Kaerella's Blog - stardate November 2010 (1)

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

Three Different Stormings - November 1st

Britain and Europe has changed over to winter time now, while the USA basks in its summer time until next weekend, which means one feels a little split on the matter of timing.  And as I'd been saving my extra hour's lie-in for today, by going to bed last night at more of a summer than winter time, I woke up at the summer time time...which meant that RedRackham was able to get to Maargadum Jail for some pet-levelling an hour earlier than usual - sort of.  I continued with my lie-in, so got up either half an hour early, or half an hour late.

MistressDomino had stayed in merchant mode overnight, and did pretty well; she only sold out of the empty baskets and the item drop boosters, but managed to sell useful amounts of heaven stones and a few other things, significantly boosting my Auzura cash reserves.  But after coffee it was time for her to have a rest, while CaptainScarlet headed for Maargadum Jail.  He was easily able to solo the two-headed canines, standing in their main room on the second floor; by the time I broke off for lunch (which due to tv-watching commitments had to be at winter time), he had reached level 36, adding 37.89%, 25 skill points and 192 pet points.

After lunch, when he headed back to Merac there was a local message-delivery quest to do, which gave him 4.00% experience; otherwise, Cap spent the afternoon fighting the two-headed canines and their friends again, adding 40.69% in all during the session, plus 31 more skill points.  The session ended slightly early, by current reckoning, as I needed to be back in action, after the food break, by five.

With the UK winter time, Auzura's "Storm the Castle" event started an hour earlier than usual, at five o'clock UK time.  [GM]Darasuum was in charge, and as usual, in his night shadow guise, was there before the start, as the people gathered.  When the time came, the monsters were spawned, and the storming began, with the usual thorny mantises, anubis archers, death knights, male assassinbugs, zamoras, anubis spear men, dark harpies, hell-otuu, and so on.  It didn't take us very long to clean out the castle's infestation, and the GM rewarded us with the usual hands of loot...this particular GM is never over-generous with the loot spawnings, but I think I got one or two of each of the four main items.

I went to the Auzura event as my level 94 ranger-rogue Rage; rather conveniently, right at the end I noticed that Twisted's guild master, spazz, also a rogue, was there to, so I clicked on him to "apply to join guild". and got Rage back into Twisted.

Cariae's StC event was scheduled to start an hour after Auzura's, so there was just time for my level 24 archer Karanne to go out into Juno and fight the level 24 great horn beasts for almost half an hour, and get some empty baskets on that server - as well as, as it happened, a hand of the guard and a hand of bravery, which between them were more valuable that my share of Dara's loot on Auzura, and various bits of armour.  Back in Randol, the empty baskets were exchanged for Halloween candies, and luckily I did get at least one of each of the six different types, so I was able to exchange the six for a 2010 pumpkin helm.  SirGalahad then logged out briefly, to allow Karanne to trade the helm across to Barbarienne...and then Barb headed for Merac Castle.

There was just time to get SirGalahad back into action with a spike canine, and then the event began.  This time I didn't join the main rush over the bridge - I headed towards the other bridge, dealing with the wight slasher and his retinue of death mask soldiers and lancers along the way.  About three other people were already fighting on the other bridge, so it didn't take us long to cut through them, and reach the gate into the outer courtyard, and join the main force.

There was an invisible dragon in the inner courtyard - and wearing the pumpkin helm allowed me to see and attack it, as well as the sphinx commanders.  "Never seen a group get through all those mobs this fast before!" the GM commented.  "Well apparently it's prize time - then I'll spawn some stuff for ya."

And generous amounts of loot were spawned and picked up, nice thick multiple piles of the usual hands.  The event was over... or not, as "Kamira's back in the inner courtyard!" we were informed.  And plenty of kamiras there were, though I think I only got 5 moonstones and 2 medals of honour from the piles of loot.  "I am going to have to spawn a bit more to challenge you guys", was the next GM comment.  "Kamiras are coolest" was my response, and we did indeed get another group of kammies to deal with, but not before "When Croythes ATTACK!"  And flutons, and patriarch botises, and some sort of dark missionary, all of which got handled surprisingly easily.

"Great event, anonymous GM", I remarked, hoping to find out the name of our benefactor, though I did have my suspicions.  "Much better than Dara's bare-bones StC for Auz  ;-)"  The "god mode" reply to that was "that's because Dara is a nub."  The high-level night shadow Smotpoker made a point of calling our GM "Dara" a couple of times, just for fun.  "I'm not Dara!  He's a nub!" came the reply.  "I already said he was a nub :P"

"Though Dara does at least appear in person", I commented.  "Well as I am consistently anon, you can guess who I am I am sure :)" came the reply.  "lol hmm strat or sauce", Smotpoker said.  "I am not sure but I may be the only one to chat nearly exclusively in god mode", the GM said, and then added "Stratos is a nubcake."

Thinking of the words being broadcast server-wide, Smotpoker suggested "Just say smot rules storm the castle xD and you won't be the nub" - but the actual announcement was "I hear smot needs pants" which, for a robed night shadow, may well be true.  That was the last GM-type announcement; a final "later guys!  ;)" was on local chat, and as such credited to our favourite GM, AwesomeSauce.

After all the additional monsters, we had earned, and received, a generous second helping of loot, so that, as well the 5 moonstones, and a crystal of experience (greater), Barbarienne ended up with 8 large defence potions, 12 large attack potions, 8 skill point boosters, and 10 item drop boosters, plus plenty of tool aids and the small HP and MP recovery pots.  So we all had a fun time, and were well rewarded.

I decided to go along to a third StC, which was due at 7:45 on Tairen-6.  My highest character there is a level 42 rogue, so it would be risky - Rage again, or "xRAGEx" to be exact.  There was plenty of time before the event was due to start, so Rage headed for Maargadum Jail, to fight a few two-headed canines and other stuff. 

Rage did manage to get enough empty baskets from Jail to be able to, back in Merac village, get her own pumpkin helm, as announcements for the upcoming "Storm the Castle" had advised.  Once that had been done, she teleported down to Merac Castle, for the event itself.

Preliminary announcements let us know that [GM]Darasuum was a noob, which we know to be untrue - he is a nub, as had been established earlier.  Our host for Tairen's StC was [GM]Yatou, though Dara did log in long enough to call Yatou "Failtou".  The event was generally the usual one, although the inner courtyard did have some flutons in it.  I'd already died once when a hell-otuu killed the person tanking it, and immediately turned on me... and the flamethrower attack of one of the flutons had me using a second skill point restoration scroll.

We didn't get any bonus monsters after the castle had been fully stormed, but [GM]Yatou was nicely generous with the piles of loot, so I think I picked up almost as much as at Awesome's Cariae event.  Which was just as well, considering the value of the two scrolls I'd used!  I noticed that Zuney, or Aszune when she's on Auzura and in the Twisted guild (or in the forum), was there, remarking at how well she'd been able, as a mage, to "tank" the monsters... I should think so too, I see she is Tairen's fourth-highest ranked mage, on level 129, and a member of the Vendetta guild there.

After the event was over, I went back to Maargadum Jail, fighting on floor two and floor five until Rage's inventory was entirely full.  I ended up with quite a few armour pieces, some +4, from the 50/52, 55/57, and 60/62 sets, which may well come in handy eventually.  Rage just went up by 20.12%, 41 skill points, and 384 pet points, since most of the time it was slightly unhealthy to have a pet equipped.

I hadn't seen any in-game announcements, but it was mentioned in the forum shoutbox that Auzura was having double skill exp and pet experience; checking, I saw that SirGalahad's drake's experience was indeed going up two points at a time.  So, RedRackham went off to Maargadum too, heading for floor five and his death mask lancer, rather earlier than usual.  As soon as he was sparring with the lancer, he popped an hour-long platinum pet experience potion, so that the pet points started clicking up six at a time.  By the time the first ppep ended, the drake was halfway through level 41; I immediately popped a second one, to move him on still further.  Upstairs, at just 2 points at a time, SirGalahad's pony was doing well too, and should reach level 14 before things close down tonight.

My time on Last Chaos will be cut back as the week progresses, and a "busy weekend" approaches, but at least plenty got packed in today.  Tomorrow's event is one we've not seen for quite a while, a "dungeon run" through the Forgotten Temple, and Wednesday should bring some "Mad Monster Spawns".  I'll probably miss out on the high-level variety, but MistressBlaze ought to have fun at the medium-level type, at least.

Progress for Pets - November 2nd

The double pet experience was still running in the morning, so both SirGalahad and RedRackham headed straight for Maargadum Jail before breakfast.  Gal arrived first, and had to kill a dire spike canine, using his dual swords, before luring a less aggressive spike canine back to behind the teleporter, and equipping his level 14 pony.  When RedRackham arrived, I noticed that Gal's health was down to about a third - I hadn't remembered to re-equip his shield, which, with its 231 defence, makes rather a difference.  Once the Royal Shield +13 had been equipped again, Red gave him the divine shield buff to help his health recover, and then headed down to the fifth floor, to spar with the death mask lancer.  He started a one-hour platinum pet experience pill, to get 6 pet points at a time.

Red was able to begin a second ppep before I headed out shopping.  My trip took a little over two hours, so that when I got back, the drake, which had reached level 42, was down to zero on its starvation bar.  That means it no longer gains pet points, and loses sympathy - but it had only happened very recently, as the sympathy was only on 99%, and the missing 1% was soon regained once the drake had been fed a few quality stones.  Red soon started a third ppep; unless anything goes wrong, each ppep hour adds over 6000 pet points.  By the time the afternoon session began, Red's drake was only a thousand or so pet points away from level 43.

However, as RedRackham is on the same account as MistressDomina, he had to log out, while SirGalahad provided MD with a solo party; by then, thanks to the double pet experience, Gal's horse had just reached level 19.

When MistressDomina reached the entrance to the Tomb of Theos, she discovered that the Condition was at the maximum easy end of the scale, so all seemed set fair for a session with the ancient grey mummies.  And so it was; with the double skill exp running, MD got 1.012 skill points per kill (0.44 x 2, plus 15% from the giant skill pill), so it didn't seem worthwhile to do any "power hours" with platinum super skill pills.  So, with buffs but without any pots, MD settled in for the session.

There were various dungeon runs through the Forgotten Temple scheduled, starting at five o'clock with Auzura; that one, and the run on Katar an hour later, were both being handled by [GM]Darasuum, he mentioned on a visit to the forum shoutbox, which, given his record of not being the most generous of loot-spawners, wasn't a great incentive to risk taking Rage, or maybe Kaerella, along there...so I continued with the ancient grey mummies.  The run on Cariae at seven was more tempting, I was certainly considering taking Barbarienne along to that...but, well, the monsters that have been spawned there in the past have tended to be a little bit heavy-duty, even for her, and who needs to risk using a few more resurrection scrolls...?

So, I just continued where I was, and by the end of the evening, MistressDomina had gone up 5.40%, 231 skill points, and, thanks to the double pet experience, 14,164 pet points.  So that must have been almost seven hours of fighting, at 33 skill points per hour...which shows that things are rather slower when one doesn't use pots.  Various other people came into the room, there was one mage wearing the 60/62 armour set who managed to "kite" a couple of mummies successfully, which was a bit nail-biting.  Sometimes the room was pretty full, and at other times I had it to myself.  The archer xDestinyx came and fought there a number of times, and indeed was back in action when I logged off.

SirGalahad was the one who had some drama, while he was pet-levelling.  Working just behind the teleporter in Maargadum Jail is a rather public spot, even on the fourth sub-server, where you can't get the Elizabeth's Enhancement buff, and he did get ks'd a time or two, with people killing his spike canine.  There was one night shadow, AngelofDaeth, in particular...why would anyone of level 90 or more be visiting Maargadum?  "I don't like afk pet-levelling", was his excuse.  "I don't like ks-ers", was my response.  "Levelling your pet if you play and not if you are away thats sucks andf made pay 4 pets mud", he added cryptically, but luckily he left after that.

AngelofDaeth, or a friend, had lured the aggressive, pet-eating dire spike canines onto SirGalahad twice, and it was lucky I was around, and able to unequip Gal's horse before it could be killed.  As it was, the second attempt took the pet's health down to 25%...luckily it levelled up soon after that, returning its health to 100%.  By the end of the evening, Gal's horse had reached level 24, so that was rather a lot of levels to get through in a day - ten of them.

RedRackham was able to fit in another hour or so once MistressDomina finished, and in fact "looked after" Gal's spike canine for a few minutes while I restarted the game on the older computer, so that Gal didn't have to take the time to lure a fresh one out of the main room to fight with.  Red then ran down to level five, and the death mask lancer; with the aid of one more platinum pet experience potion, the drake soon reached level 43, and started to make some useful progress through that level, which is 24,405 pet points long.  Tonight's scheduled weekly maintenance will probably end the double-time, but who knows what tomorrow will bring?

Two Levels of Mad Monsters - November 3rd

There didn't seem to be any new patch to download this week. "Bugs, exploits and hacks are all being vigorously worked on and a strategy for fixes is in the works. We appreciate your patience and guarantee good things to come", was how Xuse2005 gave us  his latest report; he also mentioned that the Halloween event was continuing into its second week, but that this would be its last.

RedRackham went off to Maargadum Jail for some pet-levelling before breakfast, and found, as expected, that the pet experience was back to normal.  SirGalahad logged on too, but didn't do any levelling, he just farmed a good supply of quality stones, using 41 pickaxes (as he had 41 inventory spaces, and plenty of tool aids available), then when Red was back in town, to move from Auzura-4 to Auzura-6, traded  900 stones across to Red.  My merchant MistressDomino also traded some stones across, as well as a blue pan flute, a pink drake egg, and a few more platinum pet experience potions.

Once RedRackham was in Auzura-6 and back with his death mask lancer, he provided a solo party for CaptainScarlet, who headed out into Merac, and fought a few blood frenzies and highlanders before arriving at the first main gnoll area.  He spent the rest of the slightly short morning session down there, fighting gnolls, gnoll soldiers, and the local pumpkin ghost, and by lunchtime had added 15.27%, 40 skill points, and 883 pet points.  He'd picked up a useful supply of pumpkins, empty baskets, and various weapons and pieces of armour by then too.  Selling them brought in about 2.5 million gold.

CaptainScarlet spent the afternoon session back in Maargadum Jail, in the combat party with RedRackham, a few floors lower.  A level 32 rogue-assassin called ValiROO asked to join the party early on, managed to reach 33, and stayed around almost until two, which was, with the times off by an hour this week, the end of the dungeon time hour; from then on Cap was solo, mainly fighting the two-headed canines on the second floor.  Some more loot was gained, and CaptainScarlet levelled up to 37 - which had the advantage of making the two-headers only six levels above him, so that he got an ignition sequence.  By the end, he had added another 40 skill points (ValiROO's lower level did cut the amount of skill exp on offer, not that it was huge anyway, early on), plus 43.29%.

Again the food break had to be slightly early, as I needed to get MistressBlaze, my level 87 mage, ready for the Auzura mid-level Mad Monster Spawn at five - which mainly meant borrowing MistressDomina's weapon, armour, and two of her accessories.  Some other loot had been moved across, mainly from Cap, and Rage, and MistressDomina, to MistressDomino.

The website had said the event would be on Auzura-5, but from last time I was pretty sure it would be on the sixth sub-server, and the in-game announcement confirmed that.  MistressBlaze rode out to the usual spot, close to the sunken village that mysteriously appeared where the Juno lake used to be - and got recruited into a party by the night shadow JacKnJoneS...which was handy, as it allowed me to see the levels of the other members.  Jack himself is only level 93, as was Darkonn, but the archer cixix was level 98, which might have been pushing it at an event expressly designed for level 46 to 90.  However, after supplying some buffs she left the party, so probably had gone by the time the event actually started - or if she didn't, well, the GMs don't treat it as an exploit or anything, all players are welcome , "but please allow those for whom the event is designed to enjoy it."

The event began with beast crawlers, death mask soldiers and lancers, and a few other types, but there was a slight pause - [GM]AwesomeSauce soon returned, apologising for having had a disconnection, and asking if we had had any monsters - I was able to reassure her that we had had some Maargadum types.  After that things ramped up a few notches, so that soon the blood terrains, jumping devils, barren eises, and kamiras were all on top of us.  We moved on to skin walkers, endemic demons, mimic crods, boucu demons, and more - but then Awesome got a bit over-enthusiastic, and spawned ten flutons at once.  Like many people I'd try to target one of them, and we'd make progress - but then another one would come up, and I'd have to run for safety.

The GM apologised, saying that after the speed at which we'd got rid of the others she had thought we could handle those - and she removed most of them.  We killed the last one easily enough without the distractions, and then we were treated to a few more kamiras - and a rather generous display of the usual hands of loot.  I'm sure Jack managed to do rather better from the kamiras than I did, but at least MistressBlaze managed to grab 10 lucky scrolls, 5 moonstones, and 1 crystal of experience (greater)...and, from Awesome's loot piles, 5 item drop boosters, 7 skill point boosters, 4 large defence and 3 large attack potions, and a few tool aids etc.

The plan after that was for MistressDomina to head for the Tomb of Theos, with SirGalahad doing a little pet-levelling on a spike canine and providing the solo party - especially as [GM]AwesomeSauce had announced that double skill exp had been turned on.  However, when MD got to the entrance, the Condition was down to 50%, which made the place not seem very hospitable.  I didn't realise that the skill exp bonus was on all servers, or I might have tried Kaerella on Cariae, if the Tomb's Condition there had been better; instead MistressSabina made a trip out to the giants on Auzura-6, with RedRackham doing some work on his drake in Maargadum.  So SirGalahad's trip to the spike canines had been a rather brief one...

MistressSabina's slog with the giants went smoothly enough, so that by the time she logged out, she'd gained 18.10% in level 48, and added 79 skill points; 1208 pet points were earned, too, and she picked up enough weapons to make two trips back to town to sell them necessary.  She logged out well before nine, however - as that was when the high-level Mad Monster Spawn on Cariae-6 was due to start.

So, my level 110 archer Barbarienne logged in on the appropriate sub-server.  Someone kindly dropped a Juno NPC Scroll in town, which Barb used to take her to Border Guard Tamon; it was a short walk from there to the Kiene Tower at the MMS location.  The anonymous GM handled things pretty competently, with warnings when the event was about to start, and when each wave was due.  The first wave was easy, with nothing more fearsome than dark bogles, but we moved on to higher-level stuff, leading on to a mass of cave spirits - and then the boss wave, with darkmind terrains, flutons, sphinx commanders, patriarch botises, anubis archers - and some grand red dragons too.  I managed to targets two or three of the GRDs, which drop the same sort of loot as Kamira - and was able to pick up some of the lucky scrolls, moonstones, and crystals of experience (greater) that were dropped.

Barbarienne won an bow duel with an anubis archer, and managed to kill a couple of the sphinx commanders too, which like all Tomb of Theos monsters seem much tougher out in the open, perhaps they automatically go to the equivalent of a 0% Tomb setting.  All in all I kept busy, providing long-range artillery assistance; it was a fun half hour, and the loot spawned at the end seemed at the time pretty generous...though when I checked my inventory I'd just managed to get 5 skill point boosters, 4 large attack and 2 large defence potions, and a single item drop booster.

That rounded off the evening's excitements nicely, though RedRackham continued his pet-levelling a little longer, getting his drake past 80% of the way through level 43.  It won't be too long before someone, probably my titan MrChuckNorris, has a pet drake upgrade.

In the morning I'd sent in a "request ticket", as I'd found that I'd not received a "buy one get one" offer of twice ten scrolls of magical attack, which i thought Kaerella might find rather useful; and in the evening I found that I'd got an email in reply, telling me the items had now been sent to me.  Checking Barbarienne's shop records, they were indeed there, so that was a nice quick response.  Checking the other servers to make sure the BOGO hadn't gone astray, I'd found a rather useful pack of experience boosters and other goodies on Hatzring, a prize I think from the "attendance" event a few weeks back.  I must send in another RT, and see if the GMs can kindly move it across to Auzura.

A Busy Evening - November 4th

I didn't have much free time today before the evening, but I managed to move some loot across to my Cariae and Auzura merchant mages; I was surprised how many empty baskets RedRydeR had managed to save up, but they're all across with MistressDomina now, and need to be sold this week.  I wasn't sure if the newly-arrived magic attack scrolls could be traded, as I don't remember seeing them in people's shops, so I "gifted" the first ten from Barbarienne to Kaerella, and then attempted to trade one back - which I could do.  So the second pack of ten were just downloaded into Barb's inventory, and then all eleven traded across to Kae.  Barbarienne also "gifted" one of the two big skill pills to Kaerella, for 72 hours of 15% more skill exp gain, and Kae received supplies of skill point boosters and platinum super skill pills from my merchant, for when she reaches level 103.

Once all that was sorted out, I sent RedRackham and SirGalahad to Maargadum Jail on Auzura-4.  Red waited to see if Gal would need any help on the ground floor, in getting rid of any dire spike canines, but Gal was able to lure a spike canine without attracting the attention of any dires, and was soon pet-levelling his horse in the space behind the teleporter.  Red then hurried down to the fifth floor, and set to work sparring with his death mask lancer - I calculated that it would take about three hours for the drake to reach level 44.

Barbarienne's involvement in the Mad Monster Spawn last night, by the way, gained her 0.08% experience, and 1 skill point...or at least enough skill exp to tip the balance and increase her rather meagre total by one.  She didn't equip her pet yesterday, as the MMS location, since the changes to Juno, has rather a lot of low-level pet-eating monsters, which generally can be ignored while Barb is fighting a sphinx commander, but would tend to leave her with a dead drake, if it had been flying at her shoulder.

RedRackham's drake did indeed reach level 44 just before noon, and by that time SirGalahad's horse had moved on to level 25.  SirGalahad continued on through the lunch break, but as his horse was now two levels above him, it was starting to get hungrier, so, before the horse was halfway through 25,  I decided to switch over to allowing MistressDomino to do some selling.

By the time I was able to start actively playing, after the early evening food break, MistressDomino had managed to take in almost 280k, boosting the gold reserves suitably, though I'll need rather more if she is to get a good set of 105/107 armour, when she starts levelling up again.

For the evening session, the question was, what Condition was the Tomb of Theos in?  A quick check showed that both the Cariae and Auzura servers had it at 90%, so the choice was between Kaerella and RedRydeR on Cariae going to the ancient grey mummies, or MistressDomina going there on Auzura.  The evening's double pet experience event was just starting, so if CaptainScarlet had been back to pet-levelling, then he could have given MistressDomina a solo party, and worked on his drake or horse in Maargadum - but he isn't high enough level yet to do that.  So, given that with both Kaerella and RedRyder in action, both their drakes would benefit, I decided on the Cariae option.

While there were two or three people fighting along my route to the AGM room, the room itself was empty, so my duo settled in there.  A level 101 temple knight called FAROUK joined the combat party, warning that he wouldn't stay very long; he did stay for a reasonable time, but left ten minutes earlier than he'd planned, as he got a disconnection, and neither Kae nor Red has got a party recall to bring people back in.  I didn't have any problems, luckily, and kept going through the evening. 

With the summer/winter time difference, the dungeon time hour was from seven to eight...and Kaerella pulled out all the stops for that, using platinum adrenaline, large crit, berserker, and power potions, as well as the platinum blessed iris and the individual experience boosters - and one of her new scrolls of magic attack.  With her +15 level 85 Judgement Rainbow Wand, Kae's magic attack stat is 1319, though her Charm buff increases that to 1389.  The power potion and magic attack scroll get that up to 1619, which does speed things up a bit.  With a level three ignition run, Kae managed to get through 49 boosters in her dungeon time "power hour", earning 24.05%, along with 15 skill points.

The whole session was rather longer than that; in all Kaerella added 26.42% in level 99, 58 skill points, and 9,312 pet points.  With the time at the end where only Red was fighting, Kae's polar bear cub was able to reach level 16, too.  RedRydeR gained 9.21%, 68 skill points (helped along by a level 4 Ignition run), and 11,413 pet points - which were enough to get her drake into level 47.

There was just time for RedRackham to head for Maargadum Jail again, and fit in an hour's pet-levelling, using a platinum pet experience potion, so that just over 6,000 pet points would be gained.  MistressDomino went back into merchant mode, too, and soon made a couple of sales.

Kaerella Reaches Her Century - November 5th

Once RedRackham had finished the platinum pet experience potion last night, instead of logging off, he switched to a new pale blue pony he had with him, and kept going through the night.  With the pony so low-level, its appetite was tiny, so that things were still moving along smoothly when I looked in before breakfast - and the pony had gone straight from level 1 to level 11. The double pet experience, however, had been switched off at some point.  I swapped Red back to his drake then, and more work through level 44 was begun, with the quality stones devoured at an alarming rate.

MistressDomino had also stayed in merchant mode in Randol on Auzura-5 overnight, making some useful sales, and continued through the morning.  The tower boxes had sold out by then, and the mana stealers also vanished, while a good number of health stealers, chaos balls, and item drop boosters also sold.  I restocked her display just before lunch, and there was some more steady selling during the afternoon.

RedRackham used two more of the platinum pet experience potions after lunch, so that the drake reached level 45 before the food break.  The drake was getting even hungrier after that, so I decided that it had had its final session.

After the break, Kaerella was able to log in over on Cariae-4, and, finding the Condition of the Tomb of Theos at 90%, it looked as if she and RedRydeR could have a session with the ancient grey mummies, to take advantage of the happy hour, which had started at five and was 100% extra experience and skill exp.  Since the older computer, with RedRackham, had been running Last Chaos non-stop since yesterday, I closed down LC...only to find that it didn't want to start up again.  Luckily restarting the computer got things going, and Red was able to log on, and hurry to join Kae, who had already started fighting the mummies.

Kaerella did do a "power hour", including a magic attack scroll, during the seven until eight o'clock dungeon time; with a second-level Ignition, and a first-level one right at the end, she got through 48 experience boosters, and added 21.66%, taking her nicely into level 100.  She got 30 skill points too, thanks to the happy hour, which remained switched on for the rest of the evening, although it should in theory have been switched off soon after seven.

By the end of the evening, Kaerella's total experience gain had gone up to 25.10%, along with 86 skill points and 4367 pet points - and those pet points were enough to take SirFrancis into level 53.  RedRydeR added 12.86% in level 97, plus 91 skill points, again helped along by a level four Ignition run, and 4886 pet points.

The ranger-rogue Wedy had been in the room when Kaerella arrived; she didn't stay long, but returned shortly before Kae left.  The night shadow xShadowWarriorx took up position in the corridor, and brought his real-life wife in to help her level, as the mage prussilla; she later changed across to the archer pruss, who was able to fight the mummies for  herself, so xShadowWarriorx brought in another mage and helped her instead.

Back in town, Kaerella was able to learn the sixth and final level of Mark of Despair, for 950 skill points and 2.5 million gold - put that debuff on a foe, and the next attack hits three times as hard, now.  And then, RedRackham logged on, to transfer his level 45 drake to MrChuckNorris, in exchange for Chuck's level 42-er.  Then SirGalahad logged on, and exchanged his level 25 horse for the level 11 pale blue pony Red been training last night.  RedRackham logged off, but SirGalahad went to Maargadum Jail for half an hour or so to spar with a spike canine, and got the pony safely into level 12.

Unusual Visitors - November 6th

RedRackham headed for Maargadum Jail after breakfast, and soon got his latest drake past the midway point in level 42; a little later I logged in my Cariae merchant, MistressDomina, to see what she could sell - the empty baskets sold right away, at a price they hadn't been moving at on Auzura.  The only other item to sell out was the mana stealers, but a useful amount of cash was brought in.

The afternoon session started a bit late; by then RedRackham had got his drake past three-quarters of the way through level 42.  He logged out, and SirGalahad took over the pet-levelling side of things, on Auzura-6, fighting a spike canine and getting his pony into level 13.  CaptainScarlet, however, was the active character, and spent most of the session fighting elite frenzied berserkers, which despite their name are the "boss" kind of highlander.  He sold the armour drops, except the +4 pieces, for over 4 million gold, afterwards, and the session gained him 19.71%, 22 skill points, and 937 pet points for his level 33 drake.

For the evening, I was thinking of going to the Tomb of Theos on Auzura - but when Kaerella checked the Condition, it was on Maximum Hard.  Fragiii was in the shoutbox later, saying that he was outside drop-hunting - there was, he hinted, a reason for the Tomb being that way, but, of course, we don't talk about bans in the shoutbox.  So the Castle-owning guild must have been "On Strike"...

Anyway, I switched across to Cariae-4, where the Tomb was on 90% easy.  Now that Kaerella has reached level 100, she is within combat party range of Barbarienne, on level 110, so that was the party I made.  A night shadow called erevos was farming skill points in the main room, so Kae and Barb generally kept to the corridor, though Kaerella included erevos in the buffing.  He was so grateful for Charm that he very kindly gave Kae a blessed iris, which gives double experience for three hours.  Kaerella, since the plan was to be there for a bit over three hours more, activated the blessed iris. 

It seemed a good idea to switch the party type to equal rather than combat, since Barbarienne was killing rather more quickly; that way, Kaerella would get more experience.  So, we could have done that sort of team-up before...

Before long, Barbarienne had an in-game message from...and here's a name from the past... Zenderfly.  She asked if I was busy, and when I said I was fighting the ancient grey mummies on C4, said "brt" (be right there).   She soon arrived; at level 113 she was a bit high for mummy-fighting, but she joined the party and fought a few.  Her higher level rather cut the amount of skill experience per kill, which was hardly unexpected.

I gathered that Zenderfly had been playing Grand Fantasia, and was checking out the changes to Last Chaos, to see if they appealed - the Ignition system, Dungeon Time, Socketing, that sort of thing.  She was interested in teaming up to try out the Akan Temple "raid"... with the blessed iris running I wasn't keen on trying it immediately, and, with my "busy Sunday", I won't be available until the evening tomorrow, but we've made a date to team up at 5:00pm, UK time, on Monday for that.

Zenderfly then went off to Strayana, staying in the party for chat and, I suppose, the solo party boost, before finally logging out.  Soon after that, I noticed that two low-level sorcerers had arrived, both with the "LastChaos Newbie" title over their heads.  I didn't make any notes or take screenshots; the guild name seemed Spanish, and I think one was called pasme.  I didn't mind when they started to ks, they didn't seem to be taking much of Kaerella's experience; they each levelled up at least once.  After Kae buffed them, they did concentrate on ks-ing Kae rather than Barbarienne.

I'm no expert on the attack speed with a fallarm, but it gradually occurred to me that their attack animations seemed unusually fast.  A pair of rogues in the ThePhoenix guild arrived, and I whispered to RangerX "do you think my 2 ks-ers are attacking suspiciously quickly?"   Her reaction was immediate, saying in general chat "WTH - SPEED HACKER LM", which led to the dodgy duo disappearing rather abruptly.

RangerX and Chaosowners stayed for a while, more interested in drop farming than anything else as far as I could tell; Barbarienne concentrated mostly on the mummies at the beginning of the corridor, and there were enough targets to go around.  Thinking back, I wonder how the two sorcerers got to the ancient grey mummies room.  I never saw them run into the room, I only saw them standing  in the room, and I remember wondering if there was a third higher-level person I'd not yet noticed who had Recalled them in.  Perhaps, as well as the attack-speed hacks, there is some hack that allows a cheater to move to any location they wish?  Outside on the main open maps that seems theoretically possible, as a memory scroll will do that, once you have been to a location once and saved the location, but doing in inside a dungeon area would need to be a bit more sophisticated.

For the last part of the evening, Kaerella and Barbarienne had the room to themselves, except for the night shadow erevos, who had remained afk, to be able to restart his sp-farming later I assume.  By the time I logged out, Kaerella had gone up by 5.34%, 60 skill points, and 3967 pet points, which doesn't seem a huge amount, considering the blessed iris and 50% extra skill experience for a couple of hours from the "Turbo" event.  Barbarienne added 2.97%, the same 60 skill points... and, as fighting blue-name monsters wouldn't have helped her drake, SkrappY was equipped for most of the time, and added about 7% in level 54.

Kaerella ran out of the Tomb afterwards, and found that the Condition had dropped to 70% by then.  Still, it had to be better than over on Auzura... Just as I was about to log out, Tuffsen, or BadFairy, was asking me if I could remember the account name of a friend of hers, who had bought an epic scroll from her.  Luckily I could remember the "maxhatz" name, but checking on the forum got me to an "access denied" page, which tends to be a bad sign.

A Quiet Time - November 7th

The computers here didn't even get switched on until the evening, but at last RedRackham was able to hurry to Maargadum Jail on Auzura-6, and start to do a little pet-levelling.  Before long CaptainScarlet was able to log on too, and form a party; he too went to Maargadum Jail, but after fighting a few canines on the ground floor, he just went down to the second level.

The Jail was pretty busy, and at times the only place CaptainScarlet could fight was with the first three dire spike canines and their on two-headed canine companion, though Cap fought the two-headed types as much as he could, since they give the most experience.  He just managed to reach the second level of Ignition at the end, and luckily was able to use the main canines room there for the run - by the time he logged out, he'd gained 22.08% and 38 skill points.

CaptainScarlet had time to sell his loot to Geres back in Randol, and convert his supply of empty baskets into Halloween candies, which have the advantage of still functioning after the Halloween event ends.  And then he logged out.

MistressDomina joined Kaerella for the Sunday Quiz on Auzura-2; now that the US clocks have gone back, the Quiz is back to its usual time in the UK, 8:30pm.  Similarly, after a week out of step, the "dungeon time" hours are back the way they were, starting at 2:00, 5:00, 8:00, and 11:00, which I find more convenient than having them an hour earlier.

The Quiz proceeded smoothly.  As I'd expected, MD's "widowmaker" C2 costume had run out of time, I think it expired on Friday, but since most people strip to their underwear in the Quiz Room to reduce lag, that didn't matter.  She may take another day or two off before her new costume is downloaded.

After the Quiz, I didn't notice any bad lag effects at all; once the heaven stones and moonstones had been moved across to my merchant, MistressDomino, and CaptainScarlet had also traded his loot across, RedRackham was able to go back to his death mask lancer on the fifth floor of Maargadum Jail, this time on Auzura-4, while MistressDomino went through her supply of empty baskets, methodically converting them, one by one, into Halloween candies.  By the end, she had between 59 and 88 of them - the mud, lizard's tail, mosquito's eyeball, bone, frog's leg, and pumpkin candies.  And once that was done, well, it was time to get the blog sorted out.  After a rather long day, I wanted to have a relatively early night.

I did take advantage of the "mini tiered leveller" event on two accounts, buying on each a level 61-90 platinum blessed iris, for a single aeria point... which entitled me to get, again for 1 ap, a package of a rune of protection I and 5 chaos balls.  I wasn't greatly tempted by the "BOGO" two-for-the-price-of-one offers this weekend, to spend enough aeria points for further bonus packages, but no doubt there will soon be other cunning plans to part me from my money.

The Akan Temple - November 8th

RedRackham went to Maargadum Jail on Auzura-6 for some pet-levelling before lunch, but had to give up just as lunch was ready, as a friendly mage called crazysnecks didn't seem to understand about pet-levelling...killing the death mask lancer on the spot isn't too bad, but when her attack got it, with Red and his drake following, into the middle of the room, where he and it would have been left vulnerable to respawning death mask soldiers, logging out seemed the best idea.  Still, the drake had levelled up by then.

CaptainScarlet managed a slightly short morning session, taking advantage of most of the eleven to twelve o'clock dungeon time hour, fighting with the two-headed canines and others on the second floor of the Jail.  He added 9.49% and 10 skill points, though for some reason there didn't seem to be much loot dropped, other than the empty baskets.

The afternoon session was similar, though not as long as sometimes - and this time CaptainScarlet did pick up  a good supply of armour to sell back in Randol.  The place was still pretty busy, but, helped by an hour of dungeon time and plenty of two-headed canines, Cap added 35.01%, and 42 skill points.  After that, he moved his empty baskets and moonstone boxes, plus some LacaRette prizes, across to MistressDomino, my merchant on Auzura.  Then MistressDomina traded her armour and weapon over to MistressBlaze, in preparation for later on, before RedRackham went back for a bit more pet-levelling, this time on Auzura-4, where I hoped he would have fewer visitors.

I logged Barbarienne, my level 110 archer, on half an hour early on Cariae-3, to make sure I was in good time for the team-up with Zenderfly, and was still eating my food when she got in touch.  We started by me helping Zen to transfer some items to her witch Damor - and then Damor and Barb formed a party, which she changed into a Fellowship.  We moved to Egeha, once Damor was suitably equipped, and hurried down to Teleporter Akarian in the south-east, past apes and azers and scorpionmantises.  We went into the Temple, and found a long ramp, with some stairs too.  There were a lot of critters to fight along the way, and they had a tendency to come in five or six at a time - these first akan temple guards had a Stun skill too, so Barb had to equip her supply of Remedy, and went through quite a few of those items...but Remedy takes a few seconds to regenerate after use, and often Barb got stunned again. The akan temple guards were mixed with akan temple scouts, and it took quite a few minutes to get along this first straight ramp...but at last the boss was visible, and even had a brief cut-scene, a rare sight in Last Chaos.

Damor's assistance was invaluable, as she was able to use the witch skill Stone, and also able to get entire groups to just stand and wait their turn with Sleeping Fog - without those things would have been utterly impossible, as was proved on one occasion when we both ended up with tiny amounts of health, running back like heck.  Damor kept the akan temple chief guard under control with Stone while I disposed of his underlings, for example.  When he died, he dropped a special box for each of us - Damor opened hers right away and found it empty - I opened mine afterwards, with the same result.

There were three doorways out of that boss's chamber, with only one of them open.  That meant we headed for the alchemist area, and more mobs - specimen's kids, followed by specimen's boombers, both tubby  little types which again tended to come in as mobs of around six at a time, no matter how careful one was...followed by senior alchemist zero.  All the monsters in the Temple were "boss" types, but he seemed to be a bit of an in-betweener, in that he was a lot bigger and had a one-off name...but he didn't drop any boxes.  We forged ahead, but even with Barb's level 109 +15 bow, every monster took a while to deal with.  Damor had some other commitment at seven, and by then it was getting close to that, as we'd been on for a couple of hours.  Damor decided that, as her character had no skill points to lose, she'd do a kamikaze run to see how far she could get, and she reported that there were a lot more monsters along the way.  She entered a boss room, so that a timer announced the number of seconds other party members had to join her... and that was just about the end of the adventure.  She logged out, which automatically returned Barbarienne to the teleporter npc outside.

The early start had meant that I didn't have time to do any advance checking, but, looking at the Wet Paint wiki for Last Chaos, I see that, if we had killed every monster along the way and got to that second boss, and killed it, a second portal would have opened, back where the akan temple chief guard had been - a teleportation circle takes you back there, and, once you are in that second area, we are warned that the monsters mob even more heavily.  So, a larger party, all of people with a lot of time to spare, seems to be advised!

Still, it was fun to explore at least one wing of this new place, and great to be fighting alongside my old companion.  I think we had both assumed that the thing would only take maybe an hour, like a Monster Combo perhaps... my moving of the armour and weapon from MistressDomina to MistressBlaze, in case time was tight, proved not to be necessary.

So, I missed the "low-level" Mad Monster Spawn on Auzura; as, while the web page says it is designed for people from level 46 to 90, it does say that "all are welcome, but please allow those for whom the event is designed to enjoy it", I thought I might as well take my cleric Kaerella along to its Cariae equivalent, as by then it was getting close to its seven o'clock, UK time, start.

[GM]Yatou was in charge, and apart from spawning most of one wave off to one side, so we didn't know it was there and were waiting around for the next wave until she dropped a few hints, she made a pretty nice event.  Kaerella tried to apply the Charm or Encourage buffs to as many people as possible, and generally held back on the lower-level mobs - though when the level 100 purple dragon appeared, or arch liches, or level 99 nivas, I did get more involved - however, the level 105 Iludeteirun happened to spawn well away from me, while some wraiths or wight slashers were holding my attention, so I wasn't involved in that one's demise.

There was plenty of loot spawned at the end by [GM]Yatou, so I think everyone had fun.  What things were like on other servers, I don't know; we only got a single kamira, maybe Auzura had had dozens of them?  The requests for grand red dragons were ignored, as they usually are - which is slightly strange, as the last high-level one Barbarienne went to did include some of those in the final boss round.  "Event's done, enjoy your day", the GM said when she left.

It is slightly odd that they are calling the event for level 46 to 90 "low-level" - I wonder what has happened to the "real" low-level MMS, aimed at people up to level 45, with appropriately low-level monsters?  It would be a shame if that one has been abandoned now.  Tomorrow, however, the high-level one is planned.

My evening got a little disrupted after that, but RedRackham had continued throughout the afternoon and evening, so that his drake got past 40% of the way through level 43.  CaptainScarlet did manage to log in for a short session with the two-headed canines, finally, and added 8.38%, plus 13 skill points... and that took him into level 38.  Afterwards in Randol, while he isn't eligible to learn one level 38 skill, the passive skill Anti-Magic, he was able to learn all five levels of Telekinesis, for 293 skill points.  This will allow Cap to teleport a monster to him with an 80% chance of success - though there seems a possibility that a failure could aggravate some other nearby critters.  Cap successfully teleported a deer, once he switched from dual swords to a single sword and a shield, which was completed unalarmed by the process; I remember Ratel could do that with bogles too, they didn't consider being teleported up to him to be a reason to attack.

So, CaptainScarlet makes good progress.  Hopefully he can get to level 40, and return to pet-levelling status, before too long.

More Mad Monsters - November 9th

I had been planning to leave MistressDomino in merchant mode overnight on Auzura-5 to sell her last 56 pumpkins, since those basically become useless when the Halloween event ends, but at 95,000 gold each they sold almost immediately - so that was an easy five million or so.  Selling the Halloween candies is less urgent, so MD logged out for the night.

In the morning, it didn't take long for RedRackham to get his current drake past the halfway mark in level 43, on Auzura-6.  There was, however, a disconnection while I was out shopping after coffee, so Red lost a little time to that.

CaptainScarlet logged on for almost all of the eleven to twelve dungeon time hour, and, in a party with Red, was busy on floor two of the Jail; he added 12.50% experience, and 16 skill points, as well.

In the afternoon, my cleric Kaerella and my archer Barbarienne headed for the Tomb of Theos on Cariae-4, which was at 80% of the way towards the easy end of Condition.  Tuffsen had given me the idea that she'd be along too, but I only saw her character, BadFairy, standing around in town.  I was just in time for the two to three o'clock dungeon time hour, so Kaerella made that a "power hour", and just managed to get a level two Ignition run in right at the end - which helped get her to 53 experience boosters used, so that she added 21.05% in level 100, as well as 19 skill points.  After the food break we didn't try another power hour, as I knew that I'd need to leave slightly before its end.  In all, the session gained Kaerella 22.77% and 46 skill points, plus 3123 pet points, while Barbarienne added just 3.94%, the same 46 skill points, and a couple of percent or so for SkrappY.  Barb did try a couple of kills after Kaerella logged out, but as she is seven levels above the ancient grey mummies, they gave a rather small amount of experience, and skill exp, without Kaerella's averaging-down presence.

The high-level Mad Monster Spawn was due on Auzura-6 at six o'clock, hence the need to leave the Tomb before then - and my level 94 rogue Rage went along, just about the only member of Twisted to do so - Pnewt was there, but kept to the fringes and fought the local monsters, as they are more her level.  Another guildie, although bored, hadn't come as the last time they came, they died five times...

Rage managed to avoid dying, though there were times when she had to use big health potions, and times when she had to run like heck.  It was a fun selection of high-level monsters, anyway, though [GM]Darasuum had some problems early on; as usual he didn't spawn a great amount of loot at the end, I think I got two skill point boosters and an item drop booster, plus the minor stuff, but it's good to get out to these events sometimes.

Barbarienne's turn came at seven; our GM on Cariae was anonymous and not particularly interactive with us, but he, or she, got the job done.  Barbarienne is sixteen levels higher than Rage, which did make a difference - Rage had to rely on her Snare skill working when a hell-otuu went for her, but Barb could just tank them.  She even took the brunt of a darkmind terrain's attack; that is the boss monster of the Tomb of Theos, and Barbarienne has a quest, at some point, to kill him, so it's good to know that he isn't too fearsome.

As usual the spawning of the cave spirits, the evil versions of the six main character types from the caves in Strayana, looked impossible to deal with at first, but gradually we picked ones off from the edges of their groups, until finally the place was cleared.  The boss wave did include some grand red dragons again, though they went down incredibly quickly - the Cariae turn-out wasn't huge, but there must have been some high-level people involved.  Our anonymous GM actually gave us a spawning of loot halfway, as well as the end lot, which was nice; I just got three each of the skill point boosters, item drop boosters, and large attack potions, along with eleven of the large defence potions.

Once that was done, there was just time for CaptainScarlet to make a solo party with RedRackham, and head directly for Maargadum Jail.  While Red did a little more pet-levelling, the Captain did some intensive fighting of the two-headed canines and dire spike canines; he took up position at the back of the ground floor, and every time he was running low on targets, someone would run through from the entrance to the stairs down, bringing a new batch of hungry canines which, when he vanished down the stairs, turned their attentions to Cap.  I got there just a few minutes into dungeon time, and went on for 35 minutes or so afterwards, just to get to the second level Ignition run - and CaptainScarlet gained  a hectic 28.43%, plus 40 skill points.

Back in town, CaptainScarlet had a last 63 empty baskets to convert into Halloween candies - any odd remaining baskets on other characters will just have to be stored away for next year, if as expected tonight's maintenance brings the end of the Halloween event.  It's a shame that this year's event wasn't as rewarding, or as much fun, as previous ones, which had tended to run for longer than two weeks as well.  We will have to wait and see what the new week brings us.

A Meeting of Mob and Hero - November 10th

Last night's new patch was the tiniest of things, and just removed the Halloween event.  "Bugs and exploits are all being vigorously worked on and a number of fixes are being worked on by the developers. Expect some much needed fixes to come soon!"  Other than that, Xuse2005 just had this warning: "Hackers beware! Our team has been aggressively pursuing hackers and have been investigating our logs more than ever to make sure we ban the right people. Remember, using any unauthorized third party program"... at which point he must have gone off for a cup of coffee, as the paragraph ends without any conclusion.  There have been reports of the logs being read wrongly and innocent people, perhaps close to actual hack-users, being banned, so that's probably why he promises "to make sure we ban the right people".

RedRackham headed off to Maargadum Jail on Auzura-6 just after breakfast; and, not long after, I went for the stereo effect by sending his namesake on the Cariae server down to exactly the same spot.  Red's drake there was actually nearing the top of level 45, as opposed to level 43, so hungrier than ever.

The Auzura-based drake levelled up to 44 over the lunch break, followed soon after by the Cariae one, reaching 46. Things proceeded smoothly, except for one knight on Auzura-6, xCorex, who I assume to be one of the recent arrivals from the German version of Last Chaos, where "afk" pet-levelling isn't allowed.  "Hey don't exp the pet with hand", he'd said.  "Red - stop" - and then he'd killed my death mask lancer.  I noticed the lack of action fairly soon, so that the drake was able to pick up the 474 gold the lancer had dropped - xCorex was just in the process of teleporting back to Merac village then.

I had work to do throughout the afternoon - well, not exactly work, but I was "polishing up" the first part of an adventure story for a friend.  So, the two RedRackhams continued with their pet-levelling, both getting through the quality stones at a rather alarming rate.

Cariae's RedRackham logged out in time for MistressFelicia to go to the "Whack-a-Fluton" event at six o'clock, UK time, on Auzura; she went up two levels, to level eight, so will need to be careful after the next time or two, as I won't want her to go above level ten without getting into the Guardian system.  [GM]Darasuum was in change, and there were plenty of flutons, plus a surprising number of cave spirits, darkmind terrains, patriarch botises, anubis archers, sphinx commanders, apes, and other types.  He did give a loot drop at the end, with the suggestion that people ought to fight over it - "You know what's fun - fighting for the prizes." Felicia is immune from PvP attacks in the arena at her level, so was able to pick loot up unhindered, but she only got 2 large defence and 6 large attack potions, plus 2 tool aids, and 4 small mana and 2 small HP recovery potions, which leads me to suspect that he didn't leave us all that much to fight over.

What the GM did do was supply a parting pair of flutons, when he declared the event over.  "The flutons' "whack-a-player" event is now starting", I commented, as quite a few people had left as soon as the loot was gone, which meant there weren't many people left to fight these two.

Over on Katar-6, my level 2 mage Keerella went along; [GM]Darasuum was again in charge, and the monsters were a remarkably similar selection.  Kee went up around five levels by the end, and also died a few times.  The loot was again nothing to write home about,  a couple of large defence potions and one each of the other types I think.  The GM didn't add the final pair of flutons this time.

It was while that event was in progress that someone called Taldea applied to be RedRackham's friend - and turned out to be Zenderfly's local Auzura agent.  She asked me if I was busy, so I mentioned the "whack-a-fluton" event, and we agreed to meet up in the few minutes between the Katar event and the Cariae one, first of all so that the armour and accessories Damor had used could be transferred across to Zenderfly again.  Damor had actually been "topless" in Akan Temple, but as the four other armour pieces were all +15, that hadn't mattered too much.  While Barb was holding the items, I noticed that the three accessories had a lot of suction of mana and suction of life, but not a whole lot else - if she was buying them now, I think she'd hold out for some hit rate and crit rate too.

Zenderfly joined Barbarienne, in a party, for the trip out to Dratan's training grounds, for the Cariae whack-a-fluton event, though she either got disconnected, or otherwise had to leave, before the end.  I had been thinking of taking Barb along, for a change, instead of a junior character that couldn't be PK'd, so that was handy.  I don't really get the hang of the event from that angle, though - you buff up, enter the arena, start fighting the monsters, maybe manage to help kill one or two - and then suddenly you're dead, with no idea how it happened.  The main thing is to choose the "no" option, and not use a resurrection scroll, as there is no penalty for arena deaths.  There were usually a few other people respawning and rushing back, often including Zenderfly, so I could use Party Heal to get us both back up to full health - though she managed not to die as often as Barb.

One good thing to report is that Barbarienne must have been the main fighter against one particular darkmind terrain - as the message came up that her quest to kill one of those, in the Tomb of Theos, had been completed.  So, that saves her from taking a special trip almost all the way to the sphinx commander room.

[GM]Darasuum was in charge, for his third consecutive server, so things were much as before.  I'd taken the opportunity to log RedRackham out, and instead brought my level 4 healer FoxChaser along on the older computer to the event, so that if Barbarienne got killed just as the loot spawned, she could take her place; until the end, though, she stayed safely out of the killing area. 

When Dara announced "the final fight", and spawned the loot, it was FoxChaser's turn to enter the arena, though, with the lag caused by the spawning, she picked up things awfully slowly - and ended up with 2 large defence potions and 1 large attack potion, plus 4 tool aids and 3  small HP and 2 small mana recovery potions.  I let Barbarienne re-enter the arena too, and to my surprise didn't get killed yet again - there was very little fighting, as most people were concentrating on picking stuff up, so Barb did actually get 2 skill point boosters and 2 tool aids, plus 3 small mana and 2 small HP potions.

The Sarissa event overlapped with Cariae, but I managed to get MistressDomina to the Hatzring version, which had already started; it was just being held in the Randol arena, and people there were busy fighting flutons and lilits when I got there.  A spawning of wafe debirches didn't last long, though black puddings from Strayana proved slightly more of a challenge, and there were more flutons and patriarch botises to come. Black Missionary Tion put in an appearance, all without a word from the anonymous GM...who finally did speak, revealing herself to be [GM]AwesomeSauce.

I asked the GM if there was any particular reason she didn't run the event at the Dratan arena, as advertised, and she replied "I find that people like to hide when in Dratan.  So while I like using that arena, I want people to actually have to be out with the mobs."

"It seems such a cool place, it is a pity not to use it sometimes", I commented.  "Yeah, that's why we do try to use it, but some days I just want to force a meeting of mob and hero."

It was at that point that the kamiras started to be spawned.  MistressDomina kept her perfect Hatzring record of being level 1 and 0.00% by not doing any attacking, but she blatantly tried to scoop up as much kamira loot as she could, even though she did die a few times, and had to run back to the arena from the central spawning point.  By the end of the event she'd got herself three hero's necklaces to use, plus 30 tool aids, 60 great healing potions, 40 medium mana potions,20 scrolls of memorising, just 5 lucky scrolls, 15 moonstones, and no less than 7 crystals of experience (greater)...not to mention 5 medals of honor!  At the end, one or two people wondered why there hadn't been an official loot spawning, but the drops from all the kamiras made up for that, really, as someone who'd managed to pick up a couple of rare accessories quickly agreed.

On Tairen-6, my level 7 archer Barbarienne logged in, and found the Randol arena deserted, except for the npc teleporter to take people to Dratan's training grounds.  So, that was where the GM was holding the event this time - and to my surprise, given the change of venue, it was [GM]AwesomeSauce again.  However, I'd been forgetting my other Wednesday evening commitments, and wasn't able to get involved that time.  I assume there were kamiras again, as well as the flutons, purple dragons, cave spirits, and so on, but can't say for sure.

Canines and Giants - November 11th

The first thing to do today was to move the drake RedRackham on Cariae had been working on over to my level 92 royal knight SirKit, in exchange for Kit's level 37 one - so Kit now has a few more levels of the armour increase buff.  SirKit also did some mining, using 33 pickaxes since he had 33 free inventory slots, and was then able to trade 800 quality stones across to RedRackham, which should be enough to keep Red going for a while.

After that, RedRackham over on Auzura-6 went down for some actual pet-levelling, though on his level 25 horse rather than on his level 44 drake - and he continued there for the rest of the day, uninterrupted, which meant that the horse ended up reaching level 28 before he logged out.  When CaptainScarlet noticed the friendly mage crazyslegs running through, though, Red and his lancer moved back to the side wall, to be less visible from the middle.

There was time for CaptainScarlet to do some work in Maargadum Jail before lunch, in a solo party with Red.  He stuck to the back of the ground floor, so fought mainly the two-headed canines and dire spike canines there - as before, just about whenever he started to run low on canines, someone running through to the stairs would bring along a fresh mob.  By lunchtime Cap had added 26.80%, helped along by the eleven to twelve o'clock dungeon time, plus 35 skill points. 

The afternoon session was also spent there, though at one stage I had a bit of trouble from an archer called XxUnbelievablexX, who insisted on killing just about everything in the area, even canines that were attacking me, or indeed that I was fighting.  The rest of us on the ground floor, including WhatAboutNow and Lagalot, decided she was speed-hacking, which seemed very silly - the last thing a hacker should do is go to a busy place on a busy server, and ks and generally annoy other people.  Lagalot did actually go to the forum shoutbox to report her, but she chose that moment to leave.  She did return a little later, but only briefly fought on the ground floor, before heading down below.

CaptainScarlet had rather set his heart on getting the fifth level of Ignition, and getting there seemed awfully slow - he had to continue after the early evening food break, in fact.   In the end, even that Jail area with all its canines didn't have enough monsters to let Cap take full advantage of its 90-second buff.  The rather substantial mob of canines that Cap had gathered ready didn't last long , so he had to run back to the wider room - I think I was helping the knight there, who seemed to be running from a too-large group he'd got, rather than ks-ing him, but I still had to run back to the narrower area and kill a few respawning canines, before the buff ended, with a little over 2% experience gained from the hectic activity.

CaptainScarlet finished his session soon after that, having added 50.26% since lunch - the, generally, flat-out action in that spot, if one's armour is good enough, makes for speedy fighting.  84 more skill points were earned, as well....and he got some more bits of armour to sell.  That session got him into level 39, so it won't be long before, hopefully, he can return to some nice quiet pet-levelling.

The "happy hour", starting at six, was meant to be 100% extra skill exp, but whichever game master it was, when he got reminded a few minutes after six to get it started, he only set it to 50%.  Still, I'd taken MistressSabina out to the giants in the Dratan desert, and 2200 skill exp per kill was better than the 1760 I'd have got with just the Elizabeth's Enhancement buff running.  As usual the giants dropped a nice selection of level 61 weapons; I wonder why some, at the same level, are worth about 270k, and others almost 300k?  The giants also drop the temple knight's shield, which merchants give around 200k for.

Kamira didn't drop by, but, with a few trips to town to sell the loot when Sabina got over-burdened, the session gained her 22.53% and 90 skill points, plus 1482 pet points for her drake.

Tuffsen did get in touch to ask if Kaerella needed the level 102 cleric skill book, so I looked up its details - "Barrier - reduces damage received by target by 30%", I told her.  "For ten seconds, lol."  Looking down the page I noticed that there is a level 104 skill book too, Disease Cure, for which the Wet Paint LC wiki notes "Cures 'Disease' - what 'Disease' is is currently unknown."  I paused while Tuffy laughed.  "But hey, it only has a ten-second cooldown", I added. For three levels of that I'm supposed to spend 360 million gold, and 3360 skill points?  I think not.

A Dangerous Game - November 12th

RedRackham took his horse down to the fifth floor of Maargadum Jail on Auzura-6 before breakfast for a good long pet-levelling session, and managed to reach level 29 towards the end of the lunch break.  He stayed off by the side wall, slightly obscured by a pillar, and managed to avoid any trouble.

After coffee, CaptainScarlet again teamed up with Red (which is why Red was on Auzura-6 rather than the quieter Auzura-4), got his Elizabeth's Enhancement buff, and also headed for the Jail.  Almost immediately another speed hacker turned up, but after being challenged soon disappeared from sight - I did actually see the speed hacking archer from yesterday briefly, but who knows, perhaps they have reformed now.

By lunch, CaptainScarlet had added 22.65%, as well as 51 skill points.  The campaign continued after lunch; sometimes the ground floor of the Jail got busy, especially when a titan was trying to gather up every canine for his own use, but generally there were enough to go round.  I had to settle for just first-stage Ignition runs, though, and even for those I needed to choose a time when nobody else was active in my vicinity.  By the time the food break was approaching, CaptainScarlet had added another 27.52% and 56 skill points.

The forum shoutbox got a bit animated during the afternoon, with a number of people asking why the Tomb of Theos on Hatzring was set to "maximum hard".  The gamesage georgerav is level 145 how, so no longer takes such things seriously, so the general reply was in the spirit of "don't whine, suck it up".  Somebody was saying that, as on Auzura, it's a protest by the castle-owning guild, in this case HOSTILE (the local branch of Vendetta in all but name), as they feel some of their members have recently been unfairly banned, and I joined in a bit, saying that it's really a matter between the castle-owners and Aeria, with the people unable to farm skill points and experience in the Tomb being collateral damage rather than the target.  After all, if the Tomb stays on maximum hard, people who would be playing there won't be spending aeria points, and may well be off playing other games...if they get hooked elsewhere, will they return when the stand-off has been resolved?

Things took a sinister turn when one of the people who'd been most vocal about it returned with a new account, with a "1" on the end of their name, to ask why they had had their account banned.  It looks as if georgerav had contacted a GM, and when he found that two of the most vocal people had the same IP address (though they later protested that they were different people in the same house), the dreaded Ban Hammer was used.  I felt a shudder, since I hadn't really been all that polite to george myself, asking sarcastically what the time was for the Mondshine Chapel Siege this weekend (as high-level people in Mondshine don't get affected by different "settings" for where they level), but, so far, my account remains active...

By mid-evening, CaptainScarlet had added a final 27.68% and 49 skill points, and reached level 40.  So, RedRackham, with his horse still an hour away from level 30, logged out, and CaptainScarlet and SirPerivale (since he is in a different guild) both headed for Prokion Temple on Auzura-2, since that is a PvP sub-server.  Things weren't as easy as usual, though, as there were other people around with pk-ing, player-killing, on their minds... and CaptainScarlet getting killed by one of them glitched his ability to, himself, pk SirPerivale, so they both relogged to Auzura-3 - where things were a bit similar.  I do think it is pathetic to have a night shadow, by definition level 90 or above, lurking there, but CaptainScarlet got killed again, and ended up glitched... but at least he did manage to get to -150 on the good/evil scale before that happened, to reduce his attack power, so the job was done.

The killings did mean, however, that he lost 80 skill points, which was probably three times 2%, and the 0.06% experience in level 40 he had had.  Still, back in Randol on Auzura-6, RedRackham traded across the level 44 drake, and CaptainScarlet, now my senior pet-leveller, headed for the death mask lancer in Maargadum Jail.  To my relief he only hits the lancer for 20 damage per hit, so it would be possible to move him up a few more levels at some point - but the drake certainly gets through the quality stones rather more slowly than with Red, five levels lower... so, mission accomplished.

CaptainScarlet gave MistressSabina a solo party, and she went out to the giants in the Dratan desert for the latter part of the evening session.  Things went smoothly, with a couple of first-level Ignition runs, though as the giants aren't exactly packed tightly together, one doesn't kill a huge number of them during the countdown.  By the time the session ended, and Sabina's inventory spaces were all full, she had added 11.25%, 36 skill points, and 661 pet points; selling the shields and weapons back in Randol brought in a little over four million gold.  The evening's "happy hour" had been double experience, which had started a bit later than scheduled, but did stay on long enough to help Sabina along a bit.

RedRackham was then able to log on for the rest of the evening, which was just long enough to get his horse to level 30.  By then, CaptainScarlet had got his drake just past the 40% mark in level 44.  Pet-levelling on Auzura should be rather simpler now.

A Deadly Wedding - November 13th

Today was always going to be a day when I didn't get much actual playing done, at least until late afternoon, but I did at least manage to log RedRackham and CaptainScarlet in before breakfast.  However, when Red tried to get the Animal Trainer in Randol to let his horse learn another level of its armour increase buff, the usual window didn't pop up - and, at eight o'clock, UK time, he disconnected, followed a few seconds later by CaptainScarlet.

However, after the inevitable first "the account is already logged in" attempt, both knights were soon back online and, once that 29th level of armour increase had been learnt, they both headed for Maargadum Jail on Auzura-4.  It was obvious from the way the monsters tended to be at the far end of rooms that somebody else had entered just a few seconds earlier than Red and Cap - and it turned out to be another pet-levelling knight.

Cleverly, as he didn't have a red name, and thus would hit harder, he had taken the first death mask soldier, three levels higher than a lancer and thus a bit stronger, and was fighting it over by the side wall, so CaptainScarlet took the usual death mask lancer, and RedRackham moved along to the second one, a little further in and on the right.  I did have slight misgivings about CaptainScarlet's position, as if the other knight left, the death mask soldier, an aggressive type, could wander back onto Cap... but I assumed he'd be there for a while.

When I checked after breakfast, with a view to moving Cap and his lancer past him further along the side, the other knight had left, and the soldier was indeed attacking CaptainScarlet, though luckily it hadn't fixed its attentions on the drake.  So, Cap equipped his sword and killed it, and then moved, with his lancer, around close to the wall, so that by mid-morning the drake was halfway through level 44.

By the way, it's no coincidence that the two knights both have colourful names - as pet-levellers, to keep the damage they do to their foe down, they are both right at the "evil" end of the good/evil scale, as they've done enough player-killing to get there - though only of other characters of mine!  That means they have red names.  "Red Rackham" was a pirate who left a hoard of treasure for Tintin to discover, while of course the indestructible Captain Scarlet fights the menace of the Mysterons...and if he dies, is swiftly returned to life.  Which of course his namesake is able to do, as well.

About mid-afternoon, Kaerella over on Cariae, my level 100 cleric, was able to log in, and check on the Condition of the Tomb of Theos there - and it was on 100% easy.  So my level 110 archer Barbarienne logged in too, they made a party, and in they went.  The ancient grey mummies room was free when we got there, but it wasn't long before a night shadow arrived with mobbing ambitions, followed by a mage, Ojejq, who really mobbed to the maximum, pulling the mummies from the corridor too.  Still, I wasn't using pots or boosters, so I could afford to just keep going.

The night shadow soon realised he was outmatched, and moved on; and Ojejq didn't, in the end, stay very long, and did have at least the endearing habit of not picking up the gold, so that Kaerella would casually move close to the mage's previous killing spot, and, while fighting a newly-respawned mummy, send SirFrancis to clean the place up.  And then, after that, I had the place to myself.

It wasn't a long session, although it did continue after the food break.  Kae and Barb logged out at around ten to seven, UK time.  By then Kaerella had added 3.23%, and Barbarienne was up by 2.97%; they'd gained 42 skill points each, and SirFrancis had added 4089 pet points, helped along a little by part of the evening's event, a couple of hours of double pet experience.  As usual, it was late starting, needing a gamesage to appear in the forum shoutbox to relay the news to the GMs' office that the event hadn't started...sadly, the GMs did remember to switch it off later.

The reason for logging out then was that another wedding of Twisted guildies was scheduled for seven.  MistressDomina was still wearing the lower-level armour, with MistressBlaze wearing the good stuff, so MD quickly downloaded her new 30-day "widowmaker" armour cover, to look much as she usually does.  She registered for a party, and was picked up by the level 83 rogue SeriaLKilleR, who used Recall to move me direct to a hilltop in Juno, overlooking the pool in which, until the map was rather poorly updated, a fish used to swim.  It may swim there still, but that particular spot can no longer be reached.

The wedding itself was handled by the gamesage irene_tas, or, as her characters on the various servers are called in-game, peaceIrene.  Things didn't start very promptly, but then, weddings are like that - there was also a delay when the bride had a disconnection at a crucial point.  One of the brides, that is - both MzTickle1 and xXMETHXx were in bridal outfits, as they are a healer and a rogue respectively, though Methy did wear a cowboy hat. 

Elfnastysfriend was there, though Aszune, who earlier had been asking me about the timing, in the shoutbox, ended up watching the "X-Men Origins: Wolverine" movie instead, she admitted to me later.  Three or four members of the castle-owning (and non-Tomb-setting) guild DeadlyRebeLs were there (and I joked later in guild chat how nice it was to see all DR's members who hadn't been banned there), plus Dr.Jirri...and some people from a guild called InNecoVertiaS, friends of the (MzTickle1) bride apparently, who weren't on their best behaviour.  When I saw a red name in the middle of the group, as we waited for the ceremony, I assumed that it was a red guild name, denoting the guild owning Merac castle... but someone, probably an  InNecoVeritaS member called Crackavelli, had spawned some kind of "dark terra" monster... and it killed SeriaLKilleR.  There was also a level 100 purple dragon spawned afterwards, which, with my lower armour, I kept well clear of, attacking from a distance.

Still, the ceremony itself went well, pauses apart.  "Congrats to xXMETHXx and MzTickle1!!!  May your bond remain strong for all the days to come!!"  That was the general announcement; official in-game weddings do get something like that, as part of the arrangement.  peaceIrene dropped some cake, and while trying not to appear too greedy MistressDomina did pick up a few pieces, and a candy or two as well...  I didn't stay around too long afterwards, in case anything else potentially lethal got spawned.

CaptainScarlet had started some pet-levelling on Auzura-6 while the wedding was in progress; once MD had logged out, SirGalahad, my level 23 knight, logged in, got his Elizabeth's Enhancement buff, partied up with Cap, and headed for Prokion Temple for some sp-farming.  His first trip got him 181 skill points, while reaching 99.43% - but when spending the sp, I found I was 2 short of getting one 149 sp skill, so went back, and got the extra 2 points, on 99.80%.  Then Gal had a quick trip to the ebony mines to lose the experience, courtesy of a degraded golien commander - and returned to Prokion Temple, as soon as he'd got the Elizabuff again.

There was slightly more of the "dungeon time" hour in this run, so he just got 170 sp while reaching 99.80% again; he managed to spend that exact amount, and then finished his session with 34 more deaths, to get him ready for his next outing.  The majority of the special skills are now at maximum; he just needs to finish alchemy, and the two big ones, armoursmith and weaponsmith.

There was time for RedRackham to log in for some pet-levelling after that, though the rate of pet point increase was back to normal.  He was on Auzura-4, so was able to use the first death mask lancer, just as CaptainScarlet was doing on Auzura-6.  Red's horse did reach level 31, so could now, technically, be made into a mount, if I didn't want the maximum attack and defence horse buffs.  However, I always do like to aim for level 37, so that the buffs both reach level 10.  CaptainScarlet, by the end of the evening, was still a couple of hours away from getting his drake into level 45, but had certainly made some useful progress during the day.

Taking the Plunge - November 14th

As the GMs now have the annoying habit of not running "happy hour" events for four hours, but just two, then a gap of five, then two more hours, there was more double pet experience to come last night - from 1:00am to 3:00am UK time.  So, I left both CaptainScarlet and RedRackham at work on Auzura-4 on the fifth floor of Maargadum Jail for the night - though Cap switched over from the level 45 drake, which would have got hungry too quickly, to the level 33 one he was also carrying.

Both knights did get disconnected, however, as I discovered when I checked up at about 3:30, so missed the two hours almost completely - but luckily, as quite often happens, the GMs had forgotten to turn off the double pet experience when they left the office for the day.  So, I was able to hurry my pet-levelling pair back to the Jail, and back into action, before going back to bed.  CaptainScarlet had actually been ks'd after around an hour, so at least the disconnection saved his drake from getting too hungry.

At what, if it hadn't been Sunday, would have been shortly before breakfast, I checked up on Cap and Red - and switched CaptainScarlet back to his level 44 drake.  He started a one-hour, triple experience platinum pet experience potion, so that instead of getting two pet points at a time, he'd get six...you never know whether various boosts are going to add or multiply, but in this case they multiply, which is useful.

Sadly, when I next checked, both characters had not just been ks'd, they had had death mask soldiers lured onto them by a pair of ignorant Germans, of the kind who just can't get it into their thick heads that the USA version of Last Chaos allows pet-levelling, including "afk" and not using a weapon.  The sad little German version of the game may not allow this, but that is just their own local rule, and I do wish people like Kessi  ("Waffe aniegen", or "Weapon put on") and annalein ("pet lvl no") would wise up.  It seems to be stupidity rather than malice, but Red's horse took a lot of damage...it was lucky I checked when I did, or it would have died.

Luckily they didn't stick around - "Pet level is okay in LC USA", I'd told them.  "You Germans are a real pain."  RedRackham was able to continue pet-levelling on the now-respawned death mask lancer, with his horse regaining the lost 48 health points an hour later when it levelled up to 33, and CaptainScarlet fought the death mask soldier that had been lured in, with his drake reaching level 45 before too long.  As the morning continued, Cap used another two platinum pet experience potions...before lunch, I restarted the game on both computers, since they'd both been running LC so long. And then RedRackham transferred his supply of the potions across, so that CaptainScarlet was able to use a couple more potions over lunch, getting his drake into level 46.

RedRackham's horse was right at the top of level 33 when I logged him out - and CaptainScarlet's drake was a quarter of the way through level 46.  Tuffsen had told me that she was in the ancient grey mummies room, so Kaerella logged in on Cariae-4, registered, and was Recalled down there.  However, Tuffy's sorcerer, BadFairy, didn't stick around very long, but went off to do elite monster combos...

I intended to take RedRydeR down to join Kaerella, rather than Barbarienne, since Barb's drake wouldn't benefit from the double pet experience, as she is too high a level.  However, when I logged RedRydeR in, almost as soon as I'd checked her inventory, the game crashed, with strange streaks of colour all round the Randol spawning area.   I logged her back in four times, I think, but each time the game crashed to "send error report?" as soon as she appeared in town...and then I got a flicker of a blue screen, and the older computer restarted.  It took a while to get running again, but informed me that it had recovered from a serious error, so my plan was to do a System Restore - which was, indeed, I noticed, one of the options that the help page suggested.

It took a few minutes, but at last the computer was set back to last Tuesday, and the anti-virus re-updated - and logging in to the game was again possible.  It does sound as if there is a possible weakness with the graphics card, maybe I'd better not pull any long overnight sessions on that machine - or if I do, let it have a rest in the morning.

By then, BadFairy had left.  Instead of taking another character into the Tomb, I just logged on the Cariae version of RedRackham, so that he was able to head for Maargadum Jail, and do a few hours double-speed work on his level 37 drake...though it didn't actually level up by the time the Quiz was drawing near.

Kaerella just fought the ancient grey mummies unboosted for the rest of the afternoon, which meant that by the time the food break came along, she had only added 0.56% and 8 skill points, plus 2982 pet points.  There were other people around, a couple of friends seemed to be helping an archer to sp-farm, and later there was an assassin-rogue for Kae to buff.  A level 31 rogue showed up, asking to be allowed to ks, or be power-levelled, or could he have a free costume cover, and the assassin ended up encouraging him to attack the mummy he was fighting - at which point he used his Distraction skill to lose aggro, which meant that our low-level visitor died.  But really, at that level, Prokion Temple is the place to be, farming skill points.

A night shadow was sharing the room when Kaerella finally left, to get ready for the Sunday Quiz.  By then the evening session had brought in another1.54%, 23 skill points, and 7574 more pet points.  So, Kae makes rather slow progress when she doesn't do power hours - we will have to move her on towards 103 soon, I think, though a few free skill points are always useful. Kae's drake SirFrancis had a useful boost, but is still only around 40% of the way through level 53.

The Quiz went smoothly enough on Auzura-2 for Kaerella and MistressDomina.  We moved to the "wrong" side for question 22, which was again stressing that one shouldn't give out account details to anyone, and as usual spawned back in the middle of Randol... but before long we, and everyone else, soon fell into the ground, into a strange netherworld.  Looking up, we could see the buildings, in the same way one can see Prokion Temple from the inside if one gets teleported into its foundations in error.  The npcs were down there too, and, once MistressDomina had transferred her loot to Kaerella and logged out, Kaerella was able to trade with MistressDomino, my merchant, too, with MistressDomino able to put items into storage.

It was all very strange.  Once my merchant had logged out, CaptainScarlet headed for the Jail on Auzura-4, but Kaerella stayed a little longer.  She has a Juno NPC Scroll, so could even visit Border Guard Tamon out side in the countryside - but she, he, and his guards were still below ground level.  She did manage to pass the town's gateway guards and reach the foxes and deer, "pushing" a ghostly kind of box she was in - once she had re-equipped her bow she was able to target the foxes and deer, but she could only kill them if they came inside the box.

In the end Kae used the Juno NPC scroll to get to the teleporter, and moved to Dratan, where everything seemed normal.  Using the teleporter system to return to Randol, she found herself spawning at the proper ground level...in a rather quiet town...

Investigations completed, Kaerella logged out - and RedRackham headed to join CaptainScarlet in Maargadum Jail.  The double pet experience was still running, so Cap had started another platinum pet experience potion, which meant that by the end of the evening his drake was almost halfway through level 46; Red's horse very quickly reached 34, and started to make a bit of progress through that level.

Different Speeds in Merac - November 15th

RedRackham and CaptainScarlet hurried down to the fifth floor of Maargadum Jail this morning, only to find that the GMs had remembered, finally, to turn off the double pet experience when they were leaving their office last night.  Still, with the Captain further along, against the side wall, fighting the usual death mask lancer, and Red sparring with that over-eager first death mask soldier, good progress was made throughout the morning, over lunch, and into the first part of the afternoon, with Red's horse reaching level 35 before he finally logged out.  CaptainScarlet's drake was almost 80% of the way through level 46 by then, too.

I kept busy until approaching the middle of the afternoon, but then, when I checked the Condition of the Tomb of Theos on Auzura-4, I found that it had at last been set.  It seems that the same guild as before are the Dratan Castle "owners", but hopefully the protest is over.  So, the first thing to do was for MistressBlaze to return the armour, accessories and weapon she'd borrowed from MistressDomina.  Once that was done, and MD was properly equipped, CaptainScarlet logged back on, and joined MD's party, before returning to Maargadum Jail - and MistressDomina herself headed for the Tomb, and the ancient grey mummies.

To celebrate her return to action, MistressDomina did a "power hour" with potions, pssp, and skill point boosters, just managing to fit three first-level Ignition runs in.  The place was a bit busy, but after a while the corridor spot fell vacant, which gave me more choice of targets - an in all MD killed 75 mummies during the hour, using boosters, for a gain of 417 skill points.  She also got 1.86% experience, as there was a fair bit of a dungeon time hour in there.  Continuing until the food break added another 0.27% and 7 skill points, with the afternoon giving 1538 pet points.

There was almost an hour after the food break, as well, which added another 0.84%, 14 skill points, and 864 pet points - and that was enough to get MistressDomina's drake into level 49. Back in Randol, I remembered to use the extra stat point to increase her magical attack by one - I hadn't used up the previous two stat points earned, I found, so in all her magic attack has increased by three.

The Auzura "Merac Run" was due to start at six, so my plan was to take Rage along to that.  The website said Auzura-5, but generally these events take place on the sixth sub-server, and indeed that was where this one was announced as being set up.  Rage logged in there, moved to Merac, and headed out on the usual route.  People were already fighting, and there were loot drops too, which, since the monsters at the start are only around level 50 to 70, it was possible to pick up.  Slightly further along there were a few kamiras, but I was too late to get any of their drops... I noticed some of Egeha's raid boss too, the grand gold dragon, but the drops they gave were grabbed before I got near them.

As usual the route, marked by the giant warrior statues, took us all the way to the teleporter for Misty Canyon, and ended with flutons, patriarch botises, and various other 130-140 types.  [GM]Darasuum was in charge; I don't know if there were any drops at the end, there was no announcement about any and I didn't see anything, but then, drops aren't Dara's strong point, and I'd managed to get a few things at the start.

Cariae's run was scheduled for eight, so I had time to take SirGalahad out to Prokion Temple in between times - he earned 207 skill points while going up 89.41%, and I managed to spend 200 of them before logging out.  For the Cariae event I took Barbarienne along - this time we were on the fifth sub-server, and in the capable hands, I'm sure, of [GM]AwesomeSauce.  Due to the change of sub-server from the one I was expecting I wasn't exactly early, and so missed out on a bit of the early loot - but was one of the main Kamira-fighters, getting 15 moonstones and 2 crystals of experience (greater) as my reward. 

The spawning was the same as before, but we did get warned by the GM to stay around once the last top-end monsters were killed - and a nice spread of loot was spawned for us.  Seeing this, and feeling that Awesome would probably be doing a second server, I took my level 39 rogue RedRyder along on Sarissa-5, starting at nine o'clock.  I had to be a great deal more cautious, making sure I only joined in when a monster was already being attacked, except when I could pick off some local Merac monsters.  My main contribution was to ride out at the start, see that the monsters were there, and hurry back to everyone waiting in town to say "The monsters are spawned, guys, time to move out!"

For some reason the rush towards the far end was a lot slower on Sarissa, and it took over an hour to kill everything, and get our loot - not that some people seemed all that happy, at picking up perhaps a couple of item drop boosters for an hour's work.  There must have been a few less high-level players around, which would tend to make a difference - but about 50% longer?  Strange.  RedRyder's hatchling did level up, to 11, and Red herself must have gained around 5% experience.  She did get 5 moonstones from the kamiras, as well as the end loot, and a few drops from the local Merac types.

CaptainScarlet did get ks'd once by annalein, another German I think, and had to stand around for a few minutes before finally he could get the death mask lancer again.  Still, he got the drake into level 47, and continued for an hour or so into that level, which can't be bad.