Make him cease to be, open him up, discover his secrets. When he is liquid and meat you shall know everything. Martine was too tired to quiet the voice of the Virindi in his mind, so he let it ramble on while he tried to focus on the question. Sharpness hurts meat, the voice continued, it is a point. Meat knows nothing about a point, about how lovely a point is. You can make the point sing. We can sing together. No, the man still had his uses. There would be time enough to deliver the man to his minions. Once Martine had received his boon, there would be so much time.

"Forgive me, lord. I must have whispered too softly. I asked, 'Why not destroy them all?' Pardon my ignorance, but I don't understand why we didn't start with the one in the first settlement."

Holtburg, he would have called it a year ago. But Holtburg would not do now. Let the man be stupid. Holtburg was building a garrison. How could it be more perfect? Holtburg was building a garrison, and there was no need to destroy anything there. Quite the contrary.

"There is a new plan. A better plan. A. . ." slice and slice and slice and slice "We will still destroy some of them. Enough to cause fear. And leave a few to let them feel hope. Their hope is our friend. It makes them soft. Weak. The new plan is much better." The man, what is his name? Martine could not remember his name. He knew it once, what was it? slice and slice and slice The man did not speak anymore but he seemed content. Good, let him be content, let him be happy. Everyone was weak. Except him.

"So we shall do it here? This shall be the first?"

Martine nodded. He was tired. Tired of listening to the Virindi. The Virindi no longer listened to him. He had asked it to be quiet. He thought he had crushed it a long time ago. . . he thought sing and slice sing slice we will all sing and slice.

"My lord? What will we be doing?"

What had he said? Where was he? He looked around and caught sight of the tower looming before him, a large pyramid of stone illuminated by the flickering torches warding off absolute blackness. Hatred of the sight coursed through his blood, snapping his neck up as it bloomed in his brain.

In his mind, a small girl danced around his feet, singing. His daughter? Aritta? She paled. Her mouth went wide, frozen into a rictus. Her eyes were holes brimming with violet light.

You dare? He jabbed his thoughts into the place the Virindi whispered from. A horrible squealing, and it fled into the jumbled depths of their shared mind. Yes, go and hide for now.

"Silence." The man bowed. I am Martine. "Yes, this will be the first."

"Do you need time to prepare, lord? Do you not require. . . I know that you. . . that Isparians need focusing materials for the spells of great power. I have such a device if. . ."

"Need?" Martine was too amused to be offended. "I have desire. I have hate. That is all I need. It begins here."

Martine raised his hands.

New settlements are crowded with homeowners, enjoying the “fruits” of the season. Many struggle to complete the snowmen that will stand guard outside their homes, while inside others enjoy the comforts of their new slippers and warm mugs of cider.

Yet the storm clouds that gathered on the horizon during the month of Leafcull have set High Queen Strathelar into action. She has moved to fortify the arrival towns across Dereth in reaction to severe portal disturbances. Dispatching her Royal Guard to each of the outpost towns she has managed to salvage three from the destructive forces of a new enemy. In Holtburg, Shoushi, and Yaraq, training academies have been established to welcome and prepare new arrivals from Ispar for the trials that will face them in this strange world. Bolstered by the presence of her troops and the assistance of the newest arrivals, these three towns yet withstand the onslaught of this new force.

As the enemy begins the first stages of its assault, adventurers set forth to meet this newest threat. Thrown weapons experts take up arm and shield to face the enemy wherever it may next rise, as the Isparians unite at last beneath the banner of High Queen Strathelar.

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 revised new-player tutorial, combining new quests and the introduction to the new story arc of AC.
• The bunnies are busy in Dereth.
• What does the holiday season mean for players? It means free buffs!
• Build your very own snowman, if you dare.
• Thrown Weapons experiences some new dynamics.

One of the biggest and scariest problems in AC's history has been the item loss bug affecting house storage and hooks for the last month and a half. We committed our entire AC1 coding resources to identifying and eliminating this elusive bug. Finally, after weeks of searching through bug reports and server logs, we were able to generate a consistent reproduction of the bug and its conditions, and soon after fix the problem.

Our deepest apologies go out to those players who lost items permanently as a result of this bug. We are committed to ensuring a completely secure storage system for those players who own housing, and we expect that this fix, combined with our recent server stabilization changes, will have permanently solved the problem of item loss in housing.

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. The quicker we get accurate reports of any such situation, the quicker we can respond to fix the problem.

Once we had solved the item-loss situation, we were then confronted with a potentially disastrous dupe bug. For the latest information on that situation, please refer to this page here.

Unfortunately, focusing on these two issues forced us to make the tough decision to cut some features that we had originally planned in December. The most notable of these cuts were our planned changes to the treasure system. However, we already have more than half of these changes in for January, so expect to see some improvements in this area soon. These changes will truly revolutionize the concept of what high-level treasure means to the Asheron's Call player.

What we do have going in for December is fantastic. First, in addition to a couple of oft requested housing features, such as allowing all characters on an account to recall to an owned house, and not making other characters on an account take up room in the guest list but possess entry privileges automatically, we are also adding an additional 300 houses for December. Further, because of the public demand for more housing, we are planning an additional 500 houses each for January and February. By this time, we are discussing alternate forms of housing to ensure that all players who want some kind of domicile may possess one.

Before we get to the main theme of the content, a few quick and scattered observations about some of the other content:

• Thrown Weapons: It's what's for killin' stuff. (At least, it's a couple of steps in the right direction.)
• Talk to the hand, baby. . .
• The candy canes really do have a deeper connection to the lore and history of the game that shall be revealed anon. We're not lying. Really.

We also realize this focus on the newbie experience of the game has left a void in some of the higher level content. After December, we will be focusing on two main tasks: First, our next story arc. Some of you have commented on the difference in teasers over these past two months. This change has been intentional, and it reflects our commitment to this new story arc and the depth and breadth that this story represents. We wanted to make sure that all of our players have the opportunity to follow the basic story, and so we will continue to use these teasers as story bridges for the events. We think the events and content planned for this story arc will represent some of the best work that the AC Live Team has done, and we're excited to showcase it for you.

Hand-in-hand with that story arc, our other big focus will be to continue to revamp and improve upper-level content dynamics. New enemies to hunt, new strategies to employ to defeat them, new weapons, new armor, new spells. . . we want to continue to redefine what playing AC means so that it continues to remain fresh and enjoyable for all our players.

We have experienced some bumps on the road this last month. But we remain committed to providing you with the best online role-playing experience that exists today. As always, we're able to continue to create new stories for Dereth because of you, the players. We appreciate your support and feedback and encourage you to let us know what you think of the latest content.

Have a happy holiday season!

--The AC Team