On the Run

RedRackham logged back in at breakfast time on Cariae-4 today, not that I actually have breakfast on a normal Sunday, and it wasn't too long before his drake reached level 37. So, the drake was now ready to be traded across to RedRydeR in exchange for her current one... but in the meantime, there was no harm in it adding a bit more pet experience.

My plan for after coffee was for RedRydeR to log in and check out level three of Maargadum Jail. If it was free, SirKit would hurry down to join her - if it wasn't free, then SirKit would take the newer computer and head for Prokion Temple, accompanied by AmityBlaise.

RedRydeR had only just got the Elizabeth's Enhancement buff when ExtreamWitch got in touch, to suggest another combat party at the Jail, which sounded good to me - she soon reported that our spot was clear, so Red hurried along, and with my pet-leveller logging out, SirKit logged in too, and set off to follow her.

Things went smoothly through the morning. There was a very brief visit from a sorcerer called Yebach while ExtreamWitch was back in town to get a skill, but by the time I'd clicked on him, with the intention of inviting him into the combat party, he said "bye" and beamed out. By lunchtime, RedRydeR had gone up by 32.34%, 1342 pet points and 79 skill points, while SirKit had added 18.35% and 76 skill points, since he arrived slightly later.

We left our characters there over lunch, and continued afterwards, though ExtreamWitch had gone off to the arena for a little while - so I've done less reading of the Sunday paper than usual. Another mage xXOleXx, on level 43, was in the party for much of the afternoon. I think she only died once, maybe she'd do better if she wore proper armoured headgear rather than an "Uncle Sam" ringmaster style top hat... though Extream did confess that the pirate hat she was wearing wasn't melded onto armour yet, either. A brief outing with a friend to the Tomb of Theos since I'd seen her last had got her into level 49.

The Elizabeth's Enhancement buff wore off fairly early in the afternoon, so Red and Kit took it in turn to log out, respawn in Randol, get the buff, and return. Recently, on the older computer in particular, Last Chaos has taken ages to close, if it has been running for a while, but the restarts of the game made things run more smoothly for the afternoon.

Sorcerer0 also joined rather briefly, hoping to move up from level 33, but by the time four o'clock was approaching it was just Red and Kit. I had to stop a bit early as a friend was coming round, but RedRydeR had earned another 53.55%, 112 skill points and 2483 pet points, taking her current drake into level 17, while SirKit was up by another 28.33% and 109 skill points.

RedRackham did a little more drake-levelling over the early evening food break; a pandora's box appeared eventually, and rather than possibly release a level 50 beast RedRackham wouldn't have been able to deal with, with other afk pet-levellers around, RedRydeR rode down and opened the box - which just released a level 30 beast which was easily dealt with. RedRydeR took the opportunity to complete a couple of quests, gaining another 4.69% experience. A new quest requires her to visit the Jail and fight beast flyers and so on to gather some beast hearts - no problem!

Having reached level 35, SirKit was now able to learn the sixth level of Concentration, for 200 skill points; he also spent 163 sp to finally learn Devotion, which decreases defence by 40 but increase attack by 70 and hit rate by 80 for five minutes at a time, and got four levels of the passive skill Two Weapon Fighting, for 111 sp, to increase his attack by 72 while using dual swords, so his skill point stash was back below 6k.

AmityBlaise logged on to join Kit, and spent all 388 skill points on various skills, including Reinforce (increasing physical attack), Far Seeing (increasing her range with a crossbow), Free Walk (increasing her movement speed), Regain (increasing her HP and MP regeneration rate), and Coup de Gras (increasing her rate of critical hits), as well as Snare... not that she can afford the top levels of all of these yet.

Not unexpectedly for such a busy time, the back room in Prokion Temple was busy - so Kit and Amity ended up just beyond the mirror half's corridor room, fighting orc sergeants and axemen there. Amity had had her experience gain cut to 50%, so it took a while for her to get the 80% or so she needed to reach level 27; being able then to equip the boots and hood from the 30/32 +10 armour set increased her physical defence from 524 (or 527 after levelling up) to 738, so that she was no longer taking damage from orc attacks, which was a relief, as up until then I'd had to keep a careful eye on her health bar.

Until Amity levelled up, the party had been an equal one, with Amity doing a fair bit of fighting, and getting some loot, but once level 27 had been reached, Kit changed the party type to combat, so that Amity's experience gain slowed right down, and his speeded up a bit. By the time the Sunday Quiz was approaching, SirKit had gone up by 52.97%, taking him comfortably into level 36, while in all AmityBlaise was up by 89.58%, and had earned her first 183 guild points for Discipline. They had each gained 273 skill points, so Kit was safely back over the 6k mark. Maybe he can afford the fifth level of Two Weapon Fighting, which would add another 18 to his physical attack, for 216 skill points, though that will take him down below 6k again...

Kaerella and MistressDomino logged in on Auzura-2 for the Quiz, as they have done for the last few weeks, hoping for the usual set of questions. Things did indeed go smoothly, with most people making it safely to the end, and Kae was able to trade her 15 heaven stones and 10 moonstones over to MD afterwards, before they both logged out.

After that, luckily the lag wasn't too bad, so that logging in and out to transfer the spare Wendy Bear pieces across to MistressFelicia on Cariae-5 (since MistressDomina doesn't have the nine spare spaces needed) from other characters was simple, if time-consuming. I also transferred a level 40/42 +6 Abro set of knight armour across to SirKit; his 30/32 +10 Steel set gives him 974 physical defence, but the three pieces of the new set he can wear so far increase that to 996, and when he levels up again and can wear the helm and boots that will go up to 1014, so it is worth changing... besides, there are so many knights around these days wearing the Steel set, it makes a change to be wearing something else.

Looking around, it seemed that selling the Wendy Bear pieces for 150,000 gold each wasn't unreasonable... but I must have priced them too low, within a minute or two of MistressFelicia going into merchant mode alongside the event's npc somebody bought her entire stock. Still, getting 31,350,000 gold so quickly for the extra loot drops this week wasn't too bad... by my calculations that was 209 pieces, though MistressFelicia, AmityBlaise, SirKit and RedRydeR all still have one set of all nine picture parts.

There was just time to put MistressDomino over on Auzura-5 into merchant mode before ten o'clock, and then Rage headed across to Merac on that sub-server, for the night's "Merac Run". As usual it started off easily, with level 50, 60, and 70 critters, but as we continued towards the Misty Canyon teleporter, the monsters got harder. I'd been recruited into a party by the level 36 archer Deensechick, who kindly provided some useful healing along the way - but the elite cerberi at the finishing area, and perhaps some of the higher-level stuff, did kill her two or three times.

I generally kept out of the tighter corners, doing my share of the fighting but trying not to tank the silly-high stuff. An archmage quanian did single me out, though, for its version of the "blind" skill...it's very disconcerting when the whole screen, except one's own greying-out figure, goes black. There was an introducer camio that turned its attentions on me, too, after chasing somebody up the hill at the side of the track. [GM]Erock, a newbert GM, was on the chat window a time or two, I don't know if he was there "in person" - but, with masses of flutons, patriarch botises, and other nasties, we were very lucky to have the server's number two mage, the level 155 2bizarJones, leading the fight. She wasn't getting much experience, all the monsters were blue-named to her, but she certainly stopped the rest of us from getting into a lot of trouble there. And, after about 40 minutes, the run was over.