Summoner Antics

Neyla and I started working on our subjobs again. This time we headed to Qufim Island, where I tried to pull together a halfway decent party from what was seeking. I basically took what I could get, which in this case was a Black Mage, a Ninja tank, and two Monks. It wasn't the best setup and the xp was slow, but Neyla got to 21 before we disbanded. I reached 21 later in the Maze.

I was bored enough to try fighting the Lv. 20 mini-fork battle against Leviathan Prime. I bought several Hi-Potions and Ethers, plus assorted Yagudo Drinks and Au Lait drinks and tanking food to keep myself alive for the fight.

Leviathan giggles over my taru corpse

The basic strategy is to summon Carbuncle and use the two-hour ability called Astral Flow in order to fire off Carby's "Searing Light" move three times to take down Leviathan. Unfortunately for me, at one point Carbuncle got caught in one bend of the long ramp and was hanging back while Leviathan throttled me. At another point Carby died and I was unable to summon a new one because I was being hit.

So I died. I got close, though. I had knocked off about 80% of Leviathan's health and could've finished him off with another Searing Light. I'm just glad I don't have to rely on my skills in this battle to eventually be able to get Leviathan on my side. I'll do the regular Prime fight at some point.

Tiger Beat

I'm already growing disenchanted with the HNM lifestyle.

I logged on about an hour before the scheduled trip to Tu'lia and planned to spend that time going after emperor fish in the glacier. I was on my third cast when Quieren sent me a /tell to grab my key to and head for Delkfutt's Tower. "I need a healer and I'm offering it to you first," he said.

I warped back to Windurst, grabbed my key, and outpost-teleported to the base of the tower. Several members of Notorious Hunters were on their way to meet us and charge to the top to claim a beastmaster gigas monster named Pallas. Quieren and the others started clearing out the surrounding giants before pulling it to camp. The fun part of fighting Pallas is that you have to keep his pet bat alive during the battle; if Pallas loses his pet, he'll simply Charm a member of the party. We killed the monster, but it didn't drop the expensive bracelet they were drooling over.

My return to Tu'lia did not fill me with confidence. I ended up as the sole healer in the party sent to get the pop item from Faust. We didn't have the problem with links like last time, so the fight was pretty straightforward until one of the mages pulled hate near the end and Faust stalked over to us and started using his Typhoon move. I died (deleveling back to 66), reraised myself as soon as the tank got Faust's attention again, and kept him alive to finish out the fight.

Mother Globe and her children float over our corpses.

Our next task was to get a pop item from Mother Globe, a flying mechanical ball who keeps several "slave globes" in orbit around her. Black Mages can kill off the entire cadre of slave units with a single Thundaga III, leaving the tank to huddle in the corner with Mother Globe and keep her attention without actually engaging her.

I knew after a few minutes that we were all going to die. My rate of MP consumption to keep the tank alive (coupled with a Red Mage who seldom if ever bothered to Refresh me, which is why I started drinking Melon Juice) added to the meager amount of damage the party was actually doing to Mother Globe made it obvious we were heading for a total party wipeout. Down we went. I waited until Mother Globe and her children headed into the hallway before I raised myself and started casting Raise II after Raise II to get people back on their feet.

"Don't feel bad about it," Quieren said in /tell when he heard. "Wipeouts happen on Mother Globe."

"Why would I feel bad?" I asked him. "I did my job just fine."

Caerloc, Bajaratt and some Black Mages tracked us down for a second assault on Mother Globe, and this time that bitch went down smooth and easy. Then we went after another doll-type monster called Despot.

Pop items in hand, everyone headed into the gardens for the first fight against Seiryu. There were aggro issues and backbiting on the way, and the actual fight was a treat because Seiryu started using its two-hour and nobody was binding it in place. I was outside the main alliance for that one and tried to restore buffs on the tanks when I could.

Byakko goes on a rampage.

The Byakko fight? Sweet Altana, what can I say about the Byakko fight? It was a major operation just getting everyone to the arena because people were getting attacked and killed along the way.

Quieren was certainly right about how insane that tiger-god can be. He said at the start to make sure to Raise every paladin who died so they could get up and get back into the fight as quickly as possible because Byakko chews them up and spits them out. Despite the warnings, I thought MasterOrion was going to survive the assault. I was throwing out a constant stream of Paralyna spells to try to keep the tanks swinging.

Eventually MasterOrion went down and Quieren stepped in, but he didn't last nearly as long. Clusterfuck behavior set in at that point because someone went away from their keyboard and our remaining Paladin was unable to get into the alliance.

Then the slaughter began.

Byakko started running around the arena and mauling everyone in sight while I scrambled forward to raise Quieren. People rushed in every direction as the striped god chased them down and killed them. Byakko charged me, clawed me into the red, and then dashed off in search of a new victim. I tossed out cures to some people, but the tiger eventually returned to finish me off. Quieren popped up (thinking he'd be safe since he wasn't in the alliance) but Byakko killed him a second time.

Total wipeout. Just a field of dead bodies with a triumphant god laughing at us.

"Does anyone have Reraise up?" someone asked.

"I do," I said.

"Hali saves the day," someone else said.

Byakko stands over his kills

That was by far the most annoying part of the evening for me. I sent Quieren a /tell asking him if the White Mages were naturally inclined to never use Reraise or if there was a Linkshell rule I didn't know about. He said "They probably didn't have time to think," which is probably true and also complete bullshit. You don't wait until you see the drunk driver crossing the center line before you try to put on your seatbelt. Of all the mages in Sky who were capable of using a Reraise spell, only myself and one of the Black Mages had it up. Not even the Red Mages could be bothered.

So that was my second real day in an HNM shell, and I'm probably not going to stay in it. I enjoy the Sky aspect and wouldn't mind doing the god fights on a semi-regular basis, but the idea of camping HNMs on a daily basis and being dragged from doing what I want like a firefighter hearing a distant siren is far too annoying for words. The urgency of competing against other linkshells for claims could probably be addictive after awhile, but I just don't care.

I'll give them a few more days to be sure, but my mind is largely made up.

Red Mage Work

Today was pretty quiet, for the most part. The run through Promyvion-Dem to obtain a map fell through, and I found myself with time on my hands. While Quieren was leveling White Mage and Neyla was off camping Serket with Notorius Hunters, I logged onto my mule Dibbler and traded stacks and stacks of millioncorn to the NPC in Selbina to raise fame.

Neyla, Halifirien and Feriz kill Purpleflash Brukdok.

Once I was back on my main, I tagged along with Neyla to teleport and escort a young taru named Jahar who needed ice weather to unlock Summoner. I teleported them back to Tahrongi Canyon and hit Buburimu to fish some shall shells as they made their way back to Windurst.

The main event was taking Feriz into Davoi for his Red Mage artifact weapon, the Fencing Degen. The quest involves killing a Black Mage orc named Purpleflash Brukdok and obtaining a storage key. Neyla wasn't going to take me along at first -- "The fewer people involved, the better it will be," he said -- but since when do I listen to advice like that?

The orc-killing part of the quest was easy enough. It didn't take long to find him. Neyla cleared the surrounding orcs while I took out the lizards. Then the three of us started beating down Brukdok. Eventually the orc started using Manafont and blasted Neyla with spells which didn't do much damage.

Key in hand, we ran around Davoi in search of a storage hole. I got aggro at one point when we dropped over a wall and I found myself standing next to a Warchief, but he was far away from his buddies and we dispatched him. We spent another twenty or thirty minutes searching Davoi until Feriz found what he needed and used the key.

He's Lv. 40 now, so he won't be able to use the sword until he hits 41. That's also when he gets Refresh and will become extremely popular.

Deicide Kings

Today was our first day in Sky as members of Notorious Hunters. They had slated the deaths of multiple gods, an event which seemed to thrill everyone because they hadn't done it for awhile. Quieren took me and Neyla on his advance team to farm "pop items." In this case, we need to kill a pot-type mob called Steam Cleaner.

Notorious Hunters takes down Steam Cleaner.

God fights work this way: You enter Tu'lia and hunt notorious monsters and kill them for items to pop the "lesser" gods like Genbu, Suzaku, Seiryu and Byakko. A strong alliance of players takes down these gods for armor, items and other goodies. Chief among these extras are the seals of the individual gods. Using the four seals will pop the ultra-badass god called Kirin.

Getting claim on Steam Cleaner is a small operation in itself. A robotic-looking creature called a Detector is pulled to camp and kept asleep by a Red Mage so it can spawn a series of doll-type monsters. The Detector is killed when it runs out of dolls. Eventually the dectector will pop Steam Cleaner. We fought for nearly an hour before we got claim and the item.

From there, we moved to another area to fight another doll-type monster called Faust. Physical damage has to be kept to nothing or else it'll work up enough heat to kill everyone with a Meltdown move. Quieren had to tank it in the corner far away from the mages.

With pop items in hand, we were ready to move to Suzaku's island for the first battle; however, before the fights begin the members have an auction to decide who gets the individual drops. Players receive a point for every hour they spend in Sky, and they use those points to get their god items. The amount of bickering was a surprise, and I started to wonder if we'd ever get through it to do the actual fighting.

Suzaku flaps around with blood on its mind.

The actual fight against Suzaku wasn't as bad as I'd feared. I was in the main tank party for the alliance, teamed up with Onaule to keep track of Genna's health for the fight. Midway through the giant bird started to use its uber-moves, at which point the rangers used Shadowbind to hold it in place while the rest of us ran for cover. When the bird calmed down a little we waded back in to finish it off.

I was not in the main alliance for Seiryu. Instead, I was in a party with Neyla and a few others to serve as "outside" healers to supplement the White Mages in the main alliance. We also focused on restoring buffs when the wyrm used Dispelling Wind.

Seiryu has a habit of dispelling everything.

I missed the beginning of the Seiryu fight because one of the other players seemed to think the Trout Paste bait I had been using for emperor fish was adorable for some reason and wanted to buy one from me. She tried to give me 1,000 gil for a piece of bait which costs 52 gil at the fisherman's guild. The fight had already started when I turned around.

I was hit by Dispelling Wind a few times, and of course my Reraise II was one of the first things to go. That's not a good feeling, even if there are several White Mages with Raise III to take care of me if something goes wrong.

Having so many White Mages changes the dynamics of my job a bit. There's no real point in throwing out Cure IV or Cure V most of the time because as soon as you do there's already three or four others tossing out Cure III. You don't want to waste MP, but at the same time you don't want to risk a death by not curing enough. I'll have to get used to working with other White Mages that way.

Genbu may be slow, but he hits hard.

We finished out the evening by fighting the tortoise-like god called Genbu. Neyla and I were in the main tank party for this one. The bastard stomped through three paladins over the course of those fights. The first death, SirElrohir, took me by surprise and I was freaking out that I might've missed something. In the second fight I saw him go from full health to dead and relaxed. Quieren had been hoping to get a specific piece of armor from Genbu, but it didn't drop either time.

It was a fun evening, and a nice introduction to the world of god fights. Neyla wants to get our subjobs up to speed because RDM/WHM seems to be the norm up there, and I desperately want a map of that place. The bickering of the assorted players was annoying, but on the positive side they found roles for Neyla and myself to fill in order to take part in the experience. Caerloc even entrusted me with pop items when he had to log off.

I'll need to work on raising my White Mage job to 70 (I dinged 67 when they were fighting pots to raise TP) in the coming weeks so I can learn Raise III. Quieren pointed out my job when I eventually go on a Kirin run will be to scamper around and constanly raise the dead.

I believe we're going up against Byakko on Thursday. Quieren dreads that tiger-god because he can tear through a series of paladins like they were tissue paper. It promises to be an intersting evening.

Welcome to Sky

Zilart Mission 8, the fight against Archduke Kam'lanaut, wasn't nearly as rough as I thought it would be. I suppose it doesn't hurt to have a Lv. 75 Paladin like Quieren tanking it while a Lv. 75 Warrior (Reko) and a Lv. 75 Black Mage (Caerloc) are along for the ride. Neyla, Rorion and I did our respective jobs and quickly cleared the mission.

Once the big guy was dead, the three of us traveled all over Vana'diel. We had to visit Ro'maeve, Norg, Rabao... it was constant travel. I would teleport Rorion to the appropriate crag so he could travel on foot while Neyla and I warped back to Windurst and used outpost teleports to shorten the trip.

Neyla and Halifirien take in the view of Ru'uan Gardens.

The final task was a fight against a magic pot in the Quicksand Caves. Once it was dead we returned to Rabao for the last item needed to enter the Hall of the Gods for transfer to the floating city of Tu'lia. We can now enter the area commonly known as Sky.

Neyla and I poked around a little. There are magic pots called Sprinklers floating around, and there are flamingos which a party my level could use for xp. There are also doll-type mobs called Groundskeepers.

"Hey," I asked the party, "am I safe from aggro as long as I don't use magic?"

One of the groundskeepers clambered out of its wall niche and killed Neyla.

"No," Neyla said.

Neyla had to homepoint it because there was no way to get close enough for a tractor and raise. I warped back to Windurst and spotted Genna from Notorious Hunters fishing in Windurst Walls. She gave me a pearl for the LS. I popped on long enough to introduce myself and then logged out.

Skybound

I'd been scheduled to go on a run through Promyvion-Dem with members of Keitaro in hopes of obtaining a map. I was gathering my gear at 11 a.m. when Rorion from Notorious Hunters sent a /tell asking if I wanted to try again on Zilart Mission 4.

I said no at first because I'd made a commitment to the map run, but I asked if they'd still take Neyla along. That wasn't a problem, so I called Neyla to get him up and logged in. Then, torn, I asked Kyrial if she had a backup healer for the Promy run. Kyrial told me I should go do ZM4 because it's famously difficult to get parties for those. I owe her one.

The four tonberries of Zilart Mission 4 take a beating.

We had extra firepower this time because Dakko came along on his Summoner job. Another player named Ssouljah, who also needed Sky access, joined us in the jungle. This run through the Den of Rancor was much faster, and we were quickly standing in front of the gate for the BCNM fight.

The fight is against four Tonberries. The strategy is to keep them asleep so you only have to kill one at a time, and it was going pretty well until one of them did the Everybody's Grudge move and killed Onaule. The Summoner tonberry followed up with an Astral Flow which took out Neyla and Ssouljah. The rest of us were knocked down into the red. Hooray for me for surviving it.

We watched our cutscenes and dusted ourselves off when the fight ended. I raised the dead and we set out to do the first half of Zilart Mission 5, which involves traveling all over Vana'diel to find seven Cermet Headstones and obtain a stone fragment of each. Four of the headstones will pop monsters who instantly attack you as soon as you touch it. The headstones are in very out-of-the-way places, which is one reason why people hate this mission.

We hit Behemoth's Dominion first and fought two Weapons-type mobs. No problem there.

We also went to the ever-so-lovely Ifrit's Cauldron, which is the one zone in the game where I truly hate to travel. It's dark, it's dangerous, and I don't have a map. To add to the fun, an HNM called Ash Dragon was blocking a tunnel where we had to travel. Onaule tried to get past it and the dragon killed her almost instantly. I ran past it while it was distracted. Caerloc tractored her body to us so I could raise her. We reached the headstone and fought two Opo-Opo monsters for the fragment.

The Sanctuary of Zitah's headstone popped a member of the Doomed-type monsters. It hits hard and has a lot of hit points, but it didn't last very long.

The fleshy Doomed Pilgrims lurk in the Sanctuary of Zitah.

Cape Terrigan's fight wasn't bad at all. It was a shadow-type creature which spammed Dimensional Death but otherwise didn't do a whole lot.

With the fights out of the way, we ran to Fei'yin and to the Altepa Desert to claim the remaining headstone fragments. Rorion, Neyla, Ssouljah and myself went to LaTheine Plateau for the final piece while the others went to fight Garuda.

We met up in Rabao and traveled to the Quicksand Caves for the next Zilart mission, a fight against three Anticans. This fight was a little harder, with hate bouncing around a bit. We killed them and entered the Chamber of Oracles to place the fragments we'd gathered.

The next mission is a fight in Delkfutt's Tower.

I spent the rest of the evening skilling my woodworking to 10 by synthing a ton of lumber and burning through all the air clusters I farmed. Neyla hit East Sarutabarta and got Beastmaster to Lv. 8.

To my amusement, Ssouljah sent a /tell asking if Neyla and I wanted to do ZM8. I told him we'd wait until tomorrow when we could do it with the group.