A Timely Storming

While I was busy working downstairs, the pet-levellers continued their good work. SirGalahad on Tairen-4 got back to Maargadum Jail before breakfast, and Galahad on Cariae-4 went off to his pair of bandits shortly after that, after using the eight stat points his horse had gained on the Armour Increase buff. Before 9:30 both pets had levelled up, reaching 28 and 19 respectively.

By late afternoon Galahad's horse had reached level 21, but it was time for him to log out - and Rage to log in over on Auzura-4 for [GM]Noboru's version of Storming the Castle in Merac.

Unlike the [GM]Stratos version yesterday, we got the proper "starting in a few minutes" announcements; we didn't actually start bang on four o'clock, UK time, as Noboru wanted to make sure everyone who wanted to come had a chance to reach us, but at around five past, the usual monsters appeared, and the fight began. Luckily Rage didn't have to tank anything, just provide artillery fire and Snare, plus Flame Arrow - she used the last of her Christmas-time mana-providing candy canes. Clearing the outer courtyard of its anubis spear men, and hell-otuu and dark harpies, took a while, but at last we reached the throne room where, as [GM]Noboru had warned us, a couple of flutons were waiting.

There were a few deaths in the final room; I think a royal knight who fought the fluton I was firing on might have survived if he'd thought to give me, and one or two other rogues, the Concentration buff, to increase the chance of Snare succeeding. I didn't get into any trouble, myself, and the GM judged that we had finished within our time limit - so we were invited back out to the starting area, where the proper traditional fatly-packed circles of loot were quickly spawned. I'd rather have loot like that than the extra "counter-attack" monsters [GM]Stratos provided, followed by his small loot spawnings.

There's always a moment after a StC has been successfully completed when one wonders where to go next - a good GM like Noboru or Valsharyn will quickly say where the loot will be spawned, or indeed where other monsters can be found. It can be unfortunate if we are left to guess where to go, and people can miss out, if they stay inside and the loot is outside, or rush outside not realising that the loot is even then being spawned in the inner courtyard, or even the throne room itself.

After the food break, it was a matter of deciding how to spend the evening. The main options seemed to be either my Cariae cleric Kaerella out with the sphinx types for the duration of a blessed iris, or my Tairen healer (and archer-to-be) Kaerella tagging along with Memree to Prokion Temple, for the duration of the Elizabeth's Enhancement buff. It seemed to me that the Tairen duo was slightly more appropriate, at least if I was able to find a place for them, so I logged them both in, got the buff, and headed out to the Temple.

I was in luck, in that the back room I prefer was free, and I had the room to myself for most of the time. A level 30 knight called JacKsen came in for a while, but didn't really slow me down much. We chatted a bit, and he told me he had had his old account, with a character over level 70, hacked, so had just started again. He'd got his new knight to level 30 in one day; he was using a blessed iris, which would help speed things along; he assured me that it did "stack" with the Elizabuff, which would make it useful.

Since he didn't yet have the +10 armour set, he left after a while, for a less arduous room, though he did return once just to give Memree an armour buff, which was kind. In my last few minutes before the Elizabuff ended a rogue called Eestijaan came in and started busily fighting the orc sergeants and axemen, but she definitely wasn't wearing any sort of 30/32 armour set, so got through health potions rather quickly, and retreated to the orc soldiers outside.

I left when the buff ran out. By then, Memree had gone up by 19.49%, so by my calculations it would take about seven more hours before she reaches level 39, as things go; she earned 369 guild points for Discipline. Kaerella got 17.44%, so it should only take her two more hours to get to level 29 - I hope that Memree's experience gain doesn't fall too much when that happens. Discipline gained 53 more guild points from her. And they each got 355 skill points, so Kae's stash of unused sp is starting to grow. Some skill points will need to be spent at levels 30, 32 and 35, of course, but Kaerella has plenty of levels of sp-farming ahead of her...sigh...

SirGalahad logged back in, and was able to have his horse learn two more levels of Magical Defence

, as it had levelled up twice since his last appearance in Randol. He headed for Maargadum Jail, as usual. The halfway point in level 29 should be reached before I go off to bed.

I think I managed to get far enough ahead with my downstairs work today to be able to have an afternoon session tomorrow, as well as the evening one. There don't seem to be any exciting events coming up to report on, generally Tuesday to Friday are the busiest days for those. I see that next week the main "Storm the Castle" rota moves to Tuesday, with the "Mad Monster Spawns" remaining on Wednesday. "World Defence" moves from Friday to Thursday, but that never has its timing announced in advance, so is not something I often encounter, as if I'm on a different server I'll never hear about it. Fighting high-level monsters at the very gates of the city is always risky stuff, anyway, and if it is [GM]Stratos in command, one just knows that any loot rewards will be minor.