It was SirPerivale's turn to do some overnight pet-levelling, and that went pretty well, taking the pale blue horse in his care up to level 23. In the morning CaptainScarlet and his drake joined in for a few hours - but after coffee it was time to get some use out of the still-running "double skill exp" event, so MistressSabina and JohnWellington headed for my usual room in Prokion Temple.
Things proceeded much as ever there; Grabnar turned up at about 1:40, UK time, and was able to show off his newly-acquired devil and knight forms, so he must have reached level 32. There was a red-named rogue called NijaNegra who made a couple of forays into "my" room, just to lure an Orc Sergeant or two outside to be dealt with at her leisure, I think. Otherwise, it was just Sabina, John, and a large number of Orcs.
The morning session was less than two hours; Sabina added 12.46% and 246 guild points, while John added 28.65% and 218 guild points, while they each gained 248 skill points. The afternoon session was a bit longer, so Sabina added 21.92% and 428 guild points, and John added 50.01% and 380 guild points, while they each added 429 skill points. As the Discipline guild had by then reached our target of 18,000 guild points, Sabina then "unlocked" John's experience donation.
The change to a new "day" was due at six o'clock, but they stopped the double skill exp early - and also started advertising a cheap deal on heaven stones in the item mall, mentioning that, as expected, Friday's mystery bonus was an "upgrade event". I continued with MistressSabina and JohnWellington until it was nearly time for the first event anyway, so that Sabina gained another 9.16% and 179 guild points, while John added, at twice his previous speed, 36.54%, which took him comfortably into level thirty. That session only gave them 96 skill points each, but it all helps. Sabina's total number of unused skill points is starting to look quite respectable, in fact, though she doesn't have all her available skills maximised.
The Friday "upgrade event" had been arranged not to run all the time, but just for half an hour every four hours, starting at 7:00pm UK time, with the last one at 11:00 tomorrow morning. Luckily each one was for the full 200%, not random changes between that and 150% and 175%... but the timing isn't really that convenient for European players.
I can't say that I did very well at upgrading, though as I used runes of protection, all I lost was the cost of such things, and a few heaven stones. The runes are expensive - it was annoying, with the alleged double chance of a successful upgrade, to use a whole package of four runes of protection II on Memree's +10 armour, and only get one piece to +11, and attempts to upgrade some assorted boots and headpieces seemed to have a similarly low success rate.
However, I had it easy compared to Ratel. He got his new sword to +12, and was saying that that was probably enough - I agreed, and said that it was time just to use an Extreme Stone, something with a guaranteed success which can only be used once per item. I discovered later though that he'd changed his mind, pushed his luck, and broken the weapon... he broke some armour too, and spent around 80 million in gold, leaving him with very little cash remaining.
I had at least managed to (rather expensively) upgrade the titan level 62 headgear and boots to +8, so that MrChuckNorris can wear them instead of the level 57 ones, until he levels up and can use the level 67 ones. This meant that the level 57 pair could be traded across to MistressDomina, and converted into the mage armour equivalents, so she is now wearing the full 55/57 mage set. I must say that the boots, with a subtle purple hue, complement the rest of the set rather well. As the boots are so rare, one seldom sees the full armour set, which is a shame as it is one of the best-looking mage ones I think.
With all my failures and use of expensive materials, I was feeling a bit dispirited, though not as down as Ratel. With no experience or skill exp bonus running, I decided I might as well take MistressDomina and MistressBlaze out to the Sphinx types for a little while, as something fairly simple to do and to get a few bloodseals added to the new pieces... so off I went.
When I arrived I saw a familiar pair of large, ominous dark wings just around the corner - Kamira was there. I just didn't feel enthusiastic enough to bother to go and get Rage; after all, I couldn't tell now long she had been there, she might well vanish before Rage could teleport in. As she was just around the corner, she wasn't really in my way, so I started to just fight the Sphinx Fighters and Sphinx Speer Men. A rogue called JohnnyDepp appeared after a few minutes - I did say that I wasn't sure how long Kamira had been there, but she may well have logged out by the time I hit "enter". A few minutes later a knight with the suspiciously similar name of JackSparrow rode up, probably from the Tomb of Theos entrance, but by then Kamira had left.
Ratel arrived as I was fighting, and joined the party. After a while I noticed that he was using a Blessed Iris and a 30%-extra elixir - if I'd known we were going to do a quite substantial, full-steam session I might have started something like that too! He mentioned that he'd got killed by the Sphinxsters on Auzura-6 a little earlier, and we soon found that the Auzura-4 types too were causing rather more damage than usual - the set-up for the upgrade events must have affected some stat arrangement or other. However, we also found that it worked both ways, and that the Sphinx types' health bars went down a lot more quickly too, so, as long as we watched our own health carefully, we got along pretty well.
That "extra damage" effect probably means that it was a bit of luck that I didn't log in as Rage and try to kill Kamira. At that stage I wouldn't have known that anything was different, and would probably have got a nasty shock when Kamira attacked rather harder than usual, with a dirt nap to follow...
I stayed a bit later than usual, but I left Ratel to it for the last hour or so of his three-hour Blessed Iris. I did set up SirPerivale, pet-levelling, to provide a solo party, but I think Ratty did actually log out a bit before the Iris was over. I'm sure he got into level 52, though; he plans to freeze his experience (well, to 50%) and do some skill exp farming next.
Peri's horse did level up, reaching level 24; Cap's drake still has some way to go in level 31, however. I did watch their health bars carefully to begin with, but, as they both have at least 250 more defence now than the usual minimum for fighting a Berserker without losing health, there weren't any unpleasant surprises there.
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