The Akan Temple

RedRackham went to Maargadum Jail on Auzura-6 for some pet-levelling before lunch, but had to give up just as lunch was ready, as a friendly mage called crazysnecks didn't seem to understand about pet-levelling...killing the death mask lancer on the spot isn't too bad, but when her attack got it, with Red and his drake following, into the middle of the room, where he and it would have been left vulnerable to respawning death mask soldiers, logging out seemed the best idea. Still, the drake had levelled up by then.

CaptainScarlet managed a slightly short morning session, taking advantage of most of the eleven to twelve o'clock dungeon time hour, fighting with the two-headed canines and others on the second floor of the Jail. He added 9.49% and 10 skill points, though for some reason there didn't seem to be much loot dropped, other than the empty baskets.

The afternoon session was similar, though not as long as sometimes - and this time CaptainScarlet did pick up a good supply of armour to sell back in Randol. The place was still pretty busy, but, helped by an hour of dungeon time and plenty of two-headed canines, Cap added 35.01%, and 42 skill points. After that, he moved his empty baskets and moonstone boxes, plus some LacaRette prizes, across to MistressDomino, my merchant on Auzura. Then MistressDomina traded her armour and weapon over to MistressBlaze, in preparation for later on, before RedRackham went back for a bit more pet-levelling, this time on Auzura-4, where I hoped he would have fewer visitors.

I logged Barbarienne, my level 110 archer, on half an hour early on Cariae-3, to make sure I was in good time for the team-up with Zenderfly, and was still eating my food when she got in touch. We started by me helping Zen to transfer some items to her witch Damor - and then Damor and Barb formed a party, which she changed into a Fellowship. We moved to Egeha, once Damor was suitably equipped, and hurried down to Teleporter Akarian in the south-east, past apes and azers and scorpionmantises. We went into the Temple, and found a long ramp, with some stairs too. There were a lot of critters to fight along the way, and they had a tendency to come in five or six at a time - these first akan temple guards had a Stun skill too, so Barb had to equip her supply of Remedy, and went through quite a few of those items...but Remedy takes a few seconds to regenerate after use, and often Barb got stunned again. The akan temple guards were mixed with akan temple scouts, and it took quite a few minutes to get along this first straight ramp...but at last the boss was visible, and even had a brief cut-scene, a rare sight in Last Chaos.

Damor's assistance was invaluable, as she was able to use the witch skill Stone, and also able to get entire groups to just stand and wait their turn with Sleeping Fog - without those things would have been utterly impossible, as was proved on one occasion when we both ended up with tiny amounts of health, running back like heck. Damor kept the akan temple chief guard under control with Stone while I disposed of his underlings, for example. When he died, he dropped a special box for each of us - Damor opened hers right away and found it empty - I opened mine afterwards, with the same result.

There were three doorways out of that boss's chamber, with only one of them open. That meant we headed for the alchemist area, and more mobs - specimen's kids, followed by specimen's boombers, both tubby little types which again tended to come in as mobs of around six at a time, no matter how careful one was...followed by senior alchemist zero. All the monsters in the Temple were "boss" types, but he seemed to be a bit of an in-betweener, in that he was a lot bigger and had a one-off name...but he didn't drop any boxes. We forged ahead, but even with Barb's level 109 +15 bow, every monster took a while to deal with. Damor had some other commitment at seven, and by then it was getting close to that, as we'd been on for a couple of hours. Damor decided that, as her character had no skill points to lose, she'd do a kamikaze run to see how far she could get, and she reported that there were a lot more monsters along the way. She entered a boss room, so that a timer announced the number of seconds other party members had to join her... and that was just about the end of the adventure. She logged out, which automatically returned Barbarienne to the teleporter npc outside.

The early start had meant that I didn't have time to do any advance checking, but, looking at the Wet Paint wiki for Last Chaos, I see that, if we had killed every monster along the way and got to that second boss, and killed it, a second portal would have opened, back where the akan temple chief guard had been - a teleportation circle takes you back there, and, once you are in that second area, we are warned that the monsters mob even more heavily. So, a larger party, all of people with a lot of time to spare, seems to be advised!

Still, it was fun to explore at least one wing of this new place, and great to be fighting alongside my old companion. I think we had both assumed that the thing would only take maybe an hour, like a Monster Combo perhaps... my moving of the armour and weapon from MistressDomina to MistressBlaze, in case time was tight, proved not to be necessary.

So, I missed the "low-level" Mad Monster Spawn on Auzura; as, while the web page says it is designed for people from level 46 to 90, it does say that "all are welcome, but please allow those for whom the event is designed to enjoy it", I thought I might as well take my cleric Kaerella along to its Cariae equivalent, as by then it was getting close to its seven o'clock, UK time, start.

[GM]Yatou was in charge, and apart from spawning most of one wave off to one side, so we didn't know it was there and were waiting around for the next wave until she dropped a few hints, she made a pretty nice event. Kaerella tried to apply the Charm or Encourage buffs to as many people as possible, and generally held back on the lower-level mobs - though when the level 100 purple dragon appeared, or arch liches, or level 99 nivas, I did get more involved - however, the level 105 Iludeteirun happened to spawn well away from me, while some wraiths or wight slashers were holding my attention, so I wasn't involved in that one's demise.

There was plenty of loot spawned at the end by [GM]Yatou, so I think everyone had fun. What things were like on other servers, I don't know; we only got a single kamira, maybe Auzura had had dozens of them? The requests for grand red dragons were ignored, as they usually are - which is slightly strange, as the last high-level one Barbarienne went to did include some of those in the final boss round. "Event's done, enjoy your day", the GM said when she left.

It is slightly odd that they are calling the event for level 46 to 90 "low-level" - I wonder what has happened to the "real" low-level MMS, aimed at people up to level 45, with appropriately low-level monsters? It would be a shame if that one has been abandoned now. Tomorrow, however, the high-level one is planned.

My evening got a little disrupted after that, but RedRackham had continued throughout the afternoon and evening, so that his drake got past 40% of the way through level 43. CaptainScarlet did manage to log in for a short session with the two-headed canines, finally, and added 8.38%, plus 13 skill points... and that took him into level 38. Afterwards in Randol, while he isn't eligible to learn one level 38 skill, the passive skill Anti-Magic, he was able to learn all five levels of Telekinesis, for 293 skill points. This will allow Cap to teleport a monster to him with an 80% chance of success - though there seems a possibility that a failure could aggravate some other nearby critters. Cap successfully teleported a deer, once he switched from dual swords to a single sword and a shield, which was completed unalarmed by the process; I remember Ratel could do that with bogles too, they didn't consider being teleported up to him to be a reason to attack.

So, CaptainScarlet makes good progress. Hopefully he can get to level 40, and return to pet-levelling status, before too long.