Diary Of A Dragon Mage

[Dragonhope]

When I heard the story of the Dragon Knights, I will admit, that I never thought that one day, I would follow the path. As it began, I was but a common Thief wandering about, trying to make a living. At first, I had dismissed the existence of a Dragon Knight, known as Dragoon to some, to be mere heresy and untrue. But as I heard the two in the cargo room speak of rumors regarding an existing Dragoon, it piqued my curiousity. Little did I know what I was getting myself into but I must admit...I do not regret the choice I made.

It all truely started when I heard the rumor. I decided to look further into the situation and learned of the betrayel of the last Dragoon by his own friend in the Castle Cells. Novalmauge told me to find more about the history of Dragoons by asking the Archeologist at the Cathedral. Well...I suppose that would be the next place for me to go. I was unable to find him at first, but when I asked a friar in training named Morjean, the Father came. As I was about to ask Father Oiheaurese about the Dragons, Rahal, the knight said to have betrayed the Last Dragoon, had arrived. Looks like he was only looking for suspicious people...even though he seemed a little troubled about something. I dismissed it as nothing important and inquired the Father of Dragons and Dragoons. He told me that there had been further rumors of a Wyvern having laid an egg in the Maze of Shakrhami. He asked for my assistance in finding and protecting the egg from the Dragonslayers. Feeling that I would be well rewarded, I decided to help and ventured into the maze to search for any sign of an egg.

There I was, wandering about looking for what might look to be an egg or somewhere an egg might be buried when I tripped over something. I was about to just get up and move on when I saw something beneath it. I broke through the carapace that was on top with a Pickaxe and there it was...a Wyvern Egg. Quickly, I returned back to San d'Oria to show the egg to the Father.

The egg was the start of another problem for me...as soon as I had returned to town, Doctor Oiheaurese was no where to be seen. But as luck would have it, I saw Morjean. I moved quickly to inquire where I might be able to find the doctor when someone named Yachemidot inturrupted us. He said that the Doctor was away from the Cathedral. His eyes caught sight of the Wyvern Egg I had found and he wasted no time to inquire about it. Then to my surprise, he asked if I wished to hatch the egg. Well now...this is becoming interesting indeed I thought. Well...with my overwhelming urge to try, I listened to him. He said that if the Wyvern that hatched had the Holy Crest, a new Dragoon would be born! Amazing! My path was now clear...onward to the mountains.

I finally found the place Yachemidot was talking about. Excited, I put the Wyvern Egg there. Then I heard a voice and turned to find none other then Yachemidot. He told me to move back and then...what? How dare he! He had struck the newborn Wyvern! But..why? I didn't understand what was taking place...but my heart was heavy as I watched helplessly. Then out of nowhere, Rahal comes rushing in! What? Cryanuce? But...I thought he had died..what in heavens was taking place before my very eyes? Now..after it had been hurt...Rahal wanted to kill it...but..why? It hasn't done anything!

He began to tell me his side of the story. It seems that he had seen something like this..and it had been for his friend Cryanuce. But that wyvern had been evil...and he was scared of it happening again. It all made so much sense...but...why kill this one now when it had just been born? Oh..phew. Looks like he did not wish to kill it either. The life of the Wyvern was saved...for now it seems. I must follow and find out what is to happen. I cannot stop now that I have come so far.

I returned once again to my home in San d'Oria. I went to the Castle to see if Rahal had found anything. I must know the fate that awaits that Wyvern. For some reason that I could not fanthom, I felt that I must do something to save it. As I spoke to him, I learned that the Wyvern's life was in no danger. A sigh of relief went through my body but before I was able to relax, he told me that Cryanuce was seen in the Ghelsba Outpost. He gave me a Dragon Curse remedy and asked for my help to save his friend. I saw from in his eyes that he dearly wanted to save his friend...how could I refuse?

As I arrived at the outpost and was about to enter to give Cryanuce the remedy, Rahal stopped me. And behind him..followed a Baby Wyvern. He went in ahead and tried to talk to Cryanuce but was struck down. I chased after Cryanuce only to find him turn into a full grown Wyvern. With some assistance from my friends, we were able to slay it. After the Wyvern vanished, Cryanuce returned to his Elvaan self once again.

As Rahal kneeled by the side of his friend, I turned to see the Wyvern watching me. I felt as if she had been waiting all along for me...as if..we were meant to be. As the same way that I felt that I must save her life...I knew her name as well...Celeste. After that day, I had seen many other Dragoons but all those Wyverns seemed to have the blood of a Warrior flowing through their veins. I could feel that my Celeste was different...I felt that we were meant to travel a different path then those of common Dragon Knights. The magic flowing through her told me that the two of us were meant to be Dragon Mages. Alas...we were weak then. We knew that we must begin training to become a true Dragon Mage.

And so it began. At first, the bond between Celeste and I were rather weak. But as we spent time fighting the Beastmen hordes and other monsters of Vana'diel, we grew to understand one another. I will admit..that it was not easy to follow the path of a Dragon Mage. But I also must admit..that I cannot imagine being any other kind of Dragoon either. And so...I write this Diary now to tell the tale of our training. Should others feel that they too are meant to be a Dragon Mage, perhaps my tales might be of assistance.

(Note: Dragoon job was unlocked and currently Level 1 at this point)

As we began our training, we did not know what to expect. At first, we fought the Beastmen hordes outside of San d'Oria in order to become strong. It seemed so easy with Celeste at my side. Even though both of us were still weak compared to many of the adventurers in Vana'diel, we fought them off with ease. But there was no doubt in my mind that this was only the beginning as we continued our training.

(Note: At this point, we've reached around level 5)

After we had gotten a little stronger, we decided to launch an attack against the Orc camp near San d'Oria known as Ghelsba Outpost. This would be where our training began to slowly become harder. They attacked us in hordes but we fought on, relying only on each other. Of course we returned to town to resupply and sell off the Crystals left by the Orcs. The training here was much more fierce and Celeste was still young. I knew that her powers would not be enough and relied upon food to increase my magical energy in order to keep us healthy. Even though most of Celeste's magic was sealed, she would occasionally remove any poison that I had been inflicted with. This allowed me to save my own magic for healing my wounds. Together, we fought on like this, becoming stronger and stronger.

First we picked off the weaker hordes along the paths before taking the Summit. As we were looking into some of the tunnels, we found some higher ranking Orcs wandering about. I know not what they guarded but we fought them as well to become stronger. It was slow as even one of them would wear us out at first. But slowly, we felt ourselves become even stronger. Then we were able to take 2 before needing to rest. Slow the days turned into weeks, and those in turn became months before we felt ready to venture out to new areas.

(Note: When we left Ghelsba Outpost, was around level 16)

We were back in town and thinking of where we would train next when I noticed a path that had been boarded up before, had been opened. My curiousity, which was what started all this I suppose, took the better of me and I went in. In here, I found monsters roaming about and I felt that they were stronger then the ones in the Outpost. We were glad to find new training grounds so close to town that we had forgotton just how ardous the training had been. Well...we remembered rather quickly as we fought a Beetle type monster. It's hard shell made it hard to pierce through and made us truely work to survive. We decided that we would leave them be and fought the Hornets that had built their nests here. We were careful to avoid the wandering Orcish hordes that had made their way even here for they felt much stronger then we could handle.

(Note: At this point we were level 17)

I cannot remember accurately how much time had passed here any more. Before we felt ready to fight the Orcs here, we improved ourselves by fighting off the Funguar like monsters. Their Paralyzing and Silencing abilities were quite troublesome, but because we were not alone, we came through. As we became stronger, I was able to cure myself of the Paralyasis but sadly, the Silence was still a pain. Never the less, they were the perfect choice to fight in order to become stronger. My spear would pierce through easily and Celeste's claws would make the battles short. We also took out some of the Orcish horde when one decided to wander too far from it's comrades. They put up quite a fight I assure you but we managed, thank Atlana. We also noticed a strange creature that seemed to glide along the floor as we trained. We had never seen anything like it so we kept our distance. It was also the same area where many of the Orcs seemed to gather. We felt it was wise not to battle them without assistance.

(Note: Level 19 now. Yup...definetely working our way up)

At this point, I saw a Platoon Lance up for sale at an Auction while visiting the town of Jeuno. I jumped at the chance to try it and bought it. It was not until afterwards that I realized that I was not quite ready for it yet. I decided to ask a friend who was training in the arts of White Magic to assist me to become strong enough to try it. She gladly obliged us and came to assist us in training. With the help of a proper healer now, we decided to try the strange floating creatures. We later found out that they were called Flytraps. Odd name...but they definetely helped us in our training. Simlar to the Funguars, they would Paralyze us but instead of Silencing us, they would try to sleep us. Thankfully, our healer stayed far enough away to not fall prey to their Sleep attacks and would wake me up instantly. Too bad Celeste is lasy and always seems to love staying asleep...oh well. I could not blame her...she had been quite busy healing me of Poison and Paralysis when fighting the Funguars. I allowed her to sleep and kept training with the White Mage to keep me healed. It went by rather quickly with help but there was no doubt in my mind that the two of us, Celeste and I that is, could have done the task on our own.

(Note: Level 20. Only gained one level but I really wanted to use the lance:p)

We were now ready to venture further from the City. We mostly wandered about at this time trying to find a suitable training area. In all the trails and errors we encountered, we settled upon the rarely used Meriphataud Mountains to train in. To our surprise, it worked out magnificently. The Hill Lizards and Craneflies went down quickly to the combined assault of Celeste and I. And not only did they help make our training faster, but provided a fair source of revenue as well. I wish I could say more...but this went by much quicker then we had expected.

(Note: Level 22. 20-21 was mostly spent wandering around looking for places to lvl but 21-22 went by in a lil over an hour...yup...so proud of this...4.8k xp in just a bit over an hour )

At this point, the two of us decided to explore the tunnels that extended from the Zeruhn Mines. I heard from Rangers that it was a great training place for them. I was uncertain if it would be the same for us or not. At first, it was quite rough but definetely workable. Although the worms in the tunnel would sometimes Silence us, the biggest danger came from having my power sapped by their Gastic Bomb. Being foolish at the time, I would blindly continue on and charge at the next enemy only to get beaten back. Well...thankfully, I learned my lesson...eventually. After I had learned to wait until I had regained my power, things went quite well. My best advice to those that would follow in my path is to fight only the Worms at first. We can tell you personally that the bats would push us to our limits without as much of a reward. But after getting a little stronger, we were able to fight off both Worms and Bats with ease.

(Note: Level 22-23 was rather hard but after that was much easier. Died most often here when I kept rushing while having attack down. Gastric Bomb sux! Thankfully 23-24 went a lot smoother.)

Hmm...now an interesting oppurtunity arose at this time. I met another Dragoon who was interested in trying for a partnership. I was quite amused by this idea. I wondered at how this would work. It was quite interesting...I know not if Celeste and I could have done better but it was definetly interesting. I will pursue this idea for a bit longer and perhaps train my new partner to how our path works and see how we shall fare. The battles here in Qufim Island were not as hard with another Dragon Mage to assist me but neither were the rewards. Still, we pressed on and continued to train until we became stronger.

(Note: Went from 24-25 with Odango. Odango has no soloing experience but is learning at a good rate thankfully so we should become better. I'm hoping to experiment with different gear usage and food usage in the Duo form. Not quite the same things needed as when soloing.)

Although the partnership was for a short time only, it left a lasting impression. I would have loved to try it for longer but due to our busy schedules, my new partner and I had to part ways. I decided to continue and stay where we had been until I became stronger. The battles alone were harder fought then with an ally but many of the passerbys with healing ability spared some of their power to keep me healthy. Without their help, the battles would have been much more troublesome I am certain. With that, I became high enough in power to be able to wear new armor. I think I looked better in the Beetle set.

(Note: 25-28, solo. Took a while but a lot of people passing by kept healing me which helped to save my MP a lot. Thanks a lot to everyone that helped as there are way too many names to list much less remember.)

Now I will admit that I was lost as to where we should train next. Thoughts of heading to the Jungles near Kazham crossed my mind but...something told me that we were not yet ready for there. Then I remembered something. I remembered seeing some bats and spiders deep inside Korroloka Tunnel. When I had seen them before, I felt they were too strong for us but that we were not all that far away from being able to battle them on even par. And so we made our journey back to Korroloka Tunnel. We decided to try fighting a Spider first. Oh my...they were rather deadly I must say. We were knocked unconscious by one that I thought was just as strong as we! Well...we agreed not to fight them again and went after the giant bats. They proved to be better prey thankfully. They were much harder then what we had been used to and we was also trying the Red Dragon Mage's path. But as time passed by and we adjusted to the different style change from the White Dragon Mage to the Red Dragon Mage, things went much smoother. Of course we had to be careful not to make the Jelly type monsters angry as they were quite a handful and was not worth the time to train on. Time passed as usual while we trained (and tried my best to avoid being knocked unconscious again). We did have a few accidents here and there at first but this was before we had settled into the new playing style. By the time we finished, I felt ready to take on the jungles!

(Note: Level 28-30 was done on the Giant Bats. Becomes easier at level 29 but can be done at 28. Would need to be very careful at 27 but can also be done if you're good.)

Ah..the jungles...though it seemed more crowded with other adventurers then I had hoped, we managed to find the perfect prey. The Mandragoras that made their home in the jungle area outside of Kazham, known as the Yuhtunga Jungle, fell quickly under our combined assault. It felt as if it was...well...too easy. Thankfully, the lesson we learned from avoiding Giants and Jellies in Korroloka Tunnel saved us here. We found some goblins lurking nearby and neither of us wanted to fight one as they were prone to suicide (or perhaps their fingers are just clumsy). We kept out distance and lured the Mandragoras to a safe camp we had made nearby and battled from there. Went by much quicker then I had thought it would.

(Note: Level 30-33 in jungles. Find a place where gobs don't pop and pull mandies there. Should be easy to get chain 2 here with possibilties for 3. If you have any cooking skills, make sure to grab Kazham Pineapples and Water Crystals to make pineapple juices to make things go by faster ^^). Got a chain 4 to get level 33! Screenshot on seperate post!

Now came the hard part...well...a bit. I was uncertain if we should stay where we were and pick off the rare Mandragoras that were evenly matched against us or try the stronger Mandragoras in the nearby Yhoatar Jungle. At first, we stayed and fought off the Mandragoras here while killing occasional goblins. After a while, we both felt the need to at least test our strength against stronger prey. It was decided...to Yhoatar Jungle it was. To our surprise, we were able to kill these Mandragoras with almost the same ease as the ones we had been fighting...but our training went by much faster. By the time our training here ended, we were halfway to being a full fledged Dragon Mage.

(Note: Level 33-37 is very possible in Yhoatar Jungle. I went to 38 here because other places were a bit too hard at the moment and I couldn't wear the full Iron Scale set yet (The pants can't be worn until 40). So I waited till 38 and got a complete equipment upgrade with Cuir gear and upgraded from low delay spear/polearms to lances..namely an Obelisk Lance +1. I got it when it was cheap and my friend had made one when he was making GP items. Onward to a new horizon!)

[Baramunk]

*Puts this page in Favorites* =x

More more

This post has been edited by Baramunk on Sep 21 2005, 05:45 AM

[Dragonhope]

Hmm...I need to unlock the quest again to get the details...><

To add in more details to the part of unlocking it anyway..

[Mordred]

Hey DH, this sounds great...I like it, I like it! </em exhorts DH to write more>

[Perrytaru]

lol ummm yeah... right... uhhh.. your idea is very.. interesting..

[Dragonhope]

YOU!!! Where've you been?!??!

[Perrytaru]

sorry i haven't been on in a while, i have kind of been preoccupied lately, you know, with school and all, it's harder than i expected, i got on last night though to see how things were going, you weren't on though, but lego and alexx and nagah and some other people were.. well anyways, i hope to see you on soon because i'll try to play some more again, and i guess the diary seems like a pretty good idea lol

[Dragonhope]

Updated. Unlocked the job on Taru to fill in details that I had forgotton. Er..drat...still a bit in story mode. Anyways...as the final note says...that's up to only unlocking the Dragoon job. Haven't started leveling (Journey/Training) yet.

[Mordred]

Heya DH, great story! Kudos man! </em applauds>

[Octavo]

Keep it up DH!
Dragoon is probably one of the most painful jobs to level in terms of sheer lack of invites. Well worth it, though. Seen drg/whm save more than one party from a total wipe with Healing Breath

[Dragonhope]

That's the thing Octavo...i'm trying to see if it's possible to take Dragoon to lvl 75 without an actual PT if possible. Because I won't be using any sub on Dragoon other then one of the pure mages. I've been making 3-5k per hour on Dragoon depending on how my luck is that day while soloing..and I heard this gets easier to do at lvl 60+ with AF helm. Can't wait...i'm preparing the Relic pieces I want to use too sort of...and got lucky to be the only person seriously lvling Dragoon when AF body dropped in Dynamis Beaucidine. I think it's one of the better pieces for soloing since it gives +15 parrying skill (biggest boost to parry skill on ANY armor I think and not just DRG AF) and gives sub-job traits to my Wyvern too. Meaning if I sub WHM, my wyvern will have a boost to magic defense AND have auto-regen (which the AF1 armor gives) while wearing the Relic armor.

What this will do i'm hoping is to show that DRG can be a pretty good job to solo with as well as i'll be saying which areas I leveled in and how hard it was and so forth...but it's all going to be done in story mode so that only people that know how to read will understand it. Meaning it will prevent bad players from playing a good job.

[Rasengan]

Nice story, DH. I'm also happy that you've taken such a liking to DRG. What you plan to do seems to be the extreme version of what I did. I took DRG to 75 without ever starting an EXP party... and later did the same with SAM, lol. Now you're taking it over to the next step and trying for 75 without being in a PT.

All I can say is good luck. Its a fun job, but most people just won't understand what'll make someone go to 75 on DRG.

[Varg]

Interesting challenge keep this updated cause i'm interested in your progress <3

[Dragonhope]

Updated.

It might be taking it to the extreme, but I strongly believe that it's possible. Sure i've had bad days where i'd only make 2-3k an hour but i've also had some great days where i'd make over 4k an hour. And this is above level 10 and under level 60 (AF helm) which is what makes me believe even more that it's possible.

As for why people go to 75 as Dragoon, i'm sure everyone has their own reasons. Some do it as a challenge while others do it because they feel it's their calling. Some take it that high because they enjoy it. Me...i'm taking it high cause I just love the bond that's shared between a Wyvern and the Dragoon. That's actually why i'm using only a pure mage sub. I feel that the bond between Wyvern and Dragoon is stronger as a Dragon Mage then as a Dragon Knight. Then again I guess that falls into the category for doing it because it's fun...oh well.

I'm currently 24 so I haven't fully caught the Diary up yet. But I only got my connection back up now (almost 2:00 am o.o) so i'll stop for the day and get some sleep.

Feel free to post about any typos I made or ask questions if you don't understand something in the story.

[Dragonhope]

Updated. I've only used Spiring Link twice so far now that i'm 25 though. Have to wait and see how much more useful it is...but I can imagine the downtime being reduced quite a bit since MP recovers faster and I can use the MP to heal myself up faster then Celeste can heal.