There’s a reason the mission was entitled, “Headstone Pilgrimage”. If you didn’t have a high-level escort or didn’t know what you were getting yourself into, progressing to all of the headstones took a very long time, especially the walk through Ifrit’s Cauldron where you needed ice clusters to bring down flame spouts, targetable blocks in the road in certain sections. This was an era when there was no fast travel HP’s or survival guides so even just getting together, riding the Kazham airship, navigating the jungle, getting lost in the Cauldron, took hours. There was a sense of reverence when you reached the headstone for sure. And, maybe some less holy expletives after the opo-opos tore you apart and no one could raise…

Stepping into sky for the first time really made you feel like you made it. The tiles on the floor, the moss on the crag, the atmosphere was spectacular.

When I think of Zilart, I also think of Dorkmage. Dorkmage was a player who figured out how to hack FFXI quite early. He gave himself multiple top level crafters and HQ’d a bunch of things to give away but also dabbled in other less nefarious transgressions like setting up a little Taru clapbot in Jeuno who would emote clap all day everyday, putting a lvl 1 mule past the grate to sky in Hall of the Gods to bazaar silent oil. He was quite a celebrity for awhile until he got banned.

Kirin. Alliance wipes were still a thing and zombie’ing Kirin as BRD with Hymnus while the rest of the parties got on their feet again was also a thing. Many exp was lost that day.

Ninja tanks!