White Magic Funguar.

This entry's title has a couple references in it, so let's start with that. Obviously, the song "Black Magic Woman" is relevant. The funguar part is two-fold: FFXI has monsters called Funguar which are big, vicious mushrooms. My Linkshell has a long-time member (and long-time friend of mine) named Fugiwara. Fugi has been referred to as "Funguar" for a while now. He's a Dragoon and, more often of late, a White Mage. Ta-da! Title found.

Tuesday, I spent more time with Dancer. I had hit level 15 the day before, and thereby had learned Curing Waltz. This is a Job Ability that cures the target party member for approximately 70HP. In my opinion, this has thrown the balance and fun-factor of Dancer into overdrive for this level range. The Waltz is an instant-cast "spell" (to use the term loosely) because it's a JA. It costs me 20TP (note: not MP) for those 70HP. My current Dancer weapon is still Hand-to-Hand, and I've been forgoing Weapon Skills in favor of having a good supply of TP for essentially unlimited curing and draining (via Drain Samba).

Fort Ghelsba death-by-Orc:

After reaching 15, the job became not only much easier but much more entertaining. I've got two different dance animations and two different ways to keep my HP up and by corollary, the XP flowing. Soloing (due to overabundance of Dancer & Scholar parties) is efficient, and I'm capable of killing anything up to Tough without breaking much of a sweat. Dancer isn't exactly a heavy-hitter, so of course the higher the mob is, the longer it takes to kill due to the HP and defense of the enemy.

Dancing while duoing with Valion, showing off for Aerroenu:

Dying alongside Val:

Fugiwara came out to Raise me after a rough solo death in Buburimu:

Later in the day, I told Fugiwara it was about time we got him the rest of his White Mage Artifact. He was missing the hands and body piece. Now, for those who don't know, the WHM AF body is among the more difficult pieces to obtain (at least in many players' opinion). There is an NM in Fei'Yin who is no joke, and the pop item for that NM is a pain to acquire. Well, it's a dirty job, but someone has to do it. That someone is me (backed up by Sodako, of course). Soda hopped on THF and I got on DRG, and we headed to The Eldieme Necropolis.

The annoying thing about these Dark Stalker enemies is that there are four spawns in the camp, and they repop about every 15 minutes. Thus, if it takes 20 mobs to get a drop, you're looking at quite a time investment. I've been through this process all-too-many times already, and this trip wasn't so bad 'cause we spent most of it talking in LS chat. I also broke out Final Fantasy IV for in-between times. We did get the drop eventually, and Fugi asked if we'd be able to get the NM killed as well.

Sodako made a semi-entertaining comment that we wouldn't likely get the people to do this fight, but that "Draco has a way of pulling these things out of his ass" at times. Well, he's right: I do have people who are cool with dropping on a dime to take a trip all the way out to Fei'Yin for a nasty NM fight. I love it when these things come together.

While waiting for everyone to get ready, Bloodless let us inside his Mog House:

Again, this NM is a Fomor (undead ghost-things, essentially) and this one is among the meaner I've encountered in my career. As soon as Altedour pops, he generally casts an AoE spell, in this case, Waterga III. His Dimensional Death move cuts big hunks of HP off and as you can see here, he did it to me:

Luckily I was the only one to die and the battle was successful. Fugi got his Healer's Briault and posed for a quick pic before heading out:

Another day in the books! Until next time~