High-Level Monsters

Yesterday evening was almost completely without any event... I got MistressBlaze out to the usual location in time, which was 11:00pm in the UK, but all she could do was kill the local foxes and wolves. I went off, leaving MB at the location, and got as prepared for bed as I could... there wasn't even a gamesage in the Last Chaos forum shoutbox to pass a message to the game masters to remind them what they were supposed to be doing.

Finally, at 11:25, a GM message came up that the event would start in five minutes, and the Kiene Tower appeared, along with our night shadow GM, Darasuum. I was perhaps pushing it a bit by saying "Ah, Daranub, that explains it - hi boss", but he took it well, just responding "Sorry, busy at the office. But I did get here."

As the five minutes counted down, there weren't many people. "Honestly didn't expect a huge turn-out", Dara commented. "For Europe, this is a bit late, I hope we don't have things at this time regularly", I said, and he reassured me that "This is not gonna be the norm - if you notice on the calendar, high level MMS starts at the normal time."

The first wave or two were easy enough, but then things got a bit dangerous, with masses of endemic and boucu demons, plus skin walkers, mimic crods, and various ghostly Egeha types - one monster had the annoying skill of being able to remove all my buffs, including the mid-level attack boosting one, and horse buffs - and that combination of a strong magic attack and the slowing-down debuff did get MistressBlaze killed once, though, as one of the main tanks, she was lucky to get away with using only one resurrection scroll I guess.

At some point [GM]JediMike took over, presumably so that Darasuum could move on to the next server and catch up a little - and that was good news, as Mike is always generous with the drops, once we had finally worked our way through the massed ranks of monsters. I commented that I'd not seen a single kamira, but from someone's response, I think there must have been a spawning of them, just out of sight from where I was, so I missed out on some fun there, not to mention the odd tool aid, etc. Still, I got more than enough goodies from Mike's loot-spawning to cover the cost of the resurrection scroll used. MistressBlaze did actually level up, reaching 88, during the fighting.

This morning was to feature a shopping trip, to get stocked up a bit on groceries, but I got some of my characters through their "attendance allowance" half hours before I went out, and left a couple of them mining - Auzura's Kaerella did get disconnected during that, but only after she'd managed the half hour. SirGalahad completed the line-up over lunch, with CaptainScarlet also logging in; they both went to Maargadum Jail, and despite being ks'd once SirGalahad got his pale blue horse into level 19 - while by mid-afternoon CaptainScarlet's drake reached level 47.

There was time before the food break for SirGalahad to see some action in Prokion Temple, though; he got the 153 skill points needed for the second level of expert weaponsmith safely, learnt the skill, and went to Ebony Mine to lose his experience again. After the break he managed to get the 179 sp required for its final level, though the dungeon time meant that he had to be careful, and include plenty of mummies and a few ghouls in the mix, to get to 179 sp before he reached the top of the level. He ended up with 98.60% and 191 skill points, so that when he went to Ebony Mine again, he went in with 12 skill points - and still had 4 when he came out again.

That concludes SirGalahad's "learning special skills" stage, so that now he needs to think about getting as many skill points per level as possible - so no more fighting there while dungeon time, or double experience, is running.

The high-level Mad Monster Spawn on Auzura was, as promised, started at six o'clock, UK time, with [GM]Darasuum arriving right on time. It wasn't a long event, but Dara spawned generous amounts of loot after we'd disposed of the cave spirits, so that Rage while grabbed only 1 skill point booster, she did get 4 item drop boosters, 5 large attack potions, and 6 large defence potions, plus tool aids and countless small mana/HP recovery pots. When the boss wave appeared, I was able to be the main person to target a couple of the grand red dragons, and then, ignoring the cerebrii, got 3 crystals of experience (greater), 10 lucky scrolls, 10 moonstones, a couple of hero's necklaces, various potions, three medals of honour - and a rare accessory, an Origin of Land. It's not very valuable, but it's nice to be able to earn one like that.

It was strange, there seemed very few people fighting the bosses; I targeted a Sphinx Commander, but nobody else joined in - except an Anubis Archer, on the Commie's side! With Snare working successfully most of the time, I did manage to kill it, though my health dipped dangerously at that point, so I had to run from the archer for a few seconds. Luckily, finally, some other people fought it, and I was able to go back and help finish it off.

[GM]Darasuum then declared the event over, after less than twenty minutes - but a very busy twenty minutes. Rage then used the "pet village return" skill to get back to the centre of Randol - and found herself marooned there, as the place was flooded. That's a glitch that people do report sometimes, though I don't remember it happening to me before. I couldn't even move from the spawning area, as it was surrounded by water.

The Cariae event was late starting - only Barbarienne, my level 110 archer, and AnitaBlakex were there when it was supposed to begin. Luckily the gamesage georgerav showed up in the forum shoutbox eventually, and was able to pass a message on, so that soon the in-game announcement was made, calling [GM]Stratos a "newb". People were a bit slow in arriving, but before too long there were enough of us there , and the first round began. The four rounds were much the same as before, starting with barren eises, apes and dark bogles, moving on to bigger stuff, then the cave spirits, and finally the boss wave - it was all a bit overwhelming. Barb managed to tank three of the titan cave spirits, using up some of her big red candy canes from last Christmas - she managed to target three of the grand red dragons, but when picking up the loot, didn't realise a fluton was in the melee, and got a free trip back to town. After re-applying horse buffs and fast bow fixing, and using a new resurrection scroll, she teleported back, and continued the good fight.

Things lasted rather longer than on Auzura, so I did more fighting. The local great horn beasts and other aggressive low-level monsters are a bit of a pain, so while I was fighting an anubis archer I was glad that a passing titan killed the ones that were attacking me - and as he ran off, I saw that it was Stratos himself. Normally, he isn't generous with the loot, but, at the end, he spawned lots of the hands we know and love. As I'd been at the Auzura event, I was slightly more aware than most that there were multiple spawning spots, and so, after the first few places had been cleared, had a slightly further-away collection to myself for a few precious seconds. 10 item drop boosters, 11 large attack potions, 12 skill point boosters, and 13 large defence potions must be some kind of record for me, plus the tool aids etc, and from those three grand red dragons just about all their drops, though no rare accessory - 15 lucky scrolls, 15 moonstones, 3 crystals of experience (greater), and more.

[GM]Stratos had started off agreeing when AnitaBlakex had said it was "going to be a rough one with this few people". "Too hard for you guys? Geez", he'd said early on in the fighting. "Alright - playtime is over! I hope you all made out your wills." A little later it was "Ohhh so you guys think you're big shots, huh? No more Mr Nice Stratos..." "Pew Pew Pew - dead bodies all over. Players eaten alive by monsters!! Ohhhh nooooo..." And then, when we finally cleared out the last monster bosses, "You brave few have earned your reward... grats. I'm proud." And then we got the loot. And I see that Barbarienne gained 0.25% experience from all the fighting...

Memree, my level 40 assassin-rogue, went along to the Tairen MMS at 8:45, which seemed a low-key affair, and just had a disembodied, anonymous game master pushing the buttons. All he (or she) said, after the advance 10 and 5 minutes warnings, were "Prepare for MMS..." - "You can do it Tairen ..." - "Ready for one more wave..." and "Thanks to those who participated in High Level MMS!" Memree came within a whisker of getting killed twice, but managed to run, and live to keep fighting; once when on the first wave the death knights and baals were right on top of her, and once when an anubis archer took a shot at her, but luckily didn't follow up. There was no chance to get near the kamira drops, as even the cerebrii would have been too dangerous, but Rage picked up her share of the loot at the end. This GM wasn't very generous with the spawning, compared to Stratos, and she just got 2 item drop boosters, 2 large attack potions, 4 skill point boosters, and 5 large defence potions. She did get 5 magical defence minerals from a Pandora's Box on the way to the event, though.

SirGalahad was lucky, when I sorted through his loot, and did his five spins of the LacaRette wheel - he won 15 gold tokens. His five "gold run" spins brought in a platinum blessed iris, 10 purified rune ore twice, 10 devil rune ore, and a platinum pet experience potion; the two types of ore are used for upgrading high-level weapons and armour, I will have to check on the prices. And then MistressDomino, my Auzura merchant, went into merchant mode for a little while, to see if she could sell Gal's recently acquired moon cake ingredients. The event for those may well come to an end tomorrow.

CaptainScarlet had kept busy all evening with his pet-levelling; by the end of the evening, his drake had got a fifth of the way through level 47.