The Chains of the Tiger

RedRackham headed for Maargadum Jail's fifth floor on Auzura-6 at breakfast time today; the first death mask lancer was already being fought by another pet-leveller, so he had to move along to the second one, but soon discovered that the double pet experience was still in effect. So, once the newer computer had installed a new version of Quicktime and restarted, RedRackham on Cariae-6 headed for Jail too, and was soon in action there. Both RedRackhams had managed to get their drakes to about a third of the way through their levels (43 on Auzura, 42 on Cariae) before logging out last night, and by mid-morning they had both reached the halfway point.

I had some work to do downstairs, so a dungeon time "power hour" from eleven to twelve wasn't possible - which was just as well, as both computers got a disconnection at around eleven. Both RedRackhams hurried back to their death mask lancer; on Auzura I switched him from subserver 6 to number 4, so that he could fight the first one, while on Cariae he stayed on subserver 6. Curiously, on Auzura-4 the double pet experience was over, while on Cariae-6 it was still in effect.

After lunch, SirPerivale made a quick check in Juno that the double pet experience was still working on Auzura-6. Over on Cariae, Keerella used up her current stock of ten tool aids, doing a quick bit of mining to replenish her stock of quality stones, and then checked on the Tomb's Condition. From the forum shoutbox I'd gained the impression that the current castle owners, the Vendetta guild, hadn't done any resetting lately - and indeed it was right down on zero again, maximum hard.

Luckily Auzura-6's Tomb of Theos was on 100% for maximum easy, so MistressDomina and Kaerella headed for the ancient grey mummies again, and had their main room to themselves for almost the entire hour. MistressDomina gained 24.27% in level 100, using 54 experience boosters, and Kaerella, who levelled up to 98 at about the forty minutes mark, added 37.74% from 64 boosters. MD's drake added 2306 pet points, which were enough to get it into level 46, and Kae's drake added 2400, to get SirFrancis pretty close to the top of level 40. Both Kae and MD added 22 skill points.

To allow me to do a little more work, and be back in time for the next dungeon time hour, the RedRackham duo logged back in then, on their sixth subservers, and did some more pet-levelling down in Maargadum jail for the rest of the afternoon, both still getting double pet experience.

Cariae's Tomb was still on maximum hard, while Auzura's was 90% of the way to the easy end of the chart - so MistressDomina and Kaerella had another dungeon time power hour, from five to six. This time MD added 24.12%, which was just enough to get her into level 101, from another 54 boosters, and Kaerella went up by 34.10% in level 98 from 63 boosters. MistressDomina's drake gained 2254 pet points, and Kaerella's gained 2424, which got SirFrancis safely into level 41. The room did get a bit busy, especially late in the hour, so I was glad to be finishing my time there

I was a few minutes late getting to the mid-level mad monster spawn on Auzura-6, as I'd been doing the "power hour", which ran until the event's start time, so when Rage rode out to the location, things had alrready started, and the place was thick with kamiras. blood terrains, skin walkers, mimic crods, and a whole lot more. A group of kamiras followed me, and, using great healing potions as fast as I could, I fought them - and was able to grab some of the loot they dropped, dodging into the group to pick the stuff up before it became open to everyone. It was a risky business, but when I checked my inventory, as well as plenty of the medals of honour and hero's necklaces, I found that I'd picked up two "Chains of tiger" accessories.

There were further waves - and my game client crashed at one point, so that I had to log back in and ride back as quickly as I could. I'd been in a party with the level 47 knight jamesbond007 until then, and I think he did die a time or two - but this time I avoided being chased by the packs of skin walkers and endemic demons, and lived to fight again.

Once the last kamiras had been killed, and the generous supply of hands of loot picked up, I checked Rage's inventory, and as well as the two Chains of Tiger rare accessories, she'd picked up 20 moonstones and 7 crystals of experience (greater), plus lucky scrolls, medium mana potions, great healing potions, and the usual large attack and defence potions, item drop boosters and skill point boosters.

In contrast, Cariae's spawn was a disappointment; poor JediMike was in charge, and everything seemed to go wrong for him, starting with having his monster-spawning instructions appearing in chat, rather than in whatever the GM equivalent is of "the console" in some games...and then he lagged out entirely, and went offline. Perhaps he had been tempting fate when he boasted beforehand "I'm born ready - talent from the gods of LC...y'all want to be me, but can't...only one me."

The spawning instructions he broadcast by mistake a couple of minutes later were "summon 10 184/goto 265 1115 0/summon 10 183/goto 274 1110 0/summon 10 185/goto 291 1071 0/summon 10 214/goto 309 1098 0/summon 10 188/goto 324 1125 0/summon 10 1189/goto 254 1115 0/summon 10 122/goto 290 1150 0/summon 10 50/goto 257 1097 0/summon 10" - which is an awful lot to type into the wrong place. The "265 1115" bits were obviously the grid locations, and the "184" etc the code for each monster. We waited, and nothing happened. [GM]AwesomeSauce came in, but initially the monsters we did get were too low even for the bottom end of the recommended player level, and tended to all fall down when a mage used chaos nova. Still, we did get some hands of loot, and by the end things did get geared up to a few more substantial monsters.

RedRyder on Sarissa is only level 39, so I had to be careful there. [GM]JediMike was having better luck this time, though I think there were still a few laggy problems. We did at least get some bunches of kamiras again, and she dropped all the goodies one expects from her - risking some "area of effect" damage from the last road bosses, Red did manage to dash in and grab some goodies, though I didn't notice any rare accessories. Still, 20 lucky scrolls, a couple of crystals of experience (greater), 25 moonstones, and the usual potions and tool aids, meant it was worth the risk - and the hands at the end gave her 3 item drop boosters, 8 skill point boosters, 3 large defence potions, and a large attack potion. Things like barren eises and blood terrains, and jumping devils, dropped useful amounts of gold too.

On Tairen, my rogue xRAGEx is level 42, so still had to take care. I'd set out for the MMS location when I noticed that Rage didn't have a resurrection scroll active, so had to go back to Randol and move some of the skill point restoration scrolls across from MistressDomino, my merchant there - and it was just as well I did, as Rage did get killed once, dashing in too close to the surviving kamiras to try and grab some tempting loot. Still, I hurried back, and this time spotted another Chain of tiger accessory on the ground - and this I was able to dart in and grab, and emerge with at least some health left. I also managed to get two of the crystal of experience (greater), and five lucky scrolls.

[GM]Darasuum was in charge here, and wasn't as generous with the hands loot...I ended up with just 1 item drop booster and 5 of the large defence potions, from the single pile he presented us with. Still, he left us with plenty more monsters when he departed, and while there was nothing that Rage could solo then, with her Snare and ranged attack she was able to help out on a few skin walkers and so on, before the event was finally over.

A "Chain of tiger" rare accessory isn't the most valuable one that grand devilroad kamira can drop, but it gives 16 strength and 8 close range physical attack, so is quite useful for knights and titans. These days, though, the fashion is to use the accessories obtained using the coins of master from the monster combo system...and as people do the monster combo more often, there are a lot of those around. Even the "Tears of knight" accessory is less sought-after than it used to be, though you'd have to find an unusually excellent monster combo necklace to beat it.

I'd started to get RedRackham back to the fifth floor of Maargadum Jail for some more pet-levelling before that last MMS started, but had only got as far as fighting the death mask soldier which is often too close to the entrance to avoid...and at that point the spawning had begun, so I'd completely forgotten to watch what was happening on that screen. RedRackham had killed the soldier...but unfortunately it had respawned close enough to where he was standing to come in and attack again, and this time it had attacked the drake, which was dead before I noticed what was happening. So, Red had to go back to town; he hadn't quite enough gold to "unseal" the drake, the animal trainer wanted 506,268 gold at level 42, but after xRAGEx had logged out on Tairen, AmityBlaise, a level 31 rogue of mine on Cariae, logged in and passed enough gold across, along with 50 more quality stones.

RedRackham was then able to return to the Jail, and, avoiding the soldier this time, sparred with the death mask lancer. The double pet experience had finally been brough to an end, but there was just time before the end of the evening for Red to get the drake safely into level 43, which had the bonus of returning the pet's health to 100%.