General: Catch-all

On Saturday afternoon, Kiki, Grym and Elboron got dressed up for some level 40 fun and excitement in Riverne Site-A01. We wanted to get Elboron to the ??? spot near Monarch Linn so he could get some Rivernewort to complete the Spice Gals quest and be able to move on to the Secrets of Ovens Lost quest that Grym and I have made a regular part of our weekly routine.

Grym and I went as BST/NIN, and Elbo was WHM/BLM. We needed two Giant Scales to get through Unstable Displacements. These drop from Firedrakes, and it would be easier to have pets help kill it than to try to bring them down as some other trio configuration. Our charm rate on the flytraps there is just awful, and that caused some problems, but it's always better with a BST duo than it would be solo. Riverne Vultures were more reliable, but we had a hard time finding suitable pets consistently. Killing the Firedrakes was pretty easy in general - our two pets could pretty much finish off one Firedrake by themselves. Grym got aggro'd by a Firedrake while in search of a pet, but popped a Crab Familiar and managed to log out in time. His Crab was dead and the Firedrake was charging for him just as the logout countdown completed. After the 'drake despawned, he logged back in and we continued on.

We had to kill about 7 Firedrakes to get the 2 scales we needed, then proceeded to sneak our way across the islands, noting to the LS that the Carmine Dobsonflies were up when we went within Wide-Scan range. The island before the one with the ??? is just swarming with Cloud Hippogryphs, which were IT++ to us, and we had no intentions of fighting. They're also true-sight, so it's tough to get past them in such a tiny space.

I got aggro'd here, and set my pet Vulture on the hippogryph and quickly logged out. My hippogryph didn't despawn, but moved away and I logged back in. Since it looked like we really couldn't get through undetected, I set a Funguar Familiar on the one hippogryph that we couldn't get past, and we ran for the displacement and went through to the final island. We were very curious to see if the Hippogryph would follow us through after killing the funguar, but it didn't. Elboron got his Rivernewort, we zoned into Monarch Linn, and Elboron teleported us out.

He headed to San d'Oria to complete his quest, and we met back in the Tavnazian Safehold, but he couldn't get the next quest. Either he has a conflict with another quest or our current CoP mission, or he had to wait a real-life day or past the weekly conquest tally. He'll try again some time this week.

---

We decided to head to Bastok to pick up the Crawlers Nest escort quest, and again Grym went as THF/BST. Olavia headed to the basement, but we still finished up with time to spare, probably because there were people fighting the coffer key mobs that tend to slow us down on that path.

After picking up our scrolls in Bastok, Elboron and I did a chocobo race to San d'Oria, for another scroll. And the next morning, Grym and I did our cookbook quest for yet another scroll. My NIN is now 22. I still think I'll have to actually go kill things for exp points, rather than just read scrolls all the way to 37, but the scrolls certainly help.

---

Before the LLS went out on Sunday evening, I had some time on my hands, so I grabbed my Lu Shang's and Shrimp Lure and caught two stacks of Salzanbaligi near the Auction House in Al Zahbi. These are like Gold Carp, and probably cap at level 56. Using a Shrimp Lure in this spot, these are the only fish I catch, so it's good to try for skillups while I might otherwise be idle. I managed to get .1 in skill, pushing me to Level 54. At this rate, I think I'll be able to get my Fishing Apron (at level 68) in about 2010. Good thing we got all those guild points built up so early. :-<