Hatching-tide - Hard-boiled High Jinks (04/26/2011)
High above the Twelveswood, the Raven circles, evermore seeking out truth hidden amongst the shadows of the trees.
In this edition, field correspondent Oliver
Goodfellow revisits Jihli Aliapoh, also known as the Dreamer, and her
faithful followers to investigate what is unfolding into one of the most
peculiar events in recent memory.
● Eggs in One Basket
Whether you are follower of the Dreamer's
gospel, or simply someone caught up in the season's festive mood, there
is no denying that with each passing day, anticipation for the Hatching
Hour—the ceremony in which the eggs are used by the Dreamer to summon
forth the fabled Twelve Archons—continues to grow. Which is why the
heinous crime committed in Jihli's storage tent last night is that much
more shocking.
Upon finishing the day's sermon, Jihli made
her way to the double-walled tent in which she and her followers had
been storing the eggs collected from the festival-goers. After seeing
that the eggs collected that day were secure, she fastened the entrance
with a sturdy lock and returned to her nearby chambers, where she
meditated until the sands of slumber granted her blissful respite. What
awaited her the next morning, however, was a harsh reality—not only was
the storage tent lock broken, but the eggs within gone...
And to add to the mystery, it was soon found
that something else had gone missing as well—one of Jihli's spriggan
famuli, Twiggy, was nowhere to be seen.
● Robbery or Ruse?
Spriggans are feared across the realm as
furacious furballs prone to pilfering any piece of property they can
carry, and so in light of this new evidence pointing to the involvement
of a spriggan in the theft of thousands of eggs, the whole affair raises
the question, why were the creatures allowed a place beside Jihli in
the first place? Last week I reported that Jihli enlisted the spirggans
to help collect eggs, utilizing to her advantage the creatures' natural
instinct to hoard small objects, but what exactly was it that prompted
her to do so?
After speaking once again with Jihli's
assistant, Bricot, the answer becomes clear. It appears that three days
before the commencement of Hatching-tide, two spriggans appeared on the
doorstep of the Dreamer's home, both carrying eggs. Whereas most of us
would view wild beasts loitering about our homes as a nuisance and place
an immediate call to the Wood Wailers to have them removed, Jihli took
the whole scene as a sign from the Archons—the two spriggans obviously
sent to assist her in preparing for Hatching-tide. And with that, she
enlisted their services, not once stopping to think that the appearance
may simply have been coincidence.
The bite marks on the broken lock, the tiny
footprints leading to and from the tent, the clumps of dark fur in and
about the empty egg boxes, and Twiggy's apparent absence from the
festivities this morning all point to the spriggan's involvement in the
tragic disappearance. Yet the case may not be as cut and dry as it
seems. Another of the Dreamer's spriggan servants—a veritable dust bunny
answering to the name of Diggy—is still working alongside Jihli this
morning, sweeping up eggshells and fetching egg caps as if nothing
transpired the night before. Considering the gregarious nature of
spriggans, combined with the sheer number of eggs that were stolen, it
seems unlikely that Twiggy could or would have have worked on his own,
leading one to believe that there may be more to this story than is
apparent.
Are we to believe Jihli and her tale of
betrayal? Could it be that a rogue spriggan is working on his own to
foil what could be the most important moment in Eorzean history? Or
could it be that Hatching-tide is naught more than a grand performance,
and to prevent the hoax from being exposed, festival ringmaster Jihli
Aliapoh engineered the theft herself?
Whatever the answer, you can rest assured the
Raven will find it.
Oliver Goodfellow
Duration
Thursday, April 15 (1:00 a.m.) to Monday, May 9 (7:00 a.m.)
The Dreamers
It appears that Jihli wasn't the only Dreamer
to be duped. Reports from around Eorzea claim both Motte from Limsa
Lominsa and Kikina from Ul'dah were betrayed in a similar manner.
Dreamer Locations
Limsa Lominsa - Upper Decks
Gridania
Ul'dah - Merchant Strip
Hitskin.com
