Leveling: Chapeau?! Paladins don't wear Chapeaux!

Kiki decided to get her RDM up to level 60 so she could officially be done with leveling it, and finally be able to wear her fancy Warlock's Chapeau that so many people worked so hard to help her obtain.

As I was getting prepared to look for a party, while I was composing Kiki's search message, before I actually put her flag up, I got an invite from a party leader in the Valley of Sorrows. Kiki was in Windurst (where she keeps her homepoint), so I asked Grymalkyn for a Teleport-Altep and told the leader I was on my way. He said that was fine, then changed his mind and said we'd meet in Jeuno (the party was reforming and decided to move camp). Since it would take me longer to get to Jeuno, they picked me up at the Altepa crystal and we headed to Mea. If they had told me their plans, I could have met them there instead!

The party ranged from 58 to 61, and we had a NIN, WAR/NIN, MNK, RNG, SMN, and RDM. We headed to the Labyrinth of Onzozo, near the Ose spawn area, and fought Torama and Goblins for just over 3 hours. It was an excellent group, and we did very well. Kiki ended up with about 18.5K exp using her Empress Band. The MNK, RNG, and WAR had to leave (it was New Years Eve and they had Real Life parties to attend, silly people). We got 2 MNKs and a BLM to replace them, but it just wasn't the same any more. After just over an hour we disbanded (both the SMN and I were getting tired, and the SMN had hit 60, which had been her goal). We had several deaths, including Kiki (the NIN had DC'd mid-battle - he was very sad to see me dead when he reconnected), and Kiki ended up getting less than 3k exp for the last part of the party. She went to bed about 10K exp away from her goal of level 60.

The following day, I had two adequate parties. The first headed to Gustav Tunnel with a DRK, PLD, WHM, BLM, RNG, and RDM. Having 5 people to refresh made it feel like that was all I was doing. We fought for about 2 hours before the DRK and PLD had to leave, and Kiki got about 7K exp (the WHM had taken a lunch break in the middle there, so it wasn't as bad as it sounds, exp-wise).

The second party was a PLD, DRG, MNK, BLM, SMN, and RDM, and we headed first to Cape Terrigan and speed-killed pugils and raptors, but when someone hit 62, we moved over to the Valley of Sorrows and fought the raptors and giant birds there. We only fought for about 90 minutes, but it was a nice group of people, and Kiki got the level she was looking for. She's only about 1K into the level, so I really should get a bit more EXP for her at some point, since she'll delevel if she dies.