Barren Eises and Flutons

Well I can't play morning, noon and night every day, as today, and tomorrow, demonstrate, but at least that gives the chance for some pet-levelling, with Cariae's Galahad getting his horse to level 19 over the early evening food break - SirPerivale had a chance for an hour or so then too, with his smart level 21 pale blue horse, though in the morning it was CaptainScarlet who was at work. If I'd thought ahead a bit more, I probably wouldn't have had Cariae's and Auzura's level 35 pet-levellers, Galahad and RedRackham, on the same account...

There was the usual maintenance last night, but despite Zenderfly's state of eager anticipation, there doesn't seem to have been any patch at all - no return of Roy and the Merchant House system, and definitely no "Episode Two" and the new character, the Night Shadow. The forum had nothing in the "patch notes" section at all... I guess beta testing continues, assuming that the South Korean developers have recovered from their local equivalent of Thanksgiving now.

There did seem to be a disconnection for Galahad at about the usual time in the morning - CaptainScarlet over on Auzura got disconnected around then too, which may or may not have been a coincidence.

There was a full afternoon session, anyway, featuring Barbarienne over on Cariae-3. It seemed to me that it would be a good idea to get one further set of the +10 30/32 armour, plus the pair of level 33 +10 weapons, so, finding that I did have a spare slot, I made a new knight, a Cariae incarnation of SirPerivale. I still think it's a good knightly name, though a Google search won't bring up more than mentions in this blog and people who can't spell Sir Percivale...

Anyway, this new Peri ran through the tutorial dungeon, and then enlisted Keerella as his Guardian. I was a bit tempted to have Kee do the actual work in the Tomb of Theos, but Barbarienne is eight levels higher and probably does the levelling job a bit more quickly. Perhaps if I do need to do this again, Kee can have a go, after all Barb has run out of the Summon books now, while Kee still has some.

Karella passed my "human tribe" cartoon cat pet SkrappY across to SirPerivale, plus a couple of memory scrolls, SkrappY's supplies of bandages and freshly baked bread, and 100,000 gold. Then Barb logged in, and used a memory scroll to get to the entrance to the Tomb, then Summoned Peri to join her, so that he could get the location onto his scroll, just in case of a disconnection later. It only cost him 3,000 gold to get in, it cost Barb a hundred times that.

Peri triggered his first "beginner" platinum blessed iris, and the first Screaming Zombie that Barb killed moved him from level 1 to level 11. The second got him to level 13, the third to level 14, the fourth to level 15, and the fifth to level 16, but it took the seventh to get him to level 17, and the ninth to get him up to 18. Things do slow down a bit after that of course; it took only slightly over ten minutes to reach level 20 and complete the Guardian system, but at the end of the first hour Peri was at 46% of the way through level 27, and an hour later he was at 31% of the way through level 30. So as usual a third pbi was needed to complete his rise to level 31, though only about a third of its time was used.

I did have a few assistants on the ks-ing front, who all asked nicely first. TheLastRogue was a sensible level 50, who managed by the end to reach 51. GingerBeer did drop by briefly on her way back from deeper down, while TitussWarMaster was helping a guildie and one or two others. Having Peri in my party did mean less experience, and a lot less skill exp, but Barb still managed to add 1.03% and 13 skill points, plus 2456 pet points... and picked up some useful cash, as well as a heaven stone and a moonstone box or two, which is about all one can expect from the Tomb.

Towards the end, Zenderfly's cleric Itura got in touch via Norcaine guild chat, to say that my blog entry for yesterday hadn't appeared on kaerella.com's front page, which was a bit strange - I was able to direct her to the October archive page, though. She is glad to know that using a level 20 character with a level 35 one can be useful, and I've promised to get a few more of my level 20 types out to Prokion Temple, to get the location of its entrance onto their memory scrolls.

Zen seems to feel that she is in a bit of a limbo until the Night Shadow arrives. She could use her large supply of experience boosters on Zenderfly - but if the Night Shadow is going to be fun to play, then she ought to keep them for him. Is there any point in grinding with her mage, if she will be switching over to a brand-new phoenix character in a week or two?

I don't really have the same problem as I spread myself around between characters. It's difficult to guess when the Night Shadow will be released, but at least I can get a horse ready, and line up some level 20 prospective party members. And I ought to try and get Barb up a level or two, to get her within range of Zenderfly for an Equal party, so that I can go to interesting places and gain some more experience relatively painlessly. If Barb does get a few levels, then she as well as Zen might be able to power-level our pair of new Night Shadows...

There was just over an hour available before I had to log out, so Cariae's RedRackham went to Prokion Temple, found the room available, and invited Karella to join him for a Combat party. Before I had to leave, Red added 21.29% experience and 57 skill points, while Karella got 5.47% and 55 skill points. Red is about a quarter of the way into level 33 now, the idea is to take him to level 35 as a second pet-leveller.

I was able to log back on at about ten, so decided that Memree ought to check out the "Storm the Castle" event on Auzura-3 in Merac, something I've never been to before. By the time I rode down to Merac Castle things had begun, but, while it only lasted ten minutes, it was fun, and the rewards spawned outside the Castle afterwards seemed generous, given the number of people involved.

Cariae's "Storm the Castle" was scheduled for half past ten, so Barbarienne went to that one, getting there in good time, and was of rather more assistance than Memree, being able to handle the Tomb's Sphinx Spear Men and Strayana's Dark Harpies. Ater the victory and the prizes, GM Kali spawned dozens and dozens of Barren Eises, whirling and coruscating, and some Flutons too - it took a while, but we managed to get rid of them too.

So, while Cariae's Galahad had kept busy pet-levelling for the second half of the evening, getting his horse into level 20, back on Auzura CaptainScarlet had very little time left to work on his horse, before my time to log out arrived.