At the Speed of Catrot Rapido

Whoa! I had to find some time to write about *ALL* that happened lately, before I forget something!

For starters, we pursued our assault efforts in the name of Salaheem's Sentinels. We redid our foodstuffs delivery mission, as I eloquently said the first time, "Salaheem's Sentinels also delivers!" Other missions were also fun, especially hunting down Sageland, a Mamool Ja seer of sorts. Those successes helped me garner more favor points with Naja, who was pleased enough to promote me as a Sergeant. Alright! Slowly getting closer to Captain!

After that, we went on for our investigation of the Emptiness investigation. This time, we had to save Prishe's precious toosh from the Sin Hunters, mithran warriors from the motherland tasked to track down and "punish" whoever crossed them the wrong way. Suffice to say, those warriors are indeed well chosen for the task. Not only are they good at tracking, they are just as good on the battlefield.

This time around, I was asked to show up as a Black Mage. My duty : try to keep everyone asleep while the rest of the group worked on them one at a time. Sadly, my skills weren't up to the par, as they easily woke up early on, but not early enough to stop me from pounding the singled out Shirakee with a mighty Freeze. We all fell under their blades, but not before their Dark Knight and wyvern were done with. As they turned back their attention to Prishe, we reraised and recovered, hoping we wouldn't be too late once we were back to our prime. Thankfully, we were able to tackle them a second time, but with a greater advantage in numbers this time. The battle ended as a victory for us, though Prishe ran off as soon as she had a vision of where the Star could be.

We immediately journeyed forward to Uleguerand Range to catch up with Prishe, though I made a detour back to my mog house so Mogri could switch my competence back to that of a Bard. As we all made it to Bearclaw Pinnacle, we were confronted by the fabled Snoll Tsar, our worst case scenario confirmed. However, a Soul Voice and couple songs later, our troops were ready to lay down the hurt on the arcane beast. We even brought salts to delay the Tsar's explosive temper, but didn't get the chance to use a third one as Ryio, bringing his new Ranger expertise to the battlefield, totally pwned the bastard. He did fell as that pissed the near dead icy bomb into a desperate frenzy, but it was with a broad smile across his tiny Tarutaru face.

We thought we would further our investigation a few days later by exploring Movalpolos for further clues about the fabled land where gods sleep. Alas, Erinael couldn't make it, so we went for plan B : rescue Aphmau's puppet. We did that battle previously, but alas lacked firepower. So we swore to return with someone who had said power. Thus we recruited Professor Xynin's talents, which helped tremendously on that fight with the riding lizardman. Another thing that helped was that Meilin wasn't the one it drew it's attention to throughout the fight this time.

So yeah, lots of successes lately, though I weep at Aphmau's disappearance in a magic circle at the end of the fight. Though we defeated that one Mamool Ja, tons of reinforcements came, and we were forced to make our escape. But we swore revenge, we will find Aphmau and save her (whether she likes it or not!)

Hugging the Beast Within

I swear, sometimes things aren't going anywhere without a lot of pain involved. Such was our last session of Nyzul Isle investigations. We were unfortunate as we lost contact with Bucer that evening, and we had to rummage through those accursed floors without our usual tank and puller. Moreover, Waddles (a.k.a. Xynin, a.k.a. The Professor) also disappeared on us for the last few runs. Figures we ran smack into a floor with five Ebony Puddings on our last run. Oh, we got through those alright, but not without losing precious time. And since Bucer was still AWOL, we couldn't pursue our emptiness investigation.

However, in stern contrast, we were pushed to our awesomeness as we undertook some missions under the moniker of Salaheem's Sentinels. As Meilin coached us through those, we completed each assigned task with relative ease. Bucer made another display of strength and valor as he sacrificed himself so we could feed the imperial soldiers in Lebros Caverns. Our next two missions were achieved without Bucer's help, but nonetheless we managed to pull them both off. At this pace, it won't be long before I get promoted out of Corporal and into Sergeant grade.

Outside of my current stride of missions, I started undertaking some of the new Fields of Valor training regimens as a Beastmaster. It is wonderful! I made it to Beastmaster lv50 rather quickly all things considered. However, as I knew I'd be waiting on help to get some of my artifacts, I decided another career could benefit from this latest addition. So I finally picked Blue Mage...

...oh, my, dawg... I'm never looking back.

It took me a mere few Vana'diel weeks to get from lv40 to lv49. I'm still working on lv50 as I'm waiting for the next day to roll in. According to "Earth Time", this took 3 strong "Earth Days" to get this far. That is simply amazing. And since I'm taking the easiest FoV training regimens, I have some free time between two regimens to do lots of stuff, like read a book, play some games, or, yeah, update my blog.

So will I forego my Monk career in favor of fueling the beast within me? Well... Nah, I still have much heart for smashing my targets to bits, but being able to manipulate the abilities of fell beasts can certainly come in handy at times. Thus I think I will take this all the way.

...but first, I got my Blue Mage classic armor to earn through blood and imperial coin soon. ...Maybe I'll give back my Dark Knight another spin while I wait for my uniform to be crafted.

{Charm} Lizard, I Choose You!

Lately, I hate to admit it, but I started following in Flaru-Wuru's footsteps. Being so logged back on my scythe training for my Dark Knight career, I decided to take it up with my Beastmaster. To my surprise, this is actually enjoyable... as long as it's accompanied with a charge of my Emperor Band. My biggest enjoyment is charming DCs and sending them over to "totally pwn" EP mobs. I'm actually farming as I learn the ropes of the job!

...if only the monsters weren't so stingy on their valuable drops...

Otherwise, last weekend was a bit of a disappointment. Just a tad bit. It's been two weeks since Mei-chan couldn't make it for our bi-weekly Assault event. ...since I'm only available on a weekly basis, it kinda sucks we're off-sync when it comes to our weekly availability. I do hope next weekend will see us regulars teaming up again to fend off the depths of Nyzul, or otherwise random missions in the name of Salaheem's Sentinels. Incidentally, finally made it to Corporal rank! Yay!

Moreover, to keep with our line of current woes, we totally failed when it came to our emptiness investigation. As it stood, we lacked a strong sleeper for the fight against the mithran trackers. It took me a night of sleep (and nightmares) to remember the next morning, as I pondered yet again which jobs should have my focus for the coming months, a simple fact that could have saved the night :

I *AM* A FREAKING Lv55 BLACK MAGE!!!

Hopefully, I won't have forgotten that by our next scheduled incursion into the curse of Promathia. I still think the worst part of it all was that I had to beg Flaru-Wuru for some blackened siledon newts. I swear, I'm that close to trying fishing out more seriously.

But not all was misadventures this last weekend. In addition to a beneficial Beastmastering session, I went for an incursion in the world of terrestrial avatars. Yunarinoa invited me to the depths of the Den of Rancor to meet up with the great sea serpent, Leviathan. I hate to admit it, but I almost wet my pants as he challenged our small improvised team. However, we happened to have teamed up with an amazing Ninja and well reflexed Dancer. That doubled up with Yunarinoa's knowledge of White Magicks and my fists of fury made short work of the avatar we faced. Only regret is I took long before realizing our foe had a good physical resistance to our attacks. Once I focused my chakra into my fists to use the Formless Strikes technique, my punches suddenly felt like I actually penetrated the beast's thick scales...

...at which point its attention came down on me. But thankfully I had my Ninja training and learned plenty of it. It was down to its last sliver of strength, so I didn't have to face my inability to naturally avoid attacks. Only 9 shadows were spent during the entire fight. I even deftly avoided a casting of Slowga midfight.

Only 3 terrestrial avatars left before I journey into Fenrir's realm. Not to mention Diabolos' dream world. Only other item on my list regarding my eventual foray into the way of the Summoner would be obtaining a pair of Carbuncle's Mitts...

...that, and learn how to perform a Sending.