The Book had prepared her for this.

There was more scuffling below on the slab. He was certainly determined, although that determination had done him no good for the last hour. His feistiness was a good sign. Her own man stood off to the side and behind her, quiet and still. This scene before them, and he seemed no more ruffled than if they were upstairs, far up through many layers of stone and air, in her quarters sipping tea. Not that he ever drank the tea.

Despite what she had done, despite what she was about to do, she held in her mind why she was here, why all this was necessary. The Empyreans were coming. There could be no doubt. Martine was obviously nothing more than their agent. Trying to stop the flow of Isparians into Dereth by annihilating all the Nexus Arrival Points. . . yes, that had the stink of Empyrean intent all over it.

The Book showed her the way. It was hard to remember when it was just a book, one of many Empyrean tomes that she had sought and collected in her time on Dereth. She was proud of what she had accomplished by her research on the enemy. Let Celdiseth voice his scorn and distrust all he may, but without her and the Geomantic arts she had mastered, there would be no housing, no Covenant Crystals. But Geomancy had never absorbed her the way the Book had.

Hanaureli Rezau. Translated from the Yalaini it meant, "Letters of the Red Self". But the Yalain name was just a translation from the older and original Dericost, Inikshai Ardun. The Book of Blood. Nuhmudira, harder and colder than most, had, at first, been appalled by some of the rituals the Book had described. She had thought her own people were prone to bloodthirst. . . the Book showed her how soft they were. Its blackened pages and red-inked words revealed many things. Occasionally she wished she did not know what she knew now. But this would be the second step towards saving her people, one potentially far more powerful than just shelters.

Chaos seeps, thorns grow the rift

The Book whispered to her, told her she was taking too long. The Book was thirsty. Blood continued to ooze out of her pores and trickle down her face as she finished placing the last of the tokens at the head of the slab. Lightning and Acid, Fire and Frost--each token facing one of the four cardinal directions. The man continued to fight against the rope that strapped him to the flat stone. She recited to herself the list of his crimes. He had taken many lives, both back on Ispar and here in Dereth before the Lifestones had been activated. A murderer, an assassin. It was one of the reasons why he had been chosen.

She was ready. She reached deep into the folds of her robe, and began to pull out the instrument. Unbidden, a memory of a memory sprang into her mind, a moment of some eighty years past. She was young then, so very young, her hair the color of flame and still in curls. There had been a gathering in the city square, and although her parents had stayed in front of her, blocking her eyes, she had heard the yells of the crowd, had felt their anger and hatred crackle through the masses of flesh. The crowd dispersed, she and her parents with it, but later she had run back to the square, to see for herself the body of the young woman. The stones were still there as well, and the words written in crimsonthorn dye across the dirt, Here be a Witch.

Milantos served justice swift and harsh to those who practiced their craft outside custom and law. But Nuhmudira would never see Milantean soil again.

Shadow taints, and Darkness endures

The Zharalim, her own member of the Shagar Zharala, he who had brought in one of his ex-brotherhood for her purposes, moved softly to her side. So quiet, so deadly. A whisper, "It is time, my Malika." Yes. It was time.

The Book was very clear. To achieve a desire of great power, to manipulate to one's will the lines of mana that flowed so strongly on this world, it was not enough to only perform the Rites. One must be willing to sacrifice something essential to one's self. Something too dear to be replaced. Nuhmudira had long considered what this might be. She was old. Withered and sere, love and passion were relics from a distant past. She had nothing to lose, and this is what had made her so dangerous to her enemies. She was the Monster of the Labryinth, after all.

But ultimately, she knew what she had to lose. Knew what she must sacrifice. Redemption had never been close at hand for Nuhmudira. She had left too many broken promises and lives in her wake for the comfort of that illusion. One day, she had always thought, one day she might make things right. It was a rich and delicious irony that her bravest attempt to redeem the world would cost her any chance at being able to enjoy it.

Her prisoner below would merely lose his life. Nuhmudira was losing her soul.

She drew the dagger out of her robe.

Hope falters, but Sacrifice cures

The man gasped and nearly collapsed to the ground. He looked over to the side and saw Martine whirling back and forth, as if the psychic explosion had occurred nearby. The hybrid had obviously felt it as well.

"Is this your madness?" Martine snarled at him, as he continued his mad circling.

"No, my lord. I. . . I do not know what happened.”

And then it began. The lines of power rose and fell, undulating all across the world. Tendrils of energy snaking out, rushing around them. Thousands, hundreds of thousands of sinewy weaves streaking back and forth across the sky. For those with the power to see the sky was lit with pure power. But to what effect?

Martine began laughing. He was talking to himself between his cackling, something he had been doing more often of late. There was no sense to be made of the mumbling.

Martine spoke loud and clear, "They have created an alternate path for the magic to flow."

"What, my lord? I do not understand."

"They have set a new foundation. A new power of enchantment. Something that even now seeps into their steel. So much power and for so little cause. Do not doubt me, little man, I have some intimacy with. . . different forms of power." Martine resumed his mad cackling.

It was impossible. A new foundation of magic? And even assuming it to be true, of what use would it be? The man's mind raced through different possibilities. . .

"Relax, mouse, relax. Little mice, fleshlings fleshlings, little mice rolling dice making games and play. Am I a man? Am I?" Martine's voice had started out cogent, but was once more slipping into madness. There were too many things out of control. . .

Martine took off his mask. Raw muscle coated with a red glistening sheen leered grotesquely underneath. His mouth continued to move, spouting madness. "Am I lost? The Singularity is so far away. Fleshlings scurry, portalspace disturbed, meat is meat, so meaty. I? I?" And a new mask appeared on his face, formed out of thin air, white and pristine and smooth, this one with no eye-holes or mouth-slit. But gradually the mask gained these features, and more. The mask became his face, and Martine opened up his mask-eyes, and spoke through his mask-mouth.

"He hurt me. He has hurt me so much. Let the mice scurry. I am going to hurt him back. I will. You will have what you desire from me. But I am going to hurt him." The man was reminded of sailing the deeps in the throes of a timber-wracking storm. There was nothing but to let the storm do what it will and pray. Martine continued unabated.

"It is not fair to either of them, I know. But my family is gone. They are gone. He will pay. He will cry and cry and cry, hiding in his hiding-hole. He will know how deep the shadows go. He will know why the worms turn and turn. To know is to hurt. He will cry!" Violet light burst forth from Martine, illuminating the sky in all directions for miles. The man shut his eyes from the blinding glare. He was glad that they continued to meet in the far places, long distant from any wandering eyes.

When he opened his eyes, he was even gladder to see that Martine had finally come back down to the ground and was standing there motionless. Perhaps it had been the shock of feeling the explosion of power that had unhinged Martine so quickly. So much could be accomplished if Martine could just maintain his sanity for a little while longer.

Martine turned to look at the man. The mask was gone, replaced by a semblance of a normal human face. Martine loved to change his face, although this, like the mumbling to himself, was happening much more frequently of late. Was the madness not over? But when Martine spoke, his voice was crystalline cold.

"My flesh and blood. My flesh and blood shall hurt him so."

Across the land, the builders employed by the Arcanum have continued their feverish construction of houses. New settlements are opened and the effort to allow every Isparian their own home continues. Cottages, Villas and Mansions have been built to further the accommodation effort. The Arcanum has continued to keep up with the cause, placing the important covenant stones with as much zeal as the carpenters. Rumors abound that the Arcanum and Nuhmudira are responsible for the gifts that graced town centers through the month of Frostfell, but the mage and her council have remained silent on the issue.

Warriors, hunters and magicians alike return from the far reaches of Dereth with new weapons, armor, and jewelry, imbued with a strange and powerful new form of magic. These items are rare but valued and coveted above all else. This new magic is the most promising find that the Isparians have had in a great many months, and is a welcome surprise at the end of the Festival season.

Yet there is something sinister looming over the people. There is a shadow that creeps into the minds of every adventurer, a feeling of being watched from afar. Something wicked grows in the hidden places of the world and beneficial magics are not the only new discovery of this time. With an uncertain future ahead of them the Children of Ispar struggle through a harsh winter, trying to enjoy their new fruits while under the baleful eye of a madman.

Following is a list of the most interesting additions made to the game this update. However, please note that not everything has been included--that would spoil the fun of finding out all manner of things added or changed! As usual, though, the town criers, barkeeps, and scribes may know the latest news. Also, the trades of crafting and selling are always in flux, so changes to prices and features are not always listed here in their entirety.

Highlights include:

• A potent new form of magic has seeped into the world!
• Treasure gets a boost.
• A chance for experienced players to return to their roots via a new quest and several dungeons, new and old.
• More housing opens!

Times change. What once generated “oohs” and “aahs” now seems unworthy of acknowledgement. As players and their characters progress in skills and knowledge, in levels and social relationships, their perspectives change. The old pinnacle of items and dynamics slowly become known and mastered, and the cutting-edge becomes passe.

Such is the eventual process inherent in any persistent world. But that same persistence also allows us to occasionally liven things up--to introduce new pinnacles, new challenges. The Asheron's Call team has been working on a number of these dynamics for the last few months, and we begin to see the first sign of them here in January.

We began our focus on improving the elder game by overhauling our treasure system. While there are many treasure system changes still in the works, two of the major ones are being introduced in January: multiple spells on jewelry, stackable spells on armor and weapons.

First, the jewelry
At very high levels of treasure, players will occasionally see pieces of jewelry that have another endowment cast upon them. So be on the look out for that bracelet of Bludgeon Protection 5 and Strength 6. And at the highest levels of treasure, it will be possible to see jewelry with three spells. Any additional spells will add a partially random amount of Arcane Lore difficulty to the piece of jewelry.

Second, the stackable spells
Stackable spells are permanent bonuses that can be placed on items that add to, without overriding, existing spells. For example, a sword could have Strength 6 on it, for an additional 35 strength (with no economy bonus) for the user of the sword, as well as a Stackable Strength Spell that adds an additional 5 strength. This type of weapon is already in the game as the Spear of Purity, which has additional +10 bonuses to all of a player's attributes. Starting this month, high level treasure-generated weapons and armor will have a small chance of acquiring one or more of these stackable spells. Further, there is also a rare chance that these stackable spells will be the “Major” version. Major stackables have much more power and effect than their Minor versions.

It is important to note that these stackable spells are not castable. They can only be found on treasure-generated weapons and armor.

Again, while a wide range of high-level treasure sources generate these types of items, the highest level of treasure has the most chances of generating multiple stackables, and the highest chance of producing Major stackables. Each Stackable adds a very small, random amount of Arcane Lore difficulty to the item, depending on whether it's a Major or Minor version.

While we are excited about introducing these new dynamics into Asheron's Call we are also cognizant of the difficulties and potential problems that such dynamics can cause if not properly balanced. Therefore, we have erred on the side of caution with the availability of these items. So if you are not finding pieces of jewelry with two spells, or weapons with stackables each time you kill an Umbris Shadow, that is by design. As the dynamic progresses, we will always be reviewing the parameters of how often these special items are being generated and tweak as necessary.

The final note
These additions further deepen the rift between those characters with the lockpick skill and those without, and here's what we plan to do about it. Currently, treasure chests such as the Singularity Troves offer the most consistent source of highest-level treasure in the game. While lockpickers can give/trade Singularity Keys to non-lockpickers, we will be taking steps in the next few months to provide non-lockpickers with other ways of acquiring the highest-level treasure while still letting those with lockpick have some advantages in obtaining such treasure.

The latest about Housing
We have continued to experience problems with items in Housing storage and hooks being lost during server crashes. We announced in the Build Notes for the last two months that we believed we had identified and fixed the problem. Unfortunately, the problems persist. We have made some further changes this month to address the issue. However, we will not be guaranteeing the security of Housing storage during server crashes. At this time we still do not recommend that players entrust important or valuable items in their Housing hooks or storage chests until such time that we can be 100% sure of their security.

Making sure storage works correctly is one of our highest priorities and we will update the community as soon we feel that storage is completely safe. Your feedback and bug reports in this regard are invaluable. If you experience a loss of items in your house, please make sure to either contact an in-game admin or send a bug report to http://bugs.zone.com.

There is also a confirmed bug with the January update of some portals in Mansions and Villas not linking correctly with their dungeons. This will be fixed in the February update.

In addition to the storage bugs, there are a number of other dynamics for which we plan improvements over the next few months. First, January will see the addition of 500 new houses, as will February. We decided to ramp up the number of houses we were introducing for these months thanks to your direct feedback. After February, there will be nearly 2,500 houses per world; we will be pursuing both adding smaller amounts of additional houses as well as investigating alternate models of housing/storage so as to let as wide a spectrum of player possible enjoy these amenities.

Second, come February we are working on a means for Allegiance members to have quick and easy transportation to their Allegiance's Mansion. We will also be investigating making some changes to the process through which people join an Allegiance, so that we can activate the ability for Monarchs to open up a Mansion's storage chests to all the members of his Allegiance without as much possibility of griefing.

Generators
Last month a strange new bug was introduced where certain random generators, such as those responsible for creating an NPC, or an item, or the contents of a treasure chest, would simply not spawn those items, leading to a lot of broken quests and frustration. We've made a number of changes to the generator system to help address this dynamic, but we cannot be certain of a fix until we see the performance of the worlds during this month.

As always, your bug reports and feedback are essential.

Hot Topics

• We swear that the Bone Mace exists. Maybe it wasn't in the most accessible of locations, but the creature that carried it did have corporeal form. However, we have also let the monster spread to wider climes, so we hope to hear reports soon of the Bone Mace making its way into the greater populace's hands. We apologize for the delay.
• While there are strengths to the content dynamic of having monsters spawn other monsters, we did not implement the dynamic well with the tag team of Virindi Executors and Observers on Marae Lassel. Having the Executor be a “mage-type” creature and having its death trigger the death of other potential Singularity Key carrying monsters (the Observers) is an unfortunate example of how different design dynamics, while individually useful, can sometimes combine to form a completely unintended and counter-productive dynamic. The two creatures now spawn separately (although they may still sometimes appear together) on the island, and their deaths don't affect each other.
• We are aware of a lot of anguish over the Rubble quest, and we will be taking steps in February's Event to make the quest somewhat more accessible for players.

Housing dynamics will also continue to grow and improve, as we start developing alternate storage mechanisms for players, as well as means for players to grow and develop the assets in their houses.

We're also very excited to continue to develop the story threads started in last month's event, The First Strike, and continued in this event, Flesh and Blood. If you like what you see during these quests, then you're going to love the next eight months.

--The AC Team

Here are just some of the additions made in the January 22 game update, Flesh and Blood. The following list is comprised of detailed notes straight from the developers themselves. For a summary of things of interest, be sure to consult the official event article, Flesh and Blood.  

New Functionality and Content

• A series of new quests related to the ongoing storyline.

• The treasure system is now able to generate “cantrips” on certain high-level armor and weapons. For more information see the January Letter to the Players.
• The treasure system is now able to generate additional spells on certain high-level jewelry. For more information see the January Letter to the Players.
• Villas now have 50 usable hooks, out of a total of 70.
• 400 Cottages, 90 Villas, and 10 Mansions have been added to the world.
• House Settlement Portals for those settlements added in December have been added to the world.
• In December we intentionally changed some of the low-level monsters--Drudge Slinkers, Drudge Skulkers, Mosswart Young, Creeper Mosswarts, Old Bones, Young Banderlings, Gnawer Shreths, and Mite Snippets--to no longer attack players unless they are attacked first.
• Radar coordinates as the default option have been toggled back to default off, to see if there is a causal link between that state and the occasional client crashes caused by logging off and on quickly with different characters.
• Virindi Executors no longer spawn Virindi Observers on Marae Lassel. They now each spawn separately. Killing Executors will no longer have any effect on the Virindi Observers on the island.
• The creature who carries the Bone Mace was spawning on a remote and not very large section of land. It should now be much easier to find.
• There was an issue with some of the new Olthoi (Eviscerators, Brood Nobles, and the like) in which they did not engage in roughly half of their attacks. This has now been fixed.
• After their graphics update, some Mosswarts were no longer able to be hit by medium or high attacks. This has been fixed. They may be hit by medium attacks but not high.
• There was a bug in which Pack Mosswarts, when placed on hooks, could motor along and leave their original position. They only wanted to be free. Sadly, we could not oblige them.
• There are new player emotes:
  Pointing Up (state)--(points up, pointsup, pointing up, pointingup, point up state, pointupstate).
• Point Up (once)--(point up, pointup).
• Pointing Down (state)--(points down, pointsdown, pointing down, pointingdown, point down state, pointdownstate).
• Point Down (once)--(point down, pointdown).
• Reading (state)--(read, read something, readsomething, read a book, readabook).
• Offering someone a seat (state)--(have a seat, haveaseat, offer seat, offerseat).
• Offer someone a seat (once)--(musical chair, musicalchair).
• Knock knock knock. . . (once)--(knock).
• Scan the Horizon (once)--(scan horizon, scanhorizon, scan, lookout, peer).
• Drudge Dance Step (once)--(dance step, dancestep).
• Plus, there is a new seating state that you may have to think about for a while. . .

• Rabbit carcasses removed from Larry the Bunnymaster's farm.
• The Samsur East portal to Redspire had been accidentally deleted in December. It is now back.
• Volkama's Waaika of the Rivers (one of the Palenqual Living Weapon maces) was not casting one of its intended spells upon the user. Now it does.
• Minor typos fixed in names of some of the Palenqual weapons.
• The Academy Coats are now no-drop upon death.
• The final Academy Guard in the Shoushi outpost now tells players to visit Oi-Tong Ye in Shoushi, not Holtburg.
• The Academy Provisioner buys items at a slightly reduced rate.
• Minor typos fixed in various Academy books.
• Players now have a choice on whether to receive the Carenzi Slayer title in the Aun Papilonea quest.
• Calling Stone has new icon.