A Mystery Event

The overnight patch was very minor, again - apostrophes can no longer be used in messages when you send someone an item mall gift, the polar bear can no longer be put into storage (and thus be lost), the master of the monster combo sells golden boxes again - and for the first time Tairen's designated PvP subservers will actually have PvP combat, outside the arena, enabled. Just think, some characters have gone up to well over level 100 without any chance of being killed by other players, or killing, while out farming. Since the Elizabeth's Enhancement buff was recently moved to a non-PvP subserver, that doesn't make much of a difference for me as far as I can see.

SirGalahad did get attacked by a death mask soldier a second time yesterday evening, but again I spotted this before the creature had a chance to turn its attention to my drake, so there was no problem. And this morning Gal was back in action, with the drake reaching level 20 soon after breakfast.

Memree and RedRyder managed to have their after-coffee session in Prokion Temple on Tairen-5, though it wasn't as long as it sometimes can be. I'd decided that fighting the orc soldiers any more was just too slow, so my Discipline duo moved on to the orc fighters in the mirror-side corridor room.

This certainly speeded things up, and, while they each gained 107 skill points, Memree added 19.12% (and 108 guild points), while as the non-fighter RedRyder added 4.79% (and 18 guild points). A couple more sessions like that should see Red reach level 30,

SirGalahad was back at work for the lunch break, and then for the afternoon it was time for my other Tairen pair of Prokion-goers to leap into action - Rage and Kaerella.

With Rage on level 36, the "back room" with its orc sergeants and orc axemen was the only place to go. The session lasted a couple of hours or so, and Kaerella reached level 27 - so she could wear a full 30/32 +10 armour set now. Unfortunately, there won't be a new set available until RedRyder reaches level 31, so Kae is going to have to continue to be a bit careful when the higher-level orcs are around.

Rage added 34.31% (and 471 guild points), while Kaerella gained 33.89% (and 68 guild points) - and they each grabbed 293 skill points, before SirGalahad logged back in.

During the orc-fighting I had remembered to trade five cracked axes across from Rage to Kaerella, so after the break Kae headed back to Dratan to get the reward for the "Story of Crom" quest from Weapon Trader Crom - 270,000 experience and 3 skill points, doubled by the Elizabuff to give 10.82% and 6 skill points, and 40,000 gold. Crom promptly gave a new quest, "Another Identity of Shuraine", for 158,000 experience.

"Know this well Hero", Crom told me. "It was Shuin, Akemon's General in charge of all the armies of man, who brought the end to Akemon's reign. Have you ever read the doctrine of Akemon? It is truly idiotic! Only one clouded in the lies of Erin could have ever believed such nonsense, let alone preached it as law. Akemon taught his followers that the Humans were the only race that deserved to exist, and that all other races must be enslaved or destroyed. Shuin betrayed Akemon by disclosing his acts to the Anoel Dratum, ending his bloody race war once and for all. Shuin was killed and Akemon was dismembered in a public execution. Do Shuin's final actions make up for his original betrayal of the other races? One must wonder, eh Hero?"

Using my memory scroll, I beamed across to Shuraine at his oasis. "Alas! Crom continues to spread his lies and half-truths", he told me. "I am an archaeologist and blood niece to Shuin. I met him once when I was very young, and this was long after the Race Wars. Shuin led the rebels against Akemon, he never fought for that tyrant!

"You have come to the wrong place if you are looking for historical truths, hero. Just know that Crom always gives people the wrong facts. Sorry for the misinformation." And after that he, presumably a nephew rather than a niece, handed over the 6.34% experience, and that strange little message-quest was over.

Kaerella on Tairen may now be level 27, and still maximising her general skills - but Kaerella on Katar was level 30, and has got all her skills filled up, including the special skills, and a generous reserve of unused sp - so wasn't it about time I did some more work with her? The addition of PvP to Tairen shows that it is now a mature server, while Katar has the advantage of usually being first in the rota for an event... and Kae's sp there was hard-won and hard-earned, so it makes sense to build on it.

So, Katar-5's Prokion Temple was Kaerella's destination, and, in a solo party, I headed for that mirror-half corridor room and its orc fighters who, with the Elizabuff on, gave me 5390 experience and 5500 skill exp. The one orc axeman in the room gave 9628 and 7700, which wasn't quite as good a skill to experience ratio, but still okay. I settled in there for a while, but then a rogue called Euriale gate-crashed, which slowed things down a bit. I noticed she did what I sometimes do, and ignored the axeman attacking her, just fighting the fighters.

Kaerella had started on 83%, and when I was just below levelling up I headed back to Dratan City, since I knew that finishing the quest for cracked axes would level me up. Then I rode out to the death goddesses, to kill 35 of them, killing enough desert spiders and red spiders along the way to fulfil the two spider-related quests, and returned to town for the quest rewards. A level 22 healer called SmashOnYou asked me to take her to Prokion, so I ran out there with her, and left her at the entrance with horse buffs and a warning about occasionally arriving in the foundations there rather than the hallway - a level 24 mage called MageDoMal asked for horse buffs as well, so I provided her with them, and returned to town, ready for my regular Wednesday evening early log-out.

In all, Kaerella on Katar, Kae-on-K, had gone up by 52.78%, more than half of that from quest rewards, 245 skill points, 749 pet points, and for DarkzersRoughneks 76 guild points. Reaching level 31 meant that she got a spare set of the level 30/32 +10 armour, which will no doubt come in handy for a different character.

One "regular Wednesday" thing recently has been the sequence of mad monster spawns or stormings of Merac Castle, but there wasn't either type of event listed for today on the website. Instead the message was "

Juno is under siege from the forces of Eres! With her resource points cut off her mighty walls will not last long. We call to all of the heroes of Apollon to fight off this undead horde and help uncover the source from which this vile host springs.

" - which seemed more like a "World Defence", fighting monsters at the gates of Randol, which is rather less of an event. Still, the "help uncover the source" bit does drop hints that this could be part of a continuing storyline.

The gap between starts on the various servers was 45 minutes, with Katar starting off at 9:00pm UK time, followed by Cariae, Sarissa, Hatzring, Auzura, and Tairen. So, at 10:30 my Sarissa representative, Kaerella at level 22, was on hand to see what was happening. [GM]Cara was in Randol before then, in a cool-looking high-level archer costume, warning people to watch for announcements on where to go. A group gathered outside the north gate, wondering what was going to happen.

The event turned out to be more of a "purify the waters" thing than anything else, with the river inlet from the Juno lake unleashing sphinx commanders, anubis occultists, screaming zombies, wight slashers, and much more. The action ended after 45 minutes down at the edge of the lake itself, where hordes of monsters were defeated, and then a generous supply of loot was spawned. Kae certainly gained a bit of experience, and managed to avoid getting killed, and it all made a change from the regular events. But is it the start of something bigger?

Through it all SirGalahad kept working, getting his drake comfortably into level 23 by the end of the evening.