Deserter

Today I got home and headed over to the Eastern Altepa Desert Outpost, and summoned Yawawa. Its times like these that I’m thankful TA works on your NPC. Still, usually SAVB took the hate away again, but my spamming of Bloody and Acid Bolts got my Marksmanship up another four levels by the time I was done.



I spent most of the evening fighting around the Garidav Oasis, where numerous Goblins lurked, but the Poachers were a pain. They’re the RNGs who never run to you to melee; if they had their way they’d fire at you endlessly from afar, so you always have to run to them, risking links.

I had my flag up seeking, but there were three people seeking in my level range (myself included), and only eighteen people online my level range, with only one or two full parties somewhere in the world. Unfortunately, after using my Signal Pearl and my last use of my Tactics Pearl, I had to bring my flag down and enter the Promyvion-Mea to pick up a new one. I ran in and out and got back to the Desert in minutes.

Hours went by and not much changed. The three people seeking went up to four (a BLU I think) and then down to two and pretty much stayed there all night. Neither Paud the MNK or I got an invite all night. I soloed a further three uses of the Tactics Pearl but when my Empress Band wore, things became so slow it was painful.



Meanwhile, Teila hit L62 from soloing as SMN in Ifrit’s Cauldron, which was cool. She’d pretty much soloed since L50, minus one quick party at L60. She tried to go find the Askelloaks (Snowball family) in Uleguerand Range, but couldn’t find the way round the zone without her map, so she gave up and returned to Ifrit’s Cauldron to solo a buffer.

Around four to five hours after I’d began, I took my flag down and headed over to Pso’Xja to help Teila get a couple more BLU spells, but the very second (I kid you not) I arrived in the Glacier, I got a flag-down invite for an excellent party setup in Wajaom Woodlands. All night I’d been seeking, and the second I warp to help someone, I got the invite. I’m a loyal person, so I politely turned them down, but what really took the p!ss was that a few minutes later they wrote to me again, politely begging me to join them as they were at five and a THF would have been perfect.

Hear that? A THF would have been perfect. So would the invite if you had been one minute faster, buddy.

I met up with Teila and we started killing everything in the uncapped tower of Pso’Xja (nearest Xarcabard) and straight away BBK said on the linkshell that he had got a party invite!! Shock horror! The Signet update must have worked! However, he had become so used to soloing that he turned them down – that and it was almost 11pm.

On the second Diremite, Teila learned Filament Hold and on the first Snoll, she learned Cold Wave. It’s funny how you can spend hours trying to get one move for BLU, then another time get two moves in a few minutes.

Afterwards she stayed a bit longer and I hit L55! Finally! I had soloed almost 9k of that level too, so I was really proud. I equipped my new armour, my Jaridah Peti, and looked lovingly upon my new Job Trait, Triple Attack.

Elsewhere, Akashea was helping Artyfowl get his Carbuncle’s Ruby and some weather effects but she had to log as it was too late. He asked on the linkshell where he could find hot weather so I told him to try either the Yuhtunga Jungle, Ifrit’s Cauldron or the Altepa Deserts (before I remembered Ifrit’s Cauldron is a dungeon so it wouldn’t work), and he replied with:

“Dang, I need a WHM!”

Yeah, that’s all we’re good for: driving people from location to location. :)