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I'm off to my parents' house for the weekend and won't be online much, but I thought this would be a good time to mention a few things.

I've pruned the "To Do List" in the sidebar and cleared out the goals I've accomplished, as well as adding a few new ones. A larger adjustment is the movement of Neyla's blog entries from "Tarutaru Defender." He hasn't posted anything there in months -- "It all ends up in your blog anyway," he told me -- but figured it would be better to put them here as guest entries so they're not completely lost when he deletes his blog. He said he may write future guest entries.

We now return you to your regularly scheduled program of dance music.

Hakutaku's Staring Contest

Neyla and I did the Crawler's Nest escort when we logged on and had no problems, although Olavia took the long route this time. We didn't claim our scrolls, since Neyla wanted to help Magix farm the Elshimo Marble needed for the Teleport-Yhoat quest. I went fishing awhile and then joined them, wandering aimlessly in the jungle and killing any Ivory Lizard in my path. We didn't get the drop.

The main event was the Optical Hat run with TheFlock. We were scheduled to start at 8 p.m., but we were late getting started. We were scheduled to do four runs -- one of them a mercenary fight -- and I wasn't relishing the thought of staying up all night... doubly so considering another linkshell wanted to come down and do O-hat runs for their members.

The

Hakutaku is easy to kill when the pets do all the work.

linkshell rule is "Clients go first," so I stayed at the zone to the Den of Rancor while they took care of it. They're billing it as a "luxury service," but I'm not a mercenary and it's the same as hiring out to farm Kazham Keys as far as I'm concerned. It's only larger in scale. Neyla, to my disappointment, joined them for it after originally refusing to participate. It's nice that "The Client" got their hat after having their cluster gathering dust for over a year, but it would still be in the moghouse if he hadn't ponied up a few million to pay the linkshell to do it.

Once that was finished and "The Client" warped out, I joined them at Hakutaku's spawn area. Manasha tapped me to trade my cluster next.

It was absurdly easy with nine of us there. The 75s charmed Millioneyes while Neyla, Mattaru and I used Mousse or jug pets. We sat back and relaxed in the corridor like construction workers on a lunch break. I had a nasty moment when I repeatedly mischarmed a pet, but I finally got it under control. The fight took twenty or thirty minutes, and it was wild seeing an army of hecteyes staring him down.

Ambrosio

These hats are ugly as sin.

had Neyla trade next, and it was an easy repeat. I can't wait until I've got a few more levels and can charm Millioneyes; they cast spells if you use Sic before they have 100tp. I wish I'd remembered to take Pet Food Zeta, since it would cure the constant paralysis from Hakutaku's moves.

We warped out after that. Neyla and I can't equip the hats on BST for another level, but we couldn't resist trying them on. They're ugly as sin, but I'm sure I'll get used to the look.

In other news, my fishing buddy Ogami got his Opal Silk. That's one of the two Rare/Ex pieces for the Ebisu quest. "I told several linkshells," he told me, "but nobody cared." Know your audience, I say. I was thrilled to hear that fat galka bastard Zaldon put out for him.

The Good Fight

Today was supposed to be a light day. No heavy lifting involved.

I

"I'm going to be so tired of birds," Neyla said.

logged on and grabbed a chocobo from the vendor in Al Zahbi before the Mamool Ja, who were already advancing, could invade and put the place in lockdown. The colibri camp was open, and Neyla joined me.

The original goal was to get 5k-6k, but we were still raking in the xp. "At this rate," I told him, "If you make me leave here at 5k I'll have to kill you." Most of the birds were Toughs, but a few Very Toughs were sprinkled into the mix. He suggested we leave at 4:30, which would give us a little over two hours at the camp. We ended up getting 10k in that time.

Zeromous wanted to come out and watch us in action since he's finally getting a duo partner, but we abandoned the camp when word came over that trolls were preparing to invade. Neyla wanted to go fight them off.

Sweet Altana, it was an epic struggle.

I could barely hit anything, and the lag was so terrible my poor jug pet wasn't even viable 90% of the time. Neyla and I were all over the place, trying to help people with assorted mobs. Zeromous joined us and gave raises for awhile, but he got lagged and disconnected for a big chunk of it.

Quieren

I can't hit the damned thing.

joined us on Paladin, and I saved his life once or twice by giving him a badly-needed Erase when the Aerial Torpedo would hit him with that awful Burn move. We were blown up several times by the bombs running around.

And of course, there's the NMs. One of them was a gigantic troll carrying a shield big enough to act as a serving platter for a roasted Galka. I'd just been raised and had called a new pet when that bastard single-shotted my beloved fungaur before moving on to stab some adventurer through the abdomen. He eventually stalked back over and killed me as well.

The fighting had been going on nearly an hour when I had to warp out to get ready for Limbus. Neyla stayed behind to carry on the fight.

Limbus itself got off to a late start. Quieren had originally scheduled it for 6:30, but not everyone knew about it. He'd pearled a few people, and some of them weren't online and the others were still back in Al Zahbi. Ziphor was the only new person. Quieren, Apu, Zoner, Veresko, Asmodius and Otak made up the rest of the crew.

We headed out to Sea and started farming organs while Ziphor scarfed down a quick dinner. Somehow Apu managed to attack a goldfish while everyone was fighting a shark, which made life interesting. Then we started fighting the flower NM in an open space and got aggro from another shark.... and then another. Ziphor died and deleveled on that one.

It only took a couple sharks to get Ziphor's level back, although Apu managed to attack another goldfish in the process.

The

It's just like the jungle, but with linkage.

actual Limbus run, once we got started, went pretty well. Zoner and Otak died trying to stall the three Enhanced Mandragoras near the elevator. I'd already raised Zoner, but Otak missed one of the mandies with Horde Lullaby and it KO'd her while I was zoning upstairs. She didn't have Reraise and I couldn't ride back down to revive her, so she was forced to sit out the rest of the run.

It wasn't too bad, but I had a hard time being the only healer in the alliance because I'd keep forgetting to look at the other HP bars.

Somehow, and I don't know how we managed to pull this one off, we got to the birds on the top floor and took them out for the win. Asmodius died from all the Sleepga II hate and Ziphor was a favorite snack. I was burning through my MP keeping Quieren alive and had to pop off Benediction. I died a bit later and revived with only enough MP to use Reraise. And of course I died again.

We managed to get 60 coins, split to give us 7 each. There were four leftovers, and Q had us /random for them. I won one, bringing my total to 12 coins so far. Not too shabby. I'm going to upgrade to Beast Trousers +1 and eventually get a Brutal Earring because I want that Double Attack.

Meanwhile, back in Al Zahbi, the trolls retreated and the Undead Swarm slithered in. Neyla sent regular updates via /tells and it sounded incredible. Eventually all five generals were dead and the doors to the Hall of Binding were thrown open. According to Neyla, there were easily 200 people squeezed into that little room fighting the invading army in the shadow of the plinth. Red Mages were doing Chainspell Raises, and BLMs were using nukes to grab hate and draw enemies back out into the open. It sounded like The Battle of the Line. They saved the Astral Candenscence.

Ant Farm

Today was fairly quiet since Neyla and I were still tired from last night's late dynamis run. We didn't bother going out to get a buffer on Beastmaster.

I spent most of the afternoon fishing in my usual spots. I took a break to switch over to White Mage and Raise III Lecan, who'd died to puk aggro and deleveled to 72. There aren't a lot of people I'd go out of my way for like that, but Lecan is one. He got his level back, at least.

While I was doing that, Neyla (on Red Mage) helped a Flock member kill Tribunus VII-I, the antican NM that drops the Tungi, and then joined the linkshell for a run at Bune. It dropped a sword worth 12 million.

Neyla

I'd burn him with a magnifying glass if it wasn't so dark in here.

decided to get a Tungi of his own. While he was inspecting the ???'s in the Quicksand Caves, he got the Antican Tag pop item and the tablet fragment needed for the Teleport-Altep quest. He popped the NM and killed it after a long fight, but it didn't drop the Tungi.

I'd finished my stuff and joined him in the caves. I went around and marked all the ??? points on my map for future reference and had reached the Tribunus spawn point when Neyla got a second tag. We took him down with no problems, and this time he gave up the goods.

I'll probably get a tag and try for a Tungi of my own. I have no real use for it now, but I imagine it would be pretty sweet for level-capped events like BCNMs.

In other news, I sold my Celata helmet. I've only equipped it 3-4 times since I bought it. Neyla swears it looks fine on me, but every time I put it on I thought I looked like I should be on a football field trying to tackle something. I much prefer the Beast Helm, which at least lets people know I'm a Beastmaster without having to check me. It's going to be fun to work out what I'll do when I get my O-hat.

Racing the Clock

"You're an evil taru," Neyla told me at one point today. The comment was deserved.

We'd

The Red Kissers of death held sway.

only planned to go out and get about 5k-6k on Beastmaster, but the camp was so awesome we found it very difficult to pull ourselves away. There's a small pond in Bafhlau Thickets with three Red Kisser leeches, and we use them for regular Chain 5s on Very Tough colobri.

The camp is proof someone on the programming staff likes Beastmasters, but having three there is evidence of a sense of humor. I died after the first fight when I mischarmed and all three started attacking me. Neyla had a death later on. We had to watch each other's backs more than usual, but it didn't take long to get into a good groove so we could survive the infrequent mischarms.

We had the usual delights. There was Magiy, the BLU/BST who entered our camp (the same guy who turned up in Caedarva Mire when we were there) and started killing our birds while I sent him a stream of /tells asking him to leave. Another Beastmaster named Freviont turned up and gave us a "helpful" suggestion about a good duo camp, but he warped out when I made it clear we weren't leaving.

We kept moving the goalposts. We started out planning to get a little xp, and then we decided to stop at 18k in, and then 25k, and in the end we were sprinting to get our level before Dynamis-Jeuno.

Neyla said I was evil because we seemed destined to be within 2k of our level before we had to leave, but we pulled it off. Despite the extra campers, glitches and a storm-induced power outage that rebooted my computer, we got 20k in about five hours and dinged 69. We didn't get a buffer; as soon as we got our level, we warped out.

I

Standing around is fun!

made my apologies for being late to gather, but I would've done it again in a heartbeat. It's not like we could enter the zone in the first place, since some upstart linkshell had decided to jack our run and entered ahead of us with only twelve people. You'd better believe they were heaped with abuse when they finally exited the zone. I'm not one to trash talk other linkshells, but even I wasn't about to let that crap slide without comment.

We were finally able to enter and it was an awesome run, the sort of thing to wash away the bad taste of noob. Plenty of relic armor dropped, and I even managed to win the lot on a 100 coin.

The only rough part came after the win, when we got bogged down at the auction house and people started dying. Cythe was among them, and I ended up doing my best to keep Taurothar going while he worked his way through the horde. It was getting so bad I popped off Benediction to buy time. I can't believe I got through without a single death.

Cythe was raised and started tanking a Monk after his weakness wore. He died again and started bitching about non-nuking BLMs (most of whom were dead) and Red Mages not casting Sleepga (again, many of them dead and Neyla was doing what he could) and White Mages not curing him. I thought about telling him to check his logs to see I was casting Cure V on him when he went down, but he always says to ignore his general statements when you're not the one fucking up and settled for shaking my head in sorrow.

Introduction to Limbus

Today

Shark aggro is always a delight.

was BigKahunas' inaugural run at Limbus. Some already had experience with it, but for most of us it was our first visit. I wasn't entirely sure what to expect, but we were slated to do Temenos West. It's considered the easiest of the paths and therefore a good place to get our feet wet. Our alliance of twelve gathered in Port Jeuno and purchased the soapy key item we needed and teleported out to Holla and entered the Dimensional Rift at the crag.

The other key item needed to enter Limbus is from a flower NM called Aw'euvhi. We killed a couple sharks along the way once Veresko had it on widescan.

Temenos West consists of seven floors. They're not very large, but each one has a number of creatures in it. You can kill all of them or just enough to open the door and then move on. Chests drop which will contain items, time extensions, or HP/MP restoration. I like that last one, because it also resets your 2-hour abilities.

The

Neyla would get a kick out of the Enhanced Tigers.

first floor contained Enhanced Tigers. Veresko pulled them and we took them down at our camp. They did their standard Paralyze AoE move, but it was nothing too major. I took care of our Ninja tank first and then fixed the others in time to have them roar again. Such is the life of a healer.

The second floor had Enhanced Mandragoras, which is why we were supposed to bring poison potions. I kept the potions going the entire camp, even though I was well out of Dream Flower range. It took us three Poison Potions to clear the floor.

The third floor contained beetles. Those were easy as hell. We got a link, but they were slept. The mages were happy because beetles are walking MP juice boxes just waiting to be stuck with the Aspir straw.

On the fourth floor we had lizards to deal with. One of them used Baleful Gaze and petrified Moriariti. I was already taking care of it when Quieren announced it.

"I know that," I said as I was casting Stona.

"I know you know," he laughed, "but I have to say these things to make myself look important."

The fifth floor had slimes, and those suck ass. We had to kill two before the door opened, so we slept the rest and ran for the elevator. They spammed Fluid Toss, but I like that a lot better than Fluid Spread. The sixth floor had pugils that died pretty easily.

The

We pulled an entire flock of Enhanced Vultures.

last floor had a flock of Enhanced Vultures. They were all flapping close together, so pulling one wasn't an option. Otak, Asmodius and Aimartaru took turns keeping them slept while we whittled them down and got our final crate and the win.

It was a lot of fun, and we did better than Quieren expected for our first time. We also got 48 Ancient Beastcoins; we had agreed to split them evenly at the end of the run, so we each walked away with four coins. It'll take thirty coins to upgrade to Beast Trousers +1.

Not that I could upgrade so fast even if I had the coins. Amsodius is ahead of me for the two items needed for the upgrade. I'm on the list for White Mage until I can get BST high enough to switch tiers. I think one of the AF2 upgrades -- Monster Helm +1? -- is supposed to be pretty good.

I guess that's a good indicator of where I stand on my "main job." I love White Mage, but generally speaking I'm finished with it as far as gear is concerned. The only thing I'd probably still like to get for it is a set of Rostrum Pumps. I'd love to have a set of Herald Gaiters, but that's probably never going to happen in a billion years.

Speaking

I look aggressive in my apron.

of gear, I managed to grab the wrong body piece before the "Test Your Mite" ENM. I didn't realize it until we were almost to the Shrouded Maw, so I ended up doing the fight in my Fisherman's Apron. I wasn't tanking, so it wasn't a huge loss; at least the apron has a little defense on it. We got another Geist Earring in addition to the 3,000xp. After all these runs, we still haven't seen a Woodsman Ring drop. That would be a nice payday.

In other news, I spent almost every other moment of the day fishing. I managed to get a .1 on a rod break in the glacier.