A trip to Aroona

Yesterday i stuck my nose out of the meditation tower again. My first journey took me to the fighter guilds outpost in the hidden valley to seek admittance to the 4th circle again. Sadly the result has not changed since the last tries, but at least i managed to evade most of the Cobras bites while harming it enough to run away from me. I still have no idea how strong the hyena is, as my struggle with the Leopard left him bleeding and myself fallen - failing the test again.



Afterwards i joined a trip to Aroona, after it had been promised to me it wouldn´t involve much time in the water - oh, how they had tricked me! Ag first we progressed well enough, even collecting several very valuable furs, like the one Falk managed to recover here.
A bombthrowing pirate and a bunch of panthers costed us our only healer Frenzymac and rescue took quite some time, before we progressed again. We met a Tikari, a stronger relative of the Tigris, but to the combined efforts of our group it didn´t stand a chance.
Just behind a bridge we then came upon a camp of Orga, Pirates and some Taesu-Lyfelidaes. Luckily i wasn´t hurt too bad and still found enough strength to stop Rion from entering the water in his rescue.
In our next effort we managed to enter the actual camp and destroy some lightening statues and we found a scroll and a moonbook there. When reinforcements left the huts, the retreat became chaotic and lots of people fell. Falk, Elaine, Lafa and myself had to retreat to the lake (staying in a boat is better than being dragged into the water head-down, but not by much) and had a hard time clearing a way until Falk finally managed to chain out enough helpers to rescue all the group.
As several people had to leave by that time, we only briefly tried to bring down one of the strong Lyfes, but it regenerated too fast and too few of us were able to hurt it for our effort to bear fruit.
Back in town i caught a glimpse of Teboor waiting for some Arilonians, but as i had to sleep i couldn´t talk to him myself. Still, the others wrote a log about the meeting and Rion added his own thoughts on his scroll.

Feeling strong is not enough

Yesterday i woke again after a long while of meditation and while i enjoyed the christmas-decorated town center i pondered over the meaning of the meditation for my recent studies. Fortunately Elaine woke up too and so we decided to hunt together, as we had done so often before. Glad to get the opportunty of warming up my body and using the newly won skills i lead the way east, when suddenly i stood in a place i was sure to house a shortcut to Ursusville, but my eyes slid past the way all the time and so we had to go a good bit further than intended. Finally we arrived in Marranyin and began hunting the deserts inhabitants. Some Mahas and Tigris were the first to engage us and i found myself evading them easily while dealing out severe wounds myself.
To my joy i even found myself still very capable in recovering their warmly-red shining furs.
Even whole groups of creatures didn´t manage to bring us in any severe danger, only the great snakes living there prooved too hard and so had to be lured away. After earning quite some coins, we headed back to town and i went to sleep with the sure feeling to be able to fight nearly any creature successfully.
Just thist feeling made me search companions for a way to the 4th circle fighter test when waking up again today. What could possibly go wrong there after i had managed to kill Tigris, Mahas and Kojotes in a row the day before? Well, in the test i quickly remembered the difference between fighting alone and having a skilled healer with you, as well as making contact with sharp Leopards teeth. My best skills had always been the evasion of enemies harmful strikes, but this test showed me how much i still have to learn.
On the way back i could release my frustration on some Tok'Hans and even a leech trying to torch me couldn´t stop me.

Froggy memories

Yesterday a small group decided to hunt Kajmanos. After a quick journey to the temple we had to step into the small nutshells some people call boats to get further. As i had feared this proved to be a very dangerous means of travelling, 2 fully grown Sekats were waiting for us on the Ardvell river behind the Noth caves. It was a tough fight from the swaying boat, but Lafa took great care to keep me alive.
When we finally arrived at the Swamp, i didn´t even have time to be glad to have firm ground under my feet again, as a Giant Kajmano immediately seized my leg with its jaw and tried to twist it from my body! Together we managed to wound it severly enough for it to let go and finally we brought it down.
We then took a round around the swamp where it was pretty hard to not step in puddles deeper than my shoes. While young and large Kajmanos died pretty fast to our forces, giants were another matter and we had to concentrate to keep the upper hand in those encounters. Near the southeastern safe we encountered three of them and it took some time until we finally had managed to hunt them down. On our way north a strange thing happened. Lexlan pitied the frogs we cleared to have space when fighting more dangerous creatues. Of course i kept going and then some weird force - Splashs ghost? - took hold of me and i found myself shouting about revenge for Splash and all of a sudden we were standing in a bunch of angry frogs!
Of course they stood no chance and so we finally continued our round and although the way back was only possible via boat, we arrived safely back in town, although a huge pack of cougars tried to ambush us at one of the Kittyland paths.