Different Speeds in Merac

RedRackham and CaptainScarlet hurried down to the fifth floor of Maargadum Jail this morning, only to find that the GMs had remembered, finally, to turn off the double pet experience when they were leaving their office last night. Still, with the Captain further along, against the side wall, fighting the usual death mask lancer, and Red sparring with that over-eager first death mask soldier, good progress was made throughout the morning, over lunch, and into the first part of the afternoon, with Red's horse reaching level 35 before he finally logged out. CaptainScarlet's drake was almost 80% of the way through level 46 by then, too.

I kept busy until approaching the middle of the afternoon, but then, when I checked the Condition of the Tomb of Theos on Auzura-4, I found that it had at last been set. It seems that the same guild as before are the Dratan Castle "owners", but hopefully the protest is over. So, the first thing to do was for MistressBlaze to return the armour, accessories and weapon she'd borrowed from MistressDomina. Once that was done, and MD was properly equipped, CaptainScarlet logged back on, and joined MD's party, before returning to Maargadum Jail - and MistressDomina herself headed for the Tomb, and the ancient grey mummies.

To celebrate her return to action, MistressDomina did a "power hour" with potions, pssp, and skill point boosters, just managing to fit three first-level Ignition runs in. The place was a bit busy, but after a while the corridor spot fell vacant, which gave me more choice of targets - an in all MD killed 75 mummies during the hour, using boosters, for a gain of 417 skill points. She also got 1.86% experience, as there was a fair bit of a dungeon time hour in there. Continuing until the food break added another 0.27% and 7 skill points, with the afternoon giving 1538 pet points.

There was almost an hour after the food break, as well, which added another 0.84%, 14 skill points, and 864 pet points - and that was enough to get MistressDomina's drake into level 49. Back in Randol, I remembered to use the extra stat point to increase her magical attack by one - I hadn't used up the previous two stat points earned, I found, so in all her magic attack has increased by three.

The Auzura "Merac Run" was due to start at six, so my plan was to take Rage along to that. The website said Auzura-5, but generally these events take place on the sixth sub-server, and indeed that was where this one was announced as being set up. Rage logged in there, moved to Merac, and headed out on the usual route. People were already fighting, and there were loot drops too, which, since the monsters at the start are only around level 50 to 70, it was possible to pick up. Slightly further along there were a few kamiras, but I was too late to get any of their drops... I noticed some of Egeha's raid boss too, the grand gold dragon, but the drops they gave were grabbed before I got near them.

As usual the route, marked by the giant warrior statues, took us all the way to the teleporter for Misty Canyon, and ended with flutons, patriarch botises, and various other 130-140 types. [GM]Darasuum was in charge; I don't know if there were any drops at the end, there was no announcement about any and I didn't see anything, but then, drops aren't Dara's strong point, and I'd managed to get a few things at the start.

Cariae's run was scheduled for eight, so I had time to take SirGalahad out to Prokion Temple in between times - he earned 207 skill points while going up 89.41%, and I managed to spend 200 of them before logging out. For the Cariae event I took Barbarienne along - this time we were on the fifth sub-server, and in the capable hands, I'm sure, of [GM]AwesomeSauce. Due to the change of sub-server from the one I was expecting I wasn't exactly early, and so missed out on a bit of the early loot - but was one of the main Kamira-fighters, getting 15 moonstones and 2 crystals of experience (greater) as my reward.

The spawning was the same as before, but we did get warned by the GM to stay around once the last top-end monsters were killed - and a nice spread of loot was spawned for us. Seeing this, and feeling that Awesome would probably be doing a second server, I took my level 39 rogue RedRyder along on Sarissa-5, starting at nine o'clock. I had to be a great deal more cautious, making sure I only joined in when a monster was already being attacked, except when I could pick off some local Merac monsters. My main contribution was to ride out at the start, see that the monsters were there, and hurry back to everyone waiting in town to say "The monsters are spawned, guys, time to move out!"

For some reason the rush towards the far end was a lot slower on Sarissa, and it took over an hour to kill everything, and get our loot - not that some people seemed all that happy, at picking up perhaps a couple of item drop boosters for an hour's work. There must have been a few less high-level players around, which would tend to make a difference - but about 50% longer? Strange. RedRyder's hatchling did level up, to 11, and Red herself must have gained around 5% experience. She did get 5 moonstones from the kamiras, as well as the end loot, and a few drops from the local Merac types.

CaptainScarlet did get ks'd once by annalein, another German I think, and had to stand around for a few minutes before finally he could get the death mask lancer again. Still, he got the drake into level 47, and continued for an hour or so into that level, which can't be bad.