A New Recruit

My usual crew put in their attendance half hours before coffee; some mining was involved, mainly by the second three - and by SirGalahad, who tends to come along last. Gal actually used 30 tool aids and 30 pick axes, to mine a good quantity of quality stones, which he then traded across to CaptainScarlet - who of course headed for Maargadum Jail on Auzura-4 for some serious pet-levelling.

Over on Cariae, Kaerella headed for the Tomb, and found it at an acceptable 80%, so she and Barbarienne went in, and headed for the ancient grey mummies. There was a night shadow there when I arrived, but we soon scared him off...or at least, he left us to it.

The morning session just added 0.88%, 16 skill points and 1784 pet points for Kaerella, and 0.74% plus 15 skill points for Barbarienne; to stop Barb from levelling up too soon I'd put her experience gain on to a 50% freeze, which was easy to do as she is currently the guild master of Norcaine on Cariae.

I was fairly active in the forum shoutbox today, including telling FogDew about "Last of the Summer Wine" and Foggy Dewhurst, since his name always reminds me of that character. He actually paid me a visit in the Tomb, as the temple knight SirGwainne.

A little later the sorcerer XxAvatarAptxX arrived, followed before too long by NaOmi, and they played for most of the rest of the day, though NaOmi left at about nine, to be replaced a little later by another Maurawan member, the mage cosma. Neither Avatar nor NaOmi really still need skill points, they just find the ancient grey mummies fun to hang out with apparently...Avatar is 103, and NaOmi is level 110 now.

During the afternoon session, Kaerella added another 1.77%, 36 skill points, and 3376 pet points - and Barbarienne gained 1.41%, and 34 skill points. She had the polar bear cub equipped, which meant she got a number of drops, including armour pieces and heaven stones.

Zenderfly got in touch a bit earlier than expected to trade items from Itura and Damor across to HeavenKnight; I was just thinking that I ought to log CaptainScarlet out for a rest, so that fitted in rather neatly. My level 92 royal knight SirKit logged in on Cariae-6, and did the trade for Zen; some of her items "stacked" with things he was already carrying, so I'm not sure she got all the health or mana potions she gave Kit, but she certainly got the main items. He then moved across to Cariae-4, and headed for the Tomb, to make his own visit to Kae and Barb... with the drops they'd been getting, their inventories were just about full, so they both traded their armour drops across to him, and he then logged out.

That was more convenient than Kaerella or Barbarienne going back to town - and cheaper too, as admission to the Tomb is normally 3,000 gold per level, and SirKit is eight levels lower than Kae. After that, I closed and then restarted the game on the old computer, and then CaptainScarlet was able to go back to his death mask lancer in Maargadum Jail.

As usual the evening session was the longest; we were scheduled to have a couple of hours of double skill exp starting from six o'clock, which was one reason for me wanting to be playing Kaerella and Barbarienne at that time. As usual, the GMs hadn't set their alarm clock, but we managed to get the message through, and the double skill exp started just after 6:20, UK time. Luckily, it kept going until ten, when my duo finally logged out.

The evening session had let Kaerella earn a further 2.71%, 97 skill points and 4819 pet points; Barbarienne was up by 2.13%, and 89 skill points. Our polar bear cub had done well, too, going up from level 17 to 21.

I thought that was my lot, but just as I was about to log off, MexiGer, who I'd been chatting with in the shoutbox, and who had been busy all day getting the game downloaded and sorted out, with the help of andaro and others, managed to get the game working properly at last. He wanted to get one character power-levelled in the guardian system, to get the +15 weapons, so Keerella recruited him as an apprentice, went out to the Tomb entrance, and used her last summon book to get him there. Kee fought enough screaming zombies to get him to level 25 - 31 would have been ideal, for the +10 armour set, but there are limits to how late I can stay awake! He plans to farm skill points on a different knight, GerMex, so he was invited to join the Discipline guild on that character by Kaerella, and had his experience gain half-frozen.

By the time all that was sorted out, it was pretty late... but CaptainScarlet had faithfully kept working, so that his drake was more than 40% of the way through level 48 by then.