A Meeting of Mob and Hero

Last night's new patch was the tiniest of things, and just removed the Halloween event. "Bugs and exploits are all being vigorously worked on and a number of fixes are being worked on by the developers. Expect some much needed fixes to come soon!" Other than that, Xuse2005 just had this warning: "Hackers beware! Our team has been aggressively pursuing hackers and have been investigating our logs more than ever to make sure we ban the right people. Remember, using any unauthorized third party program"... at which point he must have gone off for a cup of coffee, as the paragraph ends without any conclusion. There have been reports of the logs being read wrongly and innocent people, perhaps close to actual hack-users, being banned, so that's probably why he promises "to make sure we ban the right people".

RedRackham headed off to Maargadum Jail on Auzura-6 just after breakfast; and, not long after, I went for the stereo effect by sending his namesake on the Cariae server down to exactly the same spot. Red's drake there was actually nearing the top of level 45, as opposed to level 43, so hungrier than ever.

The Auzura-based drake levelled up to 44 over the lunch break, followed soon after by the Cariae one, reaching 46. Things proceeded smoothly, except for one knight on Auzura-6, xCorex, who I assume to be one of the recent arrivals from the German version of Last Chaos, where "afk" pet-levelling isn't allowed. "Hey don't exp the pet with hand", he'd said. "Red - stop" - and then he'd killed my death mask lancer. I noticed the lack of action fairly soon, so that the drake was able to pick up the 474 gold the lancer had dropped - xCorex was just in the process of teleporting back to Merac village then.

I had work to do throughout the afternoon - well, not exactly work, but I was "polishing up" the first part of an adventure story for a friend. So, the two RedRackhams continued with their pet-levelling, both getting through the quality stones at a rather alarming rate.

Cariae's RedRackham logged out in time for MistressFelicia to go to the "Whack-a-Fluton" event at six o'clock, UK time, on Auzura; she went up two levels, to level eight, so will need to be careful after the next time or two, as I won't want her to go above level ten without getting into the Guardian system. [GM]Darasuum was in change, and there were plenty of flutons, plus a surprising number of cave spirits, darkmind terrains, patriarch botises, anubis archers, sphinx commanders, apes, and other types. He did give a loot drop at the end, with the suggestion that people ought to fight over it - "You know what's fun - fighting for the prizes." Felicia is immune from PvP attacks in the arena at her level, so was able to pick loot up unhindered, but she only got 2 large defence and 6 large attack potions, plus 2 tool aids, and 4 small mana and 2 small HP recovery potions, which leads me to suspect that he didn't leave us all that much to fight over.

What the GM did do was supply a parting pair of flutons, when he declared the event over. "The flutons' "whack-a-player" event is now starting", I commented, as quite a few people had left as soon as the loot was gone, which meant there weren't many people left to fight these two.

Over on Katar-6, my level 2 mage Keerella went along; [GM]Darasuum was again in charge, and the monsters were a remarkably similar selection. Kee went up around five levels by the end, and also died a few times. The loot was again nothing to write home about, a couple of large defence potions and one each of the other types I think. The GM didn't add the final pair of flutons this time.

It was while that event was in progress that someone called Taldea applied to be RedRackham's friend - and turned out to be Zenderfly's local Auzura agent. She asked me if I was busy, so I mentioned the "whack-a-fluton" event, and we agreed to meet up in the few minutes between the Katar event and the Cariae one, first of all so that the armour and accessories Damor had used could be transferred across to Zenderfly again. Damor had actually been "topless" in Akan Temple, but as the four other armour pieces were all +15, that hadn't mattered too much. While Barb was holding the items, I noticed that the three accessories had a lot of suction of mana and suction of life, but not a whole lot else - if she was buying them now, I think she'd hold out for some hit rate and crit rate too.

Zenderfly joined Barbarienne, in a party, for the trip out to Dratan's training grounds, for the Cariae whack-a-fluton event, though she either got disconnected, or otherwise had to leave, before the end. I had been thinking of taking Barb along, for a change, instead of a junior character that couldn't be PK'd, so that was handy. I don't really get the hang of the event from that angle, though - you buff up, enter the arena, start fighting the monsters, maybe manage to help kill one or two - and then suddenly you're dead, with no idea how it happened. The main thing is to choose the "no" option, and not use a resurrection scroll, as there is no penalty for arena deaths. There were usually a few other people respawning and rushing back, often including Zenderfly, so I could use Party Heal to get us both back up to full health - though she managed not to die as often as Barb.

One good thing to report is that Barbarienne must have been the main fighter against one particular darkmind terrain - as the message came up that her quest to kill one of those, in the Tomb of Theos, had been completed. So, that saves her from taking a special trip almost all the way to the sphinx commander room.

[GM]Darasuum was in charge, for his third consecutive server, so things were much as before. I'd taken the opportunity to log RedRackham out, and instead brought my level 4 healer FoxChaser along on the older computer to the event, so that if Barbarienne got killed just as the loot spawned, she could take her place; until the end, though, she stayed safely out of the killing area.

When Dara announced "the final fight", and spawned the loot, it was FoxChaser's turn to enter the arena, though, with the lag caused by the spawning, she picked up things awfully slowly - and ended up with 2 large defence potions and 1 large attack potion, plus 4 tool aids and 3 small HP and 2 small mana recovery potions. I let Barbarienne re-enter the arena too, and to my surprise didn't get killed yet again - there was very little fighting, as most people were concentrating on picking stuff up, so Barb did actually get 2 skill point boosters and 2 tool aids, plus 3 small mana and 2 small HP potions.

The Sarissa event overlapped with Cariae, but I managed to get MistressDomina to the Hatzring version, which had already started; it was just being held in the Randol arena, and people there were busy fighting flutons and lilits when I got there. A spawning of wafe debirches didn't last long, though black puddings from Strayana proved slightly more of a challenge, and there were more flutons and patriarch botises to come. Black Missionary Tion put in an appearance, all without a word from the anonymous GM...who finally did speak, revealing herself to be [GM]AwesomeSauce.

I asked the GM if there was any particular reason she didn't run the event at the Dratan arena, as advertised, and she replied "I find that people like to hide when in Dratan. So while I like using that arena, I want people to actually have to be out with the mobs."

"It seems such a cool place, it is a pity not to use it sometimes", I commented. "Yeah, that's why we do try to use it, but some days I just want to force a meeting of mob and hero."

It was at that point that the kamiras started to be spawned. MistressDomina kept her perfect Hatzring record of being level 1 and 0.00% by not doing any attacking, but she blatantly tried to scoop up as much kamira loot as she could, even though she did die a few times, and had to run back to the arena from the central spawning point. By the end of the event she'd got herself three hero's necklaces to use, plus 30 tool aids, 60 great healing potions, 40 medium mana potions,20 scrolls of memorising, just 5 lucky scrolls, 15 moonstones, and no less than 7 crystals of experience (greater)...not to mention 5 medals of honor! At the end, one or two people wondered why there hadn't been an official loot spawning, but the drops from all the kamiras made up for that, really, as someone who'd managed to pick up a couple of rare accessories quickly agreed.

On Tairen-6, my level 7 archer Barbarienne logged in, and found the Randol arena deserted, except for the npc teleporter to take people to Dratan's training grounds. So, that was where the GM was holding the event this time - and to my surprise, given the change of venue, it was [GM]AwesomeSauce again. However, I'd been forgetting my other Wednesday evening commitments, and wasn't able to get involved that time. I assume there were kamiras again, as well as the flutons, purple dragons, cave spirits, and so on, but can't say for sure.