We decided to give it one last shot for now last night. In order to make more time for the NMs and boss, we sent out 6 people immediately to pull all three Nightmare Flies at once. This worked great on the first attempt, not so much on the second, but went perfectly last night. We had subjobs and were on our way after about 10 minutes. Next we moved to the Konschtat zone area and quickly killed Nant’ina using a Bard zerg. So far, so good. Minimal deaths and making great time. Since we had enough time remaining, we decided to try for Fairy Ring too. This NM was really difficult for us last time we tried, but this was our night. We had a lot of deaths here, but we managed to take it down! Finally, with about 10 minutes left on the clock we headed for the boss. On the previous two runs we only killed Nan’tina, and then the boss easily wiped us. This time, with two NMs down, the boss was still very hard, but we managed to take it down!

This was an especially sweet victory, and I am so happy that our people agreed to stick with this for a few consecutive runs to finally get it done! My only regret is that Tarutary wasn’t there to enjoy it with us…

Next up, we’re back to Northlands again.

That got Paulo and I up to level 55. Since then, we’ve mostly been doing Fields of Valor in Xarcabard to exp, and also to level our NPCs. That’s a fun and relaxing way to exp, and we get lots of Treasure boxes for Paulo to open, cause she loooves treasure!!

I first met Tarutary in 2006 when I joined the Coldfusion linkshell for Dynamis. We quickly became good friends in the game. Shortly after we met, he helped me to get my Optical Hat. That would be just the first of many times Taru would come through for me. I was there with him the night he decided to create Kenzoku and run his own Sky linkshell, and when Coldfusion fell apart, and when we worked to get it back together again. His English was not always the best, and sometimes he used goofy made-up words that somehow became a permanent part of our vocabulary, but we always knew exactly what he meant. He was the master of taking the oddest combination of jobs and the weirdest strategies and finding a clever way to make them work. He got us all killed in Sky and Dynamis time and time again, but nobody took more punishment than he did himself, and not once did he ever get upset or complain about losing exp or failing. He taught us all to put fun and friendship ahead of trying to get ahead in the game, and he tried to make Kenzoku a true family, like that name says. He made a great home for us in this game, and I hope in the coming months that those of us he left behind will stick together and keep that home in good shape.

I expect we’ll still see Taru around from time to time, and hopefully he’ll be able to join us all again when FFXIV comes out next year.

Either way, best wishes to you and your family, my friend. You will be sorely missed!

We battled with Cardians and Yagudo on the way to Rank 7…

Slimes and Tonberrys on the way to Rank 8…

Orcs and more Crdians on the way to Rank 9…

and I failed to get any screen shots from most of this. Finally we reached the final mission, a BCNM battle in Full Moon Fountain. We were gonna need some extra help for this, but it was already the middle of the night so not many people were available. Kdizzle was on around though and came on his Thief, and we decided to try it with only three people.

The first part was a battle against four Cardians, and then you have to assist an annoying Tarutaru against a Wyvern and Manticore. This part was kind of tricky, and we failed on it several times. Finally, on what I think was our third “one more try” at it, we managed to win! Sadly, no screen shots as proof…

However, we did get Rank 10, and finished our time in Windurst in just a few days.

Now we both have 2 city flags in our houses.

All we needed to do to finish Rank 4 was the Jeuno mission to Delkfutt’s tower. This is really easy when you already have the key!

Rank 5 is the Magicite Mission. This is also really easy once you’ve done it before and have a high level job. In almost no time we were up to Rank 5!

Mission 5-1 is a BCNM and requires some help. We were kind of stuck now, and were considering just stopping at this point. However, the next day I got a random tell from a guy needing help on 5-1, and they had room for Paulo and I to both join. We went, and got a pretty easy win! Next up is the battle against the Shadow Lord. No help needed for this, so off we went.

Once we made the plunge, we became official rank 1 citizens of Windurst! On our way to become Tarutarus!

We quickly worked through the first few missions, visiting magical gizmos and making peace with the Yagudo,  and advanced quickly to rank 2.

Getting to Rank 3 is more difficult and time consuming. We had to visit the other cities and eventually fight the Seeker and Dark Dragon. This is a level 25 capped fight, and we decided to both go as Blue Mages. This made it a very easy fight, and we advanced to Rank 3!

After a trip to Castle Oztroja, we finally arrived at mission 3-2. Although the reward for this mission allows you to open the three-mage gate alone, you have to actually have three mages to open it first. I came on my Black Mage, and I brought Tarutary on his Red Mage. Linolas helped out by joining us on his White Mage. We completed the mission, and received our Portal Charms!

We accomplished our goal and were done for the night! All that was left to do was to move back to our old cities…