Wait For It
Dancer to 60. I finished off the 5k experience in Jugner Forest campaigns. It was actually pretty intense there. I was campaigning off prime time hours so there weren't really enough players and of course I was only level 60 so I was barely contributing and had to seriously worry about my saftey. Even with the NPCs it got pretty ugly, but was generally a lot of fun. In any event, I'm now dancer 60 with enough of a buffer to feel happy, so I can stop leveling for now until they release the AF.
Brimah suggested an interesting goal - level dagger on bard to 230 and complete the dagger of trails so that I'll gain Evisceration early on Dancer. By my calculations, Dancer's B+ dagger skill will get them 214 skill at level 65, plus 16 skill from a fully merited dagger (the 8th merit coincidentally also unlocking at level 65) would give me the 230 required to bust out Evisceration a full 6 levels before I should have it. It would sort of be a pain in the butt to unlock the latent effect on bard, but can you imagine the looks on my party member's faces when they're talking about how awesome it will be to get their WSNMs done at level 71 and I just use mine at 65? Really, the shocked reactions from other players is one of the things that makes this game worth playing.
My application to AXI is quite the anticlimax. It seems nobody really has a problem with me, but they aren't sure that other people wont' have a problem with me and so they don't want to go down on record for supporting me if it turns out that popular opinion is to hold grudes. Maybe, I dunno, that's my theory. Either way, it's slow. I guess a slow cautious response is better than a drama-filled torrent that ends up with someone gaining the courage to refuse my entry, but it's nearing the point where I'm weary of being in limbo and would rather have an answer one way or the other.
Did a Salvage, Arrapago as usual. The beginning of the run was pretty poor with lots of unexpected aggro - I'm man enough to admit I screwed up a couple times myself - and so we were a bit behind and didn't make it to the sixth floor. Astrologer and Treasure Hunter stayed stingy but the last mob we pulled, the Archiaic Chariot on floor five amazingly dropped two 35 pieces. Shpen got his Hikazu Hakama MNK/SAM/NIN/PUP legs piece (grats man) and the Enlil's Kolluks WHM/BRD/SMN hands piece went freelot since nobody has it listed. It was a little tempting not to lot since I only recently rejoined the group, but it's not like any of other people that lotted would have actually put it to good use, so I figured why not. As usual, fate was with me.
The Marduk's Kolluks aren't bad per se though I'm not entirely sure when I'd use them over my other gear. If nothing else they beat my current bard hands. Embarrasingly, this puts me at 3/3 wins on contested pieces of salvage armor - the other two being the 35 morrigan legs and the 25 morrigan body. You'd think I'd be close to upgrading something through sheer bulk of rare armor by now...
Immediately after the run ended, before I could even thank people properly for the drop, the freaking internet went down. It's been going down all weekend at extremely inconvient times. It is in fact still down; I'm only able to post this and check websites because I've broken into a very faint network that barely allows me to be online. Obviously I won't be able to play FFXI in this state, but it will be fixed soon I hope, assuming my landlord decides she wants to get her rent next month - I sure ain't paying until this gets resolved.
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