Votenkath speaks of the Separ The Clan Pogue Mahone reach Foothills PMC finds a cave on snéll 33 in Outback To kill a Zo The entrance to Dred Passage is found Nox Sorora declares Tenebrion war Brions in heated family discussion Umbrion on a town visit			The Dred Passage Ataru gets his RQ parade Mystic tactical search Having tea with Emmei Algernon gets to tour Orga Outback The Crystal is assembled, and we travel the planes Another tour to the ethereal plane

Week 05

Over 2 Zodiacs ago a group of exiles met with Votenkath at his castle. For the first time in ages did he give some hint as to where the Separ might be found, and also explained the `Noth. It has taken me quite some time to track down more than just a few sentences from this meeting. Thanks to Elenis, you can read what he said. The transcript includes questions from the exiles that were present, I have cut out what Votenkath said to make it clearer. Next time, I hope someone asks him about the "Kala Shana", and it´s possible link to the Separ.

Votenkath growls, "You exiles seem to be lucky folk. I'm sure you can find it without my help. I can not say where it is... if Qual gets it first all is lost. It must be found and brought to me without delay. It looks common yet unique.It is what it is. It has a special function. It divides the one into single parts. If there is none of the single part left it can not be divided from the one. The single parts join the one slowly. The floating 'noth are all of the one, except Qual he retains a single part. The dew are the one, yet the one is so many dew but like the noth they have no single part. Singles change as they approch oneness. The Separ is a single part. That which has juice is part of the one. The juice is part of the shared oneness.The weaker noth have so little juice it is lost in their blood. Ferals have bones but only their fur matters and is collected.It is the oneness that matters... the juice is the gathering of the one. I can save the singles before they join the one. The separ is of wood and crystal and must be found. To say more gives Qual clues he may not yet have. The singles that travel towards oneness are here.Trust none, less they have been touched by The Separ and are trully single. I offer you luck. Bring me The Separ so I can put an end to Qual and trim the oneness of those it tries to gather. It is harmless to a single mind.

Hear ye, hear ye! as a Knight I know would shout. THE news this zodiac is that Slyph and Althea are engaged to be married! There has been some discussion on where this should take place. So far Abyss is a good alternative, as is orga Village. Of course, Slyph dreamed of the romantic thing in Sacred Grove, but it would be rather messy with both the bride and the bride and the guests being kicked out every so often.

Elenis is now the rather unwilling owner of a Sword of Souls. Unwilling, in that he didn´t trade a Purgatory Pendant to get it. Elenis Reyav says, "Last night a guard of Tenebrion's stole it and a sum of money from him. Tenebrion said any exile who could 'bring him to justice' could keep the treasure. When the thief fell, I was the first to 'touch' the chest. We all got a lot of money. I didn't even realize the sword was there until today. (Tenebrion had said he had stolen money... no else). I don't want people to think I traded a pendant. No traitor am I."

First off, there is no truth in the rumours floating that I and the Knight have found eachother again. Further more, there is also no truth in the rumour that a certain Zo is courting me and gives me flowers. Just to keep things straight.

Week 06

Autumn 540
The Clan PM with friends reached the Foothills 4 days ago. We have all seen them coming out from Purgatory every so often, I don´t know the number of departs this challenge have costed them. But, they finally made it!

Wisher has promised he will write an account of this historical event. In the meantime, I hope they all get back to town safely and not trough Purgatory again.

(As many have told me, PM reached Foothills once before. I knew that too. But, as far as I have heard they all fell, got templed - and didn´t have an opportunity to explore the area. While this is not the first time they have actually been there, this is the first time they got to explore.)

Norm won a place in the museum when Muzea auctioned it off some days ago, and he has made a contest for artists to fill it up. The prize is 1000 coins, and the art has to be in before sunday 16 febr ooc.

Bracis was found by a group of exiles, and has replaced the former master in the monastery. He can teach you to use your hands as deadly weapons. Purasuma!

Turns out it´s not "The" path, it´s not "it". But, we found something! Hooray! We could squeeze past the tree roots, and inside there was a small cave where death vermine spawned, rocks all around. On the east side of the wall, some saw a ladder we couldn´t get to. We need to find a way into that cave. We still haven´t named it yet, so any suggestions welcome. It´s on sn´ell 33 on Lorikeet´s map.

I didn´t know it was that difficult, but let me tell you - it is. The PMC was in Orga Outback, exploring and scanning each sn´ell, and Yor´s spirit had to leave his body. Muttering something about dinner. As the true explorer Yor is, he agreed to fall and let Lorikeet drag him around. A cluster of bitter berries was quickly digested, but alas - a small bump from a healer raised him again. So, we had to find some critters to take the Zo down. Yor´s spirit had already left, we were on our own. Piece of cake we thought. Oh no..As one we know always say : "Nothing is as easy at we think it is.."

First, we tried with a zillion vermines. I mean, they are my enemy nr.1, always able to take me down when surrounded, but against the Zo they were chanceless. Ok then we thought, how about one Orga Rage? How about 2 rages!!

Yor, nearly raised - just stood there and the rages wiffed, and wiffed - and wiffed.. At this point most of us were on the ground laughing as we had already used 40 minutes to kill this Zo that wouldn´t fall! Where are those luckhits when you really need them..And talk about stubborn Zo..

When some large vermines spawned, we saw some light in the tunnel. These are nasty beasties, and yes - with the help of those little critters, the rage finally was lucky and Yor fell, and we could move on. Whew..

Week 07

On day 23 of Winter, 541 was the fabled, long awaited entrance found on sn´ell 32 of the Orga Outback by this crew:

Kojiro, Prince Valiant, Dandelion, Tater, Viper, Thuja, Babajaga, Deathlord, Haenk, Axell, Noivad, Newton, Nevyn, Yor, Viper, Ashra and Elenis Reyav with the help of Cronos trough Hatred´s Hollow.
(If I have missed someone please tell me)

It didn´t seem to be "the day we were going to find it" from the start. Hatred´s Hollow was packed with an assortment of beasties that kept us occupied for a long time, until we finally got a foothold and could trap the Hatred, kill the Frenzy and all the other red ones, and move up to the choke and trough that tunnel of bolts. Midway we met the Hatred´s brother, and we managed to trap even that one with the help of the Zu masters we had with us.

With Yor leading us, we ran trough the least interesting sn´ells 2 at a time, and quickly came to the most interesting part of the Orga Outback for us this day, the upper sn´ells. We were going to check out Koric´s theory, and check out some sn´ells a second time. The lower sn´ells had been searched at least 2 times, not so with some of the upper ones. This was our plan, this was our mission. We had an army of pathfinders with us, and they bumped and examined every tree on each sn´ell.

When Axell yelled: Path! I think I swallowed my tongue or something. We all rushed to her, and followed a tap root down. And, there it was. A large cave with vermines, and on the south wall - a ladder. THE ladder. The ladder that leads to this place we have heard so much about but never found, until now. Dred Passage.

Hoorays filled the air and the sunstone network, and when it died down we realized we had just won a great prize. What to do with 20K? Sunstones of course. For newlings! Brilliant! Even more hoorays, and then Thuja couldn´t resist the temptation and climbed up the ladder. Oops. Elenis quickly followed. Another oops, until we got news they had been teleported to Orga Village by the never-resting Orga Zealots.

We quickly gathered our things and headed for the village to pick up Thuja and Elenis, but alas - we never got that far. Still a bit dizzy after all that celebration, and the sweet taste of success, we got a bit overconfident and forgot out basic teachings, and fell in a heap somewhere in the outback.

After a quick rendezvous in Purgatory, we met again in Puddleby - that were completly filled with exiles eager to congratulate us and themselves for the discovery.

So, now we know where it is. And, we also know where it leads to. Now.... we just have to practice getting there..

To be continued...

A reward has been offered to anyone that can reveal to Gurgi the location of the fabled Foothills. The reward is now around 20K!

Indigo was caught in Tenebrion´s keep by the owner himself, chained to the top of the roof, where he proceeded with something Night in a letter described as a "surgical operation on her head". Nox Sorora, hearing what one of their sisters had gone trough, promptly declares Tenebrion war. She was rescued however, and the rescuers got to the sixth floor of his keep, where they found a book Indigo had seen Tenebrion read , and the mist key. Poor Kira, that was about to be wed to Brae in Tenebrion´s keep, now stays in the library, convinced the wedding is spoiled because of this act.

According to Tyking II there is some arguing inside the Brion family that may effect us. Tenebrion's contact with Puddleby, have made his brothers become suspicious of him. The spell of protection that shields Umbrion's island from our eyes has been weakening. His brothers blame it on Tenebrion, and now Umbrion wants him dead. All of the 'brions met a while ago to try and strengthen the spell of protection around Umbrion's island. I'm not sure of the outcome, but if the spell fails, Umbrion's island will be accesible. Tyking also warns exiles to stay away from Umbrion, as he has the power to permanently kill us, he says. The whole letter can be found here. Umbrion was interviewed by Tuan not so long ago, and he seemed to be rather hotheaded - offending him was rather easy to do.

Week 08

I heard that Umbrion had been seen around town. Skirwan and Elenis were able to tell me more.

Skirwan thinks to you, "Umbrion and the other brothers want to keep Teenybrain from talkin' with us. Not that we want to talk to Teenybrain, but...Umbrion was seen skulking around town, first off. Apparently there were some blasts of fire in town square. Then a bunch of us ran to TK to see what was up. Umbrion's guards were all over the place, and lava walkers and fire drakes. We searched the keep and couldn't find anything. On the fifth floor of the tower, there were odd sparkly things, but I don't know if they were new. At some point, Umbrion indicated over SS that he and the other brothers were trying to keep Teenybrain from contacting us. That's about all I know.

Elenis Reyav thinks to you, "Umbrion was spotted in town. He fled east. We searched for him. He said that Tenebrion has been stopped from having contact with us. We went to Tenebrion's isle... he was gone, Umbrion had Fire Drakes and his own guards there. As well as firewalkers and more.We reached the top floor, nobody was around. Then the guards yelled we must stop them from reachin the basement! On our way down we were all felled... by the dozen.Emmei told us that Tenebrion hadn't been seen since "the big conference" earlier that day."

My question was, was Tenebrion still in his keep or had Umbrion taken him away to his island. Seeing how this effected a clanmate of mine, Kira, I had to search the keep. Why didn´t the guards want the exiles to reach the basement? Maybe Tenebrion was held there? And what basement? I have been all over his keep, but I couldn´t remember any basement. I went alone at first. Dodging the guards and the firewalker that still walked outside. The courtyard was filled with guards, I seemed to have waken them all up. Many times I had to flee to Tenebrion´s office and heal up, as I ran around the keep, yelling and shouting for that lost necromancer. From the courtyard, on the west side of the keep, there is a door that has been locked up until now. To get inside you needed a key taken from the Keeper of the Key at the topfloor in the keep. Today however, it was not locked, and I was able to go inside. Maybe Umbrion was in such a hurry that he forgot to lock it, I don´t know. I knew that this was the place described by Lundar, and I also knew I might need help at this point, so I called Yor and he promised he would come with a party. After much ado, Yor, Tonoto, Haenk, Kojiro and several others came, and together we could explore further down. We didn´t find Tenebrion, but we found that seems to be a vital piece in assembling the crystal fragments together. Deep down, there was a shard that was guarded by a wall, we attacked the wall and got the shard , and with that - assembled a large crystal shard. It looks like a half of a much larger shard. As many of you may know, a large number of exiles has found crystal shards in the poppy field. J´jh , J´nder and Zorton the most eager collectors. They have also been able to assemble them, but they have always shattered. It seems obvious that the piece guarded by the wall is essential in making a successfull large shard. It also seems that to put together the whole you need 4 pieces. Yor has the large shard we made now, let´s hope it hasn´t shattered like the rest. Why do we want to put it together? Tenebrion has said that the crystal shards are a private matter, and that we have no business with them. And he would be furious if he found out what we are doing. Still, these are the only crystals we know of the islands, and Votenkath said that the Separ is made of Crystals and wood. It may be a long shot, and we anger Tenebrion without reason, but - I guess he has more than us to worry about now as his own family has turned against him.

My first meeting with the Dred Passage was a planned Kamikaze run. We have no idea how this sn´ell looks like, how to get to those bolt throwers, and no idea how to get out. First step is to figure out all these things, so we can try and make up some plans for dealing with the beasties on the way to .. somewhere. We were around 40 exiles that went trough Hatred Hollow on this day, and in HH we were met by no less than seven Hatreds. Ouch! After 4 PT hours we were able to get trough, with the fallens on chain, and proceeded to Orga Village. There a group stayed behind, as the plan was to run as far trough DP as we could while making visionstones, and then get chanted back to Orga Village and raised by the other group. The Kamikaze runners ran like the wind trough DP, I went a bit north and saw all but trees blocking that way before I ended up in a heap together with other runners. And then we learned something, the Zealots in DP apparently do not want to chant exiles to OV as long as there are living exiles there. No one got teleported for a long time. I fainted, and when I came back I was immediately teleported to OV. And was greeted by the other party, all fallen. Trystran D´Ark told me later in town what had happened. They had been in control for a long time, but then 4 dredlocks, 20 Large death vermine and 8 red orgas had spawned right in the middle of the group. Apparently they had been standing in the middle of the spawnspot. Ouch! This initial assault left all but 5 in the group fallen. The living had rushed into a hut, only to be met by other death vermine and red orgas. This of course meant a depart for all involved, and we met up in Puddleby rather quickly. But an important lesson had been learned, and some days after the same tactic was used again, a kamikaze run trough DP with a group waiting in OV- but on another sne´ll this time. And that was a success, as no one needed to depart and they got further into DP than before. Now you know why the growing map over Dred Passage has corpses littered all over....

Ataru got his red quill on the last clan meeting, and to celebrate this joyful event, we had a lovely parade trough town and to west beach. Puddleby simply do not have enough parades! The last big parade I remember is the one that went from town to the bards field during the Ball and Tourney many years back. We were a bit worried that the darshaks would interfere with our parade this time, as some were invading, but thankfully the exiles dispatched of them rather quickly.

Have you ever wondered how mystics work when they go tree bumping? I have, but I am a curious one. I have been searching with Aki many times, and other mystics as well. Some days ago I was lucky enough to see Nevyn at work. His technique is unique.

Week 09

Another search for Tenebrion on his island resulted in a rescue and a talk with Emmei. When we were about to leave we could hear him yell from his hut: Hey! Who's out there making all that ruckus? So, Noivad and I went inside to talk to him. We had a long nice chat with him, including Noivad learning him about Sylvan Cigarettes.

Emmei asks, "Did you come to visit the boss? He'll be sorry he missed you."
Noivad asks, "do you think he got anywhere repairing the planes?"
Emmei says, "He doesn't much tell me about those things. He did ask me to take special care of the poppy field. He wanted me to keep an eye on Flanders. Something about those crystals he hides about the place. Flanders has to look after one of them."
Noivad says, "and the Captian has to look over another"
Emmei says, "He usually carried his on a chain around his neck."
Noivad says, "yeah, I noticed"
Noivad asks, "what about the third one?"
Babajaga says, "Or the fourth.."
Noivad says, "under the castle"
(Babajaga hums softly.)
Noivad asks, "yes?"
(Emmei thinks)
(Babajaga looks impressed)
Noivad says, "we found one there you know"
Emmei says, "I seem to remember Flanders saying one was down in the dungeon."
Noivad says, "yes"
Noivad says, "that's where we found it"
(Babajaga nods slowly)
Noivad says, "but the fourth one eludes us"
Noivad asks, "have you heard anything about that one?"
(Emmei tries to remember)
(Noivad sips)
(Babajaga looks at Emmei intently)
(Babajaga scratches her neck thoughtfully)
Emmei says, "I heard some people outside in the last few days saying they had found that one. Their voices were muffled and I didn't hear where."

Jynx says fixing the crystal will open up old passages by the way. I don´t know. As everything else in the lands, from stones to crystals, it might be the key to almost.. anything.

The Darkhorse Clan led a group to Dred passage and the natural thing to do was of course to let a clanmate of theirs come to. Algernon seemed quite happy to be with us and we were very happy to have him, as his horus skill was very much needed. Alas, the damage being dealt was more than even Algernon could heal, so the group headed out to meet up with others at Bones in Snaggy, Koric was waiting there too. We all got up eventually, and another kamikaze run was made. This time Sala Dragon got further than anyone else and saw a cave up south east. Another entry in the growing map over Dred passage. Algernon got safely back to town and his beloved fence by the way.

Some days later it was PMC´s turn, and lo and behold, we were actually able to move down a bit while rods held the bolts off. We learned a lot during this practice, one of the best we have ever had.

Well, well well.. what do you know.. Only days after our chat with Emmei, this whole secrecy-thing that has cursed exiles more than once, blew up - and we got to know the fourth location of the crystal shard. And were able to successfully obtain them all. But, let´s start with the beginning, or at least - my beginning. After stepping out of the library, I sunstoned Yor, seeing it was around midnight and wanted to head out to Tenebrion´s Isle to practice some shard-assembling.. Turned out he was already there, trapped in the basement and already in the process of the assembling thing. I ran off to the isle, and met this rather nasty guard west of the poppy field. It was the Captain of the Guard, and when he fell I quickly obtained his crystal piece. A group formed, and we headed off to save Yor and J´jh down in the basement. At that point, when we raised J´jh we had 3 pieces. And by now, we knew where the fourth one was. On a death furie in Tenebrion´s Keep somewhere. So we headed in, fought our way up to the fifth floor, got the crystal shard, and , to make a long story short and not dwell on the exiles falling left and right and upstairs and downstairs, heading off in front of the rest and made us come back to get them and upstairs and downstairs.. yes, let´s keep it short, we found ourselves in the Crystal room in the basement. With 4 crystal shards.

Since Yor had successfully made the last one, we gave him all the pieces, and ignored the comments on giving something so fragile to a Zo...And he was successfull!

We now had one large piece, one large crystal. The question now was, what does it do? We ran to mirrors, nothing. J´jh pendanted to Purgatory. Nothing. It was still dark. We ran back to TK and the crystal room, and Malkor tried it. Nothing. Since Emmei had talked abut the Zodiac circle being so important for the Brions, and since it was obviously the last place we needed to test it - we headed there. In the first room of the Zodiac, Malkor used the crystal, and it fired a lightning bolt towards one of the signs!

The crystal was a Zodiac guide! With the help of the crystal, we travelled the Zodiac rooms, all 12, and held our breath as we entered the last one. And were met by Astral Guardians, Banshees, Astral Drakes.. and a location. We were on the Ethereal Plane! The little group fell shortly after, but we got messages out as to what we found and where we were. And Malkor had been sunstoning the path we took all the time. They had in fact been in our heels aquite a while. A rescue came, and I was so lucky to be raised.

A great battle ensued, as we fought for over 4 hours. Including killing off the Sword Guardian. This beastie, that looked like a Banshee, had a chest that contained an Ethereal Sword. Gurgi was the lucky one this time, and he literally glows when he is wielding it. But with no place to escape, and not knowing where the exit was, we were bound to lose sooner or later. The fallens near the middle of the plane could tell of a Zodiac circle there too. Next time we might be able to get to it as it do sounds like an exit. The Crystal ? It shattered just before midnight Malkor told us. He didn´t have a chance to try it on the Ethereal Plane. We might need another to go there again, or maybe we opened the whole thing with it. We really don´t know until we try again. Here is the route the Crystal lead us trough: Cat, fish, rat, Ma'ta, eye, maha, foxweir, frog, warrior, rooster, pig, Falinea. We know though that the Zodiac circle changes around midnight, so next group that goes trough it might not have the same route.

A huge group made another tour to the ethereal plane some days ago. I found Tondalayo in town, and he could tell me this: We got the crystal and then we navigated zodiac w/ gurgi leading. Fox was last one...and we had a group of near 50. When we went through fox we were in EP inside the zodiac circle there. A great battle played out. All was killed eventually. And Gurgi grabbed the sword again but this time it wasn't a sword at first. It was an Ethereal Box. When he used it he "opened it and pulled out the sword"" then got a message" You have completed the quest for the Ethereal sword. So then it was all done. We decided to leave out through the zodiac.And we all ended up in purg.
Babajaga asks, "Question: Did he /use the sword in the plane?"
Frozen Shade says, "Did nothing for gurgi"
Frozen Shade says, "but when Soulmaster tried • You feel the ethereal sword guiding your arm."Tondalayo says, "So after we went through purg...we started over, and that's where some of the group didnt' take the full path. They hopped in like halfway..basically"
Babajaga asks, "By then you didn´t have the crystal but just used the same route?"
Tondalayo says, "Aye used the same route...had to move fast cuz we were sure it would close after 12am"
Tondalayo says, "So then about 5 actually got into EP again"

The ones that hopped in on the route, never got to the Ethereal Plane.