The Price of Pandkeen Seeds

While we were looking for the last two pandoras (yes, we finally collected all the regular monsters needed for 10 people) cra decided to collect some pandkin seeds. These seeds aren’t particularly in high demand. In fact, they are needed almost only for the memory potions which in turn are required to produce signature runes.

Normally she would wait till Terrdala village was conquered by bontarians. But since we had only 100 signature runes left and the conquest of the territories was unpopular entertainment for a very long time she decided to do it herself, even she was risking becoming a target for headhunters. Everything started just fine: she attacked the gate guards and was done with them in about 2 minutes. To her surprise she was already awaited by a headhunter. It appeared to be a sacrier, and a rude one: he attacked in full silence her the moment she finished the fight with the guards. Well, maybe he hasn’t been all that rude, if what I heard about the modern duel etiquette is true.

Anyway, cra dealt with him no different from all other duellists: she just surrendered and teleported to Brakmarian jail. She decided that his fun was nothing compared to her excitement about gathering one-two thousands of pandkeen seeds. Well, at least he got his strokens fast and painlessly.

After paying an insignificant fee cra was on her way back to Terrdala and her precious seeds. Eni seeing her first unsuccessful attempt to practice alchemist profession decided to help and arrived to the village as soon as she could. She checked the whole village but found no more headhunters. Things were back to normal.

In due time the heart of the Earth Pandala opened and cra destroyed it without any interference. No one was there to oppose her (as expected).

The final price of 1’200 pandkeen seeds was 1’000 kamas, five minutes of time wasted by headhunter, and 10 minutes of waiting for the heart to open. Not that much to pay for a rarely needed resource. But it could be so much better if all Pandala resources (rice, pandkeen seeds, bamboo, and dark bamboo) were freely available to everyone.

P.S. It appears it is possible to exchange items if the persons are separated by the village wall. Really useful discovering considering that sadi and eni, who can carry the heaviest weight, are neutral.

Notes on Runes Making: Prospe Runes

 

The cruel, but so far the easiest and the cheapest, way to obtain Prospe and Pa Prospe runes is to raise Baby Crowdzillas and then kill them in the crusher.

In average from one fully grown crow the output is 4.85 Pa Prospe and 12.5 Prospe runes (I raised 74 crows and got 359 Pa and 923 regular runes).

Pros:

• raising crows is virtually free: they are easy to obtain and food (bones) is cheap/free and plentiful;
• no special requirements, like profession or fighting abilities, hence everyone can do it;
• low competition due to the specifics of  the pet growing process.

Cons:

• cruelty of the method;
• the runes can’t be obtained really fast (the minimum possible time needed to fully mature a Baby Crowdzilla is 400 hours, i.e. 17 days);
• Baby Crowdzilla is a pet, therefore requires attention and care.

Alternative to raising pets is crafting amulets, belts or headgears, all requiring materials dropped from various monsters. Doesn’t look very tempting to me.

No Means No. One Way or Another.

— Hey, I need something maged.

— Sorry Sir, but maging services are closed.

— But I need my stuff maged and there is no other mage available.

— Sorry, but I can’t help you. We do not mage anymore.

— What do you think about yourself? I’m going to pay 5’000 kamas and you refuse to mage?! Bitch!

— Sorry for the inconvenience. Have a nice day.

*ignores further words*

This was my normal conversation with customers until recently when we decided to change the tactics. But before I tell about our new method to reject maging requests just a few words why we decided to close maging services.

Some time ago maging changed drastically. Everything can be repaired or improved, but at high runes and time costs. Where earlier one had to rely on luck, now time, patience, and tight-filled wallet will be of more use. However, the prices on maging and customers’ attitudes stayed the same. We are busy people, so cra decided there would be no maging services. It was the first time her decision was adopted unanimously. What we failed to foresee was the reaction of customers — sometimes neutral, but more often very negative and accompanied with insults.

And finally we found a method that worked perfectly. High fees — simple yet almost 100% reliable solution of the problem.

Nowadays I ask customers requesting maging whether they are familiar with the maging fees. Then I advise them of 100’000 kamas immutable fee for the first 30 minutes of the maging session and additional 75’000 kamas payment for each additional half an hour. Not all people react politely, but the majority of them just go look for another mage. And if they agree to pay this money we will be glad to provide service!

Rabbits Hunt

Finally we are here. All kinds of rabbits — big and small, black and white, and even brown, young and old — surround us. Some of them are so cute I don’t want to hunt them, but I have no other choice — xelor and panda need to master hunter profession. Sram isn’t a master hunter yet, however, she decided to donate her meat to our less experienced friends. One can be surprised seeing such a sacrifice and knowing her reluctance to  share anything, even the most useless things. But there is a reason for such an unusual behaviour — she wants enhancement potions for her pets, and one of their ingredients is scaraleaf flash. She knows that now xelor and panda can’t help her with this meat, so she counts on their willingness to help her if she helps them how. What a calculating, self-seeking person is she! Well, every cloud has a silver lining, and thanks to sram’s selfishness panda and xelor can progress in their profession faster.

 

Notes on Gelano Maging

Probably, one of the most wanted items in the World of Twelve is AP/MP Gelano. Of course, it is possible to create much more powerful items, but it’s very-very time and money consuming thus discouraging for many. And Gelano is relatively cheap and easy to aquire. However, one needs some patience and knowledge to make it.

Patience is a virtue when it comes to any maging, but when we are talking about creating very powerful items with the characteristics unnatural for them patience is more than just a virtue, it is one of the most important and prerequisite qualities for the success. Maging is more or less like gambling, not the casual gambling where you rely only on luck, but its professional version  where knowledge of mathematics and psychology is the key to the win. One loss doesn’t mean a forfeit, in many situations it’s the first step to the victory, but one should be patient to get there.

Knowledge is the second ingredient needed for successful maging. Probably, one day I will write an introduction to maging, but today I will limit myself to the things needed to create AP/MP Gelano (or in fact any Gelano with the unnatural characteristics).

First of all, it will be wise to get ready for the maging session beforehand. All runes should be made or bought prior to it with the exclusion of the most expensive and the least used runes (in this case Ga Pa) as usually they can be bought when they are needed. Also it is better to schedule a maging attempt for the most calm time to reduce interference and disturbance by others.

Ok, what runes are needed? At least 60 Ga Pme (better 100 to be on a safe side), 1 Ga Pa, and about 100 small power runes (Vi, Cha, Ine, Age, etc.).

After all runes are collected it is time to proceed to maging itself. The described method includes three steps and for now is considered as the best of all. It also assumes that a regular Gelano with the intact AP will be used, blank Gelano or Gelano without AP but with some unnatural characteristics can’t be used.

The first step is the creation of the sink.

Sink is a temporarily added power that appears when the powerful characteristic is lost. Sinks significantly facilitate the maging as they absorb failures and create additional room for unnatural characteristics. So, this step is essential for decreasing the number of needed runes and increasing the overall chances for success. It’s important to keep in mind that sinks are only temporary and will disappear when the item is traded or put on sale. It’s also not known whether the sinks stay intact between the maging sessions, so for the best results it would be better to do all the maging in one go.

How to create a sink? It’s really very easy: Gelano should be maged with the runes of small power till AP is gone. When AP is no longer on the ring, the sink is created.

The second step is maging MP to the ring.

This step is very straightforward, no secrets, no tips and tricks, just add MP runes till MP lands on Gelano. It is better to use runes one at a time and don’t use mass-maging option.

The last step is maging AP back.

Probably, the most exciting moment of the whole maging session is this step. I always hold my breath and cross fingers when I see Drelas (I specialise in theory and she is a practician) performing this last act.

The chance that AP will land without loss of MP is about 1/2 or even higher if all the previous steps were followed, but there is also a chance that AP will replace MP or it will fail and we’ll be left with the blank Gelano. If AP replaced MP sink is gone and all the steps should be repeated anew. If MP stayed intact but AP didn’t land only third step should be repeated. In case both MP and AP were gone there is no other choice but to rely on luck and try to add MP then AP.

For all other unnatural characteristics the procedure is the same but instead of MP runes should be used runes of the highest power for the desired characteristic, i.e. for strength should be used Ra Fo, for critical hits bonus –  Cri, for range – Po, for prospecting – Pa Prospe.

Rabbits, Rabbits, and More Rabbits

We decided to spend one day in the forests of Amakna and hunt gobbals there. The weather was nice and company was great. It felt more like a picnic than a regular grind. 1257 gobbal legs and 2 archmonster souls, I’d say it’s not bad for a pleasant weekend picnic… Although cooking these legs took quite some time, additional ingredients always are a pain as we can’t buy as much as we need in one time. But it’s done and we are ready to move to the next stage.

Rabbits, rabbits, and more rabbits, and then even a little bit more rabbits. Actually, it’s far from how it sounds. Rabbits are, probably, the best creatures to fight for the hunter. They are easy to kill, their island abounds with calm corners, where anyone who has spells or weapons capable of affecting several monsters in one time can collect hundreds of meat in short time, not to mention carrots making a nice extra bonus.

Old rabbits (also known as Rabbit Grandpas), of course, are troublemakers. They won’t sit and wait till they are killed, and they have some rudimental shamanic abilities and can scare to death not so experienced warriors. But someone who has to deal with our old lady on a daily basis can’t be scared with rabbits even if they have beards and staves!

The only rabbits that should be avoided are undead rabbits. They can be killed, and they are weak to water (and highly resistant to all other elements), but they are completely useless for hunter as their bodies are made of bones and nothing else. They also do not carry any valuable possessions, so one shouldn’t hope for a reward for the wasted time. My main rule is “Leave bony creatures alone!” and if it’s not possible (they have hot temper and very aggressive) I deal with them as fast as possible.

It’s almost time for a trip to the rabbits island. I should hurry, boat won’t wait for me.

Our Numbers Have Grown: New Hunters

Xelor and panda finally made a decision and on their way to master a hunter profession. It wasn’t totally unexpected as hunter is the only profession that can be practiced almost without interfering with your normal activities. And both panda and xelor are overwhelmed with dragoturkeys. Still, some effort should be made in order to become a master hunter.

Yesterday we hunted tofus. With four hunters acquiring 500 bird meats didn’t take us long.  In some way it was relaxing, unlike our previous profession projects it was really easy. Moreover tofus hunt yielded 3 archmonsters souls and not the easiest to find. So, I may I say I’m happy with the results.

Next step will be gobbals hunting. We still can’t decide whether we should make a dozen of dungeon runs or just hunt puffy creatures in the wilderness. Both variants look very tempting. Cra wanted some royal gobbal wools and leathers, and we need cats to feed dragoones, so the dungeon can be a good option. On the other hand archmonsters avoid dungeons, and we still miss gobbal arches souls… Why should it always be so complicated?

Notes on Runes Making

Some useful information for runes making: item statistics values and corresponding runes output.

I only translated this table. The original table can be found here.

Runes Shortage

We managed to obtain over one million runes while mastering professions, but inevitable have come – we are short on runes.

Cra, sadi, eni, enu, and I are reviewing recipes to make a list of crafts that can be used to create runes and at the same time won’t require expensive or hard to get materials. But here is the problem, good for runes production recipes include rare ingredients. So, after making a list of somehow acceptable recipes we’ll have to check how they work on practice.

Another problem is that the rates for runes like Ga Pa and Ga Pme are unknown, which means that we’ll have to do all the testing ourselves.

On the bright side rates for Ra runes are known pretty well, we just need to find recipes suitable for mass craft. And half of the work is done already.

 

Something Fishy

Enu reacted much calmer than I expected. She agreed to get all that fishes we agreed to pay for the mount. She even didn’t complain. “Weird, and so unlike her!”, I thought.
Later sadi told me Kanni had asked her to remind the old lady about some bow. And we all know how she loves to work with bows…
But at least cra will have her fish without a scandal.