Bugged Out

Haven't played that much recently as I'm sure you can tell from my slightly infrequent blog posts, but RL is really eating up a lot of my time at the moment. I've also been really sick so that hasn't helped either.

Anyway, enough of my woes - CoP again today and we started The Three Paths. Sirdante and I had logged on earlier in the week to get the pre-fight cutscenes done, so we were both ready to do the Moblin and Bugbear fight in Mine Shaft #2716.

Kindly enough, Teila had posted a Snow Lily to us both so we could trade those to Tarnotik to warp us to the BCNM.

It was just Sirdante and I but we didn't need to discuss tactics. Sirdante just ran on in first and aggroed them all. The WHM and BLM stayed back, so I went to solo the BLM as soon as it began doing Quake. Sirdante was a DNC, so she was able to hold her own, no probs.

It was a very easy fight, but I did hurt a bit when I was unable to interrupt a -ga spell to the face, but Sirdante finished up with hers and came to help me with the remaining mages.

After that we went out into Newton Movalpolos and farmed up two Gold Keys so we could return for the cutscene at the end of the path.

Mission Twin-Possible

Had a lot planned today mission-wise, so began in the morning by trying to get my Paintbrush of Souls from the Temple of Uggalepih. Being L75, the Tonberries in the first part of the temple didn't aggro but due to the tight corridors, pulling one means pulling all.

All the other Tonberries kept on joining in so I spent more time killing off the aggro than I did fighting the Tonberry Cutters to get the key to the "study" where the Paintbrush sat.

Eventually it dropped and I ran to obtain it, noticing several Wespes by the large room where Trompe L'Oeil lies, so I decided to try to get the pop item for Death from Above.

Two hours later and no drop so I gave up and met up with Teila and Sirdante for Promyvion-Vahzl. We met up in Pso'Xja and fought past Nunyunuwi, the Golem with huge Regen, but it went down in second with the three of us wailing on it.

I'm convinced that they've removed dud portals in the Prommies now. I'm pretty sure we got to the top and killed all bosses within 30mins. We found Tenzen, Louverance and Ulmia very quickly and even had time to try to farm up pop items for the map, but no joy.

The three bosses at the end used to be easier than one single Prommy boss back in the day, so between three of us, it was even easier. I soloed the Dem one, and Sirdante and Teila took the other two. Being L99 then killed theirs quicker so helped finish mine off but I don't think anyone really took any noticeable damage.

After that it was back to the Temple of Uggalepih where we met with Cheekee, pulled our Unlit Lanterns out of our Mogs (love the feature which lets you do that in the field) and ran through the temple to the Temple Guardian.

We killed that nice and quickly, ran inside and the others went about killing Tonberries in the painting room whilst I tried to unlock the hidden door. I honestly don't know how people figured this out before the guide was written. Eventually I got the secret door to work and we ran through to the Den of Rancor.

I seem to remember this being a very long trip back in the day, but it was short as anything. We ran round to the right to light our Lanterns, before running back to the first room, heading south and dropping down the hole. A quick run north and we were at the door to the Sacrificial Chamber.

Cheekee logged out behind the door so she could do the Shantotto final fight later, whilst the rest of us continued in and entered the ZM4 fight. Last time I did this, BBK had forgotten to reset his hate and got one-shotted by Everyone's Rancor. Fortunately we'd all reset our hate so no danger of that. It was a very easy fight and we won in a couple of minutes. I logged there for the day.

The Key to Solving the Puzzle

Tonight was a CoP run, the first thing I'd done in ages that wasn't meriting in Campaign. I met up with Sirdante to duo the Sacrarium, but juggling keys was a nightmare.

For some reason I decided it would be a good idea to get a Coral Crest Key each, and then when we made our way to Keremet, I thought I'd take the Sealion Crest Key so I could help out Chinchii later on.

Unfortunately, we both passed on the same Coral Crest Key so I got the first one, meaning we still needed to get another for Sirdante. Getting bored of farming these, I went to find Keremet.

Keremet was rather easy for us, so we got the key and went back out to find Coral Crest Keys. Eventually we got one and went to the doors. We timed it just right, traded our keys, and went inside to get the CS. Now normally I'd say "woot, I have a second Coral Crest Key" but realised Sirdante needed to get another one as I was using the Sealion one!

We went out to farm more keys and pop Old Professor Mariselle. Took ages for a second Coral one to drop but we found Mariselle in the second room we checked.

He was really easy and didn't even do his teleport thing but he did spawn pupils - something I don't remember him doing last time I fought him. We killed him and got the key item, so returned to the last cutscene for the mission. Despite the key faff, this didn't take longer than an hour to do!

Ouryu - Bahamut's Favourite Dragon

Another CoP run tonight - this time the first L50 cap fight - Ouryu.

I'd already farmed up two Mistmelts from faffing about in Riverne for ages, and I'd also managed to get the pop item for Unstable Cluster so Chinchii could get her Soboro Sukehiro, so Sirdante agreed to help us fight the Cluster first.

We made our way to the cave (but Chinchii was getting aggro at her level), and popped him. He didn't self-destruct once, and with a 50% drop rate, we didn't get the drop!

We moved on towards Monarch Linn but accidentally found ourselves caught amongst the L90+ wyverns, where I took aggro, but Sirdante came to my rescue! She needed a few cures but dealt with it easily enough.

Inside Monarch Linn we didn't need to discuss tactics like last time I did this but went in and owned Ouryu. Sirdante popped Hundred Fists and we wondered why he took so long, forgetting he uses Invincible! Needing only to get him down to 30%, the fight was over nice and quick!

Gotta Kill 'Em All

Again, not much playtime today as RL to do, but I went to Riverne Site #A01 and I finally managed to encounter Carmine Dobsonfly! The number of times over the years I've checked this island and no joy, but here, unmolested, all ten(?) of him!

This was a hard fight - with that many mobs hitting me, and casting Aero II, it's very difficult to keep yourself cured. Fortunately my Knightly Earring must have helped with Spell Interruption, but it was still hard.

I had to use Invincible quite early on, but managed to top my health up and kill off a couple (I kept using Circle Blade in this fight). I kept Defender up the whole time, and tried to stagger Sentinel and Rampart but ideally I needed them up permanently!

Later on I had to use the Vile Elixir I happened to have on my person as even with quite a few dead it was hard to cure with them hitting so often. Eventually, with less than half life I managed to finish them off. I checked my inventory and I had gotten all three drops - the Voyager Sallet, the Jaeger Ring and the Dobson Bandanna! Not a bad weekend for drops, methinks!

Two Out of Tres Ain't Bad

I was up early again today (not sleeping too well at the moment), so I went back into the Phomiuna Aqueducts to find Tres. Popped in on Matisha first, and got the Sinister Mask (yay!). I then headed over to where Tres popped and (hopefully thanks to the three Fomor Black Mages I killed last time!) Tres was up!

I knew from fighting this as my THF before that the Duendes Amoroso was a pain - mainly because he just uses -ga II spells which add to nasty moves from Tres, such as Train Fall etc. So this time, I pulled Amoroso first and wiped the floor with him pretty quickly.

I then pulled Tres, and found him to be a little tough guy. Can't believe it's a L30 mob, but then I suppose it was made for alliances. I like how this unique mob changes stances, which lead to different moves, but in the vertical one, Train Fall took over 200 HP off me!

It wasn't until after I'd killed him I realised Signet had worn off!! Anyway, I got two of the three drops - the katana that I can't spell and the Chiroptera Dagger (this is the one I really wanted) for my COR.

Gassan Geyser

Didn't play much today, but I wanted to get some old low-level quests done to get my reputation up. I ran around doing quite a few old Bastok ones, before heading out to the Dangruf Wadi to take the Brass Canteen over to the Drachenfell. When I got there I realised I only had a couple of Prism Powders on me (damn those high level mobs - no one fights them why are they there?) so I decided to pop the Chocoboleech for my Gassan katana.

An easy fight, and luckily right out of the way of the other higher level mobs, but I kept thinking the whole way through that it was only a matter of time until I aggro one of them! I managed to defeat Chocoboleech without incident and got my Gassan!

No NMies

Had the day off work today so as I was up early to feed the dog, I thought I'd stay up and do some gaming. I decided to go over to the Phomiuna Aqueducts and look for Tres Duendes, as I love that NM, and wanted to get the drops again, as I did back in 2010 with my old account. He wasn't up, neither was Eba, but I did find Matisha, the slow-hitting Taurus NM.

Unfortunately I didn't get the drop (Sinister Mask) so I left the Aqueducts to try my luck at the NMs in Riverne Site #A01. No sign of the Hippogryph NM and no sign of the ??? needed for the pop item for the Flytrap NM, so I headed out further to see if Carmine Dobsonfly was there. No joy there either, and same with the Wyvern NM. Not a very productive day for NM hunting.

Before leaving I picked up some Rivernewort for that Sandy quest to get the Miratete's Memoirs key item and headed over to the bell to begin the quest, Confessions of a Bellmaker. This took some time, as I had to go to Sandy and Bastok before coming back here to fight the Phantasm. Interesting quest though. I fought him easily and got my Minstrel's Dagger for the BRD job I'm unlikely to play!

After that Chinchii logged on so we went to the Tahrongi Canyon to level up our DRG and SAM, but didn't play for too long before having to log out to do RL stuffs.

Savannah Storm

Chinchii wanted to join me in playing, so she fired up her Dragoon and we met in East Sarutabaruta to level sync. I was still level 7 or 8, so I said I'd solo a bit whilst waiting for her, but literally minutes later I was level 11!

We joined up but didn't need to sync as her DRG was L11 too. We wandered around taking on everything we found as between my SMN and her wyvern, everything went down in a few hits but we still got good XP due to our rings. Soon enough we came to Duke Decapod and decided to engage.

We took him down very easily and got the Pelte, the shield with MP that still sells for 20k!

Cutting Down on Carbs

Wasn't too sure what to do today, so I decided that I was going to have a change and level up my Summoner now that I had Diabolos. I went out to South Gustaberg and noticed that as a level 1 SMN, with Destrier Beret and Refresh from the Field Manual, that having Diabolos out didn't drain my MP, but as soon as I began to level, he began taking off my MP as expected. I then had to bring out Carby who didn't drain my MP whilst out due to my Refresh.

I got to around level 7 before deciding to log out.

Lesser This, More of That

Finally the Lesser Colibri outside of Al Zahbi were checking as Decent Challenge to both Chinchii and myself so we decided to go outside to skill up (and level with the Decennial Rings). I've been waiting ages to fight in Aht Urhgan as after seven years of playing, you do get a little tired of levelling in the old, original areas.

What I want to know is, why are there no Field Manuals in Aht Urhgan? SE made their point many years ago that they wanted to balance the players between the older areas and the Aht Urhgan areas, so began refocussing on incentives to entice people back to Jeuno. Now no one has an incentive to level in Aht Urhgan!

Anyway, Chinchii got her level so we logged for the night.

The 10th Anniversary

Spent all morning doing the entire 10th anniversary quest line across all three nations. I had to go through each zone doing a series of runaround quests for "new player" NPCs who couldn't find things, or didn't know what items to hand in, and each time I got "stamps", and the more I had the more items from the event moogle I could get.

I ended up getting the ingredients for a banquet table, a massive cake furnishing, Decennial gear (and Decennial +1), and finally, a Mogratuity - an ammo piece which dispenses gil every 72hrs. The first time I used it I got around 6k. Not bad for a freebie!

Oh and also the dhalmels in Windy were loose!

Six Years, SIX LONG YEARS!

Scored a huge victory today!

Six years ago I went to fight Diabolos Prime for my SMN and I failed 25 times (Teila won on the 26th go, when I was sulking and couldn't be bothered to go back). Today I beat the bastard.

Chinchii and I began by farming coloured chips for CoP (realised today I only needed one rather than three - was getting mixed up with the quest for the CCB Polymer Pumps), but met with Cheekee to speed things up due to her TH. Sirdante had already got hers, so we returned to Jeuno to get our Pso'Xja Passes.

Chinchii and I still don't have the Beaucedine Glacier Outpost Warps, so we went back to Xarcabard and ran down again, and met with Sirdante. We ran through the coloured portals to face the L40 version of Diabolos for CoP. He was pretty easy, but used Nightmare whilst I was curing someone so I sat out most of the fight. We killed him pretty quickly, but both Chinchii and I lost a lot of HP to that one Nightmare.

I wasn't about to let it stop there, so I asked the others if they wanted Diabolos Prime. I knew Sirdante didn't have him and I knew that Cheekee didn't have him (seeing as that was the old Kixxi who lost 25 times), so obtaining Diabolos Prime would have been an achievement for all. We therefore completed the CoP mission, pegged it over to Windurst (gotta love Explorer Moogles) and picked up the Prime quest from Kerutoto.

A short while later, we were back in Pso'Xja for the Prime fight. I used to get so nervous doing this one, and even now I could feel my palms start to sweat. We went in and I buffed up, and Sirdante opened with Hundred Fists, followed by Chinchii with Meikyo Shisui. I was on Nightmare watch, so hit him hard with a Shield Bash when it came up. I stunned him easily, but within seconds he did a second Nightmare, the bugger (two Nightmares close together was always what got us back in the day).

I tabbed on him and noticed that he was on very little life, but we just wouldn't wake up. Eventually Nightmare wore off and I began curing up Sirdante, our biggest DD. Chinchii dropped unfortunately, but a second later, Diabolos was down. It was then I noticed Cheekee was also dead, and Sirdante on half life. So even with two L99s in the party, it's still close!

Raises were given and we returned to Windurst victorious! I don't know many other games which can take you six years to beat something!

37-Eleven

Logged in first thing in the morning and Chinchii and I continued the grind. We mowed through the mobs and before long Chinchii was almost 40 so some of the mobs were now too weak. I'd come here with no Great Axe skill but noticed that I'd soon nearly capped it! Back in the day you'd have to go out to Gustaberg to actually hit a mob if you had no skill in a weapon!

Once the mobs were really not worth fighting anymore we went off to the Yuhtunga Jungle and picked the book with Mandies and Ivory Lizards. Unfortunately the Ivory Lizards aren't as common as you'd like, except up at the top of the map where you can see Ifrit's Cauldron easily, but then there's no mandies! We ended up just south of there where Rose Garden was wandering about.

We ran round the area killing all the relevant mobs we could find and it wasn't too bad (although I prefer 'camping' to running about). Every so often we had to remove a troublesome gobbo, but they were no problem. Eventually we got a bit bored and logged out, Chinchii as a L40-something and me as a L48 WAR, 11 levels since the night before, can't complain! Now I can go up to a L98 PLD or something!

Off to WAR Again

With Chinchii's sub slightly 'gimped' and my sub at 37, we decided to take a break from playing SAM and PLD and returned to Qufim to level our Warriors. We both subbed DNC for sustainability, and I level-synced us down to L30. Everything checked as EP but with the new Decennial Ring, it was more than adequate.

We made quite a few levels here before deciding to log out in Qufim and continue tomorrow morning.

The Demons' Head

Chinchii and I had both uncapped by doing LB4 and trading Kindred's Seals to NPCs around the world but Chinchii felt that soon her AF would be too low for her so wanted to get some use out of the final piece, the Myochin Kabuto (I think it's called). She had gone around getting all the cutscenes in preparation, so when I logged in in the evening, we grabbed Teila and headed over to the Waughroon Shrine to do the fight.

There were three Demon mobs, all of different sizes: one a SMN, one a BLM and the other a DRK. Teila set Dipper Yuly on the SMN and just as I was engaging it did Astral Flow reducing Chinchii and me to half life. After that it was an easy fight, the others dropping like flies. We finished them off and Chinchii returned to Norg to hand in. She had to wait another day to pick it up though.

We decided to continue levelling so went back to the Labyrinth of Onzozo to take on Mantas and Goblins for much higher XP, but I'd noticed Chinchii starting to take much more hate lately, either due to the fact she was getting harder or her AF had Enmity on it. After getting a good chunk of XP, we logged for the night.

No More Mold

It was back to the Labyrinth today for another Grounds Tome. We started off on the Goblins and Cockatrices again, but after awhile I hit the level cap and we were about to move to a different room, when Mysticmaker Profblix popped again. Now bearing in mind I have fought this guy so many times, and every time we come for someone else's Earring, it drops, but every time I tried to get it for me, it didn't.

Surprise, surprise, it didn't drop, but hey, when am I ever gonna play BLM? We moved deeper into the Labyrinth and started picking on Mushusshus and Cockatrices for higher XP. Soon enough I got Vorpal Blade and Chinchii got Tachi: Yukikaze, and we began doing monstrous skillchains on them. We began killing them so fast that when Chinchii hit L65 we got out our NPCS. I lost count of how many times we saw them ding before Yawawa snuffed it.

The Sight of Mold

Chinchii and I had had a couple of very slow and tough days in Campaign with nobody on, so we either took hate and died or couldn't join in because the NPCs hadn't showed up. Having wasted a lot of time, we decided we'd probably only do Campaign at weekends. That being said, we decided tonight to grind through a Grounds Tome in the Labyrinth of Onzozo.

We did Cockatrices and Goblins, which weren't too bad but our skills were quite undercapped so it was slow to begin with. I hit L65 and we also bumped into Mysticmaker Profblix, who nearly killed Chinchii with an Ancient Magic spell, but I managed to cure her up in time. He even dropped the Moldovite Earring, so there was me, jumping for joy, and Chinchii was like, "so that's good?" I told her to take it for her BLM and that back in the day, some people would stop levelling their BLMs until they got that earring!

Mamool Charge!

Decided today that I'd try Besieged for the first time on this account. Naturally under my old account as Kixxi, I'd done Besieged to death, from when the expansion first came out to a couple of years ago when I was Cheekymonkey, and always loved the fact it was a fun free-for-all defending Aht Urhgan.

Perhaps I should have known, but with the zone full of L99s (probably JP due to the time of day), Besieged lasted less than 30 minutes and at the end of it I got a WHOPPING 15k XP. FIFTEEN THOUSAND! People used to struggle to get that in a night back in the day, and I got it in around 20 minutes or so. Well, to be fair, I went to Whitegate as soon as it turned to L7 preparing, so I had to wait around for an hour or two, but I was able to do other things whilst I waited.

That afternoon, with Chinchii logged in too, we made her a mercenary by taking her round to the Azouph Isle Staging Point so that she could join in too. We did another Besieged and I got a further 15k and levelled up, also not needing much to level up again!!! Chinchii only got around 8k, but she had subbed WHM and was healing as best as she could from her sub. Next time she said she'd fight.

A Knight to Remember

Today Cheekee, Teila and Sirdante agreed to help with my remaining AF pieces, which sat in Garlaige and Eldieme. We met in Garlaige and dropped down to where Serket used to be, and headed to the doughnut room, where fortunately, they'd still got Coffer mobs. I noticed there were no skellies there anymore, but Wraiths instead. We began pulling those and with Cheekee and Sirdante at L99, we mowed them down. In seconds, however, Serket popped!

At first Cheekee warned us away, but I reminded her that I'd trio'd this with Seshamaru and Neve back when I was on Phoenix and that was when the cap was L75. With those guys on L99, it would be child's play. Having never fought Serket before, they were keen to get stuck in. It was a surprisingly short fight, given that Serket was an old 18-man alliance HNM. The Serket Ring didn't drop, but the Venomous Claw, Reraiser, Vile Elixir and Vile Elixir +1 dropped, which was a good 30k or so in total, maybe more. There was a time when the Venomous Claw was several million! Remember the days of inflation caused by the Gilsellers?

Soon enough a Coffer Key dropped so I took it and we headed out to the first banishing gate, made our way through and began searching. No joy, so we headed out to the second banishing gate and went in. Again, no joy, but we did find Frogamander, but no drop. Eventually there was only one place left, so we went to the third banishing gate, and lo and behold, there was the Coffer, and inside was my Gallant Coronet.

Then it was over to Eldieme Necropolis in Batallia Downs. We entered via the southern-most entrance, near the white bone structure and made our way down to where one of the hidden drops was. We had to faff with the doors for some time, but eventually made our way through, but then I tabbed onto the Coffer by accident. It was sitting just to the east of the very middle room, where the Azer floats by one of the switches.

The guys told me to wait there whilst they dropped down onto the lower level to fight the Tomb Mages and Tomb Warriors. Several BLM scrolls dropped so I lotted to sell and to give to Chinchii. The Coffer Key must have taken almost 30mins to drop but eventually I got it and popped my Old Gauntlets. I was about to log, very tired, but the others persuaded me to stay and do Dark Spark.

I went back to Jeuno to do my cutscene with Borgherz, then we Tele-Vaz'd it up to Xarcabard and legged it to Castle Zvahl. We cleared the area and I popped Dark Spark, who dropped very quickly.

I hit the same torch and got my Key Item: Shadow Flames and returned to Jeuno to pick up my final piece of artifact armour, my Gallant Gauntlets!

A Beached Wail

We'd been doing Campaign during the week a few times, gradually building up our XP, but with only the areas on the way to Windy unlocked, we couldn't make the most of it. Today we started off with some more Campaig, but it was pretty quiet for the most part so fighting mobs became difficult with no other players to take hate. After a few sessions we gave up and asked for help with Chinchii's AF feet fight on the Valkurm Dunes against Doman and Onryo.

Maybe we could have done this ourselves but Aka and Kendaron came along to help. When it got dark, we popped the NMs - they took on Onryo the Ghost and we took Doman the Shadow. Pretty easy, no real harm done and over very quickly. Chinchii then went to touch the ??? again but got a strange message along the lines of "What do you think you are doing?" in /say, but when she clicked on it a second time, she got the Key Item.

After that we logged to get on with other stuff.

SAMwhere, SAMhow

A lazy bank holiday of doing nothing but FFXI, pretty much! Now that we were uncapped, we went back into the past to do some Campaigns finally. We had to finish doing Snake on the Plains (putting Zonpa-Zippa's All-Purpose Putty on the Horototo Ruins doors), which was just an easy runaround quest.

After that we returned to Windurst Waters (S) and became Cobras, allowing us to fight. With no Allied Notes, we had to sit in West Sarutabaruta (S) until a Campaign Battle started which took the best part of an hour. Eventually one came, and there were a few people there, which allowed us to join in group fights, rather than try to duo our own. The XP was insane. I remember it being pretty good several years ago, but it was much higher today. The NPCs cured us up regularly, so we were never in any real danger, but on one occasion we were left to our own devices and it took us a long long time to duo one of the Yags, but we did it.

The best moment was in Sauromugue Champaign (S) with a battle versus several waves of Yagudo. I made 4k from one set of Allied Tags, incredible (to me anyway), but it went to pot a bit when the BLM Yagudos came in - I'd always had a problem with those. Sadly, there were quite a few deaths.

After a few more Campaigns, Chinchii was L61 and I'd made it to L62 and finally got Rampart! We logged at that point.

In the evening, Cheekee came on the LS and asked us if we needed help. We decided to take advantage and do Chinchii's AF quests. She went to Norg and got her first SAM AF quest, so we went to the Labyrinth of Onzozo and popped Ubume, an NM Roc BRD, who kept putting us to Sleep. In fact, it opened with Horde Lullaby so we were all asleep except Chinchii who got wailed on until Cheekee awoke and took the hate back.

After that, it was off to Kuftal Tunnel where a Coffer Key dropped on the first mob we pulled. Chinchii got the Key and quickly found a Coffer, giving her the Old Gauntlets. We returned to Jeuno for some CS, then it was off to Xarcabard and then Castle Zvahl-Baileys to fight good old Dark Spark for the key item needed to turn the Old Gauntlets into her SAM gloves.

After that, we headed off into Yhoator Jungle, met with Teila, and made our way into the Temple of Uggalepih. We ran through, past the Temple Guardian and into the big chamber with the patrolling Doll NMs just off the Paintbrush Room for RotZ, but we couldn't get to the Coffer mobs because we didn't have a Prelate Key. We had to come all the way out and ride up to the Den of Rancor, and enter the Temple a different way. Meanwhile, Teila stayed behind to check for Coffers.

Eventually, we zoned back into the Temple and right into the Coffer mobs. We ploughed through them, and I managed to get one Unlit Lantern for RotZ, and soon enough a Coffer Key dropped. Teila had also just found a Coffer sitting in the Paintbrush room, so we ran back down into the first part of the Temple and eventually, Chinchii got her first piece of AF - the SAM body!

Cresting the Waves

Tonight was spent wholly running around doing LB3 - collecting the three Crests from the main beastmen strongholds. I've done this so many times for LS members in the past before (even though it's quite soloable, very duoable), who've always insisted in bringing a gang of high levels with them, so I pretty much knew exactly where I was going.

Beadeaux has always been the simplest to me, so I picked up some Echo Drops for the Mutes and we headed off there. We had to wait awhile for the Ruby Quadav to move so we could get into Adamantking's room, but other than that it was a doddle.

Davoi was probably the hardest as we had to go all the way through, get the mini quest to fill up the Crimson Orb, then go back in, and I died trying to get through the barrier on the first attempt. After dying in a safe place and Reraising, we managed to get in to get the second Crest.

Lastly, Oztroja. We waited until the new day so the passwords were fresh, then ran about the Castle getting the three words. We made it up to the top and began preparing to get the final Crest behind the back of the Yagudo High Priest. Eventually, all the Yags turned their backs, and we picked up the Crest, but then one turned and saw us. Fortunately, they didn't bother us much as we popped our Warp Scrolls and returned to Jeuno to uncap!

Holding One's Cap

Have logged on a few times this week with Chinchii to get her up to L60. I kept myself capped so that she could catch up, so naturally by the end of the grind I was 1XP away from L61.

We spent the week in Quicksand Caves, grinding the first book (Spiders and Antica), which wasn't difficult, but they did take quite awhile to kill, compared to the grind in Garlaige recently.

Sickle Slash was pretty mean at times (almost 300 to my PLD), and Chinchii got one-shotted from a Tornado, but other than that it was fine. We got plenty of skill-ups, I learned Spirits Within, so everyone was happy. Eventually today, Chinchii got L60, so the next step was to unlock with Maat.

A Fading Shadow

As I had the week off work this week, I had plenty of FFXI time to do stuffs. Chinchii and I decided to press on with CoP and ran up to Pso'Xja to farm coloured chips (Grey, Carmine and Cyan) to get the Pso'Xja Pass for access to The Shrouded Maw. We must have been there for an hour, killing Diremites and Maze Lizards but no drop. We got a bit bored and left, hoping to come back with a THF at some point.

I'd been reading up on the rank 5.1 Lich fight and had noticed that a SAM61 had been able to solo it. With me as a L60 PLD and Chinchii as a L55 SAM I thought we could give it a go whilst in the Beaucedine Glacier. We ran our little legs down to Fei'Yin and made our way to the Qu'Bia Arena (noticing the Shadows had been repositioned to make room for higher level mobs, grr). Inside the Qu'Bia Arena we buffed up, popped food (I ate a Tav Taco and gulped down a Yagudo Drink, Chinchii ate a Meat Mithkabob) and ran in.

There were two Skeleton Sorcerers (one to the left and one to the right), and Archlich Taber'Quoan in the middle. One oppened with a Thundaga, one with a Blizzaga and one with a Sleepga. Fortunately, the Sleepga landed first so the other two woke us up, and hardly dented us. In fact, the fight was a doddle! I opened with Invincible, so Chinchii popped Meikyo Shisui and began obliterating the Archlich. She took hate instantly, which leads me to question Invincible's ability to keep hate, but it was manageable. The only difficult thing about this fight was that as PLD, and therefore getting wailed on by the adds, it was difficult to main heal. Somehow I managed to get the majority of Cures off, and kept us going. Finished the fight on around half life, but it was still relatively easy. Taking buffing and prepping out the equation, we beat it in four minutes, not bad for a L60 and L55!

Knowing we couldn't duo the Shadow Lord and that we couldn't be bothered with CoP at the moment, we decided to unlock Dark Knight. You get given Chaosbringer, a cheapy 3 damage weapon with 666 delay (LOL), and the only two jobs that can use it are WAR and DRK. Naturally this meant using Chaosbringer as my L37 WAR (and Chinchii's L30 WAR) to kill 100 mobs. Neither of us had used a greatsword before, not even me as PLD, so we had to face lots of misses as we began killing in West Ronfaure. It took almost an hour to get 100 kills with Chaosbringer!

After that we headed to Beadeaux (why, I don't know but apparently that's where we had to meet Zeid) and unlocked DRK. We logged there for dinner.

In the evening we met up with Teila and Sirdante to do Chinchii's L55 LB2 and to go kill the Shadow Lord! We met in Xarcabard and funnily enough everyone was ready to go at 7pm on the dot! We ran around Xarcabard and found the three NMs and with two level 99s, killed them pretty quickly. I'm still not sure how a party of L55s could do these considering how hard they hit, but hey, didn't matter.

Then it was straight into Castle Zvahl Baileys where we soon got lost trying to find the correct route past the beastmen and up into Castle Zvahl Keep. It took several Silent Oil / Prism Powder uses to do it, but we made it. The journey through the Keep was much quicker and before long we'd got through the teleporters and out onto the battlements where the Throne Room was. Inside the Shadow Lord rose from his Sarcophagus (what timing), and froze Zeid to the spot, challenging us to a fight.

We buffed up (not that we needed it!) and like the brave PLD I am, charged in and engaged the Shadow Lord. His first phase went down pretty quick, but with Teila on MNK, she had Formless Strikes to get through his physical barrier. After a quick cutscene, the Shadow Lord rose up to full health again, turned a black colour, and stomped over to us to begin using his nasty AoE, which took Chinchii and me down quite a bit, and even knocked Sirdante into yellow health.

But he was no match for us and we brought him down in no time, to watch as he exploded in spectacular fashion as we ran from the Throne Room, having saved Vana'diel from the Shadow Lord's tyranny. Triumphant we returned to Bastok where Chinchii and I ranked up. Straight away I bought the Republic Mantle from the gate guard with the +2 VIT and +2 DEX on it, as I'd had my eye on that for awhile. Granted the Knight's Mantle is now better, but hey it's a cheap and free cape.

After that we changed to DRK and got to L6 in South Gustaberg before logging out for the night. A successful day, yet again!

Uncovering Artifacts

I hadn't been able to sleep well last night, so I was up really early to find Cheekee was also awake and on the LS. I took advantage of this (hehe) and asked if she'd help finish off my PLD Gallant Surcoat quest by killing One-Eyed Gwajboj and Thee-Eyed Prozpuz in Davoi. I met at the outpost in Jugner Forest (where I handed in the Norvallen supplies) and choco'd south to Davoi. Cheekee knew where the Village Well was so we cleared the area and I spawned the mobs. They hit hard, but Cheekee took the hate and we fought them together.

When they were dead, I got the key item but before I could finish off the quest, Cheekee asked if I needed another AF. I told her I needed gloves, head and legs, so she asked me to pick one. I knew one was in Beadeaux so I picked that thinking it was the easiest (others were Garlaige and Eldieme). I was wrong! We couldn't find the Treasure Coffer anywhere and none of the Quadav wanted to part with a Coffer Key.

Eventually, after many silences and curses later, we found the Coffer, but not before we'd been MPK'd in the Qulun Dome by a BST who tried to solo Adamantking, aggroing everything in the room, which turned on us the second they killed him. It took a further thirty minutes to get a Coffer Key to drop, and I got my Gallant legs, but couldn't equip them as they were for L58s and I was a L56.

Chinchii then logged on and the two of us went to Garlaige to level up using the Grounds Tome. It took me just over an hour to get from L56 to L60 and Chinchii L50 to L55! Unreal, but it seems the Grounds Tome XP increases the more you do it, a bit like Abyssea kills.

After that, Chinchii went to Jeuno to pick up her next LB quest from Maat so it was ready and I logged out for a bit. When we came back on, we met up with Sirdante to continue with CoP. We went to San d'Oria to do our cutscenes there, before heading out to Jugner Forest (where I did yet another cutscene for my Gallant Surcoat) and zoning into Carpenter's Landing. There we met Guilloud, who threw Overgrown Ivy at us, but with Sirdante it was easy. Still think we could have duo'd it without her, but I guess we'll never know!

We then finished up our cutscenes in San d'Oria (where I also got my final Gallant Surcoat cutscene and the Surcoat itself!!), went back to Bastok to get some cutscenes and finally to Jeuno to finish up the mission.