Quests: Spice Gals for Goto

I've told Goto about my weekly exp scrolls, and he was very interested in doing them himself. In order to do Secrets of Ovens Lost, you first need to complete Spice Gals, which involves a trip through one of the Riverne sites to pick up a key item rivernewort. On Saturday, the two of us headed to Riverne Site #A01, as a BST40/NIN20 - WHM40/BLM20 duo. I prefer going through site #A01, since if I recall correctly, the ??? spot you have to get to in #B01 is in the middle of an aggro-filled island. It's true you only need one dragon scale instead of the two in #A01, but then again, there's also the fact that I know my way around #A01 a lot better than I do #B01.

We had to kill 7 or 8 Firedrakes to get the two scales we needed, and had quite an exciting time in the process, with lots of near-death experiences, and unfortunately one death for Goto. The birds I needed to use for pets were mostly Toughs, and rather than try to convert them to Even Matches, I used the Toughs as pets for a few of the fights. Of course they'd come uncharmed before the Firedrake was killed, but at least I didn't have any charm failures on my recharms.

After we got the two scales, we safely made our way to the island before Monarch Linn, where we both picked up our rivernewort from the ??? spot. I try to make sure I always have this repeatable quest active, just in case I happen to be in the area. For some reason, I'm doing well on my exp, and haven't actually gone to pick this scroll up yet, as I still have last week's cookbook quest scroll in my inventory. The ENM on Saturday night made up for most of my Xarcabard deaths, and Preemptive Strike on Monday capped me off again, since I somehow made it through Limbus without dying on Sunday.

In a mood for more exploration, we headed over to the island with the stone monument. We were careful to avoid the atomic cluster that hovers near the monument, and examined it. I'd forgotted that was the island for the Minstrel's Dagger quest, Confessions of a Bellmaker, but Goto was treated to the cutscene that starts it. It was a fun couple of hours, and now Goto can do the weekly Sacrarium runs too!