- Everything having gone upside down for Suen since her arrival in Ul'dah, she got a bit disillusioned with her journey and seriously thinks about learning to defend herself, she sneaks one more time around Meridianum as a last ditch to find a suitable weapon, and stumbles on a busted Magitek repeater. She also gets lucid dreams and visions about Leon Greymoon, Aurou Mhirata and various other people she doesn't know. Her headaches get worse.
- Suen meets Raih once again in the Quicksands. She is happy to just share a drink and have a talk where she explains that the troubles she got herself in got solved. Raih tells her how her admiral shot her in the foot when she didn't want to dance for him, which angered Suen, but she reassures her and say that was Suen interested she would be pretty welcome in the Dreadwyrms. They are interrupted when Tyonis Magstrom intrudes at their table and introduces himself as a thief, while provoking the ire of both Keepers with slurs on Miqo'te. Haydn'to Kalmar shows up and Raih introduces him as a fellow thief of hers.
- Something really eerie happens: as Suen is walking through Pearl Lane, she suddenly hears Leon and Aurou talking, and then talking to her. She freaks out and thinks that her allagan device is talking to her by emulating the people she has recently met. She eventually finds out that it was not the device, but something else that made the actual Leon and Aurou reaching her out. They invite her again at Cliffperch to talk about it and inform her that she may be a 'Shard Bearer', a person carrying any kind of device left as remnant to an ancient artifact that broke into multiple pieces. Those pieces, or shards, connect to people and enables them to share a mental link of sorts, until those merge with their Bearer to turn them into Branded. They also inform her that the tomestone she found is probably the source of it, and her migraines, and that she should get rid of it. Pretty casual and curious about it and not taking the full measure of the enemies of the Branded, Suen dismisses the concerns even if she knows that it could mean the end of her journey. She is eventually introduced to the Aeon company, full of Branded.
- Suen continues to think about the Branded and goes to the Quicksands for a drink, half looking for Raih Unaze, where she stumbles on Haydn'to Kalmar instead. They talk casually and manage to spook Caen Jabari, a guy apparently selling buttons that showed up at their table. Suen gives Hayn a linkpearl so that he can hand it to Raih if he sees her before Suen. Suen is eventually called back by Raih later, and they meet again at the Quicksands. Haydn'to is still there and Raih is accompanied by a part of her crew from the Dreadwyrms that Suen is seriously considering to join. She is introduced to L'rah Tia, a friend of Raih, as well as Artoria Tumet, her girlfriend. When Suen learns about it, she dies a little inside but manages to retain most of her composure. Haydn and L'rah seem to be arguing over Seeker men, and L'rah leaves soon after, followed by Haydn. Artoria proves friendly and invites Suen to come again to their estate.
- Back in Cliffperch, Suen reluctantly talks to Aurou Mhirata about matters of heart as it was pretty obvious that Suen is in a dreamy mood. Aurou tells her about her own case with Leon.
- As Suen is coming to the decision to get rid of the cursed tomestone and the shard with it, it proves eventually too late as she turned Branded herself. She resigns herself to join the Aeon family and takes upon herself to train as a mercenary.
- Suen accomodies herself badly with how the Link proves intrusive in all details of every Branded life. She learns that its access can be blocked or shielded when needed, but she proves incapable to do so. Leon Greymoon shows himself as a grey wolf on the Link with Aurou Mhirata as a white fox, and they teach Suen how to manipulate the Link. Suen instinctively turns into a white stoat.
- Leon Greymoon organizes a martial training session to train all the Branded without proper combat training and insists that they can't just rely on luck to save them every time, and that they have to defend themselves against their enemies. Suen thinks it is the perfect occasion to try out the Magitek gun she fixed with makeshift repairs. Suen is eager to start her first missions, hoping to share what Raih Unaze experiences with the crew Suen couldn't join, even if not physically.
- Suen soon gets the occasion to put her training in application: as she is wandering around Highbridge in Eastern Thanalan, she gets attacked by several hooded individuals in black garbs. They seemed somehow related to the Shards, and she manages to elude them long enough for Leon Greymoon, Lute Hyrie, Kairen Ollerus and Ferus Ironlash to come to her aid, but Suen gets taken as hostage and slightly cut on the throat before being freed.
- Suen gets to be part of her first mission for Aeon: a contract sends them to Bronzelake to find an old archaeological artifact called sunstone. They eventually find it in the nymeian ruins, but fall directly in an ambush. Their assaulters seem to use other sunstones to shoot aetherial beams at the group. Aeon however repels the attack successfully and Suen gets to kill her first human being. She gets her first doubts on living a life as a merc.
- Ferus Ironlash brings up a mission asking Aeon to get rid of several enemies of them infiltrated into a Flame brigade assigned to the Silver Bazaar. The mission feels like a slaughter to Suen, who fights with the others until she gets knocked off and badly injured by a fireball, leaving her unconscious for three suns. Her concerns about her mercenary life grow stronger.
- After being invited by Mariyaa Genhu Suen attends to her Ceremony of Eternal Bonding, but feels pretty much like an outlier and slips out just after the end.
- Aeon travels to Oakwood this time, following on the trail of the people that ambushed them at Bronzelake. Suen follows Leon Greymoon, Aurou Mhirata, Ferus Ironlash, Khuja'sae Fashonti, Najila El'azah and Oyungunjin Kha and they manage to catch an ishgardian elezen before the yellowjackets do, who seems to be their leader and uses another sunstone as a magic shield. Leon Greymoon manages to chop his right arm off before he flees. The group gets their hands on more sunstones, and there seems to be different kinds.
- Liselotte Avagnar shows up again in Suen's life and seems to have met Ferus Ironlash at Cliffperch, asking him to train her in the ways of the two-handed sword, to much of Suen's surprise and amusement. Lise doens't seem to be able to read, or at least not standard eorzean, and while not outright admitting it, she entrusts Suen to read the fencing manual to her, basically asking her to train her instead of Ferus. Suen reluctantly agrees to put that in application in the days to come.
- Suen meets Rei'li Niraj and Khuja'sae Fashonti along the rest of Aeon gathered for a mission to help Sonu'a Viqqoh, a deserter that was part of Aeon's enemies. Aeon heads to Hammerlea in Thanalan to face his pursuer, Mohn Fashonti, who wasn't expecting them and gets defeated.
- Ishgard organizes a tournament against all 3 Grand Companies of Eorza and wins. Nidhogg assaults the Peace Summit at Falcon's Nest.
- Aeon is unexpectedly contacted over the link by their elezen enemy. The man offers to collaborate and gives them everything they know about those sunstones - that they call shardstones, related to the Shards - and admit their defeat as their covenant is pretty decimated. He agrees to meet over Oschon's Embrace in Vylbrand. Aeon sends a group composed of Ferus Ironlash, Leon Greymoon, Aurou Mhirata, Lute Hyrie, accompanied by Najila El'azah, a new Branded, as well as Mariyaa Genhu and Liselotte Avagnar that was hired as a detective by the elezen in question to find his lost comrades after the last incident. The group and the elezen together get ambushed by a wave of cloaked figures, that they managed to ward off long enough for the yellowjackets to show up. The elezen doesn't survive the day
- The leader and founder of Aeon resurfaces after moons of absence through a cryptic vision over the Link, where she seems in dire troubles. The Branded decide to go on a search for her.
- Liselotte Avagnar and Suen go on their trip to find a quieter place for the xaela to train with her greatsword. Suen chooses a remote location in the mountains of Vylbrand with a little shed and hot springs nearby, much to Lise joy. Suen is very satisfied of her plan to chill in impromptu vacations while she watches Lise training and gives vague directions. Suen tries to heat miq'abobs she brought with ceruleum and swears to Lise that she will never ever do something like that again. In the morrow, Lise goes back to training, scantily clad under a waterfall while Suen thought it was a joke at first. Lise's happy go lucky mood suddenly darkens and she sheds a few tears at the remembrance of something that Suen is oblivious to. While rather embarrassed about it, Suen shows sympathy for the xaela and feels a little attracted to a side of hers she seems to keep deep inside.
- Visiting Vylbrand, Suen stumbles on the sigh of a manacutter, and she swears that one day she would own one as her own.
- Sonu'a Viqqoh and Maloh Fashonti, two friends of Aeon, have disappeared and his trail leads Ferus Ironlash, Leon Greymoon, Aurou Mhirata, Lute Hyrie , Rowan Sharpe, Sasa'li Dhumen, Morgana Veros and Suen to Urth's Font, where they confronted a masked presence. During combat, Suen's aetherometer falls into the water and discharges a thunder aspected load in the pond under her feet, knocking her off. The group get Sonu'a and Maloh back, but Sonu'a's mind got messed with. Leon and Ferus break almost every bone of his body just to keep him still.
- Leon Greymoon offers Suen to make a tour of Ishgard, his native land, and Suen gets to visit the city for the first time.
- Aeon goes venturing deep inside the East Shroud this time, looking for another disappearance: Oyungunjin Kha, who tried to flee his employer. The group is ambushed several times and Suen takes an arrow in the shoulder.
- Looking for sky crews all around the Goblet, Suen eventually finds Lemieux Skytrade, and airship freight company and probably a not so hidden den of skypirates. She meets captain Tristanaud Lemieux as well as Kei Aozora and L'Tohk Roto, and the dashing elezen captain shares stories of their skypirate feats before being interrupted by a newcomer, Howling Wind Vayne. The man is deadset in causing an incident with Tristanaud, and the loaded history they both share as business partners seems to seep all around until they come to hands and have to get out to settle their accounts. The remaining crew offer Suen to come by another time since they indeed have manacutters that they got their hands on, and one of them is in need of repairs. Suen's skills as a tinkerer prove to be valuable and cause the interest of various people.
- Passing by the Mizzenmast Inn in Limsa Lominsa, Suen makes the acquaintance of Culann Steele, an ishgardian blacksmith and airship engineer student. Impressed with Suen's innate affinity with mechanical devices and Magitek, he offers to share with her his theoretical knowledge. They promise to meet again, after he presents her a few of his company mates.
- Suen meets Raih Unaze in the Quicksands, as it has implicitly become the usual for them. Raih gets worried seeing the wound in Suen's shoulder. Both talk about their respective lives, and how Raih left her crew of skypirates after she broke up with Artoria Tumet. Suen has more and more difficulties hiding her blush and attraction for the other Keeper while Raih makes Suen tell about her dream of owning a manacutter. Still in their excitation, Raih gives her the idea to set up an underground ring of racing manacutters where the races would be rigged and they would make lots of gil. Suen tries to show her that she is actually more serious than childish and tells her about her plans to approach sky crews that own manacutters to see if she can do anything to even just see one. Raih gives her the idea to actually steal one, and while Suen is not totally convinced by the idea, she rolls with it as Raih insists and offers her help. She can't really say no to her anyway.
- Suen gets back to Lemieux Skytrade and meets Howling Wind Vayne again. Wary of the man, she eventually hears what the elezen has to tell her and finally agrees for limited deals with the smuggler, in the form of Magitek exchange: Suen brings him the salvage she is used to find, and exchange what she doens't need against something else.
- Ferus Ironlash looks worried and asks for help reluctantly as Kairen Ollerus, his fiancee, has vanished too, possibly in the Shroud. Suen also reluctantly accepts to help him as it will bring her back to the Shroud that she swore to avoid.
- Suen eventually gets back to Lucky Autumn near Hyrstmill were she eventually gets reunited with her mother and sister. She is surprised to see her small village and family living their lives like nothing happened. She gets an awkward but warm reunion with her sister Seloh, but gets into a heated argument with her mother, and eventually freaks out and runs away.
- Wandering around the Mizzenmast Inn, Suen meets As'elena Hyun, a Seeker woman that has worked for the Knights of the Barracuda for twenty years. They exchange mostly small talk about her work as a 'cuda and her roots in a almost extinct tribe of mages Seekers.
- Suen gets to meet Morgana Veros a bit more and her first impression gets confirmed: the both of them can't stand the guts of each other, and the words exchanged are more and more vitriolic. While the witch spends most of her time taunting and trying to bully Suen and trying to prove herself superior, Suen sees her as an arrogant and vain nuisance that eventually goes to systematically rub her off the wrong way by twisting the knife in every wound she can get.
- Aurou Mhirata and Suen get to discuss a bit in Cliffperch, and Suen confides that she doesn't see the point to stay in Aeon anymore. She is not cut for that job and she debates a bit of the actual advantages for all the Branded to gather together. Raih Unaze's idea that getting involved into people's problem only brings bad stuff makes her way back to her mind.
- Following the attack on Oschon's Embrace, Aeon gets new leads pointing at one of the fishing hamlets of Crescent Cove in Western Thanalan. One of the ex members under the orders of the elezen that attacked them got stuck in one of their magicked vaults in a shed of Crescent Cove. He asks for Aeon's help and offers them all the content inside. Rei'li Niraj, Aurou Mhirata, Najila El'aza, Leon Greymoon, Khuja'sae Fashonti and Suen get to eventually know more about the shardstones and these vaults, that were possibly crafted by the same people that created the Shards and Brands. Unfortunately, they can't reverse the process of autodestruction initiated by the security magicked Daemon Door and the only object left after the deflagration is a small, eerie carillon of mysterious nature.
- Suen decides to uses an aetheryte against her better judgement and get sent in the Sagolii desert, fortunately reappearing in Forgotten Springs, a Seeker village. Her she meets Suyiketu Avagnar, a xaela traveler and beast huntress. The xaela makes snarky remarks on Suen's apparent clumsiness but doesn't insist as the Miqo'te proves to be resourceful and looks sure of herself enough.
- Suen decides to change her mind by offering to go on a picnic in any place the free company chooses. They settle for Costa Del Sol much to her dismay, but she doesn't complain as everyone makes food preparations. Ferus Ironlash, Morgana Veros, Aurou Mhirata, Kairen Olerus, Oyungunjin Kha and a new Branded, Suyiketu Avagnar, accompany Suen to the beach in a remote cove, where they also meet Brave Horizon, an ex member of Aeon that they invited. Brave offers Suen to make her visit her new company, Dufresne Bellworks, that happens to be the home of a bunch of other ex Branded. Suen is even more interested as Brave is working with Garlond Ironworks and that Dufresne Bellworks can very well help her to get her hands closer to manacutters, or at least nice engineering feats. She gets however to deal with Morgana that stops her muscle contest with Suyiketu to argue with Suen again. The discussion gets downhill very fast and hateful words get exchanged. Suen decides to just leave the event, too furious to stay.
- Suen makes her final decision to leave Aeon and the Branded and stay absent. She jumps on the occasion to pay the visit she owed to Brave and Bellworks, in their secondary office in the Goblet. They are celebrating their one year of existence, and Suen meets a few ex Aeon like Graeham Ridgefield, Arcian Martell, the head of security, and most importantly Eliane Dufresne, the ishgardian noble owner of Bellworks. She also meets Hyrtwyda Eyhafrynwyn, the engineering head of the company. After a few awkward remarks on garleans shared with Graeham - a garlean expat - both come to a mutual, formal understanding.
- Ferus Ironlash and Kairen Olerus eventually marry after Kairen comes back to Aeon and explains she was too ashamed to have still been working for Garlemald as spy even after having met Ferus, which made her freak out when Ferus eventually proposed her. Suen as well as various other Aeon people are invited to the ceremony. Shortly after, bride and husband announce that Kairen is pregnant, much to Suen's discomfort.
- Altani Mol, xaela shaman working for Aeon, organizes a potluck and Suen is invited. She brings her favorite miq'abobs and is rather pleased to keep good relations with her acquaintances and friends there even if she doesn't really show it. There she meets Jayson Cross, the engineer that elaborated all the protective wards and other effects around Cliffperch. Before people start sharing the potluck itself, he brings up the old Aeon alcohol reserve. People start picking bottles and flask randomly, and Aurou Mhirata gets quickly tipsy. People eventually eat and Suen makes a short work of Aurou's honeyed pastries.
|