Parley on the Front Lines
Parley on the Front Lines
- Quest giver
- Hien
- Location
- Kienkan (X:6.1, Y:6.0)
- Quest line
- Post-Stormblood
- Level
- 70
- Experience
10,800- Gil
2,298- Previous quest
Seiryu's Wall- Next quest
- The Face of War
- Patch
- 4.5
“Hien stands ready to depart for Ala Mhigo.
— In-game description
Rewards
- Choose one of the following options:
Steps
- Speak with the Resistance fighter in Porta Praetoria.
- Speak with Lyse.
- Speak with Alisaie.
- Speak with Alliance leaders. 0/3
- Report to Alisaie.
- Speak with Lyse.
Journal
- Hien gives orders in preparation for his departure to Ala Mhigo, and Alisaie shares the instructions she received from Lyse. You are to head to Porta Praetoria, where a Resistance fighter will escort you to Alliance Headquarters on Ala Mhigo's northeastern border.
- You locate the Resistance fighter ordered to await your arrival in the Lochs. Without further ado, you follow your guide to the Alliance's newly constructed field camp.
- After listening to your various reports concerning Alphinaud, Gaius, and the lethal Black Rose, Lyse shares her own piece of news: it seems that Emperor Varis himself will be taking a chair at the negotiation table on the condition that you and another member of the Scions are present. Lyse bids you let her know when you are prepared to attend the parley.
- You attend the first round of parley only to witness Emperor Varis dismantle every argument the Alliance leaders bring against him. Rather than let the opportunity for peace slip away, Alisaie begs the Empire's ruler to consider alternatives to war. The Emperor grudgingly agrees to a short recess, granting you time to convert with your comrades.
- Alisaie suspects Emperor Varis has attended the parley for reasons other than brokering a peace. She suggests you speak with the Alliance leaders, and formulate a strategy for learning the Emperor's true purpose.
- You speak with each of the Alliance leaders in turn, and discuss a number of potential tactics. It is time to report to Alisaie with the insights you have gained.
- The parley reconvenes, and the Alliance leaders at last elicit a blunt answer from Emperor Varis. But the revelation is hardly a welcome one. He explains how the Empire is a creation of the Ascians, and that to reclaim the world for the races of man, all nations must join together as one. The assembled dignitaries balk at his ultimatum-that in order to win their freedom, they must allow the Rejoining to proceed. Unable to countenance a sacrifice of that scale, you, too, add your voice to the chorus of defiance, and the talks rapidly disintegrate. With the Emperor's hostile farewell still ringing in the air, your party withdraws to Alliance Headquarters.
- Though peace was never a likely outcome, it seems the parley was successful in its primary purpose: the delay has allowed the vanguard from Doma time to arrive before hostilities begin in earnest...
Dialogue
Accepting the Quest
Hien: We must leave now to convene with Eorzea’s leaders, and it may be some time before I return to Doma.
Hien: Hakuro – I leave you in command.
Hakuro: My lord!
Yugiri: I shall assemble an advance party with all haste, and join you in Ala Mhigo forthwith.
Alisaie: I’ve just received word from Lyse. The Alliance has established a base camp near Ala Mhigo’s northeastern border.
Alisaie: Once we’ve arrived in the Lochs, we’re to report to a Resistance officer station in Porta Praetoria who will point us in the right direction. Let’s not keep them waiting.
At Porta Praetoria
Resistance Fighter: Ah, you must be the Scion party I was told to look out for! If you'll follow me, I'll take you directly to Alliance Headquarters.
At Alliance Headquarters
Lyse: Welcome back, you two. Greetings, Lord Hien! Glad you could join us!
Hien: Glad to be here. I would have come sooner, were our own defenses not in question. But I am pleased to report that our soldiers are assembling for deployment to Ala Mhigo as we speak.
Raubahn: We are grateful for your support. Thanks to the efforts of our allies, it won't be long before we've established defensive positions on this front as well.
Alisaie: Ahem, we have some good news too... Alphinaud has come back to us. As for the bad news...
Lyse: So, Alphinaud won't wake up, Gaius van Baelsar is alive and hunting Ascians, and the Empire is planning to poison us all with toxic gas. Does that sound about right?
Lyse: Ordinarily, any one of those things would have left me in shock, but the way things have been lately, it's all starting to seem pretty normal.
Lyse: Getting back to your report, are we sure this "Black Rose" is the weapon Maxima was talking about?
Raubahn: It fits the description. And it seems we have Alphinaud to thank for sparing us an early demonstration of its effectiveness. I've a feeling this won't be the last time his bravery in the Empire will serve us here in Eorzea.
Raubahn: The threat of an unknown weapon has had us all on edge... But now that we know what we're dealing with, we can take steps to defend against it.
Raubahn: As for Gaius... I'm not sure what to think. Am I happy he's alive? Not in the slightest. Am I happy he's hunting Ascians? Aye. I'd have to say I am.
Lyse: Oh, speaking of Garleans-you-didn't-expect-to-see, we have a tale of our own, as it happens. When we sent envoys to the imperial army to request talks, they returned with the message that "Varis zos Galvus" would be attending.
Hien: The Emperor himself? Well, Varis did sanction the Populares' peace mission...
Hien: ...But knowing that an Ascian walks in his son's skin, I do not see how we can trust him or anyone from that nest of vipers.
Raubahn: The Alliance would proceed with negotiations regardless, if only to give ourselves more time to prepare. We do, however, require your cooperation...
Lyse: Ah, right, yes... So... as a condition for the talks to go forward, the Empire has requested that a member of the Scions be present. There'll be a representative from each Alliance nation, of course, but I'm afraid we have to ask that you come along too.
Alisaie: Gods, Lyse... you know how much I hate politics. But then what choice do I have? Alphinaud and the others aren't going to do it...
Alisaie: Very well. I shall attend as the Scion's representative.
Lyse: In case you're wondering why I didn't ask you, the Empire also requested the presence of "Eorzea's champion"...
Adventurer: I'll be there. OR I'm not fond of politics either...
Lyse: That's settled, then. We don't know what Varis means to bring to the table, or why he wants you there, but having you close at hand will make all the difference.
Raubahn: The meeting will take place on the border. Anticipating an early assault, we man to position the bulk of our forces nearby.
Lyse: The Alliance leaders should already be on their way. Once you're ready, we can head out and join them.
Speaking to Lyse
Lyse: Well, I don't suppose it's polite to keep an emperor waiting too long. Shall we?
At the Meeting
Varis zos Galvus: Esteemed representatives of the Eorzean Alliance─on behalf of the Garlean Empire, I thank you for inviting me here today.
Varis zos Galvus: As this parley was convened at your request, I invite you to speak first.
Nanamo Ul Namo: Very well, Your Radiance. I, Nanamo Ul Namo, seventeenth in the line of Ul, should be pleased to oblige you.
Nanamo Ul Namo: As recent events in Ala Mhigo and Doma have made plain, the subjugation and exploitation of neighboring nations is not a sustainable policy.
Nanamo Ul Namo: Should this day end in war, you may very well defeat us, but you will never extinguish the people's desire for freedom. Though it may not be in our lifetime, there will be another revolution, another war, and the cycle will continue.
Nanamo Ul Namo: Doma has entered into a concord with the nations of Eorzea. A partnership wherein we recognize one another as equals.
Nanamo Ul Namo: Garlemald could be afforded similar treatment. You need only set aside your ambitions and join us in paving a path towards peace.
Varis zos Galvus: Hmph! You will not win me over with sophistry, Your Grace.
Varis zos Galvus: As you know only too well, this alliance lacks the strength to keep the peace within its own borders. Even now, your struggles with the beastmen continue unabated.
Varis zos Galvus: Divided, you sow this fertile soil with the seeds of your differences and reap naught but discord and chaos for your trouble. Eorzea must be united under one leader, one purpose. I would offer you both and bring an end to your strife.
Lyse: With all due respect, Your Radiance, the only thing that you offered the people of Ala Mhigo was fear and hopelessness.
Hien: The citizens of Doma can also attest to the meager alms of imperial rule. There is no purpose to be found in a life of oppression, each day more uncertain than the last.
Lyse: Our people are willing to die for their freedom. A great many already have. And countless more will, if we don't put an end to this madness here and now.
Varis zos Galvus: We brought order and stability to your lives. This madness and bloodshed is of your own making. You broke the peace, not Garlemald.
Raubahn: Peace? Order? You kill our peoples, despoil our lands, take everything that is ours. And what? You expect us to lick the boot that grinds our faces into the dirt?
Varis zos Galvus: I expect you to weigh the costs. To recognize that countless lives have been lost on both sides in pursuit of a greater good─and to not squander all we have achieved in a fit of petulance.
Aymeric: Your Radiance, I fear I can personally attest to the dangers of pursuing one's vision with such righteous fervor.
Aymeric: For a thousand years, the Holy See of Ishgard waged war with dragons.
Aymeric: A thousand years of sacrifice, of sorrow and hate, in which we bathed in the blood of friend and foe alike. Had it gone on any longer, we may well have drowned.
Aymeric: Yet we have chosen to raise ourselves out of this bloody spiral, and have since made peace with our former enemy.
Varis zos Galvus: So I understand. No doubt the dragons were more receptive to your overtures in the wake of their leader's demise.
Varis zos Galvus: You speak of peace, yet use war to achieve it. Your father would not have bothered to obscure his intent with honeyed words. He understood that strength is all that matters in the end.
Varis zos Galvus: Without his clarity of vision, I can but wonder what will become of Ishgard and her people.
Varis zos Galvus: There was a time when Garlemald too lacked a leader of conviction. Weak and unable to wield magic, we were at the mercy of the strong, from whom we sought refuge in the bitter cold of the north.
Varis zos Galvus: Were it not for the discovery of ceruleum, and the subsequent development of magitek, we might never have gained the power to take back that which was rightfully ours.
Merlwyb: You speak as if your people were the first to have been driven from their homes. Limsa Lominsa was built by wayward souls in search of a place to call their own.
Merlwyb: On the shores of Vylbrand we found it, and from those humble beginnings did we grow and flourish. And all without robbing our neighbors of their liberty.
Varis zos Galvus: So sayeth the pirate. Am I to believe that you simply asked the kobolds to yield up their lands, and that they were happy to oblige you? That you did not drive them out like rats in the hold of one of the many ships seized by your “privateers”?
Varis zos Galvus: I will concede that, after centuries of exile, reclamation may be mistaken for invasion. Nevertheless, it is not─and those who till stolen soil have no right to object when cast out in turn.
Kan-E-Senna: Your uncompromising nature rivals that of the Ixal.
Kan-E-Senna: They too lament circumstances which they themselves perpetuate. Were they but to embrace peace, we would welcome them with open arms. Indeed, some few have done just that, and now receive of the Twelveswood's bounty.
Kan-E-Senna: Would that your people might learn from their example.
Varis zos Galvus: You would dare compare us to the birdmen? You who thought to invoke the Twelve and threaten all of creation?
Varis zos Galvus: I came here in the hope of finding some speck of common ground, but I see now these discussions will accomplish nothing.
Varis zos Galvus: Despite what you people may believe, I am not wont to choose the sword over the olive branch. 'Tis but a pity men are loath to accept one without first being shown the other.
Alisaie: Wait, I beg you! This meeting was supposed to be a chance to find a way forward together, not to bemoan the missteps which brought us here.
Alisaie: Please─if you truly consider violence a last resort, there must be a way we can come to an agreement.
Nanamo Ul Namo: As Mistress Alisaie says, we did not come here to bicker over the past, but to discuss how we might strive towards a brighter future.
Nanamo Ul Namo: Emperor Varis, may I suggest a short recess, that all present might compose themselves prior to beginning anew?
Varis zos Galvus: Very well. I pray this intermission will suffice to move these talks in a more constructive direction
After the Intermission
Varis zos Galvus: Now then. Who would have the floor?
Nanamo Ul Namo: Before we resume, I wish to offer you an apology. After you graciously accepted our invitation to discuss an armistice, we have done naught but rebuke you at every opportunity. I believe I speak for all of us when I say we are deeply sorry for our discourtesy.
Merlwyb: I'll admit, your familiarity with our affairs surprised me─and served to remind me how little I know of yours.
Raubahn: I think all here can understand the desire to reclaim one's homeland. But why expand further─that is my question.
Hien: If I may─the answer can be found in the imperial doctrine they took great pains to impart to my people.
Hien: Recognizing the threat eikons pose to the world, Solus zos Galvus decreed that they were to be eradicated. To this end, he began a campaign to unite all lands under the Garlean banner.
Hien: Or so we were taught. Yet the Emperor only reached the Burn─the barrens said to have been laid waste by eikons─after conquering all the lands that lay between. What is more, I am quite certain the practice of summoning was not nearly so widespread in the days before the Empire's founding.
Lyse: When you put it like that, it all starts to sound like an excuse, doesn't it? But to distract from what? Why are you really waging this war?
Varis zos Galvus: ...Finally, you ask the right question.
Varis zos Galvus: I can but hope you heed mine answer and at last accept the righteousness of our cause.
Varis zos Galvus: My goal is this: to return the world to the way it once was. The way it was always meant to be.
Varis zos Galvus: In doing so, mankind will be made whole once more.
Varis zos Galvus: No longer will we suffer from the dissension born of our differences.
Varis zos Galvus: There will be but one race─a perfect race─as we were when time began.
Lyse: What in Rhalgr's name are you talking about?
Varis zos Galvus: I am talking about the origins of this star. Of the Source, and its thirteen reflections.
Varis zos Galvus: At the instant of the great sundering, 'twas not only the world that was shattered, but mankind itself. Thus were we divided into myriad races, each with its own unique imperfections.
Varis zos Galvus: That is why man looks upon his neighbor and feels fear and hatred. Why he wages war. Why he kills his brother.
Varis zos Galvus: You all in your own way have proven as much today. The peace you seek is but a fleeting solution to a fundamental problem. One which calls for more drastic measures.
Varis zos Galvus: To bring about everlasting peace, our worlds must be rejoined.
Varis zos Galvus: That is the goal the Empire would see realized─the glorious future unto which we shall one day shepherd mankind.
Merlwyb: A rejoining of worlds...?
Kan-E-Senna: I have heard this tale of the Source and its reflections before...
Nanamo Ul Namo: Are these not the selfsame desires as the Ascians?
Aymeric: Emperor Varis! Do not trust in their words. They will lead you to your doom.
Aymeric: My father thought to use them, but in the end he succumbed to their temptations. He embraced summoning like so many other pawns before him. Do not tell us you mean to do the same!
Varis zos Galvus: To be a pawn, free from the burden of choice, would be a blessing...
Varis zos Galvus: But I foreswore that privilege the day I learned that the Garlean Empire was built by the hand of an Ascian.
Alisaie: What!?
Varis zos Galvus: Yes. My grandsire, the former emperor, is of their number. And who better to build an empire capable of bringing about the calamitous change we desire?
Varis zos Galvus: Would you condemn me for this alliance, for bowing to the will of these shadowy masters, when the prize is true and lasting peace?
Varis zos Galvus: I come not to conquer, but to liberate─to free man from the prison of divergence.
Varis zos Galvus: Imagine a world united. One perfect race beneath a single standard.
Varis zos Galvus: An army before whose might these servants of Darkness and Light would fly as leaves in a storm, never again to meddle in man's affairs.
Varis zos Galvus: We would be the masters of our own fate!
Varis zos Galvus: I bid you join me! Not as subjects of Garlemald, but of a new nation! And together we shall win freedom for ourselves and generations yet unborn!
Lyse: You want to trigger another half-dozen calamities? You can't be serious!
Raubahn: Have you forgotten how many died? There will be no one left!
Merlwyb: Do you truly imagine we would aid you in your bloodletting?
Kan-E-Senna: It is unthinkable! Unconscionable!
Varis zos Galvus: And what is the alternative? To be as cattle waiting for slaughter. I would have us work together, that we might take fate into our own hands.
Alisaie: Into your hands, perhaps...
Alisaie: But what of the other worlds, Your Radiance? With every calamity, you obliterate a star and every soul that dwells on it!
Varis zos Galvus: To the Ascians, we are all but tiny, momentary specks within an indifferent universe. We cannot hope to oppose them until we have been made whole once more.
Nanamo Ul Namo: Are these truly the words of Garlemald's ruler?
Nanamo Ul Namo: The flaws and foibles which you so abhor are what make us who we are. Every nation─even yours, Emperor Varis─is made whole through the combination of these imperfections, the strengths of one compensating for the weaknesses of another.
Nanamo Ul Namo: While it is true that man succumbs all too often to anger and avarice, he may yet overcome his baser instincts through the forming of bonds with others, fostering community and cooperation.
Nanamo Ul Namo: That the protector of an empire should not only reject these fundamental truths, but seek to change them at so dear a cost to life is indefensible.
Nanamo Ul Namo: Such a man is not fit to govern.
Varis zos Galvus: And you, Warrior of Light? Would you refuse me as well?
Nanamo Ul Namo: It would seem the Alliance is of one mind on this matter.
Varis zos Galvus: You Eorzeans never cease to disappoint me.
Varis zos Galvus: Though I suppose I have only myself to blame for expecting more from savages.
Varis zos Galvus: This discussion is at an end. I bid you make ready for our next meeting. It will not be at the negotiating table.