Taru Leather

In Final Fantasy XI, a thief who reaches Lv. 15 gets an ability called "Treasure Hunter," which is supposed to increase the chances of a monster dropping an item. Lots of players will take a thief to that level just to get that ability.

Who's your daddy?

With Neyla's White Mage and Halifirien's Thief levels so close, it seemed like a great idea that we team up and run around the Ronfaure area fighting orcs and goblins and sheep to level up. I traded my robes for thief and warrior gear which made me look like a taru leather daddy.

We worked our way through sections of Ghelspa Outpost, but there are too many orcs for comfort. They link up, and that can be dangerous. When we got back to San D'oria, I changed over to the Warrior job and Neyla kept an eye on me while I fought bunnies and worms. Jesus, I didn't realize a taru melee could be so powerful. I was wearing crappy starting armor and using a toothpick weapon, but I already had the beginnings of a tank. When I got my warrior skills to 5, I switched back to thief and subbed warrior. It made for a great stat boost.

I can certainly appreciate the melee classes more after this experience. Some day -- when I'm tired of being a mage -- I can switch to melee with few reservations. And the idea of one day being a taru paladin rocks.

Tomorrow we're going to head to LaTheine Plateau for more challenging beasts.

Sleep? What's That?

I woke up around 3 a.m. and couldn't get back to sleep, so I decided to log into the game and farm or something.

Last night's adventures involved running a rescue mission to Palborough Mines to raise two people whose party leader gave me 5k for making the trip. I ended up doing four or five raises because they kept getting killed before the raise sickness wore off. I also went to Valkurm Dunes, where I raised three members of Neyla's party. I did a lot of raises, basically; I love bringing people back to life in the game.

When Neyla's party broke up, Quieren and I went with her to Gusgen Mines to retrieve the magicked skull Neyla needed for the subjob quest. We stayed at the entrance to the mine while Quieren and Chinis got the skull. Then I escorted Neyla to San D'oria and logged out.

When I logged on again this morning, I asked a couple of the linkshell members if they could help me get the other Khazam keys I needed in the next few days. Uruk and Aisling weren't too busy, so they took me to the Ghelspa Outpost. We got the key pretty fast. Aisling logged out, and Uruk and I rode chocobos to Palborough Mine and got that key. All in time to call K and wake him up before I warped back to Sandy and logged out.

I'm soooooooo going to be paying for this later. There will be lots of coffee in my immediate future.

Rank 3, Bitches!

Fighting the Palborough dragon (click to enlarge).

I traveled to Bastok hoping to accomplish three things. I wanted to fight the dragon in the Palborough Mines, get the Khazam key I needed, and pick up a Warp scroll for Neyla. I managed the first.

Salva, a member of the linkshell, came to Bastok to help me. The two of us shouted an invitation in the market place, hoping someone would join our party. A few were interested but couldn't join us because of the mission's requirements. Once you've fought a particular dragon, you can fight it again any time you want; otherwise, you're left outside. A white mage named Yasha from Windurst heard the tell and joined us.

Mayan and Thelema from the linkshell eventually logged on and offered to go in. We went to the mines and slaughtered Qadav until everyone was together. Then it was into the burning circle deep in the mine.

There are two monsters inside the cave. The first is a one-eyed winged creature called The Summoner. The second is the Dark Dragon itself. As the black mage of the party, it was my job to cast Sleep and keep the dragon out of commission while the rest of the party hacked The Summoner to death.

The dragon itself wasn't so bad. It had the nasty ability to petrify us with its stare, which rooted us to one spot and made it impossible to dodge attacks. We hacked and nuked until it finally died.

I paid a higher-level white mage to teleport Yasha and me back to Tahrongi Canyon. From there, we rode chocobos back to Windurst to hand in our reports and attain Rank 3. It was a seriously cool evening, despite the initial madness of trying to put together a party. Yasha is now on my friend list.

I ended the evening by warping back to Bastok so I can try for the key tomorrow.

Demone Passes the Torch

Neyla has more style than Demone

It's very strange and very gratifying to be able to play Final Fantasy XI at the same time as Kristofer. After a month or so of his playing on my account, he now has his own. The red-haired mithra Demone has been replaced by the white-haired Neyla. Demone's last official act was the transfer of her weapons, spell scrolls and armor to the new girl.

I didn't do much over the weekend. I farmed, I fished, I improved my cooking skills. I power leveled Neyla and Mayan a little, and that was it. Neyla found a decent experience party in the Maze of Shakrami Saturday evening, and last night I escorted her to Valkurm Dunes. Once K gets her to Lv. 20, it's off to San D'oria to work on White Mage levels before heading to Jeuno for the chocobo license.

I'm (hopefully) getting the Ghelspa Key tomorrow evening, putting me another step closer to the Khazam airship pass I need if I want to keep leveling.