Started out cooking up some pet jugs, trying desperately to get some HQ ones to save me some monies. I've really missed having Windy as my home; Bastok never controls any regions so my OP warps there are woefully inadequate for my needs, and Bastok simply doesn't have the stuff that I need (like a cooking guild). About the only nice thing I can say about Bastok is that it can be used to get to Kuzotz so easily and that you can farm Morion Worm on your way.

By now, my BST was high enough that I was wanting my Star Necklace so I finally got around to finishing up the damned Onion Brigade quests. Trix went out to help me farm items for said quests and soon I had my precious necklace. While we were out there, I saw Peddlestox on widescan. If you recall, this guy starts a quests which, annoyingly, took me 2 years to complete. He's a right bastard, and he only spawns under very specific conditions. Well, Trix had never seen him, hadn't ever gotten the quest.... and Trix is someone who is a friggin' addict with respect to quests. So, even though I explained to him how horrid the quest was, he still came over and got the damned thing. Great, I see endless Lanista farming again in my future...

Additionally, Trix has finally decided he wants some Assault gear (for his DNC), so we got together and did some assaults.

Decided to head out with Xill and Trix to continue our WoTG missions. It was back to La Vaule for us where we entered an arena to fight big, mean, Mister Dragon.

For the most part the battle was cake, even if I was occassionally on fire. However, near the end it got nasty as we were petrified and wailed upon without recourse. The petrification wore before we died and we won the fight, but it was closer than any of us wanted.

Soon I was back in the Mire leveling BST some more. I really enjoyed my time in the Mire. I had one or two parties try to camp on top of me, but managed to level so quickly that I wasn't there long enough for it to be a serious problem.

Afterward I went out to level Scholar as a possible end-game subjob option for BST. Fields of Valor made getting to 10 extremely easy, and within a few nights I was looking at my fully geared level 10 SCH, complete with all the fancy book-learnin' moves he gets. While I was out leveling I managed to get the Rambler's Cloak, which is a special Rare/EX drop from caskets in the North Gustaberg area. 1-10 was so painless with FoV that I even decided to take Bard up to 10 for the hell of it.

The update had just been released which allowed you to augment items, so of course I had to try it. Since I was leveling SCH and BRD, my focus was on low-level gear for those jobs. Headed out to fight Blue Bascinet a few times. Had a few duds, but did get a couple of pretty sweet things including the following:

• Priest's Robe with HP-7 MP+7 added.
• White Mitts with MP+4 MND+1 added. (This makes it practically equivalent to Baron's Cuffs.)
• Brass Subligar with AGI-1 INT-1 CHR+1 Dark+1 added. (That CHR is great for a leg piece at that level.)
• Cotton Cape with Fire +6 Ice + 5 Water +5 added. (Great low-level nuking item for SCH.)

I also went and did a higher level one in Xarcabard for Trix. This involved killing a dragon, who was a pushover. IIRC, Trix got crap that run, but he was going for something pretty specific. I've found that you need to go for more general items which can be used by multiple jobs. If you do that, and use cheap gear, you will be less disappointed by duds and more thrilled by successes.

I also went farming Stray Mary for my BRD. While I was there, I had to fight the augmenting NM Thunderhead because I'm an addict now. Actually, I think that's the battle where I got the Brass Subligar augment I mentioned above.

Got Stray Mary a few times, but never got the drop. Stupid thing, not sure BRD is worth this hassle for me :-P

While I was in the area, I decided to check on good ol' Valkurm Emperor. As I was walking through, before I could even bring up widescan, the fucker popped right in front of me. And I got the drop.



Now, if you recall, I got this drop back when the NM was still dominated by gil-sellers. I had the real Hairpin, not the Rare/EX version that drops today. Well, with this most recent kill, all of a sudden I had the original real Hairpin and the Rare/EX version, and I was faced with a decision: keep the original, or sell it.

See, having the original was always kind of a nice trophy. It was me declaring loudly "I was able to best the gil-sellers who used to control VE!". Getting the drop after the change wasn't as hard as you were only competing with other normal players, and once someone got the drop they ceased being competition. So it was nice to have the original.

But on the same token, I didn't need the original. The Rare/EX version is identical except in name and color- the stats are exactly the same. So why hold onto this relic from the past when I could sell it and buy something else I might need more?

In the end, I decided to sell my original Hairpin and keep the Rare/EX version. It was a hard decision to make, but it was worth it as I used the money from the Hairpin to purchase my BST's Tatami shield.

Finally wrapped up by killing some Orcs around Tavnazia to reduce my Fomor Hate. This included me stupidly clicking on ???'s I encountered which spawned this guy for a quest. Now, I was able to kill him, but I wonder what would have happened if I had been out there with a slightly lower job :-)