Slashy-Lashy?

Last night was bound to be exciting for my Thief's career.... But as it figured, only half of it was rewarding.

First half was Nyzul investigations. As per the usual, we targetted floors holding notorious monsters that possessed pieces of Goliard, Denali and... was it Askar?

Snuggly looks it up

Ok, had to make sure. Anyways, as per tradition, we had a missing member. And no, Waddles wasn't the one missing this time. In fact, we were missing two in our roster : Bucer and Booty. Far from falling to desperation, Meilin recruited Lourkrina and Zoar to fill in those spots. Sadly, that meant I had to come Monk to fill in that extra firepower.

*stares envily at Zoar*

Our first climb went smoothly, until we got to the NM's floor. Just our luck, we got afflicted by a pathos restricting White Magics. And it was Fafnir, not Adamantoise, so Waddles couldn't solo it. Meilin was fuming. But instead of running away, we did things the Akai-Tenshi way : we went in guns blazing... and got miserably slain. To add insult to injury, the damned dragon felt like taking its damn time to walk away from the slaughter, so Meilin didn't have room to reraise.

However, that would have been underestimating Mei-chan's determination to think she'd just give up and lose her Reraise effect from being ported out of the ruins. Taking into account the time warnings, she got up just before the magic seal took effect and warped us to Alzadaal. Yay Mei! Next two runs, we simply couldn't muster past the required four "regular" floors to reach the NMs, and Bucey made it for the last run, just in time to fill in a Sea-bound Waddles.

After that deception, I headed to a rent-a-room in Windurst for a power-nap. I needed all the rest I could use seeing I was the designated puller for our Dynamis-Windurst run this time, Drfeelgood taking the night off to celebrate Dharmayka's birthday. I was pretty nervous for our run, especially seeing how we only had one successful Windurst run so far with Krab Battlers. Even worse, we went into that Altana-forgotten place with only 18 alliance members. ...That didn't look good on paper.

To my astonishment though, not only didn't we wipe every 20 minutes, we actually managed to get the win! By our teeth's skin, but we did it nonetheless! I was congratulated for my excellent pulling-

Snuggly's self-inflated ego goes up 0.3 points
Snuggly's self-inflated ego reaches level 7

...err... Never mind that. In any case, it wasn't a one-Thief effort. We've all put ourselves to the task to pull that win. Heck, we even survived the northern time extension stone's train, something we were never able to pull off beforehand. And as to congratulate me for my valiant efforts-

Snuggly's self-inflated ego goes up 0.2 points

...damn... Just wanna say I'm the proud owner of my very own Assassin's Bonnet! Yay! More decorations for my mannequins! ^^; I guess the only reason I'm going for all those relic sets is so I can get a set of spare gear if I ever retire the job. Hopefully that won't be any time soon for my Thief.

...Though Samurai is quite tempting...

I'm in love again

It was bound to happen. All that job jumping had to land me back on my Thief career at some point. And all of that due to a lucky lot on a free-lot Assassin's Vest in our last Dynamis - Bastok run. I got home, put it on my mannequin, and...

...I had the urge to get experienced enough to wear it.

My Thief career had been laid to rest at lv66 since... well, pretty much forever now. I barely took the knife back for a whirl when I needed to salvage something from a notorious monster, or had to go ram hunting. Otherwise, my Rogue's Attire stayed in storage.

I gotta say, those people are serious about keeping our gear in mint condition. Even after that long, my old set felt as comfy as the day I said goodbye to it. I bought a Demon's Knife, and headed out for the desert. Scorpions and Goblins were my prey, a chance to finish skilling up my bonecraft.

In two weeks, I made it to lv69. At first I felt like cheaping my way through, but after a talk with Meilin, she convinced me I could become a career Thief without my Monk experience overshadowing it too much. ...Not like my Bard skills aren't casting their own shadow over pretty much everything I do...

This feels like falling in love again. I won't dedicate myself blindly to it either, like if we get Blood of the Vampyr as a Kupower, believe me I'll work a bit on my Summoner. And I'll get off the paperwork in three weeks' time, for one week of vacation. I was thinking of taking care of my other mage jobs during that time.

Yeah... still an awful lot of fun left to go, but most of all with my Thief. We'll see how I manage through all those jobs getting at lv75. I already retired my Blue Mage alongside my Paladin because of that renewed love. ...unless my love proves being ephemeral again.

Awesomeness

Today, we did our usual runs of Nyzul Isle Investigations. We figured we might as well just stick to surveying those floors known to harbor the nasty bosses. Floor 20 was a pain in the ass, we encountered the dragon, which simply didn't want to die. We barely scrapped our way past it, and it did drop the Askar boots. But since Booty already had them, it was pretty much free lot amongst those who had a heavy armor job high enough... go go Paladin Snuggly? Heh, it's a great piece, so I'll keep it, even if it'll gather dust on my mannequin until my tanking skills are required.

Next run, we made a climb to floor 40, only to meet the gigantic turtle.... and a pathos on White Magic. Meilin was raging. She got dressed to kill, seeing there was little else she could do, but she fainted under the pressure of the pathos, and it was left to the rest of us to finish the Adamantoise off.

That's when pure awesomeness shone. Using his Black Mage tactics, Waddles kited the hulking turtle around, nuking it down progressively, while us melees could only chase after it, landing glancing blows left and right. Waddles practically solo'ed the whole fight. No drop, but knowing we actually got through a boss floor with a pathos on our sole source of healing power...

Priceless.

There are things you can't beat. For everything else, call Professor Xy.

Time Will Tell

Gosh, what have I not written about in my journal since my last entry... There is so much to talk about, and yet so little I can remember.

I guess the oldest thing was the ongoing inversigation of the Emptiness phenomenon plaguing Vana'diel. It started innocently enough by a few isolated incidents, but it turned out a large, thousand years old ploy was unfolding, and me and the gang got caught right in the middle of it. Since our journey around Vana'diel searching for more information on the impending doom looming at the horizon, I've been thrown in a crescendo of events cumulating to a showdown with what claimed to be a god, no less.



As a result of our efforts, we have been granted access to the legendary land of Al'Taieu. The place is home to a horde of difformed plasmatic monsters, as well as ancient spirits still clinging to their eldering memories. Seeing an opportunity here, I decided as I walked over the cristine bodies of water and through the palace that I ought to make good use of this access to a brand new land.

I decided to work on my Blue Mage.

The road was long and arduous... well, maybe not arduous. I took a great liking to those Fields of Valor manuals, providing training regimes for faster improvement of one's skill in a given profession. As it stood out, a Blue Mage can make short work of easy preys, thus making the reward quickly accessible. And since the training can only be taken once every day, that actually gives me a breather in between two regimes. I spend that time reading up on old story books I never got to finish. I've just finished the tales of Jak and Daxter, 2nd chapter. That was a tough read.

Another event that plagued that last period was the departure of Bucer. Sadly, he had to undergo a pilgrimage of sorts that took him to the far eastern lands. During that time, I barely did any missions, whether it is for the account of San d'Oria, the Aht Urghan Empire, or the Crystal War effort. All my energies were clearly focused on picking regimes from Field Manuals and kicking some ass. After a while, seeing the consternation in my friends' eyes about my newfound addiction, I started dubbing those regimes "Fields of Whore". That sure got a laugh from those who know me best, and quite a few raised eyebrows from other Akai-Tenshi linkmates.

Thankfully, Bucer made a comeback recently, and we started getting back into our regular stride of events. Meilin has even taken charge of a dying Dynamis linkshell, and has.... offered me... *coughnajacough* to join her cause. I've had my first run last night, and though we had a small show of hands, we did fare rather well. I do hope we'll be able to pick up the pace as the shell grows in size.

Oh yeah, and I GOT MY FIRST RELIC ARMOR PIECE!!!! KAWAII!!! BLUE MAGE PANTS!!! *^-^*

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.