An Unexpected Invitation

I did actually play a little more "Grand Fantasia" yesterday, enough to get my Kaerella character there up to level ten, and to let my faithful sprite do some more mining and gathering, plus training, which I feel is likely to be a Good Thing. It still all feels rather unintuitive to me, though. Overnight I decided to give the older computer a rest; the newer one did run out of memory eventually, but not before eight more Christmas Gift Boxes had been spawned. Unlike loot drops, it doesn't matter if the boxes are left alone in the guild hall - as the one stuck in the wall proves they last forever, or at least until the next maintenance downtime.

None of the overnight boxes yielded a platinum drop booster, so generally it was soon-to-vanish scrolls and inventory-cluttering hats that were scooped up. Still, maybe the hats will be worth something eventually, though everyone's inventories will be a bit full of them by Wednesday.

After coffee, though, it was time for Memree to head for Prokion Temple on Katar-4. The back room was in use when I arrived - I couldn't see the actual player, but a group of angry orcs were definitely attacking someone over on the far side. Luckily I stayed for a few seconds, edging a bit further in to see what was going on... and what I did see was an end to the fighting. The poor player had been killed, I assume, leaving behind a couple of gold drops and a Christmas Gift Box. I refrained from opening the box for a while, in case they returned, but eventually opened in, and picked up a reindeer pet book.

So, with the coast clear, Kaerella logged in too, and, after the Combat party had been formed, hurried to join Memree. She started a pssp, in the usual way - and during the hour, while Memree added 37.31%, 133 skill points, 430 guild points, and 1054 pet points, for all her work killing orc axemen and orc sergeants, Kaerella went up by 7.85% and an excellent total of 400 skill points.

Kae moved away after that, back to the lobby and then on to Randol; Memree continued for a little while, so that by the end her session had reached 41.28%, 163 skill points, 466 guild points, and 1173 pet points. Back in Randol she spent all the skill points except 1 on assorted special skill levels; I also made a careful note of the other special skills she can learn, which will soak up a total of another 1545 skill points.

There was just time for a trip to Misty Canyon to get rid of Memree's current experience. A mage called LadyZoom was already there, fighting the first Introducer Camio properly, and seemed a bit surprised at my tactics, asking me what my level was. "31 - just six more deaths to go", I replied. "Oh, for sp." "Yeah - this is a nice quick place to lose experience."

The response to that was a "lol", and soon I was able to report "All done - good hunting!" and leave her to it. "Thank you - good sp", she replied, before I beamed out.

I was remarkably good, and, leaving Memree and BarbarellA in the guild hall for more hats, got on with some work, to try and clear the coming week a bit, during the first part of the afternoon. And then, with the hope that the 50% extra experience for ""Sunday Teatime" would get switched on, over on Cariae-1, with, again, the Elizabeth's Enhancement buff, my level 50 cleric Kaerella headed out to the akane giants. It wasn't too long before the raid boss Kamira turned up, so Kae logged out and Keerella rode down to deal with her; there was no rare accessory dropped, but all the usual minor goodies ended up on the ground for me, including the crystal of experience (greater) and the lucky scrolls. After that Kaerella returned, and continued her farming. The Teatime bonus started fairly promptly at four, UK time, but I logged off for my food break soon after that, so Kaerella had just added 9.08% and 63 skill points, plus 608 pet points.

For the evening session, up until Quiz time, Kaerella went out to the akane giants for a slightly longer session, helped along by the Sunday Teatime bonus of 50% extra experience per kill continuing. The Dratan "castle siege" was counting down to begin while Kae was out there, and for some strange reason I got a recall-type message, "Please go back to Castle War start point." This had a yes/no option, so out of curiosity I clicked the "yes" - and it did act like a party recall, I was soon spawning not far from the Tomb of Theos, along with a lot of other people, some of them a bit surprised to be there.

I assumed it was because I was out in Dratan desert, and thus on the same map and not all that far away, that I got that glitchy message, but I noticed later that Barbarienne, who had been providing the solo party while standing around in the Norcaine guild hall, had got the message too. At a bit after 7:30pm I clicked "yes" for her, and she in her turn spawned out there in the grassy uplands of south-west Dratan. There were a couple of Christmas Gift Boxes left behind, and one afk knight, but the siege had long since finished.

Anyway, Kaerella had continued to fight the akane giants, and moved a little further into the north-west corner than usual. Seeing some sort of construction visible in the distance, I continued in that direction, and found a mysterious building, with an ominously glowing portal. Not knowing the meaning of "fear", I ran through the glow, and found myself in what announced itself to be "The Tomb of Theo" - not to be confused with "The Tomb of Theos", then...

It seemed to be a work in progress, with a not very long pathway hewn into the rock, and no monsters or things of interest. Perhaps one day the developers will add another dungeon, or something, there, like the real Tomb, or Misty Canyon. I left, and noticed on my way back that there was a second elite akane giant, and this one was in a less crowded area than the one I've usually fought in the past, so I stayed around, and fought it, and the regular akane giants, until Quiz time was approaching. Kaerella went up 16.42%, and added another 84 skill points and 812 pet points.

With Barbarienne online, the rogue PerziaQueen had been chatting a bit to her; I don't think she is particularly high-level, and really knew Barb from being allowed to "ks" her a bit with the screaming zombies. She did ask me if I had aeria points, and as usual I didn't give a straight answer, as if you start to trade people item mall things for gold, it is difficult to stop, and I've come out worst in some deals before now. Later she told me that she had been scammed - someone saying they were "selling ap" had taken just about all the money she had, but had not supplied the promised class skill reset card, an item that sells for 850 ap. She did have screenshots, but the gamesage she had contacted had told her that they couldn't involve themselves in that sort of thing, people entered into trading arrangements at their own risk - which is fair enough. PerziaQueen is so sad about the whole thing that she says she'll stop playing Last Chaos... I must say I feel pretty sad about it too. I'd been suggesting that we might team up, her and Barb, on the Introducer Camios in Misty Canyon - if Barb did try to fight those, the presence of someone with Snare would be a great help - and if necessary, it isn't far to run back to the teleporter to leave in a hurry.

The quiz seemed trickier than usual; they had the question about [GM]Racoonpd and the "Jenga" event, and I think there hasn't been such an event for many months, and that GM, who never had much to do with Last Chaos, at least in-game, is long gone. We went for "no", but I at least had deep misgivings about it - would we all find ourselves spawning back in the middle of Randol? They also had the "does [GM]Krash run the 'Pharaoh's Treasure?" question. We opted to go with the usual answer, "yes", though of course Krash too is no longer with us, so if those events do continue, it will have to be with someone else in charge.

There was also a worrying gap between questions after about nine, at least on Katar-2 - one has heard of a sub-server where the quiz never finished, so we were on tenterhooks for a few seconds. The questions came rather more quickly after that, but we managed to keep up. While click-and-move is working in guild halls, movement in the quiz room is still WASD only, to add to the fun, but we got to question 21 safely, losing only a very few people along the way, so just about everyone left rather richer than when they went in. It's strange, MistressSabina accompanied Kaerella, and the "click on and follow" didn't seem to work before the quiz started when I tested it, but worked fine during the actual quiz, with her faithfully following Kae's every move.

As usual logging back in after a quiz is a bit tricky, as the servers are so busy, but it seemed like a good idea to let ColonelScarlet do a little pet-levelling, particularly as I'd be around, and able to keep an eye on things. It was just as well I did, as the royal knight huxy showed up before long - and showed up pretty well, since he was riding a nice bright white horse. He has ks'd me in the past, but he hadn't made any move to do so this time, so I was friendly, and, so that he'd know I wasn't afk, said "hi huxy", and "what brings you out here?"

He was just bored, he told me, which I can sympathise with, it's a bit of a dead time between the end of the quiz and the start of the zombie invasions, usually. He asked about pet-levelling, saying that his level 34 rogue kills the target, so I explained how the red name helps, meaning that at level 35 the Colonel just hits for 20 damage bare-handed. He went off to get his rogue a red name; I suppose with the +10 armour a rogue may well be able to pet-level, even without the useful passive skills for extra armour and health regeneration.

Still, it is slightly worrying that a spot that I thought was pretty secluded should get a visitor, like that. It's just as well that, hopefully, not much more pet-levelling will be needed on the Katar server. But as I remarked to huxy, "Each time I think this is the last mount, I start another character, lol"...

There were supposed to be the normal "Zombie Invasion" events tonight, according to the website, though it gave the starting time as an hour later than usual - nothing seemed to happen on Auzura or Katar though, there were no announcements that I saw, so that part of a Sunday night's LC entertainment was missing, this time. Ah well, at least ColonelScarlet moved that next mount, currently in reindeer form, an hour or two along the way through level 32.