The Black Screen of Randol

The start this morning was delayed a bit, as while it was possible to log in to Last Chaos, choose one's server, sub-server, and character, actually attempting to materialise in Randol just gave a permanent black screen.  Checking the shoutbox confirmed that it was just the Auzura server that was affected, but that's the only place I'm set up for pet-levelling, so I was a bit stuck.

Luckily when I checked after breakfast, at about 8:40 UK time, someone had just mentioned that the server was back up, so I restarted, and managed to get SirDarth rolling.  The black screen had stayed black, though, so anyone waiting for the loading to finish would just have kept on waiting.

SirDarth's horse is doing well, and reached level 35 just after lunch; by the end of the day he was just over three-quarters of the way through that level.  SirPerivale's horse is at least halfway through level 29, and running short of quality stones.

There was apparently some sort of dancing get-together last night, though not at a Europe-friendly time, and its success meant that today we were given double experience and skill exp again.  So, Chuck went along to Prokion Temple after coffee this morning, to take advantage of this generosity.  The Orc Axemen are blue-named now, six levels below him, which means they give no pet experience, but still, with the double-double on, 4400 skill exp and 2566 experience; the Orc Sergeants however are still green-named, and give 6600 skill exp (3300 in normal times, the same as the maximum one would get from Velpist Temple monsters of one's own level) and a more substantial 22762 experience.  

So, Chuck sought out an appropriate room with almost all Sergeants, and, before lunch, added 57.63%, 295 skill points, and 1364 pet points.  Progress was slowed by a knight called dragonwolf75 coming into my room and taking half the inhabitants for a while, which seemed strange behaviour as there were only just enough Sergeants respawning for one player, but when I had to wall-hug to take a phone call for a few minutes, he went away.

The afternoon session saw Chuck get the rest of the way to level 34, this time in our favourite back room, which may have more Axemen to deal with, but at least has enough that one doesn't end up waiting for respawns or running the whole length of the room to get to the next one.  Another 39.72% experience got added, making 97.35% in all; 296 more skill points made 591 as the day's total sp, while another 843 pet points got the day's total up to 2207.  The lower number of pet points just shows that a higher proportion of the blue-named Orc Axemen had to be fought, since as I mentioned they now don't give Chuck pet experience.

At level 34 the Orc Sergeants are still green-named for the final time; they go down from giving 3300 skill exp and 11381 experience (or twice that today!) per kill to 2750 and 8536, so going back to them tomorrow, well, it's a bit marginal.  But one can never have too many skill points, i suppose, and they are still more generous than monsters outside Prokion, such as the Poison Mists...

The evening session belonged to MistressSabina, who had reached level ten in just the level 5/7 "Apprentice" armour set, without getting any skills at all - which meant she had gathered 157 skill points.  That was enough to get almost all her low-level skills to level four.  So, after getting taken on as an apprentice by Kaerella, Sabina headed out to the Jaguars for a last necklace or two for Geres, and then moved on to the Sasquatches and the Werewolves - once a couple of levels had been gained, she used a scroll to teleport across to the entrance to Velpist Temple.

There is a favourite upstairs room for me there, too, though I don't go there as often as to the Prokion one - just once per character, basically.  It has plenty of level 12 and level 14 zombie types, Ancient and Berserk, the trick is to avoid attracting the level 21 Skeleton Soldiers that also prowl the room.

When Sabina had reached level 15, it was time to head back to town with 165 new skill points to spend, which again got almost everything to level four.  30 points, though, were used to upgrade the Discipline guild to level two, after MistressDomino had transferred the Guild Master position across.  To get a guild to its second level the GM has to be at least level 15; for the next level, which costs 60 sp, she'll need to be level 20, and for the one after that, costing 120 sp, she'll need to be level 25.

MistressSabina headed back to Velpist Temple, and this time, instead of heading straight ahead, went off to the left, towards the main room with the "book of life" in it, for the "human tribe" pet quests.  She never actually went in there, the room before was quite rich enough.  The level 16 Corpse Rangers were very useful, though they did have a habit of coming in two or three at a time, sometimes with a Skeleton Soldier or two as well.  But Sabina was wearing better armour now, and when she reached level 17 was able to equip the mage "event weapon", +6, so things went relatively smoothly, and she generally used less small health potions than she picked up.  

There were some other players there too, who did tend to attack my targets, but it didn't really matter, with the double experience and skill exp things were moving along nicely.  A healer called Susian asked to join my party, so that helped her to get from 13 to 15 - but boy was she reckless, she did tend to rush forward, attract three or four of the high-level types, and die rather quickly, but she kept coming back.

I left when I reached level 19, having added another 191 skill points, enough to take some of the more useful skills to their fifth level.  Sabina's drake had reached level four, so it was a pretty productive session, even if Sabina is destined to be a rather minor character in my line-up.

Ratel visited SirDarth down in Merac to pass across 820 quality stones ahead of Darth's levelling stint on his pale blue horse, and also to move some gold from Thabitha to Ratel - which he needed all in one place, as he was buying a level 41 +12 weapon for 55 million, leaving him "as poor as a church mouse", as he commented before signing out for the night.  Meanwhile, MistressDomino began a stint in merchant mode.  At the time of typing she has sold the moonstone boxes and the skill boosters, now if only she can sell some Easter Eggs too...