It Takes Skill Points

MistressDomino did some more selling overnight, which meant that the blue-named +15 level 87 mage boots with the five evasion-based seals that I'd not been able to afford yesterday were now within my budget, just about, so after my merchant came out of her selling mode, having earned about 300 million gold, she checked Roy's merchant mart - and they were still available, at 850 million, being sold on behalf of LukCarrier. Someone else was attempting to sell a +14 pair at the same price, I noticed. So, the purchase was made, and they were moved across to MistressDomina. Equipping them instead of her +13 pair increased her physical defence from 2493 to 2626, which, I felt, ought to make her life with the ancient grey mummies easier. Over on Cariae, Keerella has all five pieces of armour as "b5e +15", but this is MistressDomina's first, now teamed with two "b5e +13" and two "g5e +15" pieces... green-named items don't give quite as much defence, or evasion on their seals, as blue-named ones, but are better then yellow or white names.

For the eleven to twelve dungeon time hour, MistressDomina went to the Tomb of Theos on Auzura-5 alone. The Condition was at 100%, compared to Cariae's 70%. I couldn't do a combat party with Kaerella as this time the skill exp would be important...so MistressDomino went back into merchant mode, supplying the solo party, though her sales were minor, mainly her supplies of large attack potions, and pan flutes and drake eggs.

MistressDomina began her dungeon time "power hour" using not just platinum adrenaline, berserker, and crit potions, plus a platinum blessed iris - but a platinum super skill pill as well. On each kill she used an experience booster, and a skill point booster too - although she'd not reached the exact level of the ancient grey mummies, they did manage, with the boosts, to give 5.016 skill points each, along with 432 million experience while the dungeon time 50% bonus was running.

After using 34 experience boosters, MistressDomina was just below level 103, so I stopped using them, and levelled up a kill or two after that; luckily the Twisted guild master SacSalop was online, and relatively quickly responded to my request to "freeze" MD's experience gain to 50%. In all during the hour MD used 54 skill point boosters, so that the experience gain was 14.16%, and the skill point gain was 280. MD's drake added 1218 pet points, as the fighting had started a few minutes before the power hour.

MistressDomina stayed safely in the corner of the room over lunch, and then swung back into action for a new hour, with the potions, pssp, and skill point boosters. The Condition of the place had declined a little, though. This hour didn't have any "dungeon time" bonus in it, as that is now not something I need, and, over 47 kills and boosters, MD added just 0.50% plus 249 skill points...which works out pretty close to the 5.28 skill points per kill one would expect. 984 pet points got added as well.

After a short break, I went for another hour; generally I was only sharing the room with a German knight, DRAGENKNIGHT, so there were plenty of mummies to go around. We even exchanged buffs, Haste and Divine Shield, for a while. However, the Condition of the Tomb was declining, which I could easily spot as each 10% down tends to take around a thousand off MD's Terra Spear damage figure. The level 88 ranger-rogue Mornus had been in the room earlier, fighting in a strictly hit-and-run "kiting" style, running around and around; a couple of lower-level rogues had managed to reach the room too. One did start ks-ing me, and then Mornus, but we both had to ask her not to as we were using boosters, and she stopped. The second did at least ask first, and again I had to say no.

The Condition had definitely declined again, and during the third hour MistressDomina just managed to use 42 spbs, and thus just added 0.58% and 222 skill points, along with 982 pet points. With the potions used, that made each of those skill points a bit expensive. It seemed a good point at which to leave, so MD ran back to the start, and checked with the tomb guard - the Condition was down to 60%.

MistressDomino continued in merchant mode for a while, and I got caught up on the blog, since I'd really played enough for the morning and afternoon. And then at just after 3:00pm UK time, the "disconnected" window popped up. Checking the forum shoutbox, it was apparent that Last Chaos, and in fact the whole of the Aeria games online operation, was having big problems - a "router problem" apparently, according to the gamesages who appeared there. Over the next half hour some people reported being able to log back in, only to find NPCs missing, or other stuff wrong, and eventually disconnecting again. "Sorry for the inconvenience guys! Aeria Games are currently having Router problems, and they are working to fix it as we speak. please remain patient!"

The problems seemed to take the rest of the afternoon to sort out. However, after the food break, things seemed to be back to normal - so MistressSabina and RedRackham headed for Maargadum Jail on Auzura-5. The beast flyers were available, so Sabina settled in there; the first death mask lancer was already being fought, so Red moved along to the second one, for an hour or two's pet-levelling.

With the Sunday Quiz to come, it wasn't too long a session, though quite long enough for me. MistressSabina earned 10.95% experience in level 47, plus 116 skill points and 1285 pet points, so moved along usefully. But then it was time to have the five spins on the LacaRette wheel to use up some of her tokens, getting nothing more exciting than a couple of rejuvenation potions and a couple of item drop boosters, and log out.

As usual Kaerella and MistressDomino teamed up in a party in the Auzura-2 Quiz Room, after both computers had had their Last Chaos client restarted. Ratel was there, and we wished each other good luck - I think he did okay, at least I didn't notice any disconnections, and there were no problems along the way, just the usual questions. I didn't see as many people blatantly standing on the wrong side but not getting kicked; a mage called Annabell was on the central carpet, and not getting kicked even when she was a foot or two away from safety, but I was assured afterwards in the shoutbox that, if you see a player without their name above their head, like her, it is in effect a "ghost", and they have already lagged out.

Once the questions were over, Kaerella traded her prizes to MistressDomino, and then MistressSabina traded her recent loot and Lacarette prizes across too; then, after moving to Auzura-5, MistressDomino tried a little more selling, while RedRackham took his current drake, SirFrancis, down to the death mask lancer on Auzura-4 for an hour or so.