The Quiet of the Tomb

RedRackham hurried back to the fifth floor of Maargadum Jail on Auzura-4 before breakfast, to spar with his friend the death mask lancer there - and before coffee, the drake safely reached level 44, nine levels above Red himself, and the same level as the lancer. So, at last we are back to where we were before the series of rollbacks the Auzura server suffered last week, though of course if we'd not been rolled back, that drake would either be a level or so higher, or we'd have moved on to an entirely different pet-levelling project.

After coffee, while it was slightly tempting to bring MistressDomina in for an hour or two on Auzura-4, I decided that the short-term priority was to work on CaptainScarlet, so he went to work in Prokion Temple on Auzura-6; RedRackham moved over to that sub-server too, to provide the solo party. As before, my favourite room in Prokion Temple, with its orc axemen and orc sergeants, was available, as most people do the majority of their skill point farming on the lower-level monsters there. By lunchtime he'd added 27.78%, and 201 skill points, so, back in Randol, as well as selling his recent loot, he was able to get some more skill levels.

The afternoon started in Merac, continuing with CaptainScarlet. He began with a session with the bandits and berserkers, and the particular pumpkin ghost that spawns in the same area, so managed to get a decent supply of empty baskets and quite a few pumpkins. It does make a pleasant change to be out in the open, and that area brings back memories of lots of levelling sessions, back from before Prokion Temple's monsters got their experience and skill exp boosted, so that it became the only place to grind at Cap's level. There were even three pandora's boxes, two of them yielding goodies and the third just the level 30 type of beast, rather, thankfully, than the level 50 type.

CaptainScarlet did level up, reaching 33, after a while. Back in Merac Caron village there was a new quest for him, involving killing bandits and pilferers; he also ran out to Rau at the column of magic, to conclude another quest. Continuing the variety, he then moved across to Dratan, and got a quest there for "silver fox feathers", then teleported out to Prokion Temple, but didn't go in. Instead he headed on south and west, killing enough of the local spiders to finish Healer Yabo's quest for them, and moving down to the silver foxes of the desert. As far as I know, only the elite silver fox drops the necessary "feathers", so doing that quest took a little while, but after that Cap moved on to the death goddesses, as he had a quest to kill 35 of them, to stop them annoying innocent travellers.

I had heard the death goddesses recommended for loot and gold farming, but they didn't seem as good, to me, as the bandits and berserkers, with the added disadvantage of no convenient pumpkin ghost in the area. So, once I'd finished the quest, I left that location - moving back across to Prokion Temple.

CaptainScarlet's new level meant that the orc axemen, on level 27, were now blue-named for him, but for one last level they still fuel his ignition bar, so Cap was able to do another Ignition run; in all, his afternoon session added 29.87%, along with 173 skill points. Once he'd logged out, MistressSabina logged in briefly, just to "unlock" his experience gain. Going half-speed through level 32 allowed him to grab some extra skill points, but now, levelling him up a bit is a priority. Of course, as he is now only 15 levels behind MistressSabina, it would be possible for them to party together, perhaps on the beast flyers, but probably on the giants...

After the food break, Kaerella, my level 99 cleric, logged in on Cariae-4. I got in touch with Tuffsen, or BadFairy, but she was still out farming pumpkins; mainly, she said, because of the possibility of getting books of melding, as she uses quite a few of those to meld costumes to her armour. So, Kaerella and RedRydeR both had to pay to get into the Tomb - they were both in the ancient grey mummies room just in time for the five until six o'clock dungeon time hour. Kaerella made it a "power hour", using all the usual potions, and managed to add 19.68% in level 99, from 41 experience boosters; 14 skill points and 1055 pet points were also earned.

The Tomb, or at least the mummies' part of it, was pretty quiet, I guess Tuffy wasn't the only one out pumpkin-farming. A night shadow was there when Kaerella arrived (Red only entered when Kae had checked that NaOmi, with her Recall, wasn't there), but must have been carefully farming skill points, as he stopped fighting almost immediately after the dungeon time hour began, and soon left. Later on another night shadow, Gr8BallsOfFire, was active in the onwards corridor for a while - and BadFairy, rather tired after a not very good day, did arrive eventually, though she didn't actually do much fighting and vanished before I finally left.

Kaerella just managed to reach a red Ignition run by the end of the evening, and ended up with a total of 23.59%, 81 skill points and 4676 pet points, with her polar bear cub having the chance to make a little progress through level 14 too. RedRydeR added 12.55% in level 97, along with 84 skill points and 5924 pet points. She comes out ahead on the skill points mainly because she managed to do her red Ignition sequence rather earlier, while two hours of double experience and skill exp "happy hour" was running.