Back to WAR

Having logged out as my PLD last night, I thought it would be more sensible to level my L26 WAR instead - I could use the same gear and although not the best melee sub these days, WAR is the best sub for levelling a sub if that makes sense!

Anuka had been levelling her PUP today, and Teila had sent her the items she needed for her new RDM Automaton frame at L10, so although she didn't get time to go back to Aht Urhgan, she took Lobo out to the Tahrongi Canyon where I met her to Level Sync my WAR with her.



It was a doddle. Although I didn't have the curing like my PLD had, I subbed DNC and kept Drain Samba up along with Regen from the FoV book so I hardly took any damage. We chained our way through half of Tahrongi, getting Anuka to L12 whilst I got to L27 before we logged out to watch some more Men Behaving Badly.

Tres Fantastique!

Tonight was another amazingly lucky day!

On the way home Teila txt'd me to say that there was emergency maintenance at 6pm for two hours, so I ran through the Aqueducts to where Tres Duendes pops. On the way I killed a few Tauri to see if I could get a Fomor Codex, and one dropped from my fourth Tauri!

When I got to the pop point for Tres, I logged out, hoping that when maintenance was done its window might have reset and there it would be. I couldn't believe it when I logged back in to see Tres Duendes hovering in the room accompanied by Duendes' Amoroso, a Taru BLM Fomor.



I should have gone for the Fomor first. Tres took ages to kill, and halfway through, the Bat Trio rearranged themselves into a vertical column, whereupon it did Train Fall for 300 or so HP. Meanwhile the Fomor was nuking me with tier II -ga spells sapping my life. I couldn't use Bloody Bolts as they were immune, and what good is Perfect Dodge against magic?

Nevertheless, I did it - just - and I couldn't believe my eyes when ALL THREE of Tres Duendes' drops dropped! At this point I had around 100HP left and didn't care if I died but finished off Amoroso very quickly!



After that it was over to the Sacrarium to see if I could pop Lobais for my Swift Belt. I'd never done this before but I'd read you needed max Fomor hate to pop him, and even then it wasn't a garuanteed drop. If you didn't get the drop you had your hate reset too!

I checked the Stale Draft and it said that my heart was pounding, which wasn't good enough. In desperation I decided to pull the nearest Fomor, which happened to be a BLM, and believe it or not, after killing it, I checked the Stale Draft and got the correct message!



I popped Lobais and instantly he put me to sleep. I was out for ages because he couldn't hit me, but then he summoned his Dark Elemental and hit me with his staff for 58 damage. After that it was easy, and I took hardly any damage from Fenrir's Howling Moon. I took more damage from his melee hits than any spells and managed to beat him losing around 500HP.

I got the Swift Belt too!!!

On a total high I went back to Windy and changed to PLD when I Level Sync'd down to L10 with Anuka's Taru BLM, Chinchi. We got quite a bit of XP running around bashing anything we could find, but got a bit too cocky and took on Numbing Norman, an NM Bee. We did quite well, but eventually I couldn't keep up with his hits and I died. Chinchi followed shortly after. We decided to stop there for the night.

Bell Bottom Blues

This morning it was back to Riverne, only this time Site #A01, as I wanted to do The Search for Goldmane and Confessions of a Bellmaker.

I got all the way to the Trunk for Goldmane, but I had forgotten to pick up a cutscene back in the Safehold so I had to use my Tavnazian Ring and start again! I got back and this time got the correct cutscene and opened the Trunk for my Key Item.



I then headed further in and checked the Carmine Dobsonfly island, but of course, no sign, but it was being camped by someone! I then went right to the far side of Riverne Site #A01 and found the Bell for the Bellmaker quest. I'd never been that far in, and seeing the Bell on the island you couldn't reach was quite a nice touch.

I got the cutscene but then continued on with the Goldmane quest. Eventually the quest led me to Purgonorgo Isle where I popped Rohemolipaud from the Weathered Boat on the beach. It was the second time I'd ever fought him, and I actually found him tougher this time, as his Eagle Eye Shot took off a lot of my HP.



Later on, the LS decided to put together a low-man party for Abyssea, and I was keen to try it out so I volunteered my daggers. We had no tank and our only healer was a RDM (I'm not a fan of RDM healers - it's not what they're there for) but with a little difficulty we managed to kill the Limures with just the four of us.



All of a sudden it went horribly wrong. The alien creatures, who were previously passive and didn't link, suddenlly decided to link and we were all annihilated. I kid you not, these things did not aggro or link to begin with. Perhaps they have some kind of hate mechanism similar to Fomor?

On Soboro'd Time

Anuka was dead tired tonight so she went to bed relatively early, leaving me (wide awake!) to mess around on FFXI tonight. I wanted to explore some of the CoP areas, so I picked Riverne Site #B01 and thought I'd just see if I could pop the Soboro NM, Unstable Cluster.

Somewhat conveniently, I accidentally went through the wrong Spatial Displacement and ended up in front of the Go! Go! Gobmuffin! NMs: three agressive Moblins.



The BLM one used Ancient Magic on me, which wasn't pleasant, so I decided to take him out first. After that it was very easy, and they went down quite quickly.

I then found my way to where the Nitro Clusters were and picked up a Key Item: Rivenwort whilst I was there (for the Miratete's Memoirs). I had forgotten that the Clusters were much easier than single Bomb mobs, and of the four or five I had to farm, none of them used Self-Destruct. In fact, the only difficulty I had was farming the Giant Scales from the Wyverns (simply because it was an inconvenience).

When I got to the cave where the Unstable Displacement lurked, there was a Mithra BLU fighting it already, so I waited patiently for 15 minutes until the ??? popped again. I traded my Clustered Tar (from the Nitro Clusters) to the ??? and solo'd the Unstable Cluster.



It was rather easy, except for when it used Self-Destruct, which took off around 500HP!! fortunately it only did it once, but I'd read that it could do it three times!! I used Bloody Bolts to get myself back up and all was good. I killed him and got my Soboro Sukehiro!

Mountain RNG

I asked what job Anuka would like to unlock next and she chose Ranger, the first FFXI job she had wanted to unlock. She knew it was going to be expensive but insisted that it wouldn't stop her from trying it, which is the attitude to take, IMO.



On the way to the Sauromugue Champaign (where Old Sabertooth lurks), we saw Chonchon, which drops the Headlong Belt, so I dismounted and claimed it, purely to give the Belt to Anuka to either sell or store for the future.

I was surprised how tough he was for a L40+ NM: each hit knocked me for something between 70-90, but I was unbuffed on my Chocobo as a WHM/SMN. I Flashed and used Stoneskin, before putting up Protectra V and after that it wasn't a difficult fight, but didn't drop as quick as I thought it would. We didn't get the Belt either!



After that we ran into Old Sabertooth's cave and watched the ancient Tiger die, before returning to Windurst Woods to unlock her RNG.

The Sun Only Shines When it Pours

Tonight I managed to finish the ASA mission, Shantotto in Chains, and rescue her from her Ro'Maeve prison.

We just had the Steely Weapon and the Fired Urn to beat, so met up at the Outpost in the Sanctuary of Zitah. Funnily enough it was raining, so I thought I'd check the Noble Mold spawn location and lo and behold, he was up! Unfortunately, I was COR, with a Fire Staff and no ammunition (Teila was bringing it in return for making me use my COR (which I don't play anymore)), so I couldn't claim him! I had to wait ages for Teila and Sirdante to finish muling and hope no one else came along to grab him.



It was a very easy fight, and to my sheer delight, the Rain Hat dropped. Teila didn't want it so it was down to Sirdante and me to roll, and I won!!! It was one of those items I never thought I'd get my mitts on but it actually happened. I tried it on and it resembles the Austere Hat, but less patchy. Will sit nicely on my RDM, SCH, BRD or BST if I ever level them.

After that it was straight into Ro'Maeve and we started on the Steely Weapon. I was the only one who could damage it as neither Teila nor Sirdante had a ranged job levelled. Teila was BLU and Sirdante was a RDM, and both kept me healed up whilst I pumelled it for over 100 a pop. To my horror though, after a few minutes it depopped! Seems there was a timer on it!

The second time I pulled it, I used Slug Shot, 2hr'd for 300 TP and used Slug Shot again to reduce it to low health and managed to beat it but the Key Item didn't drop. This continued for a few more kills until we gave up to try the Fired Urn.

This one could only take damage from slashing weapons, so Teila's BLU was perfect for the job.



We annihilated around three of these, but they were deadly, using powerful Black Magic, and my Light Shot wouldn't land (as a substitute for Stun) so we had to rely on Sirdante's reflexes to keep Teila healed whenever she wasn't able to land a Head Butt because of using another spell.

We then moved back to the Steely Weapons but after a couple more attempts I was down to six Corsair's Bullets. Teila shouted for help, and a really friendly PUP called Mskala said if Sirdante would raise her, she'd happily help with her Ranger Automaton.

We Raised her and she joined us. Teila leant me her Adder Jambiya so I could TP, and we went to get TP on the Cursed Puppets nearby before returning to the Steely Weapons. I can safely say I'd seriously underestimated PUPs! Armour Piercer, one of their TP moves, took off around 80-90% life!!!

Three kills later and the final Key Item was ours, so we were able to rescue Shantotto! What a hassle though!

Jobseeker's Allowance

Today we managed to blitz Anuka's MNK from L27 all the way to L30 by grinding our way through Qufim and I'm still not sure how we're managing to do this so quickly! You wouldn't have got this far in a party in the old days, let alone duoing! Thank heavens for FoV and increased XP!



The undead proved our biggest bane as unlike the Dunes and the Peninsula where they mostly hang out around the beaches, they spawn everywhere here. We had to zone on several occasions!

Still, with a little help from BBK's PLing, we managed to get Anuka to L30 and she got extremely excited about all the new jobs she could unlock. I basically told her, "just tell me which one you wanna do and we'll do it," to which she asked me what the nearest one was. It'd been such a long time since I'd unlocked the jobs, the only one which I could think was close was BST, so we went back to Jeuno, got the quest, ran back to Qufim, picked the plants and got Anuka her BST job.

Since she'd seen me on DRG, she'd been very curious about that, so she asked me for DRG next. This one took forever. Teleport here, Teleport there, but we managed to get it done in an hour or two including the fight against Cyranuce M Cutauleon.



Not saying this fight was hard, but I expected it to go down quicker than it did. With Anuka as her L30 MNK and me as a L75 Merited THF in good gear, I expected it to die in a few hits, but it actually took quite awhile to kill: I was pleasantly surprised! Still, we got it done with no trouble and Anuka had DRG to play with!

Lastly we tried to get her Carbuncle's Ruby for SMN. I lost count of how many Poison Leeches we killed in Buburimu Peninsula, but even with TH1, TH2, and my Thief's Knife, it took an eternity, but it dropped just before we logged out!

Baby are You Dune, Dune, Dune, Dune, Dune

Anuka was a little too high for Buburimu or the Dunes but still a tad low for Qufim, but we bit the bullet and went back to the Dunes to mow down everything we came across.



It took quite some time, but we finally got Anuka L27 and a slight buffer. Desperate for a change of scenery, we Choco'd it to Jeuno and hit up Qufim. I could not for the life of me believe how full it was! You could hardly get a claim on anything for all the Level Sync'd parties!



We didn't stay very long before logging out to relax.

The Long Wash

I was naught but a L25 DRG when I started today but by the time I finished I had reached L30. It began with soloing in Buburimu Peninsula (or duoing if you count my fellow, Yawawa), but I soon grew a bit bored of this and went offline to do other things.



Later on Anuka logged in and we continued as DRG and MNK, moving down to the beach to try Shoal Pugils. These were pretty hard, but BBK was bored and suddenly popped up out of nowhere to PL us as his RDM. I'm normally not one to enjoy being PL'd but I was keen to get Anuka up to L30 so that she could start unlocking other jobs, so I didn't mind. With Haste, plus his ability to keep curing us, we chained the Pugils over and over, and the levels just kept a-coming. I reached L30 and Anuka reached L26.

A Lode of Hassle

Tonight saw some progress with the A Shantotto Ascension missions. Teila had managed to get her Soultrapper shots of the mobs in Sea Serpent Grotto so we both headed over to Gustav Tunnel with Sirdante and popped the Tenshodo mobs.



These guys were like mini Gesshos (remember him from ToAU?), each one with lots of Utsusemi clones, so Teila spammed her AoEs to remove the clones and the ones left over were the real people, so Sirdante picked those off one by one in her fantastic new Abyssea gear!

After that we headed back to Jeuno, and then had to rescue the real Dr. Shantotto from a prison in Ro'Maeve. We needed six parts of a magic key, so killed the first three NMs in Zitah, before trying the Lode Golem in Ro'Maeve. It took us three or four tries to get the Key Item, but then I had to log, so we'll do the Fired Urn and Steely Weapon next time.

Congrats to Anuka for getting L22 on her MNK!

Rank-Kid

Anuka was keen to continue with the missions today, so we jumped straight into them this morning, starting with Warchief Vatgit in Ghelspa. I remember back when I first did this mission with Bellaluna and Fearaun it seemed so complicated, but now it all seemed so simple!



Warchief Vatgit was obviously no trouble, so we slapped him about a bit before finishing up in San d'Oria and heading over to Bastok, where we enlisted the help of Teila and Sirdante to take on the Dark Dragon in the Waughroon Shrine.

We ran up through Palborough Mines and managed to get two Quadav Backplates for the A Moogle Kupo d'Etat missions, so Anuka and I took those (just Giddeus and Yughott to go!), before arriving in the Shrine.

The setup was:

BLM25/WHM12 - Teila
MNK25/WAR12 - Sirdante
MNK20/THF10 - Anuka
WHM25/SMN12 - Me



We thought this would be pretty easy (seeing as Teila used to solo this on BLU for friends), but it all went wrong. Teila managed to Sleep the Dark Dragon, but Sirdante got Bound with Hundred Fists active, so she didn't even hit the Seeker before it wore, meaning Anuka, who was slightly underlevelled, was the only melee on the Seeker.

We eventually got the Seeker down but not before it had done enough a fair amount of damage. The Dark Dragon woke up and started pumelling me, and soon after did that mega HP down move by which point I had no option but to use Benediction on the party, giving me plenty of hate. Sirdante and Anuka took it off me and Anuka popped Hundred Fists, but I had Paralysis active and couldn't get rid of it in time to keep her topped up. She went down.

Teila ran out of MP and popped Manafont, unleashing on the Dark Dragon, but ran out of MP just as it had a smidgen of life left, so I had to keep Sirdante healded whilst she finished it off.

It was far too hard and epic for what it should have been!

After introducing Anuka to her first boss fight (which she loved, despite the death), we finished up, got her Rank 3, and started on the next missions to get Rank 4. We did Castle Oztroja with little difficulty (Anuka knew she was far too low to be doing this so took extra care), and then it was over to Delkfutt's Tower for the annoying mission, A New Journey.

We almost fell asleep climbing the tower, but we got to the top, beat Mimas (I've never got a drop from him!), beat Porphyrion and got Anuka's key, then descended to the bottom to rescue the Ambassador.

With her Rank 4, Anuka eagerly began the Adventuring Fellow quest!

The Missionary Position

For some time Anuka had been asking me how she got an Adventuring Fellow and up until now I'd been positive that it was through a series of quests which began at L40. When I looked up to check today, I stood corrected, realising you needed Rank 4 to get it.

It was no big deal, so I offered to help her get Rank 4 today. She hadn't done any missions so far, so we started right at the beginning with the Horototo Ruins Experiment.



I still haven't finished my final fight for Rank 10, so technically to me this expansion has taken much longer than CoP, which took me a whole year (I did it before the nerf a few years back). But nevertheless, I couldn't remember any of these old cutscenes, so to see them again on Anuka's computer accross the room made me think how much sense they made to me now in hindsight. Of course, at the time, I didn't have a clue what was going on, and this time round it was Anuka who was confused!

We got all the way up to The Three Kingdoms, with Anuka's orders to kill Warchief Vatgit before we'd had enough for today.

Conchoculations!

Anuka had been powering through her Anniversary Ring to hit L20 on her MNK! She was now eager to get her Chocobo License, so I ran her over to Jeuno from Windurst.

Running to Jeuno was quite epic to her in itself, and running round Jeuno for the first time was also exciting, especially as they've added so much to it since I first ran there in 2005. I don't think Jeuno's an attractive city at all, but there's a lot to do there.



She got her first ACP cutscene, which made no sense to her, and then arrived in Upper Jeuno where she got the quest, but there was no Gausebit Wildgrass in stock so she had to play the waiting game. It was too late to carry on so we logged out for the night.

Feeling Sheepish

I'd lost track of how many levels Anuka and I made whilst Level Sync'd over the last couple of days, but it was lots. I'd got my DRG into the 20s and her MNK was around L15, so we decided to level in La Theine for some variation.

It seemed slower than Tahrongi, and less XP, but it wasn't difficult, there was no down time and we got a level or so before logging tonight.



When we were ready to finish, we began making our way back towards Ronfaure, but saw this NM Sheep, Slumbering Samwell. It was a mistake to think we could duo it at this level and after I first got hit for 56 damage, I resigned myself to a KO. What made it worse was that whilst Weakened, we got set upon by two Goblins and had to HP. Fortunately we didn't delevel, but it was a sucky end to a night's XPing.

Sub Standard

Now that Anuka had reached L18 on her THF, she'd been levelling MNK, but wanted to get her support job quest done so I offered to take her up to Buburimu Peninsula to get the quest from Mhaura.

I swapped to THF (whoever decided to put Nomad Moogles in Mhaura was a genius!) and we headed out into the field. It was pretty easy, so I offered to also get her a Carbuncle's Ruby from the Poison Leeches down on the beach.



We didn't get one, but we did see Wake Warder Wanda, so decided to fight her for the staff drop. The staff didn't appear, and reminded me why I called my TH, Treasure Flunker!

Anuka completed the quest and was delighted! She went back to town and continued levelling her MNK with her THF sub.

Primeasy

Today Teila FINALLY managed to find all the ingredients for her Enfeebling Kit so having traded it to the Trodden Snow, we decided we'd do all six Primes to get the big 50k reward - possibly the best Gil reward for a mission thus far.



We started with Shiva Prime and spent a minute or two buffing up before testing the water. LOL. We didn't need to even put Protect on; the Avatar went down in a minute or so, and all she did was spam Diamond Dust, but not the wiping kind, the kind that did around 5 damage without Stoneskin!

That was the easy part. The hard part was getting all six done before I had to log out three hours later. And yes, it actually took the full three hours getting to each Avatar, but we did them and claimed our reward!

DRGing Anuka

After England's victory against Slovenia, I had come home pretty drunk from the pub but still with it enough to level my Dragoon with Anuka's Thief in Tahrongi Canyon. My Dragoon was L10, so she Level Sync'd down to me and we got my Dragoon to L12 and her Thief to L18 before we logged.



Couldn't believe how fast it was - we literally raked in the XP, and even chained Tough Akbabas with little difficulty. I'd subbed DNC for Drain Samba so that kept us topped up, whilst we just pummelled on everything. I honestly don't remember being able to duo Toughs when I used to play!

Anyway, with Anuka now at L18, we're ready to go and get her sub job quest from Mhaura tomorrow - she's very excited!^^

Welcome to Abyssea

With the version update finishing around 2am (so I was told), I didn't get a chance to try out the new content, but by the time I logged in (roughly 5pm that day) there were already six L80s on Unicorn, which was just insane. That must be well over 200-300k XP!

I went to Port Jeuno and obtained the cutscenes for Abyssea and after speaking to Joachim, got the Key Item: Traverser Stone. I then Teleported to the Tahrongi Canyon, entered the new Cavernous Maw there (by the entrance to East Sarutabaruta) and entered Abyssea-Tahrongi.



You seem to zone into a "camp" of sorts, full of NPCs. I spoke to a few, who just spoke random things, but one asked me if I wanted to recharge a Martello. Martellos are little towers which offer HP and MP to players but need recharging over time. I agreed and was given a Key Item to do it.

I put on Sneak and Invisible and went to explore. I saw various mobs, but nothing attacked me whilst using Sneak and Invis. Around the area where the Crag of Mea would have been I found an NM Sandworm called Minhocao, and further in I found Tortoise mobs (quite fascinating seeing as I've never seen a Tortoise mob before, not even Genbu!), and a Tortoise NM called Chukwa.



To explore the zone, you need to obtain a status buff, which you must obtain within five minutes of entering Abyssea (or you're chucked out). Trading multiple Traverser Stones (no idea how you get more than one) allows you to extend your time. I was just exploring so I didn't mind wasting time. After I'd filled up a Martello, I Teleported to the Crag of Mea and I received a notification that I lost the empty Key Item, so it seems you'll need to return to the NPC after you've filled up a Martello.

No Problem

Began the day with a spot of farming in the Labyrinth of Onzozo, but when I arrived the zone was empty so I thought I'd try my luck with Mysticmaker Profblix for the Moldovite Earring. He didn't take long to appear.



Unfortunately, he didn't drop the Earring, just a couple of pieces of Goblin Armour and a Scroll of Burst. That's the third time I've fought him, and he's never not dropped it before! Boo!

After that it was straight onto the Mantas to farm their skins, which netted me a tidy sum after I was done.

Teila still hadn't been able to craft her Enfeebling Kit for the Shantotto Ascension missions so instead we opted to go and to A Manifest Problem for Sirdante in Ghoyu's Reverie. This was a tremendously easy fight which we'd done before several years ago.



Teila was NIN, Sirdante DRG and I was WHM (again). In we went, chasing the Yags, and before they knew it we'd wiped them out and were facing Laa Yaku the Austere, who was leading the motley crew underneath the Fort.

Easy as pie.

Lastly, we spent an hour or so Level Synced in Buburimu Peninsula and before I logged out Sirdante reached L50 on her WAR. Congrats!

Boater Late Than Never

Anuka was telling me that she'd been getting a bit bored of Tahrongi and I don't blame her: the vast expanse of rock is akin to the lacklustre of Gustaberg. To give her some variation (and because getting the Telepoint Crystal is always a good thing), I took her on the ship to Selbina.



I had totally forgotten how long that boat ride is! Okay, so it's not quite as bad as waiting for some of the ferries in Carpenter's Landing, or the trip from Aht Urhgan to Nashmau, but in an age of impatience with MMOs, you'd have thought it would have been shortened.

I got Anuka here Holla Crystal and then I dropped her off in Sandy so she could explore. To be honest, I envied her a little. I remember back to the days when I first came accross a new city and how exciting it was! Kinda made me want to start a new character and redo all those old quests!

Downtrodden

I finally managed to get my Enfeebling Kit of Sleep built ingredients today so gingerly I opened up the synth window to create it.

Fortunately I had an Alchemy score of 22 so synthing it was no problem. With the item in hand I headed on over to the Trodden Snow in Qufim Island and traded the Kit over. Pfft, Shantotto only went and decided to tell me to go and stick Key Items all over the Protocrystals!



I asked Teila if she wanted to do it and bring Sirdante with us, as she had never done a Prime fight, but Teila's alchemy score was 0, so we had to postpone until she'd managed to level it up and synth her Kit.

A Bad Seed

Started with a little bit of levelling today. I Level Sync'd down to L10 on my WHM so I could party with Anuka's THF. SMN was okay but I kept needing to rest all the time as Blood Pacts and having an Avatar out seemed to drain MP continuously. WHM was a bit easier, especially as I discovered that you could get things like Refresh and Reraise from the AMAN Manual.

After we'd got to L12 Anuka went to solo, so I carried on with my A Crystalline Prophecy Missions; I went off to Qufim and popped the Seed Mandragoras.



This wasn't what I expected. They came in waves of five, over and over, occasionally doing a nasty move which took off quite a lot of HP. Being a WHM this was easily rectified, but could have been dangerous if they'd all done it simultaneously.

After that I had to go up to Fei'Yin and find some glowing seeds on the floor (I did wonder what those were). I found all of those quite easily (even though I was timed), but for the first time ever I came accross Capricious Cassie in the basement!



I told the LS and BBK said he had seen a RDM soloing it earlier and apparently the RDM had got it down to very low HP before dying. That's pretty impressive!

A Feast for Gnats

Keen to press on with the Wings of the Goddess missions, I decided to enlist the help of Teila and Akashea to do the A Feast for Gnats fight, having heard the Bastok equivalent, Fire in the Hole, was very tough.

As a result I spent ages trying to get the fish for the pre-requisite quest, When One Man is Not Enough. With all the running around Teila and I had to do, it took around two hours, and poor Aka was waiting all this time!



Eventually, we made it to Sauromugue Champaign (S) and after a very long, but cool, CS, we entered the battlefield as WHM, BST and NIN.

This wasn't a good idea! The NPCs inside the battlefield charged off, so we all followed. The NPCs engaged the Quadav, so I found myself spam-curing everyone, both party members and NPCs, and I couldn't keep up. We failed! Reading up, a good strategy is to have the party members run in, zerg the Belfry whilst the WHM just heals Romaa Mihgo topping her up gently until the others can destroy the Belfry which wins the battlefield.

Sugar High

I'd been away in Bulgaria on hols, so first time I'd logged in in a couple of weeks. Still not knowing what to do I asked the LS if anyone needed any help. BBK and Aka were going to camp Sewer Syrup in the Bostanieux Oubliette for Aka's Jelly Ring, so I offered to tag along.

Iliona and Voltor also came along, so we met up in Northern San d'Oria and dropped into the Oubliette. There was some trouble with the trap doors at first, then we found the pop area and spread out, covering every pop point.



Two hours and many Mousses later, there was no sign of Sewer Syrup, so we called it a night. If I remember correctly, Aka had been after that ring before I took my break two years ago!

A Crystalline Prophecy

I'd heard a lot of people talking about this expansion so thought I'd give it a go. I farmed the Seedspall items very easily but the Goblins were a pain. Not because they were hard: far from it, but they were right out the way (e.g. in Sauromugue through Garlaige, or Rolanberry through CN etc.).



They went down very quickly and I got their Key Items for the Qufim Mandy fight, which I couldn't be bothered to do today, so made a mental note to go back and carry on another day.

KixxiBack

It's been just under two years since I last logged in to FFXI, and although I've often thought about what's going on in Vana'diel, I'd never decided to log back in... until I heard of Abyssea and the new level cap increase! I always knew they'd increase the cap up to 99, and I was looking forward to being able to do high level parties again.

It's a bit of a long story but after I quit, my friend Teila looked after my account. It got hacked, I ended up with a name change, and once SE sorted out my account, Teila renamed Kixxi to Cheekymonkey, not thinking I'd mind as I wasn't playing. So if you're wondering why the pictures show Cheekymonkey as my name, that's why. One day I'll get the name changed again!

Whilst returning was very exciting, I suddenly found myself not having a clue about what to do. Synergy, Evoliths, Fields of Valour, Trial of the Magians etc. - all these new things I didn't know anything about, it was very confusing and daunting.

To ease myself back into things, I thought I'd try a spot of farming up at Fei'Yin. Ended up with a Scroll of Raise II and a Wandering Bulb which came to around 30k on the AH.^^