Chapter 8: Emptiness Bleeds

PM 8-1(Garden of Antiquity)
PM 8-2(A Fate Decided)
PM 8-3(When Angles Fall)
PM 8-4(Dawn)

Alright kids, you've made it this far. Now you have sea access. This includes Sea both South and North. (Which means you can do Limbus). So, you're plopped out in Altaieu. Lemme get you a map so you don't go crazy.

8-1:

First you need to head to head to H-11 to the barrier: Crystalline Field. It's up the ramp. That is how you would normally get to the palace once you complete 8-1. You get a cutscene. Now you are faced with killing 3 sets of NMs at each Rubious Crystal. again, the usual PM rules are involved here: if you have few people the battle'll be fairly tough but less chaotic likewise easy and fast fight if you have nearly a full alliance but very chaotic.

Before this, let me explain to you a bit about aerns. Aerns have all normal jobs that a beastmen would have, however you do not know what job they are till you attack them. It's fairly easy to pick up on but if you go in without knowing this you're all "WTF??". Normal aern mobs can have reraise on. I'd say it's about a 50/50 chance that when you kill them they're going to get up. this does not apply to these NM aerns for 8-1. These 8-1 Aerns do not sleep well at all; they are -highly- resistant. It is suggested to Elemental Seal Sleepga and kill aerns one at a time. the more Elmental Sleepgas you have the longer your have to kill your chosen aern. All 8-1 job aerns have a 2 hour which corresponds to their job. All 8-1 NM Aerns have the same name: Ru'Aern

D-10 Rubious: this is a safe area inhabited by hempede mobs. As soon as you touch the crystal you will spawn 3 aern mobs of these job types: DRK, RNG and RDM. After defeating all 3, recheck the crystal.
H-13 Rubious This area is fairly safe inhabited by various mobs in the surrounding area. As soon as you touch the crystal you will spawn 3 aern mobs of these job types: SAM, WAR and WHM. After defeating all 3, recheck the crystal.
L-10 Rubious: This area is fairly dangerous inhabited by about 3-4 mantas which can aggro on the ramp if you are far enough down. (which is nearly at the top). please take caution at this crystal. As sono as you touch the crystal you will spawn 3 aern mobs of these job types: MNK, PLD and BLM. After Defeating all 3, recheck the crystal.

After you've had cutscenes from all three Rubious Crystals return to H-11 to the barrier: Crystalline Field for another cutscene. Congratulations. you now have access to The Grand Palace Hu'Xzoi.

Head straight forward to the door "Gate of the Gods". Check it to get another cutscene... and your Tavnazian Ring. (verah handah)

The east Partical Gate in that same room will give you the final 8-1 Cutscene.

8-2:

Like 8-1, this cannot be soloed. you will Need a full party. Mobs here are VT. The entire mission is within The Grand Palace Hu'Xzoi and will take you about 2 hours. (longer if you have stupid and/or confused people leading) You need to make it from Start to Finish where at the end you will fight a Graph type mob who's element is dependent on the game day. The NM is fairly easy, but is capable of all normal graph things as well as tier III -ga, etc. There is an exellent guide that has been marked out that was posted on Killing Ifrit Forums. It's somewhat old and picked through but you will find it below.

Head into the Palace and make your way through to the NM in the lower floor.

As you can see here, I have produced a more readable map for this area.. to aid in both the mission and acquiring the map. I have placed the locations of every Quasilumin, as well as updated the escorts to be a little more specific and helpful. Lines now connect the path which the quasilumin NPC actually moves along to give you an idea.

Let me explain a little about my symbol legend here..

- The teleporters on one floor link to the same exact spot on the other floor, basically like an elevator.

- The escorts are color-coded to seperate them from each other, to help reduce confusion.

- The escort destination doors are doors that only open once your escort quasilumin makes it to his destination and is clicked. - The escort obstacle doors are doors that are in the way of his path, and are only opened (automatically) when he gets near them and passes through them. They can only be manually opened from the other side.

- The yellow star "START" is where you enter at , you cannot ever enter through the west door, so don't try^^

- The red star "NM" is in the secret unmapped area beyond the door there. You pop this NM for CoP 8-2 and beat it up for a cutscene. It's a disco ball that can take the shapes of spider, bird, or even a HUME PLD that uses vorpal blade! If it's in spider mode, it can use sickle slash =X anyways... hope this helps!

I am aware that the Mithra corner on one of the maps has no barriers marked, there probably are not any there, but i didn't get to check the north and west sides because we were rushed and had a ton of slept mobs chasing us all over the map.

(Again, that was all taken from the post and I take no credit other than just compiling it here. I luff using it)

NM's attributes and two hour are based on the day you kill it. generally it will do mighty strikes on most days, some it will do invincible i believe. the day usually easiest to kill it is light or darkday. please keep in mind if you try thundersday you're going to have a mob able to cast thundaga III and can't be stunned.

Hit the door to spawn the NM. Defeat it and recheck the Door for a cutscene.

further information on 8-2:
-other doors will sometimes be marked "???" do not under any circumstance check them or use them or you will be made to exit the area you are in if you should go through them.
-You will be required to fight some things but otherwise it is ok to wait and go without fighting anything. the mobs can aggro the NPC you are escorting.
-Just follow the Map that's marked out and you will be PERFECT. promise.
-all mobs (asumming they aren't graph dark based) are sleepable. blms should be ok sleeping in Hu'Xzoi.
-at the end, spawn the NM, kill the NM, recheck door for cutscene and you are DONE with 8-2. escape, tele, etc. out. there is no other way besides going back up and through to try and get to an exit.

8-3:

Go back to the Gate of the gods to get a cutscene.

This will give you Access to the Garden of Ru'Hmet. 8-3 takes place entirely within The Garden of Ru'Hmet. This consists of A, Getting your light back, B getting Brand of Twilight and Brand of Dawn (key items), and C a NM fight against 4 Pot type mobs. The same person who did the Hu'Xzoi guide above did one for 8-3. Parts of her/his guide follows below.

Obtain your Racal "Light" from the fourth floor corresponding tower.
Obtain Brand of Dawn from H-7 from the door/gate on the second floor of Garden.
Obtain Brand of Twilight from H-10 from the door/gate on the second floor of Garden.
Head back to the central elevator and Ascend to the third floor.
Enter and Defeat "BC"

Enjoy ^^ This one is even more cluttery than Hu'Xzoi, but this mission is obviously more complicated^^. I marked each race's run up their respective tower to retrieve their lost light and labelled the towers as such.

In the Garden of Ru'Hmet, you can technically get around by yourself with extreme amount of skill and timing- unlike Hu'Xzoi. Spinning pots are your main problem for this tower.

Climbing each tower, even to just get your light, is very tricky. - On the first and second floors of the towers, the corner rooms will have little 'cubby holes' with a fast spinning pot inside, for me to sneak by them, i actually have to run quickly across as the BIG EYE is facing outward (because of latency with the server, i see the big eye but the server sees the little eye at this moment. Lag sucks for this stuff). If you aggro, hope you good at making a beeline for the teleporter or are a job that can sleep or bind the mobs along your way. You can also just use flee XD.
- The third floor is very easy for the most part, as you have slow spinning pots at the corners which are easy to sneak past. Just watch out for the paladin-shaped Ghrah balls. This is the floor that the quasis are on, but they are difficult to get to. I think one or two floors will have a fast spinning pot in a cubby hole blocking your progress to fourth, just be fast and quick or sleep-inducing.
- The fourth floor , finally, has NO MONSTERS, and is a very obvious and straightforward path to the Ebon panel which you examine twice .. once for a cutscene, second to apply your mysterious amulet to get your light back (if you're at your race's tower anyways.) Congratz you got your light back =d I suggest you use warp or escape, as getting down the tower will be harder than it was to get up (pots then will be spinning backwards to you)

Accessing the Central Elevator, getting your Brands
- Accessing the central elevator is tricky, as the three paths to it are preceeded by security rooms that have four NM spinning pots in them that SHUT THE DOOR ON YOU IF YOU AGGRO THEM. On the east-west accesses, one pot will be spinning super fast, making it nearly impossible to make it into the elevator room alive. Just go around and access it from the north, where all 4 pots will be spinning slowly. I highly recommend you bring a REraise Gorget or Hairpin for this, as you will likely die if you're not good. If you aggro the pots trying to get across this security room, just rush to the end of the room where the door came down and die there, reraise when the pots return and the door slides open.. bam you will just be able to walk free from there.
- The Descend button doesn't work, so the only way to go is UP. You're now on the second floor. Get the quasi here and note you can go north and south. North is the Brand of Dawn, South is the Brand of Twilight. Simple yeah? Nope it's actually not that simple. They trick you bigtime!!

Brand of Twilight
- This can be done with no deaths whatsoever! It actually is pretty easy... so it'd seem. Going straight south leads you to two blocks of rubble, both of which block the path to the door! ; ; If you attempted simply go around in the rooms next to you, you'll be stopped by even more rubble. So, just use the path marked on my map. It'll take you up and around the map, into some weird warp thing up north that takes you to the other side, then down the other side of the map southbound and around to your destination. Ding! Just watch for Ghrah's, there's plenty! Patience, young skywalker.

Brand of Dawn
- *UPDATE* You don't actually have to kill yourself through the security room of death. You can take the newly shown path on my updated map ^^ Much easier. You actually only have to dodge one group of ghrah balls to reach it as well, sweets.

You got both Brands? GREAT! AWESOME! Guess what you get to do now? CLIMB THE FERRIS WHEEL OF DEATH, err i mean the elevator, ascending once again to the THIRD floor of the tower's central portion. You will land in a simple square room with a particle gate. Touch the gate for a crazy cutscene, then touch it again to enter the BC fight with your 5 buddies. What? You do have 5 buddies right? =P

The BC
- This BC has four BLUE zdei pot nms inside. Two small ones that are BLM, two big ones that are RDM.
- When you enter the BC, you will be put at the opposite side of the room from the entrance, meaning to run away from the BC you gotta run back across to the particle door>.> From the place you start at, the RDM pots will be the two front ones, the BLM ones the two back ones.
- BLM pots constantly spam strong powerful magic, like -aga III and level IV and ancients. They are the pots that really wreck you. Kill them first! - RDM pots take longer to kill and can mess you up with their TP moves where they lack in magic. careful. THey can Dispelga you.
- You will want to try to fight as close to a door as you can, so that if you die and wipe you can reraise and heal up and continue where you left off. These pots do NOT regenerate their life when the party wipes. However, during the fight while players are still alive they may return to their pods while active to benediction... luckily they didn't do this to my party.
- Aside from powerful magics, some of their TP moves include core meltdown (powerful aoe damage), core cooling (gives self ice spikes and some other buff..) Moves that paralyze, silence, and petrify you, and other nasties. The RDMs seem to use these more than the BLM, careful!
- it is VERY hard to sleep them and keep them slept, so yeah.. rough it out. Kill as fast and efficiently as you can -- everyone must use reraise items and more than likely will have to wipe and reraise and heal to full multiple times (in 30 minutes) to finish the job.

Additional Notes of my own:
-You can make it fairly easy through the spinning pot room. Just make sure you're watching all the pots. If you are -right- next to one side of the pots, the pots from the other side can't see you. This might help better your method through. Otherwise just RR up, die at the far door, and RR when the doors are open and pots are back.
-Once you Aggro those 4 pots you must die. You cannot sleep them. The doors are down game over.
-There are 3 other rooms with pots that will take you into the elevator room. the one from the North is the one that has the slowest turning and ideal pots.
-Mobs in the garden are IT. Blms can't sleep some of them. Rdms can. Normally I'd take a person through 1 at a time to their light and brands. Takes 30-60 min per person. Very painless and no chaos.
-For pot fight I highly recommend you have multiple people able to elemental seal sleepga. (They don't sleep without ES sleep) A good strategy can be to all have RR on. Kill as many pots as you can. wait till they all go back to their places, RR up, heal to full, and do it again.
-Monks do good damage on the "BC" pots.
-It's not an actual BC. you can TP in garden and your for this "BC".
-Only 6 people at a time can enter the "BC" but you can target the players/mobs from outside the "BC" as well as see what's going on inside.

Important fight specific - There are two Blm pots and two rdm pots. The Blm pots -will- benediction to full (each theirself) when they reach their pad, however the rdm pots -will not- benediction. If you do not get both blm pots dead before your first wipe, it might be a good idea to pack it in and try over. If you get both blm pots dead and are going to wipe on a rdm pot, try to get the rdm pot's health down as much as you can before you wipe.

After the battle you're in another room, check the Luminous Convergence at the back of the new room for a cutscene.

8-4: Well... you made it to the final BC.

Head back into the Garden and go straight. (There's no need to go through any other pots to get to the elevator now. the Empty south pot room with the broken door will now work.) Head to the elevator and you can now Decend down to the BC area: Emperial Paradox.
When you and your people are ready, enter the Transen... Radiance.

The fight is fairly easy. can sometimes be a hit or miss, you just have to know what you're doing. the -best- idea is to kite it around. Pld, Ninja, or even war/nin are equally good.

-Boss has 2 Forms. After you beat the first form you get a cutscene.
-You have two NPC allies, a flying one and a non-flying one. If the flying one dies, you lose. You can cast raise on the non-flier.
-The NPC on the ground shouldn't tank really actually, it can, but it's not important, however, healing it is advised. you cannot heal the flying NPC.
-Flying NPC will do a certain move to stun the boss. it is very helpful. It can also do a move which is equivalent to benediction on your entire party.
-Ground NPC is capable of BanishIII, Hundred Fists and normal attacks.
-Boss in second form has some interesting moves. (again kiting is good) Quiesence - aoe silence that cannot be removed. (not with silena or echo drops it's on till it wears and it hits the entire field). Oblivion - aoe where you have no job abilities at all (no WS either). It also has a Stun move I believe as well as temporary magic or physical immunities? but i haven't seen those personally (at least remember them i don't).
-It can take off your buffs which include reraise. please watch it.
-Second form of boss can also cast meteor. it hurts. fairly large range but you can get out of the way pretty easily. i did this while helping 5 other people with the BC once. saw it being casted and ran away. was the only one left standing. The ground NPC ended up killing it while i stayed away.
-just play it by ear. it's -definately- not the hardest fight.

Win... and Congratulations for the last time. You've beaten the CoP missions.

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