Distant Beliefs

After nearly two weeks, my plants have finally grown, and are ready to harvest. ^^ The net result of my gardening? Just over 160 Platinum Nuggets, enough to supply me with plenty of material to advance my Goldsmithing. That, and I’ve also been accumulating the odd Platinum Ore here and there while waiting for the plants to grow, so today was a long time in planning. ^^

Last time I tried skilling up, it was in Rabao, after I had very nice desynth results on Darksday, Full Moon. I decided to try skilling off Mythril Cuisses on that same day, but compared to the next run of Mythril Cuisses, that skillup session was very disappointing- I ended up spending some 240k just for +0.3. Ah well. Thankfully, the harvest gave me enough materials to produce two stacks of Platinum Ingots, during which I managed to get a very nice +1.3 skill levels. ^^

That means, it’s obligatory chat excerpt time!



Just 0.4 separate me from Goldsmithing 60, at which point I can look into starting up anoter journal, completely dedicated to Goldsmithing, although I still don’t know what the details would be like. >_< Time will tell, I guess. ^^

TrueRune also had our Phomiuna Aqueducts mission planned for tonight, which took a very long time! We had sixteen of us head down to complete the next chapter in the Chains of Promathia storyline, led by Woulfgang and his crew. It was my first time inside the place, and I was a little nervous. We had to wait for Saoirse’s party to complete their Promyvion-Holla run though, after someone botched up her last two attempts at completing that particular Promyvion, so…

Anyway, our target was a Minotaur that was lurking inside the Aqueducts. In order to get to him, we had to get past Fomor (dark, shadowy-like beings), Stegotaurs, and assorted Slime Mobs. That, and the Stegotaurs have true sight. >_< Our plan was to initially Sneak and Invis everybody through, but with a sixteen-man alliance, that just wasn’t going to work, especially when some people didn’t bring their own Silent Oils and Prism Powders! Yes, I know they’re expensive, but the mission was jeopardized on a few occasions because of that. In any case, after getting aggro for like, the third time in the first ten minutes, we just decided to screw the sneaky plan, and just bash our way through instead. ^^

Eventually, we came up this huge beast, which instantly used some sort of special attack that drew the entire alliance in! Literally, one moment, I was somewhere minding my own business, next thing I knew, I was stuck right in the middle of combat with this giant thing breathing down my neck…it was scawy! >_<



He hit quite hard, and I remember my mana being taxed, even as a Taru with a Summoner subjob. He also had this AoE attack that dealt a huge amount of damage to everybody, and I believe he also has an attack like the Fomor’s AoE Drown, which not only gives the normal STR-Down effect, but also deals 15 damage a tick! >_<

That, and he also has this ability called “Mortal Gaze”, which inflicts the status “Doom” on somebody. This status can be remedied by Cursna or Holy Waters, with a chance of it failing, and once Doomed, you have roughly ten seconds to get it off you before you drop down dead. Something like that. Add that onto a bagful of other shenanigans, and you have quite a challenging fight.

We weren’t the only ones fighting the Minotaur—another (Japanese) alliance had also come down here to complete the mission, and they were very helpful when we practically wiped out later in the mission.

I’m still not sure how it happened. We were supposed to walk through this room of Fomors, which aggro to sound, so everybody Sneak’ed up, and went in. Still, some of them aggro’ed, and I’m not sure why. Long story short, many deaths ensued, with those of us still Sneak’ed unable to do anything, since there was practically no way we could handle the crowd of Fomors. We tried making a retreat, but by this time, the two Stegotaurs had respawned, cutting off that route as well. Eventually, the whole alliance wiped out, and only Saoirse, Akanea, Maijke, and I survived. Or at least, I died, then Reraised when a Stegotaur turned around, then ran as fast as my wittle taru legs could take me. >_< The Japanese alliance eventually caught up with us and helped Raise all the dead people, so we wouldn’t have to go do everything all over again. ありがとう！^^

I shant spoil the rest of the mission, but suffice it to say, there are some very nice cutscenes afterwards that I am still trying to find a Goblin Footprint for, just so I can watch them again. Hee…I never thought Memoro de la Ŝtono would play such a role in the game. (By the way, for those of you wondering, I think the words are in Esperanto.)