Celestalia's Challenge - A Maple Journal

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PART XCVIII. Terrar's Reckoning

Spoiler: PART XCVIII. Terrar's Reckoning

Long time no see! I hope most of you are still with us, I know it was a very long delay. So here's what happened. Celestalia has sort of...slept through the past two weeks or so. It wasn't really a disease per se, but it sort of functioned like one.

The whole time, Celestalia was dreaming that she was in a strange world, following around this guy riding a unicorn, who fished, mined, and beat stuff to death with yo-yos. It was quite an eye-opening experience. She had no way of interacting with this kid, but she did see him grow steadily more powerful over time, assembling powerful pieces of equipment and taking on tougher and tougher foes. Apparently, the adventure isn't even over yet. But even though the creatures, people, and even physics were alien to her, it all felt strangely familiar. Almost as if the two worlds are ultimately governed by the exact same force...RNG.

Which got Celestalia quite worried, because the yo-yo kid managed to land drop after drop with very little trouble. He might as well have siphoned off the RNG she needed for the Red Viper!

Well, with the Huntress finally awake and ready to grind, let's see where we stand. I did go ahead and farm yesterday at Blue Mushroom, however not as long as I really wanted. Still, we ended up gaining the following:

• 29 Maple Special Bento (145 BPE, ~49 WPE)
  
• 35 Blue Potions
• 23 White Potions
• 30 Orange Potions

We also got all the way to 93%. So we should get 55 this evening. That's really good for a few reasons, not the least of which being the procurement of another row of inventory slots.

Will a whopping 185 BPE be enough? Let's find out!


Well of course we have to start with the friggin' Level 10 armor thing.

Yes, Celestalia still remembers how to change outfits. It hasn't been THAT long.

As usual our next equip was nowhere to be found for quite a while.

In the meantime, this happens:


This time we put in a point into Soul Arrow and two into Bow Booster, just to minimize the MP consumption on those. The rates are now 210s/190s. More importantly, we get our HP and MP refilled - a huge bonus considering our situation.

Not that it lasted for that long, of course.

It was around 02:45 (fifteen minutes after the level up) that Celestalia was finally starting to realize how egregiously dumb this was. Now, the good thing was up to this point we had only lost 45 Blue Potions. Fire Sentinel was dropping those in droves. But so do the Cacti. What purpose does that serve then? Especially if they're not dropping anything!

Celestalia did the only reasonable thing she could...move down the tower. She makes it all the way to Floor 7, where we're greeted by these adorable furballs:


The really cool thing about Leatty is they don't shoot laser beams at you. And while Celestalia had some misgivings about having a shoulder exposed in a fairly cold area of the tower, she was really happy with that and carried on.

Long rectangular mouths are really common in Maple, huh?

Celestalia didn't even get halfway down the map before the first card popped up!


Also, this is huge.


Eyedrop lets us completely negate Jr. Boogie's accuracy-dropping antics. Not that we'll really need to be using them much, but it's handy when we're in a time crunch. They are quite common; by the time we get the second card, we've already picked up seven bottles.

Here's our first equip on this floor:


The Red Noel. I'm not sure what to make of the color contrast (I've only ever seen the Dark Noel, which matches fairly well).

More on unusual colors, here's the third type of Hawkeye we've seen so far.


No extra stats though, I don't know why they don't just put the name in gray. Weapon Defense is probably the least important stat, especially if you have good funding, or in Celestalia's case, good farms and patience. Jeez, maybe she should be in the family business after all.

Continuing with the Dark equip theme, here's a Steal.


Leatty are being awfully generous, although that could just be because someone else wasn't. And that's not including the Eyedrops, the total of which at card #3 was fifteen.

And the matching Bottom:


We would get another one just a few minutes later.

Oh, and apparently they also drop Wolbis. By the time we actually see this drop table we'll have unlocked most of it already. No I'm serious - only a few minutes later we get a Shoe Jump 10%. It failed, of course, but that's not the point.

We end up getting the fourth card at about the stroke of four...huh. Anyway, don't worry about the table, not much to say. They do drop that nice big-money dagger though. You know the one.

A bit more stumbling leads us to the last card in fairly straightforward fashion.


Well, that's real nice. Great morale boost after losing such a long and arduous fight. Will it actually lead to something useful? Who knows. As for Celestalia, it's time once again to head back to the inn and prepare for a full weekend out on campaign next time.

Potions looking pretty good too. We're up to 237 White Potions (Leatty was dropping them) and 151 BPE, which means we profited here. We should be able to do the same at our next target, Dark Leatty. Oh, and 39 Eyedrops.

And what about her dream friend? It seems like the next task is to find the next yo-yo, which is found in the snowy tundra. Sort of sounds like the same kind of climate in which Celestalia was just fighting. I'm sure by the time our next post comes out, that and many more things on the list will have already been squared away.

Thanks for tuning in. There will be more than one post next weekend, if I can at all help it! Join us on Friday for the next leg of our conquest. Stay tuned!

 

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PART XCIX. A Tale of Two Leatties

Spoiler: PART XCIX. A Tale of Two Leatties

Starting around Wednesday, the insane dream story Celestalia was following...just up and stopped. Whether that was good or bad news remained to be seen, but at least she was sleeping normally. Celestalia woke up Friday morning feeling more normal than she had in several weeks. But as you know, what's normal for Celestalia isn't exactly usual fare for most adventurers.

But what is normal for Celestalia is conquering more territory. And that indeed is the order of business today as we continue the campaign down Orbis Tower, still Viper-less but pressing on with little issue nonetheless.

Here's a thought: How warm are the summers in El Nath? I know that a lot of places in the region don't have ample forest cover...which means no shade from the summer sun. If you had black fur, and there were a fair amount of really hot days in a row, you might be a bit out of luck! That might explain why Dark Leatty, Dark Jr. Yeti, Dark Yeti, et cetera, have brown fur, not black. It's not as heat-absorbent as black fur.

And if you think that's unlikely, note that many northern areas, such as southern Alaska and eastern Siberia (commonly referred to as one of the coldest places in the entire world), can sometimes get well into the 30s (the 80s and 90s if you live in Masteria), in the summer, if not even higher.

Our premiere hunting area for today is:


Despite the map being about half and half we should still be able to land the cards fairly speedily.


So strategy...is exactly the same as fighting the other Leatty. The Dark variant may have...about 50 more health? I dunno.

First card doesn't take all that long.


I'm not really expecting these guys to drop anything significant. I think Aescavon got something from them but I can't for the life of me remember what that was.

Similar to regular Leatty, Dark Leatty drops an interesting tool, Antidote. While not nearly as useful as Eyedrop, it can be very helpful in certain situations. I've only ever encountered one poisonous mob in this game, but that's because my highest character is 60.

Our first equip is a Level 35 Gold Dragon from Leatty, which was shortly followed by card #2 from Dark Leatty.

Ah, I almost forgot to mention, but I'm sure you've noticed it by now, the guild has an emblem!! And Celestalia did not get to pay a single meso into the emblem fund >.< Dang you Terraria! This is your fault!

Well it's a bit more complicated than that, naturally. Production of the emblem actually got rushed a bit, per Ditto, because, some friends in the alliance (which we also got into recently) expressed some concern over the Snack People's lack of an emblem. So Ditto just up and made it. The alliance by the way is called Kaleidoscope, which I reckon is a fairly good descriptor of Celestalia's prestige outfit right about now.

Our investment into Power Knockback is also really paying off. Staying by the sides of the tower, we can immediately snag a lane about 75% of the time or so. Definitely helps speed things up, which is important on this map given half the mobs don't help us much.

Here is our first drop from Dark Leatty, appropriately, the Dark Briggon. Also Level 35 Warrior.

Unlike a sentient furball, The Dark Briggon does not need to keep cool on a hot summer day in El Nath by having lighter fur.

Look what else they drop!


IT'S THE MONEY DAGGER!!

Shortly after that windfall, we get card #3. So get this guys, apparently...the reason Dark Leatty is the color it is is not in fact due to El Nath's climate, it's because of "dirt and ashes in the tower". Because Floor 5 is so much dirtier than the two higher floors.

I can't wait to see what the book has to say about Dark Jr. Yeti.

Anyway, after a bit more fighting we land the fourth card, along with another Shoe Jump 10% - which, eh, you know the drill. Well, I say that, but we've already passed one 10% in this campaign. On a Bottom which we don't have anymore.

As for the drop table, I very nearly skipped over it. But at the last second I saw something!


Yeah, that's the Level 35 Legolia set. I had no idea it came in black! Even better - unlike our current Blue Legolia, this Legolia adds sweet, amazing DEX. If we could somehow nab this set, we could have some serious prestige coming. We do lose the Kaleidoscope outfit though, which is a bit sad.

We then land a second Money Dagger and some time later, the last card!


Celestalia took some time to rest up before heading to the next battleground. We'll cover that in the next installment, the hundredth of this campaign! Stay tuned.

That's amazing, thank you so much! Welcome back!!

 

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PART C. The Speed of Light

Spoiler: PART C. The Speed of Light

Welcome to entry #100! If you've been with us all the way to this point, (I'm kind of surprised I'm still here, to be honest!) a big, huge thank you for sticking around. I'm sort of hoping we can speed things up a bit and be somewhat respectable by part 200, but that's going to be...well, probably a year from now barring any unforeseen circumstances. Dunno.

So, other than the obvious physics joke, I called this entry The Speed of Light because our next enemy is quite problematic:


Jr. Pepe is fast. It does huge damage. It is fast damage. It is however not huge, but that actually makes things even more difficult for our Huntress. The good news, we can poke around for the Dark Legolia set while we're here. Let's get going.


Oh, yeah, I forgot about that. There's one further complication...Jr. Pepe utterly refuses to get knocked back. The threshold is one thousand HP. Which is, I kid you not, over 70% of their max health. This mob is an anomaly to end all anomalies.

They do however drop quite good stuff.


This map is where Power Knockback really comes into its own. On the bottom two levels, we can use it essentially to melee the Jr. Pepes to death, which allows us to snipe the larger platform on the other side. No Dark Leatties spawn down here either.

What they don't tell you is you use 2-3 White Potions per platform.

Meanwhile, Dark Leatty gives us:


Of course out of three Bowman equips it picks the only one we couldn't use.

Obviously it didn't take long before Celestalia decided to call a retreat. She really doesn't like being hit in the triple digits while not being able to maintain a lane.

Upon climbing up to the non-snowy part of the tower, Celestalia return scrolls to Orbis with plans to clean up some unfinished business...after taking a snack break, of course.

And what is this unfinished business?


The last Jr. Lioner card, of course. You may remember that, despite taking huge casualties, the Jr. Kittens stiffed Celestalia the fifteenth piece of cardboard back at the Siege of Garden Road.

They didn't have any plans to resist this time around though.



Alright, cool! So now what? After some minutes going over the world map, Celestalia realized she still had a few options, besides trying her luck again with Fire Sentinel, which she really did not want to do. Ludibrium seemed like a decent place to go; although the top floor was pretty much out of the question at this point, the toy factory was a possibility. Maybe she could go even further down too. However...she could unlock even more options if she were just to get the friggin' Red Viper.

Clearly, we were going to have to do some experimentation. So, since she was in the area, the first thing to test is...


Star Pixie isn't actually all that bad. They at least hit less than Jr. Pepe, by a decent amount, although the star attack is probably a bit more cumbersome. That said, the attack itself is avoidable.

Wouldya lookie there!


Very interesting. Maybe we will stick around for this card set if they're going to be that fast.

The second card was on the very next platform.

Would you believe that even the star attack hits less than Jr. Pepe? Someone really messed up with that mob. I say again, anomaly to end all anomalies.

Oh, and don't even get me started on how many sniping locations are in this map.


At least four platforms of Star Pixies get outranged by Celestalia. Flippin' amazing.

Star Pixie gives us our first equip, the Blue Guiltian (Level 40).


Maybe ten minutes later or so, we get the third card.

Many more minutes later...


Wait, Pan Lid? What are you guys doing dropping a Pan Lid?

Actually, we could use this. While moving locations, it's 11 more defense. And this one we won't be giving away any time soon.

It was upon the next equip that Celestalia finally realized she was wearing the wrong pair of shoes.


These Green Silky Boots have one less DEX than our Red ones, otherwise are identical.

That's two Bowman equips we know now, let's see what other ones await us:


WOOT. So we can farm for both the Legolia set AND the Vaulter 2000! That's terrific news. Note that once we get the Red Viper and both of these, we have access to both towers in Ludi and can sell Etc. items there.

We managed to finish off the card set west of 04:30 server time.


Certainly not the card set I expected to work on in this post, but a nice one to have anyway!

Celestalia hastily left the scene to board the next boat to Victoria Island. She was going to be shocked if she didn't come away at 18 million mesos.

Working at lightning speed, Celestalia zipped around the island as fast as she could, offloading all her equips with brutal efficiency. She managed to get back on the boat with about 20 seconds to spare, and indeed passed the 18 million mark. It was 100% the Red Whip and Orange Whitebottom Boots that made that possible! That...and she had no Pirate equipment to sell. XD

Eventually, the Huntress stops back at the inn in Orbis. Tomorrow night...I think you know what we have to do. I don't like it much either. But, a plan is forming. Slowly, but it is forming.

In the next installment, the Battle of Elevenia is back on! And this time, it's personal. Stay tuned!

 

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PART CI. Turning Your Luck Around 101

Spoiler: PART CI. Turning Your Luck Around 101

The evening couldn't have started worse.


Yes, so apparently GTop almost universally broke. Even people who have just one account were getting denied Vote Cash because the system thought they were using a bot/proxy. I experienced this as well, and a quick check to Discord confirmed that it was a global issue. So, a 290-day vote streak, going back to pretty much my second week of ML, comes to an inglorious end.

If Celestalia was smart, she'd have stayed at the inn. But Celestalia is really good at second-guessing her better judgment...the same skill that allowed her to run away from home and start this campaign in the first place. Besides, she has a new tactic and 170 BPE to blow through.

What is that new tactic? Or should I say old tactic?


Okay, granted, Arrow Blow is not very reliable with the high Weapon Defense. But there is a chance to OHKO, which may help decrease the damage we take on some platforms.

The strategy itself is a bit complicated, but it goes like this: Open the engagement with Arrow Blow. If you don't get an OHKO, then regular arrow or Arrow Bomb depending on how many others are around. The main idea being that if you can't disable them, then at least get the stun on the others so you can clean up easily.

It works really well when we get high rolls, of course. For example, on one platform we fought seven Sentinels, the first three we felled with one Arrow Blow and one regular arrow each, without ever getting attacked. Only the last one had a chance, but we fired our arrow before his animation finished, meaning he dealt no damage.

There will still be some instances where Arrow Bomb is the better option, like when they're all bunched up very tight.

And of course there will still be times when this doesn't work well, like when they spawn right on top of you, or hug the side wall making them invincible.

What am I expecting out of this? Basically, slightly increased MP cost for a good decrease in HP cost.

As for the actual results...well, we did get results. Starting with:


Our next equip was a second Sky Sneak.

Then a Blue Lutia.

Fire Sentinel's other favorite tactic, spawning not on top of, but right in front of you so that you melee and they get 2-3 free hits. Did I mention how much I hate Sentinels? Or could that just be mobs in general...

At this point Celestalia switched outfits, because reasons.

The string of blue equips continued.


Right after that, we scarfed through the last of our Bentos. Well, we haven't used a HP potion up to this point, and we've picked up 14 Orange. So...yay?

The next drop finally broke the streak of blue thingies:


Getting closer! This guy has some red, but not enough red to be what we need.

The White Potions have still remained untouched through five equips and a net expenditure of 79 BPE. Which is surprisingly less than I expected we were going to be down by now. So both these metrics are performing very strong. Five equips I'd also call strong.

Quite a bit later, we get another thingy, the Purple Salt Shoes, the last equip we would pick up for some time.


That I'm pretty sure rounds out the list of equips that are not the Red Viper. Oh boy, where have we seen this story before...other than every time!! [Editor's Note: No.]

It was all the way at 04:00 server time that Celestalia was finally forced to dive into the White Potions. By this point, she had lost all hope. It was the time of night where she started to get philosophical. This tower...is where RNG goes to die.

Blue Mushroom was bad. But there were several silver linings. Blue Mushroom drops White Potions...and Bentos. Fire Sentinel, ten levels higher, lacks even that common courtesy. And Blue Mushroom doesn't attack you while you're on a completely different platform.

I just...you know. I've had some pretty nasty grudges against certain enemies in the past. The thing is though, usually it's my fault. Like, I'm really bad at gaming. I keep saying this in the hopes that somewhere it's going to turn around. Deep down there somewhere, there's just the tiniest sliver, the faintest shred that this horror is going to come to an end. Everything is going to turn around.

Fire Sentinel doesn't work that way though. It's not based on your skill as a gamer, no. It's based on that they have total disregard, nay, contempt, towards how MMORPGs are supposed to work. I know this to the final depths of my soul, but yet we soldier on anyway. Why? I don't have the slightest clue. Not at this point.

Because Fire Sentinel doesn't let your luck get turned around.

You know what though. Let me tell you something.

It did get turned around.


I legitimately thought this was never going to end. Yet...here we are. We ended the battle having used 9 White Potions and with only 14 Blue Potions to our name (although, in setting up for the next banner, I picked up three more). That may give you an idea of how, uh, 'philosophical' I was becoming. Again, though, we somehow made it. The campaign can continue!

As for the Red Viper itself, it's only 48 Weapon Attack. That's actually okay though, since we've shown that the M.W.R. can be used to decent effect against Star Pixie. The Viper should count itself lucky it gets a banner, at least!

Well, anyway, we can deal with that business next weekend. For now, Celestalia has earned a very good night's rest, and more. Next time, the Battle of Cloud Park gets underway! See you then!

Huge thank you for being such a faithful reader! I'm going to keep writing as long as I'm able!

Thank you! I will do my best

 

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PART CII. The Battle of Cloud Park

Spoiler: PART CII. The Battle of Cloud Park

For once, Celestalia grew very impatient waiting for the weekend to start. Having the next bow available will do that to you. Of course, in true campaign fashion, her camera crashed upon trying to upload the very first picture.

Nevermind that, let's look at what we've got going on. Any way you slice it, the Vaulter 2000 is virtually guaranteed to be an upgrade for us, possibly a big one. There is a 1 in 11 chance it isn't, but we could just look for another one in that case. No harm really, at least not on this map! It's not like we haven't received duplicates before...

I must mention of course that finishing this battle (Vaulter + Red Legolia Pants) unlocks both Eos and Helios Tower, which on their own are great but they then lead to even more areas with even more enemies...the entirety of Ludus Lake to be precise.

Let's get started, hopefully.


It is going to be slow going for a while, mainly because we have a distinct lack of Blue Potions. We could go to Ariant for a bit, but regular arrow does a good enough job on all but one platform.

We're not really using healing potions either. At least we didn't start out that way. The one time early we did dip in HP a bit, we stopped to vote, which reset that counter.

Understandably, equips were...404 does not exist through the first hour of fighting. We did get though an interesting scroll!


Yep, that was a Shield DEF 10%. So that's our second 10% pass! I don't think we've used 20 total.

By 01:00 server time, that was about all that happened. We had up to that point amassed over two stacks of Starpieces and net +15 Blue Potions. Bad luck I guess, although everything else is going well. Let's see what the next hour has in store for us.

Finally, at 01:12, an equip! This one was however not even a duplicate, or even triplicate. Try quintuplicate.


Okay, no, I'm not going to keep an official count of how many Battle Shields we get. Maybe. But as far as I know, this is our fifth one. At least it's on level this time! I'm still not sure Axe Stump or Octopus have any business being near this drop. Victoria Island drop tables gonna Victoria Island drop table, I guess.

Not that this should come as a surprise either, given we can snipe four out of five platforms, but at 01:30, we were sitting at about +20 White Potions. It's going to be an interesting choice between here and Ligator for where to grind for potions some ways down the line. Right now I'd lean Ligator for the Elixirs, but wait and see.

Second equip arrives at 01:45! It's a...pan.


Equipping the pan gives us 7 Weapon Defense, but if I'm traveling around I'd rather use the Red Whip. The Pan Lid almost covers for that with the DEF 10% we just put on it!

Good news is we're speeding up! This one came at 01:58. Bad news...


Male Bowman. SERIOUSLY?!

Two minutes later...


...An umbrella.

Okay. Star Pixie, I don't think you quite understand what's going on here. See, this is a battle. That means you don't troll the competition by giving joke equips. That's like, Green Mushroom-level idiocy. Don't do that.

It was well over an hour later, at 03:19, that we land the final equip of the night.


Another repeat.

Well, at least one side of this fight was taking things seriously.


With that, Bow Booster is maxed! And Power Knockback will soon follow. As it stands, we have the full compliment of 200 seconds on BB, and a +78% knockback chance on as many as five enemies. Next level that will be 90 and 6, respectively. I'm also impressed how much damage it's doing. PK is actually really useful on the middle platform when the pixies are edge guarding.

Ah, yes, potions, you're probably curious. Well how are these numbers: +43 on White Potions. +46 on Blue Potions.

Anyway, I am totally fine with this situation. But hopefully we are a bit more fortunate with the drops tomorrow.

As Celestalia was heading out of the map, a Fighter came in trying to hunt for Starpieces. He wasn't being very accurate with his blows, so Celestalia decided to give him a stack of Starpieces. We still had over a thousand after that.

Then we flew very quickly to Vic to offload some things. We end up just short of 18.7 million. That was about all there is to be written.

So the first day's combat was lackluster, other than really good profits in potions. Will tomorrow be as mediocre? Stay tuned!

 

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PART CIII. Pixie Parasols, Inc.

Spoiler: PART CIII. Pixie Parasols, Inc.

Celestalia was unusually late getting into the action today, past 03:00 server time. Even for Saturday that's not so punctual for the Huntress. It's quite possible she just overslept, or something. Or maybe it's due to the fact that we get an extra session this week! Be on the lookout for that post tomorrow.

Looks like it's about that time though. Let's get into the action.

Our first drop of note was another Shield DEF 10%. This one did what it was supposed to do - i.e. it failed. No Pog Pan Lid for us unfortunately, but we might get another shot at it here depending on whether or not Star Pixie wants to give us equips.

In fact we did find another one!...which also failed.

So quick aside here, I was actually planning to maybe to a Midweek Special about this but since we're not likely to have a lot of pictures in this post, here's a look at the current world map. Ariant and Ludibrium are not included but neither one is that complicated.

Three out of four areas in Perion (Excavation Site is the exception) will be sorted once we get the Lupin card set. That will be coming...probably shortly? I've been thinking about going back after we get the Vaulter 2000 and cleaning up some tougher mobs. We can't really do the Excavation Site yet, although the weaker enemies on the far side of the camp might be feasible. Depends on how high we roll on the V2K. The swamp enemy yet to conquer is Croco, which we probably can handle at this point. Similarly, Wraith (not shown here). We'll have to experiment. The block at the Henesys dungeon corridor, naturally, is Iron Hog. I'll get back to you on that one.

Ah, and about Florina Beach. We should be able to access it once we get a few more Vic card sets, but we might need some other prestige-related things too. More on that later as well.


Jr. Boogie still prevents us from venturing deeper into the dungeon. Lupin is that small knob at the top (Deep Forest Hunting Ground II). The large L-shaped one is the Sleepy Dungeon, which I don't think Celestalia even knows exists. If the map shows it though, she might be able to find it just by poking around various areas in town. Not that there's too many places to try. I believe Lupin is also the block there.


This map will be very slow to update. The three blocks here are the three large Kittens up top (Grupin, Cellion, Lioner), Lunar Pixie on the L-shape below it (Cloud Park II), and of course Jr. Pepe in the tower. If we snag the Vaulter 2000 though, we can access that area another way.

Nearly an hour in when we finally do get an equip drop...it's another umbrella.


WHHHYYYYYYYYY?!?!

Celestalia was officially enraged. Now, everyone was going to get a taste of full MP power. Whatever skills she had, she was using. All platforms.

It was a strategy destined to go far.

#6 of the campaign for those of you playing at home.

But obviously not that far.


Did I mention that these umbrellas are basically the equivalent of a Sword? Like, the sword you get when you start the game?

Next equip is:


A Warrior Glove. But hey, they're dropping. That's the fourth one of the night so far!

Then it was a second Frying Pan, because of course.


Having used about half of her current inventory of Blue Potions, Celestalia figured that if she was going to get this bow in a decent amount of time, she had to do it right.


So it was back to the farm. And this time, a full hour, if you please. More than that, probably.

Using the advanced agricultural technique of "Not picking up literally every drop", Celestalia was able to go from 36 to 172 BPE. In thirty-five minutes. Not only is she getting scarily good at this, we're still seeing efficiency skyrocketing even after 4-5 visits. And to boot, we hit 18.8 million.

Despite having about 30 minutes or so to play with Celestalia decided to call it a night there. I will hope that the 172 lasts us quite a while, even though I don't think it will. Or, maybe we won't even need all of it! That'd be real nice.

Anyway, we'll cover Day 3 of the engagement in the next installment. Stay tuned!

 

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PART CIV. Full MP Power

Spoiler: PART CIV. Full MP Power

Good evening once again! So here we are with 17,200 extra MP to play with. Star Pixie had trouble fending Celestalia off yesterday, only managing to hang on because we ran low on pots. That won't be an issue today - and if it is, well, we have a bunch of hours some of which we can certainly spend on farming for more.

We got our first drop of the evening within ten minutes. It's a Traus, the Level 40 One-Handed Sword.


Without question the best drop we've gotten so far, and the closest to what we came here for.

Half an hour later (11:37 server time) we get a second Steel Missel.

"My glove, go away."

Another ten minutes later, lucky number seven.

560,000 mesos is roughly 3% of our bankroll.

While fighting on the middle platform, Celestalia noticed something odd about the signpost shown in the above two photos.


How about that? The arrows for Garden Road and Orbis have been switched up! I wonder how this happened. We stick this in the OCD fixes thread, go vote, and then carry on.

12:41 server time, we receive...some equip that was hidden behind a cloud.

What was it?

Well...



Sweet. That's one down, the Vaulter 2go. Thousand. Uh...

We are further rewarded with an eighth Battle Shield!


Oh by the way...we can access Eos Tower now! While I don't think it will be worth it quite yet, we could go there just as a diversion and see how far we get. There aren't a lot of attacking enemies therein, that much I know.

At 01:06, we pick up Battle Shield #9, followed by a second Red Legolia Pants!


This one actually had minimum stats. Well you know what I have to say about that: Better this than the Vaulter.

Both pairs have +1 DEX incidentally, which is why we're still wearing the Green Huntress Pants.

Better this than the Vaulter.

Yeah, I'm not going to go suspense this time. 01:13 server time, we got it.


Ladies and gentlemen, allow me to introduce you to the Max Weapon Attack Vaulter.

RNG is such an enigma. That Red Legolia Pants was the most clutch minimum stat equip ever.

The MWV pushes our damage with the combat outfit from 262 ~ 460 to 314 ~ 550.

Splendid! With our lowest equip now being Level 35, and a very powerful weapon in our hands, the next step is obvious. It is time to go on the warpath! In the next installment, we'll start pushing in a huge way. Stay tuned!

 

​

PART CV. Retz, Robots, and Ridiculousness

Spoiler: PART CV. Retz, Robots, and Ridiculousness

Celestalia wasn't expecting the Vaulter 2000 to be so...flexible, for lack of a better word. It has similarities to the Composite Bow in that respect. A good grip, plus very bendy where it mattered. Some bows really do that better than others. Whatever the case, the complex engineering that went into designing this particular weapon deserves kudos. The Huntress doesn't usually fire actual arrows as it is, but the Ryden was always a bit stiffer than she liked. She was going to get along really well with the Vaulter, that was for sure.

So, needless to say, we have an incredible amount of options. Victoria Island, we could do the Lupins, Iron Hog, even Copper Drake if we wanted. In Orbis, Lunar Pixie is certainly within our abilities. Jr. Pepe might still be a bit rough, so we'll hold off for now. Besides, again, we can get there a different way. As for Ludibrium, both Eos and Helios Tower are open now, and we have a lot of things to do in the Clocktower too. I would say though, the best path forward might be Helios Tower.

Before she started her journey, part of the agreement that Celestalia initially concluded with Kaloichi and the Auburn family was that she would have access to Air Bubbles, which allow breathing underwater in the Aquarium. There are two ways to get to the Aquarium, and both are fairly common knowledge. The first way is through Orbis Tower, but Jr. Pepe is very annoying and I am not willing to deal with that. The second way is a bit trickier. The well in Korean Folk Town. To get there, we simply cruise down Helios Tower, which means we need only conquer one monster - Retz. Why the Aquarium? Simple, it's because there is a large amount of Orange-tier mobs there, enough to push us over the threshold for the next tier of the Monster Book Ring! Therefore, that is what we will be doing first.

The first step was to fly back to Victoria Island and clear out our inventory. In doing this, Celestalia ends up selling two bows since she was concerned about Equip space. These are the Battle Bow and the Red Viper - neither of which we have any real attachment to. Besides, both can be purchased at stores (not by us, of course). Also, the Red Viper was 100k! Who could pass that up? So we're less than 300,000 away from 20 million.

The long trip back to Ludibrium concludes soon enough, and Celestalia strolls eastward towards Helios Tower. Quick reminder that we will need to keep our prestige outfit on for the duration of our stay.


That of course is the aforementioned Retz. They are surprisingly similar to Star Pixie in HP, but do less damage and don't attack. Needless to say, they are not really going to be a significant obstacle in and of themselves.

The first card came within a few passes up and down the 100th Floor.


Along with that, an equip! The Blue Avenger is a Female Thief overall. That's not usually a thing that exists within the Thief line, and I don't think there is a Male equivalent.


Next was a Cat's Eye.


Notice how I said the Retz wouldn't be significant in and of themselves...but if RNG doesn't want to give us even the second card, which it didn't...for a long time...what am I supposed to do. Celestalia saw the writing on the wall soon enough and got out of there. Good news, we only lost four Blue Potions in that operation. 4 BPE for 1 card is a decent trade, I guess.

What else could we do? Well, Celestalia had a look in the Clocktower first. The first Toy Factory level has an area two maps the left of center with a healthy mix of two different colors of Robots. That was a possibility. But the second Toy Factory level had a much better map!


All robots. Most of them are these blue ones. Let's get started!


Expectedly, these are the sturdiest foes we've come across so far. But, they move slowly enough and are spread out so that we can stay pretty healthy. Good equips should also be here! But that will be a while in coming. We're not getting so great a mob throughput obviously.

We had a pretty nice time fighting with the robots but ultimately accomplished nothing of note. We did however learn that Master Robo (the red robot) drops Elixir! That could be very useful information. Meanwhile, Blue Potions broke even. Celestalia is unsure whether she wants to continue here, even though we certainly could. Before leaving, she took a quick survey of the other areas in the Clocktower we can access. It's possible the best path forward might be straight down, into a fairly dark and cozy section filled with these clock monsters. We'll check that out next weekend. Then there is Eos Tower...well, we'll see.

In the meantime, Celestalia now has enough prestige in Ludibrium to get an inn space. It's not really too much, just one room and Celestalia was initially unsure where the bed was.


I believe it's those boxes underneath the wardrobe. You can climb in and the bottom and sides are padded with some type of foam insert. Like a capsule hotel! That small box might be a pillow, but Celestalia was more than okay using the foam rolls scattered around the room.

And so the campaign grinds to a halt within about a microsecond. Ah, such is the way here on Celestalia's Challenge. It is just a part of life. The big puzzle. Sometimes, the next piece is a bit difficult to find, especially when there are so many pieces to look through. We'll find it, even if it takes a few attempts.

Next Friday, Celestalia continues on trying different areas to see what sticks. Have a great week and see you then!

 

​

PART CVI. Beat the Clock!

Spoiler: PART CVI. Beat the Clock!

It's a strange time for the campaign, when we are just poking around figuring out where to go next and, I guess long term, where to find the next bow (that would be the Level 50 Olympus). Last time, Celestalia tried out Retz, which worked sort of but wasn't giving up cards that quickly, and Robo, which went okay but nothing happened. So, time to try two other areas.

First, we head to the Clocktower, and down three spaces vertically.


I think Celestalia is going to enjoy it here. Both Tick and Tick-Tock are sloooooow. We like slow. And neither attack, but we haven't come across an attacking mob yet in Ludibrium so that's not really a big deal. Also, there are a bunch of sniping areas and pseudo-sniping areas.

Our first equip comes at the bottom of the map after a long and winding route.


I'm fairly confident we will need Tick-Tock to advance in just about any direction. There are quite a few in this map though.

Progress is quickly made.


In more ways than one!!


Courtesy of Tick-Tock, the Pansy Earrings (Level 45) provide 5 more Magic Defense. We could have used that a bit ago!

And that wasn't all Tick-Tock had to give us.


We get the second Tick-Tock card soon after.

Celestalia managed to get interfered with by two different magicians in the span of an hour, one of which was a Bishop looking for some kind of boss. She got pretty tired of the constant mania and changed channels.

After quite a long time we get the third Tick-Tock card, which means we likely won't have to worry about figuring out whether they'd be needed to move left or right. Speaking of...I wonder what else lies on this floor. We'll see soon enough.

Now here's a great drop:


The Level 45 Arc Staff will be huge money. This is where Aescalloss got his too. Then the rest of the line sans one got covered by Gachapon and a few were gifted him. Did I mention this is the best community?

But the Arc Staff isn't even the best thing Tick-Tock drops. That might be this!


The Cromi (Level 48), which is absolutely insane money.

That was followed immediately by Tick-Tock card #4, and there was just a little something waiting for us on the drop table.


The Aqua Brace, while not very powerful stat-wise, could be a decent pickup and we can come here to grab it anytime we want to. I might take them up on that, because we have yet to use a potion in this session. We're almost back at a full stack of Blue Potions! So...tempting. The thing is...why wouldn't we just go to Jr. Cellion for the Dark Brace instead? Efficiency vs. stats seems to be the pattern for many equips in Maple that have different colors like this. It'll in the end come down to what our situation is. Most likely we'll choose Jr. Cellion.

Our success continues as we snag the second Tick card. That was it for a little while, but Tick gave us something else to be bewildered by:


A...Clean Slate Scroll? Yeah, this legitimately dropped! It's a 1%er, which if Owl Repo is to be believed makes it over twice as expensive than the Cromi.

Tick #3 and Tick #4 dropped within a few minutes of each other. Nothing new in the table here, but I need to confess that after getting the Red Viper, I checked what else dropped it. We could have had a very nice time farming for it here at Tick.

A tense standoff was brewing as now both monsters had one card left to drop. Who would yield first...if either?

In the meantime we get another nice equip, the Level 40 Sabretooth.


Followed by a Wizard Wand, the yellow and blue alien-looking one.

Celestalia eventually had to take a half-hour break as she was starting to go cross-eyed from the intense grind. Fortunately she was able to resume after all of that, and Tick was the first to fall after over 3 hours in.


We also got a second Sabretooth on that platform.

Tick-Tock was only a few minutes behind!


We end this siege with 123 Blue Potions and a whopping 351 White. How nice is that!

In the next installment, Celestalia deals with some spooky time ghosts. Stay tuned!

 

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PART CVII. Zeitgeist

Spoiler: PART CVII. Zeitgeist

Time ghosts seem like a strange paradox. How can a ghost have any kind of temporal connection? Well, they certainly can in Ludibrium, where time isn't even a thing unless you're running Papulatus, which can only be done once every 24 hours. So, it's a thing, when it's convenient.


This is Chronos, the first in a line of three mobs which you are probably familiar with if you've done LPQ, where Alishar spawns them in droves. Unlike the latter two (we'll get to them later) Chronos does not attack. And while they move significantly faster than the clock enemies, there are still plenty of sniping spots on this map.

And that's not all. Chronos as it turns out drops its own pill, the Warrior Pill, which lasts for an entire ten minutes. Three of these are worth 10 of the original potion.

Initially Chronos didn't want to drop anything, but with a little coaxing we did manage to get a card.


We also passed 20 million mesos at some point. It was probably while selling our Etc. drops. Nevertheless! An important...ish...milestone.

A bit later, we get a Red Duke (Level 40).

I think Alishar is a prince, which means this particular Chronos had to be fairly high ranking...or would it be Alishar's son? Wait, am I confusing it with someone else? Nevermind.

And then we get a second card! Celestalia was wavering on whether or not she wanted to stay and wait the set out.

Also on the agenda for tonight:


With this level Celestalia reaches 1000 MP, which means at long last Elixir will restore more MP than Bento. Took long enough I'd say

We also max Power Knockback, which has already been doing serious damage, but now it can knock back six enemies at once

Celestalia's fingers were starting to give out, so she just gets to 1% and stops for the night. However, she certainly wanted to have a look at what else she's unlocked before heading back to the surface. The map below the Tick room has just Tick-Tock, so that's fun. But the room below that seemed to not have anything. It was a strange place, filled with stars and floating clocks. Maybe we'll come back here, it seemed just too strange for the moment. As for the sides, it is the other two members of the Chronos family. That's great, we can fight all three sequentially! And all of them seem to have their own map too.

As for potions, Blue is now up to 156, and White is at 367! I don't know how we're making such good profits right now, but I'd love to keep it coming.

Celestalia ascends, sells some Cogs, and retreats to the inn. We'll finish up Chronos tomorrow and perhaps look into one of its stauncher brethren.

Meanwhile, back at the Nautilus, Erenell has been having a whale of a time (no pun intended) collecting card sets. At Level 28, he's already completed several in the Orange tier, which is no small feat for this side of the 2nd Job Advancement. One of them was Jr. Necki, which he wasn't even able to hit 100% when he got to their map. Though that was rectified when he hit 28 and got exactly the amount of accuracy he needed, i.e. 92. Anyway, while there he picked up a Rare Gachapon Ticket which turned into a Glove MAtt 30%...which he sold for 10 million. In one fell swoop, Erenell has nearly half of Celestalia's bank. The power of Gachapon, folks.

Aaaaaanyway...in the next installment, more time ghosts! Stay tuned.

Yeah, along with Horntail, Pianus, the two Temple of Time bosses, the Gray boss in the Omega Sector, and the boss from EPQ I believe? What a strange game, honestly...

 

​

SPECIAL XI. Split Decision

Spoiler: SPECIAL XI. Split Decision

Erenell woke up from an extended night's rest in his usual spot onboard the Nautilus. He'd put in an incredible amount of work over the last two weeks. Mainly picking on weak monsters around the Island, but more recent bouts with Blue Mushroom, Axe Stump, and the Excavation Site crew had corrected his overconfidence.

Captain Kyrin's test to make him a Gunslinger was passed without much issue, but with his first priority finished, Erenell sort of crashed, unsure about what he should be doing next. Money wasn't going to be a problem for much of the near future, that was all he knew. And that was the major problem - he didn't know enough! None of the monsters he was taking on had much in the way of drops. Bubbling carried the Green Lagger Halfglove, which would be a welcome upgrade to his Yellow Work Gloves. But he wasn't very successful in nabbing one on the short side of 30. Neither did he want to spend an entire other level getting it.

Slipping away from the sheets, Erenell groggily walked towards the doorway where his business vestments were hung. He wore this suit and shoes everywhere he went. "I mean business" had become his personal calling card. In reality, he didn't do very much on the Nautilus. But Pirates don't usually work on things already on the ship, do they...

In a small wooden box mounted on the wall next to the hangers, Erenell spotted a small envelope. Embossed in the center was the postal seal of the Kingdom of Ludibrium, a depiction of a castle tower built out of plastic bricks. The Gunslinger ran his thumb over the parapets at the top. "So that's where she's been..."

Carefully unseating the seal from the bottom of the envelope, he opened it and pulled out a piece of fine parchment, on which was written:


Dearest Brother,

First of all a very Happy Anniversary month. I honestly have no idea what we're celebrating or why it seems to fall at different times of the year.

Congrats on your recent promotion. I've heard a lot from a few people, it seems that not only have you been growing considerably stronger, but you also made about a zillion mesos in my absence. I'll expect of course a full explanation of this matter the next time I'm in Victoria.

I thought I'd give you a small present for both of those occasions. It's in our joint storage, so I'll send one of the Auburn dudes to drop it off in the room.

Thanks for coming with me on this long adventure. I'm just glad I'm not all that alone anymore.

If anyone else from our family should drop by, give them my regards.

Take care of yourself.

Sincerely,
Celestalia


Erenell smirked and refolded the parchment. He never really thought of Celestalia as the kind of person to give presents. She was...a bit too aloof to really think a lot about that most times. No wonder she felt so alienated from the rest of the family. Has she grown that much in such a short time?

Well, that might depend on what exactly she was giving him.

Some hours later, Aescalloss the Wizard knocked on the door to the bedroom, which was partially open as it tended to be, as most repair work on the Nautilus went towards keeping the lower level above water. Doors warping in the summer heat meant little. Erenell greeted him familiarly, as the two had already exchanged some things recently. Namely, a Blue Infinium Circlet that the Gunslinger had picked up from the Gachapon machine down the hall - also where he found his recent windfall.

"I believe this was meant for you," said Aescalloss as he held out his hand. In it was a single Split Bullet.

Erenell looked at the conical round and visibly lit up, though his voice didn't quite show it. "Ah, thank you very much! And tell Celestalia the same."

"Very well. Be seeing you."

The Wizard exited nearly as quickly as he entered.

"Now where in the world did you get this, Celestalia...?" If not from Gachapon, because she could use no tickets...then where? And how far did he have to go to find that where?

Erenell returned to the comfort of his mattress and stared at the ceiling, a common Vereina pastime by any measure. Both brother and sister had quite the amount of work cut out for them.

 

Absolutely, Celestalia gets first priority during campaign hours

 

​

PART CVIII. Anniversary Adversary

Spoiler: PART CVIII. Anniversary Adversary

Happy 6th Maple friends! And what better way to celebrate a time-based observance by arrowing some more time-based enemies? Celestalia briefly got caught in a bit of a time vortex - that can happen sometimes deeper in the clocktower - so she wasn't able to do much last Saturday. Thanks to the recent maintenance by the administration, that problem has been solved - for now. So, off we go back to resume the fight against the Chronos family.


The first drop of note was...a ball of cream or something?


Actually, it looked more like cake icing. Fitting. Well, it's Untradeable, so probably we'll end up dropping it. That, or we'll spend our reserve row of slots on Etc. I was thinking of doing that anyway.

Then we got a shiny coin.


We can collect up to 250 of these for points per week from just doing what Celestalia does best, which is, uh...conquering for the empire! The per week thing is no issue for Celestalia, who (as you know if you've been following along with us) is only out on campaign on the weekends.

Big perk though is that we get 7.5% more experience from enemies for the next month! I'm sure that will be well-respected after a while.

Our first equip is a Level 40 Maroon Jangoon Armor.


Strange thing about this guy, it requires 20...Fame? I wonder why that could be. Well, it's actually a common theme amongst some equips in the higher level ranges - especially ones the game deems to be more valuable stat-wise. Celestalia however is only four short, so we can deal with that later if necessary.

We get card #3 at half an hour in.


Followed by a White Guiltian.

I wonder how many colors we haven't received yet...we've had Blue and Brown at least. Red? Or did we get that one...*scratches head furiously*

I like the amount of Level 40 stuff Chronos has. Good sign? We'll find out shortly. Standby!

And 13 minutes later, card #4 appears. The drop table has nothing for us! Not that that's unusual...what is unusual is that it drops that friggin' Brown Piette again! How many times have we seen this thing?!

Here are two other things it drops:


The two boots might have dropped from the same mob. I wasn't watching that closely.

Some time later, we pass 400 White Potions...I think that might be an all-time high. Even if not, we're in great shape for the next couple of mobs! Celestalia drops a ton of different arrows to make some room in Use, including an entire barrel of her own ammunition! It's fine since we've been picking up loads of them here at Chronos. We also have about 3/4ths of a barrel of Bronze Arrows which are not being used.

Celestalia then picks up this golden Gachapon ticket...not technically covered in the Auburn contract, so we could theoretically exchange it for an AP reset. However, the Huntress will act in good faith and turn it into a Rare Gachapon instead. Maybe that will get her some points towards another nice reward from the family.

Meanwhile we continue getting some decent equips. A second Golden Chain Boots here, another Jangoon there, a Blue Pilfer. Standard things. Oh, a second Blood Battle Grieves too. By the hour and a half mark we were down to three free spots in our Equip inventory.

Oh, here's the third and final shoe they drop.


It was now one hour since the last card. Celestalia, growing increasingly annoyed at the Chronos lack of cooperation, was slinging Arrow Bombs left and right and we were now slowly leaking Blue Potions. What's worse, although Celestalia doesn't know this yet, but our potion farm in Ariant has been...reconstructed a bit. Maybe we won't have to go there quite yet, but she will find out eventually. That day isn't going to be pretty. At all.

Neither is this one turning out to be. However one very interesting thing did happen in this long grind. Celestalia fired an Arrow Blow for 1681. I mean, that's not even enough to OHKO. We need 1750. But still, that's a pretty nice step up for the Top Hit, which has not been mentioned for maybe a month plus.

Chronos didn't appreciate the high shot anyway and went back to trolling.

Let's just imagine for a second that Aescavon was doing this challenge instead of Celestalia. He'd probably already be in the 60s and have all 40/50 equipment. You know what he doesn't have though? Power Knockback. What a dummy, amirite?

This was somehow worse.


Because not only did it put up the last spot in the inventory...they delayed it JUST LONG ENOUGH for Celestalia to miss the train back to Orbis.

Unbelievable. I'm honestly stunned. I...I can understand Jr. Lioner not dropping the last card at Garden Road. It was only a third of the map. But in an hour 45 minutes of constant fighting we failed to land a single extra card in a map full of Chronos. And I don't think we're alone! Guildmate Zotta expressed similar concerns when Celestalia brought it up over the guild chat. He never even came back for said card!

Before the next train took off, Celestalia stared out from the bow at the distant Eos Tower. Maybe I picked the wrong place to fight...