In The Fast Lane

It looked as if Aeria were getting on top of their problems last night, or that the main wave of the "Denial of Service" attack was over; they had closed a couple of sub-servers on a couple of the servers, and everything seemed to have settled down, though it was too late for the regular Sunday Quiz, which they, sensibly, had cancelled.

My pet-levellers logged in, and managed to stay in; there was a Pandora's Box last thing, so MistressDomina had to be sent for. I noticed that the remaining time on her crit potion had vanished - the Blessed Iris and 30% elixir potions would have finished anyway, as they go by real time, even when the character is not logged in. I also noticed that the promised items to compensate for MD's losses hadn't arrived, though I checked all the servers in case they'd been sent to the wrong one - but by the morning they had arrived, as a "Spring: Winter Steal" package.

MD did get 72,000 gold from the Beast, and SirPerivale was able to log back in afterwards, and try an overnight pet-levelling session. There was a disconnection about halfway through the night, however, so the computer did get some rest.

Peri and Cap restarted in the morning without any problems; Cap did manage to get the horse up to level 37, though this level, the final one for this particular pet, is liable to take fourteen or fifteen hours of playing time. Peri's drake was well into level 24 by lunchtime, so about ready to be transferred over to Cap, once there is a vacancy.

There was an after-coffee session for JohnWellington and Galahad, in my favourite back room in Prokion Temple on Auzura-3, with no lag problems. John went first, and once he'd found the room free, Gal went to join him. A mage called LoyalGuardianz, which sounds more like a guild than a person, did decide to join me for a while, with crit pot, mana and health stealers, and a pssp active. Gal immediately warned that "this is a dangerous room", but she didn't reply. I don't know how high a level she was, but she wasn't yet in a 30/32 armour set, and when Galahad chivalrously gave her the Divine Shield buff, she reciprocated by giving both Gal and John a Haste buff - level one! I don't think she died, or lagged out, but she left extremely suddenly.

JohnWellington got the "run out of memory" error a few minutes before we would have finished anyway, so we didn't quite manage to get Discipline up to 5000 guild points; he had added 9.54% by then, taking him into level 32 (which made the Orc Axemen blue-named for him as well as for Cap, and greatly reduced the experience they gave), 76 skill points, and 126 guild points. Galahad added 7.86%, 75 skill points, and 128 guild points, before he too logged out.

Back in town, John was able to spend 851 skill points on level 32 skills, so that he is now able to transform himself into a red devil or a small-headed knight. That ought to be fun, if I choose my opponents carefully - the knight has good defence but not-so-good attack, while the devil, they say, has a good attack but isn't too good armour-wise.

After the usual lunchtime pet-levelling, it was time, I decided, to give MistressDomina a bit of a boost, in level and morale, after that Tomb of Theos debacle. I checked the Wet Paint Last Chaos wiki, and saw that the Elite Sphinx Speer Man, since he is elite, gives a quarter more experience than Ratel's Baby Apes. I've seen plenty of other people speedily levelling using a platinum blessed iris for triple experience gain, plus individual experience boosters to quadruple that to twelve times the normal experience, so, as I'd started to "lag" behind Ratel, with his apparently smooth and effortless Ape-hunting in Egeha while it was all I could do to keep logging in my pet-levellers after disconnections, why not use some of my supply of the experience boosters too?

MistressDomina took MrChuckNorris with her to the Sphinx types for the afternoon, just to supply the Combat party boost - and over the two hours or so he added exactly 3.66% experience. There was a group of people fighting the Elite and the others when we arrived, so MD just started off to one side, but it wasn't long before they left, so I moved across to the Elite Speer Man, started a pbi, and got to work.

The general routine, apart from re-applying horse buffs when needed, was to kill the Elite, then the near-end Sphinx Fighter, then the nearest Sphinx Speer Man, and then the Elite again, and so on. Sometimes I had to wait a few seconds for the Elite Sphinx Speer Man to respawn, but generally it worked very well, with the removal of that one Speer Man keeping the Elite accessible. And on the Elite, I'd use an experience booster, so that it gave on average over eight million experience.

By the end of the first hour MD had added 98.94% experience (and reclaimed 6 skill points), and reached level 56, allowing her to start wearing the shirt and skirt from the 60/62 armour set; I kept going, and somehow managed to get 102.54% in the second hour, taking MD into level 57. That was a total of 201.48%, and 11 skill points, plus 1121 pet points. MistressDomina could wear the level 62 boots and headgear now, but Chuck is still wearing them, until he can level up and put on the level 67 ones...still, that particular mage footwear is a sort of "bell-bottom chaps" affair, which looks a bit strange, so perhaps I don't mind MD waiting a bit.

Stavanic had got in touch, wanting my help as, with only access to a rather old computer, the Auzura-1 Randol was a bit too busy for him to visit - what he wanted was an Extreme Stone, at the best price I could find up to 22 million. I wasn't able to do that with my platinum blessed iris running, but luckily Chuck is still carrying some Extreme Stones after opening lots of upgrade boxes, so Steve was able to come out to visit me at the Sphinx types, and I sold him one for 14 million. He also got Chuck to hold some items while he changed to GuildHealer; she took a little while to reach Chuck to take them, as she'd not got the exact location on her memory scroll yet and had to come from near the Tomb of Theos, but presumably it meant she could add the location for future use.

For the evening session, I went to Egeha. It was MistressDomina, now on the older computer, who paid the 800,000 gold to travel there, and then she was able to use her Party Recall card to bring Chuck in. The idea was that this time Chuck would be the one with the platinum blessed iris in the Combat party, with MD just standing within range to add that little extra boost. So, it really had to be Bogles, which are still four levels above Chuck, since they are so passive. MD could just stand anywhere in their area and be safely ignored, while Chuck did the farming.

The only trouble was that even with the pbi tripling Chuck's experience gain, the hour only brought in 15% experience. I continued after that for a while, but it wasn't, obviously, going to be an evening for a "great leap forward" in Chuck's levelling.

Luckily Ratel had come online not long after I reached my favourite Bogle hill, and accepted my offer of a free trip to Egeha. He didn't stay with the Bogles, which was just as well as there is only a limited supply of them - he headed for his pals the Baby Apes, while staying in the party, which worked well. MD was able to put up Recall again as an "emergency exit", just click the "accept" button and any foe that thought it was about to kill you would be left pawing at thin air.

Ratel got a bit more ambitious later, which was probably something to do with reaching level 57; thanks to Rage, when she had a Party Recall card a while back, he had the Boucu Demon party location on his memory scroll, so he went there - and while he used an awful lot of pots and magic defence minerals, he was managing to kill them.

He mentioned that Chuck would gain experience more quickly there - so we decided to team up for the Boucu Demons, at least for the rest of Ratty's blessed iris. MD stayed behind, moving to town and putting up the "emergency exit" recall - which we used twice, when a Skinwalker, a boss type that is protective of the Demons, got a little too close. At least I used mine twice, Ratty was so used to the slower method of mounting his horse and clicking on "pet return to village" that he did that the first time.

The Boucu Demons' magic attack is a bit fierce, so that when Ratel's shield stun failed, we were in a bit of trouble. Chuck had his "Smite" stun too, but it is a little buggy, so that even when it fails to work, its icon appears on the monster's bar, and it overwrites Ratel's stun. Still, we survived, and as Chuck does carry a big sword, which does a minimum of 2000 damage there, normally if both of Ratty's shield stuns worked, the Demon would be dead by the time the second one ended.

We were in an Equal party, which was only fair as while Chuck may do more damage, Ratty is at the sharp end, and supplies the main buffs as well as the main stuns. He even passed over a supply of level 3 magical defence minerals for Chuck to use. We went on for a little while after his blessed iris ended, but the second enforced trip back to town, leaving an angry Skinwalker behind, seemed like a good moment at which to end the evening's excitements. Chuck had added at least another 12% there, rather more quickly and without any boosting potions; Chuck's total experience gain from the Egeha trip ended up at a very respectable 31.09%, plus 11 skill points, and 1250 pet points for his drake. For her moral support MistressDomina had added 2.46%, and the same 11 skill points, since only a tiny amount of skill exp had come from the Demon trip.

After that, while Ratel did some shopping in Randol on Auzura-1, looking longingly at a "Tears of Knight" accessory at a comparatively reasonable 720 million, and buying a +5 level 61 weapon for 5.5 million, the most highly upgraded one he could find, it was time for me to log my pet-levellers in. The pink drake that SirPerivale has been working on should reach level 25 by log-out time, while CaptainScarlet has got the pale blue horse more than a third of the way through level 37 now.

There continued to be in-game messages about the "lag issues and DC's", but I didn't have any problems today, thankfully. Ratel did disconnect once while he was at the Baby Apes, but it was between fights, so there wasn't any problem and I was soon able to use Recall to get him back to Egeha. Stavanic reported that he had disconnected once, and his young horse had died because of it. But generally today we got off extremely lightly.