally. Throughout her adventure, she'd been dogged by men in robes wielding dark magic. After becoming enough of a nuisance to their plans, one of these robed men, Lahabrea, revealed himself. He explained that he and his brethren, the Ascians, were manipulating the Primal summoning, the Alliance's internal problems and the Garlean threat, all toward their own ends. The only thing more troubling than this information was that Lahabrea had shared it so freely, proving that he did not consider the Warrior of Light to be any threat to these plans.
III. The Ultimate Weapon
Lahabrea's confidence would appear to be well-founded. He gave the Garleans information and transportation which allowed them to raid Scion headquarters at The Waking Sands. Most of the group was taken prisoner or killed. The only apparent survivors were Kheris herself, and Alphinaud Leveilleur, grandson of the hero Louisoix. They joined forces with Cid Garlond, Garlean defector and magiteck expert, and continued their campaign against the Primals. They would send a message to the Alliance that the Scions were not finished yet.
Unfortunately they were not only the ones who thought to make an example of a Primal to prove their strength. In the midst of combat against one of these beast gods, Legatus van Baelsar appeared and played his trump card.
Ultima Weapon: a construct of the lost civilization of ancient Allag, rebuilt using Garlean technology and forbidden Ascian spells. This machine struck down not one, but three Primals in a single battle, and forced the Scions to retreat to boot. His supremacy demonstrated, van Baelsar issued an ultimatum to the Alliance: surrender, or face his technological terror.
Backed into the corner, the surviving Scions, reunited with a few of their missing members, planned a full-scale assault on a Garlean fortress to rescue their captive friends. Only together could they stand a chance of convincing the Alliance leaders to resist. Or, for that matter, stand a chance of actually finding a way to defeat the Weapon.
Kheris herself led the infiltration. Many times she had questioned her Scion allies. Often she'd felt manipulated, even outright lied to, by these mysterious warrior-scholars. Now they were the only hope for a future without the Garlean domination.
Their escape was successful, but came with a stunning revelation. The Ascians are not mortal beings, but immortal spirits possessing innocent people. That was how Lahabrea knew of the Scion headquarters: he had taken over one of their member's bodies as a host.
Kheris and the Scions convinced the leaders of the Alliance nations to attempt an all-or-nothing attack. Each of the three Alliance armies, or Grand Companies, struck different Garlean fortresses around the continent. This isolated Ultima Weapon's hangar, the Praetorium. With Cid's aid, Kheris struck at the heart of this facility, confronting Gaius and all his underlings for the sake of Eorzea's future.
With the light of Hydaelyn's blessing shining through her, and the connections she'd forged across her journeys, Kheris struck down the Legatus, his Weapon, and even Lahabrea himself, freeing his host and banishing him back to the void he came from.
In honor of the victory, the Alliance leaders proclaimed the start of the Seventh Astral Era.
IV. Dragonsong
During her adventurers, Kheris had spent some time in the lands of Coerthas, home to the isolationist city-state of Ishgard. A feudal theocracy, Ishgard was once the fourth member of the Eorzean Alliance, but withdrew from the pact some years before and remained aloof despite the mounting crises. The ruling Archbishop and his noble lords justified this by pointing to their thousand-year blood war with the dragons of the Dravanian Horde.
While these very same dragons had been instrumental in destroying the Garlean Airship Fleet and thus preventing Eorzea's conquest, none among the nations of Mankind had ever learned why they had given this aid unprompted. Once the threat was removed, both dragon and knight returned to killing each other with gusto, caring for little beyond each other's destruction.
While the dragons themselves were dangerous enough, Ishgard also contended with traitors among their own people. Some become so disenchanted by the endless bloodshed that they abandon worship of their patron goddess Halone the Fury and name the dragons themselves as their gods. These Heretics infiltrate every part of Ishgardian society, including the very Inquisition which the Holy See sends to dig them out. They not only undermine Ishgardian military efforts nearly as badly as the endless snows the Calamity subjected the region to, they also create an atmosphere of suspicion and fear. Many meet ignominious ends in witch hunts, where the only way to prove you are innocent of heresy is through your death.
In the wake of victory over the Garleans, Kheris found herself thrust once again into Ishgardian affairs. Rumors of a new leader among the Heretics, Ysayle, aka 'Lady Iceheart,' drew the Scions into an investigation. They hoped to bridge the political divide and possibly bring Ishgard back into the Alliance by helping with this threat.
A confrontation with this woman revealed a startling secret: she herself possessed the Echo, and heard Hydaelyn's voice, just as Kheris did. Worse, she had the ability to summon a heretofore unknown Primal, Shiva, by allowing her body to be possessed!
Further investigation revealed that Shiva was not a god like the other Primals, but a real woman who had lived some thousand years earlier and was revered as a saint among the Heretics. This cast doubt on everything the Scions thought they knew about Primals, but there was no time to dig deeper into the mystery. Portents foretold that the Dravanians would soon strike Ishgard in force. Seeking to learn if these signs held any truth, Kheris investigated the corpse of the Dragon King, Midgardsormr. While his body was desiccated, it turned out his soul merely slept.
A battle ensued, and victory earned Kheris answers: it was not the King who would lead this invasion, but his child Nidhogg, ancient enemy of Ishgard's founders. However, this answer came with a question: What had Kheris ever truly accomplished?
Was she master of her own fate, or merely a pawn of the Mother Crystal? It was a question Kheris herself had been troubled by since facing Ultima Weapon. The machine had been unstoppable through her strength alone. Only Hydaelyn's intervention had saved her at the critical moment.
Midgardsormr decided that if she had no answer, he would help her find one through... practical means. With a spear of magic, the great wyrm shattered Hydaelyn's divine protections, driving away the Crystal's Light with one blow. Then, strangely, he bound his own spirit to Kheris, pledging to observe her. To what end, he would not say.
As promised, the Dravanians came, Iceheart shattering Ishgard's magical defenses just before their onslaught. Casualties were enormous, but with the aid of the Warrior of Light the dragons were turned back before it was too late. Still, Midgardsormr assured her, they would return. The Dragonsong had been sung, and there would be many verses yet before his son's wrath was satisfied.
V. A Night To Remember
Beyond this grand tale of knights and dragons, Kheris faced many challenges at the start of the Seventh Astral Era. With their common enemy vanquished, or at least weakened, tensions began to flare among the Alliance nations. Ruins from the Allagan civilization had been unearthed by Bahamut's attack, and soon there were active skirmishes over who would have the right to claim them and their troves of lost technology. This fighting only intensified when another Allagan superweapon, Omega, was found beneath the main battleground.
Worse yet, a conspiracy was being hatched by one of Ul'dah's richest merchants, Teledji Adeledji, to claim this weapon, and seize Eorzea for himself. Lord Teledji stoked the discontent among the refugee populations, Ul'dahn and Ala Mhigan alike, inciting them to violence. He feigned care for their plight while also leading them into slaughter with false promises of revolution. This destabilized the region, weakening the positions of both Flame General Raubahn Aldynn and Sultana Nanamo Ul Namo, Kheris' closest allies in the city.
Meanwhile, the Scions had troubles of their own. Relocating their headquarters to the Rising Stones in the neutral city of Revenant's Toll, they continued to battle against new and fiercer Primals. Even though both Kheris and Minfillia encouraged peaceful alternatives to dealing with the Beast Tribes, their allies seemed to have no interest in any solution to this threat beyond violence. The Ascians did not remain quiet either, continuing to stoke this conflict on both sides for their mystery purpose.
In turn, the Scions sought a method to permanently slay Ascians, since even Kheris' heroic blow against Lahabrea was only enough to drive him away rather than kill him. While they were able to discover such a method, it came with a price: the death of it's inventor.
A final, fully practical method for utilizing this technique is still not complete. The only silver-lining to the whole struggle was that sharing these victories and defeats brought Kheris closer to Minfillia, building a bridge of trust which had not been there before.
Young Alphinaud was also not idle. In an effort to increase Scion influence and serve as a bridge between all peoples of Eorzea, he founded a new Grand Company, the Crystal Braves.
This order earned much praise for their efforts to stabalize the troubled Alliance. Their Commander, Ilberd, was an old friend of General Raubahn, and they worked closely to safeguard Ul'dah against Teledji's machinations. The Braves also fought against the Dravanians, helping Ishgard hold the line in its darkest hour, and brought down a Garlean spy who had been operating inside the Alliance since before the war had even begun.
All seemed well, until whispers began to reach Kheris about financial records not adding up properly. When one of the informants who detected these irregularities turned up dead, Kheris prepared to make more serious inquiries so that this corruption might be purged from the Braves.
Before such action could be taken, however, Kheris was called to make an appearance at a state dinner hosted by Sultana Nanamo. At this gathering, the Sultana spoke to the Warrior of Light in private. She had conceived a desperate masterstroke stop Teledji's plotting and solve the refugee dilemma in a single move: she would simultaneously abdicate her throne, and dissolve the governing authority of the nobility, forcing Ul'dah to convert into a democratic republic where the poor would have equal voice to the rich. Kheris swore to her friend that she would help this plan succeed.
The poison did its task in moments. With timing worthy of a precision clock, Teledji arrived with armed guards to accuse Kheris of regicide. He took her into custody, and publicly denounced her to all the nobles and dignitaries who had been assembled for Nanamo's proclamation. Leveling simultaneous accusations against the other Scions and Raubahn, Teledji's victory seemed all but assured. However, his scheme had not accounted for Raubahn's rage at hearing of the death of his beloved Sultana.
With a single blow, the Flame General butchered the tiny fiend... which is exactly what Ilberd and his paymaster, Lord Lolorito Nanarito, had been waiting for. The Crystal Braves turned on the Scions and their allies, Ilberd personally removing one of Raubahn's arms to subdue him. Outnumbered and overwhelmed, the Scions attempted to escape the city, and one by one they were forced to stay behind to buy time for the rest. Eventually, even Minfillia sacrificed herself to secure Kheris' path to safety.
Only two Scions managed to escape this trap besides the Warrior of Light: Alphinaud, with the aid of General Raubahn's son, and Tataru, Minfillia's secretary and book-keeper. While others they count as allies remained free, they were not only wanted for a crime they did not commit, they had lost nearly every useful resource to combat the accusation in a single move. They did not even know if any of those they'd left behind were still alive.
Shorn of all options, the surviving Scions determined there was only one course available to them. They would seek sanctuary in the one place on Eorzea that no agent of Ul'dah would be permitted. The one place isolated enough from the politics of the Alliance that they could be assured the accusations against them would mean nothing. They would go to Ishgard.
Whatever dangers they might face there, the heroes had nothing left to lose...
