More Mad Monsters

I had been planning to leave MistressDomino in merchant mode overnight on Auzura-5 to sell her last 56 pumpkins, since those basically become useless when the Halloween event ends, but at 95,000 gold each they sold almost immediately - so that was an easy five million or so. Selling the Halloween candies is less urgent, so MD logged out for the night.

In the morning, it didn't take long for RedRackham to get his current drake past the halfway mark in level 43, on Auzura-6. There was, however, a disconnection while I was out shopping after coffee, so Red lost a little time to that.

CaptainScarlet logged on for almost all of the eleven to twelve dungeon time hour, and, in a party with Red, was busy on floor two of the Jail; he added 12.50% experience, and 16 skill points, as well.

In the afternoon, my cleric Kaerella and my archer Barbarienne headed for the Tomb of Theos on Cariae-4, which was at 80% of the way towards the easy end of Condition. Tuffsen had given me the idea that she'd be along too, but I only saw her character, BadFairy, standing around in town. I was just in time for the two to three o'clock dungeon time hour, so Kaerella made that a "power hour", and just managed to get a level two Ignition run in right at the end - which helped get her to 53 experience boosters used, so that she added 21.05% in level 100, as well as 19 skill points. After the food break we didn't try another power hour, as I knew that I'd need to leave slightly before its end. In all, the session gained Kaerella 22.77% and 46 skill points, plus 3123 pet points, while Barbarienne added just 3.94%, the same 46 skill points, and a couple of percent or so for SkrappY. Barb did try a couple of kills after Kaerella logged out, but as she is seven levels above the ancient grey mummies, they gave a rather small amount of experience, and skill exp, without Kaerella's averaging-down presence.

The high-level Mad Monster Spawn was due on Auzura-6 at six o'clock, hence the need to leave the Tomb before then - and my level 94 rogue Rage went along, just about the only member of Twisted to do so - Pnewt was there, but kept to the fringes and fought the local monsters, as they are more her level. Another guildie, although bored, hadn't come as the last time they came, they died five times...

Rage managed to avoid dying, though there were times when she had to use big health potions, and times when she had to run like heck. It was a fun selection of high-level monsters, anyway, though [GM]Darasuum had some problems early on; as usual he didn't spawn a great amount of loot at the end, I think I got two skill point boosters and an item drop booster, plus the minor stuff, but it's good to get out to these events sometimes.

Barbarienne's turn came at seven; our GM on Cariae was anonymous and not particularly interactive with us, but he, or she, got the job done. Barbarienne is sixteen levels higher than Rage, which did make a difference - Rage had to rely on her Snare skill working when a hell-otuu went for her, but Barb could just tank them. She even took the brunt of a darkmind terrain's attack; that is the boss monster of the Tomb of Theos, and Barbarienne has a quest, at some point, to kill him, so it's good to know that he isn't too fearsome.

As usual the spawning of the cave spirits, the evil versions of the six main character types from the caves in Strayana, looked impossible to deal with at first, but gradually we picked ones off from the edges of their groups, until finally the place was cleared. The boss wave did include some grand red dragons again, though they went down incredibly quickly - the Cariae turn-out wasn't huge, but there must have been some high-level people involved. Our anonymous GM actually gave us a spawning of loot halfway, as well as the end lot, which was nice; I just got three each of the skill point boosters, item drop boosters, and large attack potions, along with eleven of the large defence potions.

Once that was done, there was just time for CaptainScarlet to make a solo party with RedRackham, and head directly for Maargadum Jail. While Red did a little more pet-levelling, the Captain did some intensive fighting of the two-headed canines and dire spike canines; he took up position at the back of the ground floor, and every time he was running low on targets, someone would run through from the entrance to the stairs down, bringing a new batch of hungry canines which, when he vanished down the stairs, turned their attentions to Cap. I got there just a few minutes into dungeon time, and went on for 35 minutes or so afterwards, just to get to the second level Ignition run - and CaptainScarlet gained a hectic 28.43%, plus 40 skill points.

Back in town, CaptainScarlet had a last 63 empty baskets to convert into Halloween candies - any odd remaining baskets on other characters will just have to be stored away for next year, if as expected tonight's maintenance brings the end of the Halloween event. It's a shame that this year's event wasn't as rewarding, or as much fun, as previous ones, which had tended to run for longer than two weeks as well. We will have to wait and see what the new week brings us.