The Contractaru

After that horrendous defeat at the hands of Atori-Tutori ??? last night, I was determined to farm up the items to trade Degenhard for the Olde Rarab Tail, so I decided to head to Bostaunieux Oubliette to farm Wurdalaks for the drops (and also because I'd never fought a Vampyr before). On the way there, I bumped into Phanduron and Drexerion, and pummeled them both into a (second) early grave.

I got the Shadow Mask off Phanduron, but not Ascalon which I think is the good drop. Wiki says the two link, but they didn't, mainly because they were at opposite sides of the room, but at one point I aggroed arount three Garms and one Haunt from going into yellow life. No drop from Drexerion, unfortunately, but my ability to attract drops as a PLD is bad!

Eventually I found the Wurdalaks, surrounded by Dabilla hound mobs. Sad as it is, it's always exciting to encounter a new mob in FFXI, and fighting Vampyrs for the first time was an experience. These babies were hard! Each one was like an NM, with Dispelling moves, aoe Stun moves with knockback, freakin' aoe Doom moves! Kupipi was quick off the mark with her Cursnas, but either she got Silenced or ran out of MP, but at one point I was spamming holy water, and it wasn't until my Doom counter got to one that it worked!

I did get a Seasoning Stone off the first one, but after completing the book once (so two Wurdalaks in total) and nearly dieing twice, I said sod that and went off to the Ranguemont Pass to fight the Hovering Oculi (Ahriman) mobs, and got a further two Seasoning Stones, but only one Fossilised Bone. This meant I had three Seasoning Stones, three Fossilised Fangs but one Fossilised Bone so still only enough for one Olde Rarab Tail. I was also at the XP cap.

BBK came back from a successful Temenos farming run and suggested we go with his BLU and wail on Akori-Tutori for the two minutes I could freeze him, and after seeing his martial skill on Orthrus yesterday, I knew he could do it! If that wasn't enough Aka logged in and offered herself up as a BLU straight away to help out as well.

Extremely grateful, I traded my items to Degenhard and got my Olde Rarab Tail before getting a spare Soul Gem Clasp and met them in the Waughroon Shrine. We entered the BC and after buffing I charged Akori-Tutori ??? and threw him an Olde Rarab Tail. BBK and Aka then let rip, whilst I poked him with my sword. Before the two minutes were up, Akori-Tutori had been defeated and I was free to sail to L99!

Feeling cheeky, I then asked if they were able to help out on my Rank 9-2 Bastok fight against Zeid. Aka didn't have the Throne Room home point but BBK said he did have a teleport there so I went over and waited for BBK. Unfortunately, his teleport wasn't the home point so he was right at the entrance to Castle Zvahl Keep. I knew the way up, so I ran to meet him and we went up together. I felt good as he was quite grateful for the home point (I don't like asking for help a lot so this made me feel better LOL). However, unfortunately he hadn't done Rank 9-2 Bastok before so only I could enter the Throne Room fight.

Earlier today I'd been able to pick up the Mekira Toshugai, the body piece which complements my Mekira-ota, so I now had the set, with some great stats. Whether it was that or the loads of skill-ups I'd had farming my Olde Rarab Tail items, or a combination of both, but this was a doddle this time! No potions, ethers, Yag drinks or anything, I wiped the floor with Zeid and his shadows, no help needed, so as well as completing my final LB, I also got Rank 10 in Bastok - the first time I'd ever completed a Rank storyline in the nine years I've been playing FFXI. Not bad for a day's work!