The Zombie Invasions

RedRackham's first overnight pet-levelling session went well, so that we weren't very far into the morning when the horse he is working on for Lylja reached its penultimate level. Level 36 does take over thirteen hours to get through, though, so another overnight session will be needed, it's very handy that, since he is level 35, Red can handle a level 36 pet without it starting to get hungry too quickly.

It being Sunday, CaptainScarlet wasn't in action as early as usual, but he soon got into the swing of things, and, over lunch got the horse which will be going to Samael up to level 29. Since Cap is still level 32, he can handle pets up to level 33 without any problems, and that is as far as Samael wants us to go. A level 33 horse mount may not give quite as good buffs as a level 37 one, but you can crank the attack buff up to ten (nine is the maximum on a level 31 mount), and generally only be two short of the full ten-ten attack and defence buffs.

After coffee, RedRider headed for Prokion Temple, this time in a Combat party with my level 32 sorcerer JohnWellington, who may not be the quickest killer I've got, but did manage to add 19.75% experience; RedRider, at level 23, added 18.00%, since in a Combat party almost all the experience goes to the one doing the fighting, and they got 81 skill points each. About my only visitor was a rogue called CCN1, who very possibly was in my favourite room shortly before I arrived - the room was empty, but there was some recently-dropped gold on the floor to pick up. She stayed for a little while, left, then came back later but left rather quickly, perhaps suitably impressed that John was in his "Knight" transformation.

Following the usual lunchtime pet-levelling, now that MistressBlaze has reached level 46 I could team her up with MistressDomina, who was just below level 61, and head for the Sphinx types. The Auzura-4 location was too busy, as I did want access to the Elite Sphinx Speer Man or MD would have been wasting her time; so I moved across to Auzura-3, and had the area to myself for most of the time, though a healer called Velma, a phoenix character with the distinctively two-toned horse and fluorescent orange headgear, did arrive, but left when she saw that I had the Elite monopolised.

It wasn't a hugely long session, just an hour or so, as "Sunday Teatime" was due to start at three, UK time, with "Skill Point Sunday" as a title suggesting that we'd get a skill exp boost. MistressDomina added just 3.87%, plus 486 pet points, while MistressBlaze gained 16.89%; they each got 14 skill points as well.

Since my royal knight Galahad was still in level 33, he seemed a good candidate to team up with RedRider for Teatime, so a Combat party was formed - but even the Auzura-3 Prokion Temple was pretty full, and I ended up in the small room with statues at its corners, close to the central staircases and gallery. Red's first attempt at standing casually by the edge didn't work, with an Orc Axeman able to attack her, but she went into a corner and was safe. Before long a knight called Aragornn also took up residence, and there were just about enough Orcs to keep us both busy. Rogues called LightningStrike and XMRSCOLDX did little more than kill an Orc or two on their way through, but a titan called MaKid did try and horn his way in, but there really wasn't enough room for three fighters there.

After Aragornn left, MaKid returned, and was very touchy about Gal fighting near him - "Don't help me", he said more than once. But if the Orcs that had respawned were all clustered around him, I consider it fair enough to attack one or two, rather than just stand around like a lemon with nothing to fight, as long as I didn't attack the one he was actually fighting at the time.

I'm afraid the "Teatime" was as messed up as Friday's had been - there were no announcements at all, but as far as I could tell it started about 45 minutes late, did give extra skill exp to begin with, and then switched to extra experience instead, so it hadn't been worth trying to prepare for. I didn't bother to stay until its end, I just stayed long enough for RedRider to reach level 24, adding 49.92%; Galahad had added 30.07%, which had taken him to level 34 about a third of the way through, but a Combat party still works when people are more than ten levels apart, as long as they were no more than ten levels apart when the party was formed. On the skill points side, they had each gained 154, which can't be bad.

Galahad had gained 455 guild points; RedRider had gained just 65, to add to the 35 gained in the morning session. In the course of moving from the start of level 23 to the start of level 24, Red had gained 375 skill points in all, which will need to be invested in skills either right away, or when level 25 is reached.

Elvastar was on Auzura-4, so I wasn't able to team with him; he did have another 23 million gold to pass across to me, so that he has now passed the halfway mark in repaying the 320 million he borrowed. RedRackham was able to get that from him before he headed for Merac over the food break. Elva told me that he, or Ratel, wouldn't be at the Quiz on Auzura, he would be going to it on Katar instead, as he was a bit short of funds there, and owed a guildmate some cash that had been loaned to him to help him buy a level 33 unmounted horse there. "He hardly knows me, but helped me with 35 mil anyway."

As usual on a Sunday, the evening session wasn't anything very serious, since the Quiz was always going to turn up halfway through. While CaptainScarlet continued to level his horse, MistressSabina did a few outstanding quests, mainly in Merac and involving taking messages around, but also including killing Gnoll Soldiers, and a trip out to Shuraine at his oasis in the Dratan desert. Sabina also ventured into Maargadum Jail, and killed a few spiked canine types on level one and level two - at one point she went out to Dratan's Sphinx Fighters to try soloing them, but while at her level they gave 0.65% experience each, they did take a long time to kill, as Sabina, as a witch rather than a wizard, doesn't have Terra Spear to hit them with, and they also hit rather hard. Their habit of pretending to stand still for a while, and then suddenly being right on top of one and attacking, can be rather dangerous in such circumstances. As she was partied with Cap, she also changed the party to Combat and killed some of his local Berserkers and Bandits, to give him a small boost. In all Sabina added 13.42%.

The Quiz on Auzura-2 went well, there didn't seem to be any of the really awkward questions, and I think most of us safely got through to the end. Ratel told me later though that on Katar they hadn't managed to get past question ten, so I don't know what went wrong there. Ah well, there is always next week. Maybe I'll have Kaerella on Auzura as usual, but have the older computer's character over on Katar to give some moral support.

After the Quiz, there was the "Zombie Invasion" out by Berbank Mill in Juno, quite close to Randol, on Auzura-2. Memree went to that, and managed to avoid being killed. Zombies, Ancient Zombies, Apes, Screaming Zombies, Ancient Screaming Zombies, there was a lot of killing to be done, and sadly despite our best efforts, we weren't able to kill them all in the allotted time. We were still given a few Hands spawned as a reward for our hard work, I think I got a large attack potion and an item drop booster, or something like that.

Auzura's Zombie Invasion had been scheduled for 9:00pm, UK time, and after that, for 9:30, GM Kali moved over to Katar - and I decided I might as well follow. My archer there, another Kaerella, was only level 6 when we started, and despite being killed three times, and having to rush back from town using a potion of haste, ended up at level 10. Again, we didn't finish clearing the area of its zombie infestation in time, and again I just managed to get a couple of useful items.

Cariae was next, so this time I went as my level 100 archer Barbarienne. I was rather expecting Zenderfly to be there, but she wasn't around; Ratel's Cariae rogue Ahtema turned up, however, and stayed relatively close, using her Snare skill to good effect. She did die once, she told me afterwards, and I nearly did, too, the boss-type level 102 Ancient Screaming Zombies have a nasty debuff that drove my health down at an alarming rate, I'm sure it dipped below 200 despite a greater healing potion and my frantic use of Self Heal.

I did manage to get two large attack potions, two large defence potions, and a couple of tool aids, from the Hands at the end, but once again we didn't manage to clear the area inside the allowed time. It is strange that, despite the event coming along relatively soon after the Sunday Quiz, at quite a "peak time", there didn't seem to be all that many top-level players there. But then, there were a heck of a lot of the level 100 and level 102 zombies to deal with... I wonder how the last two servers, Sarissa and Hatzring, got on?

After that, RedRackham went out to Merac, back on Auzura-4, and started to pet-level on the Berserkers once more, alongside CaptainScarlet. Cap's horse should be within an hour or so of level 30 by the time he logs out tonight, while I'd say that Red's horse, for Lylja, will be about eight hours away from level 37 by then.