Wine not?

Originally posted in my other blog 18th March 2008

I know I've not been posting lately, partly due to my not wanting to bore people with stories of adventures in Vana'diel and partly because nothing exciting has been happening outside in Real Life.

However, last nights adventure is worth recording for posterity.

A bit of background...newbies often get 'adopted' by more experienced players within Final Fantasy. Maybe they come across a newb who has bitten off far more than they can handle and is now running frantically to a safe point or in some people's case, button mashing*. Or perhaps they happen upon a cooling corpse, and either call for a "Raise" or, if a White Mage, perform the spell themselves. Some grateful thanks (and retrieved Experience) and the newb is on his/her way with some helpful advice and a friend request. We're at a level where we are now helping out newbier newbs, and are getting hangers-on ourselves.

If the newbie character is female, there's a chance 'she' will get hit on. Since most players are male (even with the Final Fantasy demographic apparently having more female players than most games), this usually has amusing consequences (for reasons I will keep for another day, my character is female).

Anyway, one of these helpful players (from herein named Puppy Dog Eyes, or PDE) has kept in touch with me, and last night asked if I wanted to try fighting a Burning Circle Notorious Mob (BCNM). I didn't know what he was talking about either. A check on Wiki...and I learnt it's a fight in a sort of arena (the Burning Circle) against one or more particular tough (notorious) monsters (mobs). See, not so confusing.

Sounded like fun as I had nothing better to do.

I spend half an hour riding to Jeuno at which point PDE reminds me that we need to bring a certain item that, whilst we both had, were in long term storage and could only be obtained from Windurst. Where I had just left. So back I went.

We pick up the items I need, and check on my Chocobo (don't ask) and teleport back to Jeuno.

After meeting up and doing what we need to do to start the quest, we move on to San d'Oria, another half an hour away. Then final 20 minute walk to where we need to go.

Right.

Ready.

I should perhaps add that I already had a bad feeling about this, as I'd had a fair bit of a bottle of wine that evening.

I'll also add that whilst running up and down the length of the continent, I had looked up the BCNM that PDE had told use we were going to fight. And it appeared it wasn't where we were heading. No matter, as not knowing which one made no difference really. But I did start to wonder if we were in capable hands.

We gear up ready to go into the fight. Tactics are discussed. They are simple at the best of times, and I will pass them on.

Kihrara, as the best fighter we had, would go as Tank. This means she basically keeps the monsters attention by using an ability called Provoke, a way of basically shouting "Hit Me! Hit Me!" to the monster to keep it's attention. If this doesn't happen, then the Mob will decide to attack the closest magic user (me) and if he dies, the party is well and truly screwed. Using magic is not so much waving a red rag at a bull, more like slapping him on the ass with it. Hard.

PDE, would go as damage dealer. Essentially, whilst Kihrara has the mobs full and complete attention, he hits it with some sort of weapon.

My role, as White Mage, is to keep them both alive using Cure spells. I'm a White Mage. It's what I do.

A sound plan, and one that works.

You can't see where this is going, can't you.

We enter the fight.

30 seconds later, and we're all dead.

Yes, 30 seconds.

Dead.

And that's including the time it took to run up to the mob in the first place.

Let me rewind a little.

We walk uphill along a corridor to the circular arena, where the three mobs are there, waiting. I'm hanging back, as I don't want to get hit (and my spells are ranged, so why take a risk when I can stay near the exit?). Kihrara fires off Provoke on one of them, which then starts to attack her. So far so good.

Suddenly, PDE's health drops to half as he takes a hit. Not good. I cast Cure, and immediately draw the third mob's attention. Kihrara and I both get hit. Kihrara gets knocked across the arena into the opposite wall. I get knocked twice as far back down the corridor to the arena. The only good thing is that now I'm out of sight of the mob who hit me, so it goes for PDE. Who dies.

Okay, one down and two at half strength. Not good. I run back up to the arena so I can see Kihrara (and cast a Cure). Bad move. I cast, but get hit again. This not only knocks me down to very little remaining health, but also puts me half way down the corridor again. By the time I get up, Kihrara's on 6 health (from a start of around 300) and I'm on 10. And the mob that hit me is coming over. I consider words like "Valour", "Honour", "Fight to the death to avenge your comrades" and come around to "Bugger this for a game of soldiers" and leg it for the exit.

Mages can't run fast (You try running in baggy trousers whilst carrying a 7 seven foot staff strapped to your back) so let's say I didn't get far. I certainly didn't make the exit.

Kihrara managed to survive, oh, I don't know, another second or so longer than me.

Well, I found it funny.





*button mashing has been defined in other posts, I am sure, but it's our term for those moments of panic when you can't make the character on the screen do what you want, panic, and promptly try pressing every button on the controller and/or keyboard in the vain hope you will get the right combination. You don't, ever. No, really.