A Hunting Surprise

I headed off to Meriphataud Mountains to look for a new NM to kill, in this case, I thought Daggerclaw Dracos would make an interesting target. I had never hunted for him before, so I did a little research. It seemed that Dracos popped down in the southeast corner of the map, in that little circular area off by itself. I also noticed that there was another NM who shared the same spawn, a certain Waraxe Beak. Dracos is a lottery spawn off the Raptors in the area, and is level 27 or 28, an easy kill. Waraxe is a 20-something hour spawn, and is a much more challenging level 55-56 -ga spell spammer. The Vana'diel Bestairy said Waraxe beak was 'Killable by 6 level 55 characters; Red Mage soloable at 70.' So not by me.

I figured I'd be fine, that there was no way that spending an hour or three down there would have me running into this giant cockatrice.

So I check up on Negative Lily (who is sick right now... poor little choco) and feed her, then grab a full-grown rental bird to run up to Meriphataud.

*cue jaunty choco music*

Guess who was wandering around when I got there?

Oops.