General: Odds and Ends

I'm so forgetful these days. I keep forgetting to take screenshots to help illustrate my blog. When I do remember to take them, I forget to go to PlayOnline and mail them to myself. And when I do remember to send them, I forget to upload them to photobucket. /sigh

Kiki's been trying to get her staff leveled for Spirit Taker, which would be very useful when farming, and it would be nice to have it fully leveled and even get Retribution in the distant future. So she's been running off here and there to help out with killing things for skillups. In the past week or so, she's managed to get it to 198 in places as diverse as Crawlers Nest (coffer keys), Garlaige Citadel (coffer keys), the Labyrinth of Onzozo (camping Ose for Yobun's Assault Jerkin), Qu'lon Dome (DRK testimony, hoping for Water IV), and Kuftal Tunnel (just for skillups with Itera and Elboron). Elboron's also trying to get his sword leveled for his Maat fight, so I'm sure we'll be at it a lot over the next few weeks.

Kiki wasn't busy the other evening, and responded to a shout in Windurst from someone looking for a tank to help with the dragon fight for his Mission 2-3. I think I did it partly because the guy's name cracks me up whenever I see him: Smokeymcpot. We had a MNK, DRG, PLD, and WHM, but I think the fight was over before the WHM got in through the cutscene. It's probably the first time I've done a dragon fight without a sleeper, but it didn't make much difference. The MNK pummelled the eye while the DRG and the PLD started in on the dragon. The MNK's two-hour was still active when the eye was dead, so he pulled hate and got cursed, but no harm done.

Several weeks ago, I did another run of the KS30 Operation Desert Swarm, with sort of the same group of Black Mages as before. This time I got a Heart Snatcher, Raxa, and another O. Ingot. With the help of inflation, I cleared 1.4 million this time, so still no Byrnie for Kiki. I technically could buy one, but without a windfall from a KS30 run, it's nearly impossible for me to justify blowing so much gil on a single item that's a "nice to have" rather than a "must have". I suppose there are different levels of "nice to have", but this apparently is below the "gotta have it" threshold for me, at least for the time being.

We haven't been doing much fishing lately, but when we do, it's on the ferry trying for tuna for Qiara to use for sushi (she's skilling up on tuna sushi), and getting bluetail and noble ladies for skill ups. We both turned in a tuna for this month's fishing contest. It would be cool to win something, but we're not expecting anything.

One evening last week, Grym and Kiki headed to Castle Zvahl Bailey with Elboron to help him get another item he needs for his Opo-opo Crown quest. He needed Sands of Silence, which drops off a couple of level 57-59 Yagudos at the bottom of the drop offs. We didn't have any troubles with them, though the BLM types liked to cast their ancient magic spells. Fortunately we were able to avoid getting hit (by running away or interrupting it), and it wasn't too long before we got the drop for Elboron. The weirdest thing was how much of CZB we can run around in now without getting any aggro.

Friday night, we were hoping to do a Promyvion run for some of the linkshell members who still haven't completed them, but recollection farming was put off until before the run. Since it took nearly 4 hours to get all of the recollections we needed, we decided we'd actually tackle the Promyvion next Friday instead. We ended up going to the second level in Mea while farming, and had a bit too much excitement with links and aggro. At one point, Kiki dropped down to 10 HP and was out of mana, so she was very happy she had a couple of hi-potions with her. For our farming party, we had Ryken war/mnk, Splinte war/nin, kiki pld/war, Richelle whm/blm, Corbun blm/whm, Itera mnk/war and Elbryan blm/whm.

Between skilling up, getting the sands of silence for Elbo, and farming for recollections in the Promyvions, Kiki ended up getting about 5,500 exp over the past week, so she leveled to 67 and managed to get safely into it as well.

Leveling: LLS (66-67) versus Flies and Crabs in The Boyahda Tree

A week ago, the Low Level Static got off to a late start, since it took us awhile to get a main healer for the evening. Sadly, Erock's pretty much officially bowed out of the group. He doesn't really like playing WHM, and would rather spend his game time doing things he likes to do, which is very understandable, however disappointing it may be for the LLS. We picked up a level 66 RDM/WHM and headed to Bibiki Bay. The only open camp we could find was in the south end, and we were concerned the dhalmels were at the high end of the range, and there were really only two available at that camp, and the nearby gobbies were a higher tier than recommended for level 66. Plus we had an unknown healer, so we headed for The Boyahda Tree.

We ended up getting less than 2 hours of fighting in, with Skimmers and Steelshells as our prey. They were a bit low for us, but the Skimmers still were pretty hard on us with Cursed Sphere being especially damaging. We only got 8k exp with our empress bands, and called it a night.

As happens 99% of the time, our pickup mage was really not so good. He didn't cast a single debuff on the mobs, refreshed only himself, never cast poisona, nothing but various Cure spells and an occassional Curaga. He did protectra and then use a higher level protect on Kiki and Itera, but not consistently. He probably had never played with a Bard before, and wouldn't stand where Elboron had asked him to, so Elboron was running all over the place to hit both me and the RDM with Ballad. Between fights, I would run over to the RDM to try to help Elbo out, but it wasn't a great camp to stand in a single spot the whole night - had to pull the fights to different sides to try to avoid links.

The highlight of the night was getting to do a Level 3 Light skillchain for the first time. We had Red Lotus Blade (kiki) -> Raging Fists (Itera) -> Sharkbite (either Grym or Yobun), and it worked quite nicely. The first time we tried it, the Skimmer took over 1000k just on the Light. Even the Steelshells, which aren't particularly weak to Light, were taking good damage from it. Kiki decided to try bursting with Holy once, but the 212 damage wasn't worth the 100 MP, despite how pretty it looked. I think we have a couple of options for Darkness, but I didn't have them on-hand Sunday night for us to try. I think to have a THF close it though, we need them to have Evisceration, so it will be a long time before we get to try that.

No one gained a level, so we still had just Itera at 67 and the rest of us at 66, with Kiki being the closest, with about 2k to-next-level.

Missions: Awakening of the Gods (Windurst 7-2)

I've fallen a bit behind on my entries here. I pretty much write them during my commute, but last week I actually read a book (shock!) - The Wolves of Paris, an interesting account of a pack of wolves that did what they needed to in France during the 1400s - and have been playing The Legend of Heroes: A Tear of Vermillion on my PSP.

Just over a week ago, eleven Windurstians gathered together in Kazham to fulfill our duties for Mission 7-2, Awakening of the Gods. We had previously picked up our orders from the gate guard in Windurst. From there, we headed to the Rhinostery to talk to Leepe-Hoppe. He was concerned that Minister Rokususu has run off, and told us to see Kerutoto downstairs for more information. She told us we'll need to head to the Southern Continent to recover Rokususu.

In Kazham, we all spoke with Romaa Mihgo and Vanono, both of whom hinted that we should head to the Temple of Uggalepih.

Our group was made up of:

Yobun BLM73/RDM36
Midget THF70/NIN35
Diasuke SMN73/WHM36
Akuma BLM60/WHM30?
Izan DRG72/WAR36
Elboron BRD66/WHM33
Grymalkyn THF66/NIN33
Tsakiki PLD66/WAR33
Wendell WHM65/BLM32
Ryrra MNK65/WAR32
Vyce SAM60/WAR30

Yobun just came along to help us out, but the rest of us were all on the mission. We headed first to the Den of Rancor, since it was a lot quicker to get from there to the part of the Temple we needed to go to than if we'd gone in through the front entrance of the Temple. We camped right on the stairway at the entrance while Midget pulled mobs from the hallway above so we could clear our way. Every time we fought a Tonberry, we would Call For Help on it, in order to keep our hate down (Kiki and Grym had reset theirs to zero the previous evening, in preparation for this).

Once everything was clear, we moved near a Granite Door, behind which lives the Bonze Mayberry. We had to kill this Tonberry 5 times in order to get the 10 keys we needed for our alliance. With our large mob, he was no match for us. However, hate was pretty loose, so we got to see some interesting damage amounts on Everyone's Rancor. At one point, Diasuke's Garuda took 22,700 points of damage. I think Diasuke should clear his Tonberry hate some time; he spends a lot of time in the Temple of Uggalepih. On another fight, Izan was the target, and took over 5,000 damage. That was Izan's fifth death that day - he'd been on a bunch of not-too-successful Optical Hat runs before our mission, and lost level 73 in the process. Kiki's damage from Everyone's Rancor was negligable, and climbed to merely 300 by the 5th Bonze Mayberry. Clearing hate is a good thing.

After we got the ten Cursed Keys we needed, we headed to a nearby Granite Door and found Rokususu inside the room. After an interesting cutscene, we obtained the Book of the Gods, and headed back to Leepe-Hoppe in Windurst. Having completed the mission, we were rewarded with Rank 8 and 60,000 gil. No new title though.

General: An Evening in the Temple of Uggalepih

Last Friday night, Elboron, Grymalkyn and Kiki headed off to the Temple of Uggalepih to see if they could get their hands on some items they need for quests and Zilart Mission 4. Specifically, they each wanted an Uggalepih key to get into a room so they could obtain a Paintbrush of Souls, as well as an Unlit Lantern. Both of these items will be useful for the mission, as well as other missions and quests in the future. Elboron is also in search of an Opo-opo Crown, and one of the many things he needs to get that is some Giant Fish Bones, which we hoped to find on a Tonberry Stalker.

We planned on moving around in the Temple quite a bit, and that would require us to be invisible, so Kiki opted to go as PLD66/RDM33, while Grym was THF66/NIN33, and Elboron BRD66/WHM33. We started out near the main entrance from Yhoator Jungle, and set up "camp" in a hallway between two rooms with plenty of Tonberries that could have the keys or fish bones we needed. We got a bit more attention than we wanted at one point, and it was kind of exciting fighting 3 tonberries, a tonberry's elemental, and 3 opo-opos all at the same time. After that the respawns were pretty well spread out, so we didn't have much trouble, and pretty quickly we got the three keys and the one set of giant fish bones we needed.

We headed for the library in the Temple, and used our keys to get through the door. There we searched through the books until we found an old rusty key, which we used to open an old casket on a table in the room. This gave us each a Paintbrush of Souls, which we will be able to use to get through some magic doors in the Temple.

We had heard that the Tonberry Jinxers that live outside the Temple on the walls carried the unlit lanterns that we will need to enter the Sacrificial Chamber for our Zilart Mission, so after we got our paintbrushes, we headed to the walls. We could only find one, so there was a bit of a wait between respawns, but we only needed to kill 4 of them to get the 3 unlit lanterns we wanted. Tonberries have some interesting special attacks, like Throat Stab that leaves you with a small percentage of your HP. Fortunately you lose hate when the Tonberry uses this on you, so Elboron and Kiki were able to get Kiki's health back up from deep red before she took any additional damage. The Grudge attacks were hitting Kiki from 200 to 300 as the evening progressed, and we killed more Tonberries.

After we finished up with our farming, Grym and Kiki headed to Norg for the Everyone's Grudge quest, so we could reset our Tonberry hate in preparation for our Windurst Mission, Awakening of the Gods, which we had planned for the next day. We both traded 3 gold beastcoins to Magephaud in Norg, and he told us where to find a Tonberry priest in the Temple of Uggalepih who would remove our accumulated Tonberry hate for a donation of gil. We headed for the Temple and found the priest. He required 500 gil from Grymalkyn, but 1500 from Kiki.

I had a lot of fun with our little hunting party, and as always happens after we spend a few hours exploring and fighting in a fairly unfamiliar place, I'm much more comfortable in the Temple of Uggalepih than I was before.

New Title: Honorary Doctorate, Majoring in Tonberries

Leveling: LLS Returns to Bibiki Bay (66-67)

None of us had any interest in returning to fight the pugils in the Den of Rancor, and Erock felt we were a bit low yet for the lizards there, so we decided to join the rest of Lakshmi and headed to Bibiki Bay. We found an open camp and proceeded to fight the Catoblepas (dhalmels) and Tragopans (birds). I felt like we were kind of sloppy, but it was so hard to see things properly. The way the camera gets angled when you're fighting birds and dhalmels is pretty annoying. Even unlocking the target doesn't help a lot. However, we did quite well, and ended up with 15K exp in less than 3 hours (my food wore off after I got to Rabao after our group called it quits for the night and Erock gave us our usual Teleport-Altep). That was with an Empress Band, but even without that we were doing about 5K/hour. I can see how a more normal party set up, with light skillchains and a BLM, would just tear through the exp there. Even with the dhalmels' annoying Healing Breeze, they went down pretty fast.

It was a fairly uneventful session. We had several links, but handled them with little trouble (though Elboron did get about one dhalmel-hit away from death at one point). We didn't really see any other parties, but once in awhile a puller would run through our camp to grab a goblin, and birds we had our eyes on for our next prey would vanish while we were fighting something else.

Itera hit 67, and Erock got to 61 (I thought he had last week, but I misremembered), while the rest of us finished up the night about 12K away from level 67. Itera's still about 15K ahead, so it's unlikely we're ever going to catch up to him. Last week Grym, Elbo and Kiki devoted 3 evenings to trying to make up some EXP, getting about 3K, but Itera got 4K himself during the week, so it's just pointless even trying any more. There are too many other things we have to do to waste time killing EPs and DCs for the EXP at our level.

I decided to try Black Curry this week, and I'm quite pleased with it. The stats I got from it are much better than posted on the internet (PLDs say there must be some hidden trigger that makes it better, but no one has figured out what it is). My defense boost from it was 26% over my full defense (went from 356 to 450 after I ate the curry), the VIT is the same as tacos (+6), plus it gives DEX, ACC, EVA, AGI, and bonuses for HP and MP regen while healing. I don't really notice the loss of the +20HP and +20MP that the tacos give me, and now that tacos are pushing 80K/stack, Black Curry is a cost-saver as well, being 12K for a three hour food. If I can keep getting it, my plan now is to have a Black Curry for our EXP parties, with a stack of tacos on hand in case I die or we end up partying longer than 3 hours (unusual for our static). Any time I need a good tanking food for 30 minutes, I'll use tacos, and for those special occasions when I need HP and an attack boost (ENMs, avatar battles, Maat fight), I'll use Carbonara.

Quests: The Search for Goldmane

On Saturday, Elboron, Grymalkyn and Tsakiki set out to Search for Goldmane. After helping Zoriboh in Rabao track down Sanctia on the Chasing Dreams quest, he wanted us to find Sanctia again to deliver a care package from her father and make sure she was staying out of trouble.

First we headed to Tavnazian Safehold and talk to Quelveuiat, who thought Sanctia might be looking for clues in Riverne - Site #A01. We switched to BST/RDM, BST/WHM, and BRD/WHM for our trip in to Riverne (level capped at 40), since with pets, the three of us would be better able to handle any fights we might have.

We fought some Riverne Vultures and found Copper Keys, and made our way through several of the islands. We managed to avoid most of the Hippogryphs and Firedrakes, but we did have to fight one Hippogryph. Having pets did indeed make it easier. When we arrived at one of the islands, we found Sanctia and her Moogle companion. She wasn't interested in any help, nor in the Care Package her father had sent to her. She was however very interested in the contents of a trunk we found on the island - letters and photographs that led her to believe she might get some information about Goldmane from the Bastokan navy.

So next we headed to the Bastok Metalworks and talked with Vladinek in the Eatery there. Sanctia showed up at about the same time, and was disappointed her theory was incorrect, but the man thought Purgonorgo Isle might be a good place to check. After a quick warp to Windurst, we used the outpost teleport to Buburimu and then made the short run to Bibiki Bay, where we caught the Manaclipper to the Isle. We'd changed back to our level 66 jobs (PLD, THF, BRD), but kept BLM subbed to get back to civilization more easily.

We looked around on the island, and found a weathered boat on a beach. Nearby, Sanctia was lying in the sand, having been attacked by something. Suddenly, an Elvaan ranger named Rohemolipaud appeared and engaged us in battle. He wasn't as tough as he thought he was, and ran away before we could defeat him. Sanctia finally accepted her care package, and we finally got to meet the elusive Goldmane (one of the longest cutscenes I've seen in the game). We actually had to do this fight three times, once for each of us, but the fights weren't hard for us. The ranger seems to reset hate a lot, so when he used Eagle Eye Shot, it was hard to guess who he was going to hit, but it didn't do much damage.

Sanctia gave us a Deluxe Carbine that Goldmane gave to her, and asked if she could be our apprentice. She wanted us to bring some money back to Rabao for her as well, so we did that, and reported back to Zoriboh and Sanctia's father.

New Title: Rookie Hero Instructor

Quests: Trial By Wind (Garuda Prime)

After we finished our mission on Friday evening, Wendell, Elboron, Grymalkyn and Kiki were ready to head to the Cloister of Gales and take on Garuda Prime. Itera wasn't around, so we needed to recruit two more people, and Diasuke and Emith were both willing to go along with us.

Kiki grabbed her Carbonara and Malgust Ring and made sure she had all of her +HP gear, and they headed out. Emith, Diasuke and Wendell met in Altepa and walked through Kuftal Tunnel, while Grym, Elbo and Kiki took the Outpost teleport to Cape Terrigan as the other three arrived there. Grym zoned in without trouble, Elboron went in next, and ran towards the outpost to cast sneak and invisible. Unfortunately there was a fire elemental nearby (checked DC to Emith's BLM73), and it started attacking Elboron when he cast Sneak. Grym grabbed the elemental and fled to the zone, and went into Kuftal for about 30 seconds before going back out. She zoned back to Cape Terrigan, and the fire elemental was still there, and started casting Firaga III. "Who's it casting on?" I asked, as BOOM, Grym's HP dropped 600 points. Another quick zone, and the elemental finally disappeared.

Then we made our long scary walk through Cape Terrigan. I got an initial sneak and invisible from Emith, but needed to use 5 prism powders and 3 silent oils for the rest of the walk. I hate zones with both sight and sound aggro. Our party was:

Diasuke SMN73/WHM36
Emith BLM73/WHM36
Wendell WHM65/BLM32
Elboron BRD66/WHM33
Grymalkyn THF66/NIN33
Tsakiki PLD66/WAR33

We buffed up, ate our food, and rested to full before trading our Tuning Forks of Wind to the Protocrystal. With a lot of my +HP gear on and the extra 15% HP from the Carbonara, my HP was 1351 (normal EXP HP is about 1150), which gave me a bit more of a comfort zone for Garuda's two-hour. Diasuke ran up the spiral ramp with Carbuncle, and pulled Garuda down to us. Wendell, Emith and Diasuke stayed above us on the spiral ramp.

The fight lasted for what seemed like ages (we cleared it in less than 9 minutes, but it sure seemed longer). Wendell and Elboron kept baraera and wind carol active on us at all times, and we fought and fought. Garuda kept using Healing Wind, regaining 1200 HP over and over, which made the fight drag on. I was getting hit pretty hard at times, but was never in any danger. Finally we got her to 50%, and braced for her two-hour. Everyone resisted, with only Kiki and Shiva taking any damage at all (212 points for Kiki). Hurray! I'm not sure why Kiki didn't resist completely like the others, but she did have -8 INT from her Tarutaru gear, so maybe that made the difference. Wind Carol and Baraera surely helped us a lot!

After we got Garuda's HP down low enough, Diasuke used Astral Flow with Shiva, and Shiva did her in. It was great having Diasuke (and Shiva) help us with our first run. I had a lot of fun finally fighting our first prime avatar battle, and now Elboron and Kiki finally have their first avatar. Only 7 more to go before they can level SMN. :-) Grymalkyn got her Garuda's Dagger, so in addition to going back again to get our whispers for Moon Baubles some day, we'll also need to get Grym and Itera their pact with Garuda.

Missions: The Sixth Ministry (Windurst 7-1)

On Friday night, a group of us from the Blue Elephant Brigade gathered together in Windurst to investigate rumours of Karaha-Baruha's secret laboratory hidden deep in the Toraimarai Canal. Tosuka-Porika at the Optistery had requested help for this mission, and wanted us to find out more about the Book of the Gods if we could.

We knew that we would have to fight four slimes called Hinge Oils in order to acces the "hidden" door, and had been told by other adventurers that they could be deadly. Charcole (MNK73) came along just to assist us, and the rest of our group was made up of Diasuke (SMN73), Izan (DRG73), Midget (RNG73), Grymalkyn (THF66), Elboron (BRD66), Ryrra (MNK65), Wendell (WHM65) and Tsakiki (PLD66).

Turns out we had way more power than we needed, and those Hinge Oils practically melted before us. It was really a bit disappointing. We all headed into the hidden room (except for Charcole, since he didn't have the key item required to get through the door). We checked several of the Tomes of Magic lying about in the laboratory and ran into someone we didn't expect to see there... Then we headed back to the Optistery to report back to Tosuka-Porika, and he gave us the Blank Book of the Gods.

Next weekend, I hope we can do the next mission, which requires us to travel to the Temple of Uggalepih and fight with a Tonberry. If I'm going to tank that fight, I will probably have to get everyone to clear their Tonberry hate...

Leveling: LLS in the Den of Rancor (65-66)

We decided to go to the Den of Rancor this week. Itera's MNK was 66, while the rest of us (except Erock) were 65, and we'd outgrown the Processionaires in The Boyahda Tree. We were hoping to fight the lizards near the Yhoator entrance to the Den of Rancor, but there was a party our level there, so we decided to head to the Cloister of Tides area and fight pugils instead.

Getting to the Cloister of Tides zone was quite an adventure in of itself. We had to got through the Temple of Uggalehpih (known in our household by the nickname The Temple of UglyPeople) and then into the Den of Rancor. The only time Kiki had ever been in the Temple was as a level 1 with perma-sneak and perma-invis for the Summerfest activities in the summer of 2004, but Yobun and Erock know the way around, so we followed along. At least in the Temple we just needed Invisible to avoid detection. We had to fight a Temple Guardian to get through a Granite Door, and even with barfira, the Guardian's Meltdown just blasted us. Kiki was hit for nearly 1200 points of damage, while Itera took about 1500. This killed both of us, but the others all managed to take less damage and survived.

We continued on our way to camp with no incident, but we crossed paths with another party our level, and they seemed to be heading for the same camp. We got there first though, and they left during our second fight. Our first fight was a bit of a mess for us - I blame the fact there were 6 extra people standing in our camp - and it seemed a lot of work for the amount of exp we got for that pugil. During our second fight, Elboron got blood-aggro'd by one of the Doomed nearby and didn't realize the zone was right behind us and he died. Kiki ended up dying too. By the time I realized I was in danger and should zone, it was really too late, and I would have died zoning anyway.

Things improved after this, and we ended up getting about 9K in just over two hours. It was a bit short, since it took us so long to get there, as well as the deaths. We disbanded shortly after Yobun hit 66. Erock also leveled to 61 during the party, but Grym, Kiki, and Elbo were about 3000 exp short of leveling to 66.

This week the three of us 65s spent several evenings fighting EPs and DCs in West Altepa (anticans, scorpions, giant birds), Quicksand Caves (lizards), and Kuftal Tunnel (crabs and lizards), both for skillups and EXP. We decided we liked Kuftal Tunnel the best for this, and even though the lizards have worse TP attacks than the crabs, I think they were better to fight. Elboron got quite a few levels on his sword, though he has a long way to go to cap it for his Maat fight. Grymalkyn was working on marksmanship, club and sword skill, while Kiki's been trying to get her staff leveled (180 at the moment, cap for her would be 212). I'm eager to get Spirit Taker and see if that helps alleviate all the downtime we have when Grym and Kiki are farming/skilling up as a duo without our Bard buddy around to keep the MP refreshing.

We inched our way to 66, and it was nice to get the level, but I'm afraid Kiki's going to delevel before the LLS heads out on Sunday. Tonight she'll be tanking for Windurst Mission 7-1, where we will fight four Hinge Oils (slimes) that are supposed to have pretty bad AOE fluid spread-type moves. However, people seem to say it's the mages that get killed by this, not the tanks. I'll still wear more +HP gear than I do normally. We're also hoping to fight Garuda before Sunday evening as well, and there's a good chance of death in that as well, though I should be able to get Kiki's HP well over 1300, and between extra wind-resistance gear and Elboron's (soul-voiced) Wind Carol and baraera, I hope it will go smoothy.

Notorious Monsters: Fyuu the Seabellow

Grymalkyn, Elboron and Kiki decided to head to Sea Serpent Grotto to see if they could find and kill Fyuu the Seabellow and get a pair of Frog Trousers for Elboron (best trousers for his Bard for some level capped events/areas). We figured we might get little bits of exp (very low easy prey) and chest keys while fighting the Sahagins in the area where Fyuu is known to appear. There were a couple of other people hanging around, hoping to get Frog Trousers for themselves, but they didn't seem quite as interested as us.

We learned the pattern of the placeholders, and ran off to look for chests when we got keys for Kiki and Elboron. Both Kiki and Elboron ended up getting their maps for Sea Serpent Grotto, but we didn't get a key for Grym this time. The two other adventurers ended up leaving the area, and when Fyuu the Seabellow finally appeared, he was all ours. It was a pretty easy fight, but we didn't get the trousers, just a clump of Pantam Kelp. I just don't understand why they didn't design the game so that any rare/exclusive item isn't a 100% drop. At least he spawns pretty frequently, and we know his pattern now, so we'll head back another time and try to get the trousers for Elboron.

Leveling: Christmas Dragoons

We've had this idea for an all-Dragoon static for a long time, and over the holidays, Elboron, Grymalkyn and Kiki geared up their level 4 Dragoons and headed out into West Sarutabaruta. It was a lot of fun running around with our Wyverns, and it didn't take very long for us to get to level 7. We wore our Dream Robe +1s, and had Selbina Milk with us, and subbed either WHM or RDM. Kiki ended up dying, but just home-pointed and ran back out to join the other two.

I'm not sure how serious this will become and whether or not we can get three more people to join us (Itera has expressed interest), but I would really like to see how far we could take an all-Dragoon group.

One thing I discovered while gearing up for our fun was that people are either too lazy/impatient to walk to Port Windurst to buy level 1 gear for really little gil, or they just are not aware of this option. I ended up tripling my money on the gear I bought from the NPCs and sold on the AH when we hit level 7 and were done (until the next time, when we'll want to be wearing leather armor anyway).

I know some career Dragoons are upset at the changes made in the recent update (Call Wyvern is no longer a two-hour abilities, but has a 20-minute cooldown), since they feel it turns their beloved wyverns into a mere tool, but I think it really does make the job a bit better. You don't have to be so careful to keep your wyvern alive for two hours at a time, since you can recall it every 20 minutes. The new Dragoon two-hour, Spirit Surge, melds you with your Wyvern, and makes it disappear, and it definitely seems to make a big difference to your damage to enemies.

Notorious Monsters: Mycophile

Kiki decided she wanted a pair of Mycophile Cuffs for her BLM, and set out to Carpenters Landing with Grymalkyn to see if they could get them. The NM funguar Mycophile is spawned by trading a sleepshroom, woozyshroom, and danceshroom to a ??? spot in the tunnels of Carpenters' Landing (enter from the "tiger cave" in eastern Jugner Forest). Kiki brought one of each mushrooms they needed, but when Mycophile was spawned and they killed it, they didn't get any Cuffs.

There were plenty of shriekers in the area, so they planned to get the mushrooms they needed there. However, after what seemed like an hour of killing funguars and getting only sleepshrooms and woozyshrooms, they decided that these shriekers were different from those in Ordelle's Caves, which do indeed drop Danceshrooms.

So they headed to Ordelle's Caves and killed a bunch of shriekers there, and got two danceshrooms. They returned to Carpenters' Landing and spawned Mycophile second time, and this time the Cuffs dropped, so Kiki now has a really good piece of gear to wear on her hands while playing Black Mage.

Quests: Holiday Quest Wrap-Up

Over the past several weeks, we've done a variety of quests, and feel like we're running out of them, at least ones we're capable of completing without help from other people.

Teamwork in San d'Oria

Kiki, Grym, and Elboron have been having a lot of fun doing the Fortune Teller/Food quest, which you get from a woman in Mhaura. She tells you your lucky color, the area where you can find a Luck Rune, and the title of your perfect partner. Having done so many quests, Grym and Kiki can usually change their title to the one required, and then by talking to a Tarutaru in Windurst, they're given two food items, usually HQ, and some times quite valuable. We've gotten things like Coeurl Sub +1s, Snowy Rolanberries, Vermillion Jellies, Leremieu Salads, Timbre Timbers Salads, Sophic Stew, Tonosama Riceballs, and Boiled Cockatrice. Some things don't sell that well on the AH, so we've been using them for leveling and even skillup parties, but with Vermillion Jelly selling for 150K in Jeuno, this really is a favorite new quest.

So one day, the woman told Kiki she needed to find someone with the title "First Rate Organizer", which is from the Advanced Teamwork quest in San d'Oria. Kiki had done it, but didn't know anyone else who had, so she decided to organize a linkshell event to get people to do all three of the quests. Mage's Ballad is the reward for the second quest, and with that selling for 250k-300k at the time, I thought it would be easier to get a good group of people to participate, but we were short on Humes, Elvaans, and Mithra. With the Smilebringer's city-to-city teleport service, several of us had some of our mules go to San d'Oria for the event to help fill out the teams, but even that wasn't quite enough.

For the first quest, you need to have a party with 6 people all from the same nation. For the second quest, you need to have a party with 6 people all from the same race. And for the third quest, you need to have a party with 6 people all with the same job (we chose WAR).

We managed to recruit strangers for the Humes and Elvaans, but the poor Mithra didn't get past the first quest. However, both Quincy and Quiznos were able to complete the second (not enough fame or something for the third), so at least two of our mules managed to get a couple of Mages Ballad scrolls. Our group sort of flooded the market with the scrolls (I think we had 15 people able to complete the quest), so we haven't put them up for sale yet.

Now with Elboron a First Rate Organizer, Kiki was finally able to complete her food quest and move on another one. :-)

A Test of True Love

A Bard named Carmelo in Port Bastok needed help collecting song fragments, and Elboron, Grymalkyn, and Kiki all offered to help him. He needed the pages of the Chanson de Liberte to help save a woman he loved from a strange illness. The fragments were in three different areas, locked away in treasure chests. We had previously found fragments in Castle Zvahl and Sea Serpent Grotto, but hadn't yet ventured to the Labyrinth of Onzozo, where the final fragment lay. We headed there one evening, and, along with our NPC buddies, we killed cockatrices and goblins until all three of us got a key. It was actually pretty easy, and we made some decent pocket change from the drops as well. We headed back to the Labyrinth the next day and easily found treasure chests for each of us.

We headed back to Bastok to talk to Carmello, and he was very pleased to finally have the fragments, and rewarded us with some gil as he set to work on the song.

Lovers in the Dusk

We returned to talk to Carmelo again, and he had completed the Chanson de Liberte, but now wanted us to take it and bury it in the Sanctuary of Zi'Tah. He instructed us to do this at dusk, in a place where clear water bubbles up around a circle of white trees. As we were burying the song, Carmelo and his former love, Dariah, appeared, reunited after years apart. Carmelo thanked us for our help, and reward us with a Siren Flute. Elboron was very pleased to get it, but Grym and Kiki sold theirs to other people who had more use for them.



Wild Card

Kiki has been helping out the Star Onion Brigade in Windurst since she first arrived in Windurst (what seems like) years ago. The Joker Cardian had been given the Mana Orb, and Honoi-Gomoi wants it disassembled. Kohlo-Lakolo told that Joker's been hiding, but Kiki found him. Joker asked Kiki to go to Toraimarai Canal, as he's lost something there.

Kiki and Grymalkyn spent some time killing bats near the Windurst Walls entrance into the Canal, but they were only able to get one Coffer Key, which Kiki ended up getting. Kiki spent several hours sneaking around the canal, trying to find a coffer, but didn't have any luck, so she returned the next day, when the canal was completely empty. She soon found a coffer in a room full of leeches, but was able to open the coffer, get a Joker Card and warp out without being defeated by the leeches (they sure tore through her stoneskin fast though!).

When Kiki took the card back to Joker, he bribed her into letting him live, as he had things he needed to do. Honoi-Gomoi was furious with Kiki, but she believes she made the right decision.

Searching for the Right Words

Kurou-Morou in Lower Jeuno has been having trouble telling Chululu how he feels about her, and while Kiki was visiting with Ilumida in Upper Jeuno, he came to see if he could buy an old chest from Ilumida. The chest is rumored to help people find the right words, and he felt it would help him with Chululu. However, the chest was the only gift Ilumida had ever received from her husband, and she had never been able to get it opened.

Apparently it can only be opened with a Moondrop from Boyahda Tree, so Ilumida asked Kiki if she would be able to get one for her. Apparently Ilumida doesn't trust Kiki to complete her missions, as Ilumida had asked several other people for a moondrop as well, and they all banded together to head for Boyahda Tree. We had a group of 13, with a mix of people mostly over level 60. We examined a ??? near the middle of the Tree, and suddenly Agas appeared, an Ahriman that was impossible for us to gauge, yet we defeated him fairly easily and were all able to obtain our Moondrops.

Ilumida was very happy to finally be able to open the chest, and found a note from her husband, written the last day she saw him before he headed off to war, never to return. Korou-Morou was so struck by the simplicity of the message that he knew he didn't need the chest to tell Chululu how he feels, and instead gave Kiki the money he was going to use to buy the chest, as well as a scroll of Sleepga II. For some reason, he gave everyone some money and a scroll as well, almost as though he didn't remember that he already found the words he needed.

Some of the people on the quest actually read their scrolls, as they had Black Mage leveled past 56 and hadn't yet bought, while some are hanging on to their scrolls to read when they reach that level. The rest of us, who currently do not intend to level Black Mage that high, went ahead and started selling them on the auction house. The first sold for 1.8 million, though the going rate had been 2 million. The next several were solidly at 2 million, but someone decided to put theirs up for 3 million, and it sold, quite quickly too. So now the price of Sleepga II seems to be solidly at 3 million. If the person who jacked the price up a million in one sale ever complains about inflation, I will have to /slap him.

Knocking on Forbidden Doors

Grym, Elbo and Kiki returned to Tavnazian Safehold to talk to Enaremand again, and he needed some help finishing the mannequin that resembled his wife. He wanted to bring it to life by bringing back her soul. We decided to help him, and learned of a mysterious wizard who had been living in the Phomiuna Aqueducts that had knowledge of reanimation.

Since the Aqueducts are restricted to level 40 or below characters, we needed to get some gear, and then headed in to search for the wizard, as a BRD40, BST40, BST40 trio. We had to fight some Tauruses, but managed to run behind several Stegasaurs without being noticed. It was a bit scary trying to get to the spot where the wizard was known to be seen most frequently, but it was fun as well.

He told us that he would need a reed from the river in Misareaux Coast and to meet him at the Waterfall and he would help us. So we headed back to the Safehold and changed to our level 65 BRD-THF-PLD trio, and headed out to Misareaux Coast. We quickly found our reeds, then headed up to the waterfall. We had a bit of trouble there, as Elboron wasn't able to find the ??? spot, but he ended up zoning to another area and when he came back, the ??? spot was there.

The mannequin Alsha appeared, and started fighing with us. The fight for the most part was pretty straightforward, but she did cast an Ancient Magic spell on Kiki, which we weren't able to stop (shield bash, flat blade, silence), and took Kiki's health down to about 100. Then she started casting Fire II on herself and we had to defeat her before she killed herself. We were given the Better Humes and Mannequins key item for helping Enaremand. Fyi Chalmwoh in Mhaura, who built our mannequins for us was extremely excited to see the Better Humes and Mannequins when we went to talk to her later, and has agreed to adjust our mannequins into several different poses (for a fee of course) if we want.



The Call of the Sea

A boy in the Tavnazian Safehold wanted us to help him find a rare shell carried by a monster. He wanted a "spirally" one that makes a sound when you blow into it, and thought we'd be able to find it on the cost in Misareaux Coast.

So we headed to the coast and found a strange ??? spot. When we examined it closely, a giant crab named Bloody Coffin appeared. He took several minutes for us to kill, but he didn't really do much damage to us. We got a Whispering Conch from him, and returned to the Safehold. The boy was asked to give the shell to an old woman, and though he thought that wasn't fair, he complied. We were rewarded with a Memento Muffler for our assistance.

NPC Buddies: Getting Harder to Level

We've been trying to find different areas to take our NPC buddies, hoping to get them some more interesting armor, and thought it might be fun to go fight some stuff in Pso'Xja. Unfortunately, we couldn't summon them there, so we headed to Fei'Yin instead. That place is a lot less scary than it once was, and there were plenty of bats to fight. Bats are good prey when fighting with the NPC buddies, since they don't have damaging AOE attacks.

We've also had them helping us trying to get coffer keys in Toraimarai Canal (needed for the Wild Card quest), and in the Labyrinth of Onzozo when we were trying to get chest keys (for the quest A Test of True Love). They're levelling more and more slowly as they get higher, but they really do help kill things a lot faster than we would otherwise.

When our buddies got to level 50, we had to complete a limit break quest with them, which mostly involved a lot of running around. We had to dig up a Bal Shell in Korroloka Tunnel and fight a spawned Yagudo in Castle Oztroja, which wasn't too hard to do.

For their Limit Break 2, which would allow them to level to 60, we had to fight a spawned giant in Qufim - in the caves that lead to the Misereaux Coast vortex and Behemoths Dominion. We had to fight it twice, once for Balu-Falu and once for Wagwei, but the fights weren't terribly challenging. The second time we fought it, Grym tanked with her THF65/NIN32 and double Mambo from Elboron. She only took one hit, from a special attack, and it did less than 50 damage.

We also ran around with Elboron as he completed Blighted Gloom with Siegward. He had to fight his slime in Ordelle's Caves, so we've fought in all three of the possible places for this quest now.

Leveling: Chapeau?! Paladins don't wear Chapeaux!

Kiki decided to get her RDM up to level 60 so she could officially be done with leveling it, and finally be able to wear her fancy Warlock's Chapeau that so many people worked so hard to help her obtain.

As I was getting prepared to look for a party, while I was composing Kiki's search message, before I actually put her flag up, I got an invite from a party leader in the Valley of Sorrows. Kiki was in Windurst (where she keeps her homepoint), so I asked Grymalkyn for a Teleport-Altep and told the leader I was on my way. He said that was fine, then changed his mind and said we'd meet in Jeuno (the party was reforming and decided to move camp). Since it would take me longer to get to Jeuno, they picked me up at the Altepa crystal and we headed to Mea. If they had told me their plans, I could have met them there instead!

The party ranged from 58 to 61, and we had a NIN, WAR/NIN, MNK, RNG, SMN, and RDM. We headed to the Labyrinth of Onzozo, near the Ose spawn area, and fought Torama and Goblins for just over 3 hours. It was an excellent group, and we did very well. Kiki ended up with about 18.5K exp using her Empress Band. The MNK, RNG, and WAR had to leave (it was New Years Eve and they had Real Life parties to attend, silly people). We got 2 MNKs and a BLM to replace them, but it just wasn't the same any more. After just over an hour we disbanded (both the SMN and I were getting tired, and the SMN had hit 60, which had been her goal). We had several deaths, including Kiki (the NIN had DC'd mid-battle - he was very sad to see me dead when he reconnected), and Kiki ended up getting less than 3k exp for the last part of the party. She went to bed about 10K exp away from her goal of level 60.

The following day, I had two adequate parties. The first headed to Gustav Tunnel with a DRK, PLD, WHM, BLM, RNG, and RDM. Having 5 people to refresh made it feel like that was all I was doing. We fought for about 2 hours before the DRK and PLD had to leave, and Kiki got about 7K exp (the WHM had taken a lunch break in the middle there, so it wasn't as bad as it sounds, exp-wise).

The second party was a PLD, DRG, MNK, BLM, SMN, and RDM, and we headed first to Cape Terrigan and speed-killed pugils and raptors, but when someone hit 62, we moved over to the Valley of Sorrows and fought the raptors and giant birds there. We only fought for about 90 minutes, but it was a nice group of people, and Kiki got the level she was looking for. She's only about 1K into the level, so I really should get a bit more EXP for her at some point, since she'll delevel if she dies.

Quests: Operation Desert Swarm (Waughroon Shrine KSNM30)

On our server, there are several groups of high level Black Mages that set up KS30 runs on Operation Desert Swarm for the unwashed masses, and this can be a decent way for us shlubs to make a bit of gil from our Kindred Seals before we're capable of taking on any of the fights on our own. Kiki decided to join in on one recently, and after patiently waiting her turn and hearing of other people getting Venomous Claws or Damascus Ingots, the 4 BLMs (with a BRD that waited for them outside the BC) invited Kiki into their party.

Kiki traded her orb, and they went in. The BLMs used their highest -ga spells, brought all the scorpions down over to less than half their HP, cast Sleepga II on them, then blasted them again. Before Kiki knew it, it was over and she was standing by the crate waiting for the BLMs to exit back to the starting point before opening it. She got:

4000 gil
hq scorpion claw
senjuinrikio
orichalcum ingot
trainer's gloves
darksteel ore
phoenix feather

It wasn't the fortune she was hoping for, but after sending the BLM team their 40% cut, Kiki was left with around 880K, which wasn't enough to buy her 5.2 million gil Byrnie, and now with Christmas inflation, is even less towards an 11 million gil Byrnie. I'm glad it's something I merely want for her, rather than something that's felt to be absolutely "necessary". Kiki's another 55 Kindred Seals, so she'll definitely be trying her luck again soon.

Quests: Beastmen Treasure

There's a Goblin named Peddlestox that shows up in Yuhtunga Jungle, not all that far from Kazham, every Windsday. He waxes nostalgic over Mermaid parts that the Sahagins have and promises to make it worth your while if you can get all four of the Mermaid parts for him.

One of the items that you can get from him is a Mermaid's Ring (Level 43, Enmity +2), which Kiki thought she'd really like to have since Itera's always pulling hate off of her, so she needs all the help she can get.

We learned that we could get the parts off of different types of Sahagins in Yuhtunga Jungle and Sea Serpent Grotto, with the head dropping from an NM, Seww the Squidlimbed, that lives in the area behind the silver door. It took hours and hours of Sahagin killing for Kiki to get all 4 parts she needed, first with just Grymalkyn helping, and then Elboron joined us. At least we all got our song fragments from the SSG chest for the quest, A Test of True Love!

We also ran into the NM Wuur the Sandcomber, which can drop a Holy Ampula, but all we got was a Bastore Sardine.

The next day Kiki took the mermaid parts to Peddlestox, and he marked a treasure spot on her map. Kiki found it and dug up a wooden crate with a pickaxe, and got 4000 gil, a sardonyx, a bag of vegetable seeds, a silver beastcoin, and a Mermaid's Ring! Hurray!

Quests: Behind the Smile

The other night, new mannequins safely installed in their moghouses, Grymalkyn, Elboron, and Tsakiki set out for the Tavnazian Safehold, where they heard they could get a quest, Behind the Smile, which would reward them with a pair of Mannequin Pumps. Kiki would have loved to have these boots when she was levelling RDM, but they will still be very useful for her.


The trio found Enaremand in the upper level of the Safehold, and learned that he needed some Red Oil. We headed to Mhaura to see if Fyi Chalmwoh had any, but she didn't. She thought we might be able to find some on an Orc, but was a little light on the details, like where this Orc might be. Fortunately we knew we were supposed to find a ??? in Carpenters' Landing, so we warped back to Windurst and used the Outpost Teleport to Jugner Forest (as PLD65/WAR32, THF65/NIN32, BRD65/WHM32).

We quickly found the spot in Carpenters' Landing, and after buffing up, Kiki examined the ??? spot. Bullheaded Grosvez appeared, and started throwing punches at Kiki. It took us a little longer to kill him than we would have thought for an NM on a quest that gets you a level 35 item, but he didn't really do much damage to us, mostly because he missed a lot. He did three shoulder tackles in a row, and then "paused to catch his breath". (I thought that was an odd message.) He did some move that reset hate (or Grym stole hate), and started using Hundred Fists on Grym, but we killed him with little trouble.

We examined the ??? again to get the Red Oil, and headed back to the Tavnazian Safehold to talk to Enaremand. We got quite a long cutscene that showed us some of Enaremand's sad story, and he rewarded us each with a pair of mannequin pumps!

Quests: It's Raining Mannequins!

A long time ago, we started the quest It's Raining Mannequins!. Fyi Chalmwoh at the Goldsmithing Guild shop in Mhaura told us that if we could find an old mannequin catalog and a set of mannequin joint diagrams and all five parts, she'd be able to make a mannequin for us. We found the catalog and diagrams talking to people in Selbina and San d'Oria, and started looking for the parts. We obtained mannequin feet and legs from our Garrison Runs, so Elboron, Grymalkyn, and Tsakiki needed to get the body, hands, and heads. These three pieces are guaranteed drops from three different BCNM 20s.

Crustacean Conundrum

We decided we'd try for the Mannequin Body first, from Crustacean Conundrum. This BCNM has you face 3 crabs, all with very low HP, but any damage you do to them will be either 0 or 1, even Astral Flow or a Black Mage's strongest nuke. We decided we'd need to do it as two Red Mages and a Monk. Since Elbo's MNK was at 0 and his RDM at 14, Grym (WHM43) and Kiki (RDM58) powerleveled Elbo's RDM to 20 over three days.

From 14-16, he fought things in Tahrongi Canyon and Buburimu Pennisula, then the second day we moved to the Maze of Shakrami and got him to 16. The next day, Grym switched to her RNG19, and Kiki powerleveled the duo on worms in Korroloka Tunnel, getting Elbo's Red Mage to 20 and Grym's Ranger to 21.

We picked up our orbs in Jeuno and headed to the Waughroon Shrine in Palborough Mines. Elboron as RDM/WHM, Kiki as RDM/BLM, and Grym as MNK/WAR. The RDMs both had Platoon Daggers (very low delay) and used enthunder to hopefully get an extra point of damage per hit, while Grym used Tropical Punches, which are also very low delay and +10 Accuracy. Our plan was for Elbo and Kiki to each bind one of the crabs (the big one and one little one), while Grym would voke the third. We'd beat on the one and move on to the next. This worked very well for us, and we got better at it over our three runs, going from just over 6 minutes for the first, 5 minutes for the second and 4 minutes for the third. Grym used Hundred Fists on the first run, but we didn't think it was essential, so we did the second run with no Hundred Fists, though we did wait until her 2 hour was up again (logged out to keep our 3-hour Jack O'Lanterns active). This let us do the third run right away as well.

Besides the Jack O'Lanterns, we also used melon juice (mages) and pear au laits, and had hi-potions handy just in case. Our (not very original) strategy worked quite well, and once we get our mannequins completed, I can see us doing more runs and selling the parts. Besides our Mannequin bodies, the rest of the drops were really nearly worthless, totalling 40k for the three runs.

Charming Trio

Next on the list was Charming Trio, a Balga's Dais battle with three Leeches that have some annoying attacks. This battle drops the Mannequin Hands 100% of the time. For this, we opted to go as MNK/WAR, WAR/MNK, and RDM/WHM. Our strategy was to have the WAR "body aggro" all the leeches and to attack Pepper first. The MNK would use 100 Fists and then we'd move on to Prune and finally Phoedme. Since Prune and Phoedme hadn't been attacked by the WAR, neither the MNK nor the RDM would get their attention and the WAR would maintain the hate. Elbo's RDM would keep us healthy and help beat on the leeches.

For our first bout, we had Grymalkyn as MNK and Kiki as WAR. For food, Grym and Kiki used Dhalmel Pies, while Elbo opted for an Apple Pie. We had Pear Au Laits and Hi-Potions handy as well. The first run, Kiki actually voked Pepper, but we decided to have the WAR shoot Pepper with an Acid Bolt at the start and have the MNK provoke Pepper for the second and third runs. All three runs went smoothly, and we got our Mannequin Hands and some relatively worthless junk (mytril beastcoins, wool cloth, a cheap katana and pole). Each fight took us about 5 to 7 minutes, and again, was so easy, I can see doing it again some time.

For our second run, we headed to Windurst and switched Grym to WAR and Kiki to MNK, since Kiki hadn't used her two-hour. We did the third run with Grym back to MNK and Kiki back to WAR after Grym's two-hour was back up again.

Shooting Fish

The final piece, the Mannequin Head, is a guaranteed drop from Shooting Fish, a Horlais Peak BCNM facing a Sniper Pugil and his two Archer Pugil buddies. The fish don't melee, but use splash attacks against you that knock you back. Most people do this with two Summoners using Astral Flow with Ramuh, but the three of us haven't leveled Summoner at all (Kiki refuses to until she has all, yes all, of the avatars), so we had to come up with another strategy. We did some research, and learned that some people have used a RNG/WAR, PLD/WAR, WHM/BLM combination with great success.

We geared up with Elbo as WHM, Grym as RNG, and Kiki as PLD. Kiki used Dhalmel Pies for food, Grym opted for Rarab Meatballs, and Elbo used an Apple Pie. Kiki had a couple Hi-Potions and an X-Potion, as well as Pear au Lait and Melon Juice. Since this strategy seems to require the Ranger's two hour, Eagle Eye Shot, we couldn't do the fights all at the same time, so we split them over two days.

We really weren't sure how it would go, and were fearful of failure, but as with the other BCNMs, it went quite well. Elboron cast protectra and shell and barwatera on us. Kiki ran in to get aggro, provoked one of the Archer Pugils, and basically stood there getting pushed against the wall with the three pugils shooting water at her. It was kind of amusing, but a bit annoying that she kept getting "You cannot see the Archer Pugil" messages while trying to shoot arrows at the pugil. So Grym pretty much did most of the damage, at least for the first two fish. Grym used Eagle Eye Shot, and it didn't seem to do anything, but after we killed the first Archer Pugil, we realized that Grym's EES must have hit the other one, since it was at less than half life when we auto-targetted it. I'm not sure why it hadn't been attacking her, but it was a good thing, as Elboron would have had a tough time keeping both Kiki and Grym healed.

Kiki used Invincible when we were left with just the Sniper Pugil, but looking at the damage log, the aqua balls were hitting her through Invincible. It probably helped a bit with hate, but certainly didn't give us a break on Cures.

Kiki wasn't able to get too many Cures off at the start of the fight, so she used a Hi-Potion and an X-Potion to help Elbo out. Kiki was able to pretty much keep hate off of Grym until we were left with just the Sniper Pugil (Kiki was wearing her Pumpkin Head II and Dash Sash for +3 Enmity, which probably helped). The fight took us about 7 minutes, and in addition to the Mannequin Head, we got a platoon gun, shall shell, Thunder Spirit Pact, and something else of minor value. The Thunder Spirit Pact actually sells for 150k, so that was a nice surprise. Elboron ran off to Mhaura to get the Mithra to put together his mannequin, but wouldn't be able to get it until the following day.

The next evening, the two runs went a bit smoother, and rather than being nervous about it, I actually had a fun time. Kiki switched to Tavnazian Tacos for the extra defense and vitality over the Dhalmel Pies (plus another 20 MP wouldn't hurt). We didn't use any potions for these two runs either. The first Archer Pugil went down fast with Eagle Eye Shot, and Grym would get hate by the time we got to the Sniper Pugil, so Kiki got to run up and smack it a few times for both runs. We didn't get worthwhile drops other than our Mannequin Heads, but it sure was fun.

Putting It All Together

Grym and Kiki warped to Windurst to get the rest of their mannequin parts out of storage and headed off to Mhaura to get Fyi Chalmwoh started on their mannequins. She said it would take her several days to put the mannequin together, so we came back later and got our very own mannequins! We hurried back to Windurst to get them set up in our moghouses.

Now that we're done with this quest, and have seen how easy it can be to get the heads, bodies and hands, I'd like to do some more runs on these BCNMs and sell the parts to finance purchases of another mannequin or two. I'm also looking forward to doing the Tavnazia quest for the Mannequin Pumps!

Leveling: Kiki's BLM to 31 in Yhoator Jungle

One evening during my holiday, Splinte and Emith were talking about starting a party in the Jungles, and Kiki jumped in with her BLM, since she does want to get it to 40 at some point. Emith ended up not joining, so Splinte's NIN and Kiki's BLM ended up getting into a party with a DRK, SAM, WHM, and a second BLM. We fought mostly mandragoras, but tangled with some goblins as well. Our party morphed into a baby manaburn party with a third BLM replacing the SAM and a different WHM. It was kind of fun, since we killed things pretty fast. The second form of the party was more successful than the first form, which had numerous deaths (though somehow Kiki managed to avoid death, partially in thanks to a prism powder - don't leave home without them).

It was enough to get her from 29 well into 31. I'd really like to do the quest for the Mannequin Pumps before Kiki parties with her BLM again, but since we're just about ready to complete our Mannequins, that shouldn't be a big problem.

Leveling: LLS Passes the MLS

Over the holidays, the LLS got in three exp sessions in The Boyahda Tree, and in the process, caught up to and overtook the Mid-Level Static. :-)

For our first party fighting Processionaires in the Tree, we had Talula's RDM60 filling in for Erock. We fought for 3.5 hours, and Kiki ended up with about 17K exp (not using the Empress Ring). Itera, Kiki, Grym, and Yobun all hit 64, though Grym lost a good chunk of exp. She got aggro'd by an Elder Goobbue near our camp and took the death rather than risk wiping the whole party. After a Raise 1, Grym wanted to keep fighting while weakened, but got hit by a blast of Poison Breath from a crawler that turned at the wrong moment, and Grym died again.

It's not a bad camp, with 6-8 crawlers to pull for the chains. Unfortunately they tend to hang out in pairs, so it's hard to pull just one. Once you get the respawns spaced out, it works quite well, and we had lots of chain #5s with little time wasted.

We headed back again for a bit of a marathon session on a weekday when we were all on holidays. Erock was with us, and we got about 22K exp in nearly 5.5 hours before we called it a night. Itera, Kiki, Grym and Yobun were all 65, while Elboron was 64 and Erock 60. Elboron went out with a pickup party the next day and got nearly caught up to Kiki, but Kiki's still 15K behind Itera.

Back on our regular schedule as the holidays ended, we hit the Tree for a third time (had thought about going to the Den of Rancor, but a party was there). We had a pick-up WHM, Alexsander, subbing in for Erock. He did an OK job, but every time we get a pickup healer, I really miss Erock! Itera and Alex were the only two who leveled. Once Itera hit 66, the exp dropped off pretty sharply, so we'll definitely head someplace else next week. We ended up with about 10k exp on 2.5 hours of food, with a short break in there while Alex had to get some dinner.

Events: Starlight Celebration

This year's mid-winter festival, the Starlight Celebration, had a few things similiar to last year's: giving present to children would allow you to make use of a city-to-city teleport server, you could trade 10 fireworks for outpost tleports (and avoid the normal level cap on the service), and you could get a Dream Hat +1 (makes 1 to 10 ginger cookies every 24 hours) by having high gift "fame" and a holiday tree in your moghouse.

New for this year were Dream Robes, and Dream Robe +1s. Event moogles would give you a greeting card, which was addressed to a person with a particular job in a particular level range, like Ranger 10s, or Paladin 60s. Each card had 4 in a series, and if a person with the appropriate job/level traded the card back to the moogle, it would continue on, with the 4th trade resulting in a rare/ex robe for the trader.

After a lot of trial and error, we figured out that for the 4th trade, the card would turn into a card that was appropriate for the person who got the original card (or a 10s level job if they had a job sub-10 at the time). We tested this theory with a card that Quiznos had picked up as a WAR7, and we had managed to have the first three requested jobs between Grym, Kiki, and Elboron. When the card ended up being for a WAR 10s, we decided Elboron should level his WAR to 10 and try it. He soloed to 7, then Grym and Kiki joined him with their RDM7 and RNG7 and they got their jobs to 10.

Sure enough, when Elboron handed in the card as a WAR10, he got his Dream Robe. Kiki had got one just randomly trading cards with people in Windurst a couple days earlier, but now that we figured out the pattern, we knew what we had to do for our Dream Robe +1s, as well as Grym's Dream Robe. We spent a lot of time trading cards with the moogles, getting strangers to trade cards for us, helping strangers with their card trades, having our mules run around getting and trading cards, and we finally ended up with our Dream Robe +1s. For these, the cards had to be obtained by and traded by people wearing their Dream Robes. If the cycle was broken and the card started out without a Dream Robe wearer, or someone along the line didn't wear a Dream Robe while trading, the 4th trade resulted in Rare/Ex Chocopasses (which aren't as useful as Chocobo Tickets).

The Dream Robe +1 is described as "Enhances the effect of Selbina Milk". Anastasia and Kiki tested this out, and we learned that this enhancement gets you an extra 8HP out of a bottle of milk. I suppose this is useful for the baby levels (and our all-Dragoon trio used their Dream Robe +1s to get from 4 to 7), but other than that, they just look festive for the holidays.

One other "benefit" is that if you call your NPC buddy while wearing your Dream Coat +1, he or she will appear in their own robe and hat.

Fishing: Guild Points and Gil

While Modblog is still having troubles, I'll post both here and there. If it lasts too long, I guess I'll have to give up on them again. /sigh

Grym and Kiki haven't been doing a lot of fishing lately, and when we do, it's usually to catch guild point fish if there's a chance for skill ups or gil from other fish we might catch while targetting the GP. So over the holidays, we found ourselves in a variety of locations. Kiki's fishing skill hit 52, while Grym's just barely over 50.

When Crystal Bass was the fish-of-the-day, we headed to the Crystal Spring in Jugner with our Frog Lures, and caught Red Terrapin as well as the bass. These are still skillup fish for us, and Qiara was using them to make Turtle Soup for skilling up her Cooking to 71. Kiki headed to Qufim for some squid as well, which Qiara turned into Squid Sushi for Grymalkyn's exp food.

When the guild wanted Blindfish, we saw that we could catch both Blindfish and Armored Pisces in Oldton Movalpolis using meatballs as bait, so we headed there to fish with 7 stacks of meatballs that Kiki whipped together. Using her Lu Shang's, Kiki was able to land 3 of the Armored Pisces (cap at 100), but Grymalkyn would only get a snapped line for her efforts with a composite rod. We both got .2 in skillups on them though, so it was definitely worth losing the bait. Armored Pisces also sold pretty quickly on the AH, so that was nice.

If Kiki has a spare moment in Windurst, she'll often take out her Shrimp Lure and see if she can get a few Bastore Bream for Qiara to turn into sushi for sale. She was skilling up on that as well, to 72, but passed that a couple of days ago. I think she needs to make Tuna Sushi now, so we'll have to do a bunch of fishing on the ferry. Ugh. I hate fishing on the ferry - between needing to keep sneak up and having to wait in Selbina and Mhaura for the next ferry, it's just plain annoying. I suppose being killed by Silverhook would make it even less pleasant.

We took a trip to fish on Purgonorgo Isle to get some Moorish Idols. We were hoping to skill up on Trilobites (used shrimp lures), but pretty much just caught the Moorish Idols. Lots and lots of Moorish Idols. If the trip didn't take so long, and the Moorish Idols were useful for things beside GP, they'd probably be a pretty popular fish.

Fishing guild points are so easy to obtain that we'll have more than enough points to get our aprons ages before our fishing skill will be high enough to have the guild even offer it to us. I think we've already built up 60K since we got our waders at level 48.

General: Holiday Vacation

Happy New Year's everyone! It's been awhile since I last updated my blog, but between being busy at work and then taking 2 weeks of vacation time, I haven't really had time. I played quite a bit of FFXI during my vacation, but since I'd rather be playing than writing about playing, my blog got a bit neglected.

I've also decided to move back to my old blog at Modblog.com, as I've really missed some of the features they have available. Sorry to be so inconsistent, but hopefully I won't regret this decision and have to go back to Blogger.com. Of course, now that I've made that decision, the images seem broken again. :-(

I'll have more detailed entries for some of the things Kiki did over the holidays, but here's a quick rundown: BCNMs for Mannequin parts, Starlight Festival and the search for the Dream Robe +1s, the Low Level Static is well into level 65 (and Itera is 66), Kuftal Tunnel map, a level on woodworking (64.8), a level on fishing (52.0), BLM is now 31, quested for a Mermaid's Ring, did a KS30 Desert Swarm with a group of 4 73+ BLMs and a BRD, RNG is now 12, NPC is 51 (Grym's is 50), completed Wild Card and A Test of True Love quests, All-Dragoon Trio is level 7, we did the fortune teller/free food quest a bunch of times, and RDM is now 60 (it's so weird to see Kiki in RDM AF).

The economy on Lakshmi went nuts over Christmas, possibly as a result of a flood of ill-gotten gil. Many items jumped 100% in just one sale (Byrnies went from 5.2 million to 12 million - bought by the person who listed it, but settled firmly at 11 million after that), while others jumped 200k-500k per sale until they doubled (HQ staves for example). Tree cuttings went from 10-15k for a single to 15-20k, while tree saplings jumped from 270K a stack to 400K. Tuna sushi leapt from 25k to 50k. I think sole sushi is now 90k a stack. Not all of the raw materials have gone up as dramatically, though some fish has. We've found that at least for Bream Sushi, we make quite a bit more having Qiara make sushi out of the bream we catch rather than selling the Bream alone.

The rich just keep getting richer, while we struggle to get the items we think we need. Since we have tended to keep a lot of gil on hand rather than "invest" in items, our net worth seems a whole lot lower now than it did. If we were to liquidate our items we do have, I'm sure a lot of them are worth a lot more than we originally paid, but since they are things we use for different jobs/levels, there's not really anything we'd want to sell. I could theoretically sell my Lu Shang's for 11-13 million now, but I need that rod for ongoing income, so it would be foolish to sell it.

Kiki has been planning to upgrade her shield to a Diamond Shield when she hits level 66 on her Paladin, and has been checking the Jeuno AH frequently over the past week or so, hoping to find one. She missed one on the 28th, but that was the only one listed since she started actively seeking one. Now I'm afraid that the person who next puts one up for sale will think they can double the price or something, despite it being a steady 2 million for the entire auction history. She did get her Espadon +1 (sword) for 66 already, but there's a better supply of those.