New heights

Windsday, June 30, 1020. 1 AM.

And so it was time to begin our party. (No, it didn't take 4 days for them to arrive, I just haven't had a chance to right about that night until now.) Our Trio's Corsair had finally arrived, as had a Summoner friend of ours. Next came a Red Mage and a Dark Knight, both of which we found in Jeuno before we left. Things went wonderfully for several hours, but then our Summoner had to leave. I never learned how, but somehow she managed to hookup a spare linkshell to a baby monitor. We all heard the cry of her young child and tried to finish off the last mob quickly.

"I'm sorry, all," she said. "I have to go. My baby needs me. It was good partying with you all. See you again!" And off she went, instantly warping back home to her daughter.

It was a great few hours, but we all wanted to stay and fight, the bloodlust not yet subsided. So, I did a shout on my pearl and asked some of my companions in Jeuno and Aht Urhgan to see if they saw anyone that wanted to join us. I was pleasantly suprised to find that one of Eponine and I's friends piped up on our linkshell and wanted to bring her white mage. Unfortunately, the dark knight had to get up early for school and our Corsair was begining to fall asleep between dice rolls. Firing a powerful gun half-asleep is a dangerous combination. I told him to go home and get some rest before he shot someone in our party or simply got mauled by accidentally shooting one of the Antican near our camp in Quicksand Caves. We promised we'd help him catch back up to our level later.

So the DRK and our COR left, and we found a RNG and a replacement COR. The Japanese Corsair I invited didn't seem to understand much of what I was saying. I cut him some slack, being that English seemed to be his 2nd language, but this guy just seemed a little dense. He rolled good dice for our mages and our melee, and only busted his rolls once or twice. He took a long time to get to camp, but he usually dit decent damage to the mob. He just seemed kind of out of it, like he was on autopilot or something.

He was surely hitting the mob plenty accurately enough to have been able to peform a weeapon skill well before I was ready. (As a Ranger, I was already ready before the melee!) And yet, I would tell him I was ready to skillchain with him and get no response. I tried telling him gently at first, then more loudly in case he was hard of hearing (and also partly out of frustration, I must confess). It seemed he would perform his weapon skill compltely randomly--sometimes when I was ready, sometimes when I was not. Luckily, I had the Ranger backup skillchain with me.

I was tempted to kick the new Corsair a few times, but I couldn't find anyone else that wanted to join an experience points party. Most Japanese I've partied with are fairly intelligent, so it was quite a shock. Apparently our Summoner's child went back to sleep after it was fed, and so her eldest daughter was able to continue babysitting. I wanted to reinvite her, but her spot was already taken.

We continued killing the local giant spiders and giant bettles for several hours and most of us made level 47 before we all agreed everyone was too tired and that we should all go. We had some nice highlights, though! Our whitemage casted several Banishga II spells that seemed to hurt the beetles quite a bit. I even got to inflict some strong damage with my second tier elemental Ninjitsu. The party particularly enjoyed my "Blinded by Ninjitsu Science" chant when I blinded the mobs with Kurayami: Ni. They weren't sure where, but they all said it reminded them of something from a far off land.

Yeah, it was fun doing more experience partying, but not so much of the blitzing this time. When Trei and Epo and I first started (back when I was a RDM for the group), it seemed like experience points were coming at an astronomical rate. We all got signet, partied as a trio most of the time, used our exp bands, and had Corsair's roll active at the end of most fights. After the jungles I switched from my crazy RDM/WAR tank to a more fitting WAR/NIN tank. I stayed this way until mid-way through the Crawler's Nest, at which point I finally caught up to my Ninja.

The monsters have gotten progressively harder, as expected. We came long ago to the conclusion that we could no longer effectively gain experience on our own. Perhaps it would be better stated that it is now much more efficient to recruit the aid of three more members and take on the local beasts as a full party. Maybe there will come a time again where many tasks can once again be done by only two or three of us. We shall see what the future holds. Well, I suppose that's long enough of a letter for now. I hope to hear from everyone soon! Take care.