More Mad Monsters

After giving the computers and modem an overnight rest, ColonelScarlet made a fairly early start on his pet-levelling duties, and the horse reached level 27 before coffee, down with the gnoll lancers in south Merac.

Once the coffee break was over, Memree logged in, and, after spending a few remaining skill points, headed for Misty Canyon and its first Introducer Camio to get rid of her current experience percentage, which didn't take very long at all - and then she, followed by Kaerella once ColonelScarlet had logged out, headed for Prokion Temple on Katar-4.

Luckily, there were no disconnections or error messages this time, and the hour passed uneventfully. Another rogue arrived just before the end, but just stood there; I did say "nearly finished", followed a couple of minutes later by "they're all yours now", but I didn't see any reaction.

Kaerella had gone up by 6.83% and 353 skill points, also getting DarkzerRoughneks 63 guild points; when Kae's pssp ran out Memree had got up to 177 skill points, so she stayed just long enough to reach 179, enough for the final level of armoursmithing she can currently learn. She had gone up 32.64%, but a quick visit to the Introducer Camio soon got rid of that. 1073 pet points, and 388 guild points, were also earned.

After transferring Memree's recently-gained loot across to MistressDomino, ColonelScarlet logged back in for the lunch break - and indeed for the afternoon, too, as Memree's added skill exp gain had shown that yesterday's "Sunday Teatime" bonus of 50% extra skill exp had been left running. It seemed to me that Kaerella over on Cariae was the one most in need of that skill point boost - so she it was who logged in for the afternoon session.

Kaerella got the Elizabuff, and headed out towards the giants and akane giants. I managed to get into a solo party, but it ran out of members and ended before too long. After a short gap I decided to take the initiative; the only person registered for a potential party was in Prokion Temple, so would almost certainly want a solo party rather than expect to fight in a group, so I applied to recruit him, and then, once he had accepted, registered the party as accepting applications, with the normal "solo" title. Things were a bit hand-to-mouth to begin with, with us sometimes dropping back to just 2 online members, but later we got up to a full eight.

With Kaerella's newly-augmented attack and defence I moved into the main akane giant area, and even fought the elite akane giant pretty regularly - who gives triple experience, but only 30% more skill exp. Towards the end a mage called xXxDeviLxXx came along and fought the akane giants too, I gave her the cleric's magical attack enhancing buff, Charm, and she gave me Haste. But the afternoon session finally came to an end; Kae had gone up by 19.84%, plus 168 skill points, so the continuing Teatime bonus had given her 34 more sp than otherwise would have been earned. 1594 pet points have moved SirFrancis past the halfway mark in level 47, too.

At 5:45pm, UK time, the message appeared "The mage [GM]Valsharyn has perceived a strange magical vortex near Juno! Gather at 453.290 on Auzura-4! She is sure that the invisible vortex will spill out monsters in 15 minutes! Ascertain the monsters' deaths and [GM]Valsharyn will reward you!"

So, RedRider, my friendly local level 26 rogue, went out to the usual Mad Monster Spawn spot, partied with CaptainScarlet, my level 32 pet-levelling knight; since she was asking for a party, I recruited a level 25 mage called Elfnastysfriend, who had the advantage of a mount, and so was able to supply horse buffs.

[GM]Valsharyn provided her usual clever, slightly different kind of monster spawn, including Velpist-type zombies, and masses of butchers, as well as that over-fed spider Baal and the usual high-level things like cube guards of various types, plus Darkmind Terrains and Patriarch Botises. She said afterwards that she was still experimenting, to try and get things right, but it all seemed to work pretty well. She was inviting our comments, and generally chatting away. She wondered about the possibility of arranging different events for different levels, but my feeling is that every level will turn up to any of them. I suggested having spawns of butchers, apes and flutons, or those sorts of levels, slightly separate, so that people could choose which spot they'd do best at; as it was, the spawning of butchers hadn't lasted long, as high-level mages used Chaos Nova on them.

Anyway, generous amounts of loot were picked up, even if the spawning of the hands did tend to cause heavy lag, and the hour or so flew by. There were plenty of free trips back to town, Red had to buy more memory scrolls and health potions, and the loot picked up on the first wave or two had put her overweight, so it was handy to be able to put some more tool aids into storage.

CaptainScarlet had spent his hour or so pet-levelling a level 36 horse - RedRider will be glad to get that when it reaches 37! As he is only level 32, the horse did get through rather more quality stones than usual, so afterwards I traded it across to RedRackham, who is level 35, so that next time I am over that way, he can take over that job.

There was just time for RedRyder (with a "y") to have a session on Katar-1, so off Red went to Misty Canyon to lose her current 62.24% experience, before going back to Randol to get the Elizabeth's Enhancement buff, and moving on to Prokion Temple, and her usual room of orc soldiers and mummies. Thanks to the continuing extra skill exp, on top of the Elizabuff, Red managed to get 435 skill points, along with 676 pet points, which were enough to get her drake into level 22. The experience gain was 91.31%, so, once the remaining energy processing skills had been learned, plus some of the herb processing ones, so that RedRyder's unused skill points fell to zero, another trip to the first Introducer Camio in Misty Canyon was made - and Red ended the evening back at the start of level 25 again.

ColonelScarlet continued levelling up his horse, though it will still be a couple of hours away from level 29 when he logs out tonight. The forum shoutbox got a little strange late in the evening, with Isador024 proclaiming that she was about to be banned - apparently she had been a gamesage, but had objected to what had happened to, er, well, someone she knew and respected, who is no longer with us. Tomorrow will be our last normal day before the Christmas event starts - let us hope the extra skill exp is left switched on until the servers close down tomorrow evening for their regular maintenance. And let's hope the new patch manages to squish a few more of our current bugs.