The Villainess Unmasked

SirDarth had a successful night pet-levelling on Sarissa-4, so that soon after breakfast his horse started on level 36, the final level before it can become a mount, a knight mare, and be moved across to RedRyder. MistressDomino did well, too, selling items on Auzura-1, after a slow start. I don't think any experience boosters sold at what used to be the competitive price there of 1,740,000 gold each, but heaven stones, skill point boosters, and lucky smelting stones sold out - though I'd only put up four of those, as that was all I had the weight allowance for last night.

I decided that maybe trying to get all five parts of the rogue 85/87 armour set as "b5e" was a bit ambitious, so, once she came out of merchant mode, MistressDomino bought the "MANA ove Chaser hood +15" which MEGANFOX was selling via Roy's merchant mart for 449,999,999 gold. It doesn't give any evasion bonus, but it gives 7 to close range defence, 6 to all types of physical defence, 5 to magical defence, 5 to defence, and decreases mana consumption by 30%, and as it is blue-named, does give the maximum basic defence of 162, plus 251, plus an extra 100 defence power and 50 magic defence power for being +15.

I also found a pair of "Speed up Chaser boots +15" which, again, are blue, but only have four evasion seals, which means no boost to dexterity, but still 56 evasion times two, 78 close range evasion, and 67 long range evasion, being sold by PaiMei for 650,000,000, and bought those as well. These give the same basic defence of 162 as the hood, plus the same 251, 100 and 50 additions. Once I'd traded the two items across from MD to Rage, and they'd replaced Rage's previous level 72 +13 boots and hood, her magical defence stat rose from 209 to 319, and her physical defence rose from 2325 to 2836.

There was time for LordDarth to have an hour in Prokion Temple on Hatzring-4, using the first of his five "beginner" platinum super skill pills, before lunch; the back room was deserted, so things were pretty straightforward, though even with the +10 dual swords Darth isn't that swift a killer, probably because he has a dexterity-based build rather than a strength-based one. Still, in the hour LordDarth added 30.23%, along with 194 skill points.

The afternoon session saw three more b-pssps used by LordDarth, for 30.30%, 29.47%, and 24.01% more experience - the last figure being a bit lower as Darth reached level 30 a third of the way through. Those hours added 195, 187, and 167 skill points, and saw LordDarth's pony reach level six.

My level 10 mage Barbarienne had been providing the solo party for Darth, while doing a little herb farming, and continued on through the early evening food break. As she doesn't have any more than the first level of basic herbalism, she didn't get all that much, reaching 20 green herb leaves, 39 herb trunks, and 61 yellow herb leaves, but it was better than just standing around in town.

Over the food break SirDarth took over on the newer computer, to level the horse for an hour or so on the bandits of Merac, but when I got back to the computer, he was standing at the top of the slope down to Mystic Swamp, with a few gold coins on the ground where his bandit had just died. Darth moved back to his normal spot, and went back to pet-levelling, but before many minutes a mage called serina appeared, and started luring the bandit in that direction again, heading for the elite bloody outlaw and other difficult monsters that have previously killed Darth in such a situation. "Naughty girl", I remarked mildly, before teleporting away, to the more traditional pet-levelling spot, just off the route to Maargadum Jail, with bandits and berserkers.

However, it wasn't long before serina found me there, and cunningly lured my bandit, plus Darth and his horse, towards blood frenzies and the magic-wielding doom slayers. She killed the doom slayers, so that they would respawn after she'd left Darth helpless there, but of course he wasn't helpless, and, after taking a few screenshots for future reference, he teleported across back to the other spot, and finished his short session in peace, but with me keeping a wary eye on things.

For the evening, it was time to get out of Prokion Temple, and head for the grassy uplands of south-west Dratan, and the sphinx fighters and sphinx speer men, and their elite, on Auzura-4. I started briefly with Kaerella teaming with MrChuckNorris, but really Kae doesn't need to slog there - add a few 24-hour platinum refining stones and, as long as the Tomb of Theos is set at a reasonable level, she is ready to roll there.

So, MistressDomina replaced Kaerella in the lead, though Chuck was ready to pitch in if MD got into trouble, and the evening passed in a relatively leisurely fashion, without using any boosters. While MistressDomina only added 6.67%, and Chuck even less, they both added 15 skill points - and they both levelled up, to reach levels 65 and 63 respectively.

This means that MistressDomina can inherit Rage's current pair of gloves, when Rage manages to get a new level 85 pair; it also meant that Chuck had a new level of Toughness to learn, to increase his resistance to critical and deadly hits apparently, for 208 skill points.

There was another "Run" scheduled for tonight, with Cariae, second in the rota, again starting at 10:30, UK time. The venue for this event was Merac, so Barbarienne had a new opportunity to actually be ready at the start at the correct time, and hopefully head in the right direction.

The Merac Run was fun, with the monsters gradually ramping up in level, until the area round the teleporter into Misty Canyon was crawling with flutons, etc. It was 11:40 when I finally logged out, and people were still fighting the last few monsters. Me, I was ready to fall asleep...