Keerella's Blog

Keerella's Blog - stardate June 2008 (1)

Unbloggishly, here we read from the top down - so the month begins here at the top!

A New Month - June 1st

Feeling optimistic that no two days are the same as far as connectivity goes, I started up Leo before coffee this morning, and sent him out to Elva's Eyrie, along with a friendly neighbourhood Treant. And all went well... by mid afternoon the horse had reached level 27, and fairly late in the evening he reached level 28.

SirDarth ran into Damor in Randol, and got her added to his Friends list, which is handy. Damor had decided to risk upgrading her uber, top-of-the-game staff from +14 to +15 despite the risk of it getting downgraded, maybe all the way back to +10 - using a Rune of Protection II only stops it breaking entirely. I transferred another "2fer" of the runes across to her, for which she kindly paid me rather more than my asking price - but hey, I can be generous too, I added a Tool Aid to the trade. She decided to wait until the Quiz before actually attempting the upgrade...

SirDarth had just reached level 15 by the time the TeaTime event started - unfortunately it was double experience rather than skill exp this time, so Enchantrella didn't get the chance to build up her collection of skill points - instead, Darth continued his activities. The ability to exchange Yellow Forsythias for armour and weapons, all +3, made things a lot simpler, no playing about with smelting stones, where you expensively convert an expensive armour drop into a stone and then only have a one-third chance of it actually upgrading an item. At his current level, almost everything cost 11 flowers - in all today I obtained eight items from the Domain Merchant, and he is now wearing the "Lioncub" set, plus Dragon Shield, Helm of the Brave, and Conqueror Sword. And, thanks to plenty of flowers dropping as loot, I'm only about 40 flowers down on where I started.

I went to the Quiz this evening - it was MistressDomino who attended, in fact, on the grounds that if I won any prizes, they'd have to be transferred to her to be sold, anyway. A lot of the questions I had no idea about, the names of some teleporters in locations I'd never been to for example, but I followed the majority of other people onto the side of the hall they chose, and after getting 10 answers right, got awarded 10 Tool Aids, popped straight into my inventory automatically. After getting 15 questions right I got 10 Moonstones, and after getting 18 right I got 5 Heaven Stones - and then after getting 20 right I got a further 10 Heaven Stones. I even got a 21st question right, but there was no reward for that one, and a lot of people were left in the hall, victorious. I suspect that Heaven Stones may be a little bit cheaper for the next few days. Darth even picked up two of them today as drops...

Once I'd changed back to Darth, I contacted Damor, to find out how she had got on - at the quiz she'd done twice as well as me, as Itura had been clicked on to her and followed her across the hall. Like me she had followed the majority, though she knew rather more teleporter names, and promises to take me on a "coach tour" to meet them all. But what about the staff? Had she managed to upgrade it safely, or was it back down to +10 now? The first couple of attempts, she told me, it had been unchanged on +14, but the last try got it up to the maximum - unbuffed, her magical attack is now 1623, so let the Boucu Demons beware! After that any demon-fighting would have been an anticlimax, she felt, so there was no reason for Kee to put in an appearance and hitch a lift with her - instead Darth went back out to the Drakes, Horn Beasts, and Elder Werewolves, and by close of play at around half past nine he was level 18.

So, Darth is well on the way to a successful end to his apprenticeship. While Kee is unchanged, we do have quite a few more Red Carnation drops, so the business of converting them into Guild-useful "coupons" can soon begin. I think that Darth's sort of farming probably yielded more of them than Kee would have got - and a lot more than an evening in Egeha would have provided.

Snakes & Ladders - June 2nd

With my connection to the game, I never know how the new day is going to start - and I must say the omens weren't good, with a significant delay before someone's shop opened when Leo clicked on her, and then some rather slow monster-spawning ahead as he ran out of town. He did manage to lure a Treant up to the Eyrie - but when I checked back later, I found he'd been disconnected after around ten minutes. And three further attempts in the morning didn't even get him to the Eyrie, with disconnections during the luring process, sigh.

Talking of "Elva's Eyrie", one thing I didn't mention yesterday was that Damor actually scouted around the general area, and managed to track Leo down, or indeed up, there. It's not easy climbing up the mountainside in those high-heeled mage boots, but she managed it - and very nearly killed the poor Treant by accident, apparently it was down to below 10% health!

Following the previously-given advice to switch the router off and on again did seem to help more than when I've tried it in the past, perhaps because I waited a minute before powering it up again - things weren't perfect, I actually got disconnected at the character selection screen once, after a few "timed out" windows, but it was a great improvement, and I was able to spend the bulk of the afternoon stocking up on Yellow Forsythias; if a new character goes straight out and fights only deer, without claiming any quest rewards, then before you reach level 4 you should get 58 yellow flowers - and hopefully a Red Carnation or two as well. Of course I'll need to use them all tomorrow, as after that they will vanish from our inventories, we have been warned.

In the evening Damor did eventually go to Egeha and begin her levelling against the Boucu Demons, using her newly-enhanced staff - sadly, she didn't want to invite Kee along. There was some mention of "powerlevel noobs", and "many guy around here with no skills maxed", which seems a bit unfair as Kee has 25 skills maxxed, and precisely one, Flame Field, on level 4 out of 5, For someone who doesn't like soloing in the Jail, or Dratan, it was rather handy to get a boost through the early forties, sigh...

I went on briefly as Kaerella, and after Captianjack had kindly passed over 35 Red Carnations, I went to the Domain Seller and invested 225 flowers in guild points, bringing our total up to 247 gp...then spent 200 of those on two coupons, each of which yielded 15 "very yellow" flowers, giving +95 defence for 5 minutes each. Something to save up for our first guild war. On the guild channel I did stress that there was no pressure on anyone, if they needed the cash they were perfectly free to sell the Red Carnations, but otherwise, pass 'em to Kae. That's Zeratus and Cap who have passed over some so far, let's see who else has a few for me tomorrow.

My connection was a bit strange in Randol, and I got a few disconnections there, but when I changed back to SirDarth, he had no problems, and despatched a large number of drakes - reaching level 19 just after Damor reported that she had reached level 74, giving her a buffed magic attack of 1768. "Those poor Boucus don't stand a chance", was my response.

Well, no progress on Kee today; Kae must have got a very small amount of exp, as she went down to the Merac Jail when guild chat meant she had to stay around, but she disconnected in mid-fight with one of the canines. Why she should have problems, and Darth didn't, is a mystery. Leo got the horse up to level 29 - Darth got his drake up to level 10, too. It's strange, when he was level 18, and the Drakes were the same level, him being mobbed by four or five of them at a time was no problem, his health never dropped by more than 10 points from the maximum. And he doesn't get the Vitality Control skill, which increases health regeneration, until level 20, and doesn't have horse buffs, though he does use the Divine Shield (level 4) skill to increase his armour rating, and he does use a shield rather than dual blades. As long as there's no magic attack, knights have a very easy time of it.

Darth Makes Twenty - June 3rd

After some shuffling of items around, Leo went off to pet-level, and by mid afternoon his horse had reached level 30 - I guess this horse will be for SirDarth, since he is now my highest level character without his own mount. With an 8-level gap between Leo and his horse, that yellow starvation bar does fall pretty quickly, I noticed just now that a 50-minute session had taken him down to 50%, which ties in with the chart that the Wet Paint LC Wiki refers to.

SirDarth himself did pretty well, and reached level 20 before tea, which, as that means his apprenticeship was successfully concluded, meant that the "knight event weapon", a level 21 Light of Odin sword, appeared in his inventory. Apparently he also got a yellow shoulder band as a reward, but that isn't actually visible in the inventory, or anywhere else as far as I can see. And Kee gets her second ten Reputation points! By converting the latest four level 22 items of headgear into smelting stones, and then buying a cheap level 21 sword off a nearby merchant and converting that too (weapons do always have the advantage of costing no more to smelt, but producing two smelting stones rather than one), I was able to get that up to the standard +3, though even without the extra enhancement it was already better than the standard level 21 +3 sword I was using. And then I took three Lucky Smelting Stones out of storage and got it up to +6, since Darth will be using it for a while - it is as good a weapon as the ordinary level 29 ones. No disconnections along the way, though when changing characters earlier I did get a few "timed out" notices when attempting to log back in.

Darth was concentrating on the Drakes, and getting good skill exp from them - in fact, as at 175 skill points he was more than a third of the way towards that 500 skill points needed to upgrade the Norcaine guild to level six, it started to look as if he might well be the best character to get those points, rather than Enchantrella. Going out to the main valley of Drakes, he can just stand there and fight them, without losing any appreciable amount of health, while they respawn and come in for a few minutes, so it is a great no-nonsense way to gain experience, skill exp, and indeed loot, and still works pretty well at level 20, and probably the next couple of levels too.

So, Darth was safely expelled from the "Crafters Of Iris" guild by Enchantrella, brought into Norcaine - and temporarily promoted to Guild Adviser, so that he was able to hand the Red Carnations in to the Domain merchant directly. It's nice to get the guild chat back, after being away from it while Darth was levelling up. Leo had to come away from the Eyrie for all this, so that Darth could click on Kae to apply to join, and various things could be moved around. All my accumulated yellow forsythias have now been used - depending on the level of the item, the weapons and armour pieces cost around 10 to 16 flowers each. The pieces obtained have been carefully put away on storage characters, generally, though Barbarienne managed to upgrade most of her current costume, and her next set too, while Darth will be carrying the rest of his Radiant set, which he can start wearing at levels 21 and 22. I must remember to carry some bloodseal gems around too, so that items can have those applied as soon as they qualify.

I checked back at ten to see if there were any more Red Carnations (or " " as they are called in-game) to bank, but only Zeratus was online, and he'd already passed his over - another 8 to add to his previous 54. Captianjack had managed to find 35, and nobody else had had any to hand in - so that us getting over 300 was mainly down to me, Darth was probably a much more efficient farmer for them than higher-level characters. So we have some guild points, and we have, after exchanging three coupons, 45 Very Yellow Abi Flowers - "Increase the physical defence power 95 for five minutes." They may well come in handy in a guild war, one day.

A Busy Day - June 4th

The Red Carnations and the Yellow Forsythias continue into this week, which is good - though I think I got all the low-level armour I need yesterday, so maybe I'll just sell the yellow flowers this time. Leo was up early, and straight after breakfast headed out to the Treants. I double-clicked a pet skill pill, and found that I wasn't just getting two points at a time, I was getting four - there had been an event for the US-timezone players giving double experience and double pet experience, and it was still going on. Sadly it only lasted a further twenty minutes, until 9:00am UK time, but it all helps.

What didn't help was a disconnection - my link to Last Chaos was being temperamental again. I tried switching off the modem for a few seconds, and sent Leo out again - that outing didn't last very long either, but a second "hardware reboot" got things working nicely for the rest of the day. And by clocking-off time, Leo had got the horse about two-thirds of the way through level 32, so he's almost there now. A level 33 horse should suit SirDarth very well! The Treant did vanish a couple of times, as they do tend to, and the last time I went off and got a new one, somehow I attracted a second one as well...no great problem, Leo can handle two at once when the pet is giving him a good armour boost, but this one actually had a pet-leveller following it, so Fenriz followed along. It isn't my usual custom, but I think I'd better equip a sword and kill one of the Treants before Leo logs out, in case Fenriz can't cope with two solo...

Darth had a busy afternoon, fighting the Drakes, who mobbed him enthusiastically, Damor asked him to move from Cariae-3 to Cariae-2 so that he could solo party with her, holding out the promise of some Egeha time for Kee later, so I made the switch. For some reason the Drake area I use was busier over on c2, but with a bit of moving around there were just about enough Drakes for us all, and after a while the congestion eased.

The call to Egeha came just as I'd finished my food break, so Darth's afk mining session, while I'd been eating, came to an end; Damor asked me to bring along a level 1 pony that she could start to train, and as luck would have it for once I'd not actually picked up a Pan Flute all afternoon; I quickly found someone selling them at 15,000 gold in Randol, though, and visited Lorraine, got the quest from her, and hopped over to Dratan to speak to the archaeologist, who exchanges the flute for a pony. And then Darth, at level 21, made his first brief trip to Egeha - though after handing over the pony he quickly made his excuses and left!

A swift change to Kee, and a Recall to Egeha, followed. The level 49 rogue Escadalia was there too and, after I'd made a number of attempts to find a solo party (Leo not being available, as he was in c3 rather than c2), Esca and I teamed up, to generally boost our experience gain. Everything went quite smoothly, though another mage turned up, with a red name (in capitals), the PvP-enabled sign displayed, and the guild name "WARNING" - which seemed slightly suspicious. She did attack Damor, and Esca and I, being comparatively low level, made ourselves scarce - though Damor said later that one shouldn't use "return to village" while mounted in a PvP situation like that, as an innocent party wouldn't lose experience if killed, while when mounted on one's horse, there was a high risk of the mount being killed, which is of course expensive.

Anyway, Kee added 25% experience, and 519 pet points, so it was a useful trip. And after that, it was back to Darth and the Drakes. I had finished for the night, and was just keeping Last Chaos open while I typed up this blog, when I heard a strange gurgling noise - and bringing the LC window to the top again, saw that [GM]Krash was laying out large numbers of all the different types of "Hand", so that the grass was covered in Tool Aids, Item Drop Boosters, Large Attack Potions, and the rest. "A bit of luck for you, out fighting drakes", he commented, as I sent my pet off collecting items. The only problem was that the newly-laid piles gave the "this item is reserved for another player" message initially... and the only other problem was a "Send Error Message?" crash, at just the wrong time. I restarted the game and used a Scroll of Memorizing to get back fairly quickly, but by then everyone from the whole server had rushed out, as the location for what was apparently a special treasure event had been announced, and nothing was left. Still, on checking my inventory I found that I did get one Heaven Stone - and 12 Item Drop Boosters, 16 Large Attack Potions, 30 Tool Aids, 20 Large Defense Potions, and quite a few Small Mana Recovery Potions, Small Health Recovery Potions, and Potions of Haste. It's just that, without the crash, it could have been a lot more!

Earlier SirDarth did pick up a total of 86 Red Carnations today, and 152 Yellow Forsythias; he's 60% of the way through level 21, and has 347 unused skill points. Getting 500 of them shouldn't be a great problem, it will happen a long time before he gets to level 30, which he will have to reach if he is to take over as Norcaine guild master temporarily. So it won't be long before he can actually spend some skill points, though later he will need to start saving them up for the level 30 skills, if he is going to actually continue to be a useful character.

A Long Day - June 5th

Leo got the horse to level 33, and it was duly passed over to SirDarth - since in the trade Darth passed all his stock of stones over to Leo, he had to go afk mining again at lunchtime. Leo's next assignment is to give Kaerella's drake, SirFrancis, a boost, as at level 37 he was a bit behind her, and every level of buff he can give is useful. As a 100% starvation bar will only last an hour with their 15-level difference, it may be an expensive undertaking to take him very far, but every level helps. With the help of a pet experience potion, SirFrancis reached level 38 soon after lunch, and was two-thirds of the way through that level by closing time.

A new rebate deal was announced on the Last Chaos site this morning - if you purchased a "Close Call Pack" package for 799ap, you would get a full rebate of the aeria points within 14 days! The package included 5 experience restoration scrolls, 5 medicine, 1 great HP+MP potion, 5 platinum adrenalin, and 5 mana stealers. The only slight catch was that one had to make the purchase between 4:00am and 5:00am (uk time) this morning, when I was, perhaps foolishly, offline. Great for Americans, though even East Coast America is perhaps winding down a bit between 11:00pm and midnight, but not much use for Europe, sigh...

A further 86 Red Carnations have now been "banked", transferred over from Darth to Kae - that takes Norcaine's guild points total over 100, so we got another coupon, which gave us yet another 15 Very Yellow Abi Flowers. All very, well slightly, useful I'm sure, but it would be nice to get a different reward for a change. Oh, talking about rewards, I found the "Yellow shoulder strap" which Darth was awarded for getting to level 20 as Kee's apprentice - it went in to the "event" section of the inventory. "Event item for guardian event." Oh well, it doesn't weigh anything, but I can't think of any use it may have.

Anyway, no adventures for Kee today, as Darth kept on slogging away with the Drakes, and ended the day with 518 unused skill points. He has reached level 22, so, when in a solo party with Leo, each drake only gives 825 skill exp - at level 21 they gave 962, and at level 20 they gave 1100, so they are getting less useful, but they come in to be killed so conveniently, and die pretty quickly - though of course having the "Light of Odin" special event weapon at +6 does help there. It looks as if Darth will need to keep farming skill exp for a while if he is to get the skills that a knight should have, so maybe he'll stick with the level 18 Drakes for another level. I did take a brief trip to Merac to fight the level 28 Butchers, and, when I added horse buffs (which I generally didn't need against the Drakes), they went down almost as quickly, gave almost as much skill exp, and about three times as much regular experience... but that would, for the moment, level me too quickly!

This evening's raffle involved the purchase of a "Seeker's Equipment" package for 499 aeria points - it includes 50 item drop boosters, 2 lucky spell books, 120 lucky scrolls, and 3 super lucky draw boxes, so is actually worth having, for a change, so I invested in one - the first time ever I've been in one of the LC raffles. The odds in the end were about 180 to 1 apparently, and I was one of the 179 who didn't win. A shame, as there was a specially buffed Japanese-style armour set as the prize, plus a rather good accessory.

So, Darth did a good amount of skill point farming today, and got plenty of Yellow Forsythias - and another 126 Red Carnations, so they'll need to be moved over to Kae later to be exchanged for guild points. Hopefully some other guild people are saving some up too, though I doubt if they have been getting as many of them as Darth has. With the rate that the Drakes die, he has been picking up a healthy amount of loot, though level 17 to 22 armour and weapons aren't really worth trying to sell to anyone but the NPCs at the moment, as +3 versions of them can be obtained so easily in exchange for the yellow flowers, at the Domain merchant.

A Big Day - June 6th

Leo continued his good work on SirFrancis after breakfast, and at around 9:30, once I could be pretty sure that the connection was reliable, I popped one of the three-hour pet experience potions, to double the rate of pet experience gain. There was, however, a disconnection at half past eleven UK time, as so often happens, when SirFrancis was only a few points short of level 39, but a reconnection and a teleportation got things back on track fairly quickly. As far as I can see the countdown on the potion seems to have stopped for, if anything, longer than the actual downtime, as the potion expired around 17 minutes later than I'd originally expected...

There was another rebate offer earlier on one of this week's special packages, this time a 50% rebate on a Black Jungle Case, which usually costs 999ap. The package includes "75 experience boosters, 20 greatest health/mana potions, 1 blessed iris, 18 experience scrolls, and more!!! All this for 499 after rebate! One per account!" Again, the only problem with this was that one would have had to have been online at some time between 1:30am and 3:30am UK time. I hope they do something for people on this side of the Atlantic before too long.

After lunch it was time to swap drakes around, so that Keerella's emerald green drake, unofficially nicknamed "Greedo" from the way he flies around picking up everything off the ground that he possibly can, could get a boost, so Kee has taken temporary custodianship of SirFrancis while Leo works to level up Greedo. It wasn't necessary to get SirFrancis all the way to his next level, it is not as if he is going to be immediately transformed into a large fire-breathing dragon - he will continue to fly at Kee or Kae's shoulder, and continue to gain pet points.

Damor kindly invited Kee along to the usual Demon-hunting spot in Egeha, and I teamed up with Escadalia again - and remembered to add her to my Friends list this time! I logged out for food, slightly early so that I could be sure of getting back online in time for today's TeaTime event - double experience.

I had originally expected to only have a couple of hours in Egeha with Damor, in total, with Darth mobbing the Drakes (or vice versa) for most of the time, but in the end it was all Keerella, and all Egeha - not only that afternoon trip, but the whole of the double-experience event - at least, assuming it didn't go on much beyond 9:30pm! As Damor will soon be high enough in level to go to more dangerous and interesting places to level, she was resolved to really "power level" Esca and me - and that she did. With the double experience event going on, we were doing pretty well just ks-ing her ("kill stealing", attacking a monster another player is already fighting and thus getting a proportion of the experience for the kill, at comparatively low risk), getting a lot more experience than fighting our own level of monsters, but Damor had a Cunning Plan to help us and give Esca and me all the experience from the kills. We made a three-person party, with Escadalia, me, and Itura, Damor's healer character, and while things started the usual way, with Damor attracting and attacking the Boucu Demon while we "helped", once the demon's health was down to below about 15% Damor got on her horse and teleported out. It wasn't easy for us to get that last bit of health away from the demon, they regenerate and dodge rather well, but with good healing and a steady nerve, we made it. Esca actually had about 15 of the "4 times the experience on 1 monster if you land the killing blow" scrolls", so she got a pretty big boost in one session. As for me, well, I was getting approaching ten times the experience per monster. Esca had to go away for a while, and we went back to the normal ks-ing style, but when she returned we had a further go at this high-quality power levelling.

It was a pretty long session, and not without its thrills and spills - I did die twice, the first time for some reason Damor's Sloth spell didn't work, and the demon was lively enough to take us all out, and there were occasional emergency-quick returns to Egeha village, but we were in Cariae-3, so there wasn't any problem with PvP attackers, just occasional visitors who looked wistfully at the prime spot we had, and departed. Though at the very end of the session, just after Esca had jubilantly departed, having reached level 50, thanking Damor and even thanking me, somebody did sneakily lure in a Skin Walker to attack us, but we both got back to village safely. I'd been looking through my inventory for a suitable small gift, and was able to present Damor, in the safety of the village, with a bunch of flowers before I logged out for the night. The Herb Flowers that heal pets for 9 points of damage, that is. A rather minor present for all the effort, and the teleportation scrolls to get back from the village each time, but it's the thought that counts, right?

I'd been so engrosssed in the fighting that twice I allowed poor Greedo to starve - and at the end of the Egeha session, when I rushed up to check again, he was down to 4%! Still, he wasn't starved for very long either time, his sympathy only falling to 92% and 98%, and Leo was able to survive the onslaught of the two Treants. A pet starving isn't like it being killed, you just need to feed it some rocks and it's up and functioning again. Greedo reached level 37; the idea was to get him nearer in level to Kee, but that may take some further work, as Kee's gain in experience for the day was a massive 190%; I levelled up twice, the first time being able to wear the gloves of my new outfit, and the second time being able to add the robes and skirt - back to the black theme after the previous outfit's flirtation with purple gauzy bits. If I had a level 49 staff I'd be able to use it now, but for the moment my level 45 one will have to do, it is +10 after all. And I do have a level 53 one ready to use in two levels time. Yes, Kee is level 46 now!

The Phantom Party Member - June 7th

Not a lot happened today, really. Leo got Greedo up to level 38 finally, and a little beyond, but it was taking so many stones that it seemed that that was far enough, so he's back with Kee now, and SirFrancis is back with Kae. It is a relief not to have to rush upstairs every few minutes to check up on things!

SirDarth got up to level 23 on the Drakes, and has now been able to spend some skill points on improving both his health regeneration and the chance of scoring a critical hit on his adversaries. Levelling up means that the Drakes now only give 687 skill exp each (when he is in a solo party) instead of 825, but they die even more quickly now so it is still an attractive proposition, and his pet drake levels up pretty quickly with the nonstop action.

There was apparently another "special event" between 1:00am and 2:00am UK time this morning, "Survivalist Trading", but only people who had bought Heaven Stones from the Item Mall (as opposed to just getting them as drops) were involved - many of them would have found a GM teleporting into sight in front of them offering 3 Extreme Stones in exchange for 5 Heaven Stones. Then from 3:00am to 5:00am there was yet another "half price rebate" deal, on the "Black Jungle Case" package. Have the people who run the game forgotten they have players who don't follow US times...?

In the early evening, our time, a raffle was running, involving the purchase of the aforementioned "Black Jungle Case" for 999ap - but the GMs who make the announcements on these things are sailing a bit close to the wind, I think, they tend to say "the odds of winning are 1 in 66" when they just mean that 66 packages have been sold so far - but by the end rather more packages will have been sold, and they know that, so by then, which is the only time that matters, the odds will be substantially longer...

Kee went shopping for a level 49 mage staff, without any luck, but was tempted by a Pierce of Wind on offer at 56,678,999, ready identified - so now she has a set of three, which give a nice boost to her dexterity and close-range evasion. The evasion bit doesn't help against Boucu Demons and the like, as they have a long-range magic attack, but hopefully the canine types (and others) in the Merac Jail will be able to bite her slightly less often. And of course it is easy enough to transfer the PoWs to a different character, such as my rogue, or Darth...

That shopping trip was partially sponsored by MistressDomino opening her shop overnight. Aeria Games has been attempting to make some items that couldn't be traded before into items that can be bought and sold for gold, but in the process they have messed up a few items that have previously been sold - including, I discovered last night when I was setting up MistressDomino's items, Item Drop Boosters. It was a bit of a surprise to find that they just wouldn't move into a Merchant slot! Hopefully this Tuesday night's downtime and new patch will sort out that little blunder.

Damor showed me her new armour - she hasn't got new boots yet, so the effect isn't perfect, but the costume looks like she's on the way to a Costume Ball later... with a few windows. Teamed with one or two people her own level, she made 3.5 billion experience this morning, and went up two levels, so she is now level 76. It cost her 18 million in gold, though, presumably in experience boosters! She still needs another 2.3 billion experience for another armour change, she told me. I didn't mention here yesterday that she'd invited Kae at lunchtime to Egeha, just to take some screenshots of her and a friend battling the Great Golden Dragon - I did get a few screenies, and resized and otherwise processed them today, but unfortunately PhotoBucket was having a massive go-slow on their uploads this morning, so it may take a little while longer before the galleries at www.kaerella.com get updated fully. I left rather hurriedly when I happened to notice that my health was down below 400!

Well, the evening ended with Darth going back to the Drakes, and he's 26.37% into level 23 now - and his drake levelled up to level 18, too. With the extra health regeneration, he doesn't have to use the Divine Shield self-buff at all, even a big shrieking mob of them don't hurt him. The second solo party he, or I, joined (that area still makes me "send error message?" sometimes) was a little strange; according to the compass, another member of the party was rather near, which you don't want in a solo party as it means you may end up sharing loot and experience and the chances are that the other person isn't fighting as much as you are. But he didn't appear on the main "W" map, and when I went around to get on the hill where he apparently was, there was nobody in sight, even when I was right over the orange dot that signifies a party member...and I didn't lose any experience when I fought close by. One party member, Zawisza12, logged out shortly after, and the dot vanished.

A Quiz, and a Disconnection - June 8th

It is certainly more restful not to be levelling a pet on the upstairs computer - though I have still been scampering up and down the stairs today while Enchantrella did some afk mining up there, to try and get back a stock of stones. The downstairs computer was busy updating the website, something that doesn't work too reliably if Last Chaos is active on the same machine. I managed to get PhotoBucket to work, and uploaded the last month's worth of screenshots - they have an impressive new uploader where you take a whole folder, tick the pictures you wish to upload, and, well, nothing much happens actually, but I managed to find the old method, which did get the screenies up onto the web. And then it was just a matter of getting them on to Gallery page 4, and the new fifth page too. If they don't actually load too quickly, blame PhotoBucket, not me! There are some nice pictures there, I think.

SirDarth went back to the Drakes for a final time this afternoon and early evening, with their convenience and quick dying balancing the lower experience and skill exp they give at level 23. The "teatime event" started at five, and that boosted the speed with which the experience came in, while a fine selection of Yellow Forsythias and Red Carnations continued to drop, plus Tool Aids, Moonstones, etc. Someone was trying to buy my sword, but I'll still need it for a while - why do people think one might be using a sword that one could spare? Somebody in Randol had tried to buy Enchantrella's Dark armour set earlier too.

The weekly Quiz was at seven o'clock, UK time, and in the end I followed Damor's urgings and took not only Darth there, but Enchantrella as well. I was forgetting that, being on the older computer, Enchantrella would load the town and the quiz room rather slowly, so it was with only seconds to spare that she arrived in the big hall, and clicked on to Darth. And then I had to dash downstairs, read the first question, and quickly move Darth over to the correct side of the room, with Enchantrella faithfully following him as if on a lead.

The questions seemed the same as last time, just about, with names of teleporters, prices of unlocking dead pets, and other fairly hard-to-guess questions. Luckily some people in the room always seemed to know whether to move to the "X" or "O" side of the room, and when I didn't know the answer, I just followed the majority... which I think most people did. So the 10 Tool Aids arrived safely in Darth's inventory, and the 10 Moonstones, and the 5 Heaven Stones for 18 answers...and the further 10 Heaven Stones for getting all 20 answers correct! There wasn't an unrewarded 21st question this week, and the room was still pretty full of people when the quiz was declared over. When I relogged in to Randol, there were already a lot of people in merchant mode advertising that they had Heaven Stones to sell. And then I relogged Enchantrella in to Randol too, and transferred her winnings over to Darth, so that he could pass them, via Sophia's storage facility, to MistressDomino. Well, maybe I ought to hold on to some of the Heaven Stones for the time being, but otherwise it won't be long before Mistress D can go into merchant mode for a night, and help rebuild my finances. Damor was saying that she had used last night's "enhanced chance of an upgrade" event to make another +15 staff, which she'd promptly sold for 200 million, so she has bought herself a Pierce of Wind, and the really expensive accessory too.

Damor had been at the quiz, with Itura, so she too got the double reward. She suggested that Darth would do better to move along to Velpist Temple now, and as I have its entrance on Darth's teleportation scroll, I went straight over, and followed my usual route to the back and up the stairs, to a room full of Skeleton Soldiers and Skeleton Lancers, which were white-named to me, and thus gave pretty good experience and skill exp, even if they did take a bit longer to kill than my winged friends, and did sometimes attack my drake. I joined a solo party led by Neptoon, for the extra experience boost, and for a change there was even some chatting on the party channel. It didn't take me too long to level up to level 24, and I kept going, but then I got a disconnection. I used a scroll to get back, rejoined Neptoon's party, and started to fight again, but I'd only killed about half a dozen skeletons before I got another disconnection. So, it was time to switch off the modem for a few seconds, then restart it and hope that things would be back to full function - but unfortunately when I restarted the modem, I couldn't get any connection at all.

I ran the Talktalk reconnection program without any success, and so got prompted to phone their helpline, and got led through all the usual diagnostics - and in the end was referred to their "Second Line", with the instruction that I should wait ten minutes for the first chap to pass all the data along. So I waited, and then got the message when I phoned, "Welcome to TalkTalk. Our office is now closed." So, no more Last Chaos for me this evening, and no chance to post this, either...

No Network... - June 9th

The internet connection was back in the morning, so no further telephone calls were needed - either the TalkTalk people sorted the problem out at their end, or it just went away, for the moment. But when there has been a change like that, my home network stops working. Usually, running the wizard for such things solves the problem, but not today - I even managed to lose the connection entirely again a couple of times, but TalkTalk's own wizard got that back. But it all takes time!

So, I was upstairs on the old computer, which means that Velpist Temple's corridors are a bit darker (the sliders for adjusting brightness are greyed out, for some reason), and load times are rather longer than usual. SirDarth did manage a lengthy session in the Temple, though, and went up about 40% in experience before his inventory was full, getting a couple of Heaven Stones in the process, plus Moonstones, Tool Aids, and the local speciality, Cursed Bones, which unlike a lot of that sort of item, are actually needed for one particular quest. Carrying quest items is Darth's responsibility, which means that, as he already has some of just about every Juno item, most quests for such things can be claimed as completed as soon as they are received, which is handy. Darth joined a (Han) Solo party, which again had some chatting going on, I think some people in it were teamed in Merac. By the end he had just topped 600 unused skill points, so I should be able to treat him to the fifth (and final) level of Divine Shield tomorrow.

Kae made Darth a "Guild Adviser" again, purely so that he can hand the Red Carnations in to the Domain merchant; he banked 131 at the start of the afternoon, and a further 45 after leaving the Temple, bringing Norcaine's total up to 786 guild points. Zeratus assures me he has collected some more, which he'll be able to pass over tomorrow. He also asked if I could get him a 30-day Party Recall card from the Item Mall, for 5 million, which seemes a good idea, as it is an asset to the guild to have people able to do a Recall, especially when they are in Egeha. He needs to sell a few Heaven Stones to get the cash, which is never difficult. I may well let him have a little bonus, as well as the card...

I took my level 20 healer Barbarienne out to the Drake valley briefly, getting its location onto her Scroll of Memorizing, since it is such a useful place to level up at that stage. It was interesting, while Darth hardly lost any health even when surrounded by dozens of the angry critters, she was having to use Self Heal between each kill for much of the time. It would help if I set up her level 21 horse to provide an armour buff, of course. Something else to remember to do tomorrow! I took the time to sell all the healer armour and weapon items she'd been carrying which were less than +3, as they've now been replaced by their +3 equivalents thanks to the Yellow Forsythia deal. Mistress Domino has +3 mage sets, in case she ever decides to level up, and a junior titan is now similarly equipped, though all those heavy armours and weapons take him over the 100% weight figure.

And that's about it; Darth did a little away-from-keyboard mining around lunchtime, but I did get a disconnection or two, meaning that the modem had to be powered down and restarted to try and get things running properly, with fingers crossed that it wouldn't sabotage my connection entirely today. Luckily it was running relatively smoothly by the time he began his Temple marathon, though there were a couple of times when skeleton soldiers or lancers didn't take any damage for a while, always a bad sign. Tomorrow I suppose I'd better do a bit of "system restore", the high-tech equivalent of a firm thump on the side of the computer case, and then, if I can get an internet connection, try to get the network to play...

Normal Service - June 10th

For some reason, a "system restore" on the upstairs computer solved my networking problems, so instead of being in a south-facing upstairs room on one of the hottest days of the year, my main efforts today have been back downstairs in a north-facing room, though some merchanting and afk farming has been going on upstairs at times. It is a great relief to be back to normal.

Well, there was another 100% rebate deal for those of us online between 4:30 and 5:30 in the morning, UK time - not me, sadly, though there was a 50% rebate offer yesterday evening on a different package that didn't actually tempt me to invest. I wonder what the new week, beginning after tonight's server downtime, will bring?

This week, of course, is the second half of the "Family" themed event, with all the Yellow Forsythias (dropped for players of level 24 or below), and Red Carnations. MistressDomino had a rather short time in merchant mode last night before a disconnection, but she did sell all my remaining yellow flowers, 160 or so, for 3000 gold each...so naturally today I realised that there was one account that someone had asked me to keep active while he was busy studying which would benefit from some free +3 armour and weapons! Luckily Zedan had a spare slot still, so I quickly added a mage and got the usual 58 or so flowers on the way to level 4, plus a few more finishing the fox-killing quest - and I've moved a few flowers across as I've obtained them, too. The rogue on that account now has a full set of +3 armour, though she'll need to go up one or two levels to be able to wear it all without a penalty... Damor mentioned that she had some spare flowers, so I used them, too, to get some more armour and weapons for Daredivel, the knight on that account.

I gave Jacqueline a half hour outing against the Bandits and Berserkers, but SirDarth took up the evening. He has gone up to level 25 now - he was fighting the Treants, which like the Drakes "auto-mob" and don't harm pets, so life was simple, if repetitive. At level 24 in a solo party they gave 2945 experience and 990 skill exp - at level 25 they gave the same experience, but 1045 skill exp. As the Treants are level 26 themselves, it will be interesting to see what they give when Darth reaches that level. Generally, one does get the most possible skill exp by fighting creatures of one's own level, while for regular experience, the higher-level the critter, the better. Once Darth had reached level 25, the Yellow Forsythias stopped dropping, as expected. He learned the fifth levels of two skills (Divine Shield and the "extra chance of critical hit" one), at 86 skill points each, which briefly took him below 500 unused points, but he was back over that figure by the close of play.

Captianjack had some Red Carnations saved, but got side-tracked by trying to help one of his apprentices I think - he logged off without passing any over. Psykore though made the trip out to where Darth was fighting to pass over his 223; Zeratus had handed a further 84 in earlier. That leaves Darth, with his intensive farming methods, as the majority supplier, and gives Norcaine a total of 1170 guild points at the moment. Quite a satisfactory number, it's good to get into four figures - I think that once Norcaine becomes a level six guild we do have the chance to get some more by other means. All eleven coupons we got gave us the Very Yellow Abi Flowers, which give extra defence, so we have a store of 135 of them to use, or indeed sell towards guild funds.

A New Week - June 11th

I'd left MistressDomino in merchant mode last night, so, naturally, she got disconnected when the servers went down for their weekly maintenance. It was a bit early in the morning when I checked up on the computer, and I just used the "Z" option to log out, and logged in again. I was a bit surprised when I checked the Item Mall to find that the same old packages from last week were still on sale. I set MistressDomino up to enter merchant mode again, and was disappointed to find that I still couldn't move Item Drop Boosters into the "for sale" grid... and when I clicked the button to put her into action, I got disconnected... so I allowed the game to close.

Of course, being still half asleep, I hadn't given the game the chance to download the new patch, so it was no wonder things were a bit strange. Once the new patch was downloaded, the new items appeared in the Mall, and the Item Drop Boosters were, once again, tradeable. It was surprising that my character was able to appear in the game at all - I wonder if she would have been able to get the new week's special "candy" drops, not to be confused with the regular Candy that one occasionally gets awarded...?

This week's festivities are the 2007 (sic) "Feast of Aphrodite", which is scheduled to run from, er, the 21st to the 28th March. "In celebration of Spring Love and by the blessings of Aphrodite, monsters will randomly drop candy. Male characters will find Blue Candy, and Female characters will find Pink Candy. Players can then exchange candy with characters of the opposite sex, or sell them in shops. After collecting Blue Candy and Pink Candy, take them to Lorraine and exchange them for a Lovers' Gift! You can exchange them for Love Spells to help your hunts, or for Parchment Paper to display Messages of Love!" Five blue and five pink Candies will get us one of six random "love spells", while twenty of either colour Candies will get us a Parchment Paper of the appropriate colour. You can, apparently, only collect up to five of each type of Parchment. I just hope the Blood Frenzies don't turn amorous, or something...

The Yellow Forsythias have not vanished, I notice that a few players are still trying to sell them - but the Domain merchant is not accepting them, the option has been removed from her list, so they aren't really worth anything. Actually, someone told me yesterday that the Cherry Boxes, which used to give a random "prize" when double-clicked, don't work now either, so I'd better not try to sell the very few I have left. Oh well, there is always next year!

Anyway, Darth went out, joined a solo party, and started attacking the Treants - and they dropped not just blue candy, but a couple of pieces of pink candy too, which Darth of course, being a male knight, couldn't pick up. Luckily a rogue was close enough by to claim them, it would have been a shame to have seen them just vanish. I changed my strategy after that, and brought Enchantrella along as well. A "Combat Party" arrangement meant that we shared the loot and the skill exp, while, as he was the only one actually fighting, Darth got most of the experience. In fact, although it varied from one Treant to the next, he tended to get more experience than while in a solo party, though the skill exp was roughly halved. But Enchantrella needs skill exp too, so a bit of that is fine by me. While in the party, with the loot that Darth's drake picked up shared equally, Enchantrella got a couple of candy pieces put automatically into her inventory - blue candy pieces!

Damor got in touch, as she is eager to know what the various "Love Spells" do. As she couldn't pick up any of the blue pieces of candy that the Boucu Demons dropped, she asked me to move Darth over from Cariae-3 to Cariae-2 and register for a Recall. I went to Egeha that way, and actually stayed in the party with Damor long enough to get what at level 25 was a useful boost... I was able to pick up two blue candies, though sadly on a third occasion I arrived just too late. I wonder what the candies are actually going to be worth, when the prices settle down? They seem a fairly uncommon drop, not like Red Carnations for example, so maybe the first merchant selling them I saw wasn't too wildly wrong at 200,000 gold each. I later noticed someone else hoping for 300,000 - but prices for this sort of thing always start high and then drop to more sensible levels

I spent most of my time later back with the Treants; thanks to the boost I soon levelled up, and was able to transfer the new pieces of +3 armour, the Steel Leggings and Steel Plate Mail, across to Darth, and get them bloodsealed - not particularly good seals really, a little defence and evasion, and only 2 to physical fortitude. If a pink piece of candy had dropped for me, well, Enchantrella was back in town, with the nearby entrance to Velpist temple on her scroll of memorizing, so she might have been able to reach me in time to pick it up! After Damor signed off I went back to Cariae-3 for a little more Treant-taunting, again teamed with Enchantrella (I'd not have liked to leave her standing alone in a PvP server like C2) and Darth ended the day at 15% into level 26, with exactly 500 skill points unused again, after learning four levels of "Divine Soul", each increasing his Magic Defence by 10. The fifth level costs 129 points though, so may need to wait a while. But 60 Magic Defence has got to be better than 20...

I Want Candy? - June 12th

It took a long time, but finally MistressDomino did manage to sell a fair amount of stock in Cariae-3's Randol town - my supplies of Pan Flutes and Drake Eggs were starting to build up, and in the end I had to bring the price down to 13,500 each, which is strange as they used to sell out at 16,500. I was trying to sell some Heaven Stones at 650,000 as before, but they didn't move - my supply of Large Attack Potions at 39,500 went well, but the Large Defence Potions, at 19,500, proved less attractive. But I'll have to build up my supplies again for a day or two.

While MistressDomino was in merchant mode, Enchantrella was busy mining - the horses and drakes do get hungry quickly! It takes the edge off having to be working all day if one's Last Chaos characters are at least doing something productive in-game. It would be easy to mine stones faster if one used Tool Aids, of course, but I like to have my character there, with me checking on progress when I can and restarting the action after an ore vein is exhausted, and that way one gets supplies of all three regular types of stones, which might be handy for weapon-crafting.

I was able to have a long evening playing, anyway, and once again had SirDarth leading a "combat party" with Enchantrella, who got a small amount of experience (though with Darth getting more experience than in a solo party, usually roughly 3200-3500 instead of 2945) and half the skill experience...but proved her worth by being able to pick up five Pink Candies, which, curiously, all ended up being among the loot allocated to Darth. Darth got most of the Blue Candies too, though Enchantrella did get a couple.

Zeratus let his curiosity get the better of him, and bought the necessary candies, at 50,000 gold each; for 5 blue plus 5 pink candies, the "love spell" is, he tells me, a 30 minute buff that starts immediately you give the candies to Lorraine - 10% extra Damage is the one he got, though extra Dexterity and Speed are also possible. "It was good to see the effect. I thought I could use it when I wanted to...but I will not buy candies again."

At least Zeratus didn't pay over the odds for the candies, 50,000 seems a pretty good price. I may well try selling mine at that, unless Damor wants them. A pity one can't save up the effect until one needs to use it. It's also a shame that the two types are such awkward loot, with both pink and blue candies dropping for, it seems, any character, but only male characters (and their pets) being able to pick up blue ones, and only females being able to pick up pink ones. I wonder what the "parchments" for 20 candies do? Hmm, come to think of it some strange messages have been appearing in the top part of the text area, that's probably how they get there...

Darth farmed Treants all evening, watched intently by Enchantrella, and his share of the skill exp gave him 33 new skill points, while he has gone up just over half a level, and is now two-thirds of the way through level 26. Still quite some way to go to get to level 30. Once he's done his duty at that level and donated the 500 skill points to Norcaine, he'll become rather less active, though it would be nice to at least get him to level 32, It's handy to have characters at assorted levels.

Friday the Thirteenth - June 13th

Apparently Last Chaos had an emergency downtime last night - and there was also yet another 50% rebate offer that started well past my bedtime, I see. I don't know if it's anything to do with the latest patch, but I have been finding the game much more "crashy" than usual. A "send error report?" crash in Randol, particularly when one has moved the viewpoint around rather quickly, is pretty usual, but to get these crashes when a character is just doing a quiet bit of mining, well, that's bad.

Luckily actual fighting didn't seem to be hit, which is just as well as there is a gap between one's computer crashing and one's character exiting the game, so that one can easily end up dead. Today's "EU Happy Hour" from 5:00pm to 9:00pm or so, UK time, was announced as double experience, while on Sunday the "Teatime" bonus, over the same hours, is to be 50% extra skill exp, and also 50% extra pet points. So they've managed to sort that out for pet training, have they? The last time they tried they had to make it 100% more, as it is comparatively simple to get the pet point counter clicking up two points at a time rather than one.

In the afternoon SirDarth and Enchantrella teamed up against the Treants, and did pretty well, despite the occasional players who attracted the whole local population of Treants for their own purposes, leaving us a bit short of targets sometimes. Darth did actually manage to get up to level 27, and his drake levelled up too right at the end of the session, to level 23. It was only right at the end. preparing to log out, that a "send error message?" crash came along... Enchantrella did manage to pick up two or three of the pink candies, while Darth now has 55 spare skill points to spend, on top of the 500.

My food break was more rushed than usual, as the "Happy Hour" was due to start; our friends the GMs must have been lingering over their Pacific time zone breakfast a little as it began at about a quarter past, but by that time Damor and Itura had invited me to do a spot of ks-ing at our usual place in Egeha, so I'd taken the Recall to join them there, as Keerella of course, in Cariae-3 this time. And, to pick up any blue candies that dropped, Darth came along too, though he wasn't in the party, he just stood safely at the back - and on the three occasions when a blue candy did drop, I just rushed upstairs to the older computer, and steered him down to pick the booty up. At the end I was able to pass them over to Damor, along with the two from the previous time.

A good long ks-ing session, teamed for the first half of it with Escadalia, got me up by a very healthy 48%; it ended when Damor finally reached level 77, and was able to put on the last parts of her armour set - it looks a lot nicer with the correct footwear. As an experiment, Damor then rushed off up the road - and came back accompanied by about a dozen Skin Walkers, which, thanks to her new evasion armour and accessories, were entirely unable to hit her!

Once Damor had reached level 77, she decided to do another one of those very kind sessions where she herself leaves just before the Boucu Demon dies, so that all the experience goes to the people remaining - in this case Norcaine's own Zeratus joined Itura and me in the party. The session didn't last long, as at a little before nine it was announced that we were to get double skill exp, and 50% extra pet points, for the next couple of hours. Still, both Zeratus and I were able to level up, him to 56 and me to 47 - so I too am now wearing the headgear and boots for my current armour set. That's Maerys Circlet and Shenimas Boots, both +6. It was a pretty speedy way to add another 30%, for sure. As I do need skill points, I was sent off to get some. Knowing that I'm not too keen on the Merac Jail, Zeratus kindly suggested that the level 49 Elite Goblins in Dratan's desert regions might make suitable playmates for me - and he went off to track down where he had seen them, and used Recall to take me there! I've added it to my scroll of memorizing. It's not exactly easy work, as the Elite Goblins do react if you attack a nearby friend, and are aggressive, and do attack pets - while level 51 Rough Jaguars of Desert are close by, and have similar habits, like most critters in the new Dratan. The location is pretty far from town, south of the Temple of Forgetfulness, so it is very handy to be able to teleport straight there. And it will be an increasingly useful location when I am a level or two higher.

So, Kee ended up today with 80% of a level, which can't be bad,and with 18 skill points added, at least. Well, the goblins were slow work, and the blog had to be written up too, right? It's great to get that spot on my scroll, it will be very useful, particularly when I'm level 49 and can use my next staff. Mine is +10 - I noticed somebody in Cariae-1's marketplace offering a +12 one for sale, for 40,000,000 gold. Weapons do get expensive at higher levels...

Return to Egeha - June 14th

I was still having the crash problem with mining, but the connection itself behaved perfectly, which is the main thing. SirDarth and Enchantrella were able to go out to the Treants for about an hour in the morning, and continued after the lunch break. It was quite a few hours, but the "combat party" gave Darth pretty good experience, and some for Enchantrella too even though her only job was to pick up any pink candy that dropped. In fact, Enchantrella levelled up to level 23 just before lunch, which I hadn't been expecting.

Captianjack was asking if Keerella was available for an Egeha party, but the timing was wrong for me, as it was almost time for my food break, so I just kept going with Darth until he was halfway through level 27, and then logged out for a while.

When I got back, though, I enquired on the Norcaine guild channel is there was anything going on - and joined Cap and Zeratus at a Boucu Demon hunting spot in Egeha, along with ButterflyEffect, a level 51 rogue - and Rastatitan was on too, so he joined us. He's level 57 still; he told us when he arrived that he didn't have any armour as he'd sold his old set and not found a good new one yet, but luckily he did discover something suitable in his inventory. The party also included at one time or another DeMon, a level 58 rogue, and DeviLRogue, at level 52. The spot wasn't quite as good as the usual one, as the Skin Walkers on either side are a bit nearer.

At demon-hunting, we did pretty well - Zeratus was the lurer. I'd not realised how much the player's pet was used in the luring, the idea is that the pet takes the damage, but sometimes the demon wants to be difficult and attacks the player instead. That explains why Damor was so happy to get the 250 herb flowers. Talking of Damor, after a while the Great Gold Dragon showed up just to our left, and I let Damor know - she registered, joined the party, got recalled to us, and went off to see how good her new armour and accessories were against it. This had the advantage of moving the GGD further away from us, so that we could continue to "farm" both sides. Damor found that the GGD couldn't kill her, but she couldn't solo-kill it either (within a reasonable length of time), so as I understand it she called in some assistance to help despatch it more quickly. The death of the GGD (just out of our view) spawned a group of Cursed Weavers, and we saw them jerkily moving away.

Unfortunately this gave some of our party ideas above our station, and we moved to a rather cramped corner of a field, with both a level 88 Cursed Weaver and a level 90 Cursed Lich close by. Thinking we could handle both of them was a bit of a mistake - it didn't take me long to die twice, and I wasn't the only one. Ras got a disconnection at around that time, so it was four of us, Zer, Cap, Butter, and me who went back to the demon spot. It wasn't a hugely long session, Zeratus was getting tired as he was doing the most difficult bit, and had been online for quite a few hours by then. But, despite the deaths, I was up about 12%, which is better than a full day's work back in less axalted places.

I was 3 skill points down, so hopped over to Dratan to solo the Elite Goblins and Rough Jaguars of Desert for a short session; they continue to hit hard, so that by the end of a horse buff, my health and mana would both be down to about a third. My aim was just to get those skill points back, which I did, and a couple more - so Kee ended the day up 13.11% on the experience front, plus 2 skill points and 495 pet points.

To wind down, it was back to SirDarth and Enchantrella for a shorter session - but it got Darth up to 65% of the way through level 27, which is pretty good for the day. while his drake has now reached level 24. His unused skill points reached 606, but I used 67 of them on the first four levels of the passive Upgrade Mana skill, to increase his supply of mana - not that he uses much at the moment, but against trickier foes things may well be different.

The Lady Vanishes - June 15th

Mining is still almost impossible for me. SirDarth managed to mine three stones before the game crashed, and Enchantrella crashed before getting any stones at all, and that was after getting a disconnection just as she reached the mine on her previous try. An attempt to harvest herbs lasted a little longer, but also ended in a crash. I guess I'll have to try and find a different mine, assuming there are such sites in the new, revised, slow-to-load Dratan desert, but I suspect it will still lead to the old "Send error message?" question.

MistressDomino had a look around the Randol shops on Cariae-1, though the only item of any passing interest was a +8 level 53 mage staff for 13,000,000, which compares interestingly with the +12 one for three times that amount I noticed a couple of days back. I logged out, intending to change to SirDarth on Cariae-3, but after a number of "timed out" messages when I tried to connect to c3, and at least one "the account is already in use" one, when I finally got to the character-choosing screen - MistressDomino was nowhere to be seen, and instead I had two copies of my level 7 storage Titan to choose from. Luckily the next time I logged in, things were back to normal, but given the amount of expensive stuff that Mistress D carries, not to mention the 23 million in gold she had at the time, it was a bit of a scare.

I mentioned it to Damor when I logged in as Darth, and she was sympathetic, while wondering if there was anything valuable on the double-character that could be stored. Oh, and she corrected me on a couple of bits of yesterday's blog, which I quickly revised. She can kill the Great Gold Dragon solo, it just takes a while!

The afternoon was devoted to SirDarth and Enchantrella, fighting the Treants as usual; I took my food break slightly early to be back in time for the "TeaTime" event, which promised four hours of 50% extra skill exp and 50% extra pet points, and started promptly at 5:00 UK time. Darth and Enchie continued their double act, but this time with extra skill point gain - until just before ten past six, when we both got disconnected.

Darth got disconnected a few seconds before Enchantrella. or at least that is how it seemed - but when we logged back in, Randol marketplace was absolutely full, it had been a general disconnection, everyone had been booted out. And, unfortunately, it "broke" the TeaTime event, and the skill exp gained went back to normal. So, just over one hour of the bonus, instead of four, which was a shame.

The quiz was at seven, and Darth and Enchantra both left the Treants to go there - arriving with plenty of time to spare this time. Enchie was clicked on to Darth - and Darth was clicked on to Damor. However, as has happened before, Darth crashed out with the old "send error message?" message...but I was quick enough to dash to the other computer and get Enchantrella clicked on one of Damor's characters. When Darth logged back in the marketplace was pretty full again, it looked as if most people had got one of the later questions wrong, but Damor hadn't been fooled, and lasted to the end. I think she said she had managed to get two other older computers running Last Chaos as well, so attended the quiz in quadruplicate, with three (Damor, Itura, and Heavenknight) staying connected. Zeratus got disconnected from the quiz, too. If Damor hadn't been along and I'd not been clicked on her I'd have probably got expelled with the majority, so Enchantrella getting the 10 ToolAids, 10 Moonstones, and 15 Heaven Stones was a good result.

Anyway, it was back to the Treants for me; Darth is now 18% into level 28, and still getting good experience, and fairly good skill exp, from them, so that his skill point tally is back up to 593 - I probably ought to start saving up the spare points, over the 500 already earmarked, for the level 30 skill Mana Break; I need 228 points to maximise that one, and without it being at level 5 a knight can't move forward to choose his future career path. And Darth's drake is now a third of the way through level 25. Enchantrella is 27% into level 23, with 197 skill points to spend on a level or so of material processing skills, so all is moving along nicely, except for the crashes.