Current Training: Regia, having reached 350 Detha lessons.

Donations: Cassia Allin (10-20%).

Exploration: No Strange Stones, no Scarmis eggs for you. Well, maybe some eggs.

Soldi, day 15 of Winter, 555.

Very early this morning, I joined Tyndall and a few others to hunt at the East Cove of Kizmia's Island.

It was the first time I had set foot on Kizmia's Island since I ran into Rowl here some weeks ago.

We ran into very stiff opposition while trying to exit the cave onto the island itself, with several Cave Cobras lurking amidst a group of Thunder and Flower Lyfelidae. It turned out to be quite a battle. All the fighters would rush in to try to kill one beast, any beast, and one or two or more would end up trapped and fall. Then we switched to rescue mode and recoverred the fallens on chains by ones or (if lucky) by the handful, healed up and tried again.

Eventually we did managed to clear the place, but not until after sunrise made the job a bit easier.

I have heard since that more rocks have fallen from the cave roof to block access into this cave. We shall have to dig!

Later as the sun set, I joined another group led by Mujin-kun in the interior of Kizmia's Island.

At one point, we ran into a pride of daytime Harvest Lyfelidae in the middle of the night. Unfortunately this is common enough. What was very odd was the rat attacking one of these fallen Harvests.

Scavengers can't be choosers, I suppose.

We mainly spent our time in the North side of the Island, but detoured to check out reports of 2 Cold Lyfelidae in Groar!'s cave. Between the caves and the Cabin Creek Ranch/Lyfe Town areas, we found a lot of great hunting. I counted just under 100 vanquishes by the time the sun finally came up and we left for home.

Just before leaving, we stopped to search the Scarmis den for any eggs, since they are in such high demand.

After killing the Queen, we searched about and found 2 precious eggs. Whoo!

Talin informed me that she now had 6 Scarmis eggs from hunts here, so I'm glad to see that some Queens here are more productive than the ones at the Ash Island hive. I suppose Ash Island is just bad for one's health, as well as one's soul.

Talin also told me that of the more than 70 exiles infected during Rowl's rampage, about half had been healed so far.

Exiles still needing a Lyfelidism cure should speak to Talin about getting one of these eggs for that purpose.

Fordi, day 6 of Winter, 555.

Another New Year come without much warning or fanfare. My years in exile do mount, but thankfully I find other things to occupy my time to keep my from dwelling on that sad fact.

Today I joined a raid on the Ash Island Scarmis hive that was already in progress. Hepta was still around town and kindly let me in. When I entered the hive, I was surprised to find nearly all awake exiles already there! They were just getting ready to enter the Queen's chamber.

Things quickly went awry, as the two Kudzu planters fell before they had completed their work. Most others rushed in to help, and fell quickly. I was in a daze for a few minutes, and came to surrounded by Scarmis Harvesters that were merrily taking painful bites out of my hide. Despite a quick effort to free myself, I soon fell too. Go Detha!

A rescue effort was soon organized by Tyndall, and I was quickly retrieved from the North chamber. The folks in the Queen's chamber were a different story altogether.

We carefully planned out how to enter the chamber. Tyndall entered from the South and sacrificed himself to lure Scarmis away from the North entry. Anu entered from the North and drew more Scarmis toward the East, and he successfully exited and rejoined us. Relkin and Olmy then entered from the North and planted a really nice Kudzu wall leaving us a large fighting area. The rest of us then entered safely.

Unfortunately, the Scarmis were soon several deep all along the wall, and the Queen herself was in the front line spitting acid. We set up a luring wall, and slowly began winnowing the herd. But there were soooo many Scarmis that after some time we had reduced their numbers almost immeasureably but now found ourselves hemmed in by the evergrowing Kudzu, which then started to die off.

With little room left to replant a wall, we tried a desperate gambit and cut a hole for the Queen to enter. She felled several fighters but I finally managed to pull myself to her and finished her off. That's her corpse just Southwest of me in this sketch. Things looked quite grim, since I was the only fighter still standing at that point, and many Scarmis had managed to weave their way through dying Kudzu to attack us. With the Queen vanquished though, we could regroup behind our own fallens and slowly eliminate the remaining Scarmis. With great healing support, things looked better all the time as they kept me healthy and raised the other fighters one by one. It took quite some time, even with some helpful boosts from Zorton (I need some more Atkus lessons!), but we did manage to clear the area and raise everyone.

Of course, we found no desperately-needed Scarmis eggs.

Some days ago, I helped on a Full Moon Orga Camp raid, with the intent of allowing Zorton or Rincewind steal a Strange Stone from the Orga Magician in Orga Camp 4.

A fairly small group gathered in the Meadow a bit after Noon, and we then headed deeper into the Orga Camps. I found myself in OC2 after entering the first illusion Zorton pointed to, and that pretty much set the tone for our advance: fairly easy going.

The stiffest resistance was in OC4 itself, where barrages of lightning combined with a large assortment of Orga ground forces kept us occupied for some time before the area was under control. Our healer support was excellent, so the fighters advanced with confidence and cleared the entire area.

Once things settled down, we waited for awhile before attacking behind Tharloch's protection, for the Orga Magician to build his power.

He fell quickly to the onslaught of exiles once the command to attack was given. The released power of his fall struck down all the remaining Orga in a great wave.

Unfortunately, Zorton was unable to obtain a Strange Stone after meditating in the Power Room for some time, so Rincewind then tried and also came up empty.

We waited around for some time, until new Orga began filtering back through the trees into OC4, while Zorton and Rincewind took turns trying again and again, but to no avail.

I still have no idea why some trips are successful while others seem doomed to be unable to wrest the prized stone from the Orga.

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