Forget-Me-Nots

Neyla finally used merit points to unlock Chivalry, and it was instant success. I didn't realize how much MP it would actually restore, thinking it would give him half or something. No, it filled up completely. You've gotta love that. He'll be meriting his ass off to get that recast timer whittled down.

The

The pulse-pounding action continues in Windurst.

week has mostly been about meriting in Campaign battles, and I raised my Hand-to-Hand skill to 7. The fights are getting harder, mostly because the Campaign NPCs are no longer dispensing temporary items. I was constantly spending Allied Notes to buy Reraise and Body Boost, so now when I die I have to hope some wandering mage will notice my corpse and get me up.

One of yesterday's battles in Meriphataud Mountains resulted in Neyla dying on the eastern side of the tower. He'd been down quite awhile and nobody would go near the mobs swarming the area. As soon as the battle ended, every ran for the gate at the zone without bothering to search for the dead. As a result, I hoofed it back to Windurst and changed over to White Mage to get him back on his feet.

The funny part was that I'd completely forgotten about the Recall-Meriph spell. I'd warped back to Windurst and was going to outpost, ride a chocobo to the Maw, and then track down Neyla's body. I'm glad he reminded me I could be there a lot faster by using the spell. It says something about how little time I spend on White Mage, unless I need it for fishing.

I did my last Campaign battle of the day as White Mage, but of course I didn't have my better gear because I'd only switched over for the Raise. The lag was so terrible that Neyla and I fell through one of Windurst's bridges and ended up down in the water with a tarutaru named Inutiyo; I was going to teleport us out, but the taru knew a spot where we could run up on the bank and work our way through the trees and back onto the road. Very handy!

On a side note, I want to extend a tarutaru shout-out to two players who read the blog. Arcanos, who'd been stationed in Iraq, sent me a /tell to say Travels in Vana'diel was his main connection to FFXI while he was over there because most of the game sites were blocked. I joked that I would've updated more often if I'd known I was feeding his addiction. The other shout goes to Elian on Cerberus server, who e-mailed me with compliments.

Beastmen Triumphant

I'm

The fight against the beastmen is intense in Windurst Waters [S].

not sure what the game's developers did during the update, but it started becoming crystal clear that the beastmen were going to take over every region in the past. I know there was a quick post-update adjustment because the mobs were suddenly overpowered, but this is overkill.

The only city able to keep control over an area outside its immediate borders was San d'Oria, which managed to hold Batallia Downs.

Neyla and I spent most of our time in Windurst Waters [S], fighting off yagudo and kindred. I learned very quickly to avoid fighting near the homepoint arch, since waves of mobs tend to run through there and hack people to death.

I was horrified to discover they'd nerfed the xp reward for "Streetsweeper III," but Neyla pointed me to a Campaign Op called "Slaugtherhouse III" which gave 499xp when I set off a bomb near the tower in Meriphataud Mountains. I guess there's a postive side to having beastmen in control.