Ascending to Sky

Today, I have finally set foot upon the fabled floating island of Tu'Lia. My linkshell has really come forward and taken me through the dangers of the tonberrys in the Temple of Uggalepih and the Den of Rancor. They walked me through and kept me safe as I collected each headstone fragment, and returned the fragments to the Quicksand Caves, even as we were attacked by anticans. They stood beside as Kam’lanaut tried to wipe us mere mortals off from Vana'diel. Finally, they rallied their friends amoung fellow adventurers and managed to put a cerulean crystal in my hands, effectively opening the Hall of the Gods' shimmering circle to transport myself up to sky.

I went exploring my first time up in the clouds. I love the scenic views from Ru'Aun Gardens, and angelic music. I visited both the Shrine of Ru'Avitau and Ve'Lugannon Palace on my journey, and saw many scary and some new things never seen on the surface of Vana'diel. My two favorite parts so far are the waterfalls that drop off the edge and fall to nothingness below, and the transparent floors that leave hexagonal impressions as you walk across them.

Quick hits: Attained Windurst Rank 7 after the yagudo BCNM in Giddeus and subsequent climb up Castle Oztroja, got Verrick a much prized enfeebling earring from an ENM, fought and killed all six prime elementals to get attuned to fenrir battle, defeated fenrir, finally bought my own noble's tunic, spent my first merits on Shellra V, and killed Alexander one more time for Zephiris' win.

Treasures of Aht Urghan complete

This week has been a rather busied and accomplished week regarding mission ranks. First, and most importantly, Imperial's ToAU static finally reached, and triumphed over, Alexander. It was a tough battle, with Kia taking crazy amounts of damage throughout the entire fight, but we pulled together as a team andd managed to beat it down. With nine seconds left on the clock.

We had some trouble on the BLU near the end. A surprise Seraph Blade got through unstunned, though luckily Kia was healthy enough to survive it. A quick round of cures later, and he was at full again. Only, I managed to wrestle hate from him in the process and was not to lucky. I went down in two hits, and reraised just as they took Raubahn down for the third time. That left me with resting while everyone went after Razhbhad.

When Alexander came out fully, I had just unweakened. I stood up, and prepared to face the Iron Colossus of legend.



This really was a battle to turn the sound on and admire the beauty of it. The music was heavenly, and not tense like typical battle music is. The way it was attacking us was a sight to behold as well. Every attack and spell it used on us was a gorgeous dance of light, a play of fireworks until you start seeing people's HP dropping into the red. This was a fight were I was really wishing I had gotten my paws on a scroll of Cure VI somewhere.




Kia was holding hate well for an elvaan who spent a good portion of the battle terrorized in funny poses. Only a few wayward spells slipped through, and he did a good job of staying up through it all. However, I doubt very many PLDs can stay standing once Alexander begins reciting its poetry and the omega symbols scroll across the chatlog. I was caught just a little too close to Kia when Alexander unleashed Divine Judgement, and took a nearly fatal blast. Kia dropped immediatly, and I was quick to follow, weakened as I was from just seconds before.

A quick reraise and recovery, while the mages and melee adjusted to keep themselves alive, and we were back into the fray. The second leg of the fight became much more intense than the first half. Alexander was curing itself like crazy, and the nukers began dealing insane lvls of dmg to compensate. Both time and HP were dwindling, when we began to use our two hours in a bid to end it before we end up losing.



Somewhere around 10% HP, the familiar poetry and omega symbols once again flashed across the screen. Our PLD did everything he could to stay up, I did everything I could to keep him up, and Zaro, Verrick, Makina, and Thay did everything they could to take Alexander down fast and hard. As the light from the avatar of light came down from above us, I heard a cry of "BEAMZ!" and then fell limply to the floor. The last thing I saw was Alexander's life wavering around 2%, and then nothing.



I awoke with my face still against a hard surface, but this time the room was different. We were back out in the room we had come through when we entered. Behind us, a solemn silence had befallen where the avatars of darkness and light had played out their battle. Moments after I had fallen, Verrick put the last ounce of his magic into one final blow against Alexander. That was enough to end our fight against him, and let us get out while the confrontation between Odin and Alexander played out.





We were safe once again. Our battle had come so close to being the Ragnarok; we had stalled Alexander's final discharge of power with nine seconds remaining. Nine seconds.

I now wear my crown and ring proudly for all to see.

Imperial Propaganda

So much has been going on recently, that I barely feel like I can keep up with everything going on in the past few weeks. Here goes (takes a deep breath):

First of all, I managed to get in some good, quality lvling with Imperial people again. Getting so near to 75, I can finally join up with all the senior members and not be merely a weight they are choosing to carry along. I actually feel useful once in awhile, so that is a major bonus for me. In this case, it was a pt of epic dings in Bhaflau Thickets.

Both Makina and Kia would hit their first 75 jobs (DRG and PLD respectively), Thayos would hit 75 in PLD, his original dream job, and even the elusive Pikko was along to get her first merit. If this is not a reason to celebrate friends and linkshell mates, there really is not much of a reason being in the shell afterall.

In further Imperial news, we have been clearing through the Aht Urghan storyline quickly; winning at least one battle a week, sometimes two depending on the length of the cutscenes and waits between the missions. We plowed through the mamool ja PLD fight in Jade Sepulchre (AU29) and the special assault in Periqia where we had to kill-ten-lamias and not aggro them all at once. This one took a quick revision of strategy, but we managed to finish it twice of both pts in the alliance.

Oddly enough, I did this very mission the next day with a friend of mine, Nibelungen as a duo. It got very close, but she went as mnk/nin for (extra survivabillity) and I went as whm/smn (for carby pullingness) and we managed to beat this as a duo. I still find it strange how we wiped our first time with a full ot and several 75s, while a pt of two got through it with only medium difficulty.

The storyline for ToAU took some interesting twists, bringing us to a battle against Gessho. It is hilarious how much the expectations for this fight differed from what really went down. We all thought it was going to be a simple case of get in there, remove his shadows, and start to spank him. Gawd we are dead wrong. This BC fight with him would prove to be the most difficult fight yet in the AU storyline. The setup was Kia PLD, Zaro BST, Thay RDM, Maki/Zeph DRG, Verr/Kaer WHM x2, and we still could not keep our PLD up from the amount of damage he was dishing out between his AoEs and everything.

We ended up having Zarovich kiting Gessho around the arena, which worked much better than trying to straight tank it all. We began to see much closer matches, and Thay managed to keep Zaro alive by pulling the frequently spawning clones off Zaro until they despawned. The most hilarious moment of this fight was when we found out that when real Gessho hits his two hour, all the clones do as well. This meant four Mijin Gakures hit the pt at the exact same time. It dropped everyone in the actual arena, leaving only a raise weakened PLD and myself, the out of mp WHM, up in the tunnel, though we would both drop very soon after that from angry birdman aggro.

Once, we got so close to winning that we got booted from the BC when there was only 2% HP remaining in the enemy. Needless to say, we were very happy to be over and done with that fight. As much as a pain in the ass this fight was, it was actually worth every cheap death once the resulting cutscenes came rolling in. This story has me so hooked and I cannot wait to resume for the final missions.

Missions, missions, missions galore!

The day started off simple enough, but with a bang. And a quick thud. A simple besieged raid by the undead swarm turned out to drop me like rocks. I died about three times the entire time, never once from anything I could see. Easy enough xp though, so it was not really frustrating.

Spending some time in Whitegate after repeling the lamia attack, I happened to come across someone shouting for some help for CoP 2-5. Once again, I grasped at the hope that I might better understand this fight by replaying it several times, and decided to tag along. What a mess it turned out to be. I love Riverne Site A01. It is a gorgeous zone. Yet, I hate how it leeches people of their senses, like the lvls being stripped away by the restriction cap also takes the knowledge of what you have learned during that time with it, rather than simply limiting your abilities and gear. I forget exactly how many times we died, but it was frustrating to not even get close on any of those attempts. I will have to look into my friends list to see who still needs this, as I have always had better luck with my friends doing this than with random strangers.



Thankfully, my Imperial ls mates stepped up, and fully delivered what I had been craving. We continued last week's ToAU static party and faced the Shield of Diplomacy battle (AU 22). I think the little imp in the cutscenes has to be my favorite new NPC to watch. I seriously screenshotted him more than anyone else I can think of. Maybe because he reminds me of something that would appear in Disgaea. Anyway, I am calling him Impy McFly. Oh yeah, the battle was pretty fun too.


We decided quickly to not take the easy road, and show both Shantotto and Khimaira 13 what Imperial can do on the battlefield. Whlie Shantotto's spam casting Ancient Magic IIs definitely helped, it was clearly an Imperial victory. Everyone but Zarovich would drop at least once during the fight, yet we all popped back up and continued to fight, unwilling to let our comrades in arms down. After taking a pounding from Makina's Shiva, Shantotto's AMIIs, and Zaro's nukes, Thayos and Kia managed to tank and kite the beast to the point it just collapsed. Check out a moment from the midfight here:

In addition to spam nuking though, Karababa was trying to "coach" (or is that berate?) us into an effective party. Here are a few of the tips she passed on midfight to us:



After the regular planned LS event, I was able to find some help for a mission NM of my own. I had to warn Fort Karugo-Narugo about a yagudo sneak attack, and rescue poor widdle Ajido-Marujido from an NM. The fight itself was not too difficult, though the stupid amounts of damage the War Lynx could dish out caused my PLD to cry out "LAWDY!" once as a single attack dropped him by 982 HP.


The resulting cutscenes managed to inspire as well. I got to see Perih Vashai when she had sight, dropping yagudos like it was nobody's business but her own, got to see Ajido-Marujido disciplined while still a troublesome youth, a peek into the inner turmoil between mithra and taru politics, while being introduced to a mysterious new War Warlock. Last series of cutscene events I had the chance to undertake (bringing me to the end of the current WotG storyline) involved getting eaten by a maw (again) and meeting up with Cait Sith.

{Long time.} no {sea}

I guess I have not really documented anything since the expansion hit, tohugh I have been loving every minute of the campaign battles from Wings of the Goddess. Easy enough to get into, and yet challenging enough that you need to watch yourself or drop like you were standing naked in front of Lamia #2, they seem like much more controlled and brief versions of Besieged. It is a great way to just defy everything about FFXI, jump in for one hour, log off afterwards, and feel like you accomplished something. With the recent updates making each battle longer, the scope went from short blitzkrieg attacks to epic battles against organized waves of foes. I have a feeling I will be doing these a lot. I love just partying with ls mates and just calling out the moment we see that sword appear on /cmap.

Speaking of LS times together, this past Tuesday was quite the Imperial event. Off an invitation from Makina (I had not been on the forums for a few days) I learned we were going to static pt through the Aht Urghan storyline as an LS. I signed on and just barely made it time to witness this:


I have always loved doing missions, unfolding the events that make Vana'diel deeper than just another grind fest. The fact that we were doing it as a linkshell just made it that much sweeter. The setup for Black Coffin was pretty simple, and being the WHM, my job was simply to keep everyone alive. I only took aggro once during the BCNM, while trying to keep Gessho alive from his foe (seriously though, why does a ninja NPC need THAT many cures thrown their way?). The fight was over soon enough, and I was rewarded with many hours of cutscenes to sift through afterwards.

During them, I learned why Kia and Makina are so in love with PUP:


While also being able to tease them once again about lolpup:


Two minor persoanl achievements this past week have been finally hitting 65 WHM last night, and helping three players finally get Lufaise Meadows access (on one Promy-Dem run). I learned something also, bards own during the Memory Recepticle and Dem boss fights. I never even thought to sleep an empty before (much less the memory recepticles or boss and offspring), and was surprised to see how susceptible they are to it.