Mycophile

None of my gavial fish sold overnight, so I hit the Sea Serpent Grotto for an hour this morning and caught two stacks of nebs, some grimmonites, and a damp scroll. I got tired off fishing and wanted to do something productive.

The Mycophile drops Mycophile Cuffs, which will be handy for my Summoner.

Neyla and I are going to start leveling our subjobs again Monday, so I decided to go after the Mycophile Cuffs. They're a Rare/Exclusive drop from a Funguar NM in Carpenter's Landing. You trade a Danceshroom, Sleepshroom and Woozyshroom to a rotten mushroom and it pops the monster.

I didn't have any problems killing it, but it surprised me by casting Poison and Virus on me. I hasted myself and used stoneskin, but otherwise just clubbed it to death. The cuffs dropped, and I'll be able to use them when I get my Summoner to 25.

The enmity reduction will be pretty handy for Neyla's White Mage, and I still have plenty of mushrooms to pop it again.

Speaking of subjobs, my Black Mage sub will be officially gimped once I get White Mage to 66. I'm leveling WHM there anyway and will level BLM once I have Regen III at my disposal.

Processionaires

Processionaires are crawler-type monsters in Boyadha Tree.

My level grind continued today with two parties in Boyadha Tree. The first had three members of Notorious Hunters, an endgame linkshell I may end up joining someday if Quieren is still around to recruit me into his monster squad. The summoner of the party, Dakko, was one of the first players I met when I started playing. He remembered me from RainbowCarnage, which sorta surprised me. Dakko joined us when the Red Mage went afk as soon as we entered the tree and never came back.

The Notorious Hunters crew didn't stay long because they were needed to kill King Behemoth, so I warped back to Windurst. Feriz was on, so we hit Ordelle's Caves for another treasure chest key. We slaughtered every beetle and key-dropping goblin we saw until we got it. I returned to Windy, put my flag up, and got another party invite.

There's a whole area of Boyadha Tree I didn't know existed until today. It's a pretty pond you get to by dropping down a waterfall, and it's full of leeches, flies and crawler-type Processionaires. We were hitting Chain 5 and getting 200-240 xp for each kill, and I was hoping I'd reach Lv. 65. Unfortunately the tarutaru ninja tank had to leave. I'll try for 65 tomorrow.

Mandragora Mad

I needed to raise my Windy mule's fame levels to make him eligible for the Gobbiebag quests in Jeuno. Dibbler only has thirty inventory slots, which is the limit for the number of fish I can place in his bazaar. The gavial fish I caught yesterday sold overnight and brought in a lot of gil. I want to be able to sell more.

I did the "Mandragora Mad" quest in Windurst. It's repeatable, but Gods help me it took forever. I had to travel to Bastok to buy cornettes at the music store, send them eight at a time to my mule in Windurst, and then trade them to Yoran-Oran in Windurst Walls. I made a macro for the trade.

It was a very affordable quest. The cornettes cost 222 gil each with my Bastok fame, and you get 200 back for each one you turn in. I traded 210 cornettes (probably only needed to do 200) and maxed out my fame. The total cost was 4620 gil to go from zero to hero.

Completing The Look

I love my apron.

I've spent the past few days partying, and when I wasn't going after birds in Bibiki Bay I was fishing in the deepest part of Gusgen Mines. The bottom pools are the place to go if you want to target gavial fish. Nothing else bites the line, so they're extremely easy to target. I went after them for quick skillups because I wanted my Fisherman's Apron, and today I got it.

The apron reduces the chance of catching items like kelp or rusty subligars, and they're only available for purchase from the guild when a crafter gets their skill to 68 and obtain Artisan rank. When somenoe sees you wearing a crafting apron, they know you have the uber-skills.

Other than that, I didn't do much today. Quieren set some kind of record for obtaining his Lu Shang rod and got it yesterday, so he was tripping heavily at the amount of money he made during his first visit to the Sea Serpent Grotto. I gave him a tele out to Gusgen so he could try gavials, too.

I also participated in the White Mage AF fight in Fei'yin so Kyrial and Darthyoda could get their Healer's Briaults. A full alliance of eighteen players went out there. It was complete overkill, but that's not a bad thing when you're fighting a creature which spams Dimensional Death. We fought it twice and then killed Miser Murphy for Red Mage AF.

Doll of the Dead

Windurst took over the Gustaberg region in this week's conquest, which is pretty decent revenge for the time we lost Sarutabaruta. I'm going to do the outpost supply run later, although my preferred method for traveling to Bastok is teleporting to the Altepa Desert, running into Korroloka Tunnel and then casting Escape. The Gustaberg outpost tele is only useful if I need to get to Dangruf Wadi in a hurry.

When good cardians go bad.

The conquest update came up while I was partying in Bibiki Bay. It was a great party setup and we were constantly chaining birds and hobgoblins. Unfortunately everyone started making the "I'm tired" and "I need to go soon" comments. When we disbanded I was only 2.5k points away from getting to 63 on my White Mage.

Instead of getting guild points, I ended up in Toraimarai Canal with Neyla. There are beetle mobs called Starmites deep in that place, and you need three of their shells for one of the Windurst quests. The reward is the ability to enter the canal from Windy. We got two of the shells before it was time to gear up for the next mission.

Mission 8-2 was pretty easy. The party (minus BLM Lolindor, who is out of the static) traveled to the far north-western tower in West Sarutabaruta to fight two cardian notorious monsters. These mechanical dolls spawn at a cracked wall in the depths of that place. Kateverlasting used Sneak to walk to the door, summoned Carbuncle, and then Carby-pulled one of the cardians to us. The fight didn't take long and was aided by the cardian's constantly wasting attacks trying to buff itself. I think there was more running around than anything else for this mission, but we finished it and obtained Rank 9.

Neyla had originally planned to do 9-1 next weekend because it would work as a skillup party in Boyadha Tree. The Elder Goobues drop a Rare/EX piece piece of humus which has to be traded to some mandragora warden NPCs in the tree. Everyone started the mission (I'm getting tired of talking to Aparuru in Windurst Woods) and we ended up in the tree.

I stopped trying to improve my club skill after the second or third goobue because I couldn't hit the bastards even while wearing a Life Belt and using sushi. I decided to go into mage mode and hang back behind the waterfall to do cures and hastes. The elder goobues also like to spam an AoE move called Antiphase which silenced anyone nearby. They also use a paralysis move, and Kateverlasting complimented me again on my WHM skills because I was always beating her to the status cure.

Elder Goobues in Boyadha Tree are very stubborn about their humus.

The first few pieces of humus dropped fairly quickly and then the goobues decided to be stubborn. The bastards just flat-out refused to drop the stuff. It was down to mine and Neyla's and we were all getting tired. I finally got one, and Neyla was ready to give up and send us on our way. A trio of Beastmasters was fighting the goobues and let Neyla have their drop.

After that, it was back to Windurst for some awesome cutscenes (again, I truly love Ajido-Marujido) and a trip through the canal to the Full Moon Fountain.

Mission 9-2 is going to be a two-part effort. We're going to do the advance work next weekend and then the actual Burning Circle fight probably the weekend after. I'm going to bust my tail to get some more levels before we go in. I really only need to get to 66 and learn Regen III to keep Twille (our Paladin) alive, but I'm hoping I can get to 70 and learn Raise III so reduce his fear of possible death.

To our delight, Otak and a few others from Wicked Wayz need 9-2. That would give us some serious firepower and is no doubt a great relief to Neyla if we can work out the scheduling.

Rank 10, here we come!