Out with the Sphinxes

I did manage to go along to the last pair of "100m races" last night, on Auzura and Tairen, though the event had slimmed down a little by then, and just involved dashing from the west gate to the north gate, via the haunted bridge, and, a few minutes later, back again. MrChuckNorris, my titan, represented me on Auzura-5. Titans aren't the fastest runners, which was slightly unfortunate as this time around the general consensus was that we should do the race on foot. Chuck gave a cute young mage three haste potions when asked, and used such items himself, though they are nowhere near as speed-inducing as the greater haste potions, which are a relatively expensive item that allows a player to dash around like a game master or a speed hacker for an hour. [GM]JediMike kept his 100% record though, and awarded the prizes to everyone who turned up with generous spawnings of loot.

Since healers are relatively swift runners, Kaerella was waiting at the west gate on Tairen-5 as 11:30pm approached, UK time. hardly anyone else was, just two or three others, though, and I felt that I needed to apologise, on Tairen's behalf, for the low turn-out. Mike took it in his stride, though, and put up a server announcement for people to come out and join us, which they did, in time for our two races. Kaerella did mount up and ride this time, which did at least mean she got the occasional glimpse of the GM zooming along. The two spawnings of loot were perhaps not as large as some had been earlier, but it had still been worth turning up, for sure.

At breakfast time SirGalahad got back into pet-levelling action for a couple of hours on Tairen-4, along with ColonelScarlet on Katar-4, and then after coffee the team of Rage and RedRyder went off to Prokion Temple. Our timing was just right, as the back room was empty, but with loot still on the ground from the previous occupant's efforts, including a moonstone box. So, Rage did the fighting, and Red dashed around picking up the loot.

TenshinoKami arrived after a while, and stayed for the rest of my session, using both the beginner pbis and pssps, for extra experience and skill exp; she had reached level 32 by then and opted to become a cleric. I said that a combat party wouldn't be a good idea, as Rage's relatively high level would cut back her experience gain, and she agreed. By the time I left, Rage was up 8.35% and 159 guild points, while RedRyder had moved on by 5.19% and 24 guild points. They had each earned 147 skill points.

Over lunch, ColonelScarlet on Katar-4 and RedRackham on Auzura-4 both did a little drake pet-levelling - and then Kaerella and Memree signed in, and headed for Prokion Temple. The place seemed a lot busier, which is hardly surprising for a weekend afternoon, but I finally found that the "mirror" back room was free, and settled in there to fight without any interruptions. Kaerella seemed to get attacked slightly more often there, so I had to stay alert, but it was a productive session, with Memree adding 61.51% and 558 guild points, and Kaerella getting 34.52% and 86 guild points from the combat party. With her on level 27 and Memree on level 34, they make a pretty productive team. The skill point tally was 377 each - enough for Kae to learn the final level of advanced mining, all three levels of advanced energy absorption, and both levels of basic herb farming.

SirGalahad got back into action for the food break, and stayed in Maargadum Jail throughout the evening, while my Cariae cleric Kaerella, now level 56, had a good long session out at the sphinx fighters and sphinx speer men - the usual location rather than the new place I'd found. I got into a solo party right away, though for a while another solo party member was fighting the elite sphinx speer man, so I had to move out of range. Then a little later a level 43 Italian specialist sorcerer called danjorge asked to party with me, so, since he was within range, that seemed a good idea, and we were able to take on the elite ourselves. I can solo it if I need to, but it sometimes takes Kae's health down slightly dangerously.

After the sorcerer reached level 44, he went back to town, so I joined a new solo party, and continued the good fight. It's strange, there was a level 27 titan that the rest of us were trying to persuade ought to be farming skill points in Prokion Temple - and then later there was a level 27 healer, who was also adamant that they needed levels rather than skill points. I had to rescue her a number of times from irate sphinx fighters, which she could do little damage to; she teamed with a sorcerer for a while, but I noticed that he died at least once. She resurrected him, but I'm guessing it was only level one of that skill she had.

I'd suspected there was a glitch with Elizabeth's Enhancement before, so was careful to make sure of my facts this time. When the buff was about to wear off, after the countdown of the three hours (or "days"), I took the teleporter back from Dratan to Randol - and arrived with the buff's countdown reset to 7.5 minutes, or four "hours". So I went back out again for the extra time and killed a few more sphinx types.

There was a double-chance upgrade event during the time I was out in Dratan, in memory of a recently deceased Last Chaos player called Misused. It was a nice touch, though I couldn't think of anything I had waiting to be upgraded at present, so just kept fighting. I didn't notice any extra lag out in Dratan, but trying to open Roy's merchant mart afterwards, it was extremely laggy - I'd given up and gone off elsewhere in Randol before I finally got some messages about "the work" being done, too late to be any use.

Anyway, Kaerella's experience gain for her three hours, plus bonus, was 57.64%, which can't be bad, plus 50 skill points and 1990 pet points, so that SirFrancis is now 83% of the way through level 48. I had looked through the merchant mart earlier in search of parts of the 60/62 armour set for Kae, but there was very little from that set on offer; I did spot two +9 items, from the same seller, but they had both had an extreme stone used on them, a risk-free upgrade which can only be applied once per item, and which I'd use to move from +12 to +13. I must check again in a day or so.

After Kaerella logged out, ColonelScarlet logged in for a while, and managed to get his drake to level 31 before the end of the evening; SirGalahad's drake had reached that level a bit earlier in the session.