I got really sidetracked with my news updates this year and so I probably missed A LOT of events.  I started updating them again around September and then just started archiving the news from the mailing list.

December 26 - As reported by Leanna: Well, as promised, Senticles magically stocked our stockings ;)  There was also a person running around name Jingles, giving away candy canes to people on the good list. It is supposed that Jingles was an elf. Um....There's also a giving tree in front of the palace that came for solstice, its still there but I don't know for how long so if you want an acorn with a surprise inside of it, make sure you run over there and get one quickly! Crystala also altered in the estate one day this week. There was a small party in the Making Waves bar on the 24th, and a band leader joined us, but was unfortunently killed by an athenian. A replacement band leader joined us a couple minutes later and led the band in the 12 days of solstice (or was it 24 days....)

December 22 - As reported by Leanna: Well, in response to the begging on the boards about christmas stockings, they can now be found on Rhea Road west in a wagon with Tobias the Donkey (for those of you who don't know, that was Gabrielle's donkey in the christmas show two years back or so) You can buy two stockings, and from what I saw they are all about 100 dinars. Keep those stockings closed tight till Christmas morning though! The centaur merchant from the God's festival has also returned, and can be found on the estate lawn. Happy shopping!

December 21 - As reported by Leanna:  A few technical things, Holyph made it so you can now sing through the masks. I'm not sure on the technicalities of that, but its likely you already knew, if not find a storyteller and ask ;) Also, for you homeowners, The Irreplaceable Eryx has allowed us to 1) Turn our homes into dance floors! Simply tap your floor. 2)Redecorate. You can now, a) take your plaque off the wall, or whatever you happened to put up there and replace it with an item of your choice and b) put two things on the table, and two things on the bed! Make sure you Home save after you are done though, just for safety. (I'm not sure if you HAVE to do that, but better to be safe then sorry, and it doesn't do any harm.)

Now on to the events. Ezmerelda was around Alterering clothing, jewelry, and people by turning them into frogs if they got on the wrong side of her finger. Senticles was kidnapped by a group of rogues the other night, with Autolycus backing them up. He was eventually released but was upset because it took time out of his toymaking. Lets just hope Solstice won't be late this year or some kidnappers are going to be attacked by disappointed kids. Perizada and her merry band of alterers arrived last night, altering for the first ten to find them in the estate. Tahn,Marthas, and Sypresse (did I spell those right?) are all new alterers and perhaps we'll see them in the future. From what I saw they did a great job. I also hear that

Fatima paid a visit, and told Sid's fortune. Tremor and his apprentice Quake also altered. There's also been a few invasions, but I'm not sure except for that a stablemaster invaded one day.

December 13 - As reported by Leanna:  For You Estate members, Tremor's Silver Armor and Accessories is set up in the Open Lawn, Tremor also mentioned that he'd come back to do Alterations sometime this week, but I don't know if they already came or we're still waiting on them. There is also a fan/box merchant tent on Rhea Road, in front of the white brick shop. Also, a minor addition, there is snow around Athens, so enjoy your snowball fights! And Whittling has already been mentioned so I don't need to do that ::grins::

Also, Containers now let you see whats in them when you open them, saving us some extra typing. There has been recent invasions of raiders in dresses, but I still haven't figured out what that was about.

December 7 - As reported by Pythos:  Some guy named Stanius or something like that came by the gate tonight and showed those of us there how to whittle... See you take this stick and knife and you... WHITTLE <critter>

November 27 - As reported by Leanna on the mailing list:  It appears there is a new ship for the dock to Midgard and Alexandria. We now have a cargo ship. Having two ships running will cut down the time of waiting considerably :) Also, There are now ticket booths on the docks, so you buy your ticket BEFORE you board, something people have been asking for, for some while. There is also a new decorative sign.  The other ship is a slave ship running to Alexandria and back.

November 24 - As reported by Elrond in the mailing list:  Athens had a wonderful suprise tonight as the great seer Fatima visited Athens. She was telling fortunes for everyone at the gate although I seemed to be the only person who recognized her at first. She told my fortune and I got these three cards:the star, the high king and the fates. It was fun and informative as Fatima's visits always are. Although her coming usually precends something bad for the town.

And Leanna:  Shortly before Fatima arrived again yesterday afternoon, there were several invasions of fiends, baby fiends, giant fiends, centaur fiends, and roasting fowl. Astraea also came, dropping explosives at the gate. She did let us know, however, that there would be a merchant from ch'in coming sometime soon, so save up your dinars!

November 23 - As reported by Leanna in the mailing list:  First of all, there were frogs falling on the gate the other day, and whoever was doing it had a fondness for turning Randarr into a frog.

Also, last night glowing blue wolves attacked the gate. They apparently were bacchae in wolf form, but they were soon run off. A little later on, there was a rumbling laugh, and a darkness passed over the forest southeast(?) of Thebes. When the area was investigated, the wolves now controlled the forest outside of the neverborn caverns, and higher level bacchae were inside the caves. I'm not sure what level the wolves are, I've heard anything from 60-70 for the wolves, and 70-80 for the bacchae. Younger level people who went in the area were struck with fear and sent running all the way to Thebes. Bacchus did inform us that the frog in the caverns is "symbolic. If you touch my girls, you're going to croak!" or something to that extent.

November 16- As reported by Leanna in the mailing list:  Lets see, Saturday was the Estate Auction. Just as the auctioneer was finishing up, Timalcus came in and demanded his large bag of oranges were sold. For Something that had an opening bid of 1 dinar it sure sold high. On Sunday, the Estate Auction continued. It eventually got to where a rusty copper Sai was being sold (Gabrielle's new dagger type thingies for those of you who don't know) and Nisha surprised all of us by bidding and winning it. Apparently She was supposed to make sure it didn't get sold to one of the athenians or something, I'm not sure I understood that part. She eventually broke it in half and gave the sai away. If I understood correctly, she still hasn't found a way into Collin's keep. (I think they must of built a wall over the entrance)

Well, Today the NAG verb was implemented, which must mean the GMs are giving us permission to nag them more then normal..(Just kidding) I KNOW I missed some stuff,I haven't been around as much this week so I probably missed a couple events as well. If you feel compelled to correct my error, please send any information to the list ;)

September 23 - A bit of a late update since I spent the last week or so catching up with 4 weeks of programming class.  We all went to battle Bacchus as was planned and found the captives... and the goatfish and the bats too.  A lot of people died but we ended up saving the four prisoners and vanquished the bacchae from the caves.  Only problem is that little voice was right, there was a 5th and it was Babs.  As soon as we were leaving the caves, Bacchus laughed at us and we saw Babs die, then Bacchus was released into the world in all his glory.  Dionysus at least got a last shot in, injuring him, and last we saw he was flying off with a bunch of bacchae to tend his wounds.  Babs owned the boutique in Woodhaven which she was ultimately killed for anyone who doesn't know.

Dionysus has made several appearances since then, along with Kyriostau who was trying to alter for folks who had his tickets but was run off by insults as per normal.  Athena has also been talking Elrond into finding her more followers apparently and Ares made an announcement last night about th rib bones in the vineyard being cheaper and that anyone who has a problem with it could answer to him.  Needless to say some deaths were dealt out along with plenty of curses.  Kleftis also made an appearance over the week to alter for the 5 folks who could find her hiding in the SW quadrant.

September 13 - Odd things were happening with the model today.  Glowing red X's began appearing on the model as Bacchus got three out of the four victims he needs for his sacrifice.  With Pitthea gone, Dionysus said he was doing his best to hold Bacchus off for the time being while we continued to ready ourselves.  Dionysus says he wants this on his terms, so he is going to feign defeat by Bacchus and then we are going to rush in with a full frontal assault.  A riddling voice from the model told us again that Bacchus only needs to sacrifice 1 person to free himself, but it also mentioned a mysterious 5th person.  Dionysus has no idea about that and is sticking with his original count of 4.

The model continued to do things most of the day, red and purple streaks and flames battling each other, water turning to blood, piranhas leaping from it and spitting water at people, bacchae flying from the model to attack people.  The model itself seems to be a realtime display of what is going on in the caves.  So I guess all we can do is wait and prepare as we wait for Dionysus to let Bacchus collect his fourth victim, Rapture.  Fickle and Tootie are also tied up apparently.  Here is a copy of the model for prosperity.

A set of moons and suns rose and set over the model later tonight.  According to the number of times this happened, we think the event will happen this Sunday.  Not long after, a sundial appeared on the eastern side of the model with the shadow falling somewhere between the XIV and III marks.  Dionysus assured us that this was just the way gods told time and that XIV would be the equivalent to XII.  So we're looking at Sunday, around 12 noon to 3 PM EST.

September 12 - Dionysus showed up today with the model of the caves and he left it in the bar for us to make plans with.  Apparently Bacchus is planning four sacrifices to be done on either four of the boulders or in the four corners of the caves.  Dionysus told us not to worry about going there until Bacchus actually had the victims, and since Pitthea was guarding the cave this shouldn't happen... but we think it did.  Evander got kidnapped and taken to the vineyard, and when people ran to save him they were attacked by bacchae and Leanna was also grabbed.  Pitthea died later while people were battling the bacchae near the arch to the vineyard, not long after they saw Tootie get drug off through the arch.  Then they heard another scream behind the arch and Bacchus informed them that 2 were down and 2 to go.

Bacchus or some other mean god was making threats after this in the vineyard and at the gate.  A few folks got killed and the like before it suddenly stopped and Kyriostau showed up.  Apparently he is a merchant of some sort but can't open shop until his wagon is fixed which Murdock ran into a wall.  He sounded pretty mad when he left though so it wouldn't be surprising if he just left town instead.

September 9 - Looks like a new song was introduced today by a piece of parchment that came flying to the gate that Nutopia snatched up and discovered.  Storytellers can now write GAMBLING songs which from what I can tell help with luck.  Luck is one of those annoying hidden stats though so it's hard to tell what the actual effect is on the stat.

A few days ago Dionysus showed up after people at the gate saw haunting images of Bacchus pulling himself into the world from Tartarus.  When people ran to the Akropolis, which they saw the vision of Bacchus clutching, they found Dionysus there battling bacchae.  There were several more bacchae at the orchard near Fedmire's tent which he also helped kill.  Afterwards he told them that Bacchus was free and was trapped in the caves by Pitthea, and that all he needed to be completely free was a sacrifice.  After much talk about what to do, he finally said that he'd have Athena make a model of the caves under the vineyard so that we could better plan out our attack.

August 25 - The horde of warlords were back at the gate today and so was Timalcus and a host of others.  It started with Timalcus running by being chased by the barbarians and then turned into a frantic game of keep away with the barbarians and Timalcus.  The lyre changed hands several times with Joxer, Jace, Timalcus, and the barbarians all in on it.  Gabrielle even made an appearance as she ran by being chased by a love-struck barbarian.  Jace finally stopped to let us know what was going on.  Apparently Timalcus stole Terpsichore's lyre and the barbarians want it.  He said if the barbarians were who they though they were, that they were working for Draco.  After asking us to help get the lyre back "for Gabrielle's sake" he made his exit and we saw the lyre pass hands a few more times.  It looks like Timalcus ended up with it.

August 23 - Joxer was both pleased and a bit put in his place by everyone stories and songs at the Joxer Tales contest.  Guest judges included his brother Jace (a wildly flamboyant entertainer of sorts who Joxer seems to be a tad bit embarassed of) and Gabrielle who told us a wonderful story of how Joxer got the title "the Mighty".  Autolycus showed up having "stumbled across" and taken the prizes so that he could "return" them, or so he said and he stayed throughout the event, ribbing Joxer and muttering many, "I told you so's" having gone through such a contest once himself.  As if these guys weren't enough, Aphrodite herself popped down about halfway through and did her nails while she listened to the tales.

Everyone who participated was a winner, even me when I told them I was just telling a story to pass the time, not compete, thptpptptpt!  Winners were as follows, congratulations to all you were great!:

Tanalyn (shared 3rd place) for a  rousing poem of how Joxer defeated a band of evil Roman Legionnaires
Krunk (shared 3rd place) for a rather... self-styled story of how Joxer crushed bad guys
Garrock (shared 3rd place) for his entertaining spin on the well known, "Joxer the Mighty!"
Pamico (shared 3rd place) for a very nice story about Joxer's shadowed past and his rise into heroism
Scheherazade (honorary 3rd place) for a great story (if I do say so) about Joxer and an invisible suit of armor
Angelia (2nd place) for a wonderful poem about Joxer's many mis-adventures
Kalipso (1st place) for a heroic tale of how Joxer saved Amphipolis from a mighty squid

August 22 - Timalcus came running by the gate several times and finally stopped saying some big, scary guy with weird hair was chasing him, trying to get the lyre.  He sat at the gate and cahtted a bit with people, telling them he wanted to get the lyre to Ares behind Discord's back because Ares had promised him immortality, but this big guy was trying to stop him.  He made a quick exit when a chakram screamed into the area and buzzed his mohawk.  Soon after a horde of barbarians appeared at the gate and grabbed somebody asking where "he" went.  When they didn't answer, the barbarians threw them into the gate and the leader said, "This way!" and they stormed off.

August 20 - We had someone come and do some piercings tonight, I'm afraid I didn't catch who it was but I am assuming Kleftis.  Pitthea, Dionysus's priestess that is guarding the cursed vineyard, came to the gate today and started casting at people for no reason.  She was killed and then soon after the sky turned dark and an image of her appeared on the horizon cackling about being free and telling Athens to prepare for its doom.  A force then whipped through the gate and killed everyone it touched in an instant.

Dionysus appeared in the underworld and explained that Pitthea was given near godly powers and made immortal with death, and that she was going through a phase because she was "at that age".  He then warned people not to kill her again, etc, etc and said that he would do his best to convince her to leave the underworld.  Some time later the earth shook and we hear someone screaming "Noooo!" so I assume that he made her leave somehow.

August 19 - Five warlordish people of unknown origin attacked at the gate tonight, each using various skills including magic and alchemy.  Their names were Skia, Tarrinia, Kurai, Pyrgofylaki, and Mutricus.  They kept saying their boss or master or some such would be taking over Athens soon.  After they left, Nisha arrived and told us she has been tracking someone and found where they've been hiding.  She said she would lead us there, wherever there is, tomorrow (Sunday) at around 8:30 PM EST.  Us, being the ever trusting heroes that we are, will of course follow her into what could be certain doom.

August 17 - More fun with Timalcus, the gods, and a whole bunch of crickets.  Timalcus overstayed his welcome at the gate, killing folks several times, especially Pickoer who I think managed to walk away with 13 deaths for the night.  Crickets attacked in swarms after people started insulting the gods, and along with the crickets were several inventive ways of killing people.  I had posted this the other day and lost it somehow, so if my events are mixed together I apologize.

August 15 - We had a visit from Timalcus today after he was nearly caught by Xena, Gabrielle, a guy named Spiro and a host of others.  Seems they were all chasing him because he stole a lyre from somewhere "north".  The lyre had a chakram set into it or something so folks are wondering if it's Xena's, she is after it after all.  Xena finally came and drug him off by his ear after he gave us little to no helpful info, but it looks like he escaped her because he came running by with the group chasing him again.

Gaze and sigh verbs got more ways to use them.  Typing Gaze or Sigh with nonsense at the end will bring up a list of available ways.  Critters also got a boost.  It seems that they can now call their "older brothers and sisters" to swarm people that are too young to be hunting them.  This was announced by a decree from Ares allowing the critters to do such things.  "Mighty" critters will swarm you and they are quite stronger than the normal ones in the area, so beware.

August 14 - Lots of things have been happening, far too many for my meager memory so I think I will just try to start right here afresh.  I will do my best to get these events to you, but I am not here near as often as I used to be so if you see something that should be reported, please email me so I can post it.  And now on with the show.  But if you are really dying to know what I missed... we were visited several times by Dionysus and Autolycus, we were invaded with many various wild creatures, some of which that have learned little tricks for survival of themselves and the deaths of heroes, and all the rest of the usual rigamarole.

May 31 - Woke up this morning to find a trail of beach sand leading from the gate in Athens to a new area just Southeast of Tiamat called Bethells Beach.  There are also some seacaves here, a very tough area with crabs, sea nymphs, worms, and goblins.  While mapping a ran across some half eaten bodies or something, but nothing to say who or what did whatever it was it did to them.  The maps are up though!  Be sure to check the Maps Page to download it!

May 29 - I will be catching up the last month in a bit after I can collect all my thoughts, here is what happened in the last couple days.  We had an attack of vicious, yet colorful, mimes at the gate today along with some undead spiders.  The boulders that were scattered around the lands ended up being an advertisement for free beer at Sids!  (well ice cream too ;) )  A new village opened up in the Penthesilea Forest which is new also.  I have the map up along with 6 other new ones including the long put off areas south of Piraeus on my Maps Page.  The Tashen Samonza Village Price List is also posted.  If you see an event, please send me the details at eeyore134@home.com !  Thanks and Happy Memorial Day!

April 16 - Word on the street has it that Howling Mad Murdock (the pie guy) has been running around causing trouble over the past couple of weeks.  He has never come out of hiding and continuously pies people, makes a lot of bad jokes and movie references, and sends lots of weird critters at people.  Just a few I remember hearing about off the top of my head are peeps (you know those marshmallow easter bird things), fake grass (pink no less), Ralph the Wonder Llama (well not THE Ralph the Wonder Llama, but a very good imitation), and flying catapulted cows (sorry Bonk).

A new area has also opened up in Midgard in the Nordmarka Forest called Slemdalsveien.  It seems to be a ruined village, or part of one, where nothing but temples remain... barely.  There are marauders and short-faced bears running around the area so be careful!  Though this is finally a nice place for all you Norse followers to make offerings to the various Aesir.  Get the map here!

April 9 - I heard there was an oracle in town today that told a bunch of people's fortunes.  I didn't hear much beyond that so any additional news would be welcome!  We also had a rather large invasion of wall-eyed, lazy-eyed, and one-eyed rats yesterday at the gate.

April 1 - Well all sorts of things happened today starting with an invasion of bare bears and lions and all sorts of other critters.  Crystala came in and altered for quite a few hours and we had an announcement about finally getting singing voices, suggice to say they weren't very good voices (voices cracking, high-pitched wails, croaks, etc.).  Boxes got attitudes, doing everything from spraying folks with water to making them smell bad and insulting people and even throwing pies.  And speaking of pies, we had a merchant open in the bar who sold throwable pies and fun was had by all.  Storytellers also did some odd things while writing songs, from losing concentrations and writing on our arms to shaking our quills and getting squirted with ink.

February/March - All sorts of things have been happening, let's see if I can give it all in a nutshell without missing too much.  We had several merchants around Valentine's Day including Freesia (a florist), Parenthesis (a guy that sold greeting cards), and another I forget the name of.  We had baby Bliss getting loose and shooting folks with arrows and causing general mischief.  Bacchus is trying to get free and has taken over a vineyard near Fedmire's village (Woodhaven).  Timalcus and Discord are involved somehow and Dionysus has made several appearances asking us for help.  His priestess Pitthea, a real little snot, has been filling us in on info too, seems there's a cave in the vineyard that we need to do something with.  The vineyard finally opened and is full of killer rabbits, beware if you enter, you'll die before you know it.  Wine was poisoned during this time all over the lands and then fixed.  A few of our amazons were turned to bacchae.

Priests finally receieved their new spells, rogues have gotten some new traps on boxes (fire bombs, shrapnel bombs, and crossbow bolts), warriors got balancing and storytellers have received the ability to charm animals.  Trolls in Midgard got a tweak and now swarm and knock people over and just act all around more trollish.  Alchemy failures were upped but the loss of ingredients was taken away so it all works out.  Collin has appeared a few times and sent his minions about as has Timalcus.  Autolycus has been around now and then trying to help with the Bacchae problem.  Lots of new critters attacking and in the vineyard area, flytraps, mold, death knights, sea nymphs, ants, beetles, trees, trolls, worms, stalagmites, and vine stalks.  Pant, I think I covered some of the major happenings, let me know if I missed anything!

February 9 - Lubricus attacked this morning with a bunch of guardsmen, conscripts, spies, elite commanders, and such things like that.  Mention was made about those tokens again I believe, I didn't get much information on his visit.  He got killed after a while and didn't come back.  Apparently Timalcus found his (Lubricus's) troops wandering around later that day and decided to have some fun with them.  So again they attacked, this time with exploding stuff, een heard there was a land mine or something.  After the baddies were killed he made his appearance and was almost immediately killed himself.  This happened twice before he ran off whining to Discord for a power up.  After lots of blowing people up, putting them to sleep, and tradings of insults, he had decided he had enough and left.

February 7 - Oops, ok now I'm really going to try and keep these updates updated daily.  Ok, let me try and remember what all has happened in the last month.  Storytellers got new stuff including songs and instruments and a keen stylus (pen).  Had some alterers including a new guy named Dustey Strings who does instruments, Crystala, Facaedous, Ironheart who did silver weapons, and one other I can't seem to remember.  Norticles paid a few visits, Collin came back to wreak his brand of havoc on Athens (and was welcomed with open arms I might add), Autolycus has been running around trying to find a Valentine, Mentius attacked again, Timalcus has shown himself a few times.  We've had exploding notes being dropped off at the gate, several invasions of critters, a new warrior and rogue co-guru (Nommo and Revel respectively), had a nice big mentor fair and the new combat forum last night.  I'm sure I missed some things, if you know of any please let me know!

January 4 - Storytellers got a new song today to help them take the edge off of the draught fix.  A wagon road by the gate full of junk and the song sheet fell off of it to the delight of Kymnarkmar and I.  This is a HEROIC song and it seems to help everyone in a similar way to chickory draughts, but it helps the audience a bit less than the singer.  All I know is I could hunt on level by myself, woohoo!  (With plenty of humorous songs anyway <cackle>).  Perizada and crew were also back the other night doing alterations for folks, looks like we have a whole slew of new merchants running around.

January 1 - Happy New Year!  Let's see what happened... sorry I'm still recovering.  We had events starting I guess at 1 am December 31st, I only got there at 3am though but would assume they had been running because of the way they were structured.  We had a long line of twenty-one centurions marching toward Athens.  And one each hour a centurion would attack until finally at Midnight Eastern time, we had The 21st Centurion just arrived!  I'm assuming this was a play on words, the 21st Century.  Anyway, we also had themed invasions every hour that a large country hit the year 2000.  During all of this we had some demented doomsayers, millipedes, and white tookay bugs.  Here's a list of the year 2000 invasions I remember:

Australia - dingos
Japan - Green Dragon soldiers
China - black and white pandas
India - white tookay tigers
Russia - tutu clad brown circus bears
Persia - Persian horses
Egypt - asps
Africa - wildebeests
Greece - hoplites
Italy - legionaries
France - le skunks
Germany - ogres
England - gleaming silver knights
Brazil - llamas
Peru -  guinea pigs
East Coast US - large bay crabs
Central US - mad cows
Mountain US - snow bunnies
West Coast US - crazed wine country workers
Alaska - moose
Hawaii - large wooden tikis

December 24 - Merry Christmas, belated as it may be!  We had a few alterers come around in the last few days along with some visiting warlords and crazy kings, normal Athenian stuff.  We also had a few odd invasions of heartless green grinches, gaily decorated dryads, poorly antlered mutts... Senticles of course also visited homes and gave out presents and the giving tree was back with surprises for everyone hidden in its acorns.  And we finally got piercing stuff at the All That Glitter's gemshop!

Announcement - Another bad situation reguarding a beloved player of HX has come to bear, so if we could please send our love and thoughts and prayers out to Sabell tonight it would be appreciated.  She was stabbed several times at work last night and the doctors say it doesn't look good.  We need a miracle and I know we're just the people to give it!

December 20 - First congrats to Tamboura and Zed who got married Sunday and Posidea and Hawken  and Silvershadow and Demolitia who also exchanged vows!  Next, storytellers have learned to tie their songs up into songbooks, woohoo!  No more fumbling for that right song in dire combat situations.  We also got a whole bunch of those new verbs which Holyph told us to be expecting the other day.  Here's the list of what we've found after playing all night, some of them are race specific.  Limp, Strut, Stumble, Jog/Trot, Run/Gallop, Sashay/Canter, Skip/Prance, Trudge/Lumber, March/High-step.  Again these all seem to work like stride.

Special Request:  Dammus, in case you haven't heard, was in a pretty bad car accident just recently and heard about the prayers that were given out by players at a wedding on Monday when it was announced.  He wrote to me asking if I would post a thank you for him to all the people nice enough to be thinking of him and helping him through this trial, so here it is.  Let's all send good thoughts his way and hope for a speedy recovery.  Get better fast Dammus!

December 17 - Lots of big news over the last six days.  More fun with Setmose and Rahotep and someone named Khanampto or something.  The event culminated yesterday into the final presentation of the wand scrolls to a local alchemist to sell to the public.  Storytellers have gotten themselves a new guru, woohoo Holyph!  There has been snowfall in Athens creating little piles everywhere for us to have snowball fights with.  The GMs have opened their offices around town for the holidays, so far I have seen Mathuna's north of West Rhea Road in Metis Circle, Holyph's on West Rhea Road by the mask shop, and Wanderstar's outside the north gate.  We also have a new verb!  LIMP which seems to work like stride, Holyph came down and told us to expect more like it soon.  I think that's it!

December 11 - We had a few more of those drunk people invading tonight followed by a visit from my favorite goddess in black and yours, Discord.  She says she was bored and what's better to do when you're bored than come zap Athenians?  She also mentioned that she was looking for Sasebo, maybe this is who Timalcus is looking for too since he's working for her?, and that Sasebo isn't who we think she is.  Something about her drinking to keep from going loose and killing us all which Discord promises she will do unless we kill her.  Something about leading us to a dark place and killing us all, so Discord says we should kill her first.  Discord left and then we were invaded by Garrock lookalikes, spiders, and a death knight.  Then in one of the most gloriously beautific invasions in the history of Athens, Scheherazade (the clone) arrived and kicked some butt!  Finally she was run off and was followed up by a Vaage and a final goodbye from Discord.  Seems some feral alley cats and some large ornery ruffians attacked at the gate later this morning too, thanks Nyl!

December 10 - Alright, so I'm a bit behind.  Here is what has happened in the last couple of weeks in a nutshell.  When classes end for the semester I'll be able to update a lot more I hope!  Let's see, we have had some of those, kill the baby critter then mom and dad come kill the killer attacks.  We have been visited by someone named Setmose who was looking for someone else named Rahotep, Setmose was using a nifty new alchemist wand.  Alchemists have been seeing weird things, we've had changes made to the SIGH verb, and more visits from Vineyard workers.  The gate has been swarmed with drunks and critters a few times and a warlord named Timalcus has been blowing Athenians up while looking for something he refuses to say what is.  People say they remember him from when Woodhaven (Fedmire and Sasebo's village) was sacked.  We've also had visits from two crazy kings, one who is the ever lovable Norticles and another named Augeas who thinks he is Zeus, running around beaming people with lightning bolt painted rocks.  If I missed anything big please let me know!  Oh and by the way, check my Verb Guide for the new sigh variations that I have found.

Also happening just tonight was a visit from Rahotep on the thought-net telling Setmose who also showed up that he wasn't going to get the scrolls he (Rahotep) stole back.  Seems Rahotep has the scrolls with the wand formulas and is making copies of them.  Setmose got mad cuz we were supporting Rahotep and attacked us with Egyptian critters.  Later we had more drunks attacking, then avid non-drinkers, then just weird things as the gods played with folks as they made comments, like when Tusk mentioned boxer shorts we got invaded by puny pugilists... you get the idea.  Finally another empusa came and ended the whole mess, so far anyway.