Is That French?

Demone begins leveling up her subjob.

Kristofer spent Friday night getting Demone leveled up to 18, which is where you have to be to get a support job. Over the course of regular partying in the Valkurm Dunes, Demone had found the damselfly worm and crab apron which are required. Barin, a high-level member from the Spirit of Legends linkshell, tracked down ghouls and obtained the magicked skull for her.

There are French players out there who think Demone is being played by another French player. K's tongue-in-cheek reasoning for that name was "Black Magic equals devil worshipper, therefore she's like a demon," but they just think it sounds like a French name. He said there was a song called Demone which gave him the idea.

I had an annoying time this moring trying to level in Quifum. The other white mage in the party was a 15-year-old asshole who almost made it onto my blacklist. I was so frustrated at the end of the experience that I took a choco back to Windurst rather than try to find another party.

Kristofer played again this evening, starting from scratch with Demone as a Lv. 1 white mage and beginning the slow process of leveling her up. White mage work can be intimidating -- you're responsible for keeping everyone alive -- but it has its own pleasures which balance the joys of nuking.

Your support job is always capped at half the level of your main job at any one time. If he gets Demone to at least Lv. 15 as a White Mage, he can use it as a support job while taking his black mage job to Lv. 30 before he ever has to play as a White Mage again.

I feel a little strange seeing K put so much work into this character because he'll have to start over with a new one if he ever gets around to buying his own copy of the game.

/emote

She's dead and I'm searching her pockets.

The "emote" option in Final Fantasy XI lends itself well to comedy. When someone dies, it's almost required by Vana'diel law that you "kneel" or "cry" over the corpse. These are automated messages you trigger by typing /kneel or /cry. But typing /em lets you work up whatever emote you want.

For example, I was leveling my White Mage this evening in Quifum when one of our party members was killed by some stray bats. The others did the /cry and /kneel thing. I did a custom /em which gave me the result "Halifirien carefully arranges Emirent's hair and then steals her wallet."

It helps to have a sense of humor, which is yet another reason I love playing a taru.

The party was pretty good. Streyus, a member of my linkshell, invited me to join his group. I was tired of fishing, so I grabbed a chocobo and headed to Jeuno. When I arrived, the group had two summoners. Our tank, a Mithra paladin, was regularly getting creamed and I was constantly being drained of my MP to keep her alive. Once the summoners were gone and replaced by a Bard and a Black Mage, the experience points started flowing nicely and I wasn't being drained every other fight. I now have both Black Mage and White Mage jobs leveled to 23.

Kristofer is still leveling Demone in the Valkurm Dunes. He'll have completed his quest to gain a subjob by Friday or Saturday night. The members of the linkshell said they'd help him get the items he still needs.

The Black Market

Rimare leads me through Jugner Forest back to Jeuno.

Rimare gave me my first teleport this evening. We were going to travel to Jeuno together, and he has the ability to cast a spell which takes you to a gigantic structure located on LaTheine Plateau. From there, we rented chocobos and rode the rest of the way into Jeuno. The teleport spell is a very handy way to travel to four or five locations throughout Vana'diel, and White Mages usually charge 1k gil for the convenience it offers.

I spent the evening fighting Clippers in Quifum Island outside Delkfutt's Tower. The area is crowded with players, and our tank threw out the idea of going inside to fight the beasties there. I don't have a map of the tower, but we only went in a short way and pulled goblins from their camps. I threw out nuke after nuke, blinding them, paralyzing them, freezing and burning them. I had gone in at Lv. 21 and came out a few hours later at Lv. 23.

As the evening neared its end, Songi from Quetzalcoatl Daily News contacted me about a crafters' linkshell that's been in development for a few days. It's called The Black Market, and it's a way for crafters and fishermen to pool their resources and help each other out. Songi is going to craft a set of Fisherman's Hose and sell them to me at cost as soon as I make some more gil.

I rode a choco back to Windurst and fished a few minutes before I went to bed. My fishing skill reached Lv. 8 and I took the first guild exam. I'm now officially a Fishing Guild Recruit. Sweet.