The Long Run

It seemed time to investigate the newly-revamped Guardian system, so this morning after coffee my level 10 knight on Auzura, SirGalahad, went out into the Dratan desert, and added Shuraine's oasis and the entrance to Prokion Temple to his memory scroll. And then he headed on down south, followed by a turn towards the west, past a lot of hungry-looking silver foxes, death goddesses, and goblin scouts, moving across just to the north of the Forgotten Temple. Like almost everything in Dratan, these creatures were aggressive, so it was a matter of looking for gaps and running. It would probably have been a good idea if SirGalahad had taken some health potions with him, as he took a few hits, and had to stop occasionally, in areas between the groups of monsters, to regenerate his health. This route avoided giants and, more importantly, the masters of secret technique, but it took me through groups of ravenous larvae, and on to the dragons, where SirGalahad did get instantly killed by the fiery breath of one of them.

Still, I'd been careful to use a memory scroll every few minutes, so not much progress was lost, and once Gal's health had regenerated, I teleported back out, and tried again, and, although there are a lot of dragons, this time I managed to stay just far enough away from each of them, and the goblin commanders, and got through that area. The arcane golems were pretty close together too, but I don't think they have a very long aggro range, so SirGalahad was able to get past them - and onto the path leading up into the grassy southwest corner of the Dratan map.

The various kinds of wafe are, luckily, not aggressive, although they are protective of each other, so the next stage was easy, and luckily the route I took didn't involve trying to get past any sphinx fighters or sphinx "speer" men. It's actually quite hard to find the correct way to get to the entrance of the Tomb of Theos, but I've done it enough times in the past to know where the gap in the wall is...and so, at level 10, SirGalahad reached the Tomb entrance and Tomb Guard Atum, and got the location onto his memory scroll.

The next thing was for my level 101 archer (Auzura) Kaerella to log in on my main computer, with SirGalahad over on the older one. Kae enrolled Gal as an apprentice in the Guardian system, and then hastily removed herself from the list. They made a party, teleported out to the Tomb, and Kae killed a few screaming zombies. The first kill took SirGalahad from the top of level 10 to level 14...and nine more kills got him to level 20, after which he moved back to the entrance, to allow Kaerella to kill just a few more, before they left. SirGalahad had safely received his event weapon, the "light of odin" sword, which now comes at +15...and he'd got the new +15 dual swords equivalent too.

SirGalahad used his memory scroll to move across to Prokion Temple, and Kaerella rode out there too. I'd heard that guardians got skill exp too when their apprentice fought, if they were on the same map, and I found that this was indeed true - though I found it was never more than 100 skill experience, so Kae would have had to hang around for quite a while to get an entire skill point. Kaerella didn't, actually, have to be inside the Temple to get that small amount of skill exp, outside, or back in Dratan City, worked just as well... but as a cunning way to gain extra skill points for Barbarienne or Keerella, becoming a Guardian doesn't look practical unfortunately.

Reaching level 20 meant that SirGalahad had a special day-long buff adding to his skill exp gain, and fighting the low-level temple monsters meant that the ignition "swoosh" filled up quickly, and it wasn't long before level four was reached - which, while he did take damage, meant that Gal could one-hit level 23 and 25 orcs, and added 30 sp while it lasted.

Tuffsen appeared in the forum shoutbox, and I mentioned that I'd been too late making space in (Cariae) Kaerella's Friends list at the end of our recent team-up...she said she was on Cariae-4, so I logged my level 94 cleric Kaerella in there, and added her sorcerer BadFairy to my list. And when she mentioned that she had Recall and that she was the only player in the ancient grey mummies room, well, it seemed like a good idea, so Kaerella, and my level 94 rogue RedRydeR, joined the party, and were teleported in.

We actually had two clerics in the party, as MissLegendKiller, a couple of levels lower than Kaerella, was also there - newly arrived, as back in Randol she'd buffed Kae with Charm, and Kae had retaliated by buffing her with it. She fought for a while, and was, I discovered, Tuffsen's boyfriend, first encountered in-game but now in real life too.

The session continued after lunch, and Kae and Red used a platinum blessed iris over the two to three dungeon time hour - and indeed over the five to six hour as well, after the early evening food break. BadFairy took some time afk to do her laundry, with her pet polar bear, Homer, gaining experience.

We did have a slight confrontation with the night shadow Margadus, who was, Tuffsen/BadFairy felt, taking more than a fair share of the local mummies as a mob to use his area of effect skills on. That was fine while BadFairy was afk, especially as RedRydeR was away too (In the shoutbox, LichDemon had asked me to help him transfer a pet drake between two of his characters, which meant I logged in my level 2 mage Keerella on Hatzring-6 briefly - and after that, SirGalahad took the opportunity to do some more work in Prokion Temple on Auzura-6)...Kaerella had enough mummies, and gave Margadus the Charm buff a couple of times...he mentioned he was level 108, so no wonder he could deal with a whole group at once. When BadFairy was back, and was able to Recall RedRydeR to the group, it made things a little difficult.

BadFairy asked him a number of times to leave us more mummies, and to stick with the corridor ones basically, but he felt that the room was designed for mobbing. In the end, BadFairy recalled her boyfriend to us... this time as MrLegendKiller, a level 156 night shadow, ranked fifth on the server apparently. Margadus got the hint, and changed subserver. "Wow, I don't think I've been in a party with such a high-level character before, except solo parties", I commented, before noticing the dire effect his level in the party was having on Kae and Red's experience and skill exp per kill. We quickly left that party, and made our own, which BadFairy soon joined, once the drama was over.

RedRydeR had managed to reach level 95; before her break she'd gained 11.11%, 9 skill points, and 1834 pet points, and in her second part of the session added 20.90%, 37 skill points, and 4729 pet points. The eight to nine o'clock dungeon time hour had been her third using a platinum blessed iris...but, as she was getting rather ahead of Kaerella, Kae used not just a pbi, but a platinum adrenaline and a crit potion, plus experience boosters... 33 in the hour. I noticed that, with those two performance-enhancing pots, her kill rate was, well, roughly similar to RedRydeR's without them...

Kae got 11 skill points and 5.81%, plus 2288 pet points, in the first part of the rather lengthy session - and the second part, including the full "power hour", brought in 39.89%, plus 37 skill points and 3736 pet points. Things did change from time to time; at one stage Kaerella actually equipped her noobie polar bear and got it almost 40% of the way through its first level, and while I was catching up on emails, and doing a little bit of blog work, RedRydeR kept going while Kaerella, who needed more care, stopped. That probably made up for Kaerella continuing while Red was logged out... but Red definitely kills faster, even with Kae using those 33 boosters in the power hour, Kae ended up only 12.69% closer to Red's level than she had been at the start...