A Narrow Squeak

Ratel's sudden disappearance last night was caused by a power cut just after he reached the Giant Larvae, he told me when he logged in this morning. Annoyingly, while his character was left helpless in-game not only was he killed, his pet was killed too...and he lost 2.5% experience.

SirDarth and SirPerivale started their pet-levelling duties at a suitably Sunday morning kind of time. The titan called Greg was again close to SirDarth, and once again lying on the ground dead, it doesn't seem as if titans are designed for this sort of duty. When he was down on level five of Maargadum Jail yesterday, Chuck did try out the pet-levelling set-up there, fighting a Death Mask Lancer without a weapon equipped, but his health started to go down steadily, so, although he must be about the right level, it just wouldn't work for him.

Rage used her memory scroll to go to the Akane Giants, which are four levels below her and now green-named. She rode along, past the Masters of Secret Technique, to the level 59 Arcane Golems, and the Elite Akane Golem, and farmed them for half an hour - partly to see if they would drop anything useful, but mainly to finish levelling up her horse, which only needed 525 pet points to reach level 37. The drops weren't much good at all, except for one level 56 manual, and the Golems hit hard enough for as many small health potions to be used there as against the Sphinx Fighters, it seemed.

Still, the horse reached level 37, so that meant that the mission was accomplished. Back in Randol, Rage traded the horse over to SirPerivale in exchange for the level 34 one he had been levelling, and gave this one the maximum armour buff and three levels of attack enhancement. Peri traded the level 37 horse across to SirDarth in exchange for the level 31 drake, and Darth then turned the horse into a mount - his mount, at least until a dragon becomes available! MistressSabina traded a drake egg across to Darth, who then did the quest to get a new hatchling, via Lorraine and Jajan.

So, for the lunch break, SirPerivale was set up with the Butchers to level up the drake, and SirDarth went back to his Berserker, to start levelling up the new hatchling, which is intended to be Rage's next pet, after her new horse reaches level 37. Generally drakes are more useful as pets than horses, they pick up loot more easily and don't seem to get stuck as often.

Ratel meanwhile had reported a nearly-successful visit to the boss spider Baal, out in the Dratan desert...which means that he got Baal down to about 20% health before it was time for him to respawn back in town. I don't think I've ever fought Baal - I once was teamed with someone who did, but I don't think I did anything beyond provide buffs or healing - but Ratel, well, he has a thing about that particular big fat spider!

The afternoon session was MistressSabina's, for a trip to Prokion Temple. Ratel's titan, Argoth, was already there, and indeed in the corridor-room with the group of Orc Sergeants, which is probably the best place for him to be at level 32. The "back room" was in use, so I ended up in the "statue room" just off the main central square with the staircases up.

Argoth was complaining about a player called Pixie who didn't seem to understand that his room was already occupied, by him - and I had a similar visitor who didn't seem to notice that I was there, a titan called 23KILLxJOY23, but he didn't seem to be killing fast enough to slow me down much, and I wasn't using any skill pill.

MistressSabina reached her 6000 guild point target, and spent them, and a million in gold, on the "Guild Message" skill, which is needed before one can do guild size "expensions", so called, I imagine, because they expand the possible membership of a guild, but are expensive. In all Sabina added 286 skill points, 876 guild points, and 1952 pet points. And then it was time for the food break; the "Sunday teatime" bonus was only a double drop rate, which seemed just to mean higher quantities of gold being dropped, so wasn't worth sticking around for the full two hours for.

After moving loot across to MistressDomino, it was time for Rage and MrChuckNorris to head out to the Sphinx Fighters (and Sphinx Speer Men); the place was already pretty busy, with SugaRush, TinySickNinja, and more - BatCow arrived just after I did, as well. Succubus2 was there, but had gone afk I think, probably after teaming with Tiny for a while.

The server had been getting a bit laggy; the merchant house was slow, and each time I logged in a different character there had been a "black screen" instead of Randol for a few seconds; with the quiz also due, people probably hadn't wanted to risk the Tomb of Theos and a possible disconnection. But Rage, buffed by Chuck, settled in, and was killing the Sphinx types in the usual efficient way.

But then lag struck, and the Sphinx Fighter Rage was battling started to act strangely - not moving and then "having moved", and another one came in on her. She couldn't do anything, and the scenes shown on her screen and Chuck's were quite different. I decided to move Chuck in to fight as well, but they were both losing health, and I soon decided that the only safe thing to do was to log them both out. When I logged them back in in Randol, Chuck's health was barely above 300, so one good hit away from death, and Rage's health was below 50% too, so I had made the decision just in time.

So I stopped them at that stage. Rage had gone up just 4.57% today, about a third of it with the Arcane Golems - they'd also given her 24 skill points, though, being close to her level. At the Sphinx types she'd added 2 more skill points, as had Chuck, who'd gone up by 7.59%.

SirDarth went back to hatchling-levelling for the rest of the time before the quiz, which allowed the little fellow to reach level 8, while Barbarienne, at level 8, went out to the Jaguars to get Geres some more necklaces, and reached level 9 easily enough. A Pandora's Box dropped five of the level twelve magic defence minerals, which may well come in useful.

The quiz itself was a bit of a fiasco, just about everyone got booted out on the second question, thinking that GM RaccoonPD was the mastermind of the "Jenga Event", whatever that is. And when we tried to get back in, we got the "It isn't time for enterance of O.X event." message, leaving a lot of unhappy people milling around in town.

Lag was still bad; I managed to log SirDarth back in to continue his hatchling-levelling, but my attempts on the newer computer just got me the black screen instead of Randol. After perhaps a quarter of an hour, though, Barbarienne did get in, and was able to do some more Jaguar-killing, and then went out to Velpist Temple to get its entrance (or maybe "enterance") onto her memory scroll. She got to level ten right away there, and went back to town about 80% of the way through the level - the idea being to join the Discipline guild and get her experience gain frozen, until such time as I want to enrol her in the Guardian system and zoom up to level twenty.

At level ten Lorraine will open a character's first treasure chest - and Barb got lucky, she was given the level 13 +4 Blue Jade Scepter, rather than Candy or gold, so she has a useful weapon for her future endeavours. Not that I need to level up another healer, but hey, it's good to be prepared.

Sphinx Fighters, Beast Crawlers, & Orcs

As usual, SirDarth started bright and early in the morning; the drake reached level 30 after an hour or so, by which time SirPerivale was also at work.  And soon after that, the first Pandora's Box of the day appeared close to Darth, and released a level 50 Beast which immediately attacked him.

So, it was time for Darth to temporarily log out.  This time, since MrChuckNorris is getting close to the Beast's level, it seemed like a good idea for him to ride down to the rescue, instead of Rage, and that's what he did.  It was handy that one of Ratel's armour buffs from last night hadn't expired, with that and the horse buffs Chuck didn't have much difficulty, even if using Smite didn't work for some reason, and was soon 56,000 gold richer.

There were a couple of new quests on offer for Chuck in Merac Caron, both of them involving killing the inhabitants of the lower levels of Maargadum Jail, so Chuck accepted those, before Darth went back to his levelling.

I noticed Succubus2 in merchant mode in Randol as usual for that time of day, close to Roy and the fountain.  Today's merchant-style sign over her head was "'ALWAYS cast res on people who have res scroll on' - Jack Cass", which seemed a sensible public service message to me.

After coffee Chuck was able to head for Maargadum Jail, and after applying his horse buffs, hurried down to level three, and went into one of the side rooms there to fight Beast Flyers and Beast Archers.  It didn't take very long to get the thirty Beast Flyer heads that one of the quests required, as each Flyer killed donated one, but the ten Beast Hearts took a little longer, as they didn't drop very often.

After the horse buffs wore off Chuck did start to lose a significant amount of health, and used quite a few small health potions, which shows that his armour isn't as effective as one might hope.  Also, that level six Smite skill may say in its description, both on the Last Chaos Wet Paint wiki and in-game, that the stun it gives lasts for 15 seconds, but it looked more like 5 seconds to me...

Chuck got his quest rewards in town and from Rau out at the pillar of magic to the northeast, and got a new quest too - the one Rage, and Kaerella over on the Cariae server, did recently, involving the Beast Crawlers.  So, another ride to the Jail ensued, plus horse buffs, and a run down to level five, tiptoeing through the claustrophobic level four.  A number of the aggressive Death Mask Soldiers were fought, though they didn't give any good drops, and the two Beast Crawlers at the far end dealt with a few times, until all three "Rings of the Beast Leaders" needed had been obtained.  Then it was time to return to the local Archbishop, for the quest reward.  There are a few other Merac quests still to do, but they do not become available until Chuck levels up again.

So, Chuck went up by 3.40%, and gained 14 skill points.  After that there was time for Barbarienne to go out into Juno and reach level eight, after which she was able to do the "Necklace of Geres" quest a couple of times.  She released a level twenty Pandora Beast, and nearly managed to kill it, by running, self-healing, and firing "shining arrow", but just when it looked as if one more shot would kill it, its health reset and it wandered off.  As Barb had used almost all her mana, there was no point in starting again.  Later she released a level thirty Beast, so, as she'd just got enough Jaguar Claws to satisfy Geres, she logged out and SirPerivale logged in.

At level 22, Peri was a bit below the Beast, but he managed to kill it - and all it dropped was 600 gold.  Luckily on the way back to town another Box appeared, and this time it was a treat rather than a trick that was revealed, and Peri picked up 20,000 gold, before heading for Merac for some lunchtime pet-levelling, which ended with the horse safely on level 34.

MistressSabina headed for Prokion Temple for the afternoon session, and without any boosters managed to acquire 351 skill points over 2.5 hours, which works out at 140 skill points per hour.  That was just the number of extra points Sabina needed to learn the three levels of Expert Weaponsmith, so that is another "special" skill done and dusted.  2399 pet points were earned as well, and 1061 guild points, so the Discipline guild will soon be able to get that Guild Message skill.

SirDarth got the drake up to level 31, and, over the early evening food break Sabina did some mining, to use up some of her supply of tool aids - and while Darth may have good stocks of stones, Peri's supplies are starting to dwindle.  The break got extended a bit, but I was at least able to get Ratel into the solo party, while he was out with the Giant Larvae.

When I did get back, Rage and Chuck headed out to the Sphinx types, and invited Ratel to come and join us; we settled in for a nice long session, though after an hour or so Ratel was suggesting a trip to Egeha's Bogles.  I didn't really see the point, they are only one level higher than the Sphinx Speer Men, and you don't get an Elite one to play with.  They may be more generous with their drops, but it costs 800,000 gold to get there, and you're at the mercy of possible disconnections.  Looking at the Wet Paint wiki for Last Chaos, Bogles and Speer Men give the same amount of experience, though Bogles have more hit points, and thus probably take longer to kill.

So, we continued where we were.  A royal knight called X69X, a name I tended to read as "xbox", was, presumably, skill point farming there; he must have been a similar level to the Sphinx types, judging by the speed with which he cut through them.  Strangely though he was using a Blessed Iris, for double experience, rather than anything to boost his skill point gain.  Ratel had a little fun using his teleportation skill to whisk the Elite Sphinx Speer Man from close to X69X to us a few times, but he never said anything.

By the end Ratel, who is level 43 now, had gone up just about half a level, he reported; at level 47, Chuck went up by a slightly smaller percentage, 43.85%, while at level 57, Rage just added 16.02%.  It's not trips to Egeha she needs, it's a few good Tomb parties... though that would probably mean that she'd get more than fifteen levels ahead of Chuck, so his easy levelling time would come to an end.  They got 9 skill points each, while Rage's horse is actually getting fairly close to level 37 now, adding a further 1884 pet points.  Another 525 points, and it will be time to move the horse Peri has been levelling across, to take over, which will mean only a slight cutback in the passive buffs Rage gets, since that one is already level 34.

Ratel did intend to go back to the Giant Larvae in Merac for a while, as he doesn't have to get up early tomorrow, and formed a solo party with SirDarth, but he logged out instead, perhaps due to a disconnection.  Darth continued to level his drake, which by the time he logs out should be approaching halfway through level 31, at least.  Apparently a mounted dragon is quite effective at level 33, though the higher you take it before mounting, the more skills you can learn.  I'd definitely want to maximise the fiery area of effect attack skill Dragon Breath, and the passive skill Live Regen to increase the rate at which my health regenerated while mounted on the dragon, and get some levels of Dragon Poison too...so maybe, as with horses, level 37 would be the one to aim for.

A Financial Disaster

I was busy in the morning, so SirDarth, with his usual early start, and SirPerivale were able to do some pet-levelling.  There seemed a gratifying shortage of Pandora Beasts around... Darth did have his Berserker killed by a pair of passers-by, but, not holding a grudge, did help one of them by leading him to the Jail entrance.  The other one apparently had some expensive pots running, so couldn't stick around...

The plan had been to send MistressSabina to Prokion Temple for an hour if I had the time, or, failing that, to send FoxChaser out to Juno's foxes for a while, but in the end all I had time to do was send Rage out for some mining, getting through thirty hammers and tool aids.  With the lunch break and other errands before that, she was able to do a little random mining in ten-minute sessions, and then afterwards rode down to SirDarth and traded across 700 quality stones, 100 imperfect stones, and 300 flawed stones, so Darth is well set up for his continuing endeavours now.

Stavanic came down to Darth during the lunch hour with a gift - a +5 Royal Shield, which is two plusses better than the one Peri had been using.  I did come to the screen to check what was going on, leaving my coffee downstairs as I didn't expect to stay long, and managed to get a bit confused as, while it was Stavanic's knight next to me doing the trading, the message window that also popped up wasn't, as I assumed, him trying to attract my attention, it was BadToTheBone, BasheR's rogue.

I wondered how Stavanic had come into possession of a level 87 healer six-sealed evasion helm, with the special sixth seal speeding up the "cool-down" of skill preparation, and came to be asking my advice about pricing - and Bash was wondering what my response of "nice" was to do with, and why I was suggesting trading back the drake I'd loaned him for the one I had at my shoulder.  Luckily, he soon realised that I was confusing him with someone else; I logged SirPerivale back in so that I could communicate on the guild channel with Stavanic, on whichever character he was, and apologise for my silence when he traded the shield across.

So, we traded drakes back; my level 28 one had reached level 29 for him, which was useful, while his drake had in all gone up from 565/1303 in level 9 to 2690/3362 in level 20, in the process just devouring 54 quality stones and 13 imperfect ones, so the five tool aids he'd passed over more than covered expenses.  He is talking about getting a set of 25/27 knight armour all up to +9 for Peri, so that he could fight Berserkers at least when his pet could give a substantial Armour Increase buff... he would exchange that for a mount.   Ah well, let's see if he can get the armour up to that level - with Rage's horse likely to reach level 37 in the next few days, I ought to have a spare mount available.

The "Financial Disaster" wasn't mine, luckily, though I hope the confusing chat he had with me wasn't a contributing factor for BasheR.  I did suggest light-heartedly that he should level Kaerella up so that she could use that level 87 healer helm, as it turned out he would have been well advised to do that.  What he did do was go into merchant mode to sell it, at 3,000,000,000 gold, which is probably a fair price for such a rare and desirable item.  The only problem is that he left out three of the zeroes, so actually sold it for 2,997,000,000 less than he meant to.  "Omg!  I sold for 3 mil... wanted 3 bil. Nooo!  I'm a fool, I don't believe it.  Omg.  I forgot 3 zeroes..."

Bash later reported "xhealerx took it from me, and sold it for 400 mil to kingmafia, now mafia is taking offers.  That thing cannot stay hidden, I tracked it."  Still, it was just one lucky drop while he was drop-farming in Strayana, maybe he'll get something else as good in a day or two.

The afternoon session began with MistressSabina heading for Prokion Temple at last.  She only had one of the 15% skill pills to use, so that the Orc Sergeants gave 5692 skill exp and the Orc Sergeants gave  4427, but managed to get 179 skill points in the hour, or 180 in total, plus 994 pet points, which were enough to get her drake to level 27, and 476 guild points.  But before the hour had ended, the "happy hour" began, and rather than the double drop rate that had been mentioned, it was 50% extra experience, so it seemed like a good idea to switch characters as soon as the skill pill expired.

So, the rest of the afternoon saw Rage and Chuck visiting the Sphinx types.  We had the place to ourselves for most of the time, but later on Elpuiohealer and DeathBoss, a titan in the HonourBound guild, turned up.  I assumed that Elpui was doing the actual work, from glancing across at what they did, with DeathBoss as a high-level "minder" to buff her and intervene if there was trouble, but actually it was the other way round, she was power-levelling him, getting the Elite Sphinx Speer Man down to around 5% health and using "pet return to village", leaving him to finish it off and get the experience.  It didn't always work, I saw him drop to the ground dead when he took on a regular Sphinx Fighter that had got too close.

Earlier a royal knight called KingTrill had arrived, immediately attacked the Elite, used plenty of health/mana pots, perhaps expensive "Candy" too, died, and left me with the Elite on about 40% health, to finish off.  It was all over in 30 seconds I'm sure...

Anyway, Rage added 13.32%, while Chuck went up by 39.03% - which meant he reached level 47.  They each got 6 skill points, though Chuck spent 710 sp on skills during a trip back to town, and Rage's horse got 974 more pet points.

Chuck now had enough stat points in Constitution for the Defend passive skill's five levels (for increasing long-range evasion by 25), and was also able to learn Smite's final level, level 6, which increases its chance of success from 70% to 80%, and the duration of its stun from 5 to 15 seconds, and the one-and-only level of Battle Roar 2, increasing the old Battle Roar buff from 20 to 24 on a player's physical attack, and increasing its duration too.

My food break was a bit delayed to get the whole of the "happy hour" boost, and I made the mistake of delaying it further for a strange "sasquatch milking" event hosted by GM Stratos back in Juno.  Riding around in search of various coordinates isn't my strong point, and I didn't find any groups of monsters except some assassinbugs which weren't at one of the announced locations.  People who had found the right spots had got some drops of "milk", which, back at Randol's west gate, they traded to Stratos - and just got a Sasquatch Scroll as a reward, apparently.  There was a cursory spawning of goodies, but all I managed to grab was a large attack potion.  All in all, it seemed rather pointless.

The evening session was a bit late starting; Ratel had gone out to the Giant Larvae in Merac, but wasn't finding them very good company, so was happy to team up with Chuck and Rage at the usual Sphinx spot.  We were also joined by BatCow, but she didn't stay very long.  Ratel himself stayed a bit longer than usual, but his new job involves working on Saturdays, so he logged out at around 8:40 pm UK time, which I think, during our summer, is 9:40 for him.

I didn't stay there long after that, and Rage's experience gain was just 7.69%; Chuck went up 20.59%, while they each got 4 skill points, and Rage's pet horse added another 855 pet points.

For a relaxing end to the day, I logged in as my level five healer Barbarienne, and, after selling a lot of the duplicate healer armour she was storing, took her out into Juno to fight the foxes, wolves, and a few jaguars.  I did come across one Pandora's Box, but it released a level 30 blood wolf-type Beast, which I didn't want to tangle with.  The Boxes themselves are level 1, and so at that point were still green-named for Barb, so that this one actually dropped something for her - a piece of the Wendy Bear puzzle. 

By the end of the session Barbarienne had reached level 7, but I can't say I have any plans for her that would get her anywhere near her level 100 namesake over on Cariae.  She'll probably join Discipline, and have her experience frozen on level ten, until some time when she can conveniently level up from there to level twenty.

SirPerivale's horse is now more than halfway through level 33; once Rage's horse reaches level 37 the plan would be to move this one across to Rage, to be levelled up slowly but, as Rage is a higher level, without using so many quality stones. That new +5 shield has got its bloodseals now, which are a better set than the +3 one had - 1 attack and 2 long range physical defence aren't very good, but adding 33 to close range evasion can't be bad.

 SirDarth has got his drake most of the way through level 29 now.  It is perhaps possible that this particular drake may end up as my first dragon-mount.  With his good-strength armour, Darth might do rather well as a dragon-rider, mobbing some outdoor monsters of an appropriate level, but he'll need a better weapon than his current +3 one, as the dragon's attack is based on its rider's own offence capabilities.

"But the Spammer is Gone"

I was busy all day outside the World of Iris, but able to keep SirDarth and SirPerivale busy, at least.  Stavanic, or JudgeGhis, was happy to know, after lunch, that his drake was just reaching level 17, and reported that the drake I'd loaned to him was also getting close to levelling up, at 6481/6700.

There was, however, a mass disconnection on Auzura-3 at about 1:15, UK time; people logged back on, checking that they weren't the only disconnectee.  It was tubbie who looked on the bright side, saying "but the spammer is gone", though I suspect it wasn't very long before the gold spammer was back in action.

As I was checking up on Darth and Peri regularly, I was able to help Stavanic move his pet and his mount across to a different character of his, BringerofHell.  He seems to have decided to retire the Stavanic knight character entirely, as he is level 33 and hasn't got enough skill points farmed to be able to level up and learn all the skills along the way.  My advice in such situations is to keep the old character, and use him when there's an event, such as a Mad Monster Spawn, where there is a danger of dying.  If you don't have any unused skill points, then you can't lose any...

The evening session didn't start particularly early, but the timing was about right, as Ratel had just arrived in Randol when I logged in with Rage and MrChuckNorris.  Once he'd restocked on pots, he was able to join us out at the Sphinx Fighters.  As I remarked, it's a great luxury to have someone else taking care of the horse buffs, and of course as a temple knight he gives armour buffs, and can stun the Elite Sphinx Speer Man, which can be very handy, especially when my Snare doesn't work.

There was another mass disconnection at just after seven in the evening, UK time, but at least it was a "clean" one, we were able to log back in straight away without any "the account is already logged in" nonsense, and we were still in the party together.  As usual there had been a bit of a "rollback", Ratel commented that he'd lost a good 3% of his experience gain... which led me to quickly check that Chuck still had the heaven stone we'd picked up, which he did, and Ratel still had the level 53 titan sword that had been his main piece of loot thus far.  He did get a level 55 pair of +4 gloves dropped by the Elite Sphinx Speer Man, which will come in very handy when he has gained the necessary levels.

Just after respawning in Randol I'd noticed BatCow there and said hi, and she quickly joined our party at the Sphinx types.  She wasn't actually able to stay very long, but after leaving Dratan she stayed in the party for a while.  Ratel himself left at what seems to be his usual weekday time of around 8:15 pm, UK time (or an hour later in South Africa), and after that I slogged on, just Rage and Chuck, until my own usual end time.  

Well, maybe I went on for a few more minutes than my theoretical finishing time, but Rage was getting close to levelling up, so I kept going until I did indeed reach level 57.  In all Rage went up 19.68%, and got 2200 pet points; she and Chuck each got 10 skill points, while Chuck's experience gain was a more encouraging 55.45%, even though that week-long 30% booster potion has now run out..

Not long before I finished, the rogue MaskReturn, who I'd recently teamed with when she was level 53, messaged me to ask what my level was now, so I told her it was still 56.  She proudly told me that she was above level 70 now, she'd had a long power-levelling session with the Tomb of Theos's version of the Speer Men, similar no doubt to the time BasheR took Kae down there.  So that's someone who'll not be visiting the Sphinx Fighters again...

SugaRuSH had been fighting the local sphinxes alongside me for a while, though not teamed up, and another regular rogue, HeRsHeY from the "DamonBlut" guild made a visit, too.

There's another innovative way for Aeria Games to part us from our money, as of today, called the "LC Loot Wheel"; for 99 aeria points, you get to click the wheel to start, and when it stops revolving, you see what prize the pointer is indicating.  As an introduction, today one could have one go per account with a 100% rebate in a week or two... some prizes were quite nice, worth the 99 ap or maybe double that, but some were pretty minor too.  A single large attack potion isn't much of a prize... though a chaos smelting stone would have been good, or 50 or more skill or experience boosters.  

Chuck got a single chaos ball from the Wheel, which he took along to the Dratan City based non player character who gives out the prizes for handing one in - all he got was 10 great mana potions, however.

There was just time for a bit more pet-levelling after Chuck and Rage's session; SirPerivale's horse has now got more than a quarter of the way through level 33, while SirDarth's work on Stavanic's drake seems almost done.  The drake is well into level 18 now, which was all that was asked for, though he'll probably be in favour of getting another level or two.  Stavanic passed over the magnificent reward of five tool aids, which ought to cover the number of stones used on the levelling, anyway.

Cooling Off in the Pool

I cunningly left SirDarth levelling his drake last night, so that the weekly scheduled server maintenance would stop him before the drake starved; MistressDomino was in merchant mode in Auzura-1 as well, trying to sell my remaining stocks of the Wendy Bear pieces.  I did happen to wake up briefly at an appropriate time, so was able to restart Darth for a couple more hours of overnight work after the maintenance break, and I also got MistressDomino back to work too.

The Wendy Bear event is, we find, continuing into a fourth week, which is nice, as it meant that, while she didn't sell very many pieces before maintenance, in the restarted session Domino sold a hundred of them, which at 25,000 gold each does start to mount up.  I even sold the 33 tool aids I put up eventually as well, at a newly reduced price of 39,500 each, so MistressDomino's finances are significantly improved.

The morning continued SirDarth's work, taking the drake a good way into level 28, while after MistressDomino sold out of all but two of the nine Wendy Bear pieces, SirPerivale went out to the Butchers in Merac as well, and succeeded in getting his horse up to level 32.

The afternoon session saw Rage and Chuck visiting the Sphinx types again.  It wasn't long before the level 53 rogue MaskReturn, a member of the elite "Vendetta" guild, came along and joined the party, so I switched it from Equal to Combat, making Chuck's presence in the party an asset rather than a drain on our experience.  MaskReturn was complaining of lag there, and did die once, courtesy of the hard-hitting Elite Sphinx Speer Man - she had a skill point restoration scroll on, but mentioned she'd lost 3% experience.  She must have got that back and more from our session, though.

Once she left I went back to Equal, and by the time I logged out, after today's special "pool party" event was announced, Rage was up 9.99%, and Chuck was up 13.30%; they had 4 new skill points each, and Rage's level 36 horse was up by another 689 pet points.

The "pool party" event involved MistressSabina (and plenty of others) riding around Juno to certain locations, and generally finding that other people had got there first and killed the monsters infesting the waters - however, the actual party location after that was the place in the northeast where the waterway ends, and a large fish swims aimlessly around - not far from the drake valley.  I got there in time for the loot to be spawned, but there were so many others also there that I didn't manage to grab any large number of item drop boosters, skill point boosters, large attack potions, tool aids, etc, but then it was just a bit of fun.

While SirPerivale and SirDarth were both busy pet levelling, Stavanic arrived with his new knight character JudgeGhis, and traded his level 9 dragon hatchling across for levelling to 18 or so.  He didn't have any quality stones available yet, however.  I lent him the level 28 drake that Darth had been working on, since he wanted to still have a pet to give him a buff, though as it's currently eight levels ahead of him it will get hungry a bit quickly.  Still, it's better than having the drake unused in Darth's inventory, gradually losing sympathy.

This being Wednesday, the usual early finish was looming ahead, but there was plenty of time for MistressSabina to go out to Prokion Temple.  Luckily there was no competition for that favourite back room of mine, and during the hour with the 115% boost I added 333 skill points - staying on a while got the total up to 369, along with 1152 pet points.  The skill points meant that Sabina could learn the final level of Expert Armoursmith (179 sp), and the first five Weaponsmithing levels (151), as well as the third and final level of Yellow Herb Processing (34).  Meanwhile, Discipline's tally of guild points moved on by 574 to 4194 - another four sessions should get us enough for that "Guild Notice" skill, which is needed before the size of the guild can be expanded.

There was just time after that for Chuck to visit the Master Titan, his skills trainer, and learn the level 44 attack skill, War Stamp, which can damage up to five adjacent enemies, decreasing their movement and attack speed (327 sp for the five levels), as well as the level 41 passive skill Focus Mastery 2 (148 sp for the one level now on offer).  He still needs some more stat points in Constitution before the passive skill Defend can increase his long range evasion, though.  There are a couple of new skills waiting for the next time he levels up, I see...

My attention may have been elsewhere after that, but SirDarth did manage to continue levelling up Stavanic's hatchling, so that it was on course for level 13 by the end of the evening.  Darth opened a Pandora's Box, only to release a level 50 Beast... and then he opened another one, and got another Beast, which proceeded to chase him back towards town.  The most I could do was relog him in to Auzura-4 instead of Auzura-3, where he was able to continue; and a little later, I was able to log Rage in briefly to deal with the Pandies.  

The first of them that Rage killed dropped 109,600 gold, which was nice... the second didn't drop anything, and then I spotted a third nearby, which again dropped nothing.  Well, now that Rage is level 56, the level 50 types are blue-named for her, so that would make good drops rarer.  Rage spotted a further unopened Box, but that just released a level 30 Beast... and there was another of those just round the corner.  So, an eventful couple of minutes.  I suppose in future it will be Chuck's turn to deal with Merac's Pandies; he is only four levels below them now, after all, but I suspect he'll need to have some health potions handy.

The End is Nigh?

The servers did come back up last night in time for MistressDomino to get set up to sell "Wendy Bear pieces for 25k, and some Heaven Stones for you too!"  Everything proceeded smoothly, and by the morning she'd not only sold a dozen heaven stones, she'd sold 241  assorted bear pieces too.  Once again I don't know if the whole event for the bear pieces will end abruptly after tonight's normal scheduled maintenance downtime, but I'll try to have as few pieces left in my inventories as possible.

SirDarth made an early start, with the drake at level 25, and SirPerivale did join in a little later, with his horse at level 31.  After coffee however Peri made way for MistressSabina, who of course headed for our favourite back room at Prokion Temple.  Using the same 115% extra boost combination as yesterday for an hour, with plenty of mobbing, we got 322 skill points in the hour, and a total of 389 by continuing on for a while; 1211 pet points got added as well.  That took the Guild Points total for the Discipline guild up to 3538, so we're more than halfway to getting the "guild message" skill.

The afternoon session involved Rage, Chuck, and the Sphinx types, which was all very straightforward.  As it was an equal party, Chuck got rather more of a percentage boost - Rage added 13.38%, along with 8 skill points and 1374 pet points, while Chuck went up by 41.92%, and again 8 skill points.  Chuck is also helped by having the 30% boost from a skill potion out of an Easter Egg, of course

My food break got rather postponed, though, with the usual Tuesday "Mad Monster Spawn" starting on Auzura-3 at five o'clock, UK time, and lasting over an hour.  MistressSabina had taken the precaution of spending all her latest batch of skill points except 3, so didn't get any death penalty, which was just as well, as she died quite a few times.  Some of those monsters are more than a hundred levels above her, after all!  Her experience gain is capped, but her part in the killing of the many monsters meant that 82 more Guild Points were gained, with on the loot side seven skill point boosters, seven item drop boosters, three large attack potions, two large defence potions, and quite a few tool aids and health and mana recovery potions.

The games master involved, Stratos, announced that there would be a race afterwards, starting from the town's north gate... but what really happened was another monster spawn, to the annoyance of some people who had innocently been waiting on their mounts there.  Me, I'm not quite that trusting.  But GM Stratos loves us really, he assured us... kinda...

After the interval, it was time again for Rage and Chuck to head for the Sphinx area, accompanied this time by Ratel.  I was slightly delayed by Acheron, or his rogue Archeon; unfortunately for him he didn't get round to asking to meet up until I had finally teleported out to join Ratel at the Sphinx Fighters.  Not that it mattered, when I did happen to run in to him later, he found that Archeon's seven-day cool-down period after leaving a previous guild hadn't yet ended.

As usual, Ratel was excellent company, but he did have to leave at eight.  XxXtigretonXxX was around for a little while, after that - she got too close to the Elite Sphinx Speer Man once when battling a Fighter, but luckily I saw what was happening and managed to pull it towards me.  I think thta, even with a single Fighter at a time, she did come to a sticky end, as I did find that the Fighter in the middle of the area by the camp was at below half health once, presumably having returned to its position after winning the fight.

The session ended with Rage having added another 8.11%, and 827 pet points; she and Chuck each got another 3 skill points, while Chuck's experience gain of 23.88% was enough to move him up to level 46.  This may well mean that a new skill is now available to learn, I'll need to get him along to the titan skill trainer tomorrow to check.

I didn't carry on late, as I wanted to transfer the latest loot, and all the Wendy Bear pieces, from my active characters across to MistressDomino.  With her selling slots having been taken up with the bear pieces for the past few weeks, I see she is carrying 106 moonstones - and 273 moonstone boxes!

The only character that played the "rock paper scissors" game this evening was FoxChaser, who, by heroically losing twice, got her own schoolgirl costume, and a catapult-type "cover" for a bow too.  However, just as I was moving the items into a logical line-up in her inventory, things started to refuse to be moved - yes, just before 9:30, UK time, we had another of our celebrated mass disconnections on Auzura-3.  That meant a "rollback" when we reconnected, so FoxChaser had to do the "rock paper scissors" game again.  She still managed to get the costume luckily, but the second set of bear pieces didn't get me the weapon cover, just a health potion.

SirDarth logged in and went out for a littleb late evening drake-levelling.  The pet had recently reached level 27, so there was the 26th level of Armour Increase to learn - things would be simpler, mathematically, if pets started at zero rather than one.  Darth had earlier opened two Pandora's Boxes, but both had just released the level 30 bandit-type Beasts.

With a good supply of the Wendy Bear pieces, MistressDomino set up shop in Auzura-1 for a while - not the whole night, but until the regular scheduled server maintenance, anyway.  If the event does end then, well, I guess the remaining pieces will just get hidden away in storage, in case the event gets repeated.  If you win eight rounds in a row, apparently you get the maximum prize of three heaven stones, but the odds against that are pretty high.

The Missing Experience

SirDarth got his drake-levelling off to an early start, and, again, SirPerivale got some quality time with his horse too.  I didn't have much time for actually playing in the morning, but FoxChaser, my level one healer who is now safely in the Discipline guild with her experience frozen, managed to put in a session fighting the foxes just outside the north gate of Randol.  Since the drops she picked up included a couple of moonstone boxes, a skill point booster and an item drop booster from a Hand of the Guard, and a large defence potion from a Hand of Protection, she just about earned the two million gold that MistressDomino traded to her in exchange for them.  Oh, and three or four fox tails got picked up too, they are vital for one of the "human tribe" pet quests and thus do sell for a hundred thousand or two.  She may well end up with a set of +4 armour, if she farms those tails long enough.

There was a general exchanging round of items after lunch, which means that MistressDomino is now exceedingly well stocked with Wendy Bear pieces.  The idea was to put her up in merchant mode tonight to sell them, but at about 9:10 in the evening, UK time, an announcement came up that the servers would all be coming down for a maintenance period in fifty minutes.

After a day or two off, MistressSabina went back to Prokion Temple for the main afternoon session.  I opened some of the skill type of lucky draw boxes, and, along with scrolls and skill boosters, got a supply of the 15% "skill pill" and 100% "super skill pill" potions, so used one of each, for each of the two hours, so that at level 30 Sabina was getting 10642 skill exp from each Orc Sergeant, which is just over one skill point, and 8277 from each Orc Axeman.  The first hour got me 311 skill points, and the second hour 299, so that, with the usual little bit of extra time, I ended up with 627 more skill points, which I quickly invested in maxxing out Sabina's absorption-collecting skill, getting the whole kaboodle of Alchemy, and starting on armour crafting.  2156 pet points came in, too; using a wand rather than a staff does mean more hits per minute, and so more pet experience, but it does cut back on the damage per hit.  And some skills use the damage per hit as the basis for the damage they do, so Flame Storm isn't quite as formidable as it could be...

The evening session involved Rage, MrChuckNorris, and the Sphinx types.  Rage soloed the Sphinx Fighters and Sphinx Speer Men for a while, and then recruited Norcaine specialist sorcerer Ghostt when he came by.  He's just about the same level now, but his evasion stat is more than twice as good as mine.  I see that specialist sorcs have a passive level 50 skill that increases it by 177, Sudden Precision, so that and three Stones of Shadows would help that along.  

We were also joined by an early-fifties rogue in the top "Vendetta" guild, who was asking if she could have any level 57 boots that dropped for us, as she needed them - I had to break it to her that, while monsters like Akane Giants and Arcane Golems do drop the production manual, for the actual rogue boots she'd need to venture into the Forgotten Temple and fight the Wane Spiders there, which isn't a very good idea at our level, at least alone.

A rogue called XxXtigretonXxX was operating next to me too for a while, but replied to a general remark "so much simpler when Snare works" with "no inglis sorri", so we couldn't communicate much.  She was only level 28, so found things a bit risky.  I wondered why, a little later, she said "plis", then saw that she was being chased by a Sphinx Fighter, so quickly killed it, for which she was grateful.  I think she left soon after that.

For some reason Acheron has temporarily left the new guild of his that he recruited Rage into, which is called "NefariousShadows".  And it was well into the evening session that I was just idly wanting to compare the experience that Chuck and Rage were getting per kill - only to find that Rage wasn't getting any experience at all, just the 200-odd skill exp.  Acheron had, without telling me, frozen Rage's experience gain!  It was apparently a mistake, he was surprised when I mentioned it when he (in his alternative guise as xXArcheonXx) was asking me later which level I thought the new guild recruits ought to sp-farm at - luckily his trusted friend WINTER, who had been installed as guild master in his absence, was able to unfreeze me, but it must have cut Rage's experience gain tonight significantly...it added 4075 guild points for the guild, however, which may be useful.

Ratel was on, and, having spotted a bargain-price knight sword, a level 47 +13 one for, I think, around 47 million, asked to borrow 24 million from me, so after my initial reaction of "Hello?  Sorry, you're breaking up, what was that...?" (which might have been more convincing if we used audio rather than typed messages), I briefly changed to MistressDomino and passed the gold across to him.

WhiteMessiah2 came out and teamed with Rage and Chuck for the latter part of the evening, so we did some pretty speedy fighting.  I didn't continue for very long after she left... after all, the special extra maintenance time was approaching.  Apparently they hope that what they are doing will cure the recent run of crashes we have been having recently: "Party process zoning crash fix."

Rage's experience gain was 15.66%, and she also got 13 skill points and 2046 pet points, so that her horse is now 30% of the way through level 36.  Chuck meanwhile did actually level up, reaching level 45 and adding in all 87.05%, plus 12 skill points.  If we have another long session like that he may well get back to being only ten levels behind Rage, allowing a combat party without anyone in-between as leader... until Rage pulls ahead again.

The servers coming down stopped SirDarth and SirPerivale from having their usual end-of-evening pet-levelling sessions; perhaps they'll be back up in time for MistressDomino to attempt some overnight selling of Wendy Bear pieces, but at the moment it's hard to say for sure.