Storm 254.

Circle test this week: Not attempted yet.

Donations: Cham Murr, who is building the long-delayed Fighter Pub.

Exploration: Ash Island has a less 'edgy' look, especially the West (Darshak) side.

Gradi, day 72 of Autumn, 547.

I went back to Hatred Hollow again a couple days ago with a small group. Still, I have been filling my days of late mainly with coin hunts across the furrier parts of Pubbleby Island and Devil's Island, and experience hunts on Melabrion's Island and the readily accessible parts of Kizmia's Island.

Today, while we were making one run through the passes on Melabrion's Island, I recovered a 64 coin Young Sasquatch pelt. My personal record!

Unfortunately, I am no longer vanquishing even half of these anymore.

On another pass through MI, we ran into an Angry Mother Sasquatch, who was no doubt pretty sure where all her young-uns had disappeared. She stormed in, tossing small rocks at us until we were driven back to sea. After regrouping and recruiting some additional help, we managed to finish her off pretty handily.

I had occassion to see a somewhat reclusive POS member today (who asked to remain unnamed), and we discovered that it now takes over 10 trainings before you get any clan experience. After asking around, I was told by an informed source that it takes 15 trainings. Doh!

Lundi, day 43 of Autumn, 547.

Today while hunting for furs in the Northwest Forest, I ran into a lone Forest Drake.

The forest was very busy, so I trapped the Drake against some rocks and worked at clearing the rest of the nearby creatures from underfoot.

I asked for some back-up help. Praetorius soon arrived to heal me back to a fair sate of health, and Groniad and Ethernal joined the fray. We made fairly short work of the beast while Praetorius took the brunt of its fiery breath.

I can only hope it was a particularly weak specimen:

Merdi, Day 39 of Autumn.

Last evening when the Lands were quiet, a tunnel appeared without warning in the East Field near the Myrm Hive exit, and Scarmis came bursting forth. Nearly all the exiles awake in the Lands were called upon to beat back these menacing beasts.

I rushed to help drive the roaming Scarmis Attendants, Tunnelers and Larvae from the farms to the East and North of town, and eventually from the East Fields as well.

Tonoto fell into the pit accidentally, and found himelf in the Myrm Queen chamber, but with no Scarmis around apparently. Apparently, they all left therelative safety of the tunnels to roam our island. Were they looking for something?

The acid-spitting Queen was trapped and held in the Town zoo while the other Scarmis were defeated. We lost quite a few exiles to her spits of toxic acid, but still rapidly vanquished the Queen through an overwhelming number of fighetrs.

The lone Scarmis Eunoch was another story altogether. He terrorized the East Farms for a time, killing many exiles in one hit. Finally, around Midnight, a large force of exiles gathered to face him. With Baff taking the brunt of the attacks and supported by a great number of healers, and with Viola using her well-trained Fell Blade, we slowly vanquished this fearsome beast.

Even with my Fell Blade in hand, I only hit this foul creature a couple of times. He had very very impressive defense, even when surrounded by fighters hacking at his impressively hard shell. Thank goodness Viola took her blade training very seriously, and could find the small chinks it his impressive armor exoskeleton.

Lundi, day 22 of Autumn, 547.

A Chaos Storm swept through the Lands, and brought with it more chaos than usual. It seems a goodly number of exiles remain unable to find their way out of the mists of chaos and back to the solid earth. I had no such difficulty, and found the Lands startlingly underpopulated.

I ran into Larno in the bear caves, staring at the difficult path there. He also wanted to test the Wisher's Gate path, so we started to assemble a group, when we realized that there were in fact only six exiles roaming the entire Lands! I have not seen the world so empty in quite a long time.

In any case, we weren't deterred by the low population.

Our first attempt at assaulting the Bones' snell was beaten back when Larno, the sole healer along, fell. So we dragged him back to the Orga Camp, where Suu'ub III helped raise him.

While we were there, we recruited Suu'ub and a couple fighters to join us. With some extra blades along, we swiftly cleared Bones' snell and started staring at the Gate itself.

Since I successfully opened the Gate on my last trip here, relatively recently, I expected no difficulty slipping through today. I was rewarded for my persistence, and walked right in to Hatred Hollow.

Since Suu'ub is a very good shock absorber, we stayed to hunt in Hatred Hollow. We killed several Big Red Orga, both Furies and Wraths, along with innumerable smaller Orga. The hunt went very smoothly, considering that there was no hope of outside rescue, until finally folks needed to leave. We withdrew from Hatred Hollow without any losses, and headed home. Along the way, several folks were surrounded in Oberon's snell. While we struggled to hack them free, Suu'ub, who was pinned to a tree, fell. He ended up on my chain, too fallen for Larno to raise. Then Larno got surrounded in Flex's snell after we had all passed through, so we doubled back to get him and added him to my chain.

Finally, we entered the Orga Camp, to find it crawling with critters. It was worse than Hatred Hollow!

I actually managed to thread my way out, but during the scuffle, Dongle fell. I went back in to get him as well, and after a bit of running about, managed to get him clear enough to slap a chain on him. On my way out again, though, I just couldn't avoid all the Orgas milling about near the campfires. With the crowd that immediately assembled around me, I was unable to pull past any of my chainees or slice my way out, so the Warlocks soon crisped me. Thankfully, rescue was not far off, in the form of K'Pyn and Viviana.

It ended a bit ignobly, but still, it was a daring and fun hunt.

With Mujin-kun, Tyndall and Suu'ub, I also did the usual MI-KI-DT tour, and along the way noted that Ash Island looks much more open than it used to.

Click here for my report on the previous storm.

Click here for my report on the next storm.

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