Lundar's Library

Day 61, Year 544 of the Ascendancy

As yi may have heard, a path has been found beyond the Foothills( see Koric’s scolls or my last entry
for more details ), and today a large mob of 60+ exiles led by Gurgi
headed for the Northeastern Foothills. Moving such a large group from
town to the Foothills was quite a daunting task, but Gurgi kept the
group organized, and our trip went fairly smoothly until we reached the
Dread Passage. In the last two trips I’ve been on with LIFE, we had
managed to make it through the Passage in less than 30 minutes.
However, due to a lack of healer power, and a couple of bad calls from
Gurgi, it took us nearly two hours to make it through the Dread
Passage. We had to back track twice to the Orga Village during our
attempts, and several times we were forced to evacuate when the south
rod collapsed. We also had some close calls with LDV spawns and loose
Hatreds, but in the end we managed to persevere and make it to the
Foothills.

Once inside the Foothills, we took a brief respite
in Katpus’ Cavern, and then headed towards Kestral’s Path. We made our
way through the Foothills quite swiftly under the leadership of Elenis
Reyav, and had little trouble dispatching the Midnight Wendecka hordes
that faced us. Finally, we made it though the twisty passes, and found
ourselves in front of Kestral’s Path. Everyone was very excited at this
point, and many of the pathfinders in the party attempted to open
Kestral’s Path. However, the artist/pathfinder Sor proved to be the
only one who could open it. We traveled east through the caverns beyond
Kestral’s Path, and through Kiriel’s Path, and finally found our way
into the valley past the Foothills. Once inside the valley, we again
took another brief break, before tackling the Dreadwood.

The Dreadwood is a nightmare, and without a doubt
one of the most deadly areas that exiles have discovered so far. The
Dreadwood makes the Dread Passage and Orga Village look like rat huts.
Our plan was to have 5 or so fighters line up at the edge of the snell,
enter at once, take a swing, and return. Sadly, even with all of the
powerful fighters present, our plan was a failure. Soon, there were
many fallen exiles within the Dreadwood, turning the situation into a
deadly cycle of chain runs. After an hour or so, were able to get
everyone out of the Dreadwood, but it left 7 of our party members PND.
We decided that going through the Dreadwood today would be impossible,
and instead switched our focus to the difficult and unopened paths that
were discovered during the last expedition. Though none of the many
pathfinders present could find a way through, the Journeyman Mystic
Antis was able to give us a taste of what is to come, using his
powerful mind casting ability.

Using the tool known as the Orb of Caesindre,
mystics are able to cast their minds into other snells, and see what
dangers lie before them. What Antis’ mind casts revealed, was a horde
of Tree Giant kin and Big Red Orgas( or BROs ), just on the other side
of the path. At first we suspected that the path might lead to Ash
Valley, but realized that there were too many Tree Giants present, and
too few Midnight Wendeckas for this to be true. Now we suspect this to
be a new, and even more deadly area, which we will hopefully be able to
reach once we open the path.

We spent the next few hours exploring the Valley
and trying to learn the difficult paths, but to no avail. Nobody was
able to learn any of the difficult paths in the valley, not even the
ones that have been already opened by Sor and Kiriel. So, we decided
that we should make a suicide run into the Dreadwood, and see what we
could see. We split up our party into two groups: those who would run
east, and those who would run north. We all agreed to make vision
stones of our runs, so that they could be pieced together later to
create a rough map of the Dreadwood. After a few anxious minutes of
praying and planning, we ran into the Dreadwood, five at a time. I was
with the group that was headed north, but I didn’t get very far because
a vermine blocked my path, and its Large Death Vermine brothers chomped
me to pieces. However, Jo’Maril managed to run far east enough to see
some sort of path, and Jazz made a death defying run into another snell.

And that was pretty much the end of the
expedition. Most of us who fell in the Dreadwood departed, though a few
of the more stubborn ones are hanging on until the upcomming Chaos
Storm. There are also a few exiles still camped out in the Valley, in
hopes that they can learn to open the difficult paths there, before the
Storm blows them back to town. Gurgi is already planning for the next
expedition, which will take place in a few days( ooc: this Sunday ).
All in all it was a very exciting raid, but we will definately need to
work on some clever strategies before we can make it through the
Dreadwood. Hopefully, our pathfinders can open up some of the other
difficult paths, and create alternate avenues for exploration.