Valsharyn's Monsters

The usual routine saw SirGalahad back in Maargadum Jail before breakfast, doing a little more work on his drake - and that was followed after coffee by the Discipline Duo of Memree and RedRyder taking their regular trip to Prokion Temple on Tairen-5, now designated "the newbie subserver" as Elizabeth has taken up residence there. Actually, she is now in Randol on the other subservers too, it's just if you attempt to get the "Elizabuff" anywhere else, you get directed to "channel 5".

Memree had a little catching up to do after her losses at the "Parade" yesterday, but eventually she was ahead again, and both she and RedRyder gained 129 points before the end of the session, which concentrated on orc soldiers, with the occasional orc fighter when they decided to join in. Memree went up by 8.24%, and 51 guild points, while Red added 2.08% and 7 guild points.

There was time before lunch for a quick bit of trading between SirGalahad and Kaerella; Kae gave Gal her level 8 hatchling to work on, and he gave her the level 21 drake, so that instead of just 7 levels of armour increase for a defence increase of 80, Kae now has 10 levels of that, for a defence increase of 105, plus 10 levels of power increase for an extra 20 on her physical attack stat.

One thing I hadn't realised was that the "Neckless of Rogue", and presumably the ones for other classes, do vary, they don't all have identical properties. RedRyder's and Rage's give 16 dexterity, 168 to long range physical hit rate, 112 to close range evasion, and 20 to critical hit - but Memree's gives 16 to dexterity again, but 8 to all types of physical attack, 3 poisoning attack (as previously discussed), and a 10% increase to her speed of movement - so she'd be pretty good at races, with a moving speed of 8.1, compared with Red's and Rage's 7.5 and Kaerella's 8.0. RedRider on Auzura reached level 20 before the necklesses were introduced, sadly; she has the quest, but she doesn't have the "letter" needed to fulfil its requirements.

For the afternoon, it seemed about time my level 35 rogue on Tairen, Rage (or xRAGEx, to be formal) got a little action, so she headed for Prokion Temple on Tairen-5 herself, in a solo party with SirGalahad. The orc sergeants and orc axemen in my favourite back room gave quite low amounts of experience, but still some useful exp - 1,896 experience and 4,400 skill exp per sergeant, and 1,284/2,200 per axeman. So a session in which she added just 3.02% and 33 guild points while gaining 140 skill points was a bit faster than Memree and RedRyder's earlier effort.

Still, it was time that Rage moved on a bit, so SirGalahad logged out, and Kaerella, on level 25, logged in, joined a combat party with Rage, and made the trip out to the Temple, to stand to one side, where orc spawns were infrequent, while Rage did the work. Having her bringing the average level of the party members down moved the experience and skill exp per orc sergeant for Rage to somewhere in the region of 19,000/4,800, and orc axemen to about 11,500/4,000 - so about ten times the experience, and a bit more skill exp too. Kaerella as the non-fighting member got about a sixth as much experience, and the same amount of skill exp.

Before too long KateNash arrived, and joined our party. For some of the time she stayed out of compass range, for the solo party effect, but later she fought in the same room - which meant Kae's effect was slightly diluted, but of course she was doing her share of the killing too, and with her involved we did get a few loot drops of origami paper and moonstone boxes. By the time the food break came along, Rage had added another 28.00% and 325 guild points, while Kaerella had gone up by 28.74% and 45 guild points - and they'd each earned 199 skill points, so that, since she'd a few left over from before, Kae was able to learn two more levels of Resurrection.

After the food break, it was time to log RedRider on over on Auzura-4, as I was determined to brave the perils of [GM]Valsharyn's low-level Mad Monster Spawn, over not far from Hunter Dranore's tent. "Don't get carried away - or we'll get carried away, in pine boxes", I cautioned before things started... and I must say I did get killed once, though as I'd spent Red's current stash of skill points, and got the location onto her memory scroll, that was only a temporary and minor setback.

It was a tricky event to give a verdict on. There were so many people there, since Val had given good in-game notice of things, that the initial waves of butchers, orcs, salamanders, and desert spiders seemed to get assimilated within seconds. Thankfully she resisted the temptation to drop gangs of death knights on people's heads, and indeed cautioned people to rally off to one side between waves. The waves did grow more challenging, with barren eises, dragons, akane giants, twin hadians, cursed and wane spiders, even the level 75 Forgotten Temple main boss the blood terrain - and finally from Egeha a number of scorpionmantises and skin walkers, level 80 and 82 boss monsters.

"GRATZ - you just killed eight level 80 Elite Monsters!!" [GM]Valsharyn was suitably impressed. "This calls out for double PRIZES!!!!"

So, the loot was pretty generous, but I just can't see that a group of players around level 30, even a large group, could kill skin walkers that quickly; they may be passive, but they are protective, so if you attack one of them, the others would take an interest. There must have been some higher level players along, with their armour covered it's hard to tell...though very few low-level people put a cowboy, gang or mexican cover on their costumes as they know they will outgrow that armour set well before the melding ends.

Not content with the generous loot thus far, once the low-level event was over quite a few of us moved straight across to the high-level event, where the final wave was well under way, with our old friends the flutons and patriarch botises along, plus other high-level stuff. I got involved in the snaring sequence for a few of the big guys - there was another death, some sort of "area of effect" blast that took out a mage near me as well, but I was soon back in action. This was a proper "old school" Mad Monster Spawn, and lasted over an hour in all, not one of [GM]JediMike's 12-minute single spawn efforts; Val herself got involved in the fighting, generally not using skills but being a useful tank - she was standing dazed, attacked by two patriarch botises, at one stage, but survived.

We had a 20 minute deadline to get rid of the last of the flutons and botises, which did tend to take a few minutes each, but we made it, and were rewarded with multiple waves of loot. So in all RedRider picked up, at the two events, 12 item drop boosters, 23 large attack and 15 large defence potions, 13 skill points boosters, and 33 tool aids, plus no doubt plenty of the small HP and mana recovery pots.

Latre, Rage went to the third "personal dungeon", Ajaka Canyon, which now gives twelve moonstones as a reward for its completion, plus 50,000 gold and some experience and skill exp. Rage picked up almost 43,000 gold along the way as drops from the various monsters, too, while Blood Mistress Kamira, the level 38 end boss, dropped a "Bloodlust", rather appropriately, though that just happens to be the name of the level 37 titan sword. This one was +1, and not very valuable, I imagine, with all the level 33 +10 weapons around. The actual experience from the fighting was 0.89%, with the quest reward (doubled by the Elizabuff) adding another 0.95%; the skill exp side gave 13 from the fighting and 16 as the reward. Well, it made a change from Prokion Temple.

A different type of Parade was scheduled for later, starting at ten, UK time, on Katar. "GMs will lead a Parade event on each server," the website reported. "It will be short and simple, from the West Gate to the Windmill, to the bridge north of West Gate, to the northern town and down to North Gate. The exact route is up to the discretion of each individual GM leading the parade, but this route will take ten minutes tops."

Well, it sounded unusual, but worth attending one of, just to see where a "northern town" might be - My level 2 mage on Katar, Enchantrella, went out to investigate. [GM]JediMike appeared right on time, and led us quickly over the course - the "northern town" seemed to be the house or two on the hill where the jaguars roam, though we didn't actually go up there. Mike kindly pointed out the elder wolves, and dire wolves, and the bridge, as we went, and the magical herbs where they grew - and at the north gate, spawned us some of our favourite prizes.

After a few minutes of chat, so that we can confirm that his name really is Michael, at about a quarter past the hour he spawned a second set of loot, and left us... so, seeing that loot was involved, it seemed worth following him to Cariae, where my level 20 healer Telzey showed up at the west gate. This time he actually spawned a few things at the start - not hands, but I did end up with three effort scrolls and a cake. The event itself was otherwise very similar to the previous one.

And throughout, SirGalahad kept hard at work, so that his dragon hatchling was close to level 15 by the time the computer was turned off.