We are currently moving along the final stretch of the hunting-part of this PotSun campaign, whilst Deno has already fought a Lvl3 Pariah and the Watcher for his PotLantern – that man is a machine!
For what its worth, speaking as somebody who isn’t too bothered about spoilers for just about any media, both the Witches and Pariah fights look VERY interesting from what I’ve seen. But I’ll leave it at that for the time being.

The shipping front on the other hand has not seen too much movement from what any single individual can gather. People in Australia (and Asia?) seem to be getting their packages at a somewhat reliable pace, whilst the US and Canada are also seeing some amount of movement, but its still fairly slow. The EU and UK seem to be the region that are lagging behind. and at this point its fair to assume that especially for EU we are going to get at least a mention of what’s happening in the update at the end of the month.
The Post-GenCon update and sale is going to be a big one in any case and, going by last year, maybe we also get a little more insight on the current state of the EoD1 painting contest as well.

Those are a lot of hopes, dreams and wishes for a KD:M update so its probably wise to not get too carried away.
Instead I will keep busy by going birb hunting for today.

Onwards! To Azure Pond!

As we were heading back home, for a brief second everything seemed well and good. We had not only slain that antelope for a mountain of resources, but there were also some exceptionally strong survivors waiting back home and I was already wondering who to send out next when we go for the Lvl3 birb again this Lantern Year.

So, as we collected our 8 endeavors for the year, we got to drawing the Settlement Event. Focused more on Sun Dipping and the general Festival Season vibes than the current random event I drew the card giving it barely a look at first..
.. and it’s Murder.
Even worse: it was an open and shut case this time.
Calys, our – MY – beloved axe master had been murdered in a fit of jealousy, by the axe-apprentice Gwyn who was only marginally more insane than her at 22.
He was quickly heralded as the new murder-boss of the settlement, which aged him up (Armored Fist FA, again, which he already had) gaining him both Burning Focus (FA) and Quixotic (D) as per my choices.
(Handing out Infinite Lives (FA) with Murder felt a little too easy at the time.)

That was a truly heavy hit to the ol’ morale for me. And it did put me somewhat off of Sun Dipping for the year as well.
In the end I did nominate Helios and Moon, to not outright skip the event, but I’d be lying if I said it didn’t feel a little superfluous.

Helios, of course, was the first ever Child of the Sun born into our settlement and upon rolling a 6, he first gained a Fighting Art of his choosing – Extra Sense (FA) – and then he and Moon were partnered up as Sun Eaters (SFA).

The Feline Entity presided over all these goings on in all her majestic glory.

Still, we had suffered a heavy blow here, one which the crippled Vigo (2MOV) would not be able to off-set. And due to some neglect on my part, there was no other Child of the Axtolotl Clan with Axe (4) – as Cassandra had long since focused on her training with the bow.
The axe master would lose some relevance against nemesis monsters, so.. it should be fine overall. Should be *sniff*.

Head hanging low, I moved on to develop.
First things first, we were going to innovate to keep the pain at bay.
Nightmare Training, Pottery, Heart Flute or Face Painting.
I really would have preferred to get Aquarobics over any of these options, but presented with them we would be going with Nightmare Training.

In preparation for the upcoming nemesis gauntlet, we needed to consider what we wanted to invest in in these final few years. Beacon Shields seemed like a sensible option – or the Wrought Greatshield as either of these were not affected by the restrictions of the campaign due to their nature of being weapons.
So how about we start on one of those?
1 endeavor got spent for 1 scrap, 1 more to make 1 Iron, another 1 for Leather and together we got ourselves a Beacon Shield – yay.
That was the 4th shield across the settlement if we wanted to take them all along at once.

I also spent the Muscly Gums we got last Lantern Year to activate Sauna Shrine.
(I did spend 2 of my 17 rerolls to get the result I wanted, which was excessive, but I won’t tell, if you won’t either).

Another endeavor got spent to give slow little Vigo a chance to keep the Axtolotl clan alive, and he was sent to drink the Sacred Water with Gwynevere.
Those genes should be strong!
And.. we got a double 1.
Those genes were too strong! They should not be!
Anyways.., 2 more rerolls were spent (thankfully nothing prevented them in this case), and we were up to an 8 and an 8. Another double.
One more population with an extra +1STR was born: Vincent Axtolotl – with a respectable 1 point of axe mastery to start with. Wow!
He also came out not only Tough (FA) but we’d also get 1 more card during innovating this Lantern Year – yeah! Order of operations matters!

Of course, little Vincent wouldn’t be able to come along for the Phoenix fight as he might just disappear.
I couldn’t help but feel like hunting the Birb after all of that happening was a stupid plan to stick with. The Axe Master dead, we were without any crits for the fight essentially unless we lucked into another batch of Founding Stones.
But, then again, there I was, committed to the bit. I would never manage anything if I did get sent off track every time I lost a single survivor.

Anyways.., as Vincent wasn’t able to come along, I took the chance and purified him for another +1STR – my little Axe protégé.

Our final endeavor was then used to do Nightmare Training with Cassandra. She used up her 4 survival to gain +1 proficiency with her bow, putting her to 4 of 8.

Depending on how this Phoenix fight went, we would determine what Level of Lion God we tackled next year accordingly.

The Hunters:
Gwynevere – green (Leather Armor, Lantern Sword)
Celestine – blue (Phoenix Armor, Wrought Tachi)
Gwyn – red (Screaming Armor, Sonic Tomahawk)
Cassandra – yellow (Rawhide Armor, Arc Bow)

The biggest difference to last year, besides Vigo not being present was the active Katana and Bow specs. Rerolling misses for the slow bow should help out with our DPS whilst the Katana was now able to inflict direct wounds on Perfect Hits. To activate the effect Celestine needed to be blind, which she applied to herself with an Eye Patch.
We had nothing but hope in our hearts at the time. Realistically, only the amount of random-Phoenix-bullshit thrown at us would determine how we came out of the fight. Considering we were PotSun and we were bringing our Warrior of the Sun to the fight – we should be fine to both put on the hurt and kill the monster even if we were to suffer casualties.

Before we set out I also opted to not take the pickaxe along, and instead gave Gwynevere a Scrap Lantern for the extra survival and stats.
Finally we rolled for the Knowledge Worm (I), this time it inspected Gwyn and his 25 insanity, but it wriggled away into the close-by darkness yet again.
Anybody else feeling that this’s getting a little strange? What was the little guy waiting for?
Or rather.., who?

The Huntphase:
As the rain come down hard outside, a thunderstorm even, the survivors set off for the hunt of their lives.
Quickly surrounded by Consuming Grass (basic HE82), Gwyn stumbled and lost his footing. He rolled a 2. This felt like a great opportunity to basically guarantee Gwyn getting Ageless from White Secret by not saving him here, but after giving it some thought, I archived his Scrap Lantern and moved on with an empty space in his gear grid.
Suddenly we were caught in a Wind Tunnel – a well known trick the birb liked to play on us at this point – the gale was no hurdle for my survivors though, as they effortlessly pushed through.
Before long the landscape turned dotted with Saliva Pools (basic HE67). Most of my survivors have seen or heard of these before, just Cassandra couldn’t take the stench and she threw up into one of the pools.
And then the Phoenix-shenanigans began.
Celestine could not help but be enchanted by the remains of a beautiful, Fateful Feather in midst of the ruins of what seemed like a settlement not too different to our own. For gaining a Tail Feather, Celestine was set to 0 hunt xp – a dangerous proposition with 2 more monster events coming up – and she was reduced to 0 weapon proficiency as well!
Quite the expensive feather..
A disturbing sense of foreboding lingered with us as we continued towards the barrier of thick viscous darkness and before we could reach it, we were caught in a Bone Storm (basic HE54). Either option we were presented with would be reckless in its own way, and I dare say there was no way to be happy with my decision. Ultimately we braved the storm, as we had no fragile gear to lose.
Gwyn got to See the Truth in the middle of the storm as my survivors were pelted by debris in the head over and over again. (60% of all hits went to somebody’s head!)

For Overwhelming Darkness Cassandra emerged on the other side a Leader (FA), whilst Celestine saw the Nightmare Whale and both Gwyn and Gwynevere burnt their arms with even more damage I would have rather not taken.

But the worst was yet to come.

On the other side we stood in a Fertile Field, unsure of how we got here so suddenly, plants grew and withered within seconds. As the survivors all suffered 3 brain damage to gain an understanding of what was happening around them, Celestine (+3survival/insanity) triggered insight.
And just as I got scared that we were walking into another Bone Storm, we instead stood before a Jagged Valley (basic HE45). Which would prove to be MUCH worse. As we left the valley we were covered in un-healing cuts, and all survivors had to take 2 bleed because I did not typically carry bandages with me!
And to make matters even worse, a Mudslide (basic HE55) surprised us just as suddenly! Gwyn had it the worst of the group – he rolled 2, 2, 2, a 1 and a 7, completely removing the armor on his body and hands as he was tumble-dried by a landslide.
And even better – Celestine lost her Bird Bread in the commotion (which now firmly meant that I should have built the vestements instead), whilst at least the other 2 were fine all in all.
And then Time Flow[ed] Backwards.

You already knew it just had to happen.

In the blink of an eye Celestine was gone.
Just.. gone.
Not knowing who or what the group had lost on this trip, Gwynevere took the lead on this, hopefully, last leg of the journey. The area we wandered into was desolate and the survivors knew they would be beset by Famine (basic HE04) if they continued down this route and thus they decided to take a different route.
A terrible choice.
The group ended up in the Jagged Valley (basic HE45) again. In an instant all survivors were up to 4 bleed as Cassandra’s chest armor got shredded apart.
Before we even managed to reach the Phoenix, Gwyn died to blood-loss on the side of the road (he had an extra bleed because of See the Truth and the associated Blind severe injury).
We may have reached the monster in the end, but this fight felt doomed to fail due to the heavy bleed alone.

Whilst we were set up to bleed out in quick succession, we were adamant to at least put up a fight!

For random terrain we drew a Survivor Corpse – that’s Gwyn – and some Tall Grass.

The monster had its 22 card deck set up and was ready to go.
Unspoken! The monster foolishly attempted to unspeak Cassandra’s name, and on 8+ failed.
The basic attack from Zeal targeted Gwynevere and on 8+ in the grass hit her only once before she dashed to the side of the Phoenix.

Cassandra started our counter attack by shooting the Hollowpoint Arrow, wounding once before she got blasted away by Eye of the Storm. She dealt 2 wounds because of Overcharge.
Of course, Gwynevere attacked the monster as well, hitting 4 times, avoiding the trap and any Rewind effects. With Overcharge and Embolden she was able to dish out another 4 wounds on 3 successful attacks before the monster blinked away to the other side of the board. Thanks to having sword mastery at home, she could freely attack and chose what she hit after rolling for the best possible results.

16 cards in the deck, the monster was still bored of us – Pitying Sigh – AGAIN?!
This would only affect Cassandra because Gwynevere was on the other side of the tree. Cass had a mental break down, as she has a Danger Seizure, dealing 1 damage to her waist, gaining her Hemophobia (D) as well – a fitting outcome for this hunt.
The basic attack on the other hand was unable to reach Gwynevere so it triggered the monster’s instinct instead: Disdain.
As both Gwynevere and Cassandra’s age spiraled, they grew older – months and years passing in seconds. Cassandra (+1STR) hit age 2 from this – admittedly I had grown unsure whether or not she had already gained this bonus before, but I figured it would be fine either way.

Fresh out of Age Tokens Gwynevere attacked from the front, 4 more hits and no 1s canceling our efforts. 2 impervious hit locations did limit the damage we could deal to 3. Overcharge and Embolden were staple actions for Gwynevere as a Warrior of the Sun that regained any survival every time she spent it.
Cassandra moved closer and used her Beacon Shield to Block 2.

13 cards remaining, Analtorium. Nobody was in the blind spot though.
The basic targeted Gwynevere again, hitting twice this time for 5DMG each, she dodged one of the hits and dashed out of the Blast Zone to avoid the lethal bleed of shredding debris.

As our turn arrived Gwynevere could get another attack in, quickly drawing 4 more cards, wounding only the Displacement spot for 2 wounds. The damage she was dealing was steadily and noticeably winding down.
As the bird Materialized from its Displacement next to her, Cassandra found herself unable to convert the shot with her bow at 2+ into a hit, despite the reroll.

11 cards remaining, Ancient Stare – the monster was too far away from Gwynevere and thus triggered Disdain again. This time Gwynevere aged (+1STR) before the Phoenix ended its turn.

I knew that we were set up to hit the trap at any moment by then, but we could not really do anything about it, so…
And just as predicted, as 4 more hits were revealed for Gwynevere, the trap was amongst them. 4 hits were returned by the monster, 2 to the head and 2 to the chest, resulting in 2 severe injuries, one for each spot.
The bleed killed her, unable to roll 2 lantern 10s.

Driven by rage and desperation, Cassandra shot the bird and wounded it once.

10 cards remained, Deja Vu. The dreaded card.
On a 7+ Cassandra would fade from existence.
Life could be a cruel mistress at times, and in this instance Cassandra was forced to carry on – a 4.

Not for long though.
The basic hitting her was devastating! She had to take a severe to both the body and the head, and even if she were to survive both by rolling 10s, she would be knocked down in the blast zone and bleed out from that effect.

The Phoenix stood alone and victorious.

For what its worth, we put up a decent fight with these 2. The only way we could have ever won this would have been if Cassandra had gotten the trap, giving Gwynevere more uptime for damage.

Either way, this is how it ended.

As the Phoenix picked clean the bones of those who had arrived at the fight and died, we might still get presented with a sort of second wind. Between Cassandra and Gwynevere 1 might be reborn in the settlement.
On 6+ the first hurdle was taken with plenty of luck.

I random’d into Cassandra’s rebirth. She who hath returned – Phoenicia.

A bit on the nose, but overall fitting.

Far from great – but it could have somehow still ended up worse.
We got one of them back, that’s gotta count for something?
I also think we did put up a decent fight all things considered. The Phoenix being bored of our usual tricks helped as well.

Originally I had written a looong paragraph on Phoenixes, their random bullshit and player expectations VS the potential disappointment with them as a quarry with cards that can insta-kill you at this point, but it felt so defensive and overblown that I ended up cutting it.
And instead of going on a rant about the birb I will end this post as a whole by saying that:
So far all Node 3 Quarry monsters are a noticeable step-up in difficulty compared to N1 and N2. Dragon Kings dish out damage like its going out of style to quite literally melt you, whilst the Sunstalker is a surprisingly agile monster that can not just dodge and evade a lot of incoming attacks but also explode just about anything – the terrain, the survivors or itself. And the Phoenix is.., well.., the Phoenix.
The Nightmare Ram (and its mountain dungeon) and the Honeycomb Weaver are surely going to offer a similar amount of challenge in their own brand of dangerous once they release at some point in the next .. uh .. 3 years?

As always, thank you very much for your time. I really like the birb.
Amathul