Zombie Fighting

In the end I didn't risk MistressDomino staying in merchant mode overnight, in case her earnings disappeared again from some unscheduled maintenance - she sold out of half her items within an hour, anyway, so has got back to the kind of cash level that might make it possible to buy a +15 level 85 bow, though it would be a near thing. So, MD logged out, and RedRackham moved over to the newer computer, allowing the old XP-running machine to be switched off overnight.

By morning, Cariae's RedRackham had got his drake comfortably into level 36. Getting to 37 isn't a "magic number" for a drake in the way that it is for a horse, but it will mean the end of overnight sessions for that particular pet, as any pet that is two levels above its owner gets hungry twice as quickly, so that 8 hours 20 minutes, for a full 100 hunger points, falls to half that. Red had company with the gnoll lancers, the mages HoneyBun and KiaOra from the DisciplesofHope guild were hard at work there too.

Over on Auzura-4, my other RedRackham swung back into action at breakfast time; his drake is level 38, so can't be levelled overnight. I don't think I have any special plans for this particular pet, but perhaps it will get exchanged for a slightly lower-level one being used by another of my Auzura characters...

The pre-lunch session saw SirKit in Prokion Temple again. The level 36 knight ThunderStorms was in the back room, not for the first time, so Kit went to the corridor room - but before long a level 31 healer called BGarcherBG came in, so after a while I decided to move along and try to find some other orc sergeants and axemen. I tend to think that the small square rooms, with four big statues in them, just off the corners of the central stairway area, are bad bets because too many people tend to barge in and try to "help", but today I was left alone, so that by the time lunch was near, SirKit had added 14.07%, 251 skill points, and 139 guild points.

The solo party Kit joined at the start ran out of people before 11:30, so he had to find another solo party - and both ThunderStorms and BGarcherBG were in it, which is how I know their levels. I wonder if ThunderStorms intends to stay in the temple for the whole of level 36, gaining skill exp? If so, he may be using that back room for a while yet.

The afternoon session involved another popular place, level three of Maargadum Jail, which is where I took RedRydeR and SirKit, in their usual combat-style party. Really, there is only the one good spot there, unlike Prokion Temple, so I was lucky that someone left just as I arrived, leaving the way clear for me; they must have been in a combat party of their own, as a knight remained, and just stood on the far staircase throughout the afternoon.

Before long a level 48 mage called ExtreamWitch17 arrived, and since she was obviously going to do some fighting, I invited her into the combat party. I don't think her armour was too good, as she used a lot of health potions, and there were a number of times when she had to run from a mob of beast flyers, with me trying to pick them off one by one. From what she said, I don't think she had any head armour, and hadn't moved over her stone of shadow accessory from her higher-level assassin character.

She got a disconnection, and while she was away a level 33 sorcerer, sorcerer0, arrived, and, though his command of English was a bit basic, seemed to want to join the party. I had to transfer leadership to SirKit for that, but, with his stone skin buff and knight form, he got into a lot less trouble than ExtreamWitch17 had.

He didn't stay long - and uffo1 made only a very brief appearance, after sending me messages to come to the Jail, to which I had replied that I was already there. ExtreamWitch did get back eventually, with her SoS but still without headgear...she was still fighting when I left, though she had followed my advice to move to one of the side rooms rather than risk the whole mob of beast flyers concentrating on her alone. From some remarks ExtreamWitch17 made, I think "she" is actually a 13-year-old boy, but I do tend to go by the sex of the character that is being played. That probably explains a wish expressed that a pk-ing spree in Prokion Temple on Cariae-5 would be possible...that does seem rather a 13-year-old boy thing to do.

By the end, RedRydeR had gone up by 43.20%, and her dragon hatchling had gone up to level 16, becoming a drake, by gaining 1814 pet points. SirKit had gone up by 14.22%, and added 139 guild points - and both Red and Kit had earned 99 skill points.

Over the early evening food break I had RedRackham in stereo, fighting his gnoll lancers; on Cariae he was moving his drake through level 36 still, while on Auzura his drake reached level 39, meaning that it now got hungry three times as quickly.

Earlier I had cleared out some of RedRydeR's inventory space by moving non-essential items across to a level 20 rogue that I'd never done anything with, AmityBlaise - this included the +10 30/32 rogue armour set and +15 level 29 crossbow, which really need to go back to my original rogue, and indeed the first LC character I made, Karella. But now it was time to make some more practical use of Amity; she put on the armour set, which even with a 70% penalty gave better protection than her old duds, and I ran her out to Prokion Temple, to get its location onto her memory scroll. She even fought a few mummies and ghouls there, but soon logged out, with substantially lowered health.

SirKit then logged in on the main computer, and AmityBlaise relogged to the older one. After getting their Elizabuffs, they headed for Prokion Temple together, for the main evening session - with Amity so much lower than Kit, she ought to boost his experience gain and skill exp gain nicely, was the theory.

I ran into the back room and started fighting orcs, somehow completely failing to see a titan in a green santa hat already fighting at the back there. When I did see him I cut back my attacking, and was just checking his buffs to see if he was having a "power hour" with a pbi etc... when he vanished. So, my timing must have been pretty good.

AmityBlaise stayed back, only occasionally getting attacked, and SirKit got busy, getting good amounts of experience and skill exp. He soon reached level 35 - and by the time I logged out, he had added 34.77%, 399 guild points, and 382 skill points, taking his stash over the 6k mark. AmityBlaise got the same amount of skill points - she went up by six levels, so can now use the crossbow, plus the gloves, shirt and pants, without any penalty.

Back in town, Discipline's guild master Kaerella logged in, and recruited Amity into the guild. She then set Amity's experience gain to 50% - and, while she was about it, unlocked SirKit's experience gain.

I'd added DarkxSlayer, a level 22 knight, to the party when he asked for a solo - he got added to Kit's friends list recently. He was in the room up the stairs to the left, with the mummies and single orc soldier, but may well have moved on a bit, since he levelled up a couple of times too. The archer qpWEEDYqp had come into the back room fairly early on, but just stood there for at least twenty minutes, so I defended her a little when orcs targeted her. She later returned, to finish her level, and indeed I left her "in charge" when I logged out. She very kindly gave Kit 25 effort scrolls, which may well come in handy at some point.

By the time SirKit and AmityBlaise, whose claim to fame is that she is the only character of mine in this game to use the name of a character I'd made in Guild Wars, had logged out, and Cariae's RedRackham had returned to his gnoll lancer for a bit more drake-levelling, it was getting a little bit close to ten o'clock... and rather than log out, I decided to let Rage, my level 92 rogue, attend the "Zombie Invasion" in Dratan on Auzura-5.

From previous events I knew that things were likely to start at Shuraine's oasis, so Rage rode out there - and, although it was around seven minutes before the starting time, the water was full of berserk zombies and screaming zombies. So, I was the first one to start fighting the invaders, picking off the screaming zombies one by one. After five minutes the GM announcement came up, with the location, so a couple of minutes later, I was no longer alone.

We cleared out the zombies there; a level 33 mage called mkato asked for a party, so I added her, and applied horse buffs when necessary. There were zombies, including the boss-type ancient screaming zombies, all along the road to the city, and we fought those - and then reached the massed ranks of zombies outside the city itself.

Poor mkato did die a few times, just one absent-minded swipe from a passing zombie was enough, but she always returned to the fray, and fought hard. I picked up an "earrings of flame" accessory a zombie dropped, and passed it across to her, since it seemed quite useful. I also gave her the tip Zenderfly had given me so long ago about right-clicking on a party member's health bar to target the monster they were attacking.

There certainly were a lot of zombies, mainly the ancient screaming type; I could solo or tank one, though its Silence and poison skills meant I used a few health potions each time. Luckily the high-level mage MAG1C was there, and was able to attract a fairly large group, and generally keep their attention while a few others of us added our firepower to the battle. I see from the rankings that she is Auzura's #19 mage, on level 114; I had assumed she was higher than that, she must have pretty good armour.

We killed the last of the zombies, I think, after about eighty minutes. It was quite a battle - and Rage added a whole 1.27%, along with 3 skill points and 1049 pet points.

It was more than time to log out after that. RedRackham should have got his drake within a couple of hours of level 37 by the time I switch off the older computer, as he can't level it overnight any more - so that particular task is moving along nicely towards its conclusion.