Hope Upon a Flower
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Hope Upon a Flower
- Quest giver
- Ryne
- Location
- The Crystarium (X:9.9, Y:7.0)
- Quest line
Endwalker Main Scenario Quests- Level
- 86
- Experience
488,400- Gil
1,438- Previous quest
Return to the Crystarium- Next quest
- Petalouda Hunt
- Patch
- 6.0
- Links
- EDB GT TC
Main Scenario Progress: 762 / 987 (77.2%)
Endwalker Progress: 64 / 155 (41.3%)
Ryne wears a look of steely resolve.
— In-game description
Rewards
- Unlocks
Steps
- Speak with the Crystarium gatekeep.
- Explore the facility. 0/4
- Examine the door.
- Speak with Hythlodaeus.
Journal
- Ryne wears a look of steely resolve.
- Having bid Ryne farewell, you return to your mission in the First─consulting Elidibus regarding the Final Days. To that end do you seek out the Crystarium gatekeep, who should admit you to the Ocular as before.
- Inside the Umbilicus, you use your borrowed spirit vessel to activate the Allagan console, which locates Elidibus's imprisoned essence and projects his image into the chamber. Though your erstwhile foe declares that the star is now yours to fight for, bound as ever by duty, he agrees to share his knowledge. To your surprise, it was none other than Fandaniel who shed light upon the phenomenon of the Final Days, and thence dedicated himself to devising a countermeasure. Prior to joining the Convocation, he served as the chief of Elpis─a facility for the evaluation of creations─and was known as Hermes. Perhaps inspired by an impossible memory of you in that ancient time and place, Elidibus suggests that you travel to Elpis in the past. At his instruction, you open a pathway to your destination, and step into the portal. The magick consumes Elidibus's essence once and for all, and he goes to join his beloved brethren as you journey to your distant destination in search of salvation.
- After hurtling through the rift, you safely arrive in what you assume is the past, albeit in a transparent form. Setting aside that problem for now, you begin exploring your surrounds.
- As Elidibus had forewarned, you are unable to interact with the people present. From snatches of their conversation, however, you establish that you are indeed in the past, more specifically in a facility called Propylaion. Having learned all you can here, you decide to continue your exploration outside, and make your way to the exit.
- As you try to open the door, the inconceivable happens: two new arrivals emerge from the teleportation device, and who should they turn out to be but Hythlodaeus and Emet-Selch. Due to their talent for seeing souls, they readily catch sight of you, and at his companion's insistence, Emet-Selch augments your aether and adjusts your size. Now proportional to your surrounds and able to be heard, you inform your new old friends of your desire to seek out Hermes, and they are taken aback to learn that your purpose is the same as theirs. Hythlodaeus offers to serve as your guide, and together you head outside.
- Stepping through the door, your breath catches in your throat as you take in the impossibly beautiful scenery of the testing ground of creation at heavens' edge: Elpis.
- Hythlodaeus explains that Elpis is where living beings and certain arcane entities are brought for in-depth observation and research. Thus your search for answers in the past begins, but to what manner of future the path may lead, none can yet say...
Dialogue
Accepting the quest
You're headed to the Umbilicus to consult with Elidibus, right?
I'll do some consulting of my own and speak with Lyna. Decide how we might best prepare for the Final Days.
So it's farewell for now, but we'll see each other again. I'm certain of it.
Optional dialogue
We lived through the Flood and the tyranny of the Lightwardens. We're survivors. Do what you need to do, and know that we will too.
Speak with the Crystarium gatekeep.
Ah, Master/Mistress Forename, welcome back!
The captain has told me all. Give the word, and I will show you to the Ocular.
Proceed to the Ocular? (Yes/No)
Start of voiced cutscene.Within the Ocular, the player briefly sees a vision of the Scions, Ryne, and the Crystal Exarch. They proceed to the Umbilicus and hold G'raha Tia's spirit vessel, activating the terminal.
Allagan Console
Biometric authentication complete. Please state your business.
Acknowledged. Reinitializing Syrcus Tower systems. Searching for “Elidibus” entity...
Target located in subterranean core power accumulator. Projecting image.
My home... My friends... No more than a dream...
You... Why have you awakened me?
I no longer sense those places beyond...or Lord Zodiark. You must explain all.
The player apprises Elidibus of the recent events.
So. He is fallen, and my brethren's souls returned to the star...
The doom we sacrificed so much to prevent is come again. Old burdens, now yours to bear.
But...if this is Fandaniel's design, then I, as Elidibus, have a duty to fulfill.
Your unsolicited act has restored to me some few memories of the Convocation.
Such knowledge as I have, I will share.
What will you say?
Thank you.
I do this not for you. I merely perform my duty, as I have ever done.
I'm sorry...
Why apologize for receiving a favor of the defeated? If it sits ill, consider it payment for freeing Lord Zodiark from servitude.
Where to begin... Ah. The end. Your understanding of what caused the Final Days is consistent with our own.
The decay first took root where the currents were weakest. Yes...a conclusion drawn by him. Fandaniel.
Not the him of here and now, but as I knew him. Long, long ago...
Having shed light upon the phenomenon, he dedicated himself to devising a countermeasure.
Were it not for his knowledge of the celestial, we would never have made the connection ─ and thence forestalled the Final Days.
And though he inherited that noble soul...how different, this last incarnation. So consumed by self-loathing and hate.
...Elpis? Yes...the name is familiar to me.
Yet I know it not as a flower, but a place.
A testing facility for determining which of our creations were fit to be released into the world.
Many worked there. And before joining the Convocation and assuming the title of Fandaniel, he was their chief...
He...was Hermes...
That...is all I know.
The crystals tell little of the lives the Fourteen led prior to their induction.
Elpis itself would tell even less. Nary a ruin has survived─
Wait... I saw you there. In Elpis.
No...I did not...but I did. I did. A lingering trace of impossibility...
And a truth...that fills my heart...
My memories remain clouded, I fear. However...they have revealed to me one possible course.
You must travel to Elpis ─ to the time when Hermes served as its chief.
In glimpsing the Exarch's memories, not only did I make his summoning magick mine own ─ I also mastered the workings of this tower.
Which, having absorbed my empowered essence, now harbors an abundance of energy.
As such, I believe I can deliver you unto the past. Unto that place and that precise moment.
Given the eons that must be traversed, the gateway will not be fully formed.
Your form will be less tangible still than those Warriors of Light I had summoned.
In all likelihood, none will be able to see or hear you.
Yet even should you manage to interact with others, you will be unable to effect meaningful change.
For the reality you wish to save ─ the reality to which you must return ─ exists as a result of the Final Days.
You cannot reshape the past to undo the tragedies of the present. Cannot unmake the sorrow and suffering fated to come.
In full knowledge of this, will you still entrust your life to your foe and make the journey?
Very well. I shall cast you unto the river of time. Let this be my final act.
You must input the commands. I no longer have the authority.
First, you must reconfigure the systems, that the tower's aether may be channeled for the magick...
The preparations are complete. The gateway will soon open. Return at once to the Ocular.
The player returns to the Ocular.
All appears to be in order. The aether flows unimpeded.
The magick should consume every last mote of my essence.
Why are you surprised? Did I not say that this will be my final act?
Lord Zodiark is no more. There is nothing for me here.
The ones I love and long to see again are waiting. In that promised land, beyond memory and dream...
Now go, Warrior of Light. Go...and do not look back.
Well, Hydaelyn. I take my leave of You. Yours is the mantle of the last of us.
May You have...the joy of it. The burden...and the solitude.
It falls to You now ─ You and Your champion ─ to save our star.
The player enters the portal and are transported across the rift. They find themselves in a room with masked Ancients much larger than them, who do not notice their presence. The player is partially opaque.
End of cutscene.
Explore the facility.
Black-robed Man
The remarkably large man wears a black robe and a half mask ─ much like the phantoms you encountered in Mare Lamentorum and the recreated Amaurot...
It would seem you have made it to your destination.
You gesticulate wildly and shout all manner of greetings and obscenities, but the man does not so much as glance in your general direction...
Aetheryte-like Device
The device is reminiscent of an aetheryte. Perhaps it is possible to attune with it...
Despite attempting to channel and focus your energies, you fail to attune with the device. You can only assume it operates differently.
Guide-like Man
The man stands dutifully by the aetheryte-like device. A guide for this facility, in all likelihood.
You attempt to get the man's attention, but if he sees or hears you, he gives absolutely no indication.
As Elidibus warned, it appears your form is intangible...
Conversing Woman
This is the right place, yes? Propylaion?
Judging by the woman's words, this facility is called “Propylaion.”
You attempt to gently prod the woman to attract her attention, but feel nothing ─ and it seems neither does she.
Optional dialogue
Very well, let's wait a while.
Examine the door.
Sturdy Door
You suspect this door leads outside. But how to open it...?
Start of voiced cutscene. And here we are. Elpis.
Well, well, how rare to receive you in person. To what do we owe the honor?
Oh, just a few odd tasks. We'll be here a while.
You're welcome to stay as long as you see fit, of course. As a matter of procedure, however, I must ask that you kindly remove your masks.
Come now, is this truly necessary? Surely you can tell who we are...
Who you are, perhaps, but I am far less infamous. Regardless, if we do not follow protocol, 'tis our hosts who would be held accountable. So please, do favor us with your handsome face.
The man with a familiar voice sighs. Both of them remove their masks. It is revealed that the white-haired man is Emet-Selch. He glances at the player's location.
...Satisfied?
I thank you for your cooperation. You are free to go about your business.
By the by...you see it too, yes?
I haven't the foggiest what you're talking about.
Hmm? That's odd.
The familiar stranger kneels down and looks at the player.
It's right here. A bit thin in the aether, but there's no mistaking it ─ the color of its soul is almost identical to Azem's.
Do you suppose he/she created it? Rather unusual for a familiar to have a soul, though...
Don't ask me. All I know is that it's trouble ─ doubly so if it's his/her spitting image.
So let's leave it be. Come, now.
It's trying to say something...but it's literally too intangible to form words.
Why don't you give it some aether? Spare a snifter of your bounteous reserves.
Who do you take me for?
Why, a dear friend, of course! One who wouldn't let acts of kindness ─ such as my accompanying him on errands to far-flung outposts ─ go unrewarded.
I suggest you close your eyes, or this may be...unpleasant.
You may open your eyes.
The player finds that they are no longer invisible and are also larger.
If the player is a Lalafell
Still a touch small, don't you think?
The size befits its proportions. Besides, bigger is not necessarily better.
I will defer to your experience.
If the player is a Roegadyn
Quite large, don't you think?
The size befits its proportions. Though I personally wouldn't be averse to smaller.
No, no, this will suffice, I'm sure.
All other races
Oh, you even adjusted its size.
The better to indulge your whim. This way it will be easier to communicate.
How very thoughtful of you. And may I applaud your artful reinforcement.
Without further ado, then... Greetings! I am Hythlodaeus, chief of the Bureau of the Architect.
Sulking beside me is the most honorable Emet-Selch of the Convocation of Fourteen.
And how might we address you, my new friend?
A fine name. And I'm pleased to see you understand our words.
So tell us, whence have you come? The thinness of your essence suggests you weren't created here...
You do not know...or cannot say? Hmm. Allow me to ask a different question, then.
What brings you here?
What will you say?
I seek a man named Hermes.
I want to learn about Elpis.
Well now, the same as us...
Perhaps Azem wished to come too, but had to settle for a familiar.
If he/she truly wished to be here, then he/she would be.
Right you are...
My apologies if we've given offense. The two of us can discern the color of souls, you see, and yours happens to resemble that of a friend.
And with your purpose matching our own besides, we jumped to a hasty conclusion.
We are here to speak with Hermes, the chief overseer of this facility, which we also intend to tour in order to gain greater insight into the man's work.
“We,” I say, though this is Emet-Selch's charge. I am here only to serve as his guide.
And I should be happy to serve as yours as well ─ by way of an apology for the misunderstanding.
Wait, are you suggesting that we bring it along on official business? This thing we know next to nothing about?
If you harbor suspicions, better to keep it close than leave it to its own devices, wouldn't you agree?
Hythlodaeus opens the door.
Besides, having a mysterious life-form in tow is the norm rather than the exception here.
Welcome, my friends, to the testing ground of creation at heavens' edge: Elpis!
The scene shifts to a white-haired woman with Argos.
This presence...
The scene shifts to an Ancient tending to axolotl-like creations. Accompanying him is a girl with avian-like features.
Hermes! Visitors ─ we have visitors!
The party exits Propylaion.
What secrets are you hiding, I wonder...
End of cutscene.
Optional dialogue
In case you didn't know, it's rude to stare. Stop.
Speak with Hythlodaeus.
This is hardly my first time here, but the scenery never fails to take my breath away. Why, it feels as if you could reach out and touch the heavens!
Now then, to begin our guided tour... Perhaps you already know these things, but for the sake of thoroughness, I shall start with the basics.
Using concepts to give shape to aether, creation magicks allow us to bring forth anything we desire, be it inanimate objects or living beings.
Anyone may conceive of concepts, but they must all undergo evaluation at the Bureau of the Architect.
As part of that process, living beings and certain arcane entities may be sent here to Elpis for in-depth observation and study.
Heh heh, a fascinating facility, isn't it? I daresay you will enjoy touring it with us.
