And stuff.

I seem to be posting on a fairly consistent schedule now!

...Of course, that schedule is about once a year. Not much of an accomplishment, but I'll take my small victories where I can get them. Anyway, on to updates.

For those who have been either living under a rock or not playing, Abyssea and the cap increases (now level 90) have revolutionized the game. Abyssea provides the vast majority of high-level gear, in addition to being pretty much the best way to gain levels from 30 all the way to 90. Lots of people have a ton of high-level jobs now. I don't level nearly as much as they do, but I still have four 90s; BLM, RDM, SMN, and BLU. BLM is still my main, SMN's fun to mess around on once in a while, and RDM's kinda... there.

BLU is awesome though. My BLU still needs a lot of work, don't get me wrong (and I do mean a lot of work) but I thoroughly enjoy it, even after grinding to cap my Sword and Blue Magic skills (downside of levelling from 30 in Abyssea: your combat skills are terrible due to being unable to really use them) and learning all 135 spells in the Blue Mage arsenal. Working on an Almace (Empyrean sword; high damage, DEX boost, and a powerful DEX-modified weaponskill attached to it. Probably the best sword in the game right now.) as well as various other pieces of important gear.

In other news, Unicorn server was merged into Fenrir a few months back, with interesting results. Apparently when you take two relatively quiet servers and smash them together, the main hub of the game becomes a pit of stupidity. Loud stupidity. On the upside, getting pickup groups for pretty much anything is easy now; on the downside, pickup groups tend to suck.

Let's see if I update again within the next year, hmmm?

Returns, cap increases, missions, etc.

So as a bunch of my old friends on Unicorn evidently noticed, I've been MIA for a few months. Sorry about that!

I got back ingame a little more than a month ago, just a day or two before the much-anticipated June 21st update. For those who are either a) unfamiliar with FFXI (unlikely, if you're reading this blog) or b) living under a rock, this is the update that increased the level cap from 75, where it had been for most of the life of the game, to 80. Every job gained something out of this, and BLM's no exception. My BLM (which was 75 before I disappeared) is currently 77, waiting on me to level my support jobs (WHM38, RDM27). Black Mage gained the following things out of the cap increase, disregarding support job gains:

Job ability: Mana Wall (level 76): Damage is taken with MP instead of HP.
Spell: Stone V (level 77)
Spell: Water V (level 80)

Of these, Mana Wall is the only one I currently have. (Stone V and Water V scrolls are rather expensive, so I'm waiting to find them in Abyssea if possible; more on Abyssea later) I have to say, I'm loving it. I've had it for a week now and it's saved me almost once per day since then. All HP damage is converted to MP damage at a 50% rate, so a hit that would normally do 100 HP damage instead takes off 50 MP. In addition, since there is no HP damage, this prevents spell interruption from damage, allowing a quick Warp out of danger, an additional nuke, more Stoneskin, whatever.

Mages also gained a lot from their support jobs in the equation here. Subbing White Mage, one can now use Haste, Stona, Teleport-Altep, Teleport-Yhoat, and various other smaller spells. Red Mage, though... Red Mage support job gained Convert. This allows the user to swap their HP and MP once every ten minutes, which is a godsend for pretty much any mage; this more or less doubles our MP-longevity in most situations. There's even less excuse now for a Black Mage to not sub Red Mage, which is why I really, really need to work on levelling my RDM. (For other mage jobs, a Black Mage subjob now provides Warp II, which is a very nice spell to use after a party or event.)

Now, onto a less job-specific note: Abyssea. Abyssea is a new set of battle areas introduced with the most recent update and, more specifically, the mini-expansion "Visions of Abyssea". I was honestly not expecting much out of this, but I was hugely surprised.

For background info: Abyssea is an alternate dimension (how many of those do we have now? Dynamis, Abyssea, maybe the past depending how you look at it...) where huge, concerted monster attacks overran the Three Nations at some point in the recent past, leaving the survivors to flee to nearby areas and set up encampments for their own continued survival. The currently available areas are altered-dimension copies of Tahrongi Canyon, Konschtat Highlands, and La Theine Plateau. These areas have high-level monsters all over them. These include familiar families (Mandragoras, Coeurls, etc.) as well as unexpected sights (some of the NMs are avatars, while others are Empty, and some of the normal monsters are Luminians) and new faces altogether (the Limules and Clionids).

Abyssean monsters function slightly differently than Vana'dielian monsters. For one, they generally don't aggro to begin with. When killed, they drop Sturdy Pyxides (think Treasure Caskets, with more than one minigame, and more than just items as prizes) at a frequent rate. Their XP starts off ok, but as a group kills monsters of the same family, they will gain more and more XP per kill. With enough time into it, an alliance of 18 players can easily exceed 500 XP per kill, with more than one kill per minute, making for ridiculously fast XP after a while.

However, one can only remain in Abyssea for so long; to enter, you must turn in "Traverser stones" (obtainable from an NPC in Jeuno every twenty hours, and he holds them like Assault tags) to a Conflux Surveyor inside the Abyssea zone. Each stone is worth half an hour, and most players can hold three at a time. It's possible, however, to expand this to four. Purchased time will carry over into a future visit if you leave before it expires, but you can only purchase up to 120 minutes tops, counting the carried time. On the upside though, Sturdy Pyxides can also give ten-minute time extensions, so a fast XP group can actually finish with more time than they had when they started. Sturdy Pyxides also can give XP, cruor, (Abyssean currency, used to buy temporary items, maps, and very nice level 78 gear) augmented gear, and "lights", which temporarily enhance various things depending on the color and quality of light. Lights can also be gained from defeating enemies.

In summary: levels 75-80 are very, very easy to gain, because Abyssea XP is extremely fast, very easy, and notably, generally accessible to all jobs, since even Black Mages, party pariahs since ToAU, can provide a unique role in XP groups (XP, cruor, and time chests drop more frequently from monsters defeated by magic).

Also, the update removed the level caps from Chains of Promathia areas and boss fights. Promyvion, which used to require a good group of six level 30 players? Soloable by a single level 75-80 player, easily. A lot of people (self included) have taken advantage of this to get rather far into the CoP storyline. With the help of Shadowdog, Hunnybunny, Chella, Pumkin, and some others, I'm on the next to last mission of the CoP line.

Back to what I've been up to: BLM77, SMN67, WHM38, RDM27, BLU22. I'm planning to level BLU after I'm finished with BLM. Also, I got Divine Might (stupidly hard Zilart quest/mission hybrid) done with a crappy pickup group. I think we got lucky, there's no way we should've won.

Here's hoping I post more often.

Moving Right Along

I've been getting stuff done this past month; considering it's the summer, which is the time of the year in which I'm most able to do so, this isn't surprising.

- BLM73, *almost* 74. Takes long enough. Pudding groups with Lordblackcat and Miathyi are great XP when I can stay longer than half an hour, which is less often than I expected; something *always* seems to come up RL which forces me to leave. I can get 74 now off a couple hours of Campaign or Qiqirn Poulterer soloing though.

- SMN60. Massive improvement. I finished getting SMN to 30 when we started the new mission shell, so I could use it for Promyvion. After our successful run there, LBC asked if I could go SMN to the Phomiuna Aqueducts/Riverne Site #A01 run (which still hasn't occured, since there's always someone - sometimes me, sometimes Moriar - who can't make it) so Zoioshi helped me level it to 40. Just kept going from there. Also got Fenrir after a load of major headaches with it. Just need Diabolos and three spirits now, and I'm done with "spells" for the job.

- Regained my Brass Wings of Service. This occured last night - my absences from Vana'diel were punctuated by me refreshing my campaign medal, as I may have mentioned earlier (if not, oh well) which was foolish, since that meant I lost two medals instead of one and had to work my way back up. Well I'm finally done regaining what I lost before, now it's time to move on to new territory. I'll probably get BLM74 from Campaign in the process of getting my next medal, even. No complaints there.

- Started the new miniexpansion, "A Moogle Kupo d'Etat." It's... much less serious than "A Crystalline Prophecy" (which I have yet to finish, though I'm on the final fight) and is apparently a decent bit easier to complete, though I'm not very far in it yet.

- Got a bunch of Dynamis wins. Every non-CoP zone except Xarcabard. Also got a freelot Argute Gown (Scholar body) from Dynamis - Beaucedine (my Scholar being level 7, this isn't very useful considering it's a level 74 piece) and half-cost Summoner's Bracers (Summoner hands) from last night's Dynamis - Bastok. The hands are very, very nice, and I can't wait until my Summoner can use them. Too bad no Sorcerer's Tonban (Black Mage pants) dropped on that run too, I'd've probably gotten it. And those aren't shabby either.

Enjoying Myself

I've been enjoying myself quite a lot lately. Progress? Not much, but I've been doing other stuff and keeping plenty busy.

-Completed mission 2-3 of the Chains of Promathia questline, "Distant Beliefs." Lordblackcat and I tried to coordinate a run. I asked the linkshell if we could get enough people to go to form a party, and we ended up with around eleven people total. We completed the fight with no trouble, got a Bronze Key on the first Fomor we killed, and then got all the way through the rest of the mission. Cloudus (now known as Irukiwaruki after his original character got hacked) AFK'd afterwards while we were farming subligaria for some others, and got pulled back to Minotaur with the rest of us when Hunnybunny arrived. We rekilled Minotaur, but when it respawned it massacred the poor taru. Anyway, I AFKed later on in a bad spot just outside of the spawnzone of Tres Duendes and got killed by a Fomor Monk. Cheiipbin gave me a Raise and I Escape'd myself and Sealorik back to Misareaux Coast.

-Got a Dynamis linkshell. I went to my first run with Miseryscompany on Thursday, into Dynamis - Windurst. I didn't get any relic drops, as expected, but I did get the win item, getting me that much closer to the Northlands Dynamis zones, where the best relic armor items drop. They're a pretty good group, in my opinion.

-Lordblackcat and I have been helping Miathyi through various missions. The three of us even founded a mission linkshell, since we're so close to each other in several mission lines. It's called EveryonesRancor, after the attack that horribly killed Lordblackcat when we ran ZM4 (he has a very high Tonberry hate level and the attack does very high damage proportional to Tonberry hate, so it went straight through his full-strength Stoneskin and dealt around 4600 damage even through it, putting it around 5000 damage total. That could drop a Galka Monk with HP gear twice over. Ouch.

Pretty good overall. :D

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

So!

Now that I've done a pretty crappy job posting those pics, here's an actual post.

Got a short party yesterday that took me to BLM50. The party was great - we had a Galka BLM and a Galka BRD, both of whom excelled at their jobs. Unfortunately, I had to log before an hour had passed. Too bad, though - it really was an awesome PT.

When I got back on, I was asked by Heiroprime to help him camp Deadly Dodo for an item for Brown Belt. Chella and Stix came to help also, so it went rather well - I got a Lightning Cluster and two Giant Bird Feathers out of it, so I can finish that annoying quest in Windurst, and Heiroprime got his dodo skin.

It's a ton of fun, levelling and all. I'd love to do it more often, if I could...

Pics and stuff

Here's my pics from Beherit's going away party (he came back, of course)


And here's the ones from Promyvion:


Real post coming in a sec.

Whoa.

Well, I haven't posted in five months or so, sorry about that.

I've gotten a lot of stuff done these past few days - gotten from BLM47 to 49, gotten some items and gil, made friends... all that good stuff. One more level and I can start "LB1" so I can surpass Level 50. What fun~!

Anyway, I finally got around to emailing those screenies to myself, so once I remember my Photobucket info, I'll be posting them. Keep in touch!

Happy Birthday to me~

Well, today was a pretty good birthday, I must say. Aside from RL stuff (which I won't go into here), I got a level of DRG, a cabinet, Moghancement: Experience (finally!) and two levels of Cooking, bringing me to 27. Meat Broth's cap is 28, but unlike other recipes, I intend on riding this one all the way to 28.0, "even if I have to buy new stacks of ingredients at 27.9", as I told Shadowdog. The profit is just too good to pass up while I have it.

Sorry for the short entry, but I've got too much to do to write more~!

--Ironside

Gah...

Well, in the past month, I've gotten up to BLM44 (about 1,000 Experience Points away from 45, to boot), and sold said Signa to Mercilesstemper... the latter of which I wish I had not done. After checking his AH history on the wonderful FFXIAH site listed in my Links section to your right, I saw that he had sold one himself recently, for 290k. Know what that means?

That means I got used for a quick 90k. >_<; A 90k that I could use much better than he could, I'm sure.

Anyhow, Aralays is out of town for a few weeks, so we are unable to do the normal ENM runs. There is to be a static for them when he returns, though, due to us getting slaughtered repeatedly by pick-me-up people being stupid, so hopefully that works out well.

In the meantime, with Shadowdog's help, I've gotten my Cooking skill up to Level 25 and made a fair bit of Gil in the process. Crafting seems to appeal to me far more than I expected it too, if only for the easy Gil. I plan on pursuing this further, believe me, but I don't know what I want to take to 100 yet.

We'll see, won't we?

Woot~!

Well, today was awesome. I didn't do overmuch - caught a couple stacks of Moat Carp while fishing, raising my skill to 7. Two main things highlighted my day:

First off, I became a Pearlsack in my Linkshell. For those who don't know what this means, I am now a "moderator" of sorts in the 'Shell, who is granted some powers over normal members.

Let's hope I don't abuse these, eh?

Secondly, and requiring less explanation, I got another Monster Signa as drop from Hoo Mjuu the Torrent - the first one since my not-so-recent post detailing my previous experience getting one. There was only one opposing camper this time, a level 34 Warrior who was busy fighting any nearby Yagudo - if he had been focused on camping, there's almost no way I would have won. This one is semi-promised to Mercilesstemper, but if I can't make contact with him within a couple of days, I'll probably just do my normal deal to the Linkshell. :D

Blue Mage

Well, yesterday I decided to finish my Blue Mage flag after having answered Waoud semi-honestly and getting the quest by pure chance. After waiting for an hour and a half in Valkurm for my Sunsand to appear (and PLing a PT nearby), I finished it with only one death (Raise I'd by Taklum) from aggro, right near the target in Aydeewa Subterrane. I then went to level and gain spells. Over the past two days and now being a BLU5, my records have been:

1/1 on Pollen (Bumblebee)
1/1 on Foot Kick (Savanna Rarab)
1/2 on Wild Oats (Tiny Mandragora)
1/1 on Metallic Body (River Crab)
0/2 on Feather Storm (Yagudo Initiate/Scribe, but I think my Blue Magic skill might have been too low at the time to learn the spell)
1/1 on Sandspin

Overall, I think BLU is growing on me. We'll see, won't we?

Also, it seems Libri and Gargoylebones, two good friends from the Linkshell, are leaving the game. We'll miss you both! :(

Eh...

Sorry I haven't posted in... dang, a bit more than two months. I just have bad memory. (You'll notice I also haven't posted those pictures yet. >_>;)

Since I stopped posting, several things have happened. I've gained levels in various jobs, most notably two levels in Black Mage, placing me at level forty-two. Also, Beherit has returned, which made the LS pretty happy. (He's decided not to play White Mage anymore except to help other people out - he gave away all of his gear, save his Artifact Armor and the aforementioned Morion Tathlum.) I got some nice stuff for the Starlight Celebration, including three Elemental Staves, 100,000 Gil, a fishtank and four Warp Cudgels.

Today was kind of normal. I went to Windurst to talk to my Moogle, since I had placed a Mahogany Bed Shadowdog had lent me in my Mog House yesterday, in order to get a quest to expand my Mog Safe to 70 spaces. The thing decided not to give it to me, which means I have to wait another week to get it. I then went and solo'd Summoner up to level twelve and puppetmaster up to... two. (It turns out that when I said I had achieved level two before, I had really gotten about one hundred experience points away before getting mauled by a bunny rabbit.) So I then got on Black Mage and camped the Pilgrim's Wand Notorious Monster, Nunyenunc. (The Pilgrim's Wand increases the amount of magic regained while healing by two points per tick. Not as good as a Dark Staff, but I can't use that one for another nine levels.) Someone else was camping it also, but I had to log off while camping. I said my goodbye. At around five seconds left until full logout, I got a /tell from the other camper, saying:

Careless>> Nunyenunc lol

The stupid bird had spawned just as I was logging out. Dumbfounded, I logged out anyway - I had stuff to do IRL.

Might have more stuff about today to post later, but I doubt I'll be getting back online.

Great Joy and Great Sadness

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.