This post is a April 2026 transcription of this video. The text has been edited for readability while preserving my original sentiment.

Welcome to day two of my discussion about my journey through Dawntrail. This past day, I’ve gotten around a little less than five hours through, but we did complete a lot. If this is your first time watching this, this will be spoilers. My day one wasn’t spoilers because that was kind of my first impressions on the story. But if you have not played through at least up to right before the level 94 quest. All right, so that is your warning.

When we last left on from day one, Wuk Lamat was captured and we’re like, oh no, we need to get her back. And so that was like this entire journey. And I kind of got through that through the giants and eventually fighting Valigarmanda, who eventually stopped before we start the quest to visit Yachtel. And first off, let’s kind of talk about Koana because Koana has grown so much during the whole sequence where Wuk Lamat was captured. Did we see him be so different than how he usually is? He was he was letting his emotions take over. And I think that was a great thing because originally he was like very strict and stern and he didn’t feel like he had any emotions. But it wasn’t until Wuk Lamat got captured. Did you start to see his passion for how much he cared about his sister? He also gave us a little bit of his backstory as we were searching for his sister. He mentioned that he was abandoned by his parents when he was younger because he was a part of a very nomadic tribe. The way he described it, it sounded like because of the nomadic nature of his tribe and because his parents are so religiously following this nomadic tradition that he ended up getting left behind. And it makes me wonder if that’s why he is so obsessed with forgetting tradition and going for more futuristic technology, because to him, maybe he sees that if his parents weren’t so devoted to their culture, to their tradition, to this nomadic nature that their tribe had, he would have never been left behind the next time the tribe moved. That was fantastic to give us just a glimpse of his backstory. Obviously, I assume we’ll we’ll learn more and just learn about what happened to his family.

Also, this was one of my happiest moments. It was the moment where we finally ascended Worqor Zormor and there was the elector. As he was telling him, like, hey, why is this important? Like there must like if you’re asking us to climb this giant mountain, then there must be something important to you. That was the moment that I was like, oh, he’s one of us. Because for the first time in this game story, does he care about tradition? Does he care about what this culture, why this culture wants us to do these things? Because if you go back to the Hanu Hanu festival, he’s like, why would you want to like, why are you holding this heavy float? So for him to ask this question was like, it made me so happy because it was like it showed his growth as a character.

So let’s talk about our girl Wuk Lamat. Wuk Lamat is so incredible. And one of these moments that just makes me so happy and I love her so much for it. So after the whole bandit situation happens, we find Wuk Lamat and Koana mentions that like, hey, we need to bring the Landsguard here to be more active in the Kozama’uka region because there’s a bunch of bandits around. Speaking of which, there was like the stalking missions, right? I know they improved it. I’ve talked a lot. I mean, look, I was complaining during the stream. You go watch that part of the stream where I complained about it. Okay. I’m not going to discuss it here. It was not fun. Like, yeah, they made it easier, which is great, but it’s still just not fun at all. I digress. Okay. Going back to what Koana mentioned about bringing the Landsguard in, Wuk Lamat mentioned something that it made me so happy. She says, why don’t we find out why the bandits are thieving in the first place? Wuk Lamat is a character who wants to learn and understand people, who wants to learn and understand the nations. That’s the whole point of her character. And I love the fact that she was like, there’s a reason why these bandits are thieving. Because if we resolve why the bandits are thieving in the first place, that would resolve them from not thieving anymore. It was really cool. I was so happy of Wuk Lamat to say that. For even the FFXIV writers to write something so progressive is really cool.

Let’s go to the grand moment of this stream. And it’s meeting the Giants. First of all, the Giants look adorable. Their gigantic glassy eyes look so good. Their emotions are fantastic. I love the fact that as we slowly get closer to the Giants area, do we start seeing towers of like masonry work? Because I remember when I was streaming it, I was going through the area with all the Moblins and I saw this structure as I was looking for aether currents. And I saw the structure and it had all this stone masonry work on it. And I was like, what the heck is this thing? This is so unique. This is unlike any of the other nations that we visited. But then once we visited the Giants area, did we finally find out, oh, that’s the Giants work. The Giants built that tower that I saw earlier. And then when we’re actually in the Giants area, I think it’s called like Worqor Echoes. We then start seeing all the beautiful masonry work that’s surrounding the Giants city. Right outside the town, you have like this vista that you see the whole area and it’s all rocks. It’s all rocky. And it’s like, oh my God, it looks so beautiful.

And in addition to it, and it will only see masonry work because that’s all the Giants had. They had masonry. They lived in an area that was full of rocks. So it made sense that they would build all these stone buildings. And especially with the Valigarmanda, the threat that loomed over them hundreds of years ago. And even now it makes sense why they would build stone things because at least they’re resistant to fire, lightning and ice. And it just, it all makes perfect sense. The environment, the way they build their buildings. It was just all so beautiful and all so perfect. And even as you explore this area, you start to see all these craters that are burning continuously. And you actually see that when you’re visiting the Pelupelu, you actually get to visit one of these craters. And it’s like a video game, right? So you’re like, you see this crater and you’re like, oh, okay. Yeah. It’s a fiery crater. Cool. Okay. Whatever. You know, it’s a video game. Of course, it’s going to be eternally burning, whatever. But when you go into the Giants area and you learn about the story about Valigarmanda. These craters are actually eternally burning because of the power of Valigarmanda, where it has living aether in the ground that causes it to continuously burn. And you can see in the mountaintops, you see these like scratch marks from the bird. And it’s like, oh my God, it is so awesome. So incredible. Like the world building in this one zone is perfect. It is absolutely perfect. So I absolutely loved it.

And speaking of it, we’re kind of being tossed around like visiting place to place to find the Elector himself. So everyone is giving us vague hints of where to visit. And these vague hints are meant for each climate to understand the history and the lore behind the Giants. And it leads us to one of the gravekeepers in the graveyard, which was such a beautiful moment. And if you’re a huge fan of One Piece, you’re definitely going to understand this, which is one of my favorite quotes in One Piece ever. And it’s the hero look speech. A man truly never dies until he is forgotten. That whole thing is the way Giants believe. They build graves for living people because for them, they want to remember the person before they pass away. It’s this is a statue of remembrance that will never disappear. So they build these for people who are still currently alive. And then he tells us like, now you guys have this knowledge and now you guys can hold me in your hearts and you guys will remember me. And I’m like, oh, you guys, I loved it. I loved it so much. It was so wonderful.

So we go over to this cave and it has four different murals and it tells the history of the Giants. And I love this because the first one kind of mentions to that mentions like the story of how all the Giants came together and they conquered the entirety of Tural, both Yok Tural and Yak Tural. And then they had to create the bridge. Right. The sky. It might actually the sky bridge might have been the first thing that they built and then they built. Then they conquered everything. But they essentially because the continents were split into two and there was a huge ocean between them and they didn’t have any they don’t make boats. Right. They only deal with stone. They were like, OK, what if we just made a giant bridge that bridged the gap basically between both continents so that we can travel between? And since then, they were able to conquer everything. So Wuk Lamat asks, like, but I haven’t seen any giants in Yak Tural. And the giant mentioned, oh, it’s because they all die.

And this is where he mentions something very specific. And he says that they got diseases. And they also explain that is why a lot of the giant, like when you look at the elector, he’s like 10 times the size of every other giant. And they explain that the disease also stunted the growth of many, many of the giants that we see today. We even meet a giant named Vorporlor. And he’s very similar to Bakool Ja Ja, where he only cares about his group, his clan of giants. And he wants us he wants them to rule. And he doesn’t consider himself to be a part of the Tuliyollal nation.

And throughout the giant’s quest, do we start to kind of soften him up a bit where we heal one of his comrades, where we slay Valigarmanda. All these different things are Valigarmanda, where we all these things just to soften him up. And he eventually actually tells us about the city of gold, about how it how all the dreams about how it most likely exists in Yak Tel, all the all these things. It was it was very wonderful. But he’s he’s a character who is who has a very similar connection to Bakool Ja Ja. And it makes me think that if they’re showing us this person who is a resemblance of Bakool Ja Ja for the giants, I’m wondering if instead of slaying Bakool Ja Ja, that we’ll eventually attempt to save him or attempt to be kind to him for him to switch sides. I’m curious. I’m curious how that will be.

Now, before we end today’s discussion, we have we did a dungeon and we did the Valigarmanda fight. So first, the second dungeon, the Worqor Zormor. This one was a tough one, tough to go through because there are so many cute enemies. There are so many cute enemies. I was like, why are we killing these cute enemies? They’re so adorable. The dungeon itself is pretty cool. There’s a lot of illumination happening. So definitely this is a dungeon for them like, hey, we want to show off how cool the lighting is. So there’s a lot of dark places with illumination from all the different rocks and whatnot, which is really cool. But for the most part there, it wasn’t it wasn’t too much of a like a thing that impressed me. Like like the first dungeon was like crazy impressive. This one was like, oh, you’re showing off the the cool lighting effects. That’s really cool. And you had very cute. You had very cute enemies like that’s also adorable. So there’s not much to say about that. The final fight, I will say. So the fight at the end of the dungeon, you fight the Elector. He was a cool fight. I will be honest, that was a really fun fight to do. He was he was pulling off like a lot of crazy moves. I’m like, oh, my God, how do I how do I do this? How do I do that? It was very cool. So his fight was actually super dope. But aside from that, aside from that moment, like it was a pretty it was pretty OK dungeon, you know, cool lighting, great boss fight.

The Valigarmanda fight was one of the coolest things I have ever participated in in Final Fantasy 14. I’m someone who deeply cares about the story of 14. I love the story of 14. And one of the things that I loved when they introduced like trust dungeons was that finally, for the first time, you get to RP dungeoning, right? Because in the game, you are asked to go to a dungeon and it’s kind of assumed that the NPCs are with you in that dungeon because they show up, you know, when you beat a boss. But you don’t fight through it with them. You know, you have to grab a bunch of other players. So when they introduced the trust dungeons, it was like, oh, my God, finally, like lore reason, like finally a lore dungeon where you’re fighting alongside the characters who are with you through the story. And they have unique dialogue for these moments. And it made everything so much better.

And for the first time in Final Fantasy 14 history, do we have a trust trial? And you have Thancred, Urianger, Corial, Alisaie, Alphinaud, Us, Wuk Lamat, Zoraal Ja, Wuk Lamat’s brother, and Koana, Wuk Lamat’s other brother, joining us. It was insane. It was so amazing to fight alongside them. I took a bunch of pictures because it’s funny because, you know, in a trial, you’re all in this circle and you’re all just waiting for a boss to fight. So it’s just all the characters waiting. And I had a lot of fun taking pictures of them. It was so much fun. And the Valigarmanda fight introduced so many unique mechanics. I was like, oh, my God, not only is this a trial where you get to fight, where you actually have an RP fight with the players and the characters who will be now immortalized on top of the mountain that we just visited. Because keep in mind, Gulool Ja Ja got his own gravestone with his adventuring party up on the top of the mountain for fighting and imprisoning Valigarmanda.

So that means if we beat Valigarmanda, we’ll also be on the hilltop right next to Gulool Ja Ja. So that was really cool. And the fight was so unique. There are so many different elements. So Valigarmanda switches between three different elements and it completely shifts the way the environment looks, like avalanches start to occur. There’s like lightning bolts that strike down. There are so many moments where you had to dodge and like weave between things. It was just it was so much fun. I had such a blast. And even the game was like predicting where players would go so that it would add like other obstacles there. It was just such a fun thing to dodge and weave and like defeat Valigarmanda, especially with all the NPC characters. And I don’t know if this is like intentional or whatnot, but the way my fight ended was Wuk Lamat doing a limit break and killing Valigarmanda. And it was just it was so thrilling. It was so exciting. I just had such a blast with it. Man, it was it was so good. I’m so happy.

I hope that the the trial allows you to get experience or trust, because I would love to just redo that trial over and over and over to level up the trusts. Aside from that, man, this was a fantastic day. Like even though we only did for like less than five hours of a stream, we completed the entirety of the bandit issue and the giant story. And it was just so thrilling, so exciting. So many characters grew from that from that moment. I’m really happy about the progress of how 14 has been going for Dawntrail. I freaking love this. Wuk Lamat, one of my favorite characters, she she shines so perfectly. There’s even the last moment of this of this of my stream where she kind of talks about finally finding a purpose. She finally found her purpose, and that’s that she wants to be a champion of peace, much like her father. And it was such a touching, such a thrilling moment, because for the first time she was able to speak in her from her chest with confidence that she knows what she wants and that she wants peace for everyone. And that is something so special. I’m so excited. Look, there’s so much left of the story. We still haven’t visited Solution 9. Keep in mind, right, they’ve teased a Solution 9. And we have not yet seen it yet. So I’m excited to see what the city of gold is. I’m excited to see what the future of this game is for now. Thank you for reading my day two discussion