John Gets His Armour

You can tell I was running a bit late last night, and getting sleepy - I forgot to mention how MistressDomina and MistressBlaze got on in their evening session with Ratel. MD added just 14.97%, plus 822 pet points, while MB went up by 29.63%, and added another 1526 guild points for Discipline. I think I can unlock her now! They each gained a pair of skill points, too.

CaptainScarlet attempted an overnight pet-levelling, but someone killed his Berserker about halfway through. Scrolling back, someone called xXFangtasiaXx saying "oh hell sorry" may be relevant. The drake did reach level 32, though.

That was perhaps an omen which I should have heeded, but I went ahead with plans to make use of the last of the half hour "upgrade events", scheduled for 11:00am UK time. As that was 3:00am as far as the Aeria offices were concerned, it was perhaps not surprising that there was no announcement made in-game when the time came for the event to start. A quick trip to the Last Chaos forum ShoutBox informed me that there was not going to be an announcement, but that the event was running automatically, so, trusting fool that I am, I went ahead and tried to upgrade some armour.

I used runes of protection from upgrade boxes, so nothing broke, but nothing much succeeded either; twelve attempts, using runes and heaven stones, did increase one shirt by +1, but a pair of gloves actually ended up down by one, so that I had to use a lucky smelting stone to repair that damage, since luckily it was only a fall from +6 to +5, when a LSS can be used. I never even got on to trying to upgrade that healer armour set a bit more.

GameSage Giovanna_X's guide to upgrading does, I see, recommend using normal smelting stones on +6 to +9 items, I see, as, while they only have a 1 in 3 chance of upgrading an item, unlike a heaven stone's 1 in 2 chance, they don't apparently have the risk of downgrading an item. A rune of protection I is also needed to prevent breakage, but it does seem like something worth remembering, and normal smelts do tend to be cheaper than heaven stones.

The general feeling in the ShoutBox was that it had all been "a waste of effort", and I think I'd go along with that. It meant no time for any actual adventuring in the morning. I did at least have Memree and CaptainScarlet trade her level 1 hatchling for his level 32 drake, so she is now fully equipped pet-wise. Cap then traded the hatchling across to SirPerivale and took the pale blue horse, which soon reached level 25, in exchange, before Cap and Peri both headed down to Merac for a slightly extended lunch break.

After lunch, it seemed a good idea to go back to getting my sorcerer JohnWellington up to level 31, teamed with MistressSabina, in Prokion Temple. I was rather hoping that this wouldn't take the whole afternoon, but it did; it being the weekend there was no visit from ol' Grabby, but a level 23 mage called RIPeices did poke her head in, before wisely deciding that the corridor outside was more her speed, and we did chat generally, and ended up adding each other to our Friends lists. A level 29 mage called daguardian tried a few Orcs by the doorway; at least she said she was level 29 when RIPeices asked, though she wasn't wearing the 30/32 armour set, and thus was very sensible not to come any further in.

The scheduled time for the new "day" to start, with double experience, skill exp, and pet points, was six o'clock, UK time, but as there was nothing else going on, after that morning "upgrade event", someone kindly got into the Aeria office early enough to switch it on at about five to four. Which was lucky, as even with that doubling the speed of experience and skill exp gain, JohnWellington didn't reach level 31, and get his free +10 armour and weapons, until just about my usual food break starting time. So, that is one more goal reached, though, with less urgency, I do also want to get him to level 32 to start learning some specialist sorcerer skills. He logged out, having gained 73.19% experience and 293 skill points, a total helped along by using one of his "beginner" platinum super skill pills for an hour.

MistressSabina had added 19.14%, 204 skill points, and 330 guild points by then, and stayed in Prokion Temple over the food break, while CaptainScarlet logged in and went to Merac to make some use of the double pet experience. He joined Sabina in the Temple after that, doing some fighting, though with his red name he doesn't hit very hard. As he was active, the "run out of memory" thing came up rather more quickly than it did when John just stood quietly in a corner, but with his armour rating he can run back to the room easily enough.

Once MistressSabina hit level 35, the amount of experience got from killing a level 27 Orc Axeman really plunged, so it seemed like a good idea to give her a rest, until a new lower-level companion can be found. By then she had added another 19.65% and 233 skill points, thanks to the double rations, along with 193 more guild points for Discipline.

For a change, it was my level 32 royal knight GALAHAD who logged in to take her place, and hurried to join CaptainScarlet. The target was to get Cap to level 32, and to get him enough skill points to be able to upgrade the Discipline guild to level seven, plus enough for the first few levels of the temple knight passive skill Wall of Belief. And that's what we managed to do - in all Cap gained 45.67% and 307 skill points, while Galahad, coming later, added 13.02% and 95 skill points. With his dual-sword attack he certainly cut through the Orcs very quickly, and even without using a shield his armour was good enough to mean that he didn't take any noticeable damage.

Back in town, MistressDomino transferred the 2,500,000 gold needed for the guild upgrade across to CaptainScarlet, and Sabina temporarily made him the guild master; he went to the north gate's guard captain and arranged the upgrade, using that much gold, 550 of his skill points (for some reason I was thinking it would be 720), and 18,000 guild points, which still leaves us 2,911 towards the next skill, a new "expension" of the guild size that costs 6,000 guild points and 200,000 gold. That's probably as far as I'll want to take Discipline, to go up to level eight would cost about 9% more than this level-up did. But heck, if we find we do have 19,620 guild points going spare eventually, I may well be tempted.

Cap handed the guild master position back to Sabina, who was able to get herself level six of the Secret Study passive mage skill, now that she is level 35; for 150 skill points she has increased her magic attack by 6. It may not be a lot, but it all helps. Cap had enough skill points left for the first four levels of Wall of Belief, spending 111 skill points to add 105 to his physical defence stat. Level five, adding another 50, will cost another 216 skill points, 117 more than he currently has available.

There was still time for a relatively short trip into the great outdoors, so MistressDomina logged in, teamed up with MistressBlaze, and the pair of them headed for the Sphinx types on Auzura-4. I was surprised to find the place deserted - no rogues about at all! Still, MD settled in and killed the Sphinx Fighters and Sphinx Speer Men one by one, so that, by the time the session reached its conclusion, MD had added 9.84% and 2 skill points, plus 842 pet points, which were enough to get her drake up to level 37. MB, as she is twelve levels lower, added rather more experience, percentage-wise - 38.85%, plus a single skill point. MistressDomina also finished adding the bloodseals to her armour set; now she just needs another 55% experience, so that she can start to use her level 57 staff...

SirPerivale and CaptainScarlet quickly headed off to Merac for pet-levelling, to take as much advantage of the double pet experience as possible. When last seen, Cap had got the pale blue horse close to level 26, while Peri had got the new hatchling up to level 6, although its Sympathy, which starts on a new pet at only 50%, was still only 80%. A Pandora's Box was nudging at their heels, but luckily when Cap opened it, it just produced some magical attack minerals, rather than a ravening Beast.