Dynamis-Jeuno

DownTheRamp Linkshell went on one of it's bi-weekly dyanamis runs. This trip had quite a few af drop. RDM, BRD, BLM, RNG, WAR, DRK, and DRG all dropped. To my surprise, I only died once, as opposed to the 4-5 deaths I usually have. However, my death was very painful..


Zoldof is doing pretty well, changed armor again!

More Sky

What started out to be a random farming session due to the lack of parties in sky, I ended up staying there the entire day. The linkshell managed to get plenty of nm, as well as a couple gods. To top it all off, we fought Kirin again. This time around, he went down much faster after we figured out what we had to do. It was a little unusual that I went as black mage (because I normally dont go as blm, and I really didn't know what a blm role was in kirin), but I made it look like I knew what I was doing. However, I saw that my fellow linkshell black mages were doing lots of dmg, and I knew I've neglected mine for so long. So, I'm going to try to update this job as soon as I can.



In other news, last Friday, the Linkshell decided to do Totentaz to get Nynja that dagger. We only had 11 people show up, but the fight went on without any casulties. It's a shame that Nynja didn't get the dagger. Oh well, there's always next Friday.




Zoldof hit another level on the 26th. He's now level 35. The next day, he got some new armor again.

Zoldof Status

Just something real quick. My npc finally changed body armor. He now wears Chainmail, I think. Take a look at the screenshot for yourself

Sky Hunters

On the 22nd, the linkshell did something we haven't done in months, go to sky. It was somewhat a nostalgic feeling of days gone by, running around hitting teleports, making sure we don't go too close to the dolls, etc. It was pretty busy for us because 1.) It was right after maintenance and 2.) Sky was empty.

We were able to farm Steam Cleaner(twice), Mother Globe, Bragandish Blade, and Despot. Also, with some of our items from previous farming runs, we were also able to take on Byakko, Seiryu, and Kirin.


The Kirin fight was a long, long fight. Since the ranger nerf, we had to find out the most effective way in doing damage. After about 2 hours of fighting, it was still at 78% health. However, we found out that when it would start casting a big spell (Quake, Stone V), the paladins would stop and everyone would skillchain, followed by magic bursts. I switched to monk so I can do damage with my chi blast. However, I had no mind gear, so I was only doing 800-1080 dmg. If I had all the things I needed, I could've been hitting 1400-1700. It seems that Kirin gets annoyed when monks use Chi blast on him. I died twice in a row after using it.

Zoldof Zoolander

My galka npc keeps amazing me every time I call him. It seems to be getting some sort of income to get new gear, here are some pictures

Becoming A Bushin

Bushins, mighty as mountains, and strong as the gods. There are but a handful of them left in Vana'diel, but their presence is as great as Altana herself.

Fafnir today was the meanest one the LS has ever encountered so far. It started out with a jp linkshell called Flowers getting first claim. However, they did so with only 5-6 people. However, monsters like Fafnir get stronger over time, and after about an hour, that linkshell couldn't handle it anymore and escaped. We allowed it to cool down a little before engaging it.

At about 5% health, Fafnir decided to go crazy. Our alliance went all out and even though we lost a few people to it's Hurricane Wing, we managed to use brute force to take it down.



Finally, a wyrm beard! I had an intention of spoling the whole story behind the black belt, but I decided against it. So instead, I'll post pictures of hurraying with a couple LS mates!

This is with a NA.


This is with that JP pld.

Chapter 2: Growing Pains

Joining the Gilgamesh server meant losing all my progress on Fairy. Justifying that most of my time there was spent trying to figure out how stuff worked, I decided it wasn't much lost. By the time I got on Gilgamesh, Hakuhatsu was already level 7. He showed me his new spell, "Water". I was amazed at the 11 damage it did on a bee. Taking the things I learned from Fairy(moving, equipping, and spellcasting), I got more accomplished in a few hours than I have been in the last few days.

I managed to find myself to level 7 when my friend decided to leave Vana'diel. So I was alone for now. I leveled near Windurst until I wandered into a new zone called Giddeus. I checked my map, only to realize I had no map. So that meant, no map, no Caitlin! So I hurried back and decided to see what the east side held for me.

When I reached the outpost in West Sarutabaruta, I saw two amazing things. The first was a person riding a chocobo! "Wow, cool, when can I do that" I thought. The second thing I saw was a paladin casting holy on a crawler, causing 100+ damage on it. To a person seeing single digit damages, 100+ was jaw dropping. I thought Holy was an end game spell at that point.

Around the time I hit level 10, I decided to see what this canyon past East Sarutabaruta was all about. I found myself there until level 14 finishing up by fighting Akabas by some bone remains. While fighting Akabas, I got a new little line saying "Soandso invites you to his party" and a little exclamation point appears on top of my health bar. Intrigued, I went ahead and accepted it (blind invite, no tell, no dinner, no conversation, no anything). I was greeted by the auto-translate functions. The party leader, who I shall call Bob for simplicity, tells us that we're heading to Valkurm Dunes. Having no clue where that is, I informed them that Tahrongi Canyon was the farthest I've ever been anywhere. They all understood and we proceeded to head there.

Bob asks the group if we all had touched the crystal at Mea yet. Having no clue what he was talking about, I raised my hand along with 3 other people in the group. So we all took a side trip, and that's when I got Mea.

The next zone we arrived at was Buburimu Peninsula. I was thinking to myself how big this world is and how far away from home I was. We then arrived in my first foreign town, Mhaura. I felt like an adventurer now! Bob tells us we'll take the ferry to head to Valkurm. After paying that expensive 100 gil, we all boarded the ship and I was entertained by the ship cut scene as we were leaving.

This was my first boat trip, and unfortunately my first pirate encounter. The music started to change, and I can hear passengers run up to the deck to prepare for them. All I could hear from my little corner were battle sounds and magic casting. It sounded like a war up there. When the battle subsided, our ship docked into a town called Selbina. Bob points us to the direction of the dunes, and there my Valkurm experience began.

Valkurm, hmm..first impressions.. I can remember it being very very bright. This was also the first time I found out the concept of the camp was. My first party was a disaster. It wasn't that we were lacking the people, but we didn't have the experience. Let's just say we didn't last very long. This would be a theme for my Valkurm trips for many parties to come.

After a string of those bad parties, a japanese player named Allure invited me into a NA/JP party. Three NAs and three JPs. The NAs consisted of Rodney (later to be known as Bemoon), myself, and another person for whom I can't remember for the life of me. Allure's party taught me the concept of magic burst by demonstrating it with his ninjitsu. Allure would forever be known to be my first mentor of sorts. He later would show me how and where to farm, help me acquire several advanced jobs, and help me achieve rank 5. However, these stories are for later. Anyways, I stayed at Valkurm until level 18, then I started my trek to my next big destination, Jeuno!.....

.....to be continued.

Next time Chapter 3: Jeuno, The City that Never Sleeps

A Galka's Life

Before my move, I managed to get my npc Zoldof to come out and xp with me for a little while. To my surprise, he had new gear on! Then today after my move, I had a chance to xp with him again. This time, he changed clothes again! I can't wait to see this npc in some cool armor.

Chapter 1: A Brief History

Starting in Windurst, I found myself trying to find the best way to move around. After about an hour of accidentally opening menus when I wanted to turn left, I was able to master the art of moving. I can remember my first thought after the initial cut scenes were over, "What now?"

I decided to go ahead and turn it that Adventurer's Coupon that was given to me during that cut scene. Just to let you know, Windurst is not the ideal place to learn how to navigate. Even today, I think it's a confusing place. The quest was to find a cardian called The Jack of Hearts in Windurst Woods. I can remember that a map marker was made for me by the friendly npc who greeted me into the world. It took me a few minutes to figure out how to find the marker itself. After that, I found the cardian I was looking for! Trading for the first time was a quest in itself. When I finally traded, I was rewarded with 50 gil. "250 gil! This must be alot.", I thought. Little did I know that in three or four days, I would discover the Auction House and how wrong that thought would be.

My gil didn't stop my enthusiasm. "I want to fight something!" was my next thought. I wandered around town, trying to find an exit until I found myself in West Sarutabaruta. There I targeted myself a small onion thing called a Tiny Mandagora. So, as a black mage, I pressed the attack button and charged! Needless to say, I died, about 3,4,5,6 times. I knew Japanese games were tough, but this was getting ridiculous.

The world I resided in at the time was in Fairy. However, my friend Hakuhatsu was on Gilgamesh. We both started around the same time, but he was having better luck over there. He was working on getting the 1000 gil for my world pass so I can join in. On the other hand, I was working on not dying, but having no luck there.

During one of my usual dying xp runs, a friendly stranger comes up and asks me why I'm not holding a weapon. He further questions me on why, as a black mage, I was meleeing the way I was and not using any spells. My responses were in the line of "What, isn't this how you fight?" and "I thought you just learned spells as you level." He must have had a good laugh or two from my clueless ways and decided to help me out. After a few minutes, I learned how to equip my weapon and used my first scroll, "Stone". After that, stuff got easier, much easier! Just to let everyone know, I got to level four without casting a spell or equipping a weapon. A couple days later, Hakuhatsu told me that obtaining a worldpass was a little too tough for him at the time. Being resourceful, I surfed the message boards and found myself a free pass, so I was able to find my way into Gilgamesh...

..to be continued.

Next time, Chapter Two: Growing Pains

Passing the time

Today, real life events will prevent me on going on adventures from the 12-15th. So now I sit here on the floor with no desk (in the moving van) writing a little this and that to pass the time. Other than the hectic, loud, "something sounds broken" noise of the move, everything is just fine!

In Vana'diel, there isn't much for me to do during the day. So, I did what any taru would do, take the galka slave out xping. However, this slave of mine is lazy (doesn't like to stay too long), and talks to much (aka /say "Bring it on!" /ja Provoke). I noticed he got himself brand new gloves, leg, and feet armor. However, he still has that ugly scale thing body armor, and that stick he carries around calling it a sword. Our camp was by the Eastern Altepa Desert outpost where I would harass the goblins in the area. He even gained a level while we were there, Zoldof is now level 31. I really hope he gets some new gear next time I bring him out.

Later that day, Bladewarrior asks me to help him out on a quest for a Jaeger Mantle. To the uneducated, this mantle is good for monks at his level (I believe he told me his monk was 46ish..I wasn't really paying attention, you know, loud noises.). He managed to bring Yuber along for the trip, and the 3 of us decided to pay a visit to Davoi. To make a long story short, he ended up getting the item he needed, and tried to mpk me when I went afk. Silly hume, everyone knows Tarus are the dominant race. I wish I took screenshots, but there wasn't really anything to screenshot.

To wrap up, our linkshell plans another trip to Fafnir, hopefully Nidhogg. I'm really hoping to get the claim so I can get my black belt. It would be a nice going away gift..until the 15th.

*Sidenote
This is a little off topic of the whole scope of things, but I managed to find a cute, yet addicting game. It's called Nanaca crash. This little flash game makes you hit a guy with a bike and sending him off. Now the point is to get him as far as you can, with little boosts along the way. Anyways, just google the game and you'll find it. Here's a shot of my best score so far, feel free to beat it and send it to me.

NA {Sleep} {Do you need it?}

This is what those jpn players were thinking when us NA people are claiming HNMs on their time. Today our linkshell managed to outpull 2 other jpn LS's. These jpn were known to camp fafnir everyday, anytime. However, our super star Stamp ver. 2 managed to get down to Dragon's Aery at lvl 25 and pull. This Fafnir was tougher than most, but he dropped alot of stuff! Good job everyone!

Maintenance Monday

SE decided to make a 18 hour playonline maintenance today, so no adventures for me. However, there were a few things I did yesterday that I guess I feel like talking about.


First, Guriri needed to get the last part of the npc quest completed. Unfortunately I haven't been able to get that far in the quest, so I spent a good 20 mins catching up. When I finally did, we recruited Semma's help and we all went to Ghelsba Outpost to say hello to the dragon. Since the fight was capped at level 40, I went in as my black mage with a shield, summer wear, and my lvl 1 country ring. It was also a chance for me to play with my newly acquired Stonega 2 (Guriri told me I needed it, but Fire 2 ended up doing more damage.) which I spent 160k for. After a rude line cutter, we got ready to go in ourselves. To our surprise, Semma could not join us for the fight. So it was up to Guriri and myself. It wasn't too hard of a battle, our npcs came out at 50% to assist us. It turned out that we both got the exact same npc..galka slaves....

After the fight, we decided to go play with them over in Eastern Altepa Desert. They didn't like to stay out for very long, and soon we headed to Bastok.

In Bastok, I decided to go ahead and painfully grind a level on Goldsmithing. As of this writing I've made it to level 51 after going through a million gil! It's a little slow, but I'm really set on getting those guild glasses before playing with the platinum materials.


Later that day, an old friend of mine, Hakuhatsu, decided that he wanted to unlock the samurai job quest. So I helped him fight the 2 NMs and he did just that.

After the maintenance, I'm hoping the Linkshell gets another chance at Fafnir! Excitement!

Totentaz, again?!

Well, it's that time of the week where the linkshell goes on its daily trip to Mr. GAK's place. This time around, there was plenty of participants. We had to break it down to two groups, the semi SD time oriented and the true SD time oriented. My group, the semi-sd-oriented started about 30 mins past the scheduled time. I wasn't online long enough to know when the other group went, or what dropped from their trip. However, we got very good drops on our trip! I expect to get some nice gil from this, only to lose it trying to craft later on.

In other news, I decided to help my sister out on rank missions, so we managed to get 2-3, and 3-1 completed. We plan to finish off 3-3 in the upcoming days.

Journey to true power starts with a single taru

After countless hours, several Giddeus trips, and a few thousand k, I was finally able to unlock the quest for my black belt.

After the hume laughed at my attempt to even dream of obtaining one, a taru comes to my rescue. However, he's asking me for things in exchange!! That no good greedy taru.... Oh well, my quest will go on. As of this writing, I've obtained 2 of the 3 things necessary to complete this quest.

Of the few quests I have ever done, this one is a big achievement for me. My tells are blocked out because, you know, they're private..

JP Onry!

Wow, what can I say? Today we got Nidhogg and it was great! I thought I was fighting in a jpn LS. Although the drops were ok, we got the important one, the abjuration needed for the pld's koenig body. Mcdohl turned into a jp today when he got his equipment uncursed. It was a tough fight, but congratulations to all my fellow Nidhogg slayers!!

This is the day Mcdohl became JP ONRY!

Fafnir Foiled!

This camping trip is a little different now because of the update. SE decided to change how nortorious monsters are claimed by extending the time of non-claimability (is that a word?). What happens is that no one is able to use abilities or spells for a set amount of time after it pops. Doing so will suspend that action for a duration of time.

How we claimed it was amazing in itself. One of the LS monks, Brucelee, was resting at the time of the pop. He got up and claimed it with Chi Blast. It was pretty amazing. The battle itself went smooth, no real emergencies, and no real need to sleep it.

We got it to drop a Ridill! I'm sure people were excited. True power eludes me once again, no wyrm beard. Oh well, there's always tomorrow. I need to talk with Nidhogg tomorrow to make sure he logs in.

Free Fafnir!

About an hour before the scheduled pop time, I look to see who is in Dragon's Aery. To my surprise, nobody! This is when I start sending tells to our Fafnir coordinators whether or not we should camp and letting them know that the place was empty.

It was pretty amazing how fast we assembled. We got about 12 people for the first window, and filled it to 18 by the second one. For once, aery was lag free and didn't hold 70 people in it. Drops were ok, we were able to get another Hrotti to drop. Congratulations to Timmytank on his brand new sword!