I broke the old blender on great northern bean paste on SAT 7/27. Evidently 26 days exceeded the fridge life of that mix; it did not pass the sniff test. Not terribly far gone, but def' gone nonetheless. Two weeks is probably a safe max fridge life. I was going to make a scramble dog wrap for breakfast, but I was out of wraps. Also need to resupply frz spinach and broccoli. I had almost exactly 1 cup of Iberia brown rice to get rid of, which was 45 minutes of cooking. That mixed up with some canned salm... (...more)

Bored, I wandered west from the Middlegate area (C2) to sector B2. My first encounter was 3 Griffins, worth 6500xp, and looted nunchakas +8. (Compare vs. Castle Guards at 2600xp for a group of 6.) Manageable fight, but ate most of my spell points. So from dusty memory, I think this stage of the game was where it became very attractive to start using the many temporary bonus fountains. L9 happens to be when your Archer is able to use L2 spells, including Lloyd's Beacon. I had Sure Valla drop a Beacon mar... (...more)

I redid the Green Triple Crown and Green Bishop rescue circuit a couple more times to bring my characters all up to L7; then I repeatedly waylaid a group of 6 Castle Guards in Castle Woodhaven in hopes of some equipment upgrades. I got 1 or 2 items but the most important thing from the excursion was gold, to afford further training. That got old fast though, so I thought I'd try my luck in the yellow-ticket tier of arena battles. With a little scumsaving I managed to complete the circuit, which was good... (...more)

Since last entry, I explored around Cron a bit more, did the "quest" to gain a Castle Key, bought the Green Key for access to Castle Woodhaven, did the "Mark's Keys" quest for 10K xp, and grinded a few random encounters and known hotspots for XP. For example, there's an easy fight with about 60 Bloodsuckers (vampire bats) in the dungeon under Middlegate around (15,6). That one's good for 3000xp. So at this point my party is all L6. That's a fair level to start being able, with a little luck and spamming... (...more)

On Tuesdays, Castle Age guild battle coin rewards are tripled. The reward collect window extends for 9 hours after the end of 5-hour battles, and most guilds draw out battle to maximize coins for all, so theoretically battles starting as early as (shortly after) 1PM U.S. Eastern time on Monday might be collected under the triple-collect banner. Some truly hardcore Castle Agers wake in the wee hours for the bonus coins. Normal players just respect their sleep needs and take the 1x collect. I confess I have ... (...more)