Kaerella's Blog - March 2008

Kaerella's Blog - stardate March 2008 (2)

Unbloggishly, here we read from the top down...so the second half of the month starts at the top!

Major Lag - 16th March

My new connection behaved itself perfectly yesterday, but, when I switched on finally this evening, I soon ran into problems. A "double skill exp" event was still running, so I headed for my friends the Gnoll Lancers. However, after killing a few, the next one, well, after a while he stopped taking damage, although my "attack" animation was still running. I tried using Self Heal, and nothing happened. other than it stopping the attack animation. For safety's sake I logged out, then logged in again, went back... and after a while the same thing happened. And again - though I stayed in a bit longer, and my powers eventually returned. After a while, though, I got a genuine "disconnection" with the game closing. It's lucky that the Gnoll Lancers don't do a great deal of damage, so I wasn't killed.

Sheele, Rastatitan, and a few other people were talking about a new Boucu Demon party to Egeha, but I had to report that my connection was unreliable. So a party that was relying on me for healing might get into a bit of a problem. Back in Randol after logging in again, using the guild chat channel I noticed that my replies took ages to appear, over a minute in one case. Maybe my last remark did actually appear, after I got disconnected again?

This is very worrying, if my slick new modern fast broadband connection is in fact not reliable for game-playing. Maybe it is just that Sunday evenings are a busy time, but still... leaving the game for a while and going back in didn't make any difference, I still ended up just standing there as a Gnoll Lancer hit me, unable to defend myself. At least the "z" option to leave the game works at its normal speed.

So, no Egeha for me, and just under 2% experience gain, with a mere 743 pet points, and 26 skill points. Even in just two hours I would normally have expected to do a bit better than that.

Oh well, we'll just have to see if things get back to normal tomorrow...

Minor Lag - 17th March

Well, I'm still getting more disconnections than usual, and lagging briefly at other times too, but progress has been made. The main thing is that I managed to find and buy a new Storm's Eye Scepter, which I'll be able to start using before too long; it is +9, so plussed one more than my current weapon; instead of an attack of 86 + 51, I'll be inflicting 100 + 68! I think 8.5 million in gold was a pretty fair price, it is lucky I sold enough of those effort and experience scrolls to be able to afford that. The "bloodseal" extras on it are remarkably similar to my current scepter's, including 6 "power of the mind".

Elvastar was on for about ninety minutes tonight, and says he won't be back at home until Friday evening, so we will be without him until then, with Rastatitan having a turn as Norcaine guild master. RenaNight reports that she will soon be able to do some armour-making, which is excellent news as both Elva and I have been unable to get level 47 boots... Elva's need is more urgent, he could probably wear them by now, while I'm more than two whole levels away. Still, I want to get a screenshot of me wearing the whole set for the appropriate page of www.Kaerella.com. It's not the prettiest of armour sets, but the trim and detailing are good, and, well, brown makes a change, right?

At around 9:00pm GMT an official call went out that pandora's beasts were overrunning Dratan on Cariae-3, so quite a lot of people, me included (well, actually I tend to send Kee when there is a possibility of unnecessary death), rushed over there, and waited outside the gates for the expected onslaught. And waited. And got bored, and attacked the local low-level critters. Apparently there was some confusion as to whether C-3 or C-4 was the correct server, and eventually word filtered out that, anyway, it wasn't a major spawn of the beasts for everyone to fight, just a few of them hidden away in remote corners of the map. I'm surprised that Road Boss Kamira didn't show up, perhaps some brave group of adventurers had killed her too recently for her to have been able to respawn. She turned up outside the gates of the city in C-4, though, if many people had gone there that might have been worth seeing - from a safe distance, that is. So, a big non-event, really. I did have a chance to chat with Itura, the healer who was in Norcaine for a while before moving on; she is level 48 now, not as high as one might have expected as she has been developing a new mage, Damor, who has already reached level 40.

A shame about the lack of action in Dratan, as it took me away from the Gnoll Lancers when I was on 97 skill points, a gain of 52 on the day - just short of the 100 I need to get the next level of Resurrection. I was on just below 2000 pet points then, which had halved the amount remaining to be got, and I was a little under 6% up on the general experience, too. My chums the Gnoll Lancers were kind enough to gift me with two heaven stones, one on its own and the other as part of a "Hand of the Warrior" collection, which was useful

So, the lag effects, sometimes leading to a disconnection, are still worrying; it is strange, I can receive messages, I can see other people moving around and fighting, I just can't actually do anything. I got disconnected from Dratan in the end, people had been fighting harpies and other things and left quite a lot of small amounts of gold on the ground, and while I could send my pet out to collect the gold, he was unable to actually pick it up, he just moved on to the next pile, and the next. In the afternoon I'd gone off to play with my friend Elys on the game she prefers, and I had had no problems at all there...

Shorter But Sweeter - 18th March

Except for a disconnection about five minutes after I first logged on, things worked perfectly today, with no lagging and no other problems. But let's start with a complaint, anyway.

It may seem a good idea that Aeria Games offered a 100% rebate on their "Lucky Leprechaun" packages, which otherwise cost 499 aeria points and included a super lucky dip box, a green hat, a lucky smelting stone (my most common ap purchase), a lucky spell book, and a gold drop booster: "Happy St. Patrick's Day! To push our awesome celebration to the next level we are offering from 4:30 pm (PDT) until 9:00pm (PDT) a 100% rebate on Lucky Leprechaun Packages in the item mall. Limit of 5 per account. Rebates may take up to 2 weeks to clear." However, 4:30pm, Pacific Daylight Time, was 11:30pm GMT, or after midnight on the Continent, so while the Americans may have been able to snap up all those goodies, assuming they had enough aeria points, those of us who actually log off and go to bed at a normal time missed out on this bonanza entirely. Bad, bad Aeria Games!

I got abducted by Elys into entirely different territories, invading giant caves and monster-thumping on doomed islands, so most of the afternoon wasn't spent in Last Chaos lands, I am sorry to have to report. My activities were a bit truncated, and I didn't party with anyone... come to think of it, about the only person I chatted to was Stanislav, I didn't see any sign of our temporary guild master Rastatitan online, or Sheele, and RenaNight was "away".

But anyway, the big news is that my horse is now a Knight Mare; he reached level 37, and has been transformed into a mount, able to give me the full level-ten defensive and attacking "horse buffs". This was towards the end of my time this evening, as I had to log off early for other commitments, but with the buffs on, and my faithful level 35 drake back at my shoulder, my defence rating was over 1300, and the poor Gnoll Lancers didn't stand a chance. They went down more quickly, and, as I've noticed in the past with other people's buffs, no healing at all was needed, which also speeded things up.

So, despite a limited time, I went up almost 7% in all, so the next level is getting closer, and with it the chance to use the new scepter. I got level four of Resurrection safely, and managed 49 skill points in all, so I am well on the way to maxxing that skill out too. And now that I've finished levelling my horse, of course, my drake gets the pet points instead, though we're only a third of the way towards his level 36.

Since this is Tuesday evening, another Last Chaos week is coming to an end; the servers will retire for an hour or two as things are updated, and no doubt some new special offers and packages will appear in the item mall. Presumably we will move away from the St Patrick's theme, and move on to chocolate easter eggs and cute fluffy bunnies, or something along those lines - I'll have to drop by early in the morning to find out. By which time any real bargains in the new week's mall "sale" will have already gone, but hey, today may have been short for me, but with my new mount, and some more cash sales with Kee in Merchant Mode, things were, generally, sweet...

Egg Time Begins - 19th March

I certainly made up for yesterday's short time, with a couple of extended sessions with the Gnoll Lancers, and indeed their Gnoll Soldier companions. The main sign of Easter so far is the Easter Eggs, which I think may be discovered just lying about, but which are also dropped by the monsters. Rather a rare drop for me, considering the time I put in; of the five I picked up, three contained only "50 gold coin", but one contained an Experience Scroll, the same 10-minute type that the Chocolate boxes gave and thus worth around 100,000 gold, and another contained a Magic Stone. Its only problem was that it doesn't appear to have any stats - just "Magic Stone, weight 1, Magical Accessory", so not really worth much. I assume that one could combine it with two other accessories and see what came out, but...weird. Misstyl reported that she got 500 gold from an egg.

All three female player-types have new "Samba" costumes available, which can be bought from the Item Mall, last 30days, and can be either worn without stats as they are, or (using a Book of Melding) melded to your armour. The effect is rather "Rio Carnival", with the healer costume having a butterfly theme - I think I saw a rogue costume with wings on the back too! I must get some screenshots for www.Kaerella.com as soon as I can, but I don't really think the look if quite me, I can't imagine fighting Boucu Demons dressed like that. The coming weekend promises "Easter Egg hunts, mad monster bunny bashes, and much more", so we'll have to watch out for the announcements.

It looks as if, even with my new horse buffs, the Gnoll Lancers and Gnoll Soldiers are the best monsters to solo with, or indeed against; I did trek off along the road to where the Salamander Ruins are, and fought one of those, but, as it was level 50, it did still do me quite a lot of damage, so I had to use Self Heal a few times, and it took a while to deal with. It gave around twice as much experience as a Gnoll Soldier, but if it takes twice as long to kill, that is no great incentive to go there regularly. And the skill exp wasn't as good, anyway.

Rastatitan, our temporary guild master, wasn't on at all while I was around, but I assume he will be on later. I was able to chat with Stanislav and Zeratus and Misstyl, and indeed Sheele; just as I was logging out Misstyl reported that she had been pk'd by a rogue, and Sheele was hurrying over to give the miscreant a sound telling-off - or something!

With the speedier Gnoll-killing, I am pleased to be able to report a 15% increase in experience, 4079 pet points for my drake, a useful chunk of cash, and ...1 skill point? Ah yes, I spent 100 points early on on level five of Resurrection, so that's really 101 points earned today, which has to be a record for me for a day with didn't have a double skill exp Event. I had two disconnections, both while I was afk-mining, and one bit of weirdness when Kee, after riding the dragon forgefire (borrowed from Elvastar) and fighting some drakes, found herself almost knee-deep in the ground, and unable to move more than a few feet in any direction, even when she remounted the dragon. So a log-out was needed, ending her little adventure. The only other strange thing was sighting a Wafe Debirch close to where I was gnoll-bothering - generally, they hang out in Dratan, but they do sometimes appear where you don't expect them, perhaps the jolly red dragon had spawned him?

A New Level - 20th March

Some people in merchant mode have been seen attempting to sell the one Easter Egg they can carry for 5 million, 7 million, or even 20 million in gold, which seems ridiculous if you may just find 50 gold when you open one. Zeratus got a Heaven Stone - another one gave him ten gamma wave energy. The only one that I picked up gave me almost the same as that, ten quality stones.

The main thing to report though is that I have, at long last, reached level 40. I'd not planned to sp-farm my way through most of level 39, but there just don't seem to be Egeha parties made by guildies at the moment. Stanislav got in touch to ask if I was in Egeha, but no, I was with the Gnoll Lancers and Gnoll Soldiers in south-east Merac yet again! I spent 65 skill points on the fifth level of Hard Rejection, the "private dungeon" skill, and then, as I seem to be running low on things to do with skill points, I invested 7 more of them in the first level of Basic Armorsmith. Well, a girl needs a hobby, right...? I can't use my new scepter yet, but the Dawn Gloves + 6 have now been replaced by the Arvina Gloves +8, moving my armour rating up, hands-wise, from 50 + 20 to 61 + 36. I still can't find the boots I need for the set, though I wouldn't be able to wear them until level 42 anyway.

I did get another disconnection during mining, and also one while fighting a Gnoll Lancer...but the third one was the strangest, I was moving around Randol at the time, and when I got to the teleporter, to move to Merac, she wasn't there! But I could still see occasional players moving around, although they often vanished rather suddenly, and I could see the various merchant announcements in the distance. I went back to the main square, having had the "disconnected" window by now, and there were still two players there. Peculiar, or what?

The game masters and game sages were active; the deal was to find three or four game sages hidden around Juno, take them back to the gm in town, and get a reward - the reward being your own special "mini monster spawn" at a location the gm would tell you about. I suppose the drops might be good, but it seemed an awful lot of trouble to go to, you'd need a full team, and finding all the game sages would hardly be a game of skill...

Still, though I only played in the evening, I did go up by 4.7% in experience, 1431 pet points, and 35 skill points... and I've just about got the screenshot gallery here at www.Kaerella.com up to date now.

Among The Ruins - 21st March

I had the usual slog with the Gnoll Lancers and Gnoll Soldiers this afternoon, and running into the tea-time "event", which gave double experience, but not double cash drops... but then Elvastar came on, back from his trip, and suggested that we could team up to fight the level 50 Salamander Ruins, and the occasional Cerebril, not far away from my usual spot. And so that is what we did - and with his spirits, I must say we killed them pretty quickly, though some of the speed was lost as Elva did need to sit down and pop open a mana potion or two every five minutes, as he uses a lot of mana with his skills, without having the mana regeneration ability that a healer has. Once we got into the swing of buffing when he was fully regenerated, and stopping when the horse buffs etc expired, it was pretty good, though the "sallies" did have a habit of heading for me sometimes. Luckily Elva is very good at noticing that sort of thing, and would quickly come across to help deal with them.

With the horse buffs to use, I don't have room for everything on my skill bar, and so I had the "S" skills window open, using Self Heal and Group Heal from there. I don't have the actual horse buff skills on my skill bar, either, I just have my two pets there, so that it is a matter, when I want to buff, of clicking on the shortcut for my horse, then clicking the "D" button, and clicking the two buff buttons on the "D" window - then clicking on the shortcut for my drake (which changes the pet and automatically closes that window), followed by Fast Bow Fixing, and then clicking on my health bar to select myself, so that I can add Encourage and Charm. And that's me set up for five minutes - as I've said, against the Gnoll types I don't need to heal myself at all now, the most damage they do at a time is 1, and normal regeneration takes care of that.

The latest news from Aeria Games had a section entitled "SusanRev's Crystal Ball": "Oh great spirits, reveal to me the future of LC! The clouds swirl and part to reveal. EGGS! Brightly painted eggs filled with prizes. The players picking up the eggs are wearing new outfits. Beautiful new outfits with feathers! The clouds swirl and part... I see something in the distance... Something new in Dratan. It's a very angry deer? Why is it so angry? Maybe it has something to do with the giant pyramid behind it? Or perhaps its friends fell in the dungeon under the pyramid? Alas, the crystal ball has gone dark and the spirits have left..."

Well, we know about the feathery costumes - Elva seemed very taken with them, particularly the mage one. And him a married man, heheheh. Just out of mischief, I tried suggesting that we ought to club together to buy Sheele the rogue one - imagine a rogue in a winged, feathery Rio Carnival style costume turning up to deal with a pk'er who'd targetted Norcaine members, or fighting in the arena! As for the dungeon under the pyramid, well, I don't know anything about that. Elvastar was about to lead me into the Merac Jail, in search of better drops, but I had a disconnection, and when I got back online he'd managed to get himself a place in an Egeha party, so he was heading for the appropriate server.

On the Easter Egg front, I only picked up two today - one yielded a Tool Aid, and the other a Green Stone - "weight 1, Magical Accessory". Like Wednesday's Magic Stone, it doesn't appear to have any actual stats, no +4 Power of the Mind or anything, no +2 Evasion... I tried equipping it, to see if it did anything to my statistics, but no, nothing. Very strange...

Thanks to Stanislav, Elva did manage to hook up with a proper armoursmith, and get his level 47 sorcerer boots made. He spent just about all his cash on lucky smelting stones to get them to +6 (hence the interest in better drops), but I gather his headpiece is still in need of enhancement, and his weapon could do with a bit of a boost too. Let's hope he gets some useful drops in Egeha, though I must say that, browsing the merchants, I get the feeling that it is easier to get level 72 items etc, dropped in Egeha, than it is to get level 47 or 52 stuff. The only useful thing the Salamander Ruins dropped was a mage staff, which Elva got - but why do level 50 critters drop a level 41 item? As Elva commented, it seems a bit mean of them!

I had a chat with Rastatitan late last night - he was complaining that he doesn't appear in the screenshot gallery here at www.Kaerella.com, though I was able to reassure him that he is in the two relatively recent shots taken inside our Guild Hall. He has been kept busy in real life by university tests, and the preparation for them, which explains his absence recently. It's just unfortunate that he's missing out on being online while he has been our temporary guild master. I went back online after posting the blog, but I didn't do any more fighting. I don't think I've ever seriously gone into "merchant mode" on Kae, but now that I have my horse, I can sit on his back while selling, which is rather more comfortable than lolling on the ground. I left the upstairs computer, which can just about play Last Chaos and handles the internet connection, on overnight, with me in the saddle attempting to sell some healer armour and weapons...and I did sell five out of ten items. Not for a lot of cash, but I'm glad of the space...

My dear drake reached level 36 at last - he was at level 35 before I began levelling my horse! And reaching this level means he has automatically learnt the skill "Courtship" - no use against Boucu Demons, he just blows a little loving red heart in my direction, but that's fun. His next level will take 13350 pet points, but hey, he's got 141 of those already. I must remember to get an extra level of defence against magical attack from the Pet Trainer. Thanks to the double experience, and Elva's speedy Sallie-killing, I went up 15% today, so I'm already a sixth of the way through level 40. I got 54 skill points, 36 of which I used to get Basic Armorsmith levels two and three; that maxxes that skill out, I now need 47 points for the first level of Advanced Armorsmith. Luckily these crafting skills only have three levels, though after Advanced, we move on to Expert, so all in all it does take a lot of skill points. By my calculations, 690 in all, if one goes all the way! The higher your level of armoursmith skills, the greater your chance of being successful in making an item, apparently...

Keerella's Day - 22nd March

After Kaerella's exertions yesterday, she is taking a well-deserved rest, so I get a chance to report instead - Keerella, the mage, instead of Kaerella, the healer. I'm the sexy, intelligent one, though generally I just spend my time online in Randol selling stuff. And of course most of the cash gets transferred to my "big sister", sigh...

I managed to get online this morning, and teamed up with Elvastar's healer, who is, luckily, well within range of my level. She was out fighting Sand Golems, which at level 28 are about her level, and were seven levels ahead of me. It was good experience for me, and, when family matters meant she had to leave, her horse buffs meant I could continue to fight them solo without taking any damage for another five minutes. After that I shifted over to the nearby Dark Goddesses, and, by leaving lunch in the oven about ten minutes longer than planned, was actually able to level up - level 22 at last!

Knowing that Elvastar is out of Aeria Points until his "90-day Rebate" points start to arrive, and that he was wanting to get some more lucky smelting stones to upgrade his armour and weaponry, I offered to lend him some this morning - I'd bought a few spares while the last tranche of sale price ones were still available. He was glad of the offer, and has borrowed nine, leaving me with only one...his first rebates are due early next month, so not long to wait. Sadly Elva decided this afternoon that he needed his dragon Forgefire back, so no more riding around on dragonback for me; Forgefire has been transferred across to another of Elva's characters, though not without incident as he first attempted the trade while already having two pets in his inventory, and in the end swapped the level 4 fledgeling across to me. I think he's liable to get sold, as I already have a level 11 one, visible in some recent screenshots dyed that vivid emerald colour.

Anyway, I had added the Sand Golem/Dark Goddess location to my Memorizing Scroll, so was able to 'port back this afternoon for another 20% experience, before my inventory was filled up. With the various items for sale, I do carry a lot of stuff around, and reaching level 22 meant opening the "event" box with Lorraine again, this time getting some pieces of Candy, so another slot filled.

In the evening there was an easter egg hunt (I found nothing in Juno - Elvastar found the hidden temple in Dratan, and was then found by some level 65 spiders, after which he found himself back in town), followed by one of the notorious "mad monster spawns", masterminded by GMGreyWullf, which meant moving over from Cariae-3 to Cariae-4, where people were getting ready in Randol's arena, by killing each other in great quantities. But having that as the location for the spawn would have been too simple - instead, people had to move to Dratan, and run over half the map to get to the coordinates then announced. I think I got a screenshot or two, I'll check up tomorrow - monsters tended to be level 75 or thereabouts, so before long I was killed, and respawning back in town. And yes, one does lose experience and skill points in such circumstances! Running all the way back to get killed again seemed a bad idea...in fact getting involved at all was not all that sensible at my level, I'm beginning to see why it always seems to be me rather than Kae who gets sent on such errands to take screenies.

On the Easter Egg front, as regular drops rather than hidden nests, Elva got one of the stat-less Magical Stones from one, while I got a "50 gold coin" one - and one with an Experience Scroll in it, which is always good to get.

I moved across to the Sand Golems and the Dark Goddesses, and Elvastar, still in his level 28 healer guise (it's lucky he has the legs for a miniskirt), joined me, where we both worked off our death penalties on the Sand Golems, and more. Elva had to leave after a while, as he was just about falling asleep at the keyboard - it is, after all, two hours later in South Africa - but gave me the buff to keep going for the five minutes, after which I downsized to the Dark Goddesses. By that time my inventory was full, so I ended up having to throw minor stuff away... but when a Heaven Stone turns up, one doesn't mind such minor inconveniences. I kept going until I reached level 23 - and then I kept going for a few more minutes to get my young drake fledgeling up to level 13. And by that time, it was definitely time to go back to town... where I treated myself to a pair of Dark Long Shoes to complete my Dark set. They aren't enhanced yet, I still need some more level 27 smelting stones, though I have at least got the Dark Tiara up to +2 now.

So, up by two levels in one day - or a little over 130%, I think - is pretty good. And levelling up my fledgeling drake too, and getting 93 skill points towards the 151 I need for level five of Mage Armor, and some useful drops - for once it isn't Kae who gets all the playing time, and the glory.

My day isn't over yet, in fact; I am set to sell stuff overnight, if the connection continues to hold, and have already taken in 360,000 from selling 24 assorted drake eggs and pan flutes. Let's hope the tool aids sell soon, they are heavy... If I sell out of everything, maybe I can afford to buy a mount...?

Back To Egeha - 23rd March

My thanks to Kee for taking over yesterday... though I did hear that she confused Stanislav rather. He saw her heading for the teleporter, and didn't notice the tiny difference in the spelling, so thought that I had somehow become a mage! Kee's response of "Shhh, I'm in disguise" was not entirely helpful! I'm pleased to report that Kee did indeed sell out of everything she was selling last night, when I checked in the morning she was no longer in merchant mode, and her cash amount had gone up very nicely. As a reward, her outfit has been upgraded to a complete Dark "fairy set", all +4. I was indeed looking into the possibilities of buying her a level 31 horse, but Ratel, Elvastar's pet training knight, has very kindly volunteered to train one up; I have passed across the 750 quality stones that he reckons he'll need to stop the pony from fainting from hunger along the way. I didn't realise I had so many, it shows that all the lunchtime afk mining that I do has paid off.

Well, I got some experience farming done with the Gnoll Lancers and Gnoll Soldiers, at a satisfactory speed now that I have the horse buffs... and then the double-experience "teatime" special event started, so things moved along quite nicely. Approaching halfway through, Elvastar got together a Norcaine guild group for Egeha, and RenaNight kindly Recalled us there. After a while, and a few Bogles, Elva got in touch with his friend kurtstrife, and we split up - Zeratus and Sheele I think joined up with Rastatitan, who had just logged on, and no doubt a few of his Egeha friends, and Elva and I joined up with kurtstrife, plus a royal knight called Alukard, an archer called SeaZea, the rogues PuLsE and cosmine - and Stanislav, who had recently logged on, joined us.

I can't say we got a huge amount of experience, as things were a bit slow, and the good spots were as usual taken, but over the course of the evening I saw parts of Egeha I'd never visited before, and battled the Little Scorpionmantis (level 78), the Hadeis (level 70), and the Devil Grave (level 60) - this last was, well, a kind of gravestone, really. It didn't fight back, and the only catch was that there were some aggressive Dark Bogles wandering around by it, so we sometimes couldn't pick up the cash it dropped. Sadly, hitting it didn't count towards pet training, but it gave about 33,000 experience, so it kept us busy while kurtstrife and PuLsE bravely went off, daring considerable peril, to try to get a new place onto their memorising scrolls... somewhere near Lustrum Tower I think. Time passed, though, and Elva had to leave, followed a little later by me.

The Easter Eggs were unkind to me today, just two with "50 gold coin" in them - people are still trying to sell them in Randol for half a million or more! I was also unlucky to die once in Egeha early on, an attack on an Ape proved a bit over-ambitious for the guild team. It must have coincided with a bit of a laggy moment for me, I could have sworn that, when it came to following the instruction to "run for it" I was well ahead of the others, but suddenly I was dead. Luckily I wasn't carrying many skill points at the time, having invested 47 in advanced armorsmithing level one before setting out, so only lost two of them.

So, I ended up 5 skill points ahead (after spending that 47), and added 17% experience...and my drake is approaching 20% of the way towards his next level. There was even time for Kee to team up with Elva's healer against the sand golems for a little while, and get enough Soft Sand to complete that particular quest...which is nice, as it is a hard item to get, often selling in Randol at 80,000 or more. Part of the problem is that Road Boss Kamira tends to show up around there, but so far Elva's Kamira-avoidance tactic of running around the golems over a wide area, rather than staying in one place, seems to be working.

Back to Merac - 24th March

In Merac in the afternoon I concentrated more on the Gnoll Soldiers than the Lancers, but as I did some shop-browsing first, and logged out slightly early, I can only report on just over 3% experience gained then, 904 pet points, and 17 skill points. One thing you notice when you browse the various players in "merchant mode" is the price differences; you certainly have to keep your wits about you when deciding what and where to buy! Tool Aids for 20,000 gold, or 125,000? Some people may do it from ignorance - the Potion of Haste is a quest reward, and they may think it is valuable, not having noticed that Merchant Geres sells it for 200 gold. Still, 25,000 gold per vial is a bit over-optimistic! There can be no excuse for ripping people off by charging a similar sort of price for Bloodseal Gems, though, you only get them from Merchant Geres, and he charges 1000 gold. I know that when I first started I didn't notice that you could scroll down his window to see more items he offered, such as the gems, and I don't think people charging 1500 or even 1999 per gem are too bad, but 25,000 gold for a gem is just evil.

Anyway, the evening belonged to Keerella, the mage, bless her tight little leather shorts, so over to her:

Thanks - I think! I got the call from Elvastar's healer, to go out to the Sand Golems again - and when someone a few levels ahead of you, with healing and horse buffs, offers you a party, well, you don't refuse. right? (Well actually he said something like "I'm going to change into my bra and miniskirt now", and I replied "Well if you change your mind and decide to play Last Chaos instead, let me know...") And of course Elva is always good company on such occasions. As our previous spot was occupied, we moved slightly further along, onto higher ground, and proceeded to kill off the local Sand Golem population. I was slightly luckier with drops than Jacqueline was, in that I got a Heaven Stone - I also got up to my ten containers of Soft Sand before she did, but passed over the last two surplus ones that came my way, so that we both completed the quest in question. You have to kill a lot of the golems to get enough Soft Sand, it's not surprising that people in Randol tend to sell it for around 80,000 gold each. And of course there is always the risk of Kamira dropping by, as Kae would testify.

Elva mentioned that he needed some more lucky smelting stones, mainly to enhance his pet trainer's armour, so that he could survive against the Treants through the night. Until now he has had to get the horse to level ten, for a big enough armour boost from the horse's skills, before the training could be fully afk-automatic. So, I dug into my reserve of aeria points and handed over another six lucky smelting stones, making a total loan at the moment of 15 of them until he starts to get his 90-day rebate bonus points coming through.

After that Elva, er, Jacqui, fancied a change of scenery, so we went off to Merac, and the level 28 Butchers, who are ideal adversaries - unlike the Sand Golems, they don't attack pets if they respawn where the fighting is. Their only problem is that they usually have a few level 33 Pilferers around, and they are aggressive types, if rather cuter-looking. Jacqui led the way out of town, and it was the south-east road, which Kae never uses - she always takes the south-west route. One problem with Jacqui's choice is the Doom Slayer that lurks just outside town - we tried to kill it, but did amazingly little damage. Luckily we escaped back into town without being killed, and were able to hug the wall and get by on our next attempt. We'd only killed a dozen or so Butchers and Pilferers when the warning caption flashed up, and the Giant Red Dragon appeared! I ran for the wall immediately, hoping that the "ggd" would be far enough away in the middle not to notice me immediately - Jacqui had braver plans, though, and attempted to draw it off... which led to the dragon's use of its fiery breath and her sudden demise, and respawning in town. I had logged out, and we met up again back in Merac, deciding this time to take my preferred path.

So, we slogged away in what I call the "extinct volcano" just outside town, industriously despatching the Butchers and Pilferers there. And in swift succession my drake went up to level 14, and I reached level 24! Leaving me suitably buffed, Jacqui went off to test herself against the Bandits and the Blood Frenzies, and found them quite do-able, which is nice. But soon, as South Africa is two hours ahead of Britain, Jacqui's eyelids began to droop, and she had to sign off. Not entirely logging out until some quest rewards were got, and the pet trainer suitably augmented and set up for the night...

Once the horse buffs I'd been left with wore off, I headed for Randol - I'd got the 151 skill points I needed for the top level of Magic Armor, which despite its name actually just speeds up mana regeneration. And then it was back to Dratan, where I made a beeline for the archaeologist type who needed the Soft Sands, in a camp not too far outside town. But as I was getting near - there was Kamira, straight ahead! I had to backtrack and try a different route, and even then Kamira had moved so that she was rather close to the camp. Still, I was able to get the quest completed, and quickly log out.

So, rather too close a view of both Kamira and the Jolly Red Dragon in the same evening, but I lived to tell the tale...

Downhill... - 25th March

Today turned out to be mainly a Kee day again. A quest took me out to visit Archaeologist Shuraine in the Dratan desert, and while I was there I started to kill a few of the nearby Harpies, as I was in need of Harpy Feathers and Harpy Tears for a different quest. From Kae's experiences a while ago, I knew that both of these were awfully rare drops - but after less than a dozen Harpies had bitten the dust, Grand Devilroad Kamira herself showed up, just as I was picking up the first Harpy Feather to be dropped. At least I managed to pick it up before she killed me...

So, I announced Kamira's appearance on the guild channel, and Sheele and Rastatitan decided to go out and kill her, aided by a couple of their friends. Although I'd told them that she was close to Archaeologist Shuraine, Ras seemed to have a problem finding her, so I ran out of town again, and got there just as the fight was starting. I joined in the fight... but we all got killed. I thought it was just me, since my level is comparatively low, but somehow Kamira got the lot. Still, the team wasn't put off, and headed back... after staying there as a Kee-corpse for a while to keep watch, the team decided that they would quite like Kae to be along, so I logged out, returned as Kae, registered, and got a Recall from Ras - only to find that the fight had already begun, so, he being a melee type, I was right underneath the boss in mid-battle! Still, despite not having had time to buff people, or to put my skillbar right (when soloing I have the two pets on the bar, rather than Party Heal and Greater Heal), I was able to do some healing on people, and even hit Kamira a bit - and this time, the party killed her. My share of the experience was only 6874 experience and 6 skill exp, but I got a greater crystal of experience and some lucky scrolls, and other party members got some useful boss-drop things too such as a Medal of Honor and various useful accessories.

When Kamira is killed, she doesn't reappear on the map for two hours, so I was able to spend that time busily farming the Harpies, and Harpy Queens, for the drops I needed, without having to worry if she'd show up and kill me again. While even that much time didn't give me the five each of the tears and feathers, I did actually have a few in stock, so I was able to complete the quest.

I had thought that my slightly truncated evening session would be spent teamed up with Jacqueline, and didn't notice that the "I'm fighting Gnoll Soldiers" message came from the level 42 sorcerer, rather than the level 29 healer, so Kee's trip to Merac wasn't entirely necessary. As Kee I'm more than 15 levels behind Elva, so a team-up wouldn't be any good for me. Still, I started to fight a few level 28 Butchers at my favourite old "extinct volcano" location just outside town.

And then the message came that Sheele was starting an Egeha Demon party, and Kae was invited! I quickly killed two or three more Butchers, and logged out - when will I ever learn that the proper response in such circumstances isn't "I'm on my way!", it's "Let me know when the party is ready and I'll join you then..."?

Anyway, Kae registered on the appropriate server, and accepted the Recall to a quiet little lane in Egeha - the nearest monster was a Boucu Location, level 84. with a couple of Boucu Demons just beyond. After we finally got enough people to the team we managed to kill it, but we were still a bit under-powered, so some more people were definitely needed; next and Smiila were apparently coming to join us - when Sheele suddenly ran forward out of healing range and before I'd had any chance for buffs, and managed both to die and get the whole trio of demons mad at us. They ran at us, I tried to get clear, and died too... apparently Elvastar managed to live through it, I don't know if anyone else did.

Anyway, time had passed, and I didn't really have time to restart with a new party, so I said on guild chat "much as I'd enjoy getting killed a few more times when someone rushes off out of range unbuffed to aggro a whole nest of demons", I wasn't really available. Did I ever mention that I do get a little bit cranky when I get killed unnecessarily? Sheele vanished to eat then, anyway. So, Kae was down a little over 1% experience on the day, and a skill point too...though those lucky scrolls she got off Kamira ought to be worth something!

Oh well, at least Kee made some useful progress. And if we can persuade Elva to put on his bra and miniskirt again, in-game I mean, it shouldn't be too long before she starts to reach a useful level.

And Onward - 26th March

I was perhaps a little hard on Sheele yesterday; we have all in our time been pretty sure we could lure out a single monster and that the others were just far enough away, only to have the whole herd come pounding in towards us! It didn't take too long to work off that death penalty this morning, anyway, down with the nice predictable Gnoll Soldiers. The rogue C0BRA, now level 35, joined me for a while, but lunch was fast approaching and unfortunately it was something that would burn if left too long - so for the first time it was me who provided another five minutes' worth of horse buffs before logging out. The experience-farming continued after lunch for a while, until I got logged out.

On the Easter Egg front, yesterday just gave two with "50 gold coin" in them, and one with "10 Gamma Wave Energy" - which may eventually come in useful if I ever get around to making any armour, as some of the ingredients needed come from processing rocks, herbs, and energies. We are still getting the eggs as drops this week, despite the changes made after the server downtime, but the only egg I picked up just yielded a Tool Aid.

In all I (Kae) got about 4.7% experience, 1200 or so pet points, and would have been 23 skill points up if I hadn't spent 61 points on the second level of Advanced Armorsmith.

But with the increased amount of play that my mage Keerella is getting lately, it seems only fair that her doings share this blog, which would be a bit short recently otherwise! I hope this isn't too confusing; Kae = Kaerella = level 40 healer, Kee = Keerella = level 24 mage.

Anyway, the evening belonged to Kee, who joined up with Jacqueline again, back in Dratan on the c6 server, but a little further along from the Sand Golems, where a couple of varieties of spider take over. This was close to spider-boss Baal's lair, where, RenaNight's healer Seako assured us, Kamira never puts in an appearance - professional courtesy between the two bosses, in the same way that Great White sharks never attack lawyers. The spiders were orange-named and red-named for me, so they gave pretty good experience. I just am not used to being in a PvP server; when someone on horseback, with a red name, appeared and said "hi", I assumed it was a friend of Elva's! Luckily he decided that attacking a healer and a mage, both with "fairy armour" (the little Tinkerbell type hovers around if your armour, except headgear, is all at least +4), and glowing weapons, probably wasn't a good idea, and teleported out.

Misstyl's level 20 rogue, Veilchopper1, wanted to party with us, but couldn't get into the Cariae-6 server for some reason, so we moved across to Cariae-3, where Kamira had recently been sighted outside Dratan town. As Veilchopper1 hadn't got our fighting location on a memorizing scroll yet, Jacqui led her across - she didn't actually see Kamira, but Jacqui's health bar went awfully low rather suddenly at one point! I used my scroll to hop across, and thus avoided the trouble.

The fighting when we got there went pretty well, though apparently three people in Misstyl's family are Last Chaos players, and it was actually her brother who was helping level the rogue, either all along or taking over after a while. Baal must have been killed, he doesn't wander around the way Kamira does, but similarly doesn't respawn for a while once he has been killed - or high-levels would just stay by his lair farming the high-level drops! So we were able to explore the whole of the spidery area, though there are more red spiders if you go far in, and they do tend to mob, and attack pets.

Towards the end there was some controvery between Veil and Jacqui over something Jacqui had, or hadn't, said earlier to someone else, it all went a bit over the top of my head, but time was passing, and it was soon time for Jacqui to call it a night. She left us with renewed horse buffs of course, so we used them up, and then the party was over. Veil has been added to my Friends list, though I must remember that it needn't be the same person each time actually playing the character.

So, Kee hasn't quite made level 25 yet, but she's getting close... while her emerald green hatchling is now level 15, so it won't be very long before he suddenly grows into a drake. Kee is now quietly in merchant mode back in Randol as I type, and has already sold the three Item Drop Boosters recently collected (at 85,000 gold each), and forty more Experience Scrolls (at 110,000 gold each)...oh, and a Pan Flute too. Now if she can just sell the Tool Aids, the Drake Eggs, the rest of the Pan Flutes, the Moonstones, the Effort Scrolls, and three assorted accessories, then I'll be very pleased, and some sort of spending spree may well be indulged in...

New Boots! - 27th March

The big news today is that I managed to find the Arvina Boots I needed to complete my, Kae's, next armour set - the healer Kiyu, of the GuardiansOfGrind guild, was selling four different Arvina items, three of them +10, at 5 million gold each, which seemed like a pretty good bargain to me. In fact, I was a bit tempted to buy the shirt and skirt too as they were two plusses above the ones I'd already got, but I managed to resist the temptation, and just buy the boots. I can still, at level 40, only wear the gloves so far, but it is nice to be prepared, and once I reach level 41, the Storm's Eye Scepter will also be able to be equipped without a penalty. If you equip an item before the lowest allowed level, you lose 50%, 70%, or even 90% of its benefit, depending how close you are.

Keerella did some solo skill point farming, much of it against drakes, which while they may be blue now, still give around 350 skill exp each, hardly damage her at all, and come in nice and quickly, giving a chance to use the Flame Storm skill on a whole mob. She reached level 25 early on, and that means a new level of Flame Storm was available, so that was what 24 skill points were spent on... the next level of Chakra Shield had to wait until a little later in the day, but eventually the necessary 24 skill points for that were amassed too. It's not that increasing a person's Evasion is all that vital to maximise, it just looks better if people you use it on can see that it's at a decent level..

There's one of the low-reward repeatable quests open for Kee now, collecting ten horn beast hides for Wild Collector Kai; logically enough at this level it's only the greater horn beasts who sometimes yield this, but they make good cannon fodder. Kee ended up in a team fighting ghbs led by the healer bobo3 for a while, which may not have given as much experience as soloing, but it's always good to get the occasional heal.

Later on, it was Kae's turn again, so it was back to the Gnoll Soldiers for me, while chatting away with Elvastar, who was getting his pet training level 22 knight a few final skill points, enough for the final level of Vitality... useful if you need to fight Treants, a few levels higher than you, without any type of additional healing, for the afk overnight pet levelling process. Other players near him were admiring how he was able to fight huge mobs of drakes without healing or horse buffs, and admiring also the little fairy flying at his shoulder.

He was saying that we can all too easily forget what we were like at lower levels, not understanding about the sin of "ks'ing" or "kill stealing" - if you see a fellow player fighting, doesn't it seem like bad manners not to wade in and help? But a more experienced fighter will dislike that, as hitting "his" target diverts some of the experience earned by the kill to you... and may well show his displeasure by turning his blades on you next if it's a PvP server.

Ah well, Kee got points today, and that new level - and she did well selling stuff overnight too, only a pair of magical accessories were left by the morning. As for Kae, she added a little over 5% experience, bringing her up to 48% of the way towards level 41; 2209 pet points move our drake along a bit, and 28 skill points isn't bad for the time taken. I guess I should maximise that other Personal Dungeon skill, just to be able to say that another skill is at its top level, it's way too early yet to start saving large quantities of skill points for future skills.

The "server package" contest is nearly over - the first server to sell out of the two Heaven Stone package will earn a twelve hour marathon of double experience, double skill points, and double pet points, and at the moment our server, Cariae, is ahead, so fingers crossed , and we must try to leave Saturday free. My connection was pretty reliable today - I did get a window saying "You cannot chat with an offline character" when I wasn't trying to chat to anyone at all, but as bugs go, that is very minor. I didn't pick up any Easter Eggs, but Elvastar did report that he got ten Potions of Haste out of one - better than "50 gold coin", right?

Double Experience - 28th March

Keerella, our resident mage, teamed up with Jacqueline in the afternoon, and, aided by Jacqui's horse buffs, the Elder Drakes went down like rather larger-than-average flies for a while, which was good. However, before too long the mundane world reclaimed Jacqui... though tomorrow the plan is for a good long team-up, as our Cariae server has indeed won the "server event", and from around 3:00pm GMT on Saturday there will be double experience, double skill exp, and double pet points, plus very probably double drops too. This special victory event will go on for twelve hours, but I intend to be tucked up in bed fast asleep well before the end!

Where the Elder Drakes are, just outside the entrance to Velpist/Belfist Temple, seems a useful place to go for getting level 29 weapons dropped. Rather convenient, as Kee had just upgraded to just such a weapon, made for her by Enchantrella, the leader of the "Crafters Of Iris" guild. This meant that enough smelting stones were acquired to get the new Commisier Wand up to +3, on top of which a lucky smelting stone was added to get up to the +4 glow.

But Friday has its own regular tea-time event, and again this week this was double experience. Tentatively this too was pencilled in for a Kee'n'Jacqui team-up, but Jacqui, or in this case Elvastar, was lucky enough to get invited by Damor, the level 48 mage (who is also the healer Itura, at one time a Norcaine member), to Egeha... a team made with him in mind, apparently. So instead of Kee gaining extra experience, I switched over to Kae, and headed back to the Gnoll Soldiers again in southern Merac. Which made sense, Kae can do with extra experience, while Kee really needs experience and skill exp in equal measure, she still has plenty of skills to maximise.

The event went on quite a while, so the slog continued... and not having anything more productive to do, I kept on going afterwards too. When I left, after, gasp, a bit over five hours, Elvastar was still busy with his party in Egeha. We were chatting away, which certainly made things less boring at the Merac end; he was gaining experience at least ten times as fast as I was, and I'm sure by the time he finishes he'll have gone up at least two whole levels. He kept me up to date with his progress, apparently they seemed to be killing a Boucu demon about every 15 seconds. Elva is slightly worried that he ought to have more skill points, and his Demon-killing spree won't have helped with that, but I reassured him that, well, you can't fit every skill onto the skill-bar, and gaining levels is its own reward, with more attribute points and general toughness, and the ability to wear better armour and use a deadlier weapon. He won't be the only high-level player with some skills at 4 rather than 5 for a while...

Still, it was hard not to feel a bit envious of his massive chunk of progress - I had to casually mention the size of my cash balance after selling so many effort and experience scrolls, now and then...and to mention in passing the skill points I was earning. I didn't have any massively good drops to boast about, though; I've not opened the latest Easter Egg to turn up, but the previous two just had ten Potions of Haste and ten Quality Stones.

Well, there isn't really anything else to report; a rather straightforward day, with slogging rather than adventuring for most of the time. In all Kae went up about 19% on the experience scale, converting "almost halfway" into "two-thirds of the way"; my faithful drake went up by 3727 pet points, getting him to three-quarters of the way towards his next level...which can't come too soon, the Gnoll Soldiers do sometimes attack him so his health is currently a little below 50%. Oh, and I managed to add 63 skill points. Since I managed to find those Arvina Boots I'll soon need, there is no urgency about becoming an armor crafter, so those points will probably go to maximise the second Personal Dungeon skill, with a few left over for one of the bow skills I never use.

There was a "special rebate" period while we were on, luckily, for an Extreme Stone; these cost 795 aeria points, but hopefully those points will return to my account within a fortnight. An "ES" is a risk-free upgrade, usually used on a weapon (or piece of armour) that has already been well-plussed; you can only use one on any piece once, however. Elva was of the opinion that doing so might well stop further upgrading, but I'm not so sure about that. Still, he knows a lot more about Last Chaos and its workings than I do! This rebate offer is kind of a preliminary for the special Saturday "spread the love" event, when anyone can get one item upgraded by the GMs +1 for free, as long as it is at the moment in the +8 to +11 range I think. Let's hope that things run smoothly...

Lasting Chaos - 29th March

Well of course it didn't run smoothly; on Cariae-4 the first call came a couple of minutes before the posted starting time of 3:00pm GMT, and by the time I'd killed the monsters I was fighting, and was just typing in "! SupermanOX ..." the GM message came up that it was fully subscribed. And what a stupid name to have to send a whisper to, it was only later that I found out from Captianjack that that capital "O" was in fact a zero! After half an hour, they put out a second call, but apparently a lot of people from that first brief window hadn't been dealt with; I did manage to send the required message, but there was no response, and after a while the announcement came that the event was over, which led to much grumbling in Randol. There was a comment that people were being recalled to the GMs at Heathrow Terminal 5. Surely it wasn't sweet, innocent Kee who said it?

So, more aggro than aid, for most people, brought to you by the people who put the "chaos" into Last Chaos. Sheele, I must report, did manage to get an upgraded weapon, but did have a couple of disconnections along the way. The GMs didn't have a simple supply of Heaven Stones and breakage-preventing runes, that would have been too simple, instead your old weapon was destroyed, and a new one, with the 1 extra plus, created and traded across to you. So your bloodseals were lost... the idea was to provide replacement seals, but no doubt that added to the snaill-like trading pace. And all the congestion on the servers added to the disconnection risk - not exactly a good idea to hold the thing while the double experience, skill exp, and pet points 12-hour deal was going on for the Cariae group of servers!

I had been expecting to team up with Jacqueline, so played as Keerella during the afternoon. The 12-hour special Cariae event actually started about a quarter of an hour late, at 3:15pm GMT, but I was already out in Juno on Cariae-4 with the Greater Horn Beasts by then... and stayed with them generally for the next four hours, though sometimes going to the Treants or even the Greater Drakes for a change... as they are rather above Kee's level, and tend to mob, a fair amount of health potion was consumed! Kee did go up a level, and was able to put on the (well-named, as they are a bit skimpy) Vanishing robe and skirt, and her emerald-green drake levelled too. But later on, there were just too many disconnections, so it became impossible to run back from Randol without suddenly finding the landscape suspiciously empty, and some time was spent just waiting in town.

After the GMs admitted defeat, said "Sorry", and departed for Sarissa, I changed to Kaerella, and headed to Merac on Cariae-3, and the Gnoll Soldiers - and had no connection problems at all. I kept going a little later than usual, just to get my faithful drake up to level 37; I did manage 9% experience, and 49 skill points, but there was no sign of Jacqueline online at all. Let's hope she manages to get online for a bit of double-experience before the 12-hour event ends at 3:00am GMT. Or failing that there is always the double-experience teatime couple of hours on Sunday...

Location, Location, Location - 30th March

In fact, the tea-time event went on for four hours, in all. Jacqui came on, after being kept away by having to help some relatives move home yesterday, and she and Kee teamed up for a while against the spiders in Dratan near Baal's lair - but then the word came that Sheele was making an Egeha party, so we quickly switched to the appropriate server, and characters, and registered for a Recall.

The party included Sheele, Elvastar, the knight Zucco, the rogue FistfullofDeath, and, after the first couple of Boucu Locations had proved we were a bit low on fire-power, Elva managed to persuade the powerful mage Damor to join us. We killed a few level 84 Boucu Locations, and then almost everyone decided to go to the Quiz event, so for the first time I went there, to the large hall with a red carpet up the middle, and an area to one side with a big "X", and another on the other side with a big "O". The questions pop up in a window, and you choose either the "X" answer or the "O" answer by walking into that half. The questions were game-related, like names of merchants and teleporters - I guess I got about halfway before a question about the cost to hire a particular weapon came up - not something I've ever investigated! Ah well, I got 10 Tool Aids as my reward, which was a useful prize to receive.

Before going into the hall I'd quickly used up 129 skill points by getting the top level of the Personal Dungeon skill Multi Strike, and also the bow skill Storm Arrow, which may well work with a scepter too. And after the Quiz, we all headed back to Egeha, as Damor had kindly kept the place and was able to Recall us. Smiila was also in the party by now.

Towards the end a rogue called CRadd joined us - someone Sheele was not too keen on, as apparently she had once attacked Sheele's Kamira-hunting party, causing them to all get killed. CRadd didn't perhaps do as much fighting as the rest of us, but was an adept lurer, and I think was instrumental in keeping a second Boucu occupied when it started to attack us when we were busy with its friend. I don't think she was particularly high-level, my Greater Heal seemed to do an awful lot of good to her health bar.

People did die, including Sheele a time or two and CRadd once - I think in the end I died three times, but as I didn't have many skill points, I didn't lose much there, and thanks to a little bit of Gnoll Soldier fighting before the tea-time event, I still came out a couple of points ahead on the day. And I went up by an entire level, plus 8%, in experience, so I really can't complain, that was a good party and I'm glad I went along, And Damor added me to her Friends list, saying they were often short of clerics.

As so often with Egeha, there was lag, and I got a disconnection twice - well, three times, but it was really time to leave anyway then! I wasn't the only one suffering from lag, it's frustrating when you want to heal someone, you press the buttons to do it, and nothing happens, though luckily, and with Smiila's help, I don't think anyone died because of that.

Anyway, reaching level 41 meant I could start using the new Storm's Eye Scepter, and the Arvina robe and skirt... and now I'm not too far away from being able to put on the rest of the set, the circlet and the boots. So, my attack and defence has gone up - not too much use when a Boucu Location sneaks up behind one, but in general fighting, rather useful. The Gnoll Soldiers won't know what hit them tomorrow!

The Edge of The World... - March 31st

The exciting bit of an otherwise mundane day came early on, when WhiteX reported that the Great Red Dragon had arrived near Merac Caron. Luckily Sheele was on, so along with Stanislav we all teamed up in Cariae-1, and thanks to Sheele's Recall were taken straight to the action. One rogue and three healers - Sheele was in good hands, and we managed to kill the "grd" fairly easily. He may only be level 50, but he is a boss, so he isn't easy to kill - towards the end about four Cerabril spawned, which is the usual thing that happens when a boss monster is in trouble. They are actually level 51, but a lot easier for Sheele and the rest of us to despatch. WhiteX was actually more than 15 levels below Sheele so didn't get any experience, but I hope she got some good loot. I got 5 Lucky Scrolls, which boost the potential drop rate for ten minutes each - I must find out how much they usually sell for! I think someone got a Medal of Honour, which has something to do with castle sieges I think...possibly...

As Kae I had been fighting the Gnoll Soldiers in Cariae-3 before the call, and, since a "solo party" does boost one's experience and skill exp a little, I went back to them afterwards, but staying on Cariae-1, with Stanislav and WhiteX still in the party but fighting elsewhere. My new level and new armour did make a difference I think, with the Gnoll Soldiers going down slightly more quickly, and seldom doing more than "1" damage. I didn't do a hugely long slog; it was strange to be in exactly the same place as usual, but in a server where there was a possibility of being attacked by another player out on a "pk'ing" spree, It seemed quieter than Cariae-3, I don't think I saw anyone suspicious out there at all. In the end I had just added 44 skill points, and just over 7% experience, plus 2093 pet points.

I'd probably have continued a bit longer, but Elvastar, in his level 22 knight pet trainer guise, messaged me to say that his first month's batch of 90-day rebate aeria points had come through, and he'd spent them on 16 lucky smelting stones - and 15 of those were for me, to repay me for the 15 I'd lent him. As he was busy training Kee's pet horse, I said that I, or Kee rather, would go to meet him there, rather than interrupt his good work. Besides, I wanted to find where he does that!

As some people, when they see a knight being attacked by a Treant, assume he needs help and wade in to kill the monster, thus unwittingly sabotaging a whole night's afk work, it is best to find somewhere off the beaten track, and Elva had certainly done that - he was right on top of the mountainous "edge of the world", so near the edge that, although I'd registered and joined his party, the little circular blob that signifies a party member wasn't visible on the main "W" map. He had to direct me to the right place, and even then it was awfully hard to get precisely the right angle of approach to climb the steep hillside - I blame the mage's high-heeled boots, which aren't exactly practical footwear in Juno! I took a screenshot, I'll try to get it onto the third "screenshot gallery" page here at www.Kaerella.com as soon as I can.

So, the exchange was made, and I am now well off for lucky smelting stones, at least for the moment. After a chat, I headed down to the Greater Horn Beasts, as I had a repeatable quest for killing them - and along to the Treants, as I'd just got a new quest from "my relative" as I described him, Wild Collector Kai, to kill some of them too, for Treant Leathers or Leaves. Each completed quest gave me a less than magnificent 0.03% experience, but hey, it's nice to cheer up the NPCs, right?

As I was still solo-partied with Elvastar's pet trainer, I got a little more experience than I would otherwise have done, before I had to head back to town. And then it was time to go into Merchant Mode... Kee is still faithfully in Randol as I type this, attempting to sell the very last of the effort scrolls from the Valentine's chocolate deal.

I continued to be unlucky with Easter Eggs - yesterday a single Tool Aid was my best "gift", followed by 10 Quality Stones, 10 Potions of Haste, and 500 gold, while today each of the two I opened yielded "50 gold coin" only. I think Stanislav said he'd only opened a couple, and one had one of those long-lasting extra experience potions, sigh... Talking of that sort of thing, at 9:00pm a new double "rebate within 14 days" offer went live, covering both a Blessed Iris and a 5-pack of Mana Stealers. I wasn't sure I'd bother with the latter, as mana is seldom a problem for me - I think I used one small Christmas mana candy cane in Egeha yesterday, after having to use 300 mana to resurrect someone in mid-fight, but that was all. Maybe one of the people in a party who does have to call for a "mana break" every so often can use them. A Blessed Iris though doubles one's experience gain for three hours, so that may well be worth using. They start to act as soon as they are placed in one's inventory, so mine is left in the "records" section of the Mall for the moment.

It was a varied day, certainly, with no disconnections at all, probably because a Monday has rather less web congestion than Sunday evening. But let us hope things stay that way.