Over to Cariae

SirDarth was able to pet-level through the night successfully again, so that his horse had started on level 34 by morning. The sextuple experience over on the other servers had ended now - Rage made a quick "fox test" to confirm that, and the fox just gave 1 experience and 1 skill exp, not six of each.

Looking in Roy's merchant mart, there seemed absolutely no level 89 crossbows available, and very few at higher levels than that, so it looks as if Rage will need to get a level 85 one. There was a rather nice green-named, five-sealed +15 crossbow for sale, but it would have cost rather more than all the gold I currently have on that server...

One thing I did do was cancel a character on Rage's account, a level 2 mage called LadyFelicia I had never done anything with. So, in 24 hours there ought to be room to start a night shadow there, though any experiments will have to wait until Cariae too loses the bonus event.

For the morning session, my level 101 archer Barbarienne and my level 93 (just, by 0.02%) wizard Keerella went to the Tomb of Theos, in an equal party, with a view to doing a bit of pet-levelling on Barb's drake and SkrappY, which Keerella took charge of. And if we could get a little experience and skill exp, well, all the better. After all those boosters I used yesterday, a little less expensive work seemed in order.

As I'd expected, the place was generally fairly quiet on Cariae-4 at that time, and by the end of the morning, just fighting the level 100 screaming zombies in the first room, with the six-fold experience and skill exp running, Barbarienne was up by 2.82%, and Keerella was up by 7.23% - and they'd each gained 49 skill points, which is nice going at their levels. Barb's drake had added 1660 pet points in level 43, and SkrappY had gained 6.81%.

Both characters stayed in the Tomb, back by the teleporter, over lunch, and then continued, adding another 4.51% for Barbarienne and 11.73% for Keerella, along with 81 skill points each. Barb's drake got 2825 pet points, and SkrappY, our cartoony feline "human tribe" pet, added another 9.39%.

There were other people around, coming and going, getting in the way or helping. A level 70 sorcerer who got to level 73 fairly quickly, and another one below level 40 who was rather surprised to find that he could solo the screaming zombies, and added a good few levels. The knight Alfurin was only level 30, and waiting for a friend to power-level him; he showed me the level 85/87 armour he had bought ready. He joined our party for a while, to get into level 31, and didn't reduce our experience gain by a very big amount.

An archer, probably around level 60, seemed to have various team-ups as the day went on, and as usual plenty of people hurried off towards the deeper parts of the Tomb, sometimes giving a buff as they passed. One low-level team-up must have come to grief, as a victorious screaming zombie edged back from down the corridor, and unfortunately attacked SkrappY - if it had attacked Kee I'd have probably noticed in good time, but poor SkrappY died, and Keerella had to go back to Randol to get him "unsealed", which at level 52 cost 2,123,232 gold... but I had picked up a couple of heaven stones by then, and plenty of gold drops, along with a few moonstone boxes, so could afford it. Kee returned, and the fighting continued.

One "correct" answer in the Sunday Quiz is that it is possible to level without boosters, and I guess with 7.23% over roughly four hours or so, with the six-fold boost, Barbarienne showed that it can be done... without the event that would have been, what, 0.30% per hour? Still, the skill points were very useful, and the pet-levelling always helps.

My feeling was that the Tomb of Theos would get a bit busy in the evening, so that would be the best time for my level 64 cleric Kaerella to have her turn, going to the sphinx fighters, sphinx speer men, and elite sphinx speer man out in Dratan's south-west uplands. So, out I went, and had only killed half a dozen sphinx types when Kamira arrived to greet me. Kae logged out and Keerella, who had added the location to her scroll for this purpose, logged in. Kamira did do some damage, so Kee did have to use a couple of health potions, but soon it was just a matter of collecting the loot up, though it didn't include any rare accessory, just the usual items.

I had made a solo party with MistressDomina, my merchant character, but she was just standing around in Randol. When my old friend Elvastar got in touch, I invited him to join the party if he was on Cariae-4, and he did so - not just as his level 60 sorcerer, but with his level 31 pet-leveller Leopardknight as well. That meant that MD was able to log out, and SirDarth over on Sarissa-4 was able to get a bit more of his pet-levelling done.

We chatted, and time passed; I was using not just experience boosters on the elite sphinx speer man, so that he gave about 14.5 million experience per kill, but skill point boosters too, as MD had had some in stock, which meant that I was getting a little over 3 skill points per kill. The ordinary fighters and speer men donated some useful experience and skill exp too, helped on by the event's boost. Apparently the 600% had failed for a while, but been restored just in time for my evening session, which was good timing on my part.

At around a quarter to seven, UK time, it was announced that a "Storm the Castle" event was due to start on the hour on Cariae; further announcements were made, so, when the hour was almost upon us, Kaerella temporarily left the party, and instead Barbarienne logged in, and headed for Merac Castle.

I timed it just right, and things started mere seconds after I teleported in. [GM]Darasuum was in charge, and was there in person and chatting, which always improves such events. We didn't seem a very strong group initially, and I ended up tanking one of the thorny mantises, and a couple of the anubis spear men too, but the higher people seem to have gone on ahead and concentrated on the dark harpies, probably because of the drops they can give, so that when the rest of us fought our way to the outer courtyard, there was not a lot left to do... in fact, I think the whole storming was over by twelve minutes past.

The GM spawned the loot in the inner courtyard - and then we all went outside. There were as usual some requests for further monsters - and [GM]Darasuum offered to run the whole StC again if we wanted. So, we took him up on that offer. Things were easier this time, as we had more people right from the start - Barb didn't have to use any Christmas candies to keep her health up! This time I did actually get to see the hell-otuu and the dark harpies, and we probably swept through even more quickly than before. And a second spawning of loot rounded things off nicely.

And then, another GM announcement came up, for a low-level Mad Monster Spawn, about to start, so Barb logged out and my level 27 rogue Karella logged in, and teleported to the appropriate spot in Juno, arriving just as the first wave of monsters was spawning. The elite sand golems dropped a few more soft sand for her, and generally she killed the monsters my rogues generally aim for, like salamanders, elite spiders of the desert, elder drakes, and anything else that gets in the way.

As with the StC, people asked for more - and, after we grabbed our loot, [GM]Darasuum repeated the event for us, ending with a second spawning of loot. He did mention that we should watch out for future special announcements of surprise events this week - people did ask about a high-level MMS, but he said that the high-level people had had the StC, which was true enough.

So, Karella logged out, and Kaerella logged back in, automatically rejoining the party with Elvastar and Leopardknight. She returned to the sphinx types, and continued her levelling.

It wasn't long before Elvastar reported that Kamira had arrived on top of him. He invited Kae to join him to kill her, but, knowing her area of effect magic attacks, I was very much in favour of logging Keerella in again to handle the job... and Elvastar came round to my way of thinking rather quickly, after attacking Kamira and, despite magic defence minerals and health stealing, dying rather quickly. It was nail-biting stuff watching his health bar from a mile or two away...

So, Kae logged out again, and Kee logged in again, and joined the party, so that she could see Elva's dot on the map to show her where to ride to. She, as usual recently, didn't use any magic defence mineral, and no lucky scroll or item drop booster either... but this time, along with the usual lucky scrolls, crystal of experience (greater), moonstones, tool aids, potions, and so on, she dropped two accessories, a Rage of Demon and a Pierce of Wind. Neither of them is hugely valuable these days, but it was thoughtful of Kammy to provide the two - we agreed that Kee should take the PoW, and Elva should have the RoD, and Keerella logged out, leaving the other items on the ground for Elva to collect.

Kaerella continued her levelling until my log out time, leaving Elvastar still taking advantage of the event a little longer. In all Kae had gone up by 187.31%, getting back into level 65, from which she had been "rolled back", and on into level 66... she used 102 experience boosters on the elite sphinx speer man. moving things along nicely. She also used 74 skill point boosters, though I gave up on them once she reached level 66, as the skill exp did go down a bit then, from 8580 in level 64 to 6864. 402 skill points were gained in all - back in town 350 of them were used to learn level 7 of Fast Heal, so we still came out ahead. And Kae's drake, SirFrancis, added 2258 pet points.

SirDarth continued his pet-levelling on Sarissa a little longer, and got his horse three-quarters of the way through level 34 before logging out for the night.