Storm 375.

Current Training: Trillbane's Commentaries on Ways.

Donations: Cassia Allin.

Exploration: The Pitch Arachnoid caves are resoundingly conquered at long last.

Merdi, day 7 of Summer, 557.

I was quite surprised to see a Skein of Silk offered for raffle at the Auction House.

These are dropped rarely by web-slinging Arachnoids, but have no known use.

Since I go to the Pitch caves regularly as part of CJ parker's Pitch Assault Group, I have been carrying one of these for quite a long time.

I think I have asked pretty much every artisan and craftsman in town and elsewhere whether they could use it to create something useful, but no one around seems to know what it might be good for.

After some 70 trips over the past 5 years, the Pitch Assault Group is proud to announce that we have finally defeated the Pitch Arachnoid caverns and reached the apparent end of this vast complex of tunnels.

There at the far end of the last cave, surrounded by deep piles of accumulated webs, stands a book. The Book.

We had glimpsed it on other trips, tantalizing us and spurring us on, but never got close enough to read even the title page. Knowing our goal was near, but failing to reach it time after time, began to weigh heavily on us all. But we perservered.

Today we fought and survived and pressed ever onward until at last the final Arachnoid was vanquished and we still stood.

Noivad was the first to reach the Book, and we found out then that it is called "Trillbane's Commentaries on Ways."

We are all hopeful that the 12 pathfinders who started training with this book today, and those who will follow on other days, will lead all citizens of Puddleby into new realms in the comong times.

For more details of this trip look here. (I am working on filling in details of all the missing trips from my notes and visionstones, but the continued lack of progress weighed heavily on me too, and I am very behind.)

Gradi, day 89 of Spring, 557.

Today's Blacksmith update: we have learned how to forge crowbars from 3 pieces of iron, as well as regular chains (4 iron) and shovel blades (2 iron). I have not heard who managed to find the first crowbar to show to Powean, nor where it was found. Nor even what one is good for, although several sticky hut doors immediately spring to mind.

I am surprised that no one has yet donated a stout chain to Powean to let him figure out how these are made. I would be delighted to reforge my several chains over into these more hardy chains.

In the refinery, we can now refine gold ingots from gold ore, as well as pieces of iron from iron ore. I tried an iron ore myself, and with no training of course I botched the job, but it was an interesting to observe the process up close.

The formulas for extracting tin and copper from those ores remain to be found, as do the formulas for making more useful alloys such as bronze.

With that need for refined metal samples in mind, I recently joined a group of exiles exploring Melabrion's Mines and Keep.

Since Melabrion is well known to be an expert in metallurgy, it seems fairly likely that samples of refined metals might be found in his domain. Maybe even wrenched off of something with a crowbar!

We first hit the mines.

We killed a number of Tok'hans and found an impressive 2 lumps of tin ore.

I wasn't very lucky, but Sor and Bonk won those.

Curiously, we did not find gold ore, which is what we had been expecting to find.

We ended up not going too deep into the mines, because we were having a hard time actually killing Green Tok'hans without boosts from Zorton, with no Bloodblade or Fell Blade experts along.

I just barely hit the Greens with nearly 400 Atkus, and the other fighters all had less training in this skill than I.

When we finally reached the Lime Tok'han level, we wisely decided not to push our luck, and turned back for the surface.

We next turned our attention to Melabrion's Keep.

Amongst the muddy remains of the first Mud Golem we killed, I found an unrefined gem.

We killed a number of other Mud Golems as we worked our way through the castle floor-by-floor. When we had killed them all, we stopped to roll for the gem, and I won! Since we were right by the gem refiner, I borrowed a large number of coins from J'jh and had it made into a ruby gem on the spot.

I'm not sure yet what I will do with my ruby, since I doubt I will ever train in the Shieldstone myself and am not much for expensive jewelry.

We never did make it into Melabrion's Tower itself, since several exiles ran out of time, but that still seems a likely place to perhaps liberate an ingot or two of some refined metals.

If you have to be lucky, better to do it when a gemstone is on the line.

The other day, as I was farming to replenish my stock of Kudzu seedlings, I was having remarkably bad luck in my usual spot in the North Farms.

For a time I was barely recovering the seedlings I had planted, let alone adding any to my supply.

This sketch gives a hint as to just how bad it was.

In desperation, I set up farming in a different location, and was pleased to see a dramatic increase in yield of useable seedlings.

Finally I was able to fill up all my Kudzu bags.

I guess intensive Kudzu farming can deplete the soil badly.

Sombdi, day 65 of Spring, 557.

Bob the Builder is done with the expansion of the Smithy.

Inside the Smithy are 2 new workrooms.

Both are laid out pretty much like the Alchemy hut, with an assistant to analyze samples of finished goods brought in from elsewhere, an assistant to record and look up recipes to make these analyzed samples, an assistant to train exiles in the skills necessary to refine ore or learn to forge particular items, and an assistant to help run the furnace while an exile is refining or forging.

To the West is the refinery, shown here.

To the east is the forge area, shown here.

Clearly, our challenge is to acquire refined metal ingot samples, and examples of worked metal goods. When these have been analyzed and how these were made is understood and recorded, then they can be made here.