In Better Condition

I managed to have coffee a bit early today, and thus was able to fit in an hour for MistressSabina on the third floor of Maargadum Jail with the beast flyers before the "dungeon time" hour began. I even found a solo party right away, so things were pretty near perfect. I might possibly have missed out on a kill or two by making a few posts on the Last Chaos forum shoutbox, but when the hour was over, Sabina had added just 4.88%, while earning 141 skill points, and 998 pet points for her drake.

On the shoutbox, Dr.Jirri seemed in good spirits, with plans to walk around slowly with his arms outstretched, to make a pretty good impersonation of an Egyptian mummy. There was an announcement in-game of a 75% rebate offer on a couple of packages in the web item mall, but no evidence of such a deal in the actual mall, so one gamesage passed on a message about that... and talking about rebates, the aeria points used on those ten free loot wheel spins a week or so ago still haven't been refunded to anyone, it seems.

After lunch, MistressDomina asked in the guild chat channel about the Condition of the Tomb of Theos on Auzura, and was very relieved to hear that the Tomb had at last been suitably set. So, when the two to three o'clock "dungeon time" hour was approaching, MD was hurrying towards the anubis spear men. The first room was busy, and the first corner of the corridor linking it to the wider stretch with the columns - so I ended up on the third corner, which wasn't an ideal spot, as I did occasionally have a sphinx fighter coming in on me. Still, during the hour, with the pbi and usual three potions, MistressDomina put on 45.41%, using 44 experience boosters.

As MD was just in a solo party, getting 510,805,980 experience per kill, as opposed to at least 540 million if I'd had a combat party, it wasn't as huge a total as I might have managed with two computers running. A royal knight called Gluecksbaer was fighting close by, and killing remarkably quickly. He still had "LastChaos Newbie" in green over his head, so the character was less than a week old. He did mention later that he hadn't got a huge reserve of skill points, and was planning to farm some around level 100. By the end of his session he had reached level 85. I did say that it was possible to remove the Newbie title if one wished, but he is wearing it as a badge of honour.

The level 59 ranger-rogue nowomannocry had been in touch, since she'd got onto MD's Friends list, asking for help getting to level 60, so MD moved across to Auzura-5's Tomb once her pots were over, to join her. She opted for mummies rather than zombies, so I led her to the ancient grey mummies room, and let her "ks" me, but she complained that she was still getting very low experience. I discovered that she was only using a plus three bow - a level 57 one, rather than the 61 type she could equip. No wonder she was doing very little damage. She didn't seem to have any attack skills, and tried to assure me that Flame Arrow was an assassin skill. Even her Snare was only level three, so not very reliable.

Eventually we headed back to the start, though a screaming zombie en route did manage to kill her. She fought at the start for a while, along with the other people who were there - Gluecksbaer turned up there too, and there were quite a few familiar names from MD's previous sessions there, some now in higher-level armour than when last seen.

By the time MistressDomina had to leave, her total experience gain for the afternoon had reached 46.58%, so her unboosted time didn't add much. She had earned 7 skill points, and her drake got 1803 pet points.

I started off with a bit of a mistake after the food break. MistressSabina had hurried to the third floor of Maargadum Jail again on Auzura-4, arriving about ten minutes before the end of the "dungeon time" hour, and, seeing the place relatively tranquil, had begun fighting the beast flyers, equipped her drake, and started a platinum super skill pill...only after a minute to see that there was someone else fighting there, right at the far end. To my great relief though Kingschurk left after five minutes or so, and Sabina had the place to herself, for two long, busy hours. With the loss of health to watch out for and the frequent change of targets, it's exhausting work compared to fighting screaming zombies or anubis spear men, but the extra skill points are, hopefully, going to be very useful. During the first hour's pssp Sabina added 135 skill points, followed by 122 in the second hour. 9.04% experience was added, and, as double pet experience began when the dungeon time ended, 3838 pet points.

There was time to switch to Kaerella over on Katar-5, and reach Maargadum's second floor just as the new "dungeon time" hour was starting. The place got pretty busy, but Kae fought in all three of the rooms on that floor, and reached level 43, adding 24.17% during the hour, plus 71 skill points and 1264 pet points.

Back in Randol, Kaerella at last had enough stat points in Intelligence (17) to learn the level 38 skill Arrow of Silence. The first five levels, for 293 skill points (there are further levels at 53 and 63), mean using this skill can "silence" the enemy, stopping them from using attack skills for10 seconds, with a 70% chance of success. It also hits with a power of 290% of a normal shot, and as it only takes 6 seconds to recharge, can be rather effective, if it works. It's not a skill my archers use, generally, but it's useful to have it available. And thanks to the skill points she's been getting in Maargadum Jail, Kae's total stash of unused sp still remains above the 20k mark.

That was the end of the adventuring for today, but things had generally moved along quite well, particularly for MistressSabina with her three pssp hours. She is nearly halfway through level 46 now, so the number of future sessions with the beast flyers is starting to get a bit less intimidating. She may well fight them through level 47 as well, but if so, she'll do it with the Elizabeth's Enhancement buff to speed things up, and probably without the 50% experience freeze.