Just wanted to say that, quietly, 4 years have passed since I started playing FFXI. Kind of amazing, when I think about it.... And kind of depressing when I add up in my head how much I've spent on this silly game...

Anyway, I'm aware that technically I started playing in 2003, but it wasn't until April 2004 that I actually started committing my character's exploits to this site. So, really, it's been maybe 4 and a half years... but who's counting?

Encountered Bo'Dho Hundredfist again in Campaign- this time, in Gustaberg just outside of Basty. It was an intense battle as there were only a handful of other players besides me participating in it. The battle was made even more complicated when a second wave lead by Shadowfang showed up. In that last shot, you can see I'm fighting alongside Invincible Shield, who was a silly NPC in the present (most important quest he was involved in was the quest to gain access to Ballista, whoopie....) but who is apparently a real bad-ass in the past.

Continued leveling up BST and encountered what is, thus far, my absolute favorite camp for BST. It's in Vunkerl Inlet around (F-8). There you will find a bridge separating two cliff-sides. Along the cliffs you will find a ton of non-aggro (but linking) birds and beetles. However, by pulling them onto the bridge you can fight link-free and will be awarded with a spectacular view of the waterfall. And the best part of this camp is there is a sprite who roams the area providing raise support in the event that you die. Awesome camp.

I very rapidly reached my limit on BST for my /DNC sub (my preferred sub for BST), so I had to go back out and level DNC some more. I'm actually leveling DNC/BST, which means my experience is very close to playing BST. 20+ I've just not been enjoying DNC at all; They suck for damage (daggers are balls at this level, and their H2H is crap), and they solo very slowly without a pet. As a result, I'm starting to pile EXP page quests and Streetsweeper Campaign Ops into my DNC's leveling to try and get it to 37 without having too work to hard at it. Maybe someday I'll return to it and absolutely love it (hey, I did with NIN) but for now I hate it.

After this, I finally broke the latent on my Pick of Trials and we headed out to Temple of Ugglapith to fight my WSNM. I was joined by Sloth, Jan, IC, and Trix (not pictured). Here we are at the spawn point killing aggro bees before the fight. I didn't actually take a picture of the WSNM battle simply because I spaced on it and it ended far too quickly :-) But I got Decimination and all was good.

It seems that normal parties have picked up again, so I was soon out leveling WAR in a real party. We were fighting Imps in the Mire, and I was finally skilling up my normal Axe again :-) I also happen to think I look pretty bad-ass in my WAR gear.