Monday 26 April 2010

Ten Levels in One Evening


There was an overnight selling session for MistressDomino on Auzura-5 again, which lasted safely into the new day, but she didn't manage to sell all that much, other than her supply of transformation scrolls from all the Parade events Kaerella there has attended. SirDarth on Sarissa-4 was able to pet-level through until coffee time, too, and got his horse more than halfway through level 32 without any problems.

What I'd have liked to do during the morning session of an hour or so would have been to take my phoenix rogue RedRydeR along to Prokion Temple on Cariae-5 and farm the orcs for a few more skill points, but since Cariae has reverted recently to its old habit of kicking people out at around eleven, UK time, that rather ruled out that option.

On Auzura, then, MistressDomina came out of merchant mode to get some recent loot from other characters; Rage traded the recently-acquired gift from Kamira, the Tears of Knight accessory, across too. Rather than buy a golden magnifying glass, to "identify" and activate the ToK, from the NPC merchant for a million, MD found someone selling ten glasses for 8.5 million via Roy, so is now well stocked to identify future goodies.

SirDarth, now at level 37 on Auzura and a non pet-levelling temple knight, had the ToK traded across to him, and he traded the Pierce of Wind he had been using across to MistressDomino in return. Darth now has two Tears of Knight accessories, which is pretty good.

RedRider logged in too, since at level 27 she is ideally placed to team with SirDarth in Prokion Temple on Auzura-5; they got the Elizabeth's Enhancement buff, made a combat party, and headed for Dratan. Luckily my favourite back room in the temple was available, so they settled in there, with, initially, Red picking up the loot, and Darth handling the fighting.

RedRider is at the "getting all the special skills sorted" stage, and so intends to stay on level 27 for a while yet, being available for low-level events like the Junior Mad Monster Spawns. After a while Red started to fight a few orcs herself, since she has a level 29 +15 crossbow... and then it occurred to me that it would be more useful for her to take the lead in the fighting. Her better weapon means she probably kills faster, being the right level for orcs she gets good loot drops including heaven stones (two, from hands of the warrior, in quick succession), she can level her dragon hatchling... and while Darth gets as much skill exp as he would if he did the fighting, he gets less experience, and so will level up more slowly, adding more skill points.

RedRider doesn't get as much skill exp as she would in a solo party, but it seems like a good idea to me, as she is really in no hurry. The session wasn't a long one, but she got enough skill points for a couple of levels of alchemy, 135, on top of 4 she already had. Her hatchling levelled up, reaching level 3; Red went up by 51.90% experience, while SirDarth, also getting 135 skill points, went up by rather less.

Over lunch, the pet-levelling SirDarth on Sarissa-4 took over, moving his horse along for about ninety minutes. Then after the break, once RedRider had got rid of that 51.90% experience by "suicide runs" in Misty Canyon, it was time for Cariae's RedRydeR to have her turn in Prokion Temple, in just a solo party with MistressDomina, who managed to sell about 25 million's worth of goods back in Randol.

Since RedRydeR had finished her supply of beginner pssps now, she was in Cariae-5, with the Elizabeth's Enhancement buff, which meant that her skill point gain was slightly slower, and her experience gain twice as fast; by the end of the afternoon she had gone up by 7.31% and 85 guild points, while adding 340 skill points, so by the time she reaches level 36 her stash of sp should be nicely boosted.

A rogue (in more senses than one) called adonis99 had applied to be added to Red's friends list back in Randol, and when I'd reached the temple opened the chatting window with "hey lol GM is online", to which I innocently replied "which one?" There was no text alongside her name on the next line, but the following line had [GM]Krash saying "Hello RedRydeR and adonis99" followed by "You need 200 mill and 35 Heaven Stone, RedRydeR?"

Yes, it was the old scam of counting the spaces, so that you start a new line, with whatever name you type in as the "speaker"... haven't those people realised that Krash has left the building? It didn't get as far as "him" asking for my log-in details, as I just said that adonis99 was lower than me, and would appreciate such a gift more, and he gave up after that.

The main action during the evening session was over on Hatzring. LordDarth was ready for a bit of quick levelling now, since he'd reached level 10 and had Prokion Temple on his memory scroll, so he teamed up with my level 24 healer Kaerella, who accepted him into the Guardian system, and we did the usual trick of having Darth safely in the temple's starting area, while, within compass-map range, Kaerella fought ghouls, mummies, and occasionally orc soldiers, and even an orc fighter or two that insisted on getting involved.

There were various people recruiting for their guilds, and a friendly cleric called Fyrwenn tried to recruit both of us, but I explained my whimsical plan of wanting to have Kaerella on all servers in the same guild and riding a pale blue horse, and she was suitably impressed.

I'd carefully not given Kaerella the Elizabuff, so that she didn't go up too fast, but she did go up a little over half a level, reaching level 25, before the end of the session - I didn't spend any of her skill points, as she needs to save up for that first level of Resurrection. LordDarth did have the buff, though - and managed to go from level 10 to level 20 just standing in the hallway, except for very rare battles with a ghoul at the end of Kae's corridor, when she was busy at the far end. So, Kaerella got 10 Reputation points for being Darth's Guardian, and Darth got the "event weapon" sword.

I had been surprised that LordDarth wasn't in the Discipline guild, but of course it was my local level 10 mage Enchantra who had formed the guild on Hatzring. Back in Randol, LordDarth applied to join, and was accepted, and then was made guild master - at level 20, with some cash passed over by Kae, he was able to upgrade the guild twice, to make it level three, using some of his skill points. He also got his special "neckless" and did the other level 20 quests...he even borrowed Kae's Juno NPC scroll and went out to Wild Collector Kai, to complete one quest, and did the repeatable "kill 30 drakes" quest for him while he was there. The quests gave him 46.59% more experience, and 14 more skill points, allowing him to get the fifth level of Vitality Control, increasing his health regeneration.

That took me just past nine o'clock, so I was late for the "gaming trivia quiz" [GM]Kali was hosting in Merac on Katar-5. I rushed over, staying with the same account so that it was a level 2 SirDarth who was my representative there, and luckily it was late starting. There were ten questions in all, most of them so tricky and Atari 2600-based that it was "nice try guys" and on to the next question, but a few were Aeria-related, and when Kali asked "Which game lets you have a Sprite as a pet?" I was the first person to type in "Grand Fantasia", so I won that round.

At the end, [GM]Kali traded a platinum blessed iris across to me, and apparently someone who got two or three answers right also just got the one pbi. The web page this time made clear that one shouldn't participate in more than one server's quiz, so I don't know if any of the other servers got more of the answers right, but you would have to be a student of early Atari games to get some of them. One question had been "Which was the first first-person shooter", and while most people had tried "Doom", I typed in "Wolfenstein", but that wasn't the right answer, apparently. "Maze War" perhaps, but who, without checking Wikipedia, would think of that one?

Enchantra on Hatzring-5 went into merchant mode after that, starting with 548 gold, and doing rather well early on, quickly selling all the skill point boosters that I'd put up, gained from attending various Hatzring events, like junior Mad Monster Spawns, over recent months. MistressDomino on Auzura-5 logged in too, and had a look to see if there was any +15 armour suitable for Rage available. The nearest was a +13 piece of "b5e" at 895 million, but I think we'll hold out a while in the hope that a +15 piece or two turns up. MD then went into merchant mode as well, so we shall see if the night ahead is a prosperous one for the two merchant mages.

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