Final Fantasy XI Playdiary
Entry 4 - Less productive wandering
I didn't really achieve very much today, but I had some fun and that's what matters.
Fuelled by my previous success with gaining Rank 2, I accepted Mission 4 and headed to an unexplored area quite a way from town. As I walked through the barren canyon a sandstorm started up and visibility became quite bad. Taking a break in a calmer area I grabbed a quick picture of the new terrain. This zone had some very different wildlife to what I was used to so I was very cautious not to provoke anything.
After a run in with some angry Yagudo pipers later on in my exploration, I decided I needed to be a little stronger to tackle that mission. I wandered sadly around my old hunting ground of Sarutabaruta. The enemies here were too weak to give good experience for me anymore. I glimpsed a bard finishing off a weak creature with her music so I captured the final moments - the first bard I had seen so far. As I walked by her to continue on my journey the melody from her pipe was overwhelming. I mentally added bard class to my list of jobs to work on in future.
Ha! I promised a brighter Crawler picture and here it is. They are so cute! I killed this one in a fit of frustration and broke my long record of hiding from them. It surprisingly dropped an item I had been looking for for a quest in town so I was quite pleased o.O
Ashamed at my own spineless attitude I snuck back to the canyon. There I found some people who accepted me into their group - first time I'd ever been in a party so far. I felt a little odd being more than twice the height of each of my teammates and we all took pictures. Carnage is another importer and EinZwei is billingual English/Japanese so communication was quite good overall. We decided to tackle some of the very hard monsters in this area with our combined strengths.
After some initial success we ran into a problem. An Air Elemental appeared due to the sandstorm and started attacking us. It was -very- powerful and our special attacks didn't even scratch it, and soon Daina (one of our healers) and Carnage (a warrior) were dead. I am sure Sabasaba died too but he somehow popped back to life whilst EinZwei and I ran as fast as we could to safety. I was only safe because of my high monk HP and my surviving teammates had to rest for a while with me standing by to regain their strength. The two casualties of the encouter had to return back to town to revive since none of us were high level enough to cast Raise. It was a sobering experience. I didn't manage to grab any pictures of the struggle as I was too busy trying to stay alive.
After some more setbacks it was just Carnage and I left hunting. A Yagudo took the opportunity to sneak up and attack us, and unfortunately Carnage died as we fled. I tried to attact the Yagudo's attention but it was firmly after him due to his warrior "taunt" special skill. I must remember to use warrior as my subjob when I am able to so as to be able to save people. Discouraged but not defeated, he went back to revive again whilst I decided to get some slow but safer experience in a more familiar place. All these deaths were upsetting me.
On the way back alone I spotted the Air Elemental again hovering dangerously close. I ran to a distant vantage point to let it pass by and grabbed a picture of it. It's the swirly green thing in case you were wondering. It looks quite indistinct even up close, true to its name.
Remember the Balloon that had taunted me in the ruins before? Now I felt determined enough to get some revenge. The Balloons gave rather nice experience and were tough to kill alone, but slow to respawn. After some concentrated hunting in the ruins I finally made level 11 alone. Hurrah!
I had bought a level 11 piece of equipment earlier which replaced my beloved cap as a head item. Once I put it on I found it looked ugly but the stats on it were too good to ignore for the sake of fashion. Sigh.
Since it was now too late to have any chance of finding a good party I decided to try out a different job and solo. I picked white mage as I'd seen some having a lot of fun before, and I thought Cure would make solo work much safer. Since all my equipped armour was monk-specific, once I switched I was left near nude. Mithra underwear is rather minimal, ne?
It was late at night by now but that didn't stop me. I ran out to where weak bumblebees were found and started my life as a white mage. I had very weak equipment once again and a sword. I had equipped myself in advance with all the spell scrolls I could buy so in between levels I could learn any new spells I would have access to. At this point I only had Cure.
Being a mage gives great screenshot opportunities and is much more interesting than being a monk. The first shot is my special ability which healed me to full when I used it for 0MP. It had a very long waiting period before it can be used again though so I saved it for this emergency. The second picture is part of the Cure animation. Very nice eyecandy in action.
After getting to level four as a white mage I decided I needed to rest, and managed to eventually die to a Crawler after it cast sleep on me. I find it much easier to survive difficult battles as a white mage than as a monk thanks to Cure and my newer more offensive spells, Dia and Paraizu. Paraizu doesn't actually seem to work very well at my level and it takes a long time to cast (the longer the casting time the greater opportunity for an enemy to disrupt the spell). With Cure I don't have to fear being poisoned and when I get to level 6 I will be able to remove poison too. For tomorrow I think I will switch back to monk and find a party to hunt with and see where it takes me...
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Date entered: 14th December 2002