Current Training: Evus.

Donations: Cassia Allin (20-30%).

Exploration: Spending time in the Foothills and the Ethereal Plane.

Lundi, day 77 of Spring, 556.

When I stepped out of the Library today, I was asked to help rescue several fallens (White Wolf, Sai, Pon-X) in Dredwood.

But by the time I managed to reach Dredwood through the Mirrors in the South Forest and on the Dark Cloud, all the fallens had been chanted to the Orga Village by Orga Zealots.

This made the rescue much more difficult, since to reach the Orga Village, the small rescue group would need to traverse the entire Foothills back to Katpus cave, run through the Orga Outback to the Orga Village, and actually control the Orga Village to reach the fallens at the far end. ince we had only a few fighters and a single healer, this was going to be a challenge.

We never made it.

Things were goinging quite well in the Foothills until we reached the last snell before the Outback itself. As we headed in, we were all instantly surrounded by a throng of Midnight Wendecka. Everyone in the rescue group fell, although a couple folks did manage to break free and retreat a snell or two.

The folks in the Orga Village ended up departing unfortunately, but then helped form a rescue group for the rescue group.

All in our party were eventually recovered, after the many Midnight Wendecka were finally killed. I was lucky and walked home, but others were pummeled hard by pebbles and went home on chains.

Recently while wandering about in the GI Brimora sector of Gungla Island, I noticed a change there.

I had reported earlier that one could walk North along the river in Brimora and sometimes manage to hop across the river to exit Brimora - without crossing the ford itself.

No more.

Trees now have overgrown the way along the river, preventing one from walking North along that bank anymore.

I joined in a trip by the PTF group the other day, since they were heading to the Ethereal Forge. I had all the parts for an Ethereal Portal Stone, and had been itching to get another one since one of mine was broken a couple zodiacs ago. Rincewind made the Stone for me, and I am pleased to carry a back-up once again.

We also took some time to visit the Ethereal Trading Post.

Although I had seen it before, at that time, no one was able to enter it then, so this was my first time inside. The Mystics teleported everyone into the trading floor, since apparently only Mystics can enter here directly.

Inside, I inspected the armor that Melabrion has offered us, and checked with Alleet about what the current status of the trade was. These are still pretty pricey in my estimation, but amongst us all, not really so very expensive. Their usefulness, however, remains to be tested.

I have also been taking advantage of the Mirror and Portal in Camp Dred to spend some time hunting in the Dredwood.

On several trips, I have been in small groups that have managed to clear almost the entire area, by being a mix of careful and foolhardy.

On one recent trip, White Wolf and I managed to quell the area so much that we started to hunt the Tree Giants in the TGBG2 section of Dredwood.

Here we are taking on a Redwood Giant.

Unfortunately, other than the somewhat rare Dredlocks, and some of the toughest Tree Giant types, like Ash and Ironwood, there is not any experience to be gained out here for folks like me. It's just a fun challenge to try to control an area so filled with lightning.

I also recently got to rescue a group in the Queen's Chamber of the Ash Island Scarmis hive.

Sorta.

The group there was walled in fine, but a bit underpowered to tackle the huge number of Scarmis in the Queen's Chamber. Two of their fighters were fallen in the depths of the chamber from the set-up ran that allowed the wall to be planted, and were getting eaten by Scarmis Larvae.

Because pathfinders can now enter the Scarmis hive on Ash Island directly, withoutthe assistance of an illusion-breaking Mystic, I was recruited to run in alone and chain those fallens out of the Queen's chamber and back around to rejoin the rest of the group behind a Kudzu wall in the other end of the Queen's chamber.

Because all the Scarmis were pretty preoccupied already with the folks behind the wall, the rescue itself was pretty easy.

The hard part was killing all the Scarmis. We took it slow, and eventually managed to kill every last Scarmis in that chamber. Thankfully no one accidentally tore large holes in the protective wall during the fighting.

For our efforts, we were rewarded with an impressive three Scarmis eggs.

Despite 3 chances, my lucky number never came up.

Still, those 3 eggs will surely find their way into Lyfelidisn cures for some needy, infected exiles.

Since we had already cleared the Scarmis hive, we pressed on into the Garden Maze in order to obtain Ethereal Boots.

While we were wandering about the maze looking for the path to the Ethereal Plane circle with the Guardian of the Boots, we ran into the Juliosaur.

A fierce bug he is, and we ran away rather than try to fight him. Many times exiles have tried to kill this beast, and each time he fells many and then digs to escape as his doom draws near. We didn't have the strength to try our luck at bringing him down at last.

After some wandering, and some running, I realized that something had changed here. In other times I have been here, I have seen an odd "flower path" that leads to the proper Ethereal Plane circle, but that was nowhere to be found. I was told that this path has not been seen in some time, and that now the proper path looks like all other paths, and is in a fixed location rather than moving about. Doh.

With that tidbit of information, we quickly located the proper path, and entered the Ethereal Plane to wrest the Boots from their Guardian. Finally, we returned safely to town.

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