FFXI

Relic HtH is actually in progress! I have a fair bit of currency now, and 90% of the cockblock items. Just a few R/E drops off NMs in beau and xarc but that shouldn’t be too hard.  I have a decent amount of momentum building and it’s encouraging.

My current farming setup is MNK/WAR (Myrna), BST/DNC (Tinu), WHM/SCH (Anrym). It works, but I had an attack of crazy and farmed up, well a TH+1 sash for Myrna.  Add to the fact that I figured out that SMN can pretty much one-shot the statues with no worries, new and much cheaper setup will soon be MNK/THF (TH3!), SMN/DNC (for JA procs), and WHM/SCH. Should help me survive a lot better since the mobs were already having a hard time hitting me, and SMN is far far cheaper to use.  I was looking at a STACK of ladybugs a week, along with the zetas (2-3 stacks) and a stackish of sheep too.  That adds up and gets real expensive.  This way, all the gil I farm goes right to currency.

Doing a fair amount of progress on all fronts as well, we’re almost done Nyzul and that will help with SMN since it’s a magical WS and can’t be perfect dodged or invincibled.  Sweet.

Just need a bit of work on Tinu’s SMN to get it caught up (Garuda magian staff, etc).

Writing

Slow, but working at it. Music is as always my muse, but I started to drag my netbook with me to work.  I jot down scenes and rough dialogue that I edit later, it’s helping.

Real life (wut)

I got a new bed! My exciting life.

Apart from that, not much.  Health is okay, could be better.

Wow i’m boring.

Anywhoo, sleep time.  The bed is calling me.

Even right now! I’m camping Jailer of Faith.  SO MUCH FUN.

Anywhoo, mostly srs bzns time.

Japan was hit by a huge earthquake recently, and as a result of the aftermath they took a severe hit to their power infrastructure. To conserve power Squeenix shut off FFXI and FFXIV for two weeks, and Metal Gear Online did the same.  So for that time I decided to get off my ass and write, or at least lay down the last of the groundwork for it.  I got pretty far!

Well, sortof.

I got everything outlined, even stuff that will happen after the Big Story (still unnamed!), fleshed out a lot of characters and whatnot.  Also found out that it’s nearly impossible to write on the weekdays thanks to work.  So, weekend warrioring it is. I still fully intend to post everything of the Big Story here, just going to be a while. It’s four books, and the first one alone is 40-50 chapters of varying lengths that mostly just puts down the foundation for the other three.  It’s still very intimidating to look at all this and realize how much story this is; it’s a lot of story and I have some stuff that I need to keep in mind.  Like for example I had severe asthma when I was a kid, to the point that PA class was nearly impossible without a pump.  As a result of this, I have a *much* lung capacity larger capacity and I tend to… not put commas where they normally should be.

I was taught to put commas where you should normally take a breath and I need to take less breaths when talking than normally thanks to the inhaled steroid treatment.  Makes sense now? :p

So the story will happen, i’ve got a bit written.  More to write starting next week (saving weekdays for editing I think) since this weekend is a write-off due to FFXI and FFXIV being back up.

But before I get to that I promised some hot computer action.

Shortly before the downtime my computer starting to act worryingly.  After returning from work I found my computer off, which is odd because I leave it on to log MSN stuff.  My phone can occasionally miss a few messages.  Boot up, no ram.

Insert scream here.

Cas lent me eight gigs of ram from her old system and this is what ended up frying.  Needless to say I felt like total shit.  I swapped them around, nothing.  I slapped in my old ram and it finally booted, went into bios and screamed again; voltages were about 10% higher than normal.  I concluded quickly that my motherboard was finally hitting the dust.

Wow good thing i’m not writing today I sound like crap.  River of bricks! (Brocks?)

Anywhoo, good news is that I was already planning a good future-proofing upgrade. Long story short here I put in the HSF wrong and the sound card in a semi-reserved slot… and didn’t put all the risers in.  I got demerits on my geek license now, and I deserve them. Luckily the good people at MemoryExpress (local comp shop) tested, remounted, and retested everything for me and now it works!

Fuckedaround is dead, long live Lazarus.

• CPU: AMD 1090T 6-core
• Mobo: Crossfire IV Forumla
• Ram: 8 gigs of G.SKILL ripjaws
• New 120gig SSD HDD for Win7/FFXI/FFXIV
• Scythe Mugen cooler

Lots of old parts too: PSU, sound card, two HDD, monitors etc all the same as before.  Now for the scary part.

I can’t get it at 100% load.  At all.

As of right now I got three FFXI clients running, Firefox 4, and Foobar2000 and it’s running at a paltry 26C with 18% load.  With FFXIV it only gets to 33C and 35-40% load.

FFXI I was able to bump to it’s limit pretty much, three clients at 1440×900 with double background resolution steady at 30fps unless i’m in port jeuno.

FFXIV is nice at 30-60fps at drawing quality 8 (80%), no AA, background quality 5 (highest), and all the pretty effects except occlusion (which is broken).

I have no games right now which pushes this beast, and with nothing pushing system temps higher than 50c, this system will last me a very long time unless I get stupid with it.

Log excerpt from Anienne R Moynel

Magian Log, Day 1, Windurst Residential District
This morning I woke up to a surprise.  My darling wife Myrna had just gotten her old temple attire out of storage was was trying it on.  Much to her dismay, years of training as a dragoon has made her legs considerably more muscled than before and she tore some of her trunks in the process.  However despite this, she did proudly proclaim that she was taking up her monk training again in earnest and that she needed my help.  I was perplexed and asked her why she needed my help, then I was about ready to smack her when she showed me: she had another one of those accursed magian weapons.  As she tried to convince me that this was in fact something she would finish, we both made the startling revelation that she did not wash her old attire before storing it and that the storing company made no attempt to wash it.  The tailor’s bill was severe.

Day 8, Riverne Site #B01
The first few days are a blur, in all honesty.  We are now camping in Riverne, well I am, awaiting once again for the prescribed condition to occur to progress on her weapons.  I was told the moogles discovered new techniques to empower the weapons and the results are startling! What took her weeks before took us barely a few hours.  But as I said before, I am the only one camping.  Myrna is as far as I can tell, meditating.

Day 9, Riverne Site #B01
Progress slowed down considerably. We surmised that the conditions can only be met one a week, so we will make excursions there at the times, as opposed to camping out as we usually do.  I did inquire to Myrna about her meditating, and she said something about “re-aligning her chakras” or something like that, and offered to show me.  I politely declined, but we did laugh at how out of character it seemed to me to have her sit so still for hours.  I will have to ask Darian because I have never seen her like that.  Is it hard to believe she seems calmer now?

Day 11, Riverne Site #B01
The claws are complete, at least for now.  I was sick of losing sleep due to the endless thunderstorms around here.

Day 14, Attohwa Chasm
We had another bout of whirlwind progress again, it was nice that this time Tinuvael came to help us, and keep us company.  Myrna is noticeably getting stronger, she said herself that it is coming back to her.  She again offered to show me but again I politely declined.  I am not nearly as flexible as most, much less a mithra and even less Myrna.  However she continues to meditate.  We are camping out here in the chasm because the conditions can occur with very litle notice.  It’s been two days and she’s barely moving. I swear I am seeing dust gather around my wife, now a statue in the lotus position.

Day 16, Attohwa Chasm
I recall a story Darian once told me about her, that she spent several *weeks* in Ordelle’s Caves hunting down a monster all by herself, with only a linkshell and what she wore.  Up until today I refused to believe him or that Myrna was capable of that. She has not moved.  It has been three days and she Has. Not. Moved.  Tinuvael is coming with supplies later, I am ashamed to admit that I have been consuming a lion’s share of them.  Progress is slow and this place is horrifically dry.

Day 17, Attohwa Chasm
I talked to Myrna today, who has still not moved, and there was almost a serene presence to her.  She was quite different that was I am used to; a veritable font of energy, confidence or subborness.  Now she emits this clam and resolve that cannot be put into words.  I am again ashamed to admit that camping out here is taking its toll on my body.  I am considering taking her up on her offer.

Day 19, Attohwa Chasm
Shortly after my last entry I did as Myrna to show me how she could meditate like that, and when she got up it confirmed my suspicions.  There was a crest of dust around she was was sitting.  First thing she showed me was stretches.  Now I know we are in the middle of nowhere but I still have great reservations about disrobing myself in public, unlike Myrna.  It was brutal.  Never before could I imagine that my body could be in such pain, especially from the “arch” position that she showed me.  I was holding it for as long as I could, but she still helped me by holding up my back while still maintaining her own arch with an ease that I cannot even hope to reach.  While she was demonstrating the stretches I was amazed and highly distracted by how her tone had improved, and it was my fault for several reasons that the stretches took twice as long.  On the second day I tried the lotus position.  It is a good thing Myrna knows how to massage cramps out.

Day 20, Attohwa Chasm
I slept.  I slept so well I can hardly believe it.  I attempted the lotus again and once I got it right, Myrna showed me breathing exercises and such to meditate.  Sometime during I dozed off because I woke up in what little I was wearing with the sun rising.  Myrna had grabbed a blanket and covered us for the night, thankfully, so I did not wake with a death of a cold.  She waited until I rose to do her morning stretches with me, and I fully intend to join her in meditation for today at the very least.  It was oddly relaxing.  Maybe I should ask her what the heck a “chakra” is as well.

Day 31, Attohwa Chasm
I apologize for not being diligent with this log, as I have been in almost constant meditation with Myrna.  I will honestly admit that I never truly believed her when she said that she was raised in a monastery but recent events have truly opened my eyes.  We had prime conditions yesterday and completed the trial, but I asked if we could spend another day in the quiet of Attohwa together, and we simply meditated together.  She never often spoke of her upbringing until a few months ago when she opened up to me, and now I feel like she has let me in on a small part of her life before.  Maybe she is right, there’s nothing that can stand in our way.

Day 32, Bostaunieux Oubliette
We are both in agreement.  HATE LEECHES.

For years now I’ve been dissecting the journal of the person who I once called father, Kohren-Mohren.  Maybe you’ve heard of him somehow but I doubt it; his records were destroyed or sealed shortly after it was discovered what he did in Kazham all those years.  For his crimes (far too numerous to list here) he was wanted for high treason and to be executed on sight if he ever stepped foot on our continent ever again.

I had to pull every favor to get his journal, and even then it was drained of all magic and forbidden to leave my house.  It still is.  What it contained was horrifying but it gave me some insight into the person that he really was.  I think he knew that all of us would never forgive him.  I know I still can’t.

His actions directly led to the death of dozens of innocents, the death of my mother and grandmother, the disappearance of Shikaree M and whatever my aunt became.  As I read his journal, I realize that I will never know what happened to her.

I hope he’s rotting in hell.

Personal feelings aside, I’m writing this as a service to Windurst; twisted as they were his methods need to be documented to know how we can avoid it.  This tragedy that lasted almost fifty years must never be repeated again and who knows, maybe one day we can learn something from that sick little taru.  Or worse, we might need his methods.

I pray to Altana I never live to see the day.

-Myrna Moynel, Mercenary Major, Windurst

Long story short (this will be funny in a sec) i’m getting off my ass and writing the whole Myrna story thing.

Except that i’m still looking for titles.  Eh heh…

In any case got organization going here and hell, I might just start to post that other stuff i’ve been writing.

All for my humiliation and your amusement.

That about sums up how I feel right now.

Anywhoo, ffxi.

I’m at the last two stages of my high damage magian hammer and greatsword, and can’t wait to finish both. I skilled myself to 232 greatsword and I’m pleasantly surprised by spinning slash so far. It’s nice consistant dmg and skills nicely with club.

SMN is still 65 because Tinu and Anrym need Diabolos and Fenrir. And this is because i’ve been totally obsessed with Magians. @.@ I totally forgot about Nether Blast and it might just be my ticket to leveling safer. Somnolence is another thing, it might help me kill tigers that much faster. In any case, my damage shot up.

I’ve been writing again but I’m severly hampered by allergies and fatigue. At least I can refocus all my energies that I put into magians into writing for now. I need to put more time aside for writing, I want to write that long-ass story dammit. My goal is at least a chapter a week.

The wedding is Monday, and I still need to draft things. I’m nervous but I’m dedicating the majority of the weekend to it.

I consider myself ready for cap 80 now. Anrym is leveling in sync parties, my weapons are almost complete. I’m not seriously planning a stribog for drg, but I’ll consider it if I want a break from smn.

That’s all for now.

Quick update: got to stage six in my magian high damage weapons, and did a trio of kclubs last night. No drops but 150k. SMN trio is so damm easy.

Hope y’all enjoy the ride!

~~~~~~~~~

The Proposal

Aht Uhrgan was the bustling, loud and prosperous center of activity in the near east where thousands of adventurers would pass through looking to make a quick bit of gil or seek adventure, if one knew where to look. Unfortunately our attention today is towards a small semi-forgotten outpost to the north; Nashmau, known to most as ratville.

Here, it’s quiet, foggy and the Qiqirn are going about their daily business with the occasional adventurer passing through to the lethal mire to break the daily routine. An odd pair of adventurers had been part of the daily routine for a while now.

Myrna sat at the docks in her usual blue fishing grab, whipping the fish out of the water with the ease that came with years of fishing experience. To the untrained eye she looked perfectly still while trying to land the daily catches, but Anienne, or Anrym as she’s most commonly known, knew far better. Anrym caught onto all her little cues from over a year of being with her; how Myrna’s tail would twitch the instant something would hit the line, or how her thumbs would grip her fishing rod differently if she was trying to goad a fish into biting. In this case though, an obvious grimace indicated whatever Myrna was trying to convince it to fulfill its destiny at the bottom of her pail decided otherwise.

Anrym scooted over to Myrna, “So, you have been at this most of the day you know, you could stop for a bit.”, she motioned over to the rather full pail of fish and bivalves she hauled, “They usually do not appreciate fish they cannot rot themselves you know.” Anrym winced a bit at the thought while giving Myrna a hug at rubbing her shoulder a bit, which she reciprocated with a barely audible purr.

“I said I ain’t stoppin’ until there’s no more fish in the water dammit.” Myrna stretched herself a bit and snuck a quick kiss on Anrym before resting herself on Anrym’s shoulder. “But yeah, we should call it a day though. I think the fish are started to get annoyed with me…”, she finally stood up and stretched fully, but she still was dwarfed by Anrym’s Elvaan proportions. With Anrym in tow, they set to sell off to the locals the haul of the day to the usual crowd who would set the fish out to ripen outside. The local bird ecosystem was very thankful for this custom, the Qiqirn however were not because tomorrow, they knew that half the fish would be gone and they would have to buy even more to make the infamous Nashmau Stew.

Unsurprisingly, the non-Qiqirn locals were thankful that the stew never ended up being made in the end, and for the delicious birds that could be cooked locally now.

The pair’s role in the great Nashmau routine satisfied, Myrna went to go look out into what they could see of the sea from the upper levels of the docks. After Anrym finished off her own business in town she finally found her, “So there you are.”, she wrapped her arms around her lover and looked out to the fog with her. “Something on your mind, dear?”

Myrna sighed, “Yeah, guess so. Hey you happy?”

Anrym looked a bit puzzled at the question, but nodded an affirmative and held Myrna tighter, “Of course I am! Why would you think otherwise?”

“Well this is new territory for you, and I started to wonder really…”, Myrna sighed, “Bah never mind, just some baseless worries I guess.”

“Bullshit.”

It was always surprising when Anrym actually cussed because despite herself she would always blush a bit, being raised a proper lady and all. Every time this happened Myrna always smiled because it reminded her of how far she’s come.

Myrna reluctantly broke the embrace and turned to Anrym and smiled, “All right then, if you insist then.” She took Anrym’s delicate hands, “W-we’ve been lovers for a few months now, but we’ve known each other for far longer than that before.”, she stopped to chuckle a bit, “And in all honesty this isn’t how I pictured how I would end up! But I uh, wouldn’t have it any other way. And well…”

Anrym blushed considerably as she pointed out, “You’re babbling, just say it!”

“Marry me.”

Anrym’s little world froze in time for a fraction of a second while her brain tried to process what she just heard. After it realized that despite everything life goes on, it did the biological equivalent of cursing itself out and resumed Anrym’s heart at a much higher rate minus one missed heartbeat in the cycle. “W-w-w-what? W-wait did you…?”

“Anienne R Moynel, will you do me the honor of joining me in marriage?”

Myrna was just about as nervous as Anrym and her body language was screaming it but Anrym was far too busy with her own jumbled thoughts at the moment. It rapidly went from panic to hallucinating Myrna in full Paladin regalia to finally how she and Radielle would often talk about how they would meet a noble knight one day.

A split second later she regained focus only to see a worried look on Myrna, followed by a falling sensation along with her world going completely black.

FFXI

Although no news of the new wedding system is available, I’m starting the story very shortly. I have a backup plan.

Anrym’s reach a very nice stage right now, her gear is excellent and melée gear is slowly accumulating.

CoP is progressing amazingly well, we just need to take time to level up two members soon, so sea won’t be a giant pause button. Ire needs sky, I wonder if we can get some done this weekend…

Minipacs are bought, I did pretty much ziltch on them but got the cape, which we used today. Extremely useful item!

Got back into chocoracing, looking into MAYBE starting up circuit races soon but I’m slightly nervous about IX’s stats. That, and with the new silks I have stuff to blow Gil and time on.

Fishing caught me again too, the new MMM fishing maze is very nice so far, albeit difficult to solo.

So tl;dr on ffxi, major goals almost done, looking to get back into old habits!

REAL LIFE

Work’s been murder. I still like it but hours lately have been hard on me. I’m looking forward to my first Xmas bonus ever too.

Still broke but not cripplingly so. Major debt is looking to be cleared out in march, and when that happens it’s happy time for all! I need however, to remind myself that after December overtime might not be as accessible. Jan-March might be tight.

Netbook will have to wait. See above.

Will be an uncle soon. Joy.

And finally, dad’s coming over in a few weeks.

WRITING

The untitled “Myrna’s story” is actually ridiculously planned out. Book one is looking a lot thicker than before however, being three parts now. Overtime has killed my motivation and energy to write (and thus, no nanowimo this year) but I’m hoping to get started around Xmas when I get all that yummy time off.

And that’s all for now.
I’m still really awake too. Dammit.