"Excavating is more the case." Hendac nodded in affirmation of Jenavere's words. "They have the top of the structure unearthed and are working non-stop to find a way to breach the walls. The little Burun seem to have the larger ones under their control. I am not certain how that works out."

Elysa slid forward in her chair and looked over the area of the map that they surveyed. "This spot is the destination of the first portal, the one Rage Lao found, isn't it?"

After a moment of study they all agreed. Jenavere spoke next. "Do the Burun know where these temples lay?"

"It's a possibility," Antius answered, tapping the map. "The second portal that was found in those ancient structures leads here." He put his finger on the map. "It's landlocked, no true access to a swamp, so they would likely have a hard time getting there."

"Antius, they've proven that they can change the world by their very presence. Look at the Blackmire or the swamp in the A'mun." Elysa slid her finger from the locations on the map. "They'll find a way if that is their next goal." There was a long, awkward pause. Then Hendac slid his hand onto the table and placed his finger on a spot that marked a solitary location, nearly inaccessible to uninitiated explorers.

"No. Not yet, Hendac," Elysa spoke firmly. "I have faith that Ciandra and the Arcanum will discover how to craft the gem we need to complete the weapons. I will not turn to her yet." She tapped the location that the Burun and Renegades now inhabited. "We need something, anything that will give us an edge against these creatures. We need Kresovus' men to come through. We need the information from his spies."

Somewhere K'rank took another swig of ale.

Many of this month's changes have already been described in detail in the Letter to the Players. Here are some additional topics that we'd like to discuss in detail.

As we'd previously announced, all characters on Frostfell, Solclaim, Thistledown and Leafcull will have the opportunity to obtain one free level's worth of experience this month as an apology for a server outage in late July.

After the August 31st server outage affecting the other five worlds, we have decided that the free level will be for all characters on all worlds.

Starting today, each of your characters on all nine game worlds will have the opportunity to obtain one free level's worth of experience. Please note that if this XP award is not claimed before the October event, it will be lost.

Since the introduction of the Crafting Confirmation dialog box, we've seen several reports from players who claim that they failed their crafting interaction despite the crafting confirmation dialog claiming they had 100% chance of success.

We've investigated the code thoroughly and have found no bugs that could cause this, we've even added additional logging that will trigger if this occurs - and it hasn't.

One possibility is that folks who are tinkering and have the Crafting Confirmation option turned off are seeing the message, "Are you sure you want to apply the Salvaged [Material] (100) to the [Item]? The [Item] may be destroyed," and mistaking the (100) in the salvage bag name for a 100% chance of success. This could possibly account for some of the reports.

To prevent the possibility of such mistakes, we are removing the (100) from the dialog that you see if you are tinkering and have the Crafting Confirmation dialog turned off.