Maximum Hard

Galahad got through the night safely, so that his drake was comfortably into level 32 by the morning, but SirDarth over on Sarissa-5 wasn't as lucky. He got most of the way, but then some little dear came along and pulled his bandit towards Mystic Swamp - while Darth himself wasn't harmed, a blood frenzy or something must have been induced to kill his horse, which, at level 27, cost 132,678 gold to unseal.

Galahad continued his pet-levelling into the morning, but MistressDomino on Auzura-1 took over the newer computer to try to do some selling. They both got disconnected after breakfast, but I logged them both back in - until coffee time.

The plan was to have Barbarienne and Keerella, over on Cariae-4, go to the Tomb of Theos in their combat party configuration, with this time Barbarienne in the lead, using potions, a platinum blessed iris, and an experience booster on every anubis spear man, while Keerella passed the time killing nearby sphinx fighters. I did check the condition of the dungeon before entering, which gave both the condition-bars at 0% - but didn't pay too much attention, as in theory while that increases the monsters' abilities, it increases one's own abilities as well.

So, in Barb and Kee went, and Barb led the way down to the first spear man room, which was not being used by anyone else. I should have taken warning from the fact that somehow the trip down had reduced Barbarienne's health to about a seventh, but I just used Self Heal a few times, started the power, berserker, crit, and platinum adrenaline potions, and had Barb attack the nearest anubis spear man, while Keerella targeted the single sphinx fighter which had followed us in.

Boy did those sphinx types hit hard - Barbarienne seemed to be healing herself, or Kee, almost as often as she was able to hit her adversary, and it took ages to kill it. Luckily I hadn't started the platinum blessed iris, to give triple experience gain for an hour - it was obvious that, with the Tomb set the way it was, there was no way we could get any useful experience down there, and while Barb's healing skills would have kept us alive, hopefully, things would just have been too slow.

So, we returned to the start of the Tomb, and its screaming zombies, where a level 93 night shadow called KinGDooM was fighting. For a little while Kee just equipped SkrappY and watched as Barb fought a zombie at a time, but then I changed over to Kee having her drake Greedo equipped, and joining in on the fighting. I'm afraid KinGDooM did die once - previously I'd helped when he'd been attacked by multiple zombies, but this time it seemed to me that he'd deliberately lured three at once, so I just fought my own one, not wanting to spoil some clever "area of effect" night shadow skill.

A rogue came along after that, and did ks on a couple of my kills, not that it mattered; they didn't stay long. Then a level 100 healer, LoveToHeal69, arrived. I commented that "The Tomb seems a bit hard at the moment", and she told me, "It is day two now - Outlaws won't set the Tomb to easy."

She was still wearing her 85/87 armour set too, though her set was +15, she said...and she was still being hit for 300-600 damage by the zombies. Barbarienne is three levels above the zombies, so they are green-named for her, but, when her evasion didn't work, around 512 seemed to be an average hit. "Lucky those guys didn't own the Tomb during the 600% week", I commented, and she agreed.

I continued fighting the screaming zombies for the rest of the hour that my four expensive potions lasted, and, rather more slowly, for 15 to 20 minutes afterwards. Any plan for a marathon session had vanished, and can only be reinstated when the Tomb on Cariae is set at a more tolerable level of difficulty. Barbarienne only added 0.71% experience, and 1065 pet points, while Keerella added 0.14%, and 400 pet points - they also got a couple of skill points each. Luckily we did get a couple of heaven stones as drops, and probably enough gold to cover the cost of admission, but it wasn't a very productive way to pass the morning.

SirDarth logged in on Sarissa-4 over lunchtime, and got his horse into level 28, which conveniently returned its health to 100% - unsealed pets only come back with 30% health, which looks a bit untidy. MistressDomino on Auzura-1 went back into merchant mode, and managed to sell her supply of item drop boosters, plus a single moonstone box. This meant she had just enough gold to pass to Rage to get Rage's total over the (American) billion mark - so Rage swiftly blew the lot on the level 86 Antistune Chaser pants, b5, +15, that SuperMedic had been offering for sale via Roy's merchant mart. Wearing these, instead of level 71 +13 Pillager Pants, increases Rage's physical defence from 2301 to 2575, and more importantly her physical evasion from 460 to 639, though the "miniskirt and fishnets" look does seem a little strange with the rest of the old "brown boiler suit" armour set.

For the main part of the afternoon, a trip to good old reliable Prokion Temple seemed called for - so over on Sarissa-5, my level 37 rogue RedRyder formed a combat party with my level 27 healer Kaerella, and they headed off to my favourite back room. Things went smoothly, with Red killing the orcs and Kae picking up the loot, and by the end of the session RedRyder had earned 25.26%, along with 408 guild points, and Kaerella was up by 23.73% and 59 guild points. They'd each earned 268 skill points, which meant that Kaerella was able to learn the final levels of green herb processing and epsilon wave processing, and the first level of gamma wave processing - so another 269 skill points were safely "banked".

After the early evening food break I continued with Red and Kae. The "teatime" bonus was due to start at five o'clock, UK time, and we were promised an extra 75% skill exp for two hours - and that is what we got, though they seem to have given up announcing the start and end of such events. Since it is added on top of the Elizabeth's Enhancement buff, it just meant that an orc axeman that otherwise would have given around 2700 skill exp now gave about 3700, so it was useful, but not dramatically so.

Kaerella needed another 194 skill points, to be able to learn the last two levels of gamma wave processing and complete her special skills, so once she had got those skill points, she teleported back to Randol, got the skills, and then went to Maargadum Jail to die 27 times, and get herself back to the start of level 27 for the last time. And then, she rejoined RedRyder... well, she initially forgot to get the Elizabuff again, which her deaths had removed, and had to return to Randol for that, but soon everything was sorted out.

I did have a visitor in the back room during the evening session, a level 26 knight called Gwintor, but, very wisely, he didn't stay around very long. He kindly provided both of us with divine shield, a suitably chivalrous gesture.

RedRyder did continue for a little while after the three-hour Elizabuff ended; she is getting close to the top of level 37 now, so there will only be one more combat-style team up with Kaerella possible, until Kae too levels up. In all, RedRyder went up by 43.99%, earning another 739 guild points for Discipline, and got 538 skill points, while Kaerella had got 14.54% experience before her return to town and Maargadum runs, and then, restarting from the start of level 27, a new 19.13%, earning 107 guild points in all. She ended up with 275 new skill points.

Today's special event, voted for on the forum, was to be a "Zombie Invasion", but, just as the "MMS" turned out to be a "World Defence" in disguise, this was a bit more along those lines too. Instead of sleepy Berbank Mill in Juno getting invaded by all sorts of zombies, plus apes for good measure, the zombies appeared in Dratan's desert, out by Shuraine's oasis, and then outside the city's south gate.

Katar led off the rota at nine o'clock, UK time, so I took my level 31 rogue Memree along, and, while I don't do a heck of a lot of damage, hopefully people appreciate the Snare. I generally kept at a ranged-attack distance, and avoided getting killed, though I did get pounced on by one ancient screaming zombie, and had to retreat swiftly to the safety of the city's no-fight zone, which conveniently extends a few yards outside the walls.

The game master handling the event was [GM]Embla, who seemed to do a pretty good job with the announcements and the monster spawnings, though so many zombies did make the place rather laggy. He however hasn't yet learnt how to handle the spawning of the loot to reward people for their efforts, and there was one very sparse spawning of loot which a lot of people weren't close enough to to see. I got one item drop booster, one large attack potion, and one large defence potion, which made me one of the lucky ones. Further zombies were spawned after the loot, more as a farewell gesture than anything else - people were hanging around afterwards hoping for some decent loot, but by then the 45 minutes was up, and the GM must have moved on to the next server, Cariae.

One set of zombies was enough for me, however. I'd already put MistressDomino up in merchant mode on Auzura-5, and now I was able to log SirDarth in on Sarissa-4, to see how far he could move his horse on through level 28. The special event for tomorrow may well be a "Storm the Castle", if enough people vote for it on the forum. Only time, it seems, will tell.