SirDarth's early start was slightly undone by a disconnection fairly early on, and then while I was out shopping for bread and milk some cuddlesome little snookums came along and killed my Berserker, and Fastman's too - Fastman being another knight who regularly pet-levels in that particular part of Merac. Still, by the end of the lunch break Ratel's horse had reached level 20, so good progress was still being made, and level 22 came along in the middle of the evening.
Darth took a brief break while MistressDomina and MistressSabina temporarily exchanged their armour and weapons. Kaerella also loaned one of her Stone of Shadow accessories to Sabina, so she was well equipped when she headed for Prokion Temple.
ElfMage had got in touch, asking for a bit of help with her levelling in Prokion Temple, but by the time I got there she'd found herself a diffferent mug, er player, to party with. I went outside again to renew Sabina's horse buffs, but as happens sometimes, if rarely, something went wrong with the teleport back in, and instead of arriving in the lobby, I ended up a level lower, amid unformed grey textures and with a view of various parts above. I couldn't move or use the memory scroll to return to just outside - luckily I could use a Scroll of Recall to return to Dratan City, then set out again.
Since Sabina was level 27 now, the obvious place to head for was my favourite upstairs back room. ElfMage's call had meant I'd gone there a bit earlier than I'd been planning, but I set to work, and then, after a brief coffee break, settled in for a "power hour" with a (200% extra) pssp and a (15% extra) sp. It puzzles me, I worked hard, and did a lot of mobbing of groups so that Flame Storm could target a whole group of Orcs at once, but, even with the Orc Axemen giving 17325 skill exp and the Orc Sergeants 15592, the hour only brought in 470 skill points.
I did have an interloper, a mage called Atasha who, as she was wearing the previous mage armour set, I assumed not to be very high-level; I warned her that the room was dangerous, but she ignored me and settled in in one corner, and, using attack potions and minerals, but as far as I could see no added defence pots, seemed to get on okay. She was still there when I left to get lunch ready - my departure was very slightly delayed while I waited for Sabina's drake to level up to 25. So, 1704 pet points had been needed for that; Sabina had reached level 28 just after the "power hour" had ended, adding 128.66% by the end, while the total skill point gain was 556.
Over lunch, Kaerella went out to mine some stones in Dratan, and over 90 minutes, or nine 10-minute ore veins, got 39 quality stones, 35 imperfect stones, and 53 flawed stones, the equivalent of just about 70 quality stones. Then it seemed like a good idea, assuming that Prokion Temple would be a bit too crowded to find a good room for MistressSabina, to let Rage head out to the Sphinx types.
BatCow had seen me heading in that direction, or at least towards the teleporter, and so got in touch and joined me there. She is a pretty fast worker, and, while at 11 levels above her I didn't go up percentage-wise anything like as quickly as she did, I managed to add 37.28%, 2 skill points, and 1335 pet points. Later on Norcaine members Legacy and Ghostt turned up there; Ghost was a bit surprised to hear Darth on the guild channel respond to what he was saying on the local talk tab, so soon discovered that Rage was also me.
Over the early evening food break, it was Rage's turn to do some harvesting, starting with some herbs - her pet horse does tend to take a fair bit of damage from the Sphinx Fighters. Darth noticed a Pandora's Box near him, and opened it, releasing a level 50 Beast, so, while he beat a strategic retreat, Rage quickly finished her herb-gathering by boosting the knife and getting a last 27 green herb leaves, then rode into town, transferred to Merac, and rode down to deal with the Beast. It died easily enough, but there was no gold drop this time.
Rage went back to Juno to do some mining. Darth of course continued the pet-levelling; his Berserker got killed again by some sneaky person, and then, only a few minutes later, I actually saw a blue-named knight called "Wimp" dash straight in, kill the Berserker, and rush off - it wasn't as if he was killing Berserkers generally, he just wanted to sabotage a pet-leveller, which seems a bit sad really.
After the break Rage returned to the rolling grasslands of the Sphinx Fighters' part of Dratan, on the southwest uplands not very far from the great pyramid of the Tomb of Theos. BatCow had been teamed up with a level 28 healer, who she'd helped to reach that spot, so I'd not have been wanted in the party as I'd have "capped" her by being more than fifteen levels above her, but she had gone now, so we teamed up again, and were joined in the party by a level 96 friend of Bat's, VIPER - she apparently had business close by, though I don't know what a level 96 player could be doing in Dratan, other than in a dungeon area like the Tomb. She rode over to give us horse buffs, which was kind, but got a bit embarrassing and I did have to say in the end that she didn't need to bother, I had a horse too.
BatCow wasn't there all the time, as she too had to go and eat, but it was more fun to team up than just to slog away alone. When soloing I tended to avoid the Elite Speer Man - he may give triple the experience, but he does take longer to kill, and I don't think he dropped any ready-plussed weapon or armour for us today. Finally, not long after BatCow logged out for the night, I reached level 50 at long last, and thankfully returned to Dratan City.
Rage could wear level 55 gloves now, but the pair I have, currently being carried by MistressFelicia, are only part of a +6 set, and Rage's current set is part +8 and part +11, so unless I use rather a lot of chaos smelting stones etc, Rage may stay with her current red, rather rare, very smart "lion tamer" costume for a while yet. But the main thing about level 50, apart from three more stat points to put in Dexterity, is a new skill, Critical Increase. The five levels cost 573 skill points (level six comes along when Rage is level 80, for another 500 sp, then level seven is available at level 108 for twice that), and it increases my chance that a hit is Critical by 75%... so that if up until now the chance was 10%, now it will be 17.5%.
The evening session added 35.12% experience, 5 skill points, and 1440 pet points, making Rage's totals for the day 72.40%, 5 skill points, and 2775 pet points. I only got any appreciable amount of skill exp when I was soloing, for some reason having BatCow on the radar too dropped the amount by a factor of ten. Still, it's not skill exp I'm out there for, even after that new skill Rage still has 12.5k points spare...which would vanish rather quickly if Rage ever gets over level 100 of course, but we'll cross that bridge when our chickens are hatched.
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