He and Monstar were busy hunting damp Hakutaku Eyes all the way up in Ifrit's Cauldron, and evidently, something went wrong, and so they needed a Raise. In the end, I figured I'd head down to the Cauldron anyway, since the bombs surrounding the Dodomeki also drop a Cauldron coffer key, and I'd certainly like to get my maps collection underway. ^^
What I did not expect though, was getting entangled in a chain of events that would last the entire day.
FIrst off, was the matter of the two eyes that both Monstar and Masasume needed, which as anyone can tell you, needs more than a smile. Eratosthenes and I were both down as well, and we were after coffer keys. The first eye and key dropped in relatively short order, but the second took ages to show itself. In fact, I even managed to take a break, go out for lunch, get some errands done, log back in, and still find them there, although thankfully, they only needed the second eye then. >_<
After the eyes, Monstar expressed that he'd like to start recon on getting a Joyeuse for himself. For those who do not know, the Joyeuse is a very sweet sword that Paladins and Red Mages can equip. Unfortunately, the only way to get one (it, being RA/EX) is to kill an NM in the Sea Serpent Grotto named Charybdis, who, while isn't on HNM level, is still a pretty tough fight. Charybdis is a Sea Monk tyle mob, on a 8-12 hour lottery spawn on the various Devil Mantas that spawn in the same room as he. There was no way Erat, Monstar, and I could take out Charybdis with just the three of us, so we decided to head down and just get the time of death so we could come back the next time more prepared.
When we got to the camp, there was already one Japanese person there by the name of Asyuu, camping. His search comment indicated that he was after a Joyeuse, and for a moment, we were quite disappointed. I'm not sure what NM rules dictate, but I've heard that, out of respect for those who have been killing the placeholders, the person who gets to the Sea Serpent Grotto first usually has right of way with Charybdis. After some conversation, I determine that whiel he is alone at the moment, he has called friends who are ready to rush down to the Sea Serpent Grotto, and so, they can handle it.
It's then after some checking with Monstar that I offered to help him out with camping, even giving him the Joyeuse should we manage to kill Charybdis.
It took a while (mostly because he was a little in disbelief ^^), but I explained to him that I only wanted the time of death. That, and some of his friends started trickling in, starting with Bebelly, who apparently recognised me! Actually, his name was initially familiar to me, but I just couldn't place where I've met this taru before, but he soon reminded me as being one of the members of ZenryokuZenkai, the {sky} LS which I randomly helped out with once. Good to see random helping has at least gotten me somewhere. ^^
And so we start killing Devil Mantas. And killing. And killing some more. In fat, it took so long that Monstar actually managed to fall asleep at the keyboard for a few hours, and when he finally woke up again, Charybdis still hadn't spawned. >_< I'm not sure just how long we were down there for, it must've been around three hours, just killing the Devil Mantas (which are on a 15-minute repop), and the occasional Sahagin outside when we got bored.
To make matters worse, another linkshell started coming in towards the end. I suppose they knew the ToD, and I can see where the drama comes from- it's really disheartening to see hours of your own work go to waste when some random passerby comes along and takes your NM.
Soon after, one of the members starts counting down the seconds, and I have no idea how he knew, but just as he hit 0, guess who popped up right in front of me? >_<
I got to see firsthand what the update did to the claiming system. I couldn't claim Charybdis by Stun- just nothing happened. That left our Paladin, Berohan to take it about a second later, with Provoke, and Charybdis was claimed by us.
Unfortunately, out of anticipation of competition, we were grossly underprepared for the fight. It didn't take long before Charybdis had managed to kill most of us, and soon it was just Neoexile (BRD), Bebelly (NIN), and myself trying to kite Charybdis around while we kept the linking Devil Mantas slept. Unfortunately, we didn't have a RDM (I had Warp II'ed Monstar, who had _just_ woken up and was rushing down here as fast as his taru legs could take him) and with no Gravity, it was, suffice to say, pretty darn hard to kite Charybdis. >_<
Eventually, Bebelly died, and everyone else followed suit. ; ;
The second LS moved in, ready to claim, much to the dismay of everyone here. Luckily, I had Reraise on, saving us time in picking everyone up, and went to work Raising everybody. During this time, Aysuu's reinforcements came down- another party of six, and Monstar had finally made it to us. The other linkshell started killing the Devil Manta, so they wouldn't have to deal with it.
Then, before our reinforcements could get here, they moved up and claimed Charybdis. ; ;
Suffice to say, we weren't very happy, having been here, killing Devil Mantas three times as long as they were. Fortunately, they only had one NIN tank, and a while bunch of mages, so there was still hope they'd fall, at least, before their reinforcements got here.
It took a while, and the NIN had several close calls, but due to their number of mages, everytime the NIN was low on HP, a whole barrage of Cure IIIs would set him straight.
Then a Water Elemental spawned, and aggro'ed their party. Eventually, they could not handle the adds, and while it took a while, after a few AoEs and critical hits from Charybdis (with some of our members /cheering Charybdis on in party chat >_<) their NIN went down, and with no more damage on it, Charybdis quickly turned yellow.
While some HNM LS'es dictate that one wait for the entire party to wipe before reclaiming, evidently that was something we did not practice. We took it from them as soon as we could (a good idea, imo, since we saved all their mages from getting killed- there was no way five mages could beat Charybdis), and now, with twelve of us, Charybdis eventually went down to much /cheering.
As promised, we let Aysuu have the drop, and many, many {Congratulations!} were on their way. It was very late by the time we had killed Charyb, in the end, I think we must've spent something like five or six hours down in the Sea Serpent Grotto camping, and killing Charybdis. Extra forms of entertainment really are a must for this fight...
So Monstar got his ToD, and is hopefully organising a party/alliance to go grab Charybdis on his next open window. I, on the other hand, have three new additions to my friend list, and was soon whisked off by Aysuu, Neoexile, and Bebelly to do the Bionic Bugboy ENM75 down in Mine Shaft #2716- my first ENM!
This post is getting long enough as it is, so I'll spare you the grizzly details, but in the end, we beat Buyboy in a pretty easy fight, but unfortunately, our drops were horrible. >_< 3k xp each and er, one Dragon bone. 15k for the night's work, but oh well. It was fun. ^^
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