General: New King of the Opo-Opos

For a Bard, the best head gear in the game is probably the Opo-Opo Crown, which can only be obtained through a quest in Kazham that requires the quester to get his or her hands on a wide variety of items, some of them rare/ex and a bit tough to find. The Crown's stats don't look that impressive, but when the wearer eats a Pamama, they end up with +7 CHR, +50 HP, and +50 MP. We've been helping Elboron with this quest, and he was finally able to complete it this weekend.

The items you need for the quest are:

a workbench
ten of coins card (drop from Ten of Coins Cardian in Outer Horutoto Ruins)
sands of silence (rare/ex from Yagudo in Castle Zvahl Bailey)
set of giant fishbones (rare/ex from Tonberry Stalkers in the Temple of Uggalepih)
wandering bulb (drop from Uttuku in Fei'Yin)
lucky egg (rare/ex from knight crawlers in the Boyahda Tree)
broken mithran rod
wyvern skull (rare/ex from hurricaine wyvern in Ifrit's Cauldron)
ancient salt (rare/ex from sand diggers in Quicksand Caves)
blackened toad (drop from brook sahagins in Sea Serpent Grotto)

As of last Thursday, he was still in need of the last 5 on this list. We headed back to the Boyahda Tree, hoping we'd get some Goobbue Humus from the Old Goobbue while we were at it, but he was nowhere to be seen again. So Grym pulled our first Knight Crawler, and there it was! Lucky Egg for Elboron! Since we were already there, and Kiki really wanted to get Spirit Taker (was at 211 staff skill and needed 215), we decided to stay for skillups. The Crawlers were a bit too low, so we fought Robber Crabs, and those did the trick. Spirit Taker is mine! I get back around 100 mp for 100% tp, which will really help when farming. I had switched out of my darksteel armor, and was better able as PLD/RDM to hold hate with more enmity on my gear.

Saturday morning, I took a Mithran Fishing Rod that Elboron had bought and set off to Qufim Island to break it. I had done this for Yobun months ago, and had good luck with sliced cod on the south cliffs, presumably on three eyed fish. However, I kept losing them because of lack of skill rather than breaking the rod. Since Grym needed some Gigant Squid for her sushi, I headed to the north cliff, and was able to quickly break Elboron's rod there, then switched to my Lu Shang's and got the two squid Grym wanted.

Late Saturday afternoon, Erock (RDM75/NIN37) took the three of us to Ifrit's Cauldron to get the Wyvern Skull Elboron needed. We'd never really been in there, so it was pretty cool seeing it for the first time. Erock led us to our camp, Grym pulled the first Wyvern, and what do you know, it dropped the skull! Both Grym and Elbo had forgotten warp items, so Erock led us safely out again. That place is really confusing, but perhaps some day I'll learn my way around.

Saturday evening, the three of us set out for Quicksand Caves to try to get the Ancient Salt from the worms there. We knew we had to go through one of the doors with a weight sensor, but we assumed that when people say you need "three tarutaru, or two humes/elvaans/mithra, or one galka", that two taru and a mithra would work as well. Sadly, we were mistaken. Yobun offered to come help later, but in the meantime, Itera logged in and came to our rescue. So the four of us fought worms for hours, with some Girtabs and Anticans thrown in for good measure. There are only 4 of the worms, 3 spawning alone in tunnel areas, and the 4th in a big room with Girtabs and Anticans. The salt refused to drop, and it got quite late, and Itera had to leave. After Itera left, we stuck to just the three worms away from the other monsters, since it was safer without Itera's extra damage. Finally, on the 5th kill, we got the ancient salt that Elboron needed. There was one more worm on that spawn cycle, so we killed it too, and yes, it too dropped the ancient salt, so Kiki now has one of the items she'll need if she ever decided she too needs her own Opo-Opo Crown.

Grym and Kiki logged out for the night, but Elboron, eager to finally complete the quest, tried to find the final item, a Blackened Toad on the Auction House. Unsuccessful, he headed to Sea Serpent Grotto to try to farm one, but didn't have much luck, so he logged out as well. In the morning, he headed back again, and got the blackened toad he needed and headed to Kazham to hand out all the items to the proper Opo-Opos. They were in awe of him, and crowned him as their King! All Hail Elboron, King of the Opo-Opos!

That 50 extra MP sure came in handy Sunday night when the LLS decided skeletons in Gustav would be fun. All the AOEs were a bit hard on our HP. :-)