Current Training: K'Pyn (Evus).

Circle test this week: I managed to kill one of the Midnight Wendeckas (a "kill"), and died immediately thereafter.

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

Exploration: Still can't open Wishergate. I finally managed to open Wishergate again! And got into McBolie Caverns, and found trouble.

Merdi, day 18 of Winter, 546.

The New Year has come again without much fanfare.

Life has been relatively quiet and routine lately: gathering coins and hunting on the East Cove beach of Kizmia's Island when I can.

I did make another trip to Hatred Hollow, just to assure myself that I could enter the gate, and was instantly surrounded but managed to hack my way out before the lightning got too intense. I do look forward to sometime trying the path on the far end that leads to the Orga Outback.

On my latest attempt at the 6th circle test, I managed to kill oneof the Midnight Wendecka and not die immediately, so that feels like progress.

I'm still continuing to train with K'Pyn, but I suspect I will change this as soon as Evus decides to tell me that I am a "Grand Master". Soon, very soon. Histia, or Swengus, I'm still not sure ...

Merdi, Day 87 of Autumn, 545.

Sweet success!

At long last, I regained the ability to open Wishergate.

I was hanging around with Kodo, Mouser and Cyberbeing after a rescue, when we decided to head to Bones' snell in Snaggywood. We were joined by Freyja, but couldn't find a healer. We set off anyway, but pretty soon Freyja was on Kodo's chain.

We were all a bit ragged by the time we had cleared Bones' snell, so I just sat close to the gate and stared while I healed.

When I was feeling better, I tried to push through, and on the second attempt, I found myself in Hatred Hollow staring at a big red orga and hearing a sizzling noise of incoming bolts. I hightailed it back out safely, but Mouser had followed me in and was trapped and felled.

I slipped back in and grabbed him on my chain, and we set out for town.

After so many attempts over so many months, I am just so happy to have regained this skill.

Now we'll see if I get to actually use it productively anytime soon. I still need to see if I have any luck at the path leading to the Trainer Grotto in the Orga Outback ...

Soldi, day 83 of Autumn, 545.

More misadventures than adventures today.

First, I was invited by Noivad to join a Greymyr village hunt. It was very very busy. We had hardly begun before both Noivad and I were fallen beyond the ability of Fantasia, the one healer along, to help. (Don't you hate rocks thrown after the Greymyr is apparently dead?)

Perkusi offered to help out, and headed into the Greymyr village alone. Inadvisedly, because she was quickly surrounded by Greymyrs and flattened by a few rocks.

With Noivad and I on a chain, the others ran to help Perkusi, and all but Shen Calin were also trapped - and he had to drop us off the chain to hack and slash and barely squeeze away himself. When the others fell, they brought another round of rocks on Perkusi and I. Ouch!

Finally Shen came back and rounded us all up for the drag to town. I counted almost 20 chainings for him in just a few minutes, and with no Loovma training at all, he did very well indeed.

Of course Perkusi and I were well past easy healing after a few stray rocks, and I heard the dreaded "perilously near to death" by the healers hovering around me in town for the first time in ages. With a bit of recruiting, eventually Perkusi was raised, and her Horus training pushed me over the top and back into the living as well.

The second misadventure of the day is when I took a quick peek at the entrance to McBolie caverns, and got a big surprise when I squeezed myself inside for the first time in months. Happy at the chance, I headed toward the far end of the narrow cavern to test the exit path into the crater.

Unfortunately, I met a Lava Walker in the deep recesses of the cavern. I managed to finally find my way to it, way off the main trail, and killed it. And then I promptly scraped my head on an overhanging rock and fell.

Silly me, I hadn't told anyone where I was. After some toggling, D'nah and Sakim got the idea I was in a cave on Devil's Island, but getting them to understand which one was a problem.

Thankfully, I had a copy of Kiriel's list of pathfinders in my pack. First, I toggled poor Aeris (the only other full pathfinder awake at the time) mercilessly to pique her interest, or at least to try to help out - to get me to stop if nothing else. Then Skybird awoke and I pestered him too. Luckily, Skybird was able to open the cave and chained me out to the North side of the lake (by pushing me before him through the path, which was about 5 steps from where I fell).

I never did make it to the crater exit path. I'll test that some other day ...

Note to Prue: Chains slip going into McBolie's cavern.

Terrdi, day 79 of Autumn, 545.

Another day, another asault on the East Cove beach. I was informed that my fellow POS member Jo Ma'ril was the first to stumble into this cave beach, and he told me that this was so. Good find, Jo!

Today, the Lyfelidae had the upper hand for quite awhile, as is clear from my sketch. Not shown is the Starbuck Lyfelidae that caused most of the problems, by felling many exiles in single blows.

The hunt started innocently enough, but after some exiles fell, would-be rescuers kept rushing ashore without verifying that the beach was clear first. They were each rapidly surrounded, and simply added to the pile. That pile included three 6th circle fighters at one point!

Eventually, enough fighters were gathered to take out the Cave Cobras and Lyfelidae, and all were rescued.

Later, I also helped Urgelt escort Freyja to Wisher's Gate so she could try her luck at opening it. Neither of us were successful.

Sombdi, day 75 of Autumn, 545.

Well, it seems I was a bit hasty yesterday.

With Arkin, Mujin-kun and Sakura, I returned to the East Cove beach on Kizmia's Island today. And very clearly, anyone can both land their boat here and put back to sea again. I don't know how I managed to _not_ get off this beach yesterday, since I did try. All the others in my party yesterday were felled before they could push their boats, so I assumed it was impossible to leave here.

Hunting and exploring beyond this beach, I saw two snells. One is a cave with the beach, that has Stinging Beetles and Cave Cobras and the occassional Lyfelidae (we killed two Pinks in here), while the other is a forested area with more Lyfelidae (we saw several Wyrm and Orgaberry Lyfelidae here) and Beetles as well.

There were no obvious ways to go further into the island, and no apparent passage back up to the Boatbuilder's cave.

It makes a very nice hunting area, together with Fat Alice's basement on the West Cove beach. I will be spending time here.

Gradi, day 71 of Autumn, 545.

We were hunting around Kizmia's Island, and ended up biting off more than we could chew.

Arkin called us over to the south end of the East Cove, and then disappeared into the rocks! We followed after him and found ourselves floating just off the exit beach of Kizmia's Island. I hadn't realized one could get there by sea.

Then Mjollnir stepped ashore, and promptly fell to assorted cobras and beetles.

I also hadn't realized that one could actually land here. I saw no pathfinder markings like at the other entrances to the interior, and there was no boat destruction on the rocks, like on the South Beach near Umbrion's Keep.

I was pretty sure one couldn't leave the island without making a new boat though, but after Arkin landed to try to help Mjollnir and led the beasties south before falling himself, I just had to try anyway.

I was unable to get back out to sea, and when the cobra and friends returned, I was rapidly felled as well. Ahh well, I hadn't visited Purgatory in quite some time.

The hunting was pretty good otherwise, so at least I wasn't set back too badly in my current training by this misadventure.

I still have a barrel of tar with me, and look forward to returning to this little beach another day and being able to leave the happier way.

Merdi, day 59 of Autumn, 545.

Life has been pretty quiet since the last Storm swept through.

It looked like we might have been able to get a group together to hunt the Valley this day, but too many folks were just heading in to the Library as I was heading out. Together with Thuja, Sheba , Cyberbeing, Mouser and Coeur, I went to the Snaggywood for a hunt. We didn't see any Orga Furies at all, and only a couple of Orga Rages. Not much challenge today.

Of course, neither Coeur nor I could open that darned Gate. I will keep trying. Kodo was able to open it just last week, finally, so I remain hopelessly hopeful.

Click here for my report on the previous storm.

Click here for my report on the next storm.

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