General: Support Staff

Grymalkyn and Tsakiki wouldn't be where they are today without the dedication of their support staff, scattered throughout the various cities, ready to do whatever tasks are needed. OK, so it really boils down to the fact that we've got too much crap and need more characters to hold it all. They all help out with selling things on their local AHs, so we can target the markets most likely to buy up our items quickly. Grym's characters are:

Qimirpik is a Galka in Bastok who mostly hangs on to anything we've collected that could be useful for Grym's craft leveling in Alchemy, Clothcraft, Smithing, Goldsmithing, Leather, and Bonework.

Quiznos is a Taru in San d'Oria, and collects stacks of crystals and stacks of items that sell well in San d'Oria. He gardens sporadically, usually for items Qiara uses in her cooking (i.e. Tarutaru Rice).

Qiara, an Elvaan in Windurst, is an aspiring chef (level 74) with raw fish handling and noodle kneading. She hangs on to all the ingredients useful for food she can level on, turn in for guild points, or that Grym and Kiki can use in their adventures.

Qeebler, an Elvaan in Jeuno, is responsible for much of the armor and accessories that Grym needs for other jobs, or level capped events. He also is Grym's banker, taking care of most of the Jeuno purchasing and selling for Grym.

Kiki's crew consists of:

Qiyuk, a Hume in Jeuno, responsible for most of Kiki's gear for level caps and other jobs, and checking the AH regularly for cheap tree cuttings for the gardeners in the crew. She's Kiki's banker as well.

Quincy, a Tarutaru in San d'Oria, collects stacks of crystals, and gardens regularly. He usually has a few pieces of Kiki's level 40 BST/DRK/PLD gear in his delivery box, for lack of a better place to store them.

Qiwi, a Galka in Windurst, hangs on to all the consumables needed in our adventuring: partial stacks of food, BST jugs and pet food, various medicines, as well as the fish being saved for Guild Points.

Qix, a Mithra in Bastok, is in charge of Kiki's fishing gear and woodworking supplies. She's also a gardener.

Qlone, a Hume in San d'Oria, was meant to be a temporary fix to a short term storage issue (mostly stuff we'd been collecting for CoP missions), but it doesn't look like we can give up the space any time soon. He also hangs on to a few of the sub-20 accessories for Kiki.

They all have at least level 3 fame in their home cities, have done one or two mog safe expansions, most have travelled to Windurst to quest for Aspir scrolls. Quincy and Quiznos both got Rank 2 in San d'Oria (a very exciting fight for the level 7 and 8 Tarutarus!) in order to quest for Drain scrolls. Quincy had actually got to level 9, but a couple of weeks ago ended up deleveling to 7 in order to help Windurst take over Ronfaure. He may be a San d'Orian, but his heart really is with Windurst - must be genetic for Tarutarus.

I know a lot of people hate the idea of mules, and feel that everything in the game is liquid enough to sell things and re-buy as needed, but I've found that a lot of the gear we have isn't all that easy to find, especially the HQ items, and I hate being held hostage by the AH when I need to gear up for a level capped BCNM or mission, or if I need to switch to one of my other jobs, or if we go on a crafting spree. So we end up having tons of gear sitting around, just so it's there when we need it. Kiki's got everything she needs to be well-equipped for Level 20 MNK/WAR/THF/DRK/PLD/RDM/BLM/NIN/BST, Level 30 WAR/DRK/PLD/RDM/BLM/BST, Level 40 DRK/PLD/RDM/BST, Level 50 PLD/RDM, Level 60 PLD/RDM, Level 72 PLD, while Grym has her own set of gear for her various jobs at various levels. A lot of this gear is useful for multiple jobs, but it's still quite a collection of rings (+INT, +MND, +STR, +ACC, +VIT, +DEX, +MP), earrings, weapons, armor, and other accessories. Grym herself must have every dagger she ever bought.

So our stable of mules has grown over the years, and even with Gobbiebag VI, full mog safe expansions, AF storers, event item storers, multiple mannequins, and now a mog locker in Al Zahbi, we still end up with multiple layers in our delivery boxes for "storage". On Saturday, when Grym couldn't bear to sell off crystals at the currently reduced prices (everyone's leveling BLU, PUP, or COR, plus there's a new influx of Xbox 360 players starting out), my husband admitted he needed to add another mule. While discussing this, we also decided that one of our mules needed to move to Aht Urghan.

We chose Qiyuk for this adventure, since we had two mules in Jeuno, and neither of them has furniture for extra storage (which they couldn't access in Jeuno, or Aht Urhgan). Qiyuk's long been a Tenshodo member, and had no trouble picking up the quest of the Aht Urghan Boarding Pass. We decided it would be easiest to gather the six sub-job items, and Grym gave Qiyuk a Teleport-Dem to start her journey. Qiyuk, traveling as THF1 for mob radar, made her way safely to the Dunes, while Grym warped to Windurst, changed to THF71/WHM35 and OP warped to the Dunes. It was just turning 04:00, so we missed out on the ghouls and bogies, so Grym killed a few crabs and flies, and quickly got the Crab Apron and Damselfly Larvae that Qiyuk needed. Qiyuk was trying to make her way to Selbina on her own, and ended up getting killed by a goblin after she got through the tunnel, so Grym raised her and escorted her the rest of the way.

Since it was so early in the day, we decided to head to Mhaura and get a Magicked Skull in Bubu or the Maze of Shakrami instead of waiting for night in the Dunes. The ferry trip was uneventful, but we felt pressed for time when it was nearly 00:00 when we arrived in Mhaura. Grym quickly headed out to Buburimu and used flee to get to the bogies and ghouls while it was still night. The first Bogy dropped the Bloody Robe, and the first Ghoul dropped the Magicked Skull. I think it took 4 dhalmels to get the Dhalmel Saliva, and 5 rarabs to get the Wild Rabbit Tail. We then made our way to the Mea crag so Qiyuk could get the crystal, and she death-warped back to Jeuno to turn in her items at the Tenshodo HQ. It was soon a new day, and Qiyuk got her boarding pass.

Grym teleported Qiyuk to Mea, and they made their way back to Mhuara, rode the ferry to Aht Urhgan, and got Qiyuk settled into the mog house in Al Zahbi. It will be handy having her there and having access to a variety of stores with some things more readily available than the other cities. Plus it will save a bit of gil selling things on the AH, since (for now anyway) the AH listing fee is lower than in Jeuno.

The last thing we did before going to bed Saturday night was to create a new mule for Grym. We picked out a character (Taru female, model 3b) and tried to come up with a name. We've always used Q names for our mules, just because, but couldn't come up with one. I cycled through the auto name generator for 15 minutes, and we didn't see a name we liked. We had always joked about creating characters Orly (oh really?) and Yarly (yeah, really), so we decided to see if Yarly was taken, and it wasn't. So a mischievous question-mark-head Taru suddenly appeared in Windurst, bearing the name Yarly. She decided to grab a lotus katana and zoom around East Sarutabaruta looking for magical suits of armor to beat on, but ended up being killed by the Mithra one, and turned in for the night.

Sunday morning, my husband told me that Qlone had to go, and be replaced with Orly in Windurst. We initially opted for a red-headed male taru brother for Yarly, but discovered someone else had a character named Orly, and named him Orlly instead. We decided the name didn't look right, so we deleted him, and this time made a twin sister for Yarly, and named her Ohrly. We then changed their jobs to MNK, grabbed their Lotus Katanas, and ran out to find the Spirit Armor to kill.

First we went to West Saru, where we zoomed around with our perma-flee, but couldn't find a set of armor. However, the Mithra armor found us, and killed us in one shot. Then we ran out to East Saru to try again, and soon found a half-dead set of Tsukikazu Armor. We caught up to him, engaged, activated Hundred Fists, and killed it! It was so funny seeing the little question-mark-heads just whaling away at the armor with their Lotus Katanas. We got a Purple Drop, a bunch of Elvaan Mochi, and a Federation Stables Scarf, which is oh so useless for a new mule in Windurst. We joined in with some other people fighting another armor, but made sure to turn away before it was killed, to let other people get the killing blow and so get the drops.

Later in the day, we transferred everything from Qlone to Ohrly, and Qlone was deleted. Poor fellow. He never really got to do much of anything.