When I came out of the library Santa Chicken was in town giving out presents. I got a piece of metal, which will be useful if my chains break again. Althea received a pony doll, and was quite happy with it.

I headed up to the snowy area west of north field to see what was happening there, and joined a long battle against various ice giants and frost giants. I fell many times, and eventually the exiles prevailed (taking breaks for snowball fights periodically).

After the giants were defeated I headed for the snowy place on the dark cloud to join Aughra and Mattie. Unfortunately I wasn't much help, so Elise and Wormtounge joined us. With two fighters we had considerably more success.

This afternoon a large number of Orga Shamen appeared in Puddleby, as well as the surrounding farms and fields. Individually a shaman is not very dangerous (even I can kill one) but in large groups they can incinerate even strong fighters. I was mostly able to avoid large concentrations, and picked off a number of them in East Field and in town.

Some exiles headed for the Orga Camp, where they apparently met with considerable resistance. I was worn out from chasing shamen all over the fields, though, so I returned to the library.

Today Indigo and Ayella were both out of the library at the same time I was, so we decided to try hunting jade arachnoids at their lair in the marsh, with Shere Khan along to heal us. Unfortunately the arachnoids proved too much for us--Indigo and I fell, and were eventually rescued by Yazza. With the hunting party strengthened by rescuers, we decided to try again, but this time Indigo and Yazza both fell (as did I, of course). Indigo and Yazza were too badly injured to be healed on the spot, so we returned to town.

Indigo had to study at this point, so Ayella and I, together with Ebony and Blaise, headed for the regular (much easier) arachnoid cavern in East Forest. We hunted there successfully for a time, until Richard announced via sunstone that Bawkmas lights were going up in town. We all rushed back to town to see the lights.

This year two Sylvans, Seth and Jonathan, were putting up Bawkmas decorations around Puddleby. They asked the exiles who were watching to help them as well--in this sketch, Ayella is helping put lights in a tree.

I helped as well; in this sketch I had just hung a bunch of mistletoe over the door of the Temple. Unfortunately, Malkor was given some lights to place in a tree. Rather than doing so, he ran off and decorated Junko's dump with them, to the considerable dismay of Seth and Jonathan.

After helping spread Bawkmas cheer throughout the town, Jonathan and Seth headed home to rest. The exiles who had helped them headed for town center, where Ayella, Coriakin, and Xepel put on a concert.