I almost died.

Before I begin I must lay blame where it is due for my near death experiance, Mrfrodo and Shanisasha. Without them I would proabably have a good ten years extra left on my heart, without them I would not have had the greatest moment in my FFXI career.

It was a warm summer day in the dunes, the smell of dead noobs in the air was sickly sweet on the breeze. Three adventurous friends headed to Whitebone Beach, one clutching a Pirates Chart in his hand, a funny looking group dressed only to cover their nekkid bodies they stood out from the masses. They needed no speacial tools or weapons for what was about to happen, the mission was do or die 8 seconds to glory or death, no time for games, no amount of gear would help and the odds of the pot of gold waiting for them at the end of the rainbow were painfuly against them.

The battle was said easy by those that came before. What drew them here was the chance to obtain a very rare item, not the glory found by defeating the creatures soon to attack them. It was a gamble twice over starting with obtaining the Pirates Chart from the gut of a Marlin. The second gamble was with the chest at the end of the battle. The stories told us not to have our hopes up that this item came very few and far between, even a good friend now gone from the game had went many times with no luck. Some even say they had invested months with no gain.

The time came to trade the Chart, the fight was on. Our adventurers summoned three Ramuh's to their sides and prepared for battle. A ghostly taru appeared and begged us to Fish for the treasure, screaming about a monster coming. The monster came, not one but three and the little soul was dispatched again. The Ramuh's Prepared their most powerful attack Judgement Bolt and brought down the wrath of the skies upon the creatures. The battle took mere seconds.

A chest lay before us, the shadows of the three beasts corpses still fading away I opened the Barnacled Box. Breath held I closed my eyes and opened them to see ....



We had beaten the odds!!





Yup my heart felt like it stopped, I couldnt stop shaking to type for a good five minutes either ^^ So yeah I felt like I was going to die, but in a good way. Thank you Shani and Mrfrodo for coming along with me, congratulations on our new found wealth and hope to do this again very very soon^^


<3 Xylos. The ring is 100% as far as I know, but still happy to have it ^^

Photo Finish

Sleepy so I'll sum up tonight in two images:


I found two strategies for this so far #1 and #2

My Sole is Black.

Quick and painless last night fishing. Hit the shall shell's for 99 for skill hoping to rank up. Once I hit 38 I ran over to the boat to join Mrfrodo and Bosco while I made an attempt at my rank up fish a Gugru Tuna managed to land two, I will be keeping the larger one in my bazzar as a souvenir for a while^^.

After I got my rank fish I decided to shoot for my GP fish before I hit windy. Sat at the docks in port jeuno I needed 12x Nosteau Herring, choose Halcyon Rod and Shrimp Lure as my weapons of choice. I ended up with my GP fish and 19x Tiger Cod and one Black Sole. I was kind of excited about the sole, it always feels good to land something way the hell over my skill level.

Todays GP item is Zamflug Bass that caps at 48-49, according to Finalfishing.com the best option is a worm lure in bastok so I will be able to single target them there with a chance at skill ups. Kicking myself in the ass for NPC'ing the 2 stacks I had in my MH a few days ago. The crappy GP items are the ones that require many low level fish, to gather them myself means lots of running around to vendors or spending the night burning my way into early fatigue and killing my skill/profit run for the day. At least I only need 27 of them.

I really need to organize my MH again to leave room for a few stacks of w/e I catch to take care of potential GP items, a scary task indeed.

As I round the bend to 50 I keep telling myself I need to get crackin' on my moats for Lu Shangs and since it is very likely I'll hit 50 in the next few weeks it puts me in a bind. I need to continue to skill but I also need to profit fish. I could go target moat carp and sand fish but that actualy costs money in the long run, not much but still a negative effect on the wallet. If I skill off of profit fish I will cap out long before I profit enough to purchase the moats, no happy medium^^. Time to set my mules in action selling off any and all uneeded gear and have them convert those profits into moats I want this damned rod before my birthday (nov 17). After I get my Lu the next step is deciding between leveling my cooking more or going for the WW skill to repair the Lu. I think my best option is to PL cooking on my windy mule even tho I am 56 on my main an I would hate to start over. The wood working on my main means crap loads of time invested in a craft for a single purpose, its only 16 now .. The other downside is losing my GP I have invested in fishing but I did plan to purchase the Waders first for the +2 skill. Or of course I could just level the damned WW and say piss off to Lumberjack etc..

Off to lunch now, more to come later... maybe^^

Score: Xylos 4 - Bhefhel Marlins 1

.3Got on rather late last night and headed out to the cliff to work on some more shall's. Seemed like both my bite and skill up's were coming slow, still hit 36.4, had really hoped to hit 37 for a good shot at 38 tonight. Snapped my line for the second time working shall shells, hit the wrong button canceling out a !!! so I headed into to town to sale the 6 stacks I had and call it a night.

I was sorting through my MH partial fish stacks and decided to sacrifice the two Bluetails I had there and see if I could hit a Bhefhel Marlin, grabbed my composite rod a few spare minnows and 8 bits of sliced bluetail and OP'd to selbina to cach the boat my plan was to make a round trip and trade marlins in for a shot at a chart, and see what the fishing contest was (fingers crossed it was something I could actualy catch). I made it with moments to spare. Once the boat was under way I climbed up to my usual perch at the top of the stairs, did my fish dance and hit the casting macro. First bite was a !!!, semi hard to reel in but I've had worse also seemed a bit tough for a monster so I kept at it just as I got my warning I wore it out, slammed my button and shazzam! Bhefhel Marlin #1. Next cast Bhefhel Marlin #2. Hmm this is not as bad as I thought it would be. 3rd was a cone calamry, 4th a Titan (I assume) 5th Silver shark (dear lord the regen on that bastard was astounding, failed to knock even 10% off) 6th Marlin #3, 7th Titan, 8th Shark. Not bad 3/8 on the bait, 50% return total with 4 fish landed. Threw on a minnow to try for some more bluetails to turn into bait and caught one as we hit town. On the return trip one more marlin, one shark, one "low skill fail" (assume marlin) and one monster. 40k worth of fish for the price of 3 wind crystals is a pretty decent return, but I choose to turn them in for fun. I checked the bazzars at the NPC and saw that one of my marlins was much larger than the 50 or so so I kept it to display in my bazzar along with my catfish. No chart but I was still happy/proud of my first attempt.

I think tonight will be exp on rdm night, I have been putting off exp claiming to be "retired" but I do need/want to lvl rdm a bit on the side. I hope it goes well, I'm kind of scared its been well over a month since I have been out exp'n and I get nervous when I feel out of practice. I think the big reason I want to exp is to prevent myself from selling any more gear that I have stocked up, my rdm is fairly well supplied till 75 if I leave my mules alone ^^.

Subligar scare me.

Spent the weekend in buburimu again, skill 30.1-35.5 there on shall shells. Almost like taking candy from a baby these guys are sooo easy to target.

I tried to keep up on my gp items even though fishing up four stacks of bastore sardines is rather sucky, easy enough to do but it killed my fish count for the day causing fatigue to set in early. I still managed to land 140 or so shall shells before I gave up.

As my skill goes up it seems like the stamina bar for shall shells is taking on a more random depletion rate. It used to be a fairly flat rate but now I get a few that seem to come in much faster. This adds a twist to fishing them since I stand a good chance of losing a 50k lure if I misread a stamina bar. The fake bites so far have been Bluetails (rod goes all over the place) Yellow Globe (almost the same rod action but slightly faster than normal depletion) and Rusty Buckets and Subligar (subligar can snap my line). I dont mind the Bluetails since I will be storing them for bait to fish for Inside The Belly, the Subligar scare me though.