Run For Your Life

RedRackham got disconnected after a couple of hours last night, but swung back into pet-levelling action before breakfast today - and got the drake into level 32 just after coffee.

Looking at the Events Calendar for the coming week, it seems that the return of the "Mad Monster Spawn" was just a one-off event to remind us of how things used to be - all we get in the coming days is the "set it and forget it" Runs. Today's is in the Temple of Forgetfulness, tomorrow's in the too-dangerous Misty Canyon, then Egeha, Dratan and Merac.

AmityBlaise logged in and, since she has now reached level thirty, was able to learn the five levels of Invisibility (once she had learned level one of Confusion), which is a required skill before she can opt to become a ranger or an assassin; she also learned the first five levels of Detect Weakness, to improve her hit rate, and the remaining four levels of Hawk Strike, quite a useful attack skill. So, that was 577 skill points spent.

AmityBlaise headed for Shuraine's oasis first, to get the ten helpings of soft sand that a quest asked for; she then hurried on to Prokion Temple, and the mirror half's corridor room again. The solo party she had joined was led by the cleric ThunderStorms, on level 42; another member, after a while, was the level 103 knight MidNightSky, who told us that he had been playing Last Chaos since the beta began, when the only server was Katar, with just two sub-servers. We've come a long way! Sadly, Amy had to log out when lunch was approaching, but by then she had got back 307 skill points, while going up by 34.99% and earning 163 more guild points for Discipline.

After lunch, getting the quest rewards for the two spider-killing quests, orc ornaments, and soft sand got Amy comfortably into level 31, so the new +10 armour set appeared in her inventory, along with the +10 level 33 weapons - she was able to trade her borrowed set back to Karella, and then traded her saleable loot across to MistressDomina, and her Wendy Bear pieces across to MistressFelicia.

The main afternoon session, though, starred SirKit, initially with MistressFelicia, back in Randol in merchant mode, supplying the solo party boost. Kit went to Maargadum Jail, and after fighting beast scythes on floor two, headed to floor three. The central area was in use, so Kit killed a few beast scythes in side rooms - but the middle soon became free, and SirKit moved on down.

I wasn't sure how Kit would manage, three levels below the beast flyers and with mainly just +8 armour, but he didn't lose health, and so settled in. Kit's lack of a drake as pet slowed things down on the loot-collecting front, so eventually MistressFelicia logged out, after just selling 23 bear pieces at 145,000 each, and RedRackham logged in, formed a combat party with Kit, got the skills of his level 32 drake reset, and headed down to Maargadum Jail.

RedRackham reached the third floor easily enough, and traded the drake across to Kit, who equipped it, added "pet item pick-up" to his skill bar, and was thus able to gather loot without stopping fighting. Kit's inventory was also a bit full, so he passed some recent armour and weapon drops across to RedRackham too. Red then teleported back to Merac village, moved to Randol, and took a pan flute to Lorraine, and then on to Jajan in Dratan, to get a brand-new level one pony. He then headed for the gnoll lancers in Merac, and started to level up his new pet.

Towards the end a level 41 rogue called Isgor arrived, and asked to join the party. She was using attack and defence minerals, and I saw her use a large attack potion too - but what she didn't seem inclined to use were health potions. I gave her ample warning when I had to log out, but as I ran out of the room, so that I could make a note of Kit's experience gain before logging out, her health was declining dangerously fast. All those beast flyers with only one target could lead to problems, at her level.

SirKit had in fact added 36.27%, 902 pet points, and 195 skill points; this persuaded me, after the early evening food break, to spend 620 skill points on improving Kit's passive skills. Kit also did a couple of messenger-type quests, including a visit to Owl Village in Merac, adding 5.36%. And a level 5 titan called joshua55 talked him out of 50,000 gold... I threw in a pair of +3 beast pants,which were a Jail drop, and an evasion-based accessory too.

By then RedRackham had got his new pony into level 4, and raised its Sympathy from 50% to 83% - but he had to log out, so that Kit could move over to the older computer, after a small bit of mining to stock up on quality stones, and RedRydeR could log on.

RedRyder and SirKit formed a combat party this time - which meant that Kit wouldn't get very much experience, but Red would get the full amount and a little bonus too, so that the use of a platinum blessed iris, to triple her experience gain, was a good idea. I had also decided to use a crit potion, to speed up the action - if most of Red's hits were critical ones, then the regular fighters and "speer" men should just about be dead by the time they reached her.

The first hour went well, using a pbi and a crit - RedRydeR went from level 50 to 52, adding 229.71%, 7 skill points, and 821 pet points, while using 39 experience boosters, one on each elite sphinx speer man I killed... twelve times the normal experience meant around 8,000,000 experience per kill, with the x3 from the pbi and the x4 from the xpb stacking.

The second hour got a little more complicated - I've never known that particular spot to get so busy. AngelofSilence had appeared early on, but immediately gone away, but in the second hour there were sorcerers, rogues and titans. The level 51 titan NoOne sat down next to SirKit, so I invited him to join the combat party, asking him not to help with attacking the elite, as I was using experience boosters. He just about complied on that, except a couple of times, and no doubt his other fighting made up for any experience I lost on those two kills.

I don't think NoOne had very good armour, as he seemed to use quite a few health potions, and often went to sit down to recharge. A rogue called Shanke, from the C4RNAGE guild, killed one elite and a few regulars - sadly, me typing in that I didn't think there were enough targets for another player there meant that I was too late to help NoOne when he got attacked from behind while fighting a different speer man...he died, but returned from town, riding his dragon, not long after. I didn't see what happened, as I was concentrating on fighting the elite again, but I suspect he got killed again almost at once... he vanished, anyway, and soon logged out.

The second hour brought in slightly less experience as each level is longer than the previous one, but RedRydeR did manage to gain two more levels, to reach level 54, adding 187.98%, along with 6 skill points and 773 pet points, while using 45 experience boosters. Once the second pbi and crit potion had ended, I continued for about another half hour, so that the whole session saw RedRydeR add 425.15%, 16 skill points and 1741 pet points.

SirKit levelled up too; he hadn't done any fighting, though he kept RedRydeR buffed with Divine Shield and Concentration, and indeed gave those buffs to NoOne when convenient. In all he added 57.92%, taking him into level 45, plus 15 skill points.

The "Dungeon Run" in the Forgotten Temple (or Temple of Forgetfulness - almost every location has two translations of its name, though I don't usually mention Belfist Temple, Procyon Shrine, or indeed the Tomb of Theo) was scheduled for nine o'clock, UK time, on Auzura-5, so I logged Rage in over there, while RedRackham back on Cariae-4 did a little pet-levelling. The attendance seemed pretty low - as I was early, I got into what might be called the "main" party, but, fighting in the first main room, I didn't really have a chance to surge ahead with some other party members.

I got through enough health potions in that room, and nearly died once, as well as having a long battle with about four endemic demons, which merged together on top of me so I had no idea what I was doing or which I was targeting. I looked at the corridor leading onwards, and checked up on Arch Liches, which were lurking there... hmm, aggressive level 100 boss monsters, with an area of effect magical attack, and a highly damaging Stun? I decided that trying to run past them solo might not be the best of ideas.

Some party members did run through to the far end of the Temple, though, and reported that they were richly rewarded, with lots of item drop boosters, skill point boosters, and so on. I hadn't thought that people were supposed to race past the monsters to get to the far end, I had assumed that, like Merac and Dratan runs, the idea was to kill everything along the way. Oh well, I did pick up some gold, and I avoided getting killed, which is the main thing - and Rage gained 0.05% experience.

After logging out from Auzura-5, back on Cariae RedRyder was able to learn the sixth level of Mind Training, for 225 skill points, increasing her magical resistance/evasion, and sell some drops. RedRackham logged out briefly while SirKit and RedRydeR traded across their recent crop of Wendy Bear pieces to MistressFelicia; then she went into merchant mode selling the pieces, just next to the non-player character who redeems them for prizes, Sharoyan. Tomorrow is the last day of this particular event, so I don't want to be left with too many when Sharoyan disappears.

RedRackham logged back in, and soon got his pony to level 6...and before level 7 was reached, it reached 100% Sympathy, so that the "armour increase" buff it gives now contributes the whole amount, not just a lower percentage. The mage KiaOra was also fighting there again, but, when I last looked, there was no sign of her guildie HoneyBun.