A Vengeful Pharaoh

After servers missing in action, forgotten mad monster spawns, being disconnected by a tetchy game master, getting that pale blue horse on Tairen up to mount level, and all the other stuff yesterday, today looked like being a welcome return to normal life in Last Chaos.

So, Galahad took his level 31 horse out into Merac to his usual pair of bandits on Cariae-4, before breakfast, for some nice gentle pet-levelling. It was good to see that, despite all yesterday's downtime, Randol was as full of people as usual - Cariae-4 is the main subserver for merchants there. After a while a pandora's box put in an appearance, and Galahad opened it. It released a level 50 pandora's beast, rather than any useful drop or a harmless level 30 one, so Galahad needed to retreat quickly, and continued his bandit-bashing at a relatively safe distance from where the beast prowled.

However, since this was happening on Cariae, it was possible for me to send another higher-level character to deal with the beast. The options on Auzura would have been wider, but as it was, my level 64 cleric Kaerella logged in, moved to Merac, and rode down to slay the beast, getting very little experience and no drop. Still, it made the area safe for Gal again - those beasts can start to wander about a bit too much.

After coffee, it was time for a bit more work on Sarissa, so SirDarth got up-to-date on his quests, gaining 28.14% and 4 skill points, enough to get him into level 26. Kaerella was then able to trade across the four pieces of +9/+10 rogue armour that Friend had so generously given me; Darth could just afford to get Collector Ryl to convert them into their knightly equivalents, after some gold from the quests, so was now able to put on the gloves, mail and leggings. Keerella did some easy quests too, enough to add 23.88% experience though no skill points, and then she and SirDarth teamed up in Dratan.

SirDarth did the fighting, so only he completed the quests to kill "ramians" and clever foxes of the desert. Moving east, they naturally enough reached Shuraine's oasis, so SirDarth spent the remainder of the morning killing the sand golems, to get as many portions of soft sand as possible. A lot of drops have no use at all, but there are two quests that each need 10 of those, and they don't drop all that often, but Darth managed to get over the 20 mark before lunchtime - 24 in fact.

The raid boss, Grand Devilroad Kamira, "Arrived" after a while; like the other maps' raid bosses she tends to stay for 13 or 14 minutes, and then vanish, though if your spot on the map continues to be the busiest, she immediately "Arrives" again. She spent four 13-minute sessions just hanging in mid-air, and only left after that, I think, because when the session's time expired I was briefly away from the keyboard. I did ask in the forum shoutbox if anyone wanted to come and visit Kamira, but nobody from Sarissa was around.

Keerella was within compass range, so shared the experience and skill points. Towards the end a mage called Fashionate came along, but didn't say anything, just fought a few sand golems, including the elite one when I wasn't quick enough to get to it. She then must have disconnected or gone afk, as she stood in the water not defending herself for a few minutes. Whenever I noticed that she was being attacked, I'd go and kill the sand golems in question, so I think that both she and her pony survived, and finally vanished.

SirDarth's experience gain was 48.65%, while Keerella added 85.50%, reaching level 23. Sand golems give only the normal amount of skill exp, so they only got 33 skill points each. Friend did get in touch just before lunch, and assured me that I could hold on to the +15 weapon until SirDarth was past level 30 - which, as he'll get two +10 weapons when he reaches 31, fits together nicely.

For the afternoon session, SirDarth and Keerella headed to Prokion Temple on Sarissa-5 for some more serious levelling and skill point farming. As Kee needs to get some skill points, and Darth needs to level up a bit, this time we made a combat-type party, so that, while skill exp is equally split, the actual fighter gets most of the experience.

We started with the room of orc soldiers and mummies close to my "back room", with Keerella clicked on to Darth to follow him, and occasionally taking the odd hit, but not taking much damage. Darth's new armour pieces gradually got their assorted bloodseals, and before long he reached level 27, which meant he could put on the +9 boots, further boosting his armour rating. He might still be using a level 22 helm and a level 25 shield, but the orcs weren't able to damage him at all - a physical defence stat of 812, plus a knight's health regeneration, coped admirably.

Soon after reaching level 27 I decided to see if the back room itself was free - and it was. So, with Keerella prudently staying by the doorway, SirDarth found that he could manage a whole mob of orc sergeants and orc axemen. Of course, using the +3 event weapon meant that he didn't actually kill them very quickly, but you can't have everything!

Before very long a rogue called LoveMyReputation arrived, and I assured her that there was room for both of us as I wasn't killing very quickly. I soon suggested that she joined our combat party, and she found that it helped her experience gain nicely; she was using the beginner platinum blessed iris, so, while she started at level 24, she reached level 27 before I left. I had intended to leave just before four o'clock, UK time, for the Parade event on Auzura-4, but her pbi had another quarter of an hour to run, so I stayed around until it was about to run out. By then Keerella had reached level 24, going up in all by 78.55%, and SirDarth had reached level 28, adding 129.64%. They each added 160 skill points, which meant that later Kee was able to learn both levels of Haste, which should be useful if Friend decides to take us into the monster combo.

Kaerella was a bit late for the Parade on Auzura-4 after that, and [GM]Noboru and the group had finished marching around town, and had ended up at the arena, where she was demonstrating her skills, and much dying was going on. To show willing I transformed into a sasquatch and entered the arena - and so I can confirm that scroll-transformed people can be killed there. It looked as if I was killed by someone transformed into a jaguar, but maybe it was somebody else. I hurried back, after carefully not using an expensive resurrection scroll (since there is no death penalty in the arena), and watched from safety. There was a bit of chat, and we resolved to meet up at the "Pharaoh's Treasure" event at six.

That left time for my food break, and for Keerella to spend her skill points and do a few minor messenger-type quests, gaining another 18.77% - and for SirDarth to get his quest rewards for getting five cracked axes from the orc axemen, and a few other minor quests, which got him 13.85% and 6 skill points.

I didn't get to the correct location for the "Pharaoh's Treasure" very quickly this time, as the spot which had loot, and [GM]Noboru. was off to one side, close to the eastern edge of the map, and I rode past on my search. Still, when the GM told us the treasure trove was to the east, I got near enough that the final announcement of the correct coordinates led me pretty quickly to the spot, where perhaps less than a dozen people were already picking up the loots.

Luckily the Pharaoh had been fairly generous, or his security had been poor. Noboru assured us that only a single minion was tracking her - but when it arrived, it turned out to be a fluton, and she told us that we needed to kill it to earn further drops. We must have had less high-level people than usual - we didn't even seem to have enough rogues to keep it Snared all the time. I commented that I only did 128 damage to it at a time, though my critical and deadly hits were a bit better. We did get its health down by around 20 to 25%, but I think that our GM, fearing for our safety, cancelled it then - and we got some fresh spawnings of hands.

I commented on there not being an Auzura European Mad Monster Spawn this week, and [GM]Noboru promised that she would try to squeeze one in next week. She also confirmed that she would be in charge of the "Storm the Castle" EU event tomorrow, with the warning that we would need to kill all the monsters within the deadline to get any rewards there.

SirDarth was back in Randol on Sarissa-5 when a level 7 mage called Budhi asked if I'd become her Guardian. I switched to Kaerella, as she'd done the previous two guardianships, and enrolled her, then added her to my friends list; I had to switch back to SirDarth, as Kae didn't have any drake eggs or pan flutes and it seemed a good idea to offer her a pet. She chose the pony option, so I traded a pan flute across, escorted her to Lorraine and then on to Jajan in Dratan, a city which impressed her greatly, and why not. I tried to pass on suitable tips - though at this stage I've not parted with any money, just that pan flute and later a tool aid when showing her how mining worked.

After that there was still time for about an hour and a half's worth of adventuring, so it seemed a good idea to hop back to Tairen-5, so that Memree and Kaerella there wouldn't start to feel neglected. The back room in Prokion Temple was available, luckily, so Memree did the fighting, as usual, and Kaerella picked up the loot. I did have one visitor, a rogue called Rajetar, but after a minute or two, when we had between us killed every orc and had stood around waiting for respawns, she kindly took the hint and left.

By the time I logged out, Memree had gone up by 9.98%, donating another 189 guild points (bringing her to only 4 behind Rage's total), and Kaerella had added 7.43%, donating 28 guild points. They had each gained 185 skill points, which takes Memree over the 7.5k mark, so she should have no trouble getting her skills as she levels up, for a while at least.