Bringing In the Cash

When I switched off the older computer last night, I noticed that there was a Microsoft update waiting to be installed, so it didn't come as too great a surprise to find that the newer computer had restarted itself at some point in the early hours of the morning, booting out MistressDomina, who had been doing some selling on Cariae-4. She had been able to take in about 124 million by then, though, so the campaign to get Barbarienne there a better bow might even lead on to getting Keerella a better mage staff... or there's always my cleric Kaerella's next armour set to consider.

SirGalahad did return to Maargadum Jail before breakfast, with the horse reaching level 29 before too long; after coffee he had to bow out while the Discipline Duo, RedRyder and Rage, teamed up in Prokion Temple on Tairen-1 again.

The Temple was fairly quiet when I arrived, but did get busier. A sorcerer called lulian17 did trespass a bit, but generally kept moving through; there was a rogue who seemed a bit low-level, and tried the old trick of attacking an orc that was fighting me, to try to gain some risk-free experience. Kill-stealing, they call it, or ks-ing for short. That works fine if I kill the orc pretty quickly, but she made the mistake of attacking one that was hitting RedRyder, who was of course not responding...the orc turned its attention to the intruder, as did a couple of others, and soon she was just a red stain on the floor.

A healer called HeLpSaVeEaRtH was also a bit low-level for the room, but didn't "ks" me, and was trying her best - she asked for my help when she got mobbed by a number or orcs, which I was happy to give, and indeed I tried to keep an eye on her and take care of any excess orcs that attacked her...but I really had to assume that she could deal with a single orc, which, it seemed, she sometimes couldn't. After three deaths, she wisely gave up on that particular room; if you don't have good armour, it really is best to stay with the level 19 mummies for another level or two.

By the time the lunch break was approaching Rage and RedRyder had gained 126 skill points each, while Rage had gone up by 6.85% and 47 guild points, and Red had added 2.05% and 7 guild points. And then they both logged out, and on the older computer, SirGalahad got back into action on the pet-levelling front.

On the newer computer, MistressDomina set up in merchant mode on Cariae-4 again, though for what seemed a long time nobody seemed interested in buying anything. Then towards the end of the break someone lashed out on 198 chaos balls, fairly swiftly followed by the sale of 14 heaven stones - and then someone grabbed all 300 item drop boosters MD had got on offer. So, that was another 480 million brought in... time to start researching prices for Kaerella's next armour set, perhaps.

Kaerella has picked up a new quest, by the way; Jajan, in Dratan City, wants her to collect seven "crazy" drake eggs from the dragons out in the desert. I don't think I've ever fought those particular beasts, though I remember having to try to run past them when the titan darkmager led one of my characters across from the poison mists to the sphinx fighter spot. I see they have both physical and magical attack skills, and are aggressive; at level 55 they are two levels above Kae at present, so I think we can wait a little while before trying them out.

The afternoon session did however deal with a couple of quests - or, rather, the same quest twice. The action part of the time was a bit limited, as there was some more trading of items between characters, but MrChuckNorris, level 62 warmaster titan, and MistressDomina, level 61 wizard mage, did go out to the sphinx fighters and sphinx speer (sic) men on Auzura-4 for a short session, in a Combat party. Chuck had got the quest to kill five each of the two sphinx types, so after MD had done a little preliminary fighting, he had his turn, even though he was on the older computer, and killed the ten easily enough. I then checked the map and saw that MD had a quest available to her back in town in a suspiciously similar place, so she used "pet return to village", and got the quest, and then easily got the necessary heads from her next fighting stint.

Once they'd both got their quest rewards from Occultist Pianon, they had each gained 12 skill points; Chuck had gone up by 1.78%, and MD by something similar, and also got a few pet points for her level 38 pink drake...and then there was some more moving-around of items to be done, before SirGalahad got back to work in Maargadum.

Barbarienne had a look in the merchant mart to see what weapons Roy had recently had added to his stock, and there were in fact two very attractive ones - unfortunately the price of 1.5 billion for a level 97 bow was a bit out of my league. It was blue-named, with five seals, and +15, but that still seems a bit high to me. The other nice one was actually a level 109 bow, but with a sixth seal allowing people 10 levels lower than that to use it, but unfortunately I didn't happen to have 6.5 billion in gold with me.

While I was browsing, an old Tomb of Theos acquaintance PerziaQueen popped up to say hi - she's a level 86 ranger now, though, she says, currently without a crossbow. I suppose that means she uses an assassin's daggers, which ought to work okay, though it isn't what a ranger's skill set is designed for.

After the break, while SirGalahad continued his good work down in Maargadum Jail, it seemed a good idea to give my original Rage, the level 72 ranger over on Auzura, a little outing; being on that sub-server would let me know when the parade and "Cluedo" thing got under way. I noticed that the leader of the NefariousShadows guild, of which Rage is a member, was online, and I actually ended up in the same solo party as Mellificent. She's a wizard, and level 71 now; she was in Egeha, but got apparently her third disconnection there of the day.

Rage got the quest reward for killing the hadians in the Forgotten Temple, which worked out at a little over 1% experience and 5 skill points; she also got a new quest, which involved going back there and killing jumping devils, which are her target of choice there anyway, since they're her level. It's just a matter of getting horse buffs, teleporting to the entrance, and hoping that one isn't "stuck" when one gets inside, and then running towards the far end while the buffs last, ignoring the legendary slayers and their magical attacks, since if you retaliate then all the local spiders get involved.

It didn't take long to kill the required number of jumping devils, and Rage continued with them for a little while afterwards. But those disconnections Mellificent had had were a bit of an omen; it did seem occasionally laggy in the Temple of Forgetfulness, or Forgotten Temple, so I was rather glad to log out from there before something nasty happened, and go back to Randol for the parade.

Rage got her new quest reward off the archbishop in Dratan first, and then went looking for the parade. [GM]Noboru soon arrived; it was a good turn-out, but the lag returned, and got very bad, with complete "lag spike" freezes - Rage got disconnected once, and I wasn't the only one. Of course all the transformations people were making, and the letting off of firecrackers, can't have helped, but it is just something that can happen sometimes with a server or sub-server. I didn't win any of the three prizes this time, but got a further supply of the transformation scrolls. Not that the event added anything, but Rage ended the afternoon up by 3.46% experience, and 13 more skill points, mainly from the quest rewards.

The main evening session was over on Cariae-1 with Kaerella - it seemed a good idea not to stay on Auzura if they were having lag and disconnection problems. Kae got into a solo party right away, which lasted for the whole session, which was good; and Kamira did drop in about halfway along, which was also good, though once again there was no rare accessory for Keerella. There was also a Pandora's Box, which rather than unleash a level 30 or level 50 Beast, which isn't a very dramatic happening when it's surrounded by level 53 types, dropped five of the level 12 magic defence minerals - those could be very useful when Kae gets to a level when she can take on Kamira herself.

Kaerella got up to a total of ten thousand spare skill points during the session, which is a nice milestone to pass; in all she gained 119 skill points, and went up by 12.80%, while her level 48 drake SirFrancis added 1176 pet points, so that he's 23% of the way through his level now.

After that I moved some more loot across to MistressDomina on Cariae-4, from some rather old item mall packages, to top up her supplies, and then set her up in merchant mode, hopefully to go overnight. She quickly sold most of her moonstone boxes, which makes a change. SirGalahad though will probably log out shortly, after passing the halfway mark in level 30 for his horse.