A New Witch

SirDarth and SirPerivale started their work nice and early, as you probably already suspected; with all these new characters at level 31 or so, I suddenly find myself in need of a lot more mounts, so that is an incentive to keep them busy when I can.

For the last week I have been checking up on the Last Chaos web Item Mall's "Platinum" section every few hours, each time hoping to find that it had been restocked, but the 50%, blue-and-white capsule type platinum skill pills have always been "sold out". So, with MistressSabina on level thirty, and with the possibility of the "Player Appreciation" free +10 armour deal ending with maintenance tonight, I had just about resigned myself to just using the 15% red-and-white non-platinum variety instead.

So, I was greatly surprised to check the "Platinum" section at 7:20 this morning, UK time, and find that there were actually 25 psps in stock - I don't know how large the quantity of the restock had been, but they had obviously been going fast. So, I quickly grabbed three.

After coffee, Peri and Darth logged out, and MistressSabina got the top-graded mage armour set back, along with a couple of good accessories - and from MistressDomino she got some extra skill point boosters. I had reckoned that 200 spbs would probably be enough for two hours, as I'd only be using them on the Orc Sergeants, and not the Orc Axemen, but it seemed like a good idea to have an extra 100 along.

So, in a solo party with SirDarth, who kept busy pet-levelling, Sabina headed for Prokion Temple, and that back room. The first hour added 21.95% experience, and the second hour 21.65%, so progress was relatively smooth. 129 Orc Sergeants were killed in the first hour; I gained 1139 skill points, so by my calculations that means I killed 182 Orc Axemen too. In the second hour, the figures work out at 124 Orc Sergeants and 181 Orc Axemen, for 1103 more skill points.

SirDarth's pale blue horse had reached level 26 during the morning, and SirPerivale came on again over lunch, too, And after that, it was time for MistressSabina to return to Prokion Temple...

As there was almost 20% of level 30 left for Sabina, a third "power sp farming" hour was possible, so I went straight on to that, and got through 141 Orc Sergeants and 164 Orc Axemen, so was managing to get a better proportion of Sergeants into the mix then. 1182 skill points got added, despite the final few minutes being after Sabina reached level 31, so the skill exp per kill did go down slightly. Reaching that level meant the arrival of the special "Player Appreciation Event" +10 armour and weapons, though Sabina was already wearing my better-plussed armour set, and a +15 mage wand.

There was time for another hour after that, but I didn't use the ten skill point boosters I had left, I just used another pssp and, since I'd run out of the 50% pills, an ordinary 15% skill pill to add just a little more. That fourth hour added another 419 skill points, and was a lot less expensive to set up.

So, in all MistressSabina had added 3843 skill points, while adding 83.01% experience; she will never have as many skill points as MistressDomina, but at least she can continue to gain skills for a useful time. And her drake levelled up too, adding 3947 pet points and reaching level 29. Once she was back in Randol, a visit to the Mage Trainer meant that she is now officially a witch, unlike my other main mages who have always been wizards. She has to reach level 32 before she can learn the first witchy skills, though. Still, it's good to make the change reasonably early in the level, as it does increase the health and mana points of a character.

Stavanic was asking if Rage still had the 30-day Party Recall card active, as he wanted to get an apprentice of his to the Sphinx Fighters, and I had to tell him that it expired yesterday. I should start a new one before too long, but I'm not playing Rage much until I can get a new armour set lined up. I advised him to use a Dratan monster transformation scroll, such as a Sand Golem one, along with a potion of haste, and I think that was what he did. And lilwonderer was asking if SirDarth just helped guildies with pet levelling, to which the answer was basically "yes". As lil's father has a pet leveller, I think it is best if they keep it in the family, though if he has SirRenDippity pet-levelling on the PC, and is actively playing LC on his laptop, that doesn't leave lil with a chance to play then.

As some of my characters have quests to obtain "Soft Sand", it seemed like a good idea to send one of thems out to farm some from the Sand Golems. The Sand Golems are level 28, but a level 31 character seemed to be close enough for farming purposes, so it was my new knight Galahad (or "GALAHAD") who got the mission, though, presumably because he was busy in Prokion Temple at the appropriate level to be given a quest or two, he has no need of the quest item himself.

So, he used his memory scroll to teleport to Shuraine's oasis, and settled in, to fight the Sand Golems, level up his dragon hatchling, and get his shiny new armour bloodsealed. As his single sword does have all five of its seals now, since he used it in Prokion (it's not the one he earned by reaching level 31, it was earned as a mage wand and then changed by Collector Ryu), this was also a chance to try out fighting with dual swords, and get a bloodseal or two on them.

However, the farming was interrupted before very long, by the arrival of the raid boss Kamira, so Gal quickly logged out - and Rage logged in, and rode across from town. Just as she was adding horse buffs another player appeared, a knight called Warblades flying on a blue dragon, but he didn't try to claim the fight for himself, he asked if I was going to fight Kamira, and when I said yes, that she had been lured by a lower-level character of mine, he kindly moved away.

As well as the horse buffs, I applied the level 12 magical defence mineral, and cracked open a lucky scroll and an item drop booster, as well as moving the "greatest" size of health potion onto my skill bar, in case of problems. But all went smoothly, Snare worked a number of times, and before long my adversary was lying dead on the ground. Kamira dropped ten medium mana potions, a medal of honour, five lucky scrolls, five moonstones, 39,060 gold, five tool aids, a crystal of experience (greater), a Hero's Necklace (just 4 to Intelligence and 1 to all types of physical defence) - and both a Chain of Tiger and a Pierce of Wind, both rare and highly desirable accessories.

Back in town I bought two of the golden magnifying glasses to "identify" the properties of my two new accessories - a Chain of Tiger adds 16 to Strength and 8 to close range physical attack, and a Pierce of Wind adds 16 to Dexterity and 78 to close range evasion. So, the pair of them sound just what Galahad could do with...

Rage had some time left on both the magical defence mineral and the lucky scroll, so teleported to the entrance to the Forgotten Temple, and killed a few Legendary Slayers, and their accompanying spiders, and Curd Hadians. Presumably they all dropped more gold than they otherwise would have, but there weren't any useful armour drops. So, once the lucky scroll finished, Rage logged out, having added 0.35% experience, 2 skill points, and 83 pet points.

Galahad continued fighting the Sand Golems for the rest of the evening, ending up with around 42 Soft Sand drops, and a few Sand Golem transformation scrolls too, not to mention a couple of moonstone boxes. Athema joined the party; she is Ratel's mage character, level 21 now. She reported that she'd managed to get her "Dark" armour set up to the "fairy" level, +4, just by using smelting stones. "It cost me 1.1 million... 58 smelts and 4 ruins, but the set is complete." We agreed that after she outgrows it she ought to be able to sell it for 5 million or more, so doing that sort of thing could be a profitable little sideline.

After the fighting, it was back to pet-levelling, so SirDarth was joined by SirPerivale again. Darth had been ks'd earlier by a rogue called xxechoxx, who was trying to lure the Grand Red Dragon. I did threaten to ruin her drop chances by applying a buff during her fight, if she lured the GRD, but in the end Darth moved a little further along, so I don't know if the luring worked. The pale blue horse levelled up a couple of times, and had made a good start on level 28 by late evening; Peri's horse will still be around an hour away from finishing level 35 then, I think.