One meets a variety of NPCs while playing Final Fantasy XIV. Some can be pretty annoying—looking at you, Thancred—while others are instantly memorable. A poor Ishgardian sentry who desperately needs to find a bathroom while her country is being invaded by dragons falls into the latter category.
At the beginning of Final Fantasy XIV’s patch 2.55 content (otherwise known as Before the Fall, Part 2), the Warrior of Light is tasked with speaking to a group of Ishgardian border guards. The soldiers, understandably, appear unsettled by an impending attack from Dravania, a land of dragons that has long been at war with Ishgard.
As I made my way from NPC to NPC, I made note of the alliterative language Square Enix used to set them apart: Bothered Bowman, Trembling Temple Knight, Tenterhooked Temple Knight, and Dyspeptic Dragoon. While the first two adjectives are obvious and the third clear by proxy, something about the word “dyspeptic” caught my eye. It sounded explicitly biological in a way the others didn’t.
I immediately alt-tabbed to my internet browser and looked up the definition. Here’s what I found on Google:
Dyspeptic (noun): of or having indigestion or consequent irritability or depression.
“Oh my god,” I thought. “She needs to take a dump.”
Unfortunately, that’s all Final Fantasy XIV says about this particular Dragoon. She has one line of dialogue, but it doesn’t provide any insight into whether the source of her indigestion is some bad Miqo’te takeaway or just the obvious anxiety about having to protect your home from a squadron of dragons. When you return to the area later, she’s back at her post, seemingly fine. But you can’t talk to her anymore.
Life goes on, I suppose. I just hope she was able to find some relief during the Dravanian invasion. Lord knows I did all the work anyway.