• You can start the quest "A Search for the Unknown" by going to Peddler's Port and clicking on Pai.
• There are 3 quests in total: A Search for the Unknown, Perusing the Constellation Library (Repeatable, available throughout the month), and Secrets of the Tomes (Unlocks after a number of days completing the previous quest)
• Agnes' Winter Boutique is open again for the month of February!
• Stocked are Ravan's items, with a new item available!
• Ravan's seasonal currency "Scrap of Knowledge" can be obtained from Pai's repeatable seasonal quest "Perusing the Constellation Library" as well as through several other regular site mechanics.
  

SILVIE'S MINE BALANCING
We're currently testing and finalizing content for the Silvie's Mine Balancing update. We meant to release it within January but due to some delays moved it to this month. This update will be released in the first week of February! We hope you enjoy the upcoming content.

WINTER EVENT PREPARATION
Our artists and writers are hard at work on content for the upcoming Winter Event, it will feature the familiar Gifting Event along with a new area, NPC's, and lots of fun content to collect. We'll also be hosting some forum contests and giveaways during the event. We're aiming to launch everything around the end of February but will need to observe our progress to finalize any dates. Looking forward to revealing more!

IRL OBLIGATIONS & CUSTOM STATUS
You might have noticed a few delays over the last couple of months, this was due to key members of staff going through some unexpected IRL related circumstances that needed to be prioritized over working on the game. February will be a busy (and short) month IRL for some staff members as well, so we may need to shift some priorities around in order to accomodate this. We're looking at shifting the release of the current batch of customs if we absolutely need to!

STAFF RECRUITMENT
We're preparing materials for the recruitment of new Jr. Moderators and Community/Event Managers, as well as updating our current internal staff organization system to be more efficient and well organized. Once this is done, we'll be ready to release a recruitment post!

ROADMAP RELEASED
Recently, our Roadmap thread was released, we'll be updating it as time goes on as well as adding more information to it when we're able to provide it. We hope you're excited for some of our long term plans!

AFTERWORD
While working on the Silvie's Mine Balancing update, we were experiencing some unexpected IRL related delays. Because of this, we decided to shuffle things around a bit to get this update released first. We're currently still testing the newly balanced dailies along with finalizing the other items on our list, and hope to get them out as soon as we can. Thank you for your patience this month as we sort things out! We hope you enjoy this update, we've parceled out our stockpile of new Wishing Well content and this is the first installment.

• Speak to Pellumi at Soll's Ruins to begin the seasonal quest "The Winter Sands"
• There are 4 quests in total to be unlocked in succession.
• 2 of 4 quests are repeatable quests. "The Great Labyrinth" can be completed once a day while "A Moment's Respite" can be completed 3 times.
• Pellumi's Antique Nook is open again for the month of January!
• Stocked are Soll's items, with a new few new items available this year.
• This shop takes Ruin Lights which are obtainable through the Seasonal quests in Soll's Ruins, Random Encounters, Random Item Alchemy, Adventuring Rewards, and the Starry Night Minigame
  

SILVIE'S MINE BALANCING
We'll be releasing the Silvie's Mine Balancing update some time this month! Included will be daily quest rebalancing similar to our previous daily balancing updates, with tons of new NPC shop items and pets!

ROADMAP & BETA CHANGELOG
While we were planning to get these up last month, December was unexpectedly hectic IRL for much of our team. We'll be ready to release this and tick it off of our priority list at long last this month. Thank you for your patience all this time!

NEW WISHING WELL UPDATE
We have produced a pretty big stockpile of unreleased wishing well content, so we'd like to do a wishing well update some time this month!

WINTER EVENT PREPARATION
We've made the decision to postpone Thalies' story event to next fall, and tackle a more casual Winter Event instead. The plan for this will be a not too lore heavy event with gifts and fun new content all around. More news on this will arrive when we've progressed further!

The event's conclusion brought in a new NPC and a new town, complete with daily errands and a full NPC shop, as well as possible future content!

• The Stranger's initial quest line starting from "Amid the Murk and Mire"
• You will unlock a shop at the quest's conclusion which requires Crimson Energy. 
• "Traversing the Warring Forest" can be completed twice a day from now on, allowing new players to unlock the later content in 8 days instead of 15.
• The New Daily Errands - Amount of Crimson Energy gained per quest completion has been raised from 5 to 10, negative route completion has been raised from 2 to 5.
• The Various Witch Fruit hatchable recipes have been moved to the Officiator's Record Office
• The Stranger's Wares shop has disappeared along with the Summer Seasonal clothing sets, which will return next year in a different event.
• Crimson Energy can be obtained in: Random Encounters, Random Item Alchemy, Adventuring Encounters & Bar Rewards, 3's Forest Cleanup
  

All Witches War quests are now part of a permanent side storyline that will unlock the new area for players.
Any players that have not started the Witches War storyline can begin the "Amid the Murk and Mire" quest in their own time after completing the initial main storyline in 3's Forest, namely after completing the "Returning to Trout" main quest.

Here are some plans for improvements for future events like this that we've accumulated from hosting this event!

• This was our first event with permanent content unlocked as a result, and we're excited about new functions that we were able to code in for future storyline mechanics.
• We're looking forward to doing more permanent content releases through events and a bigger variety of content!
• Team Selection -  We'll be looking into ways to give users more agency and choice in the team they help, while still keeping the teams relatively balanced.
• We'll be making it so that draws by default and draws from duel responses give different rewards, draws by default should give the default less amount while draws from duel responses should get a bigger reward.
• We'll be looking at the daily losing team point gain boost to make it more balanced and give teams more agency.
• We'll be looking into various ways to safeguard against cheating both through coding as well as balancing.
• We'll be adjusting the team insignia code to allow them to linger for a time after the event ends.
  

Our next event will be a fun Winter themed event with a more casual, less lore-heavy story some time this season! More news is incoming when we're ready.

Recently, we discovered a few instances of rule breaking which skewed the points in the Witches War. This was too significant to ignore, so after extensive investigation and some deliberation, we've decided to do the following.

• After rollover tonight, the bonus point gain will be reduced to just 1%, effectively giving the teams a relatively even battlefield for the final showdown.
• We're hoping that these updates make the best of a difficult and unique situation, and we'll also be looking into ways to safeguard against this for other events of this type in the future.
  

• A 15 minute maintenance will occur on December 12th 12AM DVT - 4 hours after the team battle ends - to conclude the storyline.
• The Stranger's Wares shop stock will be moved to a new place, with the seasonal summer clothing continuing to be available for purchase there until December 16th.
• Complete the "Traversing the Warring Forest" quest for 14 days in total in order to unlock more content after maintenance!
  

We'd like to ask that in the future, if anyone sees possible examples of rule breaking, to please report it through the ticket desk only and refrain from discussing it publicly on site or in our Discord Server. This kind of action can unintentionally lead to witch hunts and harassment, which are against our Rules of Conduct and harmful overall to the community. Rule breaking should not be grounds to be harassed by other users, allow us to be the mediator. Thank you very much!

• The ingredients to make the hatching item can be found in Pai, Agnes, and Oran's shops' Bonus Prize pools.
• The item alchemy recipe is available in your recipe book and shown above.
• This Seasonal Pet will remain in the shops for 3 months and rotate out at the end of February to be replaced by a pet for the next season.
• Seasonal pets are obtainable annually on a rotation! The hatching items can be alchemized at any time of the year.
  

CUSTOMS STATUS
In order to space out updates and prevent workload conflict, we've decided to make sure that each month's batch of customs is completed by the middle of the month rather than the end of the month. November's batch of customs will be coming out in the next few days, and then December's batch will be claimed and worked on!

ADVENT CALENDAR
We're planning a small Winter Advent Calendar quest to celebrate the season which will be released some time this month!

ROADMAP & BETA CHANGELOG
In between our various priorities, we've been slowly finishing up the roadmap, and will be ready to release it this month, along with the beta changelog!

THALIES EVENT
Even though we've been pluggin away at our Thalies event preparation, we're currently reconsidering its timing. The usual timing for Thalies' month would have been in September, but it's now December and the season wouldn't really match this deity's lore. We're discussing whether or not to keep this event for next year and instead plan something else that won't feel as out of place for the next event. We'll let everyone know what our decision is once we've arrived at it, thanks for hearing our thoughts!

SILVIE'S MINE BALANCING
Assets are 90% complete for our upcoming Silvie's Mine Balancing update! We just need to compile everything, adjust and test quest rebalancing, and input all assets. We're planning to get this update out some time next month.

THE WITCHES' WAR

• Visit the Witches' War event page to begin and get pulled into one of 3 teams at random.
• Teams cannot be chosen in order to keep team sizes and activity levels as equal as possible.
• You can switch to a different team at random twice throughout the event.
• Earn points for your team through duels and collectively completed daily team goals.
• Each day at rollover, the currently last place team will receive a 30% point boost for the whole day to help give them an edge!
  

DUELS

• Points for your team can be earned through dueling opposing team players.
• You can visit their profile or forum posts to initiate a duel every 3 minutes.
• Choose one of 3 spells to use in your challenge, each has its strength and weakness - similar to rock paper scissors.
• Victories, Losses, and Draws are rewarded differently.
• If a duel is not responded to within 5 hours, it will result in an automatic draw.
  

To begin the event story, visit a peculiar spot near 3's Forest - The Stranger's Mire! Go to the World Map and find it just east of 3's Forest.

• Speak to the Stranger at the Mire to begin the quest "Amid the Murk and the Mire"
• There are 2 quests to be unlocked in succession with a third finale quest that will become available after the end of the Witches' War on December 9th.
• "Traversing the Warring Forest" is a daily repeatable quest which can be completed once per day until the event fully concludes on December 16th.
• After the final event conclusion, additional permanent content will become available and the event storyline will be completable by users who haven't completed it yet as a one time quest that unlocks the Stranger's Mire.
  

• The Stranger's Wares shop is now open!
• The shop will be open until December 16th 11:59PM DVT, after which a new permanent shop will open with additional wares.
• Shop stock includes event themed clothing, up to 4 new pet hatchables, totems, seasonal summer clothing, and more!
• All shop items should be affordable if you unlock some of the participant rewards in the Witches' War and complete all 3 story quests in the Stranger's Mire.
  

HOW TO OBTAIN RED ENERGY
Red Energy is the currency for the Stranger's Wares event shop.

• Complete the event quests in the Stranger's Mire
• Claim participant and team rewards in the Witches' War
• Duel opposing teams for the Witches' War
• Random Encounters
• Random Item Alchemy
• Adventuring Rewards
• 3's Forest Cleanup
• Participate in the Event Forum Contests
  

• There are two Custom Maker grand prizes, type chosen by the winners.
• One can be won through entering on the site thread and another through sharing on social media.
• There are additional participation and runner up prizes for all entrants!
• Only first time custom maker owners are eligible to win the grand prizes this time, though anyone can participate for the other prizes!