So Long, Rabao

Fishing shall shells on the coast of the Buburimu Peninsula

My fishing career in Final Fantasy XI is punctuated by long periods of time spent fishing in one location. I spent ages at the lake in Jugner Forest before moving to the oasis town of Rabao. My new second home is the Buburimu Peninsula near Windurst.

I have finally decided I am not going to fish up the 10,000 moat carp I need to earn a Lu Shang rod. I wanted to be "pure" about it, but not anymore. I want to speed this up, so I'm going to start buying them with the gil I make from fishing other things. For every stack of shall shells I get, I can buy three stacks of moat carp.

I made an experimental run this afternoon. Two hours of fishing shells will buy twelve stacks of moat carp. It's just more efficient this way.

While Neyla was off completing a Limit Break 3 run (raising the level cap to 65), I wandered into Ordelle's Caves to finally collect the final piece of my Race-Specific Equipment. The key has been taking up space for months. I didn't even have to camp the chest spawn points; I found it in the second place I looked.

Keep Your Pimp Hand Strong

While I was toiling away against robber crabs in Cape Terrigan for shitty XP, Neyla was off getting the final piece of artifact armor, the Warlock's Chapeau. Very very awesome.

The official title after the hat quest is "Paragon of Red Mage Excellence," but Neyla puts it in terms even an elvaan can understand when she says, "Bow before the pimp hat, bitches."

Limit Break 2

I had fun trying to organizing help to get Neyla through the banishing gates in Garlaige Citadel. Everyone in the linkshell was either busy or scattered to distant areas, so it was just me, Neyla and Janullrich. I figured we could find a fourth person to help open the gates when we got there, but it wasn't working and Neyla was ready to give up when Ronith and Aurorastar came running in and agreed to help.

We cleared the first gate when Ronith was attacked by a large notorious monster bat called Old Two-Wings. I kept thinking I'm going to die because I figured the other bats and undead in the area would come over to join the fight. It didn't happen, though. What did happen is that we killed Old Two-Wings and received a Bat Cape which is worth 1.5 million gil. Split five ways, that's a nice chunk of unexpected money.

Another group beat Neyla to the coffer, so we waited around for another twenty minutes before another coffer spawned. Neyla collected the warlock's tights (very nifty stats) and we got the hell out of there.

The alliance rests outside the cave of the Boreal Hound.

Wandering Souls was organizing a Limit Break 2 (aka "G2") run. It's the quest which raises a character's level cap from 55 to 60. We had four or five people who needed it, so we killed time by running around Purgonorgo Island with Quieren, Feriz and Lecan. Lecan is a Beastmaster, and he was making the urugnites on the beach fight each other; it was total clash of the titans watching them go at it.

When G2 time rolled around, there were others shouting for help in Jeuno as we were gathering together. We ended up going to the frozen wastes of Xarcabard with a full alliance of eighteen people to fight the three notorious monsters. This quest is a bitch because the monsters have moves which will paralyze everyone in the party. Worse, they respawn ten or fifteen seconds after you kill them. You have to be very fast to get into their lair, collect the item you need, and then hustle back out before it respawns and decides to wear your guts for garters.

The prime aggravation of the ordeal was the melee players who didn't bother to bring Silent Oils and Prism Powders. There are monsters running around Xarcabard (all over Vana'diel, actually) which will attack if they see or hear you, which is why mages use the spells Sneak and Invisible all the time. If you're not a mage, you can get the same effect with oils and powders. If you want to piss off a mage, you can do it by asking them to sneak and invis you through dangerous territory.

When an invisible mage casts a spell, they become visible. If you're expecting me to risk being seen and becoming a monster's tasty treat because your dumb ass is unprepared, you're in for a world of disappointment. Mages carry oils and powders all the time because there are monsters which attack you for using magic; I had a stack of each, and I'd given them all away to the melees before we were finished.

The fights themselves weren't too bad. One player hadn't started the quest and couldn't get the item after the fight against the Boreal Hound. The hound respawned and killed him, and we ended up fighting it three times. I had a bad moment when my game froze and I had to reboot my computer. I was kicking myself in the ass for making everyone wait.

But we got through it, and I can now level to 60 with no worries.

I'm going to use my share of the Bat Cape money to buy a Geist Earring, which is a very lovely item for a White Mage to have.

Purgonorgo Island

Neyla and Halifirien fight a kraken on the coast of Purgonorgo Island.

The parties I've been in the past few days are sterling examples of the word "craptacular." They're slow as hell. At one point I was partied up in the Crawler's Nest and the leader bailed out because we couldn't kill helm beetles fast enough and we were constantly on the verge of dying.

I was ready to give up on experience points altogether, so I was more than happy to travel to Purgonorgo Island with Neyla. It was her first trip there, and we spent a lot of time skilling up our weapons on the clots and krakens which dwell on the beaches. That island is one of the most beautiful locations in the game.

Neyla needed G3 out of the way, and my goal was to serve as guide and navigator for the mission. I scouted Davoi and led her to the gate she needed, but the orcs slaughtered her in about five seconds and she got bumped back down to 59. We ended up going back on the island for more skillups.

Sunday morning I helped members of the linkshell go after G1 items for Tubbs. The Ancient Papyrus -- widely considered to be the hardest to obtain -- dropped off the second kill. The Exoray mold in the crawler's nest took longer, and then we set about getting a nest coffer key for another LS memmber. It took nearly three hours to get.

I took a nice long break, then went back in for experience points. I ended up in a party with Achelois and Tailss again. I told them I'd be happy to static (party exclusively) with them if they wanted. The only decent experience points I seem to get is with them. We fought robber crabs in Kuftal Tunnel for three hours, and I went from Lv. 52 to 54. The puller found a treasure coffer, and I used my key to obtain a map.

At 54, I was able to start wearing my Healer's Cap. Neyla joked that I'm finally starting to look like a real White Mage.

I finished out my day by tagging along with Neyla to help someone get their Kazham keys.