You never realize how poor you really are until you need gil.

Well, I need gil. I whole lot of gil. This is the first time I have really needed gil because there is something I need which doesn't have a cheaper equivalent that was at least close to the more expensive item in quality. But here I am, a guy that just accepted being poor as a matter of existence, staring down a huge bill for the next item that I need. For whatever reason, lack of time, lack of planning, lack of savings, I have a lack of income. The decrease in price for Limbus is going to help me at least a little bit, but 30k a week isn't going to make or break me. My latest farming has been going well, but the market for my consumables just isn't that great and I am still using it to level my leathercrafting. Iz and I are considering doing Avatar fights to make money which you can do once a day, but the time it takes to do the fights is pretty high and with Omoi's new work schedule I don't think we will be able to get them in every day which is the only way to make it seem like a reasonable investment. There are of course ENM's and KS30's that we can do, and I am going to set up a strict schedule for them not just for me but because Iz has been demanding them too, but it just seems so overwhelming. Why do I feel like I have hit a brick wall when it comes to gil? Well, I finally got my Hikazu Hara-ate, and besides my normal thanks to Iz, Omoi, Blaize and Darkdawn, I need to specifically thank Celestria because she simple just passed it to me. I need to explain a little bit more to fully understand the situation. Celestria runs her own Salvage LS that Omoi, Iz and I are in, and we have pulled in a couple of other Versus members from time to time to round out runs, while at the same time, the Versus group does runs too, and Celestria and Blaize come quite often with us, and we pull in a couple of people from her group from time to time too. So we end up doing a lot of our runs together, and even though the leaders of the runs still decide the runs, cell distribution and other details, we already know how to do the zone inside and out, all of the NM's, all of the mobs, all of the bosses, everything. We do have our own lotting lists for each group, but there are times when those prioritize aren't as important because we work together so often for the rewards. When the Usukane 35 body dropped, I did lot because I did have it as priority but I didn't say anything else about who could lot because I knew that Celestria also needed it. I sat there for a second, and before I could say anything because I still was too torn to tell Celestria that she couldn't lot just because priorities on this particular run favored my random luck, Celestria said "Oops, I passed! :)". And there you have a small snapshot of the personality of the best Salvage leader on Odin (if not across all servers). A friend of mine in another LS the other day mentioned that he heard that we were doing well in Salvage and that we were known for being a good Salvage group. I had to promptly tell him that this was not true, Celestria is by far the best Salvage leader, hell she is just an amazing leader in general. Celestria is far better at Salvage than anyone I know and she taught us almost all of the advanced knowledge that we have about Salvage. She really helped to elevate the quality of Versus runs.

So thanks to Celestria!

But here is the rub. I have been working to do Salvage because I wanted the Usukane gear, and I wanted my friends to get the gear that they wanted. I knew that the cost was inevitably going to be very high in terms of gil for buying the items to upgrade the gear, but I was going to cross that bridge when I came to it. It was a far off problem, because we still had a lot to learn and a lot to work for to get to that point. I got my Usukane head piece just a few weeks ago, and Iz just straight up gave me 5 O. Ingots to help to complete it, but in that time I have been farming, crafting and trying to buy at least one more O. Ingot and I haven't even been able to get enough gil to buy one more O. Ingot. I was absolutely elated when I got my Usukane body piece, but when I logged on the next day, I just felt completely overwhelmed. Now, I am not going to be Myrrial and complain about not having the gil for days on end, or slit my wrists or contemplate quitting or anything, but it is quite a daunting task that I have been completely ignoring because I thought it would be putting the cart before the horse. I like to approach things by completing what I believe to be the hardest part first because after that everything is easier, but I think I may have misjudged this one.