There once was a young Mithra called Aliamen. Roaming free in the lands of Vana'diel. Life was easy and she was free as a kitten. One afternoon, lounging in the plains south of Ronfaure, Aliamen heard a cry for help. She jumped to her feet and saw two orcs ruthlessly slaughter her mother. Filled with dread she ran to the forest, looking for some shelter.

Orcs lined the paths, holding the locals prisoner. Trumpets were blaring in the distance. Without thought, she ran as fast as she could, dodging through the lines, and escaping the eye of the orc. As she ran she found herself going deeper into the forest than she'd ever been. Suddenly there was a clearing, young rabbits and worms going about their business as if nothing was wrong. Before her stood a great site: The Great Towering Walls of the Kingdom of Sandoria. She was greeted by a readied guard and taken within.

"Are you to inlist?" asked a woman. Frightened, Aliamen said nothing. "I said, Are you to inlist, madam?" The woman's tone became more firm.

Aliamen let out a quiet, "Yes."

Without another word, Aliamen was led to the recruitment area where she was given some basic armor and asked her to describe herself.

"I was borrrn and rrraised in the plains. My parrrents taught me honorrr all and go give frrreely. I was taught to tend wounds and to sing lullabies."

She was handed a club and some basic cloth armor. "White Mage." Said the recruiter, "And I suspect, you'll be studing to be a Bard too, when things calm down that is. But nevermind that now." Handed her things, she was instructed to dress immediately and was shown to the Guard at the Northern Gate.

"He will give you your assignments." After briefing, Aliamen set out to test her newfound skills on some nearby prey.

As time went by, Aliamen went forth from Ronfaure, a warrior--not a White Mage, working through the Plains and arriving at Selbina, in the Dunes. Sitting outside the wall was another Mithra, like herself. "Hello," greeted Aliamen, "I'm Aliamen, I'm forming an alliance called 'TheWay' to fight for Vana'diel. Would you like to join me?"

"Certainly!" Cried the other Mithra, "My name is Meow. It's nice to meet you." From then on, Aliamen worked her way around, keeping in touch with Meow as best as she could. Aliamen continued to recruit newcomers like herself. She affectionately labeled them newbs. Short for newbie.

The days passed, the Dunes became frivilous and it was time to head to Jeuno. Aliamen approached the Chocobo trainer and asked for an apprenticeship. "I'm sorry, dear. I'm much too busy trying to encourage this Chocobo to eat. It appears as though his old master used to beat him and left him for dead one day. Luckily we were able to find him and now we're trying to nurture him back to health; but I'll tell you what, if you can get this Chocobo to eat, I'll see if I can work out a way for you to get a license." And with that, Aliamen got her Chocobo License.

There were many battles that lay ahead and her alliance grew in strength. She began to rely on others like Meow, Aliatra, Johao, Airemacar, and Elkas to keep things under control while she was away.

The days passed, good and bad times came. A few left the alliance and started their own but Meow, Aliatra, Johao, Airemacar, and Elkas stayed true. Their leadership is what kept the alliance together.

Aliamen began to see things running smoothly and laid down her weapons. Leaving her alliance in good hands, she knew that Vana'diel would be safe.

Many years in Vana'diel have passed since this time. Aliamen is no longer remembered and the few that remain hardly can remember the greatness that was 'TheWay'. But rumor have been stirring that Aliamen is returning. Perhaps under a new name, or ar new banner, but the same spirit remains. Only time will tell...

That's sort of my story for FFXI. I just purchased a new account and will be logging back into Midgardsormr (hopefully) in two days. I plan on being a BRD/WHM (eventually) and creating another linkshell with Aliatra and some others if they are willing. For now, I'm going to keep working on this site. The Linkshell is back up and running with the same forums. The old accounts still work so feel free to log in and post. I'm probably going archive the old posts and start us fresh over again. Anyway... that's all for now. I'll update again later when I get some more information about my account name and player name.

See ya

I just added the thorns on the sides of my mainTable, and I also changed the background of the newsTitle. If you can't see the changes, your browser really attached to it's cache. Push [CTRL]-[F5] to do a "hard refresh". A hard refresh forces your browser to get all the newest content for the page it's currently displaying.

Yes, that's right. I was recently inspired to redo the look of my website. So that's what I'm doing. shweet. ok, ttyl. I'm goign to set up the structure first, then build a user-based back end and get my old news engine put into this. After that, we'll see what I come up with. oh yeah... www.creativedivergence.com / Chad Orlikowski was the inspiration. So I'm going to start re-learning photoshop and put together a little site...

My First Logo was a simple pixelated background with a zoom effect that sort of stretched the edges a little. I was ok with this. The font bothered me a little though. I didn't like the formal look of the Adinsx. It didn't really accentuate the page the way my new one does.

The second logo I made, and currently the one I'm using actually has the first logo in a layer underneith it. I wanted to incorporate my first logo into my second one. I wanted to improve on what I had, rather than toss out what was otherwise a clean looking image. So that's what I did and now I have the new logo.