The Last Word – A Tempest of Testimonies

The Raven, Gridania’s leading tabloid, alights today, bearing words as dark as its wings.

In a continuation of her previous missive that brought to our attention strange anomalies assailing the region, keen-eyed reporter Kipih Jakkya once more writes to us from the frontlines of her investigation.

Read on below if you would learn of her latest findings on the gathering storm.

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I put quill to parchment today in hopes of making known to one and all the first-hand accounts of adventurers regarding the strange occurrences of late. What follows is the fruit of my "putting feet to moss," to borrow the words of a peer—solid, irrefutable evidence of the great peril bound for Eorzea.

Allow me to begin with deaspected crystals. How does one go about describing these affronts to the laws of nature? Some compare them to eggs bereft of yolk, while to others they are akin to Fen-Yll wares of slipshod craftsmanship. Others still find a metaphor on a grander scale more fitting, such as a Gridania lost to the elementals' guidance. If this reporter might be permitted an opinion, however, deaspected crystals are a metaphor unto themselves.

The crystals have been turning up in all manner of locales, with seemingly no rhyme nor reason to their distribution. Inquiring one adventurer of her recent discovery, I received a vivid recounting of the time she found one elbow-deep in the steaming entrails of a felled quarry. Speaking with another, it was simply a matter of chancing upon a specimen while undertaking a levequest at the behest of the Adventurers' Guild. The adventurers with whom I spoke came from various walks of life. Yet all were united in the misgiving that mayhap this phenomenon be connected to the unusual weather patterns assailing the Twelveswood in recent moons.

Now, I trust you will recall the shady figure who has taken to loitering about aetheryte camps—aye, the one inciting fear among the populace with unsettling prophecies. One R.G. mustered up the courage to venture a conversation, only to have him cast some unknown spell upon her with nary a warning. For a blessing, the brave lass took no harm—on the contrary, she reported feeling a tremendous sense of well-being permeating through her. Such inexplicable acts, however, serve to heighten my apprehension rather than allay it. And as if the interminable ramblings of one man sufficed not to bleed the ears, some individuals have taken it upon themselves to warn passersby of false prophets with such fervor as would wake the dead. Will our camps never know peace again?

In seeking to cast light upon the murky forest of the transient's gibberish, I came to know of one T.M., who posits a connection between the words septenary moon—that’s seventh moon, to use the common term—and the calamity prophesied by Mezaya Thousand Eyes, writ in the seventh verse of the Divine Chronicles. Sensing that this hypothesis bears further investigation, I resolved to delve into what historical records I could find on the subject matter.

My research lead me to another adventurer, one V.P., who lends further weight to the apocalypse theory by quoting The Five Ages—aye, that hefty tome seen hither and thither that describes Eorzea's cycle of prosperity and destruction. If I might be forgiven for paraphrasing from memory, the passage of interest states that the Sixth Astral Era must give way to the Seventh Umbral Era, the coming of which will end life as we know it. I believe I speak for the most of us when I say I hadn't imagined that the doomsaying words of a grandiloquent tome would come to pass in my lifetime.

In sharp contrast to this grim outlook, I encountered adventurers also who were taking the imminent catastrophe in their stride. Case in point was one H.Y. who, upon hearing of impending doom, proceeded to well-nigh shout out challenges to the heavens in playful defiance. While a part of me cringed that such a show of bravado might tempt fate—or at least hasten the day of reckoning—I found myself comforted in the knowledge that come what may, we will always be able to rely upon the optimism and fortitude of adventurers to turn night into day.

And here my second missive comes to an end. While my investigation brought me across many and more noteworthy first-hand accounts, for now I shall stay my quill, that the implications of the above findings might be given due time to sink in.

In closing, it has come to my attention that, of late, certain other papers—The Mythril Eye, The Harbor Herald, and The Sultana Sun Times, to name but a few—have belatedly seen fit to report on the selfsame object of my pursuit. While I doubt not the integrity of their journalism, if it is the latest tidings you seek, know that naught read beyond the sheets of the The Raven will fulfill your needs.

Till next time, may the Twelve watch over you.

Kipih Jakkya

* My sincerest thanks to R.G., T.M., V.P., and H.Y.—the kindly adventurers who consented to my use of their diary entries as inspiration for this article.