A New Merchant

I did manage to take my level 31 archer Memree along to the Auzura version of the Epic Event chapter, "Soul Snatchers", though what they were thinking of, putting the European-centric server last so that it was scheduled to begin at eleven for the UK, or midnight for mainland Europe, I can't imagine. GM Krash did actually postpone the start by five minutes or so because the turn-out was initially a bit low.

Without the pressure to avoid getting killed that Barbarienne had had, Memree was able to have an enjoyable time, and was, like Kaerella on Katar earlier, able to get to the final room where Beatrice was being restored to her full self, and our top-level people were battling the Flutons. She did have a death or two there, but luckily the location wasn't far from the central staircases, so it didn't take long to run back. Goodies were spawned, and a few picked up - on the way back to the lobby there was another spawning of Hands, but I think that was Krash being humorous, as there were still some pretty deadly monsters in that room, so Memree did tend to die when attempting to pick stuff up. But hey, she needs to get down to 0% before, one day, she does some skill point farming.

Galahad worked on the horse overnight on Cariae-3, while over on Katar-5 Kaerella made another attempt to sell some Hallowe'en candies and other stuff, doing rather better than last time in that she did take in 8,435,000 gold, mainly from moonstones and empty baskets. Given that I was selling the baskets at the same price as the candies, and all you can do with a basket is exchange it for a random candy, that seemed a little strange, but it cuts down on the number of them I need to exchange before the event ends.

With that extra cash, I looked through Roy's stock of accessories - and found a Pierce of Wind, for increased dexterity and close-range evasion, on sale for 8 million. That seemed like a bargain to me, even though it still needed another million spent on a "golden magnifying glass" to "identify" it and make it work properly, so its seller, Brutalhealer, is now 8 million richer, less Roy's 5%.

The older computer had an hour or so off before RedRackham joined Galahad down at the Gnoll Lancers. With the drake six levels ahead of Gal now, on level 41, it seems to get hungry four times faster than lower level pets. Galahad finished levelling the horse to level 37 just before coffee, and took a well-earned rest.

The after-coffee playing session involved ColonelScarlet on Katar-5 going to that favourite Prokion Temple back room, followed by Kaerella when he reported that the coast was clear. Kae again stood reasonably near the doorway, and was only occasionally attacked - sometimes she fought back, which meant that she did get a couple more bloodseals onto her armour, but mainly the Colonel handled the fighting.

A rogue called SilentFright came in and shared the room for a while; she was friendly enough, and there were enough Orcs to go round, but we did have a problem when a lower-level mage called Freonos, and a mage friend, also came in - they did a bit of kill-stealing too, but as usual didn't stay too long, that room is a bit fierce for those of us who don't have +10 armour.

I logged my pair out slightly early before the lunch break; ColonelScarlet had got nicely into level 33, adding 51.40% and 137 skill points, plus just 442 pet points (when he levelled up, the Orc Axemen went blue-named, so don't give pet experience, so I took off the horse after a while), while Kaerella had gained 15.38% and 130 skill points.

Back in Randol, I spent 250 aeria points on a card to return a mount to trainable pet status, and then Barbarienne, on Cariae, used it on her level 33 purple knight mare mount. Then I traded that one across to Galahad, in exchange for the new level 37 horse, and Barbarienne changed that into her new mount. One strange thing was that, when Galahad went out to train the purple horse up, it was no longer purple, just the standard untreated chestnut brown. After lunch I asked irene_tas, the gamesage on duty in the shoutbox, if a retrained horse was meant to lose its colour, and it appears not, though maybe a few loggings-on will cure that - though switching Galahad between computers hasn't made any change.

The afternoon session involved Kaerella, after spending her latest set of skill points, going solo in Prokion Temple on Katar-5, which generally meant keeping to the corridor outside the back room, though with a few brief venturings in there. First there was the little matter of getting killed 29 times to get the experience in level 27 back down to 0.00%; I did find that taking off her accessories, which boosted defence and evasion, as well as her armour helped to speed that up, but some runs got me far enough into the interior to pick up a bit of unwanted loot.

I'd made a note of how many skill points some next levels of special skills would cost, so kept going until Kae had acquired 187 skill points, enough for the last level of Advanced Mining, and the second level of Advanced Weaponsmith; by then she had added 41.83%, which means that 447 skill points would be the absolute maximum she could earn without levelling up - unless she concentrated on slightly lower level monsters, which tend to give a better ratio of skill exp to experience. Kae also got 314 pet points for her drake, which wasn't equipped for much of the time.

Galahad did some work on the non-purple level 33 horse back on Cariae while that was going on, and over the early evening food break was joined by RedRackham and his level 41 drake. The main evening session reunited ColonelScarlet and Kaerella, and indeed the knight FuEnTe1, who had reached level 24 now. A knight called Nakir11 was in the back room on Katar-5, but didn't mind us joining him, as he wasn't using the whole range of Orcs...and he didn't stay with us all that long. The mage Freonos also put in an appearance, but was on her best behaviour and didn't do any ks-ing that I saw.

Kae, the Colonel and Fuente1 were in a Combat party, which was convenient as it meant Fuente1 could take little rests between fighting periods to recover his mana without "leaching". He got a full share of the skill exp, but only the experience he earned from fighting, plus a little bonus from the Colonel's kills. Kaerella killed a few Orcs too when attacked, but her main contribution was keeping Fuente1 alive, which wasn't always easy. He reached level 25 before the end of the session; ColonelScarlet reached level 34, so has just one last level to go through before he becomes a pet-leveller. He added 61.89% and 135 skill points, while Kae got 16.66% and 123 skill points, enough for the final level of Advanced Weaponsmith plus level one of Advanced Herbalism.

It was time for a change after that, so with the 75% extra experience and skill exp running it seemed a useful time to get myself a specialist merchant on Katar, so my level 2 mage MistressDomino joined a solo party, and headed out to kill deer, foxes, wolves, berserk wolves, jaguars, and finally some sasquatches. She "killed" or opened a Pandora's Box, which released a level 20 Beast she carefully avoided - and instantly another Box appeared, which she also opened, and which also released that kind of Beast. This boosted her experience so much that she went up by two levels, and thus missed out on the chance of a free memorising scroll, as the quest to get it from Lorraine is available for a single level only.

A rogue called Cordnia asked MD's level, just as she reached level 6, and traded across a level 9 wand and level 16 mage shirt she happened to have, which was very kind; equipping the new wand certainly increased MD's attack power very usefully. And there was a knight back in town standing near Lorraine who dropped pan flutes, a drake egg and a few empty baskets, which MD was able to pick up. Once she reached level 10, which is the minimum level to go into "merchant mode", she headed for Dratan to get the egg exchanged for a hatchling, and while she was there, I decided that she might as well add Prokion Temple to the memory scroll that I had, by then, got enough money to buy.

By looping around more to the north, MistressDomino was able to take a less dangerous route to Shuraine's oasis than my usual one - there were still clever foxes around, and Sand Golems, but they were spread more thinly. So, MD didn't have to use one of the two small healing potions she had picked up, or a potion of haste. The run on to the Temple from there was uneventful, and the location of its entrance was duly added to the scroll. MD went inside, and, while she didn't try any fighting, did get to pick up a little loot close to the lobby. The "mercenary" sphinx fighters put there for the Epic Event yesterday, presumably on our side since they didn't fight and couldn't be attacked, were still in place, I noticed.

And then it was time to turn both computers over to a bit of pet-levelling. RedRackham got the drake past the 60% mark in level 41, with the Berserkers, while over at Cariae-3's Gnoll Lancers Galahad got his newly-acquired horse past 70% of the way through level 33. I think I've got at least one more mount on Cariae that needs to be worked on further once this one gets to 37, I must check up tomorrow...