Further Event Problems

Since I knew I wouldn't be able to do any active playing in the morning, my duo of RedRackhams were able to swing into action - but only after Auzura's Kaerella has passed across her level 41 drake, in exchange for the level 44 one Red had been working on. This can only be a temporary exchange, as Kae's drake does, like its Cariae counterpart, have the "SirFrancis" nametag. Still, it means in the short term that Kaerella gets the benefit of a slightly higher pair of buffs from her pet, while RedRackham has a drake to work on that is slightly less greedy when it comes to the consumption of quality stones. Once SirFrancis gets up to 44, the trade can be reversed.

So, my pair of RedRackhams were busy all morning and over lunch, down on the fifth level of Maargadum Jail on the sixth subservers of Cariae and Auzura, moving their drakes along usefully. And then it was time to check out the Tombs of Theos on those two servers as well - not that I wanted to fight in both at once, but if Cariae had been in good Condition, then it would have been a chance to move Keerella and RedRydeR along usefully.

Unfortunately, the Guild owning the Cariae castle in Dratan weren't playing ball, and the bars on the display for the Tomb were only at 20%, so Keerella's trip out there came to a speedy end. On Auzura, though, the bars were at a sunny 100% - so MistressDomina and Kaerella hurried in, heading for the ancient grey zombies room.

The titan PoppaSmurf was already in action there, as was a night shadow called GoodGuy, who was power-levelling a knight; but that left room for MistressDomina as the third occupant of the room, with Kaerella in the bit of corridor leading into it, which PoppaSmurf usually favours - I suppose he fancied a change today. GoodGuy's stint didn't continue more than halfway through the hour, which gave us a bit more breathing space later on.

The killing is certainly quicker than when fighting the anubis spear men; MistressDomina got through 53 experience boosters, adding 23.43% in level 101, while Kaerella used 64 and gained 30.80% in level 99. MD's drake earned 1150 pet points, and Kae's replacement drake got 1188; Kae and MD each gained 25 skill points.

Since I wasn't aiming to use the five to six o'clock power hour, there was time for MistressSabina to fight the beast flyers on the third floor for a little over an hour before an extended food break; Auzura's RedRackham went there with her, and continued down to floor five, to restart his pet-levelling. In 65 minutes or so Sabina added 9.70% and 103 skill points, with her drake gaining another 1102 pet points.

RedRackham's work continued through the break, which was handy, as it allowed me to keep up-to-date with GM announcements. Today's special event had been announced as "Strategy in Strayana", some sort of follow-the-clues hunt I've never investigated as I don't have a week-long antidote for the virus that players get in that map. As most of us had probably expected, the event got cancelled, though at least this time they were able to make the announcement in advance: "Attention everyone: Due to technical difficulties today's events need to be rescheduled. HOWEVER, because of two cancellations in a row, we will not only be running an extended XP and SP event for you, we will also be spawning mobs in Juno for you to fight! Once the mobs are spawned, you will see an announcement indicating location. We're sorry for the inconvenience." That was followed at around six by the notification that "200% XP and SP is now running!"

Double experience and skill exp isn't terribly exciting, but it seemed a reasonable excuse to give Kaerella over on Katar, at level 43, another trip to the second floor of Maargadum Jail - and she did at least manage to reach level 44 at last. After an hour or so an announcement appeared that "A strange newbie (levels 1-45) level mob has spawned on K6 near 290 1150! Come destroy this mob before it destroys you!!!" So Kaerella immediately used a scroll of recall to get back to the village, teleported to Randol, and rode out at full speed to the location, which is the place they have been using for low and mid level mad monster spawns... and found a lot of people already there, with nothing higher than a few level 23 skeleton lancers to fight. So, considering that level 24 great horn beasts live close by, that was less than exciting. People stayed around for a while, hoping, as one does, that something further would happen, but nothing else did, so, tired of fighting foxes, deer and wolves, people gradually melted away.

Kaerella headed back to Merac, and, with her new level, checked to see if there were any quests she should be doing. Some spike canine skins were needed, and some gnoll soldier hearts, so first of all Kae rode down to the gnoll soldiers and killed 25 of them - then she teleported to the entrance to Maargadum, where it didn't take long to kill enough doggies to get the necessary skins. Noa wanted a message run to town as well, and then there was a trip out to Owl Village too, so in all about 15% was gained from quests.

Two-headed canines give 19,816 experience each, which the Elizabeth's Enhancement buff takes up to double that, 39,632. The "double experience and skill exp" event only doubles the 19k, not the whole thing, but adding in the dungeon time got it to 70,592 experience for a while, with the skill exp at 2750, at least until Kae levelled up...

With the double experience and skill exp running, I briefly switched across to Barbarienne on Cariae, and got a couple of recent quest rewards - 2.14% experience and 10 skill points. Then I returned to Katar, and put in a bit more jail time, until it was time to finish for the evening. With the various boosts and quest rewards, Kaerella added 42.92% in all, plus 191 skill points and 1084 pet points. That just left RedRackham in action, and by the time he had to log out, SirFrancis was within an hour of the top of level 41.