Three Team-Ups

It was a relief to return to more normal things today. MistressDomino on Auzura had done some useful selling overnight in merchant mode, mainly of heaven stones, but I noticed that the forty dire wolf transformation scrolls that I put up at 25,000 gold each had all gone, as well as moonstone boxes and a few large attack and large defence potions.

After moving some more items across to MD from Kaerella and Rage on Auzura, SirGalahad on Tairen was able to swing into action, returning to level five of Maargadum Jail to work on his drake, which just managed to reach level 29 at coffee time.

Then it was time for Memree and RedRyder on Tairen-5 to head for Prokion Temple, and the mirror-side corridor room with orc fighters and the single orc axeman, for an uninterrupted 90 minutes or so. Memree added 174 skill points, and RedRyder one less, as a couple of times she'd been out of compass range when Memree made a kill. While Memree had had to start off by killing two orc sergeants that had followed us after we ran through their room, generally we avoided killing the orc axeman and concentrated on the fighters, so that by the end of the session Memree had advanced by 31.57% and 178 guild points, while RedRyder, as usual the non-combatant in the combat party, had moved on by 7.95% and 30 guild points.

Both rogues should level up during their next session there - which may end up cutting back the skill exp per kill so much that we have to move on from fighters to the axemen and even the sergeants, who can tell?

For the afternoon session, our other Tairen team-up was back in action, with my highest-level Tairen character now, the rogue Rage, reaching level 37 - and still getting good experience and skill exp in the Prokion Temple back room, thanks to the combat party with Kaerella, on level 27. As before Kae kept to the side, but did get attacked occasionally, nearly dying once. I did have three visitors; a healer stayed for a few minutes, a rogue not quite as long, and a knight came in, looked around, and very wisely decided to leave right away. If you don't have the +10 armour, it isn't a healthy place to try fighting.

It was a good long session, so they gained 351 skill points each; Rage added 39.93% and 554 guild points, while Kaerella added 39.06% and 82 guild points, getting to the halfway point in level 27. That got Kae's store of unused sp up to 654: 212 skill points were used to finish maximising her general skills, and then 348 more were spent on starting to learn the weaponsmithing skills. Yes, Kaerella needs to learn the special skills before she can be allowed to level up, so it looks as if some "suicide runs" in Misty Canyon are in her not-so-distant future.

The evening session was quite substantial, too, and involved Kaerella, in her Auzura guise of a level 67 archer, teamed up with my level 61 wizard-mage MistressDomina, out fighting the sphinx fighters and speer men, and the elite sphinx speer man. MD just stood at the side, while Kae did all the work - MD being a few levels lower did help the amount of experience gained, as the sphinx types are green-named to Kae now. It was just an equal party, so experience, skill exp and gold drops were shared relatively equally, though Kae did get slightly more experience per kill than MD - less as a percentage, however, as level 67 is a bit longer than level 61, to work through.

A rogue called GIZMO was around for a few minutes, competing for the chance to kill the elite on its next respawning; I was slightly limited by the need to stay within compass-range of MistressDomina. And a bit later a level 60 titan from the CaZadores guild, ALeX, arrived, and asked to join the party so that he'd get horse buffs. He seemed to lose quite a lot of health fighting the elite, perhaps his armour isn't very good. He didn't stay very long, at least not by my standards.

So, most of the time I had the sphinx types to myself on Auzura-4, which seems reasonable, as people below level 60 would tend to be on the next sub-server, Auzura-5, since that is where Elizabeth now gives out her Enhancement buff. My two characters don't qualify for that any more, sadly, but without any potions managed to get 50 skill points each from the session; Kaerella went up by 14.03%, while MistressDomina added 22.79%. And Kae's drake, SirFrancis, gained 2592 pet points.

After transferring her new loot from Kae across to MistressDomino on Auzura, back on Tairen-5 SirGalahad logged in, and traded his level 29 drake across to Memree, in exchange for her level 18 one. And then he headed down to Maargadum Jail, where he soon got his new charge on to level 19.

The free goes on the Last Chaos "loot wheel", one per account, today didn't get me a polar bear pet, sadly, though a few other goodies did come my way, suitable for selling on Tairen. Come to think of it, their total value is probably more than people have been selling such pets for recently - though I'm slightly more intrigued by the new jaguar pet, which certainly in its "cub" form looks a cute little black kitten.

The special "The Shadow of Grei" event today that had been previously hinted at turned out to be a part of the Merac Castle Siege, which is a guild versus guilds battle, down at Merac Castle, that I have never been to and know nothing about. There were some mysterious GM-made announcements, along the lines of "Did you Night Shadows really think a guild could protect you from us?" - so things could get a bit unexpected. Certainly "You can flag pvp in MCS today only. There will be no repercussions" is strange, as apparently normally turning on PvP mode there causes glitches. Ah well, I have no idea even which sub-server things went down on!

A Day for No Pants

I think yesterday's post must have been some kind of record, length-wise. Today, however, was definitely going to be my delayed "busy day" downstairs, so both SirGalahad on Tairen-5 and ColonelScarlet on Katar-4 headed straight for Maargadum Jail before breakfast, to do a session of pet-levelling on the first death mask lancer on the right when you enter level five. Gal got invited into a party as he went into the Jail by a level 44 player called IxIP3Z4001xI, and accepted, saying "I'm just here to pet level, but if you want a solo party that's fine." I noticed that despite their higher level (SirGalahad is level 35) their health went down rather quickly, or at least steadily. They didn't stay around all that long.

The main event today was set to be an Auzuran "Storm the Castle" extravaganza at 5:00pm, UK time, though Auzura also had a "Hide and Seek" scheduled for ninety minutes later, on one of the PvP sub-servers. There was also news that tomorrow we'd be offered a free spin of the loot wheel, one per account - well, we'd need to have the aeria points to pay for the spin, but the ap would be rebated within a few days.

It seems that the polar bears will be removed from the loot wheel soon, so no more will be available, at least for a while... something to do with global warming, probably. To combat this, from six this evening, for an hour per server, GMs would be going around giving away polar bear collars to people who were playing without wearing pants, trousers, skirts. Which, decreasing one's armour rating somewhat, could be a bit risky. Still, it would all add to the fun, was the theory.

The "Storm the Castle" on Auzura-4 was hosted by [GM]Valsharyn, who, unusually, was a bit late arriving. That helped get the number of players who were ready at the start up a bit I suppose, and at seven minutes past five, the storming began. The usual selection of monsters were dealt with; clearing the gateway to the outer courtyard seemed to take longer than usual, I think the high-level people must have all gone in and started on the dark harpies and hell-otuu, and soon after we were all in that area Val said that she would be willing to stretch our deadline a bit since we were low on numbers. But in the end, in the inner courtyard we quickly got rid of the sphinx commander, and used [tab] to target the lurking blood shadow invisible dragon.

I noticed that Rage did lose a little health during that final battle, presumably some invisible fiery breath was involved - but there didn't seem any great danger, especially as my Snare did its job a few times. And then this final monster was defeated, and we'd cleaned out the castle in 15, rather than 20, minutes. [GM]Valsharyn announced that the loot would be spawned outside the "castle room" or throne room, and so it was - not huge amounts, but Rage managed to grab an item or two. Val actually gave us a bonus pile to reward our speed, but strangely for me it went straight from "This item has been reserved for another player" to nothing left. Traditionally, more and larger piles are laid out outside the castle - but the event is still fun.

After some requests, the GM did spawn a fluton for us to finish on, but there was no more loot given out.

After that, Val was in charge of the "no pants" event on Auzura, which she combined with the "hide and seek", which alone wouldn't have been enough to tempt me. One rides around the edge of the map, and every ten minutes an announcement comes up that the GM has found a new hiding place, so one rides around some more. So this time Kaerella rode around, without her skirt on. After the hide and seek part ended, Kae went out to the sphinx types, and fought the sphinx fighters, sphinx speer men, and elite sphinx speer man until the hour was up - and fighting the elite guy, even with a three level advantage, without part of one's armour can be a little tricky. Still, he dropped a +3 and a +4 level 53 weapon, which can't be bad.

The Cariae "no pants" event left some people feeling a bit annoyed, as [GM]Stratos made up the rules as he went along, and instead of looking for people, got people, pants-less, to look for him. The event was, at five to the hour, going to start in ten minutes, and then five minutes later it was still going to begin in ten minutes... and then five minutes later it was all over, the GM announced. Presumably there were some winners, but back in Randol there seemed to be a lot of people who couldn't quite get their heads around the concept of an event, supposed to last an hour, that ended before it began. Oh well, there are still those one per account free goes on the loot wheel tomorrow...

Karella, my level 27 rogue, had been roaming Juno without her pants on, and had been underwater in a quiet little corner of the map where the water actually contains a few fishes, about the only example of wildlife in the game that can't be killed. She mounted up while still underwater - and I found that, while I could see the horse, and the glow from her weapon, I couldn't see Karella at all. The effect continued when I returned to town - putting her endemic pants +10 back on meant that her fairy made an appearance, but she was still absent, leaving the horse without a rider. I assume other people didn't get this glitch, as nobody commented.

After a busy day and a bitty evening I decided that that was enough Last Chaos for the evening. SirGalahad continued work on his drake of course, getting it well into level 28, but the main computer was ready for a trip into a different game.

Tomorrow seems to be a bit mysterious, with the events page taking one to a picture of an interior, which, I found, was itself a link to the "The Shadow of Grei" forum thread, where this remark was to be found. "

Who is this strange Night Shadow that attacks Merac Castle all by himself? What fool would dare to challenge the collected guilds that stand against him?" The event is supposed to take place between 9:00pm and 11:00pm UK time, but on which sub-servers, well, hopefully we will get told in due course.

A Desert Event

Today was supposed to be one of my "busy days" downstairs, which meant that SirGalahad looked like having a busy day in Maargadum Jail working on his drake, which reached level 24 not long after coffee. It also meant that ColonelScarlet was able to do some similar work over on Katar-4, also on level five of Maargadum Jail, with his pink drake reaching level 19 mere minutes earlier, and reaching 20 at lunchtime.

The events scheduled for the day were a parade on Auzura-4 at five o'clock UK time, followed by a "Pharaoh's Treasure" hunt two hours later - and then at nine a rotation of Dratan-based monster hunts was to begin, starting on Auzura, for a sensible change, and continuing every 45 minutes on Katar, Cariae, Sarissa, Hatzring, and Tairen. The call to action on the website was "

Foul monsters have used the sandstorms as cover to infiltrate the countryside! Brave adventurers and mighty warriors, Dratan needs you! Depart from the city walls of Dratan and purge these vile creatures from the land!

" - so, who could resist?

I did manage an afternoon session, as much of the "busy" bit for me got postponed until Friday. For that, Kaerella and RedRyder teamed up - but this was on Katar, where Kae was level 31, and Red was level 25. Prokion Temple on Katar-5 was rather busy, I found, but we ended up in the mirror half of the place, in the corridor outside the back room, fighting an assortment of orc fighters, axemen and sergeants.

I didn't want to level Kae up as she hasn't yet chosen whether to be an archer or a cleric (though it needs to be the former - one cleric in the family is enough), but we got pretty close by the end of the session, and, as the non-fighting half of the combat party, RedRyder wasn't far away from reaching level 26 - which will be handy, as it will allow her to wear the shirt and pants of the +10 armour set. At the moment, she does take a bit of damage when an orc picks on her.

By the end of the session Kaerella had added 60.12%, and RedRyder had gone up by 33.02%; Kae had added 339 guild points for the now deathly quiet DarkzersRoughneks guild, while Red had gained 52 for the local branch of Discipline. And they'd got 220 shiny new skill points each.

The 5:00pm Parade with [GM]Valsharyn was fun - as well as the stroll around Randol, we went out into the Juno countryside, where Val ran around at a suspiciously high speed, with us tailing her. Every now and again she would spawn a few hands of loot, but as I remarked at the time, "the cool-down time for Hands rather stops proceedings dead, lol." I did suggest chocolate and melons instead, but perhaps there are rules about what can be dropped when.

Val had been talking about strategy as we paraded. "We are putting the event: Hide & Seek PLUS on ice for a time until we can decide how to manage (to make it a) lot better and fairer", she announced. "Talk guys! This is an event for questions, answers, and things you always wanted to know."

"Any chance of the Zombie Invasions of Berbank Mill returning?" I asked. "It used to be fun to do that after the Quiz on Sunday."

"I'm not on board that long, but I'll (look) into the zombie invasion", Val replied, before moving on to the next item. "We are also planning to split the low and high MMS into three different events at the same time."

"So a mid-level MMS too?" I asked, but the GM's feeling seemed to be that there would be low, high, and an "epic" one, which is fair enough as the really high-level people don't get any challenge from even the main MMS. Though such an event could be tucked away out of sight in Mondshine, I suggested.

Personally, I'm in favour of the MMS events not being at the same time. "Some of us have low and relatively high characters and would like to go to both", I said, also contributing "the announcements get confusing" if the events are at the same time, and that one group could feel neglected if they polish off their monsters and nothing happens for some minutes because the GM is busy at the other location, something Val acknowledged.

"I think the Pandora beast event is useless - the beasts don't drop anything better than other critters of their level, which aren't as protective" - or if they are, aren't crammed so closely together that any attack can bring a whole group down on you. I went on to suggest that a spawning of the Pandora's Boxes would be much more fun, with a chance of good loot and not all the Beasts at once.

xXPhonicXx put in a good word for the "Storm the Castle" event, and [GM]Valsharyn asked what made it interesting. "StC is probably my favourite, I guess", I said, and Phonic continued with "a lot of high mobs and a lot of prizes." To which I added "We work as a team so nicely, and don't get stuff circling around and killing from behind like MMS."

As for Cluedo, I blithely declared that "it takes too long - what, about ten minutes per question?" Other people mentioned that it was only a few people who ever got a prize - so my thought was "If Cluedo, or something, was a joint team effort, and prizes for all got spawned if we worked out the puzzles.... or a prize of extra sp for four hours, or something?"

It was after that that we moved on to chasing Val around Juno. "I will run zig zag across the country back and forth... whenever you are near me for at least two seconds, I drop something." After some random zigging and zagging we looped around from the west gate towards the north one - so I warned her about the bridge being haunted, as [GM]JediMike had revealed recently. After reaching the gate we headed on towards the east, only for Valsharyn to suddenly vanish - I'd been clicked on her to follow.

After a few clues, we found her in the moat, and then attempted to run on round - I think I was one of very few people to get through the narrow part, and I actually managed to climb up the bank and out onto the grass. I mounted up and rode around, in case there was still a main party of people somewhere. The town itself seemed quiet, and just as I was riding out into Juno again, Val teleported me to her on a hill close to the moat.

"Wow."

"Were you still drowning??"

"No, I did manage to get out, thank you. I was riding around town wondering where everyone was - I couldn't find any group."

"Lol, sorry then. I'll take another dive for them. Sorry for the inconvenience."

And with a final GM announcement just after that, the event was over. I think I'd picked up four small HP or mana recovery potions, but it was fun - and I had also had a chance to say how lucky Auzura was to have her, "and Nobby", doing events that the other servers missed out on. And by the time I'd got most of the details typed out here, the "Pharaoh's Treasure" event was approaching.

[GM]Valsharyn had "tweaked" this event since last time, and this time every announced location had its collection of sphinx fighters and "speer" men, plus their elite varieties and indeed some of the large desert-based jaguars. So, it was lucky I was on Kaerella, to whom they are all green-named. I arrived at the one location where loot would appear soon after the announcement came up, and found people fighting the sphinx types, and was able to join in and help them finish them off. The loot spawned was in rather small amounts - but a mysterious GM message appeared saying "the last round starts in 5 minutes!!"

So, not knowing what that was about, whether that meant that a new location would be announced, most of us stuck around. And then a new message came up: "The Pharaoh made yet another incredible mistake! He sent his treasure and three of his guard squads to ONE location! He will haste his attempt to make this unhappen. You only have 5 minutes until the treasure vanishes!!"

And then a large number of fresh sphinx types, and the giant jaguars, appeared, and it was quite a fight, particularly for the people who were standing where the monsters were spawned. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to drop them on you", Val said shortly after that, followed by a warning, "One wave is still to come..."

So we fought on; I'm sure we had a few people who were well above the sphinx types' level, and Kae did her bit as heavy artillery. "The Guardians dropped right upon the defenders of the last position! The Heroes have defeated the guards and were able to loot the treasure!" Val announced, correctly, and we grabbed a more generous amount of loot this time. It wasn't as much as Kae's lucky early find last week, but 6 item drop boosters, 3 large attack and 4 large defence pots, 3 skill point boosters, 7 tool aids, and 8 small HP and 16 small mana recovery pots, well, isn't bad for half an hour's work.

"This was just a 'If I do this' modification event. Again, I won't drop them on you, I will spawn them at a point where you know where it is, because time's running out then", Val added, so hopefully next time the new spawnings of guards will be off to one side, but in sight.

There was time for a brief session on Katar-5 with Kaerella after that, first of all to opt to become an archer, and then to kill a few clever foxes of the desert, and claim the quest reward, which was enough to take Kae into level 32, so that she could learn two new skills, the attack skill Rapid Arrow and the passive skill Bow Mastery, increasing Kae's physical attack by 70. Then there was just time to go out to Shuraine's oasis to farm 10 soft sands; after claiming the reward for that, Kaerella had earned another 18.71% and 70 skill points - though learning her new skills, including "special" armour-making and weapon-making ones, meant that her unused sp total was actually down by 1,029.

At nine on Auzura the message came up "Dratan is under siege! Go out and secure the resource points or Dratan will fall!" Unfortunately it didn't specify which sub-server this was to happen on, any more than the website page for the day had. Auzura-4 seemed quiet - but on Auzura-5 I found a few people moving around in Dratan, and eventually there was a GM announcement about orc hordes. I found one group of orcs and helped with them, and then moved to Serel Farm, where a large band of monsters were clustered round the entrance, including dark treants, scorpionmantises, and, when we got further inside, Performers and Introducers and their Misty Canyon friends. [GM]Ozymandias, a rogue, was in charge, and spawned us some loot. When we finished there, word came that "the archaeologist" was under siege - which had to mean Shuraine at his oasis.

It was a shame RedRider, my level 27 rogue, had recently taken the location of that oasis off her memory scroll to make room for Val's junior MMS site, but it's only a short ride from town. The battle there was long and fierce, with RedRider getting killed twice, as well as having some near squeaks; the first time I used a "beginner" resurrection scroll, but the second time, as Red has no store of skill points, I just respawned in town and rode back. Eventually we did manage to kill all the monsters, and [GM]Ozymandias spawned generous amounts of loot, mainly in the oasis itself.

That was the end of the event, and time for me to log out. SirGalahad continued a little longer, of course, getting his drake safely into level 26.

A Mystery Event

The overnight patch was very minor, again - apostrophes can no longer be used in messages when you send someone an item mall gift, the polar bear can no longer be put into storage (and thus be lost), the master of the monster combo sells golden boxes again - and for the first time Tairen's designated PvP subservers will actually have PvP combat, outside the arena, enabled. Just think, some characters have gone up to well over level 100 without any chance of being killed by other players, or killing, while out farming. Since the Elizabeth's Enhancement buff was recently moved to a non-PvP subserver, that doesn't make much of a difference for me as far as I can see.

SirGalahad did get attacked by a death mask soldier a second time yesterday evening, but again I spotted this before the creature had a chance to turn its attention to my drake, so there was no problem. And this morning Gal was back in action, with the drake reaching level 20 soon after breakfast.

Memree and RedRyder managed to have their after-coffee session in Prokion Temple on Tairen-5, though it wasn't as long as it sometimes can be. I'd decided that fighting the orc soldiers any more was just too slow, so my Discipline duo moved on to the orc fighters in the mirror-side corridor room.

This certainly speeded things up, and, while they each gained 107 skill points, Memree added 19.12% (and 108 guild points), while as the non-fighter RedRyder added 4.79% (and 18 guild points). A couple more sessions like that should see Red reach level 30,

SirGalahad was back at work for the lunch break, and then for the afternoon it was time for my other Tairen pair of Prokion-goers to leap into action - Rage and Kaerella.

With Rage on level 36, the "back room" with its orc sergeants and orc axemen was the only place to go. The session lasted a couple of hours or so, and Kaerella reached level 27 - so she could wear a full 30/32 +10 armour set now. Unfortunately, there won't be a new set available until RedRyder reaches level 31, so Kae is going to have to continue to be a bit careful when the higher-level orcs are around.

Rage added 34.31% (and 471 guild points), while Kaerella gained 33.89% (and 68 guild points) - and they each grabbed 293 skill points, before SirGalahad logged back in.

During the orc-fighting I had remembered to trade five cracked axes across from Rage to Kaerella, so after the break Kae headed back to Dratan to get the reward for the "Story of Crom" quest from Weapon Trader Crom - 270,000 experience and 3 skill points, doubled by the Elizabuff to give 10.82% and 6 skill points, and 40,000 gold. Crom promptly gave a new quest, "Another Identity of Shuraine", for 158,000 experience.

"Know this well Hero", Crom told me. "It was Shuin, Akemon's General in charge of all the armies of man, who brought the end to Akemon's reign. Have you ever read the doctrine of Akemon? It is truly idiotic! Only one clouded in the lies of Erin could have ever believed such nonsense, let alone preached it as law. Akemon taught his followers that the Humans were the only race that deserved to exist, and that all other races must be enslaved or destroyed. Shuin betrayed Akemon by disclosing his acts to the Anoel Dratum, ending his bloody race war once and for all. Shuin was killed and Akemon was dismembered in a public execution. Do Shuin's final actions make up for his original betrayal of the other races? One must wonder, eh Hero?"

Using my memory scroll, I beamed across to Shuraine at his oasis. "Alas! Crom continues to spread his lies and half-truths", he told me. "I am an archaeologist and blood niece to Shuin. I met him once when I was very young, and this was long after the Race Wars. Shuin led the rebels against Akemon, he never fought for that tyrant!

"You have come to the wrong place if you are looking for historical truths, hero. Just know that Crom always gives people the wrong facts. Sorry for the misinformation." And after that he, presumably a nephew rather than a niece, handed over the 6.34% experience, and that strange little message-quest was over.

Kaerella on Tairen may now be level 27, and still maximising her general skills - but Kaerella on Katar was level 30, and has got all her skills filled up, including the special skills, and a generous reserve of unused sp - so wasn't it about time I did some more work with her? The addition of PvP to Tairen shows that it is now a mature server, while Katar has the advantage of usually being first in the rota for an event... and Kae's sp there was hard-won and hard-earned, so it makes sense to build on it.

So, Katar-5's Prokion Temple was Kaerella's destination, and, in a solo party, I headed for that mirror-half corridor room and its orc fighters who, with the Elizabuff on, gave me 5390 experience and 5500 skill exp. The one orc axeman in the room gave 9628 and 7700, which wasn't quite as good a skill to experience ratio, but still okay. I settled in there for a while, but then a rogue called Euriale gate-crashed, which slowed things down a bit. I noticed she did what I sometimes do, and ignored the axeman attacking her, just fighting the fighters.

Kaerella had started on 83%, and when I was just below levelling up I headed back to Dratan City, since I knew that finishing the quest for cracked axes would level me up. Then I rode out to the death goddesses, to kill 35 of them, killing enough desert spiders and red spiders along the way to fulfil the two spider-related quests, and returned to town for the quest rewards. A level 22 healer called SmashOnYou asked me to take her to Prokion, so I ran out there with her, and left her at the entrance with horse buffs and a warning about occasionally arriving in the foundations there rather than the hallway - a level 24 mage called MageDoMal asked for horse buffs as well, so I provided her with them, and returned to town, ready for my regular Wednesday evening early log-out.

In all, Kaerella on Katar, Kae-on-K, had gone up by 52.78%, more than half of that from quest rewards, 245 skill points, 749 pet points, and for DarkzersRoughneks 76 guild points. Reaching level 31 meant that she got a spare set of the level 30/32 +10 armour, which will no doubt come in handy for a different character.

One "regular Wednesday" thing recently has been the sequence of mad monster spawns or stormings of Merac Castle, but there wasn't either type of event listed for today on the website. Instead the message was "

Juno is under siege from the forces of Eres! With her resource points cut off her mighty walls will not last long. We call to all of the heroes of Apollon to fight off this undead horde and help uncover the source from which this vile host springs.

" - which seemed more like a "World Defence", fighting monsters at the gates of Randol, which is rather less of an event. Still, the "help uncover the source" bit does drop hints that this could be part of a continuing storyline.

The gap between starts on the various servers was 45 minutes, with Katar starting off at 9:00pm UK time, followed by Cariae, Sarissa, Hatzring, Auzura, and Tairen. So, at 10:30 my Sarissa representative, Kaerella at level 22, was on hand to see what was happening. [GM]Cara was in Randol before then, in a cool-looking high-level archer costume, warning people to watch for announcements on where to go. A group gathered outside the north gate, wondering what was going to happen.

The event turned out to be more of a "purify the waters" thing than anything else, with the river inlet from the Juno lake unleashing sphinx commanders, anubis occultists, screaming zombies, wight slashers, and much more. The action ended after 45 minutes down at the edge of the lake itself, where hordes of monsters were defeated, and then a generous supply of loot was spawned. Kae certainly gained a bit of experience, and managed to avoid getting killed, and it all made a change from the regular events. But is it the start of something bigger?

Through it all SirGalahad kept working, getting his drake comfortably into level 23 by the end of the evening.

A Quieter Day

In the end I continued on much later than usual, and attended [GM]JediMike's other four countryside Parades, which were generally pretty similar, though a couple of times very few people actually noticed him leave the starting area...once I got left behind, the other time I was one of the few that did manage to follow him around the course.

A typical commentary from Mike ran like this. "Here we got some foxes... Some wolves - don't bother them. Here's the windmill... they got lots of wolves. I'm taking you to the infamous bridge." Knowing what he'd said on a previous run-through, I interjected "The haunted one?" "Sure is. Someone died under the bridge." He had gone into more detail on a previous server, about how it was haunted at night, and how he would sometimes go out there in the dark. "More wolves... here's some magical herb." And after that, as we approached the north gate, the magic word "Prizes."

Hatzring was slightly different, as Mike took us to the arena in Randol. As he reported on Auzura, at the end of the parade, "I'm just here to hang out - been doing so on each server. I took Hatz to the arena... they tried to kill me. Newberts couldn't." "Ungrateful lot", I commented. "And you only level 9, er, 15." He'd told the Hatzring people he was level 9, and then revised that to 15 when the PvP-enabled symbol hard appeared beside his name in the arena, which doesn't happen if you are below level 15.

"I'm level 41 on Auzura - yeah, hit the 40 club last weekend." "Hard work", Moruk69 said. "Sure is - I gotta work like you all if I wanna be good level." "Just remember the Elizabeth buff and you'll do fine", I assured him...

Tairen was scheduled last of the servers, but I stayed around, as that is where I am most in need of extra drops, since Tairen is, so far, a bit short of the main events like storming the castle and a high-level mad monster spawn. And Mike did us proud, as far as the loot spawning went.

That late night did mean that SirGalahad got his current hatchling up to level 15 before his belated log-out, and he returned to his duties at breakfast time, so that by nine o'clock level 16 was reached, and the cute little dragon hatchling turned into the larger, sleeker drake form.

After coffee RedRyder and Memree headed for Prokion Temple on Tairen-5 in their usual combat party, but progress is getting a bit slow on the orc soldiers, I think we will need to speed things up even if it cuts down on the skill exp that Red gets. The whole session gave them 103 skill points each; Memree added 6.67% and 37 guild points, while RedRyder gained 1.68% and 7 guild points.

After SirGalahad had done another couple of hours in Maargadum Jail, the afternoon session was a bit speedier, progress-wise, with Rage and Kaerella taking their turn to make a combat party and head for the Temple - my favourite back room with the orc axemen and orc sergeants. They soon both levelled up, reaching level 36 and level 26 respectively; the percentages for experience gained kept pretty much in step. By the time that the early evening food break was looming, Rage had added 32.14% (equating to 433 guild points), and Kaerella had added 32.27% (62 guild points) - and they had each gained 271 skill points.

After the break, while SirGalahad continued his work on his drake, Kaerella came back on and got her quest reward for killing the clever foxes, and also got the second quest for the collection of 10 soft sands, and the quest for 3 dark orbs...both of which she was able to finish immediately, adding another 49.78% and 48 skill points. By then she had enough sp for the final two levels of Resurrection, and the fifth level of Cure Poison too, plus the first three levels of the Hard Rejection skill, which only works in the personal dungeons. Kae also got the quest requiring 5 cracked axes, which Rage will be able to trade across to her at some convenient time.

However, as usual on a Tuesday evening there was a long email to deal with, and, as I'd received a plaintive email from the "Age of Conan" people asking why I'd not persevered with their game, after downloading it last week, I spent 90 minutes or so getting from the beach to the main town, slaying various bosses and anyone else who got in Kaerella's way. The graphics were nice, but I don't like the WSAD-only movement (or in my case, just W) and the button-bashing combat - or the small inventory. Why design things so that you don't have enough room for everything that drops, from corpses and the occasional treasure chest? All you're doing is irritating people. Still, I managed not to die, which is the main thing, though there were occasional gently humming square grids on the ground which I assume are resurrection spots.

Still, there was a little time left after that, so I let my level 34 temple knight over on Cariae, SirDarth, have a short outing. He had a quest to kill 20 berserkers, so that was simple enough, and the reward moved him along nicely with a bit more experience and skill experience. He then spent a little while in Prokion Temple - the back room, naturally. A level 23 titan called danh recruited him to a party, which was fine, as it gave him substantially more experience than soloing - but he disconnected before very long, which cut the experience back. Still, SirDarth does need skill points more I guess if he is ever going to get much further.

Cariae was supposed to have an abundance of races and hide and seek events starting at ten, but all that was announced initially was a hide and seek for GS TygerMyst, and riding around Juno for a while, after yesterday's late night, didn't appeal, so, at just under 90% of the way through his level, Darth logged out. It was around then that Jackboy, or Captianjack, used some sort of messenger service built into the Last Chaos website to get in touch, telling me that he had abandoned LC for Aion, along with a couple of other folks who used to be in Norcaine - which explains why, despite my activities on Cariae and Auzura recently, I've not encountered them.

SirGalahad though had had a productive evening. He did manage to attract a death mask soldier as well as the lancer at one stage, but I spotted the extra activity before any harm came to the drake, and killed the soldier. The drake ended the evening about two-thirds of the way through level 19.

Valsharyn's Monsters

The usual routine saw SirGalahad back in Maargadum Jail before breakfast, doing a little more work on his drake - and that was followed after coffee by the Discipline Duo of Memree and RedRyder taking their regular trip to Prokion Temple on Tairen-5, now designated "the newbie subserver" as Elizabeth has taken up residence there. Actually, she is now in Randol on the other subservers too, it's just if you attempt to get the "Elizabuff" anywhere else, you get directed to "channel 5".

Memree had a little catching up to do after her losses at the "Parade" yesterday, but eventually she was ahead again, and both she and RedRyder gained 129 points before the end of the session, which concentrated on orc soldiers, with the occasional orc fighter when they decided to join in. Memree went up by 8.24%, and 51 guild points, while Red added 2.08% and 7 guild points.

There was time before lunch for a quick bit of trading between SirGalahad and Kaerella; Kae gave Gal her level 8 hatchling to work on, and he gave her the level 21 drake, so that instead of just 7 levels of armour increase for a defence increase of 80, Kae now has 10 levels of that, for a defence increase of 105, plus 10 levels of power increase for an extra 20 on her physical attack stat.

One thing I hadn't realised was that the "Neckless of Rogue", and presumably the ones for other classes, do vary, they don't all have identical properties. RedRyder's and Rage's give 16 dexterity, 168 to long range physical hit rate, 112 to close range evasion, and 20 to critical hit - but Memree's gives 16 to dexterity again, but 8 to all types of physical attack, 3 poisoning attack (as previously discussed), and a 10% increase to her speed of movement - so she'd be pretty good at races, with a moving speed of 8.1, compared with Red's and Rage's 7.5 and Kaerella's 8.0. RedRider on Auzura reached level 20 before the necklesses were introduced, sadly; she has the quest, but she doesn't have the "letter" needed to fulfil its requirements.

For the afternoon, it seemed about time my level 35 rogue on Tairen, Rage (or xRAGEx, to be formal) got a little action, so she headed for Prokion Temple on Tairen-5 herself, in a solo party with SirGalahad. The orc sergeants and orc axemen in my favourite back room gave quite low amounts of experience, but still some useful exp - 1,896 experience and 4,400 skill exp per sergeant, and 1,284/2,200 per axeman. So a session in which she added just 3.02% and 33 guild points while gaining 140 skill points was a bit faster than Memree and RedRyder's earlier effort.

Still, it was time that Rage moved on a bit, so SirGalahad logged out, and Kaerella, on level 25, logged in, joined a combat party with Rage, and made the trip out to the Temple, to stand to one side, where orc spawns were infrequent, while Rage did the work. Having her bringing the average level of the party members down moved the experience and skill exp per orc sergeant for Rage to somewhere in the region of 19,000/4,800, and orc axemen to about 11,500/4,000 - so about ten times the experience, and a bit more skill exp too. Kaerella as the non-fighting member got about a sixth as much experience, and the same amount of skill exp.

Before too long KateNash arrived, and joined our party. For some of the time she stayed out of compass range, for the solo party effect, but later she fought in the same room - which meant Kae's effect was slightly diluted, but of course she was doing her share of the killing too, and with her involved we did get a few loot drops of origami paper and moonstone boxes. By the time the food break came along, Rage had added another 28.00% and 325 guild points, while Kaerella had gone up by 28.74% and 45 guild points - and they'd each earned 199 skill points, so that, since she'd a few left over from before, Kae was able to learn two more levels of Resurrection.

After the food break, it was time to log RedRider on over on Auzura-4, as I was determined to brave the perils of [GM]Valsharyn's low-level Mad Monster Spawn, over not far from Hunter Dranore's tent. "Don't get carried away - or we'll get carried away, in pine boxes", I cautioned before things started... and I must say I did get killed once, though as I'd spent Red's current stash of skill points, and got the location onto her memory scroll, that was only a temporary and minor setback.

It was a tricky event to give a verdict on. There were so many people there, since Val had given good in-game notice of things, that the initial waves of butchers, orcs, salamanders, and desert spiders seemed to get assimilated within seconds. Thankfully she resisted the temptation to drop gangs of death knights on people's heads, and indeed cautioned people to rally off to one side between waves. The waves did grow more challenging, with barren eises, dragons, akane giants, twin hadians, cursed and wane spiders, even the level 75 Forgotten Temple main boss the blood terrain - and finally from Egeha a number of scorpionmantises and skin walkers, level 80 and 82 boss monsters.

"GRATZ - you just killed eight level 80 Elite Monsters!!" [GM]Valsharyn was suitably impressed. "This calls out for double PRIZES!!!!"

So, the loot was pretty generous, but I just can't see that a group of players around level 30, even a large group, could kill skin walkers that quickly; they may be passive, but they are protective, so if you attack one of them, the others would take an interest. There must have been some higher level players along, with their armour covered it's hard to tell...though very few low-level people put a cowboy, gang or mexican cover on their costumes as they know they will outgrow that armour set well before the melding ends.

Not content with the generous loot thus far, once the low-level event was over quite a few of us moved straight across to the high-level event, where the final wave was well under way, with our old friends the flutons and patriarch botises along, plus other high-level stuff. I got involved in the snaring sequence for a few of the big guys - there was another death, some sort of "area of effect" blast that took out a mage near me as well, but I was soon back in action. This was a proper "old school" Mad Monster Spawn, and lasted over an hour in all, not one of [GM]JediMike's 12-minute single spawn efforts; Val herself got involved in the fighting, generally not using skills but being a useful tank - she was standing dazed, attacked by two patriarch botises, at one stage, but survived.

We had a 20 minute deadline to get rid of the last of the flutons and botises, which did tend to take a few minutes each, but we made it, and were rewarded with multiple waves of loot. So in all RedRider picked up, at the two events, 12 item drop boosters, 23 large attack and 15 large defence potions, 13 skill points boosters, and 33 tool aids, plus no doubt plenty of the small HP and mana recovery pots.

Latre, Rage went to the third "personal dungeon", Ajaka Canyon, which now gives twelve moonstones as a reward for its completion, plus 50,000 gold and some experience and skill exp. Rage picked up almost 43,000 gold along the way as drops from the various monsters, too, while Blood Mistress Kamira, the level 38 end boss, dropped a "Bloodlust", rather appropriately, though that just happens to be the name of the level 37 titan sword. This one was +1, and not very valuable, I imagine, with all the level 33 +10 weapons around. The actual experience from the fighting was 0.89%, with the quest reward (doubled by the Elizabuff) adding another 0.95%; the skill exp side gave 13 from the fighting and 16 as the reward. Well, it made a change from Prokion Temple.

A different type of Parade was scheduled for later, starting at ten, UK time, on Katar. "GMs will lead a Parade event on each server," the website reported. "It will be short and simple, from the West Gate to the Windmill, to the bridge north of West Gate, to the northern town and down to North Gate. The exact route is up to the discretion of each individual GM leading the parade, but this route will take ten minutes tops."

Well, it sounded unusual, but worth attending one of, just to see where a "northern town" might be - My level 2 mage on Katar, Enchantrella, went out to investigate. [GM]JediMike appeared right on time, and led us quickly over the course - the "northern town" seemed to be the house or two on the hill where the jaguars roam, though we didn't actually go up there. Mike kindly pointed out the elder wolves, and dire wolves, and the bridge, as we went, and the magical herbs where they grew - and at the north gate, spawned us some of our favourite prizes.

After a few minutes of chat, so that we can confirm that his name really is Michael, at about a quarter past the hour he spawned a second set of loot, and left us... so, seeing that loot was involved, it seemed worth following him to Cariae, where my level 20 healer Telzey showed up at the west gate. This time he actually spawned a few things at the start - not hands, but I did end up with three effort scrolls and a cake. The event itself was otherwise very similar to the previous one.

And throughout, SirGalahad kept hard at work, so that his dragon hatchling was close to level 15 by the time the computer was turned off.

Parade Time

I left MistressDomino on both Tairen-1 and Auzura-1 in merchant mode overnight - handy that they were on different accounts, though on some servers they do clash. On Tairen MD took in a respectable 38 million in gold - as I had rather large stocks of some goodies, over on Auzura she took in almost six times as much.

SirGalahad took over at breakfast time on Tairen, though, and got a couple of hours work done in Maargadum Jail before it was time for Memree and RedRyder to head for Prokion Temple on Tairen-5. It may be the weekend, but it was also Sunday morning, and the place was pretty quiet. It took less than a quarter of an hour for Memree to reach level 31, and get her own +10 30/32 armour set, and level 33 weapons; that part of the session was exclusively on orc fighters, giving on average 2400 skill exp each, to both my rogues, but once Memree had levelled up that fell to about 1700 skill exp - less than one would get from an ordinary monster of one's own level, assuming the Elizabeth's Enhancement was in operation.

For a while, perhaps twenty minutes, Memree and RedRyder moved into the back room nearby to fight orc axemen and orc sergeants, which certainly gave a lot more experience, even to Red as the non-fighting member of the combat party. The skill exp was increased too, but that must have been counterbalanced to some extent by the longer time it took to kill each one. After that we went back out to the orc soldiers, and a few orc fighters, as Memree's experience gain had been surprisingly swift. By the end of the session Memree had gone up 21.19% (giving the Discipline guild 118 guild points), and Red had added 5.32% (20 guild points) - they had each gained 176 skill points.

There was just time after that for Memree to give back the +11 30/32 armour set she had borrowed to Rage, who will thus now be able to play again, before SirGalahad reported for duty at lunch time.

For the afternoon, Tairen's Kaerella had another session, starting with killing 17 clever foxes of the desert for an outstanding quest - which led me along to Shuraine's oasis, so I took the opportunity to farm the second ten soft sands Kae should need, though she hasn't got that quest yet, from the sand golems there. After that, Kae moved on to Prokion Temple - and went for the room a little further in, with its mix of orc soldiers and mummies, which seemed about right for her at level 24. The mummies went blue-named when she reached level 25, but still gave useful skill exp, and so the session continued. I wanted to get 250 skill points, so that Kae could learn the first and most sp-expensive level of the Resurrection skill - and I did manage that before the end. In all Kaerella added 95.65% and 268 skill points, plus 155 guild points and 1797 pet points.

After the food break, it was time for the succession of Valentine's Day parades, to celebrate three years since Last Chaos came out of its initial Beta period... one parade per server, at 30 minute intervals, starting at five o'clock UK time on Katar-4.

The parades were a bit of a mixed bunch. [GM]Stratos appeared punctually for the first one, and led us around town before spawning some anti-love monsters outside the north gate, which we despatched, earning a modest loot drop - I think Kaerella got a couple of item drop boosters and a skill point booster. I think he did make a single drop of cake and watermelon items right at the start, but they vanished so quickly that I didn't get a chance to grab any.

I had been thinking of taking Kaerella along to every parade, but, given that some of the monsters spawned by [GM]Stratos had been pretty high level, it seemed sensible to let my level 101 archer Barbarienne be my representative for the Cariae parade. This time one of the newbie game masters, [GM]Embla, was in charge. One downside to this was that she doesn't have a red name, which made her more difficult to spot and to track, so that sometimes a few people would head off in a new direction and people would assume the GM was in the group and follow. But she was a lot more generous with her drops, with plenty of firecrackers and transformation scrolls appearing on the ground in front of her as she walked around town - and small chocolates, cake and watermelons as well. There were so many people trying to grab these things that even keeping one's finger on the "pick" button got me very few, though later on I tried to adopt a strategy of keeping up with her, or even slightly ahead, so that when a new set of items appeared, I could "pick" one or two. Again there was a spawning of monsters outside the gates of Randol, plus proper spawnings of hands and further groupings of chocolate and cake etc - all in all, a crazy and enjoyable half hour.

[GM]Stratos was back in charge for Sarissa, and followed [GM]Embla's example in dropping cake, small chocolates and watermelon as he led the parade around town. Kaerella, being only level 22, was content just to watch while a "cursed forest" of high-level treants was spawned in the Arena in town - I think I noticed the odd fluton peeping out through the foliage too. I got a disconnection while that was going on, I think a lot of people suffered from that sort of thing since there was just so much going on, with so many people in one place.

For Hatzring, I turned up as my local level 8 mage Enchantra, for a change, and managed to grab quite a few of the drops [GM]Embla bestowed upon us as she led us around town, since I was getting the hang of how things worked. Outside there was another mass spawning of monsters - "Don't worry, I'll take care of the foxes", I vowed, keeping well clear of the aptly-named death knights, as well as the wight slashers and other bad guys.

The final two parades didn't go too well for me, really. [GM]Stratos led us around Randol dropping the goodies on Auzura-4, but when it came to the monster spawn outside town, my level 73 rogue Rage suddenly found herself dead, so had to use a resurrection scroll, which is a relatively expensive piece of kit. I'd assumed that at her level death knights wouldn't do much damage, but either something else sneaked up, or I got hit by a whole group of them at once. Still, I suppose the value of the small chocolates etc, and the regular hand-type drops like item drop boosters and so on, probably mean I came out ahead....it didn't help that I noticed around then that SirGalahad's drake had got killed by a death mask soldier which had got involved in his fight, though at level 20 it only cost 53,200 gold to "unseal" it.

Memree on Tairen got killed too; I really should have used her resurrection scroll, but I guess I'm so used to taking characters with no skill points to lose to a Mad Monster Spawn that I almost automatically opted not to use it, and thus Memree ended her parade session down by 2.62% experience and 63 skill points. Still, half an hour or so's work will soon put that right.

The Tairen parade somehow didn't work as smoothly for [GM]Embla as her previous parades had, and people were complaining about lag, and not having been able to pick anything up, and generally feeling that they had wasted their time. Memree herself contributed an ungracious "pffff" at the end, after a message that some farewell goodies were being dropped on the launching pad, after the loot spawned outside, after some (fatal) monster-slaying, had added up to about two tool aids and a large defence potion each. I think she just got a transformation scroll or so at the spawning point in the middle of Randol.

[GM]Stratos was there too by then, and quickly announced a special "Mad Monster Spawn" outside the gate. After the earlier death. Memree kept at the edge of that fight - she really didn't want the "empty" experience, without any skill exp, that contributing to the death of a high-level monster would bring. But Tairen people did manage to kill what the GM spawned, including a fluton and a patriarch botis, so this was a strong message that the new server was ready to host a weekly high-level MMS, as well as the low-level one.

That added bonus meant that we were starting to get messages about the Quiz Room being open before the end, so that was the next item on the evening's agenda. SirGalahad logged out, and Memree, to be replaced by MistressDomino and Kaerella, on Tairen-2 as usual. The quiz is in theory 12:30 PST (8:30 UK time) to 12:45, but again there were quite long gaps between questions, so it took us almost half an hour to get to the end. We didn't lose many people along the way, everyone seemed to remember that the number of NPCs in Dratan City is 27 rather than 29, and the desert only has 5 rather than 7 oases. Some of the easier questions have had to be withdrawn as they no longer apply - though the number of (sub) servers question still offers 24 or 30, with 30 correct, although with Tairen running Last Chaos now has 36.

So, we got to the end safely, and Kaerella's new goodies were moved across to MistressDomino. Memree and RedRyder also traded their saleable stuff across to MD, so that she'll be ready for another selling session soon, and then SirGalahad logged back on, and returned to his death mask lancer. By the end of the evening, his drake had started on level 21, so is probably just about ready to be exchanged for a lower-level one, such as Kae's.