More Pandora Beasts

SirDarth's latest attempt to have an all-night pet-levelling session was not a success; two disconnections meant that in fact he had less than an hour's worth of actual Berserker-bashing, and after the second one I decided that it would just be a good idea to switch off the computer, and give the modem an hour or two's rest.

Still, when work restarted, it wasn't long before our horse reached level 21.  SirPerivale started a bit later with his efforts to level Stavinac's latest pet, but that one reached level 16 by mid-morning.  Looking around at about 10:30, I spotted a Pandora's Box a little downhill from his Butcher spot, and, having despatched his current foe, Peri gave himself Divine Shield, and cautiously approached.  If it disgorged a level 50 Pandora Beast he'd have to run for it, and call for Kaerella to come; if a level 30 type appeared, he'd be able to fight it, it being little stronger than a Butcher; and if it dropped a treasure, well, he'd just need to pick it up. 

Sometimes the drop is just ten small healing potions, though once it has been ten medium ones, which are a bit more useful.  Once it was a level 61 weapon, a Zentian Sword.  It can be five magical or physical attack or defence minerals, level twelve, which are apparently rather valuable - I have seen them on sale for 100,000 gold each or more, but I don't know if people actually pay that much for them.  This time, for a change, however, it was five moonstones.

With SirDarth's horse set to reach level 22 at around the same time that Peri's horse reaches level 17, one might think that we were approaching the time when they could both be fighting everlasting Berserkers rather than all-too-frail Butchers.  SirDarth would be okay with a level 17 horse to give an Armour Increase buff of 135 to defence, with his +6 armour and shield adding 150 defence to the basic armour, but Peri's armour and shield are just +3, adding 68, so a level 22 horse's Armour Increase buff of 160 would be too low to protect him.  In fact, anything more than a single level short of the full thirty levels of Armour Increase, which gives a buff of 250 to defence, would be a bit risky.

Anyway, after Stavinac decided to let his horse level up a bit further, and it reached level 17, I swapped it over to SirDarth, so that it could be levelled without interruptions on a Berserker; by the end of the evening level 20 had been reached.  Various loot items got traded over to MistressDomino - and the level 35/37 titan armour set I'd picked up cheaply, all +4 except for the +3 helm, got traded across to Rage, along with Kae's old level 37 +13 bow.  

Collector Ryu converted the bow into a crossbow for 162,000 gold for Rage, and the armour set for a total of 216,000; I used a lucky smelting stone to get the rogue Rugged Hood, as it was now, up to +4 too.  And then with a few bloodseal gems on board, Rage headed out to that upstairs back room in Prokion Temple for the rest of the afternoon.

Without a "Teatime" bonus or the Blessed Rewards, things were a bit slower, but 51.59% experience got added, which was enough to get Rage to level 32, at which point she could put on the boots and hood.   1601 pet points were enough to get her pet horse up to level 24 - and 193 skill points came in useful, as back in town I spent 1113 of them, on the first levels each of Master Weaponsmith and Master Armoursmith (255 sp), and all five levels each of two new passive skills, Sharpen (327 sp, for an extra 5% chance of a critical hit) and Improved Mana (276 sp, for 405 more mana points, so that Rage now has 1012 in all).

After the break Rage went out to Prokion Temple again; the back room was in use, so I moved around a bit, with most time being spent on the gallery around the central stairs.  Jacqueline came online after a while, and came out to Prokion too, joining the party with me and SirDarth, who of course was still busy over in Merac with Stavanic's horse.  As Jacqui is frozen on level 25 she didn't actually join me upstairs though... and after a while there was an announcement that hordes of Pandora's Beasts had been sighted on our sub-server in Juno, Merac and Dratan.  I said that I'd be heading to Merac... as the main boost from the Beasts is experience, Jacqui decided to switch to Ratel, and we met up in Merac at the first group just outside town.

As last time, it was a mixture of ghostly level 30 Bandit-types and level 50 Larva-types, and, helped along by Ratel's Divine Shield, we did okay, carefully picking off the level 50 ones one by one.  There were other people there too, so the Pandies didn't last too long - afterwards we headed off to the northwest, and soon found a new group, in the same place that Kaerella had found them a couple of days ago.

It was dangerous work, and Rage came pretty close to death a number of times.  Ratel did actually die once, losing about 30 skill points; he was a bit annoyed, as he, as a Temple Knight, is supposed to be a tank, but hey, the Pandies were 18 levels above us.  There were a couple of the Box-released level 50 ones around too, like ghostly Blood Frenzies, and they kindly yielded up useful amounts of gold when killed.

We decided not to try to find any more groups, and returned to town - we both had the same local quests flagged up, so we both ended up out by Rau up in the north-east part of the map, and dealt with the three assorted elites there, the bandit, berserker and highlander types, for a few minutes.  I then suggested adding the spot with the four level 40 Elite Frenzied Berserkers to our memory scrolls, and, after a mounted "pet return to village", led the way to them.  We were a good few levels lower than Kae had been when she fought them, but with the two of us, and Divine Shield, plus Ratel's stun skill and my Snare, we continued there until Ratel had to log out for the night.

As usual, he had thoughtfully given me a last Divine Shield buff before leaving, so I made the most of that.  And then, well, we had seen when we rode past Maargadum Jail that there was an untouched mob of Pandora's Beasts there, so I rode back, and, while all the level 30 ones had been disposed of, there were still quite a few of the higher-level types to be seen.  So, I managed to get rid of them - easy enough when Snare worked, but even at level five, its maximum, it only works 70% of the time, so there were some more close-run things.  I did the running, and the things got too close!  Still, I just about avoided being killed, and, well, it tidied the place up a bit.

A pretty varied evening session, then, and one that added another 58.68% experience, making 110.27% in all today.  116 more skill points brought today's haul up to 309, though I spent so many that my stash of unused points fell by 804 - and a further 1330 pet points got that total up to 2931.  Rage's new armour set is now fully bloodsealed, but I need another 40% before the new level 37 +13 crossbow can replace the level 29 one.  That will need to be bloodsealed too, I must remember to buy five more bloodseal gems in Randol.