Who Nicked the Teleporters?

Generally, pet-levelling on the new Tairen server has been pretty trouble-free, without people trying to get my pet or my character killed. I think SirGalahad was ks'd three times, that is, he had the monster he was fighting killed, to just leave him standing there uselessly - but last night, shortly before logging out, I noticed that he seemed to have slightly more activity going on next to him that one death mask lancer ought to provide. Looking closely, I found that not one but two death mask soldiers were also attacking, occupying roughly the same space as the lancer, and I can only conclude that some little sweetums had deliberately lured them on to me.

Luckily, although they are "pet-eaters", neither of them had attacked my horse; the standard thing would be for one's pet to be killed, reducing one's defence stat by 250, and then the decrease in one's defence might mean they would then kill SirGalahad. However, it looked to me as if Gal was holding his own - still, I had to do a bit of running around to get the soldiers to "reset" themselves, before I could continue the one-versus-one with the lancer.

There were no such problems this morning, though, and SirGalahad pet-levelled from breakfast until coffee. Then it was time for him to make another trip to Prokion Temple on Tairen-1, along with RedRyder. As usual for a morning adventure, the back room was clear, though I was followed into the room by a knight called redbull, who asked for a party - so I added him to the team. He was level 25, and I don't think his armour was all that good, as he seemed to get through a lot of health potions, and often had to make a run for it. I had to keep an eye on his health bar, and be ready to fight the orc sergeants and orc axemen that had clustered around him.

Another knight called tareghamedabdALH had been working nearby, and he came in to join us too, getting added to the combat party. He was level 26, and generally kept a pretty full health bar - but that back room can be dangerous if you don't have a full +10 armour set, and there were times when he had to run to safety too. He did at least understand English, unlike redbull who I think was Brazilian.

The extra Combat party bonus must have helped SirGalahad along, as by the end of the session he reached level 35, his target for full-on pet-levelling. He had gone up 26.67%, and added 142 skill points, plus 265 guild points; he stayed on for a couple of percent beyond the new level to get the skill point total to 3,060. Back in Randol he spent the odd 60 to learn Canid Fence 2, so that leaves exactly 3,000 spare skill points, at least until any deaths happen. And then, over on the older computer, off Gal went to Maargadum Jail again. With the full 250 defence from 30 levels of his pet's Armour Increase buff, he now has a defence stat of 1552; with 4 more points in dexterity, he now hits his death mask lancer bare-handed for 46, though equipping the "Dash Neckless of Knight", with its additional 16 strength, shows that the lancer can just about manage to absorb a blow of 51, though the hit rate involved would also be a consideration.

RedRyder had actually added 1.20%, 5 skill points, and 9 guild points last night at the Mad Monster Spawn, but the morning's outing added another 24.38%, 162 skill points, and 93 guild points, since Red did do a reasonable amount of fighting whenever an orc came within range. After the lunch break, Red spent all her sp to finish flawless stone processing, and get some levels of herbalism and energy absorption too, and then headed off to Misty Canyon to get rid of her current experience percentage.

After that, RedRyder had her own solo session in Prokion Temple; the back room was in use, so I used the "corridor room", which, going by a couple of gold drops still on the floor, had only recently been vacated by someone. Before long a titan called "sombra" came in and started fighting there too; he didn't stay all that long, but a specialist sorcerer called TheClown, who must have been at least level 32 as he had the red devil and pinhead knight transformations, did stay rather longer. It was a relief when he left at last, and I had the place to myself again, as there aren't really enough orcs to keep two people fully occupied.

It made a change to fight as Red again there; being the same level as orc sergeants she gets better drops than SirGalahad, for a start, and there were a couple of hands of bravery. I kept going until Red had got 394 skill points, which added 82.43% (so a full level would be 478 skill points, fighting mainly sergeants and axemen); that also added 313 guild points, and enough pet points to get Red's dragon hatchling up to level ten.

Back in Randol, RedRyder was able to finish learning both herbalism and energy absorption, which means that she just needs eight kinds of processing skills to finish off her special selection. - that will take another 986 skill points, by my calculations. Then it was time to visit Misty Canyon and its Introducer Camios again, for some more deaths. There were as ever a number of "double deaths", respawning at the point of death and immediately getting killed again, which in these circumstances is no problem; there was also a "stay dead" death, meaning that I could only log out, log back in, and return, to continue.

By then it was pretty close to time for my early evening food break. SirGalahad had been working all afternoon in Jail, and had got the horse into level 36, its final level before it is able to become a fully buffing mount. Since Gal had only recently reached level 35, that was pretty good timing - maybe tomorrow Red will be able to live up to her name, and ryde, er, ride!

For the main early part of the evening, well, it was Kaerella time - but in this case I thought that, if there are further low-level Mad Monster Spawns, it would be a good idea to get my Kaerella on Hatzring up a few levels. So, for a couple of hours or so my level 11 Kaerella fought, first of all, a few jaguars for the Geres Necklace quest, and then went into Velpist Temple. After killing a few wandering zombies, it was time to go upstairs to the level 12 ancient zombies, and the level 14 berserk variety - and by the time I logged out, Kae had gone up five levels, her dragon hatchling had gone up two levels, and she had gained 225 skill points - which, I thought, wouldn't go very far when it came to spending them.

At 7:30 UK timethere was a Parade billed for the European server, being held on Auzura-2, so I upgraded to the local level 67 Kaerella, and went along.. It took me a little while to actually find the paraders; this was a solo operation for [GM]Noboru, who was dropping firecrackers and transformation scrolls in the traditional way. It was pleasant enough, but it did tend to end up with people asking for the GM to give them weapons or armour or money, which she couldn't really do - the description of the event had mentioned that "you may receive prizes", but that presumably just meant the firecrackers and transformation scrolls...oh, and I did managed to grab a drop of 1,111 gold, which doesn't really make me significantly richer than before.

The "hang out with the GM" part did rather go on for a while, as [GM]Noboru was better at saying goodbye than actually leaving, and, well, it's rude to leave before the GM, right? This meant that things overlapped with the "Choose Your Event" event, which started on Katar-4 at 8:00; I took my level 27 rogue Karella along to the Cariae-4 version half an hour later, but it all seemed a bit strange. As far as I could see there was no sign of the promised teleporter outside Randol's north gate, just an announcement to meet outside the Temple of Forgetfulness. It didn't seem a bad idea to ride down from Prokion, which Karella had on her memory scroll, and get that location onto the scroll too, so I did that, but I was either too early or too late, and, while I managed to run as far as the Barren Eise, the comparatively high-level local monsters double-killed me then. It was only a few minutes later that the announcement came up that, by choosing one of two possible teleporters somewhere in the Temple, Katar had voted for an event of 175% experience, and Cariae had voted for 175% skill exp... but as this would apparently run from 11:00pm tonight, UK time, for three hours, this all seems a bit academic for us Europeans. The other servers were to follow in an easily remembered order, Sarissa, Hatzring, Auzura, and Tairen, though how many people on Tairen can get to the far end (?) of the Forgotten Temple to "vote", I'm not sure.

Back on Hatzring, Kaerella completed a couple of minor quests, mined some quality stones for her hatchling, and spent all her skill points - and then, it seemed like a good idea to get Prokion Temple onto her memory scroll, so Kae made the run out to Shuraine's oasis and on to the Temple. I had planned just to kill a ghoul or three, and maybe pick up any gold drops that were handy, but a level 26 healer called XAngelicX very kindly invited me into a party, and also recruited a level 25 rogue called XDevilx. Just killing ghouls, mummies, and orc soldiers and fighters got Kae up to level 17 pretty quickly - and swiftly on to level 18 as well. Sadly, it was getting late by then, so soon after reaching level 18 I had to log out.

I had been expecting to log my level 72 rogue Rage in on Auzura for the voting in the Temple of Forgetfulness - she actually does have the location on her memory scroll. That was scheduled for ten o'clock, UK time - but about ten minutes before that, it was announced that the Auzura vote was in. Three servers were in favour of the extra skill exp, two in favour of extra experience, with just Tairen left. So, there was no point in logging Rage in, which was just as well as it would have made a rather late night for me. At about ten past, the vote was in, and skill exp had won - the extra 75% started then, and would apparently continue until 2:00am.

Through it all SirGalahad had been faithfully pet-levelling, and his horse is now more than halfway through its final level - which means that it would overshoot the target if things were left running overnight. Tomorrow, though, the mount will be finished.

Spawning the Mad Monsters

The overnight maintenance and patch got rid of the Christmas event - but if I wanted to see great big snowflakes falling, I don't need to go to Randol, I could just look out of the window, since it was snowing heavily all morning here near London, and much of the afternoon too. It was no great surprise that the Christmas Tree Ornaments one had got in one's inventory had vanished, or the reindeer transformation books either, but it was a bit surprising that the shiny Santa hats had gone too, despite having 30-day countdowns running. I assume if they were actually melded to one's armour's headgear they survived, but other ones, which could be worn in town, are all gone. The one-day merchant and warehouse tickets are also gone, even if they had a few hours remaining to their countdown. And SirGalahad's horse is now back to the regular horse form, rather than being a reindeer - as is Barbarienne's faithful pet, after being a reindeer for the whole of the last year. One item that does remain in Gal's inventory though is the "Pet Restore Spell Book", promising that "Rudolph will return to the original pet form" if it is used.

So, the Christmas event was a bit of a misfire; the buff for increased drops for an hour which the main tree in Randol gave seems, anecdotally, to have worked, but not in a huge way, while Christmas Gift Boxes were more of an annoyance than anything else, with the platinum drop boosters the only good item, and the Santa hats, which couldn't be stored, traded, or dropped, more of an inconvenience than a prize.

The new patch has apparently improved Roy's merchant mart's efficiency, to make its pages load more quickly, but we are told that there are absolutely no bug fixes this time; the Korean developers must have been too busy with their own winter festivities I suppose... So, Tairen is still alll non-PvP, and the polar bear pets are still only seen as raffle prizes.

Anyway, SirGalahad went to Maargadum Jail at breakfast time, and did some pet-levelling safely until after coffee, when he and RedRyder went to Prokion Temple on Tairen-1. Gal added 18.60% and 182 guild points, while Red got 9.42% and 36 guild points - they also got 118 skill points each, so that now RedRyder has finished maximising her mining skills, and started on the flawless (quality) stone processing skill.

Over lunch, SirGalahad managed to get his horse to level 35, so that it is now a level ahead of him. That doesn't increase a pet's hunger, though, it has to be two levels ahead before it starts getting through the quality stones twice as quickly, which stops the possibility of overnight pet-levelling.

For the afternoon, SirGalahad and RedRyder returned to Tairen-1's Prokion Temple. It was pretty busy, though, so we ended up in the "mirror" back room again. For some reason Red seemed to get attacked rather more often there as she stood in the doorway, so she did a little bit of fighting as well, but the main experience gain was SirGalahad's, at 18.52%, along with 137 skill points and 180 guild points, while RedRyder got 14.25%, 136 skill points and 54 guild points.

SirGalahad switched over to the older computer, and went back to pet-levelling, and then after I'd had my food break, and watched the final episode, at last, of season two of "Merlin", it was time for Kaerella to put in an appearance on Cariae-1.

I joined a solo party, which included another cleric, the level 50 Cariss, and a witch, MIDNIGHT, of about our level too. If we'd had an elementalist sorcerer we'd have had all the rare breeds! Kae went out to the elite akane giant as usual, and it wasn't too long before Kamira put in her appearance. My mage Keerella dealt with her easily enough, but without getting a rare item, and Kae returned and continued her stint. However, at around 7:30 UK time we were all urged to log out, as an emergency maintenance/server reboot was needed, apparently to fix some sort of logging on problem - well, such things do happen on the day after a patch, even a minor one. One party member wasn't happy as he'd got a full range of pots going, including power, health stealer, and pssp, so I suggested he should take a screen shot to show them as active, and submit a ticket to get a reimbursement.- though he may only lose 5 or 10 minutes of his hour, I suppose.

By then Kaerella had gone up 10.32% and added 66 skill points, so that was a decently substantial session; 798 pet points were gained, too. The downtime, which we had been led to think would be brief, became rather longer, with as usual the forum shoutbox pretty active. The first Mad Monster Spawn had been due to start at 8:00 on Katar-4, followed at half hour intervals by Cariae, Sarissa, Hatzring, Auzura and, with a low-level one only, Tairen, so things were starting to get a little awkward.

Luckily, service was resumed just in time, and my level 31 rogue Memree went along to the low level Mad Monster Spawn spot on Katar-4 - to find all the usual low-level monsters waiting, but no other players! So, I had the whole lot to myself, blue-named, green-named, and a few white-named, and picked them off one by one. The elite sand golems kindly dropped three of the "soft sand" quest item which Memree happens to need, which was useful, and a little bit of cash was dropped by other monsters. And then [GM]JediMike looked in. "Memree? You the only person here?" And he spawned some goodies, said "Enjoy", and left, returning to the main senior event. So I had the whole event to myself...

Moving on to Cariae at 8:30, my level 27 rogue Karella went to the junior MMS, and here I wasn't alone - why, there must have been at least four of us! We didn't take long to get rid of all the monsters, and the spawning of hands was rather larger than Memree's personal one, so Karella probably did as well if not better than she did, loot-wise. There was a few minutes for me to prepare for the next one, which was lucky, as my healer Kaerella on Sarissa was only level 7; I didn't have enough gold to buy her any better armour, but I could at least afford a level nine bow, to increase her attack power a bit. I ran out to the junior MMS location, near the lake where the Great Horn Beasts are, and was ready, along with a very few other people, when the monsters arrived. Even the berserk zombies were a bit high for Kae there, but I was in a party, and made myself useful picking up loot, and attacking monsters that had already fixed their aggro on someone else. It was useful that I had picked up some cash, as it meant that when I got killed and respawned back in town, I was able to afford a couple more memory scrolls. I ran back using a haste potion, and carefully added the location to my memory scroll, in case I died again. We had a level 32 sorcerer in the party, and when after we'd picked up our rewards JediMike offered us a second wave he said "sure" - so the slightly higher type of monsters got spawned, and when we had finally dealt with them all, a second lot of loot was presented to us. The first party I was in didn't last very long, but I was recruited to a second party, which included level 39 and level 50 rogues, who some might consider a bit high-level for the event... something you can't say about Kae, though she did go up from level 7 to 8 during it.

Hatzring was at 9:30 - we only got one wave there, as [GM]JediMike said that he saw some high-level types among us. Kaerella there was level 10, so had a slightly easier time of it than on the previous server - berserk zombies were still tricky though! Some useful loot and a bit of cash got picked up. Again, before the start I'd bought Kae a better bow, and I also took the precaution of getting the location onto her memory scroll, in case of problems. The event, with the single wave, only lasted five minutes, but it was a profitable time.

At ten it was Auzura's time for the event, so my local level 26 rogue RedRider took her turn. Again there were very few of us there, and JediMike did ask if I wouldn't rather be at the main MMS - but I said I was only level 26, so would find the monsters there a bit high. We cleared the monsters out, and got our loot - and then for a change I used a memory scroll to move over to the high-level Mad Monster Spawn, where sure enough the monsters were indeed a bit intimidating, well over level 100 most of them. I helped out using Snare on a number of them, but 10:30 came up, and there wasn't a spawning of loot, so I logged out of Auzura, and went over to Tairen, confident that there at least the low-level MMS would have a good turn-out, as that was the only one being done there.

RedRyder hurried out to the location, and it certainly made a change to be one of dozens of people fighting. We actually got three waves, with the third lot getting decidedly dangerous, at least from a level 29 rogue's standpoint. But as ever the GM was very generous with the amount of loot he dropped, and from the three spawnings of Hands after the three waves, I got roughly 14 to 19 each of the good items (skill point and item drop boosters, large defence and attack potions), plus plenty of tool aids and the recovery pots.

Apart from Tairen, it looks as if the "junior" Mad Monster Spawns are losing their appeal now, which is a shame, but it made for a varied and fun evening. SirGalahad kept pet-levelling in Maargadum Jail of course, getting the horse to a bit past halfway through level 35 at the end.

Storming the Castles

An attempt to pet-level overnight was thwarted by a disconnection after not much more than an hour or so, but when SirGalahad returned to level five of Maargadum Jail before breakfast there was, at least, the Christmas Gift Box still waiting there. He was able to do some pet-levelling until after coffee, and again over lunch - though, unusually for Tairen, he did get ks'd there, so that I came back to find him just standing next to the killed-and-respawned death mask lancer, having received just 1401 experience and 95 skill exp for his contribution to the creature's demise.

For the morning session, it seemed brighter than my usual plan to take SirGalahad and RedRyder to Prokion Temple on Tairen-1 - if it's the busiest place to go, why not go there at the quietest time of day? This meant that I was able to use my favourite back room without any interruptions, so that by the time lunch was approaching Gal had earned 15.77%, 99 skill points, and 154 guild points, while Red was up by 6.48%, 98 skill points and 25 guild points.

Red left the room just before Gal did, so that I could compare what SirGalahad at level 34 got from a kill with a level 29 companion within range, with what he got when it was just basically a solo party. In a solo party, an orc sergeant gave 8,536 experience and 5,500 skill exp, and an orc axeman gave 1,284 experience and 3,300 skill exp. While the figures varied from kill to kill, with RedRyder nearby SirGalahad got approximately 18,000 experience and 4.400 skill exp from a sergeant, and 8,500 and 3,600 from an axeman. Considering that Red gets that much skill exp too, and around a sixth as much experience, the Combat party works pretty well for them, though if I was trying to maximise Gal's skill exp this wouldn't be the best strategy. Those figures include the doubling effect on both experience and skill exp from the "Elizabuff", and the halving effect on just the experience from the guild's 50% experience freeze.

With RedRyder's new skill points, and a few brought forward, back in town after lunch she was able to get the last level of alchemy, and start on the mining skill, which may even prove useful some time. Then she headed for Misty Canyon and the Introducer Camios at its start, to get rid of the experience percentage; there were the usual buggy "double deaths", and, as has happened before, a death from which she couldn't be revived - even the five-minute countdown to respawning didn't work, so I had to log out and log back in again. At least this gave SirGalahad enough time to get his horse into level 34 at last.

So, the afternoon main session was more of the same; I did have a visitor for a while, a level 31 rogue called soyelmejor, and there was enough orc-respawning for SirGalahad and her to keep busy - she is on Gal's and Red's Friends lists now. When she reached level 32, of course, it was time for her to return to town and learn the new skills, so the session ended with just Gal and Red there again. SirGalahad was up by another 22.44%; he had got slightly more experience than usual because he had used one of his "beginner" platinum blessed irises, which have to be used by level 35 anyway or they become useless. They don't stack with the "Elizabuff", unsurprisingly, so it just added an extra 25% for an hour. Gal got 121 skill points and 183 guild points. RedRyder meanwhile got a new 8.21%, 119 skill points and 31 guild points.

SirGalahad then switched over to the older computer for some pet-levelling. By the time I was ready to get active again, the six o'clock, UK time, "Cluedo" event was getting close, so I logged MrChuckNorris in over on Auzura-4. The first of the three questions was someone who was not generally known to be an enthusiast for cars, which led Chuck to suggest Paul Newman - but the second clue mentioned that he was British, had made at least a couple of films, and was known for his mimicry, so "Rowan Atkinson?" was my suggestion to [GM]Noboru - and yes, MrChuckNorris was the winner of that round.

Luckily I didn't get the other two answers; a famous sportsperson turned out to be Martina Navratilova - well, with "Venus Williams?" I at least had the right sport. xXDarkKillerXx won that one, I think. The third clue started with "This person accomplished outstanding work in two different areas, one being humanitarian work" - and Zemilho was straight in with "Angelina Jolie", which was the correct answer, when all I was mulling over was the possibility that it might be Bill Gates.

As one or two people complained, it is a rather slow event, and it was after half past six by the time [GM]Noboru kindly traded across my prize, which, like RedRider's at the previous event, was a large crit potion. RedRider got William Shakespeare, and MrChuckNorris got Rowan Atkinson, so there is certainly plenty of variety in the questions that [GM]Valsharyn thinks up. A shame we didn't get a parade or anything this time.

The main evening session was over on Cariae-1, out in the Dratan desert with Kaerella, fighting the elite akane giant and his chums. I was in a solo party led by bluray, as Kae has been a number of times, and he was showing pretty much saintly tolerance of a level 27 Brazilian player called "fatalidgtty", not kicking them from the party despite the requests for power-levelling and gold - and I think he even followed Blu to Strayana and went within compass range to leach some experience from him as he fought the dark harpies, or some such local monsters.

Another party member left briefly and then returned, saying they'd killed Kamira - but it turned out that that had involved a shift to Cariae-2, and before too long the Cariae-1 version make a visit to me. So, Kae logged out and Keerella logged in and rode down, fighting Kammy easily enough. There was no rare drop, but there were the usual goodies, including lucky scrolls, a crystal of experience (greater), moonstones, tool aids, and so on. I finally added the location to Kee's memory scroll, to save time in future; she had got Lust Trum tower as one of her five memorised spots, but it is now possible to use a teleporter NPC to get there straight from Egeha village, to make things simpler for new night shadows.

Kaerella returned to her farming, and by the time nine o'clock was approaching, had added 14.44%, plus 91 skill points and 1123 pet points. Three more of the level 57 boot production manuals had dropped, but I was told that they are not as valuable now as they used to be, though if I actually made the boots, they still sell for a million or three.

At a little after 8:50 Kaerella logged out, and for a change, given the choice of attending the Cariae or Katar "Storm The Castle" events, I opted for Cariae, and logged in my level 101 archer, Barbarienne. For Cariae, it was just as well I did, as there were only four of us there when the event kicked off, with thorny mantises, jumping devils, death knights, and baals. The slightly creepy gamesage ADISA was the only one there when I arrived, and she, an assassin type rogue, fought well; more people arrived as the minutes passed, and we fought our way through the zamoras, anubis spear men, hell-otuu, and dark harpies. When the inner courtyard seemed clear, suddenly a number of blue dragons appeared - and while we were dealing with those, some Judge Ballacks too, but by then we were more than a match for such beasties. A frantic rush followed to find where the reward of the Hands of loot would be spawned, but the GM, Stratos, put up a message that they were inside the castle, his first actual interaction with us - and Barb managed to grab, I think, around twelve goodies, plus a few tool aids and the inevitable small recovery pots.

Hatzring and Sarissa followed at 9:30, but, strangely, Auzura was added to the list as starting at ten, despite [GM]Valsharyn having done his own "STC" recently. So, My local level 72 rogue Rage logged in in time for that, and teleported out to the location. Again we started with very few people, when without any announcement the first groups of monsters appeared on the bridge. I had rather assumed everything would be the same, but when after the main area was cleared I headed for the inner courtyard, expecting the blue dragons to appear, nothing happened - we had fought generally the same monsters until then, with perhaps a few extra wafes, male assassin bugs, and of all things some death mask lancers, but the inner courtyard remained empty, and the loot wasn't spawned in there - it was done in the traditional manner for castle-storming, with a good number of nice big piles outside the castle. It was certainly a lot more loot than Cariae had got, and Cariae hadn't done badly. Barbarienne had added 0.27% from her efforts, but, being quite a few levels lower, Rage added 2.27%.

Through it all SirGalahad on the older computer had been spending the evening with his death mask lancer, pet-levelling, and getting his horse past the halfway stage in level 34. As the regular weekly server maintenance is scheduled for 1:00am, there is no point in trying to leave him at work there overnight. The Christmas event will end then, and no doubt a new patch of some sort will be applied. Will the pet polar bears finally be on sale in the item mall, and if so, how much will they cost? They may be the sort of item that one ought not to buy until a "tiered spender event" gives a special bonus for buying expensive stuff.

Into the Mirror Universe

SirGalahad went back down into Merac's Maargadum Jail in the morning, and got his horse to level 33 soon after coffee. Getting into position hadn't been easy, as the death mask soldiers had been perilously close to the entrance, but I finally managed to get them to lose interest. With those aggressive types, and the beast crawlers, whose magic attack would probably kill Gal immediately if I clicked on one by mistake, it's not exactly a friendly place, but a death mask lancer makes an ideal sparring partner, he can take Gal's bare-handed 44 damage forever.

After coffee Kaerella went out on Cariae-1 to her spot near the Tomb of Theo, and fought the elite akane giant there and his friends. Kamira must have had other engagements, as she never showed up this morning, but as Kae got a couple of +4 level 45 weapons, and no less than three of the rare production manuals for level 57 boots, it was still a potentially profitable session. There was no solo party to join, or other players to party up with, but Kae still managed to add 10.66% experience, and 70 skill points, along with 917 pet points for SirFrancis.

The afternoon session involved SirGalahad and RedRyder going to the back room of Prokion Temple on Tairen-1 again, where everything ran smoothly. A titan from the OrdenLatino guild, DESTRUCTOR, did charge in and do some orc-killing himself towards the end of the session, but there seemed to be enough orcs to go around. I did wonder if he was moving suspiciously quickly, but probably not, I remember someone thinking my titan was "speed hacking" in that room, when I'd not have had the first idea how to go about that even if I wanted to.

By the end of the afternoon SirGalahad had added 26.02% and 138 skill points, while RedRyder had received 9.21% and 136 - they earned 213 and 35 guild points for Discipline, respectively. It looks as if the non-fighting member of a Combat-type party does get almost exactly a sixth as much experience as the fighter, along with an equal share of the skill exp.

I just managed to get back from the food break in time for [GM]Valsharyn's European "Mad Monster Spawn" on Auzura-4; RedRider, my level 26 rogue, went along, and managed just to die four times. Val's spawnings do seem to be becoming slightly more standard, but there were still monsters one doesn't see at an MMS usually, and thankfully no cave spirits - though one of Red's deaths was from a Fluton coming up behind me, using its flamethrower. The loot that Red grabbed from the various spawnings of the Hands was about the usual, with 7 large attack and 10 large defence potions, 5 item drop boosters, 4 skill point boosters, 14 tool aids, and 26 small mana and 27 small health recovery pots.

The final "boss wave" included a lot of anubis spear men and sphinx fighters - but these were the "[mercenary]" versions, so couldn't actually be fought, they just stood around looking menacing. I don't think Val intended to bring in that type, and indeed seemed to expect us to fight them - in the end she had to remove them with her GM powers. We had seen them before at Prokion Temple during the "epic event" there, just adding an extra bit of colour...they were still standing there the following morning.

The main evening session was, again, SirGalahad and RedRyder in Tairen-1's Prokion Temple. Since it is entirely possible that after tomorrow night's maintenance the Tairen sub-servers, except 4 and 5, will finally be PvP-enabled, we may not have much more time when we can enjoy the first sub-server's Elizabeth's Enhancement buff without high-level people rushing around on killing sprees, it seems a good idea to make the most of what time we have.

My favourite back room was busy, and the corridor room too; in fact the whole place was pretty full of people busy farming their skill points. SirGalahad ran around quite a lot of the place, in fact, with RedRyder clicked on him to follow, until finally I ventured into the other half of the place - which in some ways is a mirror image, but with the mobs changed around, and subtle differences. I found the "back room" there free; the corridor outside has higher-level orcs than on the "normal" side, while the room itself has, as well as the orc sergeants and orc axemen, a few lower-level orc soldiers too. The room seems bigger to me, although that may just be because it is better-lit, and has a step down at its entrance.

The only visitor I had, who stayed for a few minutes, was the knight Slymitor who, unless there is a subtle difference in the spelling, was SirGalahad's Guardian, back when Tairen was just starting. It's surprising that he is still low enough to fight in Prokion Temple, since he was level 26 back before Christmas. Anyway, I wasn't entirely sure I had remembered the name correctly, and he didn't say anything. We hadn't really talked when he was Gal's Guardian, either, come to that, but the server was so new that he would hardly have been able to offer any assistance.

My stint there lasted for the whole three hours of the "Elizabuff" - and a few minutes beyond that, as Gal was, when it ran out, just 0.5% away from level 34, and it seemed a shame not to get him the extra 3 points of dexterity that levelling up offered. It keeps him ahead of his horse, too. In all SirGalahad went up by 38.08%, 217 skill points, and 316 guild points, while RedRyder added 13.73%, 218 skill points, and 53 guild points.

So, that was the end of the evening's adventuring. SirGalahad just needs one more level before he can learn Canid Fence 2 to further increase his physical defence stat, which ought to make fighting a death mask lancer when one has a low-level pet (and thus not much in the way of the Armour Increase buff) a bit safer. The new level has added 1 to Gal's bare-handed attack, moving it from 44 to 45, but the lancer seems okay with that - if necessary we can reduce it by 1 again, as his gloves have a "+4 physical prowess" bloodseal which could be removed.

Anyway, the evening ended with SirGalahad down on level five of Maargadum Jail again, fighting the usual death mask lancer, and moving his reindeer-style horse past a third of the way into its 33rd level.

The Invisible Moose

I let SirGalahad stay in Jail overnight - in Maargadum Jail, that is, on its fifth level, fighting a death mask lancer. All went smoothly, and by the morning the Christmas Gift Boxes had yielded two platinum drop boosters, while by coffee time the horse had reached level 32.

After coffee I needed to do a little moving around of stuff over on Cariae, as both Kaerella and Keerella had rather full inventories, but once that was sorted out, Kaerella was able to teleport out from Dratan City to the elite akane giant and its friends, for a little gentle skill point farming.

Kamira played hard to get, and it was almost noon by the time she turned up. So, that seemed a good point for Kae to finish on - and Keerella rode out to fight Kammy, stopping along the way to open a convenient Pandor's Box, which dropped 50,000 gold for her. The fight with Kamira was a bit one-sided; there wasn't a rare accessory dropped this time, but all the normal bits and pieces appeared, which as usual were enough to make Kee's trip worthwhile.

Kaerella had added 7.64% experience by then, along with 51 skill points and 637 pet points for SirFrancis. And then once Kee had logged out it was time for SirGalahad to go directly to Jail again, to do another hour or so's pet-levelling over lunch.

The afternoon session was a Tairen-1 team-up for SirGalahad, doing all the work, and RedRyder, standing watching, in Prokion Temple, again with an assortment of orc sergeants and axemen, plus the occasional orc fighter, close to the top of the central stairs. SirGalahad reached level 33, so keeps ahead of his horse; that means that the orc axemen are blue-named for him now, so equipping his pet while fighting in Prokion is definitely no longer worthwhile. In all 32.94% got added, along with 155 more skill points and 242 guild points for Discipline. RedRyder got 10.47%, and, as she was there from the start, 155 skill points too, as well as 40 guild points.

The evening was generally more of the same, with both the back room and the corridor room busy - with the Sunday Quiz at 8:30, the session was a bit shorter than sometimes, so that SirGalahad earned just 23.32% and 152 skill points, and RedRyder got 8.19% and 151. Before we started, Red had gone to Misty Canyon to set her level 29 experience back to 0%, having spent her current skill point total on assorted special skills.

The quiz on Tairen-2 went smoothly. There were a couple of people "multi-clienting", with at least half a dozen characters in starter armour following their proper character - but I think it may have been a tip-off from the gamesage Airadella, who was just outside the quiz room when I went in, that brought [GM]Moose onto the scene. He wasn't visible, but he said on the local chat that he had just caught two multi-client running people, and sure enough, both clusters of clones had vanished.

As far as the quiz answers are concerned, that [GM]Krash, sadly no longer with Aeria, runs the "Pharaoh's Treasure" event is still the correct answer, and that was the vital twentieth question; everyone assumed the answer hadn't been changed, so we all got our full number of heaven stones, and left happy. I wasn't really concentrating after that, so might well have got the following question wrong, but spawning back in town then, to get out of the quiz room, is the thing to do. It's strange that, unlike the smaller but similar individual guild halls, they've never put an NPC inside who can teleport people back out again if they ask nicely...

SirGalahad took over the older computer then, and went to the fifth level of Maargadum Jail for a bit more pet-levelling; RedRyder went back to Prokion Temple briefly, to get another 28 skill points so that the final level of Expert Armoursmith could be learnt, and then Kaerella, who attended the quiz as usual, along with MistressDomino, had a short session. She did the wolf tooth quest for healer Yabo, and went up from level 6 to halfway through level 7; killing wolves, elder wolves, dire wolves, berserk wolves, and even a couple of jaguars made a pleasant change from orcs all the time.

Looking at the Events calendar, there was still no "Zombie Invasion" on any of the US servers after the Quiz, which seems strange, but on Auzura there's [GM]Valsharyn's "Mad Monster Spawn" to look forward to tomorrow at 5:00pm UK time. There is a GM "Hide and Seek" a couple of hours after that, but really, riding around the whole map aimlessly seems a waste of time. Tuesday at nine should bring Katar's, or Cariae's, "Storm the Castle" - while on Auzura three hours earlier there should be a "Cluedo" event, like the one at which RedRider won a crit potion a little while ago, so I must be sure to turn up for that.

I did have one disconnection this evening, at about 7:15, so letting SirGalahad pet-level overnight again probably isn't a good idea; better to let the modem have a rest. He should still manage to get the horse to almost two-thirds of the way through level 32 by the time he logs out, though.

An Ordinary Castle-Storming

Guild Wars managed to sort out its "hat shortage" bug by late yesterday evening, which ought to be an example to us all; my headgear-collecting character there managed finally to get the second new kind of icy "crest", which is more handsome than the usual hats they come up with. NCSoft do seem to be moving into the "micropayment" model now to keep GW revenues up; besides extra storage and character renaming and remodelling, you can now spend real cash for a pair of new Dwayna and Grenth themed costume covers.

After a final appearance at the GW festivities, held at midnight last night PST, or 8:00am UK time, it was time for Last Chaos to start up, and for SirGalahad to venture down to level five of Maargadum Jail once more, starting off on the newer computer, and then switching across to the older one after coffee. For some reason I can only adjust the brightness of the picture when LC is full-screen, rather than windowed, so I switched to running it like that, as otherwise the Jail is unusually gloomy, and it's hard to find one's way about.

Kaerella started up on Cariae-1 after coffee, joining a solo party and heading out to the akane giants and regular giants, and, in particular, to the elite akane giant close to the "Tomb of Theo" (not to be confused with the "Tomb of Theos") entrance. I remembered to put the spot onto Kae's memory scroll, which will save a bit of time in future.

It wasn't long before Kamira turned up, so Kae temporarily left the solo party, and Keerella rode down to deal with my visitor. This time I remembered to get the special drop-enhancing buff from the Christmas tree in Randol, and it may have helped - as well as the usual assortment of items, Kamira dropped a rare "Chain of Tiger" accessory, which gives its wearer 16 strength and 8 more close-range physical attack - making it useful for a knight or a titan. When Kae rejoined the party, other members were suitably congratulatory.

Lunch had to be slightly early, but by the time Kaerella left the party and logged out, 8.96% had been added, and 57 skill points, taking her stash of unused sp above the 8.5k mark, along with 684 more pet points.

The early lunch was to make sure my level 72 rogue Rage would be in time for the "Storm the Castle" event on Auzura-5, scheduled for one o'clock, UK time. While still fun, this turned out to be a very conventional affair, with everything by the book, which is not what one expects from [GM]Valsharyn, starting with jumping devils, barren eises, anubis archers, wafes, anubis spear men, dark harpies, hell-otuu... and ending with a couple of sphinx commanders in the Castle's throne room. As we were a fairly small group again, it all took us a while, and it was just about 1:30 when we fought the Sphinx Commanders. After that, we all followed Val back outside, for the loot, but it was a very small pile of goodies, and all I got was a single HP recovery potion, six MP recovery ones, three tool aids, and three skill point boosters. Ah well, I'm sure [GM]JediMike will be more generous at the next Katar STC, if he's still doing it - [GM]Kali was in charge of those until recently, but perhaps she has taken a few weeks off.

For the later part of the afternoon, well, first of all RedRyder went to Prokion Temple on Tairen-1 and found the back room clear, but before long I decided to try teaming her with SirGalahad there, in a Combat party, with Gal doing the work, so Gal stopped his pet-levelling in Jail and switched to the newer computer, then took over in the back room. Red switched to the older computer, and soon joined him. She is only three levels below him at the moment, so, while between them they got more experience and skill exp than Gal would have got solo, Gal himself got less than he otherwise would. Still, it seems as simple a team-up as the one Kaerella and Memree have on Katar, so is worth continuing with, particularly when Gal levels up a time or two.

It wasn't a hugely long session; SirGalahad went up 25.35% and 114 skill points, while RedRyder added 14.61% and 146 skill points - enough to learn basic armoursmith and the first two levels of advanced armoursmith, with 2 sp left over. After that Gal went back to Jail, with his horse moving on satisfactorily through level 30.

For the evening, the dynamic duo returned to Prokion Temple; both the back room and the corridor room, as I call them, were in use, so SirGalahad ended up upstairs just close to the central staircases, with RedRyder standing close by. With their +10 armour sets, the local orcs didn't hurt them at all; as I was also watching a tv show and then an old western movie, and thus wasn't giving the Last Chaos window 100% attention, I didn't risk equipping Gal's horse, which tends to lose health quite steadily when orcs are around.

I stayed for the whole three-hour duration of the Elizabeth's Enhancement buff on both characters, and by closing time SirGalahad was 49.34% up, and had gained 250 skill points, as well as 337 guild points. As she'd arrived slightly after Gal, RedRyder was just up by 242 skill points, along with 14.62% - an almost identical amount to her previous session, which, while shorter, had included some actual fighting, as opposed to just standing around for the Combat party percentage. She got 58 more guild points, so that Discipline now has 2185 of them; 6000 will be needed before that "guild message" skill can be learnt.

That was the end of the evening's entertainment, except for SirGalahad's trip down to the fifth floor of Maargadum Jail, where he soon got the horse past the halfway mark in level 30. That means that the horse is only hours away from being mountable, though as usual we'll be going on to level 37 for the full level ten horse buffs. Gal himself is still 20% away from level 33, so it looks likely that the horse will overtake him, level-wise, soon.

An Expert Weaponsmith

SirGalahad did manage to do some work down with the gnoll lancers before coffee, but my attention was more on Guild Wars, where the Wintersday Festival was reaching its usual annual climax, with new kinds of headgear being given out to people attending the finale. So, a character of mine was in Lion's Arch at eight, and managed to get the Ice Shard Crest that followers of Grenth get. Unfortunately, proving that it's not just Last Chaos that has bug problems, the automatic distribution of the headgear wasn't working properly, and three hours later I, along with almost everyone else in Kamadan, failed to get the Snow Crystal Crest for supporting Dwayna there - further attempts failed, too.

Still, on Cariae-1 Kaerella went out to the akane giants and the ordinary giants near "The Tomb of Theo" (not to be confused with the Tomb of Theos). There was no solo party available, and the only person listed as wanting a party didn't respond, but before long there was someone who did respond, and we got a solo party going, though it never got beyond five people, and broke up before the end.

Kamira did show up for me, so Kae logged out, promising to return soon, and Keerella, my level 93 mage, logged in and quickly rode down to the spot. Kamira didn't manage to do any damage to her, and soon Kee was picking up the usual assortment of lucky scrolls, moonstones, tool aids, et cetera. There wasn't a rare accessory, but Kee hadn't used a lucky scroll or an item drop booster, so still came out of it well ahead.

It is convenient that, unless the leader kicks you, these days you reappear in your party when you log back in, so Kaerella was back with the others, and hurried back to the akane giants. It wasn't a hugely long session, though; but even 3.50% and 32 skill points helps, along with 543 pet points... it gets Kae 10% of the way into level 51, anyway.

Once the Guild Wars excursion was over, SirGalahad returned to his gnoll lancers; and, over lunch, level 28 was achieved. Then, for the afternoon session, Gal got the Elizabeth's Enhancement buff and headed for Prokion Temple on Tairen-1, joining a solo party. The back room was in use, but the corridor room was free, so that's where I set to work. later in the afternoon I had three other people trying to farm there too, all members of the BrAzUcAs guild as it happens - but then, the influx of Brazilian players does have a different approach to "oh, the room is already occupied" from most other players. The knight NiCoLaS was the first, followed by the healer Livia; another knight, ANDRExBR, seemed to be lower in level, and seemed more prepared to attack my orcs than start attacking one of his own, so he'd really have been better off with lower level orcs.

Still, they drifted away after a while, and by the end of the session SirGalahad had reached level 32, adding 55.58% and 252 skill points. Back in Randol he was able to learn the Wall of Belief passive skill, increasing his defence; that took 227 skill points, so he still came out ahead on the afternoon. The extra defence meant that it seemed worth trying out the pet-levelling possibilities in Maargadum Jail in Merac, so that's where Gal headed.

The Spike Canines on the ground floor are often used by pet-levellers, and I could soon understand why. Their attack stat is, I find, 162 (slightly more than a gnoll lancer's 153), and their defence stat is 1196 (a lot better than the gnoll lancer's 751). One can easily lure a spike canine right back behind the teleporter NPC, and they didn't appear to lose health from Gal's 44 bare-handed attack, so all was well - except that it is a relatively busy spot, with people entering the Jail to fight on its many levels, so perhaps it wasn't surprising that I had my canine killed a couple of times in an hour.

The next step was to head for level five, where I have in the past noticed people pet-levelling on a death mask lancer. I got attacked by an aggressive death mask soldier as I entered, and was slowly wearing him down when a titan called Xaen came in, paused to open my Christmas Gift Box, which had just appeared, and went after the death mask lancer himself. I rather assume that if the box had dropped a platinum drop booster he would have stolen it. He seemed a bit aggrieved when I too attacked the death mask lancer - but I didn't stay long, as I wanted to move over to Tairen-4.

I had been pleasantly surprised by the lack of player-killing action in Prokion Temple on Tairen-1, with everyone just getting on with their farming and grinding, and no high-levels going on killing sprees... but it seems that actually it's another bug, and that there is no pk-ing possible on any of the Tairen sub-servers yet, even though four of them are designated for PvP action. Still, SirGalahad, moving to the older computer, also moved to Tairen-4. There were already a couple of pet-levellers at work next to the teleporter NPC, but I headed down to level five, and finding it clear, managed to avoid the death mask soldier "greeter" at the doorway, and started to fight the death mask lancer, whose stats are 186 for attack and a massive 1504 for defence. By then the horse was down to 27% health, so a levelling up was just what he would need. It did take a while, but before the evening was over level 29 was safely reached, and a little further progress made, even, with both SirGalahad and his target remaining in perfect health.

But over on the main computer, RedRyder, on Tairen-1 and with Elizabeth's Enhancement, headed for Prokion Temple in the usual way. The back room was in use, but the corridor room was free, again - and again I ended up having to share it, for quite a while with Sarpshootr2, and after that for a while LoyalRogue. Both were rogues around level 35, so coming towards the end of their time in the Temple. I kept slogging, and finally noticed that I'd reached 95% of the level, which was cutting things a bit close as I didn't want to level up. I worked out that a dozen or so more skill points would let me get all three levels of Expert Weaponsmith, to finish that special skill off, so, carefully choosing slightly lower-level orcs for a better skill exp to experience ratio, finished with 452 skill points and 97.03%.

After spending the sp, a quick trip to Misty Canyon was needed, and the Introducer Camio closest to the start swiftly helped Red to get rid of the unwanted experience. There are plenty more special skills still to learn, but at least weaponsmithing is finished, unless I end up adding the levels that come available when Red gets to level 32 and 42... but I don't think that is particularly likely. One has to draw the line somewhere.

There had been an announcement of some special New Year drops being made back in Randol, but, on the evidence of what had happened at the equivalent Christmas event, I decided not to bother leaving the Temple for that, and judging by comments in the shoutbox, I made the right decision. That was the nearest we came to an "event" today, but tomorrow at one o'clock [GM]Valsharyn is scheduled to hold her own brand of "Storm the Castle" on Auzura-5, which should be well worth attending. There's also the possibility of defending Randol from an onslaught of monsters in the evening, from eight o'clock UK time onwards, but defending Randol's gates can be a bit cramped and dangerous. Still, if I'm on the right server to see the announcement, perhaps one of my rogues will drop by and do some snaring...