General: Odds and Ends

I'm so forgetful these days. I keep forgetting to take screenshots to help illustrate my blog. When I do remember to take them, I forget to go to PlayOnline and mail them to myself. And when I do remember to send them, I forget to upload them to photobucket. /sigh

Kiki's been trying to get her staff leveled for Spirit Taker, which would be very useful when farming, and it would be nice to have it fully leveled and even get Retribution in the distant future. So she's been running off here and there to help out with killing things for skillups. In the past week or so, she's managed to get it to 198 in places as diverse as Crawlers Nest (coffer keys), Garlaige Citadel (coffer keys), the Labyrinth of Onzozo (camping Ose for Yobun's Assault Jerkin), Qu'lon Dome (DRK testimony, hoping for Water IV), and Kuftal Tunnel (just for skillups with Itera and Elboron). Elboron's also trying to get his sword leveled for his Maat fight, so I'm sure we'll be at it a lot over the next few weeks.

Kiki wasn't busy the other evening, and responded to a shout in Windurst from someone looking for a tank to help with the dragon fight for his Mission 2-3. I think I did it partly because the guy's name cracks me up whenever I see him: Smokeymcpot. We had a MNK, DRG, PLD, and WHM, but I think the fight was over before the WHM got in through the cutscene. It's probably the first time I've done a dragon fight without a sleeper, but it didn't make much difference. The MNK pummelled the eye while the DRG and the PLD started in on the dragon. The MNK's two-hour was still active when the eye was dead, so he pulled hate and got cursed, but no harm done.

Several weeks ago, I did another run of the KS30 Operation Desert Swarm, with sort of the same group of Black Mages as before. This time I got a Heart Snatcher, Raxa, and another O. Ingot. With the help of inflation, I cleared 1.4 million this time, so still no Byrnie for Kiki. I technically could buy one, but without a windfall from a KS30 run, it's nearly impossible for me to justify blowing so much gil on a single item that's a "nice to have" rather than a "must have". I suppose there are different levels of "nice to have", but this apparently is below the "gotta have it" threshold for me, at least for the time being.

We haven't been doing much fishing lately, but when we do, it's on the ferry trying for tuna for Qiara to use for sushi (she's skilling up on tuna sushi), and getting bluetail and noble ladies for skill ups. We both turned in a tuna for this month's fishing contest. It would be cool to win something, but we're not expecting anything.

One evening last week, Grym and Kiki headed to Castle Zvahl Bailey with Elboron to help him get another item he needs for his Opo-opo Crown quest. He needed Sands of Silence, which drops off a couple of level 57-59 Yagudos at the bottom of the drop offs. We didn't have any troubles with them, though the BLM types liked to cast their ancient magic spells. Fortunately we were able to avoid getting hit (by running away or interrupting it), and it wasn't too long before we got the drop for Elboron. The weirdest thing was how much of CZB we can run around in now without getting any aggro.

Friday night, we were hoping to do a Promyvion run for some of the linkshell members who still haven't completed them, but recollection farming was put off until before the run. Since it took nearly 4 hours to get all of the recollections we needed, we decided we'd actually tackle the Promyvion next Friday instead. We ended up going to the second level in Mea while farming, and had a bit too much excitement with links and aggro. At one point, Kiki dropped down to 10 HP and was out of mana, so she was very happy she had a couple of hi-potions with her. For our farming party, we had Ryken war/mnk, Splinte war/nin, kiki pld/war, Richelle whm/blm, Corbun blm/whm, Itera mnk/war and Elbryan blm/whm.

Between skilling up, getting the sands of silence for Elbo, and farming for recollections in the Promyvions, Kiki ended up getting about 5,500 exp over the past week, so she leveled to 67 and managed to get safely into it as well.