Dark Deeds in Merac

There was a reasonably large patch to download this morning, and the patch notes had two triumphs to report. For Mondshine residents, that is, people who are level 140 and over, "the left side of the Chapel is now open... for real!" Also, at last the night shadow skill Soul Injection should be working. Conversations in the forum shoutbox, however, revealed that all was not perfect for Chapel-goers, as instead of you or your party having the place to yourself, presumably in an "instance", now the place is being shared, so that if someone else gets to the boss you need to complete your quest first, you are out of luck.

Apart from those two fixes, we are assured that Juno non-player characters who had moved out of their regular positions last week, with the botched new version of the map, are now back in their proper places. "The developers are currently working to fix the disconnect issue in Raid", we are assured, which is another Mondshine thing, and intriguingly "new content [is] expected within the next two weeks".

While I hadn't thought I would be able to do much actual playing in the morning, my characters got their attendance allowances sorted out, with a little herb-farming and stone-mining on the side. MrChuckNorris cuts an impressive figures in his 85/87 "Thunder" armour, and wielded his mining pickaxe with great flair. In the end, Kaerella on Katar was able to get to floor two of Maargadum Jail in good time for the eleven to twelve "dungeon time"; for some of the session she was partied with a level 34 knight called BritLover, who was a rather better partner than most such random team-ups. He went off to a different level for a while, but when he was in the first room, with its various canines, he fought hard, and did more than his share of the work - helped along by frequent healing from Kaerella.

By noon, Kaerella had gone up by 46.29%, and also got 88 skill points plus 805 pet points for her drake. She has passed the halfway point in level 40, which seemed pretty good going.

RedRackham had logged out last night still a little way short of getting his drake to 39, but he was online while Kaerella was in Maargadum, and the drake soon levelled up. He continued his work over the lunch break on Auzura-4, though he had to log out after that, to allow Auzura's Kaerella on.

Kaerella teamed up with MistressDomina for another trip to the Tomb of Theos on Auzura-5, where some of the usual people were already busy. The afternoon passed in the usual way there, including an occasion or two when somebody brought large mobs of screaming zombies, and the other local monsters, back onto us - but we generally survived, and Kaerella was able to take off the polar bear cub in good time when any menacing hordes approached.

One does have to decline a few requests for power-levelling, and people of about level 25 who want to be inside MD and Kae's party... but people at that level really ought to be farming their skill points in Prokion Temple. By the end of the session, with an equal party for a change, MistressDomina had gone up by just 3.93% in level 92, with her drake adding 1916 pet points. Kaerella, despite missing a couple of minutes from a "send error report?" crash, went up by 10.72% in level 90. They each gained 5 skill points, and the polar bear cub added 41.27%, reaching level 33.

Kaerella on Katar was back in action after the food break, in Katar-5's Maargadum Jail, while RedRackham did some more pet-levelling with the gnoll lancers on Auzura-4. This was a rather shorter session, just to make use of as much as possible of the "dungeon time" hour, so Kae just added 28.38%, 60 skill points, and 482 pet points, before logging out at about ten to six.

By the time the new hour began, MistressSabina, in a solo party with RedRackham, was in position on the third floor of Maargadum Jail, surrounded by the beast flyers - and as soon as the "dungeon time" ended, she started fighting, and popped a platinum super skill pill. When that one finished, she popped a second one, spending two hours farming skill points, and some useful loot, down there. It was pretty hectic, and quite a few small healing pots had to be used.

The skill point gain wasn't quite as good as on the previous occasion, however, just 135 in the first hour and 122 in the second hour, as what was happening on RedRackham's screen distracted me, and I had to give him some attention. I can now report that it costs 404,586 gold to "unseal" a level 39 drake, as I didn't notice the half-dozen or so gnoll soldiers being lured onto Red, and only saw them surrounding him and trying to kill him, after the drake had already died.

So, RedRackham had to return to the animal trainer to get the drake unsealed. He went back to the gnoll lancers after that - it looked to me as if the soldiers had managed to kill the other knight who had been pet-levelling there. I thought that would be the end of it, but before too long, the evil little scrote returned, and I saw that it was a mage called manisha - and she used exactly the same tactics that serina, on a different server, used, luring them in, and using a memory scroll to move herself a few yards away and break aggro. I unequipped Red's drake, which would look to the mage as if it had been killed - but she stayed around, and when I tried to move far enough away to lose the gnoll soldiers, as Red can't kill them very quickly, she followed, and brought them in again, so Red ended up returning to Merac Caron again.

As we were actually having double pet experience this evening, rather than give up, I decided that Red would just have to go to Maargadum Jail himself, so he ran down there from Merac Caron, and then hurried down to its fifth floor, passing MistressSabina. Thankfully he managed to avoid fighting any death mask soldiers, and started pet-levelling on the first death mask lancer - and had no more problems, so that by the end of the evening his drake was more than two-thirds of the way through level 39. Either serina/manisha doesn't know about pet-levelling on death mask lancers, or she hasn't found a way to foul it up. As memory scrolls don't work in dungeons, she wouldn't be able to use them to lose aggro after luring in the local death mask soldiers - she'd have to use a "return to village" scroll, so wouldn't be able to stay and watch the results of her evil-doing.

Anyway, 257 skill points isn't a huge decrease compared with 268 last time; MistressSabina went up by 9.12%, slightly less than last time, and got her pet drake 3681 pet points, thanks to the double pet experience event. The second platinum super skill pill ended just as the new "dungeon time" hour started...and, since as usual I had other business to attend to from eight until ten, Sabina logged out, though RedRackham was able to continue, in the comparative safety of Maargadum Jail, for the rest of the evening.

Just as I came back at ten, there was an announcement that "Elfnastysfriend's treasure trail event is starting now on A4 at Juno West gate", so out of interest, I was able to log Kaerella in to investigate. Elfy herself was riding a pale blue dragon, and led the group through much of Juno, dropping some prizes along the way. The only trouble was that she moved rather fast, and like most people I lost sight of her before long, so as events go it was a bit of a non-event. About the only loot I saw was five of something she'd mistakenly dropped on one of Juno's new unclimbable slopes. Still, it's good that she made the effort, I guess.