Jaguary in February

Since ColonelScarlet's sparring with the bandits had been relatively uneventful and safe, I let him stay online overnight on Katar-4, which meant that the pink drake went up to level 28, and then soon after breakfast reached level 29. SirGalahad was back in action on Tairen-4 in Maargadum Jail by then, so that his drake was about three hours' worth ahead when they both logged out after coffee.

I had set MistressDomino up in merchant mode overnight too on Tairen-1, but Microsoft decided to release some sort of "urgent" update which required the older computer to restart, at some point. She did manage to sell her recently-acquired large attack and defence potions by then, plus moonstone boxes and skill point boosters, but perhaps I'll need to drop the price of heaven stones a little if I want to shift them.

The morning session wasn't a particularly long one, and had a few interruptions, but Memree and RedRyder went to Prokion Temple on Tairen-5 in their usual way. The back room was, again, in use, but the corridor room, with its orc sergeants and orc axemen, was free, so that's where Memree did her fighting. However, a mage called Stela did arrive not long after me and decide to share the place, which slowed things down a little. She was a member of a guild called PaRaZiTi, and I suppose you could call that slightly parasitic behaviour.

By the end Memree had added 28.00% (on top of the 0.55% from yesterday's mad monster spawn, plus 7 guild points and 3 skill points), along with 215 guild points, while RedRyder was up by 7.75% and 36 guild points. They had each added 134 skill points.

The afternoon session involved a final combat party team-up between Rage and Kaerella, again in Prokion Temple on Tairen-5. During it, Rage went up to level 38, which, with Kaerella staying on level 27, means that they won't be able to form a combat party again, as members of such a party can only be a maximum of ten levels apart. Still, we took full advantage of this final session, going on half an hour later than usual, to get enough skill points for Kae to get 282 skill points, enough for the last two levels of advanced alchemy, and the first two of the expert variety - so there's just one final level of expert alchemy to go, and then we shift over to the farming and processing skills.

I did have to share the room for perhaps an hour, but the people involved were friendly and asked if they could do so first. A mage called ICEcreamMAN did the initial asking, but it was her friend the titan JOEBLACK who did the fighting, and thanked me politely when he left.

Rage got 282 skill points as well, going up by 17.27%; after reaching level 38 the amount of experience per orc axeman fell drastically, but they still give useful skill exp, as do the sergeants, who still give around eleven or twelve thousand experience each, with the "Elizabuff" and the 50% experience "freeze" cancelling each other out. Rage earned 311 guild points, and Kae earned 44.

As I was running late, I only just had time to prepare a sandwich before [GM]Noburu's Parade started across on Auzura-4, with the usual firecrackers and transformation scrolls. While ColonelScarlet did a little pet-levelling over on Katar-4, we strolled nonchalantly around Randol to impress the NPCs - standing around Lorraine and letting off firecrackers, for example. The GM transformed into a jaguar, and commented that she felt very "jaguary", to which Kaerella commented "Jaguary in February", which got a smile at least.

[GM]Nobura reminded us that there was a "Pharaoh's Treasure" event later, and also at 8:00pm Auzura's "Storm the Castle", which sadly clashes with the Tairen one, which would have been interesting to attend, as it would be the first high-level type event on that server. It's lucky she mentioned that, as the website hasn't put them in the right order, listing Katar and Carie, at 10:00pm, first, followed by Sarissa and Hatzring at 10:30. Apparently the server that cleared out the castle fastest would earn an hour of extra skill exp...but that will be a bit too late in the evening for me.

Kaerella and MistressDomina went out to the sphinx types on Auzura-4 for less than an hour; we had the place to ourselves, since anyone below level sixty would have been on Auzura-5 to take advantage of the Elizabuff. Progress there was rather slower than it has been for Cariae's level 55 Kaerella (with the buff), but Kae added 3.77%, and 672 pet points, while MD added 6.17% - and they each got 14 skill points. Well, there wasn't time for anything more ambitious; if those two are to level up a bit they need to visit the Tomb of Theos.

It was then time for the "Pharaoh's Treasure" event on Auzura-4, so MistressDomina logged out, and ColonelScarlet went back to the bandits in Merac on Katar-4, while Kaerella rode out into Juno ready for the possible locations of the treasure hoard to be announced. Once the announcement was made, I rode past a couple of locations crawling with sphinx fighters and speer men - and when the announcement of the treasure's actual location was made, luckily I was fairly close by, and quickly rode in the correct direction, finding the loot, [GM]Noboru, and the first arrivals close to Border Guard Tamon. The GM kept replacing the hands of loot as more people arrived, so that we all did rather well. She also spawned some sphinx fighters, sphinx speer men, and even a squad of elite sphinx speer men for us to fight, before a final spawning of loot - Kaerella did pretty well, with ten or so each of the good stuff. Even if you don't get there quickly, at present a "Pharaoh's Treasure" event seems well worth attending, I'd say.

All there was time for after that and before the Auzura "Storm the Castle" event was a bit of herb-gathering and mining, so Kaerella replenished her stocks of green herb leaves and quality stones - and then Rage (or RAGE to be exact), my level 73 rogue on Auzura, logged in, and headed for Merac Castle. I had asked [GM]Noboru if she was going to be in charge, but she wasn't, and wasn't sure who was going to run it. She did hint strongly that she would be there as a regular player, though, which is nice.

[GM]Cara was in charge, we found, when the hour was reached, and everything went in the normal way - well I didn't notice any jumping devils or barren eises, and the zamaras didn't come out of the gateway at us but were inside, but the hell-otuu and dark harpies were all present and correct, as well as the anubis spear men, and a sphinx commander or two in the inner courtyard - as well as the invisible blood shadow dragon from Strayana. The loot was spawned back outside in the traditional (for that location) small densely-packed circles - it seemed to get snapped up rather quickly, but a second wave was spawned, to keep us happy, and [GM]Cara chatted with people. Auzura had managed the clearance in 10 minutes, and when I asked her, told us that that was considerably quicker than Tairen had managed.

Strangely, after I'd previously thought that Katar-4's Merac was deserted except for pet-levellers, ColonelScarlet did have some visitors. I noticved two that rode up and just watched, but somebody did kill the Colonel's bandit...and I think it was a player called "Seviper" who thought that luring the second bandit onto the Colonel would give him problems, when actually he has both of them attacking him more often than not. Still, ColonelScarlet made good progress, getting his pink drake to level 30 before the end of the evening.

The Cariae "Storm the Castle" event was scheduled for 10:00pm UK time, so Barbarienne went along to that one - the choice then was either Cariae-5 or Katar-5, and I decided that Barbarienne, my level 101 archer, deserved the chance to come out and play. The event itself was up to standard - Katar beat us on time, they managed 6 minutes to our 8. Strangely the inner courtyard was empty - and we had a disembodied, anonymous announcements-only GM, who made us ride well away from the castle, to 932.1007, for a tiny spawning of loot. I got a large attack potion, an item drop booster, and a tool aid or two. So, not as good an event as [GM]Cara's earlier, though the storming itself was fun.