Solo in the Tomb

As usual, SirDarth and SirPerivale started their drake-levelling work fairly early. Peri did in the end just manage to get his drake to level 36 last night just before I shut down the computers, but this final level will take a while, at 13350 pet points it's almost twice as long as the 6700 pet points of Darth's drake's current level, 28.

It is very convenient to be able to have both of them side by side fighting a pair of Berserkers, but that does need both the pets to be of a high enough level to give a good amount of the Armour Increase buff. Peri's current physical defence stat is 995, with all 30 levels of Armour Increase (745 without that) - when his school uniform type cover ends its 30-day existence, that will fall a bit. To do two pets like this again might entail Darth lending not just his +13 shield, but a piece or two of his +12 armour, to Peri. Darth's current physical defence is 1177, or 957 without the current 27 levels of Armour Increase - to start a new pet from level one he would need his shield back for a day or two.

After coffee MistressDomina headed for Prokion Temple again, started the two skill exp boosts for an added 115%, and settled in to mob the Orc Axemen and Orc Sergeants in our favourite back room. I did have one intruder, though, a knight called "cavalacanti" who ignored me saying that I was on skill pills and could he please stop ks-ing and go away - quite the worst example of that sort of thing for some time, after all it was pretty obvious that I was using all the respawns, by no stretch of the imagination could one believe that there was room for a second player there.

SirPerivale opened a Pandora's Box; an earlier one had just dropped 10,000 gold, but this one unleashed a level 50 Pandora's Beast which chased him back most of the way to town. After a minute, Peri sneaked out again far enough to fight a Butcher, at least. Despite the ks-er and the Beast, MD managed to get 440 skill points in her hour, and a total of 463 in all, plus 977 pet points.

MistressDomina logged out, and MrChuckNorris logged in, to deal with that Pandora's Beast, which kindly dropped 48,000 gold. When he got back to town Chuck also got that level 50 passive skill Fighting Spirit, increasing his evasion from 146 to 166, his physical offence from 864 to 964, and his physical defence from 1247 to 1397, though it's probably about time he upgraded to a new weapon, and new armour, anyway. And then Darth and Peri settled in for more pet-levelling.

After last week when I could spend pretty much all my free time online, this week will be different, culminating in one of my busy Sundays when I won't even be able to switch on the computers until after six in the evening. However, today was still okay, so after lunch it was time for Kaerella to be brave, and try to go solo in the Tomb of Theos with the Screaming Zombies.

Well, I didn't die, though I came close a time or two; I used a platinum blessed iris and individual experience boosters, and despite letting a couple of lower-level people "ks" a bit, got up to level 66, which was the main target. A rogue called Blitzmann was there when I arrived, but left after a few minutes, which was lucky as she did a time or two leave a zombie moving around aimlessly, which is bad news if one is already fighting another one. A royal knight called SrLazy arrived, but didn't stay long - I did a little healing when he had to wall-hug once, and he kindly gave me the Concentration buff, though I don't think it actually does much for an archer, unlike a rogue, before he left.

The level 49 healer Annz was my first ks-er, and she was joined after a while by the level 45 specialist sorcerer Annicus, whose Sonic Break stun was rather useful, it stopped me having to run backwards and forwards along the corridor, using Slow Shot when I could, so much. By the time my platinum blessed iris, and my crit potion, ran out after an hour I'd added 178.17%, so I'd reached level 66 with plenty to spare.

So, back in town I was able to learn the new level of Slow Shot, for 350 skill points, slowing down my targets slightly more and increasing the damage. The next thing to do was get the new armour set together, so I went to Roy, to check out what the merchant house had to offer.

First of all I bought some healer gloves, the level 70 Balsamic Gloves +3, put up for sale at 1 million by Rymcyr; I checked that I could indeed wear them, and went to Collector Ryu to make sure that he could, if I wanted, change them to another type of glove, and he showed the cost and the details for rogue ones, so I knew that his transformatory skills still worked for this set.

My next purchase was a rogue Pillager Shirt +7 for 27 million, which I changed into the Balsamic Shirt for a healer for 309,600 gold; AfTeRSh0ck had put up knight pants and boots +4 at 6 million each, which seemed the best deal I could get, so those were bought, and transformed for 232,200 and 237,600 gold respectively. The only headgear that was "plussed up" at all was a Balsamic Tiara +12, at 115 million, put up by DoktorUA, so, remembering those heaven stones I sold recently, I took a deep breath and bought it. At least I saved money on not having to get it transformed! At present prices, I could probably sell the chaos smelting stones I didn't have to use to upgrade it for that much, or more.

I used assorted lucky smelting stones, and some of my supply of chaos smelting stones, to get the gloves and boots up to +8 and the pants and shirt up to +11, and then the job was finished...though I couldn't actually wear the tiara and boots until Kae reached level 67, her physical defence when wearing the new set rises from 1407 to 1536.

As it wasn't quite time for my food break, and Kae's new armour needed a bit of bloodsealing, I bought a few bloodseal gems, and headed out to the Sphinx types, to find that the Sphinx Fighters, at least, were now green-named.

It wasn't long before Kamira arrived, and since I did have item drop boosters, lucky scrolls, and level 12 magical defence minerals with me, I had a sudden rush of blood to the head and decided to try an attack - big mistake, I did her very little damage, Arrow of Silence didn't stop her magic attack, and my health was suddenly dangerously low - and she was still firing her bursts of flame in my direction. I ran for it, and was able to use "pet return to village" just in time.

Kamira, when I got back, had returned to full health, and didn't hold my attack against me, so I was able to use the item drop booster I'd activated on the Elite Sphinx Speer Man, who did at least drop a level 57 mage shirt, +2. I suppose the remaining time of the lucky scroll did boost my loot from the next few sphinx types, too, but I can't pretend to have got full value from those particular items.

It was about then that the level 36 archer Valkyre arrived; she obviously wasn't able to kill any of the local monsters herself, so I invited her to fire at my targets for a while, or "ks". I did at least manage to add a few bloodseals of varying use to my armour, and 4.89%, plus 18 skill points and 628 pet points.

My food break was a little late, but afterwards the best thing to do seemed to be to try to get Kae's armour and bow fully bloodsealed, and to get to level 67 so that the entire new Balsamic set could be worn, and the old Serenity set passed across to Rage. Kae still needed 17%, but a session with the Sphinx types just got us there by log-out time. Nobody else appeared out there, which is unusual - unless you count Rage, who came out after a while. I'd partied up with Ratel, so couldn't do a Combat party...but Rage needs experience too, of course. When Ratel did log out for the night, though, I did switch over to a Combat party - and by the end, Rage had gone up 11.04%, and gained 25 skill points, while Kae had gone up 17.14%, 42 skill points, and 2102 pet points. Reaching level 67 meant that both the Fighters and the Speer Men were now green-named, so Kae may not be going there any more, unless she takes her turn sitting by the side in a Combat party with Rage.

After that, SirDarth and SirPerivale had a little more quality time with a pair of Berserkers, with Darth's drake more than halfway through level 29, so already quite high enough to be a useful replacement for Rage's current horse when that pet reaches level 37, and Peri's dragon-to-be approaching 60% of the way through that final 36th level. Peri already happens to have a red pet colouring crystal in his inventory, so, soon, one of my characters will be able to fly through Merac fooling people into thinking, at first glance, that the Grand Red Dragon has arrived...