SirGalahad was back at work in Maargadum Jail from breakfast to coffee time, and then it was time for Memree and RedRyder to team up again in Prokion Temple. We did have a third member of the combat party early on, another rogue called vero, but she found that she had to be out of compass-range much of the time just to find enough orcs to kill, and it wasn't long before she reached level 32, and so went back to town to learn her new skills.
A little later a level 25 healer called MoonLightz did ask to join the party, but my feeling was that being with people four or five levels higher wouldn't do her any good, or us either. She tended to stay in the same room as Red and Memree, but sadly died in the end.
It was quite a long morning session, allowing my two rogues to each gain 186 skill points - enough to take RedRyder above the 4,000 mark for unused sp.. Memree went up by 12.09%, as more orc fighters than usual were involved, and 56 guild points, while RedRyder added 2.68% and 10 guild points.
For the main afternoon session, it seemed like a good idea to work on the Hatzring version of Kaerella a bit - so that's what I did. First of all I made a new character just to get a Juno NPC Scroll, which was transferred via the warehouse storage to Kaerella - that was probably quicker than running out to Velpist Temple. Once Kae had the scroll, she was able to use it to move straight to Teleporter Rian just outside the Temple - and then she went in, and off to the left to the room just outside the "torn book of life" quest chamber. Actually, she fought more in the doorway to that main room, fighting skeleton soldiers and skeleton lancers. The main object was to get four "cursed bones" for a quest from Jajan, which didn't take too long...it helped that there was an unclaimed one on the floor when I got there.
Kaerella took the four quest items to Jajan in Dratan, who, once he handed over the reward, promptly gave me another quest, which needed five each of the harpy tears and feathers. So, I teleported to Prokion Temple, and fought the harpies there until I got enough drops...for a change I got more feathers than tears. And once that quest was completed, I moved inside the Temple.
I quickly got to the room with the mummies and single orc soldier; I find it a useful place, so it's surprising how many times recently I've found it empty, on various servers. I settled in there, and kept fighting the mummies until I was just short of level 24 - a quick look at the quest reward for the harpy tears and feathers assured me that that would be enough to get me the rest of the way. So, I moved back to Dratan City on about 95% of the way through level 23, and got the reward from Jajan, which safely took me into level 24. There was just time to spend all but 5 of the 199 skill points acquired on the fifth levels of a couple of passive skills - and then it was time to switch across to the Katar server.
A rotation of "Storm the Castle" events was due to start at 4:00pm UK time, on Katar-4 in Merac, so I logged my level 31 rogue Memree in, and teleported down to just outside Merac Castle, down in the southeast of the Merac map. Thankfully there were already four people waiting, which makes a change. [GM]OgreKing kept us waiting until about seven minutes past, which was a great deal better than last week, and then spawned all the monsters, before making the usual announcement exhorting all heroes to join us.
At least two of our number were pretty high-level, so we made a good start, and other people rolled up as the minutes passed. It went pretty well, in fact, and, aided of course by Memree's use of Snare, the usual monsters got their usual dirt naps. There was a level 120 Blood Shadow invisible dragon in the inner courtyard to finish on, and with the usual exhortations for people to use the [tab] key, we managed to take that down too within the time limit - the Castle was cleansed. Unfortunately Memree, along with most other people, raced back outside then, expecting the rewards to be spawned there - so we missed out, and the few people who stayed in the courtyard long enough for the loot to appear must have done rather well.
Cariae-4 was the venue for the next "StC", so it was Barbarienne's turn to log in, and teleport down to the Castle. I arrived just in time, and was able to assist another early arrival with the wight slasher, and quickly get rid of the death mask lancers it hangs out with. The thorny mantises are level 113, and have a nasty poisoning skill - but they are passive, so we left them, hoping for some higher-level arrivals, and concentrated on clearing out the male assassinbugs, anubis attackers, jumping devils, and zamaras.
The anubis spear men were a bit of a problem; I could just about tank one of them, but it took almost an entire horse buff to do it. Luckily people were arriving by then, and what had seemed an impossible deadline started to look a bit more practical - the mob of spear men thinned out, and other people were already dealing with the hell-otuu (or hell-otaku, as I tend to think of them), dark harpies, and further supplies of spear men in the far corners.
So, we made it into the inner courtyard, and again there was a Blood Shadow to deal with, which we did, with minutes to spare, and were declared victorious. And this time I stayed around in the inner courtyard, and got my share of the loot drops.
At five o'clock the rota reached Sarissa, so I decided that that was a good point at which to have my food break - which is a shame really, as I hadn't read down to the bottom of the website page to see that the European version, hosted by either [GM]Valsharyn or [GM]Noboru, was also due to start then, on Auzura-4 - so I could have gone to that, and skipped Hatzring as well to make time for a break.
My Hatzring archer Kaerella, newly level 24, did however go along to Merac Castle on Hatzring-4, and sit down outside to wait for other people to arrive. The problem was that nobody else did show up - and when the monsters spawned, I was the only person there. Even the death mask lancers would have been too much for me, so there was nothing I could do, until the titan wwDarkMothww arrived, who was at least able to handle the lancers - so I could give a bit of archer-style support.
Other people did start to come along, but Kaerella managed to get killed three times, twice by either death knights or baal... low-level to Barbarienne, a slight annoyance to Rage, but deadly to a low-level character. The third time it was an anubis spear man, who must have lost his original target - and there were other occasions when a bit of strategic withdrawal was needed. It was lucky that Kae was only 5% into her new level, and carrying 5 unused skill points.
Sadly, at a quarter to six [GM]OgreKing announced that the heroes had failed to retake the castle. We did continue to fight until we had cleaned the place out, but as the deadline had passed, we didn't receive any drops. I think I did manage to pick up at least one gold drop from one of the monsters, which at least more than covered the cost of the memory scrolls.
It took until six o'clock to finish clearing the Castle out on Hatzring, so I was not too prompt getting to Auzura-4, which the website hadn't mentioned as having a "10:00am PST" castle-storming, but when Rage arrived in Merac people were heading for it, so I teleported down and joined in. As usual the gateway to the main outer courtyard had been reached, so I added my "heavy artillery" and Snare to the team effort. despite there having been the "European" version only an hour before, the turn-out was pretty good, and we got to the inner courtyard, with a couple of sphinx commanders, in good time. Once those were killed, we were able to target the Blood Shadow - and soon the announcement came up that we had succeeded, followed by the loot drop.
I'm afraid I underestimate the Blood Shadow dragon, because I can't see it - I was very lucky, it was only when we'd moved on to picking up the loot that I noticed that my health was perilously low. So, I nearly had to use a resurrection scroll there, but not quite. So, a useful but not outstanding amount of loot was picked up - probably about a tenth of what Kaerella had picked up yesterday, but still worth having.
And so one "StC" rotation had ended. For people on different timezones, a second go-through was due to start at 11:00pm UK time, two at a time, with Katar and Cariae...I don't think I'll try for Auzura again at midnight though.
So, that was probably the last we'll see of [GM]OgreKing, as today was his last day with Aeria Games. We did at least get our chance to thank him for what he did and wish him luck, which was good...will he find another job that "just involves playing games all day"? Well of course there's a lot more to it than that, but I suspect he has heard people make that assumption.
The regular evening session was a chance for Tairen's Kaerella to avoid getting left behind by the Hatzring and Sarissa versions. I started with a few last Juno quests, including killing thirty drakes and ten horn beasts - and then I needed one more horn beast eye, so I fought the great horn beasts out at the senior "Mad Monster Spawn" point and along towards Velpist Temple, until it finally dropped for me.
After that I headed for Prokion Temple; the room with the mummies and a single orc soldier was in use when I got there, but before long I found the mage had gone, so took over. For the last half hour or so I shared it with a chatty young rogue (well, level 19) called KateNash, who has her main characters over on the Katar server. We added each other to our Friends lists, and will no doubt meet up again. I think I have seen her in town, a "normal" name like that is, well, unusual in-game...
Kaerella has had her experience gain cut to 50%, so just went up 86.38%, taking her comfortably into level 23 and giving Discipline 58 guild points; her hatchling gained 877 pet points, taking it on to level 5, and 214 skill points were earned. Kae's medium-term target must be to reach level 27, so that, when there is a spare 30/32 +10 armour set available, she will be able to wear it, but there isn't any hurry for that
The later sequence of "Storm the Castle" events begins at 11:00pm UK time. I do intend to take Barbarienne along to that, but a report on that particular event will have to wait until tomorrow. By then SirGalahad's drake will be well past halfway through level 27, so it is just a matter of finding a convenient time to trade it across to a different Tairen character.
No comments:
Post a Comment