Bashing the Beast Flyers

Reaching level 90 meant that my phoenix ranger rogue, RedRydeR, was now able to learn a sixth level of the passive skill Fatal Attack for 500 skill points, increasing her physical offence stat, while using a crossbow, from 2037 to 2089. I also found that she hadn't learned the ninth level of the attack skill Piercing ("shoots an arrow which damages all opponents between you and the target"), increasing its power from 410 to 470, so 600 skill points got spent on that as well. I suppose there are times when it is a useful skill to have, but it's best known for attracting rather too many monsters onto its user.

Kaerella had two skills to learn, also, but they were both level 90 ones. The passive skill Cure Resource's sixth level, for 600 skill points, increased her maximum health and mana from 3179 and 2649 (compared to Red's 3508 and 1839) to 3279 and 2699, while the active skill Cure Poison 2 "removes a poison effect from target ally". Its single level cost 210 skill points.

I also found that my Auzura-based ranger rogue, Rage (or RAGE to be exact) had qualified to spend some more skill points by reaching level 92. Level four of Reinforce 2, for 300 skill points, increases her physical attack from 1972 to 1984. That's a bit less than RedRydeR over on Cariae, but then, being a phoenix character does have its bonuses.

MistressSabina didn't have any new skills to learn, at level 45 - they'll come in a bit of a rush when she gets to 47, or at least she'll need to spend 577 skill points then. She did, however, have a new quest to get in Merac Caron from Magician Dien, "Enforced Column of Main Magic", which required her to collect the hearts of ten beasts, such as beast scythes, and take them out to Magician Rau.

The beast scythes on the second floor of Maargadum Jail soon yielded the necessary quest items, and Sabina continued there for most of the session, before a brief check on the beast flyers on the third floor, which did seem just about manageable with her current armour. Then, after tipping off the level 43 knight who'd been sharing the third room on floor two that the beast flyer spot was free, she teleported back to Merac Caron, and rode out to Rau, for a 4.89% and 10 skill point quest reward. In all she gained 19.63%, 78 skill points, and 710 pet points.

After lunch, I moved some loot around, and also browsed through Roy's merchant mart, hoping to find some armour and a good level 85 weapon for MrChuckNorris, but without any luck. There were a few pieces of armour that were almost good enough, and would just have needed a little upgrading...but they all had already had an extreme stone used on them, which would have made moving from +12 to +13 difficult. And the only +15 titan sword wasn't blue-named or green-named, it was yellow-named, and with only four seals, so not as good. We are in no great hurry I guess...

One nice surprise was how speedy the merchant mart was now - new pages didn't take ten seconds or more to load, they came up almost at once, so that entering a search term such as the armour set's name, Thunder, just brought up the required pages at once. So, a real improvement, which partially compensates for the invisible walls and poor collision detection in Juno, and the town of Randol, we are now stuck with.

The main afternoon session again belonged to MistressDomina, my archer Kaerella, and the polar bear cub, in Auzura-5's Tomb of Theos. The place seemed busier than usual, right from the start; the level 57 specialist sorcerer godofbeasts welcomed MD, and gave her a gift of some healing potions and minerals. At around 3:30 he promised three million if she stayed around until his recently-started platinum blessed iris had finished, so I stayed on a little later than usual, and he did indeed pass the gold over without any prompting.

There were a few times when a rather suspicious number of screaming zombies were suddenly among us in the corridor, and I suspect an archer, called, I think, DarkChocolate of being involved in that. Unfortunately at one such time I was a bit distracted, answering somebody in the forum shoutbox who was asking about guild upgrading, and one zombie took the opportunity to one-hit Kaerella's poor little poly. I can thus report that it costs 709,344 gold to "unseal" a level 28 polar bear cub.

One thing I hadn't come across before was numbers of screaming zombies running down the corridor, not attacking anyone, and then turning around and running back into the main room. It was a bit alarming the first time it happened, but I soon realised that a wizard had to be using the skill Fear, which causes the monsters one has attracted to flee in terror, but only for a few seconds, after which they return. So, it then became amusing, like a kind of barn dance, and even hitting one full on with Terra Spear wouldn't persuade it to forget its original target and stay to fight MistressDomina.

By the end of the session, MistressDomina had just added 6.04% in level 91, while Kaerella, despite her brief trip back to Randol to get the poly revived, went up by 18.46% in level 89. They each added 5 skill points; MD's drake gained 2054 pet points, while Kae's poly went up by 69.03% in level 28.

For the evening, first of all MistressSabina returned to Maargadum Jail and, finding the third floor not being used, had a go at fighting the beast flyers properly, and their annoying friends the beast archers, in the middle there. It was after six when Sabina arrived, due to a little moving-around of items, so the "dungeon time" was over (the 50% extra experience for an hour, then two hours off, and so on). allowing more skill exp for her experience. A knight fought there for a rather short time, but he was level 49, so wouldn't have been getting much skill exp; for the last part of the session an archer called grietje02 was there, which probably slowed me down a little, but neither of us were particularly speedy beast-killers.

MistressSabina did have to use the small HP recovery potions most of the time, and a few small health potions, but she picked up as loot almost as many as she used. However, the next "dungeon time", from eight to nine, UK time, was approaching, so I decided to end Sabina's session; by then she had earned 30.25%, 121 skill points, and 1324 pet points. Her solo party had been provided by RedRackham, doing a little pet-levelling on his drake again.

Over on Cariae-4, my cleric Kaerella and my phoenix ranger rogue RedRydeR logged in, and headed for the Tomb of Theos. For a change, Kae was on the newer computer. They were there in time for the start of the "dungeon time", and each started a 61-90 type platinum blessed iris moments before it began, so did pretty well. Before long a level 100 mage called powerpuff asked for a solo party, as she was heading further in, so we did that. A knight called Cure arrived, and fought on and off for the rest of the time, taking rests to recover his mana. Either he was rather into role-playing, or he'd had a glass or two of beer...or maybe both.

Parsifals arrived after the boosted hour, but joined our party, which changed over to the combat type...which meant that RedRydeR overtook Kaerella, and is now 0.74% ahead in level 90. By the time Red and Kae logged out, RedRyder had added 47.06% and 1223 pet points, while Kaerella had got 45.89%, plus 1360 pet points for SirFrancis. And they'd each earned 10 skill points.