Racing the GM

I was a bit ambitious last night, and left SirGalahad and ColonelScarlet both pet-levelling, in Maargadum and Merac. Since I was busy with shopping and other stuff this morning, their sessions became a bit of a marathon, lasting roughly sixteen hours each, with both drakes gaining two "technical points" - though the Colonel's pink drake is still some hours ahead, so that he, his drake, and the bandit they are fighting are all level 35 now. Unusually there weren't any GM spam announcements after eleven last night, UK time, when the start of the four-hour US Happy Hour, with 50% extra experience, was mentioned.

However, for the afternoon session Rage and RedRyder, my level 38 and level 30 rogues on Tairen, were back in action in Prokion Temple, in my favourite back room with the orc sergeants and orc axemen. It was a fairly long slog, so that by the end Rage had gone up 12.73% and donated 241 guild points to Discipline, and RedRyder had added 7.93%, donating 37 guild points. And they had each earned a very useful 229 skill points, which were just enough to get Red's unused sp total to the 6k mark. Rage isn't far short of the 5k mark, too.

For the first part of the evening, it was Kaerella on Cariae who took the spotlight, with a trip out to the sphinx fighters in Dratan. The specialist sorcerer danjorge, level 45 now, was there almost as soon as I arrived, and asked to team up again, so we battled the elite sphinx speer man, and between his spawnings the regular types, but the place started to get pretty busy, so I told Dan about the other elite sphinx speer man I'd found, and teleported across - he rode over to join me, since he could see my party-dot on the map. He was a little low on health when he arrived, with a couple of speer men chasing him, but we soon got rid of them, and had the local sphinx types to ourselves.

Eventually, danjorge left, as he wanted to go to a "scrambled words" event on another subserver; I continued, though not fighting the elite, as it can hit pretty hard, and gives a smaller proportion of skill exp, come to that. A mage called CynthiaDeLaCroix arrived, someone else who knows that spot - I assured her that I wasn't after the elite then since my team-mate had left, so she got happily to work.

By the end, Kaerella's new level 61 wand had got all five bloodseals, to improve its attack and hit rate - and Kae had added 34.07%, along with 36 skill points and 1558 pet points. XxGALAHADxX had supplied her with a solo party, as well as pet-levelling, and, despite being ks'd a couple of times out with the gnoll lancers in Merac on Cariae-5, he made good progress - by the end of the evening his drake had reached level 43. I think the idea is probably that Barbarienne should have this one, as at present she has a horse (which spent a year as a cute little reindeer), as well as her mount, and horses aren't as good as drakes at picking up loot without getting stuck.

At eight o'clock UK time the series of "100 meter" races with [GM]JediMike began, on Katar-5, moving on every half hour, and ending on Tairen at ten thirty. I went along to all of them as Kaerella, with on Katar, Cariae and Auzura a pale blue mount, and as before they were fun, with a generous reward of the usual hands of loot at the end.

Generally we raced from the west gate, via the haunted bridge, to the north gate, and then after a few minutes back again, followed a few minutes later by a third race, back to the north gate. Sarissa however only got two races. The turnout was generally good, though there were sometimes a few people who couldn't get into the spirit of things. Some people who didn't find it fun headed off to the arena, on one server, and Mike made sure they had left us before he spawned the loot.

It was really only Tairen where using mounts wasn't considered fair, and indeed some people insisted that pots shouldn't be used there either - on other servers pots, including the expensive item mall "super haste" ones, were used, and there was one race that our GM didn't win. Tairen had the distinction of being the only server with a "naked race", with just about everyone running without their armour on.

I'm not sure we really need races like that every week, a return of the zombie invasion of Berbank Mill would get my vote, but as an occasional event it's a fun way to pass the time. By the end of the evening that drake was, well, about 4% into level 44, so it is probably about ready to be moved across to its new owner.