Current Training: Urgelt (Swengus). I'll alternate this with Silky's Detha training until my defensive skills are much improved.

Circle test this week: I'm managing to kill the Banshee and Lava Beetle every time now, but with just too little health left to take on the Bloodwyrm. I still need more defensive skills.

Donations: D'rraldrri, the chivalry hut builder, claims she is done, but the hall remains unopened. I have switched my donations to Und'rus until I can find a builder working on a more interesting project.

Exploration: There seems to be a lot of previously unappreciated trails in the passes and the greymyr village. Mapping all this will take some time.

Our farms have started to produce potatoes. I guess some exile arrived recently carrying a seed tuber with him.

Curiously, it seems that one can hold only one potato at a time, and they seem quite common.

Neither the Brewer, Baker or Chef seems to want to buy any yet, but hopefully they will quickly incorporate these versatile vegetables into their recipes.

But this wandering Thoom lady seems to know how to shred potatoes (and other vegetables?).

Word came out soon after the storm passed that strange new wendeckas were seen near the passes. Since the passes are alway overflowing with wendecka, it stands to reason they are breeding at a rapid rate, somewhere nearby. Yet no one had ever seen a baby wendecka, or any elder wendecka either. Until now.

Some adventurous souls followed these new wendecka back through their hidden trails. Behind the passes is a large region with several streams and hidden valleys that the wendecka have apparently chosen as their breeding grounds. In this area, one can find baby wendecka, mother wendecka, pebble-throwing elder wendecka and the strong silverback wendecka.

I trailed along with a group that wanted to explore a bit further into this area, and got to see quite a few unusual things. These wendecka that had been hidden for so long. Some odd snakes called "Crota Winder" and "Raste Winder". But the group was moving along a bit too fast to really explore much.

At one point a greymyr was chasing me when I saw a crevice in the rock wall I thought I might rest in. I slipped through a crevice in the rock and slid down, and found I could not go back up the slippery rocks to rejoin the group. Thankfully this area had only a couple winder snakes and assorted wendecka, so I cleared those and started to look around more carefully. There was a pool with a waterfall leading to a river. I found this nice quiet cave beside the waterfall to rest in.

I recalled that as a young boy I had once climbed a great mountain on the mainland called Kat'ahdin, that had a rushing stream that flowed down a flat rock streambed. At the risk of wearing a hole in one's pants, a quick hop into the stream at the top led to a thrilling slide down the rock into a waiting pool. I think I left the seat from at least two pairs of pants there before I finally had to leave.

I just had to try it!

WhooooOOooooo!

What a refreshing dip!

When the group finally made their way to me, they found me screaming away while sliding down, still.

I will have to return to this area soon to make a slower and more careful survey for my map.

Well, it has not been "many happy returns" to the new Greymyr Passes or Wendecka Breeding Grounds. I am quite sure of the names, because a continual stream of exiles manages to find them and then fall here. Rescues have been continuous and difficult, and exiles have been drifting for long periods awaiting a rescue. Partly because it is a distant area, and partly because almost no one is really that familiar with these passages and hidden valleys.

I was unbelievably lucky yesterday when I slipped into the Greymyr Passes and spent some time playing joyfully in the waterfall in peaceful solitude. This spot seems, most often, to be loaded with Cave Cobras. And Forest Cobras. And Chami Cobras. You get the idea.

It took us ages to find Sagramor here after he fell in unnoticed during a Greymyr hunt turned bad and fell to a Cave Cobra. But for the superior chaining and dodging skills of Siri, the whole rescue would have been wiped out. Thanks!

Silly me, I went back with Kojiro to try to get Saturnus, and was immediately surrounded by those annoying Elder Night Wendies and rapidly shredded by 3 Cave Cobras. I think Elder Night Wendies and their odd wiggle circle movement will fast replace orga as the most annoying thing to find yourself in a crowd of.

This morning the air seemed a bit more frosty than usual, and along the tree wall in the North Field, this snow-covered tree appeared. Slipping past it led to a small wintry place in a perpetual blizzard. There is a nice cabin inside where you can buy a warm drink and escape the frigid breeze. It seems to be populated mainly with Snow Vermine, Snow Cougars, Snow Ferals, Polar Bears and Frost Orga, and the occasional Frost Giant. I had not seen one of these massive trees since before the War, in the Cold and Snowy glacier accessed through the mirror. They are definitely as tough as I remember. Even worse are the wintry Tree Giants.

It seemed like a quiet day, until I started feeling the faint cries of fallens in the Dark Chamber. Many of Puddleby's strongest exiles were fallen to a previously unknown kind of superstrong blue-robed wraiths. Apparently, even Urgelt and Silky were having difficulty fending off attacks from these fearsome creatures. Many exiles tried to slip into the chamber and drag out a fallen or two, but the were just as likely to fall themselves and add to the carnage. At one point, one of these uber-Greater Wraiths slipped out of the chamber and proceeded to knock down everyone in sight. I actually managed to tag it a couple times with a fell blade, and the healers could rod it to some extent, but there simply weren't enough strong fighters to make a dent in it. Thankfully, it wandered off on other business. I left after standing useless for quite some time, during which the situation had not improved one bit.

I heard some tell of feeling that "darkness had lifted", but what darkness and from whence it came and where it went, is not clear. I hope that my friends lost in the Dark Chamber are able to be rescued!

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