Assault: Chief Sergeant Kiki

This week, we were able to do a batch of Lance Corporal assaults, and since I had four tags available, I got enough points to pick up the quest for Promotion: Chief Sergeant! That was sure quick.

We started out with the Shanarha Grass Conservation in Leujaoam Sanctum. For this assault, you're supposed to exterminate the cute little bunnies that are eating all the grass. There are around 20 of them, and they split up into two groups, with one group heading north and the other south. They're not too tough, but they do hit kind of hard and fast for DC bunnies. The first set wasn't too spread out when we started attacking them, but we managed to get them all killed without dying in the process. The second set was easier, since they'd spread out pretty well. It was really a pretty easy assault for the 6 of us (Yobun MNK, Demin MNK, Daden SAM, Itera MNK, Erock RDM, and Tsakiki PLD).

Next up was Breaking Morale at the Mamool Ja Training Grounds. This one's a stealth mission, with a bit of danger. You're supposed to run in to the area, find the supply coffers, and return to the NPC at the start with the supplies you've pilfered. The trick is to do it without getting caught. The area is filled with Mamool Ja Recruits, who will attack you if they see you, and Mamool Ja Trainers, who will send you to the prison area when they see you. There's a pot of viscous liquid at the prison area, which conveniently puts you into a Mamool Ja costume, but at the cost of a heavy poison. This takes off 22 HP per tick, and slows your movement speed. We learned a few things on this run: if you get aggro'd by a Recruit, run away to find a Trainer to get sent to prison. This will shed your aggro. Watch your HP, the costume can kill you. We didn't do as well as we would have liked, but we were able to turn in two sets of supplies and got the win, at the expense of two deaths.

For our third run, we tried Evade and Escape in Lebros Cavern. We switched around the group a bit, and had Diasuke WHM, Yobun WHM, Daden SAM, Itera MNK, Erock RDM, and Tsakiki PLD. For this assault, you need to find 3 switches that can be in 6 different rooms. Once you've found all three, you need to activate them within a minute of each other in order to active the Rune of Release, then have someone get to the Rune of Relase for the win. The complication for this one is that there are 3 Daleks roaming the pathways in the Cavern. The rooms themselves are safe from their patrol, so you have to watch them and try to avoid being spotted. Yobun assigned rooms for each of us to check, and mine was the furthest from the entrance, in the southeast corner. It was kind of fun finding spots to hide from the dragons as I made my way to the switch room. We did have several deaths in the process, but we found the three switches, and completed the assault.

Our final run for the night was Shooting Down the Baron in Periqia. This one has a 15 minute time limit, and you need to find an imp and kill him. There are pugils in the zone that will aggro as well, but it's best to avoid them to save time. The imp will warp to another location, which means hunting him down again. The hide and seek aspect is a bit annoying, especially when you don't have much time, but it worked out well for us (Diasuke WHM, Ryken MNK, Daden SAM, Itera MNK, Demin MNK, and Tsakiki PLD). We spotted the Baron pretty quickly, and very nearly killed him before he warped, thanks to at least one of the MNKs using Hundred Fists. However, he did warp away, and we ran all over the place looking for him. Fortunately he doesn't regen after warping, so when Itera spotted him, he quickly finished him off, and we won the assault.

I now had 28 points towards my promotion, so I ran off to talk to Abquhbah and picked up my quest for Promotion: Chief Sergeant quest. Abquhbah's messed up an easy task and fears the wrath of Naja, and needs help getting out of the situation. I had to go find some special "scourshrooms" in the Aywadeen Subterrane, which involved picking a mature scourshroom and then planting it in a sparse mushroom patch, waiting until 4:00 the next game day, and then getting two young scourshrooms to take back to Abquhbah. I completed the quest, and was promoted to Chief Sergeant. Only one mercenary rank left, though I'm sure they'll be adding more soon. I hope they're not done with the Perdu weapons that you can get from mercenary rank and ISP. They still need a one-handed sword Paladins can use....

New title: Chief Sergeant