Today was *really* a mixed bag. Lots of good things, but one really sad thing that stood out above the rest of the day's events. The bad thing happened last in the day, so I'll list it last, of course.
Started the day off by deciding to do my Olduum Ring quest. The Olduum Ring is a useful li'l trinket: once per every twenty hours, it can teleport its user to Wajaom Woodlands, an area right outside Al Zahbi. Taking some silent oils and prism powders (items that help you avoid getting attacked by enemies) from my Mog Safe, I ran out to Aydeewa Subterrane to mine up my Olduum artifact to trade for the Lightning Band. I got it on the second try, only breaking one Pickaxe, and didn't get attacked the entire time, much to my relief. I returned to Whitegate, gave the mined-up Electropot to the man who'd requested it, and got my Lightning Band, which I brought to the Leypoint in Wajaom Woodlands and transformed it into the Olduum Ring.
At this point, I realized: I'm twenty levels too low to use this!!! It's not equippable until Level 60, to my frustration. Ah well, at least I got the quest out of the way.
Myself and Sheemie then went out to quest our Corsair and Puppetmaster jobs, which require you to go to areas near Nashmau. As such, we hopped the ferry to Nashmau from Aht Urhgan Whitegate. It was about to leave when Sheemie realized that the PUP flag had not been started. Oh well, we said, at least we'll still both get COR and I can get PUP.
Well, on the ferry, I walked up to talk to the captain, to see how long the ride would be, when an Imp on deck spotted me and killed me... and I got the following message.
Ironside falls to Level 39.
Dang. It. That Exp loss from Promyvion - Mea had taken its toll. Sheemie's Raise left me about sixty-one points short of regaining my level, so I decided it was no big deal, I could go solo some stuff and regain it fast when we got back.
Well, two completed flag quests and two deaths later, I was a good bit farther from regaining Level 40. Me and Sheemie duo'd out in Sauromugue Champaign for a while, but we died against a pair of Evil Weapons and almost ended up worse than where we started, so we left to complete my Casting Wand quest. Aisur Teleport-Vahzl'ed us out to Xarcabard and also decided (read: was begged) to help. We got out there with almost nothing going wrong, until I popped the monster too soon and got my butt handed to me before Sheemie or Aisur could pull hate off of me. Aisur Raised me while Sheemie killed the monster, and it seemed all was well, until Sheemie took aggro from a pair of Demons that were nearby. He got into critical health, but managed to put up Sleepga II on them, allowing Aisur to rest and regain enough MP for a Teleport - Mea, to take us to the far safer Tahrongi Canyon. Sheemie stepped off to the side and sat to heal...
...I then noticed something purple running towards him from a different direction, full throttle. Before I could say anything, it swung:
The Demon Pawn hits Sheemie for (forgot the number) points of damage.
Sheemie was defeated by the Demon Pawn.
Luckily, Aisur had put Invisible up on me, so it wouldn't attack me, but it did come after Aisur, who also died. Checking to see if it was ok and meeting no resistance, I cast Warp and returned to Whitegate, leaving Aisur to Reraise (he had cast it while I wasn't looking, evidently) and Raise Sheemie, then get them both out of there. I then panicked and realized that I hadn't seen the Glowstone (the required item) drop into my inventory before I Warped, but a scan of my inventory revealed it to be there. (Must've dropped during all the commotion with the Demons.) I traded it in in Windurst and got my Casting Wand, my Artifact Weapon. I left town then and got my Puppetmaster to Level 2, before returning to town (via dying to a bunny), changing back to Black Mage, and logging out, an hour before Beherit's well-planned-in-advance goodbye party.
I came to that a little late, as Beherit was about to start his farewell speech. I managed to get there just before he started, though. He doted on his memories of all of us, and gave some of us presents. I myself was surprised he had remembered me, among the people there in East Sarutabaruta (a fair number, too. I took a screenie or two, or three, remind me to post them.), and gave me a Maple Table. After giving everyone gifts, and thanking us all (especially Chainspell, the Linkshell's leader), he invited us to claim all non - Ra/Ex items that were on his person at the time. I walked out with a Holy Phial, and left his (better for me, but ah well) Morion Tathlum for him, since that was a gift to him from Kiryn. Soon after, he gave away all of his Gil to anyone who could answer his question (what race, gender and nationality his first character was), which Kylin won, and then logged out among friends, with a few parting words. We miss you greatly, Beherit!
I stayed at the spot a while to stare out into the ocean there, until I was the last one there (save Nitai, Orangeknight's mule) then logged out.
Monday, November 20, 2006
Sunday, November 19, 2006
Good to be blogging again
I'd forgotten to put down what I'd done over the past... five days or so. Yesterday and the day before, I didn't get to play, since I was out of town... but here goes on the rest.
Wednesday was a mixed bag: I went out to camp Hoo Mjuu again with Desolation, only to find out that she and a few other people (some of whom I'd respected) had left the Linkshell. That was pretty much all I did that day: we didn't get claim. Not much else happened (that I remember, anyhow.)
Thursday was pretty boring also (that I remember). I don't remember altogether much except right before I logged out, I saw Shadowdog, a good friend, on his Level 14 Puppetmaster, and asked if he wanted to duo in Tahrongi Canyon with my Level 12 Dragoon. He agreed, and we set out, but I had to log out before we could get there.
Today (Sunday) was... fun, to say the least. I started off by looking in my Delivery Box: Sanoi had finally sent my items. He had succeeded in HQing the Pumps (the important part, by far), but had only made a normal Tunic. Ah well, at least I have the good part.
Then, I saw Rannon was organizing a run at the Promyvions, for a Chains of Promathia mission fairly early on. I had yet to clear any of them, and all three were required -- they can be tough, though, since they're capped at Level 30. We got six people together (Rannon as a Warrior, myself and Kaosreaper as Black Mages, Vivimeister as a White Mage, Ginana as a Samurai and Fubii as a Paladin), but Vivimeister's connection failed him twice on the first floor of Promyvion - Mea, the first one we were doing, and the second time, it didn't come back, so we called in... (drumroll) Desolation as a Thief and had Kaosreaper switch to his White Mage. We gave Desolation a new Linkpearl when she arrived, and expressed how glad we were that she was back.
We made it all the way to the boss area, the Spire, with only one complete wipeout, which was a surprise. We went over our strategy, but it was rough since only three of us had Psychoanima (which gives the user 100% Empty Killer, meaning the Promyvion monsters won't attack at all for 30 seconds) and four of us had Hysteroanima (which blocks an Empty-type mob's special attacks.) We entered the Spire, buffed up, and it looked like everything was going our way, but once its health hit about 15% and we were out of Anima, it started spamming its special abilities. We wiped out with the boss at what I estimated to be 3% health left.
Myself and Rannon had to leave, and I looked over how much Experience I had lost. Oh well, though, I didn't delevel. I logged out for the night, and told Deso again that it was good to have her back.
(Note: I took a few screenshots. Memory providing, I'll be posting them soon.)
Wednesday was a mixed bag: I went out to camp Hoo Mjuu again with Desolation, only to find out that she and a few other people (some of whom I'd respected) had left the Linkshell. That was pretty much all I did that day: we didn't get claim. Not much else happened (that I remember, anyhow.)
Thursday was pretty boring also (that I remember). I don't remember altogether much except right before I logged out, I saw Shadowdog, a good friend, on his Level 14 Puppetmaster, and asked if he wanted to duo in Tahrongi Canyon with my Level 12 Dragoon. He agreed, and we set out, but I had to log out before we could get there.
Today (Sunday) was... fun, to say the least. I started off by looking in my Delivery Box: Sanoi had finally sent my items. He had succeeded in HQing the Pumps (the important part, by far), but had only made a normal Tunic. Ah well, at least I have the good part.
Then, I saw Rannon was organizing a run at the Promyvions, for a Chains of Promathia mission fairly early on. I had yet to clear any of them, and all three were required -- they can be tough, though, since they're capped at Level 30. We got six people together (Rannon as a Warrior, myself and Kaosreaper as Black Mages, Vivimeister as a White Mage, Ginana as a Samurai and Fubii as a Paladin), but Vivimeister's connection failed him twice on the first floor of Promyvion - Mea, the first one we were doing, and the second time, it didn't come back, so we called in... (drumroll) Desolation as a Thief and had Kaosreaper switch to his White Mage. We gave Desolation a new Linkpearl when she arrived, and expressed how glad we were that she was back.
We made it all the way to the boss area, the Spire, with only one complete wipeout, which was a surprise. We went over our strategy, but it was rough since only three of us had Psychoanima (which gives the user 100% Empty Killer, meaning the Promyvion monsters won't attack at all for 30 seconds) and four of us had Hysteroanima (which blocks an Empty-type mob's special attacks.) We entered the Spire, buffed up, and it looked like everything was going our way, but once its health hit about 15% and we were out of Anima, it started spamming its special abilities. We wiped out with the boss at what I estimated to be 3% health left.
Myself and Rannon had to leave, and I looked over how much Experience I had lost. Oh well, though, I didn't delevel. I logged out for the night, and told Deso again that it was good to have her back.
(Note: I took a few screenshots. Memory providing, I'll be posting them soon.)
Monday, November 13, 2006
Oops.
I didn't have time to get on FFXI today (well, actually, I did, but there was maintenance today, so I didn't get to actually log in. >_<), so I decided to post what I did yesterday. It wasn't much, and I didn't have time to actually post it yesterday, sorry about that.
I didn't even leave town: While in Whitegate, I saw that Sanoi was online. Using my budget of about 122,000 Gil, I bought the materials for a Seer's Tunic and Pumps on the Windurst and Al Zahbi Auction Houses and partly in the Clothcraft Guild in Windurst Woods(hoping for an HQ) and sent them to Sanoi. We were about to leave to complete my Artifact Weapon quest, but I was informed that I needed to get offline to go to church, so I did so and did not have a chance to sign back in.
Told you it was boring. :P
I didn't even leave town: While in Whitegate, I saw that Sanoi was online. Using my budget of about 122,000 Gil, I bought the materials for a Seer's Tunic and Pumps on the Windurst and Al Zahbi Auction Houses and partly in the Clothcraft Guild in Windurst Woods(hoping for an HQ) and sent them to Sanoi. We were about to leave to complete my Artifact Weapon quest, but I was informed that I needed to get offline to go to church, so I did so and did not have a chance to sign back in.
Told you it was boring. :P
Saturday, November 11, 2006
Lucky Day
I started today, back in Upper Jeuno where I had logged out, planning on levelling my White Mage subjob - it was only Level 20, and would become "gimp" in two levels of Black Mage. I looked up Cure III and Regen on FFXIclopedia, and saw that both either were sold in or dropped from a monster near Windurst. I took Kaduru-Haiduru -- a Warp Taru in Whitegate who charges an Imperial Silverpiece, but instead of just Jeuno, he takes you to your nation of allegiance also -- to Windurst, bought my Cure III and started to head out to the Horutoto Ruins to farm my Regen scroll, when I noticed that my Linkshell friend Desolation had just signed in, which gave me an idea.
I asked Deso if she wanted to come camp Hoo Mjuu the Torrent with me (He drops a staff called a Monster Signa whcih gives +8 Charisma, which is amazingly great for Bard and Beastmasters, and sells for about three hundred thousand Gil on Jeuno's Auction House.); I typically ask her when I go, since she's good company and at least as good of a camper as I am. I went as /WHM as usual, because I have Dia pre-macro'd and it's fast enough to get claim rather often. I got to the camp and saw four other /WARs, who have Provoke, an instant-cast ability that claims and makes the opponent attack you. Two of them left, but I asked Deso to come as /WAR anyhow, putting her at 38THF/10WAR for the time being. While she was en route to the camp, though, Hoo popped. No one there, myself included, seemed to notice him until I had started casting Dia, at which point two Provokes went off simultaneously, before I could get claim. I shrugged, and after a bit of debating with myself, decided to go fishing for a while, while Deso went AFK to help Hatsumomo with something.
It was worth it - I caught about eight Moat Carp, and got my Fishing skill to a whopping... five. >_>; Anyhow, once it was about time for Hoo to respawn, I switched my subjob as well, to Warrior Level 5, making me BLM40/WAR5. It gave me Provoke, but I went /anon so the Linkshell wouldn't see my gimpness. I headed back over there -- Deso was still AFK, but her sister was playing her character for a while, killing placeholder mobs and such. I waited for a while, but then had to go AFK myself for a couple minutes to eat lunch.
I came back from my wonderful lunch of... two hot dogs, told the Linkshell (and Deso, who had just come back) I was back, and no more than five seconds later, I get the following message:
(Desolation) Provoking Hoo Mjuu the Torrent
I dashed over there and landed my Provoke as well, just to make sure, but his name was red and we had gotten him. We got the kill pretty fast - either one of us could have and have solo'd him before, but we both fought anyhow - and saw this message:
You find a monster signa on Hoo Mjuu the Torrent.
Oh. Heck. Yeah. We had just gotten the staff. I held off my Escape spell and lotted, to be sure we didn't lose it on accident when we zoned - we had done that with a pair of Zealot's Mitts before, but those are cheap. When it dropped into my inventory, I made my deal to the LS (with Deso's approval, of course. It's her Gil too, y'know.): 33% off Jeuno Auction House, bringing it to 200,000 Gil. Ballister bought it, but couldn't collect it yet, so Sanoi bought it to hold it for Balli. (Sanoi had bought the last one which me and Kaosreaper had camped.) I sent half the Gil, 100,000, to Deso. I got an invite for an Exp Party for my Black Mage, but I told them that I could probably only stay for an hour or so, and the leader's party decided against inviting me. (Which I expected.) I then went out of the town to level my Level 3 Ninja for a bit.
One Ninja level later, I got bored of it and decided to come back into town, head to Al Zahbi and see what I could buy that I needed. I didn't see anything worthwhile there, but I think I'm going to buy materials for a Seer's Tunic and Seer's Pumps, and see if Sanoi, who made my signed Seer's Slacks +1, can HQ them, boosting their strength and their value. (I already have a normal set.) I was about to go get help for my Casting Wand quest, but I was told to get offline to head to town, so I logged out in Aht Urhgan Whitegate, quite possibly for the rest of the day, but we'll see.
I asked Deso if she wanted to come camp Hoo Mjuu the Torrent with me (He drops a staff called a Monster Signa whcih gives +8 Charisma, which is amazingly great for Bard and Beastmasters, and sells for about three hundred thousand Gil on Jeuno's Auction House.); I typically ask her when I go, since she's good company and at least as good of a camper as I am. I went as /WHM as usual, because I have Dia pre-macro'd and it's fast enough to get claim rather often. I got to the camp and saw four other /WARs, who have Provoke, an instant-cast ability that claims and makes the opponent attack you. Two of them left, but I asked Deso to come as /WAR anyhow, putting her at 38THF/10WAR for the time being. While she was en route to the camp, though, Hoo popped. No one there, myself included, seemed to notice him until I had started casting Dia, at which point two Provokes went off simultaneously, before I could get claim. I shrugged, and after a bit of debating with myself, decided to go fishing for a while, while Deso went AFK to help Hatsumomo with something.
It was worth it - I caught about eight Moat Carp, and got my Fishing skill to a whopping... five. >_>; Anyhow, once it was about time for Hoo to respawn, I switched my subjob as well, to Warrior Level 5, making me BLM40/WAR5. It gave me Provoke, but I went /anon so the Linkshell wouldn't see my gimpness. I headed back over there -- Deso was still AFK, but her sister was playing her character for a while, killing placeholder mobs and such. I waited for a while, but then had to go AFK myself for a couple minutes to eat lunch.
I came back from my wonderful lunch of... two hot dogs, told the Linkshell (and Deso, who had just come back) I was back, and no more than five seconds later, I get the following message:
(Desolation) Provoking Hoo Mjuu the Torrent
I dashed over there and landed my Provoke as well, just to make sure, but his name was red and we had gotten him. We got the kill pretty fast - either one of us could have and have solo'd him before, but we both fought anyhow - and saw this message:
You find a monster signa on Hoo Mjuu the Torrent.
Oh. Heck. Yeah. We had just gotten the staff. I held off my Escape spell and lotted, to be sure we didn't lose it on accident when we zoned - we had done that with a pair of Zealot's Mitts before, but those are cheap. When it dropped into my inventory, I made my deal to the LS (with Deso's approval, of course. It's her Gil too, y'know.): 33% off Jeuno Auction House, bringing it to 200,000 Gil. Ballister bought it, but couldn't collect it yet, so Sanoi bought it to hold it for Balli. (Sanoi had bought the last one which me and Kaosreaper had camped.) I sent half the Gil, 100,000, to Deso. I got an invite for an Exp Party for my Black Mage, but I told them that I could probably only stay for an hour or so, and the leader's party decided against inviting me. (Which I expected.) I then went out of the town to level my Level 3 Ninja for a bit.
One Ninja level later, I got bored of it and decided to come back into town, head to Al Zahbi and see what I could buy that I needed. I didn't see anything worthwhile there, but I think I'm going to buy materials for a Seer's Tunic and Seer's Pumps, and see if Sanoi, who made my signed Seer's Slacks +1, can HQ them, boosting their strength and their value. (I already have a normal set.) I was about to go get help for my Casting Wand quest, but I was told to get offline to head to town, so I logged out in Aht Urhgan Whitegate, quite possibly for the rest of the day, but we'll see.
Friday, November 10, 2006
First *actual* post.
I had today off school, leaving most of the day to adventure in Vana'diel.
I got a good bit done. When I first logged in in Aht Urhgan Whitegate, I saw a Level 6 Troll Mercenaries Besieged advancing on the city. Good, I thought to myself, free Experience and Standing. You see, Besieged is an event where a marauding beastman army attacks Aht Urhgan to attempt to take control of the "Astral Candescence", an artifact of great power. Participants are rewarded with Imperial Standing and Experience Points proportional to the work they did. Anyhow, I changed area into Al Zahbi, where the battles take place...
...and found myself immediately set back in Whitegate. What the...? I thought, and attempted to enter Al Zahbi once more, to the same results. I then remembered something I had read about Al Zahbi having a set upper limit on players in area. I performed "/sea AlZahbi" (which shows the names and number of players in an area, in this case, Al Zahbi), which showed 710 players; 10 over the limit. Realizing that not many would leave, I decided to head out to Windurst to finish some business I had there.
I first went by the Auction House to pick up a pair of Bone Chips and a pinch of Bomb Ash that I needed to complete an important quest; not in itself, but sompleteing it and the next quest allow access to a quest that gives the Scroll of Warp II, an important spell for Black Mage. I bought the two Bone Chips, but after seeing how expensive the Bomb Ash was, I decided to go kill the monsters for it -- and the Bomb Arms for the next quest -- myself, in the Inner Horutoto Ruins.
The Bomb Ash, and, inadvertently, a spare three Bone Chips, came easily, but I couldn't find the Bomb Arms on the low-level Balloons I was fighting, so I decided to move in and up to Will-o'-the-Wisps to see if they had a higher droprate.
Fifteen minutes later, having gone all the way through the area and only having enountered one Will, I found myself in the Wendigo room. Why not kill a couple, I thought, they may drop those answer sheets. You see, Wendigos drop a stack of test answer sheets they stole from Windurst's School of Magic. The School pays handsomely for returned sheets, once per adventurer, with a Scroll of Aspir: another useful Black Mage spell, which drains the foe's magic power and gives it to the user. I had already collected my scroll, so I decided to sell my sheets on the Jeuno Auction House and reap the twenty thousand Gil ransom most players would pay for them. I was using the portal to leave the room, and then to Escape myself out, when I rn across Aisur, Vivimeister, and Bushtaru - two Linkshell friends and a person they were helping, respectively - opening the door into that room, to farm some themselves. I stuck around and helped two of the three get theirs, before leaving for the Grand Duchy of Jeuno to sell my own test answer sheets. I was amazed to see that they had sold within five minutes, and decided to head back there once I had finished with Shantotto. I used the Gil to buy my much-needed Scroll of Fire II, as well as a Fire Spirit Pact and Ice Spirit Pact for my Summoner job.
I bought the needed Bomb Arms and Revival Tree Root for the second quest, and then returned to WIndurst and completed both quests, as well as the Mission 5-1 I had "completed" the other day. That had been a fun fight - it had a fifteen-minute time limit, and we had finished in 14:42. Anyhow, I went back to Lady Shantotto and recieved the third and final quest in the series, "Curses, Foiled A-Golem!?", which required me to go out to Beaucedine Glacier and Fei'Yin, two very distant - and fairly high-level - areas. Sheemie, another Linkshell member, offered to help, and we met up in Aht Urhgan Whitegate to find a Teleport-Vahzl, a spell that takes the user's party to Xarcabard's Telepoint Crystal.
Our teleport-er was Akashea, a name I recognized form somewhere, but I couldn't remember quite where. She teleported us on a donation basis, but wouldn't take mine. In fact, she even offered to help us do the quest, which of course, we accepted. We completed the quest almost without incident... Only two things went wrong: Sheemie was killed by a Shadow Dragon he was fighting for its Dragon Scales drop, and we went to the wrong tower in Beaucedine Glacier, costing us around five minutes.
All's well that ends well, though. Akashea gave me a Teleport-Mea to Tahrongi Canyon near Windurst, and from there I rode a rental chocobo to the city itself. I gave Shantotto the information she had asked for, and she gave me my Scroll of Warp II. I then returned to the Horutoto Ruins, defeated a few more Wendigos for another pile of answer sheets, and put them up in Jeuno again for 20k. Having nothing better to do, I put up my search comment and invite flag, bought a stack of twelve Melon Pies, and waited for an invite... and waited... and waited. I waited longer than Black Mages usually have to, but it was worth it: a Thief named Fredderico sent me an invite to a Crawler's Nest party. I set out, and got there while they were fighting (and finishing) a Worker Crawler. The party went very well: our Ninja tank kept hate very well as long as I didn't overnuke, which I did several times. We had a set Skillchain, something that didn't seem to happen very often: the Dark Knight's Power Slash to Fredderico's Sneak Attack (bonus damage from behind) + Trick Attack (makes monster think someone else performed the attack if done from behind) + Viper Bite, making a Distortion skillchain, which the Dark Knight would Magic Burst (bonus magic damage from casting right after a Skillchain) Blizzard off of, while I did the same with Water II. Everyone levelled up at least once, myself to Level 40. (Which allows me to start the quest for my Artifact Weapon, the Casting Wand; It's useless in itself, but I need to get it to perform the other three Artifact quests later on, at Level 50.) Our Bard was awesome: He performed Etudes (single-target, single-stat-enhancing songs) in both myself and the Red Mage without having to be asked. He also kept us Balladed (Ballad gradually restores MP), and the melees Madrigal'd and Minuet'd (accuracy and attack, respectively.) with no qualms. He must have been the hardest-worked member of the group, but he didn't complain even once. Thanks, Bakerboy.
Eventually, though, our Red Mage had to leave, so Fredderico had me use my new Warp II spell to send him out to Whitegate to change jobs to Ranger, while our new Red Mage, Kampingkarl, arrived. We had to switch our Exp camp, also, because our current one just wasn't giving us enough Experience to be worthwhile. After checking and noticing that the Nest Beetle camp was open, we relocated there, after a fair bit of confusion and disorientation. Once we got there, our first fight went well - I noticed my MP was lower after that fight than it was after the previous ones, but Nest Beetles are tougher than Worker Crawlers, so I wasn't surprised. Our second fight, though, wasn't so great: The Dark Knight died halfway in, and there was no White Mage nearby to Raise him. He homepointed and left the party. Knowing I had to log off soon, I left also, thanking the party and Warping back to Whitegate.
I noted to my Linkshell that I could now perform the Casting Wand quest, called "The Three Magi", then used the Al Zahbi "Warp Taru" Shihu-Danhu to teleport to Jeuno. I checked the Auction House and saw that my second set of answer sheets had not yet sold (though Aisur's set had), then logged out for the night.
I got a good bit done. When I first logged in in Aht Urhgan Whitegate, I saw a Level 6 Troll Mercenaries Besieged advancing on the city. Good, I thought to myself, free Experience and Standing. You see, Besieged is an event where a marauding beastman army attacks Aht Urhgan to attempt to take control of the "Astral Candescence", an artifact of great power. Participants are rewarded with Imperial Standing and Experience Points proportional to the work they did. Anyhow, I changed area into Al Zahbi, where the battles take place...
...and found myself immediately set back in Whitegate. What the...? I thought, and attempted to enter Al Zahbi once more, to the same results. I then remembered something I had read about Al Zahbi having a set upper limit on players in area. I performed "/sea AlZahbi" (which shows the names and number of players in an area, in this case, Al Zahbi), which showed 710 players; 10 over the limit. Realizing that not many would leave, I decided to head out to Windurst to finish some business I had there.
I first went by the Auction House to pick up a pair of Bone Chips and a pinch of Bomb Ash that I needed to complete an important quest; not in itself, but sompleteing it and the next quest allow access to a quest that gives the Scroll of Warp II, an important spell for Black Mage. I bought the two Bone Chips, but after seeing how expensive the Bomb Ash was, I decided to go kill the monsters for it -- and the Bomb Arms for the next quest -- myself, in the Inner Horutoto Ruins.
The Bomb Ash, and, inadvertently, a spare three Bone Chips, came easily, but I couldn't find the Bomb Arms on the low-level Balloons I was fighting, so I decided to move in and up to Will-o'-the-Wisps to see if they had a higher droprate.
Fifteen minutes later, having gone all the way through the area and only having enountered one Will, I found myself in the Wendigo room. Why not kill a couple, I thought, they may drop those answer sheets. You see, Wendigos drop a stack of test answer sheets they stole from Windurst's School of Magic. The School pays handsomely for returned sheets, once per adventurer, with a Scroll of Aspir: another useful Black Mage spell, which drains the foe's magic power and gives it to the user. I had already collected my scroll, so I decided to sell my sheets on the Jeuno Auction House and reap the twenty thousand Gil ransom most players would pay for them. I was using the portal to leave the room, and then to Escape myself out, when I rn across Aisur, Vivimeister, and Bushtaru - two Linkshell friends and a person they were helping, respectively - opening the door into that room, to farm some themselves. I stuck around and helped two of the three get theirs, before leaving for the Grand Duchy of Jeuno to sell my own test answer sheets. I was amazed to see that they had sold within five minutes, and decided to head back there once I had finished with Shantotto. I used the Gil to buy my much-needed Scroll of Fire II, as well as a Fire Spirit Pact and Ice Spirit Pact for my Summoner job.
I bought the needed Bomb Arms and Revival Tree Root for the second quest, and then returned to WIndurst and completed both quests, as well as the Mission 5-1 I had "completed" the other day. That had been a fun fight - it had a fifteen-minute time limit, and we had finished in 14:42. Anyhow, I went back to Lady Shantotto and recieved the third and final quest in the series, "Curses, Foiled A-Golem!?", which required me to go out to Beaucedine Glacier and Fei'Yin, two very distant - and fairly high-level - areas. Sheemie, another Linkshell member, offered to help, and we met up in Aht Urhgan Whitegate to find a Teleport-Vahzl, a spell that takes the user's party to Xarcabard's Telepoint Crystal.
Our teleport-er was Akashea, a name I recognized form somewhere, but I couldn't remember quite where. She teleported us on a donation basis, but wouldn't take mine. In fact, she even offered to help us do the quest, which of course, we accepted. We completed the quest almost without incident... Only two things went wrong: Sheemie was killed by a Shadow Dragon he was fighting for its Dragon Scales drop, and we went to the wrong tower in Beaucedine Glacier, costing us around five minutes.
All's well that ends well, though. Akashea gave me a Teleport-Mea to Tahrongi Canyon near Windurst, and from there I rode a rental chocobo to the city itself. I gave Shantotto the information she had asked for, and she gave me my Scroll of Warp II. I then returned to the Horutoto Ruins, defeated a few more Wendigos for another pile of answer sheets, and put them up in Jeuno again for 20k. Having nothing better to do, I put up my search comment and invite flag, bought a stack of twelve Melon Pies, and waited for an invite... and waited... and waited. I waited longer than Black Mages usually have to, but it was worth it: a Thief named Fredderico sent me an invite to a Crawler's Nest party. I set out, and got there while they were fighting (and finishing) a Worker Crawler. The party went very well: our Ninja tank kept hate very well as long as I didn't overnuke, which I did several times. We had a set Skillchain, something that didn't seem to happen very often: the Dark Knight's Power Slash to Fredderico's Sneak Attack (bonus damage from behind) + Trick Attack (makes monster think someone else performed the attack if done from behind) + Viper Bite, making a Distortion skillchain, which the Dark Knight would Magic Burst (bonus magic damage from casting right after a Skillchain) Blizzard off of, while I did the same with Water II. Everyone levelled up at least once, myself to Level 40. (Which allows me to start the quest for my Artifact Weapon, the Casting Wand; It's useless in itself, but I need to get it to perform the other three Artifact quests later on, at Level 50.) Our Bard was awesome: He performed Etudes (single-target, single-stat-enhancing songs) in both myself and the Red Mage without having to be asked. He also kept us Balladed (Ballad gradually restores MP), and the melees Madrigal'd and Minuet'd (accuracy and attack, respectively.) with no qualms. He must have been the hardest-worked member of the group, but he didn't complain even once. Thanks, Bakerboy.
Eventually, though, our Red Mage had to leave, so Fredderico had me use my new Warp II spell to send him out to Whitegate to change jobs to Ranger, while our new Red Mage, Kampingkarl, arrived. We had to switch our Exp camp, also, because our current one just wasn't giving us enough Experience to be worthwhile. After checking and noticing that the Nest Beetle camp was open, we relocated there, after a fair bit of confusion and disorientation. Once we got there, our first fight went well - I noticed my MP was lower after that fight than it was after the previous ones, but Nest Beetles are tougher than Worker Crawlers, so I wasn't surprised. Our second fight, though, wasn't so great: The Dark Knight died halfway in, and there was no White Mage nearby to Raise him. He homepointed and left the party. Knowing I had to log off soon, I left also, thanking the party and Warping back to Whitegate.
I noted to my Linkshell that I could now perform the Casting Wand quest, called "The Three Magi", then used the Al Zahbi "Warp Taru" Shihu-Danhu to teleport to Jeuno. I checked the Auction House and saw that my second set of answer sheets had not yet sold (though Aisur's set had), then logged out for the night.
First post
Not much to say yet, I suppose, save an introduction for those of you who do not know me.
I'm Ironside of Windurst, thirty-ninth level Hume Black Mage, and I'm horrible at introducing myself, if you can't tell. Anyhow, with my staff and spells, there's... well, still a heck of a lot that can stop me. >_>;
I'm still trying to get the hang of this, so, as they say, "watch this space."
I'm Ironside of Windurst, thirty-ninth level Hume Black Mage, and I'm horrible at introducing myself, if you can't tell. Anyhow, with my staff and spells, there's... well, still a heck of a lot that can stop me. >_>;
I'm still trying to get the hang of this, so, as they say, "watch this space."
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