A Busy Evening

I was hard at work downstairs all morning, so SirPerivale and CaptainScarlet had plenty of time for pet-levelling, allowing Cap's horse to make good progress into level 34, and Peri's drake to head for level 25. I didn't see anybody else, or any Pandora's Boxes; the Boxes do seem a bit rarer these days.

For the afternoon session, however, I managed a good three hours in Auzura-3's Prokion Temple, in my usual back room; as before MistressBlaze did all the work, and JohnWellington provided moral support. The only visitor I had was a level 31 specialist sorcerer called Grabnar, who was quite chatty and friendly, offering me the pan flute and the drake egg he picked up. Luckily he didn't stay too long - he had to head off to school, which seems a bit early in the autumn. I assume he is in the USA, from the time involved.

By the end of the session, MistressBlaze had added another 13.08% experience, so that she is now almost halfway through level 37, plus 266 skill points. JohnWellington had done one quest in Dratan on the way to Prokion Temple, supplying Jajan with three dark orbs (two he had already, and MB was able to trade the other across to him), which had added almost 10% experience, and the time in the Temple added another 85%, taking him comfortably into level 26. He added 343 skill points.

John's extra 77 skill points, compared to MB's haul, came from using one of the "Beginner" platinum super skill pills, starting its hour shortly after Grabnar left. One would have expected a 150% bonus to the skill exp gain for that hour, perhaps about 130 skill points, but I noticed that there was some kind of bug, and that for much of the time the bonus was only 66.7%, compared to the skill exp that MistressBlaze was getting from that particular Orc. Still, towards the end, after the Friday "Happy Hour" had begun, it did sort itself out and revert to the proper amounts.

On the guild points front, MistressBlaze donated a further 422 to the Discipline guild, and JohnWellington managed 324. It's still quite a way to go before 18,000 are available for the next guild upgrading, we aren't halfway there yet. And as for the "Happy Hour", well that was a bit of a non-event, as it didn't give extra experience or skill exp, all it did was increase the likelihood that a monster would drop some gold by 50%.

The evening session began quietly enough, with MistressDomina, in a solo party with CaptainScarlet, killing a few Sphinx types. But then a level 41 rogue called WhisPer and a level 35 cleric called DamonHealer suggested we team up, and after a while a level 43 archer guildie of Damon's, Sharin, joined us, and VinDiesel, the level 42 specialist sorcerer, got in touch and came out too. Things got a bit hectic, as more than one person seemed to be luring, and there were respawns too, but I managed to keep going without taking any dirt naps.

Ratel's titan Argoth got in touch with me too, and then he switched to Ratel, who is a level 50 temple knight now. I was saying that it was a fairly big party and that things were a bit intense, and I think Ratel was wondering if there was the basis for a trip to the Tomb of Theos there - as far as I know, it was VinDiesel who actually invited Ratel along.

So, we moved across to the Tomb entrance. Actually, I decided to restart the game first, just to avoid any memory problems, and then teleported across. Everyone else had gone in by then, rather than waiting for horse buffs, so in MistressDomina went. I don't think that WhisPer actually made an appearance there, but we had added a level 36 rogue called PureRogue, who I think said that her main was level 109 and she'd only started this new account a couple of days ago.

We did have problems with multiple Screaming Zombies - DamonHealer was the main lurer, but PureRogue was luring as well, and got a bit snippy with Ratel when he asked her to leave that side of things to DamonHealer, since, while the highest level party member, he wasn't technically the leader.

We added a level 49 royal knight called LosRodeos - for some reason we also added a level 19 mage, Merced, she must have been somebody's friend. She'd obviously not been skill point farming, while she did sometimes use Curse and Sloth on the Screaming Zombie, or Chakra Shield on herself, these were all only at level one, so not a whole lot of use.

Well, the line-up of the party did vary; Vin had to go off for food and didn't return, while I think PureRogue vanished while still owing DamonHealer some gold, or the item she'd given her the gold for. Poor Damon did seem to die fairly often, she'd not got the art of running to the wall quite nailed down I think. But I'm sure just about everyone levelled up - MD reached level 50 fairly early in the evening.

If I had had more confidence in the party, I'd have started some kind of booster, and done rather better; Ratel was using one of the 30% experience boosting potions, I noticed, and ended the evening around 70% through the level, while MistressDomina was only on around 30% at the end. For the whole evening session, MD had added 63.10%, plus 2 skill points and 1317 pet points.

The party seemed to be drawing to a natural conclusion as 10:30pm, UK time, approached, which was just as well as I'm not too good at late night sessions, and, after we ran out of rogues, the Zombies were starting to target me more, so that before too long I'd probably not have been quick enough reaching the wall.

An entertaining evening, then, after a rather boring start soloing Sphinx Fighters. It was as usual good to fight alongside Ratel, while letting CaptainScarlet keep busy meant that, by the time the party ended, he had got his current horse into level 35. SirPerivale was able to log in for a little while as usual, and his drake is around three-quarters of the way through level 25 now.