Mostly Just Fishing, Yo

I

Neyla's party camped near the first Banishing Gate.

picked up a copy of Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess yesterday, so I only logged on today to play with my chocobo and do a little fishing.

I had a message from Neyla waiting for me, asking if I could make a Traversiere for his Bard. My woodworking isn't high enough to reliabily HQ it, but I made a signed one and ran out to Garliage Citadel to deliver it. His party was at the first Banishing Gate, and two of them were dead. I was on Beastmaster (wearing my Monster set for full pimphood) and had to rest between casts, but I got them back on their feet before I teleported out.

Fishing has been sorely neglected since I haven't really wanted to buy anything major, but after depleting funds for Monk I'm getting back into the flow of stocking my auction and bazaar mules on a regular basis. Monk gear tends to last a long time, but most of the upgrade pieces are expensive as hell when they come along.

Temenos East

I've never been to Temenos East before, so today was my first. It's the last chip we need to build on that Ultima set.

Every

Fenrir guards the top floor of Temenos East.

floor is populated with elementals, and in fine Limbus tradtion they'll aggro you even if you're not using magic. They drop the regular chests, but the trick of the floor is that you can only open one because the other chests immediately disappear... unless it's a fake chest with an avatar hiding inside.

If you're only going for the win, you kill elementals until you have two chests; that way you're guaranteed that one will open the door to the next floor. Since we also like to farm items and coins, we'd usually kill until we had an item chest. We avoided fakes until the third or forth floor and then Ramuh popped out to create havok.

Celvantes was our reserve tank, and it was his job to move (with mages in tow) out of Astral Flow range if an avatar popped. We also managed to pop a Leviathan near the end of the run. With our multiple Bards using the proper elemental carols, deaths were kept to a minimum. There are two Dark Elementals and Fenrir on the top floor. We didn't have any problems taking him down.

I was thrilled to finally see Smalt Leather drop, which is the other item I need for the Beast Trousers upgrade. I still need twelve more Ancient Beastcoins before I can get them, but it won't take long. I've been busy with Monk and other stuff and can be patient.

In other news, Paprika's offspring has developed "an enigmatic personality." I don't know what that really means, but it's certainly different from the "easy-going" personality of my main steed had all his life.

The Real Fun Begins

The

It's a girl!

egg I got from breeding Papa Paprika and Blood Brave hatched today, and I was happy to see a female chick emerge. With any luck, she'll inherit her mother's blue feathers. At the very least, I can do some massive inbreeding by pairing her with Paprika later on -- as far as I know, the developers haven't added code for webbed feet, extra eyes or mental retardation -- until I get the results I want. I'm going for a more well-rounded bird this time who can learn some abilities, althugh I haven't decided which ones I want.

I'm not going to name her right away. I'm going to hold off until I know what color she's going to be. Naming her something like Blue Blizzard would kinda suck if she turned out to be red. I toyed with naming her Paprika II, but that's not as much fun.

After synthing enough Carrot Paste to get her through the chick stage, I put up my flag and started seeking on Monk.

It took awhile to get a party, but it was definitely worth the wait. Evanos, one of the folks from QCDN, put it together and led us to the Quicksand Caves. The setup was Ninja, Warrior, Monk, Red Mage, Summoner and a sixth melee who eventually left and was replaced by a Samurai. It was that rarest of awesome parties: one that gets great xp and sticks around awhile.

I'm officially declaring 51 as the level when Monk becomes pure sexy sauce.

At

The anticans are getting a serious beatdown.

50 I got Double Attack from my /WAR subjob; however, at 51 I also gained kick attacks. With the Kung Fu Shoes, my kicks were sometimes doing more than the punches -- I did a critical hit kick for over 100, which made me giggle -- and it was even more damage over time.

I was about 5000xp from 51 when I accepted the invitation, but I finished out the evening with a nice little buffer into 52, which was way beyond my expectations. I'm loving the T.M. Hooks+2, with their higher damage and lower delay than what I was using before.

Tomorrow is Limbus, so I'll probably be fishing before we start. I'm going to get the Amemet Mantle+1 in the next few days. There were several on sale at the auction house when I checked.

Paragon of Monk Excellence

I'd

I almost feel sorry for the orcs.

been reading about how Monks can solo their Temple Gaiters in Davoi and was toying with the idea, but Neyla logged on and saved me from myself. We went there as Beastmasters and found the hide flap on a tent I needed to search. We cleared out the surrounding orcs and I popped the two NMs.

I was using Carrie on the Monk NM, and it was pathetic. He could barely hit her and she was ripping the piss out of him. His Hundred Fists missed her repeatedly and I eventually Rampaged him. Neyla's funguar didn't do so well against the Paladin because of the level difference, but mine was dead by then and we finished it off together. Neyla found the second tent I needed to search and I got the key item I needed for my footwear and returned to Bastok to claim them.

We teleported to Dem and rode birds to town. "It's been ages since I've ridden a chocobo from the crag to Bastok," I told Neyla, "and now I remember why." Damn, it's a long trip.

We rode the airship from Bastok to Jeuno so I could flag the hands quest and switch to MNK/WHM. Neyla hit the Crawler's Nest to scout ahead while I was doing the legwork, and I rented a chocobo to meet up with him. The coffer was up in the flies room, but none were near it... although Neyla could've charmed them anyway.

I rode Paprika back to Jeuno to get the next cutscene and Neyla headed for Xarcabard. I teleported out and we killed Dark Spark. We even made our first Light skillchain as White Mage and Beastmaster while we did it. I dropped Neyla off at the Dem crag and warped back to Jeuno to get my armor.

From there, it was off to gods-forsaken Beadeaux. I hate that place more than any other coffer area, and today is another reason why.

Again,

Neyla gets a Raise III for his sacrifice.

Neyla scouted ahead since he got there first. The coffer was near one of the Afflictors, and the idea was for Neyla to put a jug pet on the quadavs and keep them occupied while I popped the coffer. Then Neyla would teleport us out. The problem is we forgot about what the Afflictor actually does, so when I popped it and he used an Echo Drop... the thing cursed him and dropped his MP to 40. He couldn't tele us out. Oops.

"Run for it," Neyla advised.

I had my Homing Ring ready, so I used it and returned to Windurst. I switched back to White Mage and tracked down Neyla's corpse to raise him. He died away from the quadav, thankfully. I escaped us so he could return to Windurst and outpost, and I hit Bastok to flag the next quest.

Neyla had asked the linkshell for help with the NM fight in Castle Oztroja. Veresko, Lepruvian and Zaria started running out there while I was doing my little rescue mission to raise Neyla. We met up with them and climbed to the top of the castle with all the coffer mobs.

I'd picked up a Yagudo Drink to trade to the first torch up there, which pops the NM. He's a Monk, but two Ninjas, a Samurai, a Beastmaster and White Mage are more than a match for him. We killed him and I lotted the feather he drops. Veresko logged out for dinner and I warped back to Bastok to trade the feather for armor. The others headed for Garlaige Citadel.

For

I can't wait to wear this gear.

the final piece, I had to switch to Monk again. They got me through the first Banishing Gate -- Neyla did a quick scan for NMs, since you never know when Old Two Wings might be flapping around -- and then we headed south to the second gate. The coffer was located due west of the gate, at the top of the stairs where it drops back down. I didn't even have to worry about aggro when I traded my key.

"Other than your hideous death," I told Neyla later as we were riding back to Windurst, "that was painless."

"Yeah."

I'm glad to have it finished, and I'm doubly glad I had help to get it done. I'm also very happy about the Chocobo Whistle; Paprika got one hell of a workout and let me cut down my travel time quite a bit riding from outposts to my destinations.

Later...

Wow. Tonight's Dynamis-Xarcabard was bad. Really bad. Painfully, soul-crushingly awful. Insufficient Black Mages and sleepers, bad/unexpected pulls, people asleep at the switch, unintended aggro, bad luck... you name a reason why it could go wrong, it was all there in one glittery package of craptacular ineptitude. It was so bad we were told to toss our hourglasses because the run was finished... and we still had 20-30 minutes remaining. I'll be amazed if we don't lose some people over that performance.

On the positive side, I can go to sleep an hour or so earlier than I normally do on Monday. /cheer

Vengeance, Etc.

We had enough people in BigKahunas today for another split run. Quieren and Celvantes led us to the third floor of Temenos Central while Veresko took another crew for some coin farming.

I

Time for a little payback...

was looking for a little vengeance after Wednesday's semi-loss to the zone. We had a little more firepower this time and got to the final three NMs with plenty of time on the clock. Quieren and I died, as did a few others, but it wasn't a complete slaughter. We rallied and took them down for the win.

Veresko's team still had about twenty minutes, so we farmed organs until it was time to meet them at the Dem crag for coin distribution. Everyone received three. Added to the five Ancient Beastcoins I'd forgotten I had in storage, my current total is 14. I'm hoping I'll get the other piece I need for Beast Trousers +1, but until that happens I'll save up for a Loquacious Earring.

I logged out until time for "Test Your Mite." We won it handily, and Cmdrfly passed out the gil from the sale of the Woodsman Ring. The 3000xp dinged me to 50 on Monk, and Neyla and I decided to do the Necropolis escort quest. Apu and Wulfgar tagged along, and having their firepower made it go even faster.

I didn't feel like doing the Monk AF fight in Davoi, but I told Neyla I'd get the legwork out of the way. I had to travel to Bastok and then all the way out to Fei'yin for a cutscene. We'll do the fight tomorrow.