The Wrong Set

SirKit's enhanced armour, with its 24-hour platinum refining stones, would be boosted up to +15 until lunchtime, so it made sense for Kit and Kaerella to head for the Tomb of Theos as soon as possible today. I had to do a little quick shopping, but then they logged in on Cariae-4, and went out to the Tomb.

SirKit and Kaerella ran straight to the ancient grey mummies, where only the knight Kaol was at work. With a combat party, for which I assume Kaol was too high, SirKit started his platinum adrenalin and crit potions, and the 61-90 platinum blessed iris, and began his "power hour" - which, using 43 experience boosters, got him into level 87 safely, with 172.81% experience gained.

So, that was the target reached, with time to spare, so I switched over to an equal party, with no expensive potions but both SirKit and Kaerella, both fighting, just using a cheap pbi...which was lucky, as it meant that there wasn't much to lose when, at ten in the morning UK time, Cariae-4 had a mass disconnection. My duo had nearly finished killing an ancient grey mummy, and suddenly were making no progress at all, though its health bar on Kaerella's display did tend to flick between the 10% it showed Kit and about 2%.

Kaerella logged out, closing the game and vanishing from Kit's sight, but trying to log in again just got the "account ID is already logged in" message, which is a bit silly as, if the account was in use, logging in on it from a different computer would kick the previous character out. But after a couple more minutes SirKit got disconnected, and then Kaerella was able to log back in, followed by Kit.

Judging by the shoutbox, where GingerBeer and Supraklr swiftly appeared, the mass disconnection only affected Cariae-4, and indeed when everyone respawned in Randol, the merchants were still there. There seemed quite a number of us re-entering the Tomb together, and running down the corridors, but the others must have been heading for the spear men and the commanders.

Still, even with that interruption SirKit added 17.05% while that pbi lasted, which got him into level 88, while Kaerella added something similar; there was just time for one more hour, which brought SirKit another 19.14% and Kaerella 19.40%...and before it ended, Kaerella too reached level 88.

The party did briefly switch to combat when a level 91 knight, Spikesknight, asked to join; I asked if he was also Sp1ke, from yesterday evening, and apparently that was his brother. He lost his connection after a mummy or three, so we went back to an equal party, so that Kae and Kit would share experience gain evenly. Kit hits for roughly 50% more than Kae, so Kae loses out rather in a combat party.

So, over the three hours, in all SirKit added 209.00%, along with 3045 pet points, while Kaerella added 38.94%, and 1867 pet points - a lower figure as her drake, SirFrancis, was only active for the last two hours. They each gained 5 skill points as well.

Reaching level 88 meant that Kaerella could now learn, for 500 skill points, the fourth level of Party Heal 2, increasing its power from 400 to 500 HP. There is another level of that skill, but it doesn't come along until Kae reaches level 148.

SirKit of course had rather more new skills available to learn, and only a limited supply of skill points. On the passive skills side, Deep Wound Training 2, to increase Kit's chance of making a critical hit, seemed useful - so that used 250 skill points. Level 6 of Two Hand Control added 20 to Kit's physical attack, for 400 sp. And the single levels of Divine Soul 2 and Improved Resist 2, for 200 sp each, improved his magical defence and evasion.

On the general skills side, there were two levels of Concentration to learn, from levels 72 and 84, for 300 sp each, to increase the chance of a skill like Stun or Snare working. The big level 70 skill, Dash, is a special long-range stun, which costs, for its initial five levels, 1450 skill points, plus 3.5 million gold - it has an 85% chance of success, which hopefully ought to be improved if the Concentration buff is on, and lasts for nine seconds, apparently.

SirKit had spent about 40% of his stash of skill points in one go, but it does improve his skills and stats quite usefully. All we need now is to afford to be able to buy him the level 85/87 knight armour set...

The afternoon was a more relaxing time, with the skills-getting, writing up the blog a bit, and chatting to a shoutbox regular, rome10, who apparently is in Barbados, so rather more used to warm weather than I am. Still, there was time to take my level 41 witch on Auzura, MistressSabina, out to Maargadum Jail's second level for a while - she added 10.02%, 49 skill points, and 824 pet points.

The evening's entertainment was set to be dominated by a series of the low-level "Mad Monster Spawns" on each server in turn's fifth subserver, starting at six o'clock, UK time, with Auzura, followed by Katar, Cariae, Sarissa, Hatzring, and Tairen every thirty minutes...my favourite kind of event, usually.

We got off to a slow start, however, with nothing happening on Auzura-5 at the scheduled time. I did visit the shoutbox to ask Giovanna_X to pass on a reminder to the GMs, and it seemed that everything was in hand - [GM]Darasuum turned up at eight minutes past, apologising, and saying that the GM who had been scheduled to run the event was having technical problems. This must have been [GM]Stratos, who took over from Darasuum - and we got plenty of waves of the usual low-level types, followed by, after the Stratos loot drop, three of the level 100 purple dragons. That seemed a bit demanding for a group of people below level 60, and mainly closer to level 30....but the evening was yet young.

On Auzura I'd taken along my level 31 archer Memree - and on Katar it was Memree again, though this time a level 31 rogue. [GM]Stratos was again in charge, and got a bit carried away, after we had disposed of the usual monsters, as he brought in some level 110 blood terrains, level 135 patriarch botises, and level 136 judge ballacks and flutons. That made it pretty dangerous for the genuine low-level types, but luckily a few high-level people had sneaked along too, and were able to deal enough damage for us to take them down.

Those events had pretty much filled their half hours, leaving little time for me to switch across, but [GM]JediMike was in charge on Cariae, and he didn't try to get us all killed, after the regular monsters we just got his usual generous amounts of loot, so my level 28 rogue there, Karella, was able to get rather more goodies than I'd managed on the previous servers.

On Sarissa, my rogue RedRyder is level 39, so was able to fight the brutal deer of the desert, elite poison mists - and even risk firing at Baal. Again [GM]JediMike was in charge, so the loot was generous at the end, and there was a good ten minutes to spare before the next server's event started.

Hatzring continues to be my lowest-level character server, with RedRyder just on level 24. Her 25/27 armour set has no upgrades at all, and her level 25 crossbow is only +1, so a fair degree of caution was needed, after the comparative invulnerability in the previous server. Still, unlike some characters, she did at least have a level 37 mount, for horse buffs, and that helped - helped the whole party she got recruited into, I think. Red did have to use a couple of small health potions when fighting an elite poison mist, but otherwise things went smoothly, and again [GM]JediMike was generous with the loot at the end.

On Tairen RedRyder is level 31, so a bit less vulnerable to attacks, unless Baal comes along, or a horde of elite goblin scouts take a dislike to her. More people were waiting for the event to begin than had been on Hatzring, but the "five minutes" announcement soon brought the numbers up. Unlike most of the other characters, Red there is a genuine contender, with her special skills maximised and 7000 skill points already stashed for future use...but there wasn't any great danger at a low-level MMS, right?

This time it was [GM]Yatou, one of our newer game masters, who was in charge; she didn't put up the usual tower, but people congregated in the usual place - and suddenly there were barren eises, dark bogles, apes, scorpionmantises, and darkmind terrains appearing right where we were. "You pillock GM" someone said, as I lay on the grass, one of many people who had been killed instantly by all that relatively high-level stuff landing on top of us. "Uhhh", she replied, as surprised as we were, I guess - and boy were we surprised! Luckily I had one of the freebie "beginner" resurrection scrolls on, so didn't lose anything except the scroll. I respawned safely back in town, reapplied horse buffs, and accepted a recall from another party member. "Not possible low lvl", nanaki was saying, and I contributed "What part of 'low level MMS' do you not understand?"

"Okk... going to modify this", the GM said, as dark bogles chased hapless low-level players across the countryside, and scorpionmantises skittered about. "It's way too hard, GM, please do", SheSaidSheWas18 commented. "That's my fault -_- " the GM said. "Do get some tips from the GMs who know how to do this", someone remarked helpfully. "As I said", the GM went on, "I got sent the wrong set"... Presumably she said that while I was back in Randol. "Lol, okay, I forgive you", the helpful person responded... I think the name was "Red Rider" or something like that...

So, the high-level stuff was wiped, and the normal sets of elite sand golems, salamanders, balrogs, and so on were unleashed in their various waves - and then [GM]Yatou gathered us off to the side, and spawned the bad stuff again. This time, with a warning and a chance to pick our targets, we managed to wear them down, in much the way that the high-level people manage to get through what seems initially a huge number of cave spirits. And then at last we got some loot - luckily a nicely generous supply, more JediMike than Stratos. I think we'd all earned it by then, it was a rather action-packed half hour.

By the time I'd recovered from all that, and got my notes sorted out, it was time to wind down for the evening anyway. MistressDomino had been on Auzura-5 doing some merchanting while the various spawns had been dealt with, and did manage to sell quite a lot. I had looked earlier for a level 85 titan sword for MrChuckNorris without any luck, hopefully something will turn up over the next few days.

Nineteen Levels

I didn't do any actual adventuring in the morning; what I was generally doing was preparing SirKit for his awfully big adventure in the Tomb of Theos, which was due to start after lunch. I found some platinum refining stones on Cariae, in storage, and after opening a couple of dozen, was able to give SirKit the +1 and +2 ones he'd need to get his 70/72 armour up to +15. He bought some of the 1 ap platinum blessed irises, for level 61-90 folk, and MistressDomina transferred her supply of experience boosters across - Keerella contributed some platinum adrenalin and crit potions.

Once Kit was sorted out, there was a little more loot transferring, both on Cariae and Auzura, and then MistressDomino on Auzura-5 went into merchant mode. There weren't any suitable sets of leggings for MistressDomina in Roy's merchant mart, to complete her 85/87 set, but one does need to be prepared... and MrChuckNorris will need a new sword, and new armour, before long too.

MistressDomino quickly sold her hundred chaos balls, even at a price almost 20% higher than on Cariae; heaven stones seem more expensive on Auzura than on Cariae too, so they were selling slowly but steadily at 3 million each, rather than Cariae's 2.45 million.

After lunch, however, MistressDomino had to log out, as it was time for SirKit to head for the Tomb of Theos on Cariae-4 and start his "power day". Kaerella went with him; as she was level 87, to his 67, she couldn't have a combat party or anything, but it seemed useful to have her around for the Encourage buff, and any necessary between-kill healing.

In fact, there wasn't a solo party available for Kit to join, so he did form a solo party with Kaerella; once he'd used the 24-hour platinum refining stones to make his armour +15, and increase his dual swords from +15 to +16, fighting the screaming zombies didn't generally hurt him at all, or if it did his accessory's "suction of life" took care of it, so Kaerella stayed back out of compass-map range, and Kit just ran back to get his Encourage buff renewed every twenty minutes.

Fighting the screaming zombies, using as well as the platinum blessed iris a platinum adrenalin and a crit potion, was speedy, but used a lot of experience boosters, almost a hundred an hour in fact. The first hour used 98 xpbs, getting SirKit up 403.22% from level 67 to level 71; the middle hour of the afternoon used another 97, to add 297.41%, so that level 74 was reached - and the third and last hour of the afternoon used 98 xpbs again, for a further 241.07%, taking Kit well into level 76.

It was unusual for me to be melee-fighting there, instead of using a ranged attack to pull a single screaming zombie out into the corridor, but Kit did okay, and seldom had to fight more than one zombie at a time. They did like to nibble his drake, however, and it seemed at times that I was getting through one green herb leaf for every other zombie. I'm afraid I was a little short with the assassin PerziaWolf, telling her to "go away", after she seemed to "ks" me on a couple of kills - she was in fact trying to help, and somehow her assistance didn't reduce the experience I got from the kill. She may have already been out of range of my apology, going deeper in in search of someone more friendly to assist.

After the early evening food break, the session continued. It didn't take long to reach level 77, which meant that the party could be changed to a combat-type one, and Kaerella could come forward into range. That did add a useful boost to the experience per kill, which had been a little over 54 million in just a solo party - but after two or three boosted kills, getting more like 60 million each, it seemed like time to run down to the ancient grey mummies.

The run there was easy enough, except that Kaerella, following, got stuck on a couple of corners, as she doesn't run anything like as fast as SirKit. Still, the room with the "agms" was nice and quiet, with just an elementalist sorcerer, TheApt, and his spirits, busy in one corner. As the ancient grey mummies are passive, and don't eat pets, SirKit started to fight them, while Kaerella just stood in the middle of the room, doing any necessary healing between kills, and giving the Encourage buff when it ran out. Kaerella gave the buff to a friendly archer called Abigale too, but she didn't stay all that long.

The mummies gave at least three times as much experience per kill as the zombies, as they are bosses - but they also took a long time to kill. During that first mixed hour Kit got through just 43 experience boosters, while going up 200.70%, reaching 78; that was followed by a pure mummy hour with only 26 xpbs used, for 174.12%, so that we were now in level 80. 28 more xpbs got Kit up a further 168.87%, well into level 81.

An assassin in the Valhala guild, Sp1ke, was helping a group of three night shadows - well, mainly one of them, I think the others were probably just along for the combat party bonus. The night shadow in question left as soon as he reached level 91, with a view to doing some skill point farming I think, and the other pair left soon after, so Sp1ke very cleverly and kindly spent a few minutes knocking the health of all the ancient grey mummies in the room down to around 10-20%, using some clever skill to disassociate himself from them...maybe it was just Death Motion, though a green light seemed to be involved. So, Kit happily killed them, in not much more than a tenth of the usual time, but getting the full experience, so that moved things along for me dramatically. It meant I used 41 experience boosters in the fourth hour of the evening, and went up by 211.01%, getting me to the start of level 84 - and he stayed until I was 60% of the way through that level, so that the fifth and final hour of the evening used a further 47 experience boosters, and added 210.68%, which meant that SirKit ended the evening having reached level 86.

Kit had been able to use his new green-named, five-sealed +15 level 85 dual swords once he reached level 85, so that helped to speed the final hour's kills up a bit too, with his physical offence stat rising from 1685 (including the temporary boost from the prs making the weapon +16 rather than +15) to 1991, or 1994 after he put his new stat points into strength.

So, during the afternoon SirKit had added 941.70%, plus 2902 pet points for his drake, which took it into level 36; during the evening Kit added in all 965.38%, 2 skill points, and, helped along by the "Creature Carnival" double pet experience for an hour or so, 7406 pet points. Kaerella did attack and kill one ancient grey mummy, without any pots, just to see how long it took, which was quite a while, so that boosted her experience gain, which was otherwise just from the combat party bonus - she added 9.74%, 2 skill points, and 110 pet points.

SirKit is nearly at his target level of 87 now, which would allow him to wear the new 85/87 armour set I've not yet bought... so one more "power hour" tomorrow morning ought to be enough, after which maybe he and Kaerella can have an equal party down there for an hour or two, so that they both gain a bit more experience. He certainly went through the levels very satisfactorily today, and while 476 experience boosters, plus the pots, were quite expensive, zooming up means one avoids having to buy the75/77 and 80/82 armour sets, so things do rather even out.

Death in the Early Evening

MistressDomina got into merchant mode fairly early, for a Sunday morning, and it wasn't long before she sold out of her heaven stones; some damage boosters and a lucky spell book or two sold, as well. I'm just about out of item drop boosters on Cariae now, however, so there weren't any more of those to sell.

I logged MrChuckNorris in over on Auzura-5, mainly to check how ready he was to go soloing in the Tomb of Theos. One thing I did was use up some of his tool aids to increase his stock of green herb leaves, since his drake is sure to take plenty of damage there. He had a good supply of unidentified platinum refining stones in storage, so I opened a few of those, and got the three +1 and two +2 stones ready for him; he could do with a supply of power potions, and to borrow an accessory with 10% suction of life from another character, but otherwise he is just about ready to rumble.

My level 47 wizard on Auzura, MistressBlaze, also did some herb farming, and mined some quality stones too. She then went out to the sphinx fighters and sphinx "speer" men in Dratan's grassy south-west uplands, staying just long enough to reach level 48. She is a character without a big reserve of skill points, unlike my witch MistressSabina, but back in Dratan City I spent 327 sp to get her the first five levels of Freeze Arrow. It's not as useful as Terra Spear, but it's handy to have.

The new level meant that MistressBlaze qualified for a couple of quests; one was just a message-delivery to Rau at the Column of Magic, but the other entailed a ride down to the south of the Merac map to fight a few Salamander Ruins. That didn't take long; once she'd got her quest reward for that, her totals for the morning were 18.03%, 16 skill points, and 68 pet points.

The main afternoon session belonged to Kaerella on Katar again, who managed to get the back room in Prokion Temple on Katar-5 to herself. Before heading out, though, she'd checked in with the Master Healer skills trainer, and learned the first level of Rise Focus 2, for 110 skill points, increasing her long range physical hit rate by 44.

It didn't take Kaerella long to get that 110 sp back, and by the end of the afternoon she'd gone up by 6.21%, plus 72 guild points, and 288 skill points. It would be nice to get Kae up to a stash of 20k unused sp before she gets her experience gain unfrozen - so, just another 1,100 to go.

After the early evening food break, my sole assassin, Tairen's Memree, found a number of quests to do, in both Merac and Dratan. There were various messages and packages to do with a wedding in Merac Village, plus a trip out to Owl Village, where Memree was requested to get three orc soldier hearts. That tied in quite handily with the border guard captain's wish for Memree to kill ten highlanders - so Memree rode down the road south, before using the memory scroll to move straight to Owl Village for one reward, before getting two more rewards back near the teleporter.

The Dratan quests involved poison mists and their neighbours, the brutal deer of the desert. "Mucus of deadly poison" was required from the poison mists, and "horn of sand deer" from the deer. I decided to try to head across to the south-western uplands after that, remembering a journey across with another character some time ago.

Somehow I managed to avoid any sight of the masters of secret technique, which, given their magic attack, was useful - I did however get three dragons following me at one point. As an assassin, Memree can do the Death Motion skill, to lie on the ground apparently dead...it seemed to me that she still took damage from the dragons' fiery breath, so it was lucky her health wasn't too low at the time. When she stood up again, they came back, but Memree was able to out-run them, and then rode past the akane golems. The various types of wafe aren't aggressive, so just edging past the sphinx fighters and sphinx speer men got Memree safely to the camp, where she quickly memorised the location, before fighting a couple of sphinx fighters. A third sphinx fighter, though, unfortunately got in a couple too many lucky blows when it was nearly dead, and managed to kill her - so her "beginner" resurrection scroll has now been used up.

After getting her quest rewards, Memree finished her session in Merac, mainly with the elite frenzied berserkers, though a knight called Rebel75 insisted on fighting them too, which slowed things down a bit. There was then time for a little bit of green herb leaf and quality stone farming, before it was time to head for the Sunday Quiz. In all, Memree had added 40.68%, 68 skill points, and 572 pet points.

The Sunday Quiz itself went smoothly, after last week's drama - it was a little strange to see the question as to whether [GM]JediMike or [GM]OgreKing ran the "Old Skool Treasure Hunt", but enough of us knew that, when we used to get such an event, it was Mike who ran it, for everyone to migrate to the correct half of the room. So, MistressDomino and Kaerella left on the 22nd question, with their prizes safely in their inventories - Kae passed her heaven stones and moonstones over to MD.

I did see Ratel at the quiz, along with Liezl and Argoth, and we wished each other good luck; this time I think Ratty did make it through to the end without any disconnections, at least I didn't see any "logged out" messages. After that, well, it seemed a useful idea to move loot from various characters across to MistressDomino, so that I can do a bit of selling on Auzura for a change during the coming week. The post-Quiz lag soon settled down generally, but when MD tried to open the pages of Roy's merchant mart, that was, as usual at such a time, completely lagged out.

MistressDomina's selling spree on Cariae-4 had ended just before the quiz, with some healthy sales, so that her gold situation is pretty good - until I find the level 107 helm that Barbarienne needs, or some other expensive but vital item, anyway.

Sorcerous and Witchy Progress

MistressDomina had actually sold out of item drop boosters last night, but I had a reserve of them, 150 which for some reason hadn't joined the others in a single stack, to put up this morning - so MD's morning offerings were the same as yesterday evening's. It was a relatively quiet time, but she made a few useful sales.

I nearly made a costly mistake today, after checking the Last Chaos news page and finding a "Lootwheel Rebate" announcement. The prizes coming from the wheel have been improved, it seemed, to reflect lower item mall prices, and, to celebrate, "every five (5) spins will get you a '100% rebate' - and that's not all, this is unlimited." We have had a day of 100% rebates on loot wheel spins before, where every aeria point you spent was returned to you after a week or so, so I was ready to get lots of freebie stuff... but looking more closely, it seems that what they actually mean is that for every five spins you make, you will get a rebate for one spin - so, it is really just a 20% rebate.

The poor phrasing of the offer did get discussed in the shoutbox, and Giovanna_X commented that it would probably be the poor gamesages who ended up getting yelled at. I hope one or two people who were following the shoutbox then were tipped off not to spend all their aeria points and expect to get them back.

It has been a while since my level 34 specialist sorcerer JohnWellington had an outing, but for the morning session he logged in on Auzura-5, got his Elizabuff, and went to Merac to see if any quests were available - so he ended up killing twenty berserkers. Moving on to Dratan, he teleported to Prokion Temple, but before going in, headed to the nearby salamanders, since he was still one salamander tail short, for that particular quest...and the very first salamander he killed dropped the one he needed.

After that he moved into the temple, which was rather busy. The back room and corridor room were in use, so, in his knight form, he glided along into the mirror half, and ended up with the orc axemen and sergeants in a couple of small rooms there...except when a nearby rogue, lastgaylord, decided to ks while passing through, a time or two. Since the +10 armour, along with Stone Skin self-buff, give him ample physical defence, the knight form doesn't seem hugely useful there. As far as I could see the demon form, with its higher magical attack, killed more quickly, and while that was recharging, just the regular form seemed to hit harder than the knight did.

By the end of the morning, JohnWellington had earned 5.96%, 110 skill points, no more than 23 pet points from the outdoor adventures, and 56 guild points for the local branch of Discipline. He is still rather low on skill points, though, so if I do want to take him further, as my only active sorcerer, he'll need to solo-farm in Prokion for a while yet.

MistressDomina, meanwhile, had had a pretty busy morning, which continued over the lunch break, with the restock of item drop boosters selling, and someone taking a hundred chaos balls, as well as some other minor sales. This encouraged me to look in Roy's merchant mart to see if the level 85 dual swords, g5e, and +15, I'd seen yesterday being offered for 400 million were still there - and I found identical Hero' Blue Dawn Dual Swords +15 being sold by xDriv3rx for just 319 million. As previously mentioned, green-named weapons don't hit as hard as blue-named ones, but they have the advantage of a better hit rate - the five bloodseals here give 15 to attack (5 all types of physical, 6 close range, and 4 all kinds of attack) and 187 to hit rate (112 close range physical and 75 all kinds of hit rate), which is rather useful. So, Kit is set up for his future, weapon-wise.

Over on Katar-5, my archer Kaerella had a couple of quests to do, though she doesn't want to start collecting her rewards until she has finished her skill point farming. The gnolls and their red toenails were easy enough to get - the other quest involved getting "necklaces of magic power" from blood frenzies, which was easy enough, and "power necklaces" from doom slayers...who are a bit harder to find, and always have been dangerous critters, with a rather strong magic attack. Still, with a little help from her horse buffs, Kaerella survived her encounter with a group of doom slayers, and quickly returned to Merac village. From there she transferred to Dratan - and teleported out to Prokion Temple.

The back room of Prokion Temple that I check first was free, so Kaerella was able to settle in there; the rogue lOrD did turn up, and stayed standing in the room for a few minutes, but didn't try to fight at all, and finally left. Kae managed to get into a solo party almost at once; the skill exp was a lot better than in yesterday's precedence-type party, and by the end of the afternoon Kaerella had gone up another 5.38%, plus 63 guild points and just 35 pet points with the gnolls...along with a useful 219 skill points.

During the evening a "Turbo" event was due, which sounds rather exciting, but it was just a "happy hour" type deal, with 50% extra experience and skill exp. It actually started a bit earlier than expected, but I'd already logged in as my level 41 witch MistressSabina on Auzura-5, and was fighting the dire spike canines, plus the non-dire ones and the two-headed types, on the second level of Margadum Jail. With the Elizabeth's Enhancement buff the dire spike canines, being Sabina's level, gave her 2,200 skill exp...which when the event started went up to 2750, since the extra 50% was based on the regular 1,100 before the Elizabuff was put on.

It was a quite lengthy session, and MistressSabina managed to add 29.82%, which got her to the halfway point in her level, plus 2207 pet points and 144 skill points. Sabina is my only witch; she has a reasonable supply of skill points, including all her special skills, so is better off than, for example, SirKit, though it's not as great a number as my Auzura-based wizard MistressDomina still has. Still, she's probably aiming, in the long term, only at level 87 or so, which ought to mean she has all she needs.

There were other people around in Maargadum Jail, the ground floor seemed busy as I ran in, and there were a few people on level two as well. Towards the end I seemed almost to be being shadowed by a rogue called UranusQueen, who was sharing the same room, and left it to attack the three dire spike canines outside it every time I had that idea. But the time for logging out was approaching, and the game seemed to be getting a bit laggy, so I bade farewell to my comrades in the solo party, and logged out.

Over on Cariae-4, MistressDomina had kept selling my stocks of goodies; the moonstone boxes, heaven stones, large attack potions, and large defence potions all sold out, followed by, late in the evening, the last of the latest crop of item drop boosters, which meant that lashing out 319 million on those dual swords for SirKit was a minor hiccup. She even sold a few health stealers, lucky spell books, damage boosters, chaos balls, and runes of protection I. The price I was charging must be about right, for them to move relatively slowly - if something sells out within seconds of a selling session starting, the chances are that the price was a bit too low.

SirKit Reaches His Target

I logged MistressDomina in after breakfast again on Cariae-4, to attempt to sell some stuff, and she did rather well, with 100 item drop boosters making a good start - and then somebody came along and spent 587 million in one go, which I think was mainly lucky smelting stones. So, it wasn't long before the money spent on Keerella's new gloves last night was regained.

SirKit logged on to see if there were any new quests in Dratan, now that he was level 65, but there wasn't anything new. he got the reward for killing the sphinx types from Occultist Pianon, and then rode out to the Temple of Forgetfulness, to get the location onto his memory scroll. Since he was there, he went in and killed a few Cursed Spiders, to get enough spider webs for his quest from the Herbologist Trainer - that didn't take long, but he stayed until his horse buffs ended, before returning to town for his reward. The actual fighting added 0.35%, 2 skill points, and 64 pet points, but adding in the quest rewards meant that his brief session added 2.70%, 14 skill points, and the 64 pet points.

Looking through Roy's merchant mart stock, there was no sign of a good level 107 circlet for Barbarienne, or indeed any improved level 85/86 armour pieces for RedRydeR, so the gold that MistressDomina was stocking up on looked likely to end up paying for SirKit's next armour and weapon. There was quite a good pair of dual swords, level 85, on sale for 400 million, I noticed... but I suspect the armour pieces of the knight's 85/87 set will tend to be a bit more expensive.

During the afternoon, Keerella and SirKit were able to fit in three more hours in the Tomb of Theos, with Kit using three more pbis - he added 39, 40, and 37% experience, for a total of 116.26% in all, plus 2222 pet points. Keerella, meanwhile, added 0.71%, 12 skill points, and 2767 pet points.

Hasenko put in another appearance, staying a bit longer this time, again in a combat party, though his armour doesn't seem particularly sturdy. Towards the end of the session, after he'd gone, the level 84 royal knight ThegoD turned up, and asked to party with Keerella. Since it didn't matter if Kee's experience gain got cut back a bit, I agreed, but it wasn't long before he asked if it was okay for him to go afk for "ten minutes"... while he did reappear briefly within that deadline, and moved slightly further back out of the zombie spawning area, he spent the rest of the session, another twenty minutes, away from his keyboard again. He was still sitting there when I got back to the computer after my early evening food break, but, since Kee too had just been standing around doing nothing for the last half hour or so, he finally left the party.

In fact, looking at the chat from that period, I see that he asked to party with RitaBalou, as well as Lornea, who were also active there at the time, and managed to annoy Rita. "ThegoD, people don't appreciate it if you kill their mobs here, okay?" That was followed by "And you can be reported for that - which I will do now, cuz I took a screenshot." Which rather overstates things, assuming that he was just doing a little ks-ing, but still.

As soon as he saw that Keerella was back in action, he reformed the party, but after the first screaming zombie we killed together, he went back to sit by the wall, so after getting no response to "Are you back in action now, ThegoD?" I left the party... and soon after that he logged out. I don't mind helping people, but he was taking "leaching" a bit far.

One more pbi-using hour got SirKit into level 67, which was the object of the exercise - that was another 39%. Kee and Kit did continue for another half hour, approximately, so that in all Kit added 44.61% and 1059 pet points, while Keerella added 0.34%, 7 skill points, and 1337 pet points. SirKit was now able to wear the whole of the 70/72 armour set, which was the object of the exercise.

It seemed a good idea for Keerella to check out the ancient grey mummies, a little further into the Tomb, so Kit recruited her into the solo party that, by now, he was leader of, gave her the Divine Shield buff, and retreated to the area by the teleporter. Kee then ran to the mummies' room, and tried out a few.

Even using the Haste and Spell Focus buffs to speed up her attack, it tended to take about two minutes to kill an ancient grey mummy - time for them to use their "rotten bandage bleeding" skill twice. While Kee's suction of life was pretty useful, some small health potions, at least, had to be used. Each mummy gave 16,014,237 experience and 3,300 skill exp, at Kee's current level, though that will increase as she levels up, reaching 4,400 skill exp when she is their own level, 103. At present a third of a skill point every two minutes doesn't sound too wonderful, or 10 sp per hour; a platinum super skill pill would get that up to 30 skill points, while using thirty skill point boosters would get it up to 120...though that seems a pretty expensive way of gaining sp. Perhaps when level 103 is reached it will be just about worth it, though it is entirely possible that skill exp in-game may have been tweaked a bit by then.

Back in Randol, SirKit was able to learn, for 200 sp, level one of Upgrade Mana 2, which, as the name suggests, increased his maximum mana points from 1784 to 2432, even if the skill description did talk about health points. In Dratan, the Magician gave him the "Magician's Rest" quest to kill seven legendary slayers in the Forgotten Temple. If that got left for a level or two, Kit would have the quest for the curd hadians and twin hadians too...but Kit is now poised on the edge of the big power-level, so may never be in Dratan at the right level for that one. or indeed for the jumping devils there.

Keerella ended up getting just 0.39% and 7 skill points from the ancient grey mummies, plus 871 pet points. But there was about an hour left to the evening, and I fancied a change, so Kee logged out. SirKit had passed the solo party leadership over to Kee - and she now passed it on to MistressDomina, who'd logged in to try a bit more selling, before logging out.

Kaerella, my level 35 archer, logged in on Katar-5 for an hour's worth of skill point farming, but the back room in Prokion Temple was taken, as was the corridor room nearby, so Kae ended up on the central gallery. She got recruited into a party, which, with its other two members, a rogue and another archer, a few levels lower, I hoped might boost my skill exp gain, but I think it was an old-fashioned precedence party...whatever it was, the skill exp gain didn't seem too good, and while Kae added 5.61% experience, she only added 37 skill points, along with 65 guild points. However, Kaerella did reach the 18.5k mark on the sp side, which can't be bad.

I chatted a bit with a level 35 rogue there, cookieman1234, who seemed to have missed out on getting the freebie +10 armour set and weapons, presumably from having a full inventory, and was suitably envious of Kae's +15 level 33 weapon, which, as far as I can remember, cost me about 50 million, a while ago. But then it was time to log out for the night.

The Gloves Are On...

MistressDomina logged in after breakfast, and, after moving across some more sellable items to her from another couple of characters, RedRydeR came online, and exchanged the new level 87 Ebade Chaser Boots +15 for some lucky smelting stones. Equipping these new boots, instead of the level 77 Ebade Forceful Boots +13, moved her physical defence up from 2905 to 3101 - and added 50 to her magical defence as well.

After that, MistressDomina went into merchant mode. This was to be one of the Thursdays when I'm kept busy downstairs almost all day, so she was able to stay that way until after the early evening food break, which gave her a chance to sell a useful amount of stuff, slowly but steadily. The Runes of Protection II sold, and a useful number of heaven stones, and some other items as well - item drop boosters, chaos balls, and lucky smelting stones.

Enchantrella was able to do some farming and mining, too, with me checking up occasionally, and using a few tool aids - later she transferred a nice large quantity of green herb leaves across to MistressDomina. They may not make a huge lot of gold, but having hundreds of tool aids in storage is a bit of a waste.

So, that just left an evening session, which tied in quite well, time-wise, with a "happy hour" of double pet experience. The main Cariae priority at the moment is to get SirKit up a few more levels, so Keerella and SirKit went out to the Tomb of Theos on Cariae-4 again. Since they are both able to equip their drakes, that meant double use of the "happy hour".

It was no surprise to see that the bars that indicate the "Condition" of the Tomb were still missing, so one doesn't know what one is letting oneself in for when one starts fighting in there. Luckily, Keerella is pretty well armoured now, for a mage, and so can probably withstand the level 100 screaming zombies, at least, even if the place is set more towards the hard end of the spectrum.

Keerella and SirKit entered, and started fighting, with as usual Kee luring a zombie back into the corridor, and then Kit joining in the attack. There were occasionally people who ran through, heading for the depths of the Tomb, but generally I had the starting area to myself, which was handy. A level 90 night shadow called Hasenko arrived and attacked a screaming zombie, so I suggested a combat party, knowing he had to be at least level 90 as that's where night shadows start. He agreed - but after losing quite a lot of health on the next zombie or two, decided not to continue, and left without a word.

So, Keerella was without a party; there was only one solo party available, and SirKit had joined it. Things proceeded much as before; Kit used three of the level 61-90 platinum blessed irises, going up by 41%, 42%, and 41%. Kit reached level 65 just before the end of the second hour, and so was able to start using the level 69 dual swords and the level 70 gloves, which got the usual sort of bloodseals all sorted out before the end. We did continue for a little while after the third pbi ended, but there wasn't time for a fourth one.

Keerella went up by 0.81%, 16 skill points, and, thanks to the double pet experience, 6184 pet points, while SirKit went up by 127.87%, and 5042 pet points. With any luck, another four hours ought to get Kit into level 67, so that he can wear the whole of the 70/72 armour set. That's when the strategy can change, and he can try soloing the screaming zombies himself - it might well be possible before that with enough health potions, but with the special pbis so cheap, this is a relatively economical way to move him up.

Early on, the Tomb did seem a bit hostile, and when SirKit did become the target of a second zombie's attacks, his health did fall ominously quickly. Initially Keerella's health did fall too, faster, it seemed, than her 10% suction of life accessory could cope with... but that was only in the opening minutes, things did seem to settle down nicely after that.

Afterwards, MistressDomina logged back in, and, as she had taken in a useful amount of gold by then, after moving some loot across, Keerella had a quick look at Roy's merchant mart stocks. The first thing to do was see if there were any b5e +15 mage gloves for her. Over recent months I must have looked many dozens of times, without any luck - but this time AngelRogu3 had put up a pair of the gloves Kee needed, at 635 million...so it was just as well MistressDomina had had so much time to sell stuff today. MD transferred the gold across to Kee, who bought the gloves. Wearing those instead of her old +13 ones increases her physical defence from 2785 to 2918, and also increases her magic defence from 408 to 458, since an extra 50 magic defence is a bonus you get from wearing a piece of +15 armour. And, since Kee's set is now all b5e +15, she has a much bigger Tinkerbell style "fairy" hovering at her shoulder.

MistressDomina went back into merchant mode after that, for the rest of the evening, and managed to get back a little of that cash splurge, mainly on sales of heaven stones. After all, if I generally buy items that have already been upgraded to +13 or +15, I don't have much use for large quantities of heaven stones myself...

Two New Investments

The changes from last night's regular weekly maintenance are as usual disappointingly minor. The July 4th event has ended, as expected, and a couple of Mondshine quests have been made repeatable rather than just once a day, while the "giant skill pill" now works as it should, instead of apparently just adding to one's physical offence, and an exploit which let people wear higher-level armour if it was melded has, they say, been fixed.

Talking about melding, there was also news about that bug which meant that people have for the last two weeks been unable to meld costume covers onto their armour. A week ago we were led to believe that the developers were apparently "still working on it", but it was "trickier to fix than had been expected", or words to that effect. And now this time, the Aeria people have had to shame-facedly admit that the change was in fact deliberate. "

Costumes CANNOT be melded to socketed gear, this is AS INTENDED by the developers. We are unhappy with this as well and are working on getting it changed.

" It just shows how terrible the communication is between Aeria's California branch and the developers in South Korea, despite product manager Aeria_ks1lent's trip out to meet them.

MistressDomina went into merchant mode for the morning on Cariae-4, and managed to sell some item drop boosters. SirKit logged on briefly too, and found a couple of new quests in Dratan City. The Herbologist Trainer there had "The First Class Spiderweb Collection", the first quest needing a trip into the Temple of Forgetfulness, while Occultist Pianon offered "Sphinx's Wicked Intention", which meant that Kit needed to take a trip out to the sphinx fighters and speer men, and kill five of each.

There was no great point in heading to the Temple of Forgetfulness until Kit has at least the quest to kill the legendary slayers as well, but a quick trip out to the sphinx types was easy enough to fit in. Even staying around until a second set of horse buffs ran out only got the experience gain up by 0.41%, but Kit did add a couple of skill points, as well as 67 pet points for his drake.

Back in Randol, a visit to the Master Knight skills trainer revealed that level eight of Concentration was now available, for 200 skill points, so Kit got that - it increases the skill's "power" from 55 to 70, which ought to mean that it improves the chance of someone's skill, such as Snare or Shield Strike, succeeding.

I then switched across to RedRydeR, my level 87 phoenix rogue, and had a look through Roy's merchant mart, hoping to find a good level 85 crossbow at a reasonable price - and I found a level 85 Darkness Shadow Bow being sold by RedMind for 450 million, which seemed good to me. It is a blue-named one, with all five bloodseals - which means that on top of its 430 basic attack, and the 633 + 75 for the +15, it increases its long range physical attack by 9 + 9, all types of physical attack by 8 + 8, and attack by 5. So, it's a more powerful beast than a green-named crossbow - though a green-named one does have useful hit rate extras. RedRydeR's old level 69 Pillgrip Bow +15 meant that her physical offence stat was 1685 (with a 1239 stat for her physical hit rate); now her physical offence has moved up to 2085, even if her hit rate stat has dropped by 74. That just left Red needing level 87 boots, to replace the level 77 ones she has been wearing, one of the armour items kindly given to her by MEDSx.

After helping transfer RedRydeR's old weapon across to SirKit, MistressDomina went back into merchant mode. SirKit then visited Collector Ryl to transform the level 69 crossbow (for 820,000 gold) into Eglain dual swords +15. Kit is on level 64 at the moment, so can't use the new weapon without penalty until he levels up, but when he does reach 65, his physical offence stat will, in turn, rise from 1312 with his level 61 Torain dual swords to 1448. He also took the opportunity to change Red's old 70/72 armour set into its knightly equivalent; when he can wear it all, at level 67, his physical defence will rise from 2337 to 2916, it seems.

After lunch RedRyder did some green herb leaf farming, and then passed over the results to MistressDomina, along with some other items that had been in storage on her account; MD then went back into merchant mode, and the herbs sold rather quickly, so that was a relatively quick five million or so earned. She stayed in merchant mode for the rest of the afternoon, and into the evening, though sales were a bit slow.

RedRyder had seen a pair of fine b5e level 87 boots for sale via Roy's merchant mart; the problem was that they were rather expensive, as +15 items do tend to be, so I was hoping that MistressDomina would take in enough gold to cover their cost. Customers, however, seemed few and far between, though MD's gold reserves did gradually increase over time.

The main afternoon session, however, involved Kaerella on Katar, who, after her recent big move forward, adding 44% in level 35, needed to move a little more slowly, just in a solo party. The back room of Prokion Temple on Katar-5 was available, so Kaerella settled in there.

I did have one visitor, a rogue called lOrD, a name that looks rather strange until one decides that it starts with a lower-case "L". She did stay for a few minutes, trying to kill everything before I could, but I rode it out, and, since I was killing enough orcs to make the place not really attractive for her, she eventually backed down and left, though she did look in again later to check that I was still in charge there.

The session just added 5.46% and 53 guild points for Discipline, along with 254 skill points - and of course the skill points were the main object of the exercise. At that rate, doing the whole of level 35 in a solo party, in that back room, would have brought in 4,650 skill points.

For the evening session, while MistressDomina continued to try to sell some goodies on Cariae-4, my level 41 rogue over on Tairen, xRAGEx, logged in, and headed for Maargadum Jail to get a few skill points, and some experience, from the spike canines, dire spike canines, and their two-headed friends. As this was to be one of my early-finishing Wednesday evenings, I only spent about two hours there, almost entirely on the second level. Rage did reach level 42, while adding 29.58%, 147 skill points, and 1224 pet points for her level 37 drake.

Since Rage had levelled up, there was a new quest waiting in Merac Village, "Spike Canines Skin", requiring Rage to kill a few of the Jail's canines to get five skins. This shouldn't be a problem... it's slightly strange to have a quest to kill creatures that are a level or two below one's own level, but it's all good experience.

MistressDomina's sales did continue through the evening, and finally, when I was able to check up on things again, she had just taken in enough money to buy RedRydeR her boots - Ebade Chaser Boots +15, with the full five evasion seals and the blue name, sold via Roy's merchant mart by Cloroform for 899 million gold. So, Red is now pretty well equipped for her next adventures, or will be when the boots are passed over to her tomorrow.

I did think about leaving MistressDomina selling overnight, to get a bit of gold together again...but both computers are eager to download some new Windows updates, so would tend to switch themselves off automatically as soon as I turned my back.