Combined, all of us were barely able to heal many of the fallen exiles, but if I hadn't been healable earlier, we would have been in a real fix. Fortunately, Lorikeet came out of the library later. But even with our combined 1400 Horus ranks (and the help of well over a dozen others), there were some exiles who were just *barely* healable. It is a good thing both of us were out of the library! With everyone healed, it was on into the Orga Camp...

Veer acts as a rod point in the Orga Path.

Unfortunately, we didn't have enough powerful cadding healers outside the library to make the attempt before I had to leave myself. So I passed the time waiting for a rescue by helping Panos in the north forest. It was bad today, with several large ferals roaming around, so I didn't get Panos on a chain for this rescue until I was already quite wounded.

I almost make it to the safety of the lily pond.

Unfortunately, I took one too many hits, but luckily Sincah and Haze were nearby, and several exiles quickly came to pick us both up. And speaking of rescues gone bad, I had the occasion to visit the North Bear Cave to look for a fallen exile. I haven't seen this many snakes in one place in quite some time.

Why did it have to be snakes?

Somehow I survived this (it helped that I didn't have anyone on a chain here so that I could self-heal ... my experience here and earlier in the north forest have me thinking more and more about training someday to get a Sylphstone ring or maybe even some Awaria). Perhaps the only good news to come out of today is that I was able to navigate at least one direction of one of the new east forest shortcuts (and my skill is barely enough to enter the Northwest forest).

My big event for the day was a trip to Dal'Noth. Standing in town, I had heard that a mid-pass rescue was needed. So I responded that I would help Kamik and Benylin. I didn't even get past west gate before I was asked if I could help with a horus situation (Eyeball) on Noth. Already committed to helping midpass, I took a while to get back to Noth, especially since I can't seem to navigate the shortcut back from midpass!

This shortcut would let me skip the new east forest, if I could use it.

Fortunately, the party on Dal was patient and very gracious when I arrived to help poor Eyeball. And what a neat party it was. Look at these strong fighters, and with Thuja present, we could handle almost anything.

Helping out an old friend on Dal'Noth Isle.

As usual, I took on the role of mystic/backpacker on the hunt, tagging where I could but generally trying to stay out of the way and use my proximus to help the fighters and Thuja stay green or white. Probably the only real scare came when we were fighting a Xar'Noth and a few Sars south of town.

An ill-timed spawn could have been the end for us here.

Fortunately, we recovered, got a lot of experience and gold for the effort, and generally had a very fun time. By the way, sometimes my sketches look a little funny, I know. For example, in the sketch above, I was actually sharing with everyone except poor Eyeball and they with me, but for some reason when I'm sketching from a visionstone, that information often doesn't show up correctly. I don't want people reading my journal thinking I don't share with others!

Shortly before we were ready to leave anyway, Thirteenth Rat got rushed by a rock near midpass, so I took the chance to make an early escape to go back to midpass and help him. Once he was up, Thadius tried to pendant back to town.

He apparently unequipped his pendant too quickly and fell to a "little more serious" level for me. That's quite a fall! So we had to drag him back to town. Actually, we pushed him through the outward-bound pf path from midpass to shorten the trip (since he's a good pf), then I took the opportunity to explore the return path on the other side.

The shortcut to midpass.

Turns out I couldn't see the sparkles until the last moment, then I slipped through! So there is some hope I will eventually learn the way back.

I am often asked by other exiles how my training differs from that of Master Horus (or even Lorikeet for that matter). It is difficult for me to judge this. My own feeling is that Master Horus would not offer me a training ledger if he didn't feel I could be at least as effective as he is. On the other hand, it is hard to imagine that within only a few puddleyears of learning from Master Horus that I could surpass his teaching skills

So I think that we are probably more or less even in effectiveness, although the style of my training is certainly very different than the balanced approach offered my Master Horus. See, I have a theory about how the whole magic of falling and horus healing works based on my extensive research, and it goes like this.

When I fall, my spirit is separated from my body. That is why creatures leave me alone. They can sense that I am "dead" by their definition. Now exactly how I have this power to separate my spirit from my flesh is not clear to me. It seems a part of the magic these islands are imbued with. In any case, the fallen body cannot be healed unless the spirit can be coaxed back into the flesh to start the healing process. Failure to accomplish this merge means healing is impossible (i.e "don't quite have the training", "wounds are a little more serious", etc.).

This can be accomplished in two ways. The first, more physical approach is that used mainly by Master Horus and (I believe) Lorikeet. The technique is to create some sort of magical field around the body so that, although it is still fallen, the spirit can enter and know where it is supposed to be. Since I do not use this technique, my understanding of it is sketchy.

The second, spiritual approach is the one that I study. In this approach, I attempt deep communication with the spirit of the fallen exile. I teach it how to rejoin the flesh, even if the flesh is badly damaged. The spirit doesn't remember this teaching of mine, but it seems to work pretty well anyway. I help the spirit maintain contact with what would normally be a mangled body so that the healing process can proceed.

For extremely fallen exiles who are beyond my abilities, the healing needs to be approached from both sides. It takes many exiles often to strengthen the magical field around the body so that the spirit can enter and know where to be. But I can help by allowing the spirit more flexibility through communication.

This approach is not the one Master Horus intended for me, but it is the one that I teach when I train others. I do not believe Master Horus sanctions my approach fully, but he understands what I am doing and is, I think, curious to see how I develop now that I have shown I can handle the burden of the voices. See, my ability to communicate deeply with spirits has opened doorways in my mind that are not easy to close.

Through these passages, I can communicate in a vague sense with spirits long removed from the flesh but still nearby. There are certain places where these voices seem to be concentrated, the dark cave in undine chief among them. I cannot go inside that cave (or even approach it most days) as shutting off my other senses makes me much more susceptible to hearing the torrent of voices. I can manage them normally now without much trouble (though there was a time before I got my ledger that was quite trying for me, and I feared for my sanity and identity), but I do not want to risk the balance I have established in my mind.

I do get some benefit from the voices. Through them, I have learned how to find paths. In fact, I am convinced that they also speak through the Marsh Hermit. I'd like to know more about his history! I haven't learned much, but they have taught me a few simple gestures and incantations that seem to open simple pathways for me. Mostly, though, I try to learn deeper communication and healing from the others, a talent that effectively increases my ability to heal those closer to death. Sometimes this manifests itself in simple chants or even poetry (a tool I sometimes use to help me focus, but I got too many weird looks so I try to keep it purely in my mind).

Anyway, I hope that answers some of the questions I've gotten lately about how my training is different from other exiles and also a little bit about how Horus skills work. That's just my theory. There are surely others (Master Hekus!) who understand it better than I do, but they don't talk much. Also, for those who wonder why I gesture or whisper when taking a path, my answer is that it is simply a device to aid my concentration, nothing more.

Many exiles celebrated in their taintless undies, and Merlisk the drunken, excited thoom (there's three words you don't want to see together very often) was dragged around town by Kodo. He's very excited to be training in the use of a purgatory pendant, too. I just hope he talks with others about how to safely use it.

Soon, Gurgi called exiles to gather for a Dread Passage expedition in the meadow. We had at least 30 exiles there, so it took us a few puddlehours to get organized into rod/fighter teams. Once we got organized, it only took a little more than a puddlehour to get from the Bones sn'ell to the DP chamber.

Exiles organize for a deadly raid.

As you can see, we developed a pretty good system. Thuja would enter and act as a lightning rod for a few seconds then run out. With a temporary window of safety, fighters would then pour in, swing frantically to clear things, then run out. Fallen exiles would then be chained north to the "luring" healers lining the walls. Thuja and Tarf were the major chainers, and just about everyone fell at least once.

Unfortunately, on this night, even with (or perhaps because of?) so many skilled exiles present, we simply could not make progress. Even after we initially cleared it, a major spawn of Large Death Vermine forced us to make five additional clearing runs, interspersed in the meantime with chaotic healing sessions as I tried to organize the healers into helping out with severely fallen exiles.

In the end, Merlisk and Natas chose to depart rather than wait to be dragged to town when they were too fallen for all of us combined. We had enough healing firepower that we could heal most exiles who were perilously near to death even for my own talents. After much time had passed and we had lost one of our most skilled healers (Merlisk) and fighters (Natas), we were all very weary from the effort. Not to mention that Gurgi vanished shortly after the raid began (we still aren't sure what happened there, but it appeared that he simply passed out inexplicably).

And so, with only a little dissent, we headed to town. Our trip was made faster by the fact that this time, there were no Orga Zealots near our party in DP. Thus, even though many exiles were fallen inside for extended periods, no one got teleported into the Village. That's a good thing, because even though we were pretty strong when leaving, we were getting sloppy and disorganized. A trip to kill any Dredlocks and warlocks guarding fallens in the West OV might have proven disastrous. As it was, we managed to get to the homeward bound path with some difficulty.

Thuja and Dianus are healed by the community of exiles.

My job was to pull Dianus and Thuja to town on my chain since they fell pretty hard trying to rescue some exiles on the very last run inside. We were lucky that Lorikeet stuck around waiting for us. As a group, we were barely able to raise them both.

I had high hopes for this raid. There were so many powerful exiles who have all had so much experience now that I had hope we might get to the other side of this foul passage. Maybe I'm too idealistic, but I would like to think that once we reach a point where we have discovered as much here as the PMF group has, there will no longer be any need for our groups to work apart (aside from personality clashes, which are regrettable but inevitable). I think combined hunts with people from both groups would heal a lot of wounds.

There are a lot of us who respect and admire the discipline that has helped make clan Pogue Mahone famous, myself chief among them. Their tactical brilliance, commitment to each other and organizational skills are something we should all learn from and follow by example. It is too bad those great qualities cannot be used for the benefit of the entire community right now, but again I must repeat and stress that I respect their reasoning for holding back. At least where that reasoning is genuinely felt to be good for the community as a whole, in terms of letting people discover things for themselves, rather than just the exiles whose real reason is that they don't like others "spoiling" their hunting grounds.

So, yes, it is boring for now. I spent four puddlehours in the Snaggle Wood waiting for everyone to get organized. Then I spent about ten puddlehours sitting in this damp cave on triage duty with very few productive shares (2-3 typically) trying to keep the healers organized and efficient, never once getting inside to see the passage. It's a small price to pay if it will help us close this chapter in history and move on.