Current Training: K'Pyn (Evus).

Circle test this week: Smacked down!.

Donations: Loom'bir, who is building a public bath house.

Exploration: Nothing new in the Valley or Snaggywood, and could see but not open the Wisher's Gate path. I noticed a 'new' path on Ash Island, but suspect that I am not even close to the first to have traversed this.

Merdi, day 79 of Summer, 545.

I hunted with Wedilen and Mujin-kun in Fat Alice's basement and around Kizmia's Island today. We passed on the Culcan-of-the-day due to a lack of strong fighters and healers in the Lands.

We then decided to try our luck with Liche in the Dark Temple. We didn't find any at home.

But on the way across Ash Island to the Dark Temple, I spotted a path that I had never seen before, in a pretty desolate place. We headed in to see what might be lurking beyond it, and found a small clearing with three huts. Around the perimeter were two clearly marked trails to the Darshak Horde (and they weren't lying), and one trail with a marking on it I had never seen, that looks like a hut. This led to the Darshak campfire, and an umarked path led back from there to this clearing. No further paths or trails were to be found.

Only one hut was unlocked. We found no one inside, but the place had been completely smashed up, like a serious brawl or a small explosion had happened in there.

Wedilen graciously named the area, but after looking around a bit and thinking about rumours I had heard, it seemed pretty clear to me that other exiles had been here long before us. Darshak signs were everywhere, and we saw a number of them here, so this clearing is actively used by them. I have my suspicions about what happened in that hut.

It's curious though why I hadn't noticed this path before, since I had walked past a couple times each zodiac on my way to hunting Liche. It pays to be observant!

Soldi, day 75 of Summer, 545.

The Lands have been amazingly quiet lately. Many exiles have been held captive in the Library by a Mad Librarian, and seem to be fallen into a sleep from which they cannot awaken. I myself had some difficulty escaping the Library over the past couple days, but finally managed to slip out a window. Hopefully, this hostage situation is resolved soon, and my friends can rejoin me in the Lands.

It was so quiet at one point today, that I was one of only two Fighters awake in the entire Lands! There were actually more Full Mystics awake than Fighters.

Undaunted, I hunted anyway, and happened to find a Culcan at the east Cove of Kizmia's Island while looking for Baltoise.

Some Healers and Mystics were willing to give it a try, so I set out as the lone Fighter, with Sutai as boosting Mystic and Luce, Sai and Stradamus healing. We had the Culcan trapped and I was doing remarkably well at it, but frankly, I am simply no solo Culcan killer. I would have needed maybe twice the Darkus training I have now to have actually finished it off.

Thankfully, Mujin-kun and Ziff managed to get out of the Library too, and after they joined us, together we killed that beast in pretty short order.

It was a heckuva lot of fun trying it alone, though!

Gradi, day 63 of Summer, 545.

I've been studying quite intensively in the library lately, and sadly missed all the excitement over portals to another realm. Ahh well.

I decided it was finally time to finish off the one remaining hunting challenge I hadn't completed, and headed into the Greymyr Village to find my 30 Night Wendecka. I cleared the way a bit by killing all the other critters along the way before starting, and had the first 15 in the bag pretty quickly. Rounding up the remainder was much slower, and involved a lot of dodging around Greymyr and falling rocks. Finding that last one seemed impossible, and as time was getting short I decided to gamble that the North Pass well might have one last Night Wendecka. I was in luck! Number 30 was just standing there waiting for me.

I liked the 'new' countdown as I got close to my target number and I also liked that I didn't need to return to the challenger within the alotted time (especially since the Greymyr Village seems further away nowadays). These rules were not present when I did the other challenges, and they probably make it a bit less frustrating (I have undercounted one or two chads in previous challenges, or didn't get full credit because of other exiles having double-punched some).

Soldi, day 40 of Summer, 545.

I have been giving a lot of thought lately to my future training directions, and goals.

I had been planning on studying the Fell Blade after passing the Fourth Circle. But then the new circle tests were announced, and I did well enough on the Fifth test immediately after passing Fourth that I kept on training for that next test. It still took quite some time to actually pass Fifth, of course, but it wasn't leading me far off my general fighting skill training goals.

So here I am, having passed Fifth and now joined a pretty elite cadre of fighters. I think I could pass Sixth with about 200-250 trainings with certain trainers: another 40-50 with Atkus, 50 more with Detha, a bit with Histia and Darkus but most of the remainder with Swengus. That's pretty much Evus right there, which is my favorite trainer anyway.

I still want to train in the use of the Fell Blade, particularly after seeing how effective some exiles can be with it against the hardest-to-hit creatures. I suspect I shall wait longer on this, yet again.

But I am also getting close enough in skills to try to obtain my own training ledger. My conundrum is that there are two, Evus and Swengus, that I could make a reasonable run for in about 100 trainings. But they are in pretty much opposite directions skill-wise (substantial Histia for Evus, and Swengus for Swengus). The training needed to get offered either ledger is not going to help me to earn a purple belt any faster than not pursuing a ledger, but pursuing Evus the fastest way would take me much farther off the path than would Swengus. Evus seems more valuable, since fewer fighters already have the ability to train others in this style (just 3 now, K'pyn, Vagile and SalaDragon), but more fighters find it useful to train in the skills of Swengus.

If I just plugged away in the middle path, training Evus, I would likely reach all three goals at the same time, but much much later.

Decisions, decisions!

For the moment, I am sticking with K'Pyn's general fighter training, but I would not be surprised if I decide to make a decision soon. I'm just very unsure what that decision might be.

Gradi, day 35 of Summer, 545.

I joined Jo Ma'ril in a hunt in the Dark Chamber, and we got 2 steps before knowing we had trouble.Jo was immediately and unaccountably red, and rushed right out to thewaiting healers in the tree. I was doing fine dodging and killing some Death Furies and assorted Wraiths. When I got a bit low I started back out the door, which I had kept conveniently free for just this purpose. Unfortunately, I couldn't move - there was a Ghastly Presence blocking the way. Ooops, and down I go. Jo managed to get me chained out and up, and then fell himself trying to get someone else. So, I ran in and past the crowd of undine to lead them further in and out of the way of my chain. I had a large crowd following me when I tried to turn around and slip back past them to grab the fallens. That's when I ran straight into the second Ghastly Presence. Doh!

With the help of many exiles, we cleared the Undine out of the way, raised the many fallens that had slowly accumulated, and then killed the GPs.

Afterward, Jo organized a hunt aiming for the Orga Village. We set out with a nice group, including Lard, Sakim, Achates and Webow healing. We had some moments regathering party members who slipped off Bones' snell, and rescuing me after I had an un-noticed attack of narcolepsy in Moonbeam's snell.

Of course I could not open Wisher's Gate. In Hatred Hollow, the lightning seemed pretty light and we advanced far down the choke before running into several BROs, including one tough one that turned out to be a Frenzy. We retreated to fight these in the open area to the West, and ended up getting pummeled by renewed lightning. It was decided that we needed another healer, and Calfas was called in. In the downtime while waiting, Tonle graciously let me run into Hatred Hollow behind him over 20 times to try to learn the path, but to no avail.

Unfortunately, on his way to join us, Califas fell in the Orga Camp to lightning, so we all packed up and headed to get him.

The Orga Camp was worse than Hatred Hollow, with many Warlocks flinging lightning, but mostly it was jammed full of Orga. Most of us entered the camp alone, unwisely, and were promptly surrounded and fried.

The one BRO roaming around the Orga Camp turned out to be an Orga Hatred. Upon hearing an announcement of this, a large wave of rescuers streamed in from town. The Orga Camp was swiftly retaken, and a very large group of exiles set out to kill this Hatred. It took quite some time, but it was eventually vanquished.

Our group regathered, and shuffled members a bit, before setting back out to Hatred Hollow. This time, with an extra healer along (Achates was replaced by Haenk, and Califas finally joined us), we rapidly moved through Hatred Hollow to the far side. Naturally, I could not even see this path. We advanced into the Orga Outback.

It seemed for a time like we would never leave the Trainer Grotto area, because everytime we gathered to start hunting deeper into the woods, another Fury or Wrath would attack us. We made our way to the Orga Village, and relatively easily overtook it. With slow and careful tactics, we crushed many Large Death Vermine, Furies and Warlocks. When we finally took the path back to the Orga Camp and Puddleby, it was with the warm and tired satisfaction of a fun and productive hunt.

Merdi, day 30 of Summer, 545.

Just after the Chaos Storm on Lundi, day 27 of Summer, 545, I went on a nice hunt in the Valley organized by Thuja. We had a good strong group, but still had our share of excitement and bruises (all the fighters fell to Cave Cobras upon entering the West Cave from the East at one point, and were only saved by Thuja's chain). The spawns were quite heavy, and we kept very busy for a very long time before we gave up from exhaustion.

This day, I joined up with a group of exiles who wanted to hunt in the Snaggywood, and I got to play Leader. That was fun. We cleared the entire woods, and found a couple of Furies and Rages and many Warlocks. We even found a Warlock in Marfisa's snell, somewhat unexpectedly, and had the chance to let Vagile reminisce a bit in Vagile's snell. We had a couple missteps at Bones and lost some Fens to the deeper woods, but they were rescued in short order. No luck opening the path into Hatred Hollow, although I DID enjoy trying to push Prue through!

I heard a rumor that the Ethereal Ring passage into Umbrion's Keep is now only open one-way, allowing us into the Keep, but not back out. Trowa told me he ended up finding this out the hard way and departing. Ouch!

Click here for my report on the previous storm.

Click here for my report on the next storm.

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