Saturday 30 May 2009

Back to the Sphinxes

SirDarth started early as usual, and by lunchtime the dragon hatchling had reached level 16, and was now officially a drake.  SirPerivale got some time in too, and his horse reached level 29 just before the end of the lunch break.

But in the morning the idea was for MrChuckNorris to take the spotlight.  First of all, though, weapons had to be moved around and restyled for their new users; Chuck got Rage's old crossbow, and had it transformed into a rather impressive new titan sword, while his old sword went to MistressSabina, who had it changed into a mage wand, which meant that the mage staff she'd been using could go back to MistressDomina.

After that bit of swapping-around, Chuck was able to head over to Merac and see what new quests were on offer.  The first one was simple enough, it just involved entering Maargadum Jail and killing the Spike Canines and Dire Spike Canines on the first level until they'd given him five canine skins.  The second one wasn't exactly complicated either, it meant a ride down to the Gnolls, and killing 25 Gnoll Soldiers.

Chuck headed out to the Sphinx Fighters then, and tried soloing one - which wasn't a great success, despite his pretty good armour it was a matter of running away, regenerating health with pots, and going back to fight the same Fighter some more, a few times.  Luckily the level 44 assassin rogue Neisha and level 52 royal knight DrAGoNLoRD turned up, and invited Chuck to join their party... and Legacy arrived soon after, and also joined the team.

This was in fact the first time Chuck has actually properly fought in a party; as he tended not to be the one targeted, it went pretty well, generally, and he was able to supply horse buffs for the party as well as his attack buff.  Legacy did have a tendency to get a bit over-enthusiastic and charge in and attract multiple Sphinx Fighters and Speer Men, probably including the Elite, but I think she was actually the only one not to die at one stage or another.  Chuck certainly took his death rather better than Rage did yesterday, but then, nobody there was liable to resurrect him against his will...

It was Kaerella who headed for the Sphinx Fighters after lunch.  At level 63, she is the same level that they are, so, in a solo party with SirDarth, they were giving her 1100 skill experience each, while the Elite Sphinx Speer Man gave 1358.  And, when one is the same level as one's foes, the drops are better too, so some weapons, headgear and other bits and pieces did get acquired as the afternoon went on.  Neisha and Dragonlord were still there for a while, but I knew that Neisha was too low to party with, so just let them get on with their Elite-slaying.

TinySickNinja was also there, though generally just lying in the assassin-rogue's "Death Motion" mode, so that the Sphinx types ignored her.  She was active in the shoutbox, and also browsing the web, idly looking at other games.  We chatted about Guild Wars, Lineage II, and Last Chaos related matters too.  She did mention in passing the "ugly" happenings in the Tomb of Theos yesterday, but Kaerella didn't press her for details.

BasheR was in touch, saying that he had had an approach from the 75 player strong "Corleone" guild about a possible migration of all active Norcaine players to there.  If they think we are all as high-level and accomplished as Bash, who is currently level 87, they may be in for a bit of a disappointment... though I can see the logic of such a thing, we may be sp-hunters at level 25 mainly, but at least they know that we are active players.   Still, the matter will need to be passed to Ratel.  Maybe Corleone would settle for just Rage, currently unattached...?

Legacy has decided that her character is broken, in that she doesn't have the mass of skill points needed to progress in the game, and has created a new rogue, Shadowrend, who Chuck recruited into the guild, and I see has now moved up from level 4 to level 14.  I've advised her to keep Legs, for use at Mad Monster Spawns and similar events, where you don't want to be using a character who'll lose a lot of skill points if she dies.  Legacy has made enough cash in her career to be able to gift the new rogue a nice high-level event weapon, etc, so it all does make a fair amount of sense.  Still, I'll miss the "Legs" nickname, the suggested "SR" just isn't the same, suggesting more a tube of toothpaste.

Stavanic was in touch, asking for help with levelling a further pet horse; it looks as if he will actually start this one himself, and provide some quality stones. Darth will just need to get it to level 18, which shouldn't be too difficult, after all the current drake got to that level today by the early evening.

For the evening session, Kaerella went back to the Sphinx area, but after she'd added another 13.96%, and a useful 27 more skill points, not to mention 822 pet points, BatCow arrived; while Kae would conflict with her, as they are too far apart to party, Rage would compliment her, so Kae gracefully departed, and a couple of minutes later Rage arrived.

At level 55 now, Rage was too far above BatCow, at level 43, for a combat party, but a regular equal-type party was still possible, so we teamed up.  BatCow was using a Blessed Iris, giving double experience for three hours, and was eager to level up as quickly as possible, so we fought non-stop, right in the middle of the area, attacking and being attacked by the Sphinx Fighters and Speer Men, and especially the Elite Sphinx Speer Man.  She levelled up before very long, and before my log-out time, levelled up again, and went back to town to learn her new skill.  

Rather to my relief, she decided not to try to continue using the remaining time on her iris, as I really couldn't have stayed up that late, and my higher level weapon and horse buffs must have been quite useful in getting the experience coming in quickly, but headed for the Auzura-1 arena for a few minutes before logging out.  So Rage just stayed solo for a few more minutes, and then ceded the computer to SirPerivale for a short afk session working to level up that horse, while I started getting the blog entry together.

BatCow may have gone up by more than a level, assisted by that Blessed Iris, but the higher you get, the longer the levels are, so Rage actually only added 32.21% during the session, plus  9 skill points and 1118 pet points.  It's all useful stuff, but hopefully there will be some more trips to the Tomb of Theos in the relatively near future... I'll have to see if I've got any experience boxes with useful irises inside them.

Lilwonderer messaged Darth a time or too,  most recently mentioning that SirRenDippitty is her father.  As usual I say "her" since the character, a rogue, is female... anyway, Peri's horse got at least a quarter of the way through level 30, and Darth's drake reached level 20, so we're doing quite well on that front.

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