The patch last night was minor, again, despite the maintenance downtime starting an hour early; unless you are incredibly high-level and operate in the Mondshine map, that is, which is really an entirely different game. There some quests that were repeatable now suddenly aren't, though some other quests have apparently been added. For the rest of us, the two in-game item mall packages added last week now actually work, they say.
Galahad started pet-levelling work on his drake nice and early in the morning, on Cariae-4, while over on Auzura-1 MistressDomino logged in to try and sell some more stuff. While looking around before starting up her own shop, she found a level 91 night shadow shirt, a green-named "Powerful Noticeable Bent Shirt" with five defence-related seals, +6, for 20,000 gold, so bought it, as before too long I do intend to start a night shadow over on that server. Is the item really so terrible, or did somebody forget to type in a few zeroes when they put it up for sale?
I was busy in the real world all morning, so by the end of the lunch break Galahad's drake had just reached level 30, while MistressDomino, before she logged out, had made some useful cash... not, I thought at the time, quite enough for Rage to be able to get a good level 89 crossbow yet, but I was forgetting that Kaerella too had some gold in her inventory.
With Galahad sticking around to provide the solo party, it was time for my phoenix character, RedRydeR, to head back to Prokion Temple and use a couple more of the beginner pssps, with her friends the orc sergeants and orc axemen.
It is rather a change to only get 5,500 skill exp per orc sergeant, rather than 77,000, but it is still a useful way of getting some more skill points. The beginner platinum super skill pills can only be used up to the end of a character's 35th level, anyway, so it's now or never for them. The first hour added 1.81%, 42 guild points, and 211 skill points, while the second hour added another 1.63%, 38 guild points, and 190 skill points. The first hour is always likely to be slightly more productive, as I do have horse buffs on for the first few minutes, increasing Red's attack, but I guess I must have been slowing down a bit as the afternoon progressed.
There was a little time left before the usual early evening food break, so Rage (or RAGE to be strictly accurate), my level 91 ranger-type rogue, logged in, and checked Roy's merchant mart, in the hope of finding a useful level 85 or 89 crossbow. Level 89 ones, and indeed most higher types, are pretty rare, but there were two +15 level 85 crossbows available. Given an equal price, I might have gone for a green five-seal one, as, though it deals slightly less damage, it has a better hit rate - but the "g5" one was 800 million, while the "b5" that Eldoron was selling was only 600 million. Since I had had a figure of about 750 million in mind, this seemed good to me.
The merchant mart was lagging a bit, so that pages were slow to load, but, after MistressDomino and Kaerella both logged on to trade cash across to Rage, we were able to buy the blue-named, five-seal Tanatos' Shadow Bow +15, which has an attack power of 430 + 633, plus a bonus of 75. The bloodseals add another 39 attack, of various kinds, so that Rage's physical attack stat is now 1959, compared to 1513 with her old level 73 +13 Gale' Neigun Bow.
I looked at the available armour, too, but there was very little available. A green-named, five evasion seal level 87 hood was tempting, at 450 million, but the only other really nice item was a pair of rogue leggings, blue-named, with the five evasion seals, +15 - but poor Rage, strangely enough, doesn't have the 1,000,000,000 gold needed to buy it.
There was time in the early evening for another hour in Prokion Temple for RedRydeR, and this b-pssp gave us 1.75% experience, 41 more guild points, and 206 skill points, so was pretty busy. And then it was time for Rage to log back in on Auzura-4, and make her way to Merac Castle, for the European "Storm the Castle" event, hosted by [GM]Valsharyn, who as usual got there pretty early.
I joined a combat party of other people in the early level nineties, and when the "StC" got under way, everything went as normal, though I found myself tanking a zamora or two, an anubis spear man, and even a dark harpy, so it was a shame I'd not managed to get any better armour yet. As there was a good turn-out, our GM got a bit over-enthusiastic with the flutons at the end, and as well as a couple inside the throne room, with most people fighting them, there were a couple in the inner courtyard as well. I got hit hard a couple of times by these two, and had to run for my life - and then when I did finally get past them into the throne room, since those were the flutons we had to kill first, I got hit and stunned and only the use of a couple of the great health potions kept me alive. It was an anxious few minutes...
We finally managed to dispose of the last of the flutons with less than a minute to spare, and everyone dashed back outside for the loot - but [GM]Valsharyn was nowhere to be found, she'd had a disconnection, and we stood around for at least ten minutes before the appearance of the StC monsters again tipped us off that she was back with us. Because of the "massive" disconnection, which she seemed to think had hit other people as well as herself, Val had decided to re-run the whole event. "Some loot would be nice", I commented, and Val did spawn generous amounts of loot outside...which was fine for those of us who were still there, but others had rushed off ahead to start fighting their way into the castle. I did mention on the party chat that loot had been spawned outside, but I think some party members did miss out.
Luckily, Val didn't add the fluton mob to the second run, so things weren't as dangerous, and once we'd killed the sphinx commanders in the inner courtyard, the event was over... except for a new spawning of loot outside. It seemed to me that our GM got disconnected again then, she usually hangs around and chats, but this time she vanished - though I did see her in the middle of Randol a little later.
Rage has put her old level 73 +13 crossbow into Roy's merchant mart, in the hope that someone will want to buy it, certainly there weren't any other well-upgraded crossbows of that level for sale when I checked. Unfortunately, I suspect that most people power-level past that point, and never bother with a level 73 weapon, any more than Rage bothered with a 77 or 81 level one. The main reason I bought it originally was so that the level 69 +15 weapon could get passed across to Kaerella. Still, it's only 1000 gold we stand to lose if the item doesn't sell within five days.
Over on Katar-5, Kaerella, at level 32 there, had a session in Prokion Temple, while my local pet-leveller ColonelScarlet provided the solo party while working on his pink drake. Kae wanted mainly to kill orc fighters, since they now don't give much experience, but still, with the Elizabuff, give 3300 skill exp each. The mirror-side corridor room, which has fighters plus one axeman, was in use, so I had to wander around a bit until I found another room with the same line-up of occupants, and settled in.
The session ended a little early, when Kae had gained 100 skill points, along with 3.38% experience and 23 guild points, as ColonelScarlet had run out of quality stones, and the drake was starting to get a bit hungry. So, Kaerella, who had a good supply of tool aids, went back to Randol, bought 27 healer hammers, and went out to do some mining. Using the tool aids, she got 729 quality stones, and was able to trade them across to ColonelScarlet before they both logged out.
Galahad logged back in on Cariae-5 to work on his drake, which should reach level 31 before the end of the evening, and SirDarth logged in on Sarissa-5. He too was running low on quality stones, so as he had 15 tool aids, bought some pick-axes from Geres and went out to do his own bit of mining. Once his supplies were replenished, he too headed for Merac. The chosen event for today was to be a "Creature Carnival", so having two pet-levellers online for the hour or so when pet experience is doubled seemed like a good idea. The Carnival itself takes place on the fifth subserver, so it seemed sensible to be on that subserver too, albeit on a different map, to make sure that the pet points went up two by two.
The announcements for the event mentioned the location in Dratan for the pet statue, 714,2150, but as even the first server didn't start its hour until ten, UK time, actually going there wasn't really possible, and anyway I prefer my bandits. SirDarth's horse was moving through level 26, so we still have quite a few days to go before another of my Sarissa characters can ride around on horseback.
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