Lundi, day 56 of Summer, 554

22 Exiles gathered at the Meadow just before Midnight last night. After a bit of extra waiting in vain for the group to fill out to a complete 26, we set out with those we had.

Since Elenis did not come along on this trip, Nightbird did the herding, and he set a very fast pace for the run out to the Pitch caves. One time saver was running through the first Dredwood snell instead of actually clearing it.

We arrived at the Pitch caves remarkably quickly.

When we went to set up PC1, we found that it was nearly empty, and we were practically ready to start clearing PC2 from the moment we entered PC1. Eventually we saw some Arachnoids appearing from the dark corners of PC1, but they were put down quickly.

Curiously, PC2 also seemed quiet, and after some Fighter runs to clear out a batch of Malachites, the cave was ours.

In PC3 we finally met some resistance, with 2 Pitch Arachnoids (among others) and heavy webs. We slowed the pace to kill all the Noids here one-by-one, then quickly cleared out PC4 and settled into PC5.

Once in PC5, Leonin examined his Strange Stone closely and mumbled things under his breath several times before it was clear that he had marked "a distant cave" as his destination. We were all waiting to see that, since we wanted no repeats of the Farm fiasco.

Exiles arranged themselves around Leonin, and we prepared to set out toward PC6.

This time everyone glowed as a group as they should and the teleport was successful.

The entry into PC6 also seemed fairly easy due to light resistance. The Landing Zone was fairly clear from the start, and the initial runs were successful in drawing most webbers away from the group to the Northwest.

Slowly, we controlled PC6 by killing Noids lured from the Northwest by ones or twos. After some time, the herd was thinned and confidence started to rise.

The one stellar Noid was a Crimson with a mandible worth 160 coins! Too bad no one was skilled or lucky enough to extract that one intact!

When the Northwest pit was empty, the group advanced there. Once settled, we tried a lure of the PC7 entry, but found nothing waiting there today.

Nightbird and I went in to plant Zu in PC7, but I fell near the West pit before getting it sealed off. The pit would remain open for a long time, and this proved to be a problem eventually.

The rest of the group moved into PC7 and began luring and killing. Eventually, Natas was able to chain me during a deeper lure. The cycle of luring and killing seemed endless, as we hacked our way through the Noids from the West pit and from the North. Folks kept talking of killing everything from the West pit so we could get our first look in there. After a time, it became clear that we were also killing newly spawned Noids from there too, and were really just keeping up rather than actually clearing it. We decided to finally seal off that pit and bypass it, to move on toward PC8.

Finally the group advanced into the North Chamber and we were settling in to start luring from PC8. I was busy getting my second look at the difficult, unopened path in that chamber, when 2 Pitch Arachnoids spawned right in our midst. It was a bad moment, since we were spread out, tired from the long fighting in PC7, and too excited that we were advancing. Mayhem ensued.

A call went out from Yor to advance further to the East toward PC8 to escape the Pitch Noids, but many folks elected to retreat to the South through our Zu wall and toward the barrage of webs coming from the sealed-off West pit. Only a few of us went East into PC8. We were managing quite well there anyway, since there were only a couple of Malachite Arachnoids to kill. That is, until the two Pitch Arachnoids followed from PC7. Since we were expecting other exiles to join us, we had not planted a zu wall at the PC7 exit, and we were too few to kill 2 Pitch Arachnoids.

Some exiles started to run the Pitch Noids deeper into PC8, and I chose to return to PC7 to try to chain fallens to PC8 to regroup. While the Pitch Arachnoids were gone from PC7, several Crimson Noids had now taken their place in the North part of PC7. The exiles remaining there had already gathered the fallens, and taken them South to the middle chamber of PC7. By the time I got there, most were too fallen to raise, and there was a constant barrage of webs from the West pit damaging the few remaining living, as well as the fallen. The way back to PC8 looked tenuous at best, since the Crimson Noids followed to the South and attacked from the narrows, so I was unable to return to PC8 with fallens. When things finally looked really grim, someone opened an Ethereal Portal. I tried to chain the fallens into the EP, but my chain snapped after gathering only a couple of folks, and webs were about to block me in so I would be unlikely to survive another try at chaining many fallens.

I decided to take a chance at salvaging some use from the trip, and dodged through the Crimson Noids, to run instead back to the path in the North part of PC7, and I fell just as I reached the path area. There I stayed fallen for quite a long time, staring at that path, in hopes it might seem easier the next time I get the chance to try it. I hope this desperate gambit was not in vain.

In retrospect, we were too disorganized when the Pitch spawn routed us. Sometimes we are lucky and can recover from errors like this, but today was not one of those days. By separating into 2 groups, we sealed our fate. Coming as it did during a moment of peace after a very long stretch of fighting, while we were moving to a new spot and spread out, it's no surprise we reacted badly. But if folks had heeded the leaders' yell and moved together into PC8 (which was remarkably quiet), we would have stood a much better chance to recover and move on toward our goal. It's hard to require absolute focus for so long, but it seems essential in this difficult caverns. Mistakes cost dearly.

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