A New Armour Set

Well, yesterday was the thirteenth, and SirPerivale's dragon hatchling had reached level thirteen yesterday evening, but Peri bravely continued his pet-levelling through the night. There was one disconnection eventually, but not before three levels had been gained, and Peri was soon back in action - joined before breakfast by CaptainScarlet, as the white horse that Jacqueline is looking forward to mounting continued its lengthy journey through level 35.

Just before breakfast I sighted a Pandora's Beast across on the far side of the clearing, so SirPerivale briefly made way for MistressDomina, who rode down and dealt with it, getting a 52,000 gold drop as a reward. But then it was back to the regular pair of pet-levellers - until after coffee.

For a change, it was the back room in Prokion Temple on Auzura-3 that was in use, and the Auzura-4 sub-server's version that was free, so that is where MistressBlaze and CaptainScarlet ended up for an hour or so. Now that MB is level 36 progress is fairly slow, but the experience and skill exp, at least from the Orc Sergeants, is still better than anything the Poison Mists would supply, or the mid-thirties monsters in Merac. MB added 7.51% and 77 skill points, while Cap, five levels lower, who has his experience gain half-frozen, went up by 8.22%, and added a similar number of skill points.

MistressFelicia had been taking care of my 50/52 armour set, which Rage had used but Chuck had skipped entirely; she traded the set across to MistressDomina, who paid Collector Ryu just under a million gold to transform it from rogue armour into the mage equivalent. MD could already wear the gloves, and it was useful to be prepared for levelling up.

By the way, out of curiosity I did a Google search for "SirPerivale", and while my mentions of him in this blog are the top results, I also found pictures of a (retired) Royal Fleet Auxiliary vessel apparently of that name, which was a bit of a surprise, as I thought that using the name of a less-than-sparkling London suburb, knighted, was a one-off idea of mine, and indeed the Google results page did ask if I really wanted "SirPercivale". I suspect that somebody didn't spell the name of the ship correctly. There were a couple of other results for knightly fiction, too.

After lunch Stavanic got in touch with SirPerivale, since they are both in the DeathBringers guild, and I mentioned that it had been a shame he'd got too busy to continue with us at the Sphinx types last night, as they gave good experience. Another guild member, Lylja, a level 53 archer, volunteered to team up with us there, so I switched to MistressDomina and headed out to the usual spot. Steve soon arrived, and said he would lead me to the location where Lylja did her fighting - which turned out just to be on the corner, mere yards away.

It wasn't a long session, but it gave MD the experience she needed to reach level 46, and be able to put on the level 51 "Bluses" shirt and skirt from the new armour set - just the level 52 "Maerys" circlet and "Shenimas" boots to go. Stavanic needed to level up too, and left the party for a few minutes to use boosters to do that more quickly.

Before long Stavanic had to go - as he is on US time, probably for breakfast, while Lylja too couldn't stay much longer, as she had to go to work. MD stayed for a few more minutes; basically there are one Sphinx Fighter and one Sphinx Speer Man who spawn close enough to the "safe" end, and if MD uses Curse to slow one of them down, then uses Terra Spear and retreats before using it again, and perhaps a third time, she can take them without any great risk, though the "lag" effect where the target seems to stop at a safe distance, and then suddenly is right on top and attacking, can be off-putting.

MistressDomina had added 19.67% by the time she left the Sphinx types - the "Happy Hour" had just started, about twenty minutes late, and it seemed a good idea to switch to a character, or two characters, who would benefit from the 50% extra skill exp.

So, MistressBlaze headed back to Prokion Temple. For the first time for a while both the Auzura-3 and Auzura-4 room I wanted was in use, so MB ended up on Auzura-5, a PvP-enabled sub-server. This time it wasn't CaptainScarlet who joined her, after all his wish to level up is scarcely very urgent - it was SirDarth, who hasn't been playing much recently, so may as well make an attempt to earn that +10 armour set and weapons.

At present Darth just has the 25/27 +4 armour that Peri used to have, and not even the +13 shield, so, once MB was settled in the room, he just applied horse buffs outside the Temple, ran to the room, and took refuge in the corner. MB got to work, and, while the end of the "Happy Hour" wasn't actually announced, I suppose they switched it off after two hours or so. By then MB had gained 25.40% experience and 220 skill points; I don't think the skill exp was increased much by Darth, a few levels lower than Cap, taking over as MB's companion, but the experience certainly was.

SirDarth himself levelled up, reaching level 24, and gained almost as many skill points, since he missed out on the first couple of minutes. But finally it was time for my food break - at least an hour later than usual, as I'd not wanted to miss any of the "Happy Hour" boost. And it was at that point that Ratel logged on, so I had to apologise, and say I was vanishing for my food break, but would be back as soon as I could.

The plan was for Ratel and MistressDomina to go to Egeha, accompanied by Galahad, who would be outside the party and just supply the Concentration buff to increase the chance of Ratty's Shield Stun and Teleportation skills working - MD's Terra Spear too, I think. So, off we set, starting three-hour Blessed Irises for double experience, killing Bogles reasonably easily though MD did often have to run for it. We headed for the hill that I tend to use there, but before long the Grand Red Dragon turned up, so we headed down to the road below - and then back up when it "arrived" again. Not long after its third "arrival", however, Ratel got an abrupt disconnection. He had been having lag problems, and decided that we might do better to continue in Dratan with the Sphinx types.

So, we met up again there, and continued the session. A sorcerer called VinDiesel was teamed with a lower-level friend, and we left the two easiest-to-access Sphinx types to them, with Ratel concentrating on the Elite Sphinx Speer Man and the others nearby it.

And so the time passed, with Ratel usually starting with a stun, and me adding Curse when it was about to run out, so that, if, as usually happened, the foe turned on me, it would move fairly slowly. I was getting through a lot of mana pots, and health pots too, and so was Ratty. After a while we were teamed with Stavanic again, but just for solo party purposes as he was fighting in Maargadum Jail. Later he did come out to us, intending just to give us the Concentration buff, not realising that Galahad had that side of things covered.

VinDiesel asked to team up with us towards the end, and with the sorcerer stun and other skills he was handy to have around, leading Ratel to think of possible Tomb parties. I did finally level up again, reaching level 47 so that MistressDomina could wear the whole 50/52 armour set, just as the Blessed Iris was running out. Vin had one running too, but it had eight "hours" left (20 minutes), so we continued a little longer, but unfortunately, due in part to lag, and in part to Ratty's habit of attacking the Elite even if that was sure to bring two or three more Speer Men rushing in, he did die, losing 2.5% experience... though after getting that Wall of Belief sixth level he didn't have many unused skill points, so didn't lose any of them. As it was now late he didn't come back from town, and, although I fought a few more Sphinx Fighters, Vin decided that, even if his BI hadn't quite finished, he was done for the night too.

In all over the three hours or so MistressDomina had gone up another 94.28%, plus 966 pet points and 3 skill points - which may not seem much, but that's what you get when you fight monsters that are approaching twenty levels above you. And it did get MD's cache of unused skill points back over the 27k mark...

CaptainScarlet had got the white horse up to level 36 over the early evening food break, but that final level is likely to last a day or two. SirPerivale's pet is now, on level 18, a drake rather than a hatchling, so should soon be ready to be passed over to a suitable character, since some of my squad don't as yet have a pet to pick up stuff and give a buff, which generally is a good idea.