Quests: Genkai 1 - Complete! (In Defiant Challenge)

We set out on Saturday morning, not really knowing where to go, or what we could do with just the four of us, and ended up, 13 hours and a total of 5 deaths later, with our new title of "Horizon Breaker", and the ability to level past 50. Many many thanks to all the people who helped us throughout the day! We really wanted to do this "the hard way", but even with all the help we ended up having, and the people we helped as well, it still feels like we really did earn it, since the items certainly weren't handed to us on a silver platter.

We headed to Crawler's Nest first, since the exorays seemed to be manageable from a level standpoint for a PLD/WAR, THF/NIN, RNG/WAR, SMN/WHM, all at 50. We headed to what I think of as the Race Track Room. There was a group of 42s fighting Soldier Crawlers, which worked out quite well, since the kept the area free from the crawlers which would aggro us (DC), and we were able to help them with a link or two. The exorays weren't too bad to fight, but their Silence Gas attacks were devastating at times. I ended up dying when I had been hit lightly once or twice, and we didn't heal me, then I got smacked for 58, Silence Gassed for 560, and smacked again for another 58, all too fast for us to do anything.  

We got lots of mushrooms, lots of dark crystals, and decent exp (80 a pop), but it took about 2 hours to get our first exoray mold. We didn't want to ask anyone for help, but after 3 hours with only one mold, when Anastasia asked if we'd like some help, I said "Yes, please!". My new linkshell is filled with nice people, they're definitely a group of people I want to be associated with and help further their reputation! So Ana and Demin joined us as BLM60 and NIN54, and things started going quite a bit faster, though it took us a fight or two to get organized. Our group also grew. Erock came to help with his RMD60, a THF50 asked to join for his mold, Bootylicious, a THF60 wanted to come to help and get skillups for her sword, a SAM50 (Bloodghost, who Grym and Kiki helped to Mission 3-3 awhile back) needed his mold, and Wendell was able to get his mold as well. There was also a WHM, Concreteman, waiting for a coffer pop who helped out as well.

I believe it was some time after 3 that we finally had got 7 molds for the 7 of us who needed them, so a bit over 5 hours. We were a bit disappointed that it took so very long when we had three people with TH2! Another really nice thing was that Erock was killing Exorays solo in another area, and he kept finding treasure chests, so we made sure he'd get the key drops, and we all ended up with several thousand gil!

Kiki died again in a fight that also killed Locmari, and another one killed Demin (I really hated having someone who was just helping out because he's nice getting killed on my behalf!), so he ended up going back to Jeuno and coming back as his RNG73, which also nearly got killed because he was lagging. That would have been too much to bear.

Ana, Demin, and Wendell had to leave, and Concreteman had to stay in Crawler's Nest for his coffer, but Erock and Bootylicious offered to take us all to Eldieme Necropolis to get our Ancient Papyrus, so Ana D2'd us all, and we headed off to San d'Oria. I don't remember what time it was, but it did take us a little bit of time to get to EN, as we had to resupply, walk through Ranguemont Pass and Beaucedine Glacier to get to the "good" entrance to EN. Along the way we picked up another SAM50, but lost Bloodghost, who had to log out.

We headed down the stairs, killed one of the dogs that was in the way, Bootylicious pulled a Lich, and *boom* there was an Ancient Papyrus! Us level 50s were joyful, thinking maybe it wasn't going to take so long after all, but Booty and Erock assured us that we were in for a long evening of Lich killing. The SAM50 won the lot, but said he'd stay, which was good of him. There was another party fighting Lichs, so we didn't get as many as we would have liked until after they left, and we moved to the camp they had been, which has easier access to 6 Lich spawns. We had to fight a lot of Mummys and Kas as well, and Manon got killed by a Dimensional Death attack from a Ka. After a few hours, the THF50 announced that he would leave after the next drop, whether or not he won the lot. So a Lich or two later, we got another drop, and Kiki won that lot. The THF and SAM left, leaving just the 6 of us, Booty, Erock, Manon, Sawdust, Grym, and Kiki.

Erock had changed to RDM/WAR before we headed to EN, and was doing almost all of the tanking, though the thieves were trying to SATA back and forth between me and him. That didn't work too well until it was just the 6 of us. We were a much more efficient party at that point, and were able to kill them a lot faster. We also got two more Papyrus to drop fairly quickly, took a break around 9 to eat some supper, and several fights later, got the final papyrus we needed. So that part probably took 5 hours to get 5 Ancient Papyrii.

Erock then offered to take the 4 of us to Garlaige Citadel to get the last item, so we headed through Jeuno, Erock switched to RDM/BLM, and we headed to GC. The hardest part was actually getting to the Explosure spawn area. Loc and Erock tried to keep us sneaky and invisible, with help from a couple silent oils, prism powders, and Tonko, but we still managed to get some aggro from some bats. So we ended up fighting two sets of bats, but they were only tough, and weren't bad for the 5 of us. We got down to the Explosure area, Manon pulled one, we killed it without incident, and got one Bomb Coal. Manon pulled a second, and it dropped three! Woohoo! We were done! A quick Escape from Erock, and we all headed back to Jeuno to /slap Maat and give him the items we'd spent 13 hours acquiring.

We decided that Erock should henceforth be known as U-Rock. It was so nice having people spend so much of their time helping all of us! Bootylicious, who was just getting skillups out of it, didn't even know any of us at all, and stuck with us until we all got our Papyrus (and even was the first to say "do you guys want to go get your paper now?" when we finished the Exoray Molds).