Leveling: Dark Knight Kiki Returns to the Jungles (28-32)

Since we overdid it Friday night, Grymalkyn didn't feel like playing on Saturday, so Kiki decided she would head to Kazham and see if a party would be interested in her DRK28/WAR14. After 2 or 3 hours of standing around with her seeking-party flag up, she got an invitation from a WHM27 in Yhoator, and happily accepted and headed out there. The party was WHM/BLM, WHM/BLM, NIN/WAR, NIN/WAR, DRG/WAR, and DRK/WAR. The leader, Mirrorlan, was a really good organizer. She put together a good combination of jobs, broke the melees up into two groups for skillchains, and off we went. It was a good fast party, and we all worked well together.

Disaster struck when someone dragged a Goblin Pathfinder right on top of us, leaving 2 dead. One of the NIN/WARs HP'd and left us, so he was replaced with a WAR/THF. Unfortunately, it was a sub-30 WAR, so THF was a useless sub for him, and when I noticed he was hitting for about 8 points of damage with his greataxe, I wasn't too surprised he was still using a level 8 greataxe. At least he had his chainmail body armor and wasn't still in leather!

The new WAR was pulling, and got aggro'd a couple times (and died twice). He didn't want to pull any more, and suggested me as puller, but since DRKs need to rest for MP, the leader sent our NIN main tank out as puller. This worked well, though a couple times the WAR still went out looking to pull, which added some confusion.

The other WHM left, and we replaced him with a THF/WAR, but the party didn't last much longer. We broke up conveniently at supper time with Kiki more than halfway to 30. A BLM was offering Warp 2s, so Kiki took one and headed back to Kazham for a break. She had barely been there 2 minutes when she got an invitation to a party being set up by a RDM29, but I said I had to go for about an hour. I set status to away and went anonymous, and made supper.

When I got back to the game, I didn't have my flag up 2 minutes when the same RDM invites me again. Poor group still wasn't fully formed, but I think it was worth the wait for them. We had a really great group, and headed to the Waterfall in the Hidden Valley, and just shredded the Makara and Sahagins. Set up was RDM/SMN, WHM/BLM, BLM/WHM, WAR/NIN, WAR/NIN, and DRK/WAR. I was one of the babies of the group, with some 30s and 31s. It's not fun being the baby as a DRK, I miss more than normal!

Had a really great fragmentation SC set up with the greataxe weilding WAR (Moods): Shadow of Death -> Sturmwind. I'd magic burst with Aero and the BLM would use Thunder. Really made short work of the fishes. The main tank, Yobun, is a Galka, with his PLD at 58. He's the type of player that makes you want to just hug him. None of the mages had juices, so he brought out his "mule", a WHM43 character, using his other pc/ps2 (he and his wife both play), to bring him pineapples and water crystals and made juice to give to the mages. The mule then stayed to cast haste on the WAR/NINs as well.

We did a lot of standing around and waiting when people had to leave (and the RDM had to go to Norg for awhile too), and some confusion when the WHM left and Yobun got a RNG friend to come replace him, but the RDM talked a WHM friend (Naynaeve) into leaving her party and joining ours, so the RNG didn't come. That configuration didn't last long, as the BLM and RDM had to leave, so Yobun again got his RNG friend Midget to join the 4 of us left, and we had a really great time as a party of 5, WAR/NIN, WAR/NIN, RNG/NIN, WHM/BLM, and DRK/WAR (sort of felt left out not having /NIN!). We consistently got chain 5s and one time *nearly* got a chain 6, but it was one of those stupid Sahagins that take soooo long to walk after the puller that we didn't quite make it. Of course we were mostly fighting Ts and VTs, but we sure made short work of them.

Soon after Kiki hit 32 and Yobun ran out of Shihei, we stopped for the night. Teleport out courtesy of "mule" Exzavier, and safely logged out at Holla. Nice people that were fun to party with, and really good players! That was so unexpected, and definitely worth staying up later than I should have. :-)