Parade Time

I left MistressDomino on both Tairen-1 and Auzura-1 in merchant mode overnight - handy that they were on different accounts, though on some servers they do clash. On Tairen MD took in a respectable 38 million in gold - as I had rather large stocks of some goodies, over on Auzura she took in almost six times as much.

SirGalahad took over at breakfast time on Tairen, though, and got a couple of hours work done in Maargadum Jail before it was time for Memree and RedRyder to head for Prokion Temple on Tairen-5. It may be the weekend, but it was also Sunday morning, and the place was pretty quiet. It took less than a quarter of an hour for Memree to reach level 31, and get her own +10 30/32 armour set, and level 33 weapons; that part of the session was exclusively on orc fighters, giving on average 2400 skill exp each, to both my rogues, but once Memree had levelled up that fell to about 1700 skill exp - less than one would get from an ordinary monster of one's own level, assuming the Elizabeth's Enhancement was in operation.

For a while, perhaps twenty minutes, Memree and RedRyder moved into the back room nearby to fight orc axemen and orc sergeants, which certainly gave a lot more experience, even to Red as the non-fighting member of the combat party. The skill exp was increased too, but that must have been counterbalanced to some extent by the longer time it took to kill each one. After that we went back out to the orc soldiers, and a few orc fighters, as Memree's experience gain had been surprisingly swift. By the end of the session Memree had gone up 21.19% (giving the Discipline guild 118 guild points), and Red had added 5.32% (20 guild points) - they had each gained 176 skill points.

There was just time after that for Memree to give back the +11 30/32 armour set she had borrowed to Rage, who will thus now be able to play again, before SirGalahad reported for duty at lunch time.

For the afternoon, Tairen's Kaerella had another session, starting with killing 17 clever foxes of the desert for an outstanding quest - which led me along to Shuraine's oasis, so I took the opportunity to farm the second ten soft sands Kae should need, though she hasn't got that quest yet, from the sand golems there. After that, Kae moved on to Prokion Temple - and went for the room a little further in, with its mix of orc soldiers and mummies, which seemed about right for her at level 24. The mummies went blue-named when she reached level 25, but still gave useful skill exp, and so the session continued. I wanted to get 250 skill points, so that Kae could learn the first and most sp-expensive level of the Resurrection skill - and I did manage that before the end. In all Kaerella added 95.65% and 268 skill points, plus 155 guild points and 1797 pet points.

After the food break, it was time for the succession of Valentine's Day parades, to celebrate three years since Last Chaos came out of its initial Beta period... one parade per server, at 30 minute intervals, starting at five o'clock UK time on Katar-4.

The parades were a bit of a mixed bunch. [GM]Stratos appeared punctually for the first one, and led us around town before spawning some anti-love monsters outside the north gate, which we despatched, earning a modest loot drop - I think Kaerella got a couple of item drop boosters and a skill point booster. I think he did make a single drop of cake and watermelon items right at the start, but they vanished so quickly that I didn't get a chance to grab any.

I had been thinking of taking Kaerella along to every parade, but, given that some of the monsters spawned by [GM]Stratos had been pretty high level, it seemed sensible to let my level 101 archer Barbarienne be my representative for the Cariae parade. This time one of the newbie game masters, [GM]Embla, was in charge. One downside to this was that she doesn't have a red name, which made her more difficult to spot and to track, so that sometimes a few people would head off in a new direction and people would assume the GM was in the group and follow. But she was a lot more generous with her drops, with plenty of firecrackers and transformation scrolls appearing on the ground in front of her as she walked around town - and small chocolates, cake and watermelons as well. There were so many people trying to grab these things that even keeping one's finger on the "pick" button got me very few, though later on I tried to adopt a strategy of keeping up with her, or even slightly ahead, so that when a new set of items appeared, I could "pick" one or two. Again there was a spawning of monsters outside the gates of Randol, plus proper spawnings of hands and further groupings of chocolate and cake etc - all in all, a crazy and enjoyable half hour.

[GM]Stratos was back in charge for Sarissa, and followed [GM]Embla's example in dropping cake, small chocolates and watermelon as he led the parade around town. Kaerella, being only level 22, was content just to watch while a "cursed forest" of high-level treants was spawned in the Arena in town - I think I noticed the odd fluton peeping out through the foliage too. I got a disconnection while that was going on, I think a lot of people suffered from that sort of thing since there was just so much going on, with so many people in one place.

For Hatzring, I turned up as my local level 8 mage Enchantra, for a change, and managed to grab quite a few of the drops [GM]Embla bestowed upon us as she led us around town, since I was getting the hang of how things worked. Outside there was another mass spawning of monsters - "Don't worry, I'll take care of the foxes", I vowed, keeping well clear of the aptly-named death knights, as well as the wight slashers and other bad guys.

The final two parades didn't go too well for me, really. [GM]Stratos led us around Randol dropping the goodies on Auzura-4, but when it came to the monster spawn outside town, my level 73 rogue Rage suddenly found herself dead, so had to use a resurrection scroll, which is a relatively expensive piece of kit. I'd assumed that at her level death knights wouldn't do much damage, but either something else sneaked up, or I got hit by a whole group of them at once. Still, I suppose the value of the small chocolates etc, and the regular hand-type drops like item drop boosters and so on, probably mean I came out ahead....it didn't help that I noticed around then that SirGalahad's drake had got killed by a death mask soldier which had got involved in his fight, though at level 20 it only cost 53,200 gold to "unseal" it.

Memree on Tairen got killed too; I really should have used her resurrection scroll, but I guess I'm so used to taking characters with no skill points to lose to a Mad Monster Spawn that I almost automatically opted not to use it, and thus Memree ended her parade session down by 2.62% experience and 63 skill points. Still, half an hour or so's work will soon put that right.

The Tairen parade somehow didn't work as smoothly for [GM]Embla as her previous parades had, and people were complaining about lag, and not having been able to pick anything up, and generally feeling that they had wasted their time. Memree herself contributed an ungracious "pffff" at the end, after a message that some farewell goodies were being dropped on the launching pad, after the loot spawned outside, after some (fatal) monster-slaying, had added up to about two tool aids and a large defence potion each. I think she just got a transformation scroll or so at the spawning point in the middle of Randol.

[GM]Stratos was there too by then, and quickly announced a special "Mad Monster Spawn" outside the gate. After the earlier death. Memree kept at the edge of that fight - she really didn't want the "empty" experience, without any skill exp, that contributing to the death of a high-level monster would bring. But Tairen people did manage to kill what the GM spawned, including a fluton and a patriarch botis, so this was a strong message that the new server was ready to host a weekly high-level MMS, as well as the low-level one.

That added bonus meant that we were starting to get messages about the Quiz Room being open before the end, so that was the next item on the evening's agenda. SirGalahad logged out, and Memree, to be replaced by MistressDomino and Kaerella, on Tairen-2 as usual. The quiz is in theory 12:30 PST (8:30 UK time) to 12:45, but again there were quite long gaps between questions, so it took us almost half an hour to get to the end. We didn't lose many people along the way, everyone seemed to remember that the number of NPCs in Dratan City is 27 rather than 29, and the desert only has 5 rather than 7 oases. Some of the easier questions have had to be withdrawn as they no longer apply - though the number of (sub) servers question still offers 24 or 30, with 30 correct, although with Tairen running Last Chaos now has 36.

So, we got to the end safely, and Kaerella's new goodies were moved across to MistressDomino. Memree and RedRyder also traded their saleable stuff across to MD, so that she'll be ready for another selling session soon, and then SirGalahad logged back on, and returned to his death mask lancer. By the end of the evening, his drake had started on level 21, so is probably just about ready to be exchanged for a lower-level one, such as Kae's.