Lundi, day 39 of Summer, 555

A fairly large group today, with two Full Mystics along and ready to try a two-teleport strategy at PC5.

While running through the Foothill passes, the pathfinders stopped, as we always do, at the unopenned path in the cave before Camp Dred - with our usual lack of success in openning it. Today Rincewind also joined us, and he scanned that path to see if anything lay beyond it. I had heard that no one had ever seen anything here in other attempts, but today Rincewind saw several small Arachne as well as larger Arachnoids. I distinctly saw images of both Olive and Crimson Arachnoids. Sooooo, this path will lead to some sort of Arachnoid cave with powerful webbers. Maybe to PC7 after all, perhaps?

The rest of the trip out to the caves was swift and unremarkable, and we ventured into the Caverns with high hopes. In the upper Malachite caves, resistance was abnormally light, and I pretty well wasted some 20 Kudzu seedlings by planting walls in each entry that really weren't needed. Still, better safe than sorry.

In the first Pitch Arachnoid cave, the setup was a bit bumpy. CJ parker ran many webbers into the next cave as usual, but Yor fell while herding the remainder of the Noids out of the way for the Zu teams. Once another runner was sent in, we were able to get a foothold in the cave and start killing Noids. We had some trouble when the first lure from PC2 was an entire gang of Crimson and Pitch Noids, rather than the usual 1 or 2. We were overwhelmed by the rush and had to retreat a bit, but with 3 Bloodbladers along and a strong complement of fighters, these were finally all beaten down. Once we started advancing deeper, we just kept on going, and within an hour we were in PC5 once again.

A two teleport strategy was settled on. The plan was that Rincewind would teleport the initial runner team (Yor and CJ parker) and they would try to round up all the Noids from the Landing Zone and take them out to the Northwest sector before falling. Rincewind was expected to fall instantly, but CJ and Yor are tough enough to likely make it all the way up toward the PC7 entry. The remainder of the group, already assembled and shared up, would then teleport with Zorton into a nice quiet Landing Zone and form up to start killing Noids as they returned toward the exiles there.

For the first time, the 2 Mystic approach went off as planned, without any awkward happenings. The 2 Mystic jinx is defeated!

Rincewind brought CJ and Yor to PC6 in good order, and they all ran like mad for the far corner of that cave drawing Noids along with them. Naturally, Rincewind made it farther and lasted longer there than either CJ or Yor. Heh, canny Mystics!

The rest of the group rapidly coalesced about Zorton and were ready to move as soon as the Runner team signaled. Again, all went smoothly, and the entire team appeared in the PC6 Landing Zone. To the blissful sound of silence, as no Noids were to be found in our midst. We quickly formed up rods and a fighting space without distractions. Then Noids began filtering back from the Northwest, and the hunt was on in earnest.

But for once, it was on our terms and we were ready.

It still wasn't easy, but we kept fighting until PC6 was cleared totally. Getting a firm command of the ground before facing any Noids helped immensely, and we will certainly do this again as the opportunity of having two Mystics along presents itself.

We advanced into PC7 but instantly made a near-fatal error. In his first time in this cave, Elenis Reyav had planted a Zu wall in the wrong spot on the first scouting run, blocking off not the Western pit but the entire Northern end of the cavern too. Immediately, Noids began accumualting at this wall from the deeper recesses of the cave, and began throwing webs at anyone who approached. This was a problem because no one could get close enough to cut the wall or retrieve the fallen Elenis on a chain. When we did manage to make a hole, many of the accumulated Noids poured through at once. Most of the fighters fell during the resulting barrage, and only Natas, a couple of the healers and both Mystics (go figure) managed to survive by the time Natas had killed the last Crimson Noid. Close to disaster!

We breathed a big sigh of relief as the few healers raised more healers and then fighters, until we were ready to fight once again.

Once we had consolidated control of PC7, the pathfinders jockeyed to stare at the unopenned path there, again without success. Rincewind also took a turn to scan it, but saw nothing at all. If it did connect to the cave near Camp Dred one would expect him to see Arachne, since there are always so many milling about close to there. Mysteries, mysteries...

In any case, we advanced into PC8 after a single luring run, and fairly quickly controlled the area - at long last.

We paused in front of the path leading to PC9 to reconsider options for attacking this, since we had never advanced into this cavern as a group before. It was decided to send in a runner team (CJ parker and Farhope) first to draw Noids far into the cave away from the entry area, and then a Zu team to make a wall near the first turn, so that we could control the flow of Noids back toward the entry. Farhope fell fairly quickly after getting trapped near the entry, but this allowed CJ to scoot past and run farther into this cavern than anyone had previously, before getting stuck and falling too. This provided enough distraction to get a Zu wall started, although I fell before finishing it as Noids started to come back towards the entry. Natas managed to finish that job, and then the group entered PC9 for the first time.

With a rod set up and fighters at the ready, Noids were led around the wall ones-and-twos to their doom. Things were settling into a routine, if a hectic one, due to the unceasing flurry of webs on the rod and the tight fighting area.

When the Kudzu wall grew a bit and sealed off the Noids, we had trouble trying to get it cut open again in the face of thrown webs. Once it was openned, however, we had real trouble, when two Pitch Noids and several Crimsons came at us at once. In a fighting retreat, we killed the Pitch Noids but at a price in fallen fighters that left too few to finish off the Crimsons. Some folks beat a quick retreat back into PC8, but by then Noids had returned there as well. I never made it out, falling steps away from PC8.

Natas and others put up a great fight in PC8, but all too soon everyone there was fallen too.

Overall, it was a most impressive trip. We finally managed to utilize two teleporting Mystics successfully to get a firm hold on the PC6 Landing ZZone, and from that were able to control and defeat the army of Noids in PC6. We advanced through PC7 and PC8, and finally got the entire force into PC9. We made good progress there, but were overrun in the end due to a simple technical problem of letting a wall grow too much. In any case, CJ ran further in than we had ever seen before, and confirmed that this cave is larger that we had first glimpsed and holds much promise of being a way forward we have been seeking.

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