Neyla's Helping Day

I didn't play much today. There was a nice mix of fatigue, headache, DVDs and the arrival of a new iPod to keep me distracted from the game.

When

Monk... White Mage... poor skeleton.

I logged on, Neyla was helping a tarutaru Monk get a coffer key in the Crawler's Nest. I was still on Beastmaster, so I outposted and joined them. I charmed a Crawler Hunter and the key dropped on my first Helm Beetle. The good luck streak continues, I guess. The citadel key took a little longer, but it wasn't too bad. By that time my head was pounding and I didn't feel like clubbing turtles in Beadeaux, so I begged off.

The monk, Bret, had offered 100k per key in a QCDN post. Neyla's response was "Fuck the mercenaries." Several other people had posted along similar lines, so he should have plenty of help for the last key. I told him I'd help him out Monday if he didn't have it by then.

When I came back a couple hours later, Neyla was helping Mattaru find his Beastmaster AF in the Crawler's Nest. They found the coffer before I could get there. Mattaru gave us pearls for BeastTavern. It's a new Beastmaster LS, and they seem interested in doing events. I hope that's true, because AnimalFarm seemed to be more of a social "pop in if you have questions" shell, which I didn't really need.

Neyla also helped Magix unlock Beastmaster while I was out. Go-go BST!

Not Quite Torture

One of the most dreaded sentences a player can see scroll across the chat log is "I need a coffer key." Quieren is preparing for his Red Mage AF, and he needed keys from the necropolis and Garliage Citadel.

Neyla

Where do these bony bastards keep their keys?

and I had nothing better to do, so we went out to the necropolis and joined Quieren and Acute (who came along as Thief for TH2) for the hunt. Quieren pulled Tomb Mages and Warriors to the bones camp, and we were happy to get the drop before we'd killed a dozen bones. Acute wasn't feeling very well, so he went afk while the rest of us hit the citadel and snagged one there.

One of Q's WHM friends, Musto, needed a key from the Vazhl Castle Bailey. I was amused that Q described Musto as a WHM/NIN "death machine," but it was hard to be impressed because he didn't have Hexa Strike. Two hammers or ten, White Mage damage is piss poor without that. We got the key and stuck around awhile to help farm two more for another group that had been in there a long time.

It would seem Treasure Hunter doesn't require the thief to be in the same zone. That, or we were just really lucky.

Magix eventually logged on and finished trading his millioncorn, and we whisked him away to Bastok to see if he could flag the Titan fight. Success! Unfortunately for Magix, Malystryxx wasn't on and we were unable to do the fight. We'll hit it later. It's not like Titan does anything worthwhile until somewhere in the 40s.

I

Blazer Beetles are good for skillups.

wanted to skill up scythe in the Crawler's Nest, and Neyla decided to join me. I joked that we should just hit the Quicksand Cave and knock out the last bit of xp we needed to reach 61, but that would've involved a lot of muling for Neyla. We spent about two hours in the nest, charming flies and exorays and letting them tank Blazer Beetles for us.

"I'd almost forgotten how good that feels," Neyla said after his first charm.

I got about ten levels and Neyla learned Spinning Scythe. Our skill is still horribly gimped for our level, but we'll eventually get there. We decided to get to within 3k of 61 so that we'd level up when we do the "Test Your Mite" ENM on Sunday. We finished out by charming Crawler Hunters and dragging them upstairs to kill lizards in the sac room and anything that moved during our walk out.

Sleep-Deprived

Neyla referred to me as "grandpa" the other day because I go to bed early, although he left out the "early to rise" portion of the eqation. Monday night's late run through Dynamis had me knocked on my ass with fatigue all day.

Mostly

Too bored for your own good? Take it out on the locals!

I fished and fought off the urge to take a nap. I did an hour or so in the glacier and started to camp Nue, but a couple other people turned up and I wasn't in the mood to worry about claim issues. I also hit the Sea Serpent Grotto.

It turned out the Fisherman's Guild wanted three grimmonites for 6k points. At this rate, I'll have my Fishing Hole Map before I know it.

Magix eventually popped on, so Neyla and I took him to Bastok to load up on millioncorn. While Magix traded it to the NPC in Selbina and Neyla fielded raise requests in the dunes, I rode around on the ferry to fish Noble Ladies and Nebimonites. Magix logged when he ran out of corn, so Neyla and I did another lap on the ferry to wait for the Sea Horror. It never turned up.

I think I'm going to have to start limiting my Monday night Dynamis to getting the win and not staying for the farming. It has the potential for suckage -- I wouldn't have gotten my Cleric's Pantaloons if I'd left Jeuno post-win -- but it may be necessary. I'll give it another run or two and then decide.

Neyla on the Other Side

Neyla farmed a bunch of Yagudo Bead Necklaces for Magix, but family stuff kept the taru adoptee from traveling to Norg to flag Leviathan Prime's fight. Neyla had nothing to do at that point, so I suggested it was a great time to get back into Dynamis, since we were starting another four-city sweep with Jeuno.

I asked Elemmire if there was any room on the roster to bring Neyla back into the linkshell, and she said it was a great idea.

"What

Neyla is quietly impressed by the run.

took him so long?" she asked.

"All the stuff that kept me out of it for so long," I said.

"Buttsecks?"

"Not as far as I know."

I ended up the only mage in a Damage Dealer party. Veresko was hoping to get Otak in as my refresher, but she was running late. I decided to improvise and did the unthinkable: I went WHM/SMN for the 2 mp per tick. I figured it was as good a time as any to try out a different job combination to see how I liked it.

I wasn't overly impressed, although I liked using Garuda's Aerial Armor. It was difficult to get my party in one place so I could put it on them, though. I eventually gave up.

We

Let's get to work, birdwoman.

changed things around a little and cleared out Maat's area and worked our way back to the Auction House to pull the boss there and give ourselves time to farm. We got the win, and then a goblin train with a few eager Ninjas exploded and killed a bunch of us. My entire party died while I was standing outside the blast radius, but I went down in the second explosion. We didn't wipe, though. We were throwing out any Raise we could to get people back on their feet to help out until we got it under control.

A pair of Cleric's Pantaloons dropped with ten minutes remaining, and I managed to win the lot over two other White Mages. I'd been starting to doze in my chair (it was almost midnight), but that woke me up. A few berets dropped for the Rangers, as well as some NIN and BLM stuff. Three sets of Duelist's Tights dropped for the Red Mages.

It was a good run. Neyla died a few times, but I tried to make sure he got Raise 3. Now I just have to get to 73 so I can wear my new pants.

Gimme Gimme Teh Gilzorz

I didn't play much at all this weekend. What little time I spent online involved fishing in the grotto and the glacier. I'm back up to a million gil, again working steadily toward that Hauby for Beastmaster. I also spent a little time helping Neyla and Magix farm Yagudo Bead Necklaces so Magix could raise his Norg fame high enough to flag Leviathan Prime.

Today

The new crew is pretty good.

was our second run at "Test Your Mite" with the new crew. Veresko had bowed out of the runs because of scheduling conflicts, so Neyla recruited two new players from QCDN to round out the party. Cmdrfly is our Ninja and Darkmagnus is a Warrior. We gather, run in and killed the diremite pretty fast. Hadafal even dinged 60 on his Red Mage during this run. Neyla and I are close to hitting 61 on Beastmaster, and I joked that we should run out to the Quicksand Caves one day this week and get a little xp so we could both ding during next week's ENM... pure theatrics.

We got a Geist Earring last week. Nanunanoo sold it and distributed 50k to each of us on the split. Another Geist dropped this time, so it's my turn to sell it.