I'd left the newer computer on overnight, even without Last Chaos running, to help the Carbonite backup catch up - but when I switched the older one on, it couldn't find an internet connection, the Last Chaos launcher immediately reported it couldn't connect. My broadband supplier has a little program that automatically appears on such occasions, but after humouring that I just switched the modem off for a few minutes, and did a system restore to yesterday (mainly to undo the changes that the TalkTalk program had made) - and things worked.
So, it was after breakfast by the time I transferred a Pet Mount Retraining Card across to Karella to use on her level 35 white horse; she used that, and then exchanged it for a level 37 one with RedRackham. He went off to start levelling the 35-er up to 37, and Karella made the level 37 one into her new mount.
As had happened with Barbarienne's purple horse, un-mounting this one did cause it to lose its colour, but I'm sure I have plenty of pet colouring crystals around.
As it happened, Zenderfly's new Night Shadow, Merun, was in Randol, and briefly formed a party with SirDarth as he was passing the retraining card to Karella; he got added to Merun's friends list too, as did RedRackham a few minutes later. Merun seemed very low in health, so must have been out adventuring already.
Just after Red started pet-levelling, Merun did offer me "a unique chance to get to Moonshine", the new map that's only designated for people who are level 140 or more, but unfortunately I needed to go out shopping. Apparently, although they shouldn't work, at present a party recall card will take any character to Moonshine, not just characters who are level 140 or over.
Later, after coffee, I did some moving around of items, which mainly resulted in moving some accessories, and medals of honour, out of Rage's inventory, across to LordElpus; loot drops like item drop boosters got moved across to Auzura's MistressDomino. These things always take longer than expected, but there was time to take Rage out to the Sphinx Fighters, Sphinx Speer Men, and of course the Elite Sphinx Speer Man. As she is level 72 to their level 63 or 64, the experience gain was not great - but bringing MrChuckNorris, my level 62 titan, out to join her in a Combat party boosted the experience per kill roughly eight-fold, and increased the skill exp by about 50% as well.
The sphinx types went down very easily, and Rage only used two small health potions throughout the session. As it was a Combat party Chuck's experience gain was minor, but he and Rage each gained 11 skill points, and Rage got 3.31% experience, taking her past the halfway mark in her level.
I was just getting ready to log off for lunch when Ratel got in touch, asking if he could borrow three lucky smelting stones and six chaos smelting stones, as he'd got a blue, five-seal sword, and wanted to "plus it up". I assume he had got it to +3 with ordinary smelting stones or heaven stones, and didn't want to take even the slightest risk of breaking it; he'll have got an extreme stone for the final step, to +13.
That did delay me a little, but MistressDomino had got plenty of lucky smelting stones in storage, and there was a pack of five chaos smelting stones on that account that I hadn't previously downloaded, so she was able to pass the three and six across. Ratel promises to replace them as soon as he can; I can't think of anyone else I'd trust like that - well, Zen I guess, though she would be very unlikely to need to make such a request.
ColonelScarlet did get a disconnection over lunch, which I think may have been a general Katar thing rather than just him - the pale blue horse reached level 28 just before that, though I think the disconnection did "roll back" the pet points by about 120. RedRackham didn't have any interruption over on Cariae, so managed to get his horse up to a quarter of the way through level 35. Meanwhile, the forum thread on the bugs brought in with Episode 2 had reached page thirty.
The afternoon session included one disconnection at 2:45 UK time, so a low-risk strategy did seem best. Ratel mentioned getting disconnected in the Tomb of Theos three times, which got expensive, earlier. I took Rage and MrChuckNorris back to the Sphinx types, and by the end of the afternoon Chuck was up 2.27%, Rage was up 5.75%, and they had each added 19 skill points.
During the late afternoon food break Zenderfly got in touch with ColonelScarlet, and her level 2 titan has now been officially recruited into the Discipline guild - not that she plans to level him up, but it will be handy when she wants to contact me, since as well as the Colonel, MistressDomino my Katar mage is a member. Zenderfly had a cunning plan to level Damor up, I think it is something to do with getting the night shadow Merun a blue name, so arrangements were made to team up once I was back in action.
Zen did get in touch at the appointed time, to say that she was nearly ready - but twenty minutes later the message came up that to address some server problems, the servers would be "reset" in ten minutes, so before long it was time for both ColonelScarlet and RedRackham to log out.
The reset took about twenty minutes, and when he came into the shoutbox to tell us the servers were back up, Aeria ks1lent also advised us not to use pots at present, as there was a possibility of a further reset, or disconnection. So, when Zenderfly was back online, we agreed that this evening wasn't a good time for levelling Damor, which will apparently involve Damor and Keerella in a combat party, while Barbarienne, Zenderfly, and a friend of hers do some serious monster-mashing. Zen is thinking in terms of starting at around 5:00pm tomorrow, so I'll need to be pretty prompt with the start of my food break then.
I took Katar's MistressDomino out to Prokion Temple, and she went up by 44.56% in level 22, mainly fighting ghouls and mummies, since they give a good ratio of skill exp to regular experience, with the occasional passing orc soldier thrown in. 152 skill points were earned, and then back in town I spent them all, and the 18 MD had started with. That got a few more skills to their top level, though I see a fifth level of one skill I have still to get will need 151 all on its own.
There were no disconnections during that time, at least on the Katar server; I logged out half an hour early, to try out another Aeria game that I'd had an invitation to the "closed beta" of, Grand Fantasia... it seemed to be aimed at fairly young players, really, at least it all seemed a bit complicated to me. Where was the house I could furnish, that they mentioned - and where was the mining area I could send my sprite off to? Oh well, I fought and defeated quite a number of jelly rabbits, which has to count for something...
When I emerged from that, I noticed that ColonelScarlet had suffered a disconnection on Katar-4, so moved him over to the newer computer. His horse should get to level 29 by the time I sign off for the night, though with disconnections and resets lurking, it doesn't seem worth trying any overnight work. Katar-3 apparently had a "lock-in" type crash at around the same time, where people may be dumped out, but their account is still read as logged in, so they can't connect anywhere else. GM OgreKing bravely ventured into the shoutbox, and before being submerged in people asking why, with a level 90 character, they couldn't start a night shadow, said that they were waiting for word from the South Korean developers about that particular problem.
Ah well, let us hope things have smoothed down tomorrow.
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