Ethereal Stalkers and water bursts attacks town Zodiac Circle under Umbrion´s Keep The winning game			Qual the Wizard killed, welcome Qual the Sylvan Entil and Drue = True? Sarir talks about his people

Week 14

Strange things and beasties... For once it was Crius who sensed odd things in the ocean. Must have been one of his sober days. I headed out to check , and was surrounded by the oddest creatures I have seen. Ethereal Stalkers, Water Bursts and Water Spirits. Later in EP I saw the same beasties, with another addition Water Walkers. I can only conclude that Lugubrion seems to have forgotten to build a Kuyem in his Keep, or waiting to build one until he has finished the whole thing. PTF tried to get to the Ethereal tower the other day, but fell to sloppiness and plain old tiredness. It´s hard to keep up the focus when you have been fighting, healing and boosting for nearly a day. Pity, as I am sure the tower would have revealed some new oddities. We did manage to get both the Ethereal Sword and the boots though, and I got to wear them both. Wooo! This was especially .. well.. special, since in a recent conversation with Tenebrion, he told Callia, Sutai and me that an Ancient had been wearing these items before!

We are still hard at work in the Zodiac Circle under Umbrion´s Keep. Going there only once a zodiac makes it a difficult task, as the correct path most likely changes then. We are collecting bits and pieces, and have at least found out that the snells are easy to identify. I wish I could tell you what we currently are trying to do, but it would take so much time explaining how we think it works, and in the end - this current theory of ours might not be the correct one at all. We are still looking forward to the snell with the roaming Liches. On our travels - we found this little odd piece. Odd placement for something like this don´t you think? Or maybe it´s exactly where it´s supposed to be.

I was so lucky to get invited to a KI hunt the other day. Not too many of those for me. On our way to the tarcave, I spotted a beast I have only heard about - the albino Maha. At first I didn´t realize what the white thing was, and when I yelled out - no one believed me, as it had run off. Hah - they soon learned they should always trust what this sylvan says, cause there it was. After it was dispatched, the question of course was : Who would be the lucky owner of an albino maha pelt. We made the decision in true Puddleby style, with dice. Lining up, giving numbers - then roll it. And I won! Wooo. I never win anything, nor have I ever seen any of these fabled rare items around. And now one of them are mine! I still haven´t decided what to do with the thing. No - don´t even ask. It´s not for sale. Later we headed in to the Catsbane Cave, and found this wonderful flower. Again we lined up, and again I won! Feeling bad for having such a winner luck I proposed throwing it back in, but met some resistance. I am such a happy Sylvan.

Day 8 of Summer, 545.
The fallen sylvan on the floor in the temple, is no other than Qual himself. During an invasion, Qual got careless, or maybe he deep down wanted it to happen - but he got close enough so Yor could touch him with the Separ. Several dews came out, and Qual fell down on the ground, and took form of a Sylvan. He was then healed, and told his tale. I came in just in this minute, but I hear Yor took a visionstone and will make sure it gets public.

Personally, I can´t sense Qual in the lands without feeling there is a dark cloud over my head. Sylvan or in robe, it´s the same to me. And while his speech and voice was different, I could still feel this cold shiver down my spine. It also brought back a lot of memories, all my nightmares. I am writing this in the library, can´t sleep. I remember his last words to me, before Caddrel accidentally freed me : "Kill him!" I remember our capture of Ippon, down in brambles. We had lured Ippon there, with some lie about a new path or something. We were to meet him in one of the huts. It was all rushed, and in the moment I forgot to take care of Ippon´s sunstone. He had the chance to sunstone some friends, who ran to his aid. They came too late though, Ippon was then under full control, but Kojiro entered the hut while Qual was still there. I have never been in such a panic in all my life. How could we explain a meeting with the wizard down in brambles? We couldn´t of course. We quickly produced a seemingly plausible explanation that we had interrupted a meeting between Qual and the trools, and Qual sent a legion of them afterwards to help us cover up. I remember Urgelt´s eyes on me, and the controlled me thinking I had to deal with the dwarf somehow.

6 Years of lies, of crimes and treason. And lost love. And this.. being.. has the nerve to claim he is innocent and controlled just like I was? That he is the victim, and that Votenkath is our enemey? He didn´t even reckognize me, or acknowledge my existence, nor what he had done. The spriggin Malkor reminded me that Qual has taken the shape of another exile before. Is it the same that is happening now? While everything we know about the Separ backs up his claim that he now is cured, I still can´t free myself from the thought that this is yet another scheme from the Wizard to gain control over the thing. Qual spoke of secret caves in Noth Underground, where the dark bubbling´ center is. He also spoke of illusions that lead there, and beyond a nest of Land´dews. When we go, and we will probably need to go soon - as it can try to gain control over another like Qual, we should perhaps leave the Separ at home, for now. Until we have control over the place. Or the trap might smack down behind us pretty fast, and the sound we hear is Qual laughing.

Qual told of many things, and I will edit my transcript soon. Others will hopefully provide you with visionstones, and more transcripts. My hand is shaking, I need to rest.

A small adventure group headed out to Noth and the dew cave with the Separ, to check if this was indeed the place of the dark bubbling. We didn´t find anything else than palliedews and other dews of various sizes. Not having enough time for the underground, all of us headed out.... or so we thought. But no, shortly after both Entil´Zha and Drue´Dreemi are sensed fallen to some Noths.

We got a small rescue group together, and found them fallen in the passes. That these two feel something special for one another is obvious to anyone but themselves. So afraid were they that anyone should hear about this, that they were willing to commit crimes to keep it silent. Wake up you two! It´s not like it´s a secret to anyone you know? And that you didn´t hear the out-yell, but got lost in eachothers eyes instead - even if your chosen place wasn´t the safest, is not that uncommon.. Bah. Young sylvans these days!

After a try on DP with a small group, we ended up fallen in OV - waiting for a rescue, and the talk lead us to the Noth incident. Both were furious by the thought that I should even mention this little episode with as much as a comma, and tried to blackmail me to silence. When that didn´t work, they kidnapped me instead! Grabbed me on a chain just as the healers were about to raise me, and headed back to OC, and the meadow. They hadn´t even seen what I was going to write about the Noth incident, or even if I was going to write about it - they just assumed that it was going to be lies and juicy details!

I was yelling all the time, of course I was noisy. I was being kidnapped and dragged to Gaia know where!

Thankfully, I got saved by the trial wherein Achates accused Mr Pudding of scamming coppers from exiles... After that trial, I headed right in and accused Drue of attempted kidnapping. He got 51 minutes in jail and a fine of 134. Serves him right!

By the way, if anyone has a sketch of a certain Zo with pink hair, I would be interested in buying it. I will not reveal my source...

Week 11

This from a recent talk with Tenebrion. It´s more in Callia´s transcript.

Coriakin had a talk with the strange Sarir one day. He writes:

I knew from the start this was going to be a close call. The party did neither have the power or the experience to deal with a place like Umbrion´s Keep - but they all nagged me so much I finally gave in. The goal was to get a mystic to the trainer in the keep. In hindsight, I should probably have said no when I saw the party- as it turned out to be the worst attempt and worst rescue ever. One day, and almost all that time fallen. But what can a poor fighter do? Our only chance was to run, and even that had a lousy 20% chance of sucess. We failed. And the slow rescue started. It must have been something in the water this day, as the rescuers failed as well. And we constantly needed tons of healers, as Koric was in library and Lorikeet busy with other things. To replace either of these in horus takes .. well.. tons of healers. Wangah Rah ran from hut to Keep in a constant shuttle traffic, letting healers in. He needs the exercise though, it´s good for him. I must have been drinking the same as all the other exiles was drinking. As soon as I was up, I found something nasty to fall to again. It was a nightmare, nothing went the right way for any of us. I finally got out from the Keep, being pushed by Cecil up all the stairs. A comfort was that we were the first ones at the top... More fallens were being pushed behind us, including Yor who had been there a long time as well. Runner purchased another chain, many broke that day, and after one long day we were finally back in town. There we learned that almost the entire DH clan was wiped out at beach of KI.

A nightmare. And it´s probably all my fault, if Polerand can´t take the blame for this one as well.