Short Time Working

As expected, I wasn't able to start the computers until after six this evening, and get SirGalahad back down to level five of Maargadum Jail for a comparatively brief session - as of course the Sunday Quiz was looming, at 8:30pm UK time. Gal was able to get the drake to level 35, and a little way beyond.

For the short session before the Quiz, Memree went out to Prokion Temple, and reached level 27, adding in all 56.41%, mainly fighting orc soldiers; her dragon hatchling levelled up too, reaching level six - and adding 112 skill points meant that another passive skill could be maximised.

There was time for a little trading around of stuff before the Quiz, so Rage (as in xRAGEx) has loaned her +11 rogue 30/32 armour set to Memree, getting an unplussed set in return, and passed over her level 33 +14 crossbow as well. Memree can't use that crossbow until level 29 without a 50% decrease in its attack - but even half that weapon's full attack is better than the +4 level 29 one, so she will give it a go.

It wasn't all bad news for Rage, as she exchanged her level 10 hatchling for the level 35 drake that SirGalahad had been working on, so the buff from the drake should go some way to keeping her armour rating up - though she is at least slightly retired from active service until another +10 armour set is earned.

The quiz must have taken just about half an hour, the questions were very slow in coming - and there were some difficult ones. On Tairen-2 we lost more than half our number on the "which item can you not feed a horse", as they can't have noticed the "not" there. We had the "how many NPCs are there in Dratan, 27 or 29", which is, like the number of oases there, the lower figure; I think we have had that question before, but not for a long time...and "four foxes on the moon statue gives you what reward" had I think been seen before, but not for ages... for the record it was the smaller size of crystal. Well, foxes are pretty small.

"Complaining just makes it take longer", the GM in charge commented, so people on a number of subservers must have been commenting on how slow things were. We did have the usual "Mad Monster Spawn is on Monday or Tuesday" question, which turns up most weeks, it seems... the only problem is that recently the main MMS has actually been on a Wednesday, with the Auzura special European ones on Monday... but the correct answer is still Tuesday.

So, a dozen or so of us reached the end, and got our full share of prizes - Kaerella and MistressDomina included. Unfortunately Gamer wasn't online for the Quiz, which presumably messes up her plans for returning the gold she borrowed, for the moment.

Rage had also passed over five cracked axes along with her armour, so Memree was able to complete the quest that required them, which led on to a visit to Shuraine to complete another quest - so Memree added another 17.16% and 6 skill points rather easily, before logging out for the night.

Instead of putting SirGalahad to work levelling up the hatchling he got from Rage, MistressDomina stayed around, and after getting loot from Rage and Memree, went into merchant mode for the night. She took in ten million quite quickly, but who knows what the next few hours will manage?

Another Turbo Boost

The preparations for tomorrow were just about concluded before lunch, which was useful, as it meant some playing could be indulged in in the afternoon - which is better than the last couple of days, and a lot better than tomorrow, when both computers will be off until gone six in the evening. Ah well, it's only once a month or so.

SirGalahad on Tairen-1 and ColonelScarlet on Katar-4 were both busy levelling their drakes this morning; the pink one the Colonel is working on reached level 17 by mid-morning, while over the lunch break that one got up to level 18, and Gal's drake reached level 34. The Colonel is actually still carrying an unmounted level 37 horse, and its Sympathy has fallen below 80% now, since it has been missing out on the pet-action lately.

The item mall has a special 150% rebate offer today - buy 10 experience boosters for 100 aeria points, and get 150 ap back in a week or two. The catch is that you have to predict which of the two American Football teams wins their "Super Bowl", if you nominated the Saints and it's the Colts who end up marching in, then you don't get any rebate at all. Still, if one bought ten tickets for each team, after the rebate one would end up with having paid just 500 ap for 2000 xpb. A "Turbo" event was due to start at six in the evening, UK time, promising 50% more experience, skill exp, or pet experience for four hours. As before, the website says that they will update the page a day in advance to tell which of the three boosts it will be, but, also as before, nobody had remembered to do that. Auzura was also down for Hide & Seek and "Cluedo" events.

While SirGalahad kept going in Maargadum Jail, my new rogue on Tairen, Memree, had an afternoon session, and went up by 236.30%, getting comfortably into level 26. Quite a lot of the experience gain, at least 70% I think, was from quest rewards, starting with killing 17 clever foxes of the desert; for a change I actually killed enough harpies to get 5 each of their tears and feathers, though by the time I picked up a fifth feather I'd got 4 spare tears. It did take a while, as the harpy feathers in particular were a fairly rare drop. Foxes and harpies naturally led me towards Prokion Temple, so I soon ended up in the room with mummies and a single orc soldier, though when I reached level 25, and was able to equip level 30 gloves and the level 29 crossbow (just a +4, but that was one better than the level 25 one), the mummies' names went blue, so, while they still gave useful skill exp, they no longer helped with pet experience.

I moved along to another room I tend to use, alongside the "back room" with its orc axemen and sergeants, which had more orc soldiers and less mummies - and used a health potion or two, since Memree's armour was basically un-plussed.

A trip back to Randol was useful for investing the latest crop of skill points - I'd gained 229 of them by then, so was able to get all five levels of the new level 25 passive skill Regain, so that Memree's health and mana regeneration increased by 5 per second. That made things a bit easier.

It was then time to farm the sand golems, to get the 20 helpings of "soft sand" needed for two different quests, 10 each. As usual that took a while, even if occasional generous sand golems would donate two at a time. A titan called balkom arrived after a few minutes, but he only seemed interested in the elite sand golem, sitting to regenerate his health and mana between its spawnings. Memree reached level 26 while I was there; once the total for the soft sand was "20/10" I made my way west across the desert to Translator Edgar, and completed the "Translator Edgar Old Document" quest - and then back in Dratan City Occultist Pianon was finally ready to give me the "Sand Golems" quest to collect the other ten, so I was able to complete that quest immediately.

The next few quests, starting with Lorraine in Randol next time Memree levels up, are Merac-oriented, but there are plenty more in Dratan yet, as Kaerella's recent adventures over on Cariae prove. But the return to Dratan City marked the end of Memree's afternoon, during which 302 skill points had been earned, plus 691 pet points, as well as the 236.30% experience.

Talking of Kaerella, my level 54 cleric on the Cariae server, it was her turn for an evening outing today; as usual, the idea is that, on the first sub-server, where one can get the Elizabeth's Enhancement buff, Prokion Temple gets too darn crowded in the evening, especially at weekends, and taking a suitable-level character there opens one up to getting killed by higher level people who go there for a killing spree. The desert, though, is big, and one rarely sees anyone else. Not many people farm the ravenous larvae, as is shown by the rarity of the level 47 boots that they drop sometimes. They certainly are pretty "ravenous" when it comes to attacking pets, I often had to use a few green herbs to top up Kae's drake's health.

There wasn't a solo party available when Kae started, but EssensofElegance, the level 46 ranger, was registered for a party, so I picked her up, and launched our own solo party, which did get up to a full eight for a while. At six, UK time, the "Turbo" boost for the next four hours was announced - an extra 50% experience and pet experience. The experience per larva did increase, though not by 50% as it was already on 100% extra thanks to the Elizabuff; it went from 55,000 to 68.750 per kill. I'm not entirely convinced about the extra pet experience, which is hard to pin down, it looked to me as if SirGalahad was still getting around 1000 pet points per hour.

Still, Kaerella had a good long session, and even had to travel back to Randol to renew the Elizabuff for the last half hour. Either I've made the same mistake twice, or the countdown is slightly bugged for it, I was sure it was just running out in Dratan, so moved back to Randol to renew it - only for the clock to be set to two more "hours" (5 minutes, real time)...

In all Kaerella went up by 19.03% over the session, plus 189 skill points and 2073 pet points. I could have moved over to Auzura for their Hide and Seek event, and then later their hard mode "Cluedo" quiz and parade, but the extra experience was too tempting, and no doubt there will be more parades over coming weeks.

SirGalahad kept going faithfully in Maargadum meanwhile - his drake should only be an hour or so away from level 35 by the time he calls it a night.

Back to the Castle

I was still working my little socks off today downstairs - but I made sure that SirGalahad on Tairen-1 and ColonelScarlet on Katar-4 kept busy too, and checked up on them regularly. Gal's drake reached level 32 early on, and went straight through that level, reaching 33 early in the evening, despite losing a little time to a ks-er. And the Colonel just managed to get his pink pet up to level 16, and full drakehood, before he had to log out to allow Rage to go to the Auzura-only Merac Castle storming.

It was a bit of a contrast with the other all-server "Storm the Castle" events - when my level 73 rogue arrived, at only a couple of minutes before the hour, she wasn't the first to get there, instead there were dozens of people waiting, and [GM]Noboru was there chatting. Obviously there had been some advance notice given, via in-game GM announcements.

The storming went pretty well, though at the hell-otuu stage I did get a "send error message" crash. Luckily it didn't take long to get back into the game and teleport down to the start again, and join back in. The battle had moved on to the inner courtyard by then, so I snared one of the sphinx commanders. Time was running short, and there were two flutons in the throne room - Noboru had called it "the cathedral" earlier, warning us to look in there, and I'd gently suggested that it was in fact known as the throne room, since it does have a throne at the end...and what castle comes with its own cathedral?

We all concentrated on one of the flutons - the other fluton concentrated on one of our number, who ran like heck, very wisely, followed by the fluton... that meant we just had the one in the room to work on, until the other reset after losing touch with its target. We killed the first fluton, and started work on the second. Noboru told us that there was less than a minute to go - I'd switched from being one of the many people using Snare, or other stun-type skills, and concentrated on Flame Arrow, which let me hit the fluton for more than 6000 damage, as often as I could.

With seconds to go, we made it...though [GM]Noboru later did say that she had been intending to spawn three of the flutons! There was an invisible dragon in the inner courtyard too, but as far as the deadline goes, invisible monsters don't count, right? We killed that quickly enough, with people using the "tab" key to target it, and then dashed back outside the castle, where generous quantities of loot were spawned for us.

I did manage to mention that it would be nice to see the Zombie Invasion events again, and the GM responded that she would bring the subject up. She also spawned another fluton, just to demonstrate her power at level 139 - I think it was more to do with being a GM than being level 139, but the fluton only lasted mere seconds. I did enquire if she had played LC at all as a normal player, and while she didn't really commit herself, the feeling was that she had, but of course wouldn't want to give out any details.

There was to be a "Pharaoh's Treasure" hunt about 90 minutes later, so Rage logged out, and, over on Tairen, Memree logged in, and after spending her skill points, headed for Prokion Temple for an hour or so. It was pretty busy, but I managed to take charge of the room with the mummies and a single orc soldier when someone else left, and made useful progress - 100.94%, 188 skill points and 548 pet points, so Memree reached level 24. Back in town, a new quest added another 4.41%, and almost all the skill points quickly got spent.

I did unravel the mystery of the level three Venom skill - one of the properties of the rogue "neckless" necklace is 3 to poisoning, so it is that particular accessory that is randomly applying that skill. It seems a bit strange to have an accessory that applies attack skills at random, but as it is only high-level fighting where sometimes you don't want to use skills, and the "neckless" only works up to level 35, it isn't greatly important.

I was back on Auzura as Rage by about five to seven, UK time, and rode around Juno, waiting for the "Pharaoh's Treasure" event to start. The various coordinates were announced, and I galloped across the fields on my white charger, watching the figures for my position change, and did manage to get to three locations, but they were ones that just had sphinx speer men and sphinx fighters, blue-named now for Rage. I'm very bad at working out where on the map any coordinates given are, I just watch my own figure and try to go in a direction that gets the figure moving up or down as required, but when the spot with the loot was announced, I was actually able to get there in time, to find [GM]Noboru and a dozen or so people, and the hands of loot just being spawned.

So, I was able to grab another three or four each of the good items. After enough people typed in a nonsense word that the GM gave us, a fluton was spawned, and, slightly slowly, we managed to kill it, and were given just one more small pile of loot - all I got from it was a large defence potion. In a discussion of flutons I suggested how cool a fluton transformation scroll would be - think of a parade around Randol with some people in fluton form. [GM]Noboru was rather taken with the idea, but I doubt if it is practical.

Rage was just standing around in town after that. Ratel had got in touch while I was picking up the "Pharaoh's" loot, he was busy in Egeha trying to farm some skill points. "My current tally is 170, and it took me one month to accumulate that", he told me.

He reported that he was fighting cursed liches and cursed weavers, which both have magical attacks. "My physical defence is 4k - but these weavers and liches are making me use pots like candy. I know they use magic attack, but still, at +11 plus, my armour should offer some protection, lol." I wondered if the mall-provided magic shields were any use. "They help a lot, but they cost a fortune. It's even too expensive to use level 12 magic defence minerals. Luckily I have enough gold here to cover the costs - but I have to keep a contant watch on my hp. It's like being in Proky with no plussed armour."

So, Ratel is going to be staying on level 90 for a while, and has no plans to take any other character of his past level 70. "Level 73-77 stuff is rare, and besides that, the critters are simply too strong, Aeria seems to be of the opinion that when you reach these levels, you either buy ap, or are rich enough to buy the pots and stuff with coin. I'm out of luck on both counts, lol."

When Rage (or maybe Kae) is within 15 levels, we might do an experimental team-up to see what sort of experience, and skill exp, we got from monsters between our levels - which probably would mean boucu demons or little scorpionmantises. But that is probably some time away.

Ratty finished his session in Egeha, and went to replenish his stocks of green herb leaves, since his pet takes a large amount of damage - and then we actually met up in town, with him looking very impressive in his best armour, and six to eight inches taller than Rage. But it was soon time for him to log out for the night.

It was handy that Rage was just standing around in Auzura-4's Randol, as while I was chatting with Ratty, the announcement "Random prizes are falling from the sky on A4 in Randol" came up, so I joined the other inhabitants in racing around town hopefully, looking for goodies. I didn't actually manage to pick up anything, though I did see someone picking up a berserker potion and one or two other things. So, some people were lucky, but it doesn't seem an event worth giving up a farming session for.

Feeling a bit tired after my recent exertions, I didn't do anything more exciting than looking through some pages of Roy's merchant mart for the rest of the evening. A death mask soldier did attack SirGalahad's drake at one stage, but I managed to notice what was going on, and unequipped the drake, equipped the sword, and gave the monster a thorough chastisement, By the end of the evening that drake should be at least halfway through level 33, so, as there's no point in getting it to a higher level than its next owner, that particular job will be coming to an end pretty soon now.

The Castle Is Stormed - Eventually

I did manage to take RedRider along to the high-level Mad Monster Spawn on Auzura-4 at 11:00pm UK time last night, and it was pretty similar to the Cariae event earlier, with the single wave of monsters dealt with in about thirteen minutes, and then the single, but generous, spawning of the loot. This new type of MMS is a bit of a "lite" version compared with the traditional type, with its multiple waves including the final "boss wave", with the deadline to beat if a final spawning of loot was to be earned, but people seem to be getting used to it.

RedRider managed to stay alive, and assisted by using Snare with quite a few kills. The task always seems overwhelming at the start, with so many deadly monsters suddenly appearing, but people start to attack those on the edge one by one, and the support classes join in, and the supply of monsters starts to get whittled down, so that ten minutes later one is running around trying to see if there is any odd monster that has been overlooked. I'm sure Red managed to pick up lots of small HP and MP recovery potions at the end, but otherwise it was just a couple of each of the good items, and six more tool aids. And then it was definitely time to log out for the night.

One strange thing yesterday that I didn't have room to mention was the mysterious appearance of an extra skill for my rogue Memree as she fought the Tairen-1 monsters in the afternoon, starting with the dark goddesses outside the city and continuing with the mummies and orc soldiers in Prokion Temple. Sometimes the monster I was fighting would be afflicted with a skill called Venom, at level three, which was a poisoning skill, sapping a creature's health. The skill icon for this was the same as for Poison Capsule, a skill Memree did have at that stage, but only at level two. I did nothing special to actually cast Venom, I generally wasn't using skills at all except for Snare on the occasional orc soldier... it just, well, happened...

Anyway, the day started as usual with SirGalahad heading for level five of Maargadum Jail - and that was intended to be the only action for me in-game during the hours of daylight today, as the run-up to one of my busy weekends has now officially begun. Still, the busy part didn't start until fairly late in the morning, so I actually had time to revisit ColonelScarlet over on Katar. He didn't have a pet in progress for levelling, but he did have a pink drake egg in his inventory, so I took him to Lorraine and Jajan to get a cute little pink (or mauve, I would have said) dragon hatchling.

As ColonelScarlet is like SirGalahad a level 35 temple knight with the full defence passive skills, it seemed certain that he would do okay in Maargadum Jail, like Gal, so I took him down to level five of the Jail on Katar-4, and set him up sparring with the usual death mask lancer. His maximum-evil red name means he only hits it for 20 damage, rather than Gal's 46... which also means if he attracts the attention of a death mask soldier as he enters, the fight will be more than twice as long, I guess. Just after eleven the hatchling reached level two, so that was a start.

The Last Chaos website's events page for today listed a double helping of the "Storm the Castle" event, with the first rotation starting at four o'clock on Katar, with the other servers, except Tairen, following at half-hourly intervals, and then another set starting at eleven, though this time with two running at once. This seemed like a good idea to me, so I laid my plans for the evening accordingly. Just before four, Memree, my level 31 rogue, was down by Merac Castle, ready for action - but nothing happened. I went away and did other things, finally switching back from Memree to ColonelScarlet, but trying to check the screen reasonably often, and it was about 4:45 when I saw a GM announcement apologising for the late start, but saying that the "STC" was now under way.

So, I quickly switched to Memree again, and teleported down, arriving when the castle-stormers had just reached the first gateway, fighting zamoras and anubis spear men. I did nearly die once when a couple of wafes attacked me, but managed to outrun them, and was able to use Snare to subdue plenty of hell-otuu, dark harpies, and anubis spear men. We soon cleared the main courtyard, and went into the inner one, which just had the invisible Strayana dragon, the blood shadow - I was able to pass on the tip I'd heard a week or two ago, that, once the other monsters have been cleared from the area, just hitting the keyboard's "Tab" key will lock you on to the dragon, as if you'd right-clicked on it. Then, while the creature is still invisible, it does appear on your compass-radar, and you just need to use a skill to attack.

[GM]OgreKing spawned our loot in the courtyard, and it was suitably generous. I also picked up one of the largest cash drops I can remember seeing, 147,000 gold, dropped early on. After that I switched across to Cariae-4, which had been scheduled to follow Katar, but the GM must have run the two events at once to catch up, as the event was finished when Barbarienne arrived. Not particularly wanting to take a relatively low-level healer along to the Sarissa or Hatzring castle-stormings, I took my early evening food break next.

For Auzura at six, my level 73 rogue Rage was a couple of minutes early - and found that [GM]OgreKing had already spawned all the monsters, and was running around at a suspiciously speedy rate. So, as the first player there, I started the storming, by getting rid of the death mask soldiers and lancers, and then starting on the male assassinbugs, which, while they may be green-named to Rage now, are protective, so tend to fly in as a fairly big group, so that a few health potions were needed. Luckily the GM had made the announcement for the event by then, and the first people were starting to arrive, so things started to move along in the usual way.

Rage mainly provided artillery support and Snare, as we killed off the death knights, anubis archers, thorny mantises, anubis spear men, zamoras, hell-otuu, dark harpies, and so on. Again there was a blood shadow in the inner courtyard - I had to wait for a few others to attack it before I could join in, as tanking a level 120 raid boss type is not something Rage is qualified to do, but, with the "Tab" tip, we soon killed it, and the loot was spawned in similarly generous amounts. Rage did actually add 4.18% and a couple of skill points, while the loot she got included 3 item drop boosters, 6 large attack and 4 large defence potions, and 6 skill point boosters, plus a dozen tool aids.

As I still had some work to do, I put ColonelScarlet on again after that, going down to level five of Maargadum Jail again, so that by seven the pink dragon hatchling was level 8 and had 100% sympathy. SirGalahad had kept going, though earlier his drake had been killed - the death mask soldier responsible hadn't stayed to fight him, just wandered off again, so it took a while for me to notice that something was wrong. Unsealing a level 30 pet cost 182,700 gold, I must remember to restock Gal with some more cash for such things. Later he somehow became the target for two death mask lancers, which was a bit strange, I can only assume that somehow the lancer in that part of the room "respawned" although the previous occupant hadn't died, but just moved a little out of position as it fought me. Still, Gal's armour was good enough for the double attack not to worry him.

Since Barbarienne had missed out on the action at five, I resolved to take her along to the later "STC" on Cariae-4, scheduled for eleven o'clock, UK time. As often happens I was just about the first person there, and a few minutes after the hour the monsters appeared, so I applied horse buffs, and started the battle. A wight slasher was blue-named to me, but as a boss-type took a while to kill, and then I started on the male assassinbugs. Luckily someone else arrived about then, as I didn't fancy trying to tank the thorny mantises solo, and, as the GM announcements had been made, a number of people were soon arriving.

A level 96 titan asked for a combat party, and when I was finally able to click on him I supplied that. The main part of the battle was the same as earlier, though perhaps with less monsters in the outer courtyard unless I missed them, but [GM]Stratos didn't have an invisible dragon in the inner courtyard, instead a fluton was there, and then, before it was dead, a darkmind terrain... and when they were both dead, there was suddenly another fluton to deal with.

The loot spawned was less than generous, just a couple of heaps, and I just got 3 item drop boosters, a large attack and a large defence potion, no skill point boosters, and 3 tool aids. A few judge ballachs were spawned by the gateway back to the outer courtyard... and that was it. People hung around for a little while, but the event had finished, and was about to start on Hatzring and Sarissa.

Before he'd logged out to allow Barb on, ColonelScarlet had got his pink dragon hatchling a third of the way through level 11; SirGalahad back on Tairen kept going until log-out time, which meant his drake was pretty close to level 32 by then.

The Guild Contracts

There seemed to be no patch at all to download this morning, after the overnight maintenance downtime, though apparently some problem at level 162 has been fixed. "Unfortunately the large patch fixing a number of issues, including some new events, was extremely bugged. We would have loved to release the events today as well as the fixes, but unfortunately we could not accept the patch in its current form", our product manager reports. Things ought to happen "

within the next maintenance or two, depending on the quality of the patches we get", apparently, which leaves everything a bit vague, especially as this month was supposed to celebrate the game's official third anniversary.

Still, SirGalahad was able to head for Maargadum Jail in the usual way, and then after coffee Rage and RedRyder went off to Prokion Temple again. If ever Rage strayed out of range of Red, the skill exp fell to a mere 2 - but as long as the pair were within compass-map distance, it stayed around the 1800 mark, so that they continued to get 80 or so skill points per hour, and, over the session, added 118 skill points each. Rage went up by 5.03% and 59 guild points, while RedRyder added 2.41% and 9 guild points. I remember a knight running through the room using a potion of haste, but that was just about the only interruption.

Before lunch SirGalahad was back down on level five of the Jail, though his usual position was being used by another knight, meaning that he had to go to the next death mask lancer along; he was able to move back to his usual sparring partner after lunch, however.

SirGalahad kept busy during the afternoon, while Memree finished her apprenticeship to him, so that she got the rogue event weapon and he got another ten Reputation points. It's a shame the rogues get daggers as their event weapon, and my rogues prefer to use a crossbow, that means I have three unused rogue event weapons...

Memree's afternoon was generally spent in Prokion Temple, either close to the starting hallway or just upstairs in the room that has just one orc soldier and plenty of mummies. After gaining 191.47% and 135 skill points, and getting comfortably into level 20, she went back to Randol to get the new quests sorted out, including the special rogue "neckless" accessory. Doing the quests that were available brought in another 65.85% and just 4 more skill points, but going back to Prokion for the rest of the afternoon added a further 170.45% and 240 skill points, taking Memree neatly into level 23.

Prokion Temple on Tairen-1 was fairly busy, I wasn't able to get into that orc soldier plus mummies room as early as I would have liked, but there were just about enough ghouls and mummies to go around. It's handy that Elizabeth's Enhancement does halve the time you need to spend there, though it also means you are restricted to using Tairen-1. At least Tairen's first sub-server doesn't have the drawback you get on the other servers, in that as it isn't PvP-enabled yet, nobody can go on killing sprees of all the sp-farmers.

The break for food had to be taken a little early, as Wednesday evening is the new time for the succession of Mad Monster Spawns, starting with the junior versions, with all six servers having their MMS one after another, at half-hourly intervals - and then, after a break, five of them (not Tairen) having their senior versions.

First up at five o'clock UK time was Katar, so I took my level 31 rogue Memree along to the spot where the Kiene Tower is put up, by the Great Horn Beast lake. I was there pretty early - and so was [GM]OgreKing, so we exchanged greetings, and then I settled down to passing the time killing the GHBs. A couple of minutes before the hour, the GM spawned the mad monsters, and I started to fight them - and it was a couple of minutes after that when the announcement came up that the event was starting. So, starting with just me, over the next ten minutes plenty of other people joined in, killing the elite sand golems, corpse sergeants, salamanders, berserk zombies, balrogs, and many many more. The loot got spawned afterwards, and with so many people by then I didn't manage to grab a huge amount, mainly ones and twos of the best things like item drop boosters and skill point boosters, along with eight tool aids.

On Cariae-4 it was my level 27 rogue Karella who arrived in good time; [GM]OgreKing was also suitably early, though it was only on the first two servers that he put in an actual in-game appearance. I started off with the elite sand golems as usual, and then fought my way through the blue-named stuff towards the salamanders - soft sand from the golems and skins and tails from the salamanders are useful on any server. I don't think the turnout on Cariae can have been as large, as my share of the loot was more along the lines of fives and sixes of the best items, along with 19 tool aids.

For Sarissa, it was my level 20 healer Kaerella who hurried along to the spot, where despite the absence of [GM]OgreKing "in the flesh", things started promptly, with me keeping generally to the lower-level monsters, a level 25 corpse sergeant was a bit of an effort with a Self Heal or two needed along the way. Still, I survived it all; with again the announcement only going up after things had started, so that we moved from just a couple of folks up to a large war party by the end. The loot was I think almost as good as Cariae's, anyway.

Hatzring came next, so Kaerella moved up from level 20 to 22. I actually got a heaven stone on the way there, from an elder werewolf. The Kiene Tower went up about a minute after 6:30, with the monsters spawning seconds later. The corpse sergeants were a little easier to deal with now, but I still had to keep away from the higher-level monsters, which tend to appear closer to the edge of the lake. After the last of the monsters had been killed, and I'd run around tidying the place up by grabbing any gold left on the ground, our wave of rewarding loot was spawned around the tower...and this time it was mainly threes and fours of the items I got, although somehow I managed to get nine large attack potions.

Tairen, which only has the low-level MMS as we don't have enough high-level players to do the senior event, was due next - but seven o'clock came and went, and nothing happened. There were only four of us there, including my least favourite gamesage ADISA, who didn't say anything...but at least her presence inicated that we ought to be in the right spot. The website actually listed Auzura above Tairen, though with a later start time, so I did wonder out loud if [GM]OgreKing had by mistake gone to Auzura first, but at 7:08 the Kiene Tower did at last appear, followed swiftly by the spawning of the monsters and the announcement that the event was now in progress.

Soon quite a good turn-out of people were there, and we cleared the place out in around ten minutes. I'd gone with my level 35 rogue Rage, and been recruited into a party with some people more than 15 levels below me, so I had to try to fight far enough away not to spoil their experience gain, and then gallop back across when the time came to renew the horse buffs. Rage just went up by 0.92% and 2 skill points, I noticed. Item drops were mainly four to six each, with thirteen tool aids.

The last of the low-level Mad Monster Spawns followed fairly swiftly on Auzura, where my representative was the level 27 rogue RedRider, not to be confused with a RedRyder on any other server. It was only here that I noticed the semi "raid boss" level 42 Baal, a large spider best avoided by people under level 40 or so; in fact, perhaps because I was closer to the lake earlier than usual, there did seem to be some more menacing types around, and I noticed somebody being pursued by quite a crowd of elite goblin scouts and other red-named monsters. This time I'd been recruited into a party by people higher-level than me, but, luckily, within 15 levels; I'd immediately done the full-strength horse buffs, and I noticed when another member did buffs later, after the action was over, their buffs weren't 10-10, but 8-9, indicating a level 31 mount. The loot was rather slow in spawning, I think our GM must have gone off in search of some coffee, but finally we were able to do the big grab, which for me was 5 item drop boosters, 4 skill point boosters, 2 large attack and 3 large defence potions, and 10 tool aids, plus no doubt plenty of the health and mana recovery pots.

At nine, the first of the high-level Mad Monster Spawns began, on Katar-4, and once again my level 31 rogue Memree bravely entered the fray. I did get killed once, I still don't know by what, but after respawning in Randol I quickly returned and continued where I'd left off, assisting with Snare on various high-level types such as anubis spear men, black puddings (similar jelly-monsters to the poison mists or masters of secret technique, but tinted dark grey), and many more. The GM announced after ten minutes that we had ten minutes more to finish clearing the place out, which as there seemed plenty of cave spirits and other types roaming loose looked as if it might be a problem - but I think we did got rid of them all with two or three minutes to spare. The loot was generous, which meant for me fours or fives, along with 17 tool aids - so Memree had had, in the end, a profitable evening.

Barbarienne, my level 101 archer on the Cariae server, hasn't had many outings since the GMs gave up on the Sunday "zombie invasions", so, as I'd generally managed to keep out of trouble as a lower-level rogue, I decided to go for it, and take her rather than Karella. She hasn't room for the MMS location on her memory scroll, so I quickly rode out there, and was ready for the start.

The spawning seemed different from the Katar one, and we didn't get any deadline warnings, we just cleared the valley in about twelve minutes. At the start I did take on a couple of wraiths, since they were green-named to me, but generally I kept to the "artillery support" role, seeking out monsters that were already being fought, and adding my attack - which is the way archers should be used, I guess. It was nice to move up from Memree's 69 damage per hit to often around 6,900, and generally be one of the "heavy hitters" for a change - and Barb didn't get killed, which is the main thing, despite all the nivas, arch liches, ancient screaming zombies, infected grey mummies, anubis attackers, and so on that were around. I guess it helps that we didn't have any flutons or patriarch botises wandering around.

The loot-grabbing went well, too, though the quantities varied rather, with 3 skill point boosters, 5 item drop boosters, 9 large attack and 11 large defence potions, and 14 tool aids. As usual, it helps to look at the ground, zoom in, and keep one's finger on the "pick" button, to avoid the worst effects of the lag all those extra items spawning brings.

SirGalahad was busy in Maargadum Jail throughout the evening; during the Katar senior MMS I did manage to see that a death mask soldier had joined the fight, so I was able to unequip the drake and equip his sword, and deal with the intruder before going back to the regular routine. Monsters do like to wander around a bit, so that does happen sometimes. Later DoubleTrouble got in touch, asking that both he and his friend Hazard should be removed from the guild, so that was a rather brief visit; they did at least have one session earlier today, so that they contributed 479 guild points between them.

The higher-level Sarissa and Hatzring Mad Monster Spawns were at 10:00 and 10:30, and it didn't seem really practical to take either version of Kaerella along; besides, one needs to spend some time blogging, yes? The final MMS, on Auzura, was scheduled for eleven o'clock, UK time. Which is about the moment when SirGalahad's drake should reach level 30...

The Guild Expands

SirGalahad put in his usual pre-coffee stint in Maargadum Jail, and then, when Rage had just logged in and Gal had just logged out, a level 17 knight called DoubleTrouble asked if he could join the Discipline guild and have his experience gain (semi) frozen. So, SirGalahad logged back in in town and recruited him, and then cut his experience gain to 50% as requested. Later in the day he asked if a friend, another level 17 knight called Hazard, could join too, so, having done similar clever stuff in the past, rather than have Gal leave his pet-levelling, he temporarily made DoubleTrouble a guild advisor so that his friend just needed to click on him. And then Gal put Hazard's experience gain to 50% as well.

Neither of them immediately went off to do any sp-farming, but hopefully we should get some useful guild points from them, at least.

I tried to make sure they understood the benefits of Elizabeth's Enhancement, and warned them that Gamer's knowledge of English is pretty basic, so now we shall see how things go.

SirGalahad logged out again and RedRyder logged in, so that she and Rage could go to Prokion Temple on Tairen-1 in their usual way. And things were much as usual, despite Rage's move from level 33 to 35; the orc fighters were still the best way of getting more skill exp than experience, though the skill exp was down a little, so that the speed of skill point gain went down from around 100 per hour to more like 80. It was a fairly long session, as these morning stints go, so, while Rage went up 6.02% and RedRyder 2.90%, they still managed to grab 142 skill points each.

For the afternoon my new rogue Memree swung back into action. This included quests to kill jaguars, sasquatches, werewolves, little treants, horn beasts, drakes, and elder werewolves, so she got to see plenty of Juno...though the Juno NPC Scroll handily means you don't need to run halfway across the map to reach Hunter Dranore or Wild Collector Kai, you can teleport right to them, and then teleport directly to the NPC of your choice back in Randol. Memree spent a fair amount of time in Velpist Temple; when she headed for the straight-ahead (and up the stairs) room with the ancient and berserk zombies she found it already occupied by another rogue, Coeur, so had to look around a bit for her own spot. The "left a bit" room outside the 'torn book of life' final room was also being used by at least three people, and Memree was a bit low for it anyway, but on further wanderings she encountered Couer again, so knew that the straight-ahead room was now free - and settled in there in the usual way.

Couer was also in the "left a bit" room when I'd levelled up enough to want to go there, but that room is big enough for two or three, particularly as she was more interested in the monsters that were red or orange/yellow named to me, at the far end. My main priority was to get four cursed bones, for a quest that comes a little later, and I mentioned that - a knight called kingskinght very kindly gave me two he had spare. I continued until I'd got all four I needed, and then went back to town, having gone up by 410.47% in all, also gaining 199 skill points and 719 pet points for Memree's dragon hatchling.

After spending all my skill points but 3, I went back to the Juno quests, some of which were repeatable, since there wasn't really time for a trip to Prokion Temple before the early evening food break, and managed to get another 128.01% experience, taking Memree well into level 18, plus 101 skill points and 323 pet points, which were just enough to get the hatchling into level 3.

As usual on a Tuesday the food break was a long one, with some emails to deal with too, but when Kaerella logged on on Cariae-1 I found that she'd sold all three pairs of level 47 boots (to heartbrake, who also bought a shirt, SpeedyDeath and BlackSonja), and two of the three shirts (to heartbrake and AproDitE) - so that was 4,510,675 gold earned from four happy customers. It's just a shame I can't get those items across to Tairen.

Enchantrella had a 30-day card to increase that account's storage in town from 50 to 100 slots, so I decided to use it, and put away a lot of rings etc that were filling Kae's inventory - and also Enchie's collection of production manuals. So, that meant Kaerella had a bit more inventory space when she made her trip out to the ravenous larvas on Cariae-1 for the evening session. Which, naturally, meant that Kae didn't get to pick up any armour at all, though there were some hands, and a couple of heaven stones, so I wasn't doing badly loot-wise.

While there were two solo parties listed when I began, when I tried to apply to join them they didn't actually exist - so after a while I found someone who was registered for a party, ArtiZ, and enlisted him, to make my own party, which grew as the evening progressed. It seemed a bit strange that ArtiZ, a level 93 titan, should be in Dratan, but he told me that he was fighting the wafes... not exactly hard for him to beat since they are around level 60. It turned out that he was levelling up his polar bear pet, and that it was doing most of the fighting, so that seems one way to move that sort of pet along. After an hour or so bluray joined the party, while he was as usual farming the cube system; one time the "the item is not enough" window, which comes up for all party members when he pays for a new round or something, appeared just as I'd picked up a heaven stone, which seemed nicely inappropriate.

Kaerella added 11.42%, 1584 pet points (taking SirFrancis past halfway through level 48), and 141 skill points, which took her sp stash past the 11k mark. I did leave a bit promptly though, as Gamer had been in touch with SirGalahad, asking for a loan so that she can buy new armour. Ah well, she is a guildie, and that trip to the elite sphinx fighter was fun, so I agreed, and once Kae had logged out, MistressDomino back on Tairen-1 logged in, and traded 15 million across to Gamer, "to Sunday" - I guess she intends to get the heaven stones at the Quiz again, I hope that runs smoothly. Gamer is level 48 now, so should be able to fight those sphinx types solo without too much difficulty. When MD traded the gold across, I saw that she had a blessed iris running again, I wish I could persuade her not to use those, until level 60, and take the free Elizabeth's Enhancement buff instead...

SirGalahad had had a reasonably productive session, and in fact his drake reached level 28 late in the evening, so it will soon be ready for Rage to take on - though she doesn't actually need such a pet until she leaves Prokion Temple. I wonder what sort of skill exp she, and RedRyder, will get when she reaches level 36? It may well be time for Memree to take over as Red's fighting partner then, but we shall see.

A Junior MMS With Senior Monsters

SirGalahad headed for Merac at breakfast time, only to be recruited into a party by a level 24 knight called Nightterror; I assumed he wanted a solo party, and indeed he went off to kill some berserkers, but I also ended up explaining the way that weapon upgrading works, and other stuff. Still, Gal got down to level five of Maargadum Jail and settled in to level his drake, which reached level 22 during the morning.

After coffee, Rage had, after going up two levels yesterday, got some new quests to do, and I also decided to give some of her existing outstanding quests a go. Normally I don't bother with salamander skins and tails, as they don't drop very frequently, but this time I decided to see how things would go. The worst dropping, for frequency, turned out to be silver fox feathers, which, given their name, is hardly surprising - how many foxes with feathers have you ever seen? As far as I could see, only the elite silver fox of the desert would drop that particular item, the surrounding regular ones just dropped a little gold.

So, it was quite a wander around Merac and Dratan Rage had, killing berserkers, gnolls, blood frenzies, and doom slayers in Merac, and then the salamanders and silver foxes. After I'd got the final "feather", I moved across to the ravenous larva spot and tried soloing them, which was fine if Snare worked, but used up a medium red candy cane, for 500 health restoration, if it failed. I guess Rage is still too low to get useful drops, such as those level 47 boots, from them, so that expedition wasn't crowned with success.

After all the quest rewards had been gained, Rage had gone up 50.85%, 486 pet points, and 169 skill points, so it was in fact a useful session....and had allowed SirGalahad to continue his drake-levelling work, of course.

For the afternoon, Kaerella over on Cariae-1 went back out to the ravenous larvas, joining a solo party before too long. Kamira put in an appearance after an hour or so, so I had to leave the party, saying that I'd be back, and change across to Keerella - and she had to make the ride down from Dratan, as the location was new for her, which took five minutes or so. Kamira dropped the usual goodies, but no rare accessory - and when I logged Kae back in, she was no longer in her party. It took a little while to find a new solo party to join, which was mildly annoying, but eventually all was back to normal, and by the end of the afternoon Kae's experience gain had reached 10.16%, along with 1579 pet points and 120 skill points. Kae had put a couple of pairs of level 47 boots, and two shirts, in Roy's merchant mart as they appear to be rare, and this session yielded another pair of boots, this time of the titan variety.

The Last Chaos website and its Events calendar proclaimed that there would be a special European-team pair of Mad Monster Spawns, with the low-level one down by the GHB lake at 5:30 UK time, followed by the main one an hour later in its usual spot. And, while there wasn't the traditional ten minute warning of magical vortices being perceived, a number of people were waiting by the special Kiene Tower, which appears close to the lake when such events are due, as the witching half-hour approached.

I rode across to the high-level location while we were waiting, as last time the low-level event was held there, but nothing was happening, so I teleported back to the Kiene Tower... and a few minutes later, an announcement came up about the magical vortices, completely contradicting the website - the low and high events were to be at the same time, and the low one was going to be at Val's other location, over by the little treants and werewolves not far from Hunter Dranore. Starting at once!

So, knowing where the location was, I rode swiftly across, and was I think one of only two people fighting the first wave of desert spiders, salamanders, orcs, elder drakes, and butchers. Luckily other people soon arrived, and further waves were spawned and fought, though without any rewards between waves, since I suppose [GM]Valsharyn was busier with the high-level people than with us. It gets confusing when he makes GM announcements about waves, we never know which location it applies to.

Unfortunately Val started to get a bit carried away, probably confusing the two locations himself; a spawning of a few elite sphinx speer men in the middle of out main group killed a few people - they are level 64, after all, and the GM had carefully made sure that almost all of us were at level 30 or below, even advising someone in their low fifties that they should move to the high-level spot. Still, the Snare from our rogues brought the situation under control. So then suddenly we had at least a dozen Death Knights in our midst, which may be only level 50, but, as Kaerella on Cariae recently found to her cost, are "raid boss" level and do hefty magic damage. I didn't try to attack them, it would have been hopeless, but, with them heading in all directions, one group quickly ran me down and killed me.

I didn't want to use a resurrection scroll, and I didn't have that spot on my memory scroll, so I decided, after respawning in town, that it would be a lot safer to go to the high-level MMS, which I did have the location of memorised, and see how they were getting on. So, that's where I teleported to - Val was making some sort of apology and promising the survivors at the Dranore spot a big loot spawning, but that would have been over by the time I got back.

The high-level people were on the boss wave by then, so I joined in helping to deal with the remaining flutons and a patriarch botis or two, trying to time my Snare to take over when the previous rogue's one expired. Val promised extra loot if we killed them all inside the time limit, and, as we succeeded in doing that, gave us three waves of the usual hands of bravery, hands of protection, and hands of the guard...which was probably just as well, as by then it seemed that a lot of low-level people were there. I expect the more sensible ones had been there all along.

RedRider was a bit vocal about the mess she felt things had been; [GM]Valsharyn was perhaps unwise to say that she had had fun at the low-level spot, as dropping death on the heads of level 20-30 types isn't exactly fun if you're on the receiving end. "Looks as if the high-level MMS ran okay, except for starting before the announced time on the website... just the low-level was a Fail. Low-level was a vicious joke :-( " InvisibleKnife said "Low-level was too hard", and Red asked "Why have the Kiene Tower up, if you don't use that location? If everyone at low-level was supposed to be around level 30 or below, spawning a dozen Death Knights was - well, I guess you had 'fun' anyway."

That was about the end of the relevant dialogue; Red stayed around killing blood wolves and great horn beasts for a few minutes, to get back the skill points that the Death Knight death had cost, and was able to tell some people who had come at the website-announced time that yes, the MMS was over. "Yup, a lack of communication between Val and the website". So, it all wasn't really Val's finest hour. My record of the messages doesn't scroll back that far, but I think RedRider did suggest that [GM]Valsharyn should get the details of how to do a proper low-level MMS from [GM]JediMike or [GM]OgreKing...so maybe those Death Knights were aimed at her personally!

Looking back at the text messages, I see that BasheR was at the high-level event, and got 4 skill point boosters from the first of those three waves of loot alone, so he did okay - nice to have him actively playing.

For the rest of the evening, I decided that, if Rage is outgrowing Prokion Temple, then RedRyder might want to have another buddy to play alongside - so it was time to do a little work on the other rogue I had started on Tairen, Memree. So, she formed a solo party with SirGalahad, got her Elizabeth's Enhancement buff, and went out to do Healer Yabo's quests killing deer and foxes and then wolves, and continued on with berserk wolves and jaguars, as well as making a trip to the wandering zombies in Velpist Temple, followed by more jaguars, plus sasquatches. She did get a drake egg fairly early on, so has a level 1 dragon hatchling to help with picking up the loot, and I remembered to enrol her as a padawan of SirGalahad, so she should be his fourth successful graduate of the Guardian system.

At level 12 Memree went through the first personal dungeon successfully, gaining 57% experience and picking up very nearly 2,000 gold; she reached level 13 shortly before tackling the Balrog himself. To finish off, there was just time to take a trip to Dratan, to get the small quest reward from Bant there, and to make the run out to Prokion Temple, where, after memorising the location, she actually managed to fight a few ghouls without getting killed.

By the end of the evening, SirGalahad had got his drake past the halfway point in level 25. There doesn't seem any great hurry to level the drake up, though, so both computers can have a nice rest overnight.