Final Fantasy XI Playdiary
Entry 11 - Notable events of the "missing weeks" 2
This entry follows on directly from the previous one, so I would suggest reading both at the same time for maximum coherence. To recap, I was in a group from my linkshell and halfway through mission four. We had completed the Shakrahmi Maze segment and were headed to the inner Horutoto ruins in East Sarutabaruta to start the next part.
Outside the ruins was someone I'd never seen before, but heard of all the time on the linkshell chat. Cooty, a very high level tarutaru white mage was snoozing as she waited for us. She had kindly agreed to come along and help out. Because there were already six people in our party there was no room for her, so Quinn and Cooty formed their own party and joined ours in an alliance. I had never seen this done before. I think Cooty is by far the cutest tarutaru I have seen as of now ^^;.
I don't have any pictures of the journey through Horutoto as I was too busy to take any. Inside we were met with some great cutscenes with Nanaa Mihgo and then headed back to Windurst. Once back (with some pointers from my group) I officially completed mission four. Woohoo! Everyone headed to San D'oria to slay a dragon and do mission six. I was invited along too but I declined - I knew I would hold the group up too much as I couldn't ride a chocobo or teleport there and I felt guilty enough as it was. There would be another opportunity someday.
Frustrated at the lack of parties to join in Buburimu, I decided to be adventurous and head back to Selbina to try my luck there. This time I vowed not to die on the way. For some reason that wasn't really explained to me, a group of tarutaru asked me to join on the ship. Then they asked me to fish, and when I did they asked me not to fish. I was confused and wandered around chattering to them, finishing off a few pugils easily with them at my side. We didn't really make any experience as our levels were spread out too far but nobody really cared. They kept me safe and I arrived at Selbina port unscathed. It was...very similar to Mhaura, only a lot brighter and with a lot more people around.
Being so busy, it was much easier to find parties to join in Selbina and I hunted a lot. I got all the way to level sixteen so quickly.
Once the Japanese players had gone to sleep I decided to bravely explore the next area, La Theine Plateau. They have really strange creatures there, including pink Akbabas (the Windurst ones are brown) and strange little mushroom things.
Back in Valkurm, the area around Selbina where I had hunted before, I was invited into a group by Phearia, an English-speaking dark knight. She was very kind and this turned out to be the best party I had ever been in. Her previous group members had to leave but we found some more, including a tarutaru I had hunted with in my first ever group in Windurst - Sabasaba. He was in a very giggly mood and for some reason our group ended up with three white mages, one black mage, one monk (me) and Phearia. Phearia was the only one who could taunt monsters but with three healers nobody was very worried about dying or having to wait long in between enemies and we all ran down to the beach to kill Snippers. We made fantastic experience and all levelled at least once that night - being a dark knight Phearia took huge amounts of damage but really punished the enemies for it. We also had a lot of fun chattering. Note Sabasaba fishing in the picture whilst one of the mages was resting. He became the second person to add me to their friendlist, despite pretending not to understand English.
Having levelled to eighteen in that dream party before, I headed all the way back to Mhaura by boat and completed my support job quest. Then I ran all the way back to Windurst to assign a subjob. My level eighteen gear may look suspiciously like my previous clothing but it offers much better defense and finally I could lose that ugly headgear on my chin. The next task was to use all of my crystals in cooking and weaving. Here I am making some orange juice with some oranges and a water crystal.
Once I had finished I sadly abandoned my monk job for now and switched to thief, with white mage as my support for now. Back I went to the familiar Sarutabaruta region to level up from my humble level one. Although thieves can use claws I had gone for a combination of buckler and knife as my claw skill was already quite high and I wanted to try something new. I was pretty weak, but my white magic was helpful.
At level seven I switched my support job to monk and bought some stronger armour. I had kept my old cap for this situation as you can see ^^;. I really loved those boots and was miserable when I had to upgrade later.
Suddenly things took a turn for the surreal. I had just seen Gatts, a linkshell member, in Sarutabaruta and said hello, when a huge shape started moving closer to us. It turned out to be a Fortune Ram, followed by a herd of sheep - one Bless Ewe, one Merry Mary, one Happy Baabaa and two Lucky Lambs. Right. Apparently they appeared in Vana'diel to celebrate the new year and forthcoming year of the sheep. Knowing that made the event make a little more sense, and so I set off after the herd on foot as best I could. When I gave the Fortune Ram some of my homemade roast corn, I was told my luck for the next year would be "very bad". How nice. I kept plying him with more junk from my pack and he kept insisting I would have bad luck and casting spells to protect me. He also gave me a charm which I now keep safe in my mog house. Eventually I ran out of things to offer him and stopped chasing, resigning myself to my year of bad luck :P
Always searching for more things to spend my dwindling cash on, I invested in some furniture for my prison cell lookalike mog house to make it more comfortable. As well as a table, bed and some paintings, I bought a pot to try my hand at growing some vegetables from scratch. Raising my cooking skill is getting expensive and growing my own might help in the long run. I planted the seeds and was pleased to see the mystery plant grow well at the start. Sadly a few days later it became somewhat shrivelled and brown. Maybe I should try a little harder next time.
Back in Windurst I found, for the first time since starting, someone (other than an NPC) who has the same character face as I do! Her name is Nekoguri and strangely she also had the same armour and job as I did when I ran into her.
To finish this update off, here are some shots of me in my next upgraded set of armour at level eleven (thief). I don't think the leather straps and brass buckles are very "me". Maybe a whip would help?
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Date entered: 5th January 2003