Sombdi, day 60 of Summer, 552.

The Pitch Assault Group gathered for the first time today at dawn on the West Beach. Just over 20 selected exiles were in attendance.

Zorton appeared briefly. Since Mystic teleportation abilities have been severely compromised recently (by the loss of ability to teleport fallens on chains), he informed us he would be unable to move more than a few individuals to Camp Dred. We decided to walk instead, and Zorton took his leave.

The trek to the Dred Passage was relatively uneventful, except that we lost Omega in the Orga Outback when he slipped North near the Trainer's Grotto and it wasn't noticed quickly (my fault there for hunting down Warlocks and not paying attention to sunstones messages he sent to me - since I was apparently nearest him when he slipped off but didn't actually see it and wasn't expecting any sunstone messages).

We took the Grotto shortcut to near the Dred Passage cavern. After a couple of fighter runs, we assaulted the Dred Passage. This first attempt was beaten back when J'jh, the rod point for the Southern rod, was felled by junk and lightning. She agreed she would slow down to allow fighters to keep her immediate area clear, and since the North was less active, we switched Tizar Bloodblade to the South rod.

After retreating and healing up, we did better and advanced steadily.

In the South pit itself, the first few fighters in (myself included) fell fighting the three Dredlocks that were standing right there, clogging up the pathway. It took a bit of jostling before the bulk of the group could enter the South pit. One possibility in this situation would be for a second small pathfinder-led group to enter the South pit from the other path at the lake, just a few steps further Southeast.

Despite the delay, the group powered through the pit and we all entered the Foothills safely (although many were on chains, including me).

The Foothill passes were handily conquered, as was Dredwood.

The average health was pretty low during the rush into the Stronghold near the waterfall, but it was held successfully.

The Malachite lair was taken one level at a time with runner/zuer teams erecting a protecting wall first, then the group entering and killing the Arachnoids en masse.

Time from town beach to outside Pitch Cavern, 70 minutes. Not bad at all!

At the Web Cavern, runner/zuer teams found the cave to be surprisingly empty, and successfully walled off the two lower legs of the cave, trapping nearly all the Arachnoids. With a rod in place in the south of Cave 1, runners planted a zu wall in Cave 2 at the first bend. We were all about to head East into that cave when two Albino Arachnoids appeared on our flank. They caused a bit of damage, but were quickly vanquished.

The group headed East into the unknown. The rod was able to absorb damage from the walled off webbers, but the density of webs made it almost impossible for the fighters to fight or to move forward.

We headed West to regroup, and attempted to lure Arachnoids from Cave 2 to Cave 1. We settled into luring West what could be lured and killing it in Cave 1, and using fighter runs into Cave 2 to kill those Arachnoids that would not lure. It worked well until 4 Crimsons lured across at once. We managed to kill 3 readily enough, but the fighters were all wounded and heavily mired in webs, allowing that last Crimson to down quite a number of us. The group retreated West back up into Malachite Cave 3 and fallen were chained in and healed.

Returning to Cave 1, we expected to find just one wounded Crimson Arachnoid, but instead we found a very healthy Pitch Arachnoid too. Then 2 of them. Finally, 3. From this point, the assault became a race for survival instead. We never could manage to surround a single Pitch with enough power to finish it off, and they readily pulled their way out of the kill zone while webbing the fighters in. And then the other 2 would arrive to mop up survivors.

In the end, we called a retreat and chained in all the lost exiles. Tonoto made a suicide run to the Ruined Library, and actually made it in. A Pitch Arachmoid followed him too. CJ parker made a suicide run to the east, but apparently didn't get far enough in to record anything new. The bulk of the group fought our way back up to Malachite level 1. A near disastrous backspawn at level 2 left only a single fighter and a couple healers alive, but thankfully the fallens and some hastily planted zu plugged most Malachites in the other half of the cavern until many were raised. We entered the Ethereal Plane and then Purgatory for the short trip home.

A very successful first trip overall. We controlled cave 1 quite well for some time, and settled on a workable strategy for clearing cave 2. Now to make it happen.

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