Quote Originally Posted by Vyrerus View Post
Unfortunately, this is far from the case. Thavnarian Alchemists and alchemy quest lines were the first quest lines to delve into the body and soul in detail, and so Thavnarians, who are heavily involved in the relic quests know as much and more than Montonchaigne.

Way back in ARR the Alchemist guild leader in Ul'dah brought his lover's soul back into her body through alchemy, bringing her back to life for a moment.

In HW, a rogue Thavnarian alchemist kidnaps a ton of people. When they are found, they are mute, and then die a little later. As it turns out, he'd figured out a way with the help of an Allagan instrument, to clone their bodies, and then using alchemy he would try and remove their soul and place it in the clone body. Basically running experiments to perform the feat on himself, in order to gain back a youthful body. By the end of the quest, he succeeds, and has to be identified by the color of his aether, which is associated with the color of the soul.

So yeah... sorry, but the NPCs weren't just haphazardly using soul as a stand in for something they didn't understand. It was full blown, real deal souls.
Disagree. None of them obviously where specialists on the topic of the soul.
The alchemy quest mixes stuff together till it works.
You can also happen to repair a machine without knowing in detail how it functions.
The Thavnairan guy used the technology and makes the best of it. He found technolog and learned how to use it and not what it does in detail.

Also that doesn‘t go against my argument that the relic npc’s are not specialists.