Current Training: Evus Training Ledger obtained! I switched to Regia with Mujin-kun to try to make up for all the Darkus I added lately.

Circle test this week: All but Sas, once again.

Donations: Cham Murr claims the long-delayed Fighter Pub is done. Now helping Cassia Allin build fortifications.

Exploration: Not much.

Sombdi, day 30 of Summer, 548.

The Lands were very quiet today, so I decided to try my luck at the one remaining hunting challenge I had not succeeded at yet, the Giant Crawler challenge. The challenge here has always been to find 40 of these crunchy beasts, and I had fallen short of this goal in several previous attempts.

Today, I started by clearing the Maha, Large Sand Wurms and Rockodiles from the Southern Dunes before actually beginning the challenge.

I actually started hunting them at the Southwest beaches, where I quickly found 15, and then rushed through the Marsh and Savanna to the Southern Dunes - where I had left close to 25 more on my scouting run. It looked pretty good as I worked my way from the Western beach and the numbers quickly mounted. As I finally reached the farthest Eastern edge of the beach, there waiting for me was the one final Giant Crawler I needed to complete the challenge. Hooray! On the way back back out, I spotted several more that had surfaced from their sandy holes after I had passed, and killed them for good measure.

I was pleased to accept a few coins and a mounted Crawler claw from Dedara, and felt a small rush of experience.

Terrdi, day 27 of Summer, 548.

I happily instructed Elenis Reyav, my first student, today.

I hope he pays particular attention to the Histia component of my training!

Gaia knows he needs it ...

I was on a hunt in the Valley earlier today with a fairly large group. We quickly found trouble when we ran into a large group of Valley Panthers and Cave Maha Ruhknee just inside the Valley entrance. They quickly felled most of the group, including two of the three healers along.

Luckily, Veer was still standing and managed to escape into the relative safety of the entrance cave. He healed me, and I ran back in to gather up our fallens. I hadn't had this large a group on a chain in some time (usually it is at melabrion's Keep, too), and was glad to safely gather everyone. With Veer's Horus training, he had no difficulty in raising all the fallens so we could continue the hunt.

Further into the Valley, we found and vanquished an Angry Mother Sasquatch.

Overall, it was a fun but quick hunt, as many exiles had to leave after the first run across the Valley.

Merdi, day 14 of Summer, 548.

Today while in the North Pass looking for Wendecka furs, I spotted a lump of ore. A few minutes later, in the Rocky Cavern, I found another!

Now, in the old days, I could gather 10 or more lumps of ore in a day, and considered myself an avid rock hound and ore whore. Of late, however, I rarely see any ore at all. All the known ore veins seem to have dried up, and I know of no new productive ones. I suspect other exiles don't either, because the price of usable metal today is simply astounding.

Of course, my ores were not of good enough quality for Rafinus, so I had a couple of stones on hand.

So I went to see Cham Murr in the Fighter Test Hall to donate them to the Fighter Pub.

Lo and behold, he claims to be finished! It didn't look very ready to me, but hopefully soon this will open up for business. A fighter needs a place to get a serious drink sometimes, especially after a Circle Test.

While I was down there, I tried my luck at the 6th Circle test, and managed to kill all but the Young Sasquatch once again (after such a pathetic effort last time, and a stellar one the time before), but I was very low on health by then and made little headway in damaging the Sasquatch before I was felled as time was running out. Still, I do feel that I am actually getting closer to passing this final test.

With my stones in mind, I looked around at the other builder options around town. Undrus also claims to be done, I don't see the need for an altarin the South Forest outpost for the Trools to steal, and the bonfire doesn't seem very productive. I wasn't about to do a suicidal run into Kizmia's Island either. I settled on Cassia Allin on the far Western end of the island near the Southwest farms. She claims to be preparing fortifications, and Gaia knows we need more of those.

A hunt in the Valley today ran into trouble when they found a few Angry Mother Sasquatches. Tonoto had to be evacuated on a chain, and Sor was lost and left behind in the exit cave accidentally.

I happily gave up coining to join the returning rescue squad, and we rapidly found and raised Sor.

Since it was a very strong group, we then proceeded to hunt the AMS. There were four of these fearsome beasts in the last two snells of the Valley, and we spent some time whittling away at them.

After some effort and a couple of dangerous moments when early rocks severely damaged several exiles at once, all four AMS were vanquished, along with a number of Young Sasquatches and Stinging Beetles.

It was a fun group, and I was reminded that I had not hunted in the Valley with such a group in quite some time. I need to go there more often.

Terrdi, day 6 of Summer, 548.

In addition to the usual round of hunting (Lyfelidae in the Kizmia's Island East cove and environs, mainly) or scooping up coins from furs in the Northern forests, I recently took time to meet up with my fellow POS members Shen Calin and Thuja to hunt a SunWyrm in the Rocky Cavern.

Rather, I hung around to try to scratch the beast while Thuja held it still for Shen Calin to kill it with his Bloodblade. That's still a very dangerous business, as you can see from this sketch, but I'm not complaining since I finally did manage to hit ...

I have my sights set next on a Training Ledger from Swengus, but it seems that the requirements have gone up very substantially now that quite a few fighters are qualified to teach this skill. Like, by hundreds of extra trainings, so that it now requires something North of 900 trainings. Maybe it will take a very long time, but a distant-yet-attainable goal is good to have in mind. It will take me quite a bit of training with Respia (I think I have enough Balthus already), but I certainly do need more of that skill anyway to speed up my sluggish swinging.

Merdi, day 76 of Spring, 548.

Success!

Finally old man Evus decided I was worthy to teach others in this style.

I gratefully grabbed my ledger from him, and will now be looking for students to train.

Perhaps the swift passing of two Chaos Storms confused him, although I do think I have the requisite 1180 lessons with him. However, he isn't getting it back if he changes his mind ...

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