Lundar's Library

Day 187, Year 544 of the Ascendancy

The dark necromancer Tenebrion has been up to some mischief again, and
this time he’s created a two-way portal for us exiles to use. Tenebrion
claims that he created the portal to show us what we could get for
trading him six teleportation stones, and also so we can get a better
understanding of the ethereal plane. Tenebrion told us he would only be
keeping the portal open for a couple days, so a large party was
gathered outside of Tenebrion’s Keep, to explore the ethereal plane.
Scouting of the portal by the J’Team revealed that the portal was
indeed two-way. We quickly came up with a plan to have J’jh run the
undine, while the rest of the party formed a tight ring around the
portal, ready to retreat, and entered the portal.

At first, the plan seemed to work, and we were
able to bring down many of the powerful undine. However, soon after,
our party began to fall apart, and within minutes our entire party was
masacred. A few exiles did manage to make it out though, and after a
series of daring chain runs, our party was rescued. After that, we
decided that we did not have the fighter power necessary to take the
plane, so we ended our expedition. The portal remains open on
Tenebrion’s Isle though, waiting for another foolish party to make an
attempt. Currently we are discussing whether having a permanent two-way
portal would be beneficial, and whether such a portal would be worth
six teleportation stones. This is going to be a difficult decision for
exiles to make.

Day 181, Year 544 of the Ascendancy

Merry Skristmas, Bawkmas, and Thoomas everybody! The holiday seasons
are really getting into high gear now, with lights going up everywhere
and candy raining down from the sky, with the festivities broken only
by a few minor orga and vermine invasions. There’s also been a new area
discovered on the western side of North Field, which leads to a snowy
area inhabitted by Polar Bears and Snow Cougars! There’s a friendly
merchant there who sells tasty eggnog, and a wandering Thoom lady(not
Ma Tota!) who slices up potatoes into nice strips. Now all we have to
do is find some way to fry all these potato strips!

In other news, the mystic/astronomer Luminary was
advanced to the station of full Mystic today, on this first day of
Summer. Afterwards, there was a small party in town with lots of beer,
to celebrate Luminary’s promotion. Luminary put away enough beers to
make a dwarf proud, and even had shot of sylvan whiskey, which the
mischievious Malkor purchased for her. However, even after all that
drink, Luminary managed to stay on her feet. Malkor was not so lucky
though, as he was nibbled to death in a vermine invasion that came
shortly after Luminary’s promotion. F’nom grudos to Luminary,
Puddleby’s newest Mystic!

Day 173, Year 544 of the Ascendancy

There was an expedition to the Ethereal Plane earlier today, which
unfortunately ended in a massacre and a mass depart. The expedition to
the Ethereal Plane was formed in response to a recent talk with
Tenebrion, in which the necromancer revealed that several ethereal
bubbles were forming on the plane, which he recommended our mystics
investigate. We also wished to search Sombrion’s Keep for potential
illusions leading to a kyeum room. Unfortunately, we were unable to
accomplish any of these goals, because we were overwhelmed by the
undine and the denizens of the Ethereal Plane, almost as soon as we
entered our Ethereal Portal. We managed to set up a fort of bodies for
a while, but it soon broke down under the pressure from all the
monsters. Several exiles made desparate chain runs for the tower, but
they were felled as well.

After everyone was fallen, a bunch of us departed,
and attempted to make a rescue/chain attempt, but just ended up
departing for a second time. With all hope gone, the rest of us
departed from the Ethereal Plane… only to find that in the wake of
our departs, we had created four Ethereal Bubbles in Purgatory. These
bubbles eventually dissipated, but for a short while, departing was a
very risky businees. So ended our rather brief expedition to the
Ethereal Plane. The Journeyman Neige did manage to get a few readings
of the Ethereal Plane while he was there, but as he put it, the
readings were rather “mild.” Hopefully our next expedition will be more
successful, and we will be able to learn more of the mysterious secrets
of the Ethereal Plane.

Day 175, Year 544 of the Ascendancy

The holiday season is upon us, and holiday decorations are appearing
all around town. Wreaths of mistletoe can be seen hanging in front of
the doors of many of Puddleby’s prominent buildings, and many of the
trees are being decorated with scores of colorful ornaments. However,
what many exiles might not know, is that there are stories behind each
of these different decorations. Today the storyteller Keemhan came to
town, and told us the stories of three holidays– Skristmas, Bawkmas,
and Thoomas; from which the traditional decorations come from. My
favorite story was the tale of Skristmas, which involved the wise
Mystic Man’ta Claus, and his skristal-nosed starbuck Rudolph. Keemhan
comes out of the library every once in a while to share his tales, so
if yi see him in town, buy him an ale and ask him to relate to yi the
tales of the three holidays.

Day 170, Year 544 of the Ascendancy

Well, the 212th recorded Chaos Storm has swept through Puddleby,
bringing about quite a few changes to the lands. The most notable is
that the passes have shifted a little, revealing a small river valley
inhabitted by never before seen wendecka, including wendecka
babies(which exiles slaughter mercilessly, of course). There also seems
to be large crop of potatos popping up in the northern farms, though
exiles have yet to figure out what to do with these starchy roots.

In other news, after years of practice and
composition, I was finally inducted into the Bard’s Guild as a full
bard! Now I can play my music anywhere I want to, and I also get to
wear a fancy gold Bard belt. Phineas has written more about this on his scrolls.
If yi ever want to hear some short ocarina tunes, just ask. On the flip
side though, my Orga Drum broke after just a couple uses, which is
rather disapointing. I’m on the look out for another drum, so let me
know if yi see any around.

Day 146, Year 544 of the Ascendancy

Today I had the good fortune of finding an Orga Drum deep in the
Tanglewood. I found the broken Drum on the day of a FMOCR, while
leading a small group of exiles to reinforce a larger party that was
occupying OC4, waiting for the Orga Magician to appear. As it turned
out, our party never got past OC2, where most of us were massacred.
After that, several Orga Warlocks spawned both inside and outside OC1,
making rescue a very difficult task. After an hour or so of chain runs
and reinforcements, everybody in OC1 was finally back on their feet.
However, as the 20 or so assembled exiles made their way to OC4, we
heard it announced over the sunstone that Zorton had gotten the strange
looking stone from the raid. So, our efforts came to naught, but the
raid was a success. Later, I returned to Puddleby, and had Hendrux fix
up my Orga Drum. I hear there is a bard audition coming up, and
hopefully I will be able to make it, and impress the judges with my
flute and drumming skills.

Day 90, Year 544 of the Ascendancy

The last couple expeditions to the Foothills and beyond have been mixed
experience. On the one hand we were able to map out the new territory
without departing, but on the other hand, we have been unable to make
any progress toward finding the Orga Stronghold and Trillbane’s
Library. Perhaps our next expedition will be more successful. Jazz, Koric, Norm, and Babajaga have all written excellent accounts of these expeditions on their scrolls.

Enough with the bad news though. Today there were
too positive events worth celebrating about. The first is the full moon
OC raid, led by Jo’Maril and Tonoto, which successfully led to Robin
Greyhawk acquiring a teleportation stone. Several times the party was
almost wiped out, and at one point we gave up and decided to wait until
midnight, but we were soon reinforced by a party led by Zorton, and we
managed to dispatch all of the ‘locks in OC4 and get Robin the stone.

The second bit of good news is that the Mystic
Council saw it fit that the Journeyman Mystic Hawkthorn by advanced to
the status of full and honourable Mystic. Hawkthorn is a very talented
Mystic, skilled in the skristal and divination, and I am sure he will
continue to aid Puddleby and the Mystic Guild in his new position.

Day 65, Year 544 of the Ascendancy

“NEW ARACHNOID CAVE FOUND! Asses kicked!”

The above is a slightly edited quote from Phelps,
and it nicely sums up the end to today’s exploration in the Dreadwood,
which lasted for nearly 20 hours. Originally, Gurgi had scheduled an
expedition to the Dreadwood for next week, but when the Chaos Storm
came earlier than expected, Gurgi rounded up an impromptu exploration
party, and plunged right into the Dreadwood. What we found was that the
Chaos Storm had lured most of the powerful orga away from the entrance
of the Dreadwood, allowing us to finally explore the deadly forests
beyond. Soon we were exploring the vast, uncharted regions of the orga
forest, and making discovery after discovery in the land beyond the
Foothills. More on this later, but for now I must rest up for
tomrorrow’s expedition. ( See Koric and Jazz’s scrolls for more info. )

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.

Day 41, Year 544 of the Ascendancy

Exciting news! Three new paths have been discovered today by members of
LIFE in the North Eastern Foothills. Though I was unable to attend this
expedition because of my studies, there is currently a party camped out
in the Foothills even as I write this. Even more interestingly, the
party is camped out by this path( affectionately known as “Kestral’s
Path” or “KP” ) with none other than Pogue Mahone and Friends!

The path was discovered earlier today by the
pathfinders of LIFE. What the party found after Sor opened KP, was a
serries of caverns, along with two more pf paths! Thus far, no one in
the party has been able to open these two paths, but there is a strong
indication that they may lead beyond the Foothills. This possibility is
strengthened by the fact that there is a PMF party camped out by the
paths as well, though they too seem unable to open the paths as of yet.
The atmosphere of the camps has been described as “strained, but
non-violent” by the exiles who are currently based there. It looks as
if this may turn into a race between LIFE and PMF to see who can open
the paths first, and find their way to Trillbane’s Library.

UPDATE: Kiriel D’Sol has managed to open the northern path past the Foothills! Check out a vision stone at the Winds of Dawn scrolls!