Bush-Whacker in the Making

Today I continued with my exploration of Ulbukka, picking up Ionis and a coalition assignment to survey the Ceizak Battlegrounds. With that, off I went to scour the zone, but before I went too far, I spoke to the chap by the tent outside Adoulin, and learnt "logging" so I was able to get past the Knotted Roots at Colonisation Rieves. I made my way around the zone with my Expertise Ring active, killing almost anything I came across, getting Merit after Merit - it was great.

I found two Ergon Loci (one from the Geomancer quest?) but quickly got frustrated with them as each time I tried to survey them, I got told that it ended in utter failure, due to time of day and distance. I tried messing around with the range I stood from the Loci, but no joy, and there was no way I was going to hang around to see if an hour or so made the difference, no sir.

I headed south and eventually ended up in the Sih Gates, where nearly everything aggroed. I continued south and came across a rope leading up a ledge, but I wasn't able to use it so presume there's another survival skill (spelunking?). I had to go a longer way round, where I came across another Colonisation Rieve. This one was much harder because the respawn rate of the Chapuli and the Twitherym was so high. I ended up focusing on the Knotted Roots whilst the other things hit on me, using Circle Blade to ensure that I kept the hate. What I love about these Rieves, is that every so often you get a bunch of XP or LP and Bayld without having to do anything to get it - what I mean is, in Campaign, to get your reward, you have to get an assessment every so often, but here you automatically get given it whilst fighting so there's no interruptions!

A short trek later and I was in Foret de Hennetiel, a swamp of sorts. I began exploring and came across my first Lair Rieve, which was much harder than the Colonisation Rieves I'd done before. These ones were actually hitting me despite capped Evasion and high Parrying skill. The Craklaws seem to have a move which strips you of Protect and Shell, which was a bit annoying, and as I had Joachim out, not Kupipi, I had to waste MP on reapplying. Eventually I cottoned on that I had to hit the static object (obviously their 'lair') to win the fight, as the mobs kept respawning.

I then discovered a river where I could click on a cast-off point or something, and I was given the option to swim, so I clicked on it and found myself lying on the banks with a message about not being able to swim across. Am guessing I need to get some sort of swimming skill much like the logging skill. This really reminds me of old-school Final Fantasies or Legend of Zeldas where you need to learn a skill or obtain a certain item from a dungeon to get past an obstacle. But soon enough, after doing a Lair Rieve on a palm tree, I ended up chopping it down so it fell across the river and I could run over! How cool!

Somewhere along the way I picked up a yggrete shard, which I learned from the LS I could pop a Faded Craklaw NM with it in an area right near to where I was. I had Fablinix and Zeid out, so swapped Joachim for Kupipi and popped it. The bitch was hard! I could have happily tanked it, but its AoE moves were wiping the floor with my Alter-Egos. Quite a few of its moves were being Stunned by Zeid and Fablinix (love them as a combo!) but after getting it to 92% I had to give up and Warp out as my Alter-Egos couldn't hack it.

Wanting a change of pace, I went to the Cloister of Gales to start the Waking the Beast quest and entered a much-tougher fight against Garuda Prime. It wasn't Windsday, but she had around four Air Elementals with her, all of which were casting tier IV and ga tier III spells. Garuda herself was tougher, and even though they didn't hit hard at all, with all those spells, they did chip away.

Her Aerial Blast did some mean-ass damage, and the second she did it, all her elementals did a ga III spell in sync! I survived but had to use a few Cure IVs to do it! I beat her, nicked her power and then jumped back in for the regular Prime fight to get the Jar of Bubbly Water for the Summoning Ring quest.

Before bed, I finished San d'Oria 6-1 by fighting the Sabotender Enamorado in Western Altepa Desert, whilst going to pick up a Dreamrose by a pond I never even knew was there!