Raging Fists

I had a few hours before Dynamis-Beaucedine, so I jumped on Monk and had an invitation before I could get from Windurst to Jeuno on the airship. We rode out to the Crawler's Nest and headed to the secret room with the Green Lagging Light From Hell. Thankfully, there was another party and we had to stand closer to the mouth of the cave where the lag wasn't so bad.

Rappa

Crawlers do not like Raging Fists.

was in my party as Red Mage. Quieren turned up on his Red Mage a little while later to join the party next to mine, and there was plenty of good-natured ribbing between the two of us. The most common comment from him was "loltaruMNK" and I threatened to Chi Blast him to the head when I hit 41. Neyla wandered out and killed Exorays near our camp to make our puller's life easier.

Chi Blast is... well, a blast. I'd Boost until the puller got back and then fire one off at the mob before it could get to camp. I also learned "Raging Fists" while I was there. I wasn't prepared for how much damage it would do. I waited for Rappa to knock off the crawler's buffs before using Boost and hitting Raging Fists and did 371 damage. That got the bug's attention. Sometimes the damage would only be around 200, but I popped it for 370+ a couple times. I got about halfway to 42 before I had to leave.

Dynamis-Beaucedine went pretty well, too.

There

Sweet... I got to see the boss this time.

were a few rough patches in the first hour or so that had Cythe wondering what we were all smoking, but we progressed quickly through the zone. We didn't get nearly as much AF2 this run, but we got to the boss and quietly held our position while Cythe kited it around and Demonknightx pulled the dragons all the way back to the zone.

The boss is a Floating Eye mob who likes to teleport around during the fight, so the Summoners hauled out their Carbuncles and let them give chase to its new position. We dispatched it fairly quickly, at which point Cythe told us to drop our hourglasses so we could exit before the dragons returned to slaughter us.

When I switched back to WickedWayz, I saw Neyla had given Magix a pearl to the linkshell. It seems Magix butted heads with his old linkshell's leader and had his pearl broken for the crime of asking questions about the game. Their loss is our gain.

Fenrir Prime

Galaika is a 72 SMN I know from QCDN and running around Vana'diel. He posted a few days ago that he needed a Fenrir victory for his Evoker's Ring and was organizing a run. Some White Mages had already volunteered, but I put my name in as well in case they weren't able to make it. I got lucky.

I'd read plenty of horror stories while I was preparing for the fight, but I'll be damned if it wasn't easier than than the avatar fights I've been doing with Neyla and Malystryxx. Complete and total cakewalk. Our setup was NIN, WHM, SMN, RDM and BLMx2.

I

Galaika and I are the scourge of West Sarutabaruta.

kept the Ninja hasted throughout the fight, which was fun because Fenrir has a nasty habit of knocking off all of your buffs at once. The two BLMs had worked out the stun order, and they were honed to clockwork precision. Other than knocking off buffs, Fenrir didn't get off any bloodpacts. They even stunned his two-hour, the one that was supposed to send me scrambling forward to use Benediction. The fight was over before I knew it.

"I want to see you running around in Sarutabaruta and showing him off," Galaika joked.

Of course, that's exactly what I did. We ran around with our purple pooches and killed a few crawlers and birds a few minutes before he had to go off and do his thing elsewhere. We're probably going to get the same group together and try Diabolos Prime in the coming weeks.

In other news, I helped a WHM find a Treasure Chest in Fei'yin for the Teleport-Vazhl quest. Neyla and I seriously toyed with the idea of joining Quieren's endgame linkshell because it would be something to do, but we realized the malaise we're feeling right now is a direct result of not leveling Beastmaster. We're going to be starting up again very soon, although probably not at the burnout pace we had from 50 to 60.

Blessed Radiance

I had planned to bite the bullet and level White Mage today, but a "node malfunction" (whatever that is) knocked out broadband access in my area and I couldn't log on for a couple hours until it was fixed.

I went to Jeuno and talked to Luto to see if any new NPC quests were available. Gauldeval is coming along nicely and has been getting plenty of xp off the tigers, statues and goblins around Nue's tower. The "fashionable equipment" option became available to me a few days ago, and I got the "Blighted Gloom" quest before Dynamis on Monday and unlocked "Fierce Attacker" style.

Luto

Gauldeval and I excavate in the Maze of Shakrami.

gave me "Blessed Radiance," which required me to harvest, mine and log some key items in Giddeus, the Maze of Shakrami and Jugner Forest. The NPC has to be present, but luckily I still had a charge on my Tactics Pearl. I used it for the first one and then threw it away. I used my Signal Pearl for the second. I had to make a quick switch to Beastmaster to run into Promyvion-Mea to get another Tactics Pearl and used it to get the third key item.

I was running through Beaucedine Glacier to reach the Mirror Pool near Fei'yin when I spotted a 40-something taru White Mage invising himself to get past some tigers. I asked if he needed help getting somewhere. It turns out one of his friends had died in Fei'yin and he was going to raise him. I offered to go instead.

It turns out the dead guy was Warmech, who's also in lolDynamis. He's a Lv. 75 Monk, and he was out there working off the latent on his Destroyers when he fell asleep at the keyboard while his character was resting. He got aggro and died near the Eastern Shadow room. He only had three minutes remaining on his homepoint clock when I reached him with Raise III.

I returned to Jeuno to get my final cutscenes when I heard Dagry shout "Goodbye, FFXI!" He'd announced his impending retirement from the game at QCDN a few days ago, but I was happy to have another chance to say goodbye. He's quitting the game cold turkey, taking a new job in California and getting married.

He'd

I've never seen Dagry's face before.

given away all his gil and gear. "I'm gonna toss the rare/ex shit now," he said. I watched his character blink in and out as he took it all off and chucked it. "I just don't have the heart to toss the harness," he said. I checked and saw it was a Hecatomb Harness.

"I don't think I've ever seen your character's face," I pointed out.

"No kisses, please."

"You wish."

"Watch this," he said in /tell. Then he shouted "That's it. I just gave 20 million gear to Halifirien and all my gear."

"You bastard," I laughed. "Nobody's going to believe I'm camping a Brown Belt now."

I hate long goodbyes, so I said "Take care of yourself" and he said "Take care, bro."

And then he was gone.

Tiger, Tiger, Burning Bright

Ah, boredom. You gotta love the days when there's nothing to do. I probably should've logged off.

I

Kirata is just as annoying as Nue.

was all over the map. I did some fishing in the grotto and the glacier. I switched over to Beastmaster and camped Rampaging Ram for about twenty minutes. I went to camp Nue, but Nugotugo was already there and told me he'd just popped about five minutes earlier. I went into Pso'xja and clubbed diremites for an hour until I got a Florid Stone for "Test Your Mite" and took a break to make some dinner.

When I came back, I goofed around a bit. Nugotugo sent me a /tell with Nue's time of death after finally getting his Nue fang, so I went back out to Beaucedine and camped Kirata in hopes of getting the Boreas Cesti for my Monk. He popped but didn't drop, and neither did Nue when I went to his tower.

Bleh.

Staying Frosty in Beaucedine

The

Decorative Weapons are good xp, but kinda dull.

linkshell used to have merit parties on a regular basis, but I was always too low in level to join and usually went to bed just as they were starting up. With today being a national holiday, I was available when Veresko, Otak and Zoner started kicking around the idea of going up to Sky and killing weapons. I didn't have my flag up at the time, but I had a green dot by my name along with my TNL. Someone asked if I wanted to party with them, but linkshell xp is better than stranger xp. I left the Nue camp and headed up.

Otak tracked down a Paladin and Warrior to fill the empty slots, and we roamed all over the map in search of things to kill. We were only up there for a little over 90 minutes before Veresko had to leave to do yardwork, but we got good xp and I'm now about 16k from 73. It's a shame the weapons don't do any status ailments, because I didn't have much to do except Regen, Cure and Haste. I'm not complaining.

I went fishing for squid in Qufim Island because bazaar sales have been maddeningly slow for the past week. While I was there, Kida (creator of FinalFishing.com) wandered up and waved. I'd always meant to track him down and say hello and to thank him for making such a handy database to replace the outdated ClanWind. He seemed pretty nice. I even managed to ding 89 fishing while I was there.

Neyla,

Shiva Prime is in a foul mood.

Malystryxx and I led Magix all over Vana'diel to fight two more Prime Avatars. We did Garuda first, which meant running through Kuftal Tunnel and crossing Cape Terrigan to reach the cloister. Magix had never seen a manticore; it's a shame we couldn't arrange a visit from Guivre. After we killed Garuda, we went on a long-ass walk through Beaucedine Glacier to fight Shiva Prime in Fei'yin. Again, it was an easy fight. I joined the fight from the start and pulled hate with Hexa Strike, but the Red Mages got her back under control.

And then of course, there was Dynamis-Beaucedine.

After the four cities, I was expecting Beaucedine to up the ante and really grind us to death. I couldn't have been more surprised at just how easy it felt. There doesn't seem to be nearly as many mobs, and they're spread out in huge, wide-open spaces. We spent a lot of time running without seeing anything to fight.

Northlands

That's a big damn yagudo.

lotting is handled differently than the main cities. Instead of being able to freely lot on gear for your 70+ jobs, lolDynamis has a tiered system in which northlands lotting is based on attendance. I haven't been around long enough to lot for Cleric's Briault. My Beastmaster isn't Lv. 70, so I couldn't officially join that tier, but unofficially it would've been mine if it had dropped because nobody else wanted it.

I think the new strategy of putting a Thief in every party may be paying off. Two Cleric's Briaults dropped, as well as Thief, Black Mage ("That's like spotting Bigfoot," someone joked), and Warrior AF2. Everyone was marveling at the change, explaining that the Northlands are notoriously stubborn about giving up the goods.

We had a fun moment while pulling an orc NM at the bottom of one of the ramps. One minute everyone is fine, and then there was some sort of explosion that took out at least a dozen people. Owie.

We also went to a place Cythe called "NM Lake," which features waves of different beastmen attacking in sequence. I said we should clear it out because I had my Lu Shang with me ("Halifirien catches a Vanguard Moat Carp!" joked Veresko). Some of the NM names were cracking me up, and I couldn't resist asking when Ticklemax Dildohands would show up.

"That's my kind of NM," Kyrial deadpanned.

We

Oh, the humanity!

lost the run at the boss. Cythe explained that we needed to stand absolutely still without casting, using food or buffs during the pull. Demonknightx actually managed to hit and damage the boss with his bolt, and Cythe's Flash wasn't enough to get its attention. It was a bizarre moment that left us all standing around wondering what was going to happen.

Then someone cast Blink.

The dragons guarding the boss were nowhere near us -- they could've been halfway across the zone for all I know -- but that got their attention. We had no idea they were coming back. We went from a fidgeting crowd of at least 50 players to a field of corpses in about ten seconds. There was no warning. The dragons backed off, but they sprinted forward and slaughtered anyone who reraised. That was the end of the run, and there was nothing to do but wait 17 minutes until the hourglasses ran out of time.

We're going back on Friday.

Once More Unto the Breach

Camping Nue is becoming a grim ritual. I log on, club things to death for an hour or so until he pops, and then I go away disappointed. I'd been killing placeholders well over an hour yesterday morning when a party came tearing through to enter the tower to Pso'zja. Their Beastmaster stayed behind and used a funguar jug to kill things a lot faster than I could, and the bastard got claim on Nue. He stalled the tiger until the others came back out to kill it. Frustrating, to say the least.

I

Imps are wimps.

camped him again this morning, but he didn't put out for me yet again. I took a break to sulk and eagerly took the party invitation I got when I logged on. We camped in Caedarva Mire, my first time getting xp on imps. As long as you can keep them silenced, they're pretty easy to kill. Their AoE Silence has a much shorter range than an Antican's Jamming Wave, although their Amnesia move is annoying because it can't be Erased.

We weren't out there long enough for my Mushroom Stew to wear off, but at least I got a decent buffer. I'm no longer in danger of deleveling back to 71 and being unable to equip some of my new gear.

I even remembered to get my final "Apocalypse Nigh" cutscene and pick up my Magnetic Earring. MP+20, Conserve MP+5, Spell Interruption Down 8%, MPh +1. I go WHM/BLM unless circumstances are extreme and I'm threatened with bodily dismemberment, so anything that boosts Conserve MP is appreciated.

Neyla and I helped Magix carry stacks of cabbages out to Selbina to raise his fame. He flagged Shiva and Garuda, so we're going to do those fights tomorrow. After all the trading, he still didn't have enough to get Titan.

I also broke down and bought the male and female Elvaan mannequins. I only have one more -- the hume female -- and then my collection will be complete.