Lundar's Library

Day 59, Year 542 of the Ascendancy

An interesting thing happened in town today. It was a little past
midnight in Puddleby, and few exiles were out and about. Most of the
exiles that were awake huddled in town, complaining about how early
mornings were so boring. Suddenly, the town crier Crius announced that
the first exile to pull a man named Refareus would be awarded a cash
prize. Now, this surprised us all, to say the least. No one had heard
of this Refareus guy before. Soon enough, however, Crius’ words were
confirmed, when Refareus repeated what the crier had just said, over
the sunstone network. The race to find Refareus was on, and everybody
dashed off to seek out this mysterious stranger. Only I remained in
town when the dust settled. I had a plan.

Being the only mystic in the lands, I decided to use my talents with
the skristal to locate this Refareus. However, try as I might, I could
not get a hold of Refareus’ location from town. So, I rented myself a
boat, and circled the island by boat, until I was finally able to
locate Refareus. As it turned out, he was in the Spider Caves, just
north of Arachnoid Caverns. So, I swiftly paddled back to shore, and
broke out into a mad sprint towards the Spider Caves. Luckily, nobody
else had any clue as to Refareus’ location, and I made it to the Caves
before anyone else.

Unfortunately for me, the cave was crawling with
all sorts of arachnids, that each took a bite of me as I passed by.
Pretty soon, I was on very low health, and running for my life. Several
times, I tried using my skristal to pin-point Rafareus’ location within
the cave, but to no avail. Pretty soon, I was so badly injured that I
was barely standing, and a trio of small arachne took me out of the
race.

Having been taken out of the contest, I began
toggling for assistance. One of the healers sharing with me was Tater,
and she was soon able to deduce my location through the use of 20
questions. Soon enough, Tater arrived in the Spider Cave, and she
managed to locate and pull the elusive Refareus, and then to raise my
fallen body. She even kindly split some of her winnings with me. See,
good things happen when sharing with Mystics? Anyways, just then,
several large arachne began to surround us, but from the depths of the
cave appeared a bearded old man with orange toned skin. It was Refareus.

Refareus dispatched the arachne with surprising
ease; apparently he was much stronger than he appeared. This Refareus
really seemed to enjoy seeing people having fun. No sooner than the
first game was done, he began suggesting even more games to play. Since
Tater had won the last one, he gave her the honor of choosing the game.
Tater chose the race, and it was decided that all who wanted to play
would meet in town. On the way out of the cavern, Refareus once again
displayed his surprising strength, dispatching even the strongest of
arachne with one blow.

Unfortunately, once we got to town, Tater had to
leave. Refareus decided that I should pick our next destination, since
I had come closest on the first challenge. I thought hard about what
would be a fun and challenging destination, and finally came up with
the Northern Plains. Having our destination set, we lined up in a
vertical line, and got ready to start the race. However, perhaps
offended by the comments of some of the ruder exiles, Refareus
disapeared shortly before we could begin the race. Since we were all
prepped up for a race already, I decided that I would supply the
winnings if Refareus did not return. We all got ready once more, at the
prompt of Stinkfist, we all madly dashed towards the Northern Plains.

As yi can see here, I got off to a bad start. I
was too busy appreciating Stinkfist’s crude humor to realize that that
was the start signal. Nevertheless, I managed to catch up to everyone,
and ran at the head of the pack, following Koric closely, who was in
the lead. However, once we hit the East Forest, I broke away from the
group, and headed northwards. I knew of a few “shortcut” paths leading
from the East Forest to near the North Pass, which I intended to use.
However, I got a bit lost in the process, and by the time I got to the
Plains, everyone had beaten me.

So, I reluctantly handed Koric the prize money.
Being a good sport however, Koric gave us the chance to win the money
back, by beating him back to town. However, his well trained
rescue-healer legs seemed faster than my mystic running legs. He beat
us all once again, and held on to his prize money. Later, when several
of us fell in the Northern Plains, Koric revealed to us some of his
secrets in how he beat us. Watch out Koric! Next time I will burn your
healer ass! 😛

Anyway, the whole incident with Refareus was an
interesting one. Who is this generous and mysterious old man, who likes
playing games, and has the Darkus of a Ghorak Zo? He claims to be a
resident of Puddleby, but why don’t many exiles seem to know him? Where
did he disapear to in the end, and will he be back? One thing that this
kind old man has taught us though, is that yi can still have fun in the
middle of the night with only a handful of exiles are about, if yi only
take the initiative, and create a fun game for all exiles to play.
Tan’ki, Refareus, for the fun filled evening.