Current Training: Alternating Darkus and Histia, in what I hope is the final dash to obtaining an Evus ledger.

Circle test this week: not attempted yet.

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

Exploration: A new look for Valley Rats and Myrms.

Sombdi, day 63 of Winter, 548.

Today I decided to venture through the Snaggywood to refresh the Wisher's Gate path, since I hadn't been into Hatred Hollow in some time now and don't want to forget this path yet again. We assembled a fairly large group. With Mouser, Shen Calin, Freyja and myself, we were well equipped for fighters. We brought along Robin Greyhawk, on the off chance we could get past Hatred Hollow and could have him teleport us to the Foothills for a proper hunt. Although we had five healers along, they were all relatively young and inexperienced: there was not a Hatred Hollow rod veteran among them. Talin volunteered to be the rod point, since she had more than 50 trainings with Master Spirtus, which was more than any of the others.

The good news is that I was able to readily open the path. We fighters killed a large number of Orga Rages and Orga Warlocks, and a couple of Orga Furies. When we brought the healers in, it was clear that class was in session, and we started to show them how to form an effective rod for all the lightning bolts. They did a creditable job, but just didn't have the healing power to keep Talin up after a strong burst of lightning. Eventually, we left when Talin fell beyond the power of the other healers to raise.

The curious thing was that while we were teaching the healers how to be an effective rod near the choke point, we all kept getting bolted from odd angles, and especially from the South. I looked all around the entrance field, and no Warlocks were there. Still I got bolted extensively from lightning that came Northward from beyond the tree line on the South side of the snell, and which became more intense as I went closer to those trees! If these are from Warlocks lurking in there, they seem to have found a hiding spot that we cannot reach to fight them.

Terrdi, day 46 of Winter, 548.

Valley Rats seem to have a new, more vicious look to match their temperments, and show lots of teeth.

Myrms also have a more refined appearance, with vestigal wings on the larger varieties.

I have been training in Evus for a long, long time now (since Storm 240!), and recently passed the 1100-lesson milestone. I decided that I was close enough to try a mad dash to qualify for a ledger by training in my two weakest skills, Darkus and Histia. Ziff Rengar wisely pointed out to me recently that I can pass the 6th circle test anytime, but that ledgers do get harder to obtain with each new one issued - and if I didn't claim this one soon, he would.

In my other skills, Evus would rate me much higher, over 1300 lessons, so by adding 30-some lessons with Darkus and Histia I could jump 200 in Evus' estimation. This is much, much more than I would need to get a ledger. Also, I definitely need the Darkus to make progress on the 6th circle test, since most everyone who passed had close to 250 trainings in this, while I still have only a bit under 200.

So I am rotating one lesson in each Darkus and Histia now, and expect that I should have a ledger sometime after the next Chaos Storm passes, unless someone grabs one between now and then and raises the bar. I was pleased to see that Kretski informed Evus of her observations today, after I trained just one lesson with each, which feels like progress.

Click here for my report on the previous storm.

Click here for my report on the next storm.

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