There had been a temptation to keep RedRackham pet-levelling overnight, but at the last minute I decided that it was easier just to switch off the computers and modem, and let them, like me, have a rest. Red didn't even return to his gnoll lancers at breakfast time - because, after breakfast, I knew that yesterday's campaign to power-level MistressDomina on Auzura-4 would continue.
MrChuckNorris went to the entrance to the Tomb of Theos first, as the newer computer had got yet another "itunes and quicktime update" to download and install. The Condition of the Tomb was at about 80% easy, which seemed just about good enough, so Chuck waited around there for MD to join him.
When Chuck and MD entered, in their combat party, there were a couple of Italians there, with a high-level night shadow giving a rogue, still in her 30/32 armour set, the full party recall type power-levelling treatment...though at one stage the rogue ran out of experience boosters and had to go back to town to get a final ten out of storage.
They left after about 50 minutes, and generally the place was as quiet as the, er, tomb, except for a few people running through, heading for the depths. One cleric kindly gave MD level 7 of the Charm buff - which rather strangely meant that the xpb on the current kill didn't trigger, so that MistressDomina just got about 14 million experience instead of four times that.
MistressDomina had time for threee "power hours", using the pbi and xpbs backed up by the power, platinum adrenalin, crit, and berserker potions. She started at level 75, and in the first hour reached level 77, going up 199.43% and using 81 experience boosters. The second hour took her into level 79, adding170.03% and using 80 xpbs, and the third hour got her well into level 80, with 152.30% gained, and another 81 xpbs used.
MrChuckNorris had just stood within range to supply the combat party boost, which I'd say on average adds something approaching 10% above what an ordinary solo party arrangement, say with RedRackham in Merac, would give. He got 13.50% from that... and after the potions and pbi ended, there was time for a few minutes of equal party-style fighting at the end, which meant that in total he added 17.00% and 201 pet points.
MistressDomina in all added 523.50% from her morning's efforts, and 2763 pet points. Being in level 80 now means that she can still make another combat party with Chuck - but she could also make a combat party with my Auzura archer Kaerella, on level 87. The ten hours of work while the platinum refining stones had boosted her armour had got her up by very nearly thirteen levels, which can't be bad.
There wasn't a huge amount of time for playing in the afternoon, since there were various things I had to do then which I'd normally have done in the morning. RedRackham had logged in to pet-level just before lunch, and I did log MistressDomina in to learn her new skills; on the passive side, Mage Armor 2 level 2 for 300 skill points boosted her mana regeneration, while the more active skills boosted were Flame Field, with an eighth level for 400 sp increasing its power from 250 to 300, and an eighth level of Fear, also for 400 sp, increasing the time for which one can scare away a monster from 5 to 10 seconds, with just about a 100% chance of success. All these expensive skills have cut MD's stash of unused skill points from 22k to 18k, but she does have the points currently invested in the "special" skills like processing and harvesting to fall back on if necessary.
The next thing with MistressDomina will be getting her some new armour - the 85/87 set. A quick look through Roy's merchant mart stock showed that the "b5e" items are expensive - the best deal I could see was a jacket for 400 million, and that was only +8 so would need some expensive work done on it. Still, we can wait until MD is actually level 85 or so before we get too bogged down in that side of things.
There was time for about a half-length afternoon session, so I took the opportunity to take Katar's level 33 archer version of Kaerella back out to Prokion Temple, where the back room was available. By the time the early evening food break loomed up, Kae had added 16.59%, 135 guild points for Discipline, and another 276 skill points. We'd spent a lot of skill points today, so it was nice to get some back, albeit on a different server.
RedRackham was on for some pet-levelling over the early evening food break, but then it was time for the Cariae-5 team of RedRydeR and SirKit to log on, and head for the elite sphinx speer man and his companions. Except for a brief visit from a night shadow, who fought nearby for a minute or so, the evening was quiet, and by the end RedRydeR had levelled up, reaching 64, gaining 19.11%, along with 39 skill points and 2074 pet points - which meant that her drake levelled up too, to 40. With his Elizabeth's Enhancement buff, SirKit added 96.89%, reaching level 52, and 61 skill points.
One reason for choosing that particular pair was that they could benefit from the "Happy Hour", scheduled to start at six, UK time, and promising 50% extra experience and skill exp. However, my gain on both characters stayed resolutely normal, and I found that other people were enquiring about that in the shoutbox too. Eventually PurpleFlame managed to get the GMs to confirm that the "HH" was running, and that it was just that some of us were glitched and would need to close the game and come back in, for it to start working for us. That was easy enough for Red and Kit to do, not so easy for another player who was in the end room of the Tomb of Theos, in a combat party there fighting the "commies", as we tend to call the sphinx commanders...
Back in town, RedRydeR got a further 1.63% and 15 skill points as a reward for doing her quest, which had been to kill five sphinx fighters and five sphinx speer men - and then got a new quest, to collect spider webs in the Temple of Forgetfulness. Somehow, I think killing the spiders there may be involved. A quick check showed that, while there are new skill levels to learn at 66 and 68, there is nothing to spend skill points on at level 64, so, after selling some loot and putting the personal dungeon 4 ticket away in storage, RedRydeR was able to log out. SirKit, I see, needs to go up another level before he can learn level seven of Concentration.
RedRackham went back to his gnoll lancers for an hour or so; the regular maintenance is as usual scheduled for later tonight, so he'll be logging out before then. From what the game masters were saying in the shoutbox, there doesn't seem to be a massive patch correcting the many glitches and breakages the game suffers from, to look forward to, but there may at least be some additions to the item mall, I suppose. GMs Erock, Yatou, AwesomeSauce, and Darasuum were all in the shoutbox at once, at one stage - and after taking a nomination at random of a server, [GM]AwesomeSauce held an impromptu "Whack a Fluton" rally in the arena on Cariae-5. RedRydeR did briefly leave the speer men to investigate that, but as ever there were too many people more interested in pk'ing other players than in fighting the flutons and patriarch botises spawned. I didn't see any loot spawned, though that of course would have led to another player-killing spree.
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