Life Insurance

The double pet experience got switched off last night, a little while after CaptainScarlet's third ppep ended, which removed my temptation to keep CaptainScarlet and RedRackham at work pet-levelling in Maargadum Jail overnight. It would have been switched on again at 1:00am UK time for the second "two hours" - the question was, would the GMs remember to switch it off again, or by 3:00am or so, 7:00pm their time, would they be in too much of a rush to leave the office?

Cariae's Kaerella and Barbarienne, plus MistressSabina, logged on in the morning for their attendance half hours; GerMex was still on, and had reached level 52, so Kaerella advised him to go and farm the giants for drops. He was wanting to buy some experience boosters, but at a million or so each, he'll need to do some saving up first.

MistressSabina's trip out to the giants last night had had a little bonus. Before she went out from Dratan City I noticed that there was a new quest available to her - and it asked her to go out and kill a few giants, to collect "Devil's Magic". So, that quest was soon finished, without any extra effort, and the reward gave Sabina 3.03% experience and 8 skill points, which were included in last night's totals.

Auzura's Kaerella and MistressDomina logged on for their attendance next, while CaptainScarlet returned to Jail, started fighting his death mask lancer - and discovered that the double pet experience had indeed been left running, so before too long he started another platinum pet experience potion, so that 2 pet points per time became 6 points per time, or over six thousand per hour. That was the last ppep he had; he had a few lucky pet boxes, and the first one I opened was indeed lucky, as it gave him five more ppeps to use.

CaptainScarlet continued his work while Rage and SirGalahad logged in on the newer computers, and did a little mining. They did continue beyond their half hours, while I finally did some local Christmas cards - but they both got disconnected. Luckily, CaptainScarlet wasn't effected, and by the time lunch was approaching had got the drake, Kae's SirFrancis, into level 50 - mission accomplished. He went on to use another ppep, though. RedRackham went to Jail too, on Auzura-6, with a view to perhaps giving MistressSabina a solo party later.

Despite the snow, which was relatively deep, pretty crisp, but not particularly even, I went out to deliver some Christmas cards and do a little shopping; when I came back, CaptainScarlet and RedRackham were still safely in action - but the newest computer had switched itself off. As lunch was approaching, I left it like that, wondering if another new fuse would be needed for its power plug.

Over an extended lunch break, the good news was that RedRackham got his horse into level 35; the bad news was that CaptainScarlet's screen froze, and then instead of the actions resuming after a few seconds, the screen went black, except for some text at the top left, and I couldn't even get the task manager to start - some of the task bar icons went a bit strange, too. It was a bit of a "And then there was one?" moment, but when I restarted the computer, Last Chaos loaded without any problems, and Cap was soon back fighting his death mask lancer.

After that, I dared to start the Palicomp computer again; it had obviously had a problem, but I got to a "last good" option, chose that, and things returned to life. But for how long...? While my two pet-levellers continued their work, I logged SirGalahad in, as any sudden disconnection while he was fighting ghouls in Prokion Temple wouldn't hurt him. He chatted to a to-be-phoenix rogue called LilMitchyy123, mentioning he'd seen the night shadow with a similar name in the Tomb, and not mentioning the "ks-rella" circumstances. Mitchy seems just to be aiming for 10k skill points in Prokion Temple, plus the 1,200 when the rogue becomes a phoenix and zooms to level 35... I guess that should get her to the ancient grey mummies safely.

It wasn't a long or intense session, but by the time the food break arrived, SirGalahad had earned 2.66%, and 73 skill points...and picked up some loot, gold, and tokens too. It might have been longer if I hadn't downloaded and installed another Aeria game on the new computer, "Kitsu Saga"...it hadn't worked on the Vista machine, I'd never got as far as the character creation screen there, but this time it worked. I just did a couple of quests, killing some pesky giant ants, but that ought to keep me on the mailing list for that game at least.

The GokSReturN guild had held on to Dratan Castle on Auzura during the castle siege last night, so when Kaerella checked, the Tomb of Theos was still on maximum hard, or 0%...I know they have a legitimate grievance, but, while this may be very inconvenient for other Auzura players, and cut down the amount of aeria points people spend, I doubt if the GMs even realise that. And even if they did, stubborn male pride tends to win out over financial sense every time. Luckily the Cariae Tomb was on 80% when I checked, so that Kaerella and Barbarienne (replacing RedRackham, who'd recently been ks'd anyway, on the Vista computer) were able to head for the ancient grey mummies on Cariae-4.

There was just about room for us, luckily; two players were a bit low level and helping a third, a titan, so they hardly counted as more than one active player. Kae and Barb's party has to be an equal/general one at present, as Barb is eleven levels above Kaerella, but that situation won't last forever. In fact, an equal party does have its advantages, as it means Kae gets a larger share of the experience, helping to move her along.

With the Sunday Quiz coming up, it wasn't a hugely long session; sadly the double pet experience got turned off early on, but Kaerella added 1.38%, 23 skill points, and 2322 pet points, while Barbarienne got 1.25%, the same 23 skill points... and the polar bear cub just managed to reach level 24 before the end, adding 80%, and helping Barb to get a few drops.

I was slightly worried that I'd get the Palicomp computer switching itself off during the quiz, but all went well. MistressDomina was on that machine, so I was able to chat slightly more with my Twisted guildies. Afterwards, Kaerella transferred her prizes and other recent loot to MistressDomina - who then passed it on, plus her own winnings, to my merchant, MistressDomino. MistressSabina also took the opportunity to transfer some loot across.

MistressDomina was wearing her new western "widowmaker" costume cover today, and it hadn't cost me a penny. The gamesage georgerav occasionally holds little quizzes in the forum shoutbox, usually to do with song lyrics, and yesterday his final question, with a reward not of 100 ap's worth of item mall goodies but five times that, was what level was his mage character. I immediately guessed 144, as I knew he had reached Mondshine not too long ago, but then I checked the rankings for mages on the various servers, and on the fourth ranking I looked at, Hatzring, there was Fetuh19, eighteenth highest, at level 146. "Fetuh" was the name I'd vaguely remembered and was looking for, so I quickly typed "146" into the shoutbox, and was pronounced the winner. Considering that some song lyric winners had been using Google, I'm surprised nobody else there had known his home server and been rather quicker with the necessary web research.

As requested, I sent georgerav a private message with my item mall picks - and this morning when MD logged on, the little "gift box" icon was flashing, to show that I'd got magic attack scrolls, platinum adrenalines, and two "widowmaker" costumes waiting for me. It probably wasn't an entirely good idea to ask for two sets of the costume pieces, as it means that, leaving the second set in the mall section as otherwise its thirty days would start to count down too, MD is stuck with that flashing "gift box" icon until the current costume runs out...

After the Quiz it was time for MistressDomino to have a small adventure of her own. A special "Iris Life Insurance Promotion" raffle had just started, and every death you have is a free entry into the raffle, with 24 lucky players liable to win half a billion gold each. At level 10, MistressDomino gets no death penalty, and even if she did, she has no unused skill points, and even massive death penalties can't make you go down below the start of your current level. So MD-2 bravely headed out of Randol to the Ebony Mine, and set to work annoying the nearest degraded golien commander for ten or fifteen minutes. With him pretty close to the respawn point, and easily one-hitting MistressDomino, that must have been quite a few raffle entries...

CaptainScarlet had continued pet-levelling, through the quiz and beyond, even with the pet experience gain back down to normal, so by the end of the evening he had really just about finished his work on SirFrancis; the drake can be returned to Kaerella tomorrow, not just in level 50 but more than halfway towards level 51. It has taken a few days, quite a few quality stones, and a few platinum pet experience potions, but Cap has completed his task again. He will either find another character's drake that needs to be boosted a few levels, or work on the level 37 one he already has, I'll need to do some checking tomorrow.