Temple Business

Once again SirGalahad went to Tairen-1's Prokion Temple for an hour or so after coffee in the morning, and fought the orc soldiers and orc fighters, before a level 27 healer called GhOsTRiDeR came along and suggested we team up, and move along to the level 27 orc axemen, which seemed a good idea to me, though she was very much an archer rather than a cleric-type, and didn't give healing a very high priority. When I queried why she didn't have the Elizabeth's Enhancement buff, she said that she had died a little earlier.

She talked to a mage who was in the Trio guild, and, although she was currently in Tairen's version of uberguild Vendetta, it seems her task is to manage Trio here, an offshoot of a major Cariae guild. It all gets complicated! She seems to want SirGalahad, or some active character of mine, to join, when it is properly set up, which could be interesting. Gal might well have enough skill points left over to help with the guild upgrading.

By lunchtime, SirGalahad had gone up by 104.69%, taking him into level 27, and added 135 skill points; he had spent 60 upgrading the Discipline guild to level 3 before setting out, having managed to scrape together the 250,000 gold needed. Gal's finances received a boost when GhOsTRiDeR bought his three heaven stones at 100,000 gold each - people are trying to sell them for a lot more than that in Randol, but at the time Ghost's declaration that that was a reasonable price seemed, well, reasonable.

SirGalahad stayed in Prokion Temple over lunch, and then finished off the remainder of the three-hour "Elizabuff", before logging out. That shorter session, mainly against orc axemen, added another 31.55% and 66 skill points, plus a few pet points as he also equipped the pony to help increase his defence. Back in Randol, after selling the loot drops, he was just able, thanks to the 300,000 from GhostRider, to scrape together the 500,000 gold needed to get Discipline to level four; the 120 skill points needed were no problem. The next level for the guild will need a whole million, plus 240 skill points; Gal will also need to be level 30 at least to do it.

Aftre a little moving around of armours between characters, SirGalahad switched to the older computer, and went out into Merac for the first time, to hunt level 28 butchers - bare-handed of course, why rush these things? Conveniently, he got a quest to kill those particular creatures, and deliver 10 Orders of Beradben to Great Magician Minearm, but the main thing was to level up his pony a bit more.

Over on the newer computer, RedRyder was able to head for Prokion Temple, in a solo party with Gal, where it didn't take all that long to move up from level 17 to level 20. The "Sunday teatime" started promptly at four o'clock, UK time, and was extra skill exp - either 50% more or 75% more, the website is a bit schizophrenic about that. So, for the last half hour of the session I had that useful extra boost, and while adding 344.97% experience Red got 204 skill points.

I got back from my food break before the end of the teatime bonus, so got a bit more of a boost for the evening session. I soon graduated to the room with just mummies and one orc soldier, but the tendency in Prokion, at least on Tairen-1, is for people to burst on in and make themselves at home, so I generally had to share the place with another rogue or two - mainly OhMyGod, who is getting all her skills maxxed at level 20, she told me. I recommended Misty Canyon as a good place to die quickly! When she returned from her suicide runs, having before that finished learning mining, I remarked, "As in 'OhMyGod not you again'?" We saw a mage called Jesus, in a guild called Heaven - would she be the GM of it, I wonder?

One skill I had been able to learn in Randol before setting out was all five levels of Snare, which came in handy with the orc soldier, who did tend to do me a bit of damage on those occasions when it didn't work. I'd also gone on a spending spree - well, I'd bought Red level 27 rogue pants, to add to the shirt, hood and boots that had been picked up as loot, mainly by SirGalahad. So, when RedRyder levelled up to 21 she was able to start wearing the level 26 Guardian shirt and pants, followed at level 22 by the level 27 hood and boots. She's still wearing the level 15 gloves, but at least they are +4. The shirt replaced the level 6 one she had been wearing until then - she is still using the level 13 castle crossbow +4. Well, cash was tight...

It was a substantial session, and by the time I logged out there was only about 20 minutes left of the three-hour "Elizabuff"...and SirGalahad had been busy in Merac with the butchers too. Red went up another 371.23%, moving well into level 24, and 616 skill points, all but one of which got spent back in town on skills, mainly the passive ones. She is still not at maximum on quite a few skills, with the level 25 ones soon becoming available, but that's what happens when you can't do that "50% of experience donated to your guild as guild points" deal. Once she is level 31, we'll sort out the sp shortage, involving a few trips to Misty Canyon.

RedRyder also equipped her dragon hatchling for the later part of that evening session, so that the little fellow is level 2 now. But time had moved on, and the Sunday evening quiz was looming.

I decided to go to the quiz on Tairen, as the heaven stones would make the gold situation for SirGalahad a bit easier - and the tool aids would be useful too, to help keep the pony fed. Out of habit, I went to the second sub-server, which was remarkably empty, so I didn't feel the need for MistressDomino and Kaerella to take off their armour to reduce lag. We might have had as many as thirty people there by the time the quiz actually started - or a few more if you count the "conga lines" of one or two people who were apparently running multiple clients of the game, leading to weird groupings of identical titans and healers.

Kaerella was one of the first people to move when the questions were asked, and I think a number of people did end up following my lead - thankfully we didn't have any of the harder questions this time, so just about everyone survived to the end, and got their rewards.

I noticed that the price of the "buying all your HS at the moon statue" people was 300,000 gold, so obviously prices had moved on since mid-day. SirGalahad did go into merchant mode for a few minutes, and sold three heaven stones at 400,000 each, which means that we will be okay for upgrading the Discipline guild to level five...though we can't do that until Gal hits level thirty.

After that, Gal went back to the butchers in Merac for a while, so that the pony moved on into level 14. Once again there don't seem to be any zombie invasions going on, so that was the end of my activities in the Land of Iris for the day. All the GMs seemed to be involved in was a second raffle for polar bear pets, involving buying a pack of either 25 experience or skill boosters for 199 aeria points as your raffle ticket. Perhaps the bears will appear for sale directly, after the next maintenance, or maybe they figure that they can do another raffle or two first...

Anyway, SirGalahad reached level 27 today, and RedRider reached level 24 - it may well soon be time for them to do some teaming up in Prokion Temple, though to do that I probably ought to concentrate first on getting Gal to level 31. It is a shame that rogues don't have any buffs they can give people; they don't seem to even have any buffs they can give themselves, which makes playing them nice and simple.