Current Training: Detha until he tells me that 'there is not much more' he can teach me..

Circle test this week: <sigh> A guy just can't get a break these days.

Donations: Und'rus. I'm still looking for a builder working on a more interesting project.

Exploration: Nothing new in Orga Camp, through Snaggywood to Bones. I can't open or even see the path at Wishergate (nothing new there). The treeline along the edges of the 'new' western part of the Northern Plains has been refined nicely, and the east edge of the snell with the Chamelopod entrance tunnel tree is now totally open, rather than being only partly open on the south side.

Q: How many Halflings does it take to raffle off a tangleberry cluster?

A: A lot, apparently.

Beware the Vanq Robbers. (What a cool Clan name!)

You know you are getting old when you see that! 'Nuff said.

I was invited to hunt Scarmis by Ziff Rengar, so I had to give it another try. Unfortunately, a few exiles were impatient and went right in as soon as Hawkthorn opened the illusion, without waiting for the entire group to assemble. And doubly unfortunate, because they seemed to not be expecting those pesky little Scarmis Harvesters. Those little guys can pack quite a wallop! So our hunt turned into an immediate rescue, with several scattered fallens in the outer area and would-be rescuers dribbling in, just in time to fall. Well, pretty soon I was it in the upright department. I tried to chain a few fallens, and did a bit of a stunt I won't soon be repeating. I raced past Ziff in the NW corner and grabbed him as I passed by, and trailing several Harvesters. I wasn't getting straight back through them all, so I decided to outwit them. So I ran all the way around the pen to the sinkhole, and carefully scooted around it, leaving the Scarmis following behind me. Nice, I could run back West in relative peace and stop to pick up a couple other fallens on the West side. Then my chain broke. Oops.

Double oops.

Ziff had been dragging along behind me, blocking the Scarmis, but I lost sight of him when I looped around the sinkhole. I assumed he had gotten hung up on a tree near there. He hadn't. He had been sent straight down the sinkhole! He would have popped out (I imagine) if I had exited to the main part of Ash Island, but when my chain broke, he was unceremoniously dropped down there.

He was displeased, to say the least.

A rescue effort did form, and we cleared the Scarmis and raised everyone around the pen, then jumped down to retrieve a now rather larva-gnawed Ziff. Amazingly, the healers along managed to raise him and everyone left under their own power.

I do hope he'll accept my apology and see the fun side of this adventure, and invite me on another hunt sometime. Maybe ...

Leaving the Library today, I heard thet Tenebrion's Tower had claimed several exiles, including most of the exiles I had just started sharing. So off I went to Tenebrion's Island.

A small group (Norm and Baffette and I) fought our way into Tenebrion's courtyard, and by then a few other exiles had shown up. We charged into the tower and found a mass of fallens on the first level. The place was quickly cleared and all the fallens were raised.

A mob of exiles is a dangerous and fickle thing, and no sooner had everyone been raised then the mob began to surge to the stairs and upward.

So climb and clear the Tower we did. We saw quite a few Banshees, and I was pleased to practice my Banshee-killing techniques on some 'wild' creatures instead of just the captive ones I most often see in the fighter test hall.

The most curious thing was that everyone in the group felt a surge of experience as we climbed from the third to fourth tower level. Most everyone had been here many times before, but still we felt that we had seen something new. Most strange.

I have been hearing rumours lately that Prue the witch was dead, yet I saw her resplendant in her green-ness just the other morning.

Don't trust all you hear.

I was on a circum-Kizmia Island Baltoise hunt, when we noticed 4 Thunder Lyfelidae on the beach near Fat Alice's hut. It was night, but we had to try killing them anyway.

The oddest thing happened. Perkusi held some near the water's edge while we tried to cull one from the pack and kill it. But this odd Lyfelidae never once slashed at us, and not only couldn't we hit it, we couldn't even seem to take a swing at it!

Well, we tried another one, and that one shredded us perfectly well. We did manage to get it hurting some, but it began to self-heal very quickly.

Then the second odd thing happened. The unhittable fellow decided to attack the wounded Lyfelidae, and quickly put it out of its misery. And we got credit for vanquishing it and collected a 20 coin fur. Very nice! I had noticed Lyfelidae attacking each other before, but had never noticed that these same Lyfelidae seem 'friendly' to exiles, or maybe merely tolerant. Most peculiar behavior.

Also at Kizmia's Island, in the basement of Alice's hut, I noticed an odd looking bat fluttering around. When I finally caught it, I saw that it was indeed a type of bat I had not seen before, and that is apparently called a Lith bat. I noted it had a valuable fur, and saved it.

For any really intrepid adventurers, I noted the presence of a nice looking log of wood on the east coast of Kizmia's Island, just south of the Baltoise Cove.

Regular readers will recall that some time ago, I noted the new growth of vines in the Orchard, after such a long time with no fruit-bearing plants there.

Before these vines appeared, I had found the orchard to be the best spot in all the lands for finding things: logs of wood, grains, berries, nuts. It was a rare week when I didn't find at least one of these things there, and many times I found much more.

In the several months since the apprearance of the regrown vines, I have not found a single blessed thing in the orchard, until today. The growth of this nice fresh wheat gives me hope that the orchard mey be a productive bit of ground once again.

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