I heal their wounds and then go back to sleep. After the
first few days, no exile fell to a point beyond my abilities,
fortunately, though some cases were very close. Just a day or
so before we left, poor Papa was lying mangled on the ground in
front of me when I awoke. Five healers tried to raise him earlier
without success. Luckily, my training was up to the task and Papa
was back on his feet.
With so many strong exiles and so much practice, it is surprising
that we had so much trouble ... until you think about the various
dangers that are difficult to avoid up here. Most of the time, we
have learned clever ways to control the fighting, like this, when
we had kudzu seedlings available.
But fighting in the north cave is more perilous. The spawns are
wonderful, but so unpredictable. And there is far less room to
manuever, especially with a perilous rockfall point closeby.
Just for example,
some of us were hunting in cave 24, just east of Katpus' cave
(that cave 24 is what we call the north cave) and having an easy time of it.
So easy that Urgelt was talking about splitting the group.
Too many exiles and too few wendies to kill was the problem, but
before Urgelt could even begin to make a suggestion, disaster:
Well, these Large Midnight Wendeckas not only deliver powerful
blows, but they also throw multiple very damaging pebbles at
exiles, often leaving them fallen to the limit of my abilities.
As the exiles scattered, some were fallen, and I decided to try
to get Shadrock out of trouble so he wouldn't be stuck with a
very long wait for help.
I looped my chain around him and began to run, narrowly
dodging the nearest large pair while Urgelt bravely
distracted one and Haze ran for cover past the eastern
rockfall.
I barely got past the last three, thanks in part to poor
Farb's bad luck. This is an example of the kind of instant
death that can strike in these foothills, making them at
once exhilirating and deadly.
So it was a nervous, energy draining couple of puddleweeks spent
in the foothills. I await the chaos storm to sweep me back into
the town I miss so much, dear little Puddleby. I'll finally
get to carry this heavy purse into the bank and spend some time
with Master Horus, then sleep in the wonderful library. I will
miss our fine hunts, especially Urgelt, Hunter, Lundar, Gorton,
Tarf and Yor, with whom I hunted so exhaustively. But it was
special for all of us who stayed.
My only regret is that we failed to make very much progress. We
still have no way past those caves blocked from the far side, and
we found no new paths or caves to lead us further toward Trillbane
and the Orga Stronghold. Perhaps our next visit after the chaos
storm will lead to progress near the time of the full moon. I
can't wait to find out.
Among the many changes in the lands since the chaos storm, none
has caused more of a stir than the arrival in town of a new trainer,
Dentir Longtooth. Ippon, the kind Thoom from the Darkhorse clan,
was kind enough to provide me with a visionstone of their arrival,
most of which I missed. For those interested in hearing what Dentir
and has companion, Calti Pouder, had to say, I have created an
edited transcript here (300 lines or so).
Apparently, these two have come from somewhere (not the mainland;
I asked) when they were invited by Skea Brightfur, who told them
that there were plenty of creatures on these isles with mandibles
that might be valuable to them. Why would mandibles be valuable?
Calti kept mentioning extracting kyten powder from there, but
neither Calti nor Dentir ever made it clear just what kyten powder
is or what it does. Indeed, Calti had quite an attitude about
her, referring to noble exiles as "peasants" with a disdainful
look. I wonder if we should help someone like her.
In any case, Ippon led these two to town center so they could speak
with more exiles, and Dentir asked if Ippon would fetch some creature
corpses so that he could demonstrate mandible extraction for us.
Ippon and Yor rushed to the hive to comply.
Ippon dragged the corpses to town, to the delight of Dentir and Calti,
and Dentir got right to work.
Several of us watched Dentir working closely and saw what we had
been missing all along, learning how to crudely extract these
mandibles so that they would be useful for Calti. Dentir offered
to refine our knowledge for mutual gain.
Dentir then demonstrated his technique to Ippon on a Mammoth
Arachne that Katan had dragged into town, and it seemed to
work well there, too. Ippon couldn't quite get the mandible
out in one piece, and he will surely improve!
As time wore on, Calti decided to take a break in the Tor Inn, where
she will stay for a while until Dentir collects a sufficient number
of mandibles for her to start extracting powder. Dentir asked about
a hut he could stay in (they were both appalled at Skea working out
in the open on the beach), and we eventually led him to the westernmost
hut in the northern half of East farms (the one so many exiles seem
to accidentally barge into when trying to run through those farms
from town) where he set up shop.
Several exiles signed up right away, and so already the money from
mandibles of myrms and arachnoids has started rolling in. With this
and all the money recovered from the foothills expeditions, I have
a feeling our little economy is about to experience some inflation!
Well, it'll be a couple of puddleyears before I hear anything
like "toes" from Faustus, so I have to celebrate every milestone
to its fullest. Back to usual business, my
most recent exciting rescue occured in the snaggy wood. I had
heard that Snowy was fallen there thanks to some helpful
exiles who were keeping a close eye on him.
Unfortunately, getting into the snaggy wood requires a very
high pathfinding ability, much more so than I have. So I
had to put out a call for help. I was lucky so many responded,
including stout fighters Spad and Norm and three other fine
healers, Sargon, Cinnamon and Doc. Doc is a full pathfinder,
and so is Ogant, who is a recent arrival I hadn't had the
pleasure of meeting yet.
We all entered and got situated, then headed into the fray with
the mystic Fileas along to help as well. My first thinking was
just a quick chain run, but with this kind of strength, perhaps
we could clear the sn'ell. So a quick assessment would be needed
to determine the proper course.
Seeing the rats on these two and the crowd of mostly warriors, zerks
and shamans, I figured we would be best off fighting and clearing
the sn'ell. Spad and Norm were way ahead of me, already establishing
a defensive position as I scouted.
So I ran back to heal Spad, while Cinnamon and Doc took care of
Norm and Ogant. Ogant was in a little bit over his head, but he
was still a big help. After all, how else is a new fighter
supposed to learn how to rescue? I'm sure he got some valuable
experience here.
As Norm, Spad and Ogant slowly cleared out the monstrous orga,
their health was being whittled down. By the time we had just
about finished clearing the sn'ell, all of us were either fallen
or on our very last reservoirs of health. Another lucky hit or
two on Norm, and we might have all been done for.
Even a pesky feral almost made the difference, as it almost felled
myself and Doc at one point, but Norm and Spad bravely stood toe
to toe with the last orga and finished them off. So we healed
up and finally went down to hear the fallens, who had been shouting
encouragement and support all the while.
With the fallen exiles up, we decided to take advantage of our party
size and location in some fine hunting grounts to hunt down a fury
Snowy had spotted earlier.
It didn't take long to find the brute, and our party dispatched it
with ease, so it was time to head for home. But the Orga back in
Orga Camp weren't going to let me go so easily. Maybe they're still
holding a grudge over that whole bounty thing (back when I joined the
Rising Claw clan, I celebrated by putting out a 10c bounty on the
first 500 orga heads brought back from the tanglewood).
Fortunately, I now have enough self-healing speed that I wasn't in
any danger, despite the shaman fire nearby. I was able to remain
healthy until the rest of the party exited snaggy wood and killed
off the surrounding Orga. Upon my exit from Orga Camp, I found
two of my favorite healers, Lorikeet and J'nder, outside on their
way in to help! What an honor!
We talked training for a while before Lorikeet left to help our
clawmate Polerand in the savannah. It seems my estimates of
the effectiveness of Spirtus and Eva on my faustus are a little
off, which is why I got the unexpected new recognition from
Master Faustus today. Lori and I are now both starting to
improve our speed somewhat while we mix in Faustus ranks so
that maybe we won't be so one-dimensional (and there's always
that purgatory pendant as a goal).
I've spent the last couple of weeks sleeping a lot in the
foothills safe cave. Our party arrived here after a marathon
expedition that involved two trips from the Dread Passage to
the Orga Village to pick up exiles who were transported
there by zealots, two trips to find exiles lost in the
Outback and hours of healing in the DP cave. All in all,
about 16 puddlehours worth of effort.
We finally arrived with a gigantic party to find that things
had changed. We seem to have hunted Dawn, Dusk and Day
Wendeckas nearly to extinction, along with the Large
Midnight Wendeckas. The remaining Midnight Wendeckas are
much tougher and for some reason, we earn somewhat less
experience for killing them. Many who came mostly for
the hunting (it seems) have now left us.
Many more have been killed too severely by multiple pebble
hits and so have had to depart. Algy was originally
dragged up here with us, but he is even gone now, having
been taken back to town by court officers to stand trial
for leaving his post in town center. If Algy can be
taken back to town unharmed by court officers, what about
the rest of us, I wonder?
Anyway, under the fine leadership of Yor and Urgelt, we are
very carefully exploring each and every cave, looking for
hidden diggable passages and pathfinder spots. So far, no
luck. Tedious, dangerous work. There are still a couple
of cave entrances blocked from the other side. Our last
hope on this expedition is to visit the pool and the
mushroom cave during full moon in the hopes that Trillbane
will show up then or something special will happen.
Quite honestly we are running thin on ideas and hope of
progress here. This feels like a puzzle that we need to
solve, but we can't even find the puzzle. All in all,
the foothills aren't *that* big of a place, so we can
say that we've just about successfully searched every
single part.
Further progress until the full moon will be exceedingly
difficult given the presence of three Orga Hatreds outside
the safe cave now. I will post another update when we
return or if we find anything new. Until then, it is
rather bleak here, and there's not much to write about.
Click here to go forward in the archive
to Autumn 541, Part 1.
Back to Koric's Journal Archives
Click here to go backward in the archive
to Summer 541, Part 2.
Controlling a wendecka spawn in the southern cave.
Urgelt eerily anticipates what is about to spawn. Heh.
A gigantic spawn gives Urgelt a *real* crowd.
Splitting a deadly pair in a dash for safety.
A narrow escape with Shadrock on a chain.
Dentir and Calti arrive on the isle and confront Skea.
Ippon and Yor collect myrm corpses in the Queen's Chamber.
Dentir performs an operation on a Queen Myrm corpse.
Dentir offers to teach others his skills.
Ippon prepares to try mandible extraction on a Mammoth Arachne.
Dentir offers to train, but I politely declined.
Master Faustus acknowledges my progress at last!
An unfamiliar zo points the way to a rescue.
The path to the fallens, in the Tonle sn'ell.
Snowy and Enlil will take some time to raise, so it is chain or fight.
Each fighter has a cad support now.
The danger gets a bit worse despite our healing efforts.
The last of the orga is dispatched by our fighters.
The fallen exiles are saved at last.
With Fileas' boost, I land a rare killing blow on an Orga Fury.
Trapped in the Orga Camp.
A happy reunion outside the Orga Camp.