Project Morgenstern: Part 3

I goofed off most of today. The last of my auctions from the weekend finally cleared, and Captsassypants sent me my share of the gil from the Orichalcum Ingot, so I had lots of gil to sink into stacks of Moat Carp. It was enough to inch me over the half way point to Lu Shang’s Rod.

Once DeAnn logged onto Kerith, we teamed up with Demetrion and did some BCNM40 - Under Observation. It drops the Peacock Charm, which auctions off nicely. Normally, the three of us would go MNK, RDM, BST, but this time we decided to go as 3xBST. Demetrion said it’s an easy fight with that setup. We died the first round trying to get our strategy right, but made it through the other two with little panic. Didn’t seem any easier than the other setup, but maybe it just takes some getting used to. No Peacock Charm, but Utsusemi: Ni dropped. That’s about 70k apiece.

Next, we got a mostly LS merit party together: Talon’s THF, Kitiara’s WAR, Eleazar’s BRD, Keri’s RDM and yours truly on WHM/NIN. I figured I might as well work on whatever little bit was left on my Morgenstern, and try to cap Club skill while at it. We picked up JP DNC (read: pwnt) and went to Caedarva Mire by way of Azouph Isle Staging Point. We went on a pulling rampage, killing everything in northern part of the area, much to the dismay of the lower level parties there. We got some nasty shouts and tells from one party. They had issues of their own – if they can’t take anything but imps then we’re doing them a favor by helping them disband.

At any rate, about half an hour into the party, after I had gotten all the buffer I’d wanted and then some, I noticed something strange. I was pulling hate. And popping critical hits like candy. And Hexa Striking in the 700-800’s. That’s when it hit me: the latent on the Morgenstern had broken! Kiti and Talon both congratulated me, and said they want one, too. I sure wouldn’t mind doing some more KS runs. I mean, what else are those seals doing in my house except gathering dust? Shortly after this, my Club skill dinged a beautiful blue 256 – finally capped. Got some random parry, healing and enhancing levels, as well as a crash course in blink tanking on WHM and two merits. That let me sink 3 of the 4 merits I had into another level of Hand-to-Hand. All in all, it was a very productive and FUN merit party.

I went to sky and went AFK until sky hunt. I didn’t realize that there was none scheduled. >.< Still had a decent showing, nearly a full alliance at its height. Quaide and Eiael were the official leaders; I took attendance, lotted the pop items and directed us to Ullikummi after our Despot kill. I can see me leading sky hunts sometime – that was a lot of fun. We hunted for a Diorite for well over an hour, and just when it looked like we were going to leave empty handed, the last statue for the night dropped the stone. A few moments later we popped Ulli and got our hands on his Autumnstone. Hooray for more Byakko!