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This morning I decided to do another levequest. After some ranking up and obtaining some more experience I thought that levequesting wouldn't be a problem at all. And of course, it wasn't! This time around I picked 'Bees vs. The Pilgrims'. Apparently some bees were causing annoyance to random wanderers and pilgrims so again it was time to clean the forests of Gridania.
Since it was right after maintenance, there weren't many people on the server, which was quite nice for levequesting alone. I'm really happy with the beauty of the forests, as well as the design of the monsters. Everywhere you can see Funguars that rest in the ground, burying themselves in order for them not to look dangerous at all (they are quite challenging, at least at rank 1 it was really tough for me to get away alive from them). This time, when going after the target of the levequest, the 6 group of bees, I stumbled upon a pretty Firefly. They are not harmful in any way and easy to take down, but I still like the way they glow.
After that, and because there was not many people around, I got the chance to fight many Star Mamout, some small furrets that are really cute, and remind me of the Wharf Rats from Limsa Lominsa ('a sight for me sore eyes!'), and they have a similar style of attacks as the rats in La Noscea.
While I was fighting this creepy-looking NPC wandered by the place I was fighting at. Apparently it was patroling the forest, checking that everything was alright. I think these NPCs are related to Behests but I have no idea. I guess as soon as more info is gathered on the game we'll know more about it. I really didn't need help to finish this Star Mamout, and netted me a good chunk of experience and conjury skill (which, sadly, is an awfully rare circumstance).
As you can see, the fight was easily won. For the time being I'm sticking on my action bar with Spirit Dart, Fire and Blizzard. I don't find any good use on Trance Chant, I'm not sure it's worth for such short casts, but maybe in the future it might be helpful (I have yet to see any use for Spell Interruption Down% in FFXI, let alone in FFXIV, unless you're a tank). I find myself most of the time using Spirit Dart, I'm not sure if it's me, but it seems to be doing more damage than it used to, in early Closed Beta stages. It's a step, I guess, since there's no MP regen or any way to recover MP than using the Aetherytes (which by the way, you can't use while under a Guildleve task). As I was walking towards the spot, which coincidentally was after the Chiglets spot on the map, I got a bit scared.
Don't tell me they don't look scary. I was scared that they would all start attacking me, but they only attack in groups of two. The fight was easy, only needing 2 or 3 Spirit Darts per each monster. I was done in no time!
Here's a close-up from one of the bee clouds, right after it died. They look fairly mean, but still cute! After finishing them all, the sun came out after a long night in Gridania, and I checked the Aetheryte node to get my reward. This time around it was only gil, but I surely won't mind it! I'm really enjoying these levequests, even if leveling is quite slow from a mage's perspective. I only wish they allowed levequesting without any need of a cooldown, even if they only netted EXP/Skill! Oh well, at least it's pretty and relaxed.