Current Training: Histia, after reaching 350 Atkus through training Evus.

Donations: Helping Undrus dig to the East (60-70% done).

Exploration: Gungla in the jungla. and desert.

Fordi, day 35 of Summer, 553.

Yesterday was full of invasions around Puddleby town.

It started innocently enough, with a few Co-Acha'ssighted in the Bakery. Then dozens, and finally hundreds. As exiles gathered to kill these, packs of Small and Large Vermine began to roam the streets. Then Death Vermine.

After the demise of many many vermines, the warning yells went out that Drakes had been sighted in the East Field. Exiles swarmed into the field to find many Forest and Fire Drakes alighting there.

I think that every Forest Drake that landed was killed, but a few Fire Drakes did manage to get away. Those are tough birds to bring down.

Thankfully, I heard of no Drakes in this raid stealing away with fallen exiles to their lair on Devil's Island. If they had, there's no doubt that the angry horde would have chased them into the very pit of the volcano to recover their comrades.

There's nothing quite like the threat of invasion to get exiles working together.

In recognition of the 20th Anniversary of the successful conclusion of the Ripture War, a Dialith memorial has been placed near town center above the Temple. Inscribed on the stones are the names of those who fought in the War.

I had to squint a long time, but I was finally rewarded by finding my own name there, among so many others.

Many of those fine exiles are now gone, but still not forgotten.

I and most of this group fell on a recent daytime hunt at Kizmia's Island. I still can't stand up long in a large crowd of strong Lyfelidae, even during the day. Kamik did some stellar chaining, and recovered us from the North end of the lower island back to the South shore hut, where we were raised.

My other hunting lately has been pretty mundane, compared to my recent adventure in Sarra. I'm looking forward to testing my skills in there again, doing a bit more exploring and mapping, and looking for more clues about Lady Sarra.

Sombdi, day 8 of Summer, 553.

I waited, fallen, inside the land of Sarra, for a group to venture forth and try to rescue me. As I expected, I didn't have to wait too long, since intrepid explorers were pretty well guaranteed to test their mettle against this newly-discoverred, harsh land.

This fairly large group was exploring Sarra, and with the help of a Red Healing Potion was able to raise me. Shrub was in even better shape, and was raised right away.

Together, the group worked our way around Sarra, exploring a bit and hunting too.

At one point, we had a near catastrophe emerging from an underground tunnel onto the surface, and Sor was rendered fallen beyond the ability of the several healers we had along. When we regrouped and recovered in the only safe cave I saw there, we recruited Tonoto and Veer (along with Shiner and Anot) to help raise him.

Re-energized, we made our way through nearly the entire length and breadth of Sarra hunting and exploring, before finally taking a quite dramatic and dangerous trail to finally exit back in the Northern desert area.

The flora of Sarra are really quite remarkable. Everywhere are strange oversized plants that I had never seen elsewhere. This land must be amazingly fertile to support such lush jungle growth.

We also ran into a number of strange beasts. From smallest to strongest, these were:

Dra'ryx are small greenish sauroids that are fairly harmless. Curiously, they don't appear to be scavengers. The ubiquitous Co'Achas seem to have an exclusive contract for that job here.

Acid Cobras are similar in appearance to other Cobras but curiously prefer to remain just out of reach instead of relentless attacking exiles, but which spit a hazardous acid which burns the living and fallen alike.

The large blue Sarra'dons come in two varieties. Lesser Sarra'dons have no head crest (I hit these quite well) whereas plain Sarra'dons have a spiky head crest (and are quite hard for me to hit).

These seem to be the most common large game in Sarra, and we vanquished quite a number of them in our wanderings.

The Sarra'yrms also come in two varieties. Lesser Sarra'yrms are large green spiky-backed sauroids (very hard to hit, so I rarely even scratched one - the Bloodbladers did nearly all the work when we found these). Sarra'yrms are similar, but reddish-brown, and are even harder to attack successfully. I saw only one of these creatures, and we actively avoided it. Both types of Sarra'yrms also have a spirit poison that degrades healing ability, and they like attacking healers. Fighters seem impervious to this.

The most awesome sight I had in my journey was the fiery-maned Plesio'don gliding across the lake in the center of Sarra. An impressive beast, to be sure. I'd hate to have to face that in battle!

Thankfully, she seemed content to dance on the water and occassionally peer at the strange visitors to her domain.

Regarding the legends of this land, the only trace of the Lady Sarra, "beautiful as the day sky with hair as bright", appeared to be this graceful creature playing in her serene waters. How the Plesio'don and Lady Sarra might be related, I cannot say. Despite promises of adventurers to this land finding "such contentment that they will never return" to the outer world, I for one was pleased to head home again.

Despite the inauspicious beginning to my adventure in Sarra, it ended amazingly well and we exited successfully. Unfortunately, we lost poor Kensington on the way out when he peered too close and slipped into a nasty path, where he fell in a place we could not practically retrieve him.

Merdi, day 6 of Summer, 553.

Gungla is all the rage lately, as exiles have pushed on into several previously inaccessible regions of that Island in recent days.

On the 3rd, Lundar hinted to me that a way North across the river had been found. Later, as I was getting ready to look about for myself, Sativa showed me Colmert's river crossing. I heard that Ayella and Ramandu found how to use this crossing from some of the Khororan villagers. An impressive bit of detective work. Great job!

As the Villagers had told us, there are 4 distinct sections in this distant part of Gungla Island, Brimora in the North, Sul'ran in the desert, Sarra to the West and the fierce Gan'Vara across the river from Khororan. We now can see where all these places are, if not enter them all freely.

Beyond Colmert's river crossing is a forest area that eventualy leads Northward to a still-inaccessible sector across a branch of the river with a walled town (likely Brimora).

What is accessible is a desert sector to the Northwest that is bounded by the ocean on 2 sides and a cliff along another side. In the center of the desert is an oasis containing the apparent Sul'ran temple (but this itself is still inaccesible).

The desert (and forest too) is populated mainly by Large Sand Worms and by really really strong Lesser Sand Worms. Don't be fooled by the names, less is much more in this instance. And you can't tell which worm is which until the Lesser Sand Worm does over 200 Histia lessons worth of damage in 2 quick bites. I recommend giving all the Sand Worms in the desert a wide berth, unless you have a strong group along. I also saw many Sand Tigers and larger varieties of Crawlers, but remarkably few scavengers (rats, birds).

I broke 3 chains trying to rescue the first group I went in with, as almost a dozen exiles fell to these Worms all across the desert. I expect this will be a common occurance for awhile, as weaker exiles try their hand at exploring this potentially deadly area.

Along the edge of the desert is a large cave full of extraordinarily strong Earth Worms and some other sauroid creature that I could not identify. I've learned to fear both of these new great Sand Worms already, but particularly the Earth Worms.

Do not enter this cave unless you really know what you are doing. Casual exploration is impossible in there. This group did indeed manage to conquer the area after some time, I'm told, long after I myself left. But it took a tough bunch of exiles a long time to do it.

Finally, the warlike Gan'Vara appear to remain inaccessible across yet another branch of the river, and continue to glare at us as we pass by. Eventually we shall have to deal with them directly, I fear.

Not long after, other exiles (I don't know who) noticed that those curious boulders at the base of the cliff in the Marsh were gone, and that a Mystic could now open the Illusion beyond to enter a jungle area called Sarra, filled with strange creatures called Sarra'dons, as well as Rippers. Sarra'dons appear roughly related to Wyrms and Plesio'dons, and are reported to be very tough indeed. I didn't venture there yesterday myself, but felt many fine exiles falling there.

When I did look at this cliff today, I saw that indeed the boulders have mysteriously vanished. I could sense no way through the apparently solid cliff wall myself.

Rumours also began circulating that someone (I heard it was Kensington) also managed to open the path at Rainbow Falls.

Since he had done it on a Full Moon day, and others afterward apparently failed, the theory was that it only was passable when the moon was full.

Not true.

I went out there today with Shrub to look for myself, and waltzed right through the path without even skipping a beat. Into Sarra. Wow, was I surprised!

I was trapped instantly against the river and rocks by Cobras, Rippers and Sarra'dons (blue) and some small greenish creature I can't yet identify. I could not manage to back to safety through the path, if indeed it does allow passage both ways. I couldn't see it anyway.

The area around the Rainbow Waterfall itself seems subtly altered by some recent rockslides, making the path more accessible. The boulders at the base of the falls are now gone. How hard the path itself remains to open, I can't say. Before, I had to wriggle among the rocks at the base of the falls to get close enough to see the crack, but today I ran through the path before it registered that I didn't need to wriggle anymore. Perhaps I should have been a tad more cautious!

Unfortunately, describing where we were via toggles was a challenge, and then no one else could open the path to try to help us. I await an exploration group to try to help me. And I still hope to get a real look around this strange land.

In other adventuring, I recently helped a small group escort Lundar deep into the Orga Camps during the Full Moon, so he could try to wrest a Strange Stone from the Orga Magician there.

It was a quite small group, with only 4 fighters. Well, Yor probably counts as 2 or 3, but still. We waited awhile past Noon hoping others might join us, but finally set out into the deep Orga Camps with those exiles we had.

It was a bit harder than the usual mob expedition here, since it takes time for fighters to kill all the assorted Orga before they can even reach the dangerous Warlocks, and all the while the fighters and the healers are taking lightning damage. Keeping the healers free of harassing Death Vermine and such alone could occupy 4 fighters, to say nothing of chasing down Warlocks into the far corners of each Camp.

Still, we reached Orga Camp 4 in good time, and sat there rodding the enormous lightning thrown at us only a short time to heal up before rushing in at the Orga Magician. In an instant, he was down, and a wave of fire spread through his companions burning them up, and the Camp was ours.

Lundar entered the Power Room and successfully obtained his Strange Stone. Great job!

In my wanderings lately, I have noticed that the Cacao tree in the Savanna, which is usually laden with ripening pods (see older sketch, left), suddenly has not a one to be seen!

I hope no one has a taste for chocolate cake anytime soon, because I would have to predict that there will be no ripe pods found from this tree this season at all.

Hopefully a new crop will start to grow and ripen soon! I'll be keepng an eye on this.

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