Success!

[thessalian]

Today I had another play date on FFXI with dodgyhoodoo. He was so gleeful about working out that his RDM was high enough level to get Fire. Of course, I had that quite some time ago, but hey, BLMs get that spell earlier anyway. And I get the glee as well - I'm only two levels off Fire II and I'm still of the gleeful over it.

Anyway, last time I was on FFXI, I went on a bit of a fishing expedition on the ferry between Mhaura and Selbina, and hoofed it from Tahrongi in order to, as it turned out, kill Air Elementals. And the one I killed in Buburimu Peninsula pushed my Staff skill up to a level where I got a brand spanking new weaponskill - "Earth Crusher". It is awesome, bar one problem upon which I will expound shortly. Anyway, I was using this and my general prowess with such things to kill off Strolling Saplings while waiting for dodgyhoodoo to arrive at Dem Crag in Konschtat. When he got there, we hoofed it over to Valkurm and did a bit of farming there. That was amusing for a little while; what I basically did was turn on Stoneskin, throw Dia at a Sand Hare, then run around the area for awhile to pick up links before taking them back to camp to get dodgyhoodoo's help in slaughtering the lot of them. But that got boring so we headed out to Selbina to grab the ferry to Buburimu instead - the farming's better there.

Now, on the way to the ferry, we noted a Bogy. It was going to aggro dodgyhoodoo anyway, so I decided to get it before it got us. Unfortunately, it threw Curse at us and nearly killed us both before we could beat it into submission - Cure IV didn't do nearly the amount of damage I thought it was going to. Anyway, I've never had Curse cast on me before but at least I had Cursna, once I'd rested enough to use it. I was so low on MP it wasn't funny.

After that, we got on the ferry. It was daylight, so I wasn't concerned about pirates, but dodgyhoodoo was still worried about the various bits and pieces that lurk on deck that could turn his poor lvl 20 RDM to paste, so I went up to have a look. And sure enough, it was raining and not only was there a Water Elemental spawned on deck, but there was a Sea Monk as well - those things aggro and they can open doors and it nearly pasted me at level 30, so I told dodgyhoodoo to stay downstairs and started in on the Elemental. Keeeeeled it dead (despite having a weapon that did water damage - must do something about that), I still had a fair bit of MP left (and my HP was good) so I went after the Sea Monk. That one actually hurt me a bit because Stoneskin wore, but I killed it with a good 120mp left! No resting between kills or anything! That was pretty awesome.

Anyway, we got to Buburimu where I discovered a bit of an issue with my shiny new weaponskill. Namely, it's an Area of Effect thing. So if I use it on something and something else is nearby ... it starts trying to hit me too. Arse. Well, there are worse places to find that out than Buburimu, I suppose. We did some fairly good farming there, all things considered, but then we broke for dinner and never reassembled because ... yeesh, I want to do something different. However, given dodgyhoodoo's level, he'd get squished anywhere else no matter what I did (we found that out the hard way in Jugner Forest the other week) so until he levels some, we're stuck.

So afterwards, he went to try to solo Qufim (!!!) and I just logged in with the intention of shifting some things over to my mule and see if anyone was biting for a party. Except I didn't even get a chance to put my party flag up before someone sent me a tell asking if I wanted to party. I said yes, and off I went to Altepa Desert. (Bloody Altepa. At least I have Tele-Altep now and don't have to go tele-begging every time I need to get there. Of course, at some point I'm going to have to level enough to do the quest for the Tele-Yhoat scroll, but that's another story for another time.)

So off I went to Revelation Rock to meet up my party. Which consisted of a PLD tank, a SAM, a BRD/NIN (?!?), a RNG, a WAR and me. So ... entirely melee-based, then. No artillery to speak of, and minimal buffs in the shape of a freakin' Bard. And despite this, they made a career of pulling Desert Beetles two at a time, more or less. I was consistently on low MP and wondering what the hell kind of deathwish these people had for their characters, but thankfully I managed to keep everyone alive while taking minimal damage (but not no damage, as the WAR and the PLD couldn't hold hate to save their lives, literally). But the EXP was flowing fast and furious anyway, even if the drops were shit, and I got to level 44 with no problems, even when our SAM had to bail and we were fighting with a five-player party for awhile. Of course, then our BRD had to bail just as we got a DRG into the party but we stuck it out as a five-player party long enough for the PLD to level before finally disbanding for the night, which gave me a nice little EXP buffer between me and delevelling, and at one point I even had enough time to cast Reraise on myself, just in case. So, with a bunch of seed packets, five chunks of dhalmel meat, a water cluster, an ice crystal and two levels, it was a pretty good day in Vana'diel all told.

Though it looks like it might end up being Altepa again for the crawl up to level 48. Well, Quicksand Caves, anyway, which is worse because I have no freakin' map. It's either that, Crawler's Nest again (Rumble Crawlers joy) or Garlaige Citadel. That last might not be so bad as I have to go through there for my Tele-Dem scroll quest anyway. Of course I already have the spell, but now I want to do it for the fame and the gil I'll get for selling the scroll. Which reminds me, must check the AH for dodgyhoodoo's armour upgrades...

In other news, I'm well thrilled at the minute because it looks like we have a date for the next Brighton Below - 26 July. Just a little over two months! Now it's time to start thinking about downtime actions and sorting out a proper top for my costume and everything. Note to self - as Pride starts that week, book accommodation well in advance, prepare to stay all weekend so I don't have to worry about being late, and bring a comfortable pair of shoes so I'm not clomping around in those damnable boots the whole time. The number of pairs of socks I'll need to wear the suckers comfortably? Not all that great in the kind of heat we're having at the minute.

Ikariam is going well - my little city is prosperous. By about 2pm tomorrow, I'll be able to build a palace and start a colony! Preferably somewhere I can get crystal glass. Dear mother of gods, it's hard to get hold of that stuff. Wine's easier and I've got good trade relations with someone who does marble, so I'll wait awhile to establish a colony somewhere with a vineyard. And thus goes another online waste of time.

Anyhow, I have work tomorrow - Barts again. Amusingly, people remember me from my work there in Med Onc years ago. Also, Violet's still there, but demoted and in Haem Onc, and apparently she's given people in the MacMillan team some serious aggro, so ... heh. Gods, I hope I don't run into her. That'd just be more not-fun than any one person should be obliged to handle at any one time.

But the point of that ramble is that I ought to grab a shower and consider the bed thing. Where'd the weekend go? At least there's meeting up with mitchy tomorrow before she goes to see Chess. That should be fun.