Lundi, day 73 of Spring, 555

An incredible trip today. Just not in the way I'd prefer, although I had my crucial part to play too.

A fairly big set out from the Meadow today. Of course CJ and I hung back to collect a couple of stragglers, but otherwise we had few of the usual problems. We traveled very quickly, and we were ready to move into the Pitch cave in well under an hour. Taking very little break, we headed right into the first Pitch cave, and had it under control very quickly. PC2 took very little time either, and within 90 minutes of starting out we were just moving to the end of PC3.

While still moving into position at the West end of PC3, disaster struck. The fighters were jockeying for position for lures from PC4 and CJ parker had just started to plant the zu wall behind us when two Pitch Arachnoids appeared right next to her. She called out for help, and folks began to filter down to help her when the first lure from PC4 came over: 4 Crimson Noids.

Suddenly we found ourselves flanked by six webbers, with the fighters not ready to tackle any one of them. Chaos ensued. Many folks fell more or less where they stood. Many retreated East, trailing angry Noids. A couple folks retreated to the far West side. The group in the East was not large enough to take on all those Noids, and began falling. Some retreated as far as PC2 hoping to gain time to regroup, but in the end they all fell.

While the retreat was ongoing, most of the fallens at the lower part of PC3 (myself among them) decided to disconnect in order to reappear closer to the survivors that went East. It proved an almost fatal error. By the time we reappeared near the PC2 entry, no one was alive up there to raise us.

Thankfully, the small group that huddled to the West tenaciously lingered on. That is, Natas and Gandor Durin. Having used all their Kudzu seedlings, and slowly - over the course of 30 minutes, Natas fought his way back East and North across the snell toward the PC2 entry and the many fallens. In the end, a single Pitch Arachnoid remained and Natas was felled. But his final fight allowed Gandor Durin t slip past and reach the cluster of fallens at the entrance.

Gandor was unable to raise any of the badly damaged healers here, but he did get Nesse on his feet again with his Bloodblade ready, and he then raised me. Once I was healed, I was able to dart back into PC2, plant a quick zu wall there and grab some 6 healers on my chain before retirning to PC3. Gandor was able to raise one of these, who then could help raise others and suddenly we were all on our feet again. How slim a thread we hung from, yet survived! One more Arachnoid, any sort, in either PC3 or PC2, might have finished us all off.

After Nesse finally finished off that last Pitch Arachnoid, we regrouped, took a deep breath and pressed on once again, and soon reached PC5.

Unfortunately, once we reached PC5 and set up for teleport, Drablak found himself unable to transport us. He marked "a distant spot" as normal, but when he tried to teleport, he alone glowed - and he "shuddered" and didn't move a bit. Whether this is an issue of training (Drablak thinks he has enough, compared to others who have teleported the group), or due to the fact that the day was coincidentally a Full Moon, we can't say. I'm sure the Mystics will have to discuss this amongst themselves to try to better understand what went wrong.

In any case, we chuckled at the perversity of the world, and returned to town safely via Ethereal Portal. Many of us then joined a Full Moon Orga Camp raid led by Raldin, and managed to steal a new Strange Stone for him.

Click here to go back the Foothill trip index.

Click here to go back to Azriel's Main scroll.