The Merchant's Tale in FFXIV: Unlock, Rewards and All 13 Routes

One Fairy Tale, Thirteen Endings

The Merchant's Tale is a Variant Dungeon for Final Fantasy XIV that arrived in Patch 7.45 on March 3, 2026. You travel through the Corvosi fairy-tale world alongside Y'nazqha, and the same story ends differently depending on the small choices you make along the way.

It is built for 1-4 players, so soloing it is perfectly normal: difficulty scales with party size. The point is not a fast clear but a collection: thirteen Corvosi Folklore Records, Triple Triad cards, minions, and housing items.

Everything here is current as of October 18, 2026. Several patches have shipped since release, up to 7.57, and The Merchant's Tale is still playable.

• Level: 90 (synced to 100), item level synced to 765

• Party: 1-4 players, no Unsync

• Time limit: 90 minutes

• Queue: V&C Dungeon Finder

• Entrance: The Maiden's Home (X:6.0, Y:5.9)

• Tomestones: 40 Allagan Tomestone of Mathematics and 25 Allagan Tomestone of Mnemonics, level 100 players only

How to Unlock the Dungeon

You need the quest A Spellbinding Read. It is given by Shallow Moor in Old Sharlayan, at roughly X:12.0, Y:13.4. The previous quest in the chain is An Odd Job, and Shallow Moor will not offer anything until it is done.

Any Disciple of War or Magic at level 90 or higher can take it. Limited jobs are excluded. Turning the quest in unlocks the dungeon itself and your first Corvosi Folklore Record, and you can queue through the V&C Dungeon Finder right away.

Rewards and Loot

Loot is personal: every player opens their own personal spoils coffer. If the party takes the starting path that Y'nazqha recommends, an extra bonus coffer can appear before the final boss.

The main drops are in the table below. Corvosi Potsherd drops from every boss, and the final bosses give two each.

The personal coffers can hold Magicked Prism (Ribbons), Corvosi Parasol, Corvosi Crystal, Corvosi Fan, Corvosi Sofa, green and purple Corvosi Carpet, Imitation Corvosi Shisha, and the Little Mermaid and Magic Lamp minions. That is the complete list of coffer loot.

Unlocking all thirteen Corvosi Folklore Records earns the achievement A Storied Collection (10 points). According to player reports, the Comfortable Eye Mask cosmetic is tied to it. The achievement The Strife Aquatic (5 points) comes from defeating Deadly Dandan.

How the Routes Work

Each run unlocks at most one Corvosi Folklore Record, so a full collection takes at least thirteen clears. Branches come in three kinds: a dialogue option, an interaction with something in the environment, and how mobs behave in combat.

The dungeon splits into three main paths: the residential district on the left, the great gate in the middle, and the marketplace on the right. Your final boss depends on the route. Genie of the Lamp appears on the left and right paths and Rukhkh on the left and middle ones, as early fights before the finale. Routes 1-4 lead to Pari of Plenty, 5-8 to Darya the Sea-maid, and 9-12 to Lone Swordmaster. The thirteenth route is secret.

A practical tip: take one route per run and write down exactly what you picked at each fork. One extra dialogue line or a stray click on an object sends you to a different ending, and it is hard to work out afterward where you turned.

Routes 1-4: Pari of Plenty

According to player walkthroughs, this group differs in two places. The first is the Damaged Fence after the first boss: you can interact with it and take the new trail, or skip it and follow the main road to the gate. The second depends on that choice. On the fence branch, a green Willful Wind appears near a nest with chicks: hit it for one ending, leave it alone for the other.

On the gate branch, Airy Wisps stand next to a falling white fence by the big doors. If the player holding aggro stands in the line of their Ancient Aero, the fence collapses and opens a passage. If you just kill the Wisps and keep to the road, you get the neighboring record.

Early bosses turn up along the way, so you can farm furniture and the Little Mermaid minion while you work on records.

Routes 5-8: Darya the Sea-maid

According to player reports, these routes start at the marketplace. At the first fork you choose between a line about the seaweed and a line about a stroll on the beach, which splits the group in half.

Players describe the seaweed branch as built around a purple Goobbue and colorful stones lying on the ground. Its Inhale cone sucks the stones in: one route wants every pile consumed, the other wants you to drag the mob away so none are lost. Positioning for whoever holds aggro matters more than damage here.

The beach branch revolves around the Giant Conch Shell. Talk to it before the boss arena for one record, walk past it for the other. Both end with Darya the Sea-maid, and with luck she drops the Little Mermaid minion.

Routes 9-12: Lone Swordmaster

This group heads for the Treasure Vault from the very start instead of the marketplace. Its difficulty lies in small environmental triggers: players mention platforms with a Wandering Whirlwisp, a Mushroom Passage where a golem should die quickly, and three large floating rocks that light up in turn.

A few rules apply to all four, per the same walkthroughs. Avoid extra AoE where the rocks react to damage, do not pull mobs onto the floating rocks, and do not change their colors needlessly. If a record fails to unlock, re-running the branch is faster than guessing which trigger went off.

The last fight on all four routes is Lone Swordmaster, rewarding two Corvosi Potsherd and the Lone Swordmaster card.

The Secret Route and Deadly Dandan

The thirteenth route, "The Eye of the Beholder," leads to the hidden boss Deadly Dandan. He waits on the right-hand path, on a transparent circular platform. The sequence players report: pick the marketplace, then the seaweed line, leave the Tangled Seaweed Barrier alone, go to the round platform on the right and use the /bow emote, then type "I am returned!" in Say chat. After that, step on the symbols in the order Coral, Conch, Starfish, Pearl. When it works, music starts playing and the path to the boss opens.

If nothing happens, check the order of steps and whether you touched the barrier. Restart the run and repeat the sequence carefully.

Deadly Dandan gives 2 Corvosi Potsherd and a card, plus the achievement The Strife Aquatic. It is the only hidden boss in the dungeon.

Is It Worth Going Back?

If you collect things, yes. You can collect six Triple Triad cards, the Magic Lamp and Little Mermaid minions, housing furniture, and two achievements. There is no gear here: the rewards are cosmetic and collectible.

A good order is to open all three branches with their final bosses once, then fill in the remaining records, and save the secret route for last. You will see most of the loot in your first few runs and avoid repeating the same fights.

Level 100 players also earn tomestones on every clear, which is one more reason to return while you finish the collection.