I did manage to take RedRider along to the high-level Mad Monster Spawn on Auzura-4 at 11:00pm UK time last night, and it was pretty similar to the Cariae event earlier, with the single wave of monsters dealt with in about thirteen minutes, and then the single, but generous, spawning of the loot. This new type of MMS is a bit of a "lite" version compared with the traditional type, with its multiple waves including the final "boss wave", with the deadline to beat if a final spawning of loot was to be earned, but people seem to be getting used to it.
RedRider managed to stay alive, and assisted by using Snare with quite a few kills. The task always seems overwhelming at the start, with so many deadly monsters suddenly appearing, but people start to attack those on the edge one by one, and the support classes join in, and the supply of monsters starts to get whittled down, so that ten minutes later one is running around trying to see if there is any odd monster that has been overlooked. I'm sure Red managed to pick up lots of small HP and MP recovery potions at the end, but otherwise it was just a couple of each of the good items, and six more tool aids. And then it was definitely time to log out for the night.
One strange thing yesterday that I didn't have room to mention was the mysterious appearance of an extra skill for my rogue Memree as she fought the Tairen-1 monsters in the afternoon, starting with the dark goddesses outside the city and continuing with the mummies and orc soldiers in Prokion Temple. Sometimes the monster I was fighting would be afflicted with a skill called Venom, at level three, which was a poisoning skill, sapping a creature's health. The skill icon for this was the same as for Poison Capsule, a skill Memree did have at that stage, but only at level two. I did nothing special to actually cast Venom, I generally wasn't using skills at all except for Snare on the occasional orc soldier... it just, well, happened...
Anyway, the day started as usual with SirGalahad heading for level five of Maargadum Jail - and that was intended to be the only action for me in-game during the hours of daylight today, as the run-up to one of my busy weekends has now officially begun. Still, the busy part didn't start until fairly late in the morning, so I actually had time to revisit ColonelScarlet over on Katar. He didn't have a pet in progress for levelling, but he did have a pink drake egg in his inventory, so I took him to Lorraine and Jajan to get a cute little pink (or mauve, I would have said) dragon hatchling.
As ColonelScarlet is like SirGalahad a level 35 temple knight with the full defence passive skills, it seemed certain that he would do okay in Maargadum Jail, like Gal, so I took him down to level five of the Jail on Katar-4, and set him up sparring with the usual death mask lancer. His maximum-evil red name means he only hits it for 20 damage, rather than Gal's 46... which also means if he attracts the attention of a death mask soldier as he enters, the fight will be more than twice as long, I guess. Just after eleven the hatchling reached level two, so that was a start.
The Last Chaos website's events page for today listed a double helping of the "Storm the Castle" event, with the first rotation starting at four o'clock on Katar, with the other servers, except Tairen, following at half-hourly intervals, and then another set starting at eleven, though this time with two running at once. This seemed like a good idea to me, so I laid my plans for the evening accordingly. Just before four, Memree, my level 31 rogue, was down by Merac Castle, ready for action - but nothing happened. I went away and did other things, finally switching back from Memree to ColonelScarlet, but trying to check the screen reasonably often, and it was about 4:45 when I saw a GM announcement apologising for the late start, but saying that the "STC" was now under way.
So, I quickly switched to Memree again, and teleported down, arriving when the castle-stormers had just reached the first gateway, fighting zamoras and anubis spear men. I did nearly die once when a couple of wafes attacked me, but managed to outrun them, and was able to use Snare to subdue plenty of hell-otuu, dark harpies, and anubis spear men. We soon cleared the main courtyard, and went into the inner one, which just had the invisible Strayana dragon, the blood shadow - I was able to pass on the tip I'd heard a week or two ago, that, once the other monsters have been cleared from the area, just hitting the keyboard's "Tab" key will lock you on to the dragon, as if you'd right-clicked on it. Then, while the creature is still invisible, it does appear on your compass-radar, and you just need to use a skill to attack.
[GM]OgreKing spawned our loot in the courtyard, and it was suitably generous. I also picked up one of the largest cash drops I can remember seeing, 147,000 gold, dropped early on. After that I switched across to Cariae-4, which had been scheduled to follow Katar, but the GM must have run the two events at once to catch up, as the event was finished when Barbarienne arrived. Not particularly wanting to take a relatively low-level healer along to the Sarissa or Hatzring castle-stormings, I took my early evening food break next.
For Auzura at six, my level 73 rogue Rage was a couple of minutes early - and found that [GM]OgreKing had already spawned all the monsters, and was running around at a suspiciously speedy rate. So, as the first player there, I started the storming, by getting rid of the death mask soldiers and lancers, and then starting on the male assassinbugs, which, while they may be green-named to Rage now, are protective, so tend to fly in as a fairly big group, so that a few health potions were needed. Luckily the GM had made the announcement for the event by then, and the first people were starting to arrive, so things started to move along in the usual way.
Rage mainly provided artillery support and Snare, as we killed off the death knights, anubis archers, thorny mantises, anubis spear men, zamoras, hell-otuu, dark harpies, and so on. Again there was a blood shadow in the inner courtyard - I had to wait for a few others to attack it before I could join in, as tanking a level 120 raid boss type is not something Rage is qualified to do, but, with the "Tab" tip, we soon killed it, and the loot was spawned in similarly generous amounts. Rage did actually add 4.18% and a couple of skill points, while the loot she got included 3 item drop boosters, 6 large attack and 4 large defence potions, and 6 skill point boosters, plus a dozen tool aids.
As I still had some work to do, I put ColonelScarlet on again after that, going down to level five of Maargadum Jail again, so that by seven the pink dragon hatchling was level 8 and had 100% sympathy. SirGalahad had kept going, though earlier his drake had been killed - the death mask soldier responsible hadn't stayed to fight him, just wandered off again, so it took a while for me to notice that something was wrong. Unsealing a level 30 pet cost 182,700 gold, I must remember to restock Gal with some more cash for such things. Later he somehow became the target for two death mask lancers, which was a bit strange, I can only assume that somehow the lancer in that part of the room "respawned" although the previous occupant hadn't died, but just moved a little out of position as it fought me. Still, Gal's armour was good enough for the double attack not to worry him.
Since Barbarienne had missed out on the action at five, I resolved to take her along to the later "STC" on Cariae-4, scheduled for eleven o'clock, UK time. As often happens I was just about the first person there, and a few minutes after the hour the monsters appeared, so I applied horse buffs, and started the battle. A wight slasher was blue-named to me, but as a boss-type took a while to kill, and then I started on the male assassinbugs. Luckily someone else arrived about then, as I didn't fancy trying to tank the thorny mantises solo, and, as the GM announcements had been made, a number of people were soon arriving.
A level 96 titan asked for a combat party, and when I was finally able to click on him I supplied that. The main part of the battle was the same as earlier, though perhaps with less monsters in the outer courtyard unless I missed them, but [GM]Stratos didn't have an invisible dragon in the inner courtyard, instead a fluton was there, and then, before it was dead, a darkmind terrain... and when they were both dead, there was suddenly another fluton to deal with.
The loot spawned was less than generous, just a couple of heaps, and I just got 3 item drop boosters, a large attack and a large defence potion, no skill point boosters, and 3 tool aids. A few judge ballachs were spawned by the gateway back to the outer courtyard... and that was it. People hung around for a little while, but the event had finished, and was about to start on Hatzring and Sarissa.
Before he'd logged out to allow Barb on, ColonelScarlet had got his pink dragon hatchling a third of the way through level 11; SirGalahad back on Tairen kept going until log-out time, which meant his drake was pretty close to level 32 by then.
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