The Wrong Rotation

MistressDomino stayed in merchant mode on Auzura-1 overnight safely, with no power hiccups or "send error report?" messages. I can't say that she was doing awfully well until, in the morning, somebody bought all 225 skill point boosters, so that was just over 300 million brought in. They'll probably use all those in less than an hour, if they are sp-farming in Prokion Temple...

SirDarth logged in at breakfast time to work on his dragon hatchling on Sarissa-4, and moved it on from level 5 to level 7, getting the Sympathy back over its starting level of 50%.

When MistressDomino came out of merchant mode, and moved around town, I found a high-level rogue called ElectricMayhem was clicked on to her; she had been standing next to MD for hours, and now auto-followed her. I resisted the temptation to take her anywhere too exotic, and just logged out when I'd reached the herb bushes at Berbank Mill. Checking Roy's merchant mart for rogue armour, though, was still pretty laggy, and there didn't seem to be any new Chaser jackets or gloves to buy.

There was time for LordDarth to have a session in Prokion Temple before lunch; the back room wasn't in use, so Darth was able to add 49.15%, which was just enough to get him into level 32, plus 188 skill points; his dragon hatchling reached level 10, too. Back in Randol, he spent 327 skill points on the new passive skill Wall of Belief, which increased his physical defence from 828 to 983.

After lunch, Kaerella spent all but 3 of her skill points, and then cleared out her experience, back to the start of level 27 again. Once SirDarth had got his hatchling most of the way through level 8, with the Sympathy value reaching 73%, he logged out, and LordDarth logged back in, to re-form the solo party with Kaerella.

This time the back room was in use - but it was the sorcerer DarckRaiZ who was orc-bashing, so I knew there would be room for me as well. I was actually followed in by a lower-level titan and rogue, but they soon left, after the rogue had ks'd on a few kills. I told Darck that Kaerella was the level 27 healer I'd previously mentioned as my "main", and he guessed that we'd got a combat party.

Kaerella started off by just picking up the loot, but before long Darth's pony took over that duty, and Kae tended to stand around near the entrance, doing a bit of fighting if an orc came near or attacked her. DarckRaiZ did get a couple of disconnections, but was still in the fight when I logged out for the early evening food break. By then LordDarth had levelled up, to reach 33, adding 104.22%, while Kaerella was up by 60.34%, and 151 guild points. They had each gained 285 skill points, which was probably less than Darth would have got solo...but in that situation kae wouldn't have got any.

For the main evening session, first of all it seemed a good idea to get MistressDomino on Sarissa up to level 10, so that Keerella there, hopefully more of a fighting mage type, doesn't have to carry around the selling stock. So, as MD had only done the introductory dungeon, it was a matter of fighting deer, foxes, various types of wolf, and jaguars - and, after I'd got MD a Juno NPC scroll by running a new character through that dungeon (as MD was made before new characters automatically got the teleport-around-Juno scroll) and then putting her scroll into the shared storage, MD killed a few wandering zombies in Velpist Temple, before taking a trip to Dratan to get herself a dragon hatchling and conclude the "Bant in Dratan" quest.

While she was in Dratan City, it seemed a reasonable idea to get Prokion Temple onto her memory scroll, so MD made the run out through the desert, stopping to get Shuraine's oasis onto the scroll as well - but I don't think she will have much cause to go there, unless I want to set her up in merchant mode in the temple's starting area some time.

I also needed to get Kaerella on Auzura prepared for her near-future bit of self-levelling in the Tomb of Theos, so there was some trading with MistressDomino done, and a few upgrade boxes opened to get some platinum refining stones, so that it will be possible to fortify her armour for a 24-hour period. Some platinum blessed irises were moved across from a storage character too, and accessories and old armour pieces cleared out of Kae's inventory. I'll probably get fully prepared and worked up, only to find that the Tomb on Auzura is set at its hardest when I get there.

The Last Chaos website page for today's "Vampire Trivia" event has since been altered, but originally it said that the event would start on Auzura-5 at nine, UK time...but when SirDarth arrived and sound the place deserted, I quickly checked out the normal first server on the rotation, Katar, with RedRyder and found that indeed [GM]Kali was there, spelling out the rules.

RedRyder was second to type in the answer more than once, and I think that "Dawn of the Dead" may well have been the correct answer to one question, though a couple of lines after me Kali wrote "you're out of time" and moved on. And I got a disconnection, so that I only got back in time for question 14 out of 15, missing a few in the middle. But I did manage to be the first to type in "Buffy and Angel" - so was one of the people that [GM]Kali traded across a platinum blessed iris to at the end.

After that, MistressDomina logged in on Cariae-4 for a bit of selling, once I'd checked what prices other people were asking. The prices seemed generally a little lower than Auzura, which would tie in with the lower prices there for the recently-purchased +15 armour pieces. Hopefully by morning, MD will have enough gold to be able to shop for another piece, for either Keerella or Barbarienne.

On the newer computer, LordDarth logged in for a while, just to try out some pet-levelling. As he's not level 35 yet, only level 33, he doesn't have the Canid Fence 2 skill, which adds 120 to defence, but, at least with 10 levels of Armour Increase (horse), he proved able to withstand the attacks of a level 44 death mask lancer down on the fifth level of Maargadum Jail - and the lancer wasn't hurt by his bare-fisted hits of 44 damage a time. It didn't take long for the pony to reach level 12, which restored its orc-battered health to 100%.

Tomorrow Maargadum Jail will be a bit busier - at least on the fifth sub-servers, as a "Dungeon Run" means the place will be crammed with high-level monsters. The website says, at present, that the rota will start on Auzura at 1:00pm PDT, which equates to nine o'clock in the evening for Britain, but I suspect that, again, it will actually be Katar that gets the action then. At least that will be a more dramatic event than a trivia quiz, which, as something that gamesages have been known to do, seems a rather minor enterprise for a GM to get involved in. I assume, with [GM]Embla moving to another game, and the holiday season, we are short of game masters at present. I do hope our regular events are back on the schedule soon.