Keerella's Blog

Keerella's Blog - stardate August 2008 (1)

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

Just Farming - August 1st

Again I was too busy during the day to actually play, though I sent SirDarth out to the Dratan mine, and Karella out to the herb garden west of Randol. I thought it was only the farming area north of town that had the "crash" bug, but Karella did crash out twice during the day - and I posted the error report in the forum each time. Still, a good quantity of herbs got farmed, before I switched to Enchantrella just before five, UK time, to get ready for the Friday "Happy Hour" teatime event. And it was just as well I was early, as they switched on the 50% extra experience, double skill exp about seven minutes early, for once - and continued for a little over two hours, until almost ten past seven.

It took me a few minutes to get Enchantrella to Prokion Temple; I solo-teamed up with SirDarth, as Zenderfly had by now reached level 38, a bit high for the Temple, and was out killing Blood Frenzies. Staying downstairs, I kept busy throughour the event, and for about twenty minutes afterwards, so that, starting with 30 or so skilll points, by the time I headed back to Randol I had 372 of them. And they all, bar 1, got spent, on the fifth levels of Fast Spell Casting (151) and Sloth (86), the second and final level of Haste (81), the two levels of Mana Recovery (25 each), and the first level of Energy Cutter (3 sp), which I need before I can get the first level of Curse, which, again, I'll need before I can start on Chakra Shield, which, as its fifth level gives the same speed boost as a Potion of Haste, is worth being able to use, on oneself or on anyone else.

SirDarth has got a good collection of quality, imperfect and flawed stones now; except for a couple of disconnections, he spent the whole day mining, either on the Ore Veins when Karella was also farming, or on the flatter Ore Mines when I was busy. The Mines don't yield their booty anything like as quickly, but you don't need to restart the operation every ten minutes, they can be handy, as one's character will keep mining away until the hammer or pickaxe's endurance reaches zero. Though even in Dratan, one isn't immune to mining crashes, it seems, and Darth's working day ended at about 9:20 with a rather severe crash, which needed a rebooting of the computer to sort out.

So, there isn't a whole lot more to report. Memree has loaned Zenderfly her level 40/42 set of armour, except for a circlet which I don't think I ever found - it's +4, except for the boots, which are +6. And very nice it looks too, I think in many ways the tight black mage costumes are better than the fussier, more intricate ones that a mage gets at higher levels. Zenderfly is talking about a marathon power-levelling session for Kee, perhaps two three-hour sessions, to boost her up a few levels, which we've tentatively scheduled for Monday, as my time on Saturday will be a bit broken up, and on Sunday I won't get on at all until around 7:00pm, not even for afk mining. Is she going to be playing Damor, Itura and Zenderfly on three different machines I wonder, or is the idea that once Keerella gets that last 10% experience and reaches level 53, with the ability to use that next (loaned) weapon, she will be able to provide most of the killing power, for either Screaming Zombies or Boucu Demons, herself? I guess we'll find out on Monday!

Tonight at ten o'clock UK time we are promised a mass spawning across all the servers of experience-giving Pandora's Beasts, which seems worth attending - the plan is to give Kaerella an outing for it, as Kee doesn't actually want to level up, apparently, until Monday's adventure, while Enchantrella and Darth are both "frozen" for sp-hunting in Prokion temple, at levels 27 and 33 respectively. But that is all a little bit later than this blog gets finished, so, if anything happens, tomorrow's entry will be the one to mention it. The first thing to do, if there's time before the spawning begins, will be to transfer her new blue horse across...

Further Farming - August 2nd

For a change, MistressDomino got to strut her stuff on the upstairs computer, in Merchant Mode, from mid-morning until the end of the afternoon - and she took in almost 21 million in gold. prices do seem to have risen, it's not so long ago that Item Drop Boosters sold for 110,000 or 125,000 gold, but this time, the whole bunch sold quickly at 225,000. The slowest items to sell, apart from the Pan Flutes and Drake Eggs which didn't find any buyers at 9,500 each, were the Lucky Scrolls at 145,000; when they finally went, it was time to shut up shop.

I had been intending to have MistressDomino selling items overnight last night, but I kept on getting an error message whenever I tried to go into Merchant Mode, which is annoying if you've just carefully dragged everything into position and carefully priced things. I got the same message this morning, that I had to select items for sale, but removing the tenth item, which happened to be a blue pet crystal, from its slot, for some reason sorted things out.

SirDarth had gone out earlier, and spent some time at the Dratan mines, but a disconnection ended his fun; I suspect that we can't blame Last Chaos for that one, my theory is that the upstairs computer just decided it needed to restart - so Karella, who'd started some herb farming downstairs, got disconnected too. She also suffered a "send error message" crash at the Berbank Mill herb garden west of Randol, but the forum didn't want to let me post the report about that, perhaps because the previous two posts in that thread had been by me.

I'm afraid I don't have any tales of adventure and derring-do from late last night; the Experience Pandoras were supposed to spawn from ten, UK time, and I sent Kaerella out to merac ready. To start with she fought some Gnoll Soldiers, and then after a disconnection went to Maargadum Jail instead, and briefly teamed with a couple of other players on the ground floor - neither of them needed any healing, I think I used Group Heal once just for neatness. After 40 minutes there still hadn't been any announcements of spawnings, and I rode, on Kae's fine light blue new horse, across the map, without seeing anything out of the ordinary...and then logged out. Kae added, um, 1.38% experience, 193 pet points, and 7 skill points, so not a lot to show for that 40 minutes.

This afternoon Enchantrella headed for Prokion Temple; the first room got awfully crowded after a while, but in around 90 minutes she still managed to get 105 skill points, plenty for level 1 of Curse (4 skill points) and the first four levels of Chakra Shield (44 points in all, while level 5 will need 86).

Logging in as Kee briefly, I was informed that the Strange cover of her Darkwhite Staff had expired, so, while as a weapon it looks a lot better, it's now +12 rather than +13. Rather good timing, since the first few minutes of Damor's Monday "power levelling session" should be the last time Kee needs to use it. So now it can once again be traded between characters, which may come in handy.

SirDarth went back out to the Dratan mines to try to add to his haul of stones - useful to keep all the various pets and mounts well-fed, and of course eventually Leo will be going out pet levelling again, unless Darth himself can find a more suitable foe to level against, such as Gnolls. And Enchantrella headed back to Prokion Temple...

Nothing much had changed while I was away, there was still the same person fighting in one of the rooms. I teamed up for a while with a level 22 sorcerer called BringingDaPain, who seemed to either have rather slow reactions or be chatting to his friends a lot. He did die once at the foot of the stairs, but despite that managed to level up before leaving. The evening added plenty more skill points, so that the final level of Chakra Shield was soon earned - and the levels two to four of Curse as well. At logging-out time, there were more skill points available to spend, too; by my calculations in all Enchantrella gained 321 skill points today, and her stormy grey drake reached level 25 as well.

There won't be much playing time tomorrow, or even afk farming, but I'll hope to be on for a couple of hours or so in the evening.

The Evening Shift - August 3rd

I logged in as Enchantrella just before 7:00 in the evening, and after selling some loot from yesterday headed straight for Prokion Temple. It was just on seven by the time I started fighting the Orcs there - and the teatime bonus ended ten minutes later.

There was bad news from Zenderfly; she told me that Zeratus had had his account banned, apparently they think he was buying gold from one of those third-party sites that we are warned about, which is nonsense. Zeratus wants my help in writing his response to Aeria Games, which of course he can have; he should be getting in touch with me at the "kaerella at a .com called gmx" address. Strangely, the Last Chaos website main page has today got an ad on it for www.VivoGame.com - "buy game gold - more gold, more powerful".

Well, there was nothing I could do, except just fight Orcs. Despite the "200% skill experience, 150% experience" teatime only lasting ten minutes for me, I did manage to obtain 161 skill points, so that I was able to get that final level of Curse (86 sp), and the second to fifth levels of Transformation (changes health into mana, 157 sp...well I had a few points left from yesterday). There's not really much more to get now before level 30, except the "personal dungeon skill" and one skill that is linked to staff use, which wouldn't be much use for a would-be witch, as witches use wands and not staffs. So if I do much more farming, it will be to add to Enchantrella's collection of "Special" skills...processing stones, for example.

The quiz was at 9:30 - the US teatime bonus event was starting then, too, but I've had too long a day to try to take advantage of any of that. SirDarth went to Cariae-4 and clicked on to Damor, trusting to her skill and experience, and she came through magnificently, so I've just been depositing 15 Heaven Stones, and 10 Moonstones, in storage, keeping the 10 ToolAids handy for the moment. Between them Damor, Itura and Zenderfly got three times as much booty. I just need to post this, and then see if the email from Aeria that Zeratus is forwarding to me has arrived.

Power Levelling - August 4th

As arranged, when Keerella logged in after lunch Damor was waiting, ready for some "power levelling". As Damor doesn't play, using that character, very much at the moment, she doesn't have a Recall card, so the first thing to do was actually to get to the Tomb of Theos, which is quite a way from Dratan city, far out in the desert to the south and west. Well I had to teleport to Dratan to begin with, and had a "send error message" crash that took a while to sort out, as the program locked up; the second time worked okay though.

The journey to the Tomb proved a little difficult, even though the Akane Giants spot was on our scrolls, as, while both Damor and I had horses (though Damor's hadn't had its points assigned, so couldn't give a buff), some of the monsters we had to pass were distinctly unfriendly, and my health got pretty low at one point. I was clicked on to Damor to follow, and somehow we took one corner, on a slope, too sharply - Damor managed after a few attempts to get free, but I was entirely stuck, and after a few minutes we had to give up, and go back to the Akane Giants. The next attempt worked okay, with that corner given a bit more respect, and Damor even led me to the top of the pyramid briefly, though she rode down the side again before I had time to take a screenshot.

Tomb Guard Atum is the teleporter for those who want to enter - I wondered why Damor gave me 150,000 gold, but that was about what he charged for admission! Cheaper than the 800,000 it costs to get to Egeha, anyway. Once I was in, I transferred a "Mystery Package Awesome" I'd been saving into Kee's inventory - while I'd mainly bought it for the Golden Magnifying Glasses and Item Drop Boosters, but it also contained what was described as a 7-hour Party Recall Card, though when I later logged out it seemed to have quite a time still left before it expired. The Card activated the moment it reached my inventory, so soon party members Itura, Damor and Zenderfly had joined me inside - just at the end of my afternoon session Escadalia came in too, but she was soloing, not joining in our fight.

The main plan was to power level Zenderfly, by fighting the level 100 Screaming Zombies; as Damor had done with the Boucu Demons in Egeha for Esca and me, the idea was for her to attack them one at a time, and then when their health was down to about 5% she would beam out, leaving me to deliver the killing blow - and Zenderfly, who was close by, would get a full share of the experience, but Damor, having left the party, and Itura, not being in the party to begin with but concentrating on healing Damor, wouldn't take any share. This set-up gave me a very welcome 1% experience or so every time, and gave Zen enough for her to move through the levels most satisfactorily. By the end of the afternoon I'd moved up by a massive 115%, and was now level 54. Itura had to leave eventually, as someone else in the house needed to use the laptop, but Damor was able to continue, using plenty of health potions - I used a few too.

But that was not the end of the story - after an hour for food, Damor resolved to really "power level" me; I had a one-hour Blessed Iris, and Damor passed across some of the single-use experience boosters - they seem a bit rare at the moment, unlike the skill exp version they aren't in any bargain packages, just 25 ap each. We moved into a different part of the Tomb, where level 106 Anubis Spearmen (or maybe Anubis Spear Men) lurked, along with some level 104 Sphinx Fighters. With the +200% experience effect of the Iris, and the x 4 boost to a single kill from the experience boosters, I was getting about half a level per kill, when things worked.

What I didn't realise until I checked the Wet Paint LC Wiki just now is that the Anubis Spearmen are "boss monsters" (I suppose my time in Prokion Temple lately with the various types of orc has made me too used to seeing the ornate frame round the name that denotes a boss-type), so instead of the 4,501,053 experience which a Screaming Zombie gives, they give a massive 18,918.740 experience each, before the extra boosting,and it was all mine! I used 12 of the boosters during the hour - two didn't actually work, as, well, they are formidable monsters, and I got killed, but luckily I had a resurrection scroll active on one occasion, and a skill experience scroll active on the other, so didn't lose any skill points, and only a tiny amount of experience.

By the end of our battling there, I had moved on from a few percent into level 54 - to halfway through level 60, or 645%! I'd brought along my next pair of gloves, the level 60 (thus equipable without penalty at level 55) Seian Gloves +6, plus the level 61 +6 Pegacy Shirt and Skirt, but I'd never thought I would have been able to put on the level 62 +7 Seian Boots and Hytin Circlet, so I'd left them in storage. So I was still wearing level 52 boots in that room, which I doubt that many people do...

The total experience gain for the day was therefore 761% - when Damor power levels you, boy do you get power levelled! There were new skills available at levels 56 (Fear level 6, 250sp) and 58 (Freeze Arrow level 6, 302 sp), but Damor advised me to use my points for the new passive skill Mana Flow, which "permanently increases maximum hitpoints and mana through the study of magic" - I'd had 286 skill points left after getting at teatime level 6 of Flame Field for 250 skill points, the level 54 skill, so that got me the first three levels of Mana Flow - I need 15 more skill points for level four (163 sp) - wow, level five needs 588 points! That's a lot just for 10 more mana points and 10 more health points, no wonder Damor was just saying to get it to level four at this stage.

The news seems grim for Zeratus - he has had his three main accounts banned, each with a character in Norcaine, leaving him just a minor account he used for storage. And the response to the request for a ticket has just brought an automated reply that "your request does not meet the standard format", so fill in an online form - which of course has lots of drop-down possibilities, none of which seem relevant. However do Aeria people decide who they think "must" have bought online gold, and should be immediately banned? They can't access credit card transaction details, all they can go on is how the gold balance in an account changes, surely - and Zeratus buys and sells expensive accesories like a Stone of Shadow, and selling one of those innocently boosted his cash balance by 145 million a day or two ago. We will see if we can battle on, but poor Zeratus seems to be resigned to losing his three best characters, and all the items and gold they were carrying... Buying gold from a dodgy third-party site would be a silly thing to do anyway, trusting one's credit card details to people little better than crooks, it's not something a sensible, grown-up player like Zeratus would want or need to do.

Back to Normal - August 5th

Keerella's first task was to go out to the Arcane Golems, not far from the Akane Giants, and get a few more skill points. So, a quick teleport to the Akane area, a brisk ride along to just by that corner that caused Damor and me so much trouble yesterday, the new spot added to the memorising scroll - and off Kee and her faithful drake Greedo went. It wasn't a long session, but 20 skill points were gained; the Arcane Giants are level 59, which is a level below Kee now, but in as solo party (with MistressDomino back in Randol) they gave 25602 experience and 990 skill experience, which is, well, about what one would expect. I got 0.85% experience, the 20 skill points, and a few pet points too, then beamed back into town and got that fourth level of Mana Flow, spending 163 skill points. My next target will be to get 302 more points, for the sixth level of Frozen Arrow, but it looks as if that may take some time...

Apart from a Hand of the Guard (with its Item Drop Booster, Skil Point Booster, and two ToolAids) and three Moonstones, the Golems only dropped one item of interest, Unitrons Boots - rogue level 52 boots. Dropping an item seven levels below them seems a bit mean, but it's useful to know where such things are likely to drop.

Zeratus reports that three of his friends, like him from Romania, have also received the email from Aeria Games telling them their accounts are banned; one of them has a level 88 character, and he never trades things, so it makes it all even more mysterious. He does have another account, which hasn't been hit with a banning order. People who are banned can't even log in to the Aeria Games website, which makes Aeria's demands that they go to the support area and fill in an online form a bit strange. Aeria's email doesn't say what evidence they have of any wrongdoing, it's just "you're banned". Some places have a "guilty until proven innocent" approach, others "innocent until proven guilty" - Aeria skips straight to "guilty", it would seem.

The main part of the afternoon was spent with Enchantrella in Prokion Temple, farming skill points - well, a girl can never have too many! 155 were added in all, and various bits of loot, including a Heaven Stone. I briefly teamed with the knight Dunkin, who is on my Friends list, but he didn't stick around long.

This was one of the evenings when I have to log out early. Zenderfly had commented earlier, when I was lending her my level 45/47 mage armour set, that she would fairly soon be wanting to have back the level 57 +15 staff that Keerella is borrowing at present, and that means that Kee needs to get to level 61, and buy a level 65 staff which she can then use - there is very little point in getting a level 61 one since I'm so close to outgrowing it. If necessary I can give the staff back to Zen, and let her go through her levels for a few days - at her speed it won't take long - and then borrow it back again, but it would be good to get up to the next level, and to get some skill points. So, my half-evening session was Kee versus the Arcane Golems again. It seems awfully slow after the "power levelling", but in all today Kee went up exactly 3%, and got 68 skill points, 15 of which were used on that Mana Flow level. And let's not forget about 700 pet points, it all helps... So 53 skill points towards the 302 needed for that next skill-level - not that Freeze Arrow is that useful a skill, but the stronger it is, the better. Some of the time I was using it yesterday against the Anubis Spearmen for that final small percentage when I had to actually administer the final killing blows - hit them with that first to hurt them and slow them down, then use Terra Spear as well before they could reach me.

Talking of yesterday, there was a single-line message from Rastatitan that I missed, as we were busy at the time, until someone advised me to scroll back - he just said that he was leaving the guild, and would be changing his character name, which involves buying a rather expensive special card from the Item Mall. He's been on so little for the last few months that it is really no loss for Norcaine, and frees up the space. I wonder if it really was the "Ras" that was one of the first people I ever met when I started trying Last Chaos, or whether someone else is now taking over the account?

Adventures in the Arcane - August 6th

I logged on briefly fairly early in the morning, once I'd remembered that this was the start of a new week, just to see if the Item Mall had any new bargains that were in danger of selling out, or were just generally hard to resist, but there was nothing very thrilling there. What I'd like to see would be a package with lots of experience boosters, but most of the packages at the moment aren't actually bargains, except that they throw in some "Chaos Balls"...and those things are hard to value, as the odds on how likely one is to get a good item in exchange don't seem to have been revealed.

I did meet Damor, though, who said "hi" - I guess she was on one of her regular bargain-hunting trips, to see if anyone had left a zero or two off their prices. Most merchants I browse seem to have added a zero or two too many... as it was Mistress Domino I was on at the time we didn't have the option of the messenger window, so couldn't say much, though of course I would have liked to thank her again for all that wonderful levelling. I should mention that the 7-hour Recall card had vanished by the following morning, as it should, despite its countdown talking about many weeks remaining. I know game time and real time are confusingly different, but I do think they'd set its timer a bit strangely.

SirDarth went out to do some mining again, from mid-morning - and Damor got in touch with him, with the implification being that he shouldn't be fighting, it should be Kee and the Arcanes, but, when I discovered the message, I reassured her that he was only afk mining, and that Kee would be the one who would actually be fighting later. Zenderfly did actually die from a disconnection, losing about 40 skill points as she has a big store of unused ones - I logged in as Memree, and transferred a skill point restoration scroll across to her, so that next time she dies, she won't lose any more. They are useful things, though they are an item one has to buy from the item mall, about 49ap each I think. Kee has got a resurrection scroll active, after using one of them, and a skill point restoration one, in the Tomb of Theos adventure. It should stay active until Kee dies... though neither Zen or I are entirely sure what happens if the death is due to disconnection, as one isn't actually in control of one's character then, so can't choose among the options the scroll offers.

And Kee did indeed head out to the Arcane Golems in the afternoon, though it was a slightly interrupted session. She does manage about 1% experience per hour, without interruptions, and something approaching 25 skill points per hour too, which is the important bit, as experience can be got by power levelling, while skill exp can't.

The evening session too was out with the Arcane Golems, though I did have to take a little time off to help Zeratus with phrasing his next email response to the Aeria people, who are now unequivocally saying that he did buy gold from a third party website. He didn't, and neither did at least three of his friends in Romania who also had their accounts banned at the same time, so it is a curious business.

Anyway, Kee ended the day a little below 5% forward, so it must have been roughly five hours of active playing. 112 more skill points mean we are now a little past halfway to our next sp farming target, the 302 points needed for the next level of Freeze Arrow. So, two more days for that, assuming Zenderfly doesn't come along and claim that weapon, and convert it from a wizard's staff into a witch's wand, before then. 1188 pet points are also in the bag, and while the drops were less than startling, they did include a knight's level 45 Saber, and about a dozen Moonstones.

Damor did mention that she was getting a bit bored with slogging away to level and sp-farm Zenderfly this morning; Damor and Itura were online in the afternoon and early evening, I noticed, but they weren't chatting, and one doesn't want to make the messenger box pop up on their screen if they're fighting those level 106 bosses, or something even stronger. A shame, as I had some reasonably good news concerning an item I've found in the "records" section of the Item Mall. Itura and Zenderfly seem to have left Norcaine again, I have no idea why...just as I was wanting to ask which of them should be appointed as an Adviser to the Norcaine guild, too.

Arcane Adventures - August 7th

SirDarth went out to the main Dratan desert mine again - he had an early start in fact, but that was rather sabotaged by a disconnection that I didn't discover for a while. A bit later Karella went out to Serel Farm, also in the Dratan desert, and as she is a few levels lower than Darth, had lost quite a bit of health to the Brutal Deer of Desert by the time she reached her destination, but now that that has been added to her scroll of memorising, there shouldn't be a problem in future. The only catch with that place is that it is "private land", so a toll of 30 gold is taken for each leaf, or stem, harvested. I didn't actually notice any money leave my inventory when I used a booster to grab 27 green herb leaves at once, though...as even the Berbank Mill patch of herb bushes west of Randol does lead to crashes sometimes, going to Dratan instead may be a better way of keeping supplies topped up.

Apparently Itura had fallen victim to the "random kick from a guild" bug, so re-recruitment will be needed when convenient, while Zenderfly was on some sort of witchy business, and should be rejoining soon. At which point she should get that much-sought-after elevation to Guild Advisor status, allowing her to do her own recruiting. She persuaded a level 27 mage, LightDash, to join Norcaine today, and Keerella made the necessary contact with her straight after lunch. So that's someone else, like Enchantrella, who intends to do some sp-farming in Prokion Temple without levelling up for a while. A fine idea, given how slow skill exp farming is now for Kee...get all the skill points you'll need for ages before you reach level thirty, then feel free to "power level" a bit.

And Kee went out to farm skill exp for the main part of the afternoon; the Arcane Golems seemed to be in a relatively generous mood as far as drops went, with another pair of those level 52 Unitrons rogue boots, another Saber, and a couple of sorcerer level 47 Procyans Circlets turning up. By the time I stopped for food, 2.38% experience had been gained, plus 535 pet points, and 53 skill points.

The evening session was more of the same, with the Arcane Golems kindly dropping a Heaven Stone, two level 45 "Evil Guard" titan swords, level 52 Aventics (knight) and Pruntrys (healer) Boots, and a level 47 Warnin Helm for a knight, as well as three fairly run-of-the-mill Magical Earrings. It is slightly strange that the boots that the level 59 golems drop are from the 50/52 armour set, while the headgear there is from the 45/47 set, and the weapons are level 45, though a weapon production manual dropped there was level 49. Damor was online to mention that she is off on holiday for ten days or so from next Monday, so things are going to seem awfully quiet around here. She'll be heading towards Scandinavia, not being a fan of hot climates! I very nearly disconnected while chatting to her, my text just didn't appear for a minute or two, but Kee's connection just managed to hold on. Hmm, as I found today that the bug that was preventing me from updating and playing Shaiya has now been vanquished, maybe I'll even have time to play a little of that, for a change. My friend Elys had a try at Last Chaos recently, and wasn't over-impressed, but she is playing Shaiya now. I've teamed up with her online in Dungeon Siege, NeverWinter Nights, Serious Sam, Diablo II, Guild Wars, and various mods and minor titles, so it would be good to add another one to the roster!

The evening session got me close to my current skill point target - in all today I added 5.68% experience (3.30% in the evening), 1294 pet points, and 128 skill points, so progress is being made. And hopefully Friday's "happy hour" will give 50% extra experience and double skill experience for a couple of hours, so the attempt to go after the next skill point target ought to get off to a flying start.

A Working Lunch - August 8th

Karella headed for Serel Farm again early on, but soon got a disconnection - it looks as if the first part of the morning, UK time, is a bit iffy for staying connected. After that she just went to the Berbank Mill herb patch west of Randol, and did some useful farming there, though the 11:30 disconnection struck again, and a lot of people got disconnected, judging by the chat back in Randol when I finally got back on, after quite a few "timed out" and "account already in use" messages. The Juno herb farming did end with the usual crash, of course.

MistressDomino went to Cariae-1, the busiest shopping centre, and found a level 65 +3 dual sword for two million in gold - given the number of Heaven Stones it would take to get a weapon to +3, it seemed like a good deal. Collector Ryl converted it into a mage Augcuss Staff for 296,000 gold, and then three lucky smelting stones got it up to +6, which gives it 325 + 136 magic attack...not as much as the level 57 Blood Shadow Staff +15, which offers 262 + 460, it just shows how much of a boost those high plusses give, if you can get the weapon up to that.

After that, it was time for Mistress D to go into Merchant Mode, once a package of 100 experience boosters I'd had in storage for a few weeks had been transferred across to her. All 49 item drop boosters (at 245k each) sold out within a minutes of the "shop" opening, so that was twelve million gold gained, followed over the next hour by the 30 spare toolaids (21.5k each), 2 golden magnifying glasses (895k each), all 6 large attack potions (44.5k each), a third magnifying glass, 20 experience boosters (845k each), 7 more experience boosters, all 35 moonstones (29.5k each), another 5 experience boosters, and all 7 large defence potions (22.5k)...which just left the pan flutes, drake eggs, potions of haste, and 8 experience boosters, with MistressDomino's cash reserve boosted by in all 43,832,000 gold...

The afternoon session was of course Keerella at the Arcane Golems again; they dropped a Heaven Stone, which was as usual very welcome, and another pair of level 52 healer Pruntrys Boots. Items at this sort of level are a bit rare, as most people skip fighting their own level of monsters at this stage and head for Egeha or the newer high-level places, just as Damor's power levelling let me skip directly from level 53 Akane Giants to level 59 Arcane Golems, so there aren't too many of these drops to be found on sale back in town. The afternoon's experience gain was only 1.94%, I was slowed down a bit by having the Olympics opening ceremony on the tv at the same time, but 44 more skill points meant that the sixth level of Freeze Arrow has been learnt, with 35 left unused towards the sixth level of Fear, which needs 250 skill points in all. It doesn't increase the amount of time for which a monster turns and runs away, that remains at 5 seconds, but it does improve the chance of success from 90% to 95%.

During my food break, Zenderfly came online, with a gift for me - a level 42 mage circlet, or "Moon Ornament", and a lucky smelting stone to use on it too - I think she hopes to supply enough regular smelting stones to get it to +3, so that the "lucky" can get it to +4, to complete the level 40/42 mage armour set. Very kind, and very useful for when Enchantrella gets up to the appropriate level! She urges me to keep on skill point farming with Kee, but not to reach level 63; I should be okay to continue using the +15 staff for the next three weeks, before Zen needs it. When she is back from her holiday, it will be time to level up Zen, and also Kee, on the Screaming Zombies again. At the moment Zenderfly is level 45, and farming the level 46 Beast Flyers on the third level of Maargadum Jail in Merac. They are rather useful, she says, as they mob, but don't attack pets, like our old friends the Treants.

After about 90 minutes, Zen called me in as she had some production manuals to transfer over to Enchantrella, so I went back to town, and switched character, then took a little rest to prepare for the Friday "Happy Hour", which was due to start at 7:30. Zen will be starting her/Damor's/Itura's holiday on Sunday, as travel is cheaper then, so tomorrow will be her last day on Last Chaos for almost two weeks. Zeratus has started a new healer, Aniko, who was level 14 already at that stage, and by fighting in Prokion Temple got up to level 20 by the end of the evening. It was great to get Aniko into Norcaine so that we could chat again. One of his friends had talked to a GM about the banning, and been told that if he could prove he hadn't bought gold, the ban would be lifted - what a stupid, unhelpful thing to say, how could anyone prove they hadn't done a thing like that? It ought to be up to Aeria to prove that somebody had bought gold, but of course they can't do that.

The "Happy Hour" began promptly - and over-ran by about 25 minutes, which was quite enough for me. My inventory was entirely full by then, for one thing, including a dozen Moonstones and three Heaven Stones. During the HH event itself I gained 139 skill points, thanks to the double skill exp gain rate, making 207 in total today, so I'm well on the way to that sixth level of Fear. The pet point tally is up 1398, and, with the assistance of 50% extra experience during the event, I've even gone up 7.61%, so level 61 is, slowly, getting nearer. When I get there I'll be able to wear the shirt and skirt from the next armour set, though it will look a little strange with the current "boots", which are more like bell-bottom flaired leggings. That is still the best part of a week away, though, I'm sure.

An Unexpected Arrival - August 9th

SirDarth went out to the mine in Dratan desert, and managed to avoid any early disconnections. He's reached the point at which he has gone over the 100% weight for his inventory, mainly due to carrying over 2900 stones, so gets the red warning about his dexterity being reduced every time he mines a new stone. It's lucky that the Last Chaos inventories don't seem to have a maximum "stack" size, unlike Shaiya's ungenerous ten of an item, or the inventory would have filled up entirely. 1303 flawed stones in a single slot, however, is no problem.

Damor came on in the afternoon to report another job well done - she had levelled an archer from 45 to 90 over the last ten days, in about twelve actual playing hours, earning herself 120 million in gold in the process. Apparently she has a queue of people lined up for that service. "It helps to finish my blue armour set", she commented, of which she has one out of five pieces. The next customer will no doubt have to wait until after Damor's holidays. I assume it is the same method she has used with me, and Escadalia, where she beams out of the party when the Screaming Zombie, Boucu Demon, or Anubis Spear Man is down to only a tiny bit of remaining health, so that the experience for the kill goes only to those still present. Well if she needs Kee to help with the "killing blow" for anyone, she'll know where to find me... though of course I'll be doing something similar for her levelling of Zenderfly, since whatever their talents, witches don't actually hit their opponent very hard.

Damor has advised me to get a level 69 staff, +15 - well, to get any +15 level 69 weapon, since Collector Ryl can transform items up to and including level 69. That will, she tells me, cost me 120 million in gold, probably, though I wouldn't be surprised if I end up paying more. It is going to seem awfully strange without her friendly conversations, assistance, and teamings for the next ten days or so. She wasn't really on all that much today - packing and generally getting ready, I guess, but came on last thing in the evening, so I had the chance to wish her a happy holiday.

Well, Kee was out with the Arcane Golems in the afternoon, and gained 3.1% experience, plus 702 pet points and 70 skill points - enough to be able to spend 250 sp on that sixth level of Fear. The only remaining unmaximised skill at the moment is the passive skill Mana Flow, and for the fifth level of that I'll need to get together 588 skill points! When I reach level 63 (as opposed to the current level 60), level seven of Flame Field becomes available, which thankfully is a "mere" 300 sp.

After about ninety minutes of the evening session with the Arcane Golems, I had a visitor - Grand Devilroad Kamira arrived! Luckily I was just far enough away from her spawning point not to be attacked; Damor was offline, the only friend I could tell about it was Escadalia, and she was busy in Cariae-5 Egeha. Mentioning it back in Dratan City didn't get any response either. So, it was just a matter of waiting a few minutes for her to move on to a new location. I was the only player active around there (unless GingerBeer was still around, just out of sight), so it is strange that Kamira chose that place to appear - usually she goes for low-level players as they generally kill faster, and in Dratan at least, outside the special dungeon type areas, Keerella is far from low level, but perhaps using Terra Spear to one-hit Arcane Golems does qualify as fairly fast.

After the gap I went back and continued, so that by logging-out time I'd got up to 7.36% experience in all on the day, and 1698 pet points - still a long way to go to my drake's next level though, as that puts him on 11611 out of 18845, so that he'll remain on level 40 for a while yet. The total skill point gain, which is the real point of it as I was sp-hunting after all, was 166 - since some of those went towards that fifth level of Fear, the actual current balance of unused points is 114, so I'm less than a fifth of the way towards that 588 I need. Ah well, hopefully the couple of hours of "Sunday teatime" bonus tomorrow will help it along a bit.

And just as I was ready to log out, I saw a very welcome text message come up: guild member Zeratus was logging in. Yes, that account at least has now been unbanned, but as that wasn't the account we were emailing about, we can't claim any credit for that, a level 90 friend of his was able to contact a GM. Let's hope that his Ruzs account gets unbanned too, but Zeratus is his main character, and Norcaine's top character at level 70 now, so it was a great way to finish the day. So maybe he was the "unexpected arrival" of the title, rather than Kamira? Well, they are the same level...

More Skill Point Farming - August 10th

I set MistressDomino up in Merchant Mode last night, but when I checked ten minutes later the old "Send error report" message had appeared, so that was the end of that idea, as it was getting late. SirDarth has been busy this afternoon and evening at the Mudika Mine out in Dratan desert, and now has over a thousand Quality Stones, plus more of the lesser two kinds, so we will soon be able to think of some more pet levelling perhaps...

Meanwhile, Keerella was faithfully working at skill exp farming, out with the Arcane Golems again. The afternoon session added 2.46% experience, and 55 skill points (and 562 pet points); I was just getting Kee ready for the evening when, about four minutes early, the announcement came up that TeaTime had started, so I swiftly beamed out to the usual spot once more. There wasn't much of an over-run beyond the two hours, I'd say it was 7:12pm UK time when the event finished, so I didn't manage quite as many skill points as on the Friday session - 113 in fact. Still, by the time Kee logged out the day's total had gone up, helped by that two hours or so of 50% extra experience and 100% extra skill exp, to 7.34% on experience, 1392 pet points, and 194 skill points, so that Kee now has 308 skill points of the 588 needed for that next level of Mana Flow.

At nine o'clock a new event type was scheduled: "Deer Finder". At ten unannounced locations in Juno (on Cariae-3 and the other servers' first non-PvP server too), groups of monsters were to be spawned, and at two of those spots a mysterious "SP Deer" would also be located. The location that Enchantrella found, near the lake that the Great Horn Beasts browse by, didn't have a deer, but it did have lots of level 63 Sphinx Fighters and level 64 Sphinx Speer Men. A bit out of level 27 Enchantrella's league, though she did try to fight one Sphinx Fighter with the "hit and run" method, it was lucky a rogue got involved too, using snare, as it was Enchie very nearly died. And then it was time to head for the Quiz.

The quiz went well - I'd advised our new member LightDash to just follow the crowd, and that was what I did too on the trickier questions...and we both went all the way without being expelled, and so earned our 10 ToolAids, 10 Moonstones, and 5+10 Heaven Stones. Putting those HS away gets my supply in storage back up over the hundred, which is nice, especially as they are going for silly prices these days, so it is difficult to buy them. It looks as if I should have brought Darth along too, clicked onto Enchantrella, and, with any luck, got a second set of prizes. It's a while since I tried that, I must remember next week.

The US-time TeaTime had begun at the same time as the Quiz (9:30pm, UK time), but that would take me on too late, so it was time to log out. With Zeratus back in action, and Sheele returned from holiday too, as well as LightDash, the guild channel was pretty busy in the evening, which was nice. We just need assorted other people to get back from holiday...

Arcane Again - August 11th

SirDarth was set up for mining overnight, or at least until his pickaxe broke - but the game actually crashed after a couple of hours. Still, he went back in this morning, and Karella went back to the herb farm for two or three hours as well. Timing a pickaxe at Mudika Mine, it lasted a little over four hours - 250 minutes, in fact.

After a fruitless search, mainly on Cariae-1, for a level 69 +15 weapon, Keerella went out for the rest of the afternoon to the Arcane Giants, and got to grinding away. 1.69% experience was gained, along with 459 pet points, and another 38 skill points, which did at least bring Kee's next target a little nearer.

Chatting to LightDash, she was saying that she hadn't managed to get to the quiz, which was strange, as I could have sworn she was in the Cariae-3 quiz room last night. Being relatively new, she hadn't realised that you had to get in early, and left it just too late - which kind of indicates that they closed the doors rather promptly, so that anyone who got a question wrong wouldn't have had a chance to get back in. As she was in Cariae-1 Randol, there was so much spam that she'd missed the "doors are open now" messages.

It does seem that the gold-sellers are spamming almost all the time in c1 now, and every time somebody with a name like rtpghw gets banned for repeating "enjoy the fast service of buying gold from w ww.lccrooks.c om" endlessly, a new account gets created, and wqqzzt takes up the spiel. Maybe if they actually had someone with insta-banning power stationed there, the place would be rather less annoying.

And the evening was a further case of Keerella versus the Arcane Golems; Krokignon dropped by, he used to be around back with the Akane Giants too. He was gathering groups of the golems to fight, so may well, as a royal knight, be able to kill them pretty quickly. I did venture far enough down the main path to find the Elite Akane golem (yes, he's "Akane" rather than "Arcane", and lower-case "g" on golem). As a minor "boss" he does give three times as much experience (76807 instead of 25602 for me at the moment, when I'm in a solo party), but only 27% more skill exp (1257 instead of 990), so he's not really worth the extra health potions - though I suppose there is a chance that he'll drop a ready-plussed weapon or piece of armour. The regular Arcane Golems were kind enough to drop a pair of Heaven Stones, anyway.

Zeratus has been appointed as Guild Advisor now, which was handy as he wanted to recruit a level 23 sorcerer friend, Spirrit. He also recruited a level 35 royal knight, Vypera, who was asking to join, though it doesn't seem that he has enough command of English to play an active part. Or maybe he's just shy. We'll just have to see how things go.

Well, the evening's work meant that in all today Kee put on 6.57%, and 1167 pet points...and 104 skill points. Another couple of days at that rate would get me to that level of Mana Flow, and also hopefully get me to level 61...but I don't think I will be able to spend quite that much time on Kee every day, so say three days. It will be good to be able to put on some more of the next armour set, but it looks as if I'll still be depending on that borrowed staff of Damor's for a while yet, even though I would be able to use the +6 level 65 staff then, as it doesn't hit anything like as hard. I'd probably have to take it to +13 or +14 before it was as good, and that could get awfully expensive in runes of protection and Heaven Stones.

Further Progress - August 12th

This time SirDarth's overnight mining was ended by a disconnection, though he had picked up a good number of stones by then. There was another disconnection fairly early on in the morning, so I delayed sending him back out until just before lunch - after the 11:30am "trouble time" for sure!

With the possibility of a disconnection, it didn't seem a good idea to get Keerella out to the Arcane Golems, as they can be aggressive and respawn inconveniently, so instead Enchantrella has a small outing. Again, the orcs in Prokion Temple aren't to be trusted, so to start off with she went out to the Treants near Velpist Temple in Juno, and even moved along towards the lake to battle some Great Horn Beasts too even though they are now green for her - that meant she was able to finish a couple of the local repeatable quests for one last time - "Collecting Treant Leather" and "Horn Beast Skin", both for Wild Collector Kai. After that there was time to head for Merac, and do the quest "Remnants of Akemon" for Magician Dien there - this involved getting ten "Orders of Beradben" from the local Butchers. This did take a little while, as the items didn't drop very often - like the other quest items in this session, they went straight to the "quest" part of the inventory rather than having to be picked up. There was no point in actually claiming the quest rewards yet, best to wait until Enchie is "unfrozen" and attempting to go up a level or two, then the experience will be at least slightly useful. As Enchantrella had boosted her skill points a bit with all this action, it was possible to head back to Randol and learn all three levels of Green Herb Processing...as a crafter, the more types of material she can process for herself the better, and it is a convenient way of "saving up" skill points for later, when they will not be as easy to come by.

The afternoon session got Keerella out to the Arcane Golems and the Elite Akane Golem, and over the course of the session she went up 2.19%, plus 438 pet points and 44 skill points - and the evening session was more of the same, though with the occasional gap, bringing the day's total up to 5.33% experience, 1206 pet points and 112 skill points. The evening ended slightly prematurely at 9:30 when both Darth and Kee got disconnected, but at least Kee is homing in on that next level of Mana Flow now, for what it's worth. The golems kindly dropped three Heaven Stones in the evening session; they may only drop 500 to 1000 gold each, but one kills so many of them it does start to add up - maybe half a million in gold a day? The other drops were few and far between, but a few Moonstones are always welcome.

Yesterday's recruit Vypera seems to have vanished overnight, but a level 32 rogue/ranger called ANG3R was recruited by Sheele, since she asked if she could join...Darth temporarily made Sheele a Guild Adviser, the easiest way of doing a recruiting. Sheele didn't want to keep the position, saying that she wasn't playing much lately and that the online time was mainly trading or afk, so the position of second adviser, alongside Zeratus, is currently being held by LightDash, who, thanks to the orcs in Prokion Temple, has now reached level 31. She was teamed with a friend who hadn't been to the temple before, and kept on getting the usual crash on trying to get in - finally I suggested asking someone already inside if they had Recall, and LightDash decided to buy a one-hour Recall card...and, on I think the second attempt, succeeded in getting the other player in there. Going up a couple of levels in not much more than ten minutes rather compensated for all the "send error message?" failures to get in earlier!

Norcaine appears to have a second Guild Master at the moment, a level zero titan with no name - some sort of bug, perhaps caused by Darth crashing ("send error message?") when trying to change the guild adviser set-up while mining. Hopefully this mysterious non-person will soon vanish. And hopefully ANG3R will stick around, she mentioned that her main character, a level 48 assassin-type rogue, would like to join too.

So, not exactly a day filled with incident, though it was nice to let Enchantrella get some action, particularly outside Prokion Temple for a change. And Keerella is making progress, though very slowly. Even after that skill is got, more skill point farming will be needed - that's the downside of being "power levelled", you still need to get your skills sorted out as well.

A Big Purchase - August 13th

No overnight action here, as the servers were taking their usual maintenance break for an hour or two, but I logged on quickly before breakfast, and was rewarded by being able to grab some of the last packages of a hundred experience boosters at the lower "pocket lint" price of 899 aeria points - even the higher priced allocation at 1199 ap were getting close to running out by lunchtime, though the last couple of hundred lingered on through the rest of the day. That's not surprising, really, since at current prices you could probably sell a hundred for around 75 or 80 million gold! No wonder the prices of weapons and armour are rising, it's inflation.

Since Darth was on, he headed for Mudika Mine, and set to work. Later on Enchantrella headed for Dratan too, and did a little fighting on the ground floor of Prokion Temple, though this was ended prematurely by a disconnection. Luckily Enchie didn't have her drake equipped, and managed to avoid being killed by the orc mob she'd been fighting, but it was a shame to leave all that gold on the floor, and a Moonstone. When she logged back in it was a bit close to lunch, so she just headed for Serel Farm for some herb farming.

After lunch, well, I decided to do a small amount of searching through the Cariae-1 merchants, before Kee went out to the golems - and I found a level 69 +15 Eglain Dual Sword on sale for 135 million in gold. Damor had indicated 120 milliuon as being a fair price, but I'd not seen other maxxed-out level 69 weapons in my searches, so I decided to go for it, rather than continue to spend time every day searching. Collector Ryl changed it into a Crai Staff +15 for a mere 820,000...so there I am, all set for, um, when I reach level 65!

The afternoon session with the Arcane Golems had to be slightly extended - I reached level 61 at last, but I was still a few skill points short of the 588 I needed, so kept going for another ten or fifteen minutes until I finally got there, which meant that I managed 4.02% experience, 725 pet points, and 64 skill points in all.

So, in the evening to celebrate I let Kee relax, and took Enchantrella to Prokion Temple again, teamed this time with LightDash, who we temporarily re-froze on level 32. So, two mages, 32 and 27, both with +15 Rhine Order event weapons - we did pretty well against the Orc Sergeants, Orc Axemen, and Orc Fighters upstairs, with LightDash often bringing large mobs of them for us to use Flame Field on. We each had a disconnection during the evening, at different times, but didn't die and soon got back. There was a "Storm the Castle" event going on at around nine, and that may well have been the reason things got laggy around then, with text slow to appear, gold slow to be picked up, skills slow to begin - and health potions slow to trigger! We survived, though, and by the time I logged out (at which point SirDarth "unfroze" her experience), Enchie had added 280 skill points, which will soon be banked in some raw material processing skill I guess. An enjoyable team-up!

LightDash got the first Heaven Stone to drop - and then she went and got the second one, too. A little later, though, one large mob managed to drop two more, and they both ended in my inventory, rather to my surprise as I'd not seen that there was more than one. LightDash is slightly disconcerted by my habit of referring to people by their in-game character's gender, but hopefully "she" will get used to it. It's strange, we are both using the same weapon, +15, and they both have not had an extreme stone used, but to me the glow is entirely different, with hers rather restrained, while mine is like a giant electric marshmallow...

The Item Mall has the "2fer" offers on both kinds of Rune of Protection again, which rather suggests that there may be another "increased probability of item upgrade with HS" event at the weekend, we shall see, There is also, after a gap of some weeks, the return of a special type of random drop - with an "origami" theme, yet. Red, Silver and Green paper drops, in the usual gift-boxes... if you go to Lorraine, and put three papers into the three boxes in her pop-up window (the three different colours?), for 100 gold she will present you with - who knows? Some investigation is needed. But nice to have the extra interest, anyway.

The Next Level - August 14th

LightDash volunteered to have her experience frozen just before lunch, on level 32 still, and by the time I came back had got us the last few guild points we needed to raise Norcaine to level eight - 19620 in all. As she had already, with only a very little arm-twisting, agreed to provided the 599 skill points needed, it was a matter of passing the necessary 2,725,000 gold over to her, and then temporarily promoting her to Guild Master. After the "*kicks everyone*" moment, she spoke to the Royal Guard Captain by Randol's north gate, and completed the upgrade, before passing the Guild Master position back to Darth.

So, we make progress; the next step is to get a further 5000 guild points, and 300,000 gold, to get level two of the "Expension of the guild member" skill, which should give us five more places for members. After that, well, the next guild level needs 21,385 guild points, 2,970,250 gold, and another 653 guild points, which Darth will endeavour to get again, at Prokion Temple. Apparently that allows a huge increase in membership, though one is advised against going to level ten or that increase disappears again, so there's a bug around somewhere.

After that, Enchantrella moved across from some herb farming at Serel Farm, and joined LightDash for some more Orc-mobbing on the upper floor of the Temple. As we were both "frozen", experience-wise, we added a new 1236 guild points - and when we finished, in time for my food break, Enchie had acquired 210 more skill points. Things were fast and furious, with LightDash bringing back some very large groups of orcs to where I was already fighting hard, and a lot of small healing potions were used. Another session like that and Enchie would have enough skill points for that next guild upgrade, but it's better if Darth does it, as she would need to be "unfrozen" to move to level thirty before she would qualify to be an upgrading Guild Master, and she really needs to stay farming at her present level for a while longer. And it may well take a week or more to get the guild points needed, anyway.

In the evening it was Keerella's turn to go out adventuring - to the Arcane Golems, of course. Since Norcaine was in need of guild points, SirDarth froze Kee's experience - so that she donated 1632 cumulative points, meaning that by the time she finished, the guild point total had reached 3248. Which means we are well on the way to that 5000 for the expansion skill, at least. 682 pet points were gained, and 57 skill points - I had to come in slightly early as I ran out of inventory space, the armour drops were much more common than usual, I think it was about 15 of them - including a level 47 Asuquted Circlet +2, the first "ready-plussed" drop I've had from around there.

A few of the origami papers dropped, of course; I gather that green paper is the most common, followed by red, then silver, and finally gold, which is very rare, and presenting three gold papers to Lorraine apparently gets you three Heaven Stones in exchange. Presenting lower levels of paper presumably yields other, less valuable, items. Lorraine will also attempt to convert five of any one colour into one of the next type up, but this has a pretty high failure rate. People are already trying to sell the origami papers at high prices, though why anyone would give a million for even a silver paper I don't know. I've not received a gold paper as a drop yet, myself, though I did get a couple of Heaven Stones today, dropped in the usual way, one by orcs and the other by golems.

LightDash and Zeratus had arranged to go out to the Sphinx warrior-types near the pyramid - specifically, I assume, the level 64 Elite Sphinx Speer Men, since they give 636,593 experience, three times what the non-elite ones give. LightDash was geared up with a one-hour Iris, and experience boosters, not to mention a Recall card and a skill point restoration scroll. They were using Damor's usual method, with Zeratus getting the foe down to a tiny amount of health and "returning to village" so that LightDash alone would land the killing blow and get all the experience, suitably boosted. They had bad problems with lag, as I could tell from the guild channel chat, but did what they set out to do, which was level LightDash straight up to level 38, which was pretty good going, particularly as the lag meant that often Zer couldn't tell how much health the Speer Man had left. LightDash was using the witch skill Stone, which is supposed to have an 80% success rate, but finding it a bit less reliable than that. So no more trips to Prokion Temple for her - she farmed lots of skill points there, though, so deserved a boost like that. Hopefully she'll be able to team up with Kaerella for some trips into Maargadum Jail soon!

The Next Day - August 15th

There was another of those mass disconnections soon after 11:30 in the morning, UK time, but by then MistressDomino had managed to sell her stock of Skill Boosters, and Item Drop Boosters, plus some Large Attack and Defence Potions, bringing in nearly thirty million in gold, so that was a useful start, especially as Keerella will soon be hunting for new armour I think.

After that it seemed safe to send SirDarth out to Serel Farm, instead of Mudika Mine, for a change, to grab some herbs; Enchantrella joined him over lunchtime. It was lucky she did - I hadn't checked that the Endurance of Darth's knife was actually going down, but of course to Enchie it looked as if he was just standing there, even though through his eyes he appeared to be farming. So I used the old "sit down and stand up" ploy, and got him farming properly. And he continued through the afternoon, and, using a second knife, on into the evening.

Enchantrella finished her farming stint after lunch, and I started a new character - the idea being that as MistressDomino is on the same account as Darth, it can be awkward, as I'll set her up in merchant mode and then somebody in Norcaine will ask for their experience gain to be frozen or unfrozen, so I have to quit and change over to Darth to do that. So, MistressDomina has been created; I teamed up with Darth for a solo party right away, and decided to make it an open-to-all solo party. One of the first people to join was a level 23 knight called KnightDoom - and he didn't seem to know that the party title of "solo" meant we were supposed to go our separate ways. He came out to MistressDomina, who at level 2 was just starting to fight foxes and deer, and said "follow" - which wasn't really much use as we were more than 15 levels apart. He killed a few Jaguars, and of course I just got 1 experience and 1 skill exp - I was hoping there might be some useful loot, but although he managed to collect a very large group of Jaguars, all following him, nothing much happened, and he left. Luckily I know better than to attack Jaguars at that level, any I hit would have turned their attention to me, so I survived unscathed.

After taking the new "MD" up to level 7, I left the party, and switched to Keerella - Darth kindly let me into the party again, and made me leader, and things continued, though this time I was fighting Arcane Golems rather than Berserk Wolves. KnightDoom asked me to use Recall, and asked where I was - I assumed he was hoping for a lift to Egeha or something, so informed him that I didn't have Recall, and was only sp-farming in Dratan anyway. And a few minutes later he rode up to me in the desert. The 15 level difference again applied, while it almost halved my skill point gain, so it seemed a bit pointless.

KnightDoom wanted to trade with me, and though I was fighting the Golems, opened the trade window to show me what he was offering - a level 73 yellow Bless' Yolia Staff (with seals for power of the mind 12, magical attack 6, and attack 10), a level 75 green Light Serphin Glove (evasion 45, increases close range evasion 56, increases long range evasion 56, and swiftness of reflexes 12), a level 76 yellow Shape Rilit Pant (increases close range physical defence 5, increases all types of physical defence 4, magical defence 4, and increases long range physical defence 5), a level 76 white Speedy Rilit Shirt (evasion 33, increases close range evasion 45, increases long range evasion 45, and swiftness of reflexes 8), and a level 77 blue MANA ove grife circlet +1 (increases close range physical defence 7, increases all types of physical defence 6, magical defence 5, defence 5, and increases long range physical defence 7).

I wasn't particularly interested as I had no idea of the items' value; KnightDoom asked if I had anything good to trade, such as a chaos smelting stone, but I didn't. By this time he'd been hit by an Arcane Golem and died, but that didn't effect the trade window, which was stopping me from picking up the loot. Finally he asked for 15 million - I offered 12 million, he accepted that, and the trade was made. I have no idea if I got a bargain, or spent ten times too much, but since I've copied all the details in here, I'm hoping that Damor will tell me when she gets back.

I was thinking that MistressDomina might like to wear all that high-level stuff when she becomes a merchant, but I discovered, when, back in Dratan City I attempted to try the items on just to see what they looked like, that items that high you can't actually wear until the appropriate level, unlike lower level armour which you can wear, with an appropriate armour penalty. So that's a shame. I suppose that means the items can't actually be "plussed" until then either.

Kee returned to the Arcane Golems for an hour or so after the break, so that in all I added 603 pet points, and 52 skill points - getting 880 instead of 990 skill exp per kill is going to slow that down a bit! But then the 7:30pm "Happy Hour" was approaching, with the promise of double experience and 50% more skill exp (as opposed to the other way round, the last couple of weeks), so it seemed like a good idea to give my level 42 cleric Kaerella an outing - well this is www.kaerella.com after all. LightDash and Kae teamed up and went into Maargadum Jail, to fight the canines etc, but when we came out to re-buff, a large horde of Pandora Beasts was there! We started to fight them, mainly the level 40 spider types, but before long someone pulled a big group of the level 50 larva types on to us, and we both got hit too hard and died. We headed back from the respawn point in town and were a bit more cautious, but at some point on either that group or the next group we went off in search of, we each notched up another death - for me the experience gain from the Pandoras was good enough to wipe out any deficit, and I had very few spare skill points to lose, but LD did I think lose another 50 sp at one point... maybe when she returned to that second mob and somehow ended up right in the middle of all of them, I think she said she leapt off a cliff or something...

Galandorius made his long-awaited return from his holiday at around that point, and we went over to team with him on Cariae-4, finding another group or so of Pandoras to bash away at - pretty good experience, especially with the Event running, and some dropped generous amounts of cash. Once we ran out of the ghostly Pandora Beasts we went over to the Jail again - and this time Gal, being a bit of an expert on the first few levels, took us down to level three and the Beast Flyers. Unfortunately they didn't like LightDash at all - I may be a bit out of practice as a healer, but I made a few last-minute health saves, with her bar below 10%, before the inevitable happened and she died. It was strange, the monsters hardly hurt Gal at all, and only rarely did my health take any great hit - mages always get hit first and hit hard. I'd had a few lag episodes, and on the stairs there I had another worse one, and decided that I would have to log out - I did that, but Gal had to fight for about 5 minutes to defend me before my immobile figure finally vanished from the scene.

I couldn't log back in, I kept timing out, until at Gal's suggestion (I could still communicate via Darth, still herb farming) I closed the game and restarted it, when I logged in first time, with full health and a still-healthy drake. I headed back and he and I fought the Beast Flyers and Beast Archers a bit longer, and then Gal decided he wanted to visit the fourth level. Luckily I warned him not to go too far forward, after my experience with Itura there...he did go a bit far along one side, and his health took a heavy knock, but luckily I was able to keep him alive, and he sensibly retreated to the stairs, so that we both emerged unscathed. I left him to farm the level three monsters for a while longer, and logged out. Kae had only added about 19 skill points and 269 pet points, but thanks to the experience-giving Pandoras I'd gone up the best part of 10%. Kaerella's still not halfway to the next level, though. It was nice to be playing Kae again, even if I was a bit rusty, and good to team with both LightDash and Galandorius. I just wish I'd been able to keep LD, and myself, alive slightly more often...