Levelling Up

The AVG installation was still messing around - I redownloaded it from Grisoft themselves, and all is sweetness and light now... or at least, until I next switch on that computer!  SirDarth therefore started off on the main computer today, and did some sterling work, moving over a bit later to the older machine.  The horse levelled up, and is now level 34, so hungrier than ever.  He has passed the halfway point in level 34 by the close of play today, perhaps getting a little further as long as I don't get some passing player decide to kill my target Berserker again.  That happened a time or two today, with a knight called berethor being the latest such villain.  I noticed that he'd managed to get the Grand Red Dragon to appear; I doubted if he'd be able to kill it, and sure enough the "GRD" made another visit less than an hour later, so was alive and well.

The double skill exp and harvesting continued today on Auzura-3, until it got turned off at about ten to four in the afternoon, UK time.  Rage had been doing plenty of mining, while I was busy downstairs, and is now pretty well off for all three kinds of stone.  The lure of that free double skill exp was too much to keep me working all afternoon, and before too long MrChuckNorris headed for that back room in Prokion Temple, passing fellow Norcaine member Ghostt on the way along the corridors.

So, Chuck slogged away there, continuing a little while after the double skill exp ended, so that he could level up his drake, which now does out-rank him.  Luckily that doesn't increase the drake's appetite, he'll have to reach level 29 while Chuck is still frozen on 27 for his starvation rate to double.  In all the drake added 926 pet points; his new level needs 6700 in all, so that should take quite a few sessions.  On the skill point front, 316 was the number gained, so we are definitely over a third of the way there.

After the early evening food break it was Rage's turn for some action; in theory the "happy hour" was 50% extra experience, and she's the prime candidate for more of the stuff at present.  It was quite a marathon session at the Sphinx Fighters and Sphinx Speer Men... and wouldn't you know it, the only time I had to use a resurrection scroll was when the party was at its largest.

WhiteMessiah2 was already in action there when I arrived, she's a level 45 rogue now, and she was teamed with a level 47 archer, Talinha.  They kindly let me into their party, and before too long the titan Darkmager got in touch, and came out to join us.

Really, that place is best for bow-users, archers and rangers; Darkmager gave us the usual titan buff and did his best, but if he ran forward to attack our bows' target, quite often he'd attract two other Sphinx types in too.  Which is probably why I ended up taking the safer option of respawning back in town and using a memorising scroll to go back out.  I did see Ratel at that point, presumably he'd just arrived in Dratan on the way to the Poison Mists, but I couldn't really stop to chat, and SirDarth's offer of a party for him was not accepted, perhaps Ratty had specified a combat type, which Darth would be too low for.

Darkmager got a disconnection, but managed not to be killed while it happened; he did return to us, and managed to level up to level 39, though he had to leave early for a Birthday party for a family member.  A little later Talinha also had to log out, but WhiteMessiah2 and I continued, if anything more quickly.  She'd take the lead, and if her Snare failed, well, with any luck mine would work...or our combined archery would kill the target anyway.  She kindly handed over the tool aids dropped, you'd almost think she knew I needed plenty of quality stones for pet levelling.

But Poland is an hour ahead of England, so she got tired; she may well have been there for quite a time before I got there, of course.  I continued solo for a little while, and then a sorcerer, FreeDivingMaster, arrived, and asked to team up.  He was only level 28, fresh out of Prokion with all his skill points, but he did make things easier, and was sensible enough to wait until I'd lured the Sphinx type in question.  When a heaven stone dropped and it went to him, he wanted to hand it over, but, really, I didn't need "payment", I'm sure I have got more of them in storage than he has.

I'd initially just wanted to get to level 41, but when I'd managed that and equipped my shiny new level 45 +15 crossbow, well, getting FDM to level 29 was a reasonable aim, as was getting the bow ready for its first bloodseal gem, and finally getting Rage's horse to its new level, which I managed by log-out time.

At FDM's urging we did take out the Elite Speer Man a time or two, but his suggestion that I was so good that we ought to go to the Screaming Zombies in the Tomb of Theos, well, that seemed a bit over-optimistic to me.  If Rage was wanted in a nice big party with another rogue, a royal knight, a healer, a mage, and a couple of others, that would be worth trying, but the two of us wouldn't have got very far, I think.

Rage did actually go up by a skill point, as well as getting her pet horse 1479 pet points - and the experience gain was 92.41%, so I think we must have had 50% extra experience switched on for at least some of the time.

Back in Randol, Rage was able to give her pet an extra level of Armour Increase, and also to get level six of Mental Defence for 150 skill points, increasing her magical defence by another 8.  And I really need to think about getting her the 45/47 armour set, since she can now wear not just its gloves, but shirt and leggings too!