Turnabout

Before

Neyla skills up Great Axe in the Maze of Shakrami.

Neyla embarks on the push to get his Warrior job leveled from 20 to 37, he wants his Great Axe skill ready to go. He'd already spent one session in a tower in Sarutabaruta as a Dark Knight to start working on it. Today I went with him into the Maze of Shakrami for the rest of it. It was an easy gig, since the only thing I had to do was hit him with Cures and sleep mobs so he could mow through them with the auto-targeting turned on. It was really easy to do that in the big crawler room from an early Windurst mission. We kept at it until he learned Sturmwind.

We finished up early, so I decided to gear up my Samurai and burn off another ring charge in Tahrongi Canyon.

I hadn't been out there very long when I got a /tell from Celvantes, asking me if I wanted to duo bunnies with his Dancer in Valkurm Dunes. Some of his friends had been doing that the day before, and they reported good xp from it. Celvantes was two levels higher than me, but I figured it might be okay.

"We'll try one out and see how it goes," he said. "If it doesn't work, we can fight something else."

I outposted to the dunes and met him at the oasis. I pulled a bunny and immediately got beaten down into the sand. Seriously, it only took four hits to drop me.

We

Celvantes and I carve up dunes creatures while Neyla babysits.

homepointed and outposted back to the dunes to make the run to La Theine Plateau. We ran around there for awhile, chewing through the easier mobs and avoiding most of the orcs. I spent a lot of time giggling at seeing Celvantes -- the uber-Paladin who can tank just about anything Vana'diel throws at him -- prance around like a Christmas elf hitting the crack pipe.

As we were dropping down to the small pond near the crag, Neyla came riding up on a chocobo. I figured he was just going to point and laugh for a minute or two before returning to the Campaign battles, but he was bored and stuck around to powerlevel us.

Unfortunately for Neyla, Celvantes had just leveled up and gained the Dancer move that gives them Curaga. It made a huge difference in our ability to kill mobs; coupled with Neyla's babysitting, we felt comfortable hitting the dunes again.

I got to 16 before we left, which means less gear I have to cart around when I start flagging up and seeking a party for real.

Slice-Slice-Slice

Very

Not much of a height difference, is there?

little actual adventuring yesterday and today, since I spent nearly all of my time running around East Sarutabaruta and Tahrongi Canyon as a Samurai. There's a small clearing in the canyon with a Luck Rune on the ground, and that's where I tend to focus most of my efforts. There are plenty of mandragoras, rarabs and saplings there.

I used to level everything to 15 in the canyon before I started looking for parties so I could ride a chocobo out to the dunes. Since they lowered the cap on outposting, it's really not an issue. Now I just level up a bit so I don't have to carry as much armor. At this point I'll settle for getting to 14 first so I can equip my rings.

I'll have to figure out what I want to do tomorrow. I may flag up and hit the hated dunes. I should probably buy two kinds of food in case I'm expected to tank.

More Hack-and-Slash

While

Rivers of blood flow from my blade... or is that massive head trauma?

Neyla, Veresko and others were fighting campaign battles in Vana'diel's past, I was dutifully slogging my way through present-day Sarutabaruta as a humble Samurai.

I started out on the west side -- the great thing about fighting near the Cavernous Maw is the higher chance someone like Sneakypants will come along and cast buffs my way -- but a fight with an angry bee sent me homepointing. I eventually moved to the east side so I could fight the crabs and pugils in the streams. It took awhile, but I was eventually able to swap out my fishing gear for equipment with higher defense ratings.

I finally stopped when I reached Lv. 8. I cut a path back to Windurst to give myself a little XP buffer, but that was all the slicing and dicing I could take for the day.

I switched over to Beastmaster and outposted to North Gustaberg. There's a sheep NM named Carnero who pops on Vomp Hill in South Gustaberg; he drops the katayama ichimonji katana I'll be able to use from Lv. 10 to 20, so I rode my chocobo out there and spent the next hour sending my funguar jug pet after every Ornery Sheep I saw. That hill is annoyingly large because it's basically a big spiral to the top. There are three or four levels to run around.

A few lowbie players were there fighting goblins, and I tossed out some buffs of my own while hoping like hell they wouldn't try to take on Carnero if he popped in their vicinity. You never know about stuff like that.

I

Carnero certainly took his sweet time showing up.

almost gave up on it, too. My funguar finally despawned and I started logging out, but I changed my mind and kept hunting sheep with a second funguar. I was extremely happy to finally see the bastard sheep when I turned a corner. He died in two hits from my jug pet. I got my katana and prepared to hit the Tenshodo for some new Samurai gear.

"What were you doing in Gustaberg," Neyla asked as I was boarding the airship to Windurst.

I explained that I'd spent the last hour killing sheep.

"Took me five minutes," he laughed.

"That's because you suck," I told him.

Tomorrow I plan to get somewhere between Lv. 10 and 12. Depending on how much gear I can haul around, I may try to get through Valkurm Dunes on Friday. We'll see how it goes.

Biting the Bullet

After

I'm having deja vu from leveling Dancer.

goofing around on Dancer for a few days, I finally settled in this afternoon to start leveling the job I actually need... Samurai. Now that Neyla has Paladin to 40, he'll soon be itching to level his /WAR past 20; he wants me to party with him, and I should have /SAM to 37 so I can sub it when I'm on Dragoon. Practicality wins out.

It was total deja vu in West Sarutabaruta. It's only been a few days since I was dancing up a storm out there on Bumblebees and Tiny Mandragoras. The long delay of the Great Katana was maddening, and I had zero skill in it and couldn't use the Tachi: Enpi attack until much later. Ugh.

I burned off an Empress Band charge and kept at it until I hit Lv. 5. I'll be back at it tomorrow.

Windurst Under Attack!

Windurst has been losing a lot of the campaign battles this week. The yagudo are strong and have a tendency to wipe people out with nasty AoE attacks. When I logged on this afternoon, I saw West Sarutabaruta had fallen to the beastmen.

The

Stupid birds, storming in... This is my house!

first thing Neyla told me was that yagudo had started invading Windurst Waters. How awesome is that? I ran out there and waited for a fight to start, which didn't take long. The only problem I had was running toward the gate and getting a big surprise. One second I'm running along without a care in the world, and in the next I'm suddenly surrounded by yagudo popping into existence. They killed me lightning-fast, and I doubt anyone heard my muffled squeaks of rage.

I waited for them to run past before I popped back up (I've been going /WHM for Reraise) and rested. As soon as my weakness wore off, I jumped into the fray and helped punch down the remaining yagudo. I guess we'll have a week of constant incursions.

Otherwise, a quiet day. Hadafal couldn't make it to the ENM, so Apu took his slot. The fight went better than last week, and Neyla finally got his Paladin to Lv. 40. He ran to San d'Oria to flag the quest for his AF weapon, and I was waiting for him in Ordelle's Caves so I could beat the elemental to death for him. Such a long damned walk for a short little fight, but it'll be worth it when he can start clanking around in full Paladin gear.