A Quieter Day

In the end I continued on much later than usual, and attended [GM]JediMike's other four countryside Parades, which were generally pretty similar, though a couple of times very few people actually noticed him leave the starting area...once I got left behind, the other time I was one of the few that did manage to follow him around the course.

A typical commentary from Mike ran like this. "Here we got some foxes... Some wolves - don't bother them. Here's the windmill... they got lots of wolves. I'm taking you to the infamous bridge." Knowing what he'd said on a previous run-through, I interjected "The haunted one?" "Sure is. Someone died under the bridge." He had gone into more detail on a previous server, about how it was haunted at night, and how he would sometimes go out there in the dark. "More wolves... here's some magical herb." And after that, as we approached the north gate, the magic word "Prizes."

Hatzring was slightly different, as Mike took us to the arena in Randol. As he reported on Auzura, at the end of the parade, "I'm just here to hang out - been doing so on each server. I took Hatz to the arena... they tried to kill me. Newberts couldn't." "Ungrateful lot", I commented. "And you only level 9, er, 15." He'd told the Hatzring people he was level 9, and then revised that to 15 when the PvP-enabled symbol hard appeared beside his name in the arena, which doesn't happen if you are below level 15.

"I'm level 41 on Auzura - yeah, hit the 40 club last weekend." "Hard work", Moruk69 said. "Sure is - I gotta work like you all if I wanna be good level." "Just remember the Elizabeth buff and you'll do fine", I assured him...

Tairen was scheduled last of the servers, but I stayed around, as that is where I am most in need of extra drops, since Tairen is, so far, a bit short of the main events like storming the castle and a high-level mad monster spawn. And Mike did us proud, as far as the loot spawning went.

That late night did mean that SirGalahad got his current hatchling up to level 15 before his belated log-out, and he returned to his duties at breakfast time, so that by nine o'clock level 16 was reached, and the cute little dragon hatchling turned into the larger, sleeker drake form.

After coffee RedRyder and Memree headed for Prokion Temple on Tairen-5 in their usual combat party, but progress is getting a bit slow on the orc soldiers, I think we will need to speed things up even if it cuts down on the skill exp that Red gets. The whole session gave them 103 skill points each; Memree added 6.67% and 37 guild points, while RedRyder gained 1.68% and 7 guild points.

After SirGalahad had done another couple of hours in Maargadum Jail, the afternoon session was a bit speedier, progress-wise, with Rage and Kaerella taking their turn to make a combat party and head for the Temple - my favourite back room with the orc axemen and orc sergeants. They soon both levelled up, reaching level 36 and level 26 respectively; the percentages for experience gained kept pretty much in step. By the time that the early evening food break was looming, Rage had added 32.14% (equating to 433 guild points), and Kaerella had added 32.27% (62 guild points) - and they had each gained 271 skill points.

After the break, while SirGalahad continued his work on his drake, Kaerella came back on and got her quest reward for killing the clever foxes, and also got the second quest for the collection of 10 soft sands, and the quest for 3 dark orbs...both of which she was able to finish immediately, adding another 49.78% and 48 skill points. By then she had enough sp for the final two levels of Resurrection, and the fifth level of Cure Poison too, plus the first three levels of the Hard Rejection skill, which only works in the personal dungeons. Kae also got the quest requiring 5 cracked axes, which Rage will be able to trade across to her at some convenient time.

However, as usual on a Tuesday evening there was a long email to deal with, and, as I'd received a plaintive email from the "Age of Conan" people asking why I'd not persevered with their game, after downloading it last week, I spent 90 minutes or so getting from the beach to the main town, slaying various bosses and anyone else who got in Kaerella's way. The graphics were nice, but I don't like the WSAD-only movement (or in my case, just W) and the button-bashing combat - or the small inventory. Why design things so that you don't have enough room for everything that drops, from corpses and the occasional treasure chest? All you're doing is irritating people. Still, I managed not to die, which is the main thing, though there were occasional gently humming square grids on the ground which I assume are resurrection spots.

Still, there was a little time left after that, so I let my level 34 temple knight over on Cariae, SirDarth, have a short outing. He had a quest to kill 20 berserkers, so that was simple enough, and the reward moved him along nicely with a bit more experience and skill experience. He then spent a little while in Prokion Temple - the back room, naturally. A level 23 titan called danh recruited him to a party, which was fine, as it gave him substantially more experience than soloing - but he disconnected before very long, which cut the experience back. Still, SirDarth does need skill points more I guess if he is ever going to get much further.

Cariae was supposed to have an abundance of races and hide and seek events starting at ten, but all that was announced initially was a hide and seek for GS TygerMyst, and riding around Juno for a while, after yesterday's late night, didn't appeal, so, at just under 90% of the way through his level, Darth logged out. It was around then that Jackboy, or Captianjack, used some sort of messenger service built into the Last Chaos website to get in touch, telling me that he had abandoned LC for Aion, along with a couple of other folks who used to be in Norcaine - which explains why, despite my activities on Cariae and Auzura recently, I've not encountered them.

SirGalahad though had had a productive evening. He did manage to attract a death mask soldier as well as the lancer at one stage, but I spotted the extra activity before any harm came to the drake, and killed the soldier. The drake ended the evening about two-thirds of the way through level 19.