{"id":753,"date":"2001-05-30T17:36:21","date_gmt":"2001-05-31T00:36:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.puddleby.com\/lundar\/?p=753"},"modified":"2001-05-30T17:36:21","modified_gmt":"2001-05-31T00:36:21","slug":"refareus-challenge","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/puddleby.com\/lundar\/2001\/05\/refareus-challenge\/","title":{"rendered":"Refareus' Challenge"},"content":{"rendered":"

Day 59, Year 542 of the Ascendancy<\/font><\/b><\/font><\/p>\n

\n<\/p>\n

\n
\nAn interesting thing happened in town today. It was a little past
\nmidnight in Puddleby, and few exiles were out and about. Most of the
\nexiles that were awake huddled in town, complaining about how early
\nmornings were so boring. Suddenly, the town crier Crius announced that
\nthe first exile to pull a man named Refareus would be awarded a cash
\nprize. Now, this surprised us all, to say the least. No one had heard
\nof this Refareus guy before. Soon enough, however, Crius’ words were
\nconfirmed, when Refareus repeated what the crier had just said, over
\nthe sunstone network. The race to find Refareus was on, and everybody
\ndashed off to seek out this mysterious stranger. Only I remained in
\ntown when the dust settled. I had a plan.<\/font><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\n
\nBeing the only mystic in the lands, I decided to use my talents with
\nthe skristal to locate this Refareus. However, try as I might, I could
\nnot get a hold of Refareus’ location from town. So, I rented myself a
\nboat, and circled the island by boat, until I was finally able to
\nlocate Refareus. As it turned out, he was in the Spider Caves, just
\nnorth of Arachnoid Caverns. So, I swiftly paddled back to shore, and
\nbroke out into a mad sprint towards the Spider Caves. Luckily, nobody
\nelse had any clue as to Refareus’ location, and I made it to the Caves
\nbefore anyone else.<\/font><\/p>\n<\/p>\n

<\/font><\/p>\n

\nUnfortunately for me, the cave was crawling with
\nall sorts of arachnids, that each took a bite of me as I passed by.
\nPretty soon, I was on very low health, and running for my life. Several
\ntimes, I tried using my skristal to pin-point Rafareus’ location within
\nthe cave, but to no avail. Pretty soon, I was so badly injured that I
\nwas barely standing, and a trio of small arachne took me out of the
\nrace.<\/font><\/p>\n<\/p>\n

<\/font><\/p>\n

\nHaving been taken out of the contest, I began
\ntoggling for assistance. One of the healers sharing with me was Tater,
\nand she was soon able to deduce my location through the use of 20
\nquestions. Soon enough, Tater arrived in the Spider Cave, and she
\nmanaged to locate and pull the elusive Refareus, and then to raise my
\nfallen body. She even kindly split some of her winnings with me. See,
\ngood things happen when sharing with Mystics? Anyways, just then,
\nseveral large arachne began to surround us, but from the depths of the
\ncave appeared a bearded old man with orange toned skin. It was Refareus.<\/font><\/p>\n<\/p>\n

<\/font><\/p>\n

\nRefareus dispatched the arachne with surprising
\nease; apparently he was much stronger than he appeared. This Refareus
\nreally seemed to enjoy seeing people having fun. No sooner than the
\nfirst game was done, he began suggesting even more games to play. Since
\nTater had won the last one, he gave her the honor of choosing the game.
\nTater chose the race, and it was decided that all who wanted to play
\nwould meet in town. On the way out of the cavern, Refareus once again
\ndisplayed his surprising strength, dispatching even the strongest of
\narachne with one blow.<\/font><\/p>\n<\/p>\n

<\/font><\/p>\n

\nUnfortunately, once we got to town, Tater had to
\nleave. Refareus decided that I should pick our next destination, since
\nI had come closest on the first challenge. I thought hard about what
\nwould be a fun and challenging destination, and finally came up with
\nthe Northern Plains. Having our destination set, we lined up in a
\nvertical line, and got ready to start the race. However, perhaps
\noffended by the comments of some of the ruder exiles, Refareus
\ndisapeared shortly before we could begin the race. Since we were all
\nprepped up for a race already, I decided that I would supply the
\nwinnings if Refareus did not return. We all got ready once more, at the
\nprompt of Stinkfist, we all madly dashed towards the Northern Plains.<\/font><\/p>\n<\/p>\n

<\/font><\/p>\n

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

<\/font><\/p>\n

\nSo, I reluctantly handed Koric the prize money.
\nBeing a good sport however, Koric gave us the chance to win the money
\nback, by beating him back to town. However, his well trained
\nrescue-healer legs seemed faster than my mystic running legs. He beat
\nus all once again, and held on to his prize money. Later, when several
\nof us fell in the Northern Plains, Koric revealed to us some of his
\nsecrets in how he beat us. Watch out Koric! Next time I will burn your
\nhealer ass! \ud83d\ude1b<\/font><\/p>\n

\nAnyway, the whole incident with Refareus was an
\ninteresting one. Who is this generous and mysterious old man, who likes
\nplaying games, and has the Darkus of a Ghorak Zo? He claims to be a
\nresident of Puddleby, but why don’t many exiles seem to know him? Where
\ndid he disapear to in the end, and will he be back? One thing that this
\nkind old man has taught us though, is that yi can still have fun in the
\nmiddle of the night with only a handful of exiles are about, if yi only
\ntake the initiative, and create a fun game for all exiles to play.
\nTan’ki, Refareus, for the fun filled evening.<\/font><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/puddleby.com\/lundar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/753"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/puddleby.com\/lundar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/puddleby.com\/lundar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/puddleby.com\/lundar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/puddleby.com\/lundar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=753"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/puddleby.com\/lundar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/753\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/puddleby.com\/lundar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=753"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/puddleby.com\/lundar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=753"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/puddleby.com\/lundar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=753"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}