Chipping Away
I'm a day behind now so maybe a second entry later tonight.
Sampi, Shp, and BRD quadrod ToAU missions 29 and 31 - the mamool ja wivre rider and then the lamia swarm. The rider went down like a punk, barely bothering to Blazing Angon us a few times before dying a miserable death. The lamia swarm, on the other hand, actually posed smoe challenge. Shp aggroed them when I was still half a map square away and we all died pretty quick. After I raised everyone up and buffed the crap out of myself we tried it again. Sampi and Shp were doing pretty good damage but that 100/tic poison per hit from the Lamia was a real bitch and I had to keep sleeping them. A crafty use of Benediction saved the day.
I went on the U range ENM with Lar, Gri, Mak, Sha, and Kis (though Kis had to leave early). For future reference, the Holy Cow ENM is NOT at the Snoll Tzar Bearclaw Pinnacle - you have to slide down the moutain. Few people missed but I landed on it and managed to tractor everyone up. Crappy drop but 4000 merit points got me my final merit to cap Blue Mage physical potency at 5/5. Yay! Next is magical accuracy.
I did a late night ISNM run and got a Khroma ore drop (and actually a lot of other good gil items too) but the best fight by far was when the NIN and MNK died, leaving me as the sole melee on BLU along with the backline of RDM BLM and BRD. I pretty quickly realized that my blue magic wasn't going to be the deciding factor with a BLM nuking so I mainly tried to hold hate, which I did rather well until the RDM died from Cure IVing me. We did manage to win with three people up so it was very satisfying. I'm sure the guy who used his orders was relieved. I also noticed Kya (on BRD) was doing a great job on the timing (the deaths weren't her fault at all) and generally has a good attitude, so I'm adding her to my "list of AXI people I can probably count on when an event turns sour". Actually, I don't have that list written down. Maybe in another entry.
Today's Saturday salvage was cancelled. Weds was cancelled too.. two in a row. Sucks. Dynamis - Xarc in a few hours but I have a team meeting in a few minutes. I doubt it'll go until five, but we have a pretty decent amount of work to do still. I'm still not sure which is the lesser evil: spending a long time on the boring project, or getting done in time to go to Xarcabard. Well, we'll see.