All by Myself

All by Myself
Starting NPC	Marin, Bastok Markets (E-10)
Required Fame	Bastok Level 2
Items Needed	Ken's Escort Reward
Title	None
Repeatable	Yes
Description	Marin wants you to watch over her little brother Ken, and make sure nothing happens to him during his military academy exam. Hopefully, this does not count as cheating...
Rewards
1,500 Gil

Walkthrough

Be warned that this is considered by many players to be one of the most difficult quests in the game, and it's for an extremely meager reward.

Dangruf Wadi

Quest Route

• Marin wants you to watch over her brother Ken in Dangruf Wadi.
• When Ken asks you not to interfere, select "I wasn't talking to you, squirt!" to start the quest.
• The questis capped at level 10. Change to a curative job (or any job combination that allows you to cure at level 10). You will probably have to cure a lot, so keep that in mind.
  • Ken fights even nonaggressive monsters and takes tremendous damage during the trip. White Mage may be the only realistic option to complete the quest.
• Zone into Dangruf Wadi for a cutscene in which Ken tells you to leave.
• To start the escort, talk to him again. He says that if he sees you, he'll go home, so you have to stay out of his sight for the whole trip while making sure he doesn't die.
• You are then capped at level 10 and Ken starts moving. BUFFS DO NOT WEAR! It is recommended to enable Afflatus Solace if you have WHM 40+ before speaking with Ken to receive the level cap. The Stoneskin effect will wear off in one hit, but it does reduce the damage he takes after every Cure you give him.
• Follow him without being seen and keep him alive. See notes below.
• Once he's back at the zone he'll say something and zone out. That's when Marin will appear. Talk to her to obtain Ken's escort reward and to remove your level cap.
• Go back to Bastok and talk to Marin to receive your reward, 1500 gil.

Notes

• The Destier Beret is your friend!
• Invisible status wears off instantly, be it by someone else casting it on you, by using Prism Powders or even Tonko: Ichi.
• Ken has HNM sight radius, which means if you can see him, he can see you.
• He has the natural 90 degrees area of sight in front of him, but he turns and moves around a lot.
• His HP will drop, and he will be killed if you don't cure him. Ignoring him is not an option.
• When you're running low on MP try to cure him to full HP fast and rest. It takes a while for his HP to drop again, which gives you time to rest and catch up with him.
• His trip is one set path. He does a loop on the left-hand side of the entrance of Dangruf Wadi and goes through a few regions. His path will not take him near the newly-added high level monsters.
  • Be advised that the aforementioned map gives his general route without any specifics. At various points he turns to look behind him, and even deviates a bit from the map, but his path is always the same.
  • When he engages a monster, he runs off to fight it, but will return to the point where he left off before continuing his path. This means that he may turn around abruptly after the battle ends, unless there's another mob he needs to fight first. Be aware that he ignores terrain while returning to the point he left off from and takes the straightest line, even if that involves running straight over normally impassable rocks.
• The only time that is really safe to cure him is while he's in a battle, but keep in mind that he might turn around right after the battle ends.
• Outside cures don't have any effect; only the escort can cure him.
• Alliance members won't be capped, but can't heal him either.
• Other players cannot engage Ken's targets, even though they don't appear claimed.
• A higher level player not in the party can run ahead of Ken and kill most or all of the mobs in his way. This drastically reduces the difficulty on this quest.
  • Now that the monsters respawn in 5 minutes rather than 15, this option is no longer very effective; neither is training the monsters, which deaggro liberally. The best way to beat the quest may be to just cure him as the developers intended.
• You have 30 minutes in total to complete this quest. The countdown starts as soon as you enter Dangruf Wadi, not when you talk to Ken. You must talk to him within 5 minutes after zoning into the area or he'll leave and you have to rezone to start.

General notes on Escort quests

• Any of the escort quests can be easily deactivated by talking to the same person who gave you the quest.
• If the escortee dies, you only have to zone out and zone back in to restart the quest.
• This quest can be completed once per Conquest Tally.
• You can not sneak or invisible the escortee.