The Tomb Raider

RedRackham and CaptainScarlet had ninety minutes or so of pet-levelling on Sunday morning, before MistressDomina logged in, and headed for the Tomb of Theos. Various Twisted (guild) people were online, and, while we'd not won Merac Castle in the early hours of the morning, we had at least not been glitched, and gone through to the second round of the contest safely, I was told.

MistressDomina reached the Tomb's entrance, and checked the Condition, to see if it was 100% or 90%...only to find that it was down to 50%, which was a bit of a surprise, as the new oweners of the Castle and Tomb were the same as last week's owners. So, I bade farewell to the Twisties - and my level 94 cleric Kaerella logged in over on Cariae-4, finding that the Tomb there was on a much more reasonable 90%

Kaerella was, therefore, joined by my phoenix ranger-rogue RedRydeR, and they both went in, in a combat party, and headed for the room of ancient grey mummies, which was not being used...except by the mummies, that is. We settled in there - neither of my level 94 characters used experience boosters, but they both used platinum blessed irises, while Red used a platinum adrenaline and Kae used a crit potion.

Before too long the level 99 specialist sorcerer BadFairy arrived, and asked if Kaerella was the Kaerella from the shoutbox, and when I assured her it was, identified herself as Tuffsen. She joined our combat party, and all went smoothly...at least until a pair of night shadows turned up, which made the place a bit crowded. One of them did ask for Kae's Charm buff...there was a slight pause, but when "pls" was added, the buff was applied.

BadFairy left before I did, and indeed by the end Kae and Red again had the room to themselves. I did continue for a little while after the second pbis ended, so that in all Kaerella went up 13.26%, while Red, killing more quickly, went up 19.41%. Their drakes added 2480 and 2526 pet points respectively, and they each added 20 skill points.

By the time I was ready to start an afternoon session, the Auzura Tomb of Theos had been set, and was at 90%, so this time MistressDomina and her fellow Twisted member, as of yesterday, Rage, went in on Auzura-4. They couldn't fight within compass-range, as Rage would have taken half of the skill points MD earned, so Rage went off to the main anubis spear man room instead, while MistressDomina went the other way, to the ancient grey mummies room.

Rage didn't use any potions or boosters; she is about my only main character not to have a suction of life-based accessory, but I found that, fighting the sphinx fighters, she didn't lose any health. A couple of times her drake got attacked, so some green herb leaves got used, but otherwise there were no expenses, beyond the cost of admission, and over the two hours or so Rage picked up nine level 97 weapons, which sold to the npc merchant back in town for almost 4.5 million gold.

MistressDomina didn't have as straightforward a time; her first hour went pretty well, with 72 skill point boosters used, to gain her 399 skill points plus 1.07% and 1060 pet points - but the second hour saw her only able to use 52 skill point boosters, for 299 skill points plus 0.65% and 960 pet points...and that was because the specialist sorcerer fragiii came along, and immediately began to ks deliberately and repeatedly, attacking the mummy I was already fighting, apparently because MistressDomina was a member of the Twisted guild. I mentioned it on the guild chat channel, and our guild master SacSalop came along - it seems that fragiii has some sort of grievance with a few twisted people. SacSalop told me to change server, so I moved across to Auzura-6, and found a solo party...I hurried back to the ancient grey mummies to finish that "power hour" and its expensive potions, but it meant that I missed out on a level three ignition, as well as losing time and the opportunity to use some boosters.

Fragiii did move across and discover Rage, and ks her briefly too before noticing that she wasn't using pots, so ks-ing actually helped her as it brought drops more quickly. SacSalop then advised people to be on PvP-enabled subservers, so that they could retaliate if fragiii came to ks them - but as by then MD had reached the Auzura-6 Tomb, I wasn't going to move again. It seems that Sac's advice rather played into fragiii's hands, as he had a higher-level friend, around level 130, and various Twisted members, mainly in the Tomb, had their levelling disrupted, either getting killed or doing enough killing to get themselves red names, so that they had to take steps to get white again.

The details are sketchy, but it seems that a fight in the arena with Twisted member PunkCharming led to a fight outside the west gate of Randol, and, however that went, it ended with PunkCharming threatening to put fragiii on Twisted's "kill on sight" list...

After the early evening food break MistressDomina managed to fit in two more power hours, but I think the Condition of the Tomb had declined a bit, so MD wasn't hitting as hard as usual. The first hour used 66 skill point boosters, for just 366 skill points, along with 0.69% and 1051 pet points. The room did get a bit busy, so that while there was always a new ancient grey mummy waiting for me, it was sometimes right across the room or even in one of the corridors; luckily as the Sunday Quiz approached people started to leave, so that I could use my third-stage ignition and a couple of earlier stage ones before the pssp ran out. Even with that though I only got through 65 more skill point boosters, for 367 skill points, which leads me to suspect that I may have been too distracted by other things (such as the guild chat reports of what fragiii was up to) to click a new booster a time or three... 0.76% experience and 1049 pet points were gained too.

So, those weren't the most productive sp-farming hours ever, though MistressDomina did go up in all by 3.27%, 4132 pet points, and 1431 skill points over her four hours - a couple of hundred more skill points would have been better!

It was MistressDomina rather than MistressDomino who accompanied Kaerella to the Sunday Quiz on Auzura-2; Ratel was there too, and a few of his other characters. He was saying that he is currently only able to log in to play at weekends, which is a shame. I was slightly worried as things had started to seem a bit laggy, with skills a bit slow to trigger, and text a bit slow to appear in chat, but the quiz ran smoothly, and I didn't even see any complaints in the shoutbox afterwards about disconnections, or expulsions of people who had definitely been on the correct side. We all got our prizes, and MistressDomina traded her goodies, including loot and a new supply of item drop boosters, across to MistressDomino, who went into merchant mode.

There wasn't time for any more adventuring, so RedRackham went off to Maargadum Jail on Auzura-4 for a little more pet-levelling, which at least got his drake a quarter of the way through level 41 before closedown.