Trek to Nowhere

I had two xp parties today. The first was in Bibiki Bay, which I still like even though lots of people are burned out on it. Non-stop Chain 5s on dhalmels and goblins are nothing to sneeze at, and we got really good xp there. I had hoped to get to 71 there, but we disbanded when the Warrior and I were 3k away.

The

The ferry to Nashmau offers some nice scenery.

second invitation came while I was in Jeuno. I didn't have my flag up and wasn't wild about going, but I figured I could at least get my level. Instead of Bibiki Bay, the Ninja wanted to go to a camp in Caedarva Mire.

It took us well over an hour to get there. Teleports from Jeuno to Tahrongi, waiting for the ferry (which we'd just missed) and then transferring when we eventually got to Al Zahbi. The others were bored on the boat rides and kept pestering me to fish up the NM, which I declined to do. One of them bought a fishing rod downstairs and pulled it themselves; we managed to kill it before we docked, but I ran out of Echo Drops and it didn't cough up the lure.

The punchline is that after all that travel, the Ninja disconnected when we got to that same tunnel where I died yesterday. We ended up killing several Chigoe repops while we waited, but he never came back and we disbanded.

Besieged... Level 5

Damned Chigoes... I thought I'd run out to unlock Puppetmaster and get access to the staging point while I was out there and got killed by the fleas. It was in one of the tunnels and I didn't see it until I tried to reapply Sneak. I might have been able to kill it on my own, but it had a friend. I reraised when I thought they were far enough away and they killed me a second time. I had to homepoint back to Al Zahbi.

An

Aw, crap... they brought bombs!

announcement that Troll Mercenaries were on the march had gone up while I was wandering in the wilderness, so I figured I'd stick around for the invasion. This was my first Besieged since the event's weak fizzle of a debut, so I didn't have high hopes for it even though the map showed they were at "Level 5," whatever that meant.

I did a search when I got to the gate and saw about 250 gathered. Quieren and a few people from my linkshell were already there, so we formed an alliance.

The trolls arrived in style. They brought at least half a dozen flans with them, and their first action was to Sleepga the crowd . Quieren, safely above the fray on the battlements, threw out some nukes and was one-shotted for his troubles. I woke up and started casting Regen III on the Paladin in my party and pouring Cures into the Monk. The flans started nuking the crowd with -ga spells; bodies were dropping left and right.

It wasn't all trolls and flans, however. They also brought several Atomic Clusters with them as well as some cockroach-looking things I hadn't seen before. The lag was Dynamis-level terrible, and it didn't take long for me to lose track of my party.

I

The trolls managed to break down the door.

died and homepointed to the other side of the zone, but couldn't get back into the fray because the gates were locked. Excalibur shouted that he knew a way around, but I stayed with the group at the door and waited for the trolls to break through.

It didn't take them long, either. Some guy was standing there keeping one occupied, so I threw him a Haste and started whacking away with my hammer. When the trolls were dead, I shot through the gate and sprinted through the bombs to track down my Paladin and get him up to full health. I'd just cured him and found the Monk when the trolls retreated. I raised Quieren and we all laughed and cheered.

This was exactly the sort of Besieged I wanted.

Yagudo Suckage

Feriz

Is something burning?

is closing in on 50 for his Red Mage and needs to start working on his Black Mage subjob. He's been running around the past few days taking every quest he can get to boost fame enough for the Drain and Aspir quests.

He needed some Test Answers, so we hiked out to the Horutoto Ruins to kill Wendigo. There were several available on the Auction House, but there's no fun in just buying them. I mostly went along to get him through the three-mage gate, although he was highly amused by the glowing circles.

"My butt's so powerful it makes the circle glow," he joked.

The bones finally gave it up after two waves of repops. I walked out with a stack of bone chips for my trouble. Feriz logged out after getting his scroll, and I did one stack of Black Sole before hitting the grotto.

The main event was helping some Windurstians (organized by a player named Samvise) with rank missions. Neyla and I are used to killing cardians and yagudo as a duo, so having a Ninja, two Thieves and a Black Mage along made it go a lot faster. The BCNM was easy, although the BLM got drilled by Astral Flow because he was BLM/RDM (ugh... hate that combo) and didn't have Stoneskin.

Castle

Easiest... yagudo fight... ever.

Oztroja was a total clusterfuck. One of them had a Judgment Key, so we were spared the farming. We buffed up and the plan seemed to be for Neyla and the Ninja to run in and fight the Yagudo High Priest while the others shot through the door and got their cutscene. When you fight the High Priest, you're fighting all of his friends. Sleepgas were being thrown around, and Samvise died with a hearty "WTF?"

I couldn't find Samvise to raise him, either. I'd press the appropriate F-key to target him, but I couldn't find the targeting arrow to save my life. While all that was going on, Neyla and the others were being whittled down by the yagudo. I was eventually horrified when I saw Samvise had shot past the Yagudo High Priest and started running up another ramp toward the Yagudo Avatar. People started dying at that point, but that crazy tarutaru Ninja was holding his own as everyone else fell.

Convinced I was next on the death list, I started looking for a good place to Reraise. I ran down the ramp, rested some MP, and then raced back up to Haste and Regen III the Ninja, who was down to 24 HP and had been holding off a yag ninja. It was totally amazing. I had no MP and wasn't sure how long we had before the High Priest and his cronies repopped, so Neyla and the rest ate R1.

The Ninja and I moved to the base of the ramp and prepared for a Samvise rescue mission. Neyla's weakness wore, and he joined us. Once the yagudo on the ramp were distracted, I started tractoring Samvise. He'd deleveled and wasn't pleased by the R1 I gave him, but I didn't have MP for a higher one and it beat homepointing. I was a little shocked by my lack of sympathy.

Then we ran by the High Priest without being seen, which is pretty much what we should've done from the start. An intense experience, and I can't believe I lived through it.

Neyla

My NPC gives me assistance against the Metallic Slime.

and I "celebrated" by hitting the Quicksand Caves to level our NPCs a bit. Mine hit 46. I spoke to Luto in Jeuno and received the "Blighted Gloom" quest, which involved running to Ranguemont Pass and fighting a Metallic Slime with Gauldeval, rushing back to Jeuno for another conference with Luto (I picked up a Kabrakan's Axe while I was there), and then riding out to the King Arthro camp in Jugner Forest.

My bond is strong enough that Gauldeval can now wear a Velvet Hat, which looks exactly like the Traveler's Hat I wear when I'm fishing. I'll eventually be able to "lock in" the gear he wears. My goal is to see him punching things to death while dressed as a fisherman. That would fit my personality.

Head Games

After three stacks of Black Sole, I'm ready to stop targeting them for awhile. It's nice how they sell so quickly, but I could be making a lot more gil in the same amount of time by hanging out in the Sea Serpent Grotto. I really need to get my mule to the Sole Sushi levels.

While

Time to get some head.

Neyla struggled through a bad party in Qufim on his Monk job, I hit Balga's Dais with Moriki to finally get him a replacement Mannequin Head. I supplied the BCNM20 orb, a Yagudo Drink and an Ether for the fight. We arrived on Lightningday, which is when Ramuh is at his strongest and the pugils are at their weakest. It was a recipe for a great win.

Unfortunately, Moriki was a little rusty on the figth and forgot to take the Yagudo Drink before he used Astral Flow. He got off a Judgment Bolt and, now without MP, Ramuh disappeared. We sprinted back to the entrance. I managed to get out in time, but Moriki was gunned down by the fish.

He called the debt even, but I told him I didn't feel right about that. We're going to try it again later. He's on his own if he messes that one up, ha-ha.

Neyla

Crawler Hunter vs Crawler hardly seems fair.

logged out early from a mixture of fatigue and disgust with his lame party. I hit the Crawler's Nest for awhile to work on my gimptastic scythe skills, which should be up around 190-something but were at 101. I charmed Exorays, Blazer Beetles and anything else that would make a decent tank.

I got a few levels on it before I left. I'm not sure why I bother, since I only use an axe when I'm getting xp. The scythe is mostly for when I'm walking around and want to look moderately badass.

Being in the nest gave me an excuse to charm and 2-hour a Crawler Hunter (they rate Tough to me) and parade him past all the folks upstairs in the sac room. Letting people see you with a pet that could destroy their entire party is one of the best parts about being a Beastmaster.

Poser Alert!

Black Sole reached 100k a stack today, so I fished up three stacks in Port Jeuno when I logged on. I've decided that, Jujitsu Gi notwithstanding, I'm going to buy my Beastmaster gear before I worry about the rest of the Monk stuff. I saw Azzariah (he led a linkshell I was in before Wicked Wayz) in Windurst, and he said he spent more money on his BST than any other job. He hit 65 over the weekend.

I

Alsha protests the war in Vietnam.

got some nice deja vu while doing the third and final mannequin quest. I had to run into the aqueducts and make my way past all the tarus and Stegotaur mobs that were in my way during the Gaudy Harness quest. I had to find a ladder and climb it for a cutscene.

The next part was in Misareaux Coast. The mannequin NM is named Alsha, and she likes to nuke you a bit. Then she douses herself in oil and starts spamming Fire II on herself until she's dead. I saved up my tp for Hexa Strike to get the killshot (it doesn't count if she offs herself) but misjudged the first attempt and had to zone and try again.

The second fight was more entertaining because she used ancient magic. I thought it was going to be a replay of the first fight until she used Tornado and knocked me into the yellow. She immediately followed up with True Strike, sending me down to 48 HP. I started scrambling to get Stoneskin up and cast Cure V on myself, and that stupid hunk of wood cast Cure III on me. She followed up with Freeze, which also hurt but didn't come close to killing me. I won that round.

I took my copy of Better Humes and Mannequins to the NPC in Mhaura and I can now pose the mannequins in my moghouse.

For

Now I can pose my mannequins!

1k, she'll let you pick a pose. As I'd hoped, there was a /hurray option, which I used on my taru with all the Beastmaster AF. I set the galka into some roaring look, and the mithra is in the /sit position. It gives the old moghouse some flair, that's for sure.

Other than that particular adventure, I spent time running around with Quieren. He got his Beastmaster to 32, so I teleported him all over so he could find a decent camp. He's in one of those hellish transitional levels where he just has to grind it out until the better camps open at 33.

Neyla decided to solo to 19 and head directly for Qufim (I powerleveled him through about a dozen fights against weapons in Tahrongi and bats and worms in Shakhrami to get him over the hump). When I logged out he was in Ordelle's Caves and using his NPC to solo on to 20.

Monk-y Business

I managed to get Monk to 40 over the weekend, which is something of a relief. Now my main job levels are all rounded off... 70, 60 and 40.

The

Three Christmas elves destroy a Soldier Crawler.

party in Garliage Citadel felt sort of strange, but I couldn't complain too much because the xp was good and one of my LS-mates, Wulfgar, was in it as Thief. It didn't take long to get to 38. In contrast, the glacial climb to 40 in the Crawler's Nest had me pulling out my hair in frustration.

The entire experience helped me develope an intense dislike for WAR/NIN tanks. I know it can be done, but it can't be done very well. It saddens me to see the proud WAR/MNK tradition neutered beyond recognition in favor of these axe-slinging namby-pamby creatures who couldn't hold hate if you stapled it to their hands. I like tanking, which is nice because I certainly had plenty of opportunities to do it.

Neyla

Neyla punches yagudo to death in Giddeus.

is leveling Monk and went solo in Tahrongi Canyon. I wandered out at one point for a little powerlevel action, but he almost all of it alone. I loaned him most of my lowbie Monk gear. He wandered out to the dunes this evening and was still there when I logged off. It's just a subjob for his Warrior, which is one of his new mains.

The "Test Your Mite" ENM fell apart today. Some of us were unclear on the time and Hadafal didn't have his Florid Stone, so we scrubbed the run until next week. On the positive side, we formalized a meeting time and it should run smoothly from now on. I took Hada out to the uncapped Pso'xja where Nue spawns to farm a stone, but the diremites were very stubborn. They're all Too Weak to his Red Mage job, so at least he can farm them on his own... even if it takes him longer to kill them.

I

I like watching Monks smack around skeletons.

thought the ENM was supposed to start at 4 p.m., so I cut short an xp party in King Ranperre's Tomb; if I'd stayed, I probably would've reached 71. Quieren had a little heart attack when I sent him a /tell to note where I was and what I was doing, since he thinks I've given up on White Mage. I'm calling it my "Drive for 75," since I'm ready to party my little heart out.

In other news, I escorted Feriz on his first trip to Al Zahbi and helped him unlock Blue Mage. I also got my fishing skill to 87 on Black Sole, which are selling for a lovely 90k a stack right now. I must've fished six or seven stacks over the weekend. I never even made it to the Sea Serpent Grotto.