I had been thinking that it was about time ColonelScarlet pet-levelled overnight, and had gone so far as to log him in over on the newer computer, but, switching off the older one I noticed that it had some Microsoft updates to install - and, sure enough, the more modern machine had some lurking in wait, too. Given that they tend to run out of patience and manners during the night and install themselves, complete with restarting the computer, it didn't seem worth trying for any more pet-levelling then, so both computers were powered down until the morning.
Still, the Colonel hurried down to the Berserkers and Bandits on Katar-4 before breakfast, and set to work continuing the pale blue horse's progress through level 34, which he did throughout the morning, and over lunch.
There was just time in the later part of the morning for Kaerella to fit in an hour's pssp-use in Prokion Temple on Katar-4, and as before I avoided the five Orc Sergeants completely, and just concentrated on the Orc Axemen. It was strange, while nothing about Kae's armour or accessories had changed, the Orcs were hitting harder today, and I had to use Self Heal quite frequently, or occasionally a small healing potion so as not to interrupt my attacks. Sometimes Prokion Temple does change like that, for no reason.
However, the change wasn't completely bad; as well as getting attacked more fiercely, I must have been attacking harder as well (or maybe it was defence rather than attack which had changed?), as Kae went up by 28.52% experience, and 429 skill points - for 11% more kills than yesterday. 1001 pet points were added as well, though there were times when Kae's poor drake was getting attacked so much that it had to be taken off.
ColonelScarlet did get ks'd once over lunchtime, but kept going after that, with the horse moving determinedly on into level 35. He was on Katar-4, so couldn't party with RedRyder in the afternoon, as she was on Katar-1 so that she could benefit from Elizabeth's experience and skill exp doubling buff. MistressDomino logged on for some merchant mode time, and managed to sell all 15 heaven stones at 1.85 million each fairly quickly, plus quality stones and green herb leaves at 3,500 gold each.
RedRyder had a good long productive afternoon session in Prokion Temple, moving from level 15 right on to level 22 - a gain of 639.02% experience, with a further 9.38% afterwards from quest rewards. 565 skill points were gained, and they all got spent back in Randol. Some of the new quests seem actually to be working now, and the Master Rogue skill trainer gave Red a very useful accessory, which, once identified using the magnifying glass he also supplied, was revealed to give 16 dexterity and add 168 to long range physical hit rate (so not so good if you opt to use daggers rather than a crossbow), 112 to close range evasion, and an increase to the chance of making a critical hit of 20. The downside is that it won't work after Red reaches level 35.
After the food break, Auzura was the first server to have a Thanksgiving Day Parade, since today is, for the USA, that particular holiday. While I did see [GM]Kali standing at the spawning area in town (and she was either wearing a "Scream" mask, or just isn't a morning, Pacific Time, kind of person), the Parade itself was led by [GM]Noboru, presumably brought in specially from some other Aeria game. Firecrackers and transformation scrolls were dropped; my level 67 archer on that server, Kaerella, managed to pick up a Dire Wolf scroll, and so prowled around for a while as an oversized wolf, but there were sasquatches, jaguars, and drakes too. The scroll didn't seem to last all that long, perhaps five minutes - something to bear in mind if I use a Dratan one, such as a sand golem or harpy, to try to get a character to the sphinx types or the entrance to the Tomb of Theos.
A "treasure hunt" event a day or two back had given out fox tails with a "999" marking, which could be exchanged at the Parade with a GM for unspecified goodies; I don't know what people got, though the only person to get vocal about it was a bit disappointed. After a finale letting off plenty of firecrackers, Kae logged out - and RedRyder logged back in. After checking around town, she headed for the north gate - only to find it blocked by endemic demons. I raised the alarm, and more qualified people rushed over to deal with them, and with some anubis spear men. I helped, and was able to use my new Snare skill, even though it was only level 3 at the time. One spear man did kill me, so it was lucky I'd spent all my skill points; I rushed back and helped finish him off, getting back more experience than I had lost.
I was slightly tempted to do what Kae had done and die multiple times in Prokion Temple to get back to 0% of that level, but instead decided to head back there just to level up a bit more, after buying some herb-gathering knives and mining hammers and using my supply of tool aids to stock up on green herb leaves and quality stones, as Red had finally got herself a hatchling. I wasn't back there all that long, I suppose, when I got disconnected, and ColonelScarlet too - I thought it was at this end, but when I got back, and found myself still in the same solo party, another member mentioned it had happened to him as well. Strangely when I got to Dratan, the party bars one normally sees on-screen reappeared (often disconnecting or crashing doesn't make one leave a party)... and then a minute later vanished again, replaced by the same people's names in a small box, with instead of "party" as the tag, "fellowship". And then came a pop-up that the fellowship was dispanding in 20 seconds, and the party was over.
The disconnection had rolled me back a bit, so that I had less quality stones, and still a couple of mining hammers and a tool aid in my inventory. That wasn't too bad, but three-quarters of an hour after that disconnection came another one, at 8:20 UK time, and this was the serious, "lock-in" type, where when you try to log back in you are told "the account is already logged in", and thus you can't do anything at all, at least with that account. It's lucky I had others to choose from! The shoutbox was soon telling us that it was being worked on, as more and more people reported the problem with Katar-1.
As I'd rather expected, to celebrate Thanksgiving in a suitably capitalistic way Aeria announced a 50% bonus sale of aeria points, so I was in line to top up my balance. As an extra bonus, if one spent at least 1000 ap during the event, there would be a special gift as well, of 300 item drop boosters, 20 tower boxes, 5 lucky spell books, and 50 damage boosters. I'd just about decided that I needed to buy some resurrection scrolls on Katar, so this was a good time to buy the "Best of Both Worlds" package from the in-game item mall, which had 15 of them. For not much more than the price of buying them individually, the package also has 3 each of the platinum super skill pills and the platinum blessed irises, and 75 each of the experience and skill point boosters, so is all useful stuff.
Katar's Thanksgiving Parade was on Katar-4, at 9:00pm UK time, and Kaerella was able to go along; [GM]Krash was in charge now, and seemed more generous with his firecrackers and transformation scrolls; I turned into a jaguar this time, and also later into a great lumbering sasquatch. It was fun - and afterwards Kae was able to trade some items across to MistressDomino, in exchange for her latest cash takings. And, to my relief, RedRyder was by then "unlocked" and able to log in, and move some loot across too - but she had been "rolled back" to before the start of her last trip to Prokion temple, she'd not even sold the loot from before, so that had to be done again.
There was just time to attend the Cariae-4 Parade as well, as Barbarienne for a change; this time Krash was assisted by Kali, and I transformed into a jaguar again, picking up a few spare scrolls for future use. Lots more firecrackers were let off, and, with Thanksgiving felicitations exchanged, it was time to log off, with MistressDomino back on Katar going into merchant mode again for a while, and ColonelScarlet back at work on his horse, which passed the two-thirds mark in level 35.
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