The hustle and bustle of GenCon is just behind us and I’m probably speaking for most people when I say that we are already back to waiting for the Witches and Wanderers.
Oh, and of course there’s the videos made at GenCon, be it interviews, vlogs or Q&As as well.
Bra Mithra’s Sim Interview is up!
Bra Mithra’s Community Q&A with Adam as well!
Bra Mithra’s Lore Interview
Bra Mithra’s Titan Bee showdown
PlayTest’s Interview with Adam

And as I was watching the discord with baited breath for pictures of new models, I’ve been painting again. As always they are with the rest of the Painted Stuff.

But enough about me.
Regardless of what we are currently waiting on, we need to get Azure Pond moving forward again, and it is high time that we fought that dreaded Phoenix Lvl3.

The survivors returned home victorious after slaying a potentially vicious foe and the rest of the settlement wasn’t quite sure if that thing we brought along was a worm (the nightmare-tardigrade), or what, if anything, in the 9 hells had happened to Calystea?
It did poop out a scrap upon settling in to its new home, so the community was quick to adopt it as our own, with an instinctual need to protect it surging within us.

What a reward for sleepwalking through a minefield.

I’ve been really looking forward to this Lantern Year for a while already, and we only needed to survive one more settlement event before we could finally upgrade our Blacksmith (for the first time as well) – and the event we got was: Acid Storm.
A 7 added 1 more scrap to storage at the cost of us not being able to use music stuff this year, whilst anything art got buffed by +2! And we even could make our own founding stones on top of all that if we wanted to!
Certainly not the worst trade off!

But, more importantly, after increasing the tally for Calystea’s death, we were allowed to start to develop! And the time had finally come!

We could use the Pyrolitic Lantern!
We had made it to Lantern Year 15+ with it in storage and we did have a Blacksmith to use it on! Thus we gained the ability to archive the resource to gain Bloomery (I)! Being the first time I got to do this, I was just generally hyped for it.
And of course, we kept going further – with 9 endeavors for the Lantern Year we spent 2 to make the Wrought Ironworks!

My main interest for this newest addition to the settlement was in the Wrought Tachi or the Wrought Longbow. Of course the general interaction with Perfect Hits synergizes with PotSun to some degree. And whilst we wouldn’t be able to build any of these items this year, we might well be able to do so in the next.
The big thing about building the Tachi at this point being that it needed a Black Lichen. And I was thinking it was about time we took Calys to a Phoenix Lvl3 anyhow. Amongst a lot of things, a Black Lichen would be a neat little byproduct from that hunt.
And if that didn’t work out, which it well might, we could pivot with a new group to a Lvl3 lope the year after.

In either case it’ll be good for us to have a couple more Axtolotl children running around with Axe (4). Especially after we have just lost the promised child Calystea.

First Calys and Squobble are sent to drink of the Sacred Water.
A 10 (8) as the lesser result was an incredible start – nice!
The Twins Calyssa (Combo Master, +1ACC) and Callum (+2STR) were born into the settlement. These children were wild (and Calyssa was probably pretty volatile too – I love it!)!
I knew I was going to be upset if I innovated Clan of Death after that. So, switching focus for a moment, I naturally wanted to innovate next.
Yep! Of course! It had to be the best pick of the 4!
Heart Flute, Clan of Death, Nightmare Training or Storytelling. There was no reason to pick anything other than Clan of Death. So… yeah. Darn it! For once I was trying to anticipate the extra draws you could get from Insight!
After that I figured I might as well make use of the Love Juice as well. The same parents were elected and rolled an 8 (6) – 1 more child, this one of a new generation.
Of course the game was being cheeky and I did get an extra innovation draw after innovating for the year! Cassandra (Ambidextrous FA) is the name. As the first member of the Clan of Death I instantly Purify’d her for +1STR.

With that, I got to thinking that I might want to save the rest of the normal resources and just have a look at the Lion God stuff to finish off this phase.
I opened the Old Blue Box first and Elladora got to be the “lucky” one to do it. She took the heavy accessory from the box .. and she died.
It’s a little hard to tell right now whether or not we should be able to use the Ancient Lion Claws in this campaign. RAW you definitely can’t – accessories are worn pieces of gear and The Sun prevents that. However, we also already know that in future The Sun will single out only armor to be prohibited (as mentioned by Dark Tastemaker on the discord). In any case, without pounce, its hardly worth using. Scratch that. Its probably always hardly worth using. I still think its fun, though.
Anyways, continuing on, I decided I’d be doing the lil painting thingamabob as well. Talass was still a member of the oldest guard and she would be the one to do the honors.
And she died, leaving only a .. wet .. tooth behind.

Too bad we hardly got anything out of that, but we were up to 5 endeavors again, and that should count for something, right?
With those I started brain surgery on Stardust. All 5 were spent and she did suffer intracranial hemorrhage.. which she did not get rid off in the end, but at least she had no more disorders when she got off the chair at the Barber Surgeon.
She was still not usable, sadly.

By the time I had grown anxious about the upcoming fight. The Lvl3 birb was going to be interesting.. and likely stressful. Our victory would largely depend on the axe facilitated crits I believed.
But I know, I know, I have a penchant for being dramatic.

The Hunters:
Moon – green (Leather Armor, Tempered Axe)
Squobble – blue (Phoenix bits, Arc Bow)
Calys – red (Screaming Armor, Sonic Tomahawk)
Gwyn – yellow (Rawhide Armor, Sunring Bow)

This fight was likely going to be rough, whether or not I’m being dramatic. But if a single person made it back home victorious, I’d be more than happy with the outcome. I also would have wanted to take Helios along, because he had 3EVA, but he would simply disappear if he came along when time shenanigans started happening.

Before we were able to depart though, the Knowledge Worm had lured in its first victim. Moon had the most insanity of the group (15), and she suddenly found herself in front of the creature, inhuman voices calling out to her.
It did take a reroll for her to survive the encounter (she had rolled a 2 initially), but in the end she re-awakened, the worm held tightly in her arms.
Her mind cleared, she threw it away and watched in horror and disgust as it slithered away into the shadows.

The Huntphase:
As we started on our adventure we quickly spotted a structure reaching up far into the abyssal heavens, and naturally we went ahead to investigate. It turned out to be a writhing Flesh Monolith (basic HE83). Gwyn did gain a courage for approaching in his recklessness, and he was able to just about dash away again before he would have been torn in half!
And as if we had been in this exact spot already, all around us, Time Flow[ed] Backwards. Squobble was reduced down to a single hunt xp, yet he still existed! And that was the important bit! In the long run this event might actually help us, as it kept Calys able to hunt for longer!
Still confused, we wandered aimlessly through the darkness until we eventually stumbled on the site of a Failed Start (basic HE92) of a group of survivors, almost astonishingly similar to our own origins. This gave us the opportunity to collect up to 4 Founding Stones. A truly tempting proposition!
Because we wouldn’t be able to crit the monster outside of guaranteed hits anyway, we ditched 2 Lucky Charms and a Scrap Lantern!
One mental scare was naturally followed by a physical one, the Hungry Ground (basic HE07) opened up right underneath Moon and threatened to devour her. She graciously leapt away just in time (6).
Pushing ahead we were suddenly surrounded by gales of wind, almost as if had entered a Wind Tunnel. But at 17 base STR across the survivors we were hardly pushed back at all.
Another fateful sight presented itself to us as soon as we entered a calmer environment. There we stood before The Beginning (basic HE91) of this grand adventure. Thanks to Saga, we knew of these hallowed grounds, so we all gained a courage as our spirits were uplifted!

And after what felt like no time at all, Overwhelming Darkness already loomed before us: Calys punched herself to chase away the doubt she harbored (-1ACC), Moon and Squobble saw the Nightmare Whale (-1EVA) and Gwyn took the arm damage from carrying his lantern up high, taking the lead.

Having carved a path through the darkness, we were half-way there!
Ready to do some Mineral Gathering, Gwyn used his pickaxe to gather a Broken Lantern, but he crushed his hands in the process. He was up to a light wound already.
Afterwards we were suddenly standing at the entrance to Overwhelming Darkness again. Like a Recurring Nightmare, Squobble lost a courage as he averted his eyes from somebody else’s tragic fate. Calys punches herself again (-1ACC), and Gwyn and Moon took the arm damage.

Pushing on yet again, the group was swallowed by Wailing Smoke (basic HE08). Squobble did get lost for a bit, but 3 brain damage wouldn’t do anything to him. Maybe he even enjoyed his alone-time away from the group.
Before we could assess our situation properly we found ourselves spurred on, already hunting the mighty Gregalope (basic HE38) darting across the horizon. Calys led the charge, but we were just too slow. It escaped before we could make heads or tails of what we were doing. I mean, really, what were we even doing?
Still reflecting on the sudden failed chase, Moon was hit by a lump of birb poop out of nowhere. Slimed but fine, we scraped the Musculent Droppings off of her armor and continued, giggling in silence at her misfortune.
The final hurdle on this long hunt was a flock of Cancer Pigeons (basic HE03). Squobble had to fight tooth and nails to get rid of the creatures, but a 5 and a survival spent proved to be enough.

We have made it to the monster!

With the true horror potentially just beginning, we had potentially 8 crits guaranteed over the course of the fight – 5 persistent injuries in the deck and 3 Founding Stones. And those might just have to carry us through. If we managed to hit the correct spots, there was no doubt they would.

For its level 3 fight the Phoenix only gains the Indomitable trait. The real meat of the higher level is in the additional (L) legendary AI card and the extra stats. With an additional +3DMG, +2SPD and +2LCK we are looking at a lethal and tanky bird that prevents most critical hits from your average survivor.
But with 3 Founding Stones and an Axe Master with a savage axe, we do have a chance at debuffing the monster and tearing out a chunk of feathers in the process.

As for terrain, we drew Tall Grass and a Dead Monster.
Oh wow.
Those were great draws! I’d be an idiot not to go first in that case!

22 cards in the deck, we already knew the monster would attack Moon first, but we were just too quick!
With momentum on our side, we started the turn by having Moon reveal the top 3 Hit Location cards and we saw the Primary Eyes! That was one of the spots we really wanted to crit with Calys.
We put the Feathered Wing on top and started the turn’s set of attacks by having Gwyn shoot his Claw Head Arrow at the monster. He hit the Phoenix and got the -1EVA token applied onto it, even as the wound failed.
Calys would then seize the moment and she attacked next.
Oh, Feline Entity! She hit a total of 5 times and 4 of them were persistent injuries! Whilst it guaranteed us another strong first turn, overall that wasn’t that great as we’d only get savage on 1 of these!
6 wounds later (she wounded on 4+ and turned all wounds on persistent injuries into critical wounds with axe mastery), the monster had gained -2ACC, lost control over a couple of its bodily functions, it might take a wound every time it drew AI and we were enabled to use Age Eater.

Ending our first turn, Squobble used the Lantern Sword to gain a singular hit. And he wounded with an exact 17 vs 17TGH. This saw Gwyn dash into the side spot as the monster conjured up a literal storm.
And the Feline Entity.

15 cards remaining. The monster sighed at us – Pitying Sigh. So, it was already bored of us again.
Everyone besides Calys gained an Age Token, and I was steadfast at trying to maintain formation to the best of our ability – so I had them all laugh at the Phoenix. It was an incredibly expensive move, costing 3 survival each, but I wanted to try and end this fight as quickly as possible – if we could anyway. This pushed both Moon and Gwyn real close to See the Truth as well.
The basic attack from Zeal then targeted Moon, finally removing the Priority Target token from her. She was hit only once on 7+, which she dodged. At 5DMG per hit, this one hurt like hell. But the Tall Grass had come to our rescue essentially.
The monster turn ended after Moon dashed out of the Blast Zone.

We began our next turn with Moon returning to the front spot directly below the monster’s beak, invoking her Cat Eye Circlet again. The cards that got revealed were not persistent injuries this time, but we could make this work, despite the Age Tokens on everybody besides Calys.
To start things off we had Gwyn throw his stone to secure 2 Small Feathers resources. With the deck still relatively full, I had Calys attack next. There wasn’t much she could do but wound here, and with no persistent injuries revealed there would be no crits to be had. A wound on 4+ seemed decent enough though. She did use Overcharge and Embolden to gain Devastating 1 as well.
Squobble was the one to close out the round again and he found the trap for us. Ouch.
The monster got 4 hits in, but luckily the Phoenix Plackart soaked up the duplicate hit to his chest.

11 cards in the deck. Haze was the next card played from the top of the deck. Whilst this would slow us down dramatically during our regular actions for each Age Token a survivor had, at least the card didn’t trigger extra AI or basic hits.
For the basic attack we had Moon tank it again. She was hit twice this time, dodging the hit to her head. After she dashed out of the Blast Zone she had enough Age Tokens to use Age Eater and regained 1 survival.
She was down to 2 already after all, so that worked out decently in our favor.

We were firmly in Cat Eye Circlet territory in this fight, so Moon moved back into the Tall Grass and we began to plot our further attacks. Non of the revealed hit locations felt like a prime opportunity for either the axe or a Founding Stone. Still we needed to get this over with.
In the end I still spent Squobble’s Founding Stone on the Feathered Body simply because it had +2TGH. The random Phoenix resource was a nice bonus though.
Calys was up next. Ready to Overcharge and hack away! This time she only got 3 hits in. After she was done, she had dealt 4 wounds, but the monster had turned around to look at her, finally noticing the threat in its backside.
Gwyn on the other hand did not want to attack, so he instead used Embolden and Sun Eater to surge the activation the Dead Monster (gaining us a Hollow Wing Bone), before using his Rawhide Headband.
We saw Gouge and Feast and the other Pitying Sigh. This was devolving into a meme of sorts. I did not want for Calys to take on any Age Tokens or even just fall over from the sigh, so I decided Moon would try and tank Gouge and Feast.
She was in the Tall Grass again – she should be reasonably fine.

5 (6) cards left, Gouge and Feast. Hitting on 7+, if the monster got in more than 1 hit, each would be a severe in addition to her being gutted.
But all that doom and gloom mattered none! Only 1 hit! She dodged it and was fine!
The basic afterwards failed completely – the -2ACC was paying dividends!
Finally out of survival she was flung from the Tall Grass, putting a definite end to our formation!

With Moon knocked down, Calys would have to attack blindly into the remaining deck. Still, at this stage the Hit Location deck had only lost 4 (8) cards. So this was a good a time as any. She Overcharged again for Devastating 1. And she went in! She hit 6 times! That’s far too often! Drawing those cards was not exactly the best feeling – but for all my worries, the trap was not in there!
This could be it! This SHOULD be it!
The first wound was dealt against the Feathered Neck, with Devastating 1 dealing 2 wounds. The second wound was the Hard Beak, triggering savage for another 2 wounds! It did cost us the axe special reroll to do it. We failed the wound the Feathered Wing. The last AI card got wounded off to a Rewind that did not go off against Calys.
And with a glorious Lantern 10 we hack at the Glorious Handed Feet, felling this bored Phoenix!

May its next life be more to its liking!

Unga-bunga protects!
Fighting Level 3s is tough, but not as tough as fighting imposter syndrome.
I can’t help but wonder what I did wrong. This couldn’t have worked out. And we did get plenty lucky. That Dead Monster was nice. Though in an alternate timeline that never came to be I know we would have gotten Excrete as the first AI card, which would also have spared us some damage as well.
The trap was in the bottom 3 cards at the end. Birb deck small though. Also that first draw. After I shuffled the deck for like 4 minutes. Getting the effects into play was great, don’t get me wrong, but it mostly negated savage for us as well.
Deep breaths now, and on to rewards.

For slaying a Lvl3 Phoenix we got to chose between 1 or 2 hunt xp. And I have to admit I do not remember what I chose for them individually, but nobody aged beyond a point they didn’t have before going on this hunt anyway.
We also got to gain 2 weapon proficiency.., which actually nobody was eligible for. Moon was still set to Katar (which I should probably change) and Gwyn did not fire his actual bow even once. Squobble couldn’t use proficiency and Calys, well, she’s already a master.
Everybody but Calys also gained 1 understanding for still having at least 1 Age Token at the end. And then we got our resources.

So, and, uhm, we also didn’t have Face Painting for the extra bonus.
We did get the Indomitable resource for the Tachyon Nodachi though. That’s the one needs 3 Perfect Bones however.

As we headed back home, I couldn’t help but ponder how it had been a photo finish of sorts. Moon and Calys ended the fight with 0 survival, whilst Squobble and Gwyn had 3 left. We would have started taking severe damage in the upcoming turns.

But generally speaking, typing this out now, the tension I felt throughout the fight did not really translate.
But what can I say, high level monsters (still?) scare me – this was my 2nd proper fight against a Phoenix Lvl3 – and we came in prepared to play a tight formation and managed to out-put enough damage to kill it before the momentum could shift into the favor of the Phoenix.
Of course we did bring the natural predator of the Phoenix to this fight as well – an Axe Master. Not that it helped the bird not be bored.
Next time we are going to start by finishing that Phoenix Armor.

Having like every 2nd AI card of the birb be Pitying Sigh in this campaign is getting both kinda hilarious and stupid.

But this will be it for now, I am still on the watch for more GenCon stuff and will add any links to vids to this post or the last one.
As always, thank you very much for your time, pushing ever onwards, towards the Red Witches
Amathul