Goblins are Combustible

So the other day, after having been offline for so long, I decided to buy the "new" mini-expansion, A Crystalline Prophecy. Some rather interesting things occur, involving a crystal, a song, and a kid named Aldo. (Yes, the same name as the Tenshodo man in Jeuno.) After retrieving several crystal shards, called "seedspalls", from the various beastmen - one each from the Quadav, the Yagudo, and the Orcs - young Aldo sent me to fight some Goblins for another set of three seedspalls.

These goblins were not terribly far apart. There were three of them; one in Sauromugue Champaign, one in Rolanberry Fields, and one in Batallia Downs. The catch? They were in parts of those areas that could only be accessed by passing through other zones: Garlaige Citadel, Crawler's Nest, and Beaucedine Glacier, respectively.

The first one was the easiest to access; the Crystal War-era Garlaige Citadel has ways to bypass the Banishing Gates and could spit you out on the ledge where the goblin is, and from there you can use the Cavernous Maw to return to the present and fight the goblin. The fight was easy: two casts from my spells as BLM72 overkilled him, and he gave me my seedspall. Meanwhile, I spotted Roc (a Notorious Monster) roaming around on the ledge, and informed my linkshell of this: Chainspell, the leader, brought all six of his characters (massive overkill) and Knivesmillions came to help also. The thing went down in no time, but dropped only a Reraiser, a Vile Elixir, and a Crimson Blade, all of which are guaranteed drops anyway.

The second one wasn't too bad either. Very few monsters in that stretch of the Crawler's Nest would dare attack me - only the Mycophiles would dare, and I used Sneak to get past them. The second goblin went down just as easily as the first.

The third himself wasn't a real pain, but I was distracted, which forced me to repeat the walk through Beaucedine Glacier after I sailed right off of the cliff. The walk itself wasn't horrid, but just a pain to redo. I had an interesting, albeit short, conversation with that goblin when I got back up to him. It went something like this.

Ironside: Hey, did you know goblins are combustible?
Vegnix Greenthumb: Huh?















...so yeah. Did you know goblins are combustible?

It's ok. Neither did he.

Anyway, after that, I returned these seedspalls to young Aldo at Qufim Island, and was promptly attacked by thirty Seed Mandragoras, in waves of five.

Fortunately, these things attack very slowly, have low HP, low attack, and very low magic defense: a single first-tier Aeroga was enough to KO all of them in any given wave. The fight was no issue at all, especially since one can get in a whole cast of a relatively long spell in between their attacks.

So yes, that's what I've been up to.

Dum dee dum.

After yet another hiatus or two - caused by school this time, because I completely overloaded my courseload - I'm back in Vana'diel again. Here's a quick catchup on what's happened between now and... sheesh, last August.

-Various job levels. BLM71 (as of two days ago), WHM36, DRG18, to name a few.

-Got a Monster Signa as a drop from Hoo Mjuu the Torrent again yesterday, which is more money.

-Pluto's Staff, though given the circumstances I'd've been fine not getting this: Zumbilina sold it to me at a steep discount when Telcontar quit (it was his staff), so I had to pay 300k over time. Since apparently Zumbilina quit over the past couple months too... /sigh Just as I almost had the money to finish paying off.

-BoLSky (my old Sky shell) disbanded. Apparently the old guard got tired of Sky, so they disbanded the LS. I can't complain too much - I got A. Hands out of it before they went down, although had I been there more often, I'd've gotten an automatic A. Legs too. Not like A. Legs is that good for BLM, but hey...

-TheWindurstShell merged with TheSandoriaShell and TheBastokShell to make TheThreeNations, due to faltering membership in the other two (notably BastokShell). This is theoretically temporary, but for some reason I doubt that. Either way, all pearlsacks remain pearlsacks, so I'm still one.

On a less Unicorn server note:

-Kaeko, whose blog I used to shape a lot of my BLM strategies and habits, was permanently banned from the game over something about Salvage duping. It's unknown why some people were banned and not suspended - his strikes me as a case that should've been suspension. Most people used this glitch to get extra Salvage armor pieces, but Kaeko, who does this kind of thing only to test and understand why it happens, only did it with cells, which are worthless once Salvage ends. I'm told he made a new account and character though.

Hopefully I'll remember to write more, heh.

Flying High in the Sky

...So to speak, anyway.

Amazingly, I got quite a good bit of stuff done today...

I started off the day by finishing Windurst Mission 7-2 to achieve Rank 8. I'd done 7-1 and the hard part of 7-2 yesterday with some friends of mine - Sarick, Orbs, Chicora and a few others - but I'd had to log before I could trade the Cursed Key to the door. As such, I went and got that done, then reported to Leepe-Hoppe at the Rhinostery. He gave me sixty thousand gil and awarded me Rank 8.

From there, I dashed to Ru'Lude Gardens and then to the Crag of Holla, in order to do the weekly LS ENM30 run. Aralays, the one who runs it, got disconnected just before I arrived and never came back, so myself, Caligamy and Finalknight ascended to the top of Promyvion with only the three of us - Arkin had gone up previously and awaited us at the top.

When we arrived in the Spire, none of us were too sure as to whether to go through with the ENM or not. After all, we had only four people - BLM/WHM (me), BLU/NIN (Caligamy), BLU/DNC (Finalknight), and BST/NIN (Arkin). We eventually decided to go through with it, though. We succeeded, too - with no deaths and only half of our animae used up, to boot. We even got an Audacious Vision from it, redeemable to Venessa in Jeuno for a Divine Earring, worth 15,000 gil. Arkin got that, I just nabbed a Somber Cluster out of the treasure pool. Hunnybunny volunteered to synthesize the cluster into Water Animae for me, which she did, increasing their worth about fivefold - apparently she HQ'd one of the synths, because she sent me 40 animae from three synths. That's worth about 80k if I can sell them individually.

While I was putting those on the Auction House, I decided to go on and purchase a Black Cloak - I was only 2,000 experience points short of being able to use it at that point, anyway, which is nothing when you're regularly doing Campaign. I managed to get it for around 17,000 gil, which isn't bad at all. I decided to venture out to Al Zahbi at this point - a Besieged was starting and I figured I could use the skillups and the Imperial Standing for participating. I ended up capping Enfeebling and getting ten or so levels of Dark in, plus around 1086 XP and ISP, which isn't bad at all. From there, I proceeded to Aydeewa Subterrane to fight some Qiqirn to get level 68, and donned my new Black Cloak. I'm loving that Refresh effect, heh.

After I finished burning off my Empress Band charge, I got a /tell from Shadowdog offering to help me finish the last Zilart mission between me and Sky. I had the time - after all, tomorrow's a holiday, so there's no school - so I decided to go along. Shadowdog and Hunnybunny helped me fight Ancient Vessel - well, wait. More like Shadowdog and Hunnybunny fought Ancient Vessel with me present, I was more or less useless for the fight. Stupid Pot ate every nuke I could throw at it without taking damage, includig my new Stone IV, which I'm also loving. It's only 10 MP more than Thunder III, for about 80 more damage, which is really nice. Anyway, we finished there and proceeded to the Hall of the Gods, where we went up to the newest area I can access.

=== Area: Ru'Aun Gardens ===

Shadowdog gave me a little bit of a tour. Apparently almost everything there that doesn't have wings (Flamingos) aggros magic casting, which makes life a little bit difficult. However, only the Groundskeepers aggro anything else, and not all of them do - a Groundskeeper just walking around only aggros magic, while one sitting in an alcove will aggro by sight as well. And if you do get aggro, there's almost always a zone nearby, either to the Shrine of Ru'Avitau or to Ve'Lugannon Palace. Also, blue portals (activated by Pincerstones) take you between the main islands, while yellow ones take you to the islands where the Shijin "gods" are spawned. Those'll be fun to fight, heh.

Either way, that's what I accomplished today, with no small amount of help from friends and linkshell-mates. I hope to accomplish even more in the future - we'll see, heh.

Since I last posted...

Well, for some reason, this journal of mine seems to keep slipping through the cracks in my schedule. Wish I had some idea of how, but I really don't... so this post will be mostly detailing what I've accomplished since December, when I last posted.

Eight months doesn't seem so long when you're having fun, though...

Anyway, here goes.

--Took an unintentional two-month hiatus from Vana'diel over the summer - put new hardwood floors in my house, which meant unplugging the 360 and not having anywhere to plug it back in until we were done. We still don't have everything back where it should be, though...

--Black Mage level 67, with all the available spells therein. I'm making good progress now through Campaign and soloing Qiqirn Enterprisers. One more level and I get my Black Cloak and Cobra Unit Crackows. Speaking of which...

--Steelknight Emblem. I lost two ranks on my hiatus, because I was enough of an idiot to turn in the first one when I knew I wouldn't be able to make up for it. That set me back a good bit, to the third Star rank. I've managed to make up for it, though, since I'm now on the third Emblem. Two more ranks (minimum eight days) and I'll have the required Wings to get my Cobra Unit Crackows. I'd get the Trews, too, but they only last four levels (until 72, when Errant Slops/Jet Seraweels/Mahatma Slops all beat them) plus I only have enough Allied Notes for one at current.

--Blizzaga III. The most expensive scroll in the Black Mage arsenal, though I cannot yet use it. Either way, it's mine now, at the cost of one hundred forty thousand gil. Thanks to Kimiko's and Zoioshi's generous gifts, I was able to achieve that. Can't wait 'til I can use it.

--Aquilo's Staff. Fortunately, these are cheap now, but even so I didn't have the money. I was going to save this one until after I'd bought Blizzaga III, but Shadowdog thought otherwise. I was a little intimidated when I saw *that* appear in my delivery box, to be quite honest. When you're a poor mage like I am, you almost feel bad accepting a gift like this - a thousand thank yous, SD.

That's all I can think of, at any rate. I'm sure I've done more than that, just nothing that's both tangible and major...

Hopefully I remember to post more soon, yeah?

Merry Christmas, if a little late

So yes, Christmas has come and gone. I'm a little disappointed in myself - I ran out of gil about halfway down my presents list this year, so I still have yet to send some people their gifts. >_<

Anyhow. As I mentioned last entry, Wings of the Goddess is a load of fun. I've got my Bronze Star medal now, and as soon as I do a few more campaign battles, I can get my Sterling Star. Woot.

I'm also roughly 11.5k into Level 61, so only about 8.5k more until I'm BLM62.

Still working on that. But hey, at least I have a Dynamis shell already for when I hit 65 - TheWindurstShell, my social shell, has a Dynamis subshell also. Once I hit 65, I can join in; that will be fun, methinks.

Full AF ftw!

Yes - I finally hit BLM60! BLM AF looks awesome, especially the hat. :D

I'm really low on gil, though - down to 2k, but I'm pretty sure I can make it up.

The new expansion is loads of fun, though - Wings of the Goddess is full of all sorts of Crystal War goodness. :D

Sorry for the short update, but oh well.

Woot.

Seems hitting 50 and finishing LB1 has sped up my XP greatly - in the past month, I've gained two levels on my WHM and five on my BLM, so I'm now BLM55/WHM27. I'm currently stopping my XP until I can finish my Sleepga II quest, which oculd be a while - there's a ton of prerequisite quests for it and I haven't finished any of them. I do have my AF hands, though, since to a bunch of help - Shadowdog and Hunnybunny on farming the key, Galadrial and co. on the third Banishing Gate, and Bigkuwaiti on the Dark Spark fight. (That Bomb didn't have a chance. XD)

I've gotten another Monster Signa in the past month, also - while they sell for far less than they used to nowadays, it's still a good 100k, if I can get it to sell on AH.

Anyway, if anyone is reading this and is on Unicorn server, and happens to have a Tarut: The Fool or Tarut: The Hermit, please let me know. Thanks~!

~~Ironside