Beyond Expectations

WinningTicket, hatched from the egg I quested from Brutus when chocobo raising was introduced, hit Day 19 today. He had white-tipped feathers, meaning he'd be yellow as an adult. I shipped him off to start a new bird. I was amused to learn you have a choice of last words to say. I chose "Take good care of him," but the NPC was still pissed at me for abandoning him. Boo-freakin'-hoo.

I had a very good day on Monk. I didn't have to seek very long before I got an invitation from a Japanese Thief who was putting a party together. We gathered in Al Zahbi. The setup was Paladin, Thief, Ranger, Monk, Red Mage and White Mage.

We

I can finally wear the Scorpion Harness I bought five months ago.

camped at the Leypoint in Wajoam Woodlands and killed the birds for hours. The Ranger pulled, I provoked first and the Paladin and Thief would line up for SATA. It was awesome, because the Ranger and Thief could just about cut the birds in half. We lost our mages about halfway through, but the leader was able to find new mages to replace them. That was our only downtime and it didn't last very long.

My only goal was to get to 57 so I could finally wear the Scorpion Harness I bought back in August. I was pleased to get to 58 and a decent XP buffer as well. It feels great to finally equip it, but damn... nobody wants to see tarutaru ass in a Republic Subligar. I'm definitely sticking to my Wonder Braccae pants when I'm walking around on Monk... at least until I can get to 60 and equip the Temple Hose.

The chocobo stable NPC in Al Zahbi was still imprisoned by one of the beastmen armies, so I rode GhostWing to camp. A player saw me on the blue bird and asked if we could trade breeding cards. It turns out he has green male and female chocobos. They're not pure green, being siblings from a black father and green mother, but we met up at the end of the evening to make the exchanges. With any luck, I can get a green chick from the pairing. Inbreeding ahoy!

Neyla went through two parties during the evening and managed to get from 47 to 50. The second party had three Warriors bouncing hate between them instead of a specific tank, and he said it worked out really well.

My Kingdom for a Party

Neyla and I went to Ifrit's Cauldron for another round of NPC leveling. As expected, Yawawa dinged 64 while we were there. Quieren sent me a /tell asking if I'd be interested in a Copycat run when I finished, but he couldn't get enough people. My orb continues to gather dust.

I

Neyla and I are massively successful at getting parties.

went with Plan B, which was to try and get a party on Monk. There's a lack of tanks and healers up and down the line, so Neyla wasn't having any luck getting a party as Bard. I went fishing while I waited, but the bite rate in Port Jeuno was terrible. I ran out to Qufim (the RMT botters were still there) to fish Gigant Squid until my inventory was full.

Neyla fought leeches behind me, and when I finally gave up any hope of getting a party we teamed up so he could give us Raptor Mazurka for the run back to town. I distributed my catch to the mules and started to log out, but instead put my flag up again while I went fishing in Buburimu.

I finally gave up and quit for the night. At least I'm making money while I sink into the depths of stagnation.

Aerning Potential

I'm a happy tarutaru today. I was fishing in Port Jeuno to wait for Limbus to start and got a .2 skillup. I now have 92 fishing skill. I need to resume my woodworking so I can repair my Lu Shang, because I plan to press on to 100 after my long hiatus from skillups.

Several people were missing from Limbus because of Valentine's Day, and Quieren decided it would be a good time to use the Metal Chip we got during a recent run. Trading it opens the way to the first Central Temenos Basement. We stopped along the way to kill a Yovra.

"Get your Reraise up, White Mages," Quieren said.

Rappa and I laughed at that. "I keep it up 24/7," Rappa told him.

"Then you and Hali are brothers. He wakes up every hour at night to reapply."

The

They won't stay dead!

Temenos zone is absolutely bugfuck chaotic. It's filled with Aerns who, like fomors, party up with their friends so that pulling with Carbuncle doesn't work. Best of all, they can reraise themselves multiple times. You'd have a group slept, kill one aern and start on another to see the first one pop back up again with blood on its mind. You start out with fifteen minutes on the clock and can get extensions by killing each party.

We killed the first two parties and bypassed a group of five to start on another group of three. We ran out of time after that. The entire run couldn't have lasted more than 20-25 minutes, but we got a ton of coins for our troubles. Quieren brought the linkshell bank and everyone left with three Ancient Beastcoins. I hope we get to do that zone again. It was wild.

Other than fishing skillups and Limbus, nothing much going on. Neyla tried to get a party on Bard and didn't get one until late in the evening. They got elemental aggro in the Crawler's Nest (I'm not going to ask how that happened) and he had to homepoint. He wasn't going back after that.

Paragon Redux

Busy,

Yagudo Black Mages are worse than the Monks.

busy, busy. Neyla and I had plenty on the agenda today. He's getting closer and closer to having Bard at 50 and needing his Artifact Armor, so we went after the keys he needed. Our first stop was Castle Oztroja.

He needed a coffer key from the top floor. We had the place to ourselves, and we farmed the Flagellants, Prelates, Conductors and Assassins for quite awhile. I learned to hate the Prelates because they're Black Mages who like to use upper-tier -ga spells, although I'd usually save TP for a stun weaponskill when they tried to do that stuff.

My Empress Band was still active from yesterday's trip to Ifrit's Cauldron, and each kill nudged me closer and closer to that Merit Point I wanted. It amused me that I got my merit off the same mob that dropped his coffer key. From there, we ran downstairs to track down the chest key mobs. They're clustered in the area with the opo-opo NPC running around, and it didn't take long to get my key.

I returned to Upper Jeuno to speak with Brutus and flag my quest for replacement Beast Gaiters. We made the long trek out to Fei'yin so I could drop flowers in the pools of water on the lower floor. The NM ghost popped at the third pool; two Carries ripped him a new one. We also killed Southern Shadow, but it didn't drop the shield.

While Neyla stuck around in Jeuno, I reported to Brutus and rode back to Castle Oztroja to find the chest and trade the Beast Collar I found inside to the Opo-Opo NPC. It didn't take very long, and Brutus gave me a fresh set of gaiters. That enabled me to flag the Beast Leggings quest, so Neyla and I ran through the glacier again to get to Batallia Downs and its entrance to the necropolis.

I

This fight is a lot easier with two Beastmasters.

wasn't sure we'd be able to take the NM after the last time we tried it as a duo, but it was a very different fight as Beastmasters. The undead wolf, Sturm, pops with two tigers at his side. We charmed the tigers and had them attack. My tiger died first, and I immediately sent CourierCarrie scuttling in. She did more damage and took hate, so Neyla's tiger wasn't getting killed off. He solved it by using Sic, which caused all the ghosts in the room to nuke his tiger down to oblivion. The ghosts lost interest at that point, and Neyla was free to use his own crab to finish off the wolf.

I got my replacement leggings and, better still, reclaimed my "Paragon of Beastmaster Excellence" title.

Quieren sent me a /tell while all this was going on. He's picking up World of Warcraft because he's "Just about fed up" with Vana'diel.

"Then give me your Osode," I joked.

"Sure," he said. "Just don't sell it in case I come back."

"That would never happen," I assured him. I'm a notorious pack rat whose mules are stuffed with just about every piece of gear I've ever owned. What are the odds I'd sell an Osode, especially one that belongs to someone else? Heh.

I'd completely forgotten about Neyla's need for a Zvhal coffer key or I wouldn't have diverted us into all the Beastmaster gear questing, but that's where we went next. The demons struck me as easier to kill than the yagudo, although there was certainly a lot more running around involved to get to the spawn locations. I was on White Mage the last time we farmed there with an entourage of linkshell mates who had nothing better to do, but I definitely preferred doing the job with just two Beastmasters. The job is turning me into a self-reliance nut.

But

Demons are easier to kill than Yagudo.

wait, there's more! We still had our NPCs to worry about. We returned to Windurst to drop a few things off in our moghouses and then went to Ifrit's Cauldron. We were killing our usually assortment of bombs and bats when Neyla's computer locked up and he disconnected. Now, I'm completely blind in Ifrit's Cauldron and rely on following Neyla to get anywhere. It was one hell of a navigational adventure, but I kept killing stuff until he was able to get online again. Thanks to the recent changes allowing NPCs to zone with their owners, Yawawa respawned beside him when he appeared in the tunnel.

Gauldeval dinged 64 while we were there, so Yawawa can't be far behind.

There wasn't much to do after that. We teleported to Tahrongi Canyon and I completely failed to zero in on the chest in the Hot and Cold game. Meh. I trotted out my bazaar mule and called it a night.

In other news, Neyla's new egg hatched. It's a male he named "Charisma King."

Attack of the Fishbots

Neyla

Fishbots as far as the eye can see...

spends a lot of time in Qufim Island. I was spending the day fishing to restock my mules when he sent me a /tell to do a search of Qufim to check out all the fishbots. There were three or four dozen /anon characters with gibberish names that looked suspiciously like the horde of botters infesting Windurst Waters the other day. I assumed they were there to catch Gigant Squid and drive the prices down to 2 gil each, but when I got there I realized it was much more evil than I'd dreamed.

They were ranged along the southern cliffs where I go to catch Three-Eyed Fish, and they were using Rogue Rigs to haul up hundreds of Mythril Swords. I checked recipes, and it didn't look like they were used for anything important. You can desynth them and get Mythril Nuggets, but it seemed unlikely. The obvious conclusion was they were selling the swords to NPCs for 4k each to generate a ton of gil. Rabao used to swarm with botters catching Rusty Caps and selling them to NPCs until Square-Enix caught on and nerfed the price.

I sent a /tell to Quieren and told him to do a search of the area.

"Damn," he said. "Somebody named a fishbot after you. What kind of asshole does that?"

"Ha-ha," I said.

I

It's amazing the Nightmare Bats don't burst into flame.

placed a service call to report it and was eventually contacted by GM Cayenne, who assured me the matter was already under investigation and requested I go to Playonline and send a message to the Special Task Force they set up to combat gilsellers. I look forward to seeing some accounts banned.

I spent the next few hours fishing in my regular haunts. I skipped Qufim Island because the thought of sharing all the zone with botters was annoying, even though they weren't competing with me. I'll go there before Limbus on Wednesday and hit my squid quota.

Neyla tried to get a party on Bard while I was off doing my thing, but he eventually gave up. Monday's are rough for invitations. He switched over to Beastmaster to hit Ifrit's Cauldron, and since I had nothing else to do...

We did our roundhouse slaughter of bombs and bats in the tunnels. Gauldeval got very close to 64 but didn't ding, so I imagine it'll happen in our next leveling session. I'd planned to finish off my Merit Point in Mount Zhayolm, but fishing took longer than I expected. I'll get it later. There's no real rush.

Instead,

FirecrackerFury and OmegaZero hit it off.

I rode the airship to Jeuno to flag my Beastmaster AF quests. Brutus gave me a key item, so I'll wander out to Fei'yin and fight the ghost soon. Neyla and I are going to Castle Oztroja tomorrow to farm a chest key for me and a coffer key for him. Depending on drop rates, we might go around and kill the stuff I need so I can put my AF back into NPC storage.

In other news, I also traded the breeding cards to obtain a new egg. WinningTicket will reach the adolescent stage later this week, so I want to be ready to replace him on the spot if he turns out to be a big disappointment. The parents are first-generation black chocobos, so I should be fine.

Bring On the Invasion

I

Ribbit.... ribbit... gonna kill you... ribbit...

don't like spending a minute more of my time in Whitegate or Al Zahbi than is absolutely necessary, but I run out there every time I see a Besieged in the works. Saturday morning was no different, although I didn't get any limit points because I was dead when it ended. Quieren was there as a Lv. 36 Dark Knight, hoping to get the last bit of xp he needed to ding 37 so he'd have his subjob finished. He was there with a White Mage subjob so he could score points by casting Dia and assorted Cures. The true high point was when a Poroggo charmed us and turned us into frogs.

I did another Besieged on Sunday morning when I logged on, and that time I got the rewards. It didn't last very long because there were 703 people in the zone. The lag was terrible.

Today's Limbus was smooth as silk. We had to redo the floor with the elementals and the booby-trapped Armoury Crates, and we only had to fight Ifrit and Garuda on our way up. I Carby-pulled the Earth Elemental and Water Elemental floors, as well as the Dark Elementals near the end. We had to fight Fenrir for the win, but he died so fast it was like not having him there at all. I got three Ancient Beastcoins.

Quieren couldn't make the run because of his daughter's birthday party, but he logged on long enough to take attendance. He's taking it again because he's going to start bouncing people who don't show up very often. Every run is a guessing game about what kind of numbers we'll have, and it's frustrating. I'm not quite up to the "Three strikes and you're out" attitude he's developing, but I won't weep to lose the unreliables.

"Test

So many choices...

Your Mite" was also easy as hell. This was my week on White Mage, but I didn't have much to do except Haste the melees and use Paralyze and Slow on Pasuk, who only managed to land one hit on the party the entire time. We got another Geist Earring for our troubles.

Some jobs are going to shift around in the coming weeks. Wulfgar wants to start coming as Summoner when he gets it to 40, so Apu will take over as our Ninja tank.

We left to do the Necropolis escort. Apu asked if Lepruvian could join us, and I said he didn't need an engraved invitation. "Just have it flagged and be waiting in Batallia Downs while we're doing the ENM," I told Lep. Hadafal is going to start joining us for the escort next week.

Another Besieged, this time wih the troll army, was warming up, so Neyla and I made yet another trip to Al Zahbi. He went Red Mage for this one, which kept me alive. I think I'm going to start going as White Mage so I can save money on jug pets. I'm now 2.5k from having a Merit Point, so I'll probably get it tomorrow.