Someone tried to open the Garlean graves at Bloodhowe and fled before finishing the job. What they woke up did not go back to sleep. Yucca was called by name to close what was started, handing out powder blessed under Thal's rites so the Court could choose, soul by soul, between peace and destruction. What followed was a graveyard divided against itself, Ala Mhigan and Garlean alike, grief and grudge fused together into something that called itself nothing but pain. By the end, a nameless child, a grudge with a name attached, and a scale finally balanced were left behind among the graves.

A church left to rot northwest of Sheshenewezi Springs, a congregation gone without a trace, and a bell that started ringing again at midnight. Zatepepya asked the Court to find out why, on one condition, nobody was to set foot inside. What the graveyard gave up instead was worse than vandalism: fifteen souls who gave themselves to the earth on purpose, weaving their own aether into the land to call something strong enough to answer for what the mines had taken. Three hordes and a fused elemental horror later, the truth came out in bone and ceruleum, and the bell finally went quiet.

The Hanuhanu of Ok'hanu had a problem with too many teeth in it. A Kumbhira, grown far past natural size, had claimed the fishing grounds at Breath Between, and the village needed it gone without a single drop of its blood spilled. Yucca had a plan involving sedative darts bought off a very suspicious pelupelu merchant. The plan did not survive contact with the crocodile. What followed was a fishing line that turned into a tug of war, a collapsing bridge, a river crossing nobody signed up for, and one Hanuhanu family reunion nobody expected to end in near drowning. The beast made it downriver exactly where it belonged. The Court made it out considerably more battered than it went in.

A Pelupelu merchant, a shipment of tea, and a road that was never meant to be safe. Bapli needed his goods carried quiet across Urqopacha to Icuvlo's Inn, off the beaten path and clear of the towns that might catch wind of his new blends before he was ready to sell. What should have been a simple walk turned into a gauntlet of Tural's wildlife, a gang of cactus creatures with an unexpected talent for boxing, a leafy horror that very nearly buried Bastian under its own bulk, and a venomous predator that only met its match in the least likely fighter on the trail, Bapli's own alpaca, Coton. The caravan made it through in one piece. Nobody's dignity did.

Lord Godbert Manderville himself sent the invitation, and Yucca, against her every principle, said yes. What was meant to be a night of free drinks, VIP passes, and a bit of harmless bank-breaking at the Golden Saucer turned into something far darker the moment a man threw himself from the Climb of Happiness in full view of Wonder Square. A second death in three days, both victims broke, both gamblers, both silenced by a poison brewed from old, sun-baked Sagolii cactuar venom, slipped into a note and a promise. The Court traced the thread from a grieving bartender to a card table ranking board, and found a self-styled Lord out of Limsa waiting at the top of it, collecting debts no one could ever hope to pay back alive.

A shipyard, a foreman who did not believe in ghosts, and a vessel that refused to be finished. Word reached the Court through Naldiq and Vymelli's after what happened on the Isles of Umbra, and the job seemed simple enough at first: keep the workers calm, keep the peace, get the Victory built before dawn. But the dead do not always stay quiet for coin, and the drydocks had a story of their own, an old betrothal, a broken promise, and a woman who threw herself into the harbor long before the Calamity ever came. What the Court found waiting in an empty hangar room, on a lighthouse beam, and finally aboard the ship itself was not a haunting looking for vengeance so much as a grief that had simply never been allowed to rest.

Some things refuse to stay buried. The Sand Court arrived at Aleport Docks on a haunted island under a gale, with a deal already struck. The airship had been flying on forged papers long enough that Limsa Lominsa wanted a favor before signing anything: the Isles of Umbra had dead walking its shore every night at midnight, disturbing the corrupted aether still lodged in Pharos Sirius since the Calamity, and reconstruction had stalled. What waited on the other side of the ravine was older than the lighthouse, smaller than expected, and considerably more furious about the whole situation.

A Holy See loyalist cult was pulling people out of Coerthas and Adeline was somewhere in the middle of it, last seen walking away from Amdapor Keep like the Court had never existed. The group rode into the blizzard, found a farmstead already wrong with void energy, and went down through a trapdoor into blood and torchlight. Adeline was already fighting when they got there. The boss fell, the cult collapsed, and Yucca talked Adeline into a drink in Foundation. Not a reunion. A beginning.

Amdapor Keep pressed down like something alive the moment they crossed the threshold. The group fought through ruins, voices, and void-touched horrors before reaching Ferdiad, a high-ranking voidsent still haunting the Keep from the days of the Mhachi assault. He offered one deal: a precious memory from each of them, in exchange for the White Mage soul stone. Adeline stepped forward before anyone else could speak and gave up every memory she had of the Sand Court. Ferdiad took them and left. She walked out not knowing any of their names.

The Court entered Quarrymill under forged academic credentials, posing as scholars from Ul'dah. The warden E-Una-Kotor enjoyed the performance but still refused entry, sending them north to recover a stolen chest from the Redbelly. Yucca had already prepared a convincing fake. The group reached the Redbelly camp and negotiated instead of fighting, leaving every member of the gang breathing, the real chest in hand, and E-Una-Kotor none the wiser.

Forgotten Springs was losing livestock and soldiers to something moving beneath the Sagolii. Flame Captain Sidimund requested the Sand Court's aid after two of his own patrols vanished without a trace. The locals described a worm ancient enough to shake the ground when it shifted in its sleep. The Court rode out to find where it nested, understand what brought it to the surface, and put it down before the Springs were cut off entirely.