Gradi, day 85 of Summer, 554

Today's trip was not one that inspires confidence. The start was late from waiting for latecomers, some of whom arrived even as we held Hatred Hollow for them, and we ran into a lot of trouble along the way. It was but a foretaste of bad things to come.

The Dred Passage was extremely hot, with a lot of lightning from the East. Even after several fighter clearing runs, the situation didn't look much improved, but we pressed on as a group. Although we did manage to advance and take the South pit, we had also lost several folks (CJ and Michael among them) North of the path into the South pit. Despite some effort to rod the lightning and heal up in place so we could return through the path to retrieve the fallens, the firepower was just too intense. Instead, we went on to the Foothills, healed up, and returned through the Orga Outback to the Dred Passage tree to try again.

The second time through was no better than the first, since all manner of Orga had reassembled in the passage by the time we set into it again. After clearing again and advancing to chain the previous fallens, we really just barely survived to reach the Foothills. Despite the recent clearing, the South pit had accumulated an impressive 4 Dredlocks, which sapped our health perilously. Nevertheless, we did manage to get everyone through to the Foothills, one way or the other. Far too many were on chains though.

Upon arrival to PC1, we had a very hard entry. CJ had to try several times to finally pass through the throng of Noids to lure some of them to PC2. Even then, the pit runner and zu teams were unable to quickly seal off the pits because of the large numbers of Noids loose in the cave. After some fighter runs (including this one where a great number of folks fell right by the ladder), we finally advanced into PC1. Still it was much worse than usual, since a large number of webbers were trapped in the pits, so many webs were in the air at all times making assembly and organization of the group difficult.

We made some efforts at luring and killing PC2, but were plagued by both several backspawns and by leaks from the pits through ill-maintained zu walls. In the end, we were swamped by a spawn that included an Albino Arachnoid that felled most everyone, and most folks ended up departing. We simply spent too much time in PC1, and it bit us hard.

It had been quite awhile since PC1 managed to get the better of us like this. I had personally reached PC5 in almost 20 trips in a row, which is quite a remarkable testament to the strength and coordination of the group.

This resounding defeat comes hard on the heels of a "successful" trip where we let a chance at victory slip away in PC7 through sloppiness, indecisiveness and inattention. Today, that sloppiness and inattention were again evident, and I hope the folks in the group sat up and took notice. These caverns are not to be trifled with by dabbling amateur mobs, and if we act like that we shall be handed our hats and shown the door.

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