MSQ Level 9 - Just Deserts

To start. Speak with Staelwyrn at the top of the hill in Summerford Farms. (Middle La Noscea X 25.5 Y 17.0)

The Conversation

Staelwyrn: I've come to expect a great deal from you, lass, and you've never once let me down. Yet what I'd ask of you now goes beyond aught I've asked before. Would you hear my plea all the same?

Accept the quest. If you decline it simply forgets you tried to accept the quest in the first place. Clicking on Staelwyrn again will trigger the above conversation once more.

Staelwyrn: It eases my mind to have your ear. You're no doubt familiar with that scoundrel Sevrin by now. 

Well, the schemin' scapegrace is at it again. Since that letter came for him, he's been skulkin' about in that manner he does when he's up to no good. Now he's rounded up his rogues and buggered off, with nary a word to anyone. 

I've grown accustomed to his insolence, but somethin' tells me this is different. It ain't exactly damin', but when I last had words with him he didn't look defiant so much as hunted. I can't help thinkin' he's gone lookin' for trouble and found more than he wanted. So I was hopin' you might hunt his sorry ass down and drag it back here before it's too late. 

The ungrateful little cur bites me every chance he gets, but I can't quite bring meself to cut him loose. I s'pose he reminds me a bit of my younger self. Suffice it to say, I'd rather he didn't come to a sticky end. As fer how to find him, I'd try askin' Gwynewyda at the aetheryte. She was the last one to see him. I daresay she will be able to tell you where he was headed.

Doing the Quest

This quest is one of those more serious ones, so pull yourself together, grab a coffee, and lets go find the scoundrel. 

Step one, Gwynewyda is indeed near the aetheryte. X 26.1 Y 16.6. Ask her about Sevrin and you will have the following conversation.

Gwynewyda: Nothing that passes through those gates escapes my notice!

I saw the rouser and his rabble set out for Woad Whisper Canyon not long ago, singing about drinking themselves stupider. Cheeky sods said I should join them!

I told them I'd rather shrivel up than sip whatever it was that had pickled their brains. If you find the idle swine, be sure and give them a cuff 'round the ear from me, will you?

So they are drunk and stupid. Should be easy to find them. 

Head West and make your way down the large bridge that connects the cliffface to the lands below. Thinsg will kick off as you get near the bottom and come across Aylmer, one of Sevrins friends. 

Aylmer: Of all the dirty, deceitful, downright dastardly deeds that slippery bastard's done! Claimin' to take the lads out fer a drink, only to lead us straight in to a bloody trap! IT don't get no lower than that!

'Course I've learned to stay a step ahead of ol' Sevrin, so I was ready - but the others weren't so lucky. You've got to help 'em!

Continue down the bridge and run the length of bridge to rescue the rest of the crew and put an end to Sevrin's machinations. 

Eyrimhus is the next one you will come across. It seems he has also escaped. Interract with him to find out more about the situation.

Eyrimhus: My axe may as well've been a white flag for all the good it did... Hope you fare better, or the sorry bastards in there are done for. 

He will now also run off.

Continue further and at X 20.7 Y 12.8 you will come across this scene. 

Yep it's time for another instance. 

Completing the Instance

Sozai Rarzai is at the entrance to the instance. It seems he must have also escaped. Talk to him to find out what is going on and enter the instance. The level sync for this one is level 13. Remember, you cannot enter an instance while in a party. If the instance is giving you loads if trouble, check your gear and make sure its not still too low. You can do this with the level 5 gear you were told to find earlier, but its easier with level 10 gear. 

Sozai Rarzai: Sevrin might have gotten us into this mess, but I ain't about to let him give his life for us. I'd sooner bow to a fishback then be in that connivin' bastards debt. To arms!

The instance begins.

Tattooed Man: A true knave! You betray even yourself, Sevrin.

Sevrin: Urgh!...

Tattooed Man: We were prepared to overlook the matter of your desertion on the condition that you provided us with suitable replacements. That was the agreement. Yet your latest change of heart leaves your debt to us unpaid. Few are they who betray the Serpent Reavers twice. You will not do so a third time. 

Cowering behind your protector will only delay the inevitable. Honorless wretch... Your life is all you have left.  And worthless though it may be, we shall take it.

Masked Mage: O mournful voice of creation! Send unto me a creature of the abyss, my thrall to command, that I may smite mine enemies!

You will find that you are not fighting the Serpent Reavers as expected. You are fighting a stone creation called forth by a masked mage. During the battle you will hear the following lines:

Masked Mage: You are strong, but are you strong enough to withstand this?! 

Impossible! Never has the golem been so sorely tested!

To complete the battle, dodge the AOE's and keep hitting him. He goes down easy enough if you have the right gear. 

Masked Mage: That the golem could be vanquished...That woman is no ordinary adventurer. 

Y'shtola: <sigh>... The snake slithered away. I am only glad he did not have the chance to sink his fangs more deeply into you

Queue the Echo.

Y'shtola: Those pirates do not belong to any of the known Lominsian factions... Whom do they serve? The beast tribes? Surely not. But the timing of their appearance coincides all too neatly with the recent surge in Sahagin and Kobold activity... Something is afoot. The question is, what? ... Could it be that the tribes are planning to summon their primals?

Twelve help us if it should prove so. Limsa would be hard pressed to keep a single primal at bay, let alone two. But all is yet speculation. I must needs find evidence. 

The seas continue to rise... While the lesser moon continues to fall.... And ilm by ilm, the world becomes ever more unlike itself. It is as Louisoix foretold... The coming of chaos has rendered the laws of nature mutable, blurring the boundary between the material and aetherial planes... Little now stands between us and the primals. 

...But they are not here yet. "Though time be against us, hope shall ever be on our side."

Never did the creed of Sharlayan ring more true.

Never did I dream that I would possess the means to see aether... Yet now that I do, I do begin to take it for granted. How swiftly do the wonders of Sharlayan seem commonplace...

Flower Girl: Um.... Here for you, have you come for the festivities? Today the Malestrum officially makes the great hole in the sea its training ground. Join in the celebrations!

Y'shtola: Wait, a disturbance in the aetheric flow. But whence does it emanate?

...Seasong Grotto, perhaps. 

Back in local time, you gain your senses once more. 

Y'shtola: What have we here...? Can you walk?

T'is I... Regrettably, no. He eluded me... Understood. I will inform the commodore. 

You collapsed from your exertions. Are you suitably recovered? 

Sevrin here has apprised me of all that transpired. His account shed some light upon how you came to be attacked by a golem of all things.

A golem is a mindless automaton, inert save when commanded to be otherwise. Common pirates could not hope to control such a  thing, so arcane are its workings. But then these tattooed wretches are no common pirates - they are the minions of the Sahagain. As to their purpose... well, I shall get to the bottom of it.  But first I must escort Sevrin back to his place of employment. I daresay Staelwyrn will be wondering what's become of him.

And you too, for that matter. I will bear word to him of your preservation, but I am certain he would like to thank you in person. Pray, pay the man a visit.

Ah... he told me of you, but perchance he did not tell you of me. My name is Y'shtola. I am... a naturalist of sorts, surveying the aether in the hope that it might offer up some clue as to our predicament. 

Sevrin:I'd say I owed you my life... but that doesn't cover it. If it weren't for you, my friends would be dead, an all... 'Tis a debt I can never repay. But I'll not make things worse by runnin' away. Take me to Summerford Farms an' I'll dface the consequences. 

Y'shtola: For reasons I cannot fathom, you seem...

Forgive me. Mayhap we shall ahve a chance to speak again when I have marshalled my thoughts. Until our paths next cross. Farewell. 

Handing Over Sevrin

Back to Summerford farms!

Retrace your steps up the cliff using the wooden bridge then head East to get back Staelwyrn. 

Staelwyrn: Lo! I knew you'd return.

Y'shtola delivered Sevrin a bit ago. Tales of your heroic deeds precede you! The rest came shufflin' back, too - the lot of 'em sportin' the same haunted expression.

Sevrin: It's me who's to blame for that - that an' the rest. I was once a Serpent Reaver.

Staelwyrn: A thrall to the Sahagin? Seven Hells... Reavers may look and sound and act like pirates, but they're naught but fishback's flunkies.

Sevrin: Us pirates ain't much for laws, but there's things we won't do. We've got a code,see - but the Reavers've never followed a word of it. A few years back, they started snatchin' law abidin' Lominsians. I'd only just taken the oath when my captain bent the knee to his knew Sahagin masters. I knew I had to get away. So I crept off one night, got meself a new name an' found meself a new home - Summerford Farms. Trouble is, secrets don't stay secret for long 'round here, an' word soon spread... All the way back to the sea. 

The penalty for desertion is death, but the Reavers offered me a way out instead - my freedom in exchange for my mates. 

Staelwyrn: The letter...

Sevrin: I dunno what I was thinkin'... <snort> I wasn't bloody thinkin'. Too busy soilin' meself.

Staelwyrn: Aye. But you got there in the end, didn't you? When the time came, you made the right decision. The men say little to me, but I hear 'em talk of how you stood up to the Reavers at the last - Of how you tried to give your life to save theirs.

Sevrin: Be that as it may, no deed, however good, can attone for the crime of betrayin' your brethren. I know that - I do. That's why I'm going to hand myself over to the yellowjackets. I'll bring shame to the farm no more.

Staelwyrn: Hm. You'll hear no arguments from me. Each man must sail accordin' to his own moral compass. I just hope yours guides you back here someday. There will always be a place for you here at Summerford Farms lad. 

Sevrin: An' I'll always be in your debt, Staelwyrn. 

It's not other yet! Speak again with Staelwyrn.

Staelwyrn: I owe you a debt too, Melody. Not once have you let me down. Thank you for savin' the men of my farm. If I could ask one more favour of you, it'd be this: Tell Baderon what's happened, from start to finish. I'm certain he'd put in a good word for Sevrin if he knew the whole story. And he's one of the few people I know who the Yellowjackts'll listen too.

Well, I reckon I've asked all I can possibly ask of you. Safe travels, lass.

The next quest is available from Baderon in the Drowning Wrench. Level 10. Sky-High.