The Wrong Set

SirKit's enhanced armour, with its 24-hour platinum refining stones, would be boosted up to +15 until lunchtime, so it made sense for Kit and Kaerella to head for the Tomb of Theos as soon as possible today. I had to do a little quick shopping, but then they logged in on Cariae-4, and went out to the Tomb.

SirKit and Kaerella ran straight to the ancient grey mummies, where only the knight Kaol was at work. With a combat party, for which I assume Kaol was too high, SirKit started his platinum adrenalin and crit potions, and the 61-90 platinum blessed iris, and began his "power hour" - which, using 43 experience boosters, got him into level 87 safely, with 172.81% experience gained.

So, that was the target reached, with time to spare, so I switched over to an equal party, with no expensive potions but both SirKit and Kaerella, both fighting, just using a cheap pbi...which was lucky, as it meant that there wasn't much to lose when, at ten in the morning UK time, Cariae-4 had a mass disconnection. My duo had nearly finished killing an ancient grey mummy, and suddenly were making no progress at all, though its health bar on Kaerella's display did tend to flick between the 10% it showed Kit and about 2%.

Kaerella logged out, closing the game and vanishing from Kit's sight, but trying to log in again just got the "account ID is already logged in" message, which is a bit silly as, if the account was in use, logging in on it from a different computer would kick the previous character out. But after a couple more minutes SirKit got disconnected, and then Kaerella was able to log back in, followed by Kit.

Judging by the shoutbox, where GingerBeer and Supraklr swiftly appeared, the mass disconnection only affected Cariae-4, and indeed when everyone respawned in Randol, the merchants were still there. There seemed quite a number of us re-entering the Tomb together, and running down the corridors, but the others must have been heading for the spear men and the commanders.

Still, even with that interruption SirKit added 17.05% while that pbi lasted, which got him into level 88, while Kaerella added something similar; there was just time for one more hour, which brought SirKit another 19.14% and Kaerella 19.40%...and before it ended, Kaerella too reached level 88.

The party did briefly switch to combat when a level 91 knight, Spikesknight, asked to join; I asked if he was also Sp1ke, from yesterday evening, and apparently that was his brother. He lost his connection after a mummy or three, so we went back to an equal party, so that Kae and Kit would share experience gain evenly. Kit hits for roughly 50% more than Kae, so Kae loses out rather in a combat party.

So, over the three hours, in all SirKit added 209.00%, along with 3045 pet points, while Kaerella added 38.94%, and 1867 pet points - a lower figure as her drake, SirFrancis, was only active for the last two hours. They each gained 5 skill points as well.

Reaching level 88 meant that Kaerella could now learn, for 500 skill points, the fourth level of Party Heal 2, increasing its power from 400 to 500 HP. There is another level of that skill, but it doesn't come along until Kae reaches level 148.

SirKit of course had rather more new skills available to learn, and only a limited supply of skill points. On the passive skills side, Deep Wound Training 2, to increase Kit's chance of making a critical hit, seemed useful - so that used 250 skill points. Level 6 of Two Hand Control added 20 to Kit's physical attack, for 400 sp. And the single levels of Divine Soul 2 and Improved Resist 2, for 200 sp each, improved his magical defence and evasion.

On the general skills side, there were two levels of Concentration to learn, from levels 72 and 84, for 300 sp each, to increase the chance of a skill like Stun or Snare working. The big level 70 skill, Dash, is a special long-range stun, which costs, for its initial five levels, 1450 skill points, plus 3.5 million gold - it has an 85% chance of success, which hopefully ought to be improved if the Concentration buff is on, and lasts for nine seconds, apparently.

SirKit had spent about 40% of his stash of skill points in one go, but it does improve his skills and stats quite usefully. All we need now is to afford to be able to buy him the level 85/87 knight armour set...

The afternoon was a more relaxing time, with the skills-getting, writing up the blog a bit, and chatting to a shoutbox regular, rome10, who apparently is in Barbados, so rather more used to warm weather than I am. Still, there was time to take my level 41 witch on Auzura, MistressSabina, out to Maargadum Jail's second level for a while - she added 10.02%, 49 skill points, and 824 pet points.

The evening's entertainment was set to be dominated by a series of the low-level "Mad Monster Spawns" on each server in turn's fifth subserver, starting at six o'clock, UK time, with Auzura, followed by Katar, Cariae, Sarissa, Hatzring, and Tairen every thirty minutes...my favourite kind of event, usually.

We got off to a slow start, however, with nothing happening on Auzura-5 at the scheduled time. I did visit the shoutbox to ask Giovanna_X to pass on a reminder to the GMs, and it seemed that everything was in hand - [GM]Darasuum turned up at eight minutes past, apologising, and saying that the GM who had been scheduled to run the event was having technical problems. This must have been [GM]Stratos, who took over from Darasuum - and we got plenty of waves of the usual low-level types, followed by, after the Stratos loot drop, three of the level 100 purple dragons. That seemed a bit demanding for a group of people below level 60, and mainly closer to level 30....but the evening was yet young.

On Auzura I'd taken along my level 31 archer Memree - and on Katar it was Memree again, though this time a level 31 rogue. [GM]Stratos was again in charge, and got a bit carried away, after we had disposed of the usual monsters, as he brought in some level 110 blood terrains, level 135 patriarch botises, and level 136 judge ballacks and flutons. That made it pretty dangerous for the genuine low-level types, but luckily a few high-level people had sneaked along too, and were able to deal enough damage for us to take them down.

Those events had pretty much filled their half hours, leaving little time for me to switch across, but [GM]JediMike was in charge on Cariae, and he didn't try to get us all killed, after the regular monsters we just got his usual generous amounts of loot, so my level 28 rogue there, Karella, was able to get rather more goodies than I'd managed on the previous servers.

On Sarissa, my rogue RedRyder is level 39, so was able to fight the brutal deer of the desert, elite poison mists - and even risk firing at Baal. Again [GM]JediMike was in charge, so the loot was generous at the end, and there was a good ten minutes to spare before the next server's event started.

Hatzring continues to be my lowest-level character server, with RedRyder just on level 24. Her 25/27 armour set has no upgrades at all, and her level 25 crossbow is only +1, so a fair degree of caution was needed, after the comparative invulnerability in the previous server. Still, unlike some characters, she did at least have a level 37 mount, for horse buffs, and that helped - helped the whole party she got recruited into, I think. Red did have to use a couple of small health potions when fighting an elite poison mist, but otherwise things went smoothly, and again [GM]JediMike was generous with the loot at the end.

On Tairen RedRyder is level 31, so a bit less vulnerable to attacks, unless Baal comes along, or a horde of elite goblin scouts take a dislike to her. More people were waiting for the event to begin than had been on Hatzring, but the "five minutes" announcement soon brought the numbers up. Unlike most of the other characters, Red there is a genuine contender, with her special skills maximised and 7000 skill points already stashed for future use...but there wasn't any great danger at a low-level MMS, right?

This time it was [GM]Yatou, one of our newer game masters, who was in charge; she didn't put up the usual tower, but people congregated in the usual place - and suddenly there were barren eises, dark bogles, apes, scorpionmantises, and darkmind terrains appearing right where we were. "You pillock GM" someone said, as I lay on the grass, one of many people who had been killed instantly by all that relatively high-level stuff landing on top of us. "Uhhh", she replied, as surprised as we were, I guess - and boy were we surprised! Luckily I had one of the freebie "beginner" resurrection scrolls on, so didn't lose anything except the scroll. I respawned safely back in town, reapplied horse buffs, and accepted a recall from another party member. "Not possible low lvl", nanaki was saying, and I contributed "What part of 'low level MMS' do you not understand?"

"Okk... going to modify this", the GM said, as dark bogles chased hapless low-level players across the countryside, and scorpionmantises skittered about. "It's way too hard, GM, please do", SheSaidSheWas18 commented. "That's my fault -_- " the GM said. "Do get some tips from the GMs who know how to do this", someone remarked helpfully. "As I said", the GM went on, "I got sent the wrong set"... Presumably she said that while I was back in Randol. "Lol, okay, I forgive you", the helpful person responded... I think the name was "Red Rider" or something like that...

So, the high-level stuff was wiped, and the normal sets of elite sand golems, salamanders, balrogs, and so on were unleashed in their various waves - and then [GM]Yatou gathered us off to the side, and spawned the bad stuff again. This time, with a warning and a chance to pick our targets, we managed to wear them down, in much the way that the high-level people manage to get through what seems initially a huge number of cave spirits. And then at last we got some loot - luckily a nicely generous supply, more JediMike than Stratos. I think we'd all earned it by then, it was a rather action-packed half hour.

By the time I'd recovered from all that, and got my notes sorted out, it was time to wind down for the evening anyway. MistressDomino had been on Auzura-5 doing some merchanting while the various spawns had been dealt with, and did manage to sell quite a lot. I had looked earlier for a level 85 titan sword for MrChuckNorris without any luck, hopefully something will turn up over the next few days.