Meet Sir Galahad

As usual, a certain amount of pet-levelling was done in the morning, but after coffee it was time to get a bit more active. The main thing was to get some items transferred to MistressDomino, my merchant character - and also some manuals and quest-type drops moved to my junior knight, Calm...about the only knight I've ever made who isn't a "Sir", but he's meant to be a balance for having a rogue called Rage.

However, I did fit in a little time for that newly-developed titan of mine, Cyborg, after Calm had passed over the ten packets of Soft Sand he needed for one quest, and he concluded quite a number of quests, mainly either just by visiting a different character, or taking quest items to the quest-setter. He did get to do a little fighting though, and using horse buffs more than made up for his poor armour - the Desert Spiders went down pretty easily, as did the Butchers in Merac.

With all the quest rewards Cyborg went up by 28.94%, as well as adding 8 skill points from the fighting which, as one quest, given in Merac Caron, entailed a trip to Shuraine at his oasis, included a few Sand Golems as well. Back in town, I then spent some on his skill points, getting all his passive skills at least up to level four... and Chuck had an old level 35/37 +6 titan armour set to trade across, which hopefully Cy will be able to wear before too long.

Along with the loot-trading to MistressDomino, I opened twenty of the Lucky Pet Boxes - they gave fourteen assorted colouring crystals, two lots of 100 "potions of pet healing", which heal a pet for 30 health each, which Chuck in particular finds very handy, one blue pan flute, one pink drake egg, and two lots of five platinum pet experience potions, which give triple pet experience for an hour. I only use them when a pet is level 36 or higher, but they are useful!

The afternoon session took MistressDomina and Cyborg to Prokion Temple again - but that favourite back room of mine was occupied on Auzura-4. So, I had to try a different sub-server; curiously, Auzura-3's Temple seemed not as busy generally, and I was able to settle in to fight there. MD had gone ahead to check, rather than take both characters there and find the place busy, and while she was in a normal "solo party", at level 36 the Orc Sergeants were giving her 1896 experience & 1650 skill exp, and the Orc Axemen were giving 1283 & 550. Once Cyborg had arrived, though, that changed to something like 9197 experience & 1912 skill exp from the Sergeants and 4290 & 1566 from the Axemen - and on top of that of course Cyborg was getting the same skill exp, and roughly 80-85% as much experience.

The whole session did manage to get Cyborg up to level 30, so he can at least wear those new +6 gloves; he gained 74.25% experience and 188 skill points, while MistressDomina added 24.65%, and 189 skill points since she did fight a few Orcs before Cy arrived.

For the evening session, it seemed like a good idea to start work on a character who could do for MistressSabina what Cyborg did for MistressDomina - though this time I'll make sure that the lower-level character has their experience gain frozen at 50%, so that they stay lower longer, and get the chance to get more skill exp. Not as much skill exp as actually doing the work for themselves, I'm sure, but hey it's all a bonus.

So, I trimmed down the weight of the knight armour pieces that SirGalahad was carrying, equipped him with three relatively good accessories from the ones he was also in charge of, and took him out to fight foxes, deer, and, after that, wolves of various types, and even jaguars.

SirGalahad started at level two, previously he had only fought his way through the tutorial dungeon, back in the Auzura server's early days. So, it was a matter of doing Healer Yabo's quests, and just keeping going. I wasn't going to extremes with the sp-farming, as with LordElpus, though I did generally aim to tackle monsters of Gal's level or below - except for three or four Sasquatch along the way to Velpist Temple, to get that location onto his memory scroll.

My new knight ended up by fighting some Wandering Zombies inside the Temple, who dropped a pair of level 16 +4 shirts - for titans and mages, unfortunately, rather than knights, but it's the thought that counts. When I ended the session Gal was almost 95% of the way through level ten, so, when MistressSabina has taken over Prokion Temple duties from MD, and done as much on the skill points front as possible during level 30, I'll need to sign Gal up for a Guardian (such as Kae), level him up to 16 or 17 either in Velpist Temple or fighting Butchers while Chuck supplies Battle Roar and horse buffs (quicker, but a lot less skill exp), and then team him up with Sabina in that back room. And if he gets up to level 32, say, well, it will be time to see how pet-levelling works with Gnolls or Gnoll Lancers these days...

Although I made no efforts to keep SirGalahad's armour up to scratch, indeed he's still wearing the level 1 boots he started with, I got him up to level five on the Canid Fence passive skill, which boosts a knight's defence and is vital for a pet-leveller. I must say that, even when attacked by three zombies at once, his health bar never seemed to diminish. Knights are a lot tougher than some other types, it seems.

There was just time for Rage to log in for half an hour or so, and head for the Forgotten Temple's Curd Hadians, but they didn't give her any good drops, except a Stripes and a Stars or two and another rogue top hat. An attempt to fight Legendary Slayers while the initial horse buffs lasted wasn't too successful, with their protective Spiders doing a lot of damage - I had wondered if the first rooms might be farmable if one went outside to reapply horse buffs, but it didn't look as if it would work for a solo player. It would be fun to have a guild team there, though, with healing, protective buffs, and a tank or two, but it is level 52 people who need level 57 boosts, and for the best drops the people involved would need to be more like level 68. Not everyone has a "next character" following on behind...

Rage just added 1.34% experience and 8 skill points - I was so used to not equipping my drake now with MD in Prokion Temple that I didn't equip Rage's drake either, so no pet points got gained...and the drake didn't get attacked and lose health, either.

Archaeon was saying that a number of DreamingRequiem people that he'd now tracked down had joined other guilds already, but as it stands NefariousShadows is almost full - he needs to level the guild up once more to be able to get the first "expension". He talked to Aszune, apparently, who seems to recognise that she did act a bit hastily in closing down DR so abruptly by kicking everyone, but her good friend and guild master getting banned had rather stressed her out. Still, as I said to Archie, we may not be as big as DR was, but we're certainly a new, improved NefariousShadows now.

After that SirDarth, who after his afternoon off had been back in action providing a solo party for SirGalahad and for Rage, was joined on the pet-levelling side by SirPerivale once more. Darth's horse had already gone up two levels in the session by then, and got a useful distance into level 24 before close-down; Peri's drake is about 40% of the way through level 34, so we're not doing badly. With the drake we're not aiming for exactly level 37 or anything, it's really just a matter of keeping going with it until Darth's horse is high enough in level to give Peri enough of an Armour Increase buff when it is transferred across, and Darth moves on to the next project. Then the various drakes of various characters will get moved about a bit, with Cyborg getting the lowest appropriate one, though of course the drake SirFrancis will stay with Kaerella.