Drac be Nimble!: Let Red October Begin.

The beginning of October has been decent so far.

The guys and I have been working on skillups, of course:

We also made Thursday night an NM death-fest. Iaito had requested my help on his RDM AF3 quest, for his Warlock's Chapeau. There are two NMs for this quest, and they can apparently frighten some people. Sodako halfway-predicted that I would buy the farm in this fight. Seemed like maybe ol' Sodapop didn't think we'd pull it off. I however have done this quest many times and wasn't nervous. Dungeonwhipper, Galbatorix, and myself being the more recent instances of needing the hat. Thus, we set out to Fei'Yin. Miser Murphy is the ghost for this quest, and he got stomped by a crew of six of us. I didn't take screenshots of the fight, 'cause it didn't seem pic-worthy.

We then headed out to Garlaige Citadel for the golem NM. The golem is a TP-attack-crazy mob who essentially just spams his special moves over and over the whole fight. This lagged my display pretty badly but my skills still (luckily) were going off without trouble. No one hardly took damage until the end, if I recall correctly. I think Soda finally let loose a few Weapon Skills and pulled hate. After it was dead, it was time to (at long last) fight Soda's THF AF3 NM, which is a bomb.

The NM for the Thief boots was a pushover this time around. I've fought this one many times as well, and it was my turn to be overly cautious. I've seen it knock level 75 characters to the ground in short order. In the past, it always seemed like whomever went with me had a hard time with it. I was admittedly apprehensive about tanking this battle, which is why we hadn't attempted it yet. Sodako berated me at first, but he's also got the sense to know that if I won't go after it, there might be a reason. After we talked it over a couple weeks ago, he convinced me that I'd be able to tank it fine and it was placed on the agenda thusly. Since we were in the neighborhood Thursday night, we went for it.

It died, in yet another boring fight not worthy of a screenshot. This NM can hit quite hard, but incidentally I was either evading or parrying enough hits I barely had reason to cure myself for hate control. Finally, Sodako tasted victory, awarded his Rogue's Poulaines and was dubbed a Paragon of Thief Excellence. Truly, I don't know many truly good Thieves in FFXI so he is as deserving of the title as anyone.

Picture time!

This is what happens when you drag me out to Raise in the Undersea Ruins:
You get your pic posted. Sorry buddy.