It'll be short entries for now--it's the time for questions and learning, not writing, but it helps when everything is a flood of information. Hopefully doing this still looks familiary enough--notes for Azem, or so I'll claim if I have to.
Propylaion, Anagnorisis, concepts that have outlived their creators. I realize now they're aggressive because we have similar levels of aether......probably. They don't seem inclined to attack beings with more, like the ancients.
Speaking of aether--Emet-Selch is even softer than I thought, what with his adjustments along with the aether. And then there's the grin Hythlodaeus can't wipe off his face, even if he wanted to--it's how I realized who he was before he introduced himself.
It's....easy to forget this isn't the Echo. That I can't redirect the course, but I still have effects. My suggestion of passing me off as a child, which was shot down. Hythlodaeus calling me his "new old" friend. The inability to create a robe. He remembered all of it.
For all that Emet-Selch claims--for all that he claimed before as well--he's a bleeding heart of an unsundered. Always has been. I hope he figured out this convoluted order of things in Amaurot--that he didn't think I'd forgotten.
I wonder, though--the beautiful embroidery and silver inlays weren't part of his shades. Why? Limitations? Haste? Faded memories? But I know I won't get answers.
---
"Death" is not a term used often here, it seems. "Returning to the star" is the phrase, and it's by choice--for the ancients, at least. Their creations are simply unmade and reformed.
On first glance, that seems cruel.....but we also take lives for our own whims. And as someone that regularly performs the act itself, I can't cast that judgement.
After walking with Meteion, I can't shake how similar we are, or how much her abilities resemble the Echo. I've not even heard Venat's name mentioned, though.
And the creations here.....I don't know if they were all approved, or this garden was turned loose in the sundering, but I've recognized almost everything so far. Most likely both.
---
Oreiai - singular is Oreias. Spriggan.
Agavoides - Echevores
Ophion - I'm....not sure I've seen one before. Some kind of plant snake humanoid. The Aetherochemical Research Facility?
Daidalion - Zu
Petalouda - Fluturini
Monoceros - Unicorn
Okyupete - not, but most closely resembles, a gagana.
Yggdreant - ancestor to treants.....probably.
Notos 666 - a yet unnamed creature. Paissa.
I don't know its name here, but I now understand why morbols are so painful to deal with. It's by design. The ancients were a bit too creative with their hazards, I think.
---
Living things, arcane entities....but souls were beyond their reach to create. Still, they knew the right conditions for one to form--something we can learn from.
And....it's probably the argument the Ascians clung to at first. That we didn't have enough soul to be considered equal, or possibly alive--even though what soul we had once was their friends and family. Then again, three lost survivors is hardly a Convocation.
But that's "later". As far as the people here "now"--I keep hearing what I think is a familiar voice, or that I recognize the faces behind the masks.
I don't know which "me" would have met them, though. There's too many at this point, and we've all met too many people. I can barely keep track of the ones I know personally.
I wonder where the races came from--or I guess,
when the races were born. Maybe we were familiars or concepts that developed souls.
But maybe we are to the ancients as Treants to Yggdreants. Because aside from ears and tails, they aren't so different--thick limbal rings like Au Ra, lanky bodies like Elezen, and faces like Hyur.
Though.....despite the last two resurfacing in Garleans, they have no third eye--also unlike the Emet-Selch I knew in Norvrandt.
More questions I won't get answers for, though ultimately they aren't important.
---
Pneuma - sprites
Ampelos - Gobbue
Entelechies - can sense Dynamis (Akasa), and manifest physical changes with it
Elpis....have no other name. The ancients also knew them to be influenced by emotions, but they were almost always white. And Dynamis, like Akasa, isn't known well--only that it's weaker than aether, and is 68.3% of the energy in existence.
But we might be able to use it. Our aether is weak enough to do so, and we might already have, in the heat of the moment. Confirming it is probably impossible, but.....it's the only thing that can explain my survival against Hades.
Hermes, though.....what happened to you? The love you have for the experimental lives here, Fandaniel's final words....the void between them is too much.
---
Familiars "must" have a mission. And probably ask a lot less questions. I think I'm standing out too much, but one mention of Azem and all my irregularities become matter-of-fact.
Stay away from Nikias, he might actually try to take me apart.
The more excited he gets, the harder it is to keep from calling Sokles "Stephanivien". It's the passion for their research, and, honestly, the hair. But that's not enough to relate them definitively.
I....think I'm about to learn how actual familiars "eat". I suspect it won't be actual food, though. At least, not how we think of it--a weird alternative, maybe, but I doubt even that.
---
The Loporrits got to me more than I realized--familiars eat the same way we do. And.....the drink Sokles made was rather tasty. Something to try and recreate later.
---
Charybdis - Sanuwa
Hippokampos - territorial water creature. Hippe is a smaller and less aggressive relation. Not sure what names they have in Eorzea--need to see at least one first.
Lykaon - aggressive and breathe(?) fire. Haven't seen them yet.
Gryps - Griffin
Kairos - a memory reconfiguration system
Adonis - Morbol. The smell and danger are the same.
Ailouros - plural Ailouroi. Gaelicat
Akantha - created by Chloris - Chichu.
Mandragora - we.....somehow kept this name, it seems. Also I don't think they can understand each other.
Lethe - a place, either conceptual or for disposing of concepts - more detail needed
Nymphe - plural Nymphai.
Beavers. And they've always been like this. Not beavers--should have been bright and winged--Pixies, if I had to guess. But the beavers
have always been like this.
Phanopsyche - Wamoura
I know this is pointless information to gather. And nowhere near enough to preserve the ancients' knowledge--just a fragment of it. And I know the names won't--and shouldn't, really--spread or overtake the ones we use.
I made a promise, but that's not the only reason.
Nym. Mhach. Allag. Amdapor. Meracydia. Voeburt. Nabaath Areng. Ronka. And to an extent, Garlemald.
So much knowledge lost--not all of it constructive, but not all of it destructive, either. There are advantages--and risks--to using ruins to rebuild.....but the same can be said for remaining ignorant.
I believe there is more to be gained from knowing.
So even if it is just the names of things, I will write them down. Especially because no one else can.
---
It seems I'll be staying the night. I don't believe time is passing in Eorzea, but even if it is....this is our best hope at finding the cause of the Final Days. I've no guarantee the portal won't close if I return, so I just have to believe in the others and see this through.
