Journeys through Granado Espada

Level Up Gift Boxes

2012-01-16T11:27:00.001-05:00

We received some Level Up Gift Boxes recently but only opened them today.
From the 3 LevelUp_GiftBox110, we received:

Tactics Manual: Expert (7 Days-Event)
Event Socket Flux x2
Ancient Star Orb x150
Mass Health Filler x6
Polish: Veteran x21
Level 100 Enchantment Chip x3

From the 3 LevelUp_GiftBox120, we received:

Combat Manual Expert (7 Days-Event) x2
Event Socket Flux
Ancient Star Orb x300
Mass Health Filler x6
Damaged Ancient Polish x12
Level 100 Enchantment Chip x3

First entry of 2012

2012-01-07T19:09:00.003-05:00

Happy New Year,

As the first entry of the new year, I'll catalog the state of the family, at least in terms of characters.

Family Level 36 + 3
Family Reputation 85197
Barrack #1

Louise - Female Wizard - Veteran 2
Eloise - Female Elementalist - Expert 1
Maria - Female Fighter - Veteran 5
Grace Bernelli - Expert 3
Romina - Expert 2
Florence - Female Scout - Expert 3
Iris - Female Musketeer - Veteran 5
Calypso - Veteran 2
Adelina Esperanza the Pirate - Veteran 5

Barrack #2

Baek Ho - Veteran 1
Soso - Veteran 1
Gracielo - Level 65
Irawain - Level 64
Detective Gertrude - Veteran 1
Vincent Rio - Veteran 2
Karjalain - Veteran 1
Viki - Veteran 2
Emilia Giannino - Veteran 3

Barrack #3

Idge Imbrulia - Veteran 1
Adelina Esperanza - Level 84
Jose Cortasar - Veteran 1
Asoka - Veteran 3
M'Boma - Veteran 1
Suigintou - Summoner Catherine - Veteran 1
Claude Baudez - Level 84
Lorch Furholen - Veteran 2
Andre Janzur - Veteran 1

Barrack #4

Panfilo de Narvaez - Level 65
Lisa Lynway - Veteran 2
Eduardo - Veteran 1
Coimbra Trooper - Veteran 1
City of Auch Infantry - Veteran 1
Reboldeaux Soldier - Veteran 1
Najib Sharif - Level 91
Brigitte- Brunie Etienne - Master 1
Brunie Etienee - Veteran 2

Barrack #5

Soho - Level 64
Claire - Veteran 2
Rescue Knight - Level 66
Tiburon - Level 69
Ramiro - Veteram 1
Souseiseki - Catherine (STR) - Veteran 1
Nar - Level 60
Ania - Veteran 2
Helena - Veteran 1

Barrack #6

Jack the Engineer - Level 84
Garcia - Level 61
Alejandro - Level 64
Angie - Level 90

Christmas morning

2011-12-25T11:38:00.002-05:00

Dragon's Fangs Hammer (AR 32 blunt with innate +30 Fire)

It's Christmas morning so we opened up the Raiden's Angel boxes from yesterday.
Raiden's Angel

Socket Flux x2
Angler Spinelle x3
Elite Treasure Chest x3 (ETC)
Socket Flux x2
Seeds of Rafflesia x1

Raiden's Angel 2

ETC x3
Citadel of Gods Pass (7 days) x1
Angler Spinelle x3
Veteran G Exp Card x5
ETC x3

Raiden's Angel 3

Angler Spinelle x3
ETC x3
Veteran G Exp Card x5
Siren's Scale x1
Citadel of the Gods Pass (1 Day) x1

Raiden's Angel 4

Citadel of the Gods Pass (1 Day) x1
Socket Flux x2
ETC x3
ETC x3
EC Veteran x3

Raiden's Angel 5

Dragon's Fangs Hammer x1
Angler Spinelle x3
Angler Spinelle x3
ETC x3
Citadel (1Day)

From the various Elite Treasure Chests,

Level 100 Enchantment Chip x 9
Level 96 Enchantment Chip x 8
Level 92 Enchantment Chip x 10
Earth Stone x 25

Christmas Gift

2011-12-24T20:35:00.003-05:00

Happy New Year Fire Cracker

Tonight, we noticed a Christmas Gift box in our normal inventory. Opening it revealed:

Expert Explorer Pack (3 Days)
Santa Hat x3
Santa costume (SCO)
Santa Costume (WIZ)
Santa Costume (FIG)
Santa Costume (ELE)
Santa Costume (MUS)
Snow Spray x50
Christmas Stocking x25
Snowman x25
Happy New Year Fire Cracker x50
Christmas Tree x25
Raiden's Angel x5
Raiden's Angel II x5
Raiden's Angel III x5
Raiden's Angel IV x5
Raiden's Angel V x5

Since our inventory was near capacity, we'll hold off on opening those Raiden's Angel boxes.

X versus Santa X

2011-12-23T17:00:00.001-05:00

They always seem to be taller than us

We do wonder what weapons they wield.

Last night, a kind soul donated a bunch of costumes to us, including the Santa outfits for Grace and Adelina. Therefore, we tried them on and compared them against the Santa versions of the event missions. The items from tonight's Winter Season box were Christmas Tree, Snowman, and 1 Rudolph Hat.

Funny faces of Lisa Lynway

2011-12-22T23:56:00.002-05:00

I thought Tora was a boy.

Continuing on with the friendship quest between Lisa and Adelina, our Adelina had a chat with Lisa at her cafe. The little boy Tora from the previous quest chain has now turned into a little girl and Lisa likes to call Adelina a sister. It also seems that Adelina has either been traveling with our family for the 5 past years or she worked for Lisa for the past 5 years. We could be wrong though but 5 years has definitely gone by somewhere.

Sad face

Angry face?

All happy to work for Adelina

So now Lisa has to visit Adelina and work up to 500 friendship points with her. To do this, Adelina requires massive quantities of Level 88 Enchantment Chips. We turned in 5 chips and only gained 7 friendship points.

In tonight's Winter Season box, we received a combination of Christmas Tree and Snowmen again.

Christmas event day 2

2011-12-21T20:46:00.001-05:00

It's so squishy and peaceful.

It turns out that we can only do each Santa event once per day. So tonight, we changed our team lineup to emphasize melee speed for the single target bosses/crystals and a great-sword for the Glacial Valkyries. Grace's ice spells and the patrols at the Glacial Fortress mission hurt more but it wasn't life threatening.

The drops from tonight's Winter Season Box were 1 Snowman and 3 Christmas Trees. With such poor box rewards, we're tempted to save up for a promotional scroll.

Santa Asoka

2011-12-20T21:28:00.002-05:00

That hairstyle reminds us of Claire.

The Santa costume and hair for Asoka was available in the bazaar today. Since we barely spent the Gold that came with Asoka, we decided to splurge on the costume. There was also a costume set for Valerie too but since we don't have her nor any foreseeable future possibility of getting her, we didn't get it.

2011 Christmas Event - Santa Adelina

2011-12-20T21:24:00.001-05:00

Again without a face

At this point, we had 19 coins and we wandered to try out the Winter Season Box from the Christmas Rapper which required 20 coins. So we spoke to the female fighter again and discovered that we can fight against a Sword wielder. That wielder turned out to be Santa Adelina. When hurt, she first summoned a ring of skeleton gunners.

Totally harmless

Afterwards came the giant skeletons.

The Santa siblings

Finally came Santa Emilia and Santa Grace. Fortunately, Santa Grace did not cast spells this time.

We received 3 Santa Coins from finishing this fight and traded it in for a Winter Season Box. From that box came 1 Christmas Tree and 1 Snowman. We wonder what else the box could contain and whether is it worth it.

2011 Christmas Event - Gift delivery

2011-12-20T21:19:00.000-05:00

Aren't you a little old for this?

The next person we helped was Santa Nunez. His request was to find 3 children, one in each town and deliver gifts to them. Since our home base was in Port Coimbra, we started there first and found the "child".

You look like someone we spanked a few minutes ago.

Twins eh?

2011 Christmas Event - Glacial Fortress

2011-12-20T21:15:00.002-05:00

Didn't we just decapitate you a few minutes ago?

Next was the second mission offered by the male fighter. This mission took us to the Glacial Fortress where we had to eliminate 4 crystals before entering the center to defeat a giant Jack Frost. Afterwards, we had to go out again to find a newly spawned crystal. Defeating that opened up the center area where the reindeer were held. Unbeknownst to us, Tiburon and Ramiro were in that center and were in a groin kicking mood and they got two of our team down before we gave them a good spanking.

2011 Christmas event - Hatching some reindeer

2011-12-20T21:11:00.003-05:00

How does it fit in there?

Next, we tried out the first mission offered by the male fighter dressed int he Santa outfit. The mission was to hatch eggs in order to rescue 5 reindeer. Hatching an egg required 5 medicine and not all eggs contain reindeer. We quickly noticed that the Gacial Valkyrie and just about everyone else is harmless and the only tedious part is finding the eggs themselves.

They're harmless!

2011 Christmas event - Fight against a Staff wielder

2011-12-20T21:07:00.001-05:00

Santa Emilia - Quite scary without a face

Since the fight against Grace went so well, we tried again but picked the fight against a Staff wielder. The Staff user turned out to be a levitating Santa Emilia. When damaged, she calls upon 2 Ogres to attack you. While those Ogres are alive, Santa Emilia is invulnerable.

2011 Christmas event - Fight against a gunner

2011-12-20T21:03:00.002-05:00

I brought my best team as I was expecting the worse.

The game was updated last night and along with the new update is the Christmas event for 2011. This time, it was held right outside of the City of Auch. We first talked with the female fighter in the Santa outfit and volunteered to fight someone wielding a gun.

Grace, meet Santa Grace

That person turned out to be Santa Grace and she actually wait for you to make the first move. Her bullets weren't particularly harmful but then she started to cast various AOE spells and those were quite painful, especially to my Grace as Healing Potions actually had to be consumed.

Those reindeer must have been hiding somewhere.

The Withdrawal

2011-12-19T19:55:00.000-05:00

Run! Run! It's the last ship!

Continuing from the last entry, the Captain and Grace managed to come home last Saturday. Just getting back was a story by itself as they were originally scheduled to start leaving the country today.

On the 14th, they noticed that the base was packed with soldiers and they had the largest escort of soldiers they ever had when visiting the work site. The mess hall was also packed that night. However, on the morning of the 15th, when they visited the mess hall for breakfast, it was entirely empty of soldiers and half of the hall was closed. They thought nothing of it until later in the afternoon when they visited the port. When the soldier at the port saw them, he exclaimed that he were looking for them and that they had better get their bags quick as this was the last ship to leave the country. The soldier at the port told them that during the night, all the soldiers had left on a long caravan to a neighboring country.

This last ship was almost empty of passengers as everyone else was supposed to have left already. The purpose of the ship was to carry a General's personal boat and the last remaining soldiers.

As to the mission, it was a mixed success. CATH2 was operational in her home but became pouty one day. She refused to let anyone touch her and slept for 2 days. Fortunately, just as mysteriously, she overcame her mood swing and started working again. As a precaution, we had Dr. Torsche send another head but can't do anything at the moment since there's no one with CATH2 anymore. This episode was most annoying to me as when CATH2 became pouty, the only message I received from the Captain was that CATH2 had sustained a fatal injury. Thinking the worse from the word "fatal", there was quite a commotion at home and at Dr. Torsche's lab until we later found out that wasn't that bad.

The first story that Grace told this morning was that she saw something shocking at the guard shack for CATH2. While leaving the site, she happened to look out the window of the carriage and saw 2 native male guards doing inappropriate things to each other in public. It must have left a deep impression.

Trip Epilogue

2011-12-09T22:41:00.001-05:00

All alone

In the days since I left that country, quite a few things have happened. The second base has completed their transition with everyone leaving together as a caravan. Everything that could not be carried has been grounded down to dust and the land has been returned to its original desert state. Our system, CATH1 remains by herself, enjoying the uncluttered desert. One hopes that she finds enough energy to operate for years to come.

Handing over the real estate back to the natives.

The first base had a ceremony in which the base was officially signed over to the natives. Traveling here in the future will be difficult if not impossible should we ever choose to try to do it.

Will they find what they are looking for?

The Captain and one of my coworkers returned to take care of some unfinished business on the third base. The rest of the team including myself was surprised that the Captain didn't take us along this time as our specialties is taking care of unfinished business. However, we are secretly relieved that we are not going again as traveling there is now very difficult and we don't really know how they will leave once they are there. It sort of reminds me of that song with the lyrics "You can check out anytime but you can never leave". But if anyone among us is best qualified for that situation, I would think that it would be them (or at the very least, Grace).

Last days of the trip

2011-12-09T19:57:00.001-05:00

It's like everyone is rushing to leave.

Eventually, it became time to leave the base and head for home. We got to the port early in the afternoon but had to wait for the passengers of an earlier ship to check in before we could check in. This process took at least 3 hours and the passengers of the earlier ship were heading to Absinia. As a joke, the workers at the port offered to let us go to Absinia if we wanted but no one for our ship took them up on their offer.

Something interesting I noticed was that many of the passengers to Absinia were carrying large stuffed animals and even baby dolls. We assumed that these were gifts to their children back home but nonetheless, it was a strange sight. In one particular case, I thought one of the women was carrying a live baby before a closer examination revealed that it was a doll. Many of these passengers were overloaded with luggage and wore many layers of clothing to lighten the luggage load. That was also a strange sight and it infuriated that baggage handlers as there was a limit on the weight of the cargo per person.

When new people arrived at the port, we could immediately tell from their ethnicity which ship they were planning to board. If they didn't look Absinian, then they had tickets to our ship. We had to warn them from getting on the wrong line as we weren't sure if the port worker was serious in his offer. Our ship was truly multicultural that night.

After all the Absinians were checked in and locked behind a cage door on one side of port, we checked in and waited on the other side of port. It was a long wait of at least two hours as our ship had yet to come in and no one knew when it was going to arrive. Fortunately, I had a packet of dried berries which I shared with fellow passengers. I also had a bag of chocolate chip cookies too but was unable to get to it as I was forgotten to remove it from my luggage as I was checking in. Eventually, our ship arrived as we boarded.

Due to our later departure time of our ship, we were really worried about being unable to make our transfer to the next ship that would take us home. It did not help that we had to obtain a visa at the transfer point. This was because of some stupid bureaucratic thing that required us to get our luggage from the first ship, get the visa, leave the port (and take a few steps into the city), turn around, and reenter the port at an adjacent door. Getting the visas took 2 hours and we could have literally taken a few steps through the port if we didn't need to get the visas and our passports stamped.

Fortunately, everything was settled with half an hour to spare so we had a snack at the lounge. The voyage back to our home country took 14 hours. However, even then, I would still need to take another ship to reach my home city.

Sightseeing

2011-12-09T19:32:00.001-05:00

And that tower over there directs the ships.

Since we had some time before we were scheduled to leave the base, we went sightseeing. One of the places that I saw was a tower used to direct ships. We went right up to the base of it but did not enter as we did not give advance warning to the people inside. My coworkers have gone inside in the past so I've seen how it would have looked like.

It's so empty! Where is everyone?

Other places that we visited included the various palaces built by the previous ruler of the country. It's all very ornate and pretty but we did not see a single soul while sightseeing in that area. A place of note that I visited was the Glass House. There was a dome on that house and the inside of it was covered with a reflective material like ice crystals. Even with the chandelier lights off, the effect was pretty. I imagine that it would be even prettier if the chandelier was lighted. We visited the roof of the Glass House and we had a good view of the surrounding area since the land was flat and everything was lower.

A coworker even witnessed a cannon attack by the pirates while we at the Glass House. He claimed to have seen the projectile arc up into the air and land somewhere, causing a cloud of smoke. Following the rules, I was left the roof at that time for the bunker and therefore only saw the smoke when I returned to the roof. There was damage on the dome of the roof and a coworker claimed that the roof had previously survived a direct hit from a cannonball. Looking around debris, I found a small chunk of the dome that had been blasted off. Piecing it back on the dome like a puzzle, I found out where it used to fit.

Never a dull moment

2011-12-08T22:24:00.001-05:00

Ugh, it's 4AM...

There's rarely a dull moment back on first base. At least once a day, pirates would fire cannonballs on to the base. Although this happens far away enough that the cannonballs should not reach us, the alarm still rings and everyone is supposed to get to the nearest bunker. I first experienced it after dinner on the first night of arrival on the first base from the third base. Our party was strolling back from the dining hall when the warning bells went off and we quickly made our way to the nearest bunker. It was an interesting experience as the danger was real (though low).

However, other nights were not as pleasant as the warnings went off when we are in the latrine or in the middle of the night. There was one night when more than a dozen warnings went off between 11PM and 6AM. Those pirates were persistent in their attacks and we did not get much sleep. My coworkers were so used to it that they didn't even bother getting up to visit the bunkers.

There was one time when we were sightseeing from the roof of a building when the warning went off. I headed back down into a bunker but the coworker stay up on the roof. He said he could see the trajectory of the projectile and we later saw smoke rising from where it landed.

Traveling through a prison & the wrong feed

2011-12-08T20:04:00.001-05:00

Don't stop for hitchhikers!

After spending a few days at the first base waiting for some progress on the work site at the first base, we finally got to visit it. Our team somehow managed to borrow an old beat up carriage with an old horse for transportation. We were worried that the horse might die at any moment but fortunately, it didn't. Our team of 5 spent one day at the work site which I might describe in another entry.

In any case, the most interesting event of that day was when one of the people we were overseeing asked my coworker to help feed his horse as it was getting hungry. This required taking their horse and carriage back to base as that was where the feed lot was located. As people had to travel in at least pairs, I went with him. The road to base went through an actual prison. This meant on a road flanked by high walls, spiky wires, and guard towers. Traveling on that road, we passed a sign saying "Do Not Approach. Do Not Stop. No Photography". Taking that as a challenge, we approached, stopped, and took a photo of the sign.

Getting back on base, we rode to the feed lot where there was two types of feed. Normally, we would know what to feed the horse and I trusted my coworker's judgement on picking the feed. After all, horses of this type are known to feed on one feed or the other, but not both. So my coworker fed the horse and the horse ate without complaints which we took to be a good sign of selecting the proper feed. After the feeding, we started to ride back to the work site. I noted that the horse seemed to perform a little differently and mentioned it to my coworker. However, we just passed it off as the horse being old and continued on our journey.

We made it back to the work site and spent the rest of the afternoon there. We rode back to base and rested in the tent.

I blame you!

It wasn't more than 2 hours of resting when the tent door opened and an angry supervisor stormed into the tent and demanded to know who fed his horse. It turned out that their party had left the work half an hour after we left. However, midway back to base (along the prison road), their horse keeled over and fainted. They tried to remotely contact my Captain but since she was asleep, she didn't hear their pleas for help. Eventually, they were able to get a ride back to base and a checkup was performed on the stricken horse. In its stomach, the tamer found a mixture of feeds and that caused the horse to be ill. Performing a stomach pump would take a day and the tamer was kind enough to lend another horse until their first horse recovered.

Disbelieving that she would make a mistake in selecting feeds, my coworker and I went back to the feed lot to determine what was actually fed to the horse. It turned out that my coworker did in fact select the wrong feed but it was an easily overlooked mistake as both feeds looked similar. Normally, this story would be funny by itself but it was actually funnier because my coworker had constantly teased another person back at home when that person made the same mistake in the past. No doubt that this story would be related back at home as soon as possible.

Interaction with guards

2011-12-07T23:36:00.001-05:00

"wavy leg"?

Writing about the interaction with the natives reminded me of how one of my coworkers (the retired special forces one) interacted with the guards. This coworker is very outgoing, an extrovert in every sense and got along well with everybody. All the checkpoint, gate, and entrance guards that we had to go through were either native soldiers or foreign mercenaries (from various conflict prone countries). As such, their native language was something other than our native language. This coworker made the effort to try to learn their basic greetings. She doesn't pronounce it correctly though so the guards always smile and laugh. Sometimes, they would respond back with the greetings pronounced correctly. There might have been at least one case where the greetings were mixed up in which the greetings of one language was used on a guard who did not that particular language. I just found this tidbit humorous.

Interaction with the natives

2011-12-07T22:53:00.001-05:00

Back where I come from, your questions can be considered insensitive. Now please give me my food as a line is forming behind me.

The first base was the largest of the 3 bases that we have visited. It was a transit point so there were many travelers passing through. This was also the first time I talked with a native for more than a few seconds. One of the times was at a dining facility where I noticed one of the servers behind the food stand started asking these oddly insensitive questions relating to my far east background. I was taken by surprise as I was expecting him to ask which food item I wanted so it took me a few seconds to give an answer. Fortunately, a line of people was forming behind me so I had an excuse to move on to the next stand.

Arg, move away! You're invading my personal space!

Another weird interaction was during the time we visited the work site. One of the young native men (age 23) was eyeing me before getting closer to chat about non-work stuff. Like the previous person, he also asked some oddly insensitive questions but I was able to steer the conversation to other topics. He was also standing too close but I passed that off as cultural difference. Although some themes were harder to get across due to language barriers, I learned more about his hobbies (and age) than I intended to. Fortunately, the Captain called me away to do actual work (even though it's actually outside my field) so I was able to escape. For the rest of that afternoon, I did not stray too far from the party.

All the other natives were nice and normal. One gave out candy at the entrance of the work site while another went somewhere just to fetch me bottled water. I accepted but did not eat the candy though as a coworker advised against eating it. I gave the water away to the Captain as I originally looked for it for him. Somehow, I doubt these other people had as good a command of my spoken language as they were older and did not make an attempt to speak anything other than their own native language.

Back to the first base

2011-12-07T22:45:00.001-05:00

I think her rank was a Lieutenant Colonel. We also shook hands with a General later on.

After the inventory was checked, the Captain did not want to wait around until the construction was completed, so we traveled back to the first base. The journey back was more bearable as it was only 20 miles. I have to admit that the first base looked more hospitable during the daytime than nighttime. The Captain met with some of the base officers to discuss important topics and we met up with the two party members that we had left behind more than a week ago.

Inventory check

2011-12-07T21:20:00.001-05:00

I let the big strong man move the heavy boxes.

A few days later, our cargo arrived and we escorted the movers to a suitable staging area. We unlocked the container, went inside and checked the equipment against the shipping list. It was pretty hot inside the container and there were flies buzzing about since the staging area is right next to the waste pit mentioned in a previous entry. Since all the equipment were in smaller boxes and stacked, we had to move many things around and peek in many boxes. Fortunately, the items were all accounted for and we locked the container when we left as there had been thefts in the past.

During the time that we were checking the inventory, we happened to be next to a building built and occupied by the natives. Unlike our clean and professional buildings back home, this building appeared dilapidated yet it had an important function as a command center. Of note was the condition of their restroom. It was my first time visiting a native building and also my first time seeing a squat toilet. I've never used one before and was not about to try it.

Exploring junkyard

2011-12-07T21:11:00.001-05:00

Since the home for CATH2 wasn't near completion yet, we visited the area and in particular a very large junkyard where the soldiers towed all the ruined and smashed war machines. Mostly because of the novelty of the place, we walked around and admired the wrecks. For some reason, the soldiers seemed to like writing graffiti on the junk such as a bulls-eye with the words "Shoot here". The Captain actually went inside one of the wrecks but I didn't even want to touch them for fear of getting tetanus from all the exposed sharp metal. A coworker search around and found some metal rods which he felt may be useful later on. In the future, some enterprising business might savage the raw material from all the accumulated junk.

CATH2

2011-12-06T21:38:00.001-05:00

I had stomach issues that could be due to multiple factors.

Eventually, we managed to catch a ride to the third base on our travel plan. It was not a comfortable ride and CATH2 was still asleep while her home was being constructed. Still, we checked out how her future home would look like. At this point, I have to mention that her home is in an incredibly dirty place, a literal hole filled with human waste that had to be drained and plugged with concrete. We could smell the waste even before we arrived. It did not help that I was feeling weak from the ride and had lunch immediately before visiting the site. Plus, the water in this base was non-potable and we had to rely on bottled water for anything that might touch our mouths.

The Ziggurat

2011-12-06T21:23:00.001-05:00

I read that the name of this place meant "house whose foundation creates terror"

Since CATH1's test was over, I was free to move around a bit until the next departure time. While the Captain was off meeting with the officers regarding transportation issues, my coworker and I saw the Ziggurat. The Ziggurat was a massive terraced step pyramid. We couldn't get very close to it though as the soldiers no longer had time to give tours of it.

My coworker also pointed out to me the many seashells embedded into the ground. This implied that this barren land used to be covered with water. Although the shells were small, they were numerous and I collected a handful of them before I got tired of shifting the dirt with my hands.

I saw a giant spider too but didn't dare get close enough to get a detailed view of it. It also made digging around in the dirt for mere seashell that much more uncomfortable.

CATH1 System Acceptance Test

2011-12-06T21:09:00.001-05:00

Now do what I do but not what I say.

Finally, after a few days of tinkering and replacing robotic parts, CATH1 was ready to be formally tested. There was a script to be followed and the idea was that CATH1 would follow our directions. Since CATH1 was operating in the real world rather than the factory controlled environment where she was built, there were many unpredictable factors to consider. One of the major factors was the unavailability of controlled test targets.

Our original plan was to release specific monsters with specific parameters and have them behave while CATH1 hashed them. However, real monsters aren't obedient like that. Therefore, we looked around the area and seized upon a few targets of opportunity to test CATH1's performance. I doubt those monsters knew what hit them but their screams must have attracted the attention of other monsters as a few of them went by us to see what was going on.

Fortunately, CATH1's performance went well and she passed her tests. She was left operating on her own and my team went to take care of other business.

CATH system 1

2011-12-06T21:00:00.001-05:00

Making adjustments

Continuing from yesterday, we spent the night in the tent at the first base and on the next morning, 3 of us traveled to the second base to view the CATH1 system. The ride there was relatively uneventful until we were near our destination, at which point the pilot did some crazy moves that was part of standard procedures. The second base was located in the middle of a desert, a barren wasteland devoid with not a drop of water in sight. After we arrived, we immediately headed to the CATH1 location to meet the engineers working on the system.

Over the next few days, adjustments were made to the system until it was ready to be formally tested. I sat with the engineers during those days to verify that the issues were corrected.

First base

2011-12-05T23:10:00.001-05:00

Our Captain greeted one of the officers who came to pick us up. I think the person was ranked a Major.

The next afternoon our party checked out of the hotel and departed on a relatively short evening voyage to our first work site. Since it was very late at night when we arrived, we were picked up by our host and rode to the billeting office where we were fortunate enough to be assigned a single tent for our entire party. Living in a tent, especially with other people was something that I have never done before. Since the tent and the beds were heavily used by transients like us, the mattresses were worn and there were holes in the tent floor such that dirt was visible. Later on, I discovered that there were at least 2 large rats running around in the various folds of the tent.

In any case, it was late and I didn't have time to explore the surroundings as our party was to be split and I was to travel with 2 others early next morning. The night passed uneventfully and I made use of a sleeping bag the first time in my adult life since I did not want to come in direct contact with the issued linens.

Fancy hotel

2011-12-05T22:43:00.001-05:00

Coworkers liked to mess around.

The voyage from the departure point to our first destination took a whole day (trip time + time adjustment). It was quite tiring to be crammed into such a small space with little walking room for such a long period of time. Fortunately, our planner accounted for this as we made reservations to stay one night at a hotel upon arrival to rest up. This hotel was the most expensive hotel that I have ever stayed at. Even at the discounted business rate, it was at least 3 times more expensive than the fanciest hotel that previously I stayed at (5 times if compared to budget places).

The hotel had a gorgeous pool and the sea was visible right outside the pool. The staff was friendly and spoke several languages to accommodate the guests. There was even a person serving dates in the lobby. However, security was very tight and all guests had to go through a metal detector and have their bags scanned. We were technically not supposed to wander outside alone either. Since the rest of the party was tired and spent the rest of the time resting, I did not to get examine what was outside of the hotel complex.

Start

2011-12-05T22:16:00.001-05:00

Brunie plays the part of escorting us through the various dangers lurking in the snow.

My real life adventure started on the last day of October. There was a heavy snow storm the weekend before and many trees had fallen, blocking roadways and causing other issues. I was worried that we wouldn't be able to make it to the departure point or that the departure point was closed due to the ice. Fortunately, there was no snow on the day of departure and I was able to make it to the home base without any issues. From the base, I waited for my coworker and together, we were escorted to the departure point where we met our 3 other traveling companions.

Real Life activities

2011-12-05T19:09:00.001-05:00

I was away for most of November on an interesting business trip that could potentially be described as once-in-a-lifetime (especially since I'm not sure if I will be able to go again). Of course, there are some interesting stories on this trip and I am trying to think of a good way of telling it using the game characters. So far, I've made a rough draft of the potential characters for the stories but the place settings is still a challenge.

I'll have myself be represented by Asoka with the reasoning being one of the very few people of Far East ancestry. Since we're so rare in that land, some of the natives were quite eager to ask me questions.

I'll have Captain Adelina Esperanza represent the head of our little party, especially since I actually do call this person "Captain". This person is active in the military and that is their rank.

Gertrude represents one of my coworkers. I chose him as they are both giant muscular men who have significant martial arts skills.

Grace represents another coworker. I chose her as they are both retired special forces agents who are very good with rifles and other firearms.

Claude represents the last coworker in our party. I chose Claude because they both have a huge girths and there are not many characters that large.

The 2 Catherine robots represent the 2 system we were involved with. Maybe I'll refer to them as CATH1 and CATH2 where CATH stands for Completely Autonomous Traveling Humanoid.

Alejandro represents the main caretaker for CATH1 and CATH2 and he is chosen because of his similar large girth. Soso represents his helper and she was chosen because she was the only other person of Far East ancestry that I saw on the entire trip. Plus, they both have good hand to hand fighting skills.

Lisa's Friendship quest end

2011-11-21T21:16:00.001-05:00

So after a long period of incremental progress, Adelina managed to rack up 503 points of friendship with Lisa and continued with the quest. Finding the Pocket Watch in Porto Bello Deserted Quay was tedious and boring so we found the item in Mission Highway 2 instead.

Will we ever find out the answer?

Rounds 4, 5, 6

2011-10-22T01:06:00.005-04:00

Thanks to some helpful hints, we changed our lineup to focus more on magic users. For round 4, we had Vincent, scout, and elementalist. The knock downs were pretty terrible and Vincent was knocked out once due to being only a Veteran (with basic e92 robes). Fortunately, our scout was there to provide first aid. For round 5 and 6, we replaced Vincent with our fighter in order to use her Provoke ability. That reduced the number of knock downs but less ghosts were being damaged. Fortunately, we were still able to get about 80 coins for round 6, ending up with a total of 303 Spirit Coins for tonight.

With those coins, we chose 3 of the most expensive boxes, which were the Halloween box As.

Fortunately, the items seem to go directly into inventory

From the Halloween Box As, we received:

White Cat Band
Black Cat Band
White Cat Band

As we just so happen to have 3 eligible fashion models at the moment, we immediately found a quiet place to try them out. Queen's Gate Channel 1 of Bristia was too crowded with all the people taunting each other and fighting.

Round 3

2011-10-21T22:30:00.000-04:00

Not one to give up easily, we tried the Halloween event a third time. After defeating the 70 Zombie Mermen, we got the Key but changed our setup. This time, we had a team of elementalist (Evocation Lightning), Grace (Superior Blaster), and Scout. All 3 were Expert level and we recalled that the ghosts in the ice region were sensitive to lightning. The fight went well this time. We're not entirely sure how useful Grace was with her shotgun but our elementalist were taking down the ghosts like there's no tomorrow with her simple Thunderstorm spell. The Scout was there was healing and saved us from using too many Healing Potions. We picked up a total of 75 Spirit Coins from this instance.

Someone posted a list of rewards that they had gotten on the forum. The only items desirable to us are the white and black cat ears. The 2 day temporary back costumes were extremely undesirable as we still have a whole bunch from the Halloween event 2 years ago taking up a chunk of our warehouse space.

Halloween for 2011

2011-10-21T20:45:00.002-04:00

What's your name? Really...

Tonight began the Halloween event for our version of the game. Quests are available to be taken during the even hours (server time) and the Haunted House is available during the odd hours. Your team need needs to be wearing a Pumpkin Hat before she will let you try anything.

We completed a quest to defeat 30 Visage Noir and another quest to defeat 70 Zombie Merman. Each gave a quest reward of:

Key to Haunted House
Witch's Candy
Sweet Candy x5
Chocolate x5
Water Spray x5

These guys are deceptively difficult to defeat.

As we had 2 Keys, we entered the Haunted House twice. The first time was with the team shown in the photo and it was pretty much a disaster where only a few (as in single digits) of those ghosts were defeated. Adelina was the only survivor till the time ran out. We didn't get any rewards from that and wasted a hundreds of healing potions. On our second try, we brought out Master Brunie, Expert Romina, and Veteran Musketeer (someone had to wear the silly hat). Surviving the ghosts was easier such that we noticed that Spirit Coins dropped from them. We managed to pick up 4 Spirit Coins before the instance ended.

Taking a look at the Treat option, the following were available:

Halloween Box A - requires 100 Spirit Coins
Halloween Box B - requires 70 Spirit Coins
Halloween Box C - requires 50 Spirit Coins

As we spent an hour and a half to complete the 2 quests and 2 instances but only picked up 4 coins, the event will most likely expire before we even manage to pick a single box. Hence, we'll pass by this event. At least we got a few pictures.

New Veterans

2011-10-10T20:55:00.000-04:00

Natsumi with Mighty Cruz, Asoka with Low Guard, Andre with Main Gauche

Got Asoka from level 88 to 100 and then promoted/awakened her to Veteran in Skeleton Dungeon today. We didn't have a book of combat, we had her learn Low Guard. Since we brought a pack of 3 Veteran awakening scrolls, we awakened Andre and our Reboldeaux Soldier too.

Lisa's Golden Corn

2011-10-10T15:56:00.002-04:00

When Lisa asks for 24 Golden Corn, she actually means Golden Egg Fruit from Estevan's Farm in Ustier. We were worried for a second thinking that she meant Gold Corn from El Dorado (and the accompanying Excrement needed to harvest it).

Lisa's friendship quest

2011-10-08T20:48:00.001-04:00

We tried out Lisa's friendship quest tonight. It's easy to start but looks to be awhile to finish. This quest starts by talking with Oswalt on Viron Island.

Gee, how many female pirate captains could there be?

Does that mean you're still on the ship somehow?

Well, he was living a good life until you sliced him up.

Now where did his corpse go?

Time to visit the therapist

Suspicious person alert

That last one sounds like it could hurt in some cultures

So begins her long part time job

Dress Room - Viki - Freesia

2011-09-07T18:31:00.001-04:00

Even little Viki gets a new outfit other than the school uniform.

Dress Room - Romina - Trifolium

2011-09-07T18:30:00.003-04:00

Unfortunately, Romina's Trifolium outfit is one of the most unappealing outfits to us.

The shirt is nice but the leather and fur hat seems weird.

Dress Room - Helena - Cattleya

2011-09-07T18:28:00.003-04:00

Helena's Cattleya outfit recently became available via the boxes. Too bad it's a gamble to get it and would also be expensive via the market.

Dress Room - Grace - Santa

2011-09-07T18:26:00.003-04:00

Of course, Grace has her own Santa outfit too.

Dress Room - Grace - La Saggitaire Optimiste

2011-09-07T18:25:00.001-04:00

Easily mistaken for a female scout.

When we saw an illustration of this costume, we thought that was a female scout.

The only thing different in her Ixia hairstyle compared to the Milky Bob is the ornament.

Dress Room - Grace - Ixia

2011-09-07T18:22:00.001-04:00

Grace's Ixia outfit definitely fits some o the maps such as Abertal and Via Fluval.

Too bad that badge isn't respected.

Dress Room - Garcia - La Chevre Cornue Fidele

2011-09-07T18:20:00.003-04:00

Surprisingly, they made a second outfit for Garcia.

Dress Room - Garcia - Bristian Noble

2011-09-07T18:19:00.000-04:00

That's some outfit that Garcia has.

Garcia's Noble outfit reminds me of Vincent.

Dress Room - Emilia - Santa

2011-09-07T18:17:00.004-04:00

Emilia also has a Santa costume. The jester style hat seemed odd though.

Dress Room - Eduardo - Bristian Colonel

2011-09-07T18:16:00.001-04:00

Eduardo was quite a dashing military officer back then.

Dress Room - Claire - Derange

2011-09-07T18:15:00.000-04:00

Derange Sorian

Claire seems to be one of the more popular characters for costumes.

Derange de Langal

Dress Room - Combat Catherine - La Sensation Amicale

2011-09-07T18:12:00.002-04:00

Greens and browns seem to be the theme for Catherine (combat) as seem here for the La Sensation Amicale costume.

Unfortunately, Catherine (summoner) does not appear to have any costumes other than her Promenade Dress.

Dress Room - Calypso - Santa

2011-09-07T18:10:00.000-04:00

It seems that Calypso also gets a cheery Santa costume. It's certainly different from her usual dark colored costumes.

Dress Room - Asoka - Cherry Blossom

2011-09-07T18:08:00.000-04:00

Asoka's Cherry Blossom costume came with Asoka. However, acquiring her Cherry Blossom hairstyle required an additional purchase of Gold so we didn't bother to get it.

Her Cherry Blossom hairstyle seems to get a lot of negative reviews.

Dress Room - Angie - Overalls and Hair Band

2011-09-07T18:05:00.002-04:00

Angie's Overalls used to be directly purchasable from the Bazaar. We did not purchase it at the time because we did not anticipate ever getting Angie. When the Return scrolls were directly purchasable from Leonardo, we eventually acquired her.

Angie's outfit seems to be one of the more modern ones out there.

Dress Room - Alejandro - Ali Baba

2011-09-07T18:02:00.002-04:00

The Ali Baba costume for Alejandro used to be directly purchasable from the Bazaar. However, we did not purchase it at the time as we were not fans of his hairy belly.

Dress Room - Adelina - Santa

2011-09-07T18:00:00.004-04:00

Although we haven't played the game in the last few months, we wondered what costumes were available in the Dress Room. So we embarked on capturing some shots on some of the more interesting costumes that we have yet to see in game. It's only a subset of all the available characters but first up is Adelina's Santa costume.

That's some giant hat.

Last Days of Summer

2011-08-29T00:19:00.000-04:00

We attempted to participate in the Last Days of Summer event that took place this weekend. Unfortunately, their posted schedule appeared to be incorrect. For example, August 28, 2011 is not a Friday. Assuming that the date is correct and ignoring the day, the time listed was 14:30 PDT which should be equivalent to 17:30 EDT (5:30PM). Alas, the only pool we knew of turned out to be quite empty when we visited during those times. It's pretty discouraging and there also doesn't seem to be working pictures of what we missed either.

Viron

2011-07-30T21:04:00.000-04:00

Today we visited Viron for the first time as we needed to log in this weekend in order to qualify for a prize. It was a small town and there wasn't much we could do in it as we have not completed the qualifying tests in order to continue with the main quest. This includes the Holy Water Chamber, Catherine Torsche, and Elemental Otite.

How we spent the holiday weekend

2011-07-05T16:58:00.000-04:00

Not quite as rocky

This past weekend was a holiday weekend so we went outside to see the sights. Unfortunately, so did the rest of the population. We went by a beach next to the ocean but as it was a resort area, it was extremely crowded. So crowded that we didn't bother stopping and continued on. Fortunately, there were stops further up where the shore was rockier where we could rest and take photos.

Arg, the mosquitoes are biting!

We visited a state park next. It was actually marshland though. Real marshes with big mosquitoes just waiting for a chance to grab their meal. It was just as wet too as the above picture.

Home Sweet Home. Staring at the flickering lights.

We didn't bother to go out anywhere for the third day. Just stayed home and watched the fireworks at night.

Sweet revenge

2011-06-09T23:35:00.000-04:00

We haven't went adventuring lately but on the off chance that we did today, we encountered the last family that went baron on us when we weren't looking. This was late last month and we had completely forgotten about the incident when to our surprise, we ran into them at the exact spot that they attacked us. To our pleasant surprise, it seemed as if they were AFK just as we were back then. We've never went baron before and wasn't about to start so that left spinelles. There were innocents nearby, one of which was almost directly next to our target of revenge so it had to be a strike of utmost precision.

The first summon went well in that it took out their Emilia who jumped out of nowhere attempting to heal their expert Grace. Their apprentice came to their rescue but since we didn't want them to be involved, we eliminated our own summon. An useless item was dropped by the summon but it was tagged to the target family as they did the most damage. To add insult to injury, we picked up that item after it was untagged.

Not content with knocking out only one of their characters (as they knocked out three of ours), we released a second summon to knock out their remaining active character. This time, it was straightforward as there were no interruptions. Still, we had to clean up the mess by eliminating the summon after it had done its duty.

Just a random photo of our Asoka adventuring alone with only a pet to accompany her.

Asoka & new views

2011-05-18T23:20:00.000-04:00

Training to at least be able to use a weapon

We haven't been adventuring lately but just the other day, we received new things to try out. The first, is the addition to Asoka into the family. The second, is running the game at maximum graphics settings. So once we have more time, we'll take a tour of the world starting from the beginning and try to remember to admire the scenary.

Hmm...

2011-04-22T19:28:00.000-04:00

We took a one week break from adventuring (one week real life adventure/travel) and returned to find that a lot has changed in our personal world. Our clan shrunk a little and only had 2 online members today while our Group channel only had 4 members online (usually in the double digits). The biggest change however, was discovering that one of out prime motivations to go adventuring, the Conella family, has decided to formally quit adventuring in Bristia (if not altogether). They will be greatly missed.

Random picture

2011-04-11T23:05:00.000-04:00

Taken a few minutes ago. Most crowded Circus we've attended Scout got groped at the last second.

Demonic Sedecram Dungeon

2011-04-09T20:51:00.000-04:00

This tunnel has a modern look to it.

This afternoon, we visited the Demonic Sedecram Dungeon (Bounty Hunter Mission) for the first time as we were able to do so with our new family member from yesterday, Brigitte.

She got knocked out for this photo.

As she was the only family member capable of entering this particular Bounty Hunter Mission, all she could help out with is shooting bullets.

Can't tell how much damage she was inflcting.

Still, it was good that we recruited a range attacker rather than a melee one due to situations like the above.

First Mercenary Recruited

2011-04-09T00:22:00.000-04:00

The new member is on the right

Tonight, we recruited our first mercenary, another Brunie Etienne. It was an expensive and interesting story. Awhile ago, we were convinced to spend our resources to obtain a family member that can participate in the new areas. A friend of ours agreed to act as a middleman to a trainer provided that we give them the paperwork (character card and mercenary warrant) along with the payment (800 million vis). Deciding on the character required some thought as we were limited to stock characters and characters who initial cards are tradable (ie. does not require a mercenary warrant to leave the family). We were tempted by the martial artists but the only options were Gertrude and Gracielo. Technically, we could have chosen one of the orange outlined characters but we didn't want to have any characters leave the family.

So after awhile, we managed to get the Brunie card from the same supporting family with which get obtained the Catherine of STR card a long time ago. As we didn't have 800 million vis, we were subsidized by the middleman by 120 million. After a few days, the new Brunie was ready and we accepted her into the family. One could almost say that she's been around.

Weekend progress

2011-03-27T19:09:00.000-04:00

Didn't even know that the Elite Shaft Hammer (level 100 blunt) existed.

This weekend, we managed to retrieve the Basilisk's Heart from the Castilla Mines. As a result, we finished that particular part of the quest and received the following medals:

Phobitan General of Chaos Slayer
Basilisk of Chaos Slayer

We also received an Elite Shaft Hammer from the roulette. We've heard of the Shaft Hammer which is like an elite level 84 weapon but this was the first time we've heard of or seen the Elite Shaft Hammer. Unfortunately, it doesn't have the level 100 glow found in many of the other level 100 weapons. At least it's pretty shiny.

Measuring up

2011-03-16T20:14:00.000-04:00

No, that pose doesn't make you any taller.

We decided to pay a visit to the Lunar Maiden to how see our elementalist would measure up. Maybe as expected, the Lunar Maiden was taller and larger than our diminutive elementalist.

So we bowed before her and received our daily key which in turn got us another Full Moon Bunny back costume.

Traditional Folk Korean costume

2011-03-15T20:19:00.000-04:00

This is probably the most conservative costume she has.

Tonight, we finally managed to get the Traditional Folk Korean costume for the elementalist from a Gold Chest. The hat and the dress came as a set together. As we also received the temporary Bunny ears the other day, we think this completes our goal of finding the various costumes from the chest.

In another stroke of luck, we found our elementalist's expert stances to be level 25. We had held out on training them because it took so long and hadn't checked on them after the patch until tonight.

Bunny Hat

2011-03-13T20:42:00.000-04:00

We also picked up a Bunny Hat from a Lunar Maiden Gold Chest recently. Only 3 characters could use it though and we rarely see these characters wandering about. Fortunately, we do have these characters in our family.

It matches his white outfit and make it looks like he has big ears/

We won't have him wear it for long as it doesn't go with his fisherman look.

White on black. Hmm..

Full Moon Rabbit

2011-03-13T13:32:00.000-04:00

We picked up a Full Moon Rabbit back costume from a Gold Chest today. It's our first permanent costume so far from the event.

Arsene's Secret Vault

2011-03-13T12:19:00.001-04:00

It's really hard to find a good angle for pictures in these rooms

Last night, we accompanied Helena in visiting hr old comrades for the first time in the Secret Vault. It was quit hectic at times and we were surprised a few times when the robots disappeared on their own. We got some sort of key at the end which we don't know where to use yet.

Animal Samba Parade

2011-03-12T16:36:00.000-05:00

Port of Coimbra was a good setting was something like this.

Last night, we participated in the Animal Samba Parade. Everyone gathered in channel 1 of Auch before moving to Port of Coimbra.

At Port of Coimbra, we ran one lap around the city, lightning firecrackers along the way.

The final stretch!

Back in Auch, it was an organized mess in trying to get Fynlo to toss us a AM Box. Eventually, we did get one and inside it was 10 Enchant Boosters.

Lunar Maiden

2011-03-09T19:40:00.000-05:00

Her face looks familiar. It's very generic.

Today, we heard that the Lunar Maiden was visiting Queen's Gate so we went out to meet her. She seems very pompous but we did get a key for bowing.

At least she doesn't ask us to call her queen.

After receiving the key, we went out in search of the chest.

I'm guessing this is Silver. There should be a Bronze and Gold too.

After a few minutes, we found a chest and decided to open it as we didn't know how long it would take to find another one. From the chest, we received Lucky Pouch x5 and Mystic Ampile (event) x2. Maybe we'll be able to find a gold one tomorrow.

Attribute change and other oddities

2011-03-08T21:39:00.000-05:00

While pondering on which characters to bring out, we noticed something unexpected. Our veteran Soso now has 75 STR rather than 70 just a few weeks ago. We haven't gone through our other characters to see if any of their attributes have changed but we'll be sure to take extra notice when bringing them out.

Another odd thing was that our newly recruited Angie suddenly became level 20 without leaving the barracks. The only time we brought her out was on the first day we recruited her and she was level 1. To confirm that she did reach that level, we brought her out again and had her wear the level 20 equipment from our warehouse.

Ramiro becomes a man

2011-02-28T19:55:00.000-05:00

It all started when we promoted our Ramiro to Veteran and he started flirting with Lisa (the only other dark skinned lady in town other than the one in his photo). After she rebuffed his advances, he wanted to teach her a little lesson but...

got his butt kicked. Lisa suggested that Ramiro visit Jack to learn what it meant to be a true man so off Ramiro went.

Jack had Ramiro breaking boulders into stones for construction and was paid a single Gold Piece. It seemed so little that Ramiro complained and Jack said something derogatory about Andre. This had Ramiro visiting Andre.

Andre had us buy his useless level 84 armors at a cost of about 9.6 million vis and Ramiro called him a crook. Andre then said something derogatory about Claude so we went to see him instead. Claude had us hunting for 3 creatures: the Sabretiger, the Golden Spider, and the Phobitan General.

The Sabretiger was a pain to find. The General in Topolo was slightly easier.

After some searching in Ustier Zona Uno, we found the Sabretiger and defeated it. The Golden Spider was easy as we had Golden Spider spinelles. The Phobitan General was almost as difficult to find as the Sabretiger but we managed to find it running near a house in the center of Topolo Durga.

It seemed rather pointless to hunt and Ramiro recognized it so he decided to visit someone smart to ask for their opinion.

It sounds like you tried wearing the Grade School Uniform. Kinky!

Lisa agreed with Emilia's assessment on what it took to be a real man. Out of the blue, Lisa then asked for Ramiro's Grade School Uniform. We don't know what she wanted with his uniform but it looks like she has a stock of Grade School Uniforms that does fit her to give out.

Upgrading the Reboldeaux Soldier

2011-02-27T21:52:00.001-05:00

This afternoon, we got our Reboldeaux Soldier to level 100 and promoted her to Veteran (25 Shiny Crystals). Speaking with Domingo back in Reboldeaux, we started a new quest chain.

We were half expecting them to dance in unison with the zombies.

The first mission was defending the Queen's Gate from a horde of zombies. It was pretty easy as they were quite slow and are not as powerful as the ones in Los Toldos.

Afterward, we paid a visit to Jose in Port Coimbra. The next mission was supposed to be defeating some bandits but....

there were no bandits there, only political refugees.

The next mission involved defeating more zombies but at Ferruccio's Wall.

Thought all Rescue Knights were female.

As our Soldier disobeyed that trooper's orders, she was kicked out of his regiment. We find it odd that he was wearing the uniform of a Coimbra Trooper yet was ordering a Reboldeaux Soldier around.

So basically, our Soldier was transferred to Romina's team in Ustier. The Superior Centurion costume gives our Soldier +10 AGI points.

To Castilla Ruins

2011-02-27T20:35:00.000-05:00

Very tough

Tonight, we manage to join a squad and make it through the Castilla Mines. It was quite tough and we had to use Soul Crystals. In the very last room, we didn't even know what was knocking us out until someone mentioned looking up the pillars. It turned out to be a bunch of skeleton mages up there raining fire on us.

She's not friendly at all.

At the ruins, we used a Ancient Relic Piece to go through one of the Warp Gates to see what was on the other side. We didn't last very long over there.

Strange Spheres and Supply Distribution

2011-02-27T00:23:00.000-05:00

Located next to Leo, maybe only on Channel 1

Tonight, we figured out what the Strange Spheres were for. We started collecting the Strange Spheres last Saturday night and tonight, we remembered to search for the person that would accept those spheres. We heard that he was located in Reboldeaux and needed 30 Strange Spheres in exchange for a reward. Unfortunately, that wasn't all that he required as he also tacked on a random item requirement in addition to the Strange Spheres.

The first time for us, he attached a requirement of 100 Mega Talts. Fortunately, we still have Mega Talts so we were able to complete the requirements. The reward from the box were 2 Veteran Experience Level G cards which gave 14 million experience points each. The second time we went for the exchange, we got the requirement of 30 Pieces of Emerald. Fortunately, a fellow clan member was kind enough to provide us with some and our reward from that exchange was 3 Honor Card A which gave 100 reputation points each.

Other requirements that we heard about from fellow clan members were 300 Ice Crystals and 50 Rholodite (?) Pieces. Those sound much harder to collect. We also haven't figured out what to do with the Certificates of Supply yet.

First hurdle of Castille Mines

2011-02-24T22:51:00.000-05:00

Don't you ever look up?

Tonight, we were hoping to continue the squad from last night to explore the Castilla Mines and beyond. Unfortunately, we seemed to be separated from them and were unable to contact any of them tonight. After a period of waiting, time began to run short so we entered the Castilla Mines by ourselves to retrieve the Steel Ararat of Chaos Magic Stone. The reward for our efforts was a Honor Card B and a Steel Ararat of Chaos Slayer medal. The next set of hearts look to be much more difficult to the point that we can't even reach it ourselves.

Gold Ancient Relic

2011-02-23T21:02:00.000-05:00

What is it for?

Tonight, we attempted to visit the Castilla Mine for the 2nd time of the day only to be turned back because we didn't have an Ancient Relic. We exchanged 3 Ancient Relic Piece items + 3000 fesos hoping to get an Ancient Relic but we received a Gold Ancient Relic instead. As we are not sure of the value or use of this item, we're holding on to it instead.

Bounty Hunter Mission Weekend

2011-02-21T20:18:00.000-05:00

We're the martial arts team.

This weekend, we attempted a few of the Bounty Hunter Missions. We started with the one requiring the lowest level range and worked our way up. This was probably the first time a large portion of our family got to see action in one sitting as we have a relatively large range of levels.

The Accursed Porto Bello was the first mission. Emilia fell quite a few times and Catherine Torsche was able to easily attract the Escudo Pecher's attention.

Some people had to drop out after the Accursed Porto Bello was completed so only the two of us continued on to the Accursed Mansion.

The Accursed Prison de Joaquin came next. As our Veteran level characters were able to participate in this, the mission went quite well.

The last mission we completed was the Accursed Skeleton Dungeon. A note to ourselves for the next repetition is to bring our elementalist to bear the Boneless's attack as his magic hurts melee characters like Romina quite a lot.

Angie Shirley

2011-02-21T19:57:00.000-05:00

We discovered that Leonardo now sells Reboldeaux / Coimbra / Auch Return Scrolls at 3000 vis each so we purchased the rest of the scrolls that Angie had wanted for literally years. After having our summoner Catherine gather some Lazim wings for her (and gathering a whole bunch of Shiny Crystals in the process), we saw Gertrude in action which impressed Angie enough to join our family.

Maybe we'll have them play board games.

+8 Winged Blade 3S

2011-02-19T00:24:00.000-05:00

It's like wielding light.

Another +8 weapon dropped for us tonight. Starting a +8 collection might be a fun idea.

Castilla

2011-02-18T22:59:00.000-05:00

Mobile guards

Tonight, we brought a ticket from Port Coimbra to travel to Castilla First Post. It looked like quite a sunny place with beautiful beaches.

Quite an attractive look.

The female to male ratio is quite skewed here.

The bookish look.

After speaking with the officers, we headed into the Castilla Mines.

Mini Steel Ararats!

Upon entering the mine, we received a Castilla Mine Explorers medal. We first encountered 2 Bearwalkers and they were a pain to defeat. Once we entered the mine entrance, we encountered a single Steel Ararat. It wasn't too difficult until it was down to 20% health, at which point Mini Steel Ararats started spawning and the main Steel Ararat was casting wide area Fear over and over. We did eventually defeat the Steel Ararat and stepped into the next area, only to be defeated by 2 Phobitans before we knew what was happening.

The glow of a +8

2011-02-18T22:36:00.000-05:00

Shiny!

The other night, a +8 Rod of Revelation 2S dropped from Rion Hollows. It's our first time seeing a +8 anything so we took a picture.

Level Up Gift Boxes

2011-02-17T22:49:00.000-05:00

Tonight, our family reached family level 31+3. That by itself isn't all that special but what was special was that 5 sets of 3 Level Up Gifts Boxes appeared in our inventory. They were arranged by level but we're not sure how it is categorized.

Activating the box causes a treasure chest to appear.

So we received the following items:
Box: Family Lv: 2

AM's Boost (event) x3, Healing Potion x50, Soul Potion x20
Event Triump Fillers x6, Healing Potions x50, Soul Potion x20
same as #2 above

Box Family Lv 4

Pet food x20, Healing Liquor x50, Soul Liquor x20
AM's Boost (event) x9, Healing Liquor x50, Soul Liquor x20
same as #2 above

Box Family Lv 5

Pet food x30, Healing Liquor x100, Soul Liquor x40
same as #1
same as #1

Box Family Lv 7

Devil Wing (15 Day), Health-filler x50, Soul Liquor x50
Lucifer Wing (15 Day), Health-filler x50, Soul Liquor x50
same as #1

Box Family Lv 9

Tactics Manual: Expert (7 Days-Event), Health-filler x100, Soul Liquor x50, Polish: Veteran x7, Lv 100 Enchantment Chip
same as #1
Combat Manual: Expert (7 Days-Event), Health-filler x100, Soul Liquor x50, Polish: Veteran x7, Lv 100 Enchantment Chip

Update to version 5

2011-02-16T18:48:00.002-05:00

Tonight, we discovered that the game has been updated to version 5. There are quite a few changes and we are still disoriented. So far, we have found:

Some of rings worn by characters were moved to the market manager cabinet. Not sure on what determines what ring to move as some characters only had one ring moved. It also didn't seem to depend on the particular skill ring as some characters kept wearing that particular skill ring while others had it moved.
Pre veteran stances were set to the maximum level of 25. We'll have to double check it later on our STR Catherine.
New expert stances. We had Grace learn Superior Blaster and am attempting to level it.
Polishers below Veteran were removed. They might have been replaced by Shiny Crystals which we got a few hundred of.
My Dress Room - This is a great feature that allows us to see the new costumes that have yet to be released. It's quite a tease.
3 of our warp points have been removed. We noticed that one of them was Katovic Snowfields and El Canon Diabolica was another. We forgot what the 3rd was.
There's something to get from "Receive Premium Item". We received 3 sets of 3 promotional scrolls each (Veteran, Expert, and Master).
The world map has changed.
We can see the targetmob type that we're fighting such as Beast and Undead.
Reckless Emilia is back, we saw her wandering around town.
The wuwu family already has Catherine Torsche and Valeria.

Finishing Calypso's quest

2011-02-13T15:32:00.000-05:00

Just to get it out of our quest logs, we finished the rest of Calypso's quest today.

It took us awhile to find the right spot.

He was knocked out with 1 steel bullet.

Bordering on weirdness.

We didn't even know these two were there until we looked.

He's so vain. Serves him right to be rejected by Emilia.

Macho men and fancy coffee

Now we have a spare stance book.

Garcia joins the family

2011-02-12T19:32:00.000-05:00

After many hours spent gathering the 50 Cabbages from the Katovic Snowfields, we were able to convince Invierno to allow us to use his cooking pot to make soup.

He really has a big crush on her doesn't he.

So we cured Garcia and we headed back to Auch to visit Simon. After a brief conversation between the two, Garcia joined our family and we also received a level 100 Enchantment Chip & 3 Polish: Veteran. This is a divergence from the guide at the wiki which said that we would have a choice. But any case, we still received Garcia's card, an enchantment chip, and some polishers.

We were hoping to beat you into submission. Oh well.

We reported back to Eleanor about Garcia and received 5 Soul Crystal (event) and 3 Polish: Veteran.

Garcia officially joins our family.

Looking at his abilities and capabilities, it doesn't seem as if Garcia will excel at anything. Still, we might use him for fun in a team with Eduardo.

Defeated the quest version of Novia!

2011-02-09T22:43:00.000-05:00

Tonight, we manage to do something that we never thought we would be able to do. We managed to complete the instance mission that involved defeating Novia in the Ice Wizard Tower. It took a little more than a half dozen tries and some of the tries had us being defeated in less than 10 seconds but once we got past the summoned creatures, we were able to think carefully. We did not have any wings or enchanted costume items. We also forgot to use special potions like Triump Fillers and AM Boosts which we were saving for this occasion and we even forgot to bring out our pet. Now that we think about it, we even forgot about the Sage necklace the Old Man gave us so long ago. Fortunately, we had a few hundred healing potions that healed 750 points each.

Novia was weak to lightning.

Our team was composed of a Expert level 1 Romina with a level 18 Equites stance wielding a +4 Unique Trump Sword, a Expert level 1 elementalist using a +4 Veteran Ancestral Lightning Bracelet in the Possession Lightning stance, and a Expert level 2 Grace with a level 18 Flintlock stance wielding a +6 Black Dragon (with no special stats that affects this fight). The first thing we did when the fight started was to have Romina rush in and knock out Montoro because we didn't know what tricks he had. This resulted in everything following us and we ran away to the edge.

Yes, you were the weakest one in the group.

While at the edge, our Grace and elementalist were knocked out and only 2 summons managed to follow our Romina along the edge. The other summons and Novia herself turned their attention to Garcia and Selva so our Romina ran a complete circle along the edge of the battlefield and revived Grace. With Grace attacking the summons from behind and Romina attacking from the front, the 2 summons were easily defeated. Right before they were defeated, the 3rd summon slowly walked over to join the action so we included him too. After we defeated the 3 summons, we revived our elementalist as it was her turn to shine.

With out elementalist Eloise leading the way, Grace off to the side, and Romina hanging back, we found Novia just wandering around. Our tactic at this point was to have our elementalist constantly cast Lightning on Novia as Novia was unable to block it and it inflicted 2500 to 4500 damage per attack. When our elementalist was knocked out (and it happened about a half dozen times), Grace distracted Novia (damages her between 450 - 999) such that Romina could use her revival skills. With this tactic, we managed to defeat Novia with less than 3 minutes to spare.

Future tsundere?

After Novia panicked, Montoro, Garcia, and Selva got up against and had an argument. As time was short for us, we didn't spend too much time listening to their conversation and got them to hurry up. Apparently, Garcia was cursed when he jumped in between Montoro and Selva.

Where have that seen that type of personality before...

Now we have to gather ingredients for a soup. It'll take awhile but fortunately, there is a +30% drop rate bonus these 2 weeks.

First look at Interna de Gigante

2011-02-04T20:14:00.000-05:00

Upon returning the stone items to Igorne, we were given the task to scout out Interna de Gigante for him.

It looked similar to one of the missions of the Christmas event.

Getting to Interna de Gigate from Caebolan was relatively easy as the creatures in Caebolan are slow. We didn't have much contact with the denizens of the dungeon before the action started.

It's actually not a fair fight.

Once we located Sharon, it wasn't long before Igorne and his harem of rifle wielding Rescue Knights showed up. There was a brief conversation between between the two and the lopsided fight started. In mere seconds, the squad of Rescue Knights easily dispatched the group of creatures surrounding Sharon.

Guest starring.. Eduardo!

Once Igorne's team defeated Sharon's team, Eduardo suddenly showed up to get a piece of the glory, as in he engaged in hand to hand combat with Sharon herself and obviously won.

The next part of the quest line requires farming for some Amethyst Fragments so we'll continue the quest line some other day.

Questing in Caebolan

2011-02-04T20:01:00.001-05:00

We started our quest in Caebolan by searching for a Stone Leaf, a Stone Flower, and a Stone Sword.

West edge of D8, next to the giant crystal

First, we found another Stone Leaf at the same location where we found the first one. This time, we actually had a clear idea of where we found it so we took a photo of it.

Selva was attacking us from somewhere in the middle of that mob of creatures.

The Stone Flower was found by the tree north of the entrance to the small cave (C4). We heard "Get Lost!!" but didn't actually see who said it until we noticed Selva Norte knocked out on the ground after the fight.

South of the gap

Searching for the Stone Sword was a little trickier as it was supposed to be found between D7 and E7. As that is in the middle of an open area, we attracted a large following. Fortunately, the item was found near the landmark gap and we warped out of the area once we found it.

And the exploration continues!

2011-02-04T19:29:00.001-05:00

Tonight, we looked at our map of the world and decided to venture into the lands that we have yet to step foot in.

It wasn't as difficult this time.

Thinking of places that we rarely visited, we headed into the Bahamar Underground. Only once before have we visited this place for more than 30 seconds and that was to witness another family in a fight against a giant snake. This time, we actually walked around a bit and admired the scenery.

The first step is always thrilling.

While spelunking the Underground Caves, we located the "small cave" and passed through it. It lead into a much larger but empty room and eventually to a dark stormy place called Caebolan. We heard that this place was extremely tough and that the creatures there were capable of one hit knock outs. Therefore, we hugged the walls and slowly explored the area. It was fortunate that Romina has the ability to revive knocked out characters as there was a time where both our scout and Grace were knocked out.

Challenge accepted!

While wandering around Caebolan, we came across a Stone Leaf and brought it back to Lenora in the Bahamar Deep Swamp to analyze. So begins another quest line.

Results of Ethereal Treasure Chests

2011-01-28T23:20:00.000-05:00

Due to adventuring last weekend, we received a few Ethereal Treasure Chests. As we don't have anything else of note to write about tonight, we decided to try our luck with the chests. And hence, we found the following:

Great Stone x 10 and Symbol of Aquarius - Maybe we'll use this if our musketeer ever reaches Expert. Having 2 characters at the same time with Flintlock will probably make us as giddy as has 2 characters with Outrage. For now, the symbol will go in the warehouse.
Great Stone x 10
Great Stone x 10 and Eyeglass Box x 10 - We'll open these someday when we're bored.

We also opened up some old Elite Treasure Chests that we noticed hiding among the mess. We had completely forgotten when we had gotten them or what they might contain. From them, we found the following:

Earth Stone x 5
Level 100 Enchantment Chip
Earth Stone x 5
Level 92 Enchantment Chip x 5
Level 92 Enchantment Chip x 5

On a different note, we just remembered that we were able to defeat the Dream Antelope in Via Fluvial by ourselves the first time tonight. After the toroga family made a mess of Bahamar Wetlands, we warped to Via Fluvial right on top of the Dream Antelope. It took awhile to defeat this creature but we got to see the usefulness of the Penetration Shot skill of the Flintlock stance as it knocked away the cabybara and bears that were joining in the fun.

Ruidestencia costume

2011-01-27T19:11:00.000-05:00

The name of this costume was quite difficult to spell. The costume is also one of the most conservative costumes for the elementalist, yet it has a lot of detail.

Iberis costume for Brunie

2011-01-27T19:08:00.000-05:00

We saw the Iberis costume being sold on the market at an affordable price tonight so we snatched it up.

Our Brunie finally gets a change of outfit after having wore the same thing for months, maybe years. This outfit appears to show more cleavage compared to her other outfits.

Curse of Mermaid? and Enhanced Tactics

2011-01-23T21:11:00.001-05:00

When we checked up on our team tonight in Bahamar, we noticed that our Grace was knocked out and that the "Curse of Mermaid" was recently lifted. Our scout and Romina's health were a quarter down but there was no sign of whatever that attacked us. There weren't any other families within visible range but there were a few knocked out people just beyond visible range. So we're wondering what we missed out on.

We also managed to purchase a Scorpio symbol off the market today in order to trade it for the Enhanced Tactics stance book. It took all our remaining vis and resources but fortunately, there isn't anything more that we were planning to purchase.. We/re confused on how the built-in bonus of the Enhanced Tactic and the various skills work though. For example, that built-in 20% physical damage increase makes it seem as if my scout is more physically fragile. Reading the forums, it seems that we shouldn't max out Organization.

Nar

2011-01-22T22:54:00.000-05:00

Today, we hunted down the 50 Kobold Crounchers. It took us the whole afternoon to get 28. With outside help, we got the rest in about half an hour.

Nar was so happy that he joined our family. Fortunately, we still have the level 60 blunt from Ania so Nar is able to use Combatant right away.

Expressions of Emilia

2011-01-22T00:15:00.000-05:00

We've all seen many of the expressions that Emilia likes to make. She's probably the most expressive of the townsfolk.

Emilia does cry a lot doesn't she.

Wonder what she could be busy with.

We'd like to know who these men are.

It's almost like Gurtrude is making a photobomb.