As pre-orders are currently live (and there are rumors of an upcoming update possibly very soon) we need to head back to Azure Pond and push on towards whatever will be its natural conclusion.
Which is still a bunch – we are just cresting the middle of the campaign right now! (Should everything play out in our favor at least.)

So that just happened last year: that lion got blown up. 18 hits, 7 crits, and it would have been even less had I not hit the trap..
Damn.
With the survivors returning as 4 tinkers, we had 8 endeavors to play with on top of all as well.
So we just needed to find out what the game would try to throw at us to balance this mess.

The first attempt of the scales balancing themselves came in the form of the Random settlement event: Stranger in the Dark.
The Lamplighter had come to visit. I play the card as its written – nominating 1 single survivor and I sent Fara to confront the creature. Her lantern returned to her with a beautiful orange glow, she was empowered (+1STR, +1 courage).
Those scales seem to be a little lop-sided.

The Great Sky Gift.
Once again, The Sun‘s maw opened, spilling the bountiful waters, this time right onto its wriggling spawn!
As this ritualistic part of festival season was underway, the survivors started diving through the vomitfall. A dangerous prospect indeed, which did get hammered home this time. 2 courageous souls did not resurface.
The Sun had claimed the lives of Loghar and Nashandra. And the settlement proclaimed them a sacrifice to the benevolent host!
With most of the resources of the last hunt invested, Gwyn led the efforts to expand the Sacred Pool to level 3.

The third and final event scheduled for the year was The Silver City, which gave us access to the largest ‘+’ in Vanilla+, the Lion God. (Asteroid gained Stark Ravings D from the event.)

As we moved in to the develop step, the question suddenly became whether I wanted to innovate first, to maybe get Family (I) or go for intimacy and get extra innovation draws from the instant Insight the children might trigger.
Hm. Both options were based mainly on chance, so I figured early on that we might as well just innovate.
Bloodletting, Aquarobics, Nightmare Training or Family.
That was a though choice again.
Bloodletting was the only one I didn’t really want. And whilst I took some time to think it over, ultimately I chose Family to get Clan of Death into the deck. This did make future Phoenixes a little more dangerous, but its not like we can do anything about that.

Moving on, Squobble went to fetch a scrap real quick. Afterwards we spent another endeavor to make Leather and upgrade our Bone Axe into a Tempered Axe.

Next up I had Squobble (+1) and Calys (+1) drink from the Sacred Water.
Another 6 (4 and 10).This led to the founding of the Axtolotl-clan as Calystea (+1STR) was born with a nice 4 axe spec to start off her journey – half way to being a master herself!
I did also take the time to purify her (+1ACC). And furthermore I spent 2 more endeavors to purify to up-and-coming Gwyn (+1LCK). He was definitely on a high-rolling spree!

With the last 2 endeavors, Moon was sent scrap scavenging. She found 1 more Broken Lantern and had to spend 1 survival to not die.

The Hunters:
Helios – green (Leather Armor, Beast Knuckles)
Squobble – blue (Rawhide/Phoenix bits, Tempered Axe)
Calys – red (Screaming Armor, Sonic Tomahawk)
Stardust – yellow (Rawhide Armor, Sunring Bow)

There was an argument to go after a level 3 with this team. But fighting a Phoenix at that level would be a rough affair in any case, so, instead of staring death directly in the face asking it “what’s up?” this year would be us testing the waters first.
And considering my options, depending on how this fight went, we would be hunting a level 3 lion, soon enough. At least I figured as much at the time.

But back to the task at hand, the game plan sounded easy enough: try and avoid age tokens with Calys so she doesn’t have to worry about Rewind and hope to hit the persistent injuries with her for auto-crits, doubling up on wounds and good effects. The birb had 5 of them hidden away in that hit location deck for us to find after all!
That sounded easy enough, right?
Helios was chosen for this hunt as he was the better tank overall with 3EVA as opposed to the comparatively paltry 1EVA on Moon.

The Huntphase:
With all the preparations made that we could, all that was left was for us to find out if we could get his done. Mineral Gathering was placed on the space after Overwhelming Darkness and I actually wanted to find the de-age-ing event this time. If Calys survived the fight she would have effectively gained an additional hunt in that case.
And then we were instantly hit with first damper of the hunt. A Gorm was following us in the distance, giggling maniacally. Here I was, hoping we’d be able to keep our insanity, but the game had other plans the Gorm’s Laughter (basic HE57) would follow us all the way to the monster. Not that there was anything to do but to press on.
And just as I was thinking about it again, Time Flow[ed] Backwards. As all 4 survivors grew younger, they felt a surge of ambition rise.
They know they were On The Trail (basic HE36) and we skipped ahead a hunt space as the Gorm continued its giggling from behind them.
Stuck in a loop of birb shenanigans we were hit by Unmake. I wasn’t willing to risk weapons or armor, so Stardust rolled on her Lucky Charm, and all 3 others each picked their Scrap Lantern. Two 6s, an 8 and a 9. Everything was safe and the event ended as quickly as it had begun.

Pressing on we suddenly found ourselves standing on a large open field of stone Feet (basic HE63), sole to sole. This had Calys and Helios reeling in horror, slowing us down considerably as they feared they would fall off the world into the darkness above. With 2 more events before we could finally move on, we instantly rolled another Feet, which thankfully was ignored due to the event, before [Something] Whisper[ed her] Name (basic HE33). Calys was enamored by the face in the floor and started a fierce make out session to the mounting horror of the others. Dragging her along with all our might a short ways onwards the group found a cave with Drawings (basic HE21) inside. Stardust (+1 Insanity), Calys (Etheral Pact FA – that could be bad), Helios (+1 Insanity) and Squobble (2 brain damage) – all of them tried their best to decipher the pictures, and it seemed that at least one has had a profound effect.

Finally at Overwhelming Darkness, Stardust lost a courage as she averted her eyes from tradgedy, Calys gained -1ACC, Squobble saw the Nightmare Whale and Helios took some arm damage.

Mineral Gathering started off with grand ambitions – a 10. And everyone took a trail into the Worm Tunnels. But not only that, Calys and Stardust even found paths leading to deeper levels.
At the Crystal Lake they were hoping to find something interesting and soon stood before some ceiling-Iron and yet another path leading even deeper. The Lantern City did not interest us overly though, so instead we took the 4 Iron (!) and left with our pockets full.
As we exited the caves below the stone faces, for a glimpse we could see the monster before we had to suddenly fight through a Wind Tunnel as gusts and gales threatened to throw us backwards. At +14, we were quite safe – the end result was a 21.
And with that we found the Phoenix on the next space!

On its 2nd level the Phoenix gains the legendary (L) trait Top of the Foodchain. This makes any rolls on the severe injury table worse by -3 if they result from a monster attack.
With that, the mission was not only simply but clear: don’t take severes from the birb.

17 cards in the monster AI deck, the cards played first was Peck. Last threat to wound was .. nobody. So the monster sighed at us from the top of the Nightmare Tree instead.
As we took our brain damage. Stardust suffered the Lunacy Brain Trauma and she considered herself Prey (D) from then on, which severely limited the survival she could spend. Luckily the instinct ended the monster turn as well, so we got a freebie of sorts.

As the turn ticked over to us, Helios moved up into the monster’s face to present himself as an easy target and used the Cat Eye Circlet. I put the impervious hit location on top and shot the Claw Head Arrow with Stardust – she could not wound, but she sure was able to shoot off a couple of feathers!

Calys then took the chance to dash into the monster’s blind spot and take the fight to the birb. She did not slam into it, as she would only knock it off the tree without the ability to follow up herself.
On 2+ she hit 5 times with her Sonic Tomahawk. Hitting the crit on 9s, she failed 1 wound (and a second one almost, but axe spec saved the day), but as she was carving away, she still was able to pump out 5 wounds due to savage.
This line of attack also put Age Eater into play, severely limiting the effect of age tokens on survivors!
Finally Squobble took his position below the monster’s wing and struck as well. 2 more hits, turned into 2 more wounds.
Another brutal opening round dished out by the People of the Sun!

10 cards remaining, the monster was eager to retaliate. A 2nd Peck came off the deck. This time Squobble was the last threat to wound.
The monster hit him twice, the dreaded amount, which left Squobble in a position where he could only dodge 1 and hope for the best on the other hit. So, he dodged the hit to his chest and started praying.
He rolled a 6 for his severe injury, which turned into a 3 – that was only 2 bleed! He got lucky.., really lucky on that count.

The following Zeal basic attack was sent towards Helios. At 5+ it hit him once, which he dodged, before dashing out of the Blast Zone.

Helios ran back into the monster’s facing and we let Calys attack first.
4 more hits, likely ending on a Displacement. The wound on the Glorious Primary Eyes automatically turned into a crit for the Axe Master. And after 1 more wound, the Displacement failed because I had used axe spec on the impervious hit location because I thought: “Why wouldn’t I? Surely I’m going to wound all the other hits?”
Task failed successfully!
To finish the round I had Stardust shoot as well. She managed to crit (8+) once and failed the other wound (6+), with the monster staring at her to no other effect.

6 cards remaining, Pitying Sigh on the top. This Phoenix was not taking us serious at all!
Squobble wasn’t a target, but the others were all affected. If I wanted to avoid Spiral Age all I could do was to have Calys take the basic by laughing back at the monster. At least spending her last 3 survival triggered Bold (+3 survival/insanity) for her. .. Or so I thought! .. Which I even rolled at the time, but she wouldn’t get – she already had Prepared!
Helios forgot all his Katar proficiency due to Memory Loss and Stardust first humped the ground, and then developed a strong Fear of the Dark (D). At least she gained enough insanity from this to be able to use her survival again despite Prey (D).
The Monster then turned to Calys, the basic aimed hard at her legs. Two hits were another severe though! I closed my eyes and rolled the dice with a sinking feeling in my stomach – a 6 again – turned into a 3.
Phew. 2 bleed for her as well. She was blasted away with another bleed for her troubles afterwards.

Squobble was the only one of the team to get up this round and I quickly came to the conclusion that I just needed to have him use his Rawhide Headband this turn and pick whatever option was less leathal. We saw another Pitying Sigh and the mood Bored, the latter of which would trigger Disdain after a turn.
Giving it a second look over, the Pitying Sigh would also trigger Disdain though, just a turn earlier. Both times would disappear Calys.
If we put Bored into play we needed to deal 6 wounds next turn. Which wasn’t impossible for us to do, especially with the -2TGH on the mood, but it was unlikely with the slimmed down Hit Location deck and the trap looming. Still, it was our only option by the looks of it. At the very least, this way we had a fighting chance to save Calys!

6 cards left, the Phoenix was Bored out of its mind apparently.
It basic’d Squobble who, dodged 1 hit (of 2) and side stepped the Blast Zone, only taking minor damage to his arms.

The race was on. The Hit Location deck had gotten pretty slim, but we couldn’t be overly cautious, we just had to go!
Calys attacked first, leveraging the best chance to not draw the trap. Only 3 hits – probably for the best. Eye of the Storm blasted Squobble away after Stardust had dashed into a safe spot to take the storm head on! The monster took a total of 4 wounds from the string of axe attacks!
Stardust used both Embolden and Overcharge whilst she was able too, seeing a chance to end the fight with a single wound! I would only take a 4+ to finish the fight, and she got only one hit after what felt like one of the dice spinning for an eternity to be a 1.
But 1 hit was still a hit! The Glorious Hands locked in her sight, she rolled a 6! With Devastating 1 she dealt the final 2 damage needed!

As I fell back into my chair, a sigh of relief escaped me. Not because we won the fight, but because we were able to save Calys.

Of only 4 cards left in the Hit Location deck, the trap had been the very bottom card. A surprisingly stressful fight, despite that starting round.
For this Phoenix especially, I couldn’t help but picture the birb as a bored time traveler that knew if they died, they would just repeat the loop over and over again until they eventually survived.
It had been just kinda done with us as soon as we had arrived, after all.

For the time being we collected the spoils of the fight and headed home, a little shaken but alive.
Nobody aged from the encounter, and only Stardust was able to take spec points.
Helios did trigger insight (+3 survival/insanity) because of his lingering age token.

The resources we got were both crazy good and strange in equal measures. No Pustules was a little disappointing, but well, I wouldn’t want to be ungrateful now.
4 Iron from a single Mineral Gathering event AND the full phoenix bow (Arc Bow), those would definitely go a long way. Maybe we could get a full bow squad going for LY17+ shenanigans and see how that might go.
We could probably also get quite far on the phoenix set with these resources. But first we needed to get home, of course.

Whilst we are here, a little drunk on a victory and that ridiculous pile of resources, I’d like to take a moment and acknowledge a fact that I have glossed over the last time we fought the Phoenix and subsequently started building parts of its armor afterwards.
I KNOW that it is a flammable set.

I just wanted to put that out there.
Whilst not ideal it is still a set strong both on offense and defense and it will pay off without a doubt.

But that will be all from me for today. With my own pre-order made not long after I put out my post, I will return to await new blessed information.
Maybe that won’t be too long as there seems to be some expectation going around that we might even get an update today.

As always, thank you very much for your time, ..
I am the Lamplighter, give me your light.
Amathul