The Jail, The Tomb, and The Tower

I logged RedRackham in rather early to do some pet-levelling, as I'd woken up early, but the pet experience was back to normal, the GMs had actually remembered to switch it off last night, so once the new day officially started, at 8:00am UK time, RedRackham logged out, and the various characters started to earn their daily attendance allowances.

Aeria's money man and the Last Chaos chancellor, Exchequer, hadn't announced any tiered spender event for this weekend, I discovered. His special page just told us what "BOGO" offers to expect, and also mentioned that the premium packages were on a "50% rebate" deal for the weekend. The only problem was that the rebated packages weren't visible on the website, something I was discussing soon after nine on the shoutbox with Tuffsen and sstrippz. And then at about 9:25, UK time, the items miraculously appeared, which at least cut down on the number of people visiting the shoutbox to enquire about them.

MistressSabina managed a visit to Maargadum Jail after coffee; it was relatively quiet, on the second floor, so 15.20% experience was gained, along with 71 skill points and 804 pet points. I also kept an eye on the forum shoutbox, though it continued to be rather quiet.

For the afternoon, I did something I've not done for a while, as I reckoned that Saturday afternoon, or early Saturday morning for the US, ought to be a relatively quiet time in the Tomb of Theos. My level 106 archer Barbarienne teamed up, in a combat party, with my level 98 wizard Keerella, and they headed for the Tomb on Cariae-4.

Barb and Kee headed for the main Anubis Spear Man room, and found, luckily, that there was space for us - the wizard TIGERLADY was using the two spear men over on the far side, so I had the other two to myself. And so, we settled in; as previously, Barbarienne used crit and adrenaline pots, plus a platinum blessed iris and experience boosters, to fight the spear men, while, mainly there to provide the combat party boost and clear up any sphinx fighters that got too close, Kee kept busy, without pots, on the sphinx fighters. TIGERLADY wasn't active for all that long, and went to stand in the corner with a "be back later"; before long the level 106 titan SamueL arrived, and took over that side, joining our combat party.

SamueL did stay to the end of our three-hour session, but was away for the last twenty minutes or so, getting some ice cream for their youngster. My pair stayed around in the corner for a while after we'd finished, to provide the combat party boost when he returned to action, but in the end, when I came upstairs to check, he had had a disconnection, and new people were fighting there who didn't need a combat party - so Barb and Kee logged out, and RedRackham logged on for a little pet-levelling.

During the first of the three hours, Barbarienne had added 11.28% while using 36 experience boosters; hour two added 11.96%, for 38 boosters; and the third hour gave Barb a further 14.08%, from 44 boosters, I don't know why things appear to have speeded up then, but sometimes the "Condition" of the place can change a little. So, that meant Barbarienne added 37.32% experience, along with 13 skill points and 3001 pet points, which were enough to get her drake into level 45. Keerella, without any outlay on ap items, added just 2.92%, plus 14 skill points and 2876 pet points.

So that was a pretty good three-hour session - another similar one ought to get Barbarienne into level 107, which would allow her to wear her new boots, and pass her old level 87 +15 pair over to Kaerella.

Talking of Kaerella, after the food break, with RedRackham providing the solo party, my Auzura-based level 88 archer of that name went off to Egeha, somewhere I've not visited for a while, to see what quests were available, and indeed which could be done - which certainly makes a change from grinding away in the Tomb, or in Maargadum Jail or Prokion Temple. There were messages to deliver, and azers to fight, and, in the first floor or two of Lust Trum Tower, wights and wight flairs to battle.

The day's main event, four hours of "Turbo", had started at seven in the evening, UK time - at least, we assumed it had, there was no announcement about it, and what it actually was had remained a mystery. We knew it was just a "Happy Hour" kind of deal...but as people were in combat parties and with pots running, it was hard to know what it was. I'd reached Lust Trum Tower by then, so was able to say, after checking the details for a wight on the Wet Paint wiki, that if I was getting 4 million experience instead of 2.6, taking the 10% attendance bonus into account it had to be 50% extra experience... and the skill exp seemed similarly increased.

It was interesting to check a quest reward, and see that while the skill point reward was up 50%, from four to six, the experience reward was boosted by 10% for the attendance bonus, and also by 50% for the Turbo, so those two things do stack together nicely. Kaerella's total experience gain from the adventure was just 13.16%. but 43 skill points were gained as well. It was certainly a great change of pace to get away from the grinding, and ride about doing quests and fighting different monsters, like the azers, little scorpionmantises, boucu demons, and even a skinwalker, though as ever killing that one took ages. And I will need to kill a few more for a couple of quests...

After that there was time for a visit to the Tomb of Theos on Auzura-5, for MistressDomina and Kaerella - probably less than ninety minutes. The extra experience and skill exp were still running, though, so things moved along nicely. For a while we added WhyYouDontAsk, a level 92 night shadow, to the combat party. He told us the attack power of some of the NS skills - rather impressive, and more than MD's terra spear, which does just under 30k damage. He advised me that MD really ought to look out for a "casting" helm, which speeds up the rate at which skills recover and can be reused. When I have enough gold for such things, I probably should investigate.

By the time MistressDomina and Kaerella left, MD had added 10.54%, which got her into level 91, plus 7 skill points and 1290 pet points. Kae added another 1.52%, along with 6 skill points, and the polar bear cub added 130.48%, allowing him to reach level 22. Hmm, maybe there was 50% extra pet experience, too? That never seems to register with horses and drakes, but perhaps the newer pets do benefit from such a boost.

RedRackham logged back in with his drake, anyway, for the final part of the evening, and it soon reached level 38.

Two Tombs For Kaerella

The usual characters logged in for their attendance allowance this morning, after which RedRackham logged in for some pet-levelling - and to provide a solo party for MistressSabina, while she farmed a little more in Maargadum Jail on Auzura-5.

The outing was much as usual; I did stop at the back of the ground/first floor to deal with the big mob of assorted canines that had followed me, using Flame Storm, which hits the target canine and up to five others close by, which gave some quick loot and experience, but I'd not want to keep doing that after the horse buffs ran out.

As usual for the morning, it wasn't a hugely long session, but it did move MistressSabina along by 13.19%, and restore 64 skill points, as well as getting 683 pet points for her drake. She will need a couple more sessions like that to get back over the 10k mark for unused sp - by which time she'll have reached level 44, when 338 more skill points can be used, for level one of Epidemic and the first five levels of Fallen Stat.

Over lunch, RedRackham continued his work, getting the drake into level 37, which meant that its hunger bar down goes down twice as fast. He was about a sixth of the way through the level when he logged out - so that MistressDomina, my Auzura archer Kaerella, and the polar bear cub could log in.

The afternoon session in the Tomb of Theos went pretty smoothly, I don't think I ever had to have Kaerella unequip the poly because of any approaching zombies. MistressDomina generally managed to keep her helpers alive, since Terra Spear does tend to get a screaming zombie's attention. It didn't always manage that trick with an archer, Kialine, but then zombies do like healers almost as much as they like mages...and she was tougher than the average assistant, going from level 50 to 52 during the session.

By the time I had to leave everyone to it, the polar bear cub had reached level twenty, adding 139.21%; I've still not allocated any stat points, or attempted to give him any skills, since he generally stays back and doesn't do anything, with this set-up. In the combat party, Kaerella added 4.81%, while MistressDomina earned 16.07%, with her drake getting 2092 pet points. And they each got 4 skill points.

The evening was set to have double pet experience running from six o'clock, UK time, so I decided I ought to have two characters actively fighting, with pets equipped... and it seemed like time that my Cariae cleric Kaerella and my phoenix rogue RedRydeR had an outing. So, off they went, in an equal party, to the Tomb of Theos, this time on Cariae-4... which, as it doesn't have the Elizabeth's Enhancement buff available, tends to be a lot quieter than the fifth subserver.

Sure enough, RedRydeR and Kaerella had the place to themselves, just about, until the last half hour when a group of three people in the same guild, and a couple of others, turned up. The titan, jerker, must have been pretty high level, as he gathered big groups of zombies to fight...though he tended to rest for a while between groups to recover. Before that, it was just, generally, a few people running on through to head deeper into the Tomb.

Kaerella and RedRydeR each used three of the level 61-90 type platinum blessed irises, and continued on for about half an hour after the third had ended, so it was a good long session, with the forum shoutbox helping to keep things interesting. Someone called Auirlord came on in search of Aszune, one of the regulars, who was off grinding at the time, swearing that he wanted a guild battle with her at "Merac Tower", with the loser leaving Last Chaos for good. "Operation Deathstryke has been initiated"... He seemed convinced that Aszune was an ex-gamesage, and that freeing his server from the yoke of the oppressive guild Vendetta was his mission in life.

Both Kaerella and RedRydeR levelled up, reaching level 89; as Kae was slightly ahead, she went up by 105.17%, while Red added 105.49%. Since Red usually lured the zombies, and thus took more shots at them, his drake added 5941 pet points, while SirFrancis, Kae's drake, just added 4215 pet points. And they each earned 10 skill points.

After that, RedRackham quickly logged in to get some of the double pet experience, and his drake was soon a third of the way through level 37. And that concluded the excitement for the day, though I should mention that someone did post a brief quote from an old blog post here, in the shoutbox. I commented that it could be interesting sometimes to do a Google search for one's name...

All Good Experience

I had thought that the Auzura server was blessedly free of people who run around trying to get pet-levellers into trouble, but RedRackham had been ks'd a couple of time recently - I'd seen the knight Morta riding off on his dragon after killing Red's gnoll lancer, and another knight, KingRichard, seemed to be acting a bit suspiciously. This morning, someone didn't just kill the gnoll lancer, they lured in a gnoll soldier, which will attack pets. I noticed the change reasonably quickly, so that Red's drake had only lost 14% of its health...I was even in time to pick up the gold the lancer had dropped, these people never stick around long enough to pick up the loot.

RedRackham had gone out to the gnoll lancers right away, to find out if the double pet experience from last night was still switched on - and it was, so that his drake soon reached the halfway point in level 35, while the newer computer played host to various characters "signing in" for their thirty minutes of attendance allowance. By lunchtime, the drake had reached level 36, which restored its lost health points.

Kaerella on Katar had a brief outing after lunch, mainly to qualify for the attendance allowance; she went to the second floor of Maargadum Jail, even though the canines are still a few levels above her, at 39. She added 8.35%, 26 skill points, and 645 pet points, and seemed to take very little damage from even the two-headed canines.

The main afternoon session once again involved MistressDomina and Kaerella, plus the polar bear cub, heading for the Tomb of Theos on Auzura-5. While the place did get fairly busy, there wasn't anyone attracting huge numbers of zombies and bringing them back onto my assistants; an assassin-type rogue called xHardx did complain about being ks'd, and brought back three screaming zombies into the start of the corridor before using her death motion skill to set them loose, but three zombies, not particularly far back, was no problem - MistressDomina had fought that many at once a few other times during the session, when lower-level people got chased by them.

A level 21 titan called ManiaX asked to be in the party for a while, but left soon after he levelled up. He had spent aeria points during the pet promotion too, and spent enough to get a panda...and it was already in its third stage, so he must have been pretty busy. Having a second "P2" pet in the party did mean that the panda and Kae's poly shared the pet experience half-and-half. After ManiaX left, we reverted to the combat party set-up and recruited the level 90 assassin-rogue ravenclaw, who after starting with a "don't ks" or two had decided to go with the flow. She too had a P2 pet, a baby poly, which did die once, meaning she had to go back to town to get it unsealed; she came and went a bit, in fact.

Sharing the pet experience meant that our polar bear cub only went up by one level, to nineteen, adding 128.65%. Kaerella added 5.71% and 4 skill points, while MistressDomina earned 15.06%, 3 skill points, and for her drake 4290 pet points, enough to get it into level 41.

Over the food break RedRackham was back in action, with the drake passing the halfway mark in level 36. And then, well, it seemed like MistressSabina's turn to do some farming, while RedRackham continued with his pet-levelling. Sabina headed for Merac, and found a quest on offer, involving collecting spike canine skins - so, no problem.

The second floor of Maargadum Jail on Auzura-5 was pretty busy, but Sabina managed to keep active - she kept going for the full length of the Elizabeth's Enhancement buff, in fact, and then returned to town to claim the quest reward, which added 4.65% and 6 skill points, making her totals for the session 31.75%, 137 skill points, and 1645 pet points. Unfortunately the GMs had turned off the double pet experience fairly early in the session - though we are scheduled to have another four hours tomorrow evening.

One skill that MistressSabina hadn't learned was Blind, as it is mainly a PvP skill... but it is in many ways one of a witch's "signature" attack skills, and, on its fifth and final level, for 18 seconds shades your opponent's screen 70% of the way towards black. In PvP your opponent loses their "lock" on you and has to try to find you again, and apparently in PvE a monster's evasion is decreased, which increases the witch's hit rate. So Sabina invested 293 skill points in that, meaning that her return to having over 10k unused sp was rather brief.

There was a forum announcement from [GM]AwesomeSauce that there will for a while be "some disruption to the regular schedule of events", and indeed "fewer events" in the short term, while they look at the events and consider revamping them. It would be difficult to imagine fewer events than we have had in recent weeks, but let us hope that this is a sign that we will return to having a decent number of "Storm the Castle" and "Mad Monster Spawn" events, by the time autumn is upon us. Is it really only three or four months since we were having a low and high level MMS every week, plus a StC, Pharaoh's Treasure, Parades, Races, and often double helpings on Auzura, with the European-timed versions as well? It seems like a different age, somehow.

Even with the pet experience back to normal, RedRackham kept going with the pet-levelling until it was time to close down for the night. The drake was getting fairly close to the top of level 36 by then.

Level Those Pets...

There was a patch to the game last night, to go with the usual maintenance downtime, but the official patch notes still say that new content is "in development", and that we should "expect to see some changes in the near future". They have finally sorted out two of the glitches with socketed gear, which apparently now can have costume covers melded on, and can also be exchanged via Collector Ryl for the equivalent item of a different class. In Mondshine the raid bugs are "currently being researched", but they promise that the GMs will be manually "setting raids each day to be open", while a permanent fix is being worked on, in the usual desultory hit-and-miss way, over in South Korea. It was two weeks ago that we were told to "expect something exciting very soon" - not this week, it seems.

So, my various characters went out to keep their attendance records going, with some of them doing a little mining or herb-gathering, and then MistressSabina went for her session in Maargadum Jail in Merac, though the place does seem to be described just as "Jail" or "Evil Dungeon" in-game now. The level 43 two-headed canines continue to give substantially better experience than the other canines, and slightly more than the level 45 beast scythes...so Sabina was able to add 10.87%, 53 skill points, and 645 pet points.

For the afternoon session, it was a matter of MistressDomina, Kaerella and the polar bear cub heading for the Tomb of Theos on Auzura-5 again, where as usual MD did the fighting, and Kae just provided the combat party boost, except for a few occasions when she had to unequip the cub and do some fighting. Once again there was an occasion when some wandering screaming zombies got to the polar bear cub before I could unequip it, so I now know that it costs 356,992 gold to "unseal" a level 17 poly.

I don't think that particular group of screaming zombies had been brought back maliciously; a sorcerer called Darkar12345 did try a couple of times to do us all some harm, particularly my lower-level "assistants", even going so far as to lure a zombie right alongside Kae and the cub before teleporting out, but his efforts were unsuccessful as far as I was concerned, though my warning to "be careful" as he drew in a group didn't work for one of the junior mages.

By the time I logged out for the early evening food break, Kaerella had added 5.40%, and the polar bear cub had reached level 18, adding 131.20%; MistressDomina had earned 15.17%, and her drake had added 2038 pet points. Kae and MD had both gained 4 skill points.

There had been some strange server happenings during the afternoon, I saw from watching the forum shoutbox, but luckily Auzura hadn't been affected. It seemed to be mainly Cariae, as ever, that took the brunt of it, with people reporting multiple disconnections, heavy lag, and even difficulties connecting to the website, let alone the game. But in the Tomb, we played on without any problems.

For the slightly abbreviated evening session, I went over to Sarissa-5, though, for some reason, I logged in with my level 27 mage there, Keerella, rather than my archer. Kee has the +10 armour set now, which is good - but she only has a +2 wand, the event weapon, which isn't so good. Her regular skills are not maximised yet, let alone the special skills - but at least by the time I logged out she had got 273 sp to spend. She had reached 65.45% of the way through level 27, but of course the plan will be to spend the skill points on various sorts of skills, and then die a few times to get back to the start of the level.

However, I can't say that I have any long-term plans for levelling up a mage on Sarissa. It may well be useful at some point to have a fully-skilled lowish-level one there, perhaps... and Kee did make a new friend there, a level 22 sorcerer called Busby666, though I must admit it didn't take long for him to get onto the subject of me giving him a million gold, not something that I can afford to do on that server. We had a combat-type party for a while, but after a trip back to town, he decided, probably wisely, that he would do better to go solo. So, Kee just concentrated on orc fighters and a few soldiers or axemen, until it was time to log out.

The event of the day was scheduled to be a "Pandora's Event", with groups of the Pandora's Beasts spawned across the land. It's not an event I'm keen on, as I never think that the beasts give better drops or experience than other monsters of the same level, and the level 50 types can be aggressive, protective, and dangerous...so who needs a mass of them in the same place?

However, [GM]AwesomeSauce reported in the forum shoutbox that she was having problems with the code she'd been given, and when I asked, agreed that it was the same sort of thing that had prevented the "Creature Carnival" event from running recently. She got [GM]Darasuum to take a look at the problem, but to no avail - and they had to announce that the event had been cancelled. And, as compensation, they doubled the pet experience, which was rather more useful, from my point of view.

So, RedRackham was an immediate beneficiary of this bonus, and the speed at which his drake moved up through level 34 doubled. Keerella equipped her level 1 hatchling - and it ended its session as a level 3 hatchling, so will be able to help Kee's attack power in future. Keerella also got most of her costume bloodsealed... her wand even got its first couple of bloodseals, including a hit rate one.

While I was away, RedRackham continued to benefit from the double pet experience, so that the drake reached level35...and was starting to make good progress through that level, though these days I've decided that leaving the computers running overnight for pet-levelling is probably not, in the long run, a good idea.

Quests and Rewards

Since MistressDomina reached level 90 yesterday evening, there was a new skill for her to learn from the Master Mage back in Randol this morning, when she logged in for half an hour for the "attendance allowance". Level six of Mana Flow "permanently increases maximum hitpoints and mana through the study of magic", for 625 skill points. It only added 10 to each, or about 0.3%, but one day it might make all the difference - I suppose! After getting that, MD headed out to do a little mining, to top up her supply of quality stones.

There was one of the too-frequent "Cariae crashes" at about 10:15am, UK time, so Barbarienne was disconnected halfway through her thirty minutes; by the time I noticed, the server was running again, so she was able to complete her time without any further problems. Someone reported that the people in merchant mode in Randol were unaffected, which often happens. As he was on Auzura, RedRackham, doing a little pet-levelling, was unaffected.

After coffee, MistressSabina logged on. Her first two goes on the "course B" Lacarette Wheel gave her only a couple of potions of haste, but, after restarting it, she did manage to get a rejuvenation potion and two item drop boosters. Five attempts per day is all one can do at a cost of three tokens per spin, after that it increases to four tokens. After that, she headed for Maargadum Jail, and its second floor.

The session in the Jail lasted until lunchtime, and MistressSabina went up by 12.08%, while adding 60 skill points and 1722 pet points. And then, while RedRackham continued his pet-levelling work, it was Rage's turn to put in 30 minutes, out harvesting green herbs.

MistressBlaze had three new quests waiting for her in Dratan, involving the arcane golems, masters of secret technique, and wafe debirches. So, during her half hour, she rode out to the west of the desert, and fought her way through the masters of secret technique, to reach the arcane golems. Then it was an easy ride to reach the various kinds of wafe. At MB's level, 57, the wafes aren't easy opponents, as they do team up against a player, but, thanks to the horse buffs and one medium health potion, MistressBlaze got the necessary kills - and rode across to the usual sphinx fighter and sphinx "speer" man camping site. She already had that on her memory scroll, but this time she rode on to the less public location of the second elite sphinx speer man, and got that location onto her scroll as well, even killing one sphinx speer man before leaving.

It wasn't a long session by any means, and from the fighting MistressBlaze just earned 1.27% and 9 skill points, along with 71 pet points - but adding in the quest rewards meant that in all she went up by 10.06%, 55 skill points, and those 71 pet points.

That left around two hours for MistressDomina, Kaerella, and the polar bear cub to go to the Tomb of Theos on Auzura-5, to see quite a few familiar faces. As usual things got pretty hectic there - a level 122 sorcerer actually brought us big groups of zombies, and a few mummies, to deal with, as he was bored with trying to level. As ever a few of the lower-level people did die occasionally, usually because they tended to stand in places where screaming zombies can spawn, but things went relatively smoothly, and for a change the polar bear cub didn't die, even once.

Kaerella generally just stood there, in the combat party, though sometimes when a large group of zombies were nearby she would, for safety, unequip the poly, and use her bow a bit. By the end she'd added 4.38%, while the polar bear cub went up by 189.33%, getting well into level sixteen. MistressDomina added 13.64%, and 1714 pet points - and both she and Kae gained 3 skill points.

For the evening, it was time to celebrate Kaerella on Katar's new-found freedom from Prokion Temple and its skill point farming, so she cashed in all the quests she had done, getting their rewards, and did everything else that was outstanding, including a long-delayed trip out to Wild Collector Kai in Juno. In Merac, she got a quest to kill ten highlanders, so combined that with a relatively short session fighting the four elite frenzied berserkers on the approach to the teleporter into Misty Canyon. She logged out briefly after that - so that ColonelScarlet, the guild master of Discipline on Katar, could take the opportunity to unlock her experience gain from its 50% freeze.

There were various minor messenger-type quests in Merac Village, too, and in Dratan City Kaerella got the quests which involved killing the poison mists and brutal deer of the desert, so rode down to where they hang out. It's quite a long ride from Prokion Temple, as you have to follow the main path and can't cut across the hills - but I found when I was killing the deer that I could see the top of Prokion temple quite close by.

I don't think I've ever farmed the brutal deer of the desert for any length of time before, but, after I'd completed the two quests, I stayed with them. They died pretty quickly, and, being Kae's level, gave the full 2200 skill exp...so I stayed there until Kaerella levelled up, reaching 39.

Reaching the new level opened up a new quest from Magician Kihan out at Owl Village in Merac, just involving killing a few gnoll soldiers, so once that was done, and its follow-up which just involved a visit to the Great Magician Minearm back in Merac Village, I decided that Kaerella might as well get the entrance to Maargadum Jail onto her memory scroll, so rode down there. I did have a very short stay inside the Jail, on the second floor with the spike canines etc...but then it was time to draw the session to a close.

In all, thanks to all the quest rewards and the lengthy time with the brutal deer, Kaerella went up by 113.28%, adding 313 skill points and 1488 pet points. RedRackham had kept on pet-levelling through the evening, too...his drake reached level 34 before the end of the session.

Stop The Carnival

There wasn't time for any actual playing in the morning, again, but the various characters were able to log in for their 30 minutes each, or more if I was out at the post office, and RedRackham logged in for some pet-levelling too, after MistressDomina had done her half hour. It was just after lunch that RedRackham's drake reached level 41 - and, moving from Auzura-4 to Auzura-5 to provide the solo party, he kept going through the afternoon too, though at the new level the quality stones were being used up rather quickly...it was starting to be reminiscent of when a level 22 knight, fighting treants perhaps, was trying to get a horse all the way to level 37.

The afternoon session saw MistressSabina busy on the second floor of Maargadum Jail...and she finally reached level 43, which meant that the ordinary spike canines are now green-named for her, while the double-headed canines are now her exact level. There were a few people about, and I saw a mage that had recently been "assisting" MistressDomina, it's always good to see one of that bunch getting some skill points.

By the end of the session MistressSabina had put on 29.08%, plus 136 skill points, which took her temporarily over the 11k mark, and 1722 pet points. Sabina's drake was only level 32, so it seemed a good idea to have her take over RedRackham's one - so the pair rendezvoused back in Randol by the animal trainer, reset their drakes' skills, and swapped them across. Red was then able to go back to Merac and get through quality stones at the old, regular rate - while Sabina set her new drake's skills to give her 30 levels of boosting her magical attack, and 10 levels of physical defence.

MistressSabina's existing special skills did not include master armoursmith and master weaponsmith, which have their first two levels at a character's level 32 and 42, with the final level at 52, so I decided that I ought to bank some skill points there. They were both pretty expensive in sp, taking in all 1300 skill points - so Sabina's stash of unused sp has fallen back below 10k again now.

Over the early evening food break RedRackham got his new drake into level 32, which restored its health, previously nibbled at by Maargadum's canines, to 100%, and MistressSabina did a little mining, as her stocks of quality stones were a bit low. But then it was time to log MistressDomina and Kaerella in, still on Auzura-5, and head for the Tomb of Theos, to do a bit of levelling, and a bit of pet-levelling, both for MD's drake and Kaerella's polar bear.

Once again I arrived at a bad time, and encountered a big group of screaming zombies that had been brought down on the people in the corridor by a night shadow called NSattack, who had objected to someone ks'ing him. The poor polar bear cub died in the melee... so Kaerella had to return to Dratan City and get him unsealed, which at level twelve cost 232,672 gold. The poly did die again later, in roughly similar circumstances, though I thought I'd managed to unequip him in time... I wasn't going to bother going back to town and unseal him again just for half an hour, but then Kaerella got a "send error report?" type crash, so spent 256,224 gold getting him unsealed at level 13. It was lucky I picked up two or three heaven stones during the evening, to cover such expenses.

Most of the time it was the usual kind of fun "one for all and all for one" group effort, with a high-level sorcerer bringing in more mobs specially for us. In fact when NSattack returned later, lured a big group, and said "Aren't I evil?", I casually mentioned that some kind, helpful people had been doing exactly the same thing... Still, those large groups were risky for some of our people around level 40, because if they happened to target a zombie nobody else was attacking, then it could easily target them in return.

I stayed a bit longer than I had intended. There had been another "Creature Carnival" scheduled, but despite the best efforts of the GM team, led by [GM]AwesomeSauce, they couldn't sort out a technical problem, and gave up on the "CC" idea... so instead we had double experience and skill exp turned on, which was a very useful boost.

Kaerella was generally just in the combat party with MD, standing at the back doing occasional Heals, especially when we briefly had the level 90 BabevKnight in the party, and looking after the polar bear cub. There were times when she had to take off the cub, when spare zombies were around, and then she did a little fighting. In all she added 16.37%, and 10 skill points, while the polar bear cub levelled up twice, to reach level 14, adding 283.57%. MistressDomina herself reached level 90 fairly early on, and in all went up by 44.08%, plus 11 skill points and 2696 pet points for her drake.

RedRackham logged in afterwards, to do some pet-levelling on his newly-acquired drake, and started its progress through level 33. But, before long, it was time to log out for the day.

An Evening Session

The double pet experience, at least on Auzura, continued for a while after the end of the "Creature Carnival" last night, and RedRackham was able to get his drake comfortably past the halfway mark in level 40 before logging out.

That, however, was the last computer-type activity around here until Sunday evening, when the main priority was to get as many characters as possible their half-hour "attendance"...if, that was, the later start to my LC day meant that their 10% bonus hadn't already expired. So, it was with some trepidation that I logged MrChuckNorris in on Auzura-5, to see what message he would receive.

Luckily, logging on around ten hours later than usual didn't phase my valiant crew, and they all managed to get their attendance bonuses sorted out in the usual way, with some standing around in town while I ate, and generally caught up on things, and others managing a bit of mining or herb farming. MistressSabina even managed a session on the second floor of Maargadum Jail with the spike canines, dire spike canines, and two-headed canines, for a little under an hour, and got 9.90% experience, 47 skill points, and 577 pet points.

But then it was time for the Sunday Quiz, so MistressDomino and Kaerella logged in on Auzura-2, as has been their habit recently. There was no sign of Ratel and his colleagues Argoth and Liezl this time, but things ran swiftly and smoothly for us, though as usual there were reports in the forum shoutbox of problems - though I don't remember any previous reports of the question box not appearing, leaving people on the wrong side when the (invisible) countdown finished. Kaerella traded her new moonstones and heaven stones across to MistressDomino once the event was over, and then MistressDomino logged out, to be replaced by RedRackham, who headed off to Merac to do some pet-levelling.

Kaerella stayed online for a few more minutes, as she hadn't quite finished her "attendance allowance" half hour. In fact, with the usual after-Quiz lag, the message that she had qualified took a few extra minutes to appear, but the time passed quickly enough - Kae equipped her polar bear cub, and I just watched it do its animation, sitting down and wiping its face with one paw, then standing up and looking ready for action, with a silly grin on my face.

I'd remembered not to acknowledge the "timed out" windows that RedRackham got, so he had logged in slowly but surely, and by the time Kae logged out and MistressSabina logged back in, things were improving. There wasn't time for a very long second session down in the Jail, but Sabina added a further 5.68%, 26 skill points, and 320 pet points, so she is making reasonably good progress down there.

I was also a bit active on the shoutbox, hopefully "helping" Giovanna_X with some answers, and indeed filling in for a while after she left, until Pimorez, thankfully, appeared. But once he was in charge, I was able to tiptoe away, and concentrate more on finishing this blog's day.... which, as usual, ended with RedRackham busily pet-levelling. By the time the computer needed to be switched off, the drake was more than two-thirds of the way through level 40.