Questing, Level 44 Party, Eastern/Western Altepa Desert

My main agenda for today, outside of the Experience Party we had planned for this evening, was to clean myself up some, mule some random items around that have been rotting on my main character for weeks (I don't why the fuck was I still carrying around my Bone gear with me, and my Samari's Great Katana, among other things...), and take care of some more of the Monuments we need to get impressions from for the "An Explorer's Footsteps" quest. When I logged in I saw that Almeth was already online, so I quickly recruited him and we got down to getting some of those things done. I set my H.P. in Selbina, met up with Almeth, and away we went.

Although the pic doesn't do it justice, this is one of the few places in Gustaburg that doesn't look entirely like vomit.

While we were out getting our first tablet of the evening, Kamiku logged on, and asked Almeth and I if we wanted to go get some of our G1 items, which are needed to break the level cap at level 50. As my Dancer is currently stuck 1 point away from 51, Almeth and I jumped at the chance to pick up a few of these items. Kamiku headed towards The Eldieme Necropolis to wait for us while we made our way out there from Jugner. Basically, all Almeth and I did was zone in and sit down, while Kamiku ran in and did all the dirty work. Within moments we both had the Ancient Papyrus we needed, so our next stop was Crawler's Nest. We made our way over there, and within a few more minutes we both had the next item we required...Exoray Mold. Kamiku had a Dynamis-Valkurm to do, so with 2 of the 3 G1 items secured, we wished him luck and went on our merry way.

Almeth and I carried on, getting more Clay Tablets, and after 3 or 4 more Amedelie and Reflaa showed up, so it was time to get serious and get some experience under our belt. Amedelie, Almeth, and I geared up, ran to Northern San d'Oria, and Outpost Warped to the Eastern Altepa Desert to meet up with Reflaa, who logged out there by the outpost the night before. We killed some things and got some experience, but the mobs were a little weak for our tastes, and the amount of Experience we were getting left a little to be desired. At this point, Kamiku was finishing up his Dynamis-Valkurm, so in preperation for having a 5th member, we decided to check out some alternate camps.

I pulled up Campsitarus, we discussed a little what our options were, and we decided to try and head out to Quicksand Caves, which was on the other side of the zone. Dodging Antican's, we made our way across the desert.

[Edit - As with yesterday, we had a lot of stuff going on, so I may have some of the events of our party a little mixed up in their ordering. Sorry for any inconvenience :)]

While we were trekking through Eastern Altepa, we caught some aggro to an Antican Something-or-other, so we quickly regrouped and started to beat it's ass down. While we were fighting, Almeth spotted another Antican nearby, so we steered the mob we were fighting away from it to avoid any linkage and death. After taking a closer look (I couldn't tell since I have names turned off for picture and video purposes), we discovered that the other Antican was indeed Centurio XII-I, a level 57ish NM. With Kamiku soon to be arriving there (Thanks Almeth for the correction, my memory sucks) with his 58ish Dragoon, we decided to give it a shot and try at putting him down...he has a 21 hour respawn time, so the opportunity was not likely to come up again any time soon. Since all of the rest of us were in the mid 40's, there really wasn't much we could do except for poke at it with our weapons and such, and let Kamiku handle the tanking aspect of the fight, since the rest of us really wouldn't have lasted too long with his full attention. Things were going OK when a freak Eagle Eye Shot caught Kamiku for like a bajillion damage, and down he went.

Without Kamiku, the rest of us were in some pretty deep shit. There's no way we could have really done too much to him on our own, so I quickly raised Kamiku so he could get back into the fray and take hate off of Reflaa and the rest of us "squishier" people. After a quick Cure III to get him in some slightly better shape (although he was still weakened from eating a death), we got back to into the fight. Unfortunately, Centurio hit just a little too hard for us, and I ended up eating it, with Kamiku follwing not too long after. Down to just three of them, Amedelie, Almeth, and Reflaa busted ass and started running for their lives the rest of the way across the desert towards the zone into Quicksand Caves.

Me, in the pose I'm best known for...lying dead while someone straddles my corpse. Reflaa is so disturbed he has to look away.

Kamiku home pointed, and changed jobs to his 75 Thief to get some payback, and made his way back out. I home pointed myself, Teleport-Altepa'd back out there, grabbed a chocobo, and started running as fast as I could to find my peeps and try and help. We were both a little too late unfortunately; Amedelie and Almeth managed to make it to the zone line, but Reflaa got caught up, and got slaughtered mere feet from safety. Kamiku was on the scene by that point, so he got to kicking Centurio's ass while I ventured out to find Reflaa so I could Raise him and get him back into the game. With Reflaa back in the land of the living, he ran across the zone to rest up while his death sickness wore off, and Kamiku put Centurio down. We farted around killing some easy preys near the zone line while Reflaa rested back to full and Kamiku ran off to change back into Dragoon, and once we regrouped, we headed inside Quicksand Caves to give some Beetles a try.

The Beetle's were definitely doable, but the fight was a little too long and hard for our taste, and while the experience was good, we figured we'd make better use of our time fighting something a little easier. Consulting Campsitarus yet again, we decided on heading over to Western Altepa Desert, right next door, to work on some slightly easier Beetles, so we packed up our shit and got to moving...

Great shot of our posse while I was in first-person mode...we're such bad mother fuckers :)

Things progressed a little better once we made the move to Western Altepa Desert and claimed our camp up against the base of the huge mesa in the center of the zone. Unfortunately, we still had some slight problems with links, and I ended up biting it at one point after a last ditch sacrificial Benediction, but luckily the rest of the party survived that time. A little while later, Almeth had another link, and while he Flee'd and started trying to outrun them, it was no use, and the mobs chased him down and dropped him. We all ran out of our little hiding spot to help, but it was just too late. The guys started working on the Beetles while I Raised Almeth and got him back on his feet, he ran a safe distance away, and we finished them off. With a collective sigh of relief, we ran back up to our camp before some other asshole party tried to take it (ended up having a party camp right next to us, the fucks), took a slight break to get us back to 100%. At this point of the evening, the Death scoreboard stood at Kamiku and I tied for first with 2 deaths, Reflaa and Almeth tied for second with 1 each, and Amedelie coming up the rear with none (lucky bastard). 6 deaths may seem like a lot to some people, but hey, this is Bahamut's Dreadnought, and we don't do anything half ass. :)

Towards the end of our evening, our friendly neighborhood Dancer, Mikers, popped on to say hi, and even though we were planning on winding it down and getting to bed soon, Mikers agreed to come out and fight with us for a bit. I've spent enough time extolling how awesome Dancer is and how much I love the job and want to have like 10,000 of it's babies in the past, so let's just say that I was ecstatic to have a DNC along, even for a little while, as it gave me a break and allowed me to get back into casting Haste and meleeing with the rest of the crew. My club skill is way underlevelled (like 50 levels lower then the cap) so I looked forward to swinging my Blessed Hammer and getting a skill up or two. Of course, I don't think I actually got any skillups, but I did manage to at least connect a time or two, so that was nice.

Clockwise, from bottom: Xxnumbertwoxx, Kamiku, Reflaa, Almeth, Amedelie, Mikers (with Rover happily flying overhead, waiting for the fresh meat to arrive)

From that point on, thing's progressed well. About 20 minutes after Mikers arrived, Reflaa lost power, and Ame and Reflaa disconnected. We were all exhausted at that point, with some of us literally falling asleep at the keyboard, so we just called it an evening, and everyone went their seperate ways. As always, another very productive evening for Bahamut's Dreadnought; we laughed, we cried, we came, we saw, and we conquered...not necessarily in that order, mind you.

I can't wait to do it again :)

Level 43 Party, Sanctuary of Zi'tah/Eastern Altepa Desert; Questing in Ordelle's Caves

Last night was a long one. We had a lot we wanted to accomplish; besides just gaining some more exp, last night was a good opportunity to get Almeth his final piece of R.S.E., so it was a pretty busy night.

There was four of us when the night began: Amedelie (RNG/NIN), Almeth (THF/NIN), Reflaa (WAR/NIN), and me (WHM/BLM). It took us a little while to work out exactly what we were doing, where we were going, and how we were getting there, but eventually we got our shit together and started making our way to the Sanctuary of Zi'tah.

Left to Right: Amedelie, Reflaa, Xxnumbertwoxx, Almeth

Zi'tah is a pretty cool place; it kinda reminds me of the planet with the Ewoks in Return of the Jedi. Amedelie, Reflaa and I had come out here for a party way back in the day, and we were pretty impressed with it then. The camp is right next to the outpost, so getting to and from Zi'tah is typically a breeze. Reflaa didn't have the outpost supply run done, unfortunately, so we came via choco while Almeth and Amedelie warped directly out and checked shit out. When we arrived, we synced down to Almeth at 43 and got started.

Zi'tah was fucking rough, not necessarily because of the difficulty of the mobs, but because of how tight some of the area's one has to run through are. When we first arrived in the zone there was a couple higher level people killing shit, which was great in that it kept the camp site pretty thinned out, but they inevitably left, and Gob's were all over the place. It was very difficult for Almeth to pull single mobs, and links and aggro was a bitch. The Gobs we would clear out seemed to respawn really fast, so Almeth would get cut off trying to run back with another one.

Me, after eating death number 4 (I think)? There was so many I lost count...

The game really fucking hated me yesterday, I don't know what the hell I did, but I got crushed. I would pull hate with the most mundane of spells and get drilled, I'd be resting back MP while Almeth was pulling and the mob would immediately come hit me for absolutely no reason at all and interrupt me, and at one point even took the largest Bomb Toss I have personally ever seen, which was death number 3, I think. It was just really fucking bizarre, everyone else got hit for like 20...I took it in the face for like 350-something. Thank God I had reraise up, otherwise, I prolly woulda spent 5k in warping fees to the outpost with all the deaths I ate. At that point, the death scoreboard stood at Xxnumbertwoxx with 4, Reflaa with 1, and Almeth and Ame at zip. With the difficulty we were having, we figured a change of scenery was in order.

Amedelie, having finally reached 88 miles per hour, engages the Flux Capacitor and attempts to travel in time.

After consulting with Campsitarus to find an alternate camp, we decided on Eastern Altepa Desert. As with before, Amedelie and Almeth had the outpost opened up, so they ran out ahead while Reflaa and I teleported out there and chocobod to camp. We hung out pretty much right next the outpost, and primarily fought the various flavors of Gob that were running around. After a little while in our new camp, LS member Kamiku popped on and offered his services as Dragoon in our little group. We quickly accepted, Kamiku made his way out to us, and we got down to business.

Kamiku (2nd from left), with his pet dragon. Aww, isn't he cute? :)

Things progressed a lot better in Altepa. I stopped eating a death every fifteen minutes, Almeth was better able to navigate around mobs with all the open space to run around in, and Reflaa and Kamiku traded hate back and forth very well (although there were some pretty close calls). Eventually I made up for the experience I lost, and we started making some good progress all around. It was a little difficult for me to keep up with MP at times; I brought lots of Pineapple Juices with me, and I'm glad I did, as resting back from 12 MP all the way to maximum takes forever.

Just when I thought the whole dying thing was behind us, we got into a pretty bad battle, and Reflaa ended up biting it again. I was spent MP-wise at that point, so when Kamiku started getting really low in health, I Benedicted, which immediately drew a ton of hate, and I tore ass running for the zone. Of course, being as directionally challenged as I am, I ran off in the wrong fucking direction, but with the help of a higher level person grabbing one of the things chasing me, and Kamiku grabbing the other things off of me (I don't know how he did, I was too busy saying "Ohgodohgodohgod" to myself as I ran in circles, but thank Christ he did) I followed Kamiku and Almeth the right way, and after what seemed like the longest tunnel I've ever ran down in my life, we zoned. I stayed just across the zone line and rested back to full MP, zoned back in and Raised Reflaa. As we had some time while we waited for Reflaa's weakness to wear off, Amedelie and Reflaa took a break and went AFK.

Within a few minutes, another asshole Gob aggro'd and killed Reflaa, who was still weakened, in 2 shots, bringing the death scoreboard to Me with 4, Reflaa with 3, and everyone else tied with zero. I think I can say with all honesty that this evening was the deadliest evening I have ever experienced in Final Fantasy. Not too long after that debacle, Kamiku had to go to bed, so we were 4 once again. The rest of the party went pretty uneventfully, we did our thing, and as soon as Almeth dinged 45 we called it an evening and Reflaa logged off and went to bed.

[Edit: I may have the exact progression of events surrounding Reflaa's last 2 deaths mixed up. At any rate, he died twice in like 10 minutes and we wept openly]

However, the night was not yet over for the rest of us. As of midnight, Almeth's Racial Gear was available to be done again, and since he only needed one more piece, we ran down towards Ordelle's Caves to get it completed for him. I changed back into Dancer, and chocobo'd out to La Thiene Plateau. First order of business was to use our Selbina Clay and grab the La Thiene marker for the Clay Tablet quest, which was more or less on the way. After circling the crevasse that you need to go into looking for a way down for 5 minutes, Almeth found the ramp down (which I prolly passed 3 times lol) and we ran out to the marker. In looking at the map of La Thiene, I noticed there was an NM funguar (Tumbling Truffle) that spawned right where we were going, and since it was a lottery spawn that came up every hour, and the gear it dropped was nothing too special (but worth 5k or so), Almeth and I quickly killed the placeholders and waited for him to pop. After a few minutes (which given how exhausted we were felt like 45) he popped, we kicked his ass, and got kicked in the balls yet again when it dropped a dumpy sleepshroom. After he died, we got serious, and zoned into Ordelle's Caves.

Thanks for the sleepshroom, asshole.

At level 50, Ordelle's Caves is a joke, everything is Too Weak...although a few mobs checked as Easy Prey to Almeth, nothing aggro'd at all, which was a nice change of pace comapred to our previous experiences in Shakrami getting Almeth his other R.S.E. pieces. The original plan was for Almeth and I to get his shit, while Amedelie went with us to farm Marlboro Vines for her Alchemy stuff. However, after a while, Almeth and I figured Amedelie must have passed out at the keyboard or something, because we never saw her again. Not that it mattered...it was just funny :)

One of the prettier places in Ordelle's Caves

While we were running around, making our way to where the chests spawn for Almeth's shit, we came across a "???", and Almeth clicked it. Imagine our surprise when an Aroma Leech spawned! It was only level 38, so we put it down without any difficulty, and discovered the happy fact that it drops another piece of R.S.E. for Almeth, a Civet Sachet, so that was pretty cool.

We continued on to the chest spawn areas, which required falling down a hole in the floor. There was 2 options, so Almeth took one while I took the other. The chest happened to be right there near Almeth, so he opened the chest, and got some Torn Out Pages...not the Magical Pattern he expected to get. After a quick "WTF??!" moment, Almeth checked online and discovered it is part of a different quest, and take's priority over the R.S.E. stuff. A little irritated, Almeth fought a Stroper Chyme that was running around on his side, while I fought the one nearest me...it was an opportunity kill that really had nothing to do with anything we were doing, but the Stroper Chymes potentially drop the "Shikaree Ring", nothing too fancy but hey, free is free. Unfortunately neither of us got the drop, so we continued on and looked around for the chest to respawn so Almeth could get his Pattern and we could call it an evening before we died of exhaustion.

Fighting yet another stupid slime. At least this time it was by choice...

Not long after Almeth found another chest, popped it open and got his Magical Pattern. There was an exit out of Ordelle's Caves near me, so Almeth ran back up to the top and fell down my hole. We were really close to the area where a couple of Napalm's spawn (floating bombs with angry faces, shoulda taken a screenshot but my brain was barely working at that point), and as they potentially drop a Flame Degen (a decent sword, and a quest item) we figured "Fuck it" and took 'em out. Of course we didn't get the Degen (why I even entertained the notion I don't know), but at least we got a couple Bomb Ash's...I've been sitting on a partial stack of those for like 3 years.

After being completely alone in there all night, we finally saw some people deep in the bowels of Ordelle camping Marbolger, one of three NMs you have to kill to get the Brown Belt for Monk. Marbolger is a 24 hour spawn, so who knows how long they'd been sitting there waiting. Longer than I have the patience for, that's for sure. We ran around for a moment, then called it a night and zoned out into La Thiene...

Of course, the exit we took just happened to be a dead end (leading up to a Headstone that's part of Zilart Mission 5, which is waaaayyyyy beyond anything we're capable of doing at this point), so we had to about face and run back through Ordelle to a different exit. After zoning into the right part of La Thiene, we kicked it into high gear and headed back home to San d'Oria, concluding the questing part of our evening.

At that point, Almeth and I were close to having been awake for 24 hours, so we were completely spent, and logged off for the night. All in all, it was another productive evening for Bahamut's Dreadnought, we got Almeth's R.S.E. done completely, got a free piece of R.S.E. that we weren't even looking for, and all got a level or two. Tonight we have another marathon levelling session planned, working on getting Reflaa and Almeth to level 50 so we can all go do the G1 quest together and break the level 50 cap.

Hopefully we can do it without 7 deaths this time :)

Level 36/40 Party, Purgonorgo Isle

We had a pretty good day today. Amedelie had to log off earlier than normal due to previous obligations, and because we still had an Empress Band working on us from our previous trip to Purgonorgo Isle, we had to gear up quick and get out there to not waste it. I decided to put Monk back on the shelf again...with our trio, it just wasn't working as well as I'd liked. This left me with a bit of a dilemma...I was really wanting to try Purgonorgo Isle again, but I had to find a job that was at least 35 to do it with. In the end, I decided to blow the dust off of my level 40 Paladin and take that out again. It's been quite a while since I touched Paladin as well (though not nearly as long as Monk), so it took me a minute to get my gear lined up; I had shit spread out all over Vana'Diel. Working at a manic pace, I got my shit together, refreshed my signet, flagged down our friendly neighborhood telewhore yet again (we really need to get on a punch card program with her or something lol), and we were off...

Ran out to Bibiki Bay, and we had a few minutes while we waited for the boat to arrive, so we synced to Amedelie at 36 and started working on Efts, Ravens, and a Gob that decided he wanted to run up on Almeth in a rage. It actually worked out well, as we spent the remaining portion of our Empress Bands just before the boat arrived. As it was pulling in, Almeth noticed the fabled red "Disconnect" symbol next to Amedelie's name. Almeth and I sprinted on the boat, hoping that Amedelie would get back online in time to make it...but the game decided to give Ame the finger yet again, by allowing her to log in just in time to see the boat gleefully pull away from the shore. Almeth and I arrived at Bibiki Bay, and relaxed on the dock while we waited for Amedelie to catch the next boat.

Once Amedelie finally arrived, we got down to business. Since we were syncing to Amedelie at 36, and not me at 34, it was much easier then last time. We got our strategy worked out, popped a fresh Empress Band, and Almeth ran out to pull. Our Empress Bands wore just as Amedelie needed to leave, so that worked out perfect. After Amedelie dipped out, Almeth and I duo'd for a bit before calling it an evening ourselves. All told, we all got a level (Amedelie's Dancer to 37, Almeth's Thief to 43, and my Paladin to 41) so we were all happy with that. All in all, it was a pretty good night...

This place reminds me of that movie, The Beach...I can almost hear that Moby song playing in the background. :)

"Oh my God, Almeth, it's charging! RUUUUUNNNNNNNNNN!!!!!!!!!"



Sure, they look cute, but they're not so cute when they're trying to eat your fucking soul...



I guarantee you my next words were, "Holy fuck, my eye!!!"



Do a little dance, make a little love, get down tonight! Get down tonight!

Level 34 Party, Purgonorgo Isle

Almeth and Amedelie had some things they needed to take care of at our normal playing time today, so I used the opportunity to get some quests done, among other things. First order of business was to complete the quest "The Lure of the Wildcat". Basically, in each of the major cities in Vana'Diel, there is an NPC that wants you to help him/her recruit members to a mercenary group, Salaheems Sentinels. This NPC gives you a badge, and you have to go and talk to 20 other NPC's in that city while wearing the badge, they babble on about something or other, and you move on to the next one. When you're done, you return to the original NPC you talked to and he gives you colored Invitation Card. Sounds pretty dumb, right? Well, after you've completed the quest, and if you have some other prerequisite quests done, you can use that NPC to teleport out to the "new" area, Aht Urhgan. The only other way to Aht Urhgan involves taking a really long boat ride, so obviously having the ability to teleport out there instantly is pretty sweet. I had done the Sand'Oria version of the quest before, but I still had Bastok, Windurst, and Jeuno to do, and with 20 NPCs to talk to in each of the cities, spread out all over the place, it took a while to do.

Once I got that done, I worked on some more crafting. As I was collecting ingredients, linkshell member Chrimsun showed up. I hadn't seen Chrim online in a while, so we chatted...he asked me if there was a party tonight, and I told him that there probably would be a little later on. As I crafted, he went out to get some hand to hand skill ups on his Monk while we waited for the others to show up. Eventually, Almeth popped on, followed by Amedelie not long after. While we talked and tried to figure out what we wanted to do, our newest linkshell member, Mikers showed up, so we quickly put together a group of the 5 of us and started working on a game plan.

Party setup went thusly: BLM/NIN (Ame), RDM/??? (Chrim), DNC/NIN (Mikers), BLU/NIN (Almeth) and MNK/WAR (me). Mikers was good enough to break out his WHM to give us a Teleport: Mea, so we bounced out of Jeuno and made our way to Bibiki Bay, to meet Almeth, who was already there. Then disaster struck...Chrimsun does not have the Chains of Promathia expansion pack installed, so when we went to zone into Bibiki Bay, Chrimsun was blocked from entering. Chrimsun logged out to try and figure out a way to get the expansion installed, and told us to go ahead without him for tonight, so we were four for the rest of the night. Almeth returned to Mhaura to change jobs into his THF, and we gathered on the dock for another trip to Purgonorgo Isle.

Left to Right: Mikers, Xxnumbertwoxx, Amedelie, Almeth

First order of business was some payback. Since Amedelie and I died yesterday to a Clot, I was keen to kill one in retaliation, and since Amedelie was a 58 Black Mage I figured she'd be able to drop Firaga VIII on it or something and blow it up. There was a little more to it then that, but all in all the shit on the boat paid for what they did to us the last time we tried to come out here.

Not so tough now, are you, asshole?!

After taking out all the things that decided to spawn on the boat this time around, the boat finally arrived at Purgonorgo Isle, and we scoped out for a good camp site. We didn't go far when we found decent spot to camp right on the beach, I synced us down to me at level 34, and we got started. Almeth ran off to find some mobs, but he had some difficulty; everything was just so spread out that he was pulling from miles and miles away, and since we were synced to level 34 a lot of the mobs he did find checked as Incredibly Tough. Luckily, I was only 2k or so from dinging 35, so we'd hoped that we could tough it out for a little while until I levelled. Our targets were Opo-Opos, Alraunes, and Toucan's (monkies, mandys, and birds to those who don't know).

Amedelie dropping those BLM bombs, while the rest of us work on the ground and pound.

Because of the lack of good TP building mobs for Mikers, it was a little rough. Almeth and I used the same skillchain strategy we used in Bibiki Bay on our last trip out, with Amedelie dropping Aero for a magic burst. Almeth would SATA on Mikers, which normally is kind of risky...pulling hate off of a DNC can be a real bitch at times, but with Amedelie doing good damage with the BLM thing, it was actually a lot easier to pull hate then before, so that was a definite plus. At any rate, things were progressing slowly but surely, and 35 was in sight...

Then disaster struck. Almeth, already having to pull from miles away, shot an Opo Opo and another one linked. Normally, it wouldn't be too big of a deal; Almeth pops Flee, and takes off running like a lunatic for the zone line. Except for one problem...out here, there is no zone line, except for the boat...and that is only there for a few minutes before it takes off again back to Bibiki Bay. Almeth tried to despawn them by running around the island in a big circle, but with all the caves and shit out there, he took a wrong turn. It wasn't his fault...normally, even without zoning, a mob will give up chase after their target get's far enough away. On his recon trip out here the other day, he had the same kind of issues with a Clot that he aggro'd...after thinking he was in the clear, from across the island the Clot comes flying up and starts pounding him again. Given that experience, and the encounter today, I figured that Purgonorgo Isle must be one of those places that the mobs never give up the chase. I could be wrong, but based on what I've seen it seems plasible. Either that, or we're just unlucky as all hell.

Almeth ran for his life, but with the 2 Opo Opo's chasing him linking even more, it was no contest. Amedelie, Mikers, and I dropped sync and ran out to try and help, but it was too late, and Almeth bit the dust. I shouted for a Raise for 15 minutes or so, but as Purgonorgo Isle is a bit off of the beaten path there wasn't a whole lot of people out there, so he gave up and Home Pointed. It was getting late by that point, and everyone had to get up early, so we just called it a night.

Mikers dancing on Almeth's corpse. The lawls were heard all over the island...

So, all in all, not the greatest night for Bahamut's Dreadnought. Luckily there was only one death this time around, but I'm confident we can make up for that here soon. I ended up an ass hair away from 35, so I'm going to try and get that level on my own before our next group so things will (hopefully) be a little easier for us.

Screenshots from Almeth

Almeth sent me these the other day and asked me to post them on the website. If I can guess what's going on, I'll do so. Otherwise, I'll just make something up. Everybody ready? Off we go!

Screenshot of the cutscene you get when you first enter Delkfutt's Tower. The dragon pictured is named Bahamut, and he is very angry.



An example of what happens when Almeth goes out to pull...bet you can't pull just one!


Almeth, having finally gotten his airship pass, stands triumphantly on the railing and pisses all over those losers on chocobos down below. Suckers!!!



"Wow, what a nice view! I should get a picture of this to show the others. Wait a minute, what's that gurgling sound I hear behind me...?"



"Ohmygodohmygodohmygodohmygodohmygodohmygodohmygod!!!!!"

Level 33 Party, Bibiki Bay

Tonight was an interesting night for me. We all pretty much decided that we were going to level something tonight, but I ended up dusting off a job I haven't touched in almost 2 years: Monk. Monk was the job I started with when I started playing Final Fantasy back in February of '06, mainly because of the simplicity of the job; with Monk, all you really do is punch shit. I leveled it to 33, and ended up putting it on the shelf. There were a lot of reasons; the economy was hyper inflated back then and key Monk gear pieces were a fortune, starting over with new members when they started playing (Reflaa), etc. At any rate, I hadn't touched Monk in years, so it was an experience playing with it again.

Left to Right: Almeth (THF/NIN), Amedelie (DNC/NIN), Xxnumbertwoxx (MNK/WAR)

We were a little slow getting started (and I just realized I never got my Purple Belt beforehand...way to fuck that up, Deuce!), but we secured the services of our friendly neighborhood telewhore yet again and made our way out to Bibiki Bay. As I was the low man this time out, everyone synced to me at level 33, we buffed up, I got my macros sorted out (it'd been so long I didn't even have a Monk Macro palette anymore, and had to completely rebuild it), and we got started killing shit. It was a little rough at first, I was a little rusty with the job to begin with, and I must have blocked out how much damage Monk actually takes when they are getting pummeled by a Mob. You have a ton of Hit Points, which is great...but every blow seems to land for 80 damage. There were a few scary moments in the beginning where I thought I was going to bite it; as we had just started Amedelie didn't have the TP built up to cure me yet. After that I played the job a lot more cautiously, and we began to make some good progress.

Soon to be a Rabbit Hide in our inventory...

After Almeth did a little research into skillchain possibilities with Monk and Thief, we all formulated a pretty good strategy. Basically, Almeth would pull the mob, and he would tank it for a moment, letting it eat his shadows, Amedelie would Animated Flourish, pulling hate and shadow tanking as well. By this point, Almeth and I usually had a weapon skill ready, so I would Provoke, cast Dodge to increase my evasion while I had hate, Almeth would SATA-Viper Bite for huge damage and I would close the skillchain with Back Hand Blow for 150 damage or so. With the 100 or so damage skillchain on top of that, finishing the mob off was a pretty easy matter. Everything in the zone was EM-VT, so we could pretty much pull anything we wanted...so we mixed it up between Ravens, Rabbits, and Dhalmels.

Amedelie does her impersonation of the element Boron. The rabbit is not impressed...

So, the night wore on, we killed a bunch of shit, got all of us a level and had some fun. To close out the evening, Amedelie suggested a trip to Purgonorgo Isle to scope it out for future parties. Getting to Purgonorgo Isle is done by taking a boat ride on the Mana Clipper from Bibiki Bay out there. I'd been out there once before, but it'd been years, so I was keen to check the place out. At any rate, we killed a few Ravens on the dock while we waited for the boat, and we boarded when it arrived.

On any terrestrial boat, while you're travelling over the ocean, there's a chance mobs are going to spawn. Almost immediately after we started off, two Clot's spawned. These mobs are in the same family as the NM that killed Almeth yesterday while questing for his R.S.E., so once again we were fighting a blob of goo.

Who's hungry for a nice, juicy knuckle sandwich? Plenty to go around!

The first Clot we fought checked as Decent Challenge to Almeth, so he shot it and pulled it on over. Slime's (the proper name for their family) take shit damage from melee attacks, which is all we had, so it was a bitch to put down, but not too terrible. There was another one running around, and Almeth accidently shot it, trying to cancel...but it was too late. The second one checked as Tough to Amedelie so we knew we had a tough fight ahead of us. We all furiously beat on it, but Amedelie's shadows eventually dropped, and because of the beating she was taking she had to spend more and more TP curing herself...forming a vicious cycle as Amedelie hovered near death with me frantically trying to provoke it off of her, getting it for a moment, before Amedelie had to cure me, pulling hate, and so on. I used my two hour in an attempt to grab hate, spamming provoke...but in the end it didn't matter. Amedelie had actually been getting away from it when it decided to be a royal dickhead and use an AOE on us. Amedelie, who probably had 50 hit points, quickly went down, and with no one left to cure me, I dropped pretty soon after. Almeth was luckily at full health at this point, and as the mob was actually close to death, he was able to finish it off, saving us from the embarassment of a total wipe. The boat arrived, and the crew was at least good enough to hurl our corpses out onto the dock before taking off again on another happy trip to Purgonogo Isle.

I realize people probably die on the boat from time to time, but is everyone really just gonna stand here and let us rot on the dock? What the hell kind of place is this?!

After Almeth said a little prayer for us, we looked around and realized that we were back in Bibiki Bay. Wondering what the fuck had happened there, the realization finally dawned on us...we took the wrong fucking boat. Apparently there's a second Mana Clipper that just takes people on a tour of the area and then brings them back here. Why? What the fuck is the purpose of that? A tour of what?! Angry sea monsters and death?!! How many people actually knowingly choose the boat that goes nowhere for 20 minutes?! If I hadn't already been dead, I would have killed someone. Instead, I Home Pointed...at least I saved my Instant Warp scroll.

Almeth, having survived, agreed to stay behind and run reconnaisance for us, taking the right boat this time and arriving at Purgonorgo Isle unscathed. He checked the mobs and according to our estimation (the whole point was that we would all go out there to see what they checked at to me at level 33, but me eating it dicked that up) the mobs would be ok for us at that level, so we're gonna go give it a shot, maybe tomorrow. Almeth had some issues himself out there, while he was running around scoping the area out, he accidently aggrod a Clot oozing around out on the beach. He Flee'd away, thought he lost it...nope, didn't lose it. Luckily, he was able to use his Two-Hour, Perfect Dodge, and use his warp scroll.

Yeah! Eat a dick, you gooey bitch!! Ha Ha!!!!

That pretty much brings the evening to a close. We said our goodbyes, congratulated Almeth on not eating a death tonight, and with high hopes made our plans for tomorrow...

Maybe I'd better pick up a Reraise scroll before we go out...

Questing in Beadeaux, Pashow Marshlands, Bastok, and the Maze of Shakhrami

Last night was a busy night for Bahamut's Dreadnought...we had a lot on the agenda, and a lot of running around to do...

First order of business was heading back out to Beadeaux yet again to finish up that quest that I dicked up the other day. I came out as White Mage, mainly for ease of transportation, and I spent the whole night weeping inside for my Dancer...it's hard to go from a job like Dancer that can pretty much go forever with no downtime and switch to White Mage where you have to constantly rest to get your MP back. In hindsight, I probably should have just stuck with DNC...

Anyways, the quest we were finishing up is called "the Rescue". Basically, you have to go free a couple of people from a jail cell in Beadeaux. We already had the Quadav Charm we needed to open the cell from our previous trip out there, so it was a simple matter of getting there. Of course, the cell is located in the really angry part of Beadeaux, where the mobs would have pretty much crushed our faces, so there was a lot of time spent casting Sneak and Invisible on us, running to a safe place when it inevitably started wearing off, recasting, and so on. It took us a little while to get there, but we managed to make it without aggroing anything, rescued the people, and then got the hell out.

Once we were done with Beadeaux, Almeth and I took a side trip to Pashow Marshlands to get an impression of the stone monument located there, part of a really long quest called "An Explorer's Footsteps". I don't remember the specific reasons why this guy wants these impressions of these monuments (17 in all), but it really doesn't matter. The reward for getting 15 of the 17 monuments is a map of Crawler's Nest, which we are all going to need to get at some point as we have to get some A.F. armor there for the various jobs we're all leveling up. At any rate, we ran out there, got the tablet, I teleported us out of there, and we made our way to Selbina to turn both of these quests in and finish them off.

Doing a little dance for Almeth, but he's too busy talking to the big strong Galka.
Story of my life...

While we were completing our quests, Amedelie logged on to skill-up Alchemy, so we all chatted while we ran around. Almeth and I went back to our Home Point's in Jeuno, I grabbed a Siren's Tear that I've been carrying around for months now, and jumped on the boat headed to Bastok. This is the first time I've ever been able to actually use the airships between the cities, and it was quite exciting, lemme me tell you. Actually, it really wasn't that exciting of a trip, but not having to spend the time teleporting and chocoboing out there was awesome. Anyways, got to Bastok, and I went and turned in that Siren's Tear (for a fat 120 gil lolz). Amedelie was just about done with the crafting, and we had a little time to kill, so Almeth walked us through a repeatable quest ("Bait and Switch") to get us all a Key Ring Belt.

"Bait and Switch" is a pain in the ass, not because of the difficulty, but just because there is a lot of stuff to do, and a lot of cutscenes you have to sit through while doing it. The Key Ring Belt dispenses 5 Skeleton Keys a week, and a stack of 12 sells for 40k. After going through it once, I can see why people pay so well for them, but I think it's worth the time to make some fat bank every few weeks. Of course, the only job that can wear the belt and dispense the keys is Thief (makes sense), and you have to be level 20. As my THF is currently level 10, I can't do much with it now, but I have plans to level it up at some point, so I'll be able to use it eventually. By the time we all completed the quest, it was Amedelie's bedtime (congratulations on getting 5 levels in Alchemy!), so Almeth and I waved goodbye and got down to business.

Our main goal of the evening was getting Almeth the remaining 3 pieces he needed of his Race Specific Equipment, R.S.E. for short. These different pieces of gear are meant to balance out the stat differences between the races, and it's one of those things that pretty much everyone has to do at some point. The quest is only available at certain times for certain races (every three days or so in real time), so it was important to use the opportunity. Since the quest involves a lot of travel, I stayed White Mage, Teleport-Mea'd us, and we made our way to The Maze of Shakhrami, today's location for Almeth's R.S.E.

This is gonna be a piece of cake! Wheee!!

To be honest, getting the first pattern Almeth needed was simple. We split up and searched around for the treasure chest we needed, which moves around all over the zone as people open it. Within 15 minutes of us being down there, Almeth found the first chest, got the "Magic Pattern" he needed, we warped out and he turned it in. There are 4 pieces in all, Almeth had gotten one on his own previously, so we had 2 down, 2 to go. Warp back out to Mea, run over to Shakrami, and work on number 3.

Getting the third piece was a bitch. There was another Mithra down there competing for the treasure chests, so we split up again and resumed our search. Now, it's not called The Maze of Shakrami for nothing...there are 2 levels with interconnecting tunnels all over the place, and a large number of spawn points for the chest to potentially be in, so I constantly had to bring up my map to see where the hell I was. There are a few spawn points in a harder area that has no way back, so I went down there and searched around while Almeth stayed up on "top" to search around there. Unfortunately, neither of us were high enough level to avoid aggro in our respective search area's, so we had to be careful running around mobs.

While Almeth was searching around looking for the chest, he came across one of the NM's that live here in Shakhrami, Ichorous Ire, which looks like a really pissed off Jello Mold. Almeth started out the fight doing really well, but as he got the NM down to about 1/3rd of it's health, it started eating his shadows and beating him to a pulp. As there was no quick way to get back up to him, I watched in horror as his health got lower and lower, and then inevitably died. We shed a few tears, I teleported out and ran back in to get to him, and gave him a raise. Later on, Almeth told me he expected to eat a death getting his shit, so he wasn't too pissed off at that point.

Aww homie, that sucks...let's get you fixed back up!

Now that we were together, it was time for a little payback. We spawned the NM again, and proceeded to beat it's face in. At least, we think it was it's face...hard to tell when the monster in question is a pile of goo. It's exceptionally frustrating because you can't tell where the thing is looking, making it difficult for Almeth to know when to fire off his Sneak Attack. However, we dominated, and put his ass down.

Please tell me that's not what I think it is you're trying to rub all over my friend. That's just gross...

With our faith restored, I made my way back down to where I was before, and Almeth continued his search up above. The chest was nowhere to be found where he was, so he figured it had to be down by me, and made his way to the lower area so we could search for it together. Dodging mobs, we searched high and low for the chest...no luck. Running together out of one room, we ended up aggroing a Wight, in a cavern filled with the things. As Almeth made a beeline towards the wall so we could fight it safely, another Wight linked, and then a Labyrinth Scorpion decided he wanted a piece...and then another fucking Wight linked, so all told it was me and Almeth up against 3 Wight's and an angry Scorpion. Things started off ok, but I'm sure you can see where this is going...

Look, you beat me, but could you at least not stand on my face? What a dick...

Alright, you win...asshole. You just wait 'til we're a little bigger and you're gonna pay, bitch!

So yeah, that fight didn't end very well. Almeth was quite pissed (one less Wight and we prolly would have made it), so we home pointed, I teleported us again, and we started running our ass of to get at least one more piece...it was getting late, Almeth had to get to bed, so we were in a hurry. Luckily, it didn't take too long for us to find the chest this time around, and although we kept aggroing Gob's (which was really annoying; just as we were about to put one down another one would join in, and then that one would be almost dead and another one would join in, I think we fought 4 in a row all told) but we survived, thank God. I don't think Almeth would have been able to stomach another death in this hell hole without snapping. My MP was spent, of course, so I had to rest up before I could Warp home, and Almeth was kind enough to wait with me to make sure I didn't aggro anything while I rested. He decided to fight an Easy Prey Caterchipillar while he waited to get some Experience back from eating those couple of deaths along the course of the evening.

Aww, it's so cute...KILL IT!!!!!!!!!!!!

After Almeth was done killing the Caterchipillar, I was rested back up, so we called it an evening and got the hell out of the Maze of Shakhrami for the evening. All told, we managed to get Almeth 2 more pieces of his R.S.E., so we just need to get him that last piece and then he is completed, which we're prolly gonna do late Friday night, the next feasible time it's gonna come up. Hopefully the game will take pity on us and just let us go down there and get the stupid thing and be done. I have 1 more piece of R.S.E. that I need to get myself, actually, but it's not critical, and we'll go do it at some point. After Almeth turned the pattern in in Jeuno, and got his gear, I made him go change into it and model it for me so I could get some pics...

What a sexy bitch!

Requisite crotch shot...


...and the ass shot to go with it. Yes, We're dirty like that.