You arrive in Gridania with K’yoko and immediately feel a peaceful warmth flush over you. Aboard the windy airship you were not able to appreciate how much more hospitable the Gridanian temperatures are compared to Limsa’s relative cold, and the heat reminds you of home.

The landscape’s beauty is hard to take in all at once-- while Limsa had trees, they did not nearly envelop the land so completely. Everywhere you look, there are beautiful flowers in bloom and plants aplenty to accompany them. You glance over to K’yoko, and she seems to be just as lost in the periphery as you are.

K’yoko and you split up, as she seems interested in checking out the chocobo stables, while you want to get started on your work sooner rather than later. Gridania’s plaza is not even half as busy as Limsa’s was, which makes navigating it much easier. You see a wide variety of Elezen and Miqo'te, especially Keepers of the Moon, which were far less common in Limsa and even more so in Ul’dah.

Part of you feels right at home, as you identify more closely with keeper culture than seeker culture. At the end of the day, however, your mother was a keeper and your father a seeker, leaving you somewhere in between. Your friend Mizu gave you the title, ‘Retainer of the Eclipse,’ which you liked enough to hold in your heart.

On your way to the guild, you are stopped by a Twin Adders officer who sizes you up as an adventurer and asks if you’re interested in joining their grand company as a rookie, which you politely decline. He insists you take a flier, which you do so he’ll leave you alone. Joining a Grand Company when you already have involvement with the Immortal Flames feels like a bad idea in itself, especially one which is so far from home.

The conjurer’s guild is mostly occupied by children and young teens, at least at the time you arrive there. They are all gathered around the guildmaster, E-Sumi-Yan, who seems to be telling them a story from his picture book. When you first see him, you think the same thing everyone else thinks-- Who is this small child, and why is he teaching others, when some of them are even older than he is?

You later learn the startling fact that Padjal, a peculiar race found only in the Black Shroud, live for not only many many decades, but they do not ever physically age past the point where they look like a child. It is similar to the lalafell of Ul’dah, but it’s always been easier to distinguish them based on how short they are. The Padjal look nearly identical to any hyur child, except they have the addition of horns atop their head.

You never ask exactly how old E-Sumi-Yan is, but you do know he was born before the Ixal were banished from The Black Shroud, which makes him at least 200 years old, a staggering ten times older than you.

After standing around looking confused for a few minutes, you are approached by a male Miqo’te with red hair who is clearly a member of the guild. He asks if you need any help, and the two of you leave the guild so as to not disturb the kids from their story.

He introduces himself as S’olahr Tia, which makes you realize that you knew each other when you were younger! Though the Zu tribe had more than its fair share of children, some of your early education was taught to you together since you were born around the same time. Faint memories of childhood still linger in both of your minds, so the reunion is very exciting.

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He agrees to help you to the best of his abilities with your task, though does warn that he is still somewhat new to conjury, at least compared to the veteran members who have been around for decades.

On a training dummy outside the guild, he shows you some of the more common skills that conjurers can pick up. Most of them are as you expect-- Stone and Aero, which are commonly known skills that pretty much any conjurer has, along with the basic cures that you learned from Vincent’s books.

The first ability to catch your attention is Fluid Aura, where S’olahr launches a sphere of water from the hook of his cane. Upon impact, water chains bind the dummy to the ground, though it’s difficult to assess how effective such chains are on a target which never moved to begin with.

When you ask him for the specifics on the spell, you begin to realize a gaping hole in your plan. He doesn’t really precisely know how the spell works, he is just calling upon aid from the elementals of The Twelveswood. There isn’t much of a trick, though you do take note of his posture during the cast, since that was relevant in the development of Rejuvenate.

He apologizes for not being of more direct help, but you reassure him that if it were easy, it wouldn’t be so valuable to The Admiral. You split off from one another and agree to meet tomorrow by the inn, when hopefully he’ll have some literature to help out.

K’yoko and you go out and practice more on the local fauna, and she does successfully land a shot against one after around an hour. Small beginnings, you suppose. Once you wrap up, you are easily able to procure a place to spend the night in Gridania’s lodge with your technical role as a Limsan military ambassador and researcher.

When you check in, you are informed that Gridania’s leader, Kan-E-Senna, was interested in meeting you to discuss your findings thus far, which you nervously agree to. Unfortunately, The Seedseer is a morning person, which means you will need to wake up disastrously early. With a heavy heart, you make for your bunk, knowing with full confidence you will not be able to fall asleep until the witching hour.

After a few hours of tossing and turning, you frustratedly return to the inn to get a quick bite to eat. Much to your delight, you bump into Erden, who is stuffing his face with classic Gridanian apple custard in the corner. He seems surprised and nearly distressed to see you here, but that quickly fades into happiness.

“I didn’t know you’d be in Gridania!” He tries to sound cheerful, but you can tell he’s clearly exhausted from the carriage ride over.

“I was sent by the Admiral to try and produce more results.” You explain, though you do take a moment to order some apple cider. “I’m taking notes from the conjurer’s guild.”

“That’s great..!” He offers you some custard, which you politely decline-- he clearly needs the energy more than you do. “You’ll have to let me take a look at it when you finish up.”

You should really head back to bed, but instead you spend the next hour or so chatting before he basically passes out at the table. You help him back to his room and tuck him in, when he offers you to stay the night if you’d like. You get a bit flustered, and awkwardly stammer about how you need to be up early tomorrow morning and don’t want to disturb him.

By the time you make it to sleep, there’s around four hours between you and your meeting.