A Man and his Crab: Why the Smallshell Minion has brought me great joy

Once upon a time in Final Fantasy XI, I was a Dark Knight. I loved the job more than anything else in the game (and crossing my fingers for a Final Fantasy XIV version). However, because of my choice of being a career Dark Knight, I wasn't really able to help people outside of just killing things. Most of my abilities were made to help myself.

One day in Valkurm Dunes, I was asked to powerlevel a party who's healer had ditched the group. Seeing as it was a friend of mine who asked, I couldn't say no. Problem is... I was a Dark Knight. The highest level of my Paladin or White mage was too low. So I did the only thing I could do...

DRK/WHM - *The crowd lets out a horrified gasp*

It was the best I could do. I get the heals of a WHM but retain the power of my Dark Knight so if I pulled aggro, I wouldn't get killed. But a new obstacle stood in my way: Refresh. I had none. My MP pool wasn't huge, so how was I going to aid these players for the long term?

"Wait a second... I have Aspir. Crabs have MP! I'll grab myself a Crab Buddy!"

So on my way to the camp, I stop by the beach and smack a crab with a weak attack, like Poison. Because of FFXI aggro physics, the Crab would follow me until I zoned, so I made it to the camp with the crab not far behind.

Party Member 1: "You realize you have a Crab following you, right?"
Kagato Jurai: "Oh, this is my Crab Buddy. Say hello, Crab Buddy!"
*The Crab lands a Critical Hit on Kagato Jurai somehow... and deals 2 HP of damage.*
Kagato Jurai: "...he's just shy."

The party proceeded to laugh and we got things started. As I lost MP, I'd target the crab and use my Aspir spells on him until his MP pool ran out. At such a point I simply ran and got a new one, becoming a successful, if not unorthodox power leveler in Valkurm Dunes.

CUE FINAL FANTASY XIV: A REALM REBORN

Here I am, enjoying FFXIV:ARR, running my Free Company... when all of a sudden, someone makes a post on The Abyssal Pirates forums. It listed all the known minions in the game and how to obtain them. As I was looking through, that is when I saw this:

Quote:

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http://i.imgur.com/pjOxV7l.png - Smallshell
Rewarded for completing the FATE "It's not Lupus" with a Gold Medal rating in Eastern La Noscea, south of Costa del Sol (X30,Y34)

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CRAB BUDDY!!!

As you can probably tell, I went long out of my way to get him. This included participating in that FATE several levels lower than I should be, still hoping in vain to get a Gold Medal victory and get the Smallshell minion. Try as I might, I was just too weak.

I eventually had to face facts and admit that I wasn't ready, but after a few more levels, I gathered up members of my Free Company and we marched our butts over to Costa Del Sol and we camped that FATE. After a good 45 minute wait, there it was. Cancer the Crab, right in front of us. We all jumped on it and started pummeling it as best as we could right from the start with others jumping in quickly as well.

The HP hit 0. The results were in. Was it enough? Did I finally succeed? Will I relive one of the silliest, and yet one of the most fond memories I had of my FFXI career? Well... I'll just let the pictures speak for themselves...

http://img833.imageshack.us/img833/2180/pk15.png
http://img35.imageshack.us/img35/4486/o2kp.png

Oh man, Dark Knight PLing. I had a few of those. I think I even had a MNK/WHM once. I have to wonder how desperate some people can be.

I find the crab's description to be incredibly amusing, being that it is supposed to bring us trauma. And yes, I did spend years of my life killing them, but at least with him following around me around I can feel warm nostalgia whenever I wish, as well.

good read, thanks!

This might be my favorite post on these forums. Thanks for the great story :)

I'm so happy you found your long lost friend!!!

Kagato where have you been?!?! Tenchi Masaki here. When are we getting another anime??

lol Favorite post on this forum so far :P

I, too, have had many crab MP batteries in FFXI. And I've also PLed as DRK/WHM in the Dunes, oddly enough. >_> Though, as a Tarutaru, MP wasn't too bad.

You, sir, are now my hero!

I miss FFXI. I'm glad you have fond memories like this I have many myself, hopefully we can gains few from ARR. Thank you for sharing.

there must be a ninja cutting onions in here

That's got to be one of the better ffxi stories I've heard in a long time. Thanks for the share. ^^

Brings back memories for sure. I remember having A DRK/WHM as a total noob, that ended as soon as I found my first leveling party lol. Leveling could be so much a of grind, but it was a true blast killing those crabs when you had a cohesive group, and those were the times you forgot about any sense of grinding.

I play every MMORPG hoping it will compare to FFXI.

This was a really cute story. Thanks for sharing.

Lmao Crab Batteries

Not to derail, but I've got a pretty fun story about an ant. It was in Central Thanalan, with a FATE that spawned a giant ant NM. I was running a Pugilist at the time and happened to be in the area when it spawned, so I'm like "Hey Sweet! Dibs!" counting on other people to show up, and if not then I'd disengage and run for it. Rightly, people came. But nobody pulled threat. As a PUG I'm no tank, but I do have a bit of survivability... long enough that I could type out a call for help to heal me. Again nothing. So, with my healing cooldown blown... I started kiting. I had done enough damage to it that for the rest of the fight I was pulling it around in circles and thankfully only survived because he could be affected by Slow, letting me get ahead, to which the assistance was most diligent with.
To sum up, that is how I ran around screaming like a little girl for half of a FATE and still got top marks.

I loved the read and the story. FFXI also brings me fond memories...

Thank you for sharing!

Make sure you read the description for it if you haven't already. Most people who played XI should appreciate it, even if you didn't really fight crabs as much as people say (like me).

Also, can anyone point me toward a good list of minions? Someone had started one on the beta forum right before it got closed and I'm mostly going off what people have said about individual ones in game.

Glad I was there when you decided to go get the crab minion. As a fellow XI player, I can understand your feelings towards this minion, Kagato.

Now, he shall serve as the mascot of your FC. :)

I wish I could have gotten Babemoth from an actual event rather than just buying him.
Oh well. He's mine and I love him.
My precious unresponsive digital puppet son.

I STILL cannot for the life of me understand why FFXIV doesn't have not just a dark knight, but NO TWO HANDED SWORDS IN A FINAL FANTASY GAME?!?!?!

WHAT THE FUCK...........:mad::mad::mad::mad::mad::mad::mad::mad::mad::mad::mad::mad::mad:

This thread brought a tear to my eye. OP you are a true hero.

Ha ha, nice! Brings back memories. . .

You weren't by any chance on the Caitsith server were you?

*gives crab-shaped cookie to the OP for a lovely story and wonderful attitude*

Best. Story. Ever. :3 I so need one of those minions!

I like to pretend it is Courier Carrie. If only Beastmaster in ARR existed..

What about CourierCrab and CrabFamilar

I'm dissapointed that you didn't post a screenshot of the minion description when you hover your mouse over it. I thought you were going to hint and joke about it :(

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/...fu/r7Wr3fI.gif

Nice post :)

Loved reading this

Hail, Cap'n!

Never realized there was such a storied history behind this. Thanks for the tale. :)

*The Crab lands a Critical Hit on Kagato Jurai somehow... and deals 2 HP of damage.*
Kagato Jurai: "...he's just shy."

I loved the sound of critial hits from monsters on FFXI, and i like them even more when someone died from them,i laughed like a madman.

Great post! Things like this are what makes the game so much fun.

Thanks for the support everyone. I've already had a few people on leviathan contact me saying how much they enjoyed this story.

I hope to create new fond memories in this game. ^_^

Great story! I'm sure you will have more great memories to create in Eorzea, as well.

Sidebar; anyone have an updated list of available Minions? Is there anything out there like a Wolf or something? Lol

The one I use isn't fully updated, but I can say I don't remember there being any wolf minions.

This is adorable. I can't wait to get mine.

Thanks for the story, it made me smile. I had to go out of my way for this little guy too! He's too nostalgic and adorable to pass up.

What makes him the most adorable is when he does his little twitch animation during his idle stance. It's like he gets up on his hind legs and says "HUG ME!"

MUCH BETTER THEN THE NOTEBOOK!

loved this story!! why did u have to ruin ff11 square enix!?!!? whyy???!