All Good Experience

I had thought that the Auzura server was blessedly free of people who run around trying to get pet-levellers into trouble, but RedRackham had been ks'd a couple of time recently - I'd seen the knight Morta riding off on his dragon after killing Red's gnoll lancer, and another knight, KingRichard, seemed to be acting a bit suspiciously. This morning, someone didn't just kill the gnoll lancer, they lured in a gnoll soldier, which will attack pets. I noticed the change reasonably quickly, so that Red's drake had only lost 14% of its health...I was even in time to pick up the gold the lancer had dropped, these people never stick around long enough to pick up the loot.

RedRackham had gone out to the gnoll lancers right away, to find out if the double pet experience from last night was still switched on - and it was, so that his drake soon reached the halfway point in level 35, while the newer computer played host to various characters "signing in" for their thirty minutes of attendance allowance. By lunchtime, the drake had reached level 36, which restored its lost health points.

Kaerella on Katar had a brief outing after lunch, mainly to qualify for the attendance allowance; she went to the second floor of Maargadum Jail, even though the canines are still a few levels above her, at 39. She added 8.35%, 26 skill points, and 645 pet points, and seemed to take very little damage from even the two-headed canines.

The main afternoon session once again involved MistressDomina and Kaerella, plus the polar bear cub, heading for the Tomb of Theos on Auzura-5. While the place did get fairly busy, there wasn't anyone attracting huge numbers of zombies and bringing them back onto my assistants; an assassin-type rogue called xHardx did complain about being ks'd, and brought back three screaming zombies into the start of the corridor before using her death motion skill to set them loose, but three zombies, not particularly far back, was no problem - MistressDomina had fought that many at once a few other times during the session, when lower-level people got chased by them.

A level 21 titan called ManiaX asked to be in the party for a while, but left soon after he levelled up. He had spent aeria points during the pet promotion too, and spent enough to get a panda...and it was already in its third stage, so he must have been pretty busy. Having a second "P2" pet in the party did mean that the panda and Kae's poly shared the pet experience half-and-half. After ManiaX left, we reverted to the combat party set-up and recruited the level 90 assassin-rogue ravenclaw, who after starting with a "don't ks" or two had decided to go with the flow. She too had a P2 pet, a baby poly, which did die once, meaning she had to go back to town to get it unsealed; she came and went a bit, in fact.

Sharing the pet experience meant that our polar bear cub only went up by one level, to nineteen, adding 128.65%. Kaerella added 5.71% and 4 skill points, while MistressDomina earned 15.06%, 3 skill points, and for her drake 4290 pet points, enough to get it into level 41.

Over the food break RedRackham was back in action, with the drake passing the halfway mark in level 36. And then, well, it seemed like MistressSabina's turn to do some farming, while RedRackham continued with his pet-levelling. Sabina headed for Merac, and found a quest on offer, involving collecting spike canine skins - so, no problem.

The second floor of Maargadum Jail on Auzura-5 was pretty busy, but Sabina managed to keep active - she kept going for the full length of the Elizabeth's Enhancement buff, in fact, and then returned to town to claim the quest reward, which added 4.65% and 6 skill points, making her totals for the session 31.75%, 137 skill points, and 1645 pet points. Unfortunately the GMs had turned off the double pet experience fairly early in the session - though we are scheduled to have another four hours tomorrow evening.

One skill that MistressSabina hadn't learned was Blind, as it is mainly a PvP skill... but it is in many ways one of a witch's "signature" attack skills, and, on its fifth and final level, for 18 seconds shades your opponent's screen 70% of the way towards black. In PvP your opponent loses their "lock" on you and has to try to find you again, and apparently in PvE a monster's evasion is decreased, which increases the witch's hit rate. So Sabina invested 293 skill points in that, meaning that her return to having over 10k unused sp was rather brief.

There was a forum announcement from [GM]AwesomeSauce that there will for a while be "some disruption to the regular schedule of events", and indeed "fewer events" in the short term, while they look at the events and consider revamping them. It would be difficult to imagine fewer events than we have had in recent weeks, but let us hope that this is a sign that we will return to having a decent number of "Storm the Castle" and "Mad Monster Spawn" events, by the time autumn is upon us. Is it really only three or four months since we were having a low and high level MMS every week, plus a StC, Pharaoh's Treasure, Parades, Races, and often double helpings on Auzura, with the European-timed versions as well? It seems like a different age, somehow.

Even with the pet experience back to normal, RedRackham kept going with the pet-levelling until it was time to close down for the night. The drake was getting fairly close to the top of level 36 by then.