Time for the Tomb

The Katar server's version of MistressSabina might have taken a while to get going with her overnight selling, but things did start to roll along after a while. The golden soccer balls, despite being slightly cheaper than ten regular soccer balls, must have been just about the last things to sell - but by morning everything had gone, and Sabina's gold supply had gone up from 116,483 to 116,814,783, which ought to be useful next time Kaerella there needs a new weapon or set of armour.

RedRackham had pet-levelled through the night successfully on Cariae-5 as well, so that by morning his drake was moving steadily through level 29. Someone did "ks" him between breakfast and coffee, killing his gnoll lancer so he was left just standing there, but he was soon back in action.

MistressDomino checked with Roy's merchant mart on Auzura, looking for a good level 85 bow for Kaerella there, and there was still no sign of a +15 one... so I decided to buy a +14 Soul Rainbow Bow which had recently been added by PrinZHealer, for sale at 300 million. It was green-named with all five seals, so will just need the addition of a platinum refining stone to get it up to top form when I need it. It seemed like a good price to me, certainly someone else had recently put in a blue-named one, +13, with just four bloodseals, for the same money.

Kaerella's old level 69 +15 Eblin Bow had attack stats of 264 + 464 + 75, or 803; even without a "prs" her new Soul Rainbow Bow +14 manages 409 + 574, or 983, so is a substantial improvement, and using a +1 24-hour prs will bring back the +75 bonus, and boost the middle figure a bit. Her old bow has now been transferred across to MistressDomina, my level 67 wizard on Auzura, who got Collector Ryl to transform it into a Crai Staff... with magical attack stats of 360 + 633 + 50, or 1043, which sounds pretty impressive, though I don't think her attack speed is as good as an archer's.

That was enough excitement for the morning session; RedRackham went back to his pet-levelling, on Cariae-4 this time, joining Bobthewarrior and HoneyBun with the gnoll lancers... and, after sorting out some platinum refining stones for MistressDomina, I did some work downstairs.

After lunch, once MistressDomina had boosted her supply of green herb leaves with a little quick farming on Cariae-4, she headed for the Tomb of Theos entrance - and found that the Tomb was set to maximum easy. So, MrChuckNorris quickly logged in and went to join her, and they made an equal-type party and went in. MD then added her platinum refining stones to her armour to get it all temporarily to +15, started a crit potion, and attacked their first screaming zombie. Both she and Chuck triggered freshly-bought platinum blessed irises (level 61-90 variety), and away we went.

During the first hour, MistressDomina added 58.19% and MrChuckNorris added 58.79%, taking them both into level 68; the second hour brought another 55.21% for both MD and Chuck, since they were both the same level all the time, while the third hour earned MD 46.80% and Chuck 47.35%, as MD reached level 69 earlier than Chuck; the whole afternoon session, including another screaming zombie after the pbis had ended, gave MistressDomina 160.42% and MrChuck 161.56%. MD's drake added 2408 pet points, and Chuck's added 2043.

After the early evening food break, which Chuck and MD spent back by the teleporter, the campaign continued. They each got 52.04% during the first (or fourth) hour, as they were both in the same level; in the second hour MD reached level 70 a little while before Chuck, so got 50.55% to his 50.69%. MistressDomina was using a power potion now as well as a crit pot, to increase her armour as well as her attack, as she had been taking a little damage.

But it was time to change the strategy after that, so the party switched to a combat-type one, and Chuck moved further back, and just watched - so over the next two hours he just got 4.70% and 4.51%. MistressDomina though had a couple of "power hours", using, as well as a pbi still of course, the crit potion, the power potion, a platinum adrenalin, and a berserker potion...and the individual skill point boosters. 285.35% in the third hour of the evening session got MD into level 73, using 80 xpbs, and another 209.86% got her into level 75 by the end of the session, using another 77 xpbs.

The whole of the evening session saw MistressDomina add 610.42% and 3452 pet points, which were just enough to get her drake into level 39, while MrChuckNorris added 111.78% and 1317 pet points. They neither of them got a single skill point, but you can't have everything, right?

During the day we had had a couple of titans doing a bit of "ks-ing", with permission - at around level 32/33 they were too low to actually be in the party. The titan waka was the first, and stayed around for most of the afternoon; he overlapped with BrutalButcher, a player only recently returned to Last Chaos. He'd have liked to return for part of the evening session, but by the time he asked, I was almost ready to switch to MD using xpbs, which isn't a good time for ks-ing, as any experience someone else gains is lost twelve-fold by MD

It was lucky neither of them was around quite early in the evening when a mage called IIMidnightII, who had up until then seemed friendly, brought back a very large group of screaming zombies into the corridor, and used, I think, Chaos Nova on them, to greatly increase their attacking abilities. perhaps she had only got the first level or two of that skill, with playing such a trick in mind, as the lower levels boost the monsters' attack rather more than the higher levels. The zombies followed her, then gave up and started to move back - I didn't expect much difficulty, but in the end MistressDomina very nearly got killed, her health was down to not much more than 100 before she reached safety. Chuck didn't seem badly effected - though, left on his own to fight their original screaming zombie, he did have to use a few health potions before MD was able to move back to him.

There were other people who came and went, including an archer, rogues, a night shadow power-levelling a junior titan, and plenty of people running straight through to head for the depths of the Tomb, But when MD's pots ran out at about 9:40, UK time, it was time for Chuck and MD to take their leave.

Back in Randol, Chuck was able to learn the sixth and final level of Adrenalin Mastery, to increase his attack speed, for 200 skill points, and his level 70 active skill, Damage Reflection; its five available levels cost 1450 skill points. Apparently if he uses that self-buff, he has a 40% chance of reflecting 30% of the damage he receives back on his opponent. For level 68, MD had the seventh level of Freeze Arrow, for 425 sp, while level 70's active skill for wizards is Chaos Nova, the notorious "area of effect" attack that also boosts the enemy's attack - so that again was 1450 sp for the first five levels (and 3.5 million gold is taken from your inventory, too). Level 72's passive skill was the seventh level of Secret Study, increasing MD's magical attack by 6 for 250 skill points, while at level 74 came the seventh level of Transformation, for 300 sp, which converts health into mana...useful if you have a healer in your party who isn't very busy. So, both characters' stashes of unused skill points have taken a bit of a hit, though luckily they both have plenty more.

After that, there was just a little time for RedRackham to return to the gnoll lancers, with his drake now in level 30. Tomorrow morning MistressDomina's armour should still have its temporary upgrade, so, as long as the Tomb is still in an "easy" condition, there may well be another "power hour" or so. It would certainly be handy to get MD within ten levels of Kaerella, currently on level 87, for a future combat party.

Back to the Sphinxes

While RedRyder on Katar sold her soccer balls fairly quickly, MistressDomina on Sarissa didn't really have any more luck overnight with her remaining golden ones, just selling a few minor items, so a further attempt at lower prices will be needed there. She logged out at breakfast time - and RedRackham went out to the gnoll lancers on Cariae-4 for some more pet-levelling.

Back on Katar, it seemed like a good idea to give Kaerella, there a level 33 archer, a chance to do some more work in Prokion Temple for the morning session. While the place was fairly busy, I managed to settle in in my favourite back room with the orc axemen and sergeants, and joined a party...for some reason it was set up for "combat", which limited the range of players who could join, and, though I did suggest changing it to the more usual "equal" status, it closed down about half an hour before I finished my session, having run out of members, and at that time there was no other party to join.

Still, the session moved Kaerella on by 20.80%, and she added 367 skill points, which took her stash up over the 16k mark - so that's pretty healthy, and as long as she stays in Prokion for another level or so, Kae will be well set up for the future on that server.

I spent the afternoon trying to farm more soccer balls on Katar, to increase my cash reserves there - and by the time the food break came along, Memree, my level 31 rogue, had managed to get 12 golden soccer balls and 224 regular ones from my usual "Hunter Dranore Triangle". Before going out there, as she is in theory maximising her special skills, I'd taken Memree to Maargadum Jail to get rid of her 48% experience in that level - there is a special "death insurance" thing running today, and each death gets one a very slight chance of 500 million gold, so it seemed a good time to do that.

There was some controversy in the forum shoutbox, with one visitor telling how they had been threatened with a ban, and generally bullied, by a gamesage - and to our surprise, the (apparently) guilty party was PeaceIrene, or irene_tas as she is in the shoutbox, who is generally a kindly, helpful sort. Apparently, while the combat party system is set up so that it works as long as everyone is within ten levels, either way, of the party leader, the strict "letter of the law" is that all party members should be within ten levels of each other. If the GMs want it to work that way, they need to get the game changed so that combat parties only work like that, I'd say. It seems a bit pathetic to have gamesages running around threatening people that they are "exploiting", when the players are just following the game's own mechanics.

As usual the evening session on a Sunday was going to be truncated by the Sunday Quiz coming along at 8:30, UK time. I also tend to think that the more popular places, like Prokion Temple and the Tomb of Theos, will be a bit full on Sundays once the US has woken up, which rather limits my options. But, first of all, I needed to move the soccer balls and other loot across from Memree to one of my mages there, MistressSabina, so that she would be able to attempt some sales later.

That meant RedRackham logged out briefly, but he then returned to his pet-levelling, this time on Cariae-5, so that he could give SirKit a solo party. The drake had reached level 27 by that point.

The first thing SirKit had to do was head to Merac Caron and get the quest to kill some death mask soldiers and death mask lancers, down in Maargadum Jail. Helped along by Kit's running speed, that was done very quickly, and the horse buffs he had applied in town before using a scroll to move to the Jail's entrance was still on when he claimed his reward. Including the errand to take the "rotten flesh" on to Healer Yabo in Randol, he got 6 skill points and 4.53% experience as his rewards.

SirKit then went out to the sphinx fighters - the regular place rather than the secondary place he and RedRydeR normally head for. He found that, with the occasional small health potion, and taking a bit of care not to be mobbed, he could handle the sphinx fighters, and the sphinx speer men, even though they are thirteen and fourteen levels above him. His poor drake took a lot of damage, though. A higher-level temple knight called livingwolf kindly helped with a speer man or two, and even did a one-off "power level" on the elite speer man...as far as I could see, him using the temple knight Teleport skill on it, after getting rid of 95% of its health, worked like a party recall card in disassociating him from it, so that with one easy hit Kit got the whole experience for that kill. Or maybe him getting on his horse had something to do with it. Soon after that, Kit returned to Juno, and farmed some more green herb leaves, since he had only been carrying one tool aid's worth before. And then, he went back to the sphinxes

Another knight, WraithOfDarkness, was also around, and felt that Kit would be okay in the Tomb of Theos now, providing he used a mana and a health stealer... that I'm not too sure about. Still, by the time the Sunday Quiz was approaching, SirKit had levelled up to 51, adding in all 61.49% in his main evening session, plus 26 skill points and 1195 pet points. In Dratan, he got a new quest...which involved going out to fight a few giants.

The Sunday Quiz went smoothly, although it started a couple of minutes late; as usual Kaerella said when the heaven stones had arrived after question 20, "Grats all"...to which someone else added "except the cheaters". And there had been a couple of suspiciously clone-like lines of auto-followers in the Auzura-2 room, I noticed.

Anyway, Kaerella traded her heaven stones and moonstones across to MistressDomino, and then they both logged out. RedRackham was able to return to the gnoll lancers... and SirKit had his chance to ride west out of Dratan, towards the giants. On the way I saw the first triangle balls I've seen on the Dratan map...so Kit added three more soccer balls to his small supply. He reached the giants, to collect seven "magic arrays"...and the buff was still on when, back in town, he visited storage, sold a couple of items to the merchant, and got the quest reward from Occultist Pianon: 4 skill points and 1.52% experience. It would have been twice as much if he'd remembered to get the Elizabeth's Enhancement buff, silly knight... When Kit reaches level 52, he'll have some ravenous larvae to deal with, so it's handy that he memorised their spot when he was out hunting the rough jaguars of the desert recently.

There was time for a very short further visit to the sphinx types, and then Kit logged off. He'd just added another 9.67% since the quiz, plus 9 skill points and 285 pet points. It was time for MistressSabina, a level 10 mage over on Katar-5, to try to do a little selling of the latest crop of soccer balls, and other loot. Her gold total started at 116,483...and received no early additions. Hopefully, things will improve as the night continues.

Triangle Balls and Screaming Zombies

While RedRyder on Hatzring managed to sell her soccer balls late in the evening, it took a while for the golden balls to go as well - she had to go most of the way through the night for them to go, even though, surely, golden soccer balls ought to be worth ten times what the regular type sell for. But when I checked, everything except a single large defence potion had been sold, and Red's supply of gold had moved from 595,690 to a more encouraging 47,300,890. Which was the general idea.

RedRackham went through the night levelling his drake. For some reason the game tends recently to get ornery after a long session without any camera movement, so I had to restart it for him at breakfast time. And that, currently, involves using the Task Manager to close a "not responding" program. Still, RedRackham was soon back in action, and continued through the morning and through the lunch break - by then the drake was well into level 25.

The main morning session, however, involved RedRyder again...though this time not at level 24 on Hatzring, but at level 38 on Sarissa, so the triangle balls were dealt with rather more speedily. After using the Juno NPC Scroll to teleport out to Hunter Dranore. RedRyder got into the usual routine of racing round the triangle, dealing with each of the three triangle ball spawning points in turn, and by lunchtime had got over 170 soccer balls, and 8 golden soccer balls. Red stayed logged in over lunch, so that whenever I checked up on the drake-levelling, she could take the opportunity to shoot another ball. And then, before logging out, she transferred her loot to MistressDomina.

For the afternoon session, I decided it was time to head back to the Tomb of Theos, this time over on the Auzura server, where I needed to get my archer Kaerella up a level, to 87, so that she could start to wear the whole of the 85/87 armour set. I'm still being held back by the failure to find her a level 85 +15 bow - but if she teams up with Rage, my level 92 ranger-type rogue, this isn't a problem.

So, Rage checked in, and teleported to the Tomb entrance to see what the condition was - and found it set at about 90% towards the easy end, which seemed quite good enough. So Kaerella joined her, and in they went, to find the place pretty quiet.

For the first hour, Kaerella used one of the new level 61-90 platinum blessed irises, but I soon noticed that this wasn't giving her three times the experience Rage was getting, it was more like just 50% more. The Auzura server was having a double skill exp and experience "event", probably left running from the previous evening. So, I didn't bother to use any further pbis after that... Rage used a crit potion to boost her rate of critical hits for the first hour too, but just took things as they came after that.

During that pbi-enhanced hour Kaerella added 21.37% experience; there was just time for a little under a second hour before the early evening food break, and another 11.35% came in then. Rage added 4.64% over the two hours, which just shows that level 92 is rather longer than level 86, and they each got 12 skill points. Rage's drake went up by 1537 pet points, and Kae's drake, SirFrancis, added 941 pet points.

After the break the campaign continued. An all-server "happy hour" was due to start at six, UK time, and run for four hours, with 50% extra skill exp and experience, and it began promptly...the only downside to that was that it actually decreased what we were getting on Auzura, but it was still useful, and it wasn't too long before Kaerella levelled up at last. Before the end of the evening both drakes reached level 39, too - Rage's drake added 2923 more pet points over the evening, and SirFrancis went up by 1635. Kae's attack speed is a little slower, and generally she started to attack each screaming zombie a little later than Rage did.

We continued after Kaerella reached level 87, and in all she went up by 35.33% during the evening, while Rage earned another 6.46%. They each got 17 more skill points. There were a few other players in the Tomb by now; a low-level character got power-levelled by a friend, another rogue was busy fighting masses of zombies at once, helped by a health stealer and a mana stealer, an archer was carefully soloing the zombies and using quite a few health potions...but we generally all had enough targets, and stayed on top of things.

Back in Randol afterwards, Kaerella was able to trade her old 70/72 armour set across to MistressDomina, my level 67 mage. MD already had one 70/72 set, the one Rage had worn, but that one was generally +13, while Kae's averaged out at more like +14...so MD passed the rogue set across to my titan, MrChuckNorris, and kept the better set for herself, as mage armour isn't as strong as its titan counterpart. At around half a million a piece, Collector Ryl converted the armour into the new classes - which meant that MrChuckNorris increases his physical defence from 1894 to 2349, and MistressDomina's armour goes from 1633 to 2117. I guess they will soon be teaming up in the Tomb themselves, though MD may still need some 24-hour platinum refining stones to boost her defence. Once she reaches level 70 of course, she can learn Chaos Nova - she has plenty of skill points for all its levels, and any other skills that come along.

I'd been keeping an eye on the forum shoutbox during the afternoon and evening, and trying to be helpful there. The gamesage Faenwyn had put in a marathon session - at one point she was just about to leave for a bath and then some shopping, but she got bogged down for quite a while longer. In the evening, the Cariae server had another of its crashes, so it was very lucky that I had decided to play on Auzura. The crash had its own legacy of problems, with as usual some people losing items... people who had been in parties were "stuck", unable to join a new party because the server thought they were still in the old party, and even the advice from the GMs to log out for 15-30 minutes didn't always seem to sort that out. The crash had ended the "happy hour" bonus on Cariae, though that over-simplifies things...people in the shoutbox were adamant that they and their guildies weren't getting their 50% extra, while the GMs that Faenwyn contacted were sure that the bonus was still running, and got a bit annoyed with poor Fae for relaying the complaints. It was probably the old problem that people needed to relog to get back in touch with the bonus, which isn't too clever if you are in some place that was difficult or expensive to get to. [GM]Ozymandias actually logged in and fought some appropriate-level monsters to check that things were working properly again.

MistressDomina on Sarissa logged in to do some selling, later in the evening, and, as has tended to happen, someone bought all the soccer balls before too long. A fair price for them on that server seemed to be 200,000, so selling the entire stock brought in 35,800,000 gold in one go. That still left the golden balls, which I'd priced at 1.95 million each; I'd learnt my lesson from the other servers, and not converted any tens of soccer balls into the golden variety, so I had just got the nine of them I'd picked up.

Random Rewards

MistressDomino on Tairen did manage to sell her soccer balls eventually at 75,000 gold each, and the golden soccer balls at ten times that; she sold a fair amount of other loot too, so my cash reserves on that server have received a nice boost. When I checked during the night, everything except some item drop boosters had sold, so I shut down operations - which was rather lucky, as apparently there was another of the unscheduled maintenance downtimes at some point, to reboot the item mall, so MD would have been at risk of losing her cash if she had still been online.

The main addition to the item mall seems to be the soccer costume covers, at 100 aeria points each - fifrteen different countries get their own football "strips", including the US, Korea (do North and South share the same colours?), Hong Kong, Taiwan, Spain, Germany, Turkey, France, Argentina, Brazil, Italy, Japan, Mexico, and Russia...but not including England. I can see some people sorely tempted to "ragequit" over that...

With the late morning and the whole afternoon likely to be taken up with work downstairs, my only chance for some soccer ball farming was straight after breakfast. RedRackham had already gone back to his gnoll lancers on Cariae-4, and soon got his drake into level 19 - but for the farming, it was the Hatzring server's turn.

My choices on that server are somewhat limited, but I opted for my rogue RedRyder there, who is at the start of level 24, with just a level 25 +1 crossbow. She soon found that the triangle balls took her a while to kill - she hits them for around 320 damage a time, which would mean probably seven hits would be needed, but she misses them a lot more often than she hits.

Still, she went out, courtesy of the Juno NPC scroll, to Hunter Dranore on Hatzring-4, and fought the triangle balls by him, and also the other two local locations I'd previously used, settling into a triangular run after a while. I didn't see any other players, even Randol itself was just about deserted, and by the time my coffee was brewed, Red had got 120 soccer balls, and 7 golden ones. A pandora's box had given her five physical defence minerals, too, which as usual for such drops were the level 12 type.

That just about concluded the active work for quite a while, though I did leave RedRyder out by the sasquatches and horn beasts, so that, when I checked up on RedRackham's progress, I could get her to kill the latest triangle ball. RedRackham, meanwhile, continued his pet-levelling work, so that the drake was well into level 21 by the time of the early evening food break.

SirKit had a few items to catch up on, and was able to get a couple of new quests. There was another delivery to make to Magician Rau out at the Column of Magic, while the "Sharp Tooth" quest tied in nicely with the "First Class Salamander Skin" one, as the cerebrii drop some of the teeth, and they are in the same spot as salamander ruins, which provide red leather for Armour Trader Clain in Merac village. As I've mentioned before, the "Sharp Tooth" quest is an unusual one, as it needs two types of drops - teeth from the cerebrii in south Merac, and another type of teeth from the rough jaguars of the desert, who hang out next to the ravenous larvae in south Dratan. So, once Kit had finished in Merac, he had to ride down through the desert in Dratan to kill some rough jaguars.

Also in Dratan, it seemed about time SirKit added the entrance to the Tomb of Theos to his memory scroll, so he teleported down to the sphinx fighters, and rode swiftly through their ranks until he reached the comparative safety of the non-aggressive wafes. From there it was an easy ride to the Tomb entrance, since I do know which turns to take to get there.

Strangely, I didn't see any triangle balls in Dratan, although in Merac they'd been all along the path Kit had rode along, at fairly short and regular intervals.

One other thing SirKit needed to do was change the two level 53 +15 weapons he was carrying, a healer wand and a rogue crossbow, into knight weapons. It is handy to have both of them, so that as well as dual swords, Ponaitrun's Dual Sword, he can also use a single sword, Scott's Painful Reminder, and a shield, if his skill Shield Strike is needed...which it may well be if he teams with RedRydeR in the Tomb of Theos at some point.

The various bits of fighting, and quest rewards, moved Kit on by 9.28% and 21 skill points, as well as 7 pet points; he then spent 250 skill points on the sixth and final level of Two Weapon Fighting, adding an extra 18 to his attack while he is using dual swords. At level 50 he would be able to add a further 120 to his physical attack, courtesy of Two Hand Control, for 573 skill points, I noticed; that particular passive skill ought to work with both dual swords and a single blade, apparently.

Then it was time for RedRydeR to take over the newer computer, and SirKit to get onto the XP-running older one; they teamed up, and headed out to the usual elite sphinx speer man and his friends.

The first thing I wanted to do was check out one of the new types of level-limited platinum blessed irises, to make sure that it would give a 200% boost to experience. With SirKit out of compass range, and thus providing a solo party, the experience for RedRydeR from killing a single sphinx speer man rose from 212,197 to 636,591, so all was well on that score. With Kit in range, the figure fluctuates from one kill to the next, but, at about two-thirds of the solo rate, did about triple when the level 61-90 pbi had been started.

SirKit just settled for double experience from his Elizabeth's Enhancement buff, but RedRydeR did pretty well during the hour the pbi lasted, going up by16.41%. For the whole session, which was around two and a half hours, Red added 23.25% in all, plus 23 skill points and 1792 pet points. SirKit, meanwhile, gained 87.68%, taking him into level 50, plus 45 skill points.

Back in Dratan, RedRydeR discovered a new quest to do on her next outing, "Sphinx's Wicked Intention" - she will need to kill five each of the sphinx fighters and sphinx speer men, so that won't be any problem. SirKit will need to collect five "rotten flesh" from the death knight lancers and death knight soldiers on level five of Maargadum Jail, which ought to be simple enough...and deliver the package to Healer Yabo as well, for an extra reward. He could also attempt to kill the boss down there, the Death Knight of Iris, but I think we can file that one away, and lose it.

The theory about the "soccer" costume covers, and the strange-seeming collection selection of the countries represented, is that they weren't in fact designed with the current football world cup in mind, they are perhaps more for the next international Last Chaos tournament, as the countries are those that have their own versions of LC - or have signed up to have one. So, as there is no England-based company providing LC servers, there is no England costume. It makes sense out of something that was otherwise rather a puzzle.

RedRackham went back to the gnoll lancers, with his drake in level 22 now... and, over on the Hatzring server, RedRyder set up shop next to Armour Trader Rowel, hoping to sell some soccer balls. After a few minutes there was an announcement of "Random prizes in Randol!", so RedRyder quickly stood up, and was able to grab a large attack potion, a skill point booster... and a "great HP boost potion", which increases a character's health points by 30% for a day. That might be reasonably valuable, assuming that it can be traded...

Same Balls, Different Server

RedRackham was able to keep going with the pet-levelling overnight on Cariae-4, next to fellow knight Bobthewarrior, and by morning the dragon hatchling had safely reached level 13. I'd moved him across to the newer computer last thing last night, and after breakfast I moved him back again. The hatchling soon moved on to level 14.

Today was scheduled to be one of my busy days downstairs, with no afternoon session possible, but I decided that I could fit in a pre-coffee session, while the servers were quiet, farming soccer balls. So, my level 31 rogue Memree over on Katar-5 logged in...and straight out again when I found that she didn't have a "Juno NPC Scroll", as she had been created before those were added to the game. So I quickly created a new level 1 character on the same account, and she put the scroll she'd been given into storage. Then Memree logged back in, got the scroll out of storage, dragged it onto her skills bar - and was ready for action, teleporting out to Hunter Dranore.

A friendly healer called celistal was also busy farming the soccer balls, though her strategy was to run all around the map, using the regular haste potions - and some type of lucky scroll too, to increase her chance of good drops. That certainly seemed to work for her, as she got a lot more golden balls than I did, and also some nice items from the pandora's boxes she found on her travels - five heaven stones twice in fairly quick succession, for example. We only overlapped when she reached my bit of the map on her travels, so her work didn't slow me down much.

A low-level titan called Arhidemon appeared, chased by a level 20 pandora's beast, and stayed around to fight the triangle balls near Hunter Dranore. Since he was low-level, it took him ages to "kill" each ball, but apparently he got good experience from them, and levelled up. There was another healer riding around on horseback who took the occasional ball... and just as I was finishing, a rogue at about level 20, judging by the armour, appeared, BloodShadow1, telling me that she was the same player as Arhidemon. I told her I was leaving, and bequeathed my two spots to her.

The experience gain was pretty minor for Memree, but she did pick up 3 gold soccer balls and 128 regular ones, which ought to boost my cash reserves on Katar. I noticed in Randol that people were trying to get up to three million per golden ball, which may not be unreasonable as its prices generally do seem higher than Cariae or Auzura.

As it turned out, my delivery has been delayed until tomorrow, allowing an afternoon session today, but not on Friday. This time It seemed like a good idea to get some soccer balls together on Tairen - so my level 31 rogue there, Memree, logged in on Tairen-4, and teleported out to Hunter Dranore.

I expected Tairen-4 to be emptier than the fifth sub-server, and it was, but there were still a few people who turned up occasionally - a titan, a mage who made a number of appearances, and a healer called BANGMEBABY who spent the afternoon farming the sasquatches. She wasn't interested in the triangle balls that spawned near her, so I continued to farm those balls and the ones that spawned within sight of Hunter Dranore, but after a while she kindly volunteered to farm the balls near her for me. I continued with the ones near Dranore, and, with a little exploring, found another spot, at about the 930.1240 location on the main path towards Berbank Mill, to farm. So, I kept going - as I'd told BANGMEBABY, it was a bit boring, but I needed the money for my next weapon.

Late in the afternoon the night shadow xShadowOfDeathx hailed me, and said that his wife had asked him to give me these... he passed over 50 soccer balls, and I thanked him for them, assuming that Bang had passed them across to him, for him to pass on - but actually they were an extra bonus, Bang was still in action with the sasquatches, and when I went across there, at his prompting, she passed across another 63 soccer balls. So, including the gifts, Memree ended up with 12 golden soccer balls and 345 regular balls...very nearly enough for one of the prize boxes, but the intention is to sell the balls, not end up with another disappointing set of prizes.

RedRackham logged out for the evening session, and after some things had been moved about, including the soccer balls on Tairen going across to MistressDomino there, RedRydeR on Cariae-5 took over the main computer, joined by SirKit. Red is too high for the Elizabeth's Enhancement buff now, but Kit can still use it, so he got the buff, the party was formed - and they went off to their old friend the elite sphinx speer man and his cohorts.

Apart from someone who briefly killed the sphinx types just down the road from us, and who might I suppose have taken on the elite if Red hadn't already been fighting it, Red and Kit had the place to themselves for the evening, and stayed for the full three-hour length of Kit's buff. Kamira did drop by, so Red briefly made way for Keerella, and the usual goodies were obtained, but no rare accessory was dropped.

SirKit made better progress than RedRydeR, since he had the double experience, and skill exp, buff that Red can't have now. There would have been the option to let her use some platinum blessed irises, preferably the new "61 to 90" type, but I needed to make sure that SirKit stayed within fifteen levels of her...so Kit needed to be the one to level up first. And he managed that, before the end of the session, which was pretty good going I thought. RedRydeR went up by just 22.57%, and 29 skill points, plus 2401 pet points - and SirKit added 142.74%, getting comfortably into level 49, plus 58 skill points.

So, it was a good substantial session, and means that SirKit will now be able to use a level 53 weapon next time - not that he does much of the fighting when the two characters team up there, just helping out on the elite sometimes, or when two sphinx speer men come in at once. If the pair of them head into the Tomb of Theos, though, there would be more time per kill for him to get involved...

RedRackham logged back in for a little more pet-levelling, with his drake now in level 18...and MistressDomino went into merchant mode on Tairen-5. I had done some comparison shopping to see what prices were being charged there earlier, but I still had to guess a few, working on the basis that items are cheaper there, or that gold is more valuable. A bunch of heaven stones, item drop boosters, damage boosters, and large attack potions sold fairly quickly...the soccer balls, though, weren't touched in the first period. If they don't sell overnight, well, the price will need to be revised downwards I suppose.

New Balls Please

The new week's patch brought in the soccer ball event, as promised. It also made upgrade items like heaven stones, and boosters, weightless, which certainly saves money on putting them into storage, and also bought down the weight of stuff that my two main merchants were carrying. It makes downloading big packages from the item mall rather easier.

While the pricing of the usual item mall packages doesn't seem to have changed, some of the individual items have been reduced in price - and there are some versions of the experience-increasing platinum blessed iris at bargain prices now. One that can only be used up to level 30 is entirely useless, but there would be some times when an up-to-level-60 one would be worth having, and definitely times for an up-to-level-90 one. Assuming that they do give 200% extra, as opposed to the "beginner" version's 150% extra, that is. An unlimited pbi is now 75 aeria points, a 61-90 one is 25, a 31-60 one is just 10 ap, and the 1-30 type is half that.

RedRackham went out pet-levelling before breakfast, but got disconnected while I was downstairs. I sent him back to work, though, and he began to make steady progress through his horse's 36th level, so that by the end of the lunch break the horse was halfway through it. Luckily, that disconnection wasn't repeated.

AmityBlaise, my level 31 rogue, was my character of choice after coffee for a session on Cariae-5 - and by lunchtime she had, while not gaining any skill points, added 0.58% experience and 3 guild points... since the "triangle balls", the soccer event equivalent of pumpkin ghosts, gave her, with the Elizabeth's Enhancement buff, 440 experience each. First of all I headed for the treants not far from Velpist Temple, as that was the spawning point for the pumpkin ghosts I'd preferred, but there seemed some high-level competition there, with people in 85/87 armour in major guilds riding around. Before long I decided to try the point close to Hunter Dranore, which, since AmityBlaise has a Juno NPC scroll allowing free teleports to any npc on that map, is very easy to reach...and sure enough, the balls spawned there regularly. The old point east of there didn't seem active, but west of the hunter, close to some tents, sasquatches and horn beasts, the triangle balls were spawning.

So, AmityBlaise got into a routine of dealing with the ball near Hunter Dranore, running west to kill the other triangle ball, and teleporting back to Dranore just in time for his ball to respawn, and so on - and by the time lunch was due, had reached 100 soccer balls. The triangle balls are only level 1, but are hard for low-level people to kill as they seem to have pretty good evasion, and also around 2000 hit points - more than a level 35 knight, for example.

After the lunch break, the hunt for soccer balls continued, still with AmityBlaise. One thing I hadn't realised was that, while sometimes the triangle didn't drop anything, occasionally it would drop a golden ball, worth ten regular ones, so, as a few of the golden ones had stacked with one that I'd got from Armour Trader Rowel by exchanging my first ten soccer balls, I was better off than I'd thought. Generally I was doing pretty well on Cariae-5, but as the afternoon wore on, it started to get busier, and when a junior sorcerer started to use the triangle balls that spawned up by the horn beast camp, it seemed like a good idea to switch subserver.

It had been strange to see people in the 85/87 armour set or higher riding around a non-PvP subserver's low-level map in search of the triangle balls; Cariae-3 was a lot quieter, and I was able to settle in there, still with the same two convenient spawning points. There were a couple of members of the "Schattenwind" guild, which I was once assured by Zenderfly means "Shadowwind" rather than anything smelly, one on horseback and the other using a super speed potion, but they generally kept moving. Then there was a titan called Sc0t, who seemed keener on sticking around. There was one triangle ball close to Hunter Dranore that we both attacked; I attempted to pick up the soccer ball it dropped, but it was awarded to him, so he must have hit harder. He took exception to poor Amity trying to "steal" "his" soccer ball, and started to follow her around, taking his opportunities to stun and kill her, usually just after she had opened a triangle ball.

"A shame about the red name", I commented while lying on the ground. "Have you thought about taking up pet-levelling?" I'm not sure if killing the same rogue a number of times would have moved him very far towards the "evil" end of the spectrum, or just 5 points, but I let that stigma be its own reward for his actions, and pointedly avoided fighting back, until, with a good stock of soccer balls and golden balls, I was able to tell him that, fun though it had been, it was time I logged off for food. Being killed PvP-style doesn't carry any penalty, so by then Amy had added another 1.81%, a skill point, and 11 more guild points.

After the break, Amity converted her soccer balls into golden balls and, in case any prize items were useful but couldn't be traded, passed the 50 golden balls over to RedRydeR... all she got in her prize box though were ten large defence potions and ten silver boosters, the latter of which can indeed not be traded - but all they do, as far as I know, is act as slightly more productive tool aids. Still, a Uruguayan flag was the other reward, which apparently can be used in a further gamble. Amity also used up her supply of tool aids to get some quality stones and green herb leaves, and, obtaining a drake egg from MistressDomina, in exchange for her remaining 5 golden balls, went to Lorraine and Jajan and got herself a brand-new dragon hatchling.

After a little more shuffling around of loot, which included passing SirKit's old armour sets, and spare accessories, over to sirDarth, that new hatchling was traded across from AmityBlaise to RedRackham, in exchange for a level 37 horse he was carrying, which Amity quickly converted into a mount. RedRackham then went out to the gnoll lancers on Cariae-5, to finish levelling his current horse to level 37 - a task he completed soon after eight this evening. He was thus able to unequip the horse, and equip the hatchling, then, and start work on levelling it up, taking advantage of the "Creature Carnival" event's double pet experience hour.

As for the main computer, well, it being a Wednesday, I had to log out early, but SirKit, in a solo party with RedRackham, did have time for a session with the beast flyers on level three of Maargadum jail. He even got a couple of soccer balls from triangle balls on the way to the Jail. The rogue Isgor was there, but I knew she wouldn't mind company, since she had never thought twice about joining in when she found me already there. She assured me she wasn't staying long, and I mentioned that it was probably SirKit's last session there, as with any luck he would reach level 48. She is just level 43, so would be glad not to have all the beast flyers converging on her I guess.

SirKit did indeed manage to get the 15% he needed to reach level 48; his total experience gain in fact was 15.99%, along with 140 skill points, which were just enough to take his unused sp stash over the 9k mark. His drake added 1338 pet points, and just before the end the beast flyers clubbed together and presented him with a last heaven stone. Reaching level 48 means that, while the beast flyers are still white-named, at level 46, the level 42 beast archers are now blue-named, so don't give any pet points...so it is time to move on. The new level means, most importantly, that Kit is back within party range of RedRydeR, who is now on level 63, so some joint trips back to the elite sphinx speer man and his chums are possible once more.

RedRackham was able to work on his new hatchling for the rest of the evening, getting it into level six, and past the 80% Sympathy mark, by the time I closed down for the night.

Levelling Up

With the clock running on Kaerella's armour augmentations, today started very differently from usual. The 24 hours during which her armour was boosted from +13 (+14 on the headgear) to +15, with the extra bonus that that brings, were due to run out just after lunch - so, after afternoon and evening sessions yesterday, a full-length morning session was called for to complete the set.

This meant that there was no pet-levelling this morning; straight after breakfast Kaerella logged in, and checked the Condition of the Tomb of Theos. To my relief it was back on maximum easy, with the two bars at their 100% length, so RedRydeR logged in too, and joined Kae...and back into the Tomb they went.

As one might expect, things were pretty quiet at 8:30 in the morning, UK time, which for America's East Coast is 3:30am, so with the equal party set up, Kaerella, on level 73, and RedRydeR, on level 61, set to work. before very long a level 84 titan called SixtyOn3 stopped on his way to deeper parts to ask "solo me guys?", so he got added to the party, and stayed in it for about ninety minutes, reaching level 85, well out of range of us. A knight called Svan gave us both Concentration as he passed - I'm sure we saw him yesterday too, though this time, since Red could no longer benefit from the Elizabeth's Enhancement buff as she's beyond its level range, we were on Cariae-4 rather than Cariae-5.

The first hour saw Kaerella go up by 44.41%, with RedRydeR gaining 109.90% and reaching level 62. Towards the end of the second hour the level 71 specialist sorcerer danjorge arrived, also moved over from Cariae-5. By then Red had reached level 63, while Kae was approaching the top of level 73, so I had taken the opportunity, when Kae was on 99%, to change the party type to Combat, meaning that I was able to invite danjorge to join us, which he did.

While both Kae and Red were using platinum blessed irises for triple experience, changing to the Combat type, where you are rewarded, experience-wise, for the amount of damage you do, as well as getting and giving a small bonus, meant that Kae seemed to get a bit more than Red...for the second hour, Kaerella added 39.63%, and RedRydeR added 88.52%. As well as Red reaching level 63, Kae had reached level 74 before the hour ended.

The reason for changing the party type was that, now that Red's pbi was over and Kae could start fresh pots, we could switch to RedRydeR just standing at the side, and Kaerella doing all the fighting, and using not just a pbi but individual experience boosters too. I was slightly slowed down by the occasional need to heal danjorge, which I generally only did between zombies... he died once, but generally he did okay, though he got through masses of health pots, minerals, and so on. During the third hour, while Red only got small amounts of experience, for 6.17%, Kaerella, using 67 skill points boosters, went up by 184.54%, getting her most of the way through level 75.

There was just time for a fourth hour, if I didn't mind a slightly late and hastily-prepared lunch. When he reached level 72 danjorge left, so I had the place almost to myself again, apart from a level 66 knight called KnightKobus, who generally fought just round the corner out of sight. That meant I could work at full speed - but unfortunately about a third of the way through both computers got disconnected, which meant that, while I was able to log back in, I couldn't form the Combat party again as now my two characters were more than ten levels apart. Kaerella hurried back to the Tomb to continue, but Red stayed in Randol, just giving her a solo party, which meant that instead of around 58 million experience per kill, it was standardised at 54,012,636.

So, in the fourth hour RedRyder just added 3.21% - her drake had gained 1359 pet points during the first two hours, before being put away. Kaerella added 178.15%, which wasn't bad, considering the break; she got through 79 experience boosters, so was definitely speedier when not having someone else around who needed healing. Across the four hours, her drake added 3444 pet points, so is getting fairly close to levelling up too.

RedRydeR was able to learn the seventh and last level of Mind Training, since that came available at level 63; it increases her magical resistance/evasion by another 5, for 275 skill points. After that, she logged out, and was quickly replaced as solo party provider by RedRackham, who went along to the gnoll lancers for some pet-levelling. Kaerella herself was able to spend 250 skill points on the sixth level of the buff Charm, increasing its boost to magical attack and doubling its duration. The third level of Party Heal 2 came available at level 76; for 380 skill points it increases the health boost for each party member from 350 to 400, using 200 mana.

During the two "equal party" hours, Kae, fighting alongside RedRydeR, had just used a crit potion along with the pbi, and had occasionally lost health; for her two combat "power hours" she had used berserker, power, and platinum adrenalin pots as well, and the extra 95 to defence from the power potion seemed to make all the difference, Kae was very nearly invulnerable...which was lucky when she was standing helpless during the disconnection. So, an expensive pair of hours, but productive. As usual the loot was rather minor; enough gold to more than cover the entrance fees, a couple of large defence potions, one large attack potion, five moonstone boxes, one heaven stone, a pan flute, and a pair of titan gloves which were sold afterwards to Geres for 320,194 gold.

The afternoon session was a bit short, particularly as some items needed to be traded around, interrupting RedRackham's pet-levelling...but SirKit's inventory got cleaned out a bit, with sirDarth taking his old armour sets, and MistressDomina taking the sellable loot. So, by the time things were sorted out SirKit probably had no more than an hour in Maargadum Jail.

Floor three's beast flyers were ready and waiting for SirKit's arrival, anyway, though towards the end another royal knight, GodOfVengeance, barged in. It was a pity to leave him with them all to himself, but the early evening food break was approaching. Back in the village, Kit got the reward for killing those beast crawlers yesterday, which added 4.36% and 4 skill points to his total for the afternoon - in all, he went up by 15.19%, 99 skill points, and 878 pet points.

But all these recent excitements mean that I have been spending very little time with the orcs in Prokion Temple, so for the evening session I moved across to Katar-5, where Kaerella is a level 33 archer still gathering skill points there. I was lucky, and the back room was free when I got to it, someone else having just vacated it. After a while a specialist sorcerer called DeadlyWolverine barged in and started fighting the orc axemen and orc sergeants too, but there were nearly enough for both of us, and he didn't stay too long. I had to take a break to do some mundane work, but the room was still free when I returned. A rogue called denstyle95 made a brief visit...and the sorcerer turned up again, but left when he saw I was still there.

The solo party was a strange one, with a lot of talk between two or three relatively high-level people about good and bad guilds, and how some would pk and ks and lure, even in the Commander room at the far end of the Tomb. I couldn't follow it all, not being familiar with guild names and abbreviations on Katar, but the politics all seemed very complex. Eventually I became party leader, and had to get rid of people who'd logged out long before, but not left the party, and re-register - when I finally left, the party was up to full active strength again.

Kaerella added 33.27% experience before the Elizabeth's Enhancement buff ended, plus a useful 568 skill points, and 272 guild points for the local branch of the Discipline guild. After that she used her tool aids to do some mining and "herbalism"...the quality stones would be generally for her own pale blue horse, but most of the green herb leaves will probably get transferred across to my merchant character at some point, along with the suitable loot.

RedRackham had been pet-levelling on Cariae-5; lately the older computer, if left alone, has tended to freeze up after a while, so the game there needs restarting occasionally. He got ks'd, for the second time today, and was standing there doing nothing for a while before I noticed, and restarted the game; another knight, xGauvainxx, was also ks'd there, and I think there may even have been an attempt to lure a nearby gnoll soldier onto him, which might have attacked his pony, but luckily didn't. After some completely trouble-free weeks pet-levelling on Cariae, it looks as if we may now get problems. Ah well, RedRackham's horse has reached level 36 now, and thus has started on its final level, so it may be almost time for us to move on.

We are promised "the World Cup event" after tonight's maintenance downtime, so presumably those soccer ball-dropping "inoffensive" monsters will turn up tomorrow, as well as the option to buy soccer costumes in the colours of just about every soccer team. All clever marketing - except that many people will only have melded a pirate costume onto their armour a couple of weeks ago, from the Wendy bear event, so won't be in the market for a new cover until the old one runs out, after 30 days. Still, it all should brighten the place up!