Short Session

I

Dhalmels die faster with the NPCs.

wasn't online long, but Neyla and I did another session of NPC leveling in Bibiki Bay. Neyla's NPC Yawawa dinged 66 before they left, which means my Gauldeval can't be too far behind. Another round should do it. I'm enjoying myself quite a bit; I always seem to forget how good the xp is in that camp.

I'll be spending the weekend at my parents' house, so my only gaming will be chocobo maintenance until Monday. Then we'll hit Bibiki Bay again.

Mischarmed, I'm Sure

The

Neyla and I kill goblins in Onzozo.

Beastmaster bug bit hard, so Neyla and I traveled out to Bibiki Bay and summoned our NPCs for some dhalmel abuse. It's been awhile, but we quickly got into a steady groove. I managed to mischarm my very first bunny, and later mischarmed the same bunny twice. Despite Neyla's snarky comments about my way with animals, he mischarmed a few himself. The final count when we left was Halifirien 5, Neyla 4.

I'd forgotten to switch over to merit points, but decided to leave it alone and cap my XP. I really should try that for Monk at some point, with all the recent deaths I've had.

We finished up with a grip to Onzozo to look for Ose. The big cat wasn't around, but we killed a few goblins (a Gold Ingot dropped into Neyla's inventory) and got a chest key. Neyla tracked down the chest and popped it for 3k. Not too shabby, I guess.

In other news, my chocobo egg hatched today. It's a boy! Hopefully the feathery little bastard will be green as well.

Fires of Discontent

The first quest of the day, "Storm on the Horizon," was easy as hell. We only had to climb the hill outside Bastok and click a monument. I wish I'd had the foresight to go /BLM so I could warp back, since I had to run all the way back down. Bah.

From

We left one alive so we could rest.

there it was another visit to the Ruhotz Silvermines. It was an escort mission, where the young Scholar Edelheid had to be protected until she could reach a big turret and destroy it with explosives. There are five spots along the way where she stops and gets attacked by increasing numbers of quadav.

Our first attempt started out strong, but she got overwhelmed on the third wave. It doesn't help that she flaps around in a panic like a dunes-level mage if she takes a hit. Sleeping mobs and trying to keep the NPC healed was a huge drain on Neyla's reserves.

Our next attempt was better. Since Edelheid starts moving as soon as the last mob in each wave is killed, we learned to keep one alive so Neyla could rest. We got as far as the turret, but one of the mage quadav nuked the poor girl into oblivion and we were booted out again.

Fortunately, a galka Black Mage named Yahchan was standing outside. Neyla asked if he wanted to join our group, and the guy had a Paladin friend named Cam who also needed it.

"Got a mithra paladin in the group and it's not me," Neyla sighed.

"The quadav have to laugh at someone while we do all the work," I joked.

Kyrial, who'd been working off weaponskill points, came to join us as Warrior. Having a full party made a huge difference, and we chewed through mobs quickly and efficiently. Unfortunately, we ran into the same problem and Edelheid was nuked down when we reached the turret.

Cam

The party prepares a second attempt.

switched to Black Mage for extra sleeps, and that time we won. I got booted from the server and missed the victory celebration (and had to watch the explosion cutscene again). I ran to Bastok to watch the next cutscene and collect my Republican Silver Medal reward. Kyrial pointed out Volker's mullet, and Neyla joked that Bastok is Vana'diel's trailer park.

"The tonberry assassins hide in the junked cars out back," I said.

Kyrial needed a hand with the San d'Orian poison battle, so Neyla and I were happy to help out. We had a rough time finding the turret since we split up and were getting attacked in different areas, but we finally got back together and located the turret in the same place as our fight from the other day.

I made the mistake of pulling one of the mage orcs. It'd been standing all by itself, but of course it started casting a spell and gave the others plenty of time to link up and swarm in to kill me and Neyla. They didn't notice Kyrial, who managed to kill them off one by one, resting between fights, and then take down the turret with about ten seconds to spare.

I homepointed and came back as White Mage so I could give Neyla a Raise III. Kyrial stayed in the victory cutscene until I arrived to remove that nasty poison.

Waiting Game

I did a lot of crafting today. I started working on my smithing levels by churning out an ungodly number of tin ingots. I don't want to think about how many tin ores I bought from the guild in San d'Oria, but I managed to get my skill to 14 before I quit. From there, I felt comfortable running around Zeruhn mines and turning all those iron ores into ingots.

Neyla

The quadav fight was surprisingly easy.

and Malich eventually logged on and we started the next batch of Bastokan quests. I have to say, the storyline is definitely picking up; I thought it was easily the most boring of the three until they started introducing anticans and all that anti-hume sentiment with the galka.

Malich was one quest behind and had to wait an hour for the day to change before he was caught up, but I couldn't really complain because it gave me time to crash on the bed and read more Sherlock Holmes — "The Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle" — which is my latest literary addiction.

The main event was a battle in the Ruhotz Silvermines for the "Light in the Darkness" quest. We had to travel to the Corroded Door in the north-west corner of Pashhow Marshlands [S]. I was happy to learn a single chocobo can make the trip from Bastok.

The three of us were dropped into the middle of nine quadav. They were in a large circle, so we had time to scramble to one side without getting aggro from the entire cadre. We only had to kill seven of them to win it. It wasn't difficult.

Malich wasn't able to return to Bastok before the day changed, so he told us to move on to the next quest without him and he'd catch up. Neyla and I traveled to the Eldieme Necropolis to click on a sarcophagus in a small room in the back. There were four orcs there, but Neyla slept them while I punched them to death.

We're going to do the latter two quests tomorrow, and then we'll be finished until the next update.