Quests: Trials by Earth and Ice (Titan and Shiva)

OK, so maybe the Avatars can still pack a good whallop, and deserve proper recognition as a separate entry, rather than lumped in with a bunch of trivial updatey stuff. Monday night was another Avatar Monday, this time with Charcole and Splinte instead of the vacationing Itera. Charcole's working on his moon bauble, and could only fight Titan, Shiva, and Leviathan. We decided on Titan first, as it's by far the easiest to get to of the three, so we first headed to Bastok (teleport-altep -> korroloka tunnel -> escape to Zeruhn Mines -> Bastok) so Splinte could pick up his Tuning Fork of Earth. Then another teleport-altep and a quick, now aggro-free, run through Quicksand Caves brought us to the Cloister of Tremors.

Titan was big and mean, but we didn't have too much trouble with him other than his two hour one-shotting Wendell for about 1300 damage - more than ten times what any of the rest of us were hit for, even with barstonra and earth carol up. We didn't set the record, but finished in a respectable time under 5 minutes. Wendell even got his level back with his Reraise II.

Next we decided that the Cloister of Tides was just too darned hard to get to quickly, and we'd save Leviathan for another night. Splinte and Elboron quickly headed to San d'Oria to pick up their Tuning Forks of Ice (Splinte OP warped from Altepa, while Elboron used a gate glyph he'd been saving since Summerfest 2 years ago), and Elboron then teleported the two of them to Holla, where Wendell took the rest of us to meet them, then all of us on to Teleport-Vahzl. We ran through Beaucidine Glacier and into Fei'Yin to the Cloister of Frost. All this running around is so much nicer with Chocobo Mazurka (not to mention the teleports)!

Shiva was in a really foul mood, and was hitting me a lot harder than I remember from when we fought her at level 69. When she tossed off her two hour, Elboron was flatlined, with 1380 damage (again, with ice carol and barblizzara). Shiva really hates Elboron. He's been killed by her both times we've fought her. I took about 750 from the two hour myself, but everyone else took significantly less. We set the record for the week, with about 3 minutes 40 second, which was our shortest avatar fight yet.

With my Whisper of Frost from Shiva, I'm now officially saving whispers for my Moon Bauble for Fenrir. I took the pact with Titan, since I hadn't fought him before. My collection of avatars is getting better, but I think it will be awhile before either Fenrir or Diabolos gets added to the collection.