My hard work over recent days meant that I was far enough ahead to be able to log in and play some Last Chaos in the afternoon today. ColonelScarlet had kept busy overnight though, and during the morning his pale blue horse reached the start of its final level, 36, down with the gnoll lancers in south Merac.
The afternoon session starred RedRyder, since at the weekends I think Prokion Temple does get a little too busy to allow Kaerella all the orc soldiers she needs for her painstaking approach to skill point farming. As Red already had 9 skill points, she headed for the Temple on Katar-1 and continued from there, even though she already had 24.12% experience. As usual the room she goes for, with its mixture of orc soldiers and mummies, was free; there wasn't a solo party available to begin with, but before too long she was able to join one, though it ran out of members midway through the afternoon.
RedRyder's target was 233 skill points, to finish herb farming and get the first advanced level of energy gathering, and she got there after adding 55.28% experience. So, after spending the skill points, the next item on the agenda was the "suicide runs" bit... and then there was time for a further session, so after getting the buff from Elizabeth again, back Red went - this time with a target of 277 skill points. Though the target tends to be set as I go along, when I see how much time I have left, if the experience percentage will be okay, and what "special" skills are next on my list.
The 277 points were got, and RedRyder ended on 73.00% experience. For a change I went to Misty Canyon in Merac for the necessary deaths, since the recent "Epic Event" there had allowed her to add the location to her memory scroll - and with an Introducer Camio monster pretty close to the start point, it was actually a lot quicker than running through Prokion Temple. I did miss the opportunities for picking up unwanted loot, though!
As usual the reprised "Epic Event" was described on the web page as "Relive the Epic Events with [GM]Beatrice and fight by her side in the episodes leading up to the launch of Episode 2" and "This is your call to arms! Fight at the side of a fallen GM and help her destroy evil, and snuff their plot to destroy Iris! " - and as usual that was rather a big exaggeration. Previously we have at least had, most of the time, a GM of some sort around, but I don't think that they tend to work on Saturdays, there are usually no special events on that day, so all they had arranged was to have a starting announcement, put up the teleporters outside town, and fill Velpist Temple with the high-level monsters we've come to expect. There was absolutely no sign of Beatrice, no GMs giving leadership or encouragement, and no rewards spawned anywhere that I came across, so "Soul Snatchers" was a bit low-kay.
As usual Auzura, as it is geared towards more European timings, led off, and was a complete disaster. Not that just filling the place with high-level stuff doesn't have its attractions, but everyone agreed the lag was crippling. I only got disconnected once, but I gave up on getting resurrected twice and relogged. With the lag, it seemed that half the time RedRider, my local level 26 rogue, would try to cast Snare, she'd just stand there; chat was very slow to appear, and it seemed that everyone, monsters included, would just stop and stand around, frequently.
There were basically two groups of people fighting monsters; I think the bigger group must have disbanded, the group I was in did try to take on a convenient room full of monsters one at a time, but the lag really defeated us in the end. Anyone with a stock of unused skill points could be excused for getting the heck out of there, the combination of deadly monsters and heavy lag was, literally, a killer.
By then the event had already started on Katar, which, thankfully, didn't have the same lag issues. RedRyder took over the Snare-casting duties, and the server did pretty well - it wasn't a matter of ignoring side rooms to press forward, by the end we had cleared out every last monster we could find, except for one stuck in a wall. Someone actually recognised me as the blogger here - the mage WitheredLover told me she had read every post, which must have taken a while, and added Red to her Friends list. If you've read all through the archives at kaerella.blogspot.com, well, the archives at kaerella.com go back even further! "You've got so many characters", WitheredLover commented, which does have a certain ring of truth about it.
Red spent about an hour there, so I was late for the start on Cariae, too, with Karella as my rogue in attendance. At level 27 she's ahead of the other two, and is able to wear the whole +10 armour set; today's event allowed her to add three more bloodseals, at least, including one for her +15 crossbow. Still, when the foes you are fighting are a hundred or so levels above you, the difference between a +10 and a +15 weapon, and +4 or +10 armour, is relatively unimportant.
As before I did hear some complaints about lag, but there was nothing like the problem poor Auzura had had. I don't think the turn-out can have been as good as on Katar, as we didn't, at least by about 9:20 when I left, clean out the whole Velpist Temple; the group I was with, which was probably the last and main group, did however manage to clear out the "throne room", the place where normally the highest-level skeletons hang out, and where the "torn book of life" quest for Ichi and Scra-Chi pets gets advanced. Anubis Occultists and Archers, Sphinx Commanders, a Black Pudding, Flutons - the final Patriarch Botis gave us a lot of trouble, he must have killed me three times at least, but I had plenty of time to run back. We were relying on a high-level titan, HENON, to be our main tank and damage-doer, and his game froze, so that he just stood there for a while and then vanished; luckily he hurried back to us, but while he was away we did very little damage.
We had three rogues, including Karella, so managed to keep the big monster under control most of the time - but when he did get loose, mayhem ensued. Still, once Henon was back, we gardually wore him down - and the room was clear. We were a group rather than a party, including Dark001, EarlMcBaller, RoyalPrince, and readsonyaxx, but we mainly seemed to decide to quit then, as a natural finishing point.
ColonelScarlet had kept busy meanwhile, of course; while RedRider was lagging so badly, he had his own problems, I suddenly noticed that a level 50 Pandora Beast was attacking. Luckily, the Beast had chosen to attack his horse first - it was hurting it, but pets only take a single damage point per blow, if it had attacked the Colonel, he would probably have died before I realised anything was wrong. I quickly moved the Colonel across from the gnoll lancers to the bandits and berserkers - by then the horse had lost 14 health points, but when it levels up, those will instantly be regained.
However, that levelling-up, to get the horse to 37, so that it can become a suitable mount for MistressDomino, won't happen tonight; there will still be about an hour to go. Leaving the work going overnight would be a bit of a waste, but hopefully there will be enough time tomorrow. As usual with one of my "busy Sundays" I won't even be switching on the computers until the evening. I see that there will be the next "epic event", so I'll miss the Auzura trip to Prokion Temple for "The Binding Process". Katar's event will start at seven, which ought to be do-able; I see that the Cariae version, and the subsequent Sarissa and Hatzring ones, have been put back an hour to fit in the Sunday Quiz, which seems fair enough.
Mentioning the Quiz reminds me that Ratel was telling me a few days ago how he got cut off shortly before a Sunday Quiz, a fortnight back - he reached his maximum bandwidth for November, and was only able to return to us when the new month began. I thought he had been quiet lately, but we do tend to be on different servers. He'll need to cut back on his pet-levelling if he wants to stay with us throughout December...
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