The Invisible Visitor

I did leave both the currently-active pet-levellers in action last night, since I knew that the computers and the modem would be getting a rest during the hours of daylight today. So, before my usual breakfast time, instead of logging on, they were logging off - with SirGalahad's pale blue horse on Tairen-4 an hour into level 33, and XxGALAHADxX's horse on Cariae-4 almost four hours into level 26.

So, we did have some activity today, though from 6:30am UK time, for twelve hours or so, the computers were off while I was out. I got Last Chaos running again at about seven in the evening, which was in good time for the Sunday Quiz - which, while the US and UK clocks are out of sequence for two weeks, was at 7:30pm for Britain, as opposed to the usual 8:30pm.

MistressDomino was first to log in, on as usual for the Quiz Tairen-2, and found that the Quiz Room was still not open, even though by then it was a couple of minutes past seven. Normally the rooms, on each subserver, open at least half an hour before the event is due to begin, but today it was more like twenty minutes. In case Tairen-2 had a glitch, Kaerella logged in on Tairen-4; she found that subserver's room open, and was the first to arrive in it.

MistressDomino reported to the other people standing by the Domain Merchant that the T4 room was open - but then, when she tried to enter the T2 room again, that time she did get in, the second person to arrive. So, Kaerella moved across to our usual Quiz subserver, and joined MD.

I didn't notice the usual plethora of announcements about the Quiz, just the one notification that the rooms were now open, just after Kae had joined MD. No "exploiters will be handled", no "Quiz is about to start" - just the window for the first question popping up, a minute or so after half past seven.

The Quiz moved along quickly, as it did last week, so I was kept busy moving Kaerella and MistressDomino independently - I did move to the wrong side on one question, but soon realised my mistake, and both characters were able to move back to safety before the countdown got perilously low. The questions were the ones we have come to know and love, and hardly anyone got lost along the way - the ten tool aids, ten moonstones, and five plus ten heaven stones all duly arrived in our inventories.

There were 23 questions in all, though the last prizes arrive when 20 have been successfully completed. The last three questions were all repeats, though there are others in the database that they could have used, I'm sure. Kaerella and MistressDomino didn't bother to get the last one wrong to leave, as they would be logging out anyway; Kae trade the newly-received heaven stones and moonstones across to MD, and then they both logged out.

Having the Quiz early meant that there was room for a reasonably lengthy session after it, so Memree logged in on Tairen-5, and was joined by Kaerella there. They formed a combat party, got the Elizabeth's Enhancement buff - and headed for Prokion Temple. I had hoped that we would be quick enough to grab my favourite back room, but it was already being used. The corridor room nearby was vacant, but I decided that one so often gets someone coming along and killing half the orcs that it wasn't a good place to start work, so we ran across to the mirror side, and settled into a couple of small rooms between that half's corridor and back rooms, as it seemed to have a reasonably good supply of orc axemen and orc sergeants.

Memree and Kaerella stayed there for almost two hours. We had one visitor, a sorcerer called PILLOW, but he had the usual glitch that sorcs often get with their stone skin buff, and was invisible. I could see his name and his spirits, but not him, and, while I assume he was ks-ing me, Rage remarked that, as he was invisible, it was impossible to her to avoid ks-ing him.

He did ask to join the party, but Rage had to say that as she was level 38, that would cut down on his experience gain too much. So, after that he did move along to the next room, thankfully - it wasn't as if the mirror half was crowded, there were plenty of places he could solo.

By the end of the session, Memree was up by 14.01%, which meant that she had earned 266 guild points - another couple of sessions like that and she will overtake Rage (or xRAGEx) as the biggest supplier of guild points to Discipline on Tairen. Kaerella went up by 12.29%, which was enough to get her into the start of level 29. Now she will be able to use her level 33 +10 bow, when necessary. Her share of the experience meant that 39 more guild points went to Discipline. And they each gained 214 skill points, which takes Memree over the 7k mark.

Talking of skill points, there was a special raffle event today, with no purchases necessary. To qualify for a chance to win the Grand Prize, all you have to do is use skill point boosters - the more you use, the better your chance. There will be sixty lucky winners, with ten chosen per server. The prize isn't master packs or master stones, instead - drum roll please - it's one hundred skill points. Which strikes me as most peculiar, as to almost any character that's a tiny prize. In Prokion Temple you could get that many skill points from using 13 skill point boosters, or even without boosters it would only take a few minutes, if you were fighting monsters your own level. Even going slowly, to get skill exp without too much experience, Kae or Memree each get that in less than an hour. So, a rather small deal. Perhaps it is aimed more at high-level players - but at level 100-ish, new skills tend to cost around a thousand skill points per level. So, why wasn't the prize one or two thousand? To make such a "song and dance" about such a small prize seems weird.

Anyway, once Kaerella and Memree were safely out of the way, SirGalahad and his Cariae equivalent got back into action for a while. Galahad's Cariae horse ought to be getting fairly close to level 27 before my rather long day comes to its close.