Racing Through Juno

I got both SirGalahad on Tairen and ColonelScarlet on Katar into action at breakfast time, and didn't encounter any problems. With subserver four being so quiet, now that number five has Elizabeth's Enhancement on offer, for double experience and skill exp gain and a minor improvement to one's attack, when Gal goes into Maargadum Jail now he tends to find two or three knights just inside the entrance pet-levelling on the spike canines - but level five is still his best bet.

After coffee it was time for the first combat party team-up between Rage and RedRyder, and Red being three levels higher than Kaerella did mean that the experience and skill exp wasn't quite as good. Orc sergeants still give Rage around 10,000 experience and perhaps 2700 skill exp, but the orc axemen, two levels lower, just give around 1,400 experience and 1,700 skill exp. Still, that's quite a nice ratio of skill exp to experience, and even better for Red of course.

Rage and RedRyder did have visitors; my heart did sink when the level 32 specialist sorcerer hotrod and the level 30 healer TenshinoKami ran straight in, but hotrod was just there to supply a bit of moral support for his friend, and did chat a little, while the healer didn't kill very quickly, not having her +10 weapon yet, so it didn't really slow me down. By the time lunch was looming, Rage had gone up 7.82% and 148 guild points, while RedRyder was up by 4.87% and 23 guild points. They'd each gained 139 skill points - handy for Rage as she'd just spent 586 on the level 38 attack skills Piercing and Flame Arrow before setting out.

For the afternoon the other new team of Memree and Kaerella headed back to the same room. A rogue called CrimsonAssian had been using it very recently, there was still loot on the floor, but she was just sitting quietly in a corner, and continued to sit there for well over an hour, before getting up, heading for the doorway, and teleporting out. So, I'd timed my arrival well, and Memree set to work, with Kaerella standing at the side. It seemed a good team-up, with each orc sergeant giving Memree around 19,000 experience and 5,000 or so skill exp, and each orc axeman giving about 11,000 experience and perhaps 3,600.

TenshinoKami returned after a while, and accepted my invitation to join the combat party, which made things simpler, and meant I could attack orcs that were concentrating on her, and cut down a bit on the number of health potions she had to use. That got cut down a lot more when she reached level 31, and got her +10 armour set to wear. A bit later hotrod returned too, which surprised me as when he'd left in the morning he'd been on his way to bed, yet here he was again only about three hours later. He joined the combat party as well, which helped the experience gain along a bit.

They didn't stay for the whole of my session, but our Friends lists are now a bit longer. I stopped a little earlier than average, as I knew I'd need to be back in action at five o'clock, but Memree added 55.31% and 453 guild points, while Kaerella added 26.68% and 67, though she'll need to lose the experience again at some point. They each got 263 skill points, which in Kae's case were just enough for the final level of expert alchemy, the two levels of basic mining, the first two levels of advanced mining - and the two levels of basic energy collection as well.

Over on Auzura-4, my level 73 rogue Rage was at least ten minutes early arriving outside Merac Castle for the Auzura-only "Storm the Castle" - but [GM]Valsharyn was already there, and half a dozen or so players. Plenty more had arrived by the time the thorny mantises, male assassinbugs, and the other monsters had appeared, luckily, but too many people charged on through the gateway into the outer courtyard, I think, and I found myself soloing a level 106 boss Anubis Spear Man, having to run for it whenever Snare wore off. A sorcerer joined in, but when it turned and attacked him, he ran too far and the boss's health returned to 100%, which was annoying. Still, the second time around Rage did get a bit more help, and the Anubis Spear Man finally fell, though it meant some precious time had been wasted.

[GM]Valsharyn had warned that we had the traditional 20 minute deadline, and that there were flutons to face after the regular monsters, so it was a pretty close call. Most of us concentrated on clearing out the dark harpies and hell-otuu, and then, with the clock ticking down, we all concentrated on the last fluton - and killed it with seconds to spare.

Val called us back outside for the loot, and I was lucky - he'd given the location 1000.1000, but I'm never much good at steering in the right direction for coordinates, and went to where I could see him, where he was just spawning one of the traditional (for a StC) tightly-packed little circles of our usual loot. I'm sure there were other circles, including one at the announced location, but it meant that, until the loot was almost all gone, there were only three of us by this particular pile, and the others didn't seem to be grabbing much at all. So Rage did exceptionally well on the loot front then.

Two or three Almas appeared to attempt to avenge their dead comrades, but against our combined forces they didn't last long, and [GM]Valsharyn spawned one final pile - I got a couple more item drop boosters from that one, though of course with dozens of people grabbing what they could, it all vanished in record time. So, an even better StC than [GM]Cara's yesterday; Auzura is certainly a good place to go for events, and for loot.

SirGalahad had been hard at work moving his drake on through level 29 - and for a while on the newer computer RedRackham, my level 35 temple knight pet-leveller over on Auzura, joined in too, after a long time of inactivity. He has a level 36 drake, so was able to move it on for an hour or so, fighting a gnoll lancer down in south Merac, not too far west from where Rage had been busy.

The main evening session involved my level 55 cleric Kaerella, on Cariae-5. She went out to the sphinx fighters and sphinx speer men at the usual spot, though someone else in the same solo party was fighting the elite speer man so I had to move away a little. The place was pretty busy; another party member turned up there, but he was only level 36 so I couldn't team up with him, I'd have "capped" his experience gain. It was quite a long session, and in the later stages I moved away from the campsite, with the idea of finding the elite sphinx fighter that GAMER had led me to on Tairen - but my idea of where that particular critter might be was a bit vague, so I just followed the various paths, fighting the sphinx types as I went. As it happens, towards the end of the available time I discovered the other elite sphinx speer man, in a nicely out-of-the-way location, which I memorised, so if I want to fight an elite, while the regular place for that may be rather busy, I'll probably find this other spot available...

I just had time to get Kaerella into level 56 before Kae needed to log out, which meant that, including recovering the bit of experience lost in the Tuesday evening rollback, Kae went up 41.59%...and added 44 skill points, as well as 1612 pet points. Back in Randol, Kaerella was now able to learn level 6 of Fast Heal, boosting the amount of health that skill returns, which is useful; it cost 260 skill points, so that takes Kae back to about where she was, sp-wise, at the beginning of the old level.

The reason for a swift logging out was that [GM]JediMike was holding a racing contest on Katar-5 at nine o'clock, UK time. After the recent epic events, Mike is now a night shadow, but he soon shed the armour, to reveal his new skinnier body, toned for speed. The first race started from the west gate, went near to Berbank Mill and across his "haunted" bridge, and cut back to the north gate. My local Kaerella, on her stylish pale blue horse, did pretty well, though these things always look different on different players' computer screens - with his GM speed though Mike himself won. Luckily as always he was in a generous mood, and we got some useful spawning of loot. As I remarked later, my best event is the 100 small recovery potion dash.

We raced back to the east gate, and a little later we raced back again, but Mike, on foot, was faster than any of us on our mounts. Still, with the loot that was dropped, few people were complaining, and it was a fun event. At half past nine it was Cariae-5's turn, and Barbarienne was on her white horse for that, and again seemed, on my screen at least, to be among the leaders. The loot was lavish, which rather makes up for the offhand and ungenerous drops we got last night after Cariae's "Storm the Castle" event. I can't say that there was a huge turn-out...so all the more for Barb, who ended up at least 10% overweight.

Meanwhile SirGalahad had kept busy down on level five of Maargadum Jail, so that by the end of the evening his drake was about a third of the way into level 30.