I can say that if you are an atheïst you should start reconsider where you believe in, God really exists !
Well a FFXI God anyway, but that's merely a technical detail.
Because of my lack of creativity in the past, I just used to call him Byakko~ for a while
and for a very very long time I have been in real life spitting out that name at some of my customers on several occasions. They and my collegues just kept going "HUH!?", but in the end they just had to conclude it was part of the V.C.S. (Vero's Craziness Syndrome).

Byakko~ Byakko~ Byakko~

Well yesterday when a second "Besieged" started, I got a tell from one of the sweetest members of my Japanese/HK linkshell to team up for it (lucky#1). I instantly hopped to the ls to say hi, it had already been a little while since I had been in there. All welcomed me back in such a warm way that it's nearly undescribable. After besieged, Pindy told me that they were doing a "Sky tour" the next day and that I was invited to come (lucky#2).

They explained me it would be in Dynamis style. I had never heard of this form for sky before, normally people work with some sort of points system, but since this LS is just a friends linkshell that does all sort of events which are rarely (read: NEVER) sky related, the lottingsystem had to be different. They apparently in the name of fairness, preferred not to appoint items to a fixed person in advance.

OK so Dynamis-style means that before you go up there, you tell leader what item you want to lot. 1 AF2 ..euh… ITEM !
One item and one item only, if it doesn't drop  -> bad luck, you don't get to lot at all.
However when everyone that wanted it, already had it or noone cared for a certain item, it was a free lot.

So I was allowed to actually LOT (lucky#3)

Take a wild guess what choice I made  

Byakko~ Byakko~ Byakko~

So the next morning around 8.30am (Hell I was there! didn't have to go to work until in the early afternoon)(lucky#4)
we went up there and fought 5 Genbus – 3 Suzies - 4 Seiryus and 4 Byakkos
We were with a little over 20 people, but even if the person hadn't participated and the item that he chose to lot for had dropped, he would get invited to /random for it.

As expected Byakko was saved for last

Byakko fight nr.1: seriously outlotted
Byakko fight nr.2: no drop   
Byakko fight nr.3: no drop 
Byakko fight nr.4: Drop (lucky#5) 
and I lotted 891, highest roll I ever lotted for an item of this kind (Memories of Dynamis 0/356789).
I was so sure I was easily going to be outlotted with someone rolling 900+.
I was sitting on the top of my chair, it was really really pathetic.
You should have heard me screaming when I saw the outlotting didn't happen.(lucky#lostcount)
My Neighbours once again experienced the V.C.S. and I will most likely recieve another medical bill soon.
One thing is certain, I will never forget this number for the rest of my FFXI-life.

Byakko~ Byakko~ Byakko~

The Skytour was a highly exceptional ls-event and probably just an one time thing only,
so I still can't believe how extremely lucky I was for once to be at the right place at the right time !
I want to thank Pindy for giving me a pearl back then when I was leveling RDM in my late 60s with her BLM
in Dragon's Aery. Thank you for inviting to come with you to sky, thank you for helping me get one of the items I wanted most and otherwise probably wouldn't have obtained before december 2012 or even never. Thank you for … just THANK YOU

After the Sky-mayhem I logged off in a hurry to get myself ready to go to work.
Unfortunately, I even got 30 minutes late for work today, but since that had never happened before, Gisèle (my bitch-boss) didn't ask anything about it (strangely enough).
Should she have asked a reason for my being late, I am sure I would have answered: "Sorry, I really had to lot on that Haidate"

I wonder if she perhaps noticed that I had the Byakko-look in my eyes…

Oh and one last thing:

 Byakko~ Byakko~ Byakko~ !!!!

When back then, I was fooling around with the modelviewer, I saw how pretty it looked on my character.
Unfortunately a RDM can't wear it at all, so getting one somehow was out of the question.
While leveling ninja and browsing all these bazaars again (can't help it that I like to browse and shop around !),
I noticed this going in a range from 50 to 85 mil. I am sorry, but in my opinion no in-game item is really worth more than 5-10mil. So I kind of let the idea go of getting one, it's not that "woaw" for ninja anyways

Then today, when I got home from the Avant-première of the Da Vinci code (don't go see it), an evening in which an afterward reception with free alcoholic drinks and yummie snacks were included (mistake 1), since I wasn't sleepy yet I logged in to quickly finish up my second-last NPC-quest in jeuno, when the NPC-TARU of Al Zhabi warps me to Batallia Downs instead of Jeuno (mistake 2). While running to Jeuno I couldn't help myself checking all the bazaars again (it's stronger than myself!), when I saw this shiny
Osode on sale for 30Mil. I didn't hesitate a second and clicked the "Purchase"-button. 5 seconds later when I started to realize what I had done, I began slapping myself. 30mil *poof* But hearing from others that I got a very fair price for this item and that I could always sell it back for a higher price if I would like to, I was determined keep it for a while and just goof off. Meanwhile I am back down to 1.7 Mil

Now that I have been playing around with it (in a meritparty, besieged and assault), I must say so far that this piece
is far from junk for ninja. I am really convinced it is better than a scorpion harness at level 75 and perhaps one of the best body equips we can get. So far I don't regret my purchase for one second. 

Well today was another Valor-tense day, with 11 people online we went to Sky to use our 3 Suzaku-pop sets we had lying around.
With only 11 people and a few (including myself) hovering around level 72-73, we weren't getting our hopes too much…
but as positive as all Valormembers can be, we kept our chins up,
were determined to show the back of our teeth and eager to postpone the wipe as long as we could

First fight didn't go really smooth and around 82% my TankTubby (read buddy) bites the dust.
Not much later, I made a small mistake resulting in Suzaku one shotting me with triple attack 2 seconds later.
With Lego (War/nin), Tubby (Pld/nin) and me (Nin/War) all down in the recovery room, I really thought we lost the battle.
But NO, mages casted gravity, all non-tanks started to kite and managed to keep this going
until us 3 unweakened and were fully recovered to go in again.
Some Chaos/death moments later… we eventually managed to win the fight !!
And although this first fight was really hard, everyone was still superexcited and well motivated to do two more.

I must say, it's like we got the hang out of it somehow;
even more, besides the fact everone now knew what to do and to expect, 
you could really feel everyone was functioning as a part of a team of friends!
Needless to say that we also won the other two fights and they really weren't all too difficult,
just needed a little focus, which was definitely there at that time.

Everyone did a tremendous job, I am just so lucky and happy I can be part of it

Finally…

Congratulations to:
Asran: Hecatomb feet
Lestath: Adaman head, Suzaku's Sune-ate
Tubby: Suzaku's Sune-ate