Sohm Al and the Death of Love

We expected to have to spend more time questing in the Dravanian Forelands before being allowed to ascend the mountain of Sohm Al and fulfill the promise we made to deal with the desperate dragon Nidhogg the only way we could — by killing his girlfriend, Tiamat.
TioMAN. I don’t know WHY I keep making that mistake. We felt there’d be more makework quests between the killing of Ravana and the next step, but nope, up we went and took on the thoroughly enjoyable dungeon of Sohm Al.
Kasul thought the dungeon more or less oversold the whole dragon dungeon theme by not introducing dragons until the third leg of the dungeon, but what it lost in timeliness, it made up for in quantity. Cowardly dragons flew away, only to try an ambush again, died anyway.
You can only imagine how upset Tioman was when we caught up with her. I can only imagine, too, because what with dodging stuff and having a super dragoon along for the ride who knew exactly how to kill a dragon, as dragoons do, she didn’t last long. One last shout out to her lover, Nidhogg the One-Eyed Dragon, and she died.
Was a good, easy dungeon. Would run again. Said to drop a cute kitty-dragon minion and a playing card, but I got neither.

Our NPC crew popped up afterward, insisting that they had helped in some manner that we could not see. Iceheart felt like she’d never be able to have sex with another dragon after helping in some unhelpful way with the Tioman fight. Estinien, the dragoon who has Nidhogg’s other eye, sensed that Nidhogg was now pretty angry about something. Alphinaud congratulated himself for being totally awesome, as he does.
With the dragon dead, the way was clear to reach the very summit of Sohm Al, the Roof of the World, which turned out to be…….
Flashback to the time when we were all excited about killing King Mog Moogle the XIVth, the primal summoned by the Moogles out of their own legends. Supposedly the Moogles, who at that time lived in the clouds, sought to escape the battles of the gods by fleeing to Eorzea. King Mog spun an endless rope that the Moogles used to descend. There was nobody to hold the rope for old King Mog, though, and so he was left to stay and face the wrath of the gods.
It turned out that this was maybe not 100% of the truth, as we found the Moogles very much in evidence in Churning Mists, a land of floating islands set among the clouds and mountain peaks. We saw EVIDENCE of them, but no actual Moogles, until we headed down to Gridania, got the Seedseer and a spare Moogle, and headed back. And then we found them. And wouldn’t you know it, they had a bunch of trivial jobs for us to see to.

Alphinaud did manage to gather some sticks while Kasul and I ran around trying to take care of threats to his life. Kid sure can gather them sticks, though. Gotta give him that.
Kasul and I worked on some side quests, found a few aethyr currents, as we prepared to blow a horn to summon Iceheart’s Really Good Friend No Just Friends Really Can We Go Somewhere Private? Where I imagine she will try to lure the dragon into eating her, as he ate Shiva so long ago, rekindling the peace between humans and dragons with the healing power of cannibalism.
I have a cat who would cheerfully swallow me whole if I missed mealtime, so I’m very familiar with the uneasy alliance between beast and humanity right here on Earth.
That was pretty much game night, but it was fun to do a dungeon again 🙂 It took a few minutes to remember how to do that tanking thing… I really was trying to do it the /r/ffxiv way, and there is a certain attraction to just playing on the edge. I eventually just returned to my vitality spec and the defensive stance. Sometimes dungeons should just be a way to relax with friends, too.
Plus we had a dragoon with fire in his belly and lightning in his heart, so all we had to do is just stay out of his way.
Next time: Just what DOES happen when we blow that horn?