A New Friend

The two pet-levellers kept busy through the night again; SirGalahad did manage to attract the attention of the nearest death mask soldier once, but luckily it confined its attacks to him, leaving the pale blue horse alone. Curiously, when Gal equipped his sword and began attacking the soldier, it did then do a single point of damage to the horse - but after it was killed, things went back to normal.

The after-coffee session for Memree and Kaerella on Tairen-5 was rather interrupted by various things; I'd leave the computer for a couple of minutes and come back to find every orc in the room furiously attacking Memree, but luckily with her +10 armour set she can withstand such punishment.

At the end of the session Memree had gained another 6.62%, so she will still need another couple of similar sessions before reaching level 39, which will surely make her the Temple's oldest inhabitant. Or maybe not, I have seen night shadows, who are a minimum of level 90, there, even on non-PvP subservers, just to gather souls, which they need for the use of some skills I think. Anyway, Memree had earned 126 guild points for Discipline; Kaerella had contributed 19, while going up by 4.92%, and they had each gained 122 skill points, taking Kaerella over the 3k mark.

The pet-levellers were back in action over lunch, and SirGalahad on Tairen soon got his horse into its final level, 36. with Galahad on Cariae getting his horse into level 31 soon after.

For the afternoon, I went back to Sarissa, with SirDarth and Kaerella in, of course, Prokion Temple. At level 25, Kaerella was able to stay clicked on to SirDarth, and follow him around as he fought mainly mummies, but also some orc soldiers when they were available. Since it was a combat party, Kae just went up 17.37%, while Darth, who was doing the fighting, added 188.36%, moving up from level 21 to 23. They got 146 skill points each, though Kae's target at present is to get 250, so that she can learn that expensive first level of Resurrection.

My new friend was actually a rogue called xxxXfriendXxxx, who guessed that I was using two computers to play both SirDarth and Kaerella. I was explaining that SirDarth would probably become a pet-leveller, with his spare skill points used to level up the Discipline guild - she was saying that I should just buy a horse. And then she made a remarkable offer, she wanted both my characters to join her level 95 healer (who I think may be called ooiceoo) in a monster combo party, fighting the nivas and wight slashers. She would not only pay the admission costs, she would pay us 25 million gold per character per hour-long session, though of course she would keep all the master coins earned.

I rather assumed that she wanted to do that right away, but, after going back to town, she said that it was late in the evening in her part of the world, so I'm on call for a near-future occasion I guess. She has loaned us a level 29 +15 weapon. She seems to have a good collection of +15 weapons of various levels. She has given us some effort scrolls and health pots... and also given us four bits of the 30/32 armour set, three at the usual +10 and one at +9, which will be very handy for Darth before long. We were asked to pass on a similar kind of favour to someone else when we, or Kae at least, reaches a high level, which seems a nice idea.

After the break in Dratan and Randol, Kae and Darth returned to complete the session - another rogue was rather friendly too, TreTa, dropping a couple of useful rings; she asked to join our party, saying she was level 20, but when, after failing to add her to the combat party, I changed it to an equal type of party, she was revealed to be level 43, so she didn't stay long.

Later it occurred to me that, on past experience, taking a low-level person into a monster combo does tend to boost their experience rather a lot, even if they are "capped" by higher-level team members. That wouldn't matter for SirDarth, but would rather mess up Kaerella's skill point gain - so it seemed like a good idea to develop a substitute character on Sarissa. Start a new healer or a new rogue from level 1? In the end I decided that a mage in their twenties would be useful for buffs... and Keerella on Sarissa was already level 10.

So, after the early evening food break, Keerella and Kaerella logged in - though Kae just stayed around long enough to recruit Kee into the Guardian system, so that reaching level 20 would get Keerella the special "event weapon". Then SirDarth logged on, formed an equal party with Kee, they both got the Elizabuff...and off they went to Prokion Temple on Sarissa-5.

With Kee still in her starter armour, the policy was for her to stay safely in the corner of the entry hallway, while SirDarth fought mummies, ghouls, and, if he could reach them, the occasional orc soldier, while carefully making sure that Kee's orange dot remained fully visible in his compass-map.

The session wasn't hugely long, as there was a "Storm the Castle" event scheduled for Auzura at seven o'clock, UK time, but I managed to get Keerella safely into level 18, while SirDarth himself added another 80.94%, getting him into level 24. They both gained 124 skill points.

[GM]JediMike was in charge of the "StC" event on Auzura-5, and started the announcements 15 minutes before the event, which helped bring in plenty of people - as did his announcement of a BBQ afterwards, heheh. I logged Rage in a little early, as I wanted to finish upgrading her armour, and for that I needed two extreme stones. Luckily Rage had, in storage, plenty of upgrade boxes; I only needed to open six of them to get what I needed, along with two runes of protection 1, a heaven stone, and a package of 5 platinum refining stones, used to, temporarily but without risk, upgrade an item by +1, +2 or +3. I hope that one or two of them will be +2 at least, so that Rage's +13 crossbow can function in the Tomb of Theos as a +15 one for a session or two...

Rage's boots had given 121 + 151 defence while at +12, but making them +13 moved the bonus on by another 19; similarly, her gloves had given 118 + 147 defence, but also added 19 more. That just leaves the matter of getting a set of bonus books of melding, and sending across a cover-costume for Rage, so that the +13s become, for a month, +14s... and then she will be ready for the Tomb.

When Rage arrived outside Merac Castle, there were at least a couple of dozen people there, including [GM]JediMike himself - what a change from the usual start! I got recruited into a party by the archer XxHelenaxX, which was a great luxury as she did some healing when necessary. Mike had made plenty of announcements, so people kept on arriving - and then it was time to start, and in we surged, to battle the usual monsters.

Male assassinbugs, thorny mantises, anubis archers, jumping devils, barren eises, zamaras, hell-otuu, anubis spear men, dark harpies - they were all present and correct, and we battled our way through them. There was one of the Strayana invisible "blood shadow" raid boss dragons to fight in the inner courtyard - I don't think there was anything hostile in the throne room itself, unless our vanguard killed them while the blood shadow was being dealt with. We were well inside the time limit, I think it all only took us ten minutes - and then the announcement came up that the loot was to be spawned back outside, so we all hurried back, and as usual we were all generously rewarded by the most generous of GMs.

The Cariae "StC" wasn't due until nine, so I had time to get Keerella and SirDarth back online for a while first. Kee spent her skill points, mainly on passive skills to increase her defence and hit points, after checking out the quests she had open - they got her 5.11% experience and 16 skill points. She finally got herself some up-to-date mage armour too. Back in Prokion Temple, this time, after taking Keerella clicked on to SirDarth into the middle of the action proved a bit dangerous, Darth tried one of the rooms at the end of the hall, and was able, in a round room, to fight quite a few orc soldiers, if he could get them into the half of the room nearest to Kee.

The place did get a bit busy, mainly with healers and rogues it seemed - annoyingly there was some ks-ing, and when an orc soldier I'd been fighting was pulled away by a ks-er, when it dropped a hand of the warrior the heaven stone was allocated to the ks-er since they had the aggro when it died. Still, Keerella managed to get up to level 20, finishing her apprenticeship; she gained 227.61% and 80 skill points. I just had time to get SirDarth into level 25, adding 72.15% (and 83 skill points - I guess three or four kills must have been out of range of Kee), before it was time for the Cariae storming of the castle.

This particular "StC" was quite a contrast to the Auzura one. For a start, though Barbarienne was no earlier arriving that Rage had been, she was the first person there. The first announcement came up at 5 minutes before the start, which made it pretty tight timing for people who had to ride or run down from town. Really it was only four of us that were there at the start; I asked for a party, and the level 111 titan BaronOfSweden added me, and gave me the useful titan warmaster buffs.

I found myself tanking a thorny mantis, when things started, but luckily someone managed to use Snare on it successfully before it hit my health too badly. An anubis spear man came for me too, and, as they tend to do when out of the Tomb, did a lot of damage, but he got dealt with as well. As the Baron was in the thick of the fighting, I was able to re-supply the horse buffs. Things were going well; more people arrived, including [GM]Cara... and then, just as we were finishing clearing the main courtyard, the monsters counter-attacked, with flutons, squads of death knights, wight slashers, and more. [GM]Stratos had arrived by then, too.

Still, we carved our way through this new threat - but then, once the castle was cleansed, rather than be told where the loot was to be spawned, we were told that there was a new threat to deal with, and we were given coordinates quite a distance across the map - which, when we got there, we found to be the Dread Garden, with its doom slayers and blood frenzies augmented by a mass of huge darkmind terrains and flutons.

We had enough high-level people to overcome them, and the loot was spawned there - but it was in Stratos-type amounts, so I ended up with about one of everything, though I did pick up two small chocolates too. And that was the end of the festivities.

Some people were not happy; if you didn't have a mount you'd have had difficulty reaching the Dread Garden in time, and our lower-level people would have been in mortal peril if they'd tried to pick up loot, with doom slayers and blood frenzies respawning there. The unexpected death knights back in the main courtyard would have been a nasty and probably fatal shock, too.

Sarissa's event was starting at half past nine; I had been intending to go to it, but taking either Kaerella or SirDarth along would have been pretty suicidal if Cara and Stratos were planning the same extra entertainments again, so I decided to pass on that.

The weekly server maintenance was scheduled for the early hours of the morning, UK time, so there was no question of any overnight pet-levelling. Still, by the time SirGalahad logs out that pale blue horse destined for Tairen's Kaerella should be at least a third of the way into level 36.

A Different Server

Since the computers had had most of the day off yesterday, they both stayed on all night, with my pair of pet-levellers hard at work; on Tairen-4 SirGalahad got the pale blue horse for Kaerella into level 34, while on Cariae-4 Galahad's horse reached 28.

After coffee Memree and Kaerella took over the computers, and headed for Prokion Temple on Tairen-5 in their usual way. I didn't get any visitors or interruptions, so that Memree was able to earn another 8.71%, which brought in another 165 guild points, taking her total donation to over the 10k mark. Kaerella went up by 6.49%, bringing in 25 guild points, and they both added 157 more skill points. It all continues to be a viable if slow way to gain skill points, though it will be interesting to see what happens when Memree next levels up, reaching 39.

The pet-levellers were back in action over lunch, allowing Galahad on Cariae to get his horse into level 29. Then it was time to log my Cariae cleric, the original Kaerella, in over on Cariae-4.

Kaerella managed to join a solo party right away - and not only did the level 137 titan meatmog join it a little later, we also had a level 151 royal knight, xDevilSoulx, in our group. Kae went out to her elite sphinx speer man, and had two hours, using a platinum blessed iris for each, plus an experience booster for every elite. The first hour used 38 xpbs, and brought in 43.10%, plus 18 skill points and 868 pet points; the second hour just used 32 xpbs, and brought 36.39%, along with 16 skill points and 909 pet points.

Kae went up to level 64 during the first hour, which means she has a new quest waiting - to kill some spiders in the Temple of Forgetfulness. There are plenty of quests in Egeha too, which Kaerella would now be eligible to take, but they can be done any time over the next dozen or so levels, and there is definitely no hurry in confronting some of the Egeha monsters involved. I can't say that I feel any particular rush to take Kae into that particular temple either; if I wait until she is level 66 I can do another quest, to kill legendary slayers, at the same time.

Strangely, the "Sunday" special event offering 100 skill points as a prize was still being advertised today, with the last GM announcement coming a few minutes after four in the afternoon, UK time - that may only be nine in the morning on America's west coast, but that was still well into Monday.

For the evening session, it was time for a change of pace, so I decided to do some work on the Sarissa server, where Kaerella was level 23. I'd previously got my knight there, SirDarth for a change (well, one can have too many Galahad variants around...), to level 10, and added Prokion Temple to his memory scroll, so it was just a matter of logging Kaerella in, and SirDarth, on Sarissa-5, getting the Elizabeth's Enhancement buff, forming an equal party (since they were within 15 levels of each other), making Darth Kae's apprentice in the Guardian system, and heading for Prokion Temple.

As SirDarth was still in his starter armour, except for level 6 "Tigulated" shirt and pants, he just stayed in the Temple's entirely safe entry hall, and Kaerella fought ghouls and mummies close by, being careful to keep Darth's dot on her compass-map. So, he got a half share of the skill exp, and his share of the experience too, though as he was lower in level it wasn't a full half of that. It was plenty to keep him moving up through the levels, though, and it didn't take more than about two hours to get him to level 20, so that he completed the Guardian system and got his special "event weapon" Light of Odin sword.

They logged out and respawned back in Randol, swapping over computers so that SirDarth was on the main one now. He had a few quests to do, for reaching level 20, which brought in some useful gold; he had a couple of Lorraine's treasure chests to open as well, for gold and candy. The important quest though was to get the knight "neckless" from his skills trainer.

Once he had safely obtained and identified, and equipped, the "neckless", Kaerella traded across the three level 21 weapons she had picked up during the fighting. Converted into six smelting stones, they were just enough to get Darth's new sword up to +3.

Kaerella had reached level 25; I'll have to consider going to the Sunday Quiz on Sarissa one week to try to get some heaven stones, so that we can have a little gold there to afford new weapons and armour. She also had a quick quest to do in Juno - and there were ones to pick up in Dratan too.

SirDarth and Kaerella returned to Prokion Temple; he'd got a relatively recent helm now as a quest reward, plus a pair of Templar boots that Kaerella had picked up in Velpist temple a while ago, and purchased a level 25 shield, so that, even though he was still wearing the Tigulated shirt and pants, his armour was much improved. He'd also been able to learn the passive skill to increase his health regeneration, and had had just enough skill points for all five levels of the Divine Shield armour buff.

So, Kae and Darth were a fighting team now, and ventured in among the ghouls and mummies together, also taking on the occasional orc soldier. We got fairly close to my favourite back room, though going in there would have been suicidal. Someone was busily fighting the orc soldiers in a room and passageway close by, but not bothering to pick up the loot drops - so Darth was able to grab a pair of level 26 Radiant leggings, and, as he'd reached level 21 by then, put them on. He still needs the matching shirt-armour though.

The level 18 rogue KRAZYkiller was fighting next to us, and asked to join the party - so we teamed up for the last part of the session, which saved her quite a few health potions I think. She just managed to reach level 19 before she had to log out; and it was time for Kae and Darth to call it a night, too.

So, SirDarth has got up to halfway through level 21 now. The plan is for him to be a pet-levelling guild master, like SirGalahad on Tairen, and hopefully manage to train up a pale blue horse for Kaerella, as that seems to be what she expects on whichever server she is active on. Kaerella levelled up twice, and is now almost a third of the way through level 25, though we will soon have to get SirDarth higher than her, so that he can lead in a combat party, to build up her skill point stash.

The two current pet-levellers logged back on for the last part of the evening, and SirGalahad soon got his pale blue horse, for Tairen's Kaerella, into level 35. That level is liable to take twelve hours or so, and the following level even longer, but the end of that particular job does seem to be in sight now.

The Invisible Visitor

I did leave both the currently-active pet-levellers in action last night, since I knew that the computers and the modem would be getting a rest during the hours of daylight today. So, before my usual breakfast time, instead of logging on, they were logging off - with SirGalahad's pale blue horse on Tairen-4 an hour into level 33, and XxGALAHADxX's horse on Cariae-4 almost four hours into level 26.

So, we did have some activity today, though from 6:30am UK time, for twelve hours or so, the computers were off while I was out. I got Last Chaos running again at about seven in the evening, which was in good time for the Sunday Quiz - which, while the US and UK clocks are out of sequence for two weeks, was at 7:30pm for Britain, as opposed to the usual 8:30pm.

MistressDomino was first to log in, on as usual for the Quiz Tairen-2, and found that the Quiz Room was still not open, even though by then it was a couple of minutes past seven. Normally the rooms, on each subserver, open at least half an hour before the event is due to begin, but today it was more like twenty minutes. In case Tairen-2 had a glitch, Kaerella logged in on Tairen-4; she found that subserver's room open, and was the first to arrive in it.

MistressDomino reported to the other people standing by the Domain Merchant that the T4 room was open - but then, when she tried to enter the T2 room again, that time she did get in, the second person to arrive. So, Kaerella moved across to our usual Quiz subserver, and joined MD.

I didn't notice the usual plethora of announcements about the Quiz, just the one notification that the rooms were now open, just after Kae had joined MD. No "exploiters will be handled", no "Quiz is about to start" - just the window for the first question popping up, a minute or so after half past seven.

The Quiz moved along quickly, as it did last week, so I was kept busy moving Kaerella and MistressDomino independently - I did move to the wrong side on one question, but soon realised my mistake, and both characters were able to move back to safety before the countdown got perilously low. The questions were the ones we have come to know and love, and hardly anyone got lost along the way - the ten tool aids, ten moonstones, and five plus ten heaven stones all duly arrived in our inventories.

There were 23 questions in all, though the last prizes arrive when 20 have been successfully completed. The last three questions were all repeats, though there are others in the database that they could have used, I'm sure. Kaerella and MistressDomino didn't bother to get the last one wrong to leave, as they would be logging out anyway; Kae trade the newly-received heaven stones and moonstones across to MD, and then they both logged out.

Having the Quiz early meant that there was room for a reasonably lengthy session after it, so Memree logged in on Tairen-5, and was joined by Kaerella there. They formed a combat party, got the Elizabeth's Enhancement buff - and headed for Prokion Temple. I had hoped that we would be quick enough to grab my favourite back room, but it was already being used. The corridor room nearby was vacant, but I decided that one so often gets someone coming along and killing half the orcs that it wasn't a good place to start work, so we ran across to the mirror side, and settled into a couple of small rooms between that half's corridor and back rooms, as it seemed to have a reasonably good supply of orc axemen and orc sergeants.

Memree and Kaerella stayed there for almost two hours. We had one visitor, a sorcerer called PILLOW, but he had the usual glitch that sorcs often get with their stone skin buff, and was invisible. I could see his name and his spirits, but not him, and, while I assume he was ks-ing me, Rage remarked that, as he was invisible, it was impossible to her to avoid ks-ing him.

He did ask to join the party, but Rage had to say that as she was level 38, that would cut down on his experience gain too much. So, after that he did move along to the next room, thankfully - it wasn't as if the mirror half was crowded, there were plenty of places he could solo.

By the end of the session, Memree was up by 14.01%, which meant that she had earned 266 guild points - another couple of sessions like that and she will overtake Rage (or xRAGEx) as the biggest supplier of guild points to Discipline on Tairen. Kaerella went up by 12.29%, which was enough to get her into the start of level 29. Now she will be able to use her level 33 +10 bow, when necessary. Her share of the experience meant that 39 more guild points went to Discipline. And they each gained 214 skill points, which takes Memree over the 7k mark.

Talking of skill points, there was a special raffle event today, with no purchases necessary. To qualify for a chance to win the Grand Prize, all you have to do is use skill point boosters - the more you use, the better your chance. There will be sixty lucky winners, with ten chosen per server. The prize isn't master packs or master stones, instead - drum roll please - it's one hundred skill points. Which strikes me as most peculiar, as to almost any character that's a tiny prize. In Prokion Temple you could get that many skill points from using 13 skill point boosters, or even without boosters it would only take a few minutes, if you were fighting monsters your own level. Even going slowly, to get skill exp without too much experience, Kae or Memree each get that in less than an hour. So, a rather small deal. Perhaps it is aimed more at high-level players - but at level 100-ish, new skills tend to cost around a thousand skill points per level. So, why wasn't the prize one or two thousand? To make such a "song and dance" about such a small prize seems weird.

Anyway, once Kaerella and Memree were safely out of the way, SirGalahad and his Cariae equivalent got back into action for a while. Galahad's Cariae horse ought to be getting fairly close to level 27 before my rather long day comes to its close.

Extra Concentration

SirGalahad on Tairen-4 and his Cariae-4 equivalent both stayed busy overnight with their pet-levelling duties, so that SirGalahad got his pale blue horse to level 31, the first level at which it could be mounted, by mid-morning; level 37 is what we are aiming for though as usual, for the full-strength horse buffs. Galahad (or XxGALAHADxX to be precise, the simpler versions of good names get snapped up quickly) on Cariae got his horse to level 24 soon after, having added three levels in his session.

One thing I'd been doing last night was to check my various characters on the different servers, to remind myself where stashes of good items and undownloaded item mall packages were, and as a consequence I was able to transfer a package of chaos smelting stones across to Rage on Auzura, to improve her armour rating before she does some Tomb of Theos work, hopefully next week. It was interesting to see how the defence on her boots increased; +8 gave a total of an extra 71 on top of the unaugmented number, +9 and +10 each added another 12 - and then at +11 an extra 38 got added, going down again to 18 more when I got the boots to +12, making a total of 151 extra, until I can add an extreme stone.

One thing I'd discovered during my checkings-around on various characters, their inventories and so on, was that on Auzura my royal knight, GALAHAD, was level 34 - but if I could get him to level 35 he would be able to learn one more level of Concentration, which would increase the boost to the chance of success with skills like Snare from 25% to 35%, and also double its duration from ten to twenty minutes. This particular Galahad doesn't have all his skills maximised, the main idea was for him to be able to give Concentration... he just needed a little more work.

So, this afternoon's trip to Prokion Temple wasn't on Tairen, it was on the Auzura server, and featured Galahad teamed up, in a combat party, with RedRider, my level 27 rogue who is set up to go along to low-level Mad Monster Spawns or other events, and is in the process of learning the special skills. The back room was free, so that's where we settled down.

We did have a visitor, a daggers-wielding rogue called PLaYeR, but she didn't stay very long. It seemed strange to be playing a knight, using dual swords, rather than a crossbow-wielding rogue - Gal would rush straight up to any orc I targeted, rather than fighting from a distance. Still, Red picked up the loot in a helpful way, including most of PLaYeR's, since she wasn't bothering to pick things up. The session was a reasonably long one, and Galahad did reach level 35 easily, going up by 44.60% in all and earning 500 guild points for the local branch of Discipline. RedRider added 29.29% and 72 guild points, and they each gained 304 skill points.

Back in Randol, Galahad spent 200 of his skill points to get that new level of Concentration - and is now officially ready to team up with Rage some time, to increase the chance of her Snare skill working. Then RedRider spent her newly-acquired skill points, plus 28 she already had, on the last two levels of expert weaponsmith. She has plenty more special skills to learn yet, though. She then headed for Misty Canyon, and let the first Introducer Cameo there kill her 23 times, to get her experience back down to the start of level 27 again.

For the evening session, it was time for my Cariae cleric Kaerella to head out to the sphinx types again, this time just using a blessed iris for three hours. After a few false starts I managed to get a solo party going, including the level 122 player Quqluque, and we had a bit of a general discussion about Last Chaos, past and future. Memories of demon parties, and hopes that the skill points cost of the higher level skills might one day be reduced to something a bit more realistic. As it is, high-level characters, particularly night shadows, have to earn a heck of a lot of sp, fighting creatures a lot less forgiving than orcs. "No wonder Koreans drop dead in cyber cafes", I commented...

Kaerella just basically slogged away for the three hours; luckily there was the "Turbo" event running for most of the time, without any announcements, which added an extra 50% to both experience and skill exp. In all Kaerella went up by 34.64%, along with 70 skill points and 2466 pet points. At that rate her next session ought to see her level up again.

SirGalahad had continued with hsi pet-levelling while Kae was out killing the elite sphinx speer man and his friends, and got his horse into level 32 about halfway through Kae's session. There still seems a long way to go before level 37 is reached though. Will that be the last horse I need to level on Tairen? Time will tell, I suppose.

A Timely Storming

While I was busy working downstairs, the pet-levellers continued their good work. SirGalahad on Tairen-4 got back to Maargadum Jail before breakfast, and Galahad on Cariae-4 went off to his pair of bandits shortly after that, after using the eight stat points his horse had gained on the Armour Increase buff. Before 9:30 both pets had levelled up, reaching 28 and 19 respectively.

By late afternoon Galahad's horse had reached level 21, but it was time for him to log out - and Rage to log in over on Auzura-4 for [GM]Noboru's version of Storming the Castle in Merac.

Unlike the [GM]Stratos version yesterday, we got the proper "starting in a few minutes" announcements; we didn't actually start bang on four o'clock, UK time, as Noboru wanted to make sure everyone who wanted to come had a chance to reach us, but at around five past, the usual monsters appeared, and the fight began. Luckily Rage didn't have to tank anything, just provide artillery fire and Snare, plus Flame Arrow - she used the last of her Christmas-time mana-providing candy canes. Clearing the outer courtyard of its anubis spear men, and hell-otuu and dark harpies, took a while, but at last we reached the throne room where, as [GM]Noboru had warned us, a couple of flutons were waiting.

There were a few deaths in the final room; I think a royal knight who fought the fluton I was firing on might have survived if he'd thought to give me, and one or two other rogues, the Concentration buff, to increase the chance of Snare succeeding. I didn't get into any trouble, myself, and the GM judged that we had finished within our time limit - so we were invited back out to the starting area, where the proper traditional fatly-packed circles of loot were quickly spawned. I'd rather have loot like that than the extra "counter-attack" monsters [GM]Stratos provided, followed by his small loot spawnings.

There's always a moment after a StC has been successfully completed when one wonders where to go next - a good GM like Noboru or Valsharyn will quickly say where the loot will be spawned, or indeed where other monsters can be found. It can be unfortunate if we are left to guess where to go, and people can miss out, if they stay inside and the loot is outside, or rush outside not realising that the loot is even then being spawned in the inner courtyard, or even the throne room itself.

After the food break, it was a matter of deciding how to spend the evening. The main options seemed to be either my Cariae cleric Kaerella out with the sphinx types for the duration of a blessed iris, or my Tairen healer (and archer-to-be) Kaerella tagging along with Memree to Prokion Temple, for the duration of the Elizabeth's Enhancement buff. It seemed to me that the Tairen duo was slightly more appropriate, at least if I was able to find a place for them, so I logged them both in, got the buff, and headed out to the Temple.

I was in luck, in that the back room I prefer was free, and I had the room to myself for most of the time. A level 30 knight called JacKsen came in for a while, but didn't really slow me down much. We chatted a bit, and he told me he had had his old account, with a character over level 70, hacked, so had just started again. He'd got his new knight to level 30 in one day; he was using a blessed iris, which would help speed things along; he assured me that it did "stack" with the Elizabuff, which would make it useful.

Since he didn't yet have the +10 armour set, he left after a while, for a less arduous room, though he did return once just to give Memree an armour buff, which was kind. In my last few minutes before the Elizabuff ended a rogue called Eestijaan came in and started busily fighting the orc sergeants and axemen, but she definitely wasn't wearing any sort of 30/32 armour set, so got through health potions rather quickly, and retreated to the orc soldiers outside.

I left when the buff ran out. By then, Memree had gone up by 19.49%, so by my calculations it would take about seven more hours before she reaches level 39, as things go; she earned 369 guild points for Discipline. Kaerella got 17.44%, so it should only take her two more hours to get to level 29 - I hope that Memree's experience gain doesn't fall too much when that happens. Discipline gained 53 more guild points from her. And they each got 355 skill points, so Kae's stash of unused sp is starting to grow. Some skill points will need to be spent at levels 30, 32 and 35, of course, but Kaerella has plenty of levels of sp-farming ahead of her...sigh...

SirGalahad logged back in, and was able to have his horse learn two more levels of Magical Defence

, as it had levelled up twice since his last appearance in Randol. He headed for Maargadum Jail, as usual. The halfway point in level 29 should be reached before I go off to bed.

I think I managed to get far enough ahead with my downstairs work today to be able to have an afternoon session tomorrow, as well as the evening one. There don't seem to be any exciting events coming up to report on, generally Tuesday to Friday are the busiest days for those. I see that next week the main "Storm the Castle" rota moves to Tuesday, with the "Mad Monster Spawns" remaining on Wednesday. "World Defence" moves from Friday to Thursday, but that never has its timing announced in advance, so is not something I often encounter, as if I'm on a different server I'll never hear about it. Fighting high-level monsters at the very gates of the city is always risky stuff, anyway, and if it is [GM]Stratos in command, one just knows that any loot rewards will be minor.

Storming Castles

SirGalahad did stay in action overnight on Tairen-4 in Maargadum jail - and XxGALAHADxX kept busy fighting his pair of bandits in Merac on Cariae-4 too. When moving SirGalahad back a bit from the central pathway I did manage to attack a beast crawler by mistake, and took a heavy magical hit - but I managed to run to the exit before it could hit me again, and so survived.

After breakfast it seemed a good idea to restart SirGalahad's game, since it had been running non-stop for quite a while; the pale blue horse had gone up four levels since Gal was last in Randol, so this time I used the stat points to get four levels of magical defence for a change, instead of physical defence.

I had posted a grumble about Auzura getting missed out of the low-level MMS sequence yesterday in the "Events" part of the Last Chaos forum, and this morning I found that [GM]Cara had responded, apologising for the mistake they'd made; they did run the Auzura event as soon as they realised, but that must have been while I was elsewhere. Since they do ask for feedback, I posted my own response:

Ah, it's good to know that Auzura did get one eventually, thanks. :)

I was able to get along to the Katar and Auzura high-level Mad Monster Spawns that you hosted, and was very impressed with the "new look", with lots of monsters spread out across just about the whole of the valley. The monsters seemed very well placed, so that with teamwork we could pick them off as we swept round, and it was great to have you there on the spot encouraging us. The bonus purple dragons, darkmind terrains and flutons at the end were good too, I think everyone appreciated them.

Perhaps the low-level MMS needs a new look too. That scheduling problem aside, it is fine that there are no advance announcements, just the "is now starting" one - I know that [GM]JediMike wants people to look at the website schedules and prepare accordingly, so people who take the trouble to be there waiting get the most out of the event. However, if the event starts on the hour, and by seven minutes past the last of the loot is being picked up (which was about the timing on Katar and Cariae) and the "is now over" announcement appears, well, as events go that is a bit short. Sarissa and Hatzring lasted longer, just because they had lower turn-outs I think. Our GM must have been in a hurry to go, as at both of those events he spawned the loot before many of the more difficult monsters had been dealt with, leading to problems and people dying.

Personally I don't enjoy an event as much where there is no GM in sight, and no chat with a GM, just him pushing a few buttons for the starting announcement, the monster spawning, the prize spawning, and the closing announcement. I do like to feel that, for a while at least, we are the most important window on his desktop.

Can't we have multiple waves at the low-level event? Probably Tairen got multiple waves, since they don't yet get a high-level MMS, but I missed that one. People at the other events were certainly ready for more monsters, and hung around hopefully for a few minutes.

We seem a little short of "Pharaoh's Treasure" events outside Auzura these days, which is a shame. I can well do without the spawnings of Pandora's Beasts, they strike me as pointless as the beasts don't drop anything better than any other monsters of a similar level, and are protective in large numbers in a small area, which can be a recipe for disaster. Now, if it was Pandora's [i]Boxes[/i] that were spawned, that would be a bit more interesting...

Anyway, as expected, there wasn't any active LC playing for me during the day. SirGalahad and his Cariae equivalent continued their good work, however, with the Cariae pony transforming into a level 16 horse at around nine in the morning - and reaching level 18 before Galahad had to log out, to allow Kaerella to go online for the Auzura-4 "Parade" event which, with the different timings we have for this fortnight, was scheduled for 4:00pm, UK time.

[GM]Noboru was in charge, and as usual dropped a generous number of dire wolf, jaguar, sasquatch, and drake scrolls, plus firecrackers, and led us around town in a suitably leisurely way. She stayed for the full half hour, giving out more scrolls, and gently deflecting requests for jaguar collars. And of course she reminded us that a "Pharaoh's Treasure" event was due to follow after a gap of ninety minutes.

As usual the transformation scrolls meant that there were one or two rather small people around, not to mention a bright scarlet cube. The actual transformation seems to involve the player shrinking before they change, so size problems aren't too surprising. We didn't get a tiny, or petite, GM this time, though I did notice that, on my screen at least, her sasquatch wasn't as tall as mine by a foot or so.

Kaerella, my level 67 archer, was out in Juno in time for the "Pharaoh's Treasure" event, and indeed I discovered a group of the sphinx soldiers and speer men before the list of coordinates was announced, and fought a few of those until then. I rode north - and the third spot I found was the treasure location, with [GM]Noboru and four or five people already gathering loot. So, I quickly dismounted, said "Hi", and joined in.

There were plenty of waves of loot, and the Pharaoh sent a couple of platoons of his fighters (and speer men) to attack us, though [GM]Noboru, mindful that some people there were low level, was always careful to spawn such things off to the side. The Pharaoh even sent a Patriarch Botis, followed by a fluton, but luckily we had enough rogues to keep them under control, and enough high-level people to damage them relatively quickly.

Kaerella herself only did about 124 damage, though more for a critical or deadly hit - and that is with a level 69 +15 bow. With all the loot she was able to pick up, her inventory weight went over 100%, decreasing her dexterity - and I think the damage she did may well have dropped by a point or two.

There was time for a tiny bit of downstairs work, again, before the sequence of "Storm the Castle" events began at 7:00pm. As usual the GMs were running them two at a time, so I opted for RAGE on Auzura-5, as opposed to a lower level character on Tairen-5...though Tairen, I could tell from SirGalahad's screen, was getting advance announcements 15 and 10 minutes before the event, and Auzura wasn't.

And then I had a bad idea - I logged out SirGalahad on the older machine, and logged in my level 41 rogue xRAGEx, who did have the Merac castle location on her memory scroll. Partly I suppose because I wasn't giving that screen 100% attention, this version of Rage managed to die three times, losing 367 skill points and 2.42% experience. The third time was the annoying one, as [GM]Stratos spawned some monsters back up the road where he puts down the loot, and Rage died pretty much instantly, not knowing what hit her.

Still, at least the Tairen event started on time; Rage of Auzura was able to tell JadaMarie that, since we were about the only people there. Tairen managed just about the full range of StC monsters, and did it within the time limit. Of course with Stratos the loot rewards were extremely puny, but I managed to pick up one skill point booster, one item drop booster, three large defence potions, and five tool aids, plus three small HP recovery potions and one small mana recovery potion. Not much compensation for the skill points lost - but then, that particular rogue isn't intended to get to level 100 or anything, she ought just to end up as a useful mid-level character.

Possibly because Tairen's Rage did ask about the Auzura "StC", [GM]Stratos did finally start things off at about ten past the hour there, spawning the usual monsters by the bridge and making a first announcement. To his credit, he did make other announcements exhorting people to join us, and he did forget about the time limit. We started off small, but grew to quite an army - though as usual things were slow to begin with, particularly on the anubis spear men. There was an invisible blood shadow dragon, but this one was in the outer courtyard, so some people were fighting it while the rest of us were still clearing out the hell-otuu and spear men from the far end, but things went okay, and we cleared the castle out.

[GM]Stratos summoned us back to his usual spot up the road, and things were a bit more elaborate this time - a squad of wight slashers and wraiths, along with death knights, bore down on us, and had to be despatched, before the usual darkmind terrains and purple dragons spawned. And by this particular GM's standards, the drops were almost generous, it wasn't just one thin heap he treated us to, but three or four. I got three tool aids, three large attack potions, a large defence potion, an item drop booster, seven small HP recovery potions, and two small mana recovery potions. Not a huge compensation for quite a lengthy fight, but I think I did pick up a little gold early on.

SirGalahad logged back in and retreated to the relative safety of Maargadum Jail, with his horse recently started on level 27; the Cariae "StC" was scheduled for nine o'clock, UK time, so I had a little time to spare before that. Katar was also due to start then, but fighting at two events at once is definitely hazardous to my health.

After taking Sarissa's Kaerella down to Merac Castle to get the location onto her memory scroll, and getting MistressDomino on Sarissa up to level 4, it was time for Barbarienne to head for the Cariae castle-storming. We were quite a powerful group right from the start, helped no doubt by the announcements that [GM]Stratos carefully made. We carved our way through the regular monsters, though apart from a sphinx commander or two, I think, the inner courtyard was strangely empty.

However, Stratos then summoned us to his favourite place back along the road towards Merac Caron, and things were more elaborate than last time, with the wight slashers, wraiths and death knights, followed by darkmind terrains and flutons, so that it was as big a battle, fighting the monster "counter-attack", as the actually storming of the castle - we fought our way back up the road far enough to reach the region's regular monsters. The loot was if anything slightly more generous, though nothing to write home about, and as usual a few purple dragons got dropped on us just after we'd finished grabbing the loot - it seems to be the Stratos way of saying goodbye.

I was assuming that the Sarissa event, half an hour later, would be run by [GM]Stratos too, but instead we had someone who wished to remain anonymous. This was a more basic "StC", though it had all the usual monsters for the actual storming, including the sphinx commanders and an invisible blood shadow dragon in the inner courtyard. My level 23 archer there, Kaerella, probably didn't do an awful lot of damage to the monsters she targeted, but she did manage to stay alive.

I paused in the inner courtyard, as one is never sure with this event where the loot will be provided - and indeed that was where the clumps of loot did appear. Again it wasn't a huge amount, I think I just got one each of the skill point and item drop boosters, a few large attack and defence potions, and so on, but the people who had hurried back outside, expecting loot or further monsters there, were rather annoyed to find that they had missed out, and that there weren't any other monsters to fight - and the GM, if it was a GM, had departed, without really a proper goodbye message.

SirGalahad, meanwhile, had managed to get his horse past the halfway mark in level 27, before he logged out for the night. It's time to let that older computer have a rest for a few hours, I think.

Scheduling Problems

The patch last night was apparently a fairly large one, needing longer than the usual three hours to get up and running - though the announced fixes seem pretty minor to me. I think Mondshine-level people were annoyed that cancelled quests couldn't be restarted, but that applies to very few people. Apparently new level 90 night shadow characters still had the level 10 to 30 "event" treasure chests for Lorraine to open, and that has been stopped... oh, and we are assured that it will now be impossible to sit down in the Quiz Room. A late addition was a fix for a problem with the skills of the new jaguar pets, so that using those skills is no longer a ticket to a disconnection, it seems.

So, the game continues much as before. SirGalahad was able to log in at breakfast time, and, continuing in action all through the morning on Tairen-4, got his pale blue horse up a couple more levels, to 21. XxGALAHADxX, over on Cariae-4, got into action soon afterwards, and got his pony up four levels, to level ten, before it was time for the afternoon session to begin.

The session wasn't very long, by afternoon standards, as I needed to eat early, to be ready for the first of the low-level mad Monster Spawns. Still, it was longer than a morning session would have been, and featured Memree and Kaerella in the back room of Prokion Temple on Tairen-5.

I only had a single very brief visit from a sorcerer, just demonstrating that he would have used the room if I hadn't got things under control I guess. By the end of the session, Memree had added 12.84% and 244 guild points, and Kaerella had gained 11.48% and 36 guild points. And, more importantly, they'd both earned 237 skill points.

SirGalahad was able to log back on after that, and hurry back to level five of Maargadum Jail for some more pet-levelling. And then, at 4:30 UK time, the first of the low-level Mad Monster Spawns was due to begin.

Katar came first, so my level 31 rogue Memree was in attendance. The Kiene Tower appeared a few minutes before the start, and then bang on time the various spawns of monsters started popping up, and the official announcement for the MMS was given. So, we started with just three or four people, but pretty soon we had a pretty good attendance - so good in fact that it only took five or six minutes to kill all the monsters, so that by 4:37 we were all busily picking up the loot which [GM]Darasuum spawned.

My level 27 rogue on Cariae, Karella, had her turn at five o'clock, and things went pretty similarly. I got recruited into a party of four or five people, who were glad to find that Karella could supply horse buffs. We were just about all that were there to begin with, but once the announcement was made, plenty more people turned up.

Sarissa was the third server to get its junior MMS, and Kaerella went along to it, going up from level 22 to 23 on the great horn beasts while I waited. It was lucky I did level up, as at one point my health went down to just 2 hit points - someone, either accidentally or on purpose, had lured scores of elite goblin scouts, elite poison mists, and other higher-level type monsters, and ran a bit close to me, so that some of the blood leeches etc turned their attention to me. We had a lower turn-out, so that the event ran on for more like ten minutes before the last of the monsters were subdued. In fact the GM announced "The MMS is now over", and spawned the loot, when there were still quite a few monsters around, and one player complained afterwards that they had been killed while trying to pick up the loot, which isn't quite the idea.

On Hatzring, where Kaerella is level 24, I did manage to get killed once - I didn't think I was in danger at the time, a level 12 healer had just made a party with me and I was trying to add Party Heal to my bar. Still, Kae wasn't carrying many skill points, so it didn't matter, and I quickly teleported back. The turn-out must have been even lower than on Sarissa, as the event took more like twelve minutes. Again there were still monsters around when the loot was spawned, though luckily they seemed to have other targets on their mind when they passed me.

After that, things got a bit frustrating. The website events page for the day clearly said that Auzura came next, at 11:30 PDT, or 6:30pm UK time, so I took RedRider, my level 27 rogue, along there. The only other person to be waiting was a higher-level rogue called TazRogue.... and wait we did. After we'd waited at least 10 minutes past the proper starting time, I went on the forum shoutbox to ask what was happening about the Auzura low-level MMS. There didn't seem to be a gamesage around, but [GM]Ozymandias was there. Unfortunately, he completely ignored me, and soon vanished.

What had happened, I found out, was that Auzura had been skipped, and while I'd been waiting there, Tairen-5 had been having its MMS half an hour early...so I missed that one, which is usually the biggest and most enjoyable of the sequence, entirely. Whether there was an Auzura low-level MMS at some other time, I have no idea.

I was able to get along to the high-level Katar MMS at 8:00pm UK time, hosted by [GM]Cara - which is an improvement over the low-level ones, which were entirely anonymous and with no GM chat, except for one apology from [GM]Darasuum for being a bit slow with spawning the prizes. Cara was there in person, urging us on, and there were lots of high-level monsters over a wide area, which all had to be killed within twenty minutes. At level 31 Memree can't have hurt the monsters she attacked much, but I'm sure her Snare was very welcome. Once we had succeeded, Cara spawned some of the big purple dragons, and some darkmind terrains, and finished with a couple of flutons, before providing plenty of piles of loot, also over a pretty wide area. She also spawned some pet supplies, like thick milk, though it was another party member who picked those up.

The Auzura high-level MMS was at ten, and Rage was able to go along; she is decidedly mid-level, but again Snare was useful, as ever, and she can do substantial damage to a lot of the monsters, though less to flutons The new-style high MMS was again over a wide area, so people were dashing from one monster to the next, judges and introducers, golems and cave spirits. We only just managed to clear the whole valley inside the twenty minute deadline, but after that we got the same dragons, darkmind terrains, and flutons, and plenty of loot. So at least one Auzuran MMS was successfully completed.

SirGalahad had been busy all evening, so that his horse had got safely into level 23 before the end.