SirDarth logged on for a little pet-levelling at breakfast time, but after coffee the pet-levelling responsibilities shifted across to Galahad on Cariae-5 - because RedRydeR needed him there for the solo party arrangement. And Gal did pretty well, his horse reached level 33 during his session, and passed the halfway mark in that level before the end of the evening, despite having his bandit killed once by some passer-by.
It was RedRider's day, though. Yesterday I'd got her to level 20; I was wondering if I'd need to move her up to level 21, so that she could use a level 25 crossbow, but when Barbarienne looked through Roy's stock of crossbows for sale, there was only one possibility, and that was a level 21 crossbow, +15, being sold by Magesil for 150 million, which isn't exactly cheap, but must be the average price for that sort of thing. A level 21 weapon can't be converted into a different class's weapon by Collector Ryl. Magesil must have upgraded this one just to sell it, as it had never been used - it had no bloodseals, and wasn't even ready to have its first seal applied.
The crossbow was transferred across to RedRider, courtesy of Storekeeper Bianca; Red also bought level 25 rogue gloves, level 21 shirt and pants, and level 22 hood and boots, plus enough bloodseal gems for everything. She converted appropriate armour drops during the day, on her many visits to Randol, and got the armour all to +3 - with her accessories giving her plenty of dexterity and evasion, and 10% suction of life, that was all she needed to keep safe.
The first stage for RedRyder was to get all her skills maximised, including the passive ones. At level 20, the most skill points she could get at a time without levelling up was 268, fighting the ghouls, since, at level 17, they gave a better ratio of skill exp to experience than the level 19 mummies. Luckily the biggest amount of skill points that has to be spent in one go, for the third levels of both expert armoursmith and expert weaponsmith, is 179 sp, so this limitation was no problem. Usually I do this at level 27, which allows for rather more skill points at a time - but level 20 gives more time to farm skill points afterwards, and has the added bonus that, on "suicide runs" to get rid of the experience gained in the level, each death counts for 5% rather than 3%, which speeds things up.
Well, by my records RedRyder had to do eighteen of the "suicide run" sessions to get rid of experience after the skill points had been invested; the first one got rid of various quest rewards, and the rest were straightforwardly getting rid of the 99% or so earned from the ghouls. The sextuple experience & skill experience event meant that the actual fighting parts were a lot quicker than they would otherwise have been, so we did save a lot of time. A level 31 knight, HunterRose, was doing suicide runs at the same time, though he didn't do as many sessions as I did.
It still took a while, of course, but by the evening, all RedRyder's skills were at their maximum for her level, so the next time Red killed enough ghouls to approach level 21, she kept going. As she'd had a few points left from the previous session (although the total had been reduced by the death penalties), her skill point total stood at 283 when she levelled up. She kept with the ghouls through the next level, which brought her total up to 661; there were a few mummies killed too on the way to level 23, but the total moved on to 1151.
Now that Red was level 23, she could fight the orc soldiers, since they are that level, so that each kill would bring in .55 of a skill point, 5500 skill experience. Though if one multiplied that by six for the event, and by a further four by using a skill point booster, then each kill was worth 13.2 skill points.
I'd moved to the room which mixes mummies and orc soldiers, close alongside my favourite Prokion Temple back room, so killed a few mummies as well as, using an spb each time, the orc soldiers, so by the end of that level 47 spbs had been used, and another 706 skill points added. Red stayed there for level 24 too, getting 973 skill points and using 72 more spbs.
For levels 25 and 26, I moved to the mirror half's corridor room, which has the level 25 orc fighters and a single level 27 orc axeman. 96 spbs brought in a further 1270 skill points during level 25, with 1152 more sp from 98 more boosters during the following level. Red was already carrying Karella's +10 30/32 armour set in her inventory, so was able to equip the gloves when she reached level 25, and add the shirt and pants at level 26 - and when she reached level 27, she could wear the whole set, making her pretty much invulnerable.
My remaining supply of 118 skill point boosters didn't quite last out till the end of level 27, which I spent fighting orc axemen. I roamed about the Temple for a while, but I ended up in that favourite back room of mine, ignoring the sergeants and a few soldiers and fighters that followed me in, and just concentrating on the orc axemen. At the end of the session RedRyder was 95.49% of the way through level 27, with 6826 skill points... though some of those will have to be used to get the level 25 skills, something she hasn't had the opportunity to do yet.
So, full use was made of the event bonus today. I remembered to log Kaerella in afterwards, to get her quest rewards from killing those spiders, legendary slayers, and hadians in the Forgotten Temple while the quest reward experience and skill exp was still boosted six-fold, so Kaerella ended the day up 19.27% and 102 skill points. The archbishop in Dratan gave her a new quest, too, which will involve another trip to the Forgotten Temple, going far enough in to fight the jumping devils...
While RedRyder had been in Proki, I'd seem various GM messages about a zombie attack on Dratan, mainly out in the north-east corner, around Shuraine's oasis... but when Kaerella was in Dratan for those quest rewards, the battle was raging just outside the city gates. Kae is a bit low to tackle ancient screaming zombies, but she went far enough outside to give the Charm and Encourage buffs to the people fighting - retreating hurriedly when a zombie headed for her. The battle was still raging when I logged out, but I expect the place will still be standing, the next time we visit.
Tonight's maintenance will end the 600% event, which, while it has been fun and very productive, is a bit of a relief - it will be good to settle back into a normal routine, rather than playing every possible hour in marathon sessions.
No comments:
Post a Comment