Missions: The Garden of Antiquity (CoP 8-1)

Our static met in the Sealion's Den on Friday evening, ready to tackle The Garden of Antiquity, Mission 8-1. This mission involves visiting the 3 Rubious Crystals in Al'Taieu and spawning 3 Aern NMs at each one. It turns out that these are three switches that control the gate into the Grand Palace of Hu'Xzoi, and after we've defeated the NMs, the Chebukkis can open the gate for us.

We headed into Al'Taieu, and went to the southern crystal first. The three Aerns here are WAR, WHM, and SAM, and without trying to sleep them (they're highly resistant to Lullaby, and I didn't want Elboron to get more hate from trying), we took a lot of damage during the fight, but didn't really have any troubles winning.

Next we headed to the eastern crystal, watching for UFOs as we walked. The NMs here are BLM, PLD, and MNK. I got taken out by a ~1200 damage Water IV, and then Splinte fell quickly afterwards, but the other four managed to finish off the 3 NMs. The MNK was the trickiest, since it used Hundred Fists. Grym managed to pull hate off of Itera, and used Perfect Dodge to negate the damage from Hundred Fists, and they were able to win the fight for us.

After Wendell raised Splinte and me, we all headed to the western crystal and fought the three NMs there. These three are RDM, RNG, and DRK, and went down more quickly than the first set. We then headed to the Grand Palace, where we got another cutscene, and Ulmia presented us with a Tavnazian Ring, which can be used once every 24 hours to teleport straight to the Safehold. I think this is a terrific reward, and will come in very handy.

We're down to just 3 missions left in the Chains of Promathia story line. We've sure come a long way since our first fight as a static, against the Mammets in CoP 2-5, back in March (which was over a year after I first arrived in Lufaise Meadows.