ColonelScarlet Takes Over

Galahad was able to pet-level overnight with a Gnoll Lancer, again taking advantage of the double pet experience - by mid-morning his horse had added another seven levels, reaching level 25. RedRackham logged back in at breakfast time, and his drake soon reached level 37. Unlike a horse, that isn't a reason to stop the levelling, it just means the pet starts to get hungrier, so he kept going for a couple of hours.

Later in the morning there was time for Katar's Kaerella to head for Prokion Temple, but the session ended rather abruptly at eleven with a disconnection, so only 32.24% experience and 93 skill points were gained, and about half a level for her hatchling. Back in town though I had a look through Trader Roy's weapons for sale. I rather wish I'd snapped up a level 33 +15 rogue weapon for 30 million, but that would almost have cleaned me out, cash-wise. I might have been able to resell it for rather more, I suspect. But what I did find and buy were a couple of event weapons - a knight one, the Light of Odin, for just 10,000 gold, and a mage one, the Rhine Order, for 25,000 - a lot less than I had to pay to get Kae the healer one.

After the lunch break, with both Cariae-based pet-levellers in action of course, it was time for the original Kae, Cariae's Kaerella, to have an outing to Maargadum Jail. We had been told today would be 50% extra experience and skill exp, but luckily, and making up for the late start of the bonus on some previous days, the weekend's 100% extra experience, skill exp and pet points "event" was still running, so I wanted to make the most of it while I could.

Kaerella had level three of the Jail to herself all afternoon, until just a few minutes before the early evening food break, when the titan sultanuae appeared, and asked to be added to the party. He was, it turned out, level 24 now, so it wasn't surprising that he didn't actually last very long fighting the level 46 Beast Flyers, but full marks for managing to get down that far in the Jail.

Kae added 18.20%, which by her standards was pretty massive, and 161 skill points - and her drake, SirFrancis, levelled up, reaching level 47. 5136 pet points in one session can't be bad, even two at a time.

For the evening, first of all Kaerella's Katar incarnation went and had a session with her Orc Axeman chums again. For much of the time the main "corridor room" was being used by a rogue called xXxManGaxXx, who would kindly sometimes use Snare on my current Axeman, careful not to actually hit it so that I got my full experience and skill exp. She then asked if I wanted a +10 level 29 weapon for 20 million. I said that I did want such a thing, but perhaps 15 million was what I could afford. She agreed, asked me to wait there, and very soon returned with the weapon, and traded it across for the 15 million. Unless it had happened to be like that, she had very kindly gone to Collector Ryl and turned it into a healer's bow, so that I could start using it right away. It had already had an extreme stone used on it, something that can be done only once, but it was still well worth the money.

I got another disconnection at 7:30, just after I'd headed back to town; I don't think the Aeria servers were to blame this time, I think the problem was somewhere along the internet superhighway, probably fairly close to home here, though I don't think my modem was to blame. When these things happen on the hour, or half hour, one is always suspicious! But Kae was safe by then, and had gone up 74.03%, plus 314 skill points, which were enough to let her "max out" all her currently available general and passive skills, and invest some points in "special" skills, like mining, herb farming, and armour crafting.

The plan will be for Kae to suicide her way back down to the start of level 27 - at 3% per death, that will take 25 runs, Then she can move up through the level again, aided by that new weapon, hopefully getting another 300 or so skill points to be invested in more special skills.

For the second half of the evening, I transferred that Light of Odin sword across to ColonelScarlet, and bought him a new helmet and shield, level 22 and 21 respectively. At level 18 he was ready to use all three of those, so I bought a few bloodseals, and off he went to Prokion Temple, to fight the Ghouls and Mummies.

That took up the last part of the evening; even with generally un-plussed armour, the Colonel didn't have any problems, it just shows how easy knights have it - unless there is magic about! He gained 237.64%, so went up from 18 to 20, plus 152 skill points, so was able afterwards to get the fifth level of Divine Shield, wrap up Uncanny Movement, and start on Vitality Control.

I must do some experimenting on having ColonelScarlet and Kaerella in a Combat party - preferably with the Colonel doing the fighting. Unfortunately he isn't ready for my favourite back room yet, though it ought to be fun when he is ready for that.

After that, well, it was time for RedRackham to join Galahad at pet-levelling. Earlier Gal had had one ks-er, a knight called Oberline, who insisted that he was just "respawning" the Gnoll Lancers. No problem for me, as I wasn't away from the keyboard at the time, but annoying for any other pet-levellers around.

Still, all that double pet points has moved things on nicely, so that RedRackham's drake is getting towards the top of level 37 now, while Galahad's horse has already reached level 29. Let us hope they leave the full-strength event running all the time tomorrow until maintenance.