Chuck Goes Up

SirPerivale did attempt to level his hatchling overnight, but a little darling came along and killed his Berserker at some point, leaving him just standing there for a while; still, the hatchling did manage a couple of levels, and was a full-grown drake at level 18 by lunchtime. CaptainScarlet resumed his pet-levelling fairly early, to continue the long march through level 36.

Straight after coffee, however, Peri took a break while MistressSabina took over. The first order of business was to transfer MistressDomino's last ten skill boxes across to her, which Sabina opened, getting three more platinum skill pills, three more platinum super skill pills, two five-packs of skill point boosters, and two of the 15% "training spell" skill pills. The pssps and xpbs were traded back to my merchant mage, the other two items can't be traded, and are just what Sabina needs if she's going to build up her supply of skill points a bit more.

After sorting that out, MistressSabina headed for Prokion Temple, this time trying the Auzura-3 sub-server first. My favourite back room was free, so I settled in, using a psp and an sp for a 115% boost to skill exp gain, so that, at level 31, the Orc Sergeants gave 9460 skill exp instead of 4400, and the Orc Axemen gave 7095 instead of 3300. All went well until about ten minutes before the end, when a sorcerer called MrBean123 barged in and started to fight the Orcs I was targeting ("ks-ing"), and generally get in the way. I hadn't intended to stay for a second hour anyway, as traditionally around half past eleven on a Friday morning, UK time, has more than its fair share of disconnections. Sabina added 18.66% experience and 294 skill points in the hour, the equivalent of 410 with a pssp.

After the lunchtime pet-levelling, it was time for a big afternoon session, with MrChuckNorris and Rage heading for the Auzura-4 Tomb of Theos. For the first hour, Chuck started a platinum blessed iris, for triple experience - and Rage started a crit potion, an adrenaline, and a power potion, all lasting an hour, plus one of the week-long health and mana boosts that came with the now-expired Party Recall card.

It wasn't a matter of Chuck just wall-hugging or keeping out of trouble, it had to be a true team-up, with Chuck attacking the Screaming Zombie Rage had lured too, and using Smite if Rage's Snare had failed, so things were rather hectic on this side of the two keyboards. My efforts were rewarded, though, and by the end of the hour Chuck had gone up from level 55 to 57, adding 192.64% experience.

Luckily a level 56 ranger-rogue called BeachNutt, from the WritersGuild, had arrived just before the hour ended, and asked if there was a party to join - she kindly waited until the pbi was over, and then we teamed up, just as the two-hour "Happy Hour" of 50% extra experience began. And we stayed partied for the whole of the two hours, except when she had a disconnection; I'd lure, she'd Snare, and if her Snare didn't work she'd quickly use Poison to show that it hadn't worked, and Chuck would use Smite.

Early on for a while a player called "ghor", a knight I think, was mobbing the Zombies, but doing it very considerately, leaving enough for me at my end of the room; later "THEonekiller" was less thoughtful, and for a time it was hard to attack a Zombie that he hadn't already got tightly clustered around him, but we persevered.

A fairly low-level rogue called m1tch3ll did want to join the party, but I had to explain that while she might only get about 20k experience from that, we would lose a whole quarter of the experience. She did change over to her titan, MITCHELL, for a while, who was I think level 49, though even that was too low to party with us. Still, I never object to ks-ers in that part of the Tomb, and we seemed to acquire a few, with Rogue4, plus fairly briefly a specialist sorcerer, and an archer called odearduzdathurt.

For the second and third hours Rage just used crit potions, which are the most useful kinds of pot there as they do greatly increase one's attack, as critical attacks don't seem to be scaled back against high-level foes the way normal attacks are. By the end, Rage too had levelled up, reaching level 71, and adding 62.88% experience in all, with her drake gaining 2172 pet points. With only 1 skill exp per kill, there weren't any skill points gained at all.

Chuck levelled up again, so that he had zoomed up to level 58, adding a further 122.02%, making 314.66% in all from the session, So, another trip to the Tomb ought to get him safely to level 60... but playing two characters there is a bit tiring, I must admit. I'm glad I boosted Rage's physical defence recently, she was always the target of the Zombie's ire, and used a lot of health potions.

After the "Happy Hour" ended, along with Rage's third crit potion, it was a matter of getting some belated food - slightly delayed first when SirPerivale, logging in, encountered Ratel in town, and was thus able to exchange his level 18 drake (2654/2830) for the level 11 white pony (734/1548) that Ratel's healer, Thabitha, had wanted boosted a bit. And then Stavanic wanted help trading some items between his account and hercules2's, but I did finally manage to get downstairs for something to eat.

I wanted something rather less hectic for the evening session, so I moved my best 30/32 mage armour set, and the new necklace with the 5% suction of life and +30% chance of a critical hit, across from Sabina to MistressBlaze. At level 35 she needs to team with someone a bit lower in level - so, who better to team with in Prokion Temple than Thabitha?

So, that's where we spent the next few hours. Thabitha went up to level 25 - and then up to level 26, too, so she can now wear most of the 30/32 armour, and use the +13 level 29 healer wand she has on loan. As she had already started when I got there, she added exactly 250 skill points in the session, while MB added 201, and went up 34.45%. As yet she doesn't have a pet to acquire pet points, though as the Orcs are blue-named for her, a pet of hers wouldn't gain anything in the Temple.

After that it was just a matter of getting CaptainScarlet back in action alongside SirPerivale. Peri had got the white pony into level 14 when a two-hour "double pet experience event" started - it had been mentioned on the website, but as being on "Friday 8th August", so we didn't really know if they meant today or tomorrow.

Just before the double pet experience started, CaptainScarlet was ks'd by a sorcerer called JebediahJones - and a couple of minutes later he came back and did it again. then killed the local Berserkers as they respawned. The first time, he in fact lured three more Berserkers up to me, and teleported out, in an attempt to set them on me. It turned out, however, that he wasn't the sort of person who does that for fun, like the darling last night - he had been pet levelling further back, and come back to the keyboard to find himself (well, you know what I mean) dead, and as Cap was the nearest person he saw, he thought I was responsible. Apparently he often uses the same spot, but goes far back into the cove, so that I'd never even known he was there.

The pale blue horse reached level 37, so Cap hurried back to Randol, got it made into a mount, and then took a pan flute to Lorraine, and then on to Jajan, where he exchanged it for a brand-new pony. Then he quickly got back to Merac to start levelling it - one has to make full use of the two hours of double pet experience, after all...