We Can Never Go Home

“

Myste has been waiting for you for a long time.

— In-game description

Steps

Although Sidurgu has yet to recover from his injuries, Myste will wait no longer. He wants to resume his search for souls in need of succor, and he is willing to forego their assistance, if you are. Anything to hasten the conclusion of this mad crusade. Castrum Oriens, the site of Ilberd's grand slaughter, may offer what you seek.

Myste grows weary at the sight of so many men and women willing to give their lives in service to a greater cause. A sight that is all too familiar, perhaps. Elsewhere shall we look for listless spirits.

In the depths of a cave by a flickering fire, a man sits alone, waiting to die. Gallien, an Ala Mhigan refugee for whom you once made medicine long, long ago, reveals that he shared it with another refugee, ensuring that the man lived...and that he would not. His friend Houdart went on to fight for the Griffin and even served as his body double, but ultimately died at Baelsar's Wall with his mad master and so many others. They made their choices, and such are the consequences, but Myste cannot help but meddle. He conjures a simulacrum of Houdart to comfort the dying man, who bids his dead friend to go to Rhalgr's Reach and pray for their fallen brothers.

The shade born of Gallien's memories tells you of how he always wanted to meet you, a larger than life hero...unaware that he eventually did at Little Ala Mhigo. He laments his fate, wishing he could go back and convince his former self not to place his trust in the Griffin...but if such things were possible, you wouldn't have a broken shield, now would you?

You rescue Houdart and Myste from wild beasts, but though they are unharmed, the shade abruptly stumbles and grips his head. Dizziness, he claims, and nothing more, before imploring you to hurry. He is as poor a liar as the boy.

Again Houdart falters, suddenly weak and in pain. A man's memories cannot outlive him, he says, and Gallien is running out of time. He will try his best to carry on, but in the end, it is not up to him...

Look how he burns with fervor, with desperation, with faith. How he sings of his homeland and wills himself to stand. How he marshals his strength to put one foot in front of the other. In that moment he lives again.

The spell is broken. Houdart is no more, which can only mean one thing: we are one step closer to ending this charade.

She is not the first, nor will she be the last to betray you. She will implore you to see reason, to seek solace in the fiction. And when you refuse, she will have no recourse but one. As I did not. Be ready.

The dead are forever beyond our reach, and we have no choice but to accept the inevitability that everyone we know and love will join them in time...or do we? Distraught by his failure to see Gallien's final wish fulfilled before his passing, Myste muses on the possibility of a world where time and death hold no power of us. A world you could share. You need only ask. But we know better.

Sidurgu is concerned that Myste's failure will spur him to deeper depths of depression. Even more concerning is the fact that the boy has yet to return to Ishgard, though you believed he would. Why, I do not know. The aether wanes, and he has but one chance left. Be ready, damn you. Be ready.
- ※The next dark knight quest will be available from Sidurgu upon reaching level 70.