Leveling: Kiki's RDM58 heads to Kuftal Tunnel

Last Friday night, Kiki took her RDM out to try to get some EXP. She was joining Erock's WHM57 and Rovont's PLD57, and they picked up a THF58, DRK56, and a BLM56. We thought we'd head to Cape Terrigan, but there were too many parties there, and the Valley of Sorrows had two parties as well. So we headed to Kuftal Tunnel to fight raptors. Erock had been there with his WAR, and had a good party there.

We made our way to the camp without incident, noted that the camp was small and subject to aggro from both sides, so we had to be careful. The THF started pulling and we started fighting. For some reason, the fights seemed to take longer than they should have for the exp we were getting (maybe the two 56s were too low, I don't know), and we certainly weren't chaining.

At one point, Kiki used convert and the THF pulled right away. Since I was worried about pulling too much hate curing myself, I tried to go to the other end of the camp to avoid any AOEs until I could get my HP back up. Another raptor spawned and noticed me. I tried sleeping it, but the DRK decided to fight it. Rovont ended up dying, and I escaped 4 of us out (the BLM was too far away, but he lived through it). We made our way back to Rovont, and Erock raised him. While we were waiting for Rovont's weakness to wear, the BLM got aggro'd by a raptor, and Erock and Rovont both got killed. I think. We escaped again, and on the way back, the DRK got aggro'd and maybe killed, the BLM got killed, and the THF died zoning out to West Altepa with 14 HP and a huge train in tow. I raised Erock and he raised Rovont, and Erock got aggro'd again while healing. The BLM died again at the zone, playing with a Manticore.

Anyway, we finally gave up on the party. I think Kiki got 1K, maybe 1.5K exp, and was the only one to not die. Looking back on it, it's a bit comical, but at the time, it was just plain discouraging. Probably more so for the people who kept dying. It was almost as bad as some of the parties my DRK had in the Dunes over a year ago.