RedRackham attempted to do some overnight pet-levelling, but got a disconnection somewhere around 2:00am, UK time, so when I checked a bit later, I just turned off the computer, and the modem. With this warm weather it does the room, and its machines, good to cool down a bit, I'm sure. The drake had reached level 29 by then - and Red was back in action before breakfast.
MistressDomina did a bit more selling from soon after breakfast until after coffee, and got rid of her supply of heaven stones fairly quickly, followed by three experience boosters, thirty damage boosters, and a single "tear of repentance" which, if you've gone red-named through pk-ing people, and are more than 15 points towards the dark side, recovers one point for you. The sale of 240 experience boosters provided the biggest, er, boost, though, and took MD's reserves back over their level before she bought Barbarienne's rather expensive pair of gloves.
AmityBlaise, my level 29 Cariae rogue, then logged in, and spent 108 skill points on the fifth level of Mental Defence, increasing her magical defence by 4, followed by 163 points on all five levels of Combat Reflection, which apparently will give a 20% chance of "reflecting damage back on your attacker".
Amy then headed for Prokion Temple, joining a solo party. I started off in the back room, but, since a few extra skill points per level seemed to be a good idea, before long I moved across to the "mirror corridor room", with its orc fighters, still green-named for Amy, and one orc axeman. By the time I logged out for the lunch break, AmityBlaise had more than got back the skill points she had spent earlier, gaining 403 in all to leave her 132 ahead on the day. 65.09% experience had been added, along with 247 guild points for Discipline.
RedRackham continued his work through the lunch break, and his drake was just able to reach level 29 before he logged out, to allow RedRydeR and SirKit to team up again out at the sphinx types, in an equal party.
This time, Red did include the elite sphinx "speer" man in the rota of targets, generally retreating a couple of times to lure it away from its friends, and then using Snare when it was close to SirKit. Ideally, Snare would work, and when it was running out, Kit would use Shield Bash to re-stun the target. If Snare didn't work, Red would take some heavy damage, and if Shield Bash failed as well, a strategic retreat was needed. Still, usually at least one of those two worked. If Red's health was a bit low, generally attacking a sphinx fighter would allow the 10% suction of life accessory she has equipped to bring back at least some of the health bar.
By the time that the early evening food break loomed, RedRydeR had earned 75.75%, so was getting towards the top of level 48, plus 1719 pet points for her drake - and SirKit was up by 187.34%, so that he had moved from level 39 to 41, meaning he could equip the gloves, and then the mail and leggings, of the 45/47 armour set. Some of the monsters still just gave 2 skill exp per kill, but others did start to give 50 to 60, so that both Red and Kit did each earn a single skill point from the session. Wendy Bear pieces continued to drop usefully, and there were even a couple of heaven stones.
Over the break RedRackham was back in pet-levelling action, and continued when SirKit logged in and spent 150 skill points on Uncanny Movement 2, to increase his movement speed by 18%. Kit's attempts to join one of the listed solo parties were thwarted by a message saying "You can not apply to join. You got an invitation from someone else", so RedRackham had to move across from Cariae-4 to Cariae-5 to give him a solo party.
SirKit got his quest rewards for various things, and also got two new quests that involved killing gnoll soldiers. Riding down towards them, he stopped by the elite frenzied berserkers, and sure enough ThunderStorms was busy there. "I'm level 41 now", she reported. "One more level, then I can take a break."
Once the gnoll soldiers were seen to, there was the first Maargadum Jail quest to do, just getting five spike canine skins, which was quick and simple. Across in Dratan, Kit got the "Depravity of Baal" quest from Shuraine, which I have no intention of doing since Kit's magic defence is only 41, and Baal has a rather nasty magic attack. I rode down to the poison mists to get the seven "viscous fluid" for one quest, and killed some brutal deer of the desert nearby to get six antlers for another. I even attempted to do the "Taking Back the Treasures" quest, which should involve finding the Dratan Miner Trainer's missing package near a goblin's hut, probably near to Translator Edgar at an oasis in Dratan's desert... but it seems that quest continues to be broken. It's strange, that is I think the first time I've actually qualified to be asked to do that quest, which seems a bit of an oddity.
SirKit ended up, mainly from the quest rewards, adding 33.75% experience and 104 skill points. He reached level 42, so is now able to wear the compete Warnin armour set; as it is +8, with +11 helm and +13 boots, the physical defence stat is much improved over the +6 Abro set, rising from 1034 to 1421.
It was then RedRydeR's turn to mop up some quests - but she started by teleporting to the sphinx fighter campsite, and then running and riding from there to the entrance to the Tomb of Theos, to get that spot onto her memory scroll. The next thing to do was visit the sphinx spot she and Kit had been at earlier, and fight there just long enough to reach level 49... which meant that she could move on from the level 45 crossbow she had been using, to a level 53 one. When you have +15 weapons, it is easy enough to save a bit of gold by skipping one...I do have a level 49 weapon that Kaerella used, but it's only +13, so not as good as a level 45 +15.
So, the new crossbow increases RedRydeR's physical attack from 995 to 1124, which certainly made it easier to deal with the sphinx fighters. And as for the old crossbow, well, once Collector Ryl has worked his magic, SirKit will have a new pair of dual swords to own his adversaries with...
There were a number of quests for Red to catch up on - including the one to kill thirty beast flyers, the same quest MistressBlaze had done over on Auzura recently. Down in southern Merac there were lava giants to kill, and cerebrii, and salamander ruins... the cerebrii quest was an unusual one, as killing them, to get some of their teeth, was coupled with killing some rough jaguars of the desert, down in the south of Dratan. Still, I managed to ride down there and find three of the jaguars, so had to wait for them to respawn a few times before I got all four of the teeth I needed.
RedRydeR cleared out all her outstanding quests, except for a new one she was given - there didn't quite seem time to head down into the Jail again, and kill "beast leaders" (really the beast crawlers) until they dropped a few rings. From past experience I know not to attack them on level four, but to go to the far end of level five and pick off a couple of isolated ones - but that can wait. As it was, as much from quest rewards as from the actual fighting RedRydeR had added 26.83%, 111 skill points, and 292 pet points.
RedRydeR was also running short of quality stones, having passed most of hers over to RedRackham, so I was glad to find I just had time to do some mining, before the high spot of the evening, the series of "Storm the Castle" events, at Merac Castle. Auzura was scheduled to go first, so I logged Rage in on Auzura-5. I then checked the website post, to make sure I had the right subserver... and against every server the word "cancelled" had been added.
Yet another cancelled event on Last Chaos... I can't remember anything like this situation in the past, unless there have been server stability problems. It is very worrying, especially coupled with the news that [GM]Cara, who seemed the brightest and most capable of the recently recruited GMs, is leaving our game, to become the senior GM on another Aeria game, Grand Fantasia. This comes within days of [GM]Kali leaving... we have other GMs of course, but how many are spreading themselves over a number of Aeria games, and only occasionally dropping in on us?
RedRackham continued pet-levelling until the end of the evening, getting his drake to within an hour of the end of level 29; on the main computer, after my merchant mages did a little searching through Roy's stock for the items I'm after, unsuccessfully. the game got closed a bit earlier than planned...
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