I hope you’re having a good day, week and or month as we are looking at continuing my PotSun campaign. I had a good couple of days, receiving another one of my orders – not really timely in regards to how recent the releases of the items were, but that didn’t stop me.

You ever see a mini and think to yourself you just *have* to paint that? Lunar Aya kinda hit me like that last month. I also added Morg so the Gorm wouldn’t immediately fall behind in late-game rewards to the other 2 QN1s I have (Its still MIA though .. #wheremygormat?). The Greatest Gaxe is, of course, also an axe… so, it was the obvious choice for me.

We are also moving towards the next update at this point, and whilst I’m not looking forward to any price increases or the inevitable fall-out they will cause, it’ll be nice knowing what we are working with afterwards.
Yes, sure, “only to some degree”. Tariffs are going to be a topic of discussion for the foreseeable future with the way things are going, being handled from certain governments.
But enough about depressing things. Time to explode a lope.

Today we are headed back to Azure Pond to get things moving along under the unrelenting heat of The Sun. As I’ve mentioned at the end last time I wanted to hunt a Lope to change things up a little, even whilst I was still missing Ammonia (I).

Returning home we gained 5 endeavors (+1 from Tinker on Granite) and encountered our annual settlement event!
Skull Eater.
A random survivors discovered a craving for delicious treats.. and it was Granite. He rolled an 8, which offered us to a chance to immediately spend 2 of our 5 endeavors to turn his bone-crunching munchies into Binge-Eating (D). Or, well, we could not do that and get Murder (SE) next year.
So, yeah, at gunpoint we shrug and the 2 endeavors were quickly spent.

As we entered the develop step, we knew we would definitely want to innovate. And that was where we subsequently started.
Symposium or Hands of the Sun.
I really wanted to pick the new stuff, but against Symposium it just felt objectively the wrong choice sadly.

As far as weapons were concerned, I would have really liked to build a katar from the White Lion stuff, but without a Lion Claw that wouldn’t be possible this year.
Of course, the lope has a katar weapon as well.

After having a good long think, I purified Granite (+1ACC) with the remaining 2 endeavors and we used the Love Juice with him and the formerly unnamed Elladora. Great rolling got us a .. 2 and a 1?
Uh-oh.
It took 4(!) rerolls from Elladora and 3 more still unnamed people to get off of these results. It very likely was not worth the effort, but hey, in the end we got to pick a 6 and be happy about it..?
9 rerolls were left in the settlement after that catastrophe of an intimate moment.

Almost forced to head out again already, I looked at what new gear I wanted to make. From the resources we had left I built a rawhide core (headband, gloves and chest) and I decided to sit on the rest, waiting to see what we’d get from this hunt.

The Hunters:
Lionar – green (rawhide bits, f&t)
Alissa – blue (Rawhide Armor, Bone Blade)
Calys – red (Bone Axe)
Reef – yellow (Cat Gut Bow)

The Huntphase:

Heading out to hunt this new quarry, the survivors soon found a huge Vomit Pile, Reef did not have the stomach for it and threw up, whilst Alissa found something she could quickly eat when she though nobody was looking. Calys and Lionar held off, mildly disgusted by what they had just witnessed.
Calys then took the lead and she was soon stirred by a crunching sound from underfoot. Broken Lanterns (basic HE01) littered the area at large. She had to lower her light to fully see, and it set something off inside of her, it triggered Bold (+1STR-token). Taking in the sight all around us, the survivors’ insanity was reset to 0 as they stared at the abandoned, snuffed-out Lantern Hoard before them. Taking what little they could, a handful of Broken Lanterns would be our ominous prize.
And more ominous encounters followed – a little further along Alissa spotted a Dead Antelope. I was a little hesitant to roll this, though I usually feel very confident about this card. Alissa still had her reroll.., so I ultimately went for it. A 2 – we were safe!
After we picked up a Pelt, Shank Bone and a lone Crab Spider we cornered the monster in an extra dense Acanthus patch.

In an attempt to make my set up a little less predictable compared to the last campaign, I just randomly dropped the acanthus into the set-up area.
We also got an Ore Vein and two additional Acanthus Plants.

10 cards in the deck. The lope started this fight by charging over to us, attempting to Bite Alissa. It was much too far away however and stopped short long before it could reach any of us.

Reef was the first to activate and he quickly re-positioned before he attempted to use the Claw Head Arrow. But he missed on a 1.
Lionar then activated the Ore Vein to gain 1 Iron on an 8.
Alissa moved up to put the hurt on the monster! She hit twice and without delay, she drew the trap! Yup. That’s a brain trauma! And she rolled an 8.. +2 .. that’s Frenzy!
Too bad she had the Rawhide Armor set, right?

Calys still intended to finish the round in a strong fashion as she stepped up to the monster. She hit twice with her axe as well – risky; I know – but she got away with it this time.
Restless Eye, seeing the blue band had me sweating for a moment, but this one is only first strike. At 0 insanity, she wasn’t insane and the attack commenced. A 7 on 2+ was an easy wound, followed by another one that had the lope run her over.
Not exactly a clean start, but we dealt some damage at least.

8 cards remaining. Stomp was drawn next. The lope sprinted over to the knocked down Calys again. And it somehow missed her with a 2 on 3+ (thanks to 1EVA)!

As Calys got back to her feet, Reef started to deal with the surrounding weeds, plucking the Fresh Acanthus cleanly from the soil. Calys stepped around the monster and attacked again. If the axe were to breaks, then the Feline Entity must have willed it so. The first strike: 1 wound.. the second strike: a crit! Carving a Shank Bone from the monster it suffered 2 wounds and -1TGH!

Alissa joined Calys side-by-side, landing 2 more hits, quickly dealing 2 more wounds. Lionar was the last of the group to approach, but he missed his Fist & Tooth attempt.

3 cards left in the deck. This was the final card in the monster’s deck already, and it was the other Bite. It tried to nibble on Alissa again, because I didn’t think about her inability to dodge due to frenzy and the monster bit down on her boobs for 2 damage and a bleed. Ouch!

Lionar still needed to wound for weapon proficiency, so I mainly used this round to move away and go after more Acanthus. Knowing what was left in the deck made me feel safe as we spread out ready to do some gardening.
Alissa moved away, whilst Calys successfully picked a Fresh Acanthus. Reef on other hand almost lost a finger to something unseen.
Finally Lionar attacked, hitting once .. and to my surprise, he was intent on keeping the ridiculousness going.. he crit the monster!

It was at this point that the fight got derailed a little bit. The Feline Entity came for an inspection and had no intention to leave again, thus the only thing I could do was continue as if nothing out of the ordinary was going on.

2 cards left in the deck, Bite again. Closest was Lionar at that point, but it missed again due to the critical wound it had just taken!

As the Feline Entity kept a close watch over the proceedings, Calys made her away towards the Vermin Patch but did not reach it, whilst Reef got another Fresh Acanthus to go. Alissa wounded one more time, reducing the monster deck to only Bite! She did crit the monster taking a Large Flat Tooth as a trophy! Lionar missed and did not move so he could take on the next attack.

1 card left. Bite – as it has been foretold – targeting his arms, but he was able to dodge.

Calys spent her turn collecting another Crab Spider-friend.
Reef instead used his Cat Eye Circlet to check the next 3 hit locations. And I was glad to see no trap or super-dense amongst them.
Alissa attacks but only hit once. At least she easily wounded off the last Bite.
With all eyes on Lionar we watched as he tore into the monster, hitting twice. Wounding on 4+ with his f&t, wrestling the beast to the ground, taking it out with surprising ease!

So, yeah, this felt like I was stealing luck from other people again. Loads of lantern 10s, and very little consequences so far for my reliance on the ol’ unga-bunga. It does feel like I should be hunting Lvl2 already?

Whilst nobody aged from the fight, I proudly announced Calys as the settlement’s first axe specialist!

Lastely we gained access to the Stone Circle settlement location as we took a hefty bounty of 18 resources back home. With these we’d be able to build something alright.

We didn’t get a lot of Pelt to be fair but 2 or 3 armor pieces should be possible.
In any case this does feel like I should be moving on to higher levels pretty soon.

Next time we are getting a story event as well! I’m looking forward to it!

There is a holiday coming up in Germany this week, and I can’t say for sure if I’ll be able to put something else up before the next update drops, should that happen at the end of the week.

*cough* plus there is also the release of Elden Ring – Nightreign, so… *

As always, thank you very much for your time, watch out for antelopes biting you in the boob,
Amathul