I haven’t really been playing Final Fantasy XIV at all this month despite my best intentions to do so. Nothing particularly wrong with the game it is just that I have been in one of those moods where I at the same time want to play something but I also don’t want to play anything I have available. It is a weird mood.
Hence why it took me so long to finally do the All Saints’ Wake event this year which started on October 18th (and ends on November 1st at 7:59 a.m. PDT in case anyone is wondering).
Spoilers-free version
Usually when I write these posts I just do a write-up of the little story that goes with these events just in case I decide to reminisce about them later. This time I am going to try something different and just talk about what we get out of it, in case someone hasn’t done the event yet and are curious.
As usual we start the event by going to Gridania and talking to the Adventurer’s Guild Investigator. The questline is pretty easy to do and shouldn’t take long to complete.
As a reward we get to choose between two ghost minions. Don’t be disappointed though if you’d like to have both of them as you can get the other one by trading with the Shady Smock for 5 pumpkin cookies.
You get one pumpkin cookie the first time you do the quest and there is a repeatable version of it inside the Haunted Mansion that awards one cookie.
If you want to get those cookies faster the old Haunted Manor is back too. You can unlock it by doing the optional quest that is available after you complete this year’s quest.
The Haunted Manor is slightly more difficult than this year’s quest since you need to do it with a group (you will automatically be matched with other people if you try to go in solo), it has a timer and can fail. But it gives 5 pumpkin cookies as a reward.
Oh, the event’s vendor also has some thematic house decorations too for 3 pumpkin cookies each.
One thing that is easy to miss: in the same room of the Haunted House that the ghosts are there is Imp in the corner. After you complete this year’s quests for the first time you can talk to the Imp and ask him to transform into one of the game’s most notable NPCs. Which one you can transform depends on how much of the story you completed. For example, I completed the storyline up to Stormblood so I could ask to be turned into Hien.
You can even use that disguise to complete the repeatable quest too instead of the usual choices. Or just use it to take a lot of screenshots. Either option is valid! 🙂
Unfortunately we can’t get out of the Haunted House with that transformation. It would be funny to try doing dungeons like that or watching the cutscenes. XD
Spoiler version
With all of that out of the way let’s get to the regular version that talks about the story.
As always the Adventurer’s Guild Investigator believes the Continental Circus is up to some shenanigans. At least they addressed why he never does anything every year when he mentions that the Adventurer’s Guild policy with this is “to live and let revel as long as they don’t get up to anything too evil”. Not the best of excuses but it will do.
Back to the story the investigator thinks they might have crossed the line this time. Since Impressario probably already figured out the Investigator intentions he asks us to investigate it for him.
When we talk with Impresario, he of course denies any wrong-doing. Although some of his ramblings are awfully suspicious.
After this brief conversation a mysterious voice whispers that they are watching us. Following the direction of the voice we end up finding a pair of small ghosts and a Pumpkin-headed apparition.
They then proceed to tell us their reason for doing all this: the ghosts used to be just some decorative objects when one night one of them saw a little girl being carried away by someone to the depths of the mansion.
Since he was just an All-Saints’ Wake decoration there wasn’t anything he could do. It was then that the Pumpkin-headed Apparition showed up and imbued both of them with life.
After that the ghosts started to keep an eye on Impresario. They found out that the Continental Circus is using the event to lure people into the mansion, kidnap them and turn the guests into jack-o-lanterns to inspire terror. If they get enough terrified victims the troupe will be able to bring back the Night of Devilry.
The ghosts don’t like any of this and they ask us to help them out to solve this situation. As we report what we just learned to the Adventurer’s Guild Investigator he mentions there was a Miqo’te child who disappeared just recently by the name of T’maritaa. There was some attempts to find her but none that bore fruit so far.
Given the information though the investigator is pretty sure the child the ghosts saw are T’maritaa. He asks us to infiltrate the mansion to locate the child while the investigator goes to get help from the Wood Wailers.
Inside the mansion we meet the ghosts again. They have a simple plan to solve all of this: we’ll disguise ourselves as one of the apparitions then talk to the troupe’s members to get some info on the missing girl.
There are 3 options on what apparition we can turn into: a succubus, a bat and an ahriman. The ghosts will tell which one we should turn into. I don’t know if it is randomly decided when we enter the instance or there is another factor determining it. I also don’t know what happens if you end up picking the wrong disguise.
Once we get our disguise we have to go to 3 different mummers and use the “Tricksome Treat” action we just got on them to get the information. After all that we find out there is a note on the second floor that should tell us the location of their victims.
The note contains a pretty easy to figure out riddle, which again is random. The answer to the riddle is the number of one of the rooms in the basement.
One of the ghosts then gives us an item that will bring back to normal any person turned into a pumpkin.
In the basement all of the rooms contain a giant pumpkin. You can see what their number is by walking inside the room. Once we find the room with the right number it is just a question of using the quest item on the pumpkin to revert them back to normal. Again, I don’t know what happens if you pick the wrong room as I haven’t tried that.
Anyway, the pumpkin doesn’t turn into a little miqo’te girl but into an old man wearing a werewolf costume. He gets scared by our ghostly friend and runs away.
Fortunately he isn’t too far away and by then he realizes we aren’t really an apparition. Even better, the girl we were looking for, T’maritaa, shows up.
Apparently she was looking around the mansion when one of the people from the Circus saw her and started to cast a spell. The old man, whose name is Dawkin, saw it and jumped in front to protect her. Dawkin was transformed into a pumpkin and T’maritaa ran away. Unfortunately there were too many guards making it too difficult for her to escape. So instead of that she hid until we showed up.
With that solved everyone goes back home safely and happily. Until next years All Saints’ Wake, I guess. 🙂
