Flyers and Fighters

By breakfast time, RedRackham's horse had reached level 31, the first level at which it is possible to change a horse into a mount. As usual, though, we will go on until level 37 is reached, for the maximum attack and defence "horse buffs".

Someone on the forum shoutbox posted a link to "Last Chaos para America Latina", where the special Football World Cup related event has already started - we stand to get it next Wednesday, after maintenance. It seems that relatively inoffensive little monsters will be appearing throughout the lands, which when killed will drop a "game ball". Armour Trader Rowel will exchange ten of those for a "golden ball"... and if you get no less than fifty of those, he will exchange them for a "final ball". That should entitle you to some "wonderful" prizes, as well as a flag of one of the nations taking part, which will go in your "events" inventory. Take it to Estella, and it looks as if you can bet on the winner of the soccer tournament...

The two types of ball can be stored and sold, we are assured, which is interesting. As the balls don't drop as loot from regular monsters, I'm assuming that to get them one will need to fight in the open, and not in dungeons, such as the Tomb of Theos or Prokion Temple. Whether the special football monsters spawn randomly, or appear regularly at specific locations like the Halloween pumpkin ghosts, we will discover in due course, but it may be a good method of earning money on some of the servers where I only have low-level characters.

After coffee, my morning session, after a quick look to see if any items of weapons or armour on my wants list had turned up, involved SirKit getting his Elizabeth's Enhancement buff, joining a solo party, and heading for level three of Maargadum Jail again, to battle the beast flyers. It wasn't long before I noticed that we had a bonus 50% experience and skill exp running, so that the flyers gave 2750 skill exp each instead of the usual (including Elizabuff) 2200.

I had the place to myself, for most of the time, though a specialist sorcerer called kiwilaw did barge in and hog the central position for a while. By the time lunch was due, SirKit had added 29.46%, plus 234 skill points and 2088 pet points, which were enough to get Kit's drake into level 33.

My level 70 Cariae cleric Kaerella had an outstanding quest in the Temple of Forgetfulness, so after lunch she teleported down there, after applying suitable buffs, and ran through the place until she reached the jumping devils. The quest just required her to kill eight of them, which didn't take long - and the archbishop back in Dratan gave out the reward. He also told Kae to visit Translator Edgar - though his quest, I find, to kill, er, "collect information from" the Barren Eise back in the Temple doesn't come up until Kae is level 71. Still, mainly from the reward, Kaerella added 2.62% experience and 14 skill points, along with 78 pet points.

The main part of the afternoon, however, saw SirKit return to the beast flyers in Maargadum Jail, to make full use of the extra experience and skill exp on offer. Again somebody else barged in at one point, a titan called Candar; he did at least ask if Kit wanted to party with him, though, as he was in a solo party, Kit declined the offer. He seemed to find the flyer attacks a bit strong, retreating to the stairs before finally leaving. For Kit though the flyers were in a generous mood, so that in all he picked up six heaven stones during the session, as well as stuff from quite a few other "hands".

The solo party included the healer DaizY briefly, so I mentioned that I'd bought at least one piece of her old b5e armour. She is level 123 now, so would have moved on to something a bit higher. The party fluctuated in size, probably not helped by the leader, MANGA, calling it "death motion" rather than "solo", but was generally pretty full. By the time that my break was due, SirKit had managed to add another 43.18% experience, plus 341 skill points and 2414 pet points.

RedRackham had kept going over on Cariae-4, though I did have to change gnoll lancers at one point, when he wore down the health of the one he had been sparring with to about 20%. Its successor was made of sterner stuff, though, and kept a full health bar while the horse reached level 32. But then RedRackham had to log out, to allow RedRydeR to team up with SirKit.

The spot with the second elite sphinx speer man was in use, so RedRydeR and SirKit had to move to the other end of the cut-through, which may well have been no bad thing. There wasn't an elite to kill, so it was just a matter of hammering away at the regular sphinx fighters and sphinx speer men. Kamira did drop by after a while to offer some moral support - Keerella came along to thank her personally, but the drops she got didn't include a rare accessory, just the usual goodies. The unexpected bonus event was continuing, or indeed had morphed into an official event, as the "Happy Hour" from six to ten, UK time, was scheduled to be 50% extra experience and skill exp anyway.

Progress was pretty good, with that boost, and by the time my characters logged out, SirKit had gone up by 43.24% for just providing the combat party boost, plus 35 skill points (so the experience gain was almost exactly the same as his afternoon session, though this time with comparatively few skill points), and RedRydeR had earned 101.18%, 39 skill points, and 2616 pet points. Kit had levelled up, reaching 47, fairly early on - and Red just made it to 57 at the end. So, Red was able to equip her level 62 hood and boots, and trade the last two parts her old set across to Kit, who, once Collector Ryl converts them to the knight equivalent, will now be able to wear them. Red can also now use her level 61 Gunrose Crossbow, and so could trade the level 53 one across too, though Kit will need to gain a couple more levels before he can use the knight weapon of that level without a penalty.

So, RedRackham was able to log back in for an hour or so, to move his horse a little way further through level 32. The "Happy Hour" was the only scheduled event for today...in fact, the events calendar for the next week looks even worse than it has recently, with, apart from the Sunday Quiz, just a "Creature Carnival" and a "Class PvP" event. So, that side of things is looking rather bleak...