Quests: Trial By Wind (Garuda Prime)

After we finished our mission on Friday evening, Wendell, Elboron, Grymalkyn and Kiki were ready to head to the Cloister of Gales and take on Garuda Prime. Itera wasn't around, so we needed to recruit two more people, and Diasuke and Emith were both willing to go along with us.

Kiki grabbed her Carbonara and Malgust Ring and made sure she had all of her +HP gear, and they headed out. Emith, Diasuke and Wendell met in Altepa and walked through Kuftal Tunnel, while Grym, Elbo and Kiki took the Outpost teleport to Cape Terrigan as the other three arrived there. Grym zoned in without trouble, Elboron went in next, and ran towards the outpost to cast sneak and invisible. Unfortunately there was a fire elemental nearby (checked DC to Emith's BLM73), and it started attacking Elboron when he cast Sneak. Grym grabbed the elemental and fled to the zone, and went into Kuftal for about 30 seconds before going back out. She zoned back to Cape Terrigan, and the fire elemental was still there, and started casting Firaga III. "Who's it casting on?" I asked, as BOOM, Grym's HP dropped 600 points. Another quick zone, and the elemental finally disappeared.

Then we made our long scary walk through Cape Terrigan. I got an initial sneak and invisible from Emith, but needed to use 5 prism powders and 3 silent oils for the rest of the walk. I hate zones with both sight and sound aggro. Our party was:

Diasuke SMN73/WHM36
Emith BLM73/WHM36
Wendell WHM65/BLM32
Elboron BRD66/WHM33
Grymalkyn THF66/NIN33
Tsakiki PLD66/WAR33

We buffed up, ate our food, and rested to full before trading our Tuning Forks of Wind to the Protocrystal. With a lot of my +HP gear on and the extra 15% HP from the Carbonara, my HP was 1351 (normal EXP HP is about 1150), which gave me a bit more of a comfort zone for Garuda's two-hour. Diasuke ran up the spiral ramp with Carbuncle, and pulled Garuda down to us. Wendell, Emith and Diasuke stayed above us on the spiral ramp.

The fight lasted for what seemed like ages (we cleared it in less than 9 minutes, but it sure seemed longer). Wendell and Elboron kept baraera and wind carol active on us at all times, and we fought and fought. Garuda kept using Healing Wind, regaining 1200 HP over and over, which made the fight drag on. I was getting hit pretty hard at times, but was never in any danger. Finally we got her to 50%, and braced for her two-hour. Everyone resisted, with only Kiki and Shiva taking any damage at all (212 points for Kiki). Hurray! I'm not sure why Kiki didn't resist completely like the others, but she did have -8 INT from her Tarutaru gear, so maybe that made the difference. Wind Carol and Baraera surely helped us a lot!

After we got Garuda's HP down low enough, Diasuke used Astral Flow with Shiva, and Shiva did her in. It was great having Diasuke (and Shiva) help us with our first run. I had a lot of fun finally fighting our first prime avatar battle, and now Elboron and Kiki finally have their first avatar. Only 7 more to go before they can level SMN. :-) Grymalkyn got her Garuda's Dagger, so in addition to going back again to get our whispers for Moon Baubles some day, we'll also need to get Grym and Itera their pact with Garuda.