"Cariae Is In Pain!"

Looking at the latest updates on the forum this morning before breakfast, I discovered that the problems with the Cariae server were far from over. "ZOMG!! Cariae is in pain!" was how Aeria_ks1lent began his update. "

So after we have come up from maintenance we, with the help of you the players have discovered quite a large amount of missing data on Cariae including characters, inventory and the like. We are going to bring down Cariae servers while the developers investigate the issue."

Sure enough, when I downloaded the new patch and logged in, the dreaded word "Maintenance" appeared alongside every Cariae subserver, so there was no possibility of me logging in to find out if Kaerella, Barbarienne, Keerella, SirDarth, and all my other characters there still existed, along with their weapons, armour and inventories - all I could do was opt for Katar, and log ColonelScarlet in to do a little work on his pale mauve, or pink, drake, which was moving towards the top of level 37.

The "Easter Event" has started, which accounted for most of today's patch; this year we are promised that the eggs the monsters will drop for us can possibly give skill, experience, or item drop boosters, or even a chaos ball. Apparently a quest called "Invade the Missionaries" has been fixed, presumably a Mondshine-based one for people level 140 or above, while we are assured that identifying too many items without hitting the "okay" button will no longer crash our clients. Add some "changes to internal database security systems", and that's about it, apart from some new item mall packages, which unfortunately only appear in the in-game item mall, where we don't, these days, get "buy one get one free" offers.

What with one thing and another, there wasn't an opportunity for a morning session today - there won't be one tomorrow, either. However, ColonelScarlet did get his drake to level 38 at around eleven, and I did at least manage to get some quality stones on Sarissa, by sending Kaerella out to use up her supply of tool aids. MistressFelicia had three tool aids, from the drops at the arena last night, but as she hasn't reached the level at which she can do the quest to learn the first level of basic mining, she couldn't use a boosted hammer, so had to pass them over, via storage, to Kae. Boosted hammers do at least weigh less than tool aids, so cost less to put in storage.

The afternoon session was suitably productive, though, with Kaerella teaming with SirDarth in Prokion Temple on Sarissa-5; Darth fought the orc sergeants and orc axemen in my usual back room, and Kae picked up the loot. Kae did have to leave him for a few minutes, though, as Friend got in touch, assuring me that I could keep the level 29 +15 weapon for a while yet, and asked if I could help her transfer items between two of her characters. Since SirDarth could keep on fighting without her, Kae got elected to return to Dratan and help out.

There were a couple of rather nice monster combo type accessories among the items Friend wanted to be traded across to her archer happy22, as well as 11,111,111 gold, but it didn't take long, and happy22 showed me her 85/87 armour set, which was all "B5E", which means that it is blue-named, for the best defence stats, has 5 bloodseals, and that those seals are evasion-enhancing. She hasn't yet upgraded all the pieces to +13, but it is a nice set, going well with her five-sealed green-name bow.

Kaerella hurried back to SirDarth after that little trip, and by the end of the afternoon he had added 50.15%, and 490 guild points, plus 313 skill points. Kae herself added 29.87%, 74 guild points, and 303 skill points, so should be able to learn a few more levels of Resurrection now.

After the food break, SirDarth had the quests to kill bandits and pilferers, and berserkers, to do in Merac, and took RedRyder along in an equal party, to give her a little experience boost. Those quests didn't take long; Red just got 15.96% and 4 skill points, while, with his quest rewards, SirDarth got 15.74%, which was enough to take him into level 35, and 84 skill points.

SirDarth was able to learn the single level of Canid Fence 2 for just 60 skill points, further increasing his physical defence by 120 - and then it was time to finish his conversion into a pet-leveller. So, he and RedRyder switched to Sarissa-6, which is a PvP-enabled sub-server, and went to Prokion Temple - since if you die there, you respawn in its entry hall, which can be mere yards from the death point.

Darth temporarily kicked Red from the Discipline guild, as you can't kill a guild member, and then killed Red until his name went red, and his "Good/Evil" stat was on -155, which I think is the maximum. That cuts SirDarth's attack way down. Then, safely back on Sarissa-5, SirDarth was able to buy a blue pan flute from the merchant mart for 750,000 gold - and went out to do some pet-levelling with the bandits in Merac. Even with accessories that add 20 to his strength, he only hits bandits for 21 (or without them, 19), which they can easily survive... so, pet-levelling is pretty simple for him.

He was on Sarissa-5 so that he could provide a solo party for RedRyder, now back in Discipline, who, after buying the set of 25/27 armour from the armour trader in Randol, headed first of all for Velpist Temple. She didn't stay very long, just adding 33.09% and 30 skill points - but she managed to pick up four cursed bones, for a future quest.

I wanted to buy some small health potions, back in Randol, but Geres didn't seem to be selling any - the merchant in Strayana had them, though, so I stocked up there. Then RedRyder headed for Prokion Temple - and soon got to the room with just level 19 mummies in it, plus a single orc soldier.

So, I settled in there, though a rogue called DeadlyNinJa did decide to gate-crash - there really aren't enough mummies in that room for two people. She was using one of her beginner platinum super skill pills, which seemed a bit of a waste since she like me was sometimes having to wait for the mummies to respawn; eventually she moved away and left me to it, thankfully.

Red hadn't been able to wear the level 27 hood and boots to begin with, but put them on when she reached level 22; she was just using a level 25 crossbow which I'd taken up to +3, though she has now taken possession of the level 29 +15 sword Darth had been using, ready to convert it into a suitably deadly crossbow when she gets to level 25 and can use it without any penalty. It was quite a productive session, and RedRyder added 223.07% experience, since she isn't on the 50% "freeze" yet, and 323 skill points, all of which got spent on relatively useful skills afterwards.

As with most Wednesdays, I had to log out at around eight, though SirDarth continued with his pet-levelling. It seems strange not to have had any "Mad Monster Spawns" to go to, but we seem a bit light on those events this week.

The Cariae drama ended with the awful decision that the server had to be rolled back a full week, to March 23rd, as that was the last point at which they had uncorrupted data. Thankfully I've not been buying item mall stuff lately, but it means that Galahad's horse-in-training is back to early in level 31 - and my Cariae cleric Kaerella's last three lengthy grinding sessions have been wiped out, removing 5714 pet points, 146 skill points, and 69.80% experience... she is back down from a quarter of the way through level 65, to just over halfway through level 64. Ah well, I'm sure many other people have suffered a great deal more, but it is annoying. "We will be running the largest ever bonus events, present giveaways and in game events ever on Cariae starting tomorrow

" Aeria_ks1lent says, I just hope that at least some of whatever actually gets done is at a Europe-friendly time.