Champions of Aht Urhgan

I guess that I would like to start this entry on a more personal level by bringing up that I graduated from High School on Friday with a 3.6 GPA, something that I am incredibly proud of. Its hard to believe I started playing this game two and a half, nearly three years ago and came out with stronger friendship and more friendships. I must say, that while I was walking up to receive my diploma, I was picturing Professor Schultz and the Crimson Grimoire to appear, but luckily they didn't. As of now, I don' have any college plans for the fall, just enjoy my Summer. In a year however, I am planning on attending college for an English major, something I have wanted since I was still in elementary school. Anyway, now that that is over, lets get onto FFXI.

Rather boring Saturday. I was still a bit hungover from my festivities on Friday, but I decided to see what was going on. There were a few people online in KKS but nobody to really do much of anything. I decided to gear up my Dragoon and see if I could get that damn Ramponneau to spawn. I got lucky the first time, nobody was camping him and after a few rounds of killing Toads, he ended up spawning. Sadly, he has yet to drop the Summoning Belt for me, one piece of gear I really want for my Summoner. After that, I believe my Wyvern Etoile and myself sat in Bastok Markets [S] until it was time for Limbus.

Oric and I were hoping that instead of our typical Apollyon run we'd change things up and clear another Temenos zone. In the end, we ended up having a rather low group so False decided on SE Apollyon. Easy win. Before we decided on doing anything, which probably wouldn' happen due to our less than stellar numbers today, I went ahead and brought up Treasures of Aht Urhgan Mission 42.

Oric and I were trying for a long time to get a group of people together for this mission and thankfully one of KKS's 'newer' members, Princesslexi was on the same mission as well as our LS Leader, Falseliberty, who said he would be more than happy to help. Now came the part that I wasn' too excited for, shouting to try and get two more members. Surprisingly, we got two more rather quick. Two fights stood in our way of completing ToAU and finding out the conclusion out the conclusion of the ToAU storyline as well as our rings and our long awaited Glory Crowns.

Path of Darkness was a real pain in the ass. We had our strategy down but it didn' go too well the first time around due to Naja dying early on. I really didn' expect the gears being as much of a problem as they were and it was one of the times I truly had a lot of trouble with my MP management. I was surprised we didn' run out of time during our second run, after the first set of Archaic Gears we recovered after a few deaths and after the second set we had to recover due to low MP. In the end, we ended taking down Amnaf easy enough. Too bad Oric didn' learn Mind Blast though. Before we knew it, we were on the infamous Treasures of Aht Urhgan 44: Nashmeira's Plea.

Its time for some reminiscing though. I believe the first time Oric and I visited Whitegate was back when we were around level fifty, having yet to complete our first limit break quest. Once again, I have to give a special thanks to Darkeindzel and Avion for escorting us from the Mhaura ferry to Whitegate to helping us get our major staging points. We ended up not continuing on with ToAU until Salvage sparked our interest earlier this year but after our short lived Salvage static we went ahead on with ToAU until where we were today, about to engage in combat with Alexander himself.

If I said that I was a bit nervous would be an understatement, especially after most of the testimonials I have read and/or heard over the past few months. Our party went in knowing what we were up against and that there was a possibility that we wouldn' win but we all kept positive. Little did our group consisting of a WHM, PUP, PLD, RDM, DRG, and SAM would be feeling Altana's blessing today. Our fight against Raubahn went great, aside from his AoE WS that hit my a few times and Razfahd was nothing more than a joke and before we knew it it was us against Alexander. "I fucking love this theme!" Oric yelled as Ragnorak blasted from each of our screens echoing to the opposite side. Throughout the fight, we kept 'cool, calm, and collected' a quote Oric and I took to heart from Resident Evil: Outbreak and before we knew Alexander was at less than 50% and we had all survived his first Divine Judgement. Then almost like that he was at 5% and I was running low on MP. Our tank, Princesslexie, was dead and our SAM and DRG were near death as well.

"NOOOOOO!" I screamed as I ran to their aid used Benediction, at this point I could care less about my death, our melee needed to be kept alive. Surprisingly, I didn' die due to all the hate I got from Benediction, rather we made a come back. Then, 1% and he simply wouldn' die. I had completely forgotten about Perfect Defense. At that point I started to panic and shortly after I see that we were getting warped out of the battlefield. I didn' know what had happened so I quickly typed out, "IDD WE WINM?!" I then look up to see, Serenade (Oric's automaton) defeats Alexander, Truly, an epic moment that I will not forget. God bless the Puppetmasters, especially Oric who is a damn good one ;D

The final cutscenes, I must say, were spectacular. There really isn' much else I can say except I did start to cry when I saw that Ovjang and Mjeninghad been repaired. I went ahead and chose the Ulthalam's Ring for my Dragoon and any other melee job that I may level in the future despite being a main Summoner and White Mage. Aside from the completion of the storyline and new ring, the greatest reward was my damn Glory Crown which we had been dying to have ever since Naja stole them from us early on in the storyline. Classy, right ;D

I must say, I don' think there is a better way to start my summer, and I am looking forward to what the next few months bring :)