First Lieutenant Kiki

Last Monday night's assaults were more than enough to get me the points I needed for my final promotion quest. Since we were all Sergeant or better, I got to do three that were new for me. We started out with Supplies Recovery in Leujaoam Sanctum, where we had to get more items from Imps than two of the Immortals. The NPCs kind of cheat, since they run faster than we can, and can jump up ledges that we cannot, but we still managed to get more of the supplies than they did, so it was a win.

Then we played matchmakers for a bunch of Apkallus in Lebros Cavern (Apkallu Breeeding). This was kind of cute, and really pretty easy - just have to avoid a few bombs. You have to talk to the males (they're larger) and lead them to the appropriate female. They're matched up by the noises they make, a cipher that spells out a simple word, and the females will have a word that "matches", like "cod" and "fish", and "orange" and "apple". It's also a 15 minute one, so I could see this being handy for point spamming for Lebros.

The third new assault was Stop the Bloodshed, in Periqia. The goal here is to kill at least 35 chigoes that are spread throughout the area, while trying to avoid (haha) the Lamia "Chigoe Breeders". I didn't much like this one, but it was another win, and I'm now at 25/51 of the assaults I need to reach Captain.

We did a final Troll Fugitives so we didn't waste the 5-pointers for Erock and Lucrezia, plus we all like the experience points we get from that one.

The next evening I did the Promotion: First Lieutenant quest, which was basically three sets of logic puzzles. First I had to use the Force, err, my sixth sense to pick out 3-5 disguised Qiqirn, then prove my ability to learn some simply ciphers, and finally, face several NPCs for a modified version of Rock/Scissors/Paper. None of this was too difficult, especially with the walkthrough on FFXIclopedia, but it did take a bit of time. It might not have been so bad, but I got a black screen of doom on my PS2 just as I'd completed the first phase and was being "zoned" out of the cutscene. The game didn't register that I'd done that part, so I had to repeat it.

I've been enjoying the assaults quite a bit, and have been happy that we've been able to maintain interest and keep people doing them on Monday nights. I've been building up quite a lot of points in each of the zones, since I haven't felt the Amir armor is worth getting for my PLD, and I don't have any other jobs high enough for the sets. Since I'm getting more than the 1500 I need each week for Salvage, it will just keep piling up.

New title: First Lieutenant