Pre-warning: Longer than usual blog that has nothing to do with the fanfic

Yeah, remember those old Chef Boyardee beefy stuff or whatever commercials that used to air? Just look at the title and think about that for a second. Boy, aren’t I creative!-_-

However, you heard right: after countless pqing, waiting to pq, and wondering why I still pq anymore, the coveted Chief Bandit title is MINE! At long last, my goal has been reached! I HAVE THE POWER!

Heh, good ol’ He-Man. It’s thanks to him we have a line for moments like these.

I’ll tell you this, though, it was quite an adventure getting there; weeks of working my butt off to get to the job and putting up with SO MUCH CRAP along the way. Wait, I’m sorry, hang on. *grabs marker, makes correction* TOO MUCH CRAP. Yeah, that looks better.

So what exactly did my mental state of being have to endure while leveling? Well, let me put it into a couple lessons I learned that will never leave my memory for as long as I play this game:

Number one: Orbis PQ has even MORE jerks and idiots than Ludi did. I joke you not. I swear, it’s almost as if putting a glitch feature in this game makes thing go so much rougher there. Oh, forget almost, it DOES! First of all, with the need for everyone to have pieces in these pqs, joining a party (sometimes even starting one) has become jackloads harder. For minutes, perhaps hours at a time, all people seem to do is spam, spam, spam. “Joining pq” this, “recruiting” that, gah, it DRIVES ME INSANE! What is the DEAL with all that?

Actually, there’s a pretty good explanation: in some parts of the game(if not the whole thing itself), patience doesn’t seem to exist. My proof? Virtually nobody has the fortitude to buck up and say, “y’know, I bet if I just stop spamming and just get a farming session going(farming=gathering six pieces for glitching), we could have those pieces easily. Yeah, we have to give up more experience, but it certainly beats sitting around waiting for other people to find us or whatever.” Oh, no, we just have to have pieces. FOR PETES SAKE, NO YOU DON’T! Just FARM, for crying out loud! You GET THE PIECES ANYWAY!

Besides, what could be more thrilling than killing firecats on suspended platforms?^_^ Those buggers are so much fun, no matter how many times I fall off.

Also, it seems what I call the “jerk gene” hasn’t left the Orbis pq alone. In fact, the place is probably just as infected as Ludi. For one, if people aren’t begging to be partying with pieces, then they’re stealing them. A great deal of pqs I’ve been on have been crapped up in many ways because someone decided to sneak in the exit area and steal, or not hand over pieces to smugglers and just leave with them instead. Unfortunately, there isn’t that much we can do about it, unless we know how to steal back. Basically, this pq comes with 0% honor included. Yep, gotta bring it yourself!-_- I just wish more people would, though.

Oh, and that’s not all(did I say this blog would be long?XD). It’s especially “exciting” to see people go bonkers over missing a glitch! Yeah, I can understand just fine if the whole party crapped up and only one or two got it, but it’s usually five, if a miss happens. Barring the loss of an extra 7500 xp, WHAT IS THE FREAKING DEAL?! So we missed one or two. It’s rather difficult to tell who did, unless they aren’t the dishonest kind, so just get out of the pq and try again! Now if there’s a huge row of misses, I can see why people would get mad, but I’ve seen players abandon ship after just a few goof-ups. Mistakes can happen, some people don’t know how to glitch, and losing some xp does stink and all, but it’s stupid to spam what or whatever after one or two misses. Just give it another try or two before deciding who should leave.

Phew! Okay, that seems to be all I have against OPQ. I’ll tell you this, the xp and levels I get(per day) from that event is usually worth everything.

Okay, on to another thing I learned: Forest of Golem is full of arrogance. Basically, I mean this: if you’re between lvs 50 and 70 and you want to grind up some living stone for money, equips, or just a break frompqing, bring all the willpower you can, because there will be people who berate you for that. It actually didn’t happen to me too many times, but I did have my problems, and they hack me off. Apparently, there are players who will tell others, especially lower levels, to cc immediately without even thinking of offering to party, or at least recognize the fact that FoG is one of the spawn-happiest places in the game; GOLEMS EVERYWHERE! I also had to look out for people who jump in the area after you and ks like crazy. A party I was in got in a huge ks war against a very powerful bandit over that! If it wasn’t for the money I made from it, I would’ve just stopped grinding altogether.

I lounged around the grinding forest for one level. I vowed never to go back there again until my third job.

Couple that with expensive hp and mp recovery items(or as I like to call them food and drink =D) bought hundreds at at time keeping my funds fairly stagnant(fun fact: not once in this game have I gotten higher than the 3 millions in mesos-_-) and you have a situation that Charles Dickens could make a thrilling story about.

What can I say, I like to read. Haven’t read Dickens’s stuff, though. Don’t know if I will, it all looks real long.

o_O Ok, what was I talking about again?

Ah, yes, the CB status. I’m so giddy over it! I’m also so glad over how well it went, it was really worth the trouble I waded through.

After the prestigious level 70 was attained, I immediately set to work. I double-checked all my equips(I’m still amazed I had a near entire lv 70 armor set well before all this happened^_^), then spent some monies on 100 unagi(200 total), 200 water, and 69 fat sausages(mmmm, meaty!). Ah, the food of ninjas. Anyway, after making sure I had my dark crystal stuff for later, I fell down the tower to El Nath, raced to Arec(man, those third job people look so cool and mysterious!), got the info, and ran to the ship. A few boring minutes of “hurry up and wait” later, I was on the flying ship, proclaiming my third-job arrival to my guildies(Phoenix Tears, ain’t none better!). Wait, what’s that above m-CRIMSON BALROG! HIT THE DECK! *runs inside* (BTW, that wasn’t reader’s eye candy, I really did almost get smacked by a flying masked furball. All hail my absentminded nature.XD)

So I finally made it to Ellinia, and my anticipation was growing. After setting off to Kerning(my batmobile lost a wheel(creative again), so I had to take the cab), I went to the jazz hall, jumped down the toilet, and talked to the bat-like ninja. After a raving story of proving my worth and an evil clone(Dark Lord X is my idea for the name), I slid down the sewers, stealthily zooming through the swamps filled with crocs, monkeys, and one sweet-looking background. Yes, the portal, I made it! Wow, looks shimmery, like a black hole or something. *touches and gets sucked away forever!*

Inside, the cave is simply one of the shiniest I have ever seen before. If only I could stare at it all day! But, the clock ticks right from the get-go, so let’s do it! *dashes to big chamber*

Inside, Dark Lord is there! And he’s standing…around….man, these boss fights start easy. So how did the fight go, you ask? Let’s crunch some numbers, eh?

Dark Lord, despite his lack of interesting moves(two total: maple stars and avengers, along with the ability to make you sweat), is intensely powerful. Some things for future CBs and hermits(stupidest class name in the game btw) to keep in mind.

DL’s Avenger: Around 1k-1100 damage. For me, that was just over half my health(1928 hp or so). God help you if you only take white pots to this guy. Looks freaking sweet.

DL’s stars: around 740. More than I expected. Suprisingly slow and dodgeable, but don’t get overconfident. By the way, they really do look like maple stars. Just look closely.

DL’s body: mid 400s. One strategy I used was to stand practically on top of the guy while SBing him. Sounds insane, but compared to his stars, isn’t all that bad. Plus, if you’re on him enough, his stars may miss you!^_^

DL’s cronies: two, then four, tauromacis. My first tauros ever fought. Amazingly enough(on the contrary to what a guildie told me), weaker than DL. Of course, it only makes sense that they are. Touch dmg is around 400, lighning attack is around the 730s.

Even with all this stacked against me, I stayed on Dark Lord no matter what. Even with my heart pounding, I kept fighting, knowing that after seeing dozens of third-job videos on youtube, this fight really wasn’t as hard as it seemed.

Then, the moment came. During the fight, I hit DL, then he disappeared. The lower right corner of the screen drew my eye: “You have gained 24000 experience.* THE NINJA NUT IS DEAD! BOOYAH! So I grabbed the charm and cleaned off the magical bulls, and left with a smile. The real master ninja was happy, and so was my guild. Unfortunately, I was only halfway done. After the body was examined, it was time to test…..MY BWAIN!

Before that, though, some post-battle stats:
Unagis used: 61(139)(I was a bit freaked over the damage I was taking)
Water used: 7(193)(Now THAT suprised me)
Deaths suffered: 1(Yeah, I won’t lie. It was mainly due to some lag and my recovery stuff being on wrong buttons. Only lost half a point of sp, so no biggie.)

During and after the trip to El Nath, I got some pointers about the questions: five picked from a total of twenty, and a guide on basil market had them all(zombies on pogo sticks, I actually have another use for that site!). Reaching El Nath, I forged a Dark Crystal, then dark-sight-hasted off to the holy grounds. Once there, I was treated to a wonderful suprise: my guild leader, NgocPhuong, was there! She wanted to see me pull my job off personally.^_^ She also had an extra dark crystal in case I fouled up. Before I began, I asked her if the questions were easy or hard. She said they were easy. Believe it, they are. I didn’t peek at the guide once, and I found them much easier than I expected. In the end, I succeeded. Heh, I’m shmart.

So we dashed back to town together and talked to Arec. After a few last minute check-ups, he popped the question, and I said yes. One glowing angel figure later, my goal had been reached. My five AP went to luck, and my first new skill was christened Assaulter. She was eager to see it and so was I. Unfortunately, it only works around monsters, so I can’t really insta-port as much as I thought. Eh, whatever, at least bandits and wizards have something in common! We went back to the fields we went through and I tried it out.

I can kill a jr. Yeti in THREE hits with that move. I don’t care what advice I get, I’m mastering that move FIRST!

So all in all, a pinnacle has been claimed, and my life on MS has jumped to new levels. It only makes me mad that I can’t do this on SEA as well, and show all my readers how happy I am. Nonetheless, I will certainly enjoy my new bandity life. However, this also means I’ll be playing MS a bit less for a while, since my primary goal was attained before summer vacation being halfway over. I’d like to get back into FlyFF. Haven’t played that enough, and Silver’s latest blog has me looking at it with greater interest than before.

Hope you enjoyed the read, sorry it was so long, but let’s face it: it’s been a while since I wrote a non-story blog. Speaking of which, my next fic chapter will be done no later than tomorrow.

Mountain Dew for you!^_^