Celestalia's Challenge - A Maple Journal

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PART CIX. More Monkey Mania

Spoiler: PART CIX. More Monkey Mania

We had a huge haul of mesos from offloading our stuff, putting us well into the 21 million range. But otherwise, Celestalia needed a break from...whatever nonsense that was. She really has endured a lot of that over this campaign, but there was one particular place she knew she had the one-up on the mobs.

Ironically, we were there right before the last time we got hung up on a card. So fitting we should return there right after this second time.


One singular card from Zombie Lupin gives us another potentially critical drop table too. Here's hoping it comes sooner rather than...never?

In the first rotation Celestalia hits another huge milestone...it turns out that with our damage outfit on, we can hit regular arrows in the four digits. A Zombie Lupin got whacked for 1008 with one.

Well with that sort of argument, Celestalia was looking forward to setting some true Top Hit records. Unsurprisingly, it didn't take very long:


We need 92 more points to OHKO.



Ookay, make that 51.



Alright, then seven. We can do it!



HECK YEAH!

Celestalia was satisfied with that and went back to normal fighting.

The first Lupin card is ours!


Very soon after, we get the fourth Zombie Lupin card as well! Drop table only has one thing of interest to us, which is the Dark Legolia. Would be a nice upgrade to our damage outfit if we can get one, no big deal if we don't.

And a very quick ending to that one!


So what Celestalia was really curious about was where else these guys spawn. This isn't the best map for Lupin, and she knew there was a better place somewhere out there. There was one interesting place she spotted in the Monster Book, the Sleepy Dungeon...strange, she had been around Sleepywood tons of times and never knew it existed. It was even on the World Map next to Sleepywood! How did she miss it?

Anyway, Celestalia took some time to look at her notes and see where the best spot for conquering Lupin was likely to be. Perion was her immediate thought, since there are plenty of maps with the monkeys nearby. She first tried the Burnt Land IV, which had a fair number of Lupins, but many more Fire Boar and Dark Axe Stump. So that was a pass. Next was West Rocky Mountain IV, which had maybe two of 'em. Big no. Maybe the other side had them? No, but it did have these fairly large dull green dragons. Celestalia killed one with two Arrow Blows, picked up its skull, and flipped it to the boys for 50 mesos.

Now the next place that was up for consideration...Monkey Swamp. Of course not in Perion, it's actually located deep within the Kerning approach to the Dungeon. How deep? Well, Celestalia needs to take on a Green tier monster to get to it. Why not, she thought as she walked through the mire towards possible doom.


While we can access every map in this stretch, we cannot cross through the right portal to go to Sleepywood, since Croco (or is it Croko - not sure if anyone really has a consensus yet on the spelling) can spawn on the ground floor. Of course there is also Dyle which can pop up from time to time, as long as we avoid him, we're good. And as you can see, we have a few good sniping positions and rest spots.

Croco hits us in the low 200s, which is understandable as they're Level 52. But mostly, this is going to be similar to the Ligator set. Probably significantly slower, but similar nonetheless.

Well, no card was to be had straight away, but look at this beauty!


That is the Black Royal Barone, a Pirate Overall. The Level? Sixty. Our first one! It's actually above our Level...meaning...we can't even sell it yet! How long has it been since we've had that problem?! Well, Celestalia will probably just hand this over to Erenell too, along with his Split Bullet...and a Gun ATT 60% she got from Chronos...

Ohoho!


So this strategy may just work out after all!

The second card wasn't too far behind. Maybe about 15 minutes after that, we get the third card! And the fourth card was mere minutes behind that!

Does this drop table finally have something useful for once?


BEAUTIFUL! These two pieces highlighted in red are the Lumati, which is our first Overall at Level 50! The Blue one adds STR, the Green one adds DEX. But what's fantastic about this is that we can get either one and move on. So we have two chances to get what we need from each Croco! BUT...we kind of have to get the Piettra first!! If we can find it anywhere!!!!

We will most certainly come back to nab these here, I can't possibly think of a better arrangement, if slow, but that's how Celestalia has always rolled.

Nothing of interest happened between then and the last card. But all in all, that was a fun diversion!


Now, let's see what this Monkey Swamp is all about...


Great! Exactly what Celestalia was looking for! Just Lupin (and a few Jr. Necki - but who cares).

Well, we'll deal with this tomorrow evening. For now, Celestalia heads for the Nautilus, where she goes ahead and just hands her brother the goods. The scroll failed (naturally), but all in all, a productive day! In the next installment, the Lupin horde is finally brought to a swift end. Stay tuned!

Or did you? This post might have something to say about that

 

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PART CX. Amethyst

Spoiler: PART CX. Amethyst

Celestalia has waited a long time for this moment. Lupin is at last going down. The only question is, how long will it take?

If our heroine can find an efficient route here at Monkey Swamp I, then not terribly long.


The MWV2K allows us to two-shot with regular arrow with some regularity. That means most Lupins won't be able to attack, unless they double up. But you know how we deal with that situation by now.

Nothing notable happens at the beginning of the engagement. We did however register another big Top Hit increase, this time to 1888. Is even 1900 on the cards? We can certainly find that out.

But it didn't take long for Celestalia to reopen Arrow Blow across the line. Monkeys are still very annoying even if easily dispatched...especially here, where one wrong hit can send you many platforms away. That policy didn't last though as it was discovered that Celestalia was blowing through multiple Blue Potions a minute.

Nevertheless, results began showing up before too long.


Right after we finished off another Lupin for 1899. One away!!

The first actual drop of the night...


Yet more trolling by Celestalia's enemies.

Well the next blow belonged to the Huntress - we rolled a 1913!

About ten minutes later, we get card #3. Five minutes after that came card #4. As usual, drop table is essentially useless. But at 03:06 server time, about an hour in, Monkey had seen enough and turned in their bananas.


With this set, we unlock access to the Sleepy Dungeon (for real this time) plus another Hidden Street, Downstairs at the Forest. We should have had this one earlier by way of Horny Mushroom, but alas, these things happen. Anyway the map is fairly useless to us now.

We can certainly go check out Sleepy Dungeon, but we have a few other strings we can try to tie first. But since she was close enough to the area, she decided to go survey for the empire.


Most of the platforms don't impede progress, but in map 3, one that does contains this fearsome colossus:


The rope ends just below the platform.

Celestalia wasn't even sure if she matched it in level (she doesn't, it's one level above us), so hiked it out of there with due speed.

Now, it was time to test our skills against a different Hidden Street.


We were not rolling 1s this time. Not even close, as a matter of fact. The damage decrease is certainly noticeable, but not so much that it draws concern. Iron Hog doesn't even do that much damage, hitting in the 40s by default, low 50s if buffed. Mob throughput won't be great without consuming a lot of potions, but using Warrior Potions/Pills should alleviate that considerably.

The first card came within ten minutes.


Card #2 was as simple to collect.

I've been through this map quite a few times and somehow never noticed these giant mushrooms towering over the first part of the field.


I do not think you will find more such of these throughout all of the Henesys region. So this area is a general nature reserve, I take it?

Anyway the third and fourth cards appeared right after one another. The drop table again has not much, the only thing we might see as an upgrade is the Blue Pierre Shoes, which add DEX unlike our Red ones which add STR. There's also the Male 50 Overalls, the Lined Kismets. Aescavon got his from Iron Hog, although has since upgraded to a better model with max stats that he got from Chunin.

It took almost another half an hour after that to get the final card, along with an exorbitant amount of both Blue and White Potions...another mob that can be really annoying, although this time the issue is when they're in large numbers.


But now we can get to Sleepywood through Henesys. At last!

That however was not all...


Now who could that be?


Ohohoho...this game just got dramatically more interesting. I'll explain why shortly.

Before we actually go and get the ring, Celestalia decides to explore the remainder of Pig Park. Most of it is in fact just Iron Hog, not too interesting.

Then we reach the end of the line...and I think Celestalia just realized why people come this way:


Decked out in her full prestige regalia, the Huntress descends to fight the fungal foe three levels her superior.


Mushmom wasn't really that much of an issue, although this:


Nailed us for 700 damage. Very scary, but Celestalia only got hit by it once. Mushmom did not drop anything other than the spore.

After that interlude, we go to Perion, get the Amethyst crafted by Mr. Thunder, and head straight for Lith Harbor and the researcher himself.


With that, the Tier 2 ring is ours!


So...with the Lady Blue equipped...


10 INT. Celestalia can HP Wash!! Well, it's not all that much, sure, but a few extra MP is going to add up over the course of many levels. Will it be enough for us to eventually survive Horntail? Uhhh, probably not, no. At least not in the 150s.

Take a look at the map though! So much green


The remaining red spots encompass the back half of the Excavation Site, Copper Drake (for East Rocky Mountain VII) and I believe Red Drake (for The Burnt Land V). We'll get to these guys in a bit. But our plans for the immediate future again turn to Ludibrium. We will discuss our strategy more in detail next Friday, when the action picks back up here on Celestalia's Challenge! Have a great week and catch you then!

 

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PART CXI. Heliosity

Spoiler: PART CXI. Heliosity

It wasn't a hard decision for Celestalia which direction she had to go next. Retz is clearly the most productive route, for a number of reasons which include not having to be entrenched in a narrow building for a hundred floors and every obstacle in the Clocktower being very trolly. We will get around to Eos Tower eventually, I just see no point in doing so right now when we have a bevy of other, more profitable regions to invest in.

So the first thing that happens is we lose our ultra pog sunglasses. No problem, Celestalia wasn't really using them all that much. We'll be able to snag another pair at basically any time anyway.

Quick potion check heading into the session, we're at 118 Blue Potions and 375 White Potions. Healthy on both counts, I can't imagine Retz will soak up all of them that fast. Especially if we get a bit luckier than the first go.

Celestalia cabs to Ellinia and rolls into the station in a bit of a groggy state. It could have been more manageable, but having to wait nearly twenty minutes and two boat rides just to actually fight something is not her bottle of Mapleade.

She had to wait just a bit longer though, so we could vote. But the good news is the delay allowed her MP to get back to max. It takes a tremendously long time, 4 MP every 10 seconds while sitting. Every bit helps though! Do you suppose we could find a better chair somewhere...?

Celestalia is a bit torn about which kind of bench is her favorite. She thinks it might be the yellow bear one:


If she ever forays into Korean Folk Town, she may alter her choice. Or would that be RNG altering it for her. Hmm.

Let's get going!


Aaaand that was fast. Third platform down the map!


Three to go.

Before the next card fell, Celestalia got a Bow ATT 60%. Now we haven't had one of these actually work yet in the campaign. So of course this one...


Oh. Well thank you!

First equip is another Warrior helmet, because certainly not enough of these have dropped recently.


The next drop was also blue but decidedly not a Warrior helmet.


Then...


Huh! And would you believe it, it's better than our current pair by exactly one point in every stat! I think we'll be keeping these on for a while.

We then get a second Great Blue Helmet, which if I'm honest doesn't look that great, and it's not really blue aside from the plume...well one out of three isn't bad.

Finally after that we get the third card. It had been over half an hour since the last one. Good news though, the fourth card was about two minutes behind. The drop table is...not too interesting, but I want to show it anyway because I really like the look of this glove:


That is the Gold Brace, and while we have a better one available through Jr. Cellion, I feel like this one is way more conducive to Celestalia's overall aesthetic. Who knows, maybe we'll get it before the last card!

After picking up a second Blue Amoria Skirt, and a third Helmet () Celestalia was running very low on a key resource. Not Blue Potions, we were running a surplus of over 20. Instead, an even more important item, that of patience.

It didn't get much of a chance to run too low.


We finished that at just about 01:30 server time. Plenty of time to move on up...or perhaps down would be more appropriate? In the next installment, Celestalia earns her sea legs. Stay tuned!

 

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PART CXII. Let's Conquest! Aquarium Edition

Spoiler: PART CXII. Let's Conquest! Aquarium Edition

The Aquarium is a unique section of any Mapler's campaign, but especially so in Celestalia's Challenge. For one thing, it is the only area mentioned by name in the contract that was signed between the Huntress and the Auburn family, due to:


Nice perk for giving them all these Gachapon tickets! Now, breathing underwater isn't necessarily going to drop your HP by a huge quantity. But we really don't want to worry about managing that while we're fighting. So this is pretty cool. That said, I think we should be able to buy more at the Aquarium, when and if we get there.

The other reason: Well, we're not very well-respected in Korean Folk Town, which we have to pass through to get to the Aquarium. Part of the problem, no doubt, is we right now have only one card set that is anywhere near them. To be able to use their facilities, we'll have to sweep through the Aquarium and then conquer most of the actual KFT area. I suspect the other half is that the Vereina enterprise has some business with the locals, either directly or indirectly through trade with Ludibrium. Whichever way it is, the residents of Korean Folk Town will not let their guard down for us.

So, we have to go all the way back to Ludibrium just to sell Etc. items, at least until we get to the Aquarium city. With that in mind, Celestalia spends her reserve row of slots on the Etc. inventory. No use in going back before we have to.

After trekking all the way back from the elevator on the 99th Floor (as she forgot to claim the Air Bubbles), our heroine finally gets a ride down.

Maybe I wanted to know what's on the other floors, did you think about that? Maybe there's a Piettra in there! Hmm?!

Soon, she was 'descending' down the well.


Celestalia swallows her first Air Bubble and heads downward. The view was...incredible.


She was soon assaulted by these sea urchins.


...Which she was killing in one hit.

Eventually she started landing cards.


I was surprised how long this first one took! Pinboom is supposed to have one of the best card rates in the game.

...The next four cards took maybe five minutes.


With that handled Celestalia could now focus on the solid platforms along the sides and bottom of the map, with the green seahorses (Seacle). Like Pinboom, most of these were OHKOs. No MP being used and very little HP being lost means Celestalia is a happy archer.

Seacle was a bit more hesitant to drop cards, naturally, but with a little coaxing we got on the board quickly enough.


The second card arrives mere minutes after.

The equips here won't be too urgent to look at, but we got our first one some ways after that, a Negotiator (Level 20 Gun).

But we got the third card immediately following it.

We are also picking up a good amount of Orange Potions, and you can also get a few by banging up the clams that dot the landscape. Much better way to get them though is by spamming a good AoE effect attack around the Pinboom diamond in the center.

Everything here drops Blue Potions, by the way...as if the situation wasn't auspicious enough. So by the time we got the fourth card we were pushing a stack and a half.

Seacle gets cleaned up before too long.


We used two and a half Air Bubbles in conquering that map (~38 minutes).

Okay! On to the next guy:


Krappy is a bit harder since they actually swim between platforms. Still fairly pushovery though. Only problem: They don't like dropping cards. We may be here a while.

In the meantime we get another equip, the Black Dragon Robe (Level 30), which is Seacle's best drop.

What Krappy is really good at though is dropping skinny potions, which we will happily flip for some Nearest Town scrolls when we get the chance.

Eventually Celestalia started incorporating Arrow Bomb into her strategy in the hopes that it would move their defenses, to absolutely no avail. So, once she got up to 10 Speed Potions, she retreated back to Ludibrium having spent a total of 5 Air Bubbles. Big silver lining, we're up to 164 Blue Potions and we snagged 54 Orange on the side.

I guess that means we have enough ammo to see if we can sneakily sneak in one more card...


Yep, we're really trying this. I dunno why. I dunno how. But we're here.

Before they did anything so silly as give up the last card, we get a Mithril Scaler!


You'd think this to be a nice present, but it has no DEX and only 11 Weapon Defense. Pitiful.

In the exact same location some passes later, we get a Brown Legolier Pants! It was also...quite subpar I would say.

Their third and final drop, a Purple Salt Shoes, was probably about average, but it had a gray name so who cares.

Celestalia stuck around for about 25 minutes until:


At which point she took the proverbial ball and went home.

Well, that was less than optimal. "You got three card sets!" you might be saying. Yes, yes we did. But we could have had so much more, ya know? If only certain elements would just cooperate for once! Celestalia has been dealing with this kind of thing since before she even advanced to Huntress. That was just about seven months ago. No one can say that she's gotten used to it. If anything it's the opposite. The more trolling she receives, the more she just wants to throw Aescavon's crossbow out the window. Well, she'd do that anyway probably. You get what I'm saying though.

So, what now...honestly, I've no clue. I think we'll just try a couple different things again...oh, wait, I almost forgot: There's a whole tower we- I'll see you tomorrow.

 

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PART CXIII. Into Eos Tower

Spoiler: PART CXIII. Into Eos Tower

I do not envision that we will be here for that long. But with very few other options, we've ought to at least see what this megalith has to offer.

Celestalia wasted no time in scampering west and enters the 100th Floor, where some more adorable toy pests were waiting.


Ratz's combat abilities are not that strong. It hits in the 40s, has 1000 HP, and otherwise isn't much of a threat.

Our first card came within 20 minutes.


In an all-too-familiar pattern the second card came within one circuit of the map.

Closely following behind was a Dark Matty.


While we were here, a ton of people were coming in to the tower, but strangely enough not going down to fight the monsters. Instead, they were heading up to what Celestalia supposed is a 101st Floor. She briefly climbed up the knobs and entered in a large wooden door to find...a few people and a talking red sign blocking yet another door. Well whatever is going on up there, it seemed important, so she left to go back to conquest, and quickly scooped up a third card.

The fourth card took only a few more passes. As expected there was nothing on the drop table, but again we see a Level 35 Bowman glove. These are strangely very common.

Anyway we got a second Dark Matty before easily wrapping this floor up.


Still on the near side of 02:00 server time too! Though it would take a few minutes to figure out our next map. Turns out it is this one:


Black Ratz are a bit tougher, but the kicker is they split this map with regular Ratz too. Well, here we go.

Actually this might not be too egregious, we got the first card within about two go-arounds.


But then Celestalia pulled out the Relaxer and unintentionally took a nap for about thirty minutes. After opening her eyes again she decided to grab a snack break. Upon which, she didn't feel like fighting toy rats anymore and went back yet again to try for the last Chronos card.

Third time's the charm, but when the enemy is a monster based on time, what charm is there?

Only this time...something had changed. Something drastic. Because...well...it took all of eight minutes.



I'm so flabbergasted I can't even react properly. This. Game. Honestly.

Celestalia was more than content to sign off for the weekend but decided to make a quick test of the next enemy:


Platoon Chronos's time attack deals in the 130s. Not ideal, but its range leaves a lot to be desired...on their part. I don't think we'll have much of a problem here. They do have quite a lot of health, Arrow Blow may not even be able to one-shot. Should be an interesting fight when we come here for real!

After doing roughly three-quarters of a pass, Celestalia goes back to the bottom and...a card!


Great, that's a bunch of work we don't have to worry about next weekend. I don't want to press my luck too much more, so we'll call it here. Before I forget though, you might be aware that we got our first level with 10 INT yesterday. That should have give us an extra point of MP. But we don't just have one point of extra MP...if the bot on Discord is to be believed. Take a look at this!


So next level we could get a bonus ~50 HP and use 3 AP resets to get the DEX back from MP. That's fantastic news! My only concern with doing that immediately is that, in case we ever want to use Elixirs (we have 257 of them at the moment), they are a bit more powerful on the MP side if we hold off on this. That's the more important stat, as I see it. So maybe we'll not do this just yet.

And that will about do it for this installment. Celestalia is taking names (and cards) left and right throughout Ludus Lake, and there isn't much right now that's going to stop her other than bad RNG. Who will be in the crosshairs next? Find out at the end of the week!

 

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PART CXIV. Platoon Plaza

Spoiler: PART CXIV. Platoon Plaza

Welcome back folks! As promised today's target is Platoon Chronos, of which we have already extracted a card. Not really too much to say, it's been a very quiet week in the world of the Auburns and friends (by reason of...well, I was busy building a road in this other game). Enough of that, let's jump into the action.

Our starting inventory consists of 404 White Potions (+21 Orange) and 182 Blue. Will that be enough to unfurl the imperial banner over these stout individuals?

"I've got your six," says the cursor. "Sure you do," replies Celestalia sarcastically.

The answer is a definite 'probably'. Celestalia quickly discovers that with a steady stream of arrows, Platoon Chronos can't really fire back. The shots are just too fast! 1-on-1, only a select few of these guys are going to be able to much even touch the Huntress. What is interesting though is that Arrow Blow comes out just slow enough that they do actually get an opportunity. Meaning that regular arrow is the far healthier option for both Potion counts. Add to that the fact that we can snipe most platforms, and what we have is a very slow but very safe grind.

If none of the above work, Arrow Bomb can clean up just about anywhere. And if that doesn't work, there's always Celestalia pulling out the Relaxer to write in the journal every few minutes. All of that added up means...well, stonks. Lots of stonks.

Card #2 arrives in the vicinity of 02:00 server time.


We did actually start a bit later today than usual for Friday.

An extremely big thing making it easy for us here is that Platoon Chronos's vertical range is really bad. How bad? Well, we can't be hit on this platform:


The top of the map has virtually the same setup, which means we are completely immune to the top two platforms.

After an extended break on the Relaxer which saw us recover basically all of our MP, Celestalia lands a Red Burgler.


It was at 03:00 that we got the third card. Don't worry, the next card won't take as long. I hope.

Well thankfully said card only took 20 minutes. To the drop table we go!...or not because they have zero for us.

Including this guy which has shown up time and time again...but maybe not so much in this color:

Brown, if you can't see it.

The fifth card took again another hour, but we did it!


Platoon Chronos did take our remaining Orange Potions away from us, but we picked up a nice sum of 35 White and a net of 6 Blue Potions.

The real challenge, of course, lies in tomorrow night's action against the final of the three Chronos members. Celestalia had a quick look at their map on the other side of the floor - there are no true sniping locations as all of the resting platforms are on the same level as the enemies themselves. This one is going to be very interesting. Will we survive? Find out tomorrow night in the next installment! Stay tuned.

 

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PART CXV. The Slightly-Funnier-Hatted Timeghosts

Spoiler: PART CXV. The Slightly-Funnier-Hatted Timeghosts

I just want to let you know that Celestalia had to go all the way to Channel 5 before we found an open map. Why is Master Chronos of all things so popular? And no, it's not just with Clerics. I saw at least one I/L Mage along the way!


Anyway, here's what I mentioned really quick last time about this map:


So every platform is on an equal footing with the others or is at a place where they can at least hit back. Otherwise, this seems to be fairly similar to the previous Chronos. Let's...try it.

...Okay actually great news. We can snipe from the middle platforms by standing at the very far edge!


Now that Celestalia was able to wipe the anxiety sweat off her face, the show can begin.

Oh...and they also drop Elixir.

So obviously Celestalia couldn't just get away with not being in any danger whatsoever. So roll out the trolling!


She was about ready to leave as soon as that dropped. I swear pretty much everything and their mother drops the Brown Piette, we have yet to even get a single solitary whiff of Piettra!!

Well, eventually Celestalia got pretty bored with just pinging them and opened up with Arrow Bomb. The strategy she came up with was to use it only for instances where there were at least 4-5 around, but Celestalia didn't really want to go over 200 Blue Potions anyway; the Use inventory is a bit cramped as it is.

That worked quite well, we got our first card within about two circuits.


I was not expecting Master Chronos to be Green tier! They must be the minimum level or so (46 I suppose?) since they're the third card in the tier. As such, our bonus is doubled! We get two extra points of Jump, instead of one.

Along with Elixir they also drop both the Magic Rock and the Summoning Rock! Celestalia still doesn't know what either of these are supposed to do, not that she will need to for at least another few months.

We kept going until about 02:45, which was maybe an hour and change in, when Celestalia got bored and decided to go spend some White Potions to survey the region. Here's what she eventually came up with:


Obviously we've a lot of ground to cover. But that in itself is not a problem. What is more concerning is...well, Celestalia really didn't have much of the energy this week to do anything. We got five cards - which is more productive than some weekends, but I'm feeling like Celestalia is in need of...a vacation of sorts. If that is the conundrum, then she might very well be in luck. Check back on Wednesday to see what's on the way!

Before settling down for the week, Celestalia heads back to Victoria Island to unload her inventory. As for the Potions, we've gained 46 White and lost 7 Blue, and also nabbed a few Elixirs. So, you know, at least we're not losing much. Celestalia in total got maybe...a third of a level? That pace isn't really going to cut it, I suppose. Eventually it might be time to think about finding an actual training spot. I've been avoiding that for a long time because, well, I wanted to have the best equipment I could for the 3rd Job Advancement.

Of course we could probably solve all of that by just letting the Blue Potions fall out of our pockets. As much as I hate to say it...it might be for the best!

The Huntress is going to have two entire weeks to think about her tactical battleplan, although I'll bet she won't use it all just on this...

To be honest, I think we've done fairly well in Ludibrium so far. We just need a better source of mana potions. I am FAIRLY confident - not entirely so, but almost there - that such a source should also be on the way. Two Midweek Specials in a row? Possibly possible, friends! But for now, we must sign off. Entry #116 will be coming to you on July 9. Hopefully, by then Celestalia will be well rested and able to get the campaign back up to full speed. Until we meet again!

 

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SPECIAL XII. A Vereina Vacation

Spoiler: SPECIAL XII. A Vereina Vacation

The color blue swirled around Celestalia's mind as she attentively eyeballed a Blue Potion she had pulled out of her pack about ten minutes earlier, now sitting on the pillow in front of her.

It was her single biggest worry for months upon months. It turned what would have been an easy campaign into something of a grind. But wasn't that what she signed up for?

"I didn't sign up to get shafted by every single potion shop in the world," she mused to herself. Or it would have been, had her brother Erenell not been occupying the bunk directly on top of hers. The Gunslinger slowly poked his head out of the mattress and looked down at her.

"Mind telling me what's wrong again?" Erenell asked.

"Oh, sure," replied the Huntress, "This garbage." She catapulted the Blue Potion skyward with her right hand, forcing Erenell to shoot out his own to snatch it before it bonked him in the forehead.

"Treat these things like that and you'll be even worse off," he said with resounding resignation.

"If you have an answer, I'll hear it. Otherwise, cool it with the snide comments, wouldya?"

"I could...but..."

"But what."

"Well, I guess I don't have much of one. But besides that, Celestalia..."

Celestalia groaned and pulled in her hand to smack it on top of her face.

"You know, it sounds to me like you need a break. A vacation."

"Oh, sure, that's going to help."

"It will."

Celestalia's eyes widened in stark curiosity. She peeked her head out of the bunk to lock eyes with the Gunslinger.

"As it is, many of the crew members are taking a bit of a shore leave on Friday. The usual hangout spot for everyone is, well, the usual hangout spot. Florina Beach!"

"Ah, but lest you forget, brother, I can't really go there."

Erenell stuck out a fist in the air. "Just see if anyone tries to stop you with most of the Nautilus surrounding you! Including me!"

"...Go on," Celestalia replied hesitantly.

"We'll be staying there about two weeks, but I know you have the money to stick around as long as they'll let you. I don't suppose conquering the local wildlife will take all that long either."

"No, no it won't...Erenell, you might be on to something! Let's try it!"

"Now Celestalia, no fighting this weekend, alright? That's an order!"

"As you wish, brother."

"Let me just talk with Kyrin and make sure you're good to go."

Celestalia shut her eyes and began thinking about what sort of shacks - and snacks - the Beach might offer. Erenell carefully made his way down and out of the room. It was about as far from Kyrin's post as you could get on the ship, but the vast array of shortcuts and secret passageways in the Nautilus meant he was back within five minutes. He said nothing, but gave his sister a thumbs-up as he went past to get back to the ladder.

Celestalia responded with one of her own before tucking the Blue Potion back in her bag. No matter what, there would always be a way forward. But this weekend, she wouldn't make any progress. She hadn't known such a thing since...well, since she started this whole debacle. Okay, besides the yo-yo thing, but that wasn't her fault. A year ago, she would have been flowing over with excitement to go to Florina. Today she almost felt the same about conquering Florina - the go part didn't seem all that spectacular anymore.

How perspectives can change.

 

​

PART CXVI. Revenge of the Sunglasses

Spoiler: PART CXVI. Revenge of the Sunglasses

I just remembered earlier today that we were supposed to have a second Midweek Special. I apologize for that, I was slightly too busy putting up farms and whatnot. It's not too big a deal though, since the MS being delayed a week won't affect the campaign.

But how has everyone been? Celestalia has been enjoying herself quite a lot. Obviously, this is her favorite spot on the island:

Valen can't sell anything to her that actually appears in her inventory, but he has been more than happy to take Celestalia's imaginary mesos in exchange for a bunch of things. Celestalia hasn't eaten this well since last summer...before she left the estate.

Erenell's moratorium on campaigning having expired, it was finally about time for the Huntress to go light up the island.


Lorang has no special qualities of note, and for that neither does the big brother Clang. There are Lupins on this map, so we'll just Arrow Blow those to get them out of the way. Well...that works well enough for the ground floor, but on the platforms, where so many mobs bunch up, there's a bit of a problem...one that got Celestalia thoroughly infuriated after about an hour. Probably not good that she started closer to 23:00 than to midnight then...

The first card lands behind a tuft of grass.


Then we hit a Lupin for 1971. That Bow ATT 60% is really coming in clutch!

The next hit though was a bit more monumental.


Okay, maybe it's not just the scroll...the vacation probably helped too!

That said, by 00:30 we still only had the one card...plus two Lupin cards which we didn't need. Celestalia decided to snack break (what exactly was she doing for most of the last two weeks?) and maybe wait a bit to see if the situation would improve.

It didn't...much. But we did finally get an equip, fittingly enough, a piece of swimming equipment.


Mind you a Level 0 piece of swimming equipment, but Celestalia was very much over it at this point.

The next one though was slightly better:


The Brown Locote Shoes (Level 35) for Pirate and I'm not sure if Erenell has a pair yet. Well, he does now.

At 01:30, we get a third Lupin card...but, BUT! That was immediately followed by the second Lorang card. So Celestalia doesn't feel so bad about the whole thing now.

Not ten minutes later, we do get a third Lorang card after all. Business is finally starting to pick up!

Anyway, here's the route that Celestalia ultimately settled upon:


So we lose two platforms, but actually the mob density we were dealing with ended up being really good. And, we still have a sniping location (that hits two platforms at once!)

Our next equip was courtesy of monkey.


I think Clang might be a good candidate for finally having a Piettra. Thoughts?

The Legolier was swiftly succeeded by another two pieces of swimming equipment, except these actually did stuff. The Level 25 Red Flowery Tube, which is kind of a worse version of the Red Whip, but it would have been nice to have had we not picked that up earlier. The other one is a """Black""" Surfboard...

You do realize the outline isn't actually part of the item...

At 02:35, we get the fourth card, which means we officially have more Lorang cards than Lupin cards in the session. Huzzah! The drop table was unexciting, but the Blue Pierre Shoes are available as an upgrade for our damage outfit.

We did not get those, but within ten minutes we had another two equips from Lorang, one being a Korean Fan (48/5/6, wholly unimpressive), the other being this Level 40 Purple Shadow top.


The set was finished at 02:51.


Alright! One down, two to go. Our next opponent:


Clang does about 80% more damage than Lorang (170s vs. high 90s) and has a knockback threshold of 400 damage. This could get interesting.

The first card, all too surprisingly, dropped almost immediately!


Its deep green hue foretold that a fairly good struggle would be needed to conquer this area.

So the big problem here is while some platforms are snipeable, to actually get to said platforms, you have to go through a number of other platforms which are not. That is, Celestalia takes even more damage than she was on the first map.

Clang dropped a decent equip early, although it was underlevel for-wait, I WAS RIGHT?!!??!


That's it, the actual factual Brown Piettra in the flesh!

Wow. Um. So. *ahem* Right. I guess we're not going to top that, not tonight anyway. Amazing how Celestalia kept her cool after that. Must be the sunglasses. Glad to have them back! The Lady Blue too - it expired during the two-week vacation.

She did take about ten more minutes just to roll a few more times, but ultimately left with just the one card and the Brown Piettra in tow. We did spend 33 Blue Potions and a veritable truckload of White Potions to get that all done, but we should have plenty of resources to conduct a full-on siege of Clang tomorrow. Can Celestalia break through? Stay tuned!

 

​

PART CXVII. The Siege of Piazza Piettra

Spoiler: PART CXVII. The Siege of Piazza Piettra

This is a rare moment for the campaign. We have...a siege and a battle in one singular operation. The battle part, of course, is to obtain the Brown Piettra Skirt. I have my doubts we will manage to do so before the map itself is actually conquered, in which case we just move on to the final map and the third card set - one which I suspect will be extremely resource-intensive. The flip side to that though is by the time such resources come under such scrutiny, we should have an alternative method to obtaining everything we need. Such is the purpose of the Midweek Special that was supposed to be posted this past Wednesday. Check back on the 14th for that very important announcement. Such.

In the meantime, we find Celestalia...snacking...again. We didn't even get started yet! Then again, what else is there to do at Florina Beach that doesn't involve Celestalia getting sea water in her eyes...I've had that happen to me, awful sensation. Seriously.

Okay, so the real reason she delayed the fighting was to get her MP back to full. Always have to play the margins here in CC. Given our probable next few opponents, that is almost mandatory. We have 142 Blue Potions...once they run out, we have no choice but to call off the assault.

Make no mistake, WHILE this post is titled after what we're doing today, don't imagine for a second that it encompasses the siege in its entirety. I suspect this will take multiple weeks - even a month or more, depending on...wait for it...Arenji. Mostly because Celestalia is not holding back this time. Each Clang is getting two Arrow Blows or is being bombed to oblivion if in a group. Remember how she spent the whole week before coming to Florina thinking about her tactics? This is the result.

...after which she remembered that she forgot to sell her Etc. items and had to walk all the way back.

Anyway. So here's the route that Celestalia has been using:


The top two platforms can be interchanged depending on how many Clangs are on the shorter right one. You'll notice we're ignoring the entire right side of the map pretty much. That's intentional to keep down the mob spawns in our route...otherwise we couldn't even get a lane on some of these.

Our struggle began well enough, Celestalia wasn't taking too many hits and honestly Blue Potion usage wasn't as high as initially expected. We however didn't get any equips or cards over the first 30 minutes.

It wasn't until the 40-minute mark (02:25) that we finally got something.


Card #3 was a whole six minutes behind.

A bit later on, we finally get an equip. Not from Clang, but the red swimming gear merchants:


The Black Tube is a Level 50 (!) mace and has decent stats. Or it would, but this one was Min Weapon Attack.

About an hour and a half in Clang finally did give us a drop...but as is the way of things here in the Maple World, mobs have a supreme tradition of trolling.


Level 40 Pants...the wrong ones. And that wasn't the only pair of Level 40 Pants to be seen - Lorang provided the matching bottom to the Purple Shadow top we got yesterday. Why so crabby?

Lorang also gave us another pair of Brown Locote Shoes...interestingly enough this pair has DEX instead of STR. Hmmm...

And...that was about it, at least for a while. This sequence was painful. Not with a capital P, but I'd say pretty close. And the various coconuts dotting the map weren't helping!!

Somehow, Celestalia managed to find a level in this mess...


It was only at 04:05, as Celestalia was exhausting her free MP refill from the level up, that we actually got a fourth card! Can you believe it!?

Alright, well, drop table...


Pretty good stuff in here! If you're not a Bowman, of course. The White Piettra, in yellow, is the DEX one so it's sort of an upgrade, sort of not. But why am I complaining? If we get the Skirt, we then get the Lumati, and then the Dark Brace from Jr. Cellion...well, we've got a nice set of equipment right there! It's finally all coming together. But that will be a discussion for after this morass of chaos.

Celestalia used up the remaining MP and went back to Victoria Island. We end up at 40 Blue Potions and exactly three stacks of White. Frankly, it could have been worse. But before that fourth card dropped, I was going to call this siege a disaster. It still wasn't pretty, all told. But at least we don't have that much work ahead of us...for this map. The next one will be even worse

If there is anything good I can say, it's that we're now up to 85 Elixirs (285 total). I reckon we ought to use a few if they get close to a full stack. I'll think about it for Hot Sand!

So, Celestalia sells her equips and things and then heads for Ludibrium. The plan? Spend next week conquering in the Aquarium and restock on Blue Potions while doing so! Hopefully we'll have a bit better card luck than last time. But if we don't, that's not the point of why we're there...kind of

Thanks for tuning in after the extended break! See you next Friday as we return to the land under the waves...

[Editor's Note: Perhaps that should read 'across the waves' instead...]

 

​

SPECIAL XIII. The Call of the Orient

Spoiler: SPECIAL XIII. The Call of the Orient

Celestalia awoke to a soft rapping on the door of her guest house in Ludibrium Village. Imagine, not a week ago she was a world away banging away at crabs on a bright, sandy beach. How this person managed to track her down after so many moves she couldn't comprehend.

The Huntress gracefully opened the door, put her left hand behind her back and held the side of the door with the other - although it was not there long. On the other side, a young man in a red-trimmed brown uniform with what appeared to be a steward's hat of the same color. The getup looked familiar, but Celestalia couldn't quite pin down where it came from. The man was holding out a long envelope.

"Good afternoon, Ms. Vereina. I was instructed to deliver this to you personally."

Celestalia accepted the envelope and studied the front carefully. There was nothing save for a large line of block letters that read 'C. VEREINA'.

"Thank you," she said stoically, and dismissed the courier. The door shut behind her with a plasticky thunk.

Back in the quiet of the house, Celestalia opened the envelope to a shocking revelation. She did not expect this to appear on the letterhead:

SPINEL'S WORLD TOUR ENTERPRISES, LLC
1030 Sunset Sky Avenue, Kerning City, VI​

"I was...banned...right?" Celestalia asked no one in particular.

That too was not to be for very long. Or, so it would seem.


"Ms. Vereina,

As you are aware, Spinel's World Tour Enterprises, LLC. (hereafter referred to as "The company") has upheld for some time a universal restriction on you using our services. The reason for such restriction has not been kept much of a secret, as we are far from the only organization to blacklist you. For purposes of brevity, we will feign to go into any more detail.

In reality, however, the company has been closely monitoring your campaign for a few months, and many of our executives have been quite impressed with your progress given everything that has transpired.

Therefore, we have made a small modification to your restriction. From this point forward, you will be allowed to travel to one of our five locations - namely, the Shanghai region.

Depending on your performance and behavior while on tour with the company, there may be additional lifting of restrictions.

To prevent any undue interference with this policy, please utilize our Ludibrium travel agent as your sole point of contact. Additionally, it is expected that you will refrain from using any local shops or merchants during a tour in any location.

Thank you for your patience, and we hope you will enjoy using our services."


"I am...kind of banned," she spoke softly and set the letter down. "Well, that's a start, at least!"

Soon, it was back to the relative comfort of her cubby hole, to think and then sleep. The good news for Celestalia is that she was already all set to go - only a short trip down the road separated her from Shanghai. As far as Blue Potions went, that was certain to be better than anything that squelching through the Aquarium would accomplish. Once again, a decision that seemed so easy...yet...

 

​

PART CXVIII. Little Trouble in Big China

Spoiler: PART CXVIII. Little Trouble in Big China

A hot summer day in Ludibrium. Well frankly, it's always summer in Ludibrium, as time is stopped, but you know that whole story by now.

It was not to be any cooler on the other side of the world.


Don't be fooled, even though Celestalia has been unbanned from this particular destination, we still have to pay the entry fee. However, it is only 3,000 mesos. We'll certainly be making much more than that on any given trip, and it's well worth the price. I hope!

Before we could head off though, Celestalia is stopped by a Fighter who instantly recognized her as the world-famous journal-keeper she is destined to be. Thanks again for the encouragement, friend!

Celestalia soon found herself looking over Shanghai's bustling CBD.


With nothing of interest to do here, given that we can't interact with anyone, we head west and out into the countryside. There was really nothing out of the ordinary here, just lots of animals.


Celestalia soon realized that these were the things she was supposed to be getting cards from. So off she went! This was going to be a fun diversion...hopefully a profitable one too.

I sure love the smell of OHKOs in the evening!

The next Rooster after this photo was taken dropped a Level 40 Red Arten. How are they getting equipment so high above their level? I dunno, ask Green and Horny Mushroom. They patented it!

But this blew Celestalia's mind even more.


Mana Elixirs? Here?!

I think we've found a new potion farm! Celestalia was so shaken that she had to sit down for a few minutes. Which was timely, since we had to go vote anyway. After that, Celestalia was found grabbing a snack. Oh well, we can wait a while.

Half an hour later she was finally ready to farm some cards. We got one somewhere in the realm of 15 minutes later.


Actually the interesting thing is the only card set we need to get in this map is Rooster, these other two don't appear on the bottom floor where both portals are.

Next, Sheep gave us an interesting piece of ore...


It's the same shape as the Monster Ring jewels, so Celestalia supposes we might need a few more of them for a bit down the road.

A few minutes later, we got the first Rooster card.

Well, I'm more than willing to admit that we can officially kiss the cactus farm goodbye. At 01:05 server time - fairly random time, yes, but it represented about...I'd say 40-45 minutes of grinding...we were already at 40 Mana Elixirs - putting us at 160 BPE. 40-45 minutes! At this rate, we'll have a full stack of these bad boys by the end of the night. Oh, and did I mention that everything here also drops White Potions! This is the closest thing to paradise Celestalia has encountered - and she thought Florina Beach was nice!

The second Duck card arrives with little delay. Even less delay: the first Sheep card. Then the third Duck card drops! All of that was within seven minutes of the last paragraph.

We have to be a bit careful moving forward here because I am aware that there are certain 'blank' spots in the drop tables that crash the game. Hopefully at some point in the future that gets resolved and we can go back and read this entry without fear of breaking things.

Sure enough, we get the fourth Duck card then and there. But we navigated safely around the blank spot, so no worries. Not that...you know, Celestalia hasn't been randomly knocked out by the game crashing before. So hey.

Here was the first really interesting equip:


A glowing shield. Cool! While Celestalia enjoys glowing things, this one is of course Magician only. (Now that I think about it, didn't Aescalloss get his Mystic Shield here? I don't remember now...)

At 01:30, the Duck set is finished.


At this point we are standing at 60 Mana Elixirs.

Juuuuuust a few minutes later, the second Rooster and two more Sheep cards arrive, nearly in tandem. Quite nice stuff here! And then Rooster gives us something really cool...I'm sure you've seen these before:


A Red Silky Boots! But, they had STR +2 and DEX +1, our current ones have DEX +2. No go, but I'm liking the gusto here.

The equips kept coming too. A Gold Earrings here, a Black Dragon Robe there.

At 01:50, we reach 80 Mana Elixirs. Celestalia decided, regardless of what happens otherwise, that she would leave at a full stack and go to Florina. It was not to take very long at all.

Anyway, about five minutes later we get the third Rooster card. Only four left for the entire map now! There was still a chance we could clear the whole thing, imagine that.

A quick fourth Rooster card made that a bit more likely. But the Mana Elixirs were dropping too fast! Okay, there is no such thing as too fast for Celestalia. And we'll be back many, many times. But at 02:07, we finished the stack!


Let's take this new weapon for a spin, shall we? In the next installment, the Mana Elixir's first test in the field! Be afraid, Clang, be very afraid...

 

​

PART CXIX. Trebuchets Forward!

Spoiler: PART CXIX. Trebuchets Forward!

340. Just a few nights ago, Celestalia had had trouble envisioning such an amount of ammunition. But within two hours of farming in Shanghai, that trouble vanished. Mana was still a problem. Just, a much easier problem. Celestalia could at last put her tactics to work without having to worry about huge losses of time.

That is, if you count laying out hordes of enemies with power arrows, munitions, and reckless abandon 'tactics'. Such things have been debated in the higher echelons of archery since...well, 2003.

So I am aware that you can get to Florina Beach through Ludibrium, but Celestalia wasn't sure if she wanted to cause a scene should the tour guide there give her difficulty. To be safe (and since we had a lot of equips to sell anyway), she returned to Victoria Island. I actually did end up selling the two Pirate shoes, frankly I didn't think either of them were that good. The 2 DEX one had very low defense.

Ah, and there was one more business item to take care of...Celestalia still had 214 anniversary points laying around, and so we got a few things...chiefly this:


Absolutely awesome stuff. And it's ours until the end of the year! Furthermore...we got two of those Cubes in the middle, and both worked! So, the Ring of Melodies now offers the same bonuses as the Lady Blue (+4 to all stats), plus the HP/MP!

We now had everything we needed to resume the attack on Clang. The Brown Piettra Skirt WILL be ours!!


Celestalia scored an early equip from Lorang, the Adamantium Tower Shield.


It was clear though that the elite defenders were deployed; we were getting hammered left and right.

Despite that, the outer defenses fell quickly.



The real test was about to begin.


Tortie has less HP than Clang, but has a powerful ranged attack dealing almost as much as Clang's touch damage.

Furthermore...


This large shell was blocking the way. Take it away, trebuchets...


Okay and...oh. Oh no.


Actually, it was fine, because we outranged it pretty easily. Good thing the map is very long. King Clang gave us an Ice Cream Pop (heals 2000 HP) otherwise, nothing of interest.

The real problem was Tortie, which has such grand range that we took extreme amounts of damage while being flung all over the map. There aren't enough Clang here anyway to make it worthwhile. So, Celestalia returned to Piazza Piettra.

At least for a little bit. Then on a whim she decided to consult the Monster Book and found that there was another map! She had been on to this random platform in a tree before, didn't think to, you know, follow the path.


This map is supreme. All platforms are snipeable, and while there are some Torties at the bottom we might not have to tangle with them much. I think.

Well, it seemed that way. But in practice, the fact that we have to take down an entire platform point-blank before sniping the other really hurts. And going anywhere in this map you have to bully your way through mobs with no way to fight back.

Celestalia was not taking that any longer. So, she ragequit, returned to Victoria, and got on the next boat to Orbis.

What could she be planning now? Stay tuned for the next installment of Celestalia's Challenge!

 

​

PART CXX. Another Path to Piettra

Spoiler: PART CXX. Another Path to Piettra

It's an area we haven't touched in a while, but Celestalia has a few ideas about where she might land some relevant equipment. Her search begins in Orbis - namely, the Cloud Park. The first two maps are cleared, which leads us to a mob she wasn't expecting to fight:


Nependeath has a bad habit of spitting seeds everywhere. At least that's what I think they're throwing...it's anyone's guess really. But not all of them are hostile. This one here wasn't, but the guy that popped up right behind Celestalia after that certainly was.

Their range and reaction time leaving a lot to be desired though, Celestalia was more than content to sit back and plink them with regular arrow.

Despite the usual Saturday late start of about 01:30, it didn't take very long to get on the board.


Card #2 took only a few more passes!

The next thing to happen was...another Korean Fan...this must be the most common equip of the campaign, next to maybe Iron Axe or something, I dunno.


Surprisingly this one was decent, 54/4/4 (One off from Max WAtt).

At about 02:00, we get the third card. A bit under ten minutes later we get the fourth.

Wait, WHAT?!!??!?!


WHAT DO YOU MEAN?!!?

Okay wait. So we get...BOTH the Piettra...AND the DEX Lumati?!

This is going to be a fantastic weekend.

Anyway. We finish the card set at 02:19...


And as you might expect, we are going to go ahead and go absolutely nowhere because we're not going to get a better opportunity than this. Next time we come across a situation where we haven't explored all of our options, please kindly remind me that Nependeath gave us two equips.

So at this point Celestalia changed her tactics. Now she was going to, at least, open all engagements with Arrow Blow. Expensive? Yes, but that's what Shanghai is for.

The first equip after the conversion was yet another Korean Fan. 48/5/5, so fairly mediocre.

The second was a Level 40 Hall Staff.


The third, a Blue Pilfer.

The fourth, which we got literally two kills after, was another Blue Pilfer!

Next was a Red Silky Boots, again, mediocre stats.

Then, a Gold Nordic Helm.


After switching to Arrow Blow we were getting somewhere in the realm of one equip every 8 minutes. That's incredible, it gives us quite a few chances to land one of the two we need.

I say that, but we stayed around for another 45 minutes after the Nordic Helm and got nothing else! So I guess we just got lucky. Disappointing, but we're at 50% now and Celestalia only got down to 26 Mana Elixirs. Such a number is easily replenishable in Shanghai.

In any case, the Huntress felt pretty good about the situation and went back to Ludibrium so come Friday she'd be ready to get farming. I do want to point out that a Friday post is slightly unlikely. The reason has mostly to do with the opening ceremony for the Tokyo Olympics. Being someone who studies Japanese, I can't miss it, especially when all the countries are going to come out in Kana order. So take a guess which country is first after all the prefixes (Greece et al.)...it's Iceland. Why? Well, if you sound it out phonetically, the I is like 'A-i'.

On that note, I can't wait for when Celestalia gets access to Zipangu. It will still be a while, that's for sure. For now, we'll see you next Saturday, when we're restocked and ready to resume the hunt for the Piettra/Lumati. Have a great week!

 

​

PART CXXI. Let's Gardening!

Spoiler: PART CXXI. Let's Gardening!

Hi there! Sorry again for the fairly long wait. Hopefully, we can make this stack of Mana Elixirs last a fairly long time. As the only post this week (well, maybe), I want to make it worth it.

So a brief overview of what happened yesterday. First, we cleaned up the two remaining card sets at the farm.



We also...picked up something rather interesting...dare I say...game-changing?

Drumroll please...



Yeah, can you believe that? From a Rooster of all things! Obviously I had no way of knowing this was here. Actually, here is the only area this bow drops. Not sure how lucky we just got, but I won't hesitate to say that we can absolutely use this once we meet the requirements - namely, reach Level 65 and have the Asiatic Bow in our possession and accessible. That's two bows away, which isn't terribly promising because I don't even have any leads on the Olympus, let alone the Asiatic.

Incidentally the above bow is the very middle of the road stats-wise. I'm okay with that. We're very much due for a bad upgrade, so having this is kind of an insurance policy.

But with that excitement, Celestalia was a bit of a dummy last night and forgot where she was headed, and so didn't go back to Orbis. As a result, we didn't get back to Nependeath until...11:50? Isn't that a lot earlier than usual-ah nevermind.

Okay so it wasn't really that early, because Celestalia was in the mood for some popcorn. When isn't she? Again, nevermind. Actual start time, just after midnight.

Celestalia will eventually remember to put on the correct outfit BEFORE starting the day's work.

A bit later, a 52 Cleric comes into the map and recognized Celestalia from the journal! Always satisfying


Bish and Celestalia shared the map with Bish going around the top platforms, since we weren't using them. He finished soon enough, and even gave us a Fame as he left! Celestalia actually had to call him back to the map so she could return the favor, upon which he somehow disconnected. No clue what happened there. But it did register!

Turns out Celestalia was not far behind him, as the next time she tried to sit down on the Relaxer, her momentum carried her over the seat, toppling over and bonking her head on the pavement.

Ever the gamer, of course, she was back up and shooting within about two minutes. Not that it really changed much. A whole hour in, our equipment inventory was...entirely void of any activity whatsoever. And not for lack of trying! We were pushing two stacks of Nependeath seeds by that point.

Well what do you think happens just fifteen minutes later...


The Dark Piettra Skirt is ours!

...But there's a problem. A very big problem. Call it an oversight, if you will.

We can't wear them. Why, you ask?


So odd. I mean it's not even a system. Dark Level 90 overall? 20 Fame. Dark Level 40 skirt? 20 Fame too. It makes no sense!

Like every problem though, there is a way through this. We'll cover that in the next installment! Stay tuned.

 

​

PART CXXII. Through Old Memories and New Friends
​

Spoiler: PART CXXII. Through Old Memories and New Friends

Celestalia now needs to come up with 3 Fame. What to do...well, we can't buy Fame, the rules don't allow it.

I guess we could go do jump quests. Problem is I don't even know if anyone would want our help.

Except for-wait a minute. I just remembered something.


Yeah, so, these Mano shells have been in our inventory ever since we went to find out his drops, way back in the 31st entry. Celestalia held on to them...the reason exactly she never quite understood, they just felt special.

During many of her talks with the Auburns, Celestalia heard a lot about their various exploits around Victoria. The Auburns were well-known around the island for a couple things, mostly slaying bosses. Mano and Stumpy were equally bonked by just about everyone, aside from maybe Kalotora. So maybe she could get a bit of Fame from showing these shells around. Who might be interested though?

While she was thinking about this, a Night Lord on the ship with her decided to give her one of the 3 needed points! We unfortunately had just Famed and so couldn't return the favor.


Like Celestalia, Jelo was also doing boss-related things. Except she was going somewhere the Huntress doesn't yet have access. Disappointing, but at least we buddied! Celestalia's list of high-profile friends gets even longer

Celestalia remembered something that was mentioned in passing, possibly by Sirbeg, but she didn't quite remember. There was someone living in Mushroom Park in Henesys who was quite interested in tales and legends. Sirbeg said the girl collects special items. That had to be it.


She had the feeling that Pia didn't really care about family matters. And she was right, Pia didn't even know who she was.

When Celestalia questioned Pia about the situation, this is what she had to say:


Touching. In a way, Celestalia's wishes were starting to come true. In a way.

So Pia sends us to the city's head librarian, Jay, who tells of a legendary adventurer named Alloy. Turns out a certain Wing in Ellinia is decent friends with the gentleman. Celestalia's heart relaxed a bit, now that she wasn't dealing with her fellow Henesians. There was still no telling who was in the pocket of the rest of the family - whoever was still holding out against the adventuring life, that is.


Celestalia wasn't too impressed, especially once Wing began talking. She could almost feel the smugness coming off of him. Worse yet, he had the gall to ask us for a bunch of snail shells.

To accomplish this very tiny inconvenience, Celestalia turns to an old friend.

The plonk has returned for one last hurrah!

That finished very quickly, as you might expect, and for one last flashback to our origins, Celestalia walked all the way from Lith Harbor to Henesys - the corridor in which it all started.


As she looked around the familiar forests, Celestalia had a strange feeling, one she hadn't quite known before. But maybe she was just trying to suppress it this whole time.

Homesickness.

Was it really like that? After so much injustice had been done to her? The Huntress did a double-take for a moment. Usually in these things she was the exception to the rule...but this. Was this an exception...to the exception? What unholy irony.

...Maybe it wouldn't hurt to just take a peek inside the estate...maybe they've changed their minds.

No, that's ludicrous. I...I can't.

...But what to do...?

Before she knew it, Celestalia was back with Pia, who eagerly accepted one of her seven shells. In return, Celestalia was given the gracious privilege to don the Dark Piettra Skirt!


So. We have one final equip to bring up to Level 40. I figure we should take care of that before going for the Lumati. That can be a task for next Friday though.

Celestalia swallowed a rare moment of conflict and reluctantly got on the boat back to Orbis. Before she could, however, Feeed gave us another Fame! That was actually the fourth Fame attempt this evening - a young Magicianess wanted to trade Fame too, and I had to decline since we couldn't. So Celestalia was actually really close to not having to do any of this!

Quick plug, if you haven't seen it yet, Feeed's quad mage journal is absolutely insane. I'm lucky I can handle things with one client, let alone four of them Big kudos.

To all the rest - a huge, huge thank you for all your support, friendship, and encouragement. And now that Celestalia was away from Henesys again, she began to realize that the feeling of homesickness wasn't for the estate at all...it was for the people. Memories of a more innocent time. Henesys really is the center of that nostalgia, at least for many of us.

As I've said, my first character was a crossbowman. I mean really, the whole MMO experience...Maple was the first 'traditional' MMO I played, so all of that really started in Henesys. I know many others feel the same, even if your first character wasn't a Bowman.

I guess what I'm really saying is...thanks for being part of my long Maple journey. And I'd be honored to be a part of yours.

Jr. Cellion coming up. See you next weekend.​

 

​

PART CXXIII. Brace Yourself!

Spoiler: PART CXXIII. Brace Yourself!

I wasn't quite sure what I was expecting when Celestalia started out on this grand...ish journey. But getting 10,000 views and becoming the fourth most-viewed journal in the forums was not on the list! For that reason I have to say again, thank you all. It's been about a year since I actually started on ML, and what an incredible year it has been. It started out well enough, then Celestalia came around and the game has taken on a whole new meaning for me. And hopefully, for many of you too!

So, moving to the action at hand. Today's battle is taking place in:


The goal is the Dark Brace, which is the final Level 40 equip we need to collect. Then, we're...well, still going to be two tiers behind, frankly. Even if we get it before 60, it won't be too much longer before we actually do get that level. I'd like to think we're kind of catching up though. To really do that properly though, we're going to need to take on somewhat-tougher mobs. Good thing our first one is Croco, which we'll farm for the Lumati. As always though, one equip at a time.

Oh, and since we still have 68 Mana Elixirs left...Arrow Blow!


Most of which will be one-shots. For example:

It's sometimes difficult to alternate between a bow and a camera. Good thing we can wear the DEX-boosting outfit!

The first equip of the evening came quite early, as expected. It was...

...a Plunger.


Actually, a fairly versatile weapon. Just ask Sirbeg, it served him well during his first and second campaigns!

Maybe a minute or two later, a Blue Legolier.


Our top hit then increases to 2067.

Next was a Sapphire Earrings.


Followed by another boost, this time to 2078.

After that Celestalia took a fairly lengthy break and went back in again at around 00:45.

Five minutes in to this run, we snag a second Blue Legolier.

The next drop (eight minutes following) was another Bowman equip...


Very nice. Stats are quite acceptable as well - +3 DEX (Average), 18 WDef (Max)!

Welp, our work is done here. Back to Victoria we go. In the next installment, our search for the Lumati begins! Stay tuned.

 

​

PART CXXIV. The Battle of Crokoland

Spoiler: PART CXXIV. The Battle of Crokoland

Celestalia finally looks like...well, a normal Bowman. Aside from poor choices of color, we are otherwise indistinguishable from someone who buys their equips. And as you know, obtaining things Level 50 and above is almost universally done the old-fashioned way. That is, by doing exactly what we've been doing this whole time.

I say almost, because you do have weapons, shoes, and gloves which can be crafted for a decent amount of tiers above that. None of which we have access to, of course.

Before heading out to Kerning (actually, we won't be going to Kerning - we're going through Sleepywood! Because we can!), Celestalia stops in the Henesys Weapon Store to sell a bunch of stuff, including her Gold Scaler which has served us well since Part LXXXI. We actually didn't earn any extra DEX, I now realize, just some WDef. That's still good! But the Dark Savata still reigns supreme in the power department. I'm not just going to give it to Sam, incidentally. The Savata is too precious for that!

While walking to the battleground, Celestalia spotted an interesting mob.

Finally, a worthy opponent?

It would have been a bit better if we didn't have monkeys and stuff running around, but Celestalia didn't get hit by the rocky bois anyway. Turns out they drop a very nice chunk of change. Thing is there just aren't enough of them to make it a worthwhile investment! I hope they're somewhere else - I really wouldn't want to stay at this map for their card set. Can you imagine the monotony? Good gravy.

After that diversion, we crossed another three maps (that's it) to get here:


Strategy here is...well, I don't have one. I'm gonna play this pretty casually, at least today. We're still going to use Arrow Blow, but I don't really want to use more than about two per mob. Arrow Bomb will be much better here, which is one of the reasons why I'm doing this here instead of at Nependeath. The other has to do with the fact that...well, again, we have two Lumatis that could potentially drop, rather than just one. So we might get the STR one...that's okay. My primary concern is just being able to move on.

Stone Golem might be pretty good at mesos, but Croco isn't too far behind in that respect. Which reminds me - we passed 25 million mesos at some point. Most likely it was last week. We're at 25.2 now, and counting. The lowest possible amount for Croco is 211.

In other news...at about 02:05 we reach a full stack of Elixirs! Amazing, right? Well, we have a choice. We can continue saving them...or...we can queue up any additional to use like we would Bentos. For MP purposes they restore around 575 MP.

Well the ultimate decision was to just keep collecting them. By the end of the session, we had 20 in the second stack

And I wish I had more to say...I don't...because nothing dropped. Aside from Elixirs. I love Elixirs a lot, but we didn't even get a chance for either Overall. Well, that might depend on your philosophy.

...We did get 60 though!


Which means it's time for another update! Gee, it has been a while...47 entries, to be exact. So like last time I will show both the prestige outfit and the damage outfit. Here is the prestige outfit for Level 50:


The Level 60 edition:


Aside from the shoes, everything has been upgraded at least twice. The Hat has gone up four tiers. Granted, two of them were trivial to collect...and I think we already had one at the time I made the 50 post. Yes, actually, it was the post right before that one.

[Editor's Note: Not including the Monster Book Ring...although one tier here is basically worth like three. Eh. Whatever.]

As for the combat outfit:



Lots of upgrades here too, albeit a few less of them. What's very interesting is that our damage difference did not change. Max damage is +23 with the combat outfit. And that's with...the combat outfit providing less bonus DEX! I wonder why that could be.

Right. On that note, it's time to...go back to Ludibrium because we need more Mana Elixirs. We have 12 left.

Looks like it will be a pretty late start tomorrow night. Hopefully Shanghai is generous again with these.

In the next installment, a little bit more Croco action awaits. Stay tuned!

Spoiler: Red, White, and Blue

Until we meet again...rival.

 

​

PART CXXV. From a Chore a Choro

Spoiler: PART CXXV. From a Chore a Choro

Call it a gift, a secret, a surprise. Whatever you can name, it doesn't really come close to this incredible curveball the game of Maple has just thrown into our campaign.

I did actually get on earlier in the day to refill the stack. I'm very glad I did. We're also starting much earlier than usual, before 01:00 server time. Meaning: We have a very legitimate shot to get this thing.

And it looks like equips are very much on the menu - this Brown Moon (Level 50) was acquired not even 10 Crocos in!


The implications for us are even more tremendous. If we get the Lumati, we are up to date on our main outfit. I couldn't have imagined that was a possibility 24 hours ago.

Because we eventually got low enough, and that she had just picked up an extra one, Celestalia decided to try an Elixir for the first time. It was...astonishingly good. The Elixir has a sweet and frothy berry flavor, almost like a soda, or maybe a smoothie. Somewhere in there. She felt how refreshing it was the moment it hit her tongue. After she cleaned up the next bit of Crocos from that jolt of energy, her first thought was, if the Elixir was so powerful, what would the next tier be like...if there was one?

You almost certainly know, dear reader, that there is a next tier...although as usual it will be a long time before we get there.

Well, since she was already sitting down, why not take a snack break? And it was the start of a new hour anyway. She spent half of it in the Relaxer. What will come of the second half, I wonder.

At 01:45, we pick up an even better drop: the Light Scorpio Pants, which are Level 60!


Which we can officially sell as of last night

That was it for a while. Then it started lagging pretty bad. Celestalia continued fighting, although we couldn't go too fast just to make sure that all drops were accounted for.

At least the XP was nice. By 02:30 we were at 25% already. At this rate we might be at the 3rd Job advancement by the end of the year

Then at 02:39, a crazy thing happens - we get a second Light Scorpio Pants

But shortly after that, an I/L Wizard came into the map. Turns out she just needed a few Croco skins for a quest. Celestalia who had close to two stacks of them was happy to assist!


We traded Fame and had a very nice conversation about the challenge

By this point Celestalia was a bit tired. Still, she carried on for some time longer. She at least wanted to get to 30%, by which point she'd still have half the stack of Mana Elixirs, and could start right back up on Friday if needed.

We accomplished that by about 03:05 and walked back to Henesys (through Sleepywood again) although we had to go to Kerning to sell the equips anyway, so why not just walk through the swamp if you didn't want to use a return scroll...nevermind.

What's a bit more interesting is that we have a stockpile of 14 Common and 2 Rare Gachapon tickets, collected over the last few weeks. Maybe Aescalloss will get lucky this time? If you don't remember, he's trying to get the Dark Requiem. A long shot? Yes, but easier than power-leveling his brother to acquire it for him before he hits 68.

Not that I've really been trying that much.

Anyway, here are the results:

Common

• Blood Chaos Robe (Level 33 M Magician Overall)
• Claw ATT 10%
• Dark Shadow (Level 40 M Thief Top)
• Wand MAtt 60%
• Drake's Blood (7)
• Bottomwear Jump 70%
• Brown Leather Ocean Hat (Level 50 Pirate Hat)
• Dark Commodore Pants (Level 90 M Warrior Pants) <- Very nice stats - two off from Max WDef, standard Accuracy!
• Overall LUK 10%
• Cape HP 60%
• Stump Eraser
• Cape INT 30%
• Blue Calaf (Level 48 F Magician Overall) <- Also very nice stats - Max INT/LUK (2/5)
• Brown Double Marine (Level 20 Pirate Hat)

Rare

• Elemental Staff 6 (Level 163 Staff) <- Says it's blue but I disagree. It has Max Weapon Attack. Who cares!! >_>
• Elemental Staff 1 (Level 103 Staff) <- The two staves were Fire and Poison. Aescalloss is Ice/Lightning. >_> >_> >_>

Ookay so more of the usual I guess. We'll check back in with him again in another few weeks.

And that is it for us here on Celestalia's Challenge. Check back in on Friday for even more Croco action! We'll see all of you on Page 9. Until then, have a good one!

Thank you!!