Storm 349.

Donations: Cassia Allin (20-30%).

Exploration: An odd exit from the Feather sector of Gungla Island.

Fordi, day 1 of Summer, 555.

For some time now, it has been impossible to move the Cloud Portals onto or even close to Kizmia's Island. Since we really don't understand just how they function in the first instance, there is no telling why they won't move where we want them to go any longer.

This has drastically reduced the frequency with which I (and many others) get to hunt on Kizmia's Island.

The Portals are still around, of course, but I rarely trouble myself to find out where they lead anymore.

While wandering through the Greymyr Village, I happened to stop to speak to the Chief. I was amused to see that in addition to his regular guard duties, he had taken on the task of watching over the Purple Portal too!

Lundi, day 73 of Spring, 555.

I was wandering about Gungla Island yesterday when I ran into a Sturdy Oak Giant near Colmert's crossing. When I asked Darnok and Shard for help, and they also brought along Aia and Esmeralda. After we killed that tree, I learned that Shard had been about to take his group into Gan Vara for a look around. Since I had been wanting to peek there again anyway, and had heard tell from Gunslinger of a safe tree I had not mapped, I joined them.

Things seemed quite in control as we searched about for any Oaks to hunt and I found the missing safe tree (one East of the Gan Vara crossing, and now indicated on updated map). Then we ran into several Slime Monsters, and folks started getting hurt. We retreated back a snell, healed up, and decided to press on quickly ignoring the Slime Monsters. When we passed South of the Gan Vara village, however, things got sticky as we were mobbed by assorted Gan Vara warriors, snakes and of course the Slime Monsters that had been following us. I ran things and tried to thin the numbers of opponents, but there were really just too many. And that was made worse as some folks ran West and North hoping for safety in areas we had not even entered yet, but instead brought yet more beasts into our area. All too soon, we were all fallen in a nice little cluster as Darnok chained us but got trapped himself.

Nightbird heard our pleas for help, and came to our aid. Running into Gan Vara alone, he managed to find all of us and chain most, all the while zigging and zagging to avoid getting trapped himself. It was an impressive feat of chaining, and much appreciated. Once I was up, I ran back in to grab Esmeralda, and the rescue was complete.

I hung around Gungla for a time afterwards, hunting Lesser Sand Wurms, and I was not alone on the Island. Several times folks ran into trouble in Brimora and Gan Vara today. I was most pleased when I was able to find a fallen Axis in Gan Vara and chain him out to safety. With that, I felt I repaid my debt to Nightbird for helping me by helping another exile in distress.

Tonight, I joined a group assisting Raldin in reaching the deep Orga Camps to obtain a Strange Stone. Actually, quite a number of us had just finished a hunt elsewhere and went to help out.

Despite a fairly large and strong group, we had trouble.

We advanced right through OC2 and OC3 without any difficulty, but were stopped cold by the lightning in OC4 several times. Actually, it was not cold at all, but very very hot.

Gandor Durin was taking the brunt of the heat as the rod point, but even with an array of healers cadding him, keeping him healthy was a challenge.

Several times we advanced to the campfire circle, and then had to make a hasty retreat as the rod wavered and collapsed. Chaining who we could and running like mad, we sought the relative safety of OC3 to heal up and try again. On the second to last attempt, we managed to clear the South Pit. With Midnight rapidly approaching, we settled on a mad dash. Fighters followed the rod in to the mouth of the South pit, and then mad a dash for the Orga Magician. I was first in the crowd, and got within sight of him before being fried to a crackly crunch by the throng of Warlocks around him. However, I diverted enough bolts so that Coeur de Leon and others got in and brought down the Magician. With his death, flames spread across the area, consuming all Orga nearby.

When the smoke cleared, OC4 was ours at last, and Raldin had wrested the Strange Stone from the grasp of the Orga.

Fordi, day 63 of Spring, 555.

Today I joined a fairly small group of 5 fighters and 3 healers to hunt in the Abyss.

Yor went in first as the runner, and the rest of the group then dove in.

Things looked pretty good as we gathered quickly and began clearing a corner of the Abyss of assorted Fire Vermine and Undine.

Suddenly, three Abyssal Hunters showed up together. We attacked them immediately, but because of the other junk still wandering about us, the four fighters were not able to concentrate our attacks on any one Hunter. All too soon, we started to fall without managing to finish off any one Abyssal Hunter!

We started to retreat, but only Brimstar made it out alive. Hunters never seem to miss when aiming at the back of a fleeing exile. Yor managed to chain several of us, and I got lucky and popped out into the Astral Plane as he dragged me through the exit cloud, but he got trapped and fell with the others.

Brimstar started a rescue effort, and over the next 2 hours waves of exiles came to help.

We kept sending in runner/chainer teams, and most often we about broke even. We would retrieve about as many (usually PND) exiles as we lost runners and chainers. After raising the fallen folks in town, we returned and tried again. The Abyss was so full of beasts that many times the runner would get stuck in traffic almost instantly, and some of the entries were rather unlucky when folks landed in the lava wall itself.

My own attempt at being a runner was brief, since I landed in a busy spot with little choice about which way to run, and then found myself quickly hemmed in by the lava wall and some stalactites. Once I was surrounded, I didn't last long since my defense is simply not enough to avoid blows from long-armed Liche and Abyssal Hunters and my Histia training is not enough to survive many rounds of thrown fire.

I did better as a chainer, and got several folks out over a few attempts.

I ended up breaking 2 chains, mostly by being foolish and trying to chain 4 fallens back to town through the Dark Temple alone. Of course, Undine blocked the narrow passages at each level and I needed to drop the exiles to take up my axe. Instead of clearing the entire Dark Temple top to bottom before dragging them again, I kept dragging folks a ways then fighting a bit to clear a path, and repeating. After the second chain broke I realized how stupid this tactic was ...

Eventually, we did manage to get everyone out, original fallens and would-be rescuers alike. And with some town Horus, everyone was eventually raised - although some fallens took serious effort.

Some days ago I joined an expedition into the Ethereal Plane to poke around a bit and reach the Ethereal Forge.

We started out from Portal Island, and went this way and that way until I was quite confused about where I was. In the Ethereal Plane, most everywhere looks the same, and I lack the skills needed to detect what Plane or sector we are in. I am just content to follow the group.

Ethereal creatures are an interesting lot. Particularly annoying are the Lesser Spectres that manage to attack us but are not quite present enough in this realm to attack back, and the ever-present Ethereal Slugs. We killed several Ethereal Wyrms, and a single Ethereal Cloud and Serac Wyrm.

Natas grabbed a nice pair of Ethereal Wyrm carcasses to bring to the taxidermist to stuff, to add to his large collection of trophies.

Since I did not own an Ethereal Amulet, I had to borrow one to reach the Plane where the Forge is located. Valtrim (hidden behind the building) graciously allowed me to walk (or rather, fight) my way to the Forge while he was dragged there fallen. Not an unusual state for a Mystic, I suppose.

While there, I asked Drablak to make an Amulet for me so I will have one of my own for future trips. I had the required Ethercle from a previous hunt out here and borrowed a lump of metal from Talin. Thanks!

I would have had yet another Ethereal Portal Stone made too, but I lacked all the needed parts for one, and actually had not broken (or even hardly used) the two I had Drablak make for me here some time ago.

I stumbled out of the Library recently into the aftermath of an invasion of Super Frogs.

Two of the beasts were safely corraled in the town Zoo.

After a time, everyone happened to leave town square on other business, and the Frogs escaped from the Zoo to rampage through town once again.

After they felled a number of exiles, Mujin-kun and Nesse happened to step from the Library and managed to finally kill the fierce creatures. I did manage to actually tag one of them after many many swings, while they had no trouble at all tagging me.

Surprisingly tough little guys!

Sombdi, day 43 of Spring, 555.

A new builder has arrived in the Lands.

Nallia proposes to build a housing complex atop the trees surrounding the North field.

This might be a nice place for exiles that prefer airy homes over the underground ones presently available in Puddleby Hollows, although these home would probably be quite drafty and a bit quesy-making in a stiff breeze!

I have spent some time wandering about Gungla Island lately.

Mostly I have been looking for Sturdy Oak Giants across the Feather Crossing, although I didn't see any today and was a bit too late arriving to see one that Romuli had found South of Colmert's Crossing. Natas and Viola arrived before me and made quick work of it.

I did spend a lot of time hunting Lesser Sand Wurms today. Thanks to those last 50 lessons with Detha, these leviathans miss me most of the time, at least when attacking from the front. I managed to kill about 10 of them off on my own in the Sul'ran desert before one got lucky and landed two blows in a row to fell me. Sakura came to raise me, and together we pretty well cleared the desert of them. It was nice fun, and all were solid kills.

In my wanderings across the Feather Crossing today, I stumbled on a very peculiar thing however.

There is a spot along the river that separates Sul'ran from Brimora, just South of the Crossing, where the river behaves strangely and appears to be in two places at the same time. I always poke about here, assuming that this mirage might conceal something.

Today, when I crossed a snell at this mirage, I found myself not in the Feather sector, but actually across the river back in Sul'ran. Very odd. I experimented a bit, and manged to repeat this feat 3 times, out of about 10 attempts (visionstones are here). I really don't understand why this happens only infrequently. In any case, this spot is good to keep in mind, because it provides a (sometimes) exit from the Feather sector of the Island without needing to magically open the Feather Crossing itself.