Merdi, day 80 of Winter, 553.

27 exiles gathered in the Meadow at Sunset this evening. That included no Mystics, but 2 Bloodbladers and a Champion. After some delay to accumulate several latecomers, we briskly advanced to the Pitch Caverns, taking less than an hour. (Not everyone is in this sketch, as folks didn't stand still long enough for me to catch everyone even in several attempts, sorry!)

The Pitch Cavern were quite full when it was first entered, and many Crimson Arachnoids remained Northside. We worked to reduce that number somewhat, but fresh spawns always overran us before the cave was even close to being controlled. After some time, there still remained over a dozen Crimsons in the North part of the cave, preventing gathering of fallens or tending the Zu walls. Once the Zu walls deteriorated, things got even worse, and with heavy hearts the remaining exiles eventually voted to start out for home.

Even the trip home went badly, as we encountered nearly devastating spawns both in Malachite Cave 3 as we were about to head up into Cave 2, and in Cave 2 just after we entered it. In Cave 3, Farhope and I hastily set up partial Zu walls to keep back a large Malachite spawn, and we were able to retreat almost orderly fashion. Unfortunately Sor was left behind. While waiting for Cave 3 to become enterable, we had a Malachite spawn in Cave 2, right in our midst West of the Zu wall at the chokepoint. Natas, myself, Sai and Tonoto survived by cutting a path through the wall and fighting from the thankfully still-clear East. Once we had killed those and started raising everyone else, an Olive spawn also appeared in our midst. We survived that as well, and finally were able to re-enter Cave 3 and kill the few Malachites behind the Zu wall, and Natas chained Sor out. Even on the way North in Cave 2, we ran into 2 waves of Olive Arachnoids before finally clearing it and re-entering Cave 1 in an orderly fashion. From Cave 1, Omega openned an Ethereal Portal, and we cleared that plane before Natas openned another Portal to Purgatory and home.

Not only did we not control Cave 1 or advance beyond it, only 13 of us finally made it home safely. This is a truly lousy percentage. Speaking as one of the non-fallens who got off without a depart this time, more risky chain runs would likely have reduced the strength of the remaining party so much that none of us would have made it home safely. It was plenty close as it was. We all hate leaving folks behind, but sometimes there really is no other choice.

The Crimson spawns were clearly against us today. At one point while I was fallen in Cave 1, I saw 8 Crimsons wandering just right near me, and there were plenty more milling about all over. Every time we seemed to be making progress in thinning them one way or another, more appeared.

It was a really bad day. I'm not sure there's anything we can do tactically to improve this kind of day.

Persistence is key, and eventually we do have good days too, when things just seem to work in our favor.

Maybe next trip!

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