Lundi, 23 Autumn 577 (1/1/10)

The Bawkmas season is upon us, which means that I have had a little free time outside the library to take part in a few spontaneous hunts. I’ve been on a couple of trips to the Cove, some ’noid hunting past Camp Dread, and one interesting expedition on Gungla when a group met for a quick rescue and then decided to take a crack at the earthwyrm cave, which proved to be much less difficult than I remembered from the old days, perhaps my slowly increasing earthpower is sufficient to awe the ’wyrms, although I suspect that having J’nder along to keep our health up had more to do with it.

But even more interesting from the champion’s point of view was my recent trip to the Mountain Glen’s ruined keep, where I was helping Grems and Mablum hunt some spiders for their ranger skills, for some reason those guys just love hanging out with eight-legged bugs. All was going well until a couple of banana arachnes showed up at the same time, these are bright orange spiders that hit like a ton of bricks, and as luck would have it my usual fleetness of foot failed me and I ended up fallen with the rest. Gremlins almost managed to chain us all out, but the pathways in the mountains are a bit narrow and he was finally done in by a crowd of ’kin and a certain lack of pathfinding.

But all was not lost, as Mujin showed up with a rescue party. After we were all chained back to town and back on our feet I asked Mujin about the location of the champion trainer in the Glen that I had heard rumors about; she didn’t know where the trainer was located, but Talin showed up soon after and guided us back to a chamber in the t’rool caves, stopping to pick up some butterfly kisses along the way. I spotted a set of runes on the wall, nipped in and found a trainer to improve my earthpower regeneration (which currently sucks); but strangely enough I was the only one who could see the runes or enter the trainer room, the mighty Mujin or the well-trained Rambler weren’t able to get in. One theory we came up with is that there is a different trainer for humans, but where that might be I don’t know; perhaps elsewhere in the caves? But for the moment I’m happy to have a new trainer to waste ranks on…

Terrdi, 43 Winter 577 (11/1/09)

The feast of Tsrrin has come and gone again, and I managed to make it through the event without getting undined even once, although it was a near thing at one point; but I managed to dodge into the temple, and then spent the next few minutes (or was it hours?) wandering around in the mines beneath town, which have grown to rather alarming extent in recent years. After that I decided that discretion, better part, you know…and spent the rest of the holiday in the library sipping pumpkin juice. On the other hand, if the holiday was less festive than previous, I did manage to complete my set of earthpower stones the old fashioned way, by winning an auction. I’ve been told that Champions tend to specialize in one or two stones, but since I haven’t decided yet how to apply my (slowly accumulating) ranks I wanted to keep my options open. I now have enough ranks to get an attack boost, and I am now working on dealing a little more damage in hopes of powering up my feeble blows.

Gradi, 47 Summer 576 (9/19/09)

With a lot of hard work prospecting in the passes and GMV I have managed to locate a lump of ore that contained a bit of Akite, my first earthpower mineral; and then shortly after, with a lot of hard shopping I was able to buy a bit of Darkite off of my old buddy Wormy. Of course, without the proper training these are just nice shiny rocks, but with a bit more time in the library I might actually be able to use them to boost my fighting abilities; and believe me, I need the boost! I really should be spending my time in the super-expensive library, but my natural dwarfish cheapness prevents me from wasting quite that many coins, although I could probably afford it if I spent more time with my clanmate Geotzou hunting midnight wendies; with healer support and a bunch of ’zu the two of us have been able to mow down the monkeys and rake in the coins; and as an added bonus, we even get the occasional lump of ore!

Sombdi, 16 Summer 576 (9/11/09)

At long last I have found a little spare time in which to pen some lines about life in Puddleby in these later days, where a few exiles continue to blunder about despite the departure of most of our former companions. From time to time we do see oldtimers return, and even more rarely we find new exiles wandering around the almost deserted streets; but for the most part there seem to be only a handful of diehards who continue to hunt coins, beasts and glory on the islands. I myself fall more in the "occasional oldtimers" camp, with an emphasis on the "old" part; looking back over my journals recently I suddenly realized that it has now been over 40 Puddle years since I began publishing these pages; a long time, even for a Dwarf. In recent years I have barely stirred out of the library, except for important clan events such as the induction of a new member.

When I do stumble out into town, I often hear about exiles falling on Metz Island, the home to many fierce and deadly felines; that island seems to be the preferred hunting ground for the diehard population, and I have even managed to tag along on a couple of trips there myself, where I typically end up flat on my back waiting for a rescue. To be honest, I have trouble keeping track of the various kittens, frogs and snakes that inhabit the island, and I think that there are still large sections that I haven’t visited yet.

As part of my effort to spend more time out of the library I decided that I needed to pursue a fighter speciality. For a long time I assumed that I would become a Ranger, based on my long experience with solo hunting and exploration; also, I fancied that I would look fairly dashing with a feathered cap. But on further reflection, I realized that becoming a Ranger would just reinforce my solitary nature; and besides, so many fighters were now joining the Ranger ranks as to make it seem rather pedestrian. I have never felt any attraction for the bloodblade (or bleeding in general), so that left Champion as my only choice; and after deciding to start looking for the special ores required to qualify I managed to find an Earthstone after only a few attempts, surely a sign from the Ancients that this was indeed my destiny. Naturally, now that I have joined the exalted ranks of the Champions I couldn’t really continue to run around in bluebie undies, so I decided to spiff up my wardrobe with some Maha-skin duds. And I must say, on me it looks good…

Of course, until I can (slowly) add some ranks into my Earthpower skills I will remain a Champ in name only, unable to stone or flame. But that shouldn’t stop me from helping out with some Champion-style work, such as assisting in the relocation of the mirror portal, which for some reason had ended up in a nasty location filled with undine. Under the leadership of the Zou’s very own clan leader Geraldus (who is not a wizard) we needed to teleport the portal out, using mysterious mystic powers. The first step was to jump through the mirror and into the ’shak- and undine-filled corridor where the purple portal was located. The fighting was touch and go for a bit, but as more exiles slipped in through the mirror we gained the upper hand, allowing the mystic to enter and set up the teleport.

Actually, it took a couple of tries before we managed to get everything ready in the corridor. I didn’t quite follow all of the details, but the basic idea was for some dumb fighter (in this case yours truly) to stand near the portal while sharing with the teleport-ready mystic; a clever healer (who is not a wizard) to stand behind the fighter, ready to push into the portal at the right moment; and finally a brave healer to rod any fireballs or flames that would otherwise fell the mystic in no time flat. After everything was lined up Ansset used the strange stone to initiate the golden teleport glow, Geraldus pushed me into the purple portal glow, and Taryn looked on in admiration (I’m pretty sure). The next instant I found myself on the beach of Ash island, and the purple portal popped in after me. Mission accomplished!