Friday 24 July 2009

A Busy Day

SirDarth attempted to pet-level through the night again, but the computer eventually ran out of memory. Still, by the time I lent the pale blue horse to Ratel, so that I could level up his dark blue drake a bit, the horse had reached level 21. The drake itself was level 17, on 1787/2596, but did go up to level 18, at least, late in the early evening food break

While SirDarth and SirPerivale did manage some pet levelling in the morning, after coffee it was time for them to be stood down, and for MistressDomina and MistressBlaze to head for Prokion Temple on Auzura-4. As he's off work with a nasty case of the flu, Ratel was on for most of the day, and, after we exchanged the pets, he switched to Jacqueline, and asked to join our party.

When I got to my favourite back room, however, it was already being used - by Jacqui! I'd not thought that she would have been there, as it is a rather dangerous place to farm sp unless you have really top-grade armour...still, I headed back to the "corridor room" which is second best, though wall-hugging there, for MB, isn't as safe as being in a corner by one of those torch-braziers.

Jacqui quickly called me back, though, and had to leave for a little while - she went off to get a three-hour, double-experience Blessed Iris, in fact. With her as the party leader we were able to change to a "combat party", which, while it divides up loot and skill exp equally, gives afk players like MB a small experience boost for every kill, and rewards active players in line with their contribution to the fight, again with a little extra. With any luck this increased Jacqui's experience gain; she had one disconnection just before my lunchtime, but otherwise managed to hang in there for the whole time. When I did go afk for lunch, both MD and MB were getting useful skill exp and experience, and giving Jacqui's experience gain a boost too.

Jacqueline had hoped to reach level 31 by the time the Blessed Iris ended, but was still 12% short. She decided to go to a different Prokion room to finish the job, so we reverted to a regular "equal party", so that MistressBlaze could go back to levelling up a bit more quickly. Jacqui reached level 31 safely there, and reported that, yes, the level 30/32 armour set, +10, had arrived in her inventory as promised, as well as both the level 33 healer weapons, the bow and the scepter. As she had a spare weapon (the scepter could be converted into a bow by Collector Ryu), she risked the bow breaking by using a heaven stone on it, and was lucky enough to get it straight to +11.

I'd taken a rather short lunch break, and generally kept going...and then at three o'clock, UK time, there came the announcement of the EU "happy hour" starting - two hours of double experience gain. So, as MD in particular does need more levels, I kept going. Stavanic joined the party with MD and MB, asked to be made leader, and added a couple of other people, probably by putting us up as a solo party seeking members. He then asked if I could change to Rage and use Party Recall to get them to the Prokion Temple entrance, so I did that, then changed back to MD, rejoined the party, and continued with the Orcs.

By the time I finally logged out for the food break, just before the end of the two hours, MistressBlaze had gone up in total 270.43%, taking her quite a long way into level 27 - and MistressDomina had added 60.13%, just taking her into level 38 at last. They both added 360 skill points, too, Sadly, the amount of experience MD was getting from the Orc Axemen went down with a bump after she reached the new level - Orc Sergeants gave less, too. Stavanic had asked if I could team MB up with him on Monday so that he could benefit from the boost, but as he's already level 38, it may not be as useful for him as I'd led him to believe. He had come within range of the MB/MD team for a minute or two earlier, and that really killed my experience and skill exp gain.

When Peri and Darth arrived in Merac for their pet-levelling session, the Grand Red Dragon was already right over our heads... so both my knights moved away a bit. The next time I checked, the GRD had left, without anyone coming in and annoying it, so no harm had been done.

MistressDomina had some level 38 skills to check out - and a level 35 one, Secret Study 6, increasing her magical attack power, that I'd omitted to get previously. Robe Mastery increases physical defence, so I was able to get all the levels of that, to increase MD's defence by 125; however Flame Field I can't get until I have some more stat points in Intelligence, so that will come at level 41, and Fear needs some more Dexterity, so I won't learn that until level 47 apparently...

MistressDomina and MistressBlaze met up in Randol to exchange the armour, weapon and accessories, so that MD could log off (allowing SirDarth the opportunity to level Ratel's drake a bit), and for MistressBlaze to take control of her own fate for a change. After spending all the skill points she had earned, it was time to head for, well, Prokion Temple of course. I did use that Extreme Stone that MD had bought recently, on the feeling that at level 27 MB could do with any extra defence I could get her.

My favourite back room was in use, but, for a change, I thought I'd try a different rather similar room which is, well, in a diagonally different direction from the middle. I managed to find it; it has less Orc Axemen and Orc Sergeants, and a couple of lower-level Orc Soldiers too for some reason, while the Orcs in the corridor outside are higher-level than the ones near "my" room. It all seemed suitable for MB, anyway, so after the usual trial kill, I started one of the special "beginner" platinum super skill pills that a character created since Tuesday night's maintenance starts life with, and settled in.

One surprise was that this wasn't a "proper" pssp - instead of 300% skill exp gain, it gave 250%, so that at level 27, a level 27 Orc Axeman gave 13,750 skill exp, rather than 16,500. Still, it was a useful boost, and in the first hour MistressBlaze gained 385 skill points; in the second hour, another 368 rolled in, and the whole session added 761...751 of which promptly got spent on getting all the available passive skills maxxed, and starting on the higher levels of skills like Curse and Sloth. I was surprised how quickly MB levelled up, she went from level 27 to 29, adding a further 143.51%. The aim will be to use the other three "beginner" pssps, and then see if the "beginner" platinum blessed irises give the full 300%, or 250%, though once MB reaches level 31 safely, there won't be any great hurry to continue with her. Not knowing how long this special deal with +10 armour lasts, getting another character or two up there would seem to be a priority.

And then it was time for SirDarth and SirPerivale to both be in Merac. Darth got Ratel's drake levelled up to 19, while Peri's horse, well, it shouldn't be too long tomorrow morning before level 32 is finished. Ratel got in touch to report that he had got his Cariae namesake up to level 31, despite his experience there being half-frozen, and been awarded his armour, weapons and shield. I must check out my characters there, I think my rogue Karella is level 29 - if so, I really ought to get her up to 31 as soon as possible.

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