Desert Slog

Once again SirGalahad started work on level five of Maargadum Jail before breakfast, with his new level 10 pony - and he had a productive morning, so that the pony was well into level 12 by lunchtime.

After coffee RedRyder headed for Tairen-1's Prokion Temple, though this time she was able to apply the horse buffs before entering, which added usefully to her attack for a few minutes. It being Saturday, the place was a lot busier than usual at that sort of time of day, so I ended up in the "mirror" half. There was a useful corner just beyond the local equivalent of the corridor room, and I settled in there for a while, killing mainly orc sergeants - but it was actually too rich in the sergeants, with not enough orc axemen, which, given that the sergeants give a lower ratio of skill exp to experience, meant that Red wouldn't be able to get the target of 407 skill points without levelling up.

At 25% experience, Red had only got 97 skill points, so I moved along into the "mirror" version of the back room, where there were more axemen, and a few orc soldiers as well - and that worked better, at 50% I'd got 218 sp, so I was well on target. By the time I'd got the 407 sp I was after, the experience had reached 89.39% which, while just over 10% more than last time, was reasonable and safe. 272 guild points and 1123 pet points had also been acquired.

After RedRyder got back to Randol, she was able to learn all three kinds of herb processing skills from the Herbologist Trainer, and then there was just time to go across to Misty Canyon and get the Introducer Camios to kill Red thirty times, to get the experience percentage safely back to zero.

I'm afraid that I missed the Auzura "Storm the Castle" event today, but Saturday lunchtime is not that convenient a time for such things. I hope that [GM]Valsharyn had a good turn-out for it, though last week wasn't up to her usual standards of innovation, and the hands spawned were a little on the meagre side. It was a bit later than one o'clock before I logged on again, and that was over on the Sarissa server for a change.

Kaerella on Sarissa went up from level 7 to level 8 at the last low-level Mad Monster Spawn, so I wanted to do at least a little work on her, and, with a little help from the jaguars, got her up to level 10, and added Velpist temple to her memory scroll before fighting a few wandering zombies in there. I didn't, again, want to go past level 10, to leave the Guardian option open. The cash picked up at the MMS meant that Kae could at least afford a level 13 bow; and I did have one bit of good luck, I opened a Pandora's Box which released, rather than the usual homicidal level 30 Beast, 50,000 gold, which does really help Kae along.

For the second half of the afternoon, I switched back to RedRyder on Tairen-1. My favourite back room was available, so getting the last 172 skill points I needed to "max out" her final available special skills, flawed stone and imperfect stone processing, didn't take too long. The 43.66% experience gained was soon wiped out by the Introducer Camios, though I did have one "perma-death", meaning I had to log out and then return.

RedRyder did actually have a visitor in that back room, a level 25 rogue called Rogue123, who asked for a party but didn't say anything else. I don't mind partying with people there, unless I'm using a pssp or something, but she didn't last long - I'd just taken my eyes off the screen long enough to make a note of her name and level, and when I looked again she was no longer in the room, either dead or fled. She left the party soon afterwards. Well, it is a dangerous room for people who don't have good armour yet.

There was just time after that for a different sort of short experimental session for RedRyder, before the early evening food break. Now that she needs to stash away as many skill points as possible for future use, the ratio of skill exp to experience becomes even more important, especially if one doesn't intend to buy more platinum super skill pills, skill point boosters, etc for a character. At level 29, with a solo party and with the 50% experience freeze plus Elizabeth's Enhancement, killing a level 25 orc fighter gives 6600 skill exp (almost two-thirds of a skill point) and 8985 experience, while killing a level 23 orc soldier gives 4400 se and just 1327 experience. Killing a level 19 mummy though isn't much use, that just gives 2 se and 720 experience now.

So, including an experimental kill or two, for the first percent of experience Red managed, killing orc soldiers, to add 22 skill points, and for the whole short session she gained 2.10% and 50 skill points - so at that rate it would be possible to get around 2,400 skill points before reaching level 30. To do the killing at a reasonable speed though, I'll need to choose fairly quiet times in Prokion Temple for that.

After the break, my level 101 archer Barbarienne spent quite a while looking through Roy's stock of high-level bows. I was hoping that there might be some level 101 bows around, but there were none at all for sale; a number of 97 ones, and 109 ones, at varying prices, though it looks as if Barb's current budget of 450 million would be just enough to upgrade from her current level 85 one to a 97-er. That's something to investigate further - it's not just the "plus", it's the colour of the title text, and the number of seals - a blue-name bow hits harder than an equivalent green-name one, though if the green-name one has a good hit rate bonus that might make up for it. All complicated stuff!

There was, however, time for Kaerella to do a full three-hour session on Cariae-1, out with the elite akane giant and its companions. I joined a solo party, and from sticking around long enough became its leader, so had to remember to re-submit it every time we got to the full eight members and someone left. Members included another cleric, or at least, at level 31, cleric-to-be, Curucuar, and a few others who did chat a bit, but many were strong silent types.

Kamira did not put in an appearance, so Kae kept busy for the full length of the Elizabeth's Enhancement buff, and by the end had added a substantial 32.21%, and 169 skill points, along with 2040 pet points for SirFrancis - so that means that Kaerella is getting fairly close to level 52 now. That's not a level with any new skills, level 53 is when the first level of Party Heal 2 comes along, allowing a cleric to heal all party members within range for 300 health points, which is slightly better than the lower-level Party Heal, though it costs more mana. It's useful to have both skills available I guess.

Throughout the whole day, SirGalahad had kept going on the older computer, which seems to not be getting that "run out of memory" error anything like as quickly as it used to, at least temporarily. So, plenty of progress was made down on level five of Maargadum Jail, with the little pony becoming a larger and more elegant horse, which should reach level 18 by the time we finish for the night.