Spiraling sands

((It's been a busy RL month, meaning less busy in the fun world of Vana'diel! Overtime is good for some things, though, so I can't complain TOO hard.))

Going to rummage through my memory bank here and see what we come up with...Last night, went and fought Garuda, and ended up with this spiffy dagger:
Now I need to fight her, Ramuh, and Fenrir to get their Evoker's Ring items and be done with that quest! And Fenrir maybe in the works next couple of days, dun dun DUN!

Got RNG up to level 29 now through a fun party at Yuhtunga Jungle (May upload some pics later if I remember), where I had the joy of partying with 4 SMNs and 1 BRD, and I basically pulled, and tried not to rip TOO much hate away from the Diaboloses and Shiva and Fenrirs that came about to play while I felt very....small! Thanks for Lorddocster, Fullen, Blueeyedbeauty, Fey, and Basara for having me. ^^ And I managed to almost use up all the arrows Verrick had given me, as well as all of my bullets. Yay for space, Boo for knowing I need to buy more, hehe!

Eck and I did a bit of partying with our duo of my BLU and his NIN, and then got a bit of XP back with RDM & BLM on princes for a while...and another day on pudding camp with a party. RDM/BRD is fun, but it's just busy!!!

I had the most fun in the game I'd had in a long time. Doing what, you ponder? Well, I went 31 SAM and Val brought her 30(?) BLM, and we duo'ed giants, bats, and whatever else up Delkfutt's tower way, then went out and hit Rolanberry fields for some more fun of the same lines! Now mind you, it wasn't uber experience or anything, but it was FUN!, the xp wasn't our top priority.

Assaults: Did some Assaults the other day on an off-chance shout from someone I can't remember their name, old friend of Jai's from GYS. Their name was SOMETHING like Itsuki or something. Eck probably has a s/s of it from doing Evade and Escape, and can comment and I'll change this paragraph later, haha!

My WHM static continued, with Kenshinshiro as SAM, Zirasharia as RDM, and three pickups per party, and got to almost 63. Did a bit of partying at the Valley of Sorrows along the way, as well as through the fun of the Ayd{tab} (lol, I can never spell that zone) fighting some of the crawler mobs, got a sapling mobs for S&Gs, though those buggers are NOT fun, and had a good time all around. would've moved, but since half the party was leaving in around 30m, we just finished up there and then left for the night.

I managed to get THF caught back up to static, and getting TH2 in the process. Ironically, I now should take it farming since i'm quite broke. Sounds like a plan to get it up again since I will probably miss next static night as well. ;;

PLD and WAR to 37 for max sub level...but that went down the sands of time some kinda way. One of these (I'm thinking WAR?) partied with Alcindor when he invited me to a party just after another group. That went rather well, quick enough to decline the other invite in a polite (cheesy) way without getting drama central, haha! I end up tanking as PLD (obviously) but also as WAR, so I think I merge the parties in the memory. The other one I partied with Kenshinshiro after getting to a point where my COR (33) wasn't enough kick-power to kill things without risking deaths, I changed to PLD to alleviate some of the pain our party was experiencing. Hopefully the sands don't cough more.

One full month later...

...but yes, I haven't died...well, twice knocked silly while running around as a samurai, mind you, but nay, I still exist. My times are quite...skittish recently, and between a combination of overtime and other menial tasks, the adventuring that I have been doing is quite little. So you get a small blog as well with basically a list of recap things that I don't have much time to describe. Gee, how kind to the journal I am, ne?

1) Went with LoH to kill for Diorite, later came to help kill Genbu and Kirin. Sadly, the other sky days, didn't get to go play with the other gods. ; ;
2) Got all jobs up to a minimum of level 20, a step on the mini-goal of clearing lower level gear from my MH clutter. Not being able to login at regular times really adds to the incentive of just grabbing a small job and soloing or going with a few friends, though.
3) Ran about getting Kazham keys for three people, which proved to be not as time-consuming as I remembered, even going RDM/WHM for the easy teleportation, there are a lot of new people joining Garuda, it makes for interesting times.
4) I was invited to a wedding! This should be great fun, Elianna and Bigpapa are having a traditional Tarutaru wedding, so in the meantime, I'm going to help with a Bachelor's party or something. Hmmm, but where to go for that...Seeing how Whitegate is lag central, unless the Hostel gets separated from that (ie instanced), not interested in that slow zone. Valkurm, perhaps.
5) Did some Hakutaku fighting, and realized that I need to adjust my mules and line things up, so I will probably have to take a whole day just to do that. My MH, ML, and ST are all cluttered. There's a new (at least to me) item called "9-Drawer Almirah" that gives 7 storage spaces each! That's almost double from the cabinet layout that I was using for mine. Maybe if I can gather enough of those for all my mules to have 80 storage, then I can adjust my own setup to assist more with Goldsmithing, a bit of lightning or Fire depending on what I'm crafting at the time.
6) Just last night, had a fun run of Assaults with the old GYS crew, so that brings me up to 10/25 for next promotion, I really haven't been doing those recently, shame on me, I know.
7) Tried to go skilling with Eck for old times' sake, but I fell asleep in the middle of fighting a Steelshell! ><; Orz, sorry about that Eck ><; Thanks for the D2 when you finished it off, I was dead to the world apparantly, thought I'd have an hour left in me with the aid of the drink, guess not.

So the chains were broken...

...finally, after much delay, CoP was beaten for the time being with the defeat of Promathia, the Twilight God (Daddy!) with the aid of great friends from GYS, including Eckardt, who I'm proud to say, despite me poking him into CoP originally, finished the series ahead of me while I took a vacation, got his Tamas Ring! Being the friend that he is, he was one of a few who prodded me into getting mine complete, and came along to revisit CoP 8-3 and 8-4. However, just as the Red Mage is a Warrior Mystic, I do work on all jobs...as such, my choice differed when offered the choice of relics by the Cardinal: I chose the Rajas Ring:


But that is getting to the end before the details of the beginning, isn't it? Forgive the poor quality of my pictures, sometimes it's hard to take good shots while not actually holding the camera, you know? But I went back down memory lane to start pulling up pictures of a few of the members that mean so much to me, in particular the ones who kept reminding me to complete CoP and gave me the inspiration to continue on when our original static had split.

Eckardt: I remember dragging you to the earlier promies, and then CoP times diverged for us, but we met back up at mammets, I think, and from then on, you were the power within our static, and wanted to make sure that we both made it to the end, even when vacations and static splits tried to keep that from happening. I appreciate you for all that, and for always being true to your way of honor. Also, the duties of group photographer is something we all appreciate, even as I swipe that picture from your collection, as all mine of you came out rather blah >.>



Valynne: I can't think of words in the English language to describe the kindness and selflessness of this wonderful woman. Very atypical Elvaan from those you meet in general, always has the best interests of her friends before herself. Sadly my pictures were my no means optimal of Val, but updated today on 05/21/07, she donated me a picture from our run through 8-2 so I could have a much more modern version. You can still lend your grace to my song anyday, hon. Mamboleo? xD



The CoP static: Vitehite, Bryer, Anubahnnu (I repeatedly misspelled that :P), Azean, Toree, Mirrodin, Cerene, and all those who helped our core along the way. CoP is a daunting task as it is, but with a reliable core group, it makes it that much less daunting. Thank you all for being willing to endure through to the depths of the sea. A special thanks to Vite - your leadership and prior experience was invaluable, thanks for sharing your experience with us!



GraveyardShift LS: For helping the adopted one out with the final battles of CoP though you'd all completed it already. I appreciate it more than can be said through these simple words. Though my times have caused me to drift from your presence a lot, I'm still supporting you in spirit. Sumiko, Dahoman, Kaname, Keana, thanks for helping to shatter some pottery and save our realm yet again from the God of Twilight's rebirth.

Time has shifted around me now...and a large part of me feels lost in this land with which I am so familiar. Not the path around, but merely trying to find my place in this world again. Would seem like I would be more active, but right now, I think I'm still adjusting to the shift, been very tiring working out in the heat instead of the cool nights that I was used to having, haha!

Not quite Red Bull, but it works!

Yes, I have sky access now, and it is a nice zone, the floors intrigue me with the shining steps, though I guess it wasn't as "OMG what a cool place" since I've already seen the wonders of the sea, which is absolutely beautiful. That notwithstanding the sky has a lot of wonders to see! On LoH, our shell leader, Lorddocster (You may recall his mention a few times back), asked me if I was going to farm gods with them that night. You see, he's getting old, and his memory slips him that I still don't have access yet. So I reply, "Sorry, I'm unable to make it due to not having access, unless you're about to do a run?" And well, Doc mentions there's a certain monkey that needs access too (Snowape), and it's time to roll!

On that note, our adventure began...so I changed from where I was leveling my little puppet, as I got the little guy a RNG frame now... Bah, I'll jump topic for a moment for this -- I've been guiding Serenade along with the help of Malumake, a friend from GYS, whose hat fight we did just the other night as well, and was quite fun, actually. I have to send out my congrats to him, as he actually resurrected my interest in PUP, which I'd given up as a dead job prior to duoing with him a bit!

Ah, but back to the original topic, eh? Doc's favorite term came into play at that point, time to 'rally the troops!' And well, soon after that, we were on our way to the headstone fights with the following group: Snowape (NIN), Eckardt (BLM), Dwayna (WHM), Fullen (WAR), Nojoke (THF), and myself (RDM). All of the fights went down without a hitch, but Dwayna had to leave after the 2nd in Yuhtunga Jungle, and Eck after the last one, so I changed to WHM and did the tele thing. Much to my amusement, I changed back to RDM in Rabao for the run through the caves helping Snow get the non-NM fight ones, and conveniently didn't have a way to tele us to the next point. *coughoopsycough* So we warped back to HP (Mijin Gakure + Warp ftw), and I just stayed WHM/BLM through the other ones, teleing whenever he grabbed the headstone, and dropping him off at Vahzl before taking a moment to prep for the following rush of the events that would come.**

((**Note: By 'prep' I mean capture 3 SoBe No Fears, and cook some sausage, eggs, and grits. This time for LoH EU core was around 1PM, so for me it was getting started at 7AM before I'd been to sleep - ouch. This day, for the record, was one of 37 hours straight awakeness starting with a workday, but thankfully, the next was my one day off, so I said heck with it!))

Next up, a few ants...no biggie, elemental seal sleepga, and keep 'em napping while we picked them off one-by-one. First fight went smoothly, and when we did it again for Sly and Akira, it was smooth too until one part when I let Snow's Haste slip (yes, I got carried away over-debuffing), and the RNG woke up in time to feed him a EES while the shadows were down. Orz ><; I'm trying to get lolRDM to match my WHM? O.o Oy. But we finished them off, and Snow got an R3, and wasn't upset about it. I was, nonetheless....still am :P So then we have a fight that might ruin a bit of plot for you, but Vlacatocc, the Galkan BLM of Doooooom stepped up and joined us, lending some nuking might to our charge, and soon the foe fell flat and we realized who was running things behind the scenes.

We continued on, and come to the pots battle in QSC, where we buffed up, a pot spawned, I braced, knowing their magics, and....we quite literally broke it to tiny shards, and took the papyrus back to the Mithra. It was so much easier than I was expecting...and all because of the great group of friends that made the travel with me, thank you all! Ever time I step into the clouds, I will remember our travels. /bow

MAJOR THANKS: Lorddocster, Snowape, Eckardt, Fullen, Dwayna, Nojoke, Hewison, Slykoontz, Akiracobalt, Vlacatocc, Legos, and any others that I might have forgotten during that long night where I managed not to fall out from exhaustion during the run: THANK YOU! It was great fun farming, and glad we got a pop item on my first trip pretty quickly, that was a blast! :)

And to any of you kids out there looking to head to the clouds, just know this: It's a lot easier to fly than it is to descend to the depths of the waters! CoP > Zilart xD