Bones and Mushrooms

*Sigh*
I didn't expect that overcoming your limits would be easy... but honestly, in all my time as healer, I have never witnessed such massacre.

There we go: Shukie, Songoku, a couple of friends of his, and me. To the Eldieme Necropolis.
I don't know much about the place... other than an eerie atmosphere surrounds it, and that old adventurers tell scare stories to newbies about it. And as it turns out, those stories didn't err by too much.
So, I teleport ourselves to the plains of La Theine, about halfway between San d'Oria and Jeuno. Did I ever tell you that I love teleporting people? ^_- I guess it's a pleasure only comparable to what Black Mages feel when warping someone they don't like, hehehe. You bad bad black mages... yeah, Zae, i am looking at you :D
From there, we ride rental chocobos all the way to the Batallia Downs, where we turn south towards the Spine of Batallia. Have you guys noticed how many Spines are spread out in Vana'diel? They are connected to the crags, somehow... anyway, past the Spine, very close to the cliff where the RMT sectarians fish for the profit of their cult, is where we entered the Necropolis.
Our first bad surprise: our scorts told us to wait there; they would tell us when an ancient papyrus would drop, and leave it untouched for us (these items Maat told us to collect have an "EX"spell on them: whoever touches them becomes their unique owner, and cannot be traded). "This sucks..." i thought... but Shukie was a lot more explicit about it. We messed around a bit, Shukie died once (it feels terrible being healer and running away from a hopeless battle, while your melee friend stay there and die... but it's the rational thing to do, that way i can come back and raise ;_;).
One of our escorts die. I decide it's time to stop sitting, and go inside to try to find him, and raise him. In the way, i find a group of adventurers that are pursuing our same goal: the papyrus. By then, our scorts had started to leave (we had been on it several hours), but Shukie decides to come, and we ally ourselves with these adventurers.
Still, the results are pityful: the papyrus is a paper that some Liches carry. Very few of them. Apparently only the more skilled Liches do... and in the place we were Liches were scarce. And the Liches are no joke, either: they link, and some of the most powerful ones nearly wiped us.
I want you to picture this: An alliance of 8 adventurers at level 50, being nearly wiped by a Lich that couldn't be higher than 55, according to the findings of the Windurstian mages.

Death, death, death.
Don't get me wrong. I am a White Mage, and i am used to death. I've raised many people, and many times being my own fault. But what i witnessed in Eldieme was too much. Those undead skeletons were mortally efficient against who dared to trespass their lair. Our newly found comrades began to feel weary of the fruitless battle, and started to leave. Shukie did, too. As a White Mage, i tried to stay as long as i could, but reached a point where i couldn't take it anymore.
So i told them that i needed a rest (thankfully there was another healer), and tended myself to sleep in a safe spot.
When i woke up, most had left: only a tarutaru red mage and a mithra were there, protecting my sleeping body. The taru emmited an aura of high power: it was obvious he didn't need the papyrus, but he was there to help. His name, Demontaru, didn't make him justice at all ^_^
Under his advice, we left our camp, and went further into the Necropolis, till we fell down a trap on the ground. The fall was hard, but not nearly harmful, for a trained adventurer. Walking a bit further, we found a small altar were some hume bones were glowing: there we set up our new camp. Liches around here were a lot more powerful, and more of them were carrying the papyrus... in less than one hour, me and the mithra had got ours! Yay! :D

I was sad for Shukie... but there was nothing I could do. I decided to help her back into Eldieme, but the next time i found her, she had already gone with Songoku, and got her papyrus, too ^_^

So, my last stop was at the Crawler's Nest. Very beautiful place, but very dangerous too. And the air is so thick, you could cut it with a knife. It could be said that, if Crawlers had a city at all, this would be it: there is not a nest of Crawlers nearly as big in the whole Vana'diel. Many other species live there too, symbiotically with the crawlers. And the glowing crawler crysallides... so pretty! ^_^ And many young Flies too (as you know, crawlers turn into crysallides, and they get out of the crysallide as Flies).
In any case, one of these symbiotic species are the Exoray fungi. During their sleep, Exorays skin degradate, and to protect it, they produce a kind of moss with their inner fluids that solidificate outside. This moss, called Exoray Mold, has many curative properties, and it is valuable as it is scarce: you can only get it from Exorays that have just woken up, for it evaporates quickly with their body temperature.

Looking for help, a kind Paladin named Durnell (i think... my memory for names is terrible ;_;) happened to be hunting Exorays too, but not for their mold, but to hone his skills in the use of the staff. Didn't take long before we got it. Yay!

Finally, Shukie and me met to take our items to Maat. Woot! Now we can be stronger! :D