Steel and Steam

Quest giver: Biggs
Location: The Dravanian Hinterlands (X:21, Y:18)
Quest line: Alexander Quests
Level: 60

Experience: 0
Gil: 5,000
Previous quest: Disarmed
Next quest: Tinker, Seeker, Soldier, Spy
Patch: 3.01

“

Biggs seems eager to forge further into the machine.

— In-game description

Rewards

Unlocks

Alexander - The Cuff of the Father

Steps

Enter the Cuff of the Father.
Report to Biggs.

Journal

On speaking with Biggs and Wedge, you learn that the Illuminati have taken exception to your previous incursion into their territory, going so far as to call for your death. Unfortunately, you have no choice but to invade their fortress again for the good of the realm. Steel yourself to enter the colossus.

※The Cuff of the Father can be accessed via the Duty Finder.

You have felled the Illuminati forces that sought to block your path. Leave them and the area behind you.

On your way out of the colossus, you encounter Cid, Mide and Roundrox, who have taken the opportunity to survey the interior. As you look on, the treasure hunter searches through the belongings of a fallen goblin, seemingly in vain. When Cid subsequently asks what she is looking for, she tells him that her prize is the Enigma Codex...just as the goblin machinist suggested during your encounter with Quickthinx Allthoughts. The tome, written some hundred years past, apparently holds the plans for a variety of technological wonders. Chief among them is the invention known as “Alexander”─a walking citadel designed to serve as a bastion of reason and logic. Plainly, it is this ideal that gave form to the Illuminati's primal. Return to Biggs, and relate all that you have learned.

Biggs listens intently as you recount your tale. Though plainly impressed by the idea of a walking fortress, he bemoans the Illuminati's reckless approach to realizing the design. Bastion of reason and logic or not, it is a primal, and must be destroyed.

Dialogue

Post Battle

Roundrox: Pshkohhh... Uplander is amazing! Uplander is stronger than...than ten gobbies!
Cid: Ah! There you are, old friend. I was beginning to wonder if I'd ever find you. Biggs's account left something to be desired, so I thought it best to see the interior with my own eyes. Hm! A treasure hunter, through and through. Tell me, what exactly do you hope to find here?
Mide: Ever heard of the Enigma Codex? It's a book of ideas written some hundred years past─the life's work of one of the greatest technologists ever to draw breath. Within its pages are found myriad wonders─from designs for machina that could operate ceaselessly for centuries to novel ways of culturing cheese. Even a fragment of the book could bring a king's ransom. But most remarkable of all are the plans for a walking citadel. It was to be a beacon of logic and reason for all the world.
Cid: A walking citadel? ...Seven hells! We're standing in it, aren't we!? The Illuminati's primal took its form from that idea! ...But I sense that none of this is news to you. You've read it, then, this Enigma Codex?
Mide: The design catered for every needful thing, from warm beds to crops of grain. Its occupants would never have to leave. And all in a fortress on feet, impenetrable and ready to move at a moment's notice. The citadel was meant to bear the most brilliant scholars and artificers of the age to all four corners of the world, that they might set about unraveling the mysteries of creation. And this utopia...this shining seat of erudition, was to be called Alexander.
Roundrox: Pshkohhh... If Roundrox lived in walking castle, Roundrox could collect treasure from everywhere!
Mide:' Indeed you could, little one. And anything you found─be it junk, forgotten teachings, or lost secrets─would be yours for the taking.
Cid: ...And what exactly would the Illuminati do with all of this knowledge?
Mide: They would use it to take control, most likely. Create a world ruled by a few chosen scholars. Unless I'm mistaken, that's why the Illuminati exist.
Cid: Bloody fanatics. Take a perfectly good idea and make it into an object of faith. What could possibly go wrong...? I can well imagine how a people who have spent decades carrying their homes on their backs might crave a home that could carry them─how such a place could seem like a utopia. But we're not talking about a machine here─we're talking about a primal. And primals will be the death of us all.

I trust you'll be ready when things come to a head, [Forename]?

Roundrox: Pshkohhh... Utopia is happyplace? Hmmm... Where there is junk aplenty, Roundrox is happy. Where is very happyplace of Mide?
Mide: ...Wherever he is.

Report to Biggs

Biggs: This Enigma Codex sounds amazing. A walking citadel's one thing, but a self-sustaining, walking citadel...? Genius! It's just a pity the Illuminati had to go and make a bleedin' primal out of it.  From what I understand, this “Alexander” was active for no more than a few seconds─that's seconds─and it nigh drained the hinterlands of aether. Imagine what it'd do if it wandered the whole bleedin' world... I don't think Roundrox realizes how much danger we're in here. Too busy hunting for new treasures. Probably for the best, though, eh?