Spoopy

To break up the lazy monotony of these Tribune posts of late, and because it is the most scary month of the year, I have decided to forego the funny and instead bestow upon you the spooky.

Many of you may know, that there are some crazy good backstories for areas in FFXI. There are a ton of happy areas where people have settled down and just have fun with their lives. Purgonorgo Isle is a great vacation spot. Many clams.

But there are some areas with really fucked up stories. Where people do the opposite of have fun.

They DIE. That's the opposite, right?

Take Gusgen Mines for example. The story behind it is so sad, it makes me cry while I kill skeletons to help some noob get a magicked skull. Records show that a bunch of important Hume and a few whatchacallits...

Galka, that's it.

Galka died in a terrible mine collapse that trapped their souls within the confines of the mines.

Also children. Children were in the mines playing with, I dunno, a ball-in-a-cup or something while their parents toiled away with Chinese pickaxes.

Those poor souls.

Speaking of souls, check this shit out!



That's a freakin' ghost right there.

For those of you who don't know, there were spirits that roamed the mines and popped out of thin air to make you go "Holy shit, guys! Get over here, i just saw a friggin ghost!" Only when you turn around, you realize you have no friends.

The deeper you went into the mines, the more mindfucky things got.



These pictures are not mine, I got them from a quick Google search. But I have been to the deepest parts of Gugen, and can confirm that everything you see is real and spoopy as shit. There's even a place where the hanging bodies glow red, and it is very unsettling.

Probably the thing that frightened us the most while we played late at night was the sirens.

Dear Altana, the sirens.

It seemed to happen at the spoopiest hour. There would be dead silence, then all of a sudden the air raid noise began in the distance and reverberated off the walls. When I first heard it, I freaked out and told my LS what happened. They laughed and called me a girl.

I am not a girl. :(

I later found out it was the signal for one of six special NMs to spawn, all presumably spirits of those who died under mysterious circumstances.

Possibly murder!

Also, if you went to the very very VERY bottom, you ran into Foul Meat. No, not my penis.



This guy, you crazy readers, you.

Although not a NM, Foul Meat had a very long respawn timer. And because there was only one of him, he was rarely seen. I only saw him a few times after the server population took a dive.

It was areas like this that made FFXI memorable. Places with lots of lore and things that made you go "Woah, they put a lot of thought into this" while you continued to kill skeletons for that fucking magicked skull drop.

Anyway, stay safe out there if you plan on trick-or-treating. Don't let the Elvaan dopplegangers get you, or worse, actual Elvaan.

*shivers*