Geeking out

Bear with me here:

Ok... So last night I was playing Final Fantasy XI and I'm almost TOTALLY broke. I had just recently reached level 32 with my Bard, bought a Centurtion's Sword (which kicks MAJOR ass), Some GREAT armor, and some shoes called Air Solea (even Nike gets some props in the game).

I had taken my Bard (and used my Thief as my sub-job) in a place called Palbourough Mines. It's CRAWLING with creatures called Quadavs. They are bipeds like humans, but look like BIG turtles with THICK armor.

One piece of their armor can fall off when you defeat them. It's called a Quadav Backplate. I'm not sure why they are popular, but I think you can break them down into their original components (one of which is Darksteel Ore) and make other things with them. They sell for 500 - 800 Gil (the currency of Vanad'iel) which is a pretty good turn around for simply killing stuff.

Anyway... I took my Bard/Thief combo into this cave and started to Train the Quadavs. What is Training, you ask? Palbourough Mines is a HUGE maze. There are gates you can look through, but cannot pass. I can play a song through one of gates to a Quadav on the other side. This pisses them off and they come running to kick my ass. As they pass other Quadavs along the way they, too, get pissed and want to join in the ass-kicking. Once it's all said and done I can have anywhere from 1-20 Quadavs trying to beat the stuffing out of me.

Yeah... A Bard/Thief doesn't have much healing power. The only benefit Thief give me is it increases the chance that I'll find treasure on the bodies after the battle. So, needless to say I go my ass kicked and had to start over.

Last night I changed jobs to be a White Mage (healer) with Thief as my sub-job (to increase the treasure drops). I SO totally kicked ass!! Even though my White Mage is two levels lower than my Bard (and wears less armor) he was able to Train the Quadavs more efficiently. He was UBER-POWERFUL healing spells (helpful for obvious reasons) and a spell called Banishga. This spell casts light magic and hits all creatures within a certain area. Well... White Mages excel in White Magic. Yeah... I OWNED those bitches!!

So in about 30 minutes I filled up my inventory with these Backplates. A task that has taken DAYS before... It's SO freakin' cool!!

But, as I was hunting I got a message from a character named Frynoz. He needed me to Raise (once you get defeated you can wait for someone to raise you or go back to your Home Point which could be across the world in some situations) his wife Christana (they're married in real life). HA HA! My White Mage comes in handy AGAIN! He also offered me 2000 Gil to do it. THAT'S UNHEARD OF!! Usually it's 500 Gil.

So I take off running... And I find where they are. I Raise Christana and they ask me to powerlevel them. A Powerlevel means that they form a party and fight creatures that would normally OWN them, but because I'm outside their party healing them, they do A LOT better and get TONS of experience points. They offer me 5000 Gil per level.

*double take*

Excuse me?? That's A LOT of money for a simple task! Of course I agree because Gil is sometimes hard to come by. I devote an hour to them and I end up making 20,000 Gil!!

All I have to say is: last night was a GOOD night for Mykal from Bastok (that's me :-))!!

Now my character is in the process of selling of all of the Backplates he found during his hunting. I need to cross the globe a couple of times in search of new songs for him to sing. I'm a little behind on those... And when you're behind it's SO hard to find a group of people who want to fight with you. Finding a party is essential for increasing your job levels.

Aiight... I'm done for now... Maybe I'll try and screenshot my character and show him to you guys... HE'S HOT!!

OK... At least I'm not THIS pathetic!!

Ciao!!