Back In Touch

After her last session, RedRider on Auzura had got 223 skill points - and these, I found, were just enough for her to learn the final two levels of Expert Alchemy. That does still leave quite a few special skills to learn to "max out" that tab, on the mining and processing side, though.

RedRider and SirDarth teamed up again on Auzura-5 for a slightly short morning session, as the modem, or some part of the system, gave up again just after 11:15, UK time. This is getting irritating. Still, by then they'd each gained 81 skill points; Darth had gone up by 6.18%, while Red had added 18.20% and 45 guild points, which shows that even in an equal party, since SirDarth is eleven levels ahead, her experience gain isn't too speedy. While the skill exp was shared equally, Red was getting roughly 40% as much experience per kill as Darth, which at least partially compensated for level 27 needing rather less experience to finish than level 38 does. Part of that was due to her guild cutting her experience gain to 50%, but the little bit extra is useful too.

Prokion Temple was rather busy; Auzura is home to many European players, so it's not as quiet a time during the UK morning as it is elsewhere. SirDarth and RedRider ended up fighting orc sergeants and orc axemen over in the "mirror" half, close to the equivalent to the back room I always head for first. To begin with, Darth did the fighting, but after a while Red took over, letting Darth do the picking up of the loot. After all, for Red the orcs there are white-named, and thus drop some useful items, including the level one gemstones... for Darth they are blue-named and drop very little, except a little gold.

I had been intending to leave at least one merchant online, while I went out for the afternoon, but the connectivity problem rather ruled that out. Other general plans are for my characters that have only recently reached level 87 or so to have trips to the Egeha map, as there are quite a few quests there that they ought to be able to do. And of course, once MistressDomina gets that last piece of the 85/87 armour set it will be time to think of getting MrChuckNorris up to that sort of level, though I don't know when I would be able to afford to get him that armour set and a good level 85 titan sword as well.

MistressDomina did have some time on Cariae-4 after the early evening food break, going through all 48 pages of accessories, in search of a necklace for Barbarienne with 10% suction of life plus other useful bonuses. In the end, I spent 52 million gold on a Necklace of Wind being sold by leonora - as well as helping keep Barb's health up, it adds 5 to magical defence, 16 to dexterity, and 30 to her critical hit stat. I did find another necklace 35 pages later at the same price and with the same properties...there were some better ones, but they were a bit out of my price range.

This meant that my best accessory, a Necklace of Earth with 10% suction of life, 5% suction of mana, 93 hit rate, and 58 hit points could be returned to Keerella, who had loaned it to Barb while they'd been in the ancient grey mummies room. That necklace had cost a bit, when I bought it ages ago, but there are a lot more accessories around now, so it probably isn't as valuable as it once was.

The main evening session just continued things from the morning - and this time on Auzura-5, RedRider fully took the lead on the newer computer, with SirDarth only fighting very occasionally, and generally picking up the loot. The back room was available, for a change; the titan PERSEUS did join us for much of the session, but there were just about enough orcs to go round. He did ask a question or two, and I tried to explain Red's strategy of learning all the special skills before levelling up, and how the +10 armour set was obtained.

RedRider did return to town once she'd got 267 skill points (including the 81 from the morning), and was able to learn all three levels of advanced mining, along with the last level of yellow herb processing. Then she rode out to Ebony Mine, and quickly died the necessary 23 times - I think the degraded golien commander even threw in an extra couple of deaths for free. After that, she hurried back to the temple, where SirDarth was waiting, after remembering to get the Elizabeth's Enhancement buff, removed by her deaths, applied again. PERSEUS left soon after that, so I had the place to myself for the last part of the evening, during which Red gained another 76 skill points, while getting 14.19% experience again.

SirDarth's "Elizabuff" did run out a few minutes before the end, but he managed to add 17.00%, so is approaching halfway through level 38 now; he gained 257 skill points. He isn't one of my characters with maximised skills, but at least his sp stash is back over the 4.5k mark. He is my highest-level temple knight now, and the only one to be able to use that teleportation skill, which to me seems more useful for taking a monster off another party member, rather than plucking one from a mob just for one's own use. I remember Ratel using it a few times that way when we were partied against the outdoor sphinx speer men. And Ratel was online this evening too, and chatted a little, though he reports that he is still having problems with his main computer, which tends to freeze solid after about half an hour of Last Chaos.

Well, at least the internet connection stayed working long enough for a full session. As for the afternoon, well, I went to see a movie, and can report that the fourth Shrek outing is pretty good.