June is almost over (already!) and the Tyrant has welcomed yet another new flock of failures into its tutelage. And the settlement is already in shambles – in only LY6. There is just something special about my 3-people-games where we are stuck in an continuous doom spiral right from the onset.
Not that I mind losing a lot in those games too much, as a luck-vampire it recharges my batteries for my solo adventures. There’s just something uncanny about it. Of course, nobody besides the Feline Entity would ever truly believe me.

Now, before I get on with Azure Pond’s adventures, I wanted to mention the end of the month, because there is a non-zero chance this month that we might be getting pre-orders for the Red Witches, Pariah and the Wanderers next week. With the 30th of June falling on a Monday, it is fairly likely that will be our sale- and update-day for this month.
Why would we get a pre-order?
I’d say we have 2 (possibly 3) indicators:
1.: the treasury saw its first openly accessible pre-order last month with the White Speaker Bloodmage. They even called it a pre-order test themselves.
2.: the last prediction we saw had the Red Witches and co arrive in delivery hubs by mid July.
(3.: with Gencon fast approaching and starting on the 31st of July, it might be easier for the team to facilitate a pre-oder for the new items rather than mix them all into a giant release blob at the end of August as July has traditionally been very light on update/sale stuff, Especially if the new items set to arrive mid next month.)
This prediction will likely be overly optimistic on my part, yes, but it overall does feel sound enough for now .

In the same vein, I’ve spent some time looking at old updates and videos (like this one, by the excellent if sometimes a tad cranky Bra Mithra) in regards to the Wanderers, and I’ve started wondering which one(s) I’m interested in the most. And so far.., well, let me put it this way: financially questionable decisions might be incoming. I was already sold on Aeneas ever since they were first announced, pretty much set on getting a copy for myself, whilst Candy & Cola caught my eye slowly over time, but Goth Amy is now also growing on me.

But that is enough of me just yapping on, lets head over to Bogst-.. err, Azure Pond.

Lantern Year 7 – this was potentially the first year to hunt Phoenixi? Phoenixuses? Phoenixussys?
*looksitup*
Phoenixes!

But before that feather could fall we had to hand out a fresh Nickname to my returning survivors for our random Settlement Event!
Yay…
Helios, the Wise Sneak of the Antelope.
Alissa, the Dingle Fool of the Lion
Reef, the Wise Savior of the Phoenix (+1SPD)

Soon after the ritualistic naming had been completed an iridescent feather fell from the heavens, signaling that a Phoenix had made this area part of its territory. And we were not about to let that stand uncontested – Helios was the one to break the tense silence. And then he tore the feather apart to gain +1EVA and Honorable (D).
*sighs*
Getting to keep the feather with SotF is hard, man.

On to develop. We started with innovating again. As it should be mentioned.. we had a glorious 4 hide to work with – and I had plans – so this felt like another harvest ritual was coming up afterwards.
But back to innovating.. Song of the Brave, Nightmare Training, Storytelling or Hands of the Sun. This would have been an easy pick until that last draw. But I couldn’t help it, Song of the Brave just had to be the pick this time. It’ll help with Phoenix shenanigans as well, so.. I hope to see you again Hands of the Sun!
And having Saga in the deck didn’t hurt either.

I did forget this initially and only did the event at the end of the settlement phase – but with Song of the Brave we had reached 8+ innovations which would trigger a milestone unique to this campaign!
The ‘Edged Tonometry‘ narrative event!
A sword master had come to teach us the principle of cutting light.
We gained the 3 Eye Patches (*obligatory comment about the fact that there is only one card*) and rolled a 7 on the table – Celestine was promptly nominated to gain Katana proficiency as her eye proved malleable enough for this specific fighting style. If she stayed that path, the Storm might eventually even notice her.
Now we *just* needed to make or find her a blade. Between the expensive Phoenix katana, the rare gear that bleeds you out as you crit and the new wrought iron one locked behind a bunch of stuff and LY15.., yeah, the Phoenix one seemed like the easiest to get.
It should also be mentioned that we do not get the event again this campaign. So we will have to keep an eye out for Celestine – at least for a bit.

The Feline Entity was also helping out quite a bit with the settlement. Everthe capricious being she did issue a dread omen upon Helios, knocking him over repeatedly, trying her best to chomp him as well, but we held a harvest ritual in honor of the Sun and her, spending an endeavor and 5 lion resources to draw 5 new basic resources – and that apparently bored the Feline Entity enough for her to leave.
But the ritual was an almost unparalleled success! Not much could have gone better. Not only did we get 3 Monster Hide, but also a ??? and a Broken Lantern – good job, team!

With these “new” materials we built the Leather Worker.
If I really wanted to, I could have gotten the Barber Surgeon built as well at this point, but that would have used up the Bladder we were still saving for the Sunring Bow.
So, instead we were going to make Leather and build 2 Round Leather Shields for a start. Those cost a total of 2 Leather, 2 bones and 2 more hide.

As things were, I really wanted to go hunt an early Phoenix. Without the ability to share knowledge, thanks.. The Sun.., we could only gain Hunt XP by, well, hunting. And as I was considering my options, I thought to myself, I might just send 4 noobies and if it turned out they never existed to begin with, well, then that’s just what happened? Or, what not happened, because they never existed to begin with. There’s a random little paradox for you – curtesy of the Phoenix.
We did have 14 people at the time and 2 Love Juice still in the bank – and that was about all the convincing that I needed!
I happily used the opportunity to purify Helios (+1STR) with the remaining 2 endeavors and started putting a hunting party together.

The Chosen Hunters:
Sol – green (Rawhide Armor, Bone Knuckles)
Fara – blue (Rawhide Armor, Bone Blade)
Gemma – red (Screaming Armor, Bone Axe)
Basalt – yellow (Cat Gut Bow)

I did give the team permission to make use of the last remaining Founding Stone Azure Pond still had, should a good opportunity present itself though.
I’ve had some questionable Phoenix fights in LY7 before and I did want to be successful if I could help it.

The Huntphase:
As we ventured into the darkness we soon found a trail of stone faces with Bloody Eyes (basic HE98). We followed the blood and rolled a 9 (which was originally a 4 – paranoia just kinda hit me). The Phoenix we were stalking sat before us, bleeding from an open wound!
Yes. *cough* I did spend Sol’s reroll on that.

Quickly peeking at a future that not came to be I saw Wind Tunnel and… Time Flows Backwards down the line. Dumb luck prevailed again!

The Phoenix is one of those “tough to love” monsters the game has.
Whilst on par for lethality with other Node 3 Quarry Monsters, no monster can dish out quite as much random bullshit as the Phoenix. Including, but not limited to: resetting your campaign, forcing survivors into retirement due to rapid aging or – if my math isn’t too far off – a 1 in about 3300 chance of deleting your entire hunting party on the first card draw at Lvl1.
On top of that it has a nemesis-esque number of traits even at Lvl1 as well as already a legendary (L) AI card in its deck. And let me tell you – all of them can be quite horrifying to put down in a Lvl1 fight.

The most basic (and strangely annoying) trait it has is Zeal, which has the monster perform a basic attack at the end of each turn.
Materialize explains the monster keyword of the same name. The monster tries to tele-frag survivors as it teleports to its targets instead of moving, trying to land on top of as many other survivors as possible. It is a little surprising to me that this does not deal any actual damage as well on higher levels.
Dreaded Decade and Spiral Age are the 2 big ones though, defining the birb’s core gimmick.
Dreaded Decade collects age tokens your survivors gain from AI cards and gives them chance to remove them via rolling against their insanity.
Spiral Age explains a trigger of the same name that applies 4 hunt xp to a character for each age token they remove with Spiral Age. The worst part: if they overshoot their retirement age, they cease to exist. And it gets even worse if you have innovated Family (I).
This also presents one of the inherent dangers of the fight – one simple way to trigger Spiral Age is the monster’s instinct.

Besides the traits, the Phoenix also has a couple of nasty (annoying) keywords on its hit locations – Rewind and Displacement.
Rewind will end an attack and undo all wounds and crits the birb suffered from this attack and move the attacker 5 spaces away IF they have at least 1 age token.
Displacement will move the Phoenix to the board edge furthest away from the attacking survivor, with a chance for them to follow after the monster if the attacker has at least 1 age token and rolls against their hunt xp.

All this gets paired with a monster that hands out bleed and knockback 7 potentially every turn on its basic, and you’re looking at quite the lethal combination of effects. So much so that a lot of people write off the birb as too much hassle for what it has to offer in return.

12 cards in the monster deck. Before the fight kicked off properly, the Phoenix first had to suffer that wound from the hunt event effect. Understandably, it lashed out at the survivors in return! Wing Punch! The random survivor chosen as its target was Gemma.
The monster materialized on Fara, knocking her away before it hit Gemma hard (4 damage) in the legs.
Zeal activated and targeted Basalt. He was lucky enough to only be hit once, which he took (light wound), before he dashed around the monster to not be affected by the Blast Zone.

Basalt began our counter-offensive so he could shoot his Claw Head Arrow into the monster’s backside and to my surprise – it actually hit! Wounding on 2+ he still comically failed to wound on a 1, but the important bit had been accomplished for once!
-1EVA on the monster!
Gemma was up next – she saw our rising initiative and dashed in closer to further slam into the monster with her armor! She wounded on a 3+ for the 1 hit she managed to get!
Finally Sol came running in as well, Emboldened he would wound on 3+ as well, Hitting twice, he hesitated upon seeing the Inner Face of the monster, but only after he drew blood on the first hit.

9 cards remaining, Left Wing Strike was a fortunate next AI, with the Blast Zone off into no man’s land. Sol also was only hit once on 4+. He took the damage to his hands to save his survival for dashes.
He was also chosen for the Zeal attack and just as planned, after taking so more damage, he dashed out of that Blast Zone.

The survivor turn began with Basalt scrying ahead. He saw nothing too dangerous – no trap, no super dense.
Armed with this foreknowledge Fara moved up, trying to get the Rewind effect off the deck. She hit the monster twice, and she even crit it for a wound! Best case scenario!
Astounded the Phoenix stumbled and was knocked over!
After that success the rest of the group began to falter as they were just as surprised as the monster.
Sol flailed around in the air, failing all his attack rolls and Gemma also only barely got in 1 wound to keep the pressure on.

7 cards remaining. The Phoenix got up and despite its initial surprise – it was just as disappointed as I had been about that lackluster offensive we mounted last turn. It used Pitying Sigh. It did no longer perceive us as a threat.
With nobody insane, 3 people took brain traumas and were knocked down. Two 7s for Fara (Seizures D) and Gemma (Prey D) and a 6 for Basalt (Aichmophobia D), who headbutted the floor.
The monster then turned to Sol for the basic and whiffed entirely!

Dashing out of the Blast Zone he had found himself in, Sol prepared his lone counter attack!
And he fumbled.
This was bad – every monster turn is 2 activations – we needed to get those hits in – and we had accomplished nothing this turn.

Still 7 cards in the deck. A strange Haze suddenly enveloped the battle field. All age tokens also gave -1MOV/SPD from that point onwards. And we had no way to get rid of this effect at all!
Ugh. Where’s a bard when you need one?
At least dashes and surges were not affected by this mood.
The basic follow up hit twice this turn as the universe began to equal out in face of the Phoenix’s unbound majesty. Basalt got caught in the Blast Zone and was flung into the closest corner with Knockback 7 and a bleed.

Gemma was the first to attack in an attempt to retake the initiative on this turn and I kinda just wanted to throw the stone already. It would have been a bold choice, sure, but also a bad one. Instead she missed with her normal attack.
Sol did a little better, as in: he hit but also triggered Rewind.
As we weren’t making headway with dealing any damage, Fara used her head band for safety. We saw the 2nd Pitying Sigh or Gouge and Feast. Both were pretty bad for us. But as we had to pick one, so I put the sigh on top and we dashed into the monster’s blind spot with Fara and Gemma, hoping to avoid it. I was trying mainly to minimize the chance of everybody getting knocked down at the same time – as that would lead to a Spiral Age trigger.

6(7) cards remaining. Pitying Sigh. Surprise!
Sol and Basalt were sighed at. Sol (Seizures D) went for the chest bump of death with the floor, removing the last bit of armor he had in that spot.
The basic targeted Fara, who dodged the singular hit, before both survivors dashed out of the Blast Zone. That was Gemma’s last survival.
Attrition was starting to slowly set in.

Basalt got up and he used the Cat Eye Circlet again to see what the future had in store for us. Sometimes the only thing that works against the time-birb is our own brand of foreknowledge! The trap, Glorious Primary Eyes and Hard Beak (super dense). Yikes! What a devious spread!
But this would be a decent opportunity for that Founding Stone. With all her might and the grace of a lama, Gemma threw her back-up weapon it into the monster’s eyes.
-2ACC and a wound should be a worthwhile trade in the long run.
Sol ran in as the monster was still buckling in pain and he got a chance at the beak, wounding it with his Beast Knuckles. A crit would have been great, but what he managed was just a dent, not a full-on crack.
With the AI deck yet to cycle, Fara hobbled around into the monster’s facing. She tried to trigger the trap. And to my earnest surprise, she just about managed on the first try and was blasted off.
Continuously burying the trap would have been an option as well, of course, but here I was, hoping I’d be able to deal more than 2 wounds per round. Of course, with the Phoenix sighing twice, everybody was more or less down to 1SPD on their attacks already.

4(5) cards remaining. Left Wing Strike! The last threat to wound was Sol. And the monster missed twice on 6+. Same with the basic from Zeal. The stone to its eyes had immediately started paying off!
The amount of age tokens on Sol was getting impressive though. No cause for concern though. *laughs nervously*

We needed to get rid of those Pitying Sighs, and for that we needed to deal some wounds!
Basalt used the Cat Eye Circlet again and saw 1 good card, 1 Displacement and 1 Rewind.
Sol hit the monster, dishing out 1 more wound.
Gemma triggered displacement on a wound, but couldn’t follow with her 0 hunt xp.

2(3) cards remaining. Wing Punch. The random survivor was Sol once again. The monster missed him on 6+ again. But he did get caught up in basic afterwards, just having to take the Blast Zone effects now – Knockback 7 and a bleed.

With both our main damage dealers knocked down for this turn, Basalt would try his best to pave the way to our victory! He hit, wounded and was rewound. Not the hero we necessarily need – but the one we deserve.
Fara dashed up from the far back, and just about made it into the blind spot. She did hit another rewind spot… but she crit it instead! Small feathers were falling all around her as she had just ruined the birb’s big beautiful butt!

0(1) card remaining.2 basic attacks were on the menu this turn.
Fara was targeted, hit once, and she dashed to side step the first Blast Zone.
She did get targeted again, taking 2 hits to the head. Unable to run any further her Seizures (D) first knocked her over before she was sent flying off into the distance.

Basalt was locked in! He began the turn with Embolden and dashed into the blind spot. The hit: perfect. The wound: critical fail. Without giving it much thought, I spent that reroll on him and we wounded the monster. Rewind fizzled out as the wound killed it before it went off.

That was a Phoenix fight alright.
A decently kind one at that. A Phoenix that is throwing hands and cycling Wing Punch is much better than the other stuff he can get up to.
We dodged most of all terrible effects and even the slow down from Haze could not stop us in the end, thought that card was quite brutal all in all.
Sol had 9 age tokens. Fara had 5. Locked into 1MOV and 1SPD for you regular movement and act slows stuff down tremendously.

As for rewards .. nobody aged.
Basalt stood over their kill as we collected our resources. The settlement gained the Plumery, and everyone also got an understanding. We did get A LOT of hide as well for either Phoenix or Leather stuff.

Before I get fully lost in consideration of what to build with these precious few resources (I already saw I could build my beloved Phoenix axe), I do have to give credit where credit is due (especially as I opted to not mention survival too much during the fight): the real MVP this Lantern Year was the 2 Rawhide Armor sets.
Fara ended the fight with a survival still in tact, whilst Sol only ran out 2 turns before the end. Otherwise we would have died to Haze and the inevitable instinct trigger as everybody would eventually be knocked down simultaneously. In that regard, hunting Phoenix is more dangerous for the People of the Sun it would seem.

The big question that remains is of course, was it worth it?
And that is probably up for debate. This whole fight cost me 1 founding stone as well as 2 rerolls. 1 on the hunt and 1 during the fight.
I stand by these snap decisions – sometimes its just what’s needed to be done, but you might feel differently about it.
Drawing the last round out for another turn might not have been that bad, probably, feel free to let me know how you would have handled it.

As mentioned here – I like the Phoenix and the gear you can build from hunting it. It’s just the fights that give me the heebie-jeebies.

An with that said, another Lantern Year is in the books – next time we’ll be looking at a lope or white lion I think, to get some more leather going before I hunt more birbs. But for now that will be all from me. I’ll try my best to get another lantern year out this week, before the update drops at the start of the next.

For now and as always, thank you very much for your time, first time-chicken down for Azure Pond!
Amathul