Blazing Levels

MistressDomino was in merchant mode overnight, and managed to do some useful selling, mainly of item drop boosters, which seem to have defied the general trend and gone up in value. So, after rather a gap she does now have enough gold to perhaps buy a better armour piece for MistressDomina...but I'd better hold back, I think, with a view to getting her the 105/107 set, as I did over on Cariae with Barbarienne. And for that, rather more gold will be needed I'm sure, sigh...looking for the "Orlwin" set in Roy's merchant mart, buying either boots or gloves, blue-named, evasion sealed, and +13, would take almost all my gold...and there was no sign of the other pieces at such a level.

RedRackham was able to do a couple of hours of pet-levelling with his death mask lancer as well up until after coffee. And then it was time for one of my big power-levels, which I tend to do sometimes on a Monday. MistressBlaze, my "deputy" wizard, had reached level 67, and was wearing my best 70/72 armour set, so she and my level 93 rogue Rage headed for the entrance to the Tomb of Theos.

The Tomb's condition on Auzura was at 80%, which was slightly lower than I'd have liked, but still do-able, so my duo went in. MistressBlaze added the 24-hour platinum refining stones to the pieces of her armour that needed it, either +1 or +2 ones, to get the whole set up to +15, for the extra defence, and added a +1 to her weapon as well to make it +16 temporarily. She headed for the ancient grey mummies (and yes, the mummies do use the English spelling of "grey") - and, as she would have "capped" her experience gain if she'd been in compass range, Rage headed for the anubis spear man room again, to fight the sphinx fighters there.

Rage had a pretty easy session there, the only danger really is of a fighter or two spawning too close to her and attacking her drake when I'm not looking, but the drake survived, even if I did have to use a few green herb leaves. By lunch time Rage had added 5.23% and 8 skill points, plus 1810 pet points, and picked up a couple of weapons and a knight's shield.

MistressBlaze didn't have too easy a time of it with the ancient grey mummies, though, even with the +15 armour set; she needed to do a fair bit of running away, while triggering a health potion, to start off with. I'd stocked up on mana pots, knowing how many MistressDomina gets through, but I hadn't increased MB's supply of health potions - though Rage had plenty of spares if necessary.

Still, despite the time spent running rather faster than a mummy can shamble, during the first hour, with the usual selection of potions, plus a power potion for its extra attack and defence, MistressBlaze did manage to use 23 experience boosters, which meant that she went up from level 67 to level 72, adding 507.21%, plus 784 pet points. I managed to fit in a second hour, and another 23 boosters got her into level 76, adding 420.35%, plus 855 pet points. Most of the eleven to twelve o'clock dungeon time hour, with its 50% experience boost, was in that second hour, but of course each level needs more experience in total than the one before.

The Twisted guild's least favourite specialist sorcerer, fragiii, did arrive in the "AGM" room during that session, so it was lucky I was playing Discipline guild member MistressBlaze, and not MistressDomina, who presumably would have got ks'd. Rage reported his arrival on guild chat, and would have come along to ask fragiii if the difference of opinion was unresolved, and if so should she ks him? But for that I wanted to wait until MB's power hour was over...and PunkCharming, who apparently was nearby, came along and handled the ks-ing side of things right away. The sorcerer fragiii had started an hour-long pssp to farm skill points, which was a bit strange, didn't he think Twisted people would be on the lookout for him...my theory would be that he is trying to get together his own selection of screenshots showing him as the victim of harassment, but as he'd told SacSalop of his ks-ing plans yesterday, and Sac had carefully taken screenshots, I can't see that he would get very far with trying to get our people into trouble.

SacSalop himself has started a phoenix character called SacAttack, who joined the guild today - another sorcerer. He asked if anyone had a mount he could borrow, so I've loaned him the horse that my level 31 healer Memree was riding. RedRackham then traded across the level 37 pale blue horse he'd been holding to Memree, so she now has a pale blue mount, which I think looks good for a healer. Later, MistressDomino passed a blue pan flute across to Red, so he now, courtesy of Lorraine and Archaeologist Jajan, has a little pale blue pony, ready to be worked on when he has finished with his current drake.

MistressBlaze was back in action just before the start of the two to three o'clock dungeon time, and managed to use 33 experience boosters during her third power hour, which moved her on to level 81, gaining 447.60%, plus 1023 pet points - I had more health potions now, and generally was able to avoid having to run away, which must have made the night shadow Domz a bit dizzy at times. He certainly had a marathon session, he was there before I arrived, and continued up to the early evening food break. He completely filled his inventory, so that even before lunch he wasn't picking up the armour that got dropped for him...I picked it up instead. I did try to ask him about it, but never got any response, I assume he doesn't speak English. As MistressBlaze was too low-level, it seemed, to get drops there, that was rather useful.

The second hour of the afternoon was a bit different, as MistressBlaze was now within party range of Rage, so she stood in a corner, with just a platinum blessed iris (of the level 61-90 type) running, while Rage, with a small crit potion, handled the killing. So, it was a pretty economical hour, costing very little - though MB only added 57.15%, moving on into level 82. Rage's higher level, though, did mean that she started to get more than 1 skill experience per kill, and added 2 skill points.

Back in Randol, MistressBlaze was able to spend almost all her skill points. On the passive skills side there was level 7 of Secret Study, for 250 sp, increasing her magical attack by 6, and the second level of Mage Armor 2, for 300 sp, increasing her mana regeneration by 2. I decided to get her all five available levels of the Chaos Nova "area of effect" attack skill, as well, which has a power of 560% (Terra Spear has 550%, on a single target as opposed to up to ten of them), though it does increase its victims' attack power by 70% for thirty seconds, if they are still alive. That cost 1450 skill points, as well as 3.5 million gold.

Rage had been back with the sphinx fighter for the first afternoon hour, mainly at that first bend of the corridor after the spear man room, though I ignored the anubis spear men and concentrated on the fighters. As she wasn't using a platinum blessed iris or boosters, her afternoon session just gained her 5.07%, 7 skill points, and 2065 pet points

Once the loot had been sold, MistressBlaze returned to the ancient grey mummies. As the food break had been a little early, I was able to get into action in time for the five until six o'clock dungeon time hour, so, using 35 experience boosters, MB went up three more levels, 379.75% in all. 4 skill points were earned, and 1081 pet points. Perhaps because the Tomb was on 90% Condition now, and MB had her enhanced skills and levels, the fighting seemed easier now, and the 10% suction of life MistressBlaze has, albeit from two 5% accessories, seemed to keep her healthy a lot more of the time, so the use of health potions was much reduced.

Rage, on level 93, had waited outside, just supplying the solo party, for the first few minutes, until MB reached level 83; then we changed the party to a combat type one, which you can only do if members are within ten levels of each other, and Rage went into the Tomb, and joined MD in the AGM room, fighting the mummies, this time without even a crit potion. The combat party boost increased MB's experience per kill, and she got some experience from Rage's kills too, and vice versa.

A second hour got MistressBlaze to level 87, which was our target - high enough to wear the 85/87 armour set, and indeed borrow MD's level 85 staff, but low enough to go along to mid-level events such as mad monster spawns. 34 boosters were used, to gain 215.39%, plus 5 more skill points and 1028 pet points. Rage's evening session brought her a further 4.38%, which took her into level 94; she also got 9 skill points, and 1745 pet points. Reaching level 94 means that she has a new quest - to kill 50 sphinx fighters. That sounds like something she may well do! She has no new skill level to learn until she reaches 98, though - Controlled Shooting level 6.

I was sorry to miss the return of the "Dratan Run" event on Auzura-6 at six o'clock, UK time, but I was still busy with MistressBlaze then. The in-game announcements were the usual ones, about following the line of giant soldier-statues and fighting the monsters along the way...but at half past six there was another announcement, that it had been glitched and so would be restarted... followed later by an announcement that, due to technical difficulties, the event had been cancelled on all servers, with double experience and skill exp brought in instead. Which was a shame, as I'd been looking forward to taking Barbarienne along to the Cariae version at eight o'clock.

I had various things to catch up with, including this blog, so didn't actually make any use of the happy hour... RedRackham did at least get some more pet-levelling done, on his drake rather than on the new pony, and got the drake past halfway in level 41. So, the day ended rather quietly... but the mission, to get MistressBlaze up from level 67 to 87, was safely accomplished, with the bonus of Rage levelling up too.