MistressSabina Meets an Old Friend

The usual attendance times were done in the morning; MistressDomina, while mining, had a chat with godofbeasts, who had been in the Auzura Tomb yesterday - I don't entirely see the point, even if you are careful enough not to get killed, your rate of killing is slowed right down, so that using pots and boosters for a "power hour" just becomes uneconomical.

Various items of loot were traded around to my merchant mages on Cariae and Auzura, and once again all available lotus seeds were used to attempt to make moon cakes - I got 9 cakes from 11 tries, which seems pretty good. The moon cakes increase movement and attack speed for five minutes, so are rather useful to combine with a red ignition run, for example.

I had some work to get on with during the morning, so SirGalahad continued with his mining beyond his half hour, and CaptainScarlet took his level 45 drake down to the fifth floor of Maargadum Jail again. Unsurprisingly there was a disconnection soon after ten o'clock; it is the time of day when such things tend to happen, and I'd say that Tuesday was a more likely day for it than most. There were the usual grumbles in the shoutbox; SirGalahad disconnected at about 10:20am UK time, though luckily CaptainScarlet kept going safely. I suppose the actual mining of a stone is an event big enough to need some connection to the server, but just fighting a death mask lancer, without killing it or using skills, doesn't produce any appreciable traffic. Someone in the shoutbox had dropped 80 million gold, a tears of knight accessory, and G5 +15 level 85 daggers on the ground, to change accounts and rush back to pick them up, but the server lag meant he couldn't get back in time. No wonder he said he wanted to cry...

The Palicomp computer had another problem late in the morning; the monitor goes dark after a while to save power if nothing is happening, and when I moved the mouse to bring it back to life, instead I got a bleep and a restart, with the option to choose the "last good" state. More drivers were downloaded, and then when the message subsequently was that no graphics drivers were installed, they were installed again. Maybe ATI are working on a new fix for all this, and things will settle down before long...

RedRackham went down to do some pet-levelling on the new computer, since sparring with a death mask lancer there is virtually risk free, if the game does close suddenly; and MistressSabina logged in on the middle machine after lunch, to visit the giants again on Auzura-6, in a general party with him.

The session was a little late starting, but had one welcome visitor - after she had neglected me for so long, Kamira, Dratan's raid boss, dropped by. As Sabina has to run around so much, she was actually not in range to get the warning message of the "road boss" arrival, and I only spotted her in the distance when I moved back that way. Luckily there was time for me to switch over to Kaerella and quickly ride out to the location, apply horse buffs and fast bow fixing, and attack, before she decided to leave. There wasn't any rare accessory dropped, but the usual lucky scrolls, moonstones, tool aids, and various potions are always welcome.

After that, MistressSabina logged back on, re-made the party with RedRackham, got the Elizabeth's Enhancement buff again, and returned to the giants, until it was time for the food break. Her drops took her gold reserve over the 200k mark, so she is definitely in the market for a better necklace or other accessory; on the experience side she added 13.58%, along with 89 skill points, moving things along usefully.

MistressSabina went out for the evening session too, and eventually reached level 52, which meant that she could at last wear the whole of the 55/57 set, which has three names - Prua's gloves and boots, Tenshain's circlet, and Kirnitooth's shirt and skirt. Her new physical defence stat is 1386, up from 1264, which ought to make life easier. She is now the same level as the giants, so will get the maximum possible skill exp from them, too.

Back in Randol, MistressSabina was able to learn the second level of Burning Flame, for just 13 skill points: "the skill to burn an opponent and then deal damage to it for a while". It increases its power from 100 to 200, though the mana it takes goes up by 50%. The next level, at 62, will take the power to 300, which sounds a bit more useful. Sabina also had the ingredients to attempt to make five moon cakes; this time, we got three successes from Lorraine.

Sabina went back out to the giants for a few more minutes, and by the end of the evening had added in all 18.32%, 122 skill points (or109, taking those spent into account), and 1351 pet points. Her skill point total is very close to the highest it ever was, in fact, just before some sp-expensive skills came along. And her gold reserves have topped 218 million now.

RedRackham had kept busy on Auzura-6 levelling his pale blue horse, so that by the end of the evening it was approaching the midpoint in level 36; Red did get ks'd a couple of times, something which CaptainScarlet, on the less busy fourth sub-server, avoided. Cap's drake was also a short way below the middle of its level, 45, but still has some way to go before it can be passed to MrChuckNorris.