Tuesday 11 August 2009

A Mad Monster Spawn

I can't claim that this was my busiest day ever in Last Chaos. CaptainScarlet and SirPerivale did begin their pet levelling before breakfast, true, but I wasn't able to do any active playing in the morning. This at least meant that the two horse pets got plenty of time to acquire more pet points, so that the white horse which will go to Jacqueline soon reached level 33, with Peri's horse hanging in there ten levels behind.

After lunch, MistressSabina went off to Prokion Temple on Auzura-3, and popped one of her remaining super skill pills, for double skill exp for an hour... but after a while I felt so tired I could hardly keep going. I guess these early morning starts, and late night finishes, are getting to me. I did just about keep on fighting the Orc Sergeants and Orc Axemen until the pill ran out, gaining 196 skill points and 10.27% experience, but then I had to tuck Sabina in a corner, and go and lie down for half an hour.

After that, with the help of a relatively interesting pair of radio shows, I did manage to do a second hour, which added 198 skill points and another 10.45% experience, making the totals for the afternoon 20.72% and 394 skill points, plus 1927 pet points, but that was enough for me on the action side.

So, for the few minutes remaining before my food break, I decided to go shopping in Auzura-1's Randol. I didn't find any useful armour, either a 75/77 rogue set for Rage to level up towards or a reasonably plussed level 70/72 set which, while it would duplicate what Rage is currently wearing, would allow Kaerella to get back into action.

What I did find were a couple of cheap monster combo type necklaces, both with 5% suction of life and some defence - SirShadow charged 15.3 million for his, and HARDCORE only charged 10 million for one with slightly less defence. I also found HOTSHOP selling six extreme stones at 15 million each, so bought those as well.

I had hoped to be able to upgrade MistressDomina's armour with a couple of the extreme stones, but both the shirt and skirt of her current set, I discovered, had had an ES used on them before I bought them, so I wasn't able to take them beyond +12. Still, exchanging her 5% suction of life necklace for the better of the two new ones did increase her defence by 12, and moving the two armour pieces from +11 to +12 added another 12 each to defence. Chuck's current armour hadn't had any extreme stones used, so taking the shirt and pants from +11 to +13 added another 76 to his physical defence... and will also benefit MistressDomina when she inherits that set of course.

The regular Tuesday "Mad Monster Spawn" was due at five o'clock, UK time, on the Auzura server, so, having missed it in recent weeks, I took MistressBlaze along. Nothing actually happened until gone 5:15 - well, for GM Stratos on America's west coast it is still fairly early in the morning, he deserves a cup of coffee first. But things did get rolling, and, with the high-level people doing most of the work, we did manage to get through the waves of monsters gradually.

TinySickNinja was there - since she reached a high level I'd not seen her around, so it was good to know she was still active. Since at level 35 MistressBlaze is a bit vulnerable, even in that free +10 armour set, my policy was to only attack monsters that were already being attacked by high-level people; I debuffed the monsters with Curse and Sloth, and tried to give the Haste and Chakra Shield buffs to suitable people.

MistressBlaze did get killed three times, which is a bit below average for a MMS; but she had the "beginner" resurrection scrolls, which are likely to vanish when she levels up anyway, so didn't lose anything. There were a couple of other occasions when her health got awfully low, too, I think one of the Spirit Cave archers used a skill that takes health down to 1... but by the end, she had added 9.80% experience.

That isn't a lot of experience, considering that the "MMS" lasted about two hours - but then, when you are fighting Patriarch Botis monsters 100 levels above you, or Flutons a level higher at 136, you do tend to miss a lot. But it was fun, and it makes a change to be part of a great mob of players, even if it can be hard to target the monster in the middle sometimes. I'd cast Curse on a Patriarch Botis, and it had started to follow me before the rather higher-level rogues around had managed to use Snare on it successfully, and I said, "He wants to follow me home - can I keep him...?"

As well as health and mana recovery potions, and tool aids, I did manage to pick up 3 skill point boosters, 5 item drop boosters, 6 large defence potions, and 10 large attack potions from the "hands" spawned as rewards for us between the waves. We took so long on the boss wave that we were nowhere near the speed needed to qualify for a round of loot-spawning that would include heaven stones, so GM Stratos just briefly spawned a rather large mob of Flutons, leading to some carnage in that part of the field, before they, and he, vanished.

After that, well, I started work on the blog early, in the hopes of getting an early night, since I was still feeling tired. Peri and Cap were busy pet-levelling, at least, but I put aside tentative plans to either take Galahad back to the Temple for an hour, or for MistressDomina to go to the Dratan desert or Maargadum Jail again.

Ratel reported that he had managed to get a level 49 weapon manual, so he had probably been out fighting the Giants. He has already made himself a level 49 shield, but is still unable to get very far with getting a 50/52 armour set together, with only two of the five pieces. As Ratty is unlikely to reach level sixty for a while, he had paid 110 million for one of the "Player Appreciation" sets of 60/62 armour. Not a bad price - in fact, as its previous owner had upgraded it from +5 to +6, a bit of a bargain. He will be able to use all of it from level 57, and most of it from level 56, so buying a set makes sense. If the event was still running then, he could always sell the newly-arriving set when it came.

But at the moment we don't even know if the "Player Appreciation" event will still be going tomorrow, after tonight's maintenance. Time will tell!

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