ColonelScarlet lost a couple of hours to a ks-ing in his attempt at an overnight pet-levelling stint - by that I mean that some little dear came along and deliberately killed the bandit he was fighting, leaving him just standing there doing nothing. He had a disconnection while he was standing around, which may have saved us from using a quality stone or two, but I got him back in action later, so that the horse did reach level 36 before breakfast.
I had to be on the alert for a phone call for much of the day, so it didn't seem sensible to send Kaerella to Katar-4's Prokion Temple to use an hour's pssp, if perhaps five or ten minutes of it could be wasted. So instead after coffee RedRyder, my rogue, went to the Katar-1 version, to take advantage of the "Elizabeth's Enhancement" buff - "elizabuff" for short?
Red went to the room she has been using recently, which has mummies and one orc soldier, and, equipping her dragon hatchling, settled in there. She levelled up from 23 to 24, so really could fight orc soldiers all the time, with the use of a supply of health potions - but the mummies remained green, and still give 5500 skill exp each with the "elizabuff" running, and a nicer ratio of skill exp to experience than the soldiers.
By the end of the morning session Red had added 64.15%, and 200 skill points, which she quickly spent back in Randol; 772 pet points got her hatchling into level 3, and its Sympathy topped 70%.
Over lunch MistressDomino managed to sell a couple of cheap accessories and some more heaven stones, the last of her stock, so Kaerella passed over some of hers, in exchange for the surplus gold; RedRyder passed over some items, though, checking out how the special rogue accessory Red has works, I discovered that it can't be traded, or even put into storage for transfer to a different character on the same account. It's unfortunate that MistressDomino reached level 20 before the new patch brought in such items.
The afternoon session was RedRyder's again, as I was liable to get interrupted a time or two; it ended a bit early, at 4:05, when Katar-1 had another disconnection. By then Red had added another 64.03%, 268 skill points, and 989 pet points, but was still 10% short of level 25. The inevitable "rollback" removed 3.22%, 14 skill points, and 46 pet points, however.
Zenderfly got in touch a few minutes before the end, asking if I had 170 million on Cariae that I could lend her for a day or two; ColonelScarlet logged out briefly while I checked, and I was able to report that Barbarienne over there had enough cash, so the loan was made, and the main Zenderfly character over there joined Norcaine for some reason. She can leave any time she wants since her witch character Damor is the guild master, and thus can kick her.
The evening started with Kaerella fitting in her "power hour" in Katar-4's Prokion Temple's back room. I'd only just started when a titan ran in and started fighting alongside me - he lasted maybe a minute before falling down dead. A rogue did run in, kill a couple of orcs, and run out again later, I think sometimes people assume the room has more than one exit. though if they notice their health is down to 10% that also would be a pretty good reason to leave in a hurry.
This time I didn't take any damage, but I didn't allow all five orc sergeants to keep hitting me all the time; I went mainly for the orc axemen, but killed sergeants too when necessary. Perhaps because the sergeants have more defence and take longer to kill, I only added 357 skill points during the hour, but 26.61% was just enough to get me into the next level, which was convenient (and 1116 pet points got my drake into level 25).
Getting to level 29 means that Kaerella is now able to use her level 33 +15 bow, which gives her a physical offence stat of 498 - rather better than the 311 she had with the level 29 +10 bow she was using up till now! Kae was able to get Collector Ryl to transform the old +10 bow into a rogue-type crossbow, which was later passed across to RedRyder. Just as Kae was ending her hour, ColonelScarlet got the pale blue horse to level 37, too, so back in town Kae exchanged her white horse for the pale blue one, and then the Colonel passed the white horse across to RedRyder.
Next came perhaps the lamest, most useless event for a while, which I shouldn't have got involved in. The announcement came up that [GM]OgreKing was "somewhere in Juno" offering people who found him some "awesome bargains", so off I rode, looking all round the map - and when I got back to town, they then said that he was actually on a different sub-server, Katar-3. So I changed across to that sub-server, and off I went again. I finally found him, he had just gone to the usual "Mad Monster Spawn" spot and set up in merchant mode there - and was surrounded by dozens of people already. When I finally managed to click on him, he just had a couple of things left. I decided I might as well buy three more platinum skill pills at 5 million each, though they didn't strike me as a huge bargain - but before I could complete the purchase he left merchant mode. After a couple of minutes or so he was in merchant mode again with new stocks, including skill point boosters at 475,000 gold each, or slightly over half what one might pay in town, but my attempt to get those failed too, I guess someone else must have taken the whole lot. Further attempts to click on him failed to bring up the merchant window - and with so many people around him, it took quite a few tries each time before I could actually click on the right person.
I got a disconnection, which I think was Ogre-induced; since the MMS spot was on my memory scroll it didn't take long to get back, but then I got a "send error report" game crash, which probably wasn't done on purpose...and when I got back, the GM had vanished, without saying anything, never to return. What a waste of time... the "GMs have added special bargain items to the merchant house" idea went a bit pear-shaped too, the increased interest meant that the lag was abominable, and the next page of items, or indeed the first page of them, took rather a long time to load.
Ah well, ColonelScarlet had a blue pan flute left, so talked to Lorraine and Jajan and got a brand-new pale blue pony, which he took out to the Gnoll Lancers, so that soon started levelling up. And RedRyder headed out to Prokion Temple, on Katar-1 again to make use of the "Elizabuff". Unfortunately, while there was a solo party listed, the game didn't seem to think it was actually available, so Red had to do without any solo party boost.
It didn't take too long, fighting Mummies and Orc Soldiers in a corridor room alongside my favourite back room, for Red to reach level 25, and equip her new crossbow, increasing her physical attack from 322 to 400, and by the end of the session I'd just managed to add all five bloodseals to it. The total experience gain was 63.07%, and that brought with it 222 skill points, getting Red's total up to 476 - all of which were quickly spent at the skills trainer back in Randol on the newly-available level 25 skills, and some earlier ones. 632 pet points were enough to get Red's dragon hatchling into level 5.
By my calculations RedRider needs another 272 skill points to get all her general and passive skills up to level 25 to their maximum levels. My intention would be to do with Red what I did with Kae, and have her learn the special skills as well, though this time I'll try to do this at level 25 rather than 27, thus allowing two more levels for actual after-the-max skill point gain. Red's ambitions as a character are less ambitious than Kae's, she really just wants to be a useful event-going fighter, so while pssps will be used, those oh-so-expensive skill point boosters won't be. Well, I suppose that individually they aren't too expensive, but when you have to use hundreds of the things, the cash starts to add up.
Aeria announced at ten, UK time, that yet another server maintenance was on its way, to start at midnight for us, or four in the afternoon on the US West Coast; this should fix that strange "fellowship" party bug, and ol' S1lent hopes that some other party changes will cut down on the random disconnections and "lock-ins" - so it seems worth doing, although it means no overnight levelling for the Colonel's new pony. Still, it ought to manage to get to level 6 before log-out time, which is a useful start. This horse will be for MistressDomino for sure, even though RedRyder dashed in, as rogues tend to do, and overtook her.
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